This blog post looks at the concrete benefits of DMP (Data Management Platform) systems through the eyes of our imaginary old-time village shopkeeper, Tarmo.
Tarmo, the village shopkeeper of yore, knew you and your family, hobbies, and purchase history and mostly had a hunch about what to offer you and when. Tarmo, familiar with your “analogue footprint”, was discreet and offered genuine service instead of pushing things upon you. He worked in precisely the same way as a modern DMP system, making money and saving money through his marketing activities.
Cross-Channel benefit
Tarmo made money by personalising analogue marketing channels:
Oldtimer Tarmo aimed to offer personalised content relevant to his customer in every analogue marketing channel possible. This village shopkeeper knew his loyal customers well. He could call the landline of a customer who liked organic avocados and let them know that fresh avocados had just come in. Or he sent flyers, delivered with the newspaper that personalised his special avocado offers. Customers appreciated the targeted service, and Tarmo’s sales grew.
Today’s digital shopkeeper can offer a similar customer service, helped by a digital audience management system called a DMP – Data Management Platform.
If the customer begins purchasing, say, an insurance product in an online store but leaves the process unfinished, she leaves behind a digital fingerprint. Afterwards, the online store reminds her of her incomplete purchase. The customer also gets a reminder in the other marketing channels she uses. Advertisements on the subject she is interested in appear on her screen when she opens her email, SMS, news channel, social media or the company’s mobile app. She avoids wasting time on irrelevant offerings but always receives offers that matter to her, making reading the ads more meaningful.
Cross-Device benefit
Tarmo’s customers also included international summer residents who had several homes. For example, one of them had a summer cottage in Finland, a city flat in Stockholm and a company flat in Germany. Tarmo could reach these customers only if he knew all the landline phone numbers of all their different homes. But that was no problem for Tarmo, he had a good database. Actively mobile customers could always get personalised phone calls from Tarmo to each of their homes.
A typical customer might check her email at breakfast on her tablet, switch to using a mobile on her commuter train ride, and then work with a laptop in the office. Say she was looking at an investment product recommended by a friend in an email that she saw at breakfast. The DMP can offer her a seamless experience across all the devices. It detects from logins that all the devices belong to the right person. The targeted advertising experience remains consistent across the devices. Thanks to the DMP, the customer gets a reminder of her actions begun on another device.
In part two of this blog, we will go through two further benefits of DMP. First, we will look at audience cloning, and then we will walk you through saving your ad spend by excluding your current customers. And of course, there are practical examples from the current digital world and also some more examples from the old analogue world.