Heidi Bullock, chief marketing officer, Tealium, joins Toolbox to chat on how smart data management can help companies increase their revenue in a post-COVID-19 era. Heidi talks about some of the ways to handle big data and get the right quality.
In this edition of Tech Talk, Bullock highlights how to be successful in data management and the tangible value to be gained from a CDP.
Key Takeaways on How Smart Data Management Can Boost Revenue:
- A CDP can guide companies through their first-part data strategies.
- CDPs enable businesses to build and connect a tech stack that adapts to always-changing consumer behavior.
- A CDP can send engaged audiences an ad on Instagram and drive conversion.
Here are the edited excerpts from our exclusive interview with Heidi Bullock of Tealium:
Toolbox: What is a customer data platform, what does it do, and what are the benefits of having one in your tech stack?
Heidi: Yeah, absolutely. So, one thing that your listeners will note is that the key acronym customer data platform data is the big piece. And I think to me customer data, especially now, is probably an organization’s most strategic asset.
Again, that’s the way we’re going to know our customers from beginning to end and during the entire journey. So, a customer data platform is a software, and it could collect data and that can be online data and offline data. So, to your second part of the question, you know, why is this a big deal? Why does this matter to people? And I’d answer that really in two ways. I think for marketers and business leaders, everyone really wants that ability to market in a way that’s relevant and makes sense.
“Like Amazon does this well. It feels like they know our every move and so we see recommendations and you’re like, yeah, that’s right. And I think all marketers aspire to do that. And the best way to do that is through data. A CDP would know that you bought a pair of shoes and then we could suppress an ad that would be targeted to you because it would be weird to get a discount code or an ad if you just bought the shoes. But for somebody that’s in it, I think there’s three key things that would be the ability to own your data.â€
A CDP is collecting first party data, so that’s number one. Two is supporting data governance, which I think is critical for a lot of organizations. And this is the one I think everyone will like, it is the ability to reduce integration times and ETL needs. So, for developers, I just think it makes their lives a lot more streamlined because a lot of the tasks that they might have to do manually as an example, importing files that maybe could take somebody all day through a CDP that could happen in minutes or even less.
Watch this conversation with Tealium and get an in-depth understanding of what a customer data platform is, what a CDP does, and the benefits of having one in your tech stack.
Toolbox: How smart data is being used and how can companies increase revenue with real-time data?
Heidi: So, I think I’ll start by defining what I think of as smart data. And I think of smart data as being complete, timely, and accurate. And it’s really thinking about when it’s collected rather than when it’s formatted.
So, then it can be acted upon. We didn’t talk about this, but there are different types of CDPs. I think of it as data CDPs, analytics CDPs, and campaign CDPs. But I think if we’re talking about, as an example, we are more what I would consider data and analytics CDP.
When data is collected, standardized, and unified, that to me is making the data smart. It’s saying let’s make sure that I have all the timely and relevant information on Heidi. So, if I had been on a mobile device or on my laptop, a CDP would bring all that data together in real-time about something I purchased in a store.
So, it is making it smart and actionable. It’s great, but it’s somewhat static in nature. So, I think that that’s just an important thing for listeners to understand.Â
“And, to your question, like how does that benefit a business? I think there’s many ways, but I think some of the examples we talked about, you want to be able to market to say your most profitable business segments. Bringing it together and making sure that when we do have all that information you’re known for, and we can create an experience that makes sense for you.â€
And so, as an example, say that you’ve visited a website for these great shoes that you’ve been looking at, then you, then you have a break at work, and you go to your mobile device. You’re like, I’m going to look at those shoes. But you haven’t bought them. A CDP would know that. So, we can send these highly engaged audiences as an example, a targeted ad on Instagram or some other place that we know you are and make sure that ultimately, we can drive that conversion.
So that’s kind of one way that you could drive revenue. It’s the ability to act mobile. Say you’re a gaming company and you recognize somebody hasn’t been logging into your app or playing the game. And we know that’s kind of a scary sign right there, activities going down. So, what could we do? How can we incentivize them to get them back in the game? So ultimately, we’re driving loyalty and retention. With a CDP, you’re bringing that data together and it’s accurate and real time. And then I think of a third one that you can imagine, and I like this one because it’s cost saving. What if somebody has already completed an action, say you’re looking at air fryers and you’re like, I’m going to start using those. If you purchase that air fryer and you do that on Amazon, I want to know that. So, I’m not spending valuable ad dollars to get you to convert.
Watch this conversation with Tealium and get an in-depth understanding of how smart data is being used and how companies can scale their businesses and reach customers effectively.
Toolbox: One of the biggest challenges of data management is getting the right data quality. What are some of the ways to handle big data and get the right quality?
Heidi: Knowing your customers has never been more paramount, and CDPs enable this by allowing businesses to collect, optimize and activate customer data across every channel in real time.Â
“A CDP can guide companies through their first party data strategy to implementation and beyond, navigating them through the process. Businesses that implement a CDP are on the fast-track to gaining the insights they need to understand their customers better.â€
Toolbox: What should companies look for before buying a customer data platform?
Heidi: The best CDPs enable businesses to build and connect a tech stack that adapts to always-changing consumer behavior. An effective CDP will focus on the following priorities: putting the customer front and center, creating a single view of the customer, shaping marketing and customer experience, eradicating data silos, and preparing for what’s next.
Toolbox: What are the top emerging trends in data management to watch out for in 2022 and beyond?
Heidi: The customer experience is shifting today faster than ever before for several reasons. First, the pandemic resulted in many new behaviors and interaction points between businesses and customers, many of which are here to stay. Secondly, the third-party cookies and signals marketers have long depended on to inform their connections strategies are subsiding.Â
“Finally, the growing scrutiny on safeguarding data privacy and protecting personal information has led to a GDPR-like spread of regulations and new restrictions on businesses. All these changes in the landscape point to one solution: opting for a first party data strategy.â€
The importance of privacy consent management and data security continues to spike. The right CDP helps businesses manage privacy consent orchestration into the customer journey and helps compliance departments sleep at night by ensuring customer data is secure
About Heidi BullockOpens a new window
Heidi Bullock is an experienced marketing executive who has built a 20+ year career working at both global enterprise technology companies and start-ups. Most recently, she was the CMO of Engagio, where she was responsible for the go-to-market strategy, product marketing, internal sales, corporate communications, and ABM initiatives. Heidi is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer for B2B marketing.
About Tealium
Tealium connects customer data – spanning web, mobile, offline, and IoT devices — so brands can connect with their customers. Tealium’s turnkey integration ecosystem supports more than 1,300 client-side and server-side vendors and technologies, empowering brands to create a unified, real-time customer data infrastructure.Â
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