Tag Archives: Customer Data Platform

What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)? 2024 Guide

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How Can Marketers Use a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to Improve Metrics?

Marketers can use a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to collect and analyze customer data, enhance customer journeys, and streamline marketing efforts. By focusing on key features, understanding customer behavior, and improving specific metrics, marketers can see tangible benefits from using a CDP.

What Are the Key Features of a CDP for Marketers?

A CDP collects and unifies customer data from various touchpoints. It can store first-party data like email interactions and purchase history. This data consolidation enables more accurate audience segmentation and personalized marketing campaigns.

CDPs provide real-time data to enhance customer experience. For example, marketers can send timely recommendations or offers to customers based on their online behavior. The data is available for the long term, allowing continuous refinement of marketing strategies.

Integrations with tools like BigCommerce and Shopify help in synchronizing data across platforms. This ensures that marketing campaigns are consistent across all channels, from newsletters to social media ads.

How Does a CDP Help in Understanding Customer Behavior?

Customer behavior is central to effective marketing. A CDP can track and analyze behavioral data, such as website visits and online reviews. It helps in understanding what motivates customers, their preferences, and their overall opinions about a brand.

For example, a CDP can monitor email open rates and click-through rates. This data provides insights into what type of content resonates with customers. Marketers can tailor their campaigns based on this information to increase engagement.

CDPs also allow for tracking lifestyle and career information. Knowing such details helps in creating targeted marketing messages. A user interested in fitness might receive different offers compared to someone interested in home decor. This level of personalization can significantly improve conversion rates.

What Metrics Can Be Improved with a CDP?

A well-implemented CDP can improve several key marketing metrics. Conversion rates can see a boost due to better-targeted campaigns. By analyzing consumer behavior, marketers can create more effective sales funnels.

Click-through rates on emails and online ads are likely to increase. The ability to send personalized content tailored to individual preferences makes marketing efforts more effective. Open rates for emails may also improve as a result of relevant, targeted messaging.

Customer retention metrics benefit from a CDP as well. By understanding the lifecycle and family information of a customer, marketers can offer timely incentives to keep them engaged. Metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are positively impacted, showing the long-term benefits of using a CDP.

More about how CDPs can influence marketing metrics can be found at 11 Main customer data platform (CDP) use cases for marketers.

What Are the Benefits of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) for Ecommerce Managers?

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) offers several benefits for ecommerce managers, including improved customer segmentation and personalized marketing.

How Does a CDP Enhance Customer Segmentation?

A CDP enhances customer segmentation by collecting and integrating data from multiple sources. This consolidated data allows for more precise segmentation of the audience.

Ecommerce managers can use this data to create detailed customer segments based on demographics, behavior, and purchase history. For instance, tracking customer behavior across different channels, from email to browsing history, helps build a comprehensive profile.

One key benefit is centralized data. Having all customer data in one place makes it easier to identify trends and common characteristics among distinct customer groups. This is crucial for targeting marketing efforts more effectively.

Additionally, the ability to segment customers accurately can improve campaign performance. By targeting specific segments with tailored messages, ecommerce managers can increase engagement and conversion rates. Learn more about this from Bloomreach on customer data platforms.

What Role Does a CDP Play in Customer Personalization?

The role of a CDP in customer personalization is significant. It allows for personalized customer experiences by leveraging the extensive data collected.

A CDP integrates data from various touchpoints, enabling ecommerce managers to deliver personalized marketing messages. This can include personalized product recommendations, tailored email campaigns, and targeted advertisements.

One of the key advantages is dynamic content personalization. By understanding individual customer preferences, ecommerce managers can dynamically alter website content, email messages, and promotions that resonate more with their audience.

Further, real-time data processing allows for immediate personalization. This means that as soon as a customer completes an action, like viewing a product, the platform can instantly adjust to display related items or offers.

Lastly, the trust factor with data integrity ensures that sensitive customer information is used responsibly, enhancing the overall customer experience. More insights can be found on HubSpot’s guide to Customer Data Platforms.

What Should Marketers Look for When Choosing a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

Marketers need to ensure a CDP offers essential features and integration capabilities that align with their business needs. Key areas to focus on include core features, integration options, and compatibility with existing systems.

Which CDP Features Are Essential for Marketers?

Identity Resolution: A top feature is the ability to create a single customer profile from data across multiple channels, devices, and touchpoints. This helps marketers understand customer interactions better.

Data Management: Superior CDPs manage both first-party data and platform data efficiently. They should store customer data long-term and allow easy retrieval.

Segmentation and Personalization: Marketers benefit from CDPs that offer advanced segmentation and personalization tools. This enables targeted campaigns tailored to customer preferences.

Compliance: CDPs must be compliant with data privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. This ensures that customer data is handled responsibly.

Integration with Analytics Tools: CDPs should integrate with tools like Salesforce for enhanced customer insights and sales strategies.

For more on essential CDP features, see Customer Data Platform Basics.

How to Evaluate the Integration Capabilities of a CDP?

Data Sources: Evaluate if the CDP can gather data from multiple sources such as data warehouses, CRMs, and social media. A good example can be found in how some platforms gather data from multiple sources.

Real-time Data Syncing: Real-time data syncing is vital for timely marketing actions. Ensure the CDP supports real-time data updates.

Compatibility: Ensure the CDP is compatible with existing systems, particularly your data management platform (DMP) and other marketing tools.

Ease of Integration: The CDP should offer simple API access and plugins to connect with your current marketing stack.

Scalability: Consider if the CDP can scale as your business grows. The ability to handle larger data sets and more users is crucial.

Choosing the right CDP involves careful evaluation of these integration capabilities to ensure seamless data flow and effective marketing strategies.

How Does a Customer Data Platform (CDP) Drive Data-Driven Marketing?

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) significantly enhances marketing efforts by leveraging customer data to create more personalized and effective marketing campaigns. It enables real-time marketing and supports various data-driven marketing strategies.

What Are Data-Driven Marketing Strategies Enabled by a CDP?

A CDP allows marketers to utilize first-party data and third-party data to build a comprehensive understanding of individual customers. By integrating identity resolution and creating a unified customer profile, businesses can tailor their marketing campaigns more precisely.

Machine learning algorithms and analytics tools within a CDP help generate valuable insights from transactional data and qualitative data. This helps in segmenting customers based on demographic information, preferences, and behaviors. Marketing automation platforms connected to a CDP can then execute personalized campaigns across multiple channels.

A CDP also supports data activation, enabling businesses to utilize descriptive data and reporting to measure the success of their marketing efforts. Leveraging artificial intelligence within the CDP provides advanced customer insights, ensuring that every interaction is relevant and engaging.

How Does a CDP Facilitate Real-Time Marketing?

Real-time marketing is made possible by the real-time customer interactions that a CDP supports. By aggregating data from various apps, websites, and customer touchpoints, a CDP updates centralized customer profiles in real time.

This enables the creation of a unified view of the customer, allowing for immediate responses to customer actions. For example, when a customer makes a purchase, the CDP can trigger related marketing campaigns in seconds. This immediate response capability enhances customer experiences and boosts engagement rates.

CDPs also integrate with existing marketing platforms and the broader martech stack, ensuring that customer data flows seamlessly between systems. This integration helps in real-time decision-making, providing marketers with up-to-date business intelligence and marketing analysis that drives better results.

For more details, you can read what a Customer Data Platform (CDP) is and how it helps in personalizing the customer experience at scale. Additionally, explore the different Enterprise Data Platform options available.

How Can Ecommerce Managers Leverage a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to Increase Sales?

Ecommerce managers can use a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to gain deeper insights into customer behaviors and optimize marketing strategies. This leads to more personalized experiences and higher sales.

What Sales Tactics Can Be Enhanced with a CDP?

A CDP allows ecommerce managers to create detailed customer profiles by collecting data from various sources, such as purchase history and social media activity. This data can be used to tailor marketing campaigns to individual customer needs. Personalized emails, product recommendations, and targeted offers can significantly improve conversion rates.

CDPs also help with retargeting efforts by tracking site traffic and customer interactions across channels. Managers can use this information to re-engage customers who abandoned their carts, leading to higher conversion rates. Additionally, understanding customer lifetime value helps in segmenting high-value customers for special loyalty programs and exclusive offers.

How Does a CDP Support Omnichannel Marketing?

CDPs help ecommerce managers coordinate a seamless customer journey across different touchpoints. By integrating data from email, social media, and website activity, a CDP ensures that the customer experience is consistent across all channels.

This data orchestration allows for more effective campaign management. For example, a customer who clicks on a social media ad can receive follow-up emails tailored to their interests, driving them back to the website for a purchase.

Omnichannel strategies supported by a CDP also track the success of various marketing efforts. By analyzing metrics like site traffic and conversion rates, managers can refine their strategies to focus on the most effective channels, improving overall campaign performance.

For more detailed strategies on integrating customer data, visit CDP Basics.

Explore CDP strategies to better understand how to implement these tactics effectively.

How to Implement a Customer Data Platform (CDP) Successfully?

Implementing a Customer Data Platform (CDP) involves multiple steps to ensure reliable data management and integration. This process demands careful planning and attention to data quality.

What Are the Steps for Implementing a CDP?

First, assess your readiness by evaluating your organization’s goals, technical requirements, and data infrastructure. Engaging stakeholders from different departments is crucial in this phase to align everyone’s objectives.

Next, select the right CDP by comparing features and capabilities that meet your needs. A customer data platform that provides robust data ingestion, integration, and analytics is ideal.

Then, prepare your data by identifying what customer data you have and where it resides. Consider using tools to facilitate data collection from various sources, such as CRM systems and eCommerce platforms.

After that, implement ETL processes to extract, load, and transform your data. Ensuring your CDP can seamlessly integrate with existing data lakes and transactional systems is vital for consistent data flow.

Finally, test and refine your CDP setup. Conduct pilot tests to ensure data is accurately managed and insights are actionable. Continually monitor performance and make adjustments as needed.

How to Ensure Data Quality and Consistency in a CDP?

Maintaining data quality and consistency starts with effective data management platforms. Implement strong data governance policies to define how data should be collected, stored, and accessed.

Standardize data formats and naming conventions across all sources. This practice prevents inconsistencies and simplifies data integration. Use automated tools to cleanse and validate incoming data, ensuring it is free from errors and duplicates.

Establish a single source of truth by centralizing customer data in the CDP. This approach eliminates silos and ensures that every department works with the same accurate data.

Monitor data flow continuously. Regular audits and automated monitoring tools help detect anomalies early, safeguarding data integrity.

Train your team on best practices for data entry and management. Educating end-users on the importance of data accuracy enhances overall efficiency and reliability.

How Does a Customer Data Platform (CDP) Ensure Data Privacy and Security?

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) ensures data privacy and security by implementing strict protocols and advanced technologies. These methods protect customer information and comply with regulations like the GDPR and CCPA.

What Measures Does a CDP Take for Data Privacy?

A CDP takes several measures to ensure data privacy. One significant step is compliance with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Compliance means that customers have control over how their personal data is used. They can grant or withdraw consent, request data deletion, and know how their data is being utilized.

Data governance is another crucial aspect. CDPs enforce strict data governance policies to manage data accuracy, usability, and security. These policies ensure that personal customer data is handled responsibly and ethically.

CDPs also combat data silos by centralizing data from various sources into one secure platform. This centralization makes it easier to monitor data privacy practices and avoid unauthorized data access.

How Is Data Secured in a CDP?

Data security in a CDP is achieved through various technological solutions. Encryption methods are used to protect data both in transit and at rest. This means that even if data is intercepted, it cannot be read without the decryption key.

Authentication and authorization protocols ensure that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive data. Multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security, requiring multiple forms of verification before access is granted.

CDPs also undergo regular security audits and assessments to identify and fix vulnerabilities. By continuously monitoring security protocols, CDPs maintain a secure environment for customer data.

Additionally, data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA require that businesses employ strict security measures. Compliance with these regulations ensures that customer information is stored and handled with the utmost care, reducing the risk of breaches.

Frequently Asked Questions

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are vital for businesses looking to improve customer engagement, making sense of large amounts of customer data, and integrating with various marketing technologies.

How do Customer Data Platforms differ from Customer Relationship Management systems?

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems serve distinct purposes. CDPs collect data from different sources, creating a unified customer profile. In contrast, CRMs manage customer interactions and relationships. While a CRM focuses on sales and customer service activities, a CDP offers a centralized database to enhance customer experiences at scale by providing detailed insights.

Can you list some top Customer Data Platforms available in the market?

Several reputable CDPs are available today. Some of the top choices include Segment for its robust integration capabilities and Tealium for its real-time customer data orchestration. Other notable platforms are Adobe Experience Platform, Treasure Data, and BlueConic, each offering unique features tailored to different business needs.

What are the key functionalities of a Customer Data Platform?

A CDP comes with several essential functionalities. It integrates customer data from multiple sources, provides a unified customer profile, and enables real-time data analysis. Additionally, it supports data privacy and compliance requirements. These features make the data more accessible and useful across different marketing and sales systems.

In what ways can a business benefit from implementing a CDP?

Implementing a CDP brings numerous advantages. It allows businesses to create personalized marketing campaigns, improving customer engagement and satisfaction. The platform aids in identifying customer trends and preferences. Companies can thus refine their strategies. Overall, it drives better decision-making by providing a comprehensive view of customer behaviors.

What are some common use cases for Customer Data Platforms?

Common use cases involve personalized marketing, customer segmentation, and improved customer support. Businesses use CDPs to deliver tailored content and offers to customers. They also leverage the platform for precise customer segmentation based on data-driven insights. Additionally, CDPs enhance customer support by providing unified and updated customer information.

How does a Customer Data Platform integrate with other marketing technologies?

CDPs integrate seamlessly with various marketing technologies by acting as a central data hub. They can connect with tools like HubSpot and Salesforce to synchronize customer data. This integration ensures that marketing, sales, and support teams have access to consistent and comprehensive customer information, enabling more effective campaigns and improved customer experiences.

Analyzing Fan Data with CDP Integration

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Analyzing fan data with CDP integration can seem overwhelming at first, but it’s a game-changer for understanding your audience. You might wonder how this approach can transform your engagement strategies and boost loyalty among your fans.

Imagine having a complete view of every interaction your fans have with your brand. This data isn’t just numbers; it’s insights into behaviors, preferences, and trends.

With this information, you can create personalized experiences that resonate deeply with your audience, driving engagement and loyalty through the roof.

What is Fan Data Analysis with CDP Integration?

Fan data analysis with CDP integration involves collecting, unifying, and analyzing data from various touchpoints to gain a comprehensive view of fan interactions and behaviors. This process allows you to see how fans engage across different platforms, whether it’s social media, your website, or in-person events.

By integrating a Customer Data Platform, you can consolidate all this data into unified fan profiles. These profiles provide detailed insights into each fan’s preferences, behaviors, and engagement history. This holistic view enables you to understand what drives your fans and how they interact with your brand.

With these insights, you can create personalized fan experiences that cater to individual preferences. Whether it’s tailored content, targeted marketing campaigns, or personalized offers, you can engage fans in ways that feel relevant and meaningful to them. This level of personalization not only enhances the fan experience but also fosters loyalty and long-term engagement. Explore the differences between CDPs vs. DMPs to understand why a CDP might be more beneficial for your fan engagement strategies.

Benefits of Analyzing Fan Data with CDP Integration

Understanding the benefits of analyzing fan data with CDP integration can help you address the challenges and concerns you might have about implementing this strategy in your organization.

Gain Deeper Insights into Fan Preferences

Analyzing fan data with CDP integration allows you to understand what your fans like, dislike, and what keeps them coming back. You can see patterns in their behavior, such as which types of content they engage with the most or what times they are most active. This helps you tailor your offerings to match their preferences, making your interactions more relevant and engaging. Learn why you should work with a CDP to gain deeper insights into fan preferences and behaviors.

Enhance Fan Engagement and Loyalty

When you know what your fans enjoy, you can create experiences that resonate with them on a personal level. Personalized content, special offers, and targeted communications make fans feel valued and understood. This level of engagement fosters a deeper connection, turning casual followers into loyal supporters who are more likely to stay with you over the long term. Discover how CDPs are reinventing customer relations to enhance fan engagement and loyalty.

Identify High-Value Fans for Targeted Marketing

Not all fans are the same. Some engage more frequently, spend more money, or have a larger influence within their networks. CDP integration helps you identify these high-value fans by analyzing their interactions and behaviors. You can then focus your marketing efforts on these individuals, offering them exclusive deals or early access to new content, which can increase their loyalty and lifetime value.

Optimize Content and Campaigns Based on Fan Data

With detailed insights into fan behavior, you can refine your content and marketing strategies to better meet their needs. You can test different types of content, measure their performance, and adjust your approach based on what works best. This data-driven strategy ensures that your campaigns are more effective, leading to higher engagement rates and better overall results. Learn how to connect marketing campaigns using CDP insights to optimize your content and strategies.

How Does Fan Data Analysis with CDP Integration Work?

Before diving into the technicalities, it’s essential to understand how fan data analysis with CDP integration can alleviate common challenges and maximize the effectiveness of your engagement efforts.

Data Collection from Multiple Touchpoints

You start by gathering data from various sources where fans interact with your brand. These touchpoints can include social media platforms, websites, mobile apps, ticketing systems, and in-person events. Each interaction provides valuable data points about fan behavior, preferences, and engagement levels. Collecting data from all these touchpoints ensures you have a comprehensive dataset to work with. Understand the importance of real data collection to ensure accuracy and completeness in your data-gathering efforts.

Data Unification and Creation of Fan Profiles

Once you have collected data from multiple sources, the next step is to unify this data. This involves consolidating information from different touchpoints into a single, cohesive database. The CDP matches data points to individual fans, creating unified fan profiles. These profiles compile all interactions, purchases, and engagement activities, providing a holistic view of each fan. This unification process eliminates data silos and ensures that all relevant information is accessible in one place. Explore the best practices in customer data management to streamline the unification process.

Advanced Analytics and Segmentation

With unified fan profiles in place, you can now apply advanced analytics to the data. This involves using algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze fan behaviors and identify patterns. Segmentation is a crucial part of this process. You can group fans based on various criteria such as demographics, engagement levels, purchase history, and preferences. Advanced segmentation allows you to target specific fan groups with tailored content and marketing strategies, enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of your campaigns.

Activation of Insights for Personalized Experiences

The final step is to activate the insights gained from your analysis. This means using the data to create personalized fan experiences. With detailed fan profiles and segmented groups, you can deliver targeted content, offers, and communications that resonate with individual fans. Personalized experiences can include customized email campaigns, special promotions, exclusive content access, and more. By leveraging the insights from your CDP, you can engage fans in meaningful ways that drive loyalty and long-term engagement.

Discover 20 ways to boost results with CDP to enhance your personalized fan experiences.

Key Metrics to Track in Fan Data Analysis

To ensure your fan data analysis efforts are effective, it’s crucial to track specific metrics that highlight the success and areas for improvement in your engagement strategies.

Fan Engagement Metrics

Fan engagement metrics measure how actively your audience interacts with your content and events. These metrics include likes, shares, comments, and time spent on your platforms. Tracking these interactions helps you understand which content resonates most with your fans. For example, if a particular type of post consistently receives high engagement, you can prioritize similar content in the future. Engagement metrics also highlight the effectiveness of your communication strategies, showing you which channels and messages generate the most interest.

Fan Lifetime Value (FLV)

Fan Lifetime Value (FLV) estimates the total revenue a fan generates over their entire relationship with your brand. This metric considers ticket purchases, merchandise sales, subscriptions, and other revenue streams. Calculating FLV helps you identify your most valuable fans and tailor your marketing efforts to retain them. By focusing on increasing FLV, you can enhance overall profitability. FLV also assists in budget allocation, ensuring you invest in strategies that yield the highest returns.

Fan Sentiment Analysis

Fan sentiment analysis evaluates the emotions and opinions expressed by your audience. This involves analyzing social media posts, reviews, and other feedback to gauge overall sentiment. Positive sentiment indicates satisfaction and loyalty, while negative sentiment highlights areas needing improvement. Sentiment analysis provides insights into how fans perceive your brand, helping you address issues promptly and maintain a positive image. It also guides content creation, ensuring your messaging aligns with fan expectations and preferences.

Conversion Rates and Revenue Attribution

Conversion rates measure the percentage of fans who take a desired action, such as purchasing tickets or subscribing to a newsletter. High conversion rates indicate effective marketing and a strong call to action. Revenue attribution tracks the sources of your income, showing which campaigns and channels drive the most sales. Understanding conversion rates and revenue attribution helps you optimize your marketing strategies. You can allocate resources to the most successful campaigns and refine those that underperform, maximizing your return on investment. Learn how to improve your conversion rates with CDP integration.

How to Implement Fan Data Analysis with CDP Integration

Implementing fan data analysis with CDP integration can seem daunting, but breaking it down into manageable steps can simplify the process and help you see its potential benefits.

Define Your Fan Data Strategy

Start by outlining clear objectives for what you want to achieve with fan data analysis. Identify key goals such as increasing fan engagement, boosting ticket sales, or enhancing personalized marketing efforts. Determine which data points are most relevant to these goals. This could include social media interactions, purchase history, and event attendance. Establish a timeline and set measurable targets to track your progress. A well-defined strategy provides a roadmap for your data initiatives and ensures all efforts align with your overall objectives.

Select the Right CDP Solution

Choosing the right Customer Data Platform (CDP) is crucial for effective data analysis. Look for a solution that offers robust data integration capabilities, allowing you to collect data from various sources seamlessly. Ensure the CDP supports real-time data processing and provides advanced analytics tools. Consider the platform’s scalability to accommodate future growth. Evaluate user interface and ease of use, as a user-friendly platform will facilitate smoother adoption by your team. Check for strong customer support and training resources to assist with implementation and ongoing use.

Integrate Data Sources and Touchpoints

Once you have selected a CDP, the next step is to integrate all relevant data sources. Connect your social media platforms, website analytics, CRM systems, ticketing platforms, and any other touchpoints where fan interactions occur. This integration ensures a comprehensive view of fan behavior across all channels. Use APIs and data connectors provided by the CDP to streamline this process. Ensure that data flows smoothly and consistently from each source into the CDP, creating a unified dataset for analysis.

Analyze and Segment Fan Data

With your data integrated, begin analyzing it to uncover insights. Use the CDP’s analytics tools to identify patterns and trends in fan behavior. Segment your audience based on various criteria such as demographics, engagement levels, purchase history, and preferences. This segmentation allows you to tailor your marketing efforts to different fan groups. For example, you might create separate campaigns for high-value fans, casual followers, and new prospects. Advanced segmentation helps you deliver more relevant and effective marketing messages.

Activate Insights for Personalized Experiences

Leverage the insights gained from your data analysis to create personalized fan experiences. Use the unified fan profiles and segments to deliver targeted content and offers. Personalization can include customized email campaigns, special promotions, and exclusive content access. Ensure that your messaging resonates with individual fans by addressing their specific interests and preferences. Personalized experiences enhance fan engagement and loyalty, making fans feel valued and understood.

Measure and Optimize Performance

Track the performance of your personalized campaigns and initiatives using key metrics. Monitor engagement rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated from your efforts. Use the CDP’s reporting tools to generate detailed performance reports. Analyze these reports to identify what’s working and where improvements are needed. Continuously refine your strategies based on these insights. Adjust your campaigns to optimize results, focusing on the tactics that yield the highest engagement and return on investment. Regular performance measurement and optimization ensure that your fan data analysis efforts remain effective and aligned with your goals.

Best Practices for Fan Data Analysis with CDP Integration

Implementing best practices can help you maximize the effectiveness of your fan data analysis efforts and address any concerns regarding data quality and privacy.

Ensure Data Quality and Consistency

Maintaining high data quality and consistency is key to effective fan data analysis. Start by implementing robust data validation processes to ensure accuracy when data enters your system. Regularly audit your data to identify and correct any inconsistencies or errors. Use automated tools to clean and standardize data formats, making it easier to merge information from various sources. Consistent data allows for more reliable analysis and better decision-making.

Respect Fan Privacy and Consent

Fan privacy and consent are non-negotiable. Always collect data transparently, informing fans about what data you gather and how you will use it. Implement clear opt-in mechanisms for data collection and provide easy options for fans to manage their preferences. Ensure compliance with relevant data protection regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA. Regularly review your data privacy policies and update them as needed to reflect changes in laws or best practices. Respecting fan privacy builds trust and encourages more fans to share their data willingly.

Collaborate Across Teams and Departments

Effective fan data analysis requires collaboration across various teams and departments. Marketing, sales, customer service, and IT should work together to share insights and align strategies. Regular cross-departmental meetings can help ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards common goals. Use collaborative tools and platforms to facilitate communication and data sharing. This holistic approach ensures that all aspects of fan engagement are considered and optimized.

Continuously Refine and Optimize Your Approach

Fan preferences and behaviors change over time, so your data analysis approach should be flexible and adaptable. Regularly review your strategies and metrics to identify areas for improvement. Use A/B testing to experiment with different approaches and measure their effectiveness. Stay updated with the latest trends and technologies in data analysis to keep your methods current. Continuously refining your approach helps you stay ahead of the curve and maintain high levels of fan engagement and satisfaction.

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CDP Integration Strategies for Targeted Content Campaigns

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You’ve probably heard about the tool Customer Data Platform (CDP) and its growing importance in the marketing world. You might be wondering how integrating a CDP with other systems can enhance your targeted content campaigns. Let’s break it down and see how this integration works.

Understanding CDP integration can help you make informed decisions about your marketing strategy. It’s all about connecting the dots between different data sources and tools.

Here’s a closer look at what CDP integration involves and why it’s worth considering for your campaigns.

What is CDP Integration?

CDP integration connects a Customer Data Platform (CDP) with other systems like marketing automation tools, CRM, or content management systems. This process allows you to unify customer data from various sources, creating a single, comprehensive view of each customer.

By integrating a CDP with your marketing automation tools, you can streamline your marketing efforts. This connection enables you to use the rich customer data stored in the CDP to create more personalized and effective marketing campaigns.

Connecting a CDP with your CRM system ensures that all customer interactions and touchpoints are recorded and accessible. This unified data helps you understand your customers better and tailor your communications to their specific needs and preferences.

Integrating a CDP with content management systems allows for more targeted content delivery. You can use the insights gained from the CDP to recommend personalized content to your customers, enhancing their experience and increasing engagement.

In summary, CDP integration is about creating a seamless flow of data between your CDP and other systems. This integration helps you leverage customer data more effectively, leading to better-targeted content campaigns and improved marketing outcomes.

Benefits of CDP Integration for Targeted Content Campaigns

If you’re feeling the pressure to keep up with customer expectations and deliver more personalized experiences, CDP integration could be your game-changer. Let’s dive into why this matters.

Unified Customer View

CDP integration consolidates data from various sources to provide a comprehensive view of your customers. This unified customer view combines information from different touchpoints, such as website interactions, social media activity, and purchase history. By having all this data in one place, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customers’ behaviors, preferences, and needs. This holistic perspective allows you to make more informed decisions and tailor your marketing efforts to better meet customer expectations.

Personalized Content Delivery

Integration with a CDP enables the creation of highly targeted content based on customer preferences and behavior. By analyzing the unified customer profiles, you can identify specific interests and tailor content to match those interests. This means you can deliver personalized recommendations, offers, and messages that resonate with individual customers. Personalized content delivery enhances the customer experience, making interactions more relevant and engaging. This targeted approach not only captures attention but also fosters loyalty and encourages repeat interactions. Discover how CDPs are reinventing customer relations to enhance personalization and engagement.

Improved Campaign Performance

Targeted content campaigns driven by CDP insights lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. When you use data-driven insights to craft your campaigns, you can ensure that your messages reach the right audience at the right time. This precision reduces the likelihood of wasted efforts on uninterested audiences and increases the chances of converting prospects into customers. With a CDP, you can track the performance of your campaigns in real time, allowing for quick adjustments and optimizations. This continuous feedback loop helps you refine your strategies and achieve better results over time. Learn how to use CDP to improve conversion rates and streamline your marketing efforts.

In summary, integrating a CDP into your marketing ecosystem offers significant benefits for targeted content campaigns. A unified customer view, personalized content delivery, and improved campaign performance are just a few of the advantages that can help you create more effective and impactful marketing efforts.

How Does CDP Integration Work?

Now, you might be concerned about how this all comes together and whether it’s worth the effort. Let’s break down the process so it feels less daunting.

CDP integration starts with collecting and unifying customer data from various sources. This includes data from websites, mobile apps, social media, CRM systems, and more. The CDP aggregates this information into a single, comprehensive customer profile, ensuring all data points are connected and accessible.

Integrated systems then access these unified customer profiles to create targeted content. Marketing automation tools, CRM platforms, and content management systems can pull data from the CDP to tailor messages and content to individual customer preferences and behaviors. This targeted approach ensures that each customer receives relevant and personalized content, enhancing engagement and conversion rates. Find out how to connect marketing campaigns using CDP insights.

The CDP continuously updates customer profiles based on new interactions and data points. As customers interact with your brand, whether through purchases, website visits, or social media engagement, the CDP records these actions and updates the profiles in real-time. This dynamic updating process ensures that the customer data remains accurate and up-to-date, allowing for more effective and timely content targeting.

In summary, CDP integration involves a seamless flow of data collection, unification, and real-time updates, enabling integrated systems to deliver highly targeted and personalized content to your audience.

Types of CDP Integrations for Content Campaigns

Worried about how to actually implement these integrations? Let’s explore the different types and see which might work best for your needs.

Content Management System (CMS) Integration

Integrating a CDP with your Content Management System (CMS) allows you to offer personalized content recommendations on websites and apps. This integration leverages the unified customer profiles stored in the CDP to tailor content based on individual user preferences and behaviors. When a visitor lands on your site, the CMS can pull data from the CDP to display content that aligns with their interests, browsing history, and past interactions. This personalized approach enhances user engagement, keeps visitors on your site longer, and increases the likelihood of conversions.

For instance, if a user frequently visits pages related to a specific product category, the CMS can prioritize displaying related articles, product recommendations, or special offers. This not only improves the user experience but also drives higher engagement and satisfaction. Additionally, the integration ensures that content updates in real time, reflecting the latest customer interactions and preferences.

Email Marketing Platform Integration

Connecting a CDP with your email marketing platform allows for highly targeted email campaigns based on customer segments and behavior. The CDP collects and unifies data from various touchpoints, creating detailed customer profiles. These profiles can then be segmented into specific groups based on criteria such as purchase history, browsing behavior, and engagement levels.

With this integration, you can craft personalized email campaigns that resonate with each segment. For example, you can send tailored product recommendations to customers who have shown interest in similar items, or re-engagement emails to those who haven’t interacted with your brand recently. The email marketing platform accesses the CDP data to ensure that each email is relevant and timely, increasing open rates, click-through rates, and overall campaign effectiveness.

Moreover, the integration allows for automated email triggers based on real-time customer actions. If a customer abandons their shopping cart, the email platform can automatically send a reminder email with personalized product suggestions, encouraging them to complete the purchase. This level of personalization and automation enhances the customer experience and drives higher conversion rates.

Social Media & Advertising Integration

Integrating a CDP with social media advertising platforms facilitates the creation of personalized social media ads using CDP insights. The CDP aggregates data from various sources, creating comprehensive customer profiles that include demographic information, interests, and online behavior. These profiles can be used to create highly targeted ad campaigns on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

With this integration, you can deliver ads that are tailored to specific audience segments, ensuring that your message reaches the right people at the right time. For example, you can target ads to users who have recently visited your website but haven’t made a purchase, offering them a special discount to encourage conversion. Alternatively, you can create lookalike audiences based on your best customers, reaching new potential customers who share similar characteristics. Understand the differences between CDPs vs. DMPs to choose the right platform for your needs.

The integration also allows for dynamic ad content that updates in real time based on customer interactions. If a user engages with a particular product on your website, the social media ad can display related products or complementary items, increasing the chances of a sale. This personalized approach not only improves ad relevance but also maximizes your return on ad spend.

In summary, integrating a CDP with your CMS, email marketing platform, and social media advertising platforms enables you to deliver personalized content and campaigns that resonate with your audience. This targeted approach enhances engagement, improves campaign performance, and drives higher conversion rates.

CDP Integration Strategies for Targeted Content Campaigns

Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Let’s simplify things by focusing on the strategies that will give you the most bang for your buck.

Define Clear Integration Goals

Start by identifying the specific objectives you aim to achieve with CDP integration. Are you looking to improve customer segmentation, enhance personalization, or streamline data management? Clear goals help you focus your efforts and measure success effectively. For instance, if your primary objective is to boost engagement, you might prioritize integrations that enable personalized content delivery. Defining these goals upfront ensures that your integration efforts align with your broader marketing strategy and deliver tangible benefits.

Prioritize High-Impact Integrations

Focus on integrations that will deliver the most value for your targeted content campaigns. Evaluate which systems, when connected to your CDP, will have the greatest impact on your marketing efforts. For example, integrating your CDP with a content management system (CMS) can enable personalized content recommendations, while connecting it with an email marketing platform can facilitate highly targeted email campaigns. Prioritizing high-impact integrations ensures that you maximize the return on your investment and achieve significant improvements in campaign performance.

Ensure Data Quality and Consistency

Maintaining high data quality and consistency across integrated systems is vital for effective CDP integration. Inaccurate or inconsistent data can lead to misguided marketing efforts and poor customer experiences. Implement data validation processes to ensure that the information collected from various sources is accurate and up-to-date. Regularly audit your data to identify and rectify any discrepancies. Consistent data quality allows you to create reliable customer profiles, which are the foundation of successful targeted content campaigns. Leverage audience data and sales strategy to enhance your CDP integration efforts.

Continuously Measure and Optimize

Track the performance of your targeted content campaigns and optimize your integration strategies accordingly. Use analytics tools to monitor key metrics such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and customer feedback. This data provides insights into what’s working and what needs improvement. Regularly review your integration goals and adjust your strategies based on the performance data. Continuous measurement and optimization help you stay agile and responsive, ensuring that your CDP integration efforts yield the best possible results.

Best Practices for CDP Integration in Content Campaigns

Worried about getting it right the first time? These best practices can guide you through a smoother integration process.

Start with a Pilot Project

Begin with a small-scale integration to test the feasibility and impact. Starting small allows you to identify potential issues and fine-tune the integration process before a full-scale rollout. Select a specific segment of your customer base or a particular marketing channel to implement the pilot. Monitor the performance closely, gathering data on how well the CDP integrates with your existing systems and the effectiveness of the targeted content campaigns. This approach minimizes risks and provides valuable insights that can guide the broader implementation.

Involve Key Stakeholders

Engage stakeholders from different departments to ensure alignment and support. Successful CDP integration requires collaboration across various teams, including marketing, IT, sales, and customer service. Each department brings unique insights and expertise that can enhance the integration process. Organize regular meetings to discuss goals, share progress, and address any concerns. Ensuring that all stakeholders are on the same page helps in creating a cohesive strategy and fosters a sense of ownership and commitment to the project.

Provide Adequate Training

Train marketing and content teams on how to leverage CDP insights effectively. Proper training ensures that your teams can fully utilize the capabilities of the CDP to enhance targeted content campaigns. Develop comprehensive training programs that cover the functionalities of the CDP, data analysis techniques, and best practices for creating personalized content. Hands-on workshops and real-life case studies can make the training more engaging and practical. Continuous learning opportunities, such as webinars and refresher courses, keep your teams updated on new features and strategies.

In summary, starting with a pilot project, involving key stakeholders, and providing adequate training are best practices that can significantly enhance the success of CDP integration in your content campaigns. These steps ensure a smooth integration process, foster collaboration, and empower your teams to create highly effective targeted content.

Is CDP Integration Worth It for Targeted Content Campaigns?

Still on the fence? Let’s talk about why CDP integration is a game-changer for your content strategy.

CDP integration offers significant benefits for creating personalized content experiences. By connecting your Customer Data Platform with other systems, you gain a unified view of your customers. This integration allows you to understand customer preferences and behaviors in-depth, enabling you to deliver content that resonates with them. Personalized content experiences lead to higher engagement, as customers feel understood and valued. This level of personalization is difficult to achieve without a CDP, making integration a valuable asset for your content strategy.

Targeted content campaigns driven by CDP insights have proven to deliver higher ROI. When you use data-driven insights to create your campaigns, you can ensure that your messages are relevant and timely. This relevance increases the likelihood of conversions, as customers are more likely to engage with content that speaks directly to their needs and interests. Higher engagement rates translate to better campaign performance and, ultimately, a higher return on investment. The ability to track and measure the success of your campaigns in real time also allows for continuous optimization, further enhancing ROI. Explore 20 ways to boost results with CDP to enhance your marketing efforts.

The long-term value of CDP integration outweighs the initial investment and effort. While integrating a CDP with your existing systems may require an upfront investment, the benefits you gain over time make it worthwhile. The ability to create personalized content experiences and drive higher ROI through targeted campaigns provides a competitive edge. Additionally, the continuous updating of customer profiles ensures that your data remains accurate and actionable, allowing you to adapt to changing customer behaviors and preferences. This adaptability is crucial in maintaining relevance and achieving long-term success in your marketing efforts.

Engage your audience like never before with Arena’s powerful live chat and real-time engagement tools. Sign up now to boost interaction, build community, and elevate your brand experience. Visit Arena’s pricing page to get started today.

Get More Customers With A Retarget Customer Data Platform

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A customer data platform needs the right fuel to achieve growth—data from sales systems, customer loyalty data, insights from programmatic advertising, and advanced analytics all help. Ultimately, the way to lift conversion rates requires significant first-party data. 

Why First Party Data Should Be The Core Of Your Marketing Strategy

If you ask most marketing teams, they’ll say they are drowning in data from analytics tools. The burden gets even more significant when you factor in customer insights from third-party data. That’s why your customer data platforms need to emphasize direct interactions with customers (i.e., first-party data).

To make the most out of your marketing activities and get better retargeting results, you need the proper foundation in place first. With the right marketing technology, it is far easier to focus your advertising campaigns to achieve better click-through rates and increase conversion rates.

Gathering Your First-Party Data For Retargeting

Fulfilling your business strategy is easier when you can make Facebook ads, email marketing, and overall digital marketing deliver more results. Effectively gathering first-party data into a centralized database makes it easier to provide personalized experiences.

To build accurate customer profiles, look at the data you already have, like purchase history, insights from your legacy systems, and other data points available in your marketing automation platform. These data points are vital to building a company’s first-party data foundation. However, there is much more high-quality customer data you can gather.

4 Marketing Opportunities To Gather And Use First Party Data 

Online events and community experiences give you an unusual way to transform anonymous visitors into potential customers. To achieve this feat, your tech stack needs to be equipped with marketing automation tools like Arena Personas and live chat. Once your email systems and preferred marketing solution are ready, it’s time to engage your target audiences. 

1) Offer Online Experiences To Potential Customers

Using marketing campaigns to gather today from various customer segments is easier when there is a value exchange. Every single customer should get something out of interacting with your company like a community experience, pricing (e.g. discounts), early access to products or useful insights.

For example, you can use Arena live chat to deepen your customer relationships by running engaging online events. As you add more engaging experiences, customer acquisition cost may go up for a period of time. In the long term, providing customers live event experiences can raise customer retention.

Instead of attempting to understand the desires of anonymous segments, tracking user engagement in different types of online activity (e.g. chat and website use) leads to more actionable insights. Let’s break down how gathering first-party data with an online experience can help.

E-Commerce Business Use Case

For example, B2C customers may react with excitement in a chat session during a livestream event. To see how this information could be used, consider e-commerce brands. They may be considering launching 10 products over the next quarter but  can use this insight to improve the results of product launches. By observing the chat and related behavior patterns like website clicks, you can estimate demand for products (e.g. “Hey, we noticed over a hundred people wanted the new blue shirt!”). 

With this insight in mind, there are at least two ways you can get more business. First, you can run a targeted campaign to your current customers and reference your chat experience (e.g. “We saw that many of you are excited about our new linen blue shirts! Order by Friday and you’ll get 10% off!”). Second, you can then make changes on your advertising platform to emphasize the new shirt. 

2) Create Campaigns For Your Current Customers 

Marketing campaigns often focus on bringing in net new customers and prospects. In addition to that objective, it’s important to engage your current customers. In many respects, it’s easier to  execute data-driven personalization is to focus on customers. Unlike anonymous website visitors, customers have signaled what they value with their buying behavior including offline purchases. Let’s illustrate this use case for enterprise-level companies in the software industry. 

B2B Enterprise Use Case

Selling complex business software often feels like a Herculean task. Achieving business success often requires a full team of sales professionals like account executives, sales development representatives and others. Further, the marketing team is constantly working hard to collect customer stories, optimizing online advertising campaigns and more.

In this context, it’s vital to make the most of your customer base. For example, you might have a significant percentage of customers on a mid tier plan while your goal is to emphasize the top tier enterprise plan. In that case, you might offer online experiences showcasing the success of users in the top tier plan and encourage them to share their success stories. For instance, enterprises users might rave about the analytics capabilities and native integrations available in your top tier plan. Running a live event where customers have the opportunity to share their experiences with each other is powerful!

There are some downsides to this type of campaign. It requires significant insight into customer behavior. It’s vital to know your customer satisfaction levels so that you shine a spotlight on your most delighted customers. This type of campaign also requires significant collaboration between sales and marketing. Fortunately, solutions like Arena Personas make such marketing efforts easier to arrange. 

3) Get Better Lookalike Audiences

In Facebook advertising, it has been a common practice to create a lookalike audience by uploading your customer list. Facebook then uses its customer match capabilities to find more people who are similar to your current customers. This approach to Facebook advertising isn’t your only option. What if your target audience isn’t on Facebook or Facebook campaigns aren’t producing satisfactory results? The first party data you gather can help you to market more effectively.

The downside to relying entirely on an advertising platform for lookalike audiences is that you are dependent on their database. If some or many of your customers are not active users on Facebook, retargeting via the Facebook pixel may not work well.

The alternative is to build your own lookalike audiences. With a large enough audience, you may be able to pursue granular segmentation in a custom audience as shown in the following example.

Individual Audience Factors

Every purchase is ultimately made by an individual, whether they are buying as a consumer or at a company. Therefore, it is usually wise to start with these factors.

  • Age: understanding the typical age profile of your ideal audience helps you to decide which channels, creative and offers to use.
  • Gender: it is helpful to know if gender differences are relevant to your market.
  • Geography: contrast the geography of your website visitors to your ideal customer profile.
  • Interests: find out the topics, publications and media your audience likes. If you offer online event experiences like virtual conferences, look at registration records to see 

B2B Audience Factors

If you are focused on appealing to B2B audiences, the following customer attributes are important. 

  • Industry: to minimize confusion, use a standard industry classification like the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
  • Company Size: use number of employees or revenue as a filter. 
  • Technology Stack: If you offer technology products or services, knowing the customer’s tech stack is helpful. For example, does it matter if the customer uses Salesforce?

Is Your Audience Segment Too Large?

Audience segmentation can become less useful when the audience becomes too large. IF you end up with an audience segment with millions of individual customers, it may need to be narrowed down. Leverage feedback from the sales team and customer service to narrow the list. They may be able to help you identify the customer attributes associated with the most valuable customers (e.g. people who tend to move through the customer journey quickly).

4) Lapsed Customer Engagement

When a customer cancels their account or stops buying for a long period of time, all hope is not lost. In many cases, you have a good chance to reengaging lapsed customers with a retargeting campaign. To build this type of audience segment, it’s important to choose who to include and who to exclude.

Start by defining a lapsed customer. For simplicity, let’s define a lapsed customer as a prior customer whose last purchase was six to twelve months ago. Once you have that list, it’s vital to filter it further using your customer relationship management data. Specifically, you want to exclude customers who complained or experienced significant problems. Reengaging such former customers is much more challenging and may require more guidance from the sales team.

Now that you have your audience segment prepared, prepare a custom advertising campaign. B2C companies often find that a simple “we’ve missed you!” style message with an incentive (e.g. 10% off coupon) is an effective way to bring back customers. For B2B campaigns, communicating new features or capabilities can help. Even better, reengage lapsed customers by inviting them to an online event.

The Final Ingredient To Successful Retargeting: Leverage Market Awareness

Once you choose one of the ideas from above to execute, there is one more critical point to consider: market awareness. The three part market funnel – top of funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of funnel – gives us a good framework. Let’s pair the market funnel concept with the audience segmentation we covered earlier.

1) Top of Funnel

In the top of the marketing funnel, most prospects have little to no understanding of your product and how it might help them. This is the marketing equivalent of cold calling. The advantage of top funnel marketing is that you have the greatest opportunity because this segment is always the biggest. The disadvantage is that you usually need to be more patient.

With a top of funnel focus, leveraging the “Offer Online Experiences To Potential Customers” strategy makes sense. In this case, your primary marketing campaign would focus on inviting prospects to an online event. After the event, you would follow up with retargeting campaigns to offer an event recording or other assets to give people a reason to opt in to your marketing.

If you use events, use our how to promote your virtual event guide to get more attendees.

2) Middle of Funnel

Also known as the evaluation stage, the middle of the funnel is an intermediate step in the customer journey. In this stage, the potential customer has some awareness of what you offer. It’s now up to you to nurture the prospect further. In contrast to top of funnel, you likely already have some prospect or customer data in place so you can start off with a retargeting campaign.

Consider adapting the “Create Campaigns For Your Current Customers” concept to middle of the funnel campaigns. Highlighting your current customers via an event, case study or interview is a powerful way to prove your credibility. Using your customer data platform, identify prospects who have interacted with your brand in the past 3 months (e.g. attended a webinar, participated in a live chat etc). Once you have identified this audience segment, create a marketing campaign to emphasize your case studies.

3) Bottom of Funnel

Converting leads at the bottom of the marketing funnel depends on your business model. If customers make an online purchase, a campaign offering a deadline and incentive is often a good bet. For B2B or enterprise sales, running marketing campaigns may not be your best best. Instead, it may be more effective to collaborate with the sales team to find out what type of campaigns they want. For example, highly customized and targeted direct mail campaigns may be the best way forward.

Use Arena Personas To Get More of The Right Data

Data driven personalization campaigns and advanced audience segmentation all depend on having high quality data. To help companies get more of the data they need to grow, use Arena Personas. It’s the fastest way to collect and import first-party data into your customer data platform. Then you’ll find it far easier to run retargeting campaigns across the marketing funnel.

Future of Cookies In Marketing: Strategies That Work

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Prepare for the cookieless future. User privacy concerns have prompted the advertising industry, Apple, and Google to develop new marketing strategies. New privacy laws make the conventional approach to personalized advertising no longer work. 

To succeed, advertisers need to meet new consumer expectations and regulatory restrictions by creating direct connections with their audiences. Success in a world without third-party cookies starts with understanding how the world has changed.

New Opportunities In The Digital Landscape Changed

The future of cookies will take two primary forms: cohort-based marketing and first-party relationships. These opportunities deserve a prominent place in any effective marketing strategy today.

The Rise of Cohort Based Marketing: Not Ready For Prime Time 

Rather than tracking each user’s online behaviors, the new approach pioneered by Google and adtech companies is cohort-based advertising. This means aiming your advertising at a group of people with similar interests instead of a single user. One example of this trend is the federated learning of cohorts (FLoC) that Google has pioneered. This concept is exciting because it will leverage machine learning to enhance digital advertising.

The FLoC concept was initially developed in 2021 in a privacy sandbox created by Google. This particular technology came to an end in January 2022. There are some ongoing consumer privacy concerns with the approach taken at Google. As a result, the company is moving in a new direction called “Google Topics” (or Topics API). 

It’s not just privacy concerns that cause difficulties for cohort-based marketing. Fundamentally, tracking a large group of people may not be a good match for the customer journey you have developed.   

First-Party Relationship: The New Way To Understand Consumer Behavior

Also known as a first-person cookie, this marketing approach is exciting. A first-party cookie is direct rather than relying on third-party cookie data from others in the marketing industry. For example, a potential customer lands on your website and accepts browser notifications or signs up for your email list. 

Companies can target relevant advertising directly to their potential customers with this direct connection. Using your Customer Data Platform and Google Analytics, you might notice that one user is regularly visiting your “on-sale” pages. Based on that information, you can tailor marketing to that individual user. For example, send them more emails or notifications emphasizing your seasonal sales. In essence, establishing a robust first-party relationship means personalized messaging becomes much more manageable. A deep understanding of what your customers want means you can improve your emails, Google Ads, and other marketing campaigns much faster.

How To Succeed With First Party Cookies

Thriving in a 1st party relationship world requires solving two problems: the need for more website traffic and user consent.

1) Increase Website Traffic

First, this strategy requires potential customers to come to your website. That is getting harder today because many popular websites and tech companies operate as walled gardens. These walled gardens maximize user time on their website rather than sending people elsewhere. 

2) Renewed Focus on Earning Consumer Consent

The second challenge is that privacy standards require you to seek consent to establish a direct relationship with a user. The adtech industry has previously played fast and loose with the privacy rules. Also, privacy regulations like GDPR have pushed companies to change their advertising strategies. It’s not just regulations either – companies like Apple have pushed back hard against invasive tracking methods. As a result, third-party data like traditional cookies are largely becoming obsolete.

Gaining consumer consent in this brave new world requires offering something attractive to users. There are different approaches to gaining consumer consent to individual user tracking. Common solutions include promising users a personalized experience, offering a discount (i.e. a discount code) or a free resource like an exclusive webinar or report.

Audience Engagement: A New Hope For Marketing

The future of cookies is fundamentally focused on creating and deepening direct relationships. Your online presence has to become more exciting and appealing to your potential customers. Your online content, events, and experiences have to be so appealing that your audience happily agrees to receive marketing messages from you.

Three Strategies To Grow And Deepen First Party Relationships

Use the following strategies to keep users returning to your website week after week, even as the digital landscape changes. By the way, offering engaging content and experiences has a secondary marketing benefit. You’re giving your users more chances to share your content with other people. 

1. Boost Investment In Content Marketing and Online Events

To keep people coming back to your website repeatedly, appealing products and services are not enough. Your marketing itself needs to add value like original data, a community of like minded people and exciting content.

So, what exactly does a boosted effort in content marketing look like? According to the Content Marketing Institute, more than half of B2B marketers have increased their spending on video, events (including digital and hybrid), owned media assets (i.e., content you own and control), and paid media.

As third party cookies decline, it’s wise to take inspiration from a variety of brands who are achieving wins in content marketing. 

  • Salesforce offers a wide range of content marketing initiatives like podcasts (e.g. the Marketing Cloudcast and the Marketing Trends podcast), events (i.e. the Dreamforce conference has attracted tens of thousands of attendees) and much more.
  • Dropbox shows that interactive approaches to content marketing can become wildly successful. A few years ago, Dropbox created a “What kind of marketer are you?” quiz to create awareness – a campaign that attracted significant leads.
  • PayPal, the well known financial technology firm, shows a simple way to create content marketing: work with your users. PayPal Stories have recently featured a variety of successful small business owners and entrepreneurs. This PayPal approach to content marketing shows that you can make customers the star of your content marketing. 

Investing more deeply in content marketing matters because it gives your customers a reason to keep coming back to your website.  When customers are motivated to visit your site regularly, you have more opportunities to ask for their consent to market to them through their browser, email, and other means.

2. Grow Your Social Media Audiences

The best way to be ready for the end of cookies is to drive the audience to your own website. This way, you can generate proprietary, first-party data about your audience. Attracting your audience from social media is worthwhile because these audiences have already shown interest in your brand.

Since there are many social media platforms, there are two simple techniques to decide which platform to focus on. Start with your customers – what social media platforms do they like the most? Running a survey of your customers to ask them about their favorite social media sites can help to guide you.

Further, you also want to think about which platforms have sufficient reach and advertising opportunities. For example, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have a significant market share and interesting significant advertising features. Building a following on those platforms is another way to grow despite the uncertain future of cookies.

3. Build Your Customer Data Platform

Simply increasing the number of website visitors and subscribers is not enough to succeed in a cookie-less future. It’s vital to deepen your understanding of consumer behavior.

Implementing a Customer Data Platform is a significant next step. A CDP connects to your existing apps and platforms like your email marketing software, Google Analytics, and CRM. Drawing together multiple sources, it can help you understand the content and experiences that your customers engage in before buying. 

Once you have a CDP in place, use to understand the customer journey in detail. Look at how many touchpoints a potential customer has with your brand before they buy. For example, you might see that high value buyers attend events like live shopping and download a few specific types of content.

As a result, you can quickly refresh your advertising strategies monthly based on the specific patterns your users are engaged in.

What To Do This Month To Thrive Without Traditional Cookies 

Choosing the right marketing strategy matters, but your team also needs to know what exactly to do this week and this month to succeed. Use these tactics to win in today’s marketing game without focusing on third-party cookies. 

1. Integrated Email Marketing Analytics

The emergence of new marketing opportunities like the metaverse is exciting. Positioning your brand to win in these emerging areas can pay off long-term. However, you also need to keep your eye on this quarter’s results. 

Optimizing your email marketing effectiveness remains one of the best ways to drive higher returns. For example, check if your email marketing software supports A/B testing on subject lines, links and other elements. This approach lets you achieve individual user tracking through email.

Logging into your email platform and reviewing its trends on open rates, clicks and replies only give you part of the picture. It is also vital to know whether a subscriber has attended an online event or engaged with your sales team. Arena’s CDP platform makes it easy to connect the dots between email marketing data and other customer interactions.

2. Boost Push Notification Marketing

While email marketing has exceptional ROI, it is not the only opt-in digital marketing option. With push notifications, you ask the customer for permission to send messages to them directly through the browser or mobile apps.

According to Airship research, opt-in rates for mobile app push notifications range from 29% to more than 70%! To earn high opt-in rates from your prospects, keep investing in engaging content and virtual events. When prospects enjoy your content and experiences, they will happily opt in to receive more information from you.

3. Review Your Privacy Policy

Customer expectations for privacy and data protection are increasing every year. As marketers pivot away from cookies, your privacy policy needs to keep up. There are several layers to updating your privacy policy for the post cookie era.

Start by reviewing your privacy policy to see if it reflects the customer data you are currently collecting. If your privacy policy was last updated over a year ago, it might be out of date. For example, adopting a customer data platform to build a comprehensive customer profile may require an update to your privacy policy because you are changing how you use data.

Next, take a hard look at your security safeguards. You probably have robust systems to protect highly sensitive data like payment data. However, your marketing databases also contain personal information, ensuring that data is protected.

The New Way To Achieve Personalized Marketing 

Cookies were powerful because they unlocked personalization for digital marketers. As we say goodbye to cookies as a central strategy, how can you keep data-driven personalization?

The answer lies in setting up a customer data platform for your brand. It’s more than data dashboards and exciting reports. A customer data platform is one of the best ways to identify advocates and passionate fans in your audience. With a CDP, your marketing team can also learn which marketing assets are driving your results.

Discover how a customer data platform can solve today’s most pressing problems in marketing. Download Arena’s CDP Ebook: The Future of Marketing and Sales. Your marketing personas will be grounded in factual data with a CDP in place.

The Ultimate Content Wall Guide

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A content wall is a powerful way to attract online visitors and keep them on your website for minutes. Best of all, you can create a content wall fast by leveraging social media and post updates. To create your next Content Wall, use this ultimate guide to engage your audience!

What Is A Content Wall?

A content wall is a digital hub where you present curated content to your audience in various formats. Also known as social walls or social media walls, a content wall can combine posts from your community and your staff. For example, your social walls might feature Instagram posts from customers, videos from your YouTube channel, and blog posts. Publishers, companies, and educators can use content walls to engage their communities.  

A content wall is distinct from your blog in a few ways. A blog is often structured with posts in reverse chronological order (i.e., the newest posts are displayed first). On the other hand, a content wall is a curated experience typically focused on a single theme like a specific conference.

In brief, content walls present and package content from multiple sources and make it easy for your audience to consume this information. 

Five Reasons Why Companies Are Using Content Walls 

There are five reasons why more companies invest in curating and presenting content walls.

1. Enhance their positioning 

Selecting blog posts, videos, images, and other material for your content wall takes significant effort. When a company develops a reputation for selecting the best content on a given subject, you will draw in more traffic and be perceived as an expert authority in your field.

2. Increase revenue from your audience

Giving your audience a good reason to stay on your website for more extended periods of time is a crucial benefit of content walls. When a customer spends several minutes or longer on your website, you can display more ads and generate more revenue. Further, you can also present more calls to action (e.g., sign up here to get notified of our monthly content wall series)

3. Aligning the marketing and editorial sides of your business

Publishing companies sometimes struggle to bring together their editorial content and marketing communications. A social wall can help! Your editorial team starts the process by selecting the best content around a given theme (e.g., the very best photojournalism showing your city). The marketing team can then step in to organize and structure the content to make it more engaging. 

4. Decreasing reliance on social media websites

Relying on social media sites to bring traffic to your business puts your growth at risk. What happens when ad costs go up? Or if these companies change their algorithms to make it harder to bring traffic in? Over the years, one thing has become clear. Social media sites want users to stay on their sites rather than leave.

Your goal is different – you want people to come to your website after discovering you on social media. 

There’s a solution to this challenge – add highly engaging content experiences to your website. What do the most popular social media websites have in common? Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram all present feeds to their users. Creating a content wall of highly curated content gives your audience a reason to experience a sense of community right on your website!

5. Increase audience loyalty

Allowing your audience to discover new ideas and insights on your website is powerful. In a way, your audience will start to experience a sense of adventure by visiting your content walls. That means your audience will keep coming back to see more content. Over time, your audience is likely to trust you more, which means that it is easier for them to download content, ask for information and make purchases.

Adding content walls to your business is even greater for publishers.

Content Wall Publishers & Media: 6 Ways To Grow And Stand Out

Publishers are in the business of creating exciting, informative content for their audience. Today’s publishers create articles, blog posts, social posts, live streams, videos, and live chat experiences. 

You can draw even more value from these assets by presenting them as content walls. These curated experiences are valuable because they are organized in focused themes that speak to the audience’s interests. This means you’ll be positioned to compete with today’s most engaging online services like Netflix, Disney+, and social media sites.

Now, let’s explore how content walls can help publishers attract readers and subscribers and deepen those relationships effectively. 

1. Positioning your company as an authority in your industry

Fake news and misinformation are major social problems today. So becoming a trusted source has become even more important recently. The Pew Research Center has found that a personal connection to a journalist or news organization can increase trust. 

One way to develop and strengthen that trusted relationship is to create high-quality content walls. Thoughtfully creating a content wall with the very best content on a topic positions your company as trustworthy. This is a great place to highlight how much work your staff put in. 

For example, you might point out that your journalists evaluated over 500 sources before picking the 20 best sources for technology stock insights. In essence, you’ve saved your audience the trouble of sifting through endless sources to find quality data and insights.

By regularly presenting curated content walls to your audience, your audience will increasingly view your website as the best place to find high-quality information.

2. Increase your visibility and discoverability in search engines

It’s not enough to be a trusted authority anymore. You also need a consistent, reliable way to attract new people to your properties.

Fortunately, content walls can play a crucial role in helping you grow your audience through SEO (search engine optimization).  Content walls give users significant content about a single topic from several perspectives. Search engines, including Google, increasingly value authoritative websites that authoritatively present content when determining rankings. 

In other words, content walls can drive more organic visitors to your site!

3. Gain more control over your content 

Once you publish a new article, post, or video on the Internet, it can spread wildfire. Alas, there’s a downside to the ease of spreading information. It’s far too easy for unscrupulous people and companies to copy and monetize YOUR content without permission. That means lost revenue and online visitors for your publication.

Content walls offer one solution to the challenge of online plagiarism. Content walls make it easy for publishers to control how their content is displayed to readers. For example, you can make it more difficult for people to copy and paste content and spread it without your knowledge or consent.

From an editorial point of view, increased control is helpful in another way. You can tailor the audience’s experience based on your expertise. You can present trigger warnings, background information, and more information to make your content more meaningful.

4. Generate more paying subscribers  

Did you know that the New York Times has about 8 million paid digital subscribers? Those subscribers are helpful for the company to thrive in the digital age.

It’s no longer enough to generate millions of page views and attract online visitors to your website. You also need to convert those visitors into subscribers. Limiting some of your best content walls to paying subscribers only will make signing up for a paid subscription much more valuable. 

5. Understand your audience more deeply 

There’s an art and science behind creating a successful publishing experience. In many cases, publishers do not fully understand what their audiences value. 

Content walls can help you understand your audience better in two ways. 

Content Wall engagement

You’ll get this benefit when you create several content walls over time. Pay attention to how your audience interacts with each content wall you create. Which videos or images do they like? See which content drives people to share your content wall on social media. These insights will help you see the themes and approaches your audience likes the most.

With these insights in hand, you can create content that immediately connects with your audience in the future.

Gain more insights with your customer data platform

Content walls are mighty because they give people a reason to visit your website and interact with it deeply. If you install a customer data platform, you’ll be able to quickly understand the exact profile of your most engaged viewers. That means you can more accurately target your marketing efforts in the future.

6. Hit your marketing metrics goals 

Most publishers have demanding marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) to meet each month. You might be focused on:

  • Monthly unique visitors
  • Increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR)
  • Growing your email list

A content wall can help you hit all of these goals more quickly. As website visitors see the quality of your content wall, they are more likely to like and trust your brand over time. That means more people giving you the benefit of the doubt when you offer a new call to action (e.g., sign up for our next live chat event). A content wall also adds to your sense of community – it’s something remarkable to share with other people. 

Demonstrating that your publication is pulling in a large and growing audience also means that your advertising revenue will keep growing. 

What types of content work best in a content wall?

When you first get started with a content wall, getting overwhelmed is easy. There are many different kinds of content you could feature – articles, e-books, how-to guides, videos, embedded social feeds, links to webinars, podcasts, etc. 

How exactly do you craft an engaging content wall for your audience with so many types of content to choose from? There are a few guiding principles we recommend.

Start with a theme

Choosing a the right idea is the first and most crucial step in the content wall planning process. 

If your company is hosting a major conference, the Content Wall could focus on that event. A publisher might choose to create a content wall around a major news event like an election.

It’s essential to select a theme your audience is already interested in and one that fits your company’s goals. If you have too many content wall ideas, choose an idea where you already have a significant body of in-house content to draw on.

Create a foundation of in-house content

Your organization’s content is an excellent foundation for a content wall. Let’s say your theme is cybersecurity innovation. Pick a few articles, videos, and other posts on cybersecurity that have performed well in the past year on your website and put those on your content wall.

Enrich your Content Wall with third-party sources

Your next opportunity is to go out and find the best third-party content relevant to your theme. Start with publications that are already well respected by your audience. For example, a business-themed content wall might draw on the Wall St Journal and Harvard Business Review. 

It is best to present short quotes from third-party sources and link back to the source. You don’t want your content wall to cause any copyright infringement headaches!

Add user generated content 

Pulling in a few social media posts from current customers is an intelligent way to show appreciation for your customers. Ask permission before copying somebody’s else content and putting it on your content wall.

Consider relevant ads  

Publishers, take note! You can include relevant ads on your content walls. These ads should be relevant to the content wall. For example, your staff might have created a special report about the future of cryptocurrency recently. Your content wall is about blockchain or cryptocurrency topics, including a few ads for the particular report makes sense.

Keep in mind that the best content walls are customer-centric by nature. Therefore, advertising and self-promoting content should be kept to a minimum.  Ultimately, a content wall or content hub is a way of growing awareness and trust in your brand.

Content Wall Examples

What if you’re still not quite sure what a content wall is? Look at these examples in different niches and discuss them with your team as you plan your content wall.

SportsNet Celebrates Black History Month

The SportsNet content wall effectively connects their core coverage – sports – to Black History Month. Notice how the publisher presents each part of their content wall with a small photo, headline and copy. This is a great example of a content wall that combines content from the publisher and social media updates.

The PPA Festival Social Wall

The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) recently used a social wall to boost awareness of their annual conference. The PPA Festival approach primarily focused on Twitter. Featuring updates from social media is a good approach when your audience is actively engaged and posting about your event.

Content wall core features

A good idea for your content wall is the spark that will drive engagement. However, a robust content management platform is essential to keeping your content wall organized. As you consider the different content walls on the market, look for these critical features.

Get more SEO traffic with keywords 

The best content wall platforms are designed with SEO goals in mind. Look for a platform that supports your organic traffic growth goals.

Customize the look and feel of your content wall

The content wall should match the colors and design of the rest of your online presence. It is crucial to select a content wall that lets you control its visual appearance so that you can offer a compelling appearance.

Flexibility to add new content walls

Your content wall should make it easy to publish new content walls (or update existing ones) easily. 

Create and send content wall updates 

Your users might get busy and forget to come back to your website to see your latest content wall. Choose a platform that lets your users subscribe to receive new updates by email to keep your audience engaged.

Add recommendations to explore other content

Deeply exploring a content wall might not interest all of your audience. Therefore, your content wall should make it possible to add suggestions to other content on your website like ebooks, webinars, videos, interviews, and other content.

Make social sharing easy

The best content wall apps do not rely exclusively on SEO to attract new visitors: they also support social media sharing. Look for an app that includes easy sharing with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

If you’re unsure which content wall platform to use, why not try Arena’s Live Blog? 

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4 Reasons the Metaverse matters to marketers and what to do

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The metaverse – the next phase of the Internet – is coming soon. This trend has the potential to transform how you interact with customers and how you market. Before going much further, there is a fundamental question we need to answer: what is the metaverse?

What Is The Metaverse?

In his novel Snow Crash, the term metaverse was initially coined in the 1990s by science fiction author Neal Stephenson. While the word itself has been around for decades, Facebook has recently emphasized it to a much greater degree. In October 2021, Facebook announced that it was changing its name from Facebook to Meta. The change reflects that Facebook has invested substantially in other areas beyond social media, such as investments in virtual reality.

In simple terms, the metaverse is a new way of connecting with other people in immersive online worlds. It will involve several technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mobile devices, and high-end graphics capabilities. Today, most metaverse efforts are primarily focused on video games and entertainment. However, there is also potential to create conferences, trade shows, and shopping experiences in the metaverse.

The Metaverse Impact on Marketing Strategies

As the metaverse becomes more significant, marketers are wondering how it will impact their growth strategies. The impact will vary from company to company depending on how digitally savvy your customers are and your existing technology. Over time, we expect the metaverse to impact marketing in the following ways.

Drive Higher Engagement With Immersive Experiences

The metaverse focuses on creating a digital experience with audio, video, and more. Over time, marketers will be able to create virtual reality experiences for companies. A few early adopters are already creating these kinds of experiences at conferences and events. For example, the CES conference has featured virtual reality experiences since at least 2017.

Brands and marketers who successfully create immersive experiences for their customers have the potential to drive more sales and conversions.

Establish A Presence In Virtual Worlds

The metaverse will feature virtual worlds where users can visit, walk around, fly and build property. In November 2021, Liquid Avatar launched a metaverse environment called “Aftermath Islands,” where users can interact with each other and buy virtual real estate.

To imagine what the coming wave of virtual worlds may look like, it is helpful to consider earlier examples. In 2003, Second Life launched as a virtual world accessible by computer. By 2020, the virtual world had grown to 900,000 users. In Second Life, users can create an avatar to interact with the world. Users can visit companies, libraries, and educational experiences. Second Life is significant because it is not structured as a game. There are no objectives, goals, or quests per se. Instead, the platform emphasizes socializing.

Virtual worlds are significant for marketers and brands because of their scale. Creating a single immersive experience for your company will have some appeal. That said, creating a virtual experience where users can only interact with your company may have limited appeal unless you already have a cult following like Apple.

Many companies may ultimately find it more cost-effective to set up a presence in virtual worlds that already have a presence. For instance, an entertainment company might reach out to Roblox. As of Q2 2021, Roblox has 42 million daily active users. Establishing a presence early in platforms like Roblox and other virtual worlds may give you a first-mover advantage comparable to building a Facebook following in the 2000s.

Earn Revenue By Selling Collectibles

In addition to driving engagement, companies can generate revenue directly through the metaverse. Think of the recent boom in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – a kind of digital collectible.

Billions of dollars are rapidly pouring into these digital goods. NFTs have generated over $2.5 billion in revenue in the first half of 2021, according to Reuters. That activity level is even more striking when you realize that NFTs generated just $13 million in the first half of 2020. The current boom in NFTs is partially driven by low-interest rates and a gold rush mentality. However, there is likely to be ongoing demand for digital collectibles.

The marketing potential for collectibles and NFTS in the metaverse becomes more evident when you combine collectibles with other trends. For example, imagine consumers buying a virtual house, a virtual card made by their favorite athlete, or digital artwork.

Integrating Metaverse and Offline Marketing

Selling NFTs and other digital goods may not be your primary focus. In that case, the metaverse is still relevant to your marketing opportunity. Specifically, you can use the metaverse as another marketing channel to drive users to interact with your business offline or visit your website. For example, you might create a temporary presence in a metaverse world to promote your company at an event.

What To Do Right Now While The Metaverse Matures

While the metaverse presents an exciting opportunity, it will likely take a few more years to become commercially significant. While that technology matures, it is also essential to act on immediate marketing opportunities.

For more than a decade, digital marketers have relied on cookies to power their marketing. The age of tracking user behavior through cookies is coming to an end due to privacy changes implemented by Apple and Google. As those cookies decline in value, it is time to create your customer data platform instead of relying on third-party cookies.   

The Arena customer data platform is your opportunity to understand customer behavior without relying on traditional third-party cookies. With the Arena customer data platform, you can track a customer’s journey by clicking on an online ad, participating in a chat room, and ultimately placing an order. By gathering these marketing data from multiple online platforms, you can better understand your audience’s interests. Ultimately, that means you can design more relevant marketing, live shopping experiences and offers, and drive conversions.

Arena raises Series A to Create Business Engagement Platform

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What a ride it was last year! Since our launch of the Arena no-code chat messaging and data platform, more than 25,000 businesses in 150 countries have started using Arena to connect buyers with sellers, marketplaces, virtual event attendees, students with professors, social communities and streamers.

Arena.im Series A investors

Today, I’m excited to announce that we’ve raised a $13.6M Series A led by Murat Bicer and CRV, joined by Craft Ventures, to bring customer conversations and data into the hands of every consumer enterprise. Arena turns any website or app into a community to increase engagement, transaction, and actionable first-party data.

Also, we have the privilege to have incredible partners in the round: Artisanal Ventures, Vela partners, Incubate Fund and Primeset.

I couldn’t be more excited to work with our incredible investors, operators, founders and some of the world’s top minds in growth, product and marketing.

David Sacks (Founder. Yammer, Paypal, Craft)
Des Traynor (Founder. Intercom)
Olivier Pomel (Founder. Datadog)
Amit Agarwal (CPO. Datadog)
Andrew Boni (Founder. Iterable)
Jeff Samuels (COO. Iterable)
Andrew Peterson (Founder. Signal Sciences)
Elena Verna (Growth. Miro, Reforge, Netlify, SurveyMonkey)
Guillaume “G” Cabane (Growth. Segment, Drift, G2)
Andy Price (Founder. Artisanal Talent/Ventures)
Gary Benerofe (CEO. ex-mediaspa, Overdose)
Jeff Weiser (CMO. ex-Shopify, Shutterstock)
Michael Cassidy (Founder. Apollo Fusion, Xfire, GoogleX)
Babak Hamadani & Primeset (Execs. Twilio, Twitter, Box)
Romero Rodrigues (Founder. Buscape)

We’re fortunate to be adopted by incredible companies like Vans, Avon, Fox, Vimeo, Figma, Asana, Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Globo, Rogers Media, and Samsung.

Product engagement as the ultimate weapon of growth

Online brands and consumer companies keep looking for ways to move beyond social media and third-party cookies as a way of gaining more direct insights into their users and customers. Arena is leading the movement with its no-code communication platform. It uses engagement data gathered from conversations and combines that with AI to better understand who might want to buy what among our users’ customers.

We built a scalable and easy-to-install chat solution that focuses on building communities and increasing transactions such as live shopping, subscriptions, and donations. It all comes with our customer data platform that converts into first-party data and deeply understands customer behavior using AI.

We’re leading the product-led growth movement and helping companies to integrate conversation and shopping experiences into their products helping to transform the future of ecommerce, streaming, education, and online communities.

We’re in the perfect storm 

The funding comes at a key moment in the world of martech. Due to privacy and conflicts between Facebook and Apple, many companies have shifted their data sourcing activity from third-party to first-party data. With the end of the cookie era, brands and consumer enterprises will focus on building social products and gathering their own customer data rather than relying on the Googles, Facebooks, Amazons of this world to provide the information.

How we became successful: No-code and PLG approach

Arena is an entirely product-led growth company for our first 24,000 customers; spending $0 on marketing and only growing from the viral nature of network effects. By all measures, we are the fastest growing chat messaging for consumer enterprises – and can attribute most of this to the product and its virality component.

I really believe that product engagement is the ultimate weapon to grow. Now we’re helping every website to build conversations and understand their customers with just one line of code.

It takes only 2 minutes to deploy Arena to any website or mobile app, and it’s a fraction of the price offered by Twilio, Segment or Adobe. It comes with a chat messaging platform integrated with a robust CDP, all-in-one.

Because of the nature of the product and the problem that we’re solving, Arena is perfect for SMBs, mid-market and large enterprises. Our annual contracts vary from $2K to 400K ACV, both producing the same value proposition:

  • 64% increase on engagement
  • 5x more first party data
  • 18% boost on conversion and transactions

Our customers absolute love our product, with a 76 NPS.

Arena is building a market leading Customer Engagement Platform

We believed that creating a social and highly engaging product would empower communities and enable transactions such as e-commerce, subscriptions, and donations/gifts. 

Ultimately, it would translate into customer data as Arena deploys AI to understand behavior and build intent-based experiences at scale.

Get started with Arena

We couldn’t do this without our amazing team or our customers. Our mission at Arena is clear: we want to be the conversation platform of the web.

Arena is free to get started with and doesn’t require a credit card! Check out the product at arena.im.

Come work with us

Arena is hiring across the board for Engineering, Marketing, Sales, and Product! More information can be found on our careers page.

How to build an eCommerce strategy with Live Chat

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The best retailers use Live Chat tools to inform and engage online shoppers. This post will show you how to use it on eCommerce and give examples of successful use cases.

Have you ever thought about what defines conversion on eCommerce? Most online retailers believe that the checkout process defines sales. However, many variables lead the customer to the purchase, so the conversion process involves much more than the checkout page.

Build an eCommerce strategy with Live Chat

In a messy and pulverized eCommerce market, where online brands are often competing for customers’ attention, it can be a struggle to lead users from research to purchase.

An excellent strategy to maximize sales and engagement could be through Live Chat. Look at the most successful online services – from marketplaces like Amazon to digital retailers. You’ll see that all of them have a Live Chat window in their webpages and applications, where they offer the possibility to talk to customer support or sales agents.

Beyond just a convenient button, Live Chat serves as an essential touchpoint with the customer across the decision-making process and after the purchase. It’s as if brands are transposing the classic tagline “How can I help you?”, the cliché of physical retail, to digital spaces (but in an organic, non-intrusive way). 

In the age of immediacy, digital marketers and salespeople need tools that help them quickly respond to customers and solve problems more dynamically. In that sense, Live Chat can be a great option for companies who want to professionalize their eCommerce operations.

In this post, we will explore:

  • The concept of Live Chat
  • Examples and use cases of Live Chat in eCommerce
  • Specific benefits of Live Chat for eCommerce
  • Using Live Chat beyond Customer Support

What is Live Chat?

Live Chat is a tool that allows customers to comment and interact via messages directly on a company’s website, usually while browsing products and viewing content. The Live Chat is generally presented as a window in the page’s corner or as a pop-up button. It can sometimes be hidden in the customer support section.

Live Chat makes communication between brands and their customers much quicker and organic as it emulates messaging platforms. That is crucial for brands that want to build more personal connections with clients. 

Also, Live Chat allows users to speak directly with companies, without having to reach them by email or phone, for instance.

One of the main benefits of Live Chat is that it allows multiple interactions in a single web interface, which is vital in the age of digital multitasking. According to a study from E-Consultancy, 51% of customers prefer Live Chat to other channels precisely because it allows them to multitask. 

Sales and customer success teams typically use live Chat to provide customers with support and personalized answers in real-time. It can be used by companies in different sectors, from marketplaces, online retailers, entertainment, and media companies. What varies is the person behind the live Chat.

If you run a media company, you might have editors commentating live events and sales reps behind the Chat offering subscription services. Now, if you run a fashion eCommerce, for example, you might have a customer support professional offering to help with product and shipping information, and so on.

Why using Live Chat in eCommerce

When it comes to the experience in eCommerce websites or marketplaces, customers want more than great products and a neat catalog curation. Interactivity has become a key element of shopping, and customers want the chance to have their problems and doubts solved all at once if they can. 

That’s where Live Chat comes to play. It can boost your eCommerce strategy, improve customer experience (CX), and give your teams more instruments to convert customers and gather business insights.

Let’s explore a few benefits of Live Chat for eCommerce and how it can enrich Customer Experience.

Fast customer support

Online retailers know that the longer they take to answer a customer, the less likely they are to convert and stay loyal to the brand. The truth is nobody likes waiting for replies through email, SMS, and other support channels.  

Because Live Chat is instantaneous, it’s a lot more attractive as a customer support tool. A recent research suggests that it takes only 42 seconds for a live chat support staff to solve a customer query, which makes the customer experience (CX) much better. 

Human touch

In the age of automation and chatbots, a human approach to customer experience might actually give you extra points in the relationship with customers. Even though automated emails and chatbots can be a blessing for optimizing customer support, studies show that users want to interact with humans whenever possible.

The 2019 CGS Customer Service Chatbots & Channels Survey found out that 86% of American customers prefer to talk to humans over chatbots. With Live Chat, you can give customers personalized, warm assistance in an easy, user-friendly way. Besides, much like at physical stores, consumers are more likely to buy when they are treated well.

Non-intrusive

Unlike other communication channels, Live Chat shows customers that the brand is available to help without disturbing customers’ attention. This non-intrusive approach is crucial for a customer-centric strategy and shows respect for customers’ time, which might help them reach a purchase decision.

Integrated shopping experience

If your company sells products online, you know how complex communication with customers might be. Let’s say a customer just checked out of your website and realized he registered an old shipping address. 

Traditionally, they would have to leave the website and reach out to the right customer support email address or phone to solve the problem, something that could take a couple of days to resolve.

Live Chat, however, can remove this type of friction by integrating the communication cycle in real-time, which is smarter and more effective than executing communication through different channels. 

Besides, E-consultancy shows that 29% of customers want to be in control of the conversation with brands, and Live Chat gives them that. 

Improve Conversion rates

While offering customers rapid solutions to their queries, Live Chat can speed up the decision-making process and improve conversion rates. A study by Emarketer found that more than 60% of consumers would return to a website that offers Live Chat, and more than 79% of consumers feel that having quick answers impacts their buying decisions.

Make personalized offers

While Live Chat is great for solving transactional problems in eCommerce (related to payment and orders, for instance), it can also be a great channel for offering product recommendations and special discounts. A study by ATG Global Consumer Trend found, for instance, that more than 90% of customers think Live Chat was helpful for them while shopping online.

By offering customers personalized recommendations or coupons, brands can use Live Chat to get them out of “research-mode” and convert them into actual buyers. Ecommerce players can also use it to upsell frequent customers. 

Optimize customer support costs

Live Chat represents a cheaper and effective way to communicate with customers from an operations standpoint if compared to call centers. With Live Chat, you don’t have to put your customers on hold, and a few representatives can talk to multiple customers at a time. 

Increase Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Every marketer’s goal is not just to convert customers, but to make them satisfied and loyal to your brand, so they always come back. Ultimately, customer satisfaction is related to customer convenience. 

An eDigital Research survey found that 73% of customers who used live chat support for online shopping were highly satisfied and willing to come back for future shopping. Another study by J. D. Power discovered that overall customer satisfaction was higher when customers used the Live Chat window than in other channels. 

Examples of Live Chat in eCommerce and digital platforms

If you look at the digital landscape, you will see that many highly regarded brands have used Live Chat to enhance their websites. 

Still having trouble visualizing how Live Chat can be incorporated into eCommerce? Let’s see how successful digital platforms and retailers are using it. 

Amazon

One of the global references when it comes to marketplace and eCommerce experience is Amazon. They offer Live Chat options that allow users to chat with customer support specialists about account details, orders, and shipping processes. 

The customer can choose the topic he wants to chat about (memberships and subscriptions, ordering and shopping preferences, Login & Security, etc.) before being redirected to a specialized support agent. 

PlayStation

Can you imagine how many customer queries PlayStation, from Sony, receives in its customer support channels everyday? Probably loads of them. In order to make communication with game players easier, the company has Live Chat rooms linked to its webpage, whereby customers can chat with support agents about things like account access, game purchases, and charge refunds. 

Apple

Among the companies that offer great user experience is also Apple, which has a real-time customer support team on Live Chat. Through the chat, customers can arrange a chat with an Apple expert who specializes in their exact question. Everything happens within Apple’s website, so the customer doesn’t have to worry about sending and waiting for emails and phone calls. 

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Shoply.tv

Shoply.tv is a project which was developed collaboratively with Arena, unifying a great live video solution with a powerful live chat tool. Even though some features are currently being developed, the results are already used by more than 2,600 clients around the world, and we’re still counting. Shoply used Arena Live Chat to develop a live video shopping solution that enhances customer experience by enabling the best sales and engagement tools.

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How to derive even more value from Live Chat in eCommerce

So you have learned that Live Chat has many benefits for your eCommerce operation. However, in order to effectively sustain its value, you have to manage it wisely. Here are a few tips to take advantage of Live Chat beyond customer support.

1) Share customer feedback with marketing teams

Insights from Live Chat can be useful for other departments, not just customer support and sales. Online stores can share customer feedback with marketing teams as well, just so they can make changes in their strategies according to what’s best for your audience. 

2) Integrate Live Chat leads to your CRM and Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Live Chat tools can also provide information to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and be integrated into Customer Data Platforms (CDPs).

You could choose to add CRM contact information to your Live Chat tool, integrating valuable customer information that can be used by support and sales professionals during sessions with customers. 

By having all customer information available, you can reduce friction and improve conversions. After all, your team should focus on answering your users’ needs, without spending too much time searching for customer information.

A CDP, on the other hand, can use Live Chat information to determine customer profiles, products bought by single customers, and the value generated by chat conversations. It can also integrate Chat information to data generated by other channels and customer platforms.  

That way, your teams can follow up with the created leads, having access to easy conversion reports and reducing the friction between different data platforms.

3) Understand where users come from

One of the challenges for eCommerce players is to understand how their marketing efforts connect to online conversions in a granular and accurate way.  Talking about Live Chat, how can they track what led to a conversion in the Chat?

Some Live Chat tools allow you to connect the dots between chat sessions and the marketing sources that led the customer to the chat – whether it was a campaign, a keyword, or landing page.  You could integrate your Live Chat to Google Analytics for instance, and see a bigger picture of chat conversions and Adword campaigns that led customers to chat sessions. 

Such data is important to determine if your marketing channels are actually bringing people to your page – and how they are connected to your Live Chat. That allows companies to optimize campaigns more accurately according to the insights.

Want to try Live Chat on your eCommerce?

If your company still hasn’t adopted Live Chat support, maybe it’s about time to change that!

Not sure where to start? Arena has one of the most robust Live Chat tools in the market, and the best part is that you can try it for free! Access our free trial and get the best out of the Arena Live Chat.

14 Ways Live Chat a Customer Service Game-Changer

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Live Chat is transforming customer care across many segments. Discover how this tool is leading a “micro revolution” to customer support and sales teams.

What are the main pillars that sustain the relationship between companies and customers? Let’s think for a second about brands that are known for excellent customer experience.

Digital apps, fintech, eCommerce, you name it. No matter the segment, it’s clear that successful brands offer more than great products, advertising, and content. They have a superior approach towards customer service and always try to make sure communication is dynamic and assertive. 

Live Chat is the ultimate tool to offer that. After all, in the age of instant communication, people are not willing to wait much time to have their questions answered. Besides, they increasingly want to count on omnichannel support.

Well, Live Chat is changing Customer Service in many ways. In this post, we’ll explore how this tool is boosting productivity and efficiency in Customer Service and customer satisfaction. 

The context behind Live Chat

For those who are not familiar with Live Chat, here goes a brief description of it.  Live Chat is a tool that allows customers to ask for support via instant messages directly on a company’s website or app while browsing products and viewing content.

Besides, some brands have integrated their Live Chat tools to other messaging platforms to provide a seamless support experience across different brand channels. 

By why exactly is Live Chat disrupting the customer care business? According to Forrester’s study,; 33% of consumers now expect to see Live Chat services offered on every website.

The same report says the number of U.S. online shoppers who use live Chat has increased from 38% to 58% in the last five years. 

Live Chat is mostly used in B2C businesses by support agents and Customer Care teams, but it can also be used by Customer Success and Sales teams in B2B companies.

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Why Live Chat can take Customer Experience to the next level

Live Chat makes communication between brands and their customers much quicker and organic as it emulates conversation platforms. 

Why have the customers reaching for support through email or phone if you can help them in real-time through Live Chat? Here are a few reasons Live Chat is changing customer service in companies. 

1) Enhancing brand experience

It’s no secret customers are more demanding when it comes to customer experience. They have become used to personalized messages and offers in every aspect of their lives, and thus they have high expectations regarding customer service. 

According to Salesforce, 80% of customers believe brand experience is just as important as a brand’s products or services. Another study by Capgemini shows that the same percentage of customers are willing to spend more money to have better customer service. 

Following this logic, customer service can be the central element to differentiate your brand from the competition.

2) Providing fast responses

A few years ago, it might have been OK to make customers wait a couple of days to get responses to their requests via phone or email. That is no longer the truth. 

A study from Hubspot says 90% of customers rate “immediate response” as very important when they have a query. 

Having Live Chat on your website or app gives you the ability to answer queries in real-time. In addition, Live Chat has proven to provide higher customer satisfaction rates than channels such as phone, email, and social media. 

3) Decreasing resolution time 

From a business perspective, Live Chat also has helped companies streamline their customer support processes and optimize customer care strategies. 

With Live Chat, you can route customers to specific departments and agents according to the keywords they use in the chat, for instance, avoiding repeated communication across different support channels. Because it offers instant communication, Live Chat can potentially decrease the average answer and requests resolution time. 

4) Boosting brands Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Agile and effective customer service is the key to drive customer satisfaction. If you want to improve your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), Live Chat is the way to go. Offering real-time, personalized support shows that your company is truly customer-centric;. That is why many companies notice better retention rates after using this type of software.

5) Non-intrusive communication

The best thing about Live Chat is that it happens in an inviting and non-intrusive way. Unlike emails that flood up your mailbox or phone calls from support agents that happen at the worst timing, Live Chat offers an easy way for customers to get done with your requests – in the best timing for them.

It is estimated that 46% of consumers prefer live chat over email and social media, for example. 

Live Chat empowers customers in many ways, allowing multiple interactions on a single web interface. That is vital in today’s digital landscape. According to a study by E-Consultancy, 51% of customers prefer live chat to other channels precisely because it allows them to continue performing other tasks.

6) Using Live Chat Data to improve overall business 

Apart from the; benefits Live Chat brings to daily tasks of customer service, it can serve as a strategic tool to enhance your brand’s marketing, sales, and product strategies.

Because Live Chat provides detailed insights about your website visitors’ journey, it can offer valuable data to help companies grow their bottom lines. 

You can use Live Chat customer insights for:

  • Mapping the customer journey and identifying frequent complaints
  • Personalizing your conversations according to different buyer personas
  • Routing chats to the right department or team
  • Feeding CRM and other data management tools, like Customer Data Platform
  • Improving support agents training according to customers needs and response
  • Improving customer service important KPIs, like first response time and average queue time

7) Understanding where customers come from

One of the challenges for online players is to understand how their Customer Care efforts connect to online conversions. 

Some Live Chat tools allow you to connect the dots between chat sessions and the marketing sources that led the customer to the chat, whether it was a campaign, a disclaimer on the website, or a web search.  Some tools allow you to integrate Live Chat to Google Analytics, for instance, and see a bigger picture of what led customers to chat sessions. 

Such data is important to determine if your marketing channels are actually bringing people to your page and how they are connected to your Live Chat. 

8)  Increasing conversion rates

The study by Forrester shows that consumers who use Live Chat are 2.8x more likely to convert to a sale than those who don’t.  By allowing users to get support without moving to other channels, Live Chat makes buying decisions much quicker and can boost conversion rates.

Placing Live Chat across different touchpoints on a website can also be a good idea. Some companies are using Live Chat in their checkout pages, which helps to solve doubts about payments and shipping, for instance, and thus reduces cart abandonment rates.  

9) Avoiding repetitive tasks for customers and support agents

With a Live Chat customer service tool integrated into your CRM or Data Management Platform (DMP), your team can access customer data or notes from previous interactions to assist customers. That way, you save time that could otherwise be wasted in repetitive conversations. 

Actually, 72% of customers expect customer support agents to know their details like buying history and detailed information — without asking for them.

10) Increasing customers Lifetime Value (LTV) 

Having a sustainable repeat customer base is the dream of every brand, right? Research shows that 63% of consumers who used live chat on a website are likely to return to that site. That is why Live Chat is boosting Customer Life Time Value (LTV) among companies that use it, adding value not just to customer service, but to the whole business. 

11) Cross-selling and upselling products 

Around 33% of the money spent online comes from repeat customers and they generally spend 3 times as much as one time shoppers. Once you build a loyal community of shoppers around your brand, you have the chance to offer proactive communication through Live Chat whenever they access your website. 

Your team can start the conversation, suggesting personalized offers and products through the chat according to the customers buying history and interests, leveraging upselling and cross-selling rates. 

12) Increasing customer engagement

With Live Chat, you are likely to see a significant rise in customer engagement. Because Live Chat emulates messaging apps, it makes interactions with brands more fluid and organic. 

Besides, you can add layers of engagement to Live Chat by adopting a few features in it, such as:

  • Co-browsing: Co-browsing, in the context of Live Chat, is when a customer and a support agent browse a page together during a chat session. It delivers a guided experience and it’s a great way to guide customers through form fill-ups and complex applications, for instance. 
  • Vídeo and Voice Chat: Customers sometimes have requests that are complex or take too long to explain by text. With that in mind, some companies are adding Vídeo and Voice Chat to their Live Chat experience. Not only can it help solve queries quicker, but it also makes interactions more dynamic and personal. 

13) Increasing productivity in Customer Care

At last, another triumph of Live Chat is to leverage Customer Care productivity. It reduces the queue time and enables faster resolution of issues, but beyond that, it allows agents to handle multiple chats at the same time. 

As a result, Live Chat can boost important productivity KPIs such as first response time (FRT), average queue time, number of chats answered, and so on. 

14) Human touch

In the era of hyper-automation and chatbots;, a human approach to customer experience might give you extra points in the relationship with customers. Even though automated emails and chatbots; can benefit customer support, users have shown that they want to interact with humans whenever possible.

The 2019 CGS Customer Service Chatbots & Channels Survey found out that 86% of American customers prefer to talk to humans over chatbots. With Live Chat, you can give customers personalized, warm assistance in an easy, user-friendly way. Besides, much like at physical stores, consumers are more likely to buy when they are treated well.

Conclusion

As we have seen, Live Chat has the potential to change Customer Care across many different industries, and your company shouldn’t be left behind. 

Live Chat can optimize many aspects of a digital business, and executives are increasingly aware of its importance. A 2018 survey from Bold 360 found out that 71% of respondents believe Live Chat will surpass traditional customer service communication channels by 2021.

If your organization has not yet incorporated Live Chat into customer service, it’s time to change that.

Arena; has one of the most complete Live Chat solutions on the market, and the best thing is that you can try it for free. 
Click here to access the free trial of our Live Chat and start answering your customers quickly right now!