Identity resolution news, trends and how-to guides | MarTech MarTech: Marketing Technology News and Community for MarTech Professionals Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:49:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 24 questions to ask identity resolution vendors during a demo https://martech.org/24-questions-to-ask-identity-resolution-vendors-during-a-demo/ Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:48:51 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=345471 Identity resolution allows marketers to more accurately target and personalize brand messages to create better customer experiences.

The post 24 questions to ask identity resolution vendors during a demo appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Identity resolution has become an essential tool for brand marketers seeking to understand with confidence who their customers are, what channels they use and how they want their data protected.

Researching identity resolution vendors

Once you determine an enterprise identity resolution platform makes sense for your business, spend time researching individual vendors and their capabilities by doing the following: 

  • Create and prioritize a list of identity resolution use cases, from essential to not necessary. 
  • Use that list as a basis for your research — many of the vendors profiled in this report also provide blogs, ebooks and interactive tools that can help. 
  • Make a list of the vendors meeting your criteria, reach out to them and set a deadline for replies. 
  • Decide whether or not you need to engage in a formal RFI/RFP process.

Identity resolution is not only critical to marketing success but is essential for compliance with consumer privacy laws such as CCPA and GDPR. Explore the platforms essential to identity resolution in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!


RFI/RFP process

The RFI/RFP process is an individual preference, however be sure to give the same criteria to each vendor to facilitate comparison. The most effective RFPs only request relevant information and provide ample information about your brand and its identity resolution needs. It should reflect high-level strategic goals and KPIs. For example, mention your company’s most important KPIs and how you will evaluate the success of your efforts. Include details about timelines and the platforms in your existing martech stack. 

When written properly, an RFP will facilitate the sales process and ensure everyone involved comes to a shared understanding of the purpose, requirements, scope and structure of the intended purchase. From the RFP responses, you should be able to narrow your list down to three or four platforms to demo.

Demo the platforms

Schedule demos as close together as possible for the best comparisons. Make sure all potential users are on the demo call and pay attention to the following: 

  • How easy is it to use? 
  • Does the vendor understand our business and marketing needs? 
  • Are they showing us our “must-have” features?

Questions for vendors

Here are some questions to ask vendors that touch on important considerations in your identity resolution search:

Data onboarding and privacy 

  • Does the platform support first-party data onboarding? 
  • Can we incorporate any of our private customer IDs into the platform? 
  • Do you use probabilistic, deterministic or a hybrid approach to matching? 
  • How do you validate the accuracy of your deterministic matches? 
  • What match rate can we expect, given our vertical market and database size? 
  • How do you comply with privacy regulations and consumer choice? 

Identity graph 

  • Do you own or license your referential identity data? 
  • What are your identity data sources? 
  • How do you validate the quality of your identity graph? 
  • How much of your data is addressable? 
  • How is your identity graph linked to offline PII? 
  • Do your identity capabilities apply to non-U.S. markets? 

Martech and adtech integration 

  • How does the platform integrate with martech platforms (i.e., CRMs, DSPs, CDPs)? 
  • Does the platform feature any built-in data activation capabilities (i.e., personalized email or ad campaign execution)? 
  • Do you have APIs available for data import/export? 
  • What reporting do you provide that will document the ROI from our identity efforts? 

Customer support 

  • What kind of customer support is included — can we pick up the phone to report problems? 
  • Will we have a dedicated account manager and technical support? 
  • Do you offer a proof-of-concept to measure potential performance and scale? 
  • Do you provide a self-service option in which we can manage identity data? 
  • What kind of professional services are available — and how much do they cost? 
  • How does the company handle requests for product modifications? 
  • What new features are you considering?
  • What’s the long-term roadmap and launch dates?

Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


Identity resolution platforms: A snapshot

What it is. Identity resolution is the science of connecting the growing volume of consumer identifiers to one individual as he or she interacts across channels and devices.

What the tools do. Identity resolution technology connects those identifiers to one individual. It draws this valuable data from the various channels and devices customers interact with, such as connected speakers, home management solutions, smart TVs, and wearable devices. It’s an important tool as the number of devices connected to IP networks is expected to climb to more than three times the global population by 2023, according to the Cisco Annual Internet Report.

Why it’s hot now. More people expect relevant brand experiences across each stage of their buying journeys. One-size-fits-all marketing doesn’t work; buyers know what information sellers should have and how they should use it. Also, inaccurate targeting wastes campaign spending and fails to generate results.

This is why investment in identity resolution programs is growing among brand marketers. These technologies also ensure their activities stay in line with privacy regulations.

Why we care. The most successful digital marketing strategies rely on knowing your potential customer. Knowing what they’re interested in, what they’ve purchased before — even what demographic group they belong to — is essential.

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution and how are platforms adapting to privacy changes?

The post 24 questions to ask identity resolution vendors during a demo appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
MIR_IDResPlatf-page-001
Does your organization need an identity resolution platform? https://martech.org/does-your-organization-need-an-identity-resolution-platform/ Mon, 10 Apr 2023 13:41:06 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=344206 While identity management platforms can help marketers, ask these important questions first before starting the buying process.

The post Does your organization need an identity resolution platform? appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
An identity resolution platform can be a key tool for marketers to understand who their customers are and how to comply with the many different consumer privacy regulations. Deciding If your company needs one requires the same steps involved in any software adoption. The first thing to do is a comprehensive self-assessment of the organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support and financial resources. The following questions can serve as a guideline for this.

Does our customer data reside in disconnected silos throughout the organization?

Organizational silos between departments such as sales, marketing, procurement or customer support can lead to inconsistent customer experiences with a brand. An identity resolution platform can connect these systems. It will integrate consumer identifiers across channels and devices in a way that is accurate, scalable and privacy compliant to create a persistent and addressable individual profile.

Do we have customer knowledge gaps that could be filled with trusted second- and third-party data?

First-party data is essential for building a strong relationship between your brand and customers. However, identity graphs using anonymized second- and third-party data can provide valuable demographic, location, financial and other information that can fill gaps in customer insights. As data collection and matching techniques improve, creating a 360-degree view of customers through identity resolution platforms may make sense.

Are we in compliance with CCPA, GDPR and other data privacy regulations?

Data breaches and misuse of consumer data continue to make headlines, leading to an increase in privacy regulations. It’s crucial to ensure your data governance practices comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and/or the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). While collecting and using consumer data is an essential part of marketing, it also escalates the risk of damaging your brand and incurring legal consequences.

Can we successfully integrate our existing customer data systems with an identity resolution platform?

Your various martech and ad tech systems absolutely must be able to communicate with each other. If they can’t, your organization likely would benefit from an identity resolution platform. This platform can incorporate identifiers and profiles between and within these systems for consistency and accuracy, creating a persistent and addressable individual profile

Does our C-suite support identity resolution initiatives?

Most C-level executives overestimate their marketing organization’s customer identity accuracy and persistence, according to a Forrester study. This can lead to inadequate budgeting, campaign measurement and performance, and broken customer experiences. Therefore, it is critical to secure C-suite support for identity resolution initiatives across the organization.


Identity resolution is not only critical to marketing success but is essential for compliance with consumer privacy laws such as CCPA and GDPR. Explore the platforms essential to identity resolution in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!


How would we use identity resolution?

Identity resolution has many marketing use cases, from complying with data privacy regulations to developing more accurate lookalike audiences to improved marketing segmentation and targeting. Identifying the use cases that would most benefit your organization is fundamental for establishing and prioritizing the capabilities you’ll need.

What KPIs do we want to measure and what decisions will we make based on the data?

It’s critical to measure the impact of an identity resolution platform on your marketing ROI. Resolving customer identities will provide new cross-sell and upsell opportunities because your marketing team knows more about your customers. Although KPIs vary by organization and/or industry, you should be able to measure incremental lift in metrics such as average order value, average revenue per user, basket size, response rates or customer retention.

What is the total cost of ownership?

Most of these platforms use on-demand pricing, meaning customers pay a monthly subscription price that will vary by usage. Pricing is typically based on the number of data records or customer profiles under management or the number of matches or API calls. Some also have add-on customer support options.

Identity resolution platforms: A snapshot

What it is. Identity resolution is the science of connecting the growing volume of consumer identifiers to one individual as he or she interacts across channels and devices.

What the tools do. Identity resolution technology connects those identifiers to one individual. It draws this valuable data from the various channels and devices customers interact with, such as connected speakers, home management solutions, smart TVs, and wearable devices. It’s an important tool as the number of devices connected to IP networks is expected to climb to more than three times the global population by 2023, according to the Cisco Annual Internet Report.

Why it’s hot now. More people expect relevant brand experiences across each stage of their buying journeys. One-size-fits-all marketing doesn’t work; buyers know what information sellers should have and how they should use it. Also, inaccurate targeting wastes campaign spending and fails to generate results.

This is why investment in identity resolution programs is growing among brand marketers. These technologies also ensure their activities stay in line with privacy regulations.

Why we care. The most successful digital marketing strategies rely on knowing your potential customer. Knowing what they’re interested in, what they’ve purchased before — even what demographic group they belong to — is essential.

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution and how are platforms adapting to privacy changes?


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post Does your organization need an identity resolution platform? appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
MIR_IDResPlatf-page-001
What is an identity resolution platform? https://martech.org/what-is-an-identity-resolution-platform/ Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:42:53 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=378795 Let's dive into the main capabilities and leading benefits of identity resolution platforms.

The post What is an identity resolution platform? appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
An identity resolution platform is software that integrates consumer identifiers across channels and devices in a way that is accurate, scalable and privacy compliant to create a persistent and addressable individual profile.

Identity resolution platforms enable marketers to “close the loop” on customer marketing, analytics and compliance with a comprehensive holistic view of activity across all of an organization’s customer touchpoints and channels. Such identifiers can and should encompass both online (device, email, cookie or mobile ad ID) and offline (name, address, phone number) data signals and attributes.

Why are these platforms important?

A number of key factors have promoted the importance of these platforms over the last couple of years.

Goodbye to third-party cookies

The ongoing deprecation of third-party cookies and mobile identifiers, which tech companies are phasing out due to concerns about consumer privacy, are fueling interest in identity resolution platforms.

Marketers have long depended on third-party cookies and mobile IDs to target ads based
on data associated with these identifiers. As recently as mid-2021, 83% of marketers surveyed by Innovid were still using third-party cookies, and, for many marketers, their strategy was very reliant on this technology.

The walled gardens challenge

Marketers are also losing access to large pools of potential customer data due to the creation of “walled gardens” by Google, Facebook and Amazon. These closed ecosystems enable the marketplace providers to maintain control of user data.

All of these developments are driving marketers to step up their efforts to collect more first-party data about their customers and prospects, and also enhance their profiles in a privacy compliant manner.

The CTV opportunity

Advertising spending on connected TV (CTV) – which includes display ads on home screens as well as in-stream video ads on platforms like Hulu, Roku and YouTube – is the fastest-growing segment in digital advertising. Meanwhile, with Netflix and Disney Plus investing in ad-supported versions of their services, inventory is expanding to meet the demand.

Though advanced and connected TV aren’t hampered by a dependence on third-party cookies or mobile ad identifiers, the fragmentation of the sector means identity solutions are key to enabling the more advanced audience targeting sought by digital advertisers.

Let’s look at how identity resolution platforms can help marketers address all these challenges and opportunities.

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution and how are platforms adapting to privacy changes?

Main capabilities of identity resolutions platforms

Identity resolution platforms support marketing processes around targeting, measurement and
personalization for both known and anonymous audiences across digital and offline channels.
Virtually all enterprise identity resolution platform vendors offer the following core features and capabilities:

  • Data onboarding (including online/offline matching).
  • Proprietary identity graph.
  • Client ownership of first-party data.
  • Persistent individual and/or household ID.
  • Compliance with data privacy regulations.
  • APIs for third-party system integration.
  • Pre-built connections to martech/adtech platforms.

Let’s look at the first two of those in more detail.

Data onboarding

Client data is typically onboarded via secure file transfer protocol (SFTP), although some vendors also provide direct API transfer or pixel syncs. Data is processed with the goal of establishing a universal view of the customer.

The aim is to support persistent customer IDs during the identity resolution process, which means the ID follows the individual (or household) even as identifiers change, which they inevitably do. For example, when browser cookies expire or are deleted, or customers buy and use new devices, the customer ID will remain the same.

Identity graphs

Most identity resolution vendors maintain a proprietary identity graph or database that houses all the known identifiers that correlate with individual consumers. There is no standard model for an identity graph.

Identity graphs may also incorporate demographic, behavioral, financial, lifestyle, purchase and other data compiled or licensed from third-party sources, such as online news sites, purchase transactions, surveys, email service providers (ESPs), motor vehicle records, voter registration and other public records.

Dig deeper: Marketers make identity solutions an urgent priority

The benefits of using identity resolution platforms

Connecting consumer identifiers has become a mandate for enterprise marketers trying to
meet or exceed customer expectations for a personalized brand experience. Automating the
process with an identity resolution platform can provide the following benefits:

  • Deeper customer insights.
  • Accurate personalization.
  • More seamless customer experiences.
  • Stronger privacy governance, risk and compliance.
  • Enhanced cross-channel attribution and campaign tracking.
  • Increased marketing ROI.

Learn more about the capabilities and benefits of this critical technology by downloading our free report.


Identity resolution is not only critical to marketing success but is essential for compliance with consumer privacy laws such as CCPA and GDPR. Explore the platforms essential to identity resolution in the latest edition of this MarTech Intelligence Report.

Click here to download!



Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post What is an identity resolution platform? appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
MIR_IDResPlatf-page-001
Identifying B2B and B2C consumers in a privacy-driven environment: The MarTech Conference keynote https://martech.org/identifying-b2b-and-b2c-consumers-in-a-privacy-driven-environment-the-martech-conference-keynote/ Tue, 28 Mar 2023 15:31:39 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=368781 Identity resolution platforms, zero-party data, data clean rooms and community building were among the approaches discussed during the conference kickoff.

The post Identifying B2B and B2C consumers in a privacy-driven environment: The MarTech Conference keynote appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Even with increasing privacy restrictions, marketers can still get the data they need to identify customers and personalize communications. This was one of the main themes of the keynote conversation which kicked off Day 1 of The MarTech Conference.

“Whether we’re talking about B2B buyers or consumers, customers need you to know who they are, whichever channel or device they’re meeting you on,” said Kim Davis, MarTech’s editorial director. “At the same time, they expect you to respect their privacy. What that means is that as the industry gradually weans itself from cookie-tracking, other ways of understanding customer behavior and the customer journey become paramount.”

Is the industry prepared for this privacy-driven environment? Changes are underway as Google now plans to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome in 2024. Last year, IAB CEO David Cohen called the deprecation of third-party identifiers “the world’s biggest slow-motion train wreck.”

Here are the approaches B2B and B2C marketers can use today as privacy becomes an ever greater priority.

Identity resolution solutions

Identity resolution solutions integrate consumer identifiers across channels and devices in a way that is accurate, scalable and privacy-compliant to create a persistent and addressable individual profile.

“It’s privacy-compliant because the user’s profile is built around an anonymized token, not a name, email address or phone number,” Davis said.

Most identity resolution platforms maintain identity graphs into which they gather data from the full range of channels and devices where the user is active. Identity resolution platforms identify users either deterministically or probabilistically.

“The result should be the ability to segment and target audiences based on interests and behavior,” said Davis. “For most marketing purposes — not all, but most — it’s more valuable to know what the customer is interested in than their name, height, weight, gender and home address. That’s true whether they’re in market for a sophisticated software solution, or just looking for a new pair of sunglasses.”

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution and how are platforms adapting to privacy changes?

Tim Parkin, President of Parkin Consulting, discusses data strategies at the MarTech keynote.

Zero-party data

Zero-party data is a kind of first-party data that a user volunteers that relates to their interests, preferences or intent. 

“It could be collected by something as simple as a three-question quiz,” said Davis. “Collection could be gamified.”

For instance, here’s how online temporary tattoo seller Inkbox uses a quiz to gain zero-party data from customers.

“Customers are eager to give up this information and hand it over so that they can get the help they need, get better products and services,” said Tim Parkin, President of Parkin Consulting. “Zero-party data is massive. It’s been here for a while under the radar and we need to expose it now and align our interests with the customer so that we can access this zero-party data.”

Data clean rooms

Data clean rooms (DCRs) use privacy-enhancing technology that allows data owners, including brands and publishers, to share first-party data in a privacy-compliant way. They resolve the data to a profile while keeping that profile anonymized.

This emerging technology requires a certain level of data maturity, so not all organizations can take the leap into DCRs. Those that do typically already have a CDP or DMP in place to manage customer data. Additionally, brands using a DCR might look to a consultancy to assist in the implementation, and that costs more.

Dig deeper: How data clean rooms might help keep the internet open

Cyndi Greenglass, President of Livingston Strategies, discusses community at the MarTech keynote.

B2B community building

B2B marketers use communities to give like-minded individuals the platform to communicate with experts in their field. This gives buyers the incentive to volunteer information in order to stay connected.

“B2B marketers have gotten pretty smart at trying to figure out how to have people give their information so that they can voluntarily communicate with individuals and companies that they feel they want to do business with,” said Cyndi Greenglass, President of Livingston Strategies, a B2B marketing consultancy. “Some of the ways that companies have gotten past the [privacy] challenge is by creating their own portals, their own communities and environments where individuals are offering up information so that they can stay connected despite what’s happening in this environment.”

Marketers must serve high-quality content into their portal for the community to thrive. Businesspeople bring high standards to their B2B interactions because they are used to best-of-breed buying experiences when they act as consumers making personal buying decisions.

“Community is more important than it’s ever been,” Greenglass said. “We’ve seen that consumers — whether they are B2B purchasers or individuals — we bring our human behavior into the workplace when we do business every day.”

“I’m a strong believer in customer proximity, that whoever is closest to the customer wins,” said Parkin. “If you’re not talking to your customers, you’re not learning about who they are and what they want, how they think and how they act. Community allows you to do that. It’s your experiment lab where you can see people interact with each other and you can get face-to-face with customers.”


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post Identifying B2B and B2C consumers in a privacy-driven environment: The MarTech Conference keynote appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Tim-Parkin-keynote-spring-2023 Cyndi-Greenglass-spring-2023-keynote
How data clean rooms might help keep the internet open https://martech.org/how-data-clean-rooms-might-help-keep-the-internet-open/ Thu, 02 Feb 2023 17:43:10 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=358511 The IAB sees encouraging signs that DCRs might sustain addressable advertising outside the walled gardens and without the help of cookies.

The post How data clean rooms might help keep the internet open appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Are data clean rooms the solution to what IAB CEO David Cohen has called the “slow-motion train wreck” of addressability? Voices at the IAB will tell you that they have a big role to play.

“The issue with addressability is that once cookies go away, and with the loss of identifiers, about 80% of the addressable market will become unknown audiences which is why there is a need for privacy-centric consent and a better consent-value exchange,” said Jeffrey Bustos, VP, measurement, addressability and data at the IAB.

“Everyone’s talking about first-party data, and it is very valuable,” he explained, “but most publishers who don’t have sign-on, they have about 3 to 10% of their readership’s first-party data.” First-party data, from the perspective of advertisers who want to reach relevant and audiences, and publishers who want to offer valuable inventory, just isn’t enough.

Why we care. Two years ago, who was talking about data clean rooms? The surge of interest is recent and significant, according to the IAB. DCRs have the potential, at least, to keep brands in touch with their audiences on the open internet; to maintain viability for publishers’ inventories; and to provide sophisticated measurement capabilities.

How data clean rooms can help. DCRs are a type of privacy-enhancing technology that allows data owners (including brands and publishers) to share customer first-party data in a privacy-compliant way. Clean rooms are secure spaces where first-party data from a number of sources can be resolved to the same customer’s profile while that profile remains anonymized.

In other words, a DCR is a kind of Switzerland — a space where a truce is called on competition while first-party data is enriched without compromising privacy.

“The value of a data clean room is that a publisher is able to collaborate with a brand across both their data sources and the brand is able to understand audience behavior,” said Bestos. For example, a brand selling eye-glasses might know nothing about their customers except basic transactional data — and that they wear glasses. Matching profiles with a publisher’s behavioral data provides enrichment.

“If you’re able to understand behavioral context, you’re able to understand what your customers are reading, what they’re interested in, what their hobbies are,” said Bustos. Armed with those insights, a brand has a better idea of what kind of content they want to advertise against.

The publisher does need to have a certain level of first-party data for the matching to take place, even if it doesn’t have a universal requirement for sign-ins like The New York Times. A publisher may be able to match only a small percentage of the eye-glass vendor’s customers, but if they like reading the sports and arts sections, at least that gives some directional guidance as to what audience the vendor should target.

Dig deeper: Why we care about data clean rooms

What counts as good matching? In its “State of Data 2023” report, which focuses almost exclusively on data clean rooms, concern is expressed that DCR efficacy might be threatened by poor match rates. Average match rates hover around 50% (less for some types of DCR).

Bustos is keen to put this into context. “When you are matching data from a cookie perspective, match rates are usually about 70-ish percent,” he said, so 50% isn’t terrible, although there’s room for improvement.

One obstacle is a persistent lack of interoperability between identity solutions — although it does exist; LiveRamp’s RampID is interoperable, for example, with The Trade Desk’s UID2.

Nevertheless, said Bustos, “it’s incredibly difficult for publishers. They have a bunch of identity pixels firing for all these different things. You don’t know which identity provider to use. Definitely a long road ahead to make sure there’s interoperability.”

Maintaining an open internet. If DCRs can contribute to solving the addressability problem they will also contribute to the challenge of keeping the internet open. Walled gardens like Facebook do have rich troves of first-party and behavioral data; brands can access those audiences, but with very limited visibility into them.

“The reason CTV is a really valuable proposition for advertisers is that you are able to identify the user 1:1 which is really powerful,” Bustos said. “Your standard news or editorial publisher doesn’t have that. I mean, the New York Times has moved to that and it’s been incredibly successful for them.” In order to compete with the walled gardens and streaming services, publishers need to offer some degree of addressability — and without relying on cookies.

But DCRs are a heavy lift. Data maturity is an important qualification for getting the most out of a DCR. The IAB report shows that, of the brands evaluating or using DCRs, over 70% have other data-related technologies like CDPs and DMPs.

“If you want a data clean room,” Bustos explained, “there are a lot of other technological solutions you have to have in place before. You need to make sure you have strong data assets.” He also recommends starting out by asking what you want to achieve, not what technology would be nice to have. “The first question is, what do you want to accomplish? You may not need a DCR. ‘I want to do this,’ then see what tools would get you to that.”

Understand also that implementation is going to require talent. “It is a demanding project in terms of the set-up,” said Bustos, “and there’s been significant growth in consulting companies and agencies helping set up these data clean rooms. You do need a lot of people, so it’s more efficient to hire outside help for the set up, and then just have a maintenance crew in-house.”

Underuse of measurement capabilities. One key finding in the IAB’s research is that DCR users are exploiting the audience matching capabilities much more than realizing the potential for measurement and attribution. “You need very strong data scientists and engineers to build advanced models,” Bustos said.

“A lot of brands that look into this say, ‘I want to be able to do a predictive analysis of my high lifetime value customers that are going to buy in the next 90 days.’ Or ‘I want to be able to measure which channels are driving the most incremental lift.’ It’s very complex analyses they want to do; but they don’t really have a reason as to why. What is the point? Understand your outcome and develop a sequential data strategy.”

Trying to understand incremental lift from your marketing can take a long time, he warned. “But you can easily do a reach and frequency and overlap analysis.” That will identify wasted investment in channels and as a by-product suggest where incremental lift is occurring. “There’s a need for companies to know what they want, identify what the outcome is, and then there are steps that are going to get you there. That’s also going to help to prove out ROI.”

Dig deeper: Failure to get the most out of data clean rooms is costing marketers money


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post How data clean rooms might help keep the internet open appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Big Lots’ approach to building an identity roadmap https://martech.org/big-lots-approach-to-building-an-identity-roadmap/ Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:39:05 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=358501 The retailer discusses identity challenges and how to align teams and technology to overcome them.

The post Big Lots’ approach to building an identity roadmap appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
As a national retailer, Big Lots faces challenges that affect many other brands and competitors due to the changing identity landscape and rising customer expectations. To deliver relevant customer experiences, they decided to put a roadmap in place to align organizational teams and connect customer data.

“Creating and delivering a great customer experience starts with the ability to identify your customers at all touch points,” said Amy Nelson, Big Lots’ vice president of customer relationship management, loyalty and analytics, at The MarTech Conference.

Overcoming identity challenges

“The rate of change in technology, privacy regulations, and a lag in the evolution of some organizational structures to put the customer at the center and break down channel silos makes it even more challenging to stay relevant,” said Nelson.

Apple’s intelligent tracking protection and Google’s announced phasing out of third-party cookies fundamentally changes brands’ abilities to identify customers on the open web. Other identity challenges include state legislation like the California Consumer Privacy Act and Europe’s General Data Protection Act.

More trouble loomed for Big Lots when Apple rolled out mail privacy protection in 2021.

“We had to quickly pivot and find another way to identify customers to continue delivering a relevant experience,” Nelson said. “And the rapidly changing landscape means that teams and their tech stacks need to be agile, innovative and quick to respond to these types of changes.”

Dig deeper: With Apple privacy protections hurting revenue, some companies are finding ways around it

Focusing on data that drives experience

To maintain relevant customer experiences, brands must have a thorough understanding of the data tied to these experiences.

“Just as brands are putting the customer experience at the forefront of their businesses, identity must be attached to that,” said Nelson. “Functional areas need to be focused not only on what the experience looks like, but what data is leveraged and captured to create the next action in the experience.”

She added, “Identity needs to have a clear ownership in the organization and this is equal parts IT and the business. I’ve seen this work well when IT has responsibility for data collection and compliance rules, and the business teams own [the task of] creating a common and holistic identity for analytics, predictive modeling and activation.”

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution and how are platforms adapting to privacy changes?

Assembling data technology and teams

In order to set up their customer experiences for success, Big Lots implemented a customer data platform several years ago. With customer data centralized, they then launched their current analytics environment.

To round out their stack, Big Lots partnered with customer experience technology company Merkle to use their Merkury identity technology.

“We also built an analytics and data science team, and a customer marketing team,” said Nelson. “And then we stood up a customer-level test-to-learn pod, and that’s a cross functional pod team that operates in an agile fashion, and it’s delivered great value to the organization and to our customers.” 

She added, “We’re continuing to build out our marketing technology stock to enable us to deliver personalized messages and offers at scale, but we’re making progress with the tools that we have.”

Keeping customers first in your strategic roadmap

“A single, common customer identity is essential when you have multiple systems and teams,” Nelson said.

When creating optimal experiences for customers across many channels, this involves many different teams, and they might not all be familiar with the data.

This is where an organization-wide assessment and roadmap become crucial. But keep the customer experience top-of-mind throughout the process.

“Build out a roadmap that lays out the goals for the customer,” said Nelson. “Remember, start with the customer and work backward toward the technology…Team members change, leadership changes, and then the [identity] landscape changes. So, build out the roadmap and then continue to ensure alignment across the business.”

Register for The MarTech Conference here.


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post Big Lots’ approach to building an identity roadmap appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
LiveIntent launches Identity Enrichment on Salesforce AppExchange https://martech.org/liveintent-launches-identity-enrichment-on-salesforce/ Tue, 29 Nov 2022 16:28:17 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=356099 Salesforce customers can now use LiveIntent to match customers in their CRM against identity, demographic and behavioral data.

The post LiveIntent launches Identity Enrichment on Salesforce AppExchange appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
LiveIntent released Identity Enrichment on the Salesforce AppExchange today. The Identity Enrichment app lets users match customers in their CRM against identity, demographic and behavioral data from the updated and licensed LiveIntent Identity Graph.

“Identity Enrichment is a welcome addition to AppExchange, as they power digital transformation for customers by delivering them accurate CRM data,” said Woodson Martin, GM of Salesforce AppExchange.

Earlier this year, Salesforce added AI-powered identity resolution capabilities to their Marketing Cloud. The Identity Enrichment app provides another identity option for marketers who prefer the flexibility of building out their stack with the AppExchange.

Multiple identifiers. The Identity Enrichment app provides users with a simplified customer matching process using LiveIntent’s continuously authenticated and licensed Identity Graph. The graph matches customers against multiple identifiers, including emails, phone numbers, mobile identifiers and addresses.

Once the customer in the marketer’s CRM is matched with the graph, LiveIntent will dedupe, cleanse and enrich the first-party data around the customer. This enriched data includes licensed identity, demographic, behavioral and interest data that marketers can use to improve marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as customer service functions.

“LiveIntent’s Identity Enrichment app helps brands enrich customer records with high-quality data and reduce duplicate CRM records,” Mano Pillai, Chief Product Officer at LiveIntent, explained.

Dig deeper: What is identity resolution?

Building on first-party data. For marketers to overcome the challenges of third-party cookie deprecation and new privacy regulations, they need to make the most of their first-party data. The problem is that customers they’ve already contacted directly can get lost in the maze of data fragmentation across all the digital channels that continue to proliferate.

“Brands, retailers and publishers will need efficient, comprehensive, and accurate solutions to leverage their first-party data for growth,” said Pillai. “LiveIntent Identity Enrichment app has the services to ensure their first-party data is complete, verified, and addressable.”

Why we care. Identity resolution helps marketers engage their most relevant customers. The availability of Identity Enrichment on the AppExchange helps a B2B marketer like Salesforce be more relevant to their customers.

Salesforce also launched a new experience for their AppExchange earlier this year, improving the ability for marketers to find what they want on the app marketplace. This is all part of the evolution in marketing where customers — marketers and consumers alike — want to feel like they are in the driver’s seat when making purchases.


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post LiveIntent launches Identity Enrichment on Salesforce AppExchange appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Marketers make identity solutions an urgent priority https://martech.org/marketers-make-identity-solutions-an-urgent-priority/ Wed, 09 Nov 2022 19:30:36 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=355841 Email-based identities are seen by marketers and publishers as of limited value.

The post Marketers make identity solutions an urgent priority appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Despite Google’s continuing delay in deprecating third-party cookies, marketers now regard evaluating identity solutions as an urgent priority. Publishers are feeling the pressure, too.

Compared with 2021, around twice as many marketers, and well over twice as many publishers, now view selecting identity solutions as urgent to very urgent. The data comes from the latest “Beyond the Cookie” report issued by data solutions provider Lotame. The findings are based on interviews with more than 1,400 industry professionals, marketers and publishers, across seven global markets in September 2022.

Solutions marketers feel good about. An equal number of marketers (25%) feel positive about probabilistic identity solutions — solutions that resolve data from a number of sources into a single, probable identity — and contextual solutions. Almost the same percentage (24%) favor targeting cohorts. (Note: The report does not clearly distinguish between the use of contextual identity and cohorts, both of which group audiences based on behavior.)

What marketers need from identity solutions. With an ever-increasing number of identity solutions available, marketers don’t want to be restricted at this stage of the game to just one. They are testing a variety and learning from outcomes.

The possibility of using multiple identity solutions has resulted in a demand for interoperability. The numbers of marketers open to working with new identity partners remained even YoY.

Questions about email. Identities based on authenticated email addresses are still very much on marketers’ radar, with 23% expressing an interest. But reservations are being expressed too. 30% don’t believe email authentication can scale; 30% are understandably skeptical that it will aid the acquisition of new customers; and it seems that a majority of email identity solutions are still working with third-party cookies.

Topics and clean rooms. The Google Topics identity solution (that replaced FLoC) is attracting some interest from marketers (22%), although there are concerns about the constraints of working within a walled garden.

As for data clean rooms, there is greater interest among publishers than marketers, but although usage is up, there is grumbling about the cost.

Why we care. Every few weeks we wake up and think — wait, third-party cookies really are going away one day. Is everyone ready for that? After a period of apparent stasis (remember when the industry was in denial about GDPR?), it looks like marketers and publishers are finally focused on finding alternatives. And it continues to look like there won’t be just one alternative that wins the day.

It’s worth noting that Lotame itself offers an identity solution, Lotame Panorama ID. Its website also still drops cookies.


Get MarTech! Daily. Free. In your inbox.


The post Marketers make identity solutions an urgent priority appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
Webinar: Use a golden record of data to enhance customer experiences https://martech.org/webinar-use-a-golden-record-of-data-to-enhance-customer-experiences/ Tue, 18 Oct 2022 20:59:46 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=354705 Learn how to deliver highly-personalized experiences with quality data.

The post Webinar: Use a golden record of data to enhance customer experiences appeared first on MarTech.

]]>

To achieve the most ROI from your customer data, you need a strong foundation. Creating a precise golden record for each consumer with enriched data, a full contact graph and a full identity graph provides the context your brand needs to differentiate based on CX. Precise data includes both first-party data as well as third-party data to enrich your total understanding of each consumer.

If your brand lacks a pristine golden record for each customer, join John Nash, chief marketing and strategy officer at Redpoint, as he discusses the best steps to get started.

Register today for “Steps to Deliver Highly Personalized Experiences With Quality Data,” presented by Redpoint Global.


Click here to view more MarTech webinars.

The post Webinar: Use a golden record of data to enhance customer experiences appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
webinar-tablet-white-desk-zoomin-ss-1920
Webinar: Deliver highly-personalized experiences with quality data https://martech.org/webinar-deliver-highly-personalized-experiences-with-quality-data/ Wed, 12 Oct 2022 20:31:00 +0000 https://martech.org/?p=354598 Tune in for ‘golden record’ use cases to drive consumer engagement and ROI.

The post Webinar: Deliver highly-personalized experiences with quality data appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
digital marketing experience

To achieve the most ROI from your customer data, you need a strong foundation. Creating a precise golden record for each consumer with enriched data, a full contact graph and a full identity graph provides the context your brand needs to differentiate based on CX. Precise data includes both first-party data as well as third-party data to enrich your total understanding of each consumer.

If your brand lacks a pristine golden record for each customer, join John Nash, chief marketing and strategy officer at Redpoint, as he discusses the best steps to get started.

Register today for “Steps to Deliver Highly Personalized Experiences With Quality Data,” presented by Redpoint Global.


Click here to view more MarTech webinars.

The post Webinar: Deliver highly-personalized experiences with quality data appeared first on MarTech.

]]>
digital experience