Businesses need seamless access to both customer and non-customer data to meet the evolving demands of consumers in today’s world of real-time, hyper-personalised experiences. At Zeotap, we’ve always been committed to empowering our clients with the tools to meet these expectations, and now, we’ve expanded our Non-Customer Entity (NCE) capabilities into Journey, enabling marketers to integrate non-customer data—such as loyalty programs and product catalogue—into real-time customer interactions. This allows businesses to move beyond static data, leveraging dynamic, enriched data for more personalised and timely customer engagements, all while simplifying data management.
Recap: What Is Non-Customer Entity (NCE) Data?
Before diving into how NCE integrates into Journey, let’s quickly revisit NCE’s role in Zeotap CDP. Traditionally, customer profiles are built based on direct interactions and first-party data such as demographics, preferences, and behavioural data. However, many businesses need to enrich these profiles with additional data from non-customer entities—such as loyalty programs, product inventories from different systems.
This is where NCE comes in. It allows businesses to integrate non-customer data into Zeotap CDP, providing a 360-degree view of their customers. By leveraging data from various non-customer sources, marketers can deliver more accurate and personalised messaging, without the need to manually align these separate data points.
Introducing NCE in Journeys
With the introduction of NCE in Journey, businesses can now seamlessly integrate data from non-customer entities into their real-time customer interactions. This new capability expands real-time journeys to include non-customer entity data, enhancing decision-making capabilities for your more complex use cases in real time.
Imagine being able to pull information from loyalty programs, product availability, and other data points that aren’t directly tied to the customer profile but are crucial for personalising interactions. Journeys now makes that possible—enabling you to orchestrate interactions not just based on the customer’s data but also on real-time updates from non-customer entities.
Use Case: Veronica’s Journey from Booking to Offer
In our previous blog, we introduced Mark, a marketer who faced the challenge of enriching customer profiles with data that resided across multiple databases. Mark’s customer data, such as order details, booking IDs, and loyalty memberships, were stored in separate systems, making it difficult to create a unified, personalised experience. For example, when a customer made a booking, the information came in from the web, but their order data was stored separately, creating gaps in their profile. We solved this problem for Mark by enabling the ability to bring in NCE data into the Zeotap CDP thus enriching the customer profiles with up to date Customer and Non-Customer Entity data for activation.
Now, meet Veronica, a frequent traveller who is making a booking for a hotel in Budapest, even though she resides in Berlin. Mark wants to use this opportunity to present Veronica with travel offers for flights and trains from Berlin to Budapest. He would like to do this based on her loyalty membership.
Here’s how Mark uses Journey—powered by NCE—to offer a seamless, personalised experience in real time to customers like Veronica:
- Real-Time Personalisation: Using NCE in Journey, Zeotap CDP quickly pulls data from the loyalty program table to determine Veronica’s membership status. It also refers to the separate NCE table where program-specific details (e.g., reward eligibility and benefits) are maintained.
- Seamless Integration: The real-time capabilities of Journey with NCE, integrates these two data sets on the fly, enabling Mark to show Veronica the best travel offers that are personalised to her loyalty status and preferences.
- Accuracy and Agility: If there are any changes to the loyalty program benefits (such as updates in tiers or rewards), Journey ensures that it pulls the latest data from the NCE tables. With this Mark can rest assured that Veronica always receives the most accurate and timely offers.
The Benefits of NCE in Journeys
The integration of NCE within Journey offers significant advantages for marketers like Mark, who need to make real-time decisions based on both customer and non-customer data:
- Reduced Data Management Complexity: By storing program details in separate NCE tables, marketers can maintain a clean and organised data structure. This setup eliminates the need to replicate program information across individual profiles, reducing data redundancy and complexity.
- Real-Time Updates: As Journey refers to the latest data available in NCE tables, marketers can rest assured that only the most recent information is being used in real-time interactions. This ensures that personalisation efforts are always aligned with the latest available data, whether it’s changes to loyalty tiers or updated product availability.
- Enhanced Personalisation: Combining NCE data with customer journey orchestration allows businesses to deliver hyper-relevant offers based on up-to-date and comprehensive data. This is particularly important for use cases where customer experiences depend on non-customer data, such as loyalty rewards, inventory levels, or partner systems.
- Improved Operational Efficiency: Marketers no longer need to rely on IT teams to create data integrations manually. Journey automates the process of pulling and merging customer and non-customer data in real-time, allowing marketing teams to focus on strategy and creativity rather than operational tasks.
Zeotap CDP, with its NCE and Journeys capabilities, is designed to enable businesses to orchestrate interactions that are timely, relevant, and personalised—without the typical data hurdles associated with managing multiple data sources. This real-time orchestration, combined with a robust compliance framework, empowers businesses to drive results while ensuring data privacy and integrity. Marketers like Mark can now confidently offer tailored solutions that reflect the latest data from non-customer entities, ensuring every customer interaction is both relevant and valuable.
As we continue to innovate and expand Zeotap CDP’s capabilities, NCE will play a central role in helping businesses unlock the full potential of their data, offering new ways to drive engagement, loyalty, and growth. Schedule a demo now to learn about more ways to revolutionise the customer experience with Zeotap CDP.
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) rapidly transforms industries, businesses are increasingly leveraging its power to enhance decision-making, automate processes, and improve customer experiences. However, with this power comes the responsibility to ensure AI systems are developed and deployed in compliance with evolving regulations, particularly within the European Union (EU). At Zeotap, we are deeply committed to our European roots, building our solutions for Europe with a strong emphasis on data privacy. We follow European data privacy guidelines rigorously, allowing our customers to use Zeotap CDP’s features confidently, without concerns about compliance. This ethos guides us as we integrate AI functionalities into our CDP, ensuring that every AI capability adheres to the highest standards of privacy and regulatory compliance
Understanding AI Compliance: The EU AI Act
The EU AI Act, which came into force on August 1, 2024, sets harmonized rules for AI systems within the EU, establishing a global benchmark for AI regulation. The Act classifies AI systems into four risk levels—minimal, limited, high, and unacceptable—each with specific obligations and compliance requirements. High-risk AI systems, such as those used in critical areas like healthcare, education, or employment, are subject to stringent regulations to ensure they are safe, transparent, and respect fundamental rights.
Businesses that fail to comply with these regulations face significant penalties, with fines of up to €35 million or 7% of their worldwide annual turnover for using prohibited AI practices. When personal data is involved, both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the AI Act apply, necessitating robust data governance and privacy measures. At Zeotap, our commitment to building for Europe means we are continuously aligning our AI initiatives with these regulations, ensuring that the data used within Zeotap CDP for AI initiatives is fully compliant with European guidelines.
Zeotap CDP’s Commitment to Responsible AI: Building Responsibly
At Zeotap, our approach to AI is rooted in responsibility and compliance, driven by our ethos of building from Europe for Europe. We develop our AI solutions with a privacy-by-design mindset, strictly adhering to European data privacy regulations. Our AI features operate within an enterprise-grade security framework that not only meets but exceeds the compliance requirements outlined in the EU AI Act. This commitment to building responsibly is reflected in every aspect of our AI development process.
- Risk Assessment and Management: We proactively map and classify our AI systems by risk level, ensuring that high-risk systems undergo rigorous checks and comply with the necessary regulatory standards. Our compliance processes include documenting use cases, evaluating costs, and assessing the legal implications of the AI models we use, all while keeping our European ethos at the forefront.
- Transparency and User Awareness: At Zeotap, we believe in transparency—not just with regulators but also with our users. Our commitment to European data privacy standards ensures that our users are well-informed and protected.
- Continuous Monitoring and Improvement: AI compliance is an ongoing process. We continuously monitor our AI systems to ensure they remain compliant as regulations evolve. This involves regular updates to our internal resources and governance policies, as well as ongoing training for our teams to stay ahead of compliance obligations. Our dedication to European compliance standards means that we are always aligned with the latest AI compliance guidelines set by Europe.
- Collaboration with Legal and Regulatory Teams: Our dedicated legal team works closely with our product and engineering teams to provide guidance on compliance matters, ensuring that all AI developments are reported, documented, and aligned with both the AI Act and GDPR. This collaboration ensures that our AI capabilities are responsibly built and adhere strictly to European standards.
Partnering with Google: Enhancing AI with Compliance and Innovation
Our partnership with Google further strengthens our commitment to responsible AI. By leveraging Google Cloud’s generative AI models, we are enhancing the capabilities of Zeotap CDP while maintaining a strong focus on compliance and data privacy. This collaboration enables us to provide innovative, user-friendly solutions that prioritize simplicity and results, helping our customers navigate the complexities of modern data management with confidence.
Together with Google, we are exploring the full potential of AI to transform customer data management while adhering to the highest standards of regulatory compliance. Our vision extends beyond merely refining audience targeting; we aim to pioneer new solutions that streamline data integration, automate data mapping, and empower marketers with cutting-edge AI technology that is both powerful and compliant. Staying true to our European ethos, we diligently ensure that all data used within Zeotap CDP aligns with the AI guidelines set by Europe, allowing our customers to leverage AI confidently.
As AI continues to evolve, so too must our approach to managing its impact. At Zeotap, we are dedicated to building AI responsibly, with a steadfast commitment to compliance, privacy, and security. By aligning our AI initiatives with the latest regulatory standards and partnering with industry leaders like Google, we are not only enhancing our platform’s capabilities but also setting a benchmark for responsible AI in the industry. Our European ethos guides us as we ensure that data privacy and compliance are at the heart of all our AI developments. Our goal is to empower businesses to leverage AI confidently, knowing that their data strategies are backed by the highest standards of compliance and ethical governance. To know more, reach out to us here or schedule a demo with us.