As cookies get more contested, digital marketing solutions have less manoeuvring space. Browsers sharpen their policies and social media actors make concessions. A new balance in this digital marketing space has not been found ... yet.
Strong brands will invest in 1-on-1 relationships with their customers. A direct relationship with customers will become a competitive advantage. Weak brands will continue to rely on third party technology which undermines their credibility… and strengthens their competitors who chase their leaking data of third party cookies.
“In reality, retargeting via social media mostly chases the audience you failed to convert on your own website”
I. Lower your registration barriers
Cookies get outdated. Browsers tighten the possibilities of trackers. This trend won’t stop. Consider it an opportunity to strengthen the relationship with your customer and get them registered on your site.
II. Organize your own data collection
Browsers have become proper gatekeepers for trackers. Make sure you manage your own trackers on your domain. Tags that are self managed are less likely to be blocked by a browser and give more confidence to your visitors since they are managed by the same domain.
III. Ban third party tags… before they turn against you
Third party tags have the nasty consequence that they make your competitors smarter. Because the target audience that you reach is offered as well to your competitors with Google or Facebook as the broker. Free analytics software is not so innocent as it looks, they offer insights to software giants, which they in turn monetize.
IV. Only store information you intend to use
“You never know,” is a bad advise when you decide to store tracked data. Not only for your GDPR, but also for the unnecessary complexity you'll have to support in future. The monetisation behind your usecase should determine which data is needed to store. Because of this it should be a conscious choice which data should be tracked. What good are statistics about page scrolls when your KPI is traffic driving?
V. Dashboard your KPI’s
Define your most valuable KPI. What needs to be monetised? Which parameters guarantee that result (traffic, conversion, ...°? How can this be measured? Flowchart the path towards that KPI. It is the most important tip on this page: a good dashboard is created up front, because once the project kicks off, it might get lost in the day to day operations.
VI. Don’t be obsessed with real time
Real time has its challenges and costs. What are your needs in terms of processing time? Be pragmatic and start with a batch based processing of data. You can for example create customer segments during the night and deliver ads based on them during the day time. Once you see opportunities in real time personalization, you can still switch to real time. Typically batch and real time go hand in hand to deliver the best performance.
VII. Offline tracking is a big cherry on the cake
Data you retrieve from offline events is the most valuable data to store. The conversion rates of offline tracked customers is in our experience up to 8 times higher. If you blend this data with online tracking info, you get a powerful mix. Even if at first sight you don’t have offline events, think hard of an event you might be present in order to track your customers.
“If the product is free… you’re the product.
If Google Analytics is free… your audience is sold to your competitor”
VIII. Empower your client
Syncing the tracked data to your CRM is the easy part. Having your customer actively enrich that data is the difficult part. When you share the collected data with your customer and let him curate this data it will build trust. Enough trust to actually further share details and interests. An empowered customer is a long term customer.
IX. Open platforms guarantee cost control
Marketing automation is expensive. Managing data platforms is expensive. Make sure to open up your data platforms to the rest of the organisation. It is the only way to make them cost effective.
X. Start small, scale fast No CRM yet? No worries. You can extract audience target lists straight from the database too. A simple import in your mailing system and off you go. No Data Management Platform (DMP) or Customer Data Platform (CDP)? No worries, we can help to implement it together with you, one step at a time.
If the product is free ... you’re the product. If Google Analytics is free ... your audience is sold to your competitor.
Sustainable monetisation of an audience passes through technology which guarantees trust, performance, security and empowerment. Believe in yourself, believe in your brand, believe in your customer and invest in a direct relationship with your customer. Let Investdata challenge you on those ambitions. Contact info@investdata.be for a chat!