Sitecore CDP can connect your data for relevant and holistic customer experiences that turbocharge conversions and revenue.
QEdge has leveraged Sitecore CDP to provide companies with a powerful tool to aggregate customer data from disparate sources, create unified customer profiles, and activate that data across channels.
Customer Data Examples - What is Customer Data?
Before diving into how Sitecore CDP collects customer data, let's clearly define what customer data is. Customer data refers to any information or attributes related to a customer that provides insights into their preferences, behaviors and engagement with a brand.
This may include:
- Contact details like name, email, phone number
- Demographic data like age, gender, location
- Transactional data like purchase history and spending
- Behavioral data like website visits, clicks, downloads
- Communication history across channels
- Survey responses and satisfaction feedback
- Product usage data
For example, key customer data for an ecommerce company would include:
- Email, name, phone number, address (contact details)
- Date of birth, income bracket, location (demographics)
- Order history, products purchased, lifetime spend (transactional)
- Page visits, on-site search keywords, cart additions (behavioral)
- Email opens, push notification clicks (communication)
- Ratings and reviews of products (survey feedback)
- Frequency of mobile app usage (product usage)
This rich customer data enables personalization and omnichannel customer engagement when unified into a CDP.
Customer Data Platforms Explained
A customer data platform (CDP) is packaged software designed to create a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems. Core capabilities include:
- Collecting customer data from all sources
- Connecting and matching identities across sources
- Building integrated customer profiles
- Making data available for downstream use cases like segmentation and activation
CDPs create a "single source of truth" that breaks down data silos and makes customer data accessible to digital teams. This powers personalized omnichannel experiences. Sitecore CDP provides enterprise-grade CDP capabilities.
Customer Data Platform vs Mdm
Master data management (MDM) tools also offer some identity mapping and data aggregation capabilities that may seem similar to CDPs. However, there are some important differences:
- Focus: CDPs focus on unifying behavioral and operational customer data primarily for marketing/CX use cases. MDMs consolidate broader master data domains like products, suppliers, inventory, etc.
- Accessibility: CDP profile data is open and accessible via APIs for downstream activation. MDM data is usually accessible via lookups.
- Timeliness: CDPs ingest and update data in real-time. MDMs work in batch mode on longer cycles.
- Isolation vs Integration: CDPs are open systems designed to pipe data into other systems. MDMs consolidate data but tend to be more isolated.
Key Capabilities of Sitecore CDP
Now Let's explore some of the key capabilities and features that enable Sitecore CDP to collect and activate customer data:
Data Ingestion
- 180+ data source connectors - Sitecore CDP offers pre-built connectors for all major sources including analytics, CRM, POS, mobile apps, email, social, offline and more. Popular connectors include Salesforce, Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics 360, etc.
- Powerful APIs - For data sources without pre-built connectors, Sitecore provides developer-friendly APIs to ingest batch or streaming data in real time.
- Device graph - Sitecore uses identity graphs to connect data from anonymous devices to known users. This allows a complete view of both authenticated and unauthenticated interactions.
- Event collection SDKs - Sitecore provides SDKs to capture granular event data directly from mobile and web apps. This could include page views, clicks, transactions, location, and more.
Profile Building
- Persistent customer profiles - Sitecore CDP stitches customer data into persistent, continuously updated customer entity profiles in real time. All relevant data is unified under single profile.
- Identity management - Customers are identified using multiple identifiers like email, user ID, device ID. Sitecore matches these to unify profiles.
- Attributes and taxonomies - Users can create a model of attributes to store on customer profiles, like demographics, preferences, CRM data, etc. Taxonomies classify customers.
- Contact history - Every customer interaction across channels is stored on the profile with relevant metadata and timestamps. This powers journey mapping.
- Lookalike modeling - Sitecore uses AI/ML to automatically find new audiences that closely resemble your best existing segments.
Segmentation and Activation
- Query builder - Sitecore provides an intuitive query builder UI to create segments using Boolean logic across profile attributes, events, CRM data and more.
- Scheduled segments - Users can set segments to refresh on schedules to account for changing customer data. You get a dynamic, automated approach.
- Real-time APIs - Sitecore makes audience segments instantly available via real-time APIs for activation across channels.
- Predictive segments - Sitecore CDP can leverage machine learning to generate predictive segments like customers at high risk of churn.
- third-party integrations - Sitecore offers 200+ pre-built connectors to popular marketing/ad channels to activate segments. Channels include Facebook, Google, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, email platforms, and more.
With these capabilities, Sitecore provides the tools needed to ingest, unify, understand, segment, and activate customer data for engaging omni-channel experiences.
Choosing the Right CDP
Sitecore provides a full-featured, enterprise-grade customer data platform that can serve as the customer data foundation for omnichannel personalization and marketing. But there are other CDP solutions on the market that may be a better fit depending on your specific needs and use cases. Here are some key considerations when evaluating CDP platforms:
Data integration - Look for pre-built connectors to your major data sources, as well as APIs and SDKs for custom integration. Seek capabilities like device graph mapping for anonymous/known profile unification.
Segmentation and activation - Evaluate the flexibility of the platform's segmentation tools, integration with marketing/ad channels, and ability to activate audiences in real time across channels.
Privacy - Seek capabilities that allow you to leverage first-party behavioral data while maintaining compliance with privacy regulations.
Scalability - For enterprise needs, seek a solution that scales to billions of data points, events, and profiles.
Support and services - Look for responsive customer support and access to resources like technical account management and professional services.
Total cost of ownership - Do the math on pricing models and calculate the total cost of ownership based on your use cases and data volumes.
By comparing vendors across these criteria, you can determine the right customer data platform for your needs and budget. For companies with large, complex martech ecosystems, Sitecore provides a full-featured enterprise CDP worth strong consideration.
Wrapping Up
Customer data is an extremely valuable asset. But siloed across channels and applications, it loses much of its power. A customer data platform like Sitecore CDP solves this by creating unified customer profiles fueled by behavioral data from every interaction. This gives companies the foundation needed to deliver personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.
With capabilities like seamless data ingestion, identity mapping, segmentation, and omnichannel activation, Sitecore CDP helps brands activate customer data to its full potential. Leading global companies like Emirates, Mazda, and Vodafone leverage Sitecore to power data-driven customer engagement. Whether you're looking to reduce churn, boost conversion rates, or improve customer lifetime value, a CDP like Sitecore should be a central part of your customer experience tech stack.
