Most marketers agree that gaining a single view of the customer is important in order to improve the return on marketing spend, provide the seamless experiences and meet modern customers’ expectation. However, only 6% of marketers that have attained that panoramic customer view.
In today’s connected world, cross-channel identity is the great way to get a successful marketing. Still, while consumers interact with brands across mobile, websites, physical stores and more, marketers need to connect the dots and understand customer identities as well.
Based on a global survey of marketers, most brands do not have a single view of their customers, despite 90% of marketers reporting it as important or essential to achieve key marketing goals. For example, 62% of respondents stated that fragmented data leads to incomplete marketing measurement and obstructs the ability to personalise customer experiences. The other 35% also state that they can’t understand the customer’s journey with incomplete data, and one quarter say it causes inefficient and wasteful media buying.
Here are other surprising facts:
- The promise of a real-time, single customer view is great, yet it’s difficult to achieve. Latest study found that 57% of marketers are unable to merge profile fragments as data becomes available, and 55% lack the ability to collect and connect data across channels. Current tools used by marketers aren’t helping solve these problems, as 70% say their solutions have gaps in data capabilities or effectiveness. Only 8% of respondents say their tools are doing a good job in helping them develop a unified customer view.
- Marketers struggle to gather and integrate data from many of the most common consumer touch points. Only 33% of marketers can collect and integrate mobile app data, and only half can do so from CRM systems. Less than half (42%) can collect and connect ad impression data, leaving only 23% are able to gather and merge Point of Sale (POS) data.
- Creating a panoramic customer view is integral to business success. Understanding customer behavior across channels, engaging customers across channels, and improving marketing ROI are the top three reported business benefits of having a single customer view.
Being able to understand the complete customer journey in a fragmented, multi-channel world is one of the biggest marketing challenge today. Start expanding your knowledge about your customers immediately and you will see the result in no time.