One of the key enablers of personalised customer experiences is data. The vast amounts of data generated by customers’ interactions with businesses offer a goldmine of insights. However, to harness this data effectively and deliver personalised experiences, organisations must first understand their own data maturity. In this blog, we will delve into the significance of data maturity assessment in the quest to deliver personalised customer experiences.

Defining Data Maturity

Before we explore its importance, let’s clarify what data maturity means. Data maturity, in this context, refers to an organisation’s capability to effectively manage, analyse, and leverage its data for strategic decision-making and operational improvements. It encompasses processes, tools, skills, and cultural aspects related to data.

Data maturity levels can vary widely among organisations. At one end of the spectrum, some organisations struggle to collect, store, or analyse their data effectively. At the other end, data-driven organisations have a deep understanding of their data assets and employ them to derive actionable insights. Most businesses fall somewhere in between, with varying degrees of maturity.

The Connection Between Data Maturity and Personalised Customer Experiences

Data is the Foundation: To create personalised experiences, you need accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data about your customers. Assessing your data maturity helps ensure the data you’re using is reliable and trustworthy. If your data maturity is low, you’re more likely to encounter data quality issues that can hinder personalisation efforts.

Segmentation and Targeting: Data maturity influences your ability to segment and target your audience effectively. A high maturity level enables you to create nuanced customer segments based on a wide array of variables. This, in turn, allows for more precise targeting, ensuring that your messages and offers are relevant to each segment.

Real-Time Personalisation: The ability to personalise in real-time is a significant differentiator. It requires the capacity to analyse data on the fly and make instant decisions. Data maturity determines whether your organisation can provide real-time personalisation, a feature that has a profound impact on customer engagement.

Personalised Recommendations: E-commerce giants like Amazon have set the standard for personalised product recommendations. These recommendations are not just based on individual purchase history but also on broader patterns and preferences. High data maturity enables businesses to create and fine-tune recommendation engines that drive sales and improve the overall customer experience.

Behavioural Insights: Personalisation isn’t limited to past actions; it should also anticipate future behaviour. A mature data environment allows you to gather deep behavioural insights that can predict what a customer might be interested in next. If a customer frequently reads articles about a specific topic, your system should be able to predict and offer related content.

Omnichannel Personalisation: Customers interact with businesses across a multitude of channels – websites, mobile apps, social media, email, and more. To deliver a seamless and personalised experience across these channels, you must be able to support cross-channel data integration, analysis, and communication.

Customer Journey Mapping: Understanding the customer journey is vital for delivering personalised experiences. Data-mature organisations can track customer touchpoints, measure their impact, and optimise the customer’s path based on data-driven insights.

Privacy Compliance: In the age of data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, data maturity is essential for ensuring compliance. To deliver personalised experiences while respecting privacy, you need the ability to manage customer data securely and obtain proper consent for data usage.

Assessing Your Data Maturity

Given the clear connection between data maturity and personalised customer experiences, it’s imperative to assess your organisation’s data maturity level. Here’s how to get started:

Conduct a Self-Assessment: Begin with a self-assessment of your organisation’s data practices. Consider elements such as data collection methods, data quality, data governance, and data analytics capabilities. This assessment will provide a snapshot of your current data maturity. We’ve created a data maturity quiz to help you assess your maturity level and outline steps to get to the next level. You can take the quiz here. 

Identify Gaps: Based on your self-assessment and industry benchmarking, identify the gaps in your data maturity. These gaps may include skills, processes, tools, or cultural aspects that need improvement.

Create a Data Maturity Roadmap: Develop a roadmap for improving your data maturity. This should include specific actions, timelines, and responsible individuals or teams. Prioritise initiatives that align with your personalised customer experience objectives.

Continuous Monitoring and Improvement: Data maturity is not a one-time effort; it’s an ongoing journey. Regularly monitor your progress, adjust your roadmap as needed, and continue to invest in data maturity.

The ability to deliver personalised customer experiences is a defining characteristic of successful businesses. Data maturity, with its impact on data quality, segmentation, real-time personalisation, and many other critical factors, is the linchpin that enables organisations to meet these customer expectations.

By assessing your data maturity and taking strategic steps to enhance it, you not only improve your ability to provide personalised customer experiences but also strengthen your overall data-driven decision-making capabilities. The result? More satisfied customers, better business outcomes, and a competitive advantage in a marketplace where personalisation reigns supreme. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to unlock the full potential of your customer data, take the data maturity quiz and find out where you sit. 

With 20 years of experience in helping deliver innovative digital sales and marketing solutions and a focus on turning your customer data into a competitive advantage, SpeakData will help you find the right solution for your business. Are you ready to find the right solution? Let’s talk. 

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Businesses are generating more data than ever before. Data that is essential for making informed business decisions, predicting future trends, and understanding customer behaviour. However, without a clear data strategy in place, you risk losing valuable insights and falling behind competitors. A data strategy is a roadmap that outlines how a business collects, processes, analyses, and uses data to achieve its goals. It includes processes for data governance, data quality, data security, and data privacy and a well-defined data strategy enables you to harness the power of data and turn it into actionable insights.

Here’s why a data strategy is critical for your business:

Data-driven decision-making is becoming the norm

Decisions need to be made quickly and with confidence. Data-driven decision-making enables you to make informed decisions based on facts, rather than relying on intuition or gut feeling. A 2022 IDC whitepaper found companies that have adopted mature data practices achieve 2.5x better business outcomes. 

Competitors are using data to gain a competitive advantage

Businesses that do not have a clear data strategy risk falling behind their competitors. According to a survey by NewVantage Partners, 92% of executives believe that data and analytics are key to achieving a competitive edge. By implementing a data strategy, businesses can gain insights that enable them to make better decisions, improve customer experiences, and optimise their operations.

Data breaches can be costly

Data breaches are becoming more frequent and more costly. According to IBM’s 2022 Cost of a Data Breach report, the global average cost of a data breach is USD$4.35 million. 83% of organisations studied have had more than one breach. In NZ, the office of the Privacy Commissioner reported a 41% increase in reported privacy breaches that met the serious harm threshold. A data strategy that includes robust data security and privacy measures can help mitigate the risk of data breaches and protect customers’ sensitive information.

The volume of data is growing exponentially

Statista estimates that by 2025 463 exabytes of data will be created each day. IDC expect global data to double in size between 2022 and 2026. With such a vast amount of data predicted to be generated, businesses need a data strategy and tools that can help them manage, analyse, and use the data effectively. A customer data platform (CDP) is one such tool. CDPs ingest and unify data from multiple sources, giving marketers a single view of the customer.

Protect your brand with a data ethics framework

Customers are very aware of their data privacy rights, and they expect businesses to use their data responsibly. As you collect, analyse and share more data across your business, how will you ensure each team uses the data in a way that aligns with your brand values? With a Data Ethics framework. 

McKinsey defines data ethics as “data-related practices that seek to preserve the trust of users, patients, consumers, clients, employees, and partners”. A data strategy that includes a data ethics framework can help your business make faster decisions, as each division will have clear guidelines about the capture and of use data. Businesses can build trust with their customers and improve their brand reputation by having a clear framework.

Businesses that do not have a clear data strategy risk falling behind. By implementing a data strategy, you can turn your data into actionable insights that drive success.

With 20 years experience in helping deliver innovative digital sales and marketing solutions and a focus on turning your customer data into competitive advantage, SpeakData will help you find the right solution for your business. Are you ready to find the right solution? Let’s talk. 

The post Benefits of a Data Strategy appeared first on SpeakData.

Step 1: Define Customer Engagement Use Cases and Desired Customer Experience

The journey begins by identifying your customer engagement goals. What interactions do you want to enhance? For instance, sending tailored emails to recent customers to encourage repeat purchases or recommendations to others, utilising paid media to attract particular customer segments, and ensuring your point-of-sale (POS) staff is informed about recent customer website visits. Define the desired outcomes for each use case and envision the improved customer experience. This clarity will serve as the foundation for your entire engagement strategy.

Step 2: Define Your Data Strategy

To effectively engage customers, you need data—a lot of it. Outline your data strategy to gather, manage, and leverage customer information. Determine what data points are essential for each use case. Are you interested in purchase history, browsing behaviour, demographics, or social media activity? Align your data strategy with your engagement goals to ensure you’re collecting the right information.

Step 3: Identify Data Sources, Both Internal and External

Data comes from various channels—internal systems, social media, third-party sources, and more. Identify the sources that provide valuable insights for your engagement initiatives. Collecting data from sources like CRM systems, website analytics, social platforms, and market research can provide a comprehensive view of your customers’ preferences and behaviours.

Step 4: Integrate and Consolidate Data with a CDP

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) plays a pivotal role in integrating and consolidating data from diverse sources. It acts as a central hub where data is organised, cleaned, and made accessible for analysis. With a CDP, you can create unified customer profiles, break down data silos and gain a holistic view of each customer’s interactions with your brand across multiple channels. Choosing a vendor-neutral CDP will allow you to make the most of your data without changes to your existing engagement stack.

Step 5: Connect Downstream Systems for Enriched Customer Profiles

Enriching customer profiles is essential for tailoring engagement efforts. Link downstream systems—like email marketing platforms, social media management tools, and POS systems—to your CDP. This integration enables real-time access to up-to-date customer information, empowering you to deliver personalised experiences across various touchpoints.

Step 6: Set Up Long-Term Data Storage and Analysis Tools

As your customer engagement engine gathers momentum, your data needs will evolve. Establish a reliable, scalable, and secure long-term data storage solution. Invest in robust data analysis tools that can extract actionable insights from your amassed data. These insights will guide your strategic decisions, helping you refine your engagement strategies over time.

Step 7: Activate Use Cases Using a Test and Learn Approach

With your infrastructure in place, it’s time to put your engagement strategies to the test. Begin with a test-and-learn approach. Implement one use case at a time, closely monitoring its impact on customer engagement metrics. Collect feedback, analyse results, and make data-driven adjustments. This iterative process allows you to refine your strategies and optimise engagement efforts for maximum effectiveness.

Developing a customer engagement engine is a multidimensional endeavour that requires strategic planning, data integration, and a commitment to continuous improvement. By defining clear use cases, aligning data strategies, integrating diverse data sources, and utilising a CDP, you can create enriched customer profiles that drive personalised interactions. Connecting downstream systems and investing in long-term data storage and analysis tools will ensure your engagement engine remains efficient and adaptable. Through a test-and-learn approach, you’ll fine-tune your strategies and elevate customer engagement to new heights.

Customer engagement is an ongoing journey. As customer behaviours evolve and new technologies emerge, your engagement engine must adapt. Stay vigilant, embrace innovation, and always prioritise delivering exceptional experiences that resonate with your customers. With the right strategies in place, your customer engagement engine will become a powerful catalyst for business growth and success.

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Data has become one of the most valuable assets a business can have. It can be used to understand customer behaviour, optimise operations, and make better decisions. However, having data alone is not enough. To leverage its potential, a data strategy must be put in place and a data-driven culture established. Here are 5 steps to help you get started.

Step 1: Understand your business goals and KPIs.

Before implementing a data strategy, it is important to understand your business goals and identify the KPIs that are relevant to those goals. This will help you determine what data you need to collect and analyse. 

A study by NewVantage Partners found that 91.9% of businesses had been able to create new opportunities by leveraging their data. However, only 20.6% of businesses had established a data-driven culture. To continue to benefit from data-driven opportunities, beyond the low-hanging fruit, you need to establish a data-driven culture. Setting clear business goals and KPIs that guide your data strategy will help develop a data-driven culture.

Step 2: Assess your data maturity level

It’s important to know where you are in your data journey and what steps you need to take to progress your organisation’s data maturity. Evaluating your data management processes, technology, and people will help you assess your maturity level and identify areas where you need to improve and prioritise your efforts. 

Step 3: Define your data governance framework

Data is fast becoming the most significant asset many organisations possess, so it’s important to protect it. Your data governance framework will establish policies and procedures for managing your data, ensuring data quality, and protecting data privacy and security. To fully leverage the value of data, it must be managed effectively. A strong data governance framework can help you ensure that your data is accurate, reliable, and secure. This can increase trust in your data and improve decision-making. 

Step 4. Identify your data sources and implement data collection

Collecting the right data can help you gain insights into customer behaviour, identify opportunities for growth, and optimise operations. This involves collecting data from various sources such as customer interactions, sales transactions, and website analytics. But a collection of data isn’t that informative on its own. The real value comes when you can link data from a variety of sources to paint a clear picture of customer behaviour. A customer data platform can unite data from various sources to build the long-anticipated “single view of a customer” marketers have been craving.

Step 5: Implement data analysis and visualisation

Making insights available and useable is key to building a data-driven culture. Using tools and techniques such as a customer data platform, data mining, machine learning, and visualisation you can extract insights from your data and serve them to the right teams at the right time, building a data-driven culture.

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To succeed, companies must take control of the customer experience. It’s not just about digital transformation; it’s about blending digital and physical experiences seamlessly. Data is the foundation for creating meaningful brand engagements, optimising marketing spend, and predicting customer opportunities.

Welcome to Dynamic Marketing—a strategy to move from mass digital experiences to real-time, personalised interactions based on unified data. Here are the five key principles to transform your marketing organisation into a customer experience powerhouse:

Principle #1: Build Customer Trust

Customers expect a trusted experience, and privacy is paramount. Building trust requires prioritising privacy from the top down and across all teams handling customer data. Unifying consent data with customer profiles in real time is essential to meet privacy standards and gain valuable insights.

Principle #2: Data Unity

Customers demand a consistent experience across all channels. Achieving this requires data unity, starting with alignment at the executive level. A holistic view of customer data, handled through a customer data supply chain, ensures relevant and consistent experiences.

Principle #3: Now’s good

Real-time capabilities are essential for agility. Companies need to collect, process, and deliver data in real-time to provide customers with seamless experiences. Embracing automation, particularly with a real-time Customer Data Platform, empowers marketers to act swiftly and at scale.

Principle #4: Consistency

Customers interact with brands through multiple touchpoints, necessitating a consistent experience across channels. However, personalisation should be thoughtful and not intrusive. A unified data foundation allows you to create intelligent actions across various customer touchpoints.

Principle #5: Exceed expectations

Machine learning is the key to predictive customer experiences. By embedding machine learning into your data processes, you can anticipate critical moments and delight customers by removing friction and exceeding expectations.

Empower your marketing teams with the following fundamental data management practices:

• Collect: Gather data from various sources to create a comprehensive view of customers.
• Standardise and Govern: Set business rules to uniformly define and govern data, ensuring usability.
• Transform and Enrich: Bring together and align collected data with a Customer Data Platform to create individual customer profiles.
• Integrate: Integrate customer data insights with marketing tools for a cohesive experience.
• Activate: Deliver real-time, omni-channel experiences from a single source of truth, streamlining marketing efforts.
• Predict: Use machine learning to enable predictive insights, creating strategic and impactful customer experiences.

Deploying a CDP will help you deliver exceptional experiences, earn customer trust, and stay ahead of the competition. And, your customers will thank you for it.

Want to find out more? Book a time for one of our team to call.

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The Changing Needs of Students

The digital revolution has brought about significant changes in how students approach education. Lifelong learning has become the norm as individuals recognise the importance of continuous skill development. In response, educational institutions are reimagining their offerings to provide flexible and accessible learning opportunities.

To meet the diverse needs of students, universities must evolve and embrace new approaches. Online education programs have gained popularity, allowing students to access high-quality education from anywhere in the world. Additionally, universities are exploring hybrid models that blend in-person and virtual learning, providing students with the flexibility to tailor their educational experience.

Data-Driven Student Acquisition and Retention

In an increasingly competitive landscape, universities must proactively engage students and retain their enrolment. The student experience begins long before they set foot on campus, with their initial encounter often happening through a university’s website or digital channels. This stage is critical in shaping students’ intentions to apply. Data-driven strategies empower institutions to target and attract the right students. By analysing data from various sources, and implementing real-time event tracking across multiple channels, universities can serve personalised content and showcase their unique offerings based on individual students’ interests, aspirations, and academic backgrounds.

Moreover, universities can leverage data to enhance the overall student experience and support retention. By collecting first-party data throughout a student’s journey, institutions gain insights into learning preferences, progress, and challenges. Educators can then customise teaching methods, provide timely interventions, and ensure each student reaches their full potential.

Embracing Lifelong Learning and Self-Fulfilment

The concept of education has expanded beyond traditional boundaries. Lifelong learning has become a cornerstone of personal and professional development. Universities are recognising the importance of offering flexible, relevant, and accessible learning opportunities for individuals at different stages of their lives and careers.

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) enable universities to identify potential learners, understand their unique needs, and provide customised course suggestions. By harnessing first-party data and omnichannel tracking, institutions can guide learners throughout their educational journey, offering support and recommendations at the right moments.

Leveraging Data for a Holistic View of Students

As digitalisation of education continues to accelerate, student data collection, storage, analysis, and action become paramount in delivering personalised learning experiences. CDPs play a crucial role in streamlining data generated by various university sources and platforms, including information portals, learning tools, student information systems, and assessment platforms. By connecting data silos and creating a holistic view of each student, CDPs enable universities to gain valuable insights into student journeys.

However, data insights should not be limited to student acquisition. Once enrolled, universities can continue collecting first-party data from students using online portals, completing assessments, and responding to surveys. Armed with this information on learning styles, abilities, and progress, educators can customise teaching methods to cater to each student’s needs and maximise their potential.

A Framework for Engaging Students

To better engage students, educational institutions should adopt a practical framework centred around a first-party data strategy:

1. Identify the most valuable first-party data for engaging current and potential students in a hyper-personalised manner.
2. Develop a first-party data strategy that involves engaging students through learning platforms, assessments, and surveys. Shift towards a data-focused marketing strategy, involving stakeholders across tertiary institutions.
3. Invest in consent management and data encryption to ensure student privacy.
4. Onboard a CDP to integrate existing data platforms, making data available across all channels used to communicate with students. Leverage insights gained from data to drive relevance and enhance the student experience.

The evolving landscape of education demands that universities embrace change and adapt to the needs of students. A Tealium Customer Data Platform (CDP) provides the foundation for personalised education, empowering institutions to understand their students better and deliver meaningful learning experiences. By leveraging data-driven strategies, universities can attract and retain students, foster lifelong learning, and prepare individuals for the challenges and opportunities of the future.

Want to find out more? Book a time for one of our team to call.

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To provide outstanding customer experiences, it’s crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of your customer’s journey across various channels. If your organisation engages with customers through multiple touchpoints like in-store, website, apps, call centre, and social media, a CDP can be a game-changer. It helps optimise the entire journey, ensuring relevance at every step.

More than a traditional CRM

A CDP goes beyond what a traditional CRM can offer by consolidating data from different touchpoints and channels. It allows businesses to gain insights into customer behaviours, preferences, and interactions, enabling personalised and targeted engagement. With a CDP, you can achieve scalable personalisation and targeted advertising, making every interaction more relevant and meaningful.

Build comprehensive customer profiles

By leveraging the data collected through a CDP, businesses can create comprehensive customer profiles and develop in-depth personas for their target audience. These profiles enable organisations to tailor their marketing efforts and engagement strategies to individual customers’ preferences, needs, and goals. It helps craft holistic and valuable data-driven experiences that resonate with customers across channels and business units.

Omni-channel customer experience

A CDP facilitates the coordination and integration of customer experiences across channels. It breaks down data silos and ensures that every touchpoint is aligned and consistent, creating a seamless and unified customer journey. With a CDP, you can orchestrate campaigns and communications that span various channels, providing a cohesive and personalised experience from the first interaction to post-purchase engagements.

The right team makes all the difference

Implementing a CDP requires a strategic owner within your organisation, such as someone from the marketing, IT, or data science department. Additionally, executive sponsorship is crucial to support the adoption and success of the CDP initiative. While the size of the CDP team may vary, even small teams can deliver significant value with a single use case. It’s essential to have a team that aligns on the goals and processes driving the CDP initiative, ensuring a cohesive and efficient implementation.

A CDP empowers businesses to optimise the customer journey by consolidating customer data, enabling personalisation, and orchestrating seamless experiences across channels. By leveraging the power of a CDP, organisations can deliver exceptional customer experiences, improve customer satisfaction, and drive loyalty.

Ready to learn more? Download “How to know if a CDP is right for you?” and take the marketing and data maturity self-assessments.

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Building a single view of the customer is something marketers have grappled with for a long time. The omni-channel customer journey is increasing both the need to create a single customer view and the difficulty of doing so. To enhance customer experience, drive operational efficiency, and boost revenue, many businesses are turning to Customer Data Platforms (CDPs). But how do you determine if a CDP is the right choice for your organisation? Here are three things to consider: 

Business Pain/Use Case Assessment

Begin by identifying the specific challenges your business is facing. If your customer experience primarily revolves around in-store interactions with a minimal emphasis on online, investing in a CDP may not be necessary. However, if your organisation engages with customers across various channels, including websites, social media platforms, and targeted advertising, a CDP can consolidate relevant data and significantly improve overall customer experiences. It is crucial to have a thorough understanding of your business challenges and areas that can benefit from optimisation. 

Technology and Data Infrastructure Evaluation 

Assess your existing technology stack and data infrastructure. According to Gartner, many marketing leaders utilise only 58% of their martech stack’s potential. By selecting a CDP that seamlessly integrates with your current technologies and supports future scalability, you can maximise your investments. Look for a vendor-neutral CDP solution that ensures longevity not only for the CDP itself but also for your other martech investments. By leveraging the full potential of your martech stack, you can eliminate data silos and optimise your data-driven marketing. 

Organisational Readiness (People/Process) 

Establishing a successful CDP initiative requires the right team and organisational alignment. Identify a strategic owner who possesses a deep understanding of the technology and has the ability to drive the project forward. Executive buy-in is essential to support this transformative technology. Remember, there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint for structuring the CDP team. Even with a small team, significant value can be derived through focused use cases. Aligning goals and processes across departments is crucial for a successful CDP implementation. Assessing your organisation’s data maturity level will help determine the extent to which a CDP can benefit your business. 

If a CDP is right for your business, here are five steps to help you get started: 

1. Define the Basics: Identify specific business problems and use cases that warrant the implementation of a CDP. 
2. Evaluate the Customer Journey: Assess the complexity of your customer experience across multiple channels and determine the need for personalisation and targeted advertising. 
3. Establish the Team: Ensure that you have a strategic owner and executive sponsorship for the initiative. 
4. Foster a Data Culture: Evaluate your company’s understanding of leveraging customer data insights and its receptiveness to technology-driven solutions. 
5. Assess Marketing and Data Maturity Levels: Before embarking on a CDP project, it is important to evaluate your marketing and data maturity levels. By understanding your organisation’s strengths and areas for improvement, you can prioritise use cases and define roles and responsibilities effectively. 

Implementing a CDP can be a powerful tool for enhancing customer experience and achieving your business goals. By thoroughly considering your needs, technology infrastructure, and organisational readiness, you can make an informed decision regarding the implementation of a CDP in your business.

Want to know more? Download “How to know if a CDP is right for you?” and take the marketing and data maturity self-assessments.

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It’s the end of a marketing era. On 1 July 2023, Google’s Universal Analytics (UA) will officially be over. If you haven’t already moved to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), it’s time to bite the bullet. GA4 won’t keep your old data, and standard UA will stop processing any new data it receives. This means you won’t have any information to use unless you have a pre-set-up and activated GA4. Our advice? Start setting up right now.

Here’s how:

1.    Get to know GA4

The move to GA4 will bring improved agility, tailored reports and faster access to real-time data. In other words, you’ll be able to do more, learn more and make better decisions than you could with UA.

Here’s how it’s different from UA:

• Session-based data will become event-based data. GA4 operates across platforms without relying exclusively on cookies. Instead, it uses an event-driven data model to deliver user-centric measurement with privacy at its core. You’ll need to re-interpret your user data, focusing on interactions throughout the customer journey.
• Tracked screen views and page views from mobile devices and websites, together or separately. This format will allow you to better understand the customer journey. Consider the increased visibility when comparing page view and screen view metrics combined, including cookie-less measurement and behavioural and conversion modelling.
• GA4 data can be blended with other data sources. Leverage machine learning by using data-driven attribution on GA4 or by plugging into Big Query and running your own custom machine learning models.
• More effective dashboards with room for granular data. With a lower barrier to entry, granular reports can finally tie into your internal sources truth. Data will be blended and formatted to provide the insights you want.

2.    Optimise your GA4 setup

You have a chance to start fresh with your data collection and analytics. Don’t replicate what you have. Instead, set up your GA4 for the future.

Here are the seven steps to maximise effectiveness:

1. Audit your current tracking setup. Do an in-depth analysis of your current analytics system. If you’re unsure where to look, SpeakData can show you how to improve your data collection.
2. Optimise account structure, security and data streams. Set up your GA4 analytics for Google, Facebook or other platforms so you can better understand your customers’ behaviour. This builds a solid foundation for your analytics, where data collection is key.
3. Review compliance with privacy regulations. GA4 extra privacy features mean it’s now compliant with New Zealand laws. If you’re an international company, double-check all privacy regulations before you get started.
4. Develop tracking and visibility of key customer conversion. In GA4, you can mark up to 30 events as conversions without changing your website. Understanding where purchases originated will help you determine the quality of the source and each campaign’s performance.
5. Dramatically boost your return-on-ad spend. By linking GA4 to your Google Ads account, data will flow between both platforms. This allows you to push your conversion data and access new dimensions in the user acquisition report.

Build dashboards that interact with your team before turning off UA. Capture all requirements in GA4 and have a major head start in July.

3.    Allow time to adjust

Your executive team will need time to adapt to the new metrics and reporting. Fortunately, if you set it up now, you can see your existing UA stats alongside new GA4 data. You’ll have time to build a deeper understanding of the differences and how to improve going forward.

Make sure to start downloading your UA data now. You’ll still be able to access this for six months from 1 July, but it won’t be automatically migrated to your GA4 account.

Capture the opportunity

Google’s impending deadline may be the reason to switch to GA4, but it’s also an unmissable chance to upgrade beyond the “vanity metrics”, like bounce rate, page view, and number of visitors or sessions.  Start gleaning genuine, actionable insights from your web tracking while getting in shape for the privacy-compliant, cookie-less world that’s coming.

While Google will offer a setup assistant to help you set up a GA4 account, it will only provide you with a basic out-of-the-box configuration. To upgrade your GA4 setup and maximise your return, book a call with a SpeakData consultant today. 

The post Out with Universal Analytics and in with GA4 appeared first on SpeakData.

Personalisation is key to success in the digital age. Research by McKinsey has shown that curating your messaging to each customer can boost revenue by 10 to 30 per cent and create enduring loyalty. An abundance of customer data at our fingertips means we can tailor our messages relatively effectively, but there’s always room to be more precise.

With most consumers now using multiple devices to connect to the internet and browse, it’s more difficult to build an accurate, comprehensive view of each customer’s behaviour. For example, if a person views your site on their mobile, laptop and tablet, your data analytics programme might count them as three separate customers. You may be serving a customer with the same message multiple times, wasting money or failing to deliver a cohesive customer journey.

So how can you be sure visits come from the same person and give everyone the full customer experience? The answer is visitor stitching. It collates data across platforms, devices and browsers to associate activity with the same person. Here’s what you need to know.

How does visitor stitching work?

Visitor stitching offers a clever way to track customers using different devices to view your products. By mapping identifiers together, you can understand that the person who browsed your website last week is the same person who put a vacuum cleaner in their cart on your Instagram store today —even if they didn’t log in and identify themselves.

A customer data platform (CDP) like Tealium is a crucial piece of the puzzle. This tech lets you recognise customers on any device and channel and combine their interactions into one profile. When a new visitor interacts with your brand on your website or app, your CDP generates an anonymous ID and includes it in the new visitor profile. The same visitor might have several anonymous profiles in the CDP, one for each device or browser. The more that person logs in, browses your site, communicates using their email, or otherwise identifies themselves to the Tealium CDP, the more identifiers the programme collects. These are then ‘stitched’ together to create a fuller profile of that customer. Then, you can identify that individual from any datapoint, and serve relevant content throughout the customer journey.

The value of visitor stitching

Visitor stitching helps you understand the sum of your customer behaviour. You can create a tailored message across all touch points and present unique experiences for new and existing customers.

Here are two common scenarios where visitor stitching would leverage your data, improve conversions and boost customer loyalty:

A visitor you thought was just a tyre-kicking prospect turns out to be a lapsed customer showing renewed interest. With that information, you can ramp up targeting around a specific product or service. For example, now that you know they’re further down the shopping journey, you can remind them of their cart items, show them complementary products and tailor your copy to speak to their future intentions.

A visitor who seemed uninterested, as they regularly bounced off your website (via their phone), showed some serious product interest on their laptop and now qualifies for your retargeting efforts. This signals that they are more likely to complete a purchase on a computer rather than mobile. To push conversion, tweak your mobile calls-to-action to be fun reminders, rather than shopping links.

Target with 20/20 vision

The ‘single customer view’ has been the dream for marketers for decades – but it’s been difficult, if not impossible, to achieve until now. That’s where visitor stitching comes in. With this new tech, you get a complete and accurate view of trackable behaviour across all devices, browsers and touch points, for a fully-realised customer profile and powerful targeting information.

As with any new marketing tech, if you take advantage early, you can gain a competitive edge over businesses left behind. Stitching can help take your personalisation efforts from good to great, delivering relevant content to every customer, boosting conversions and sales numbers, and ultimately upping revenue.

To find out how visitor stitching could work for you, book a call here.  

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