In today’s data-driven world, businesses strive to gain a comprehensive understanding of their customers and leverage that knowledge to drive successful marketing strategies. The incoming data can be directly associated with the customer such as their identifier. Or, as an entity data associated with the customer through the entity’s identifier like transactional data, account data and product catalogue information. Zeotap, as a Customer Data Platform (CDP), collects two types of data – customer entity data and non-customer entity data.
However, integrating customer entity data with non-customer entity data poses several challenges. In this blog post, we will explore how Zeotap CDP’s newly introduced Non-Customer Entity data feature, which is generally available to all customers, addresses these challenges and simplifies the process of joining disparate data sources.
Challenges in joining customer entity data and non-customer entity data
Let’s delve into some of the common challenges faced in the other CDPs when trying to join the customer entity data and non-customer entity data
- Complex data preprocessing: The data to be joined resides in separate sources with different structures and formats and can be highly complex and time-consuming. Technical expertise is required to define and establish the appropriate join logic and conditions, making it a cumbersome task for non-technical users.
- Manual workflow: Many platforms require users to wait until the ingestion process is complete before joining the tables. This manual workflow can lead to delays and hinder the agility of marketers who depend on real-time insights.
- Technical knowledge requirements: Certain platforms demand a strong understanding of data models and programming skills. Non-technical users may find it challenging to establish relationships between customer data and non-customer data without the assistance of technical experts.
Presenting Zeotap CDP’s solution for non-customer entity data
Unlike other CDPs that require the incoming data to be associated with at least one user identifier, Zeotap CDP gives you the flexibility to ingest both types of data – customer entity data and non-customer entity data. In a scenario where a business receives non-customer data such as Product Information obtained from a Product Catalogue, challenges arise when trying to enrich customer entity data with this non-customer entity data. The linkage between these data types becomes difficult as they are stored in separate tables. With no solution left, the Data Engineer is left with the choice of pre-processing the two data types at their end before ingesting them to a CDP.
Zeotap CDP’s newly introduced NCE data feature addresses these challenges head-on and is available to all customers as part of the General Availability release. This feature simplifies the integration and activation process for the two user types of Zeotap CDP: the technical persona responsible for implementing the CDP (Data Engineer) and the non-technical persona (Marketer) who utilises it.
Zeotap CDP allows businesses to ingest both data types and enables the two key personas to make the best use of the ingested data. The Data Engineer or technical persona efficiently handles the process of merging user data with non-customer data in an easy-to-use user interface with just a few clicks. This arrangement benefits them, as they no longer need to worry about the preprocessing of data before feeding it into Zeotap CDP and can easily define the join logic with all associated conditions. They are relieved of the preprocessing task, which would have been challenging given the dynamic nature of customer and non-customer entity data sources. They set up the non-customer entity data in a way that marketers, the non-technical user can readily utilise it as any other attribute.
By offloading the data preprocessing responsibility to the technical persona, the Marketer can focus solely on the segmentation phase, receiving the data in the desired format. Marketers can easily search for users based on non-customer entity data type like Product Information without grappling with the underlying complexities.
Here are some key benefits that the NCE data feature provides.
- Flexible join key selection: Zeotap CDP allows you to ingest both customer data and non-customer data while providing the flexibility to choose the join key that suits your specific requirements. By defining the join through an intuitive interface, technical personas can handle the data preprocessing tasks, freeing marketers to focus on segmentation and activation.
- Dynamic data enrichment: Zeotap CDP seamlessly enriches user data with non-customer entity data during ingestion. For example, by connecting customer data containing a Product ID with non-customer entity data from a Product Catalogue, marketers gain immediate access to comprehensive information about their audience.
- Streamlined segmentation: Marketers can effortlessly create customer segments using both customer and non-customer entity attributes, without requiring in-depth knowledge of underlying data intricacies, leveraging Zeotap’s user-friendly segmentation UI to focus on campaign requirements and seamlessly push the desired segment to the destination.
- Elimination of complex queries: Zeotap CDP eliminates the need for complex queries and technical querying skills. Marketers can seamlessly leverage the enriched user data without delving into the intricacies of the underlying logic. This user-friendly approach empowers marketers to optimise their efforts and drive more impactful marketing campaigns
Understanding the NCE data feature through a use case
Mark, a Marketing Manager, wants to send discount offers to customers who have booked rooms on their website over the last year. Let us understand the challenges that Mark faced to track the booking details with limited information when not using Zeotap CDP’s NCE data feature and how did they overcome that by using the NCE data feature.
Challenge: Limited information in website event data
The website event data only contains the booking details and order ID. However, the final order status resides in the order system, which is not accessible in the website event data. Therefore, preprocessing customer data together with order data may not be practical, especially considering that order data is subject to updates based on its status changes, rather than being a fixed event.
How does Zeotap CDP’s NCE data feature solves this problem?
User booking data from the website is captured through Zeotap’s native tag and stored as event information, linked to a unique order ID generated during the booking process. Mark creates an NCE source in Zeotap CDP and integrates it with the order system, using the order ID as the join key to enrich user profiles with real-time updates and changes in the order data. This setup empowers Mark with the flexibility to create segments based on order status and ensures that whenever data is updated for a specific order ID, it dynamically reflects the enriched user information and segment association.
By adopting this new solution, Mark gains several advantages. He can now access real-time order status updates directly from the order system and enrich user profiles with complete order data. This empowers Mark to create highly targeted discount offers based on the booking confirmation status, improving the effectiveness of his marketing campaigns and enhancing customer engagement.
Experience the power of Zeotap CDP’s NCE data feature, designed to address all your data ingestion concerns and seamlessly onboard your non-customer entity data. Don’t miss out on unlocking the full potential of your data—schedule a demo now and embark on a journey toward data-driven success with Zeotap CDP.
