For years, brands have been perfecting personalisation strategies that resonate with consumers and make them feel like individuals. For many B2C brands like PepsiCo, classic personalisation has meant plugging simple forms of data like email, names, addresses or recent purchases into outbound channel communications to ensure touchpoints are viewed as timely, relevant and contextual.
Tim Glomb, VP of content and data at Cheetah Digital and Chris Muscutt, head of martech at PepsiCo, recently discussed their take on the use of zero- and first-party data and technology to power effective strategies.
Personalisation technology platform ‘gold rush’
Personalisation marketing tools rushed on the scene more than 15 years ago to help brands engage with consumers in digital channels like the web, social and mobile. These tools help brands test out different colours, icons, images and offers on websites to optimise the consumer journey.
However, rarely did they offer any meaningful psychographic intelligence about visitors like their interests, hopes or needs. The cookie apocalypse and browser-based targeting solutions further contribute to the challenge of getting to know the customer, with Google announcing it plans to phase out third-party cookies altogether.
“Brands have to look at all the different signals they’re receiving from consumers, even the more subtle ones, as the third-party cookie crumbles,” Muscutt says. “They have to prioritise the data that is useful in their marketing strategies and then focus on developing those data-collection opportunities”.
How to remain competitive
To remain competitive in today’s signal-saturated world, brands need to deliver relevant, personalised content throughout the customer journey. According to a new e-Consultancy report, in partnership with Cheetah Digital, 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Index: Consumer Attitudes and Trends in Personalisation, Privacy, Messaging, Advertising and Brand Loyalty, consumers are rewarding brands that make personalisation a priority. In fact, more than half of the respondents shared that they would trade personal and preference data to feel part of a brand’s community.
Furthermore, real-time offers and content can be 10 times more effective than traditional outbound marketing campaigns.
With all the “buzz”, Glomb says the term personalisation is getting thrown around a lot these days, especially with consumers being more aware of privacy than ever before. However, he isn’t convinced that brands are truly grasping the meaning of personalisation. Muscutt agrees: “There’s definitely room to improve efforts,” he says. “Making things relevant is one thing, but true personalisation is another journey altogether”.
Solving data dilemmas through personalisation
Big organisations like PepsiCo have mountains of data, and it can be hard to find and make sense of it all. While the process improves as technology advances, Muscutt says, it’s still a struggle to secure insights.
According to a CDP Institute member survey, 63 per cent of marketers can’t assemble unified customer data. Even more, Gartner research reveals that 58 per cent of marketers say integrating customer data is a major obstacle in their multi-channel strategy.
That’s a problem. With consumers empowered to engage with a brand whenever and however they want – and often unpredictably – it’s critical for brands to understand them to build a personalised connection. Why? Because personalised connections lead to better outcomes like increased engagement, customer loyalty and brand advocacy.
The solution, however, is quite simple. Brands need to have a single, accessible view of the consumer. Customer data resides in systems like analytics, email, mobile, campaign management, point-of-sale and social – areas that weren’t designed to be integrated.
Listen to the full Cheetah Digital Thinking Caps podcast with Chris Muscutt, head of martech at PepsiCo here.
About the author: Jerome Tillotson, right, is SVP EMEA & Apac client success at Cheetah Digital.
