The staggering velocity of data changes and omnichannel interactions among US consumers is driving marketers’ need for an identity graph — a master source of truth for consumer identity data, writes Dave Dague, CMO, Infutor.
The velocity of identity data changes among U.S. consumers is staggering. Each year more than 4 million consumers get married, 4 million have children and 1.5 million change addresses. Combine this with the average consumer today having 4 connected devices, 3+ emails and 19 cookies and the ability to definitively identify consumers across platforms, devices and portals and match them to existing customer data is a tall order. Yet accurate and robust consumer identities are critical to enabling the martech stack to increase the scale and reach of personalized consumer experiences across inbound and outbound engagements. This challenge is driving the increased importance of an identity graphOpens a new window , an identity resolution platform that links all disparate consumer identity marker data (e.g., names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, mobile IDs, demographics, lifestyle preferences) and serves as a source of truth for consumer interactions. An identity graph ensures that Billboy85 on Twitter and William Smith on LinkedIn and [email protected] can all be identified as Bill Smith and that this identity profile is up to date and completed with additional details and attributes.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) often come into play to identify customers; however, they are only as good as the identity markers that enable them to confidently link disparate sources and maintain accuracy as identities and lifestyles change. As such, these solutions often need identity graph enablement for improved accuracy and recency. Today’s fast paced consumer data changes cause rapid data decay that, if not addressed, impedes a positive consumer experience and can negatively impact the efficiency and performance of the whole martech stack.
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CRM, CDP, Identity Graph – What’s the Difference?
CRM systems are complex, multipurpose platforms that require the expertise of an enterprise IT department, which can limit the access and availability of the data to marketing teams. While it houses customer transactional data and is essential for sales and customer service, it doesn’t always include deep prospect data. And even for customers, it often doesn’t include all of the data required to produce a truly complete, linked view at any one time, much less through time. For example, a CRM system does not recognize that transactions involving a customer with a nickname or different email addresses actually represents a single customer. The CRM also doesn’t always integrate additional attributes. As a result, the data it houses can be incomplete, duplicative and inaccurate for marketers who want to leverage identity data.
A CDP unifies customer data across platforms and marketing channels. However, it is generally limited to 1st party data and is primarily controlled by the marketing or martech team to support analytics across channels and campaigns. It is an evolution of a data warehouse that draws on and unifies customer data from different systems – but only for a point in time, not continuously.
For both CDP and CRM, changing consumer data and rapid data decay means more than 25 percent of the identities and attributes are wrong or missing critical identifiers at any given point in time. The identity graph combats this issue and serves as the master source of truth for the CDP and CRM engines. It is a living and dynamic platform that enables accurate identity linking, resolves and completes identities and keeps up with constant identity changes. Serving as the fuelto identify consumers and their associated profiles and attributes – the identity graph provides insights to improve consumer experiences across inbound and outbound engagements and enables analytics-driven modeling.
The Life of an Identity Graph
The identity graph comprises all consumer touchpoint data along with data from other disparate sources, in a singular view of a consumer and impacts three critical marketing stages – data ingestion, data optimization and data deployment – to ensure verified consumer identity data powers all other martech stack interactions.
Through the ingestion process an identity graph accepts, corrects, verifies, completes and incorporates inbound data from multiple sources to ensure accuracy. In addition, data ingestion includes processes to link, score, and complete the data so that even partial identity information is accurate, up-to-date, and deployable. Validation date/time stamping enables tracking of the data’s currency.
Following ingestion, optimization is critical to the efficacy of an identity graph, converting what begins as unresolved, incomplete and inaccurate data elements into a unified and effective personalization powerhouse. Optimization processes correctly link multiple and conflicting data elements to ensure that identities can be resolved to a single consumer. Optimization also includes processes and procedures to continuously update identity data to ensure ongoing accuracy, and mitigate rapid data decay. This includes attribute data to track the changing preferences and needs of customers as their life journeys unfold (e.g., consumers get married, have children, move homes). Additionally, optimization processes incorporate intelligence and learnings from outbound campaigns (such as marketing channel preference) as well as adding new customer touch points to a consumer’s identity.
Campaign deployments from the identity graph incorporate these critical life-stage signals to recognize consumers and personalize their interactions. Leveraging accurate identity resolution at scale via an identity graph enables marketers to reach more of their best customers and prospects across all interactions and mitigate rapid data decay. This can include personalization and optimization of outbound marketingOpens a new window efforts and real-time recognition of inbound website visitors to drive individualized and optimized browsing and shopping experiences.
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Supporting CDPs and CRMs to Drive Marketing ROI
An identity graph is the ‘living’ connection point between all consumer interactions and provides immense value in driving outbound marketing, analytics, modeling and other efforts involving customer recognition and personalization plus inbound and in-between (optimization). As a master source of truth for all consumer data, the identity graph improves the efficiency and accuracy of a CRM and a CDP by ensuring accurate linking between each consumer identity. The combined power enables marketers to recognize customers across all touchpoints; track their changing habits and purchases; gain more complete insights into their interests and needs; and personalize their experiences – all with unprecedented accuracy. That, in turn, helps deliver an increased return on advertising and marketing spend and a reduction in ad spend waste, all driving improved ROI.