It’s been a bumper month for updates! Among many new releases, we’ve introduced a best-in-market Raw Personal Data Encryption feature, which delivers the highest security for data in transit, and new integrations for Salesforce Marketing Cloud and LinkedIn. Enjoy the read and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for future updates!
Feature spotlight
Introducing Raw Personal Data Encryption for the highest security for data in Zeotap
At Zeotap, we view data security and marketing goal attainment as two sides of the same coin. In Q4 of 2021, we embarked on a colossal project which would touch every part of our CDP architecture: the goal was to create the most secure CDP available for both marketing and data teams.
In 2022, our engineering and product teams have now emerged with a new feature to provide best-of-breed security capabilities for client’s data – double encryption of customer data – at rest in cloud and at field level for Raw PII.
Firstly, what is PII?
According to Investopedia, “Personally identifiable information (PII) is information that, when used alone or with other relevant data, can identify an individual.”
Some examples of PII data:
- Email address
- Telephone number
- First and last name
- Credit card
- Account data
- Customer number
- Government ID number
All these types of personal data can be used for activation in marketing and advertising, but only when the platform can deliver on security in the way that Zeotap CDP does.
Why Raw Personal Data Encryption?
Zeotap CDP accepts both hashed as well as Raw PII. However, we understand the sensitivity of storing and using PII data across the various channels of activation. Zeotap’s new offering for Raw Personal Data Encryption therefore allows you to send and store your raw PII data within Zeotap CDP in an encrypted form for the highest security, both at rest and in transit, and is made for easier activation in the platforms of your choice.
Some martech and adtech platforms only accept certain forms of hashed data such as MD5 or SHA2 for campaign activation. This places a burden on your data teams to produce and store different versions of customer data for the same PII information fields. On the other hand, nearly all platforms in activation channels accept Raw PII data as it is more universally accepted which offers greater scale of your customer acquisition, growth and retention goals.
How does Zeotap CDP ingest Raw PII data?
Raw PII can come from any source, including flat files, Javascript, pixels and mobile SDKs. The common steps to be followed for any source type is to define the PII fields in your organisation’s catalogue. Flagging the raw PII fields in your organisation’s catalogue ensures the correct configuration and vaulted encryption, and allows for activation in martech and adtech platforms by de-encrypting only when needed. See image below:
How is the data encrypted?
Zeotap’s Raw Personal Data Encryption feature uses the RSA Encryption Algorithm with public-private keys to mask and protect data. It works as follows:
- Any data that is marked as Raw PII in your organisation’s catalogue is encrypted at ingestion
- Once ingested it is stored in either our ID graph or Big Query table
- The PII information is masked across the user interface for all roles once it is classified by you in your organisation’s catalogue
- The encrypted data is only decrypted to the downstream systems for activation purposes
How is the data available for activation?
Zeotap CDP is able to decrypt and push encrypted Raw PII data (as defined in the set up process) to any platform that accepts or requires only Raw PII IDs, like email addresses or phone numbers.
How does user management work?
Your data in the BigQuery or GCS buckets can only be accessed by users who have the role of a Client Admin and Editor. However, your Zeotap representative is always on hand to raise a request to the Admin of the account for expanded access. On approval of this request, the Admin is allowed timed access to your BigQuery or GCS bucket. You can track the approved requests on the screen shown below:
NEW FEATURES
We believe in customer-centricity and are always looking to make big and small changes to improve user experience. Below are our latest features based on customer feedback.
ID Metadata for additional granularity
Marketing teams can now create audience segments with even more granularity with the introduction of a new attribute type: ID Metadata. This allows you to store any meta-information against the Unique Customer ID (UCID), such as the primary email address or active phone number. Below are the steps to configuring the ID Metadata:
- The ID Metadata value must be included in the incoming data record
- ID Metadata is defined as a new Attribute Type
- ID Metadata is grouped to the corresponding ID group name
Next refresh date for more visibility
As a marketer, it’s essential to have a clear view of the next refresh cycle, and to know about the segments that have auto-refresh enabled. Our user interface has therefore been enhanced to display the following information (when hovering over the calendar icon in the listing screen of Connect):
- When is the next refresh going to happen?
- What is the refresh frequency?
- When is the refresh end date?
See image below:
New integrations
With over 150+ integrations, we are continuously adding new ones to extend our customer’s reach. Two big-ticket integrations for Zeotap CDP have gone live this month…
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a leading digital marketing solution that enables you to create and manage marketing relationships and campaigns with customers.
This integration allows marketers to orchestrate email campaigns using audience segments created in Zeotap CDP and activated in Salesforce Marketing Cloud – Email Studio. Rules can be configured to schedule and trigger the delivery of email messages, driving efficiency through marketing automation.
This is a first-party data integration that supports raw PII emails. Below is a basic data flow example to demonstrate how the integration works:
- Create a segment with raw emails on Connect within the Zeotap platform
- Push the segment to Salesforce Marketing Cloud for activation
- Use the segment in your email marketing campaigns
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with 810 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide. This key integration allows marketers to target prospects and existing customers on LinkedIn based on first-party data.
This integration covers both first-party (1P) and third-party data with SHA256 email and MAIDs as the supported identifiers. Below is a basic data flow example to show how the integration works:
- Create a segment with hashed emails (1P) or MAIDs on Connect within the Zeotap platform
- Push the segment to LinkedIn for activation
- Run marketing campaigns using those segments
