Making Money On-line: Managing Customer Identity Guarantees the Right Message to the Right Person

Thursday 5 May 2016

Managing Customer Identity Guarantees the Right Message to the Right Person

Cross-channel activities represent the very heart of delivering the right message to the right consumer at the right time. An identity system pulls together the many identities across devices and marketing channels that comprise a given person, enabling marketers to tie their interactions together to resolve to a singular, actionable, customer identity.

A Data Management Platform (DMP) is the center point for a digital marketing organization and the key to enable cross-channel orchestration by connecting online and offline interactions to a single customer. With an identity or ID Graph, you can connect identifiers across desktop, mobile, offline sources, and in-store interactions to give you the highest degree of certainty that you’re reaching the right person. You can bridge the islands of anonymous and known marketing by connecting first and third party data.

From within the context of your cross-channel marketing solution, you can take the data about your most ideal customers and activate it inside the DMP to target those customers with more relevant advertising. And find more people like them. “Identity is the new currency,” says Mike Sands, President and CEO of Signal. “In today’s multi-device world, cross-channel identity is the great make-or-break requirement for marketing success.”

Resolving identity isn’t just about putting cookies in the customer’s browser or placing a relevant ad on a media platform. There’s a broader mission here for communicating with customers on the ever-elusive, one-on-one basis. Sands identifies three reasons why marketers need to take cross-channel identity more seriously.

1. Identity is a Long-Term, Strategic Approach

It is not about a channel or a campaign. Identity is way beyond the life cycle of a customer. Connecting on multiple devices and channels is their life. The more you understand that, the more likely you are to create long-term relationships across all those devices and channels.

2. Identity must be Future-Proof

The constant innovation of identities, from sensors to wearables to beacons, makes it challenging to prioritize the cross-channel identity. You need to be prepared as this is only going to accelerate with continued explosion of data from the Internet of Things.

3. Identity is a Corporate Asset

Today, brands must treat first-party identity in the same way they protect their first-party data. Companies that invest time and resources in the ability to recognize their customers across channels and devices will secure a sustainable competitive advantage for the long haul. They will have truly attained the nirvana of right message, right time, right place, right now.

To learn more about how identity is a key part of managing your data and messaging your audience, download the Guide to Advertising Accountability today.