Customer Data Platform (CDP): from lead to customer

Actually, it speaks for itself. Let's take person "X" as an example. They recently expressed interest in buying shoes on your website. So, when they return, it's obviously smart to immediately show them those shoes they were looking at earlier. It makes little sense to show jackets, pants or t-shirts because their interest is clearly in the shoes.

Now, if you also know that person 'X' is always looking for discounts, then it's smart to offer a special discount that applies only to them. This is a subtle but effective way to pique interest and encourage them to make a purchase.

Cross-channel personalization is a powerful strategy that uses stored customer data to create personalized experiences across different marketing channels, such as Meta and LinkedIn. This means that the information you have collected about your customers' behavior on your website is also used to target them in a relevant way through other channels.

A good example is a campaign where you view a pair of Adidas brand glasses on a website, but do not yet make a purchase. Instead of forgetting this, these glasses are brought to your attention again via remarketing on platforms such as Meta. Say you return to this website after two weeks, you will see the Adidas glasses again in the "recommended for you" section. This reminds you that you have shown interest, and you decide to add them to your shopping cart.

But what if you drop out at the last minute during checkout? That's when cross-channel personalization really comes into its own. First, you receive an email, automatically sent after an hour, telling you that you forgot to checkout. If you open this e-mail but don't click, that's a missed opportunity. But after another 10 hours, you get a Whatsapp message with a special 10% discount. However, this message is not sent to everyone, but only to the "high discount affinity" group, known to be sensitive to discounts. So you can see how cross-channel personalization can lead to more effective marketing campaigns that really match the individual needs of your customers.

Conversion optimization is all about testing, testing and more testing. With some of the more advanced CDPs, you can really excel at this. With large numbers of visitors on your website, you can run different tests quickly and on a small scale. This is what we call "growth hacking. By testing quickly and a lot, you quickly arrive at the most effective approach, the approach that yields the most conversions.

But how does this work with ads? An important aspect of this is personalization based on user behavior on the Web site. By quickly testing different ad executions on small audiences, you discover which one works best. And once you find the winning approach, you can apply it on a larger scale, always using the most converting ad.

Through the data you collect with a CDP, you can also identify which users are most likely to convert. By actively targeting this group, you can not only improve your conversion rate, but also save costs. After all, you can exclude individuals with a low likelihood of purchase, making more efficient use of your ad budget.

Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is essential for companies focused on long-term customer relationships. A CDP can help with this by not only ensuring that visitors become customers faster, but also by increasing a customer's CLV.

How can you achieve this? By analyzing customer behavior and linking it to their wants and needs, you can serve them better. This allows you to know what stage of the buying process they are in and what message can convince them to make a purchase. It's all about delivering the right content at the right time. This can be done, for example, by showing products from other brands or in other colors that match their interests, or by cross-selling and promoting related products.