For years, the programmatic ecosystem, fuelled by third-party tracking cookies and mobile device IDs (MAIDs) has been the foundation of customer-centric marketing on the web. Programmatic has enabled the automated delivery of relevant content to the right people at the right moment. But while consumers enjoy the benefits of customer-centric marketing, many are wary of the loss of privacy this can entail when enabled by tracking IDs, which have never really been all that accurate anyway. Here, we look at a new approach to a customer-centric marketing solution that can deliver the personalisation and privacy people want, while benefiting advertisers and publishers.
What is customer-centric marketing
The term “customer-centric marketing” covers a broad variety of activities that are intended to place the customer at the heart of brands and agencies’ marketing activities. Here, the needs, likes, and wants of the customer are what count and influence the customers’ overarching experience of the brand – from first hearing about a product or service right through to making a purchase. As such, customer-centric marketing can cover advertising, digital user experience, loyalty marketing, sales, and much else. For the purposes of this article, we are interested in one important aspect of customer-centric marketing: personalised digital marketing through programmatic channels.
Benefits of customer-centric marketing
The main benefit of customer-centric marketing is that it helps acquire new customers and retain existing customers by making experiences more relevant and convenient to them. It moves marketing from being little more than “spam”, to a true dialogue with customers based on their individual situations. The statistics speak for themselves:
- 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalised experiences
- Fast-growing companies drive 40 percent more of their revenue from personalisation than their slower-growing counterparts
- 76% of consumers say that receiving personalised communications is a key factor in prompting their consideration of a brand
- Personalisation can reduce customer acquisition costs by up to 50%
- 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them
For many publishers, customer-centric marketing is central to their digital business models. Third-party cookies and MAIDs are used by publishers to understand their audience and build segments that can be sold to brands and agencies to activate their campaigns. Customer-centric marketing is therefore central to supporting the ad-funded internet. Moreover, by understanding their own users, publishers are also better able to tailor their own content and services to meet their users’ needs and build loyalty.
Developing a customer-centric marketing strategy
The key question facing advertisers and publishers today is how to continue delivering highly relevant, personalised, customer-centric experiences in a world where third-party tracking IDs are no longer supported. With GDPR and other privacy regulations, along with greater consumer awareness of the privacy implications of tracking IDs, publishers, brands, and agencies have no choice but to adapt. What’s more, given the inaccuracy of tracking cookies, stakeholders have long been looking for an alternative that can more reliably deliver relevant audiences at the right moment.
Here, Novatiq can provide a solution that will enable customer-centric marketing to continue in the programmatic ecosystem. Our Fusion platform is a patented all-in-one solution that combines multiple user consent-based IDs for seamless identity resolution and audience activation. These include a Zenith ID, which cross references first-party publisher data with telco network intelligence to map and unify audience journeys across devices and time, including “ghost” users on the anonymous web.
By applying Novatiq’s patented dynamic Hyper ID, advertisers can reach and engage the most precise audiences across the programmatic ecosystem safely and without the need for third-party tracking IDs.
Meanwhile, publishers benefit by being able to leverage their third-party intelligence for revenue generation without transmitting any personally identifiable information on users. That means they can continue to offer the ad-funded content consumers demand, while also safe in the knowledge that partner content on their sites will be relevant to their users.
Examples of customer centric marketing
Novatiq is already helping brands, agencies, and publishers secure the future of customer-centric marketing in programmatic. Here are a few examples:
- Using data enabled by Novatiq, HSBC was able to drive a 150% uplift in conversion rates
- Novatiq helped Nissan build and engage a first-party-verified audience using telco consented first-party data intelligence, achieving a 300% conversion rate uplift over cookie-based segments.
Customer-centric marketing will continue to help brands and agencies drive performance across multiple touchpoints. The immanent withdrawal of third-party tracking cookies has kickstarted an era of innovation in adtech and new solutions are arising that will ensure the benefits of customer-centric marketing continue to be felt in the programmatic ecosystem of tomorrow. It’s an approach that delivers significant advantages to advertisers and publishers alike, but, ultimately, it’s consumers that benefit most as they will be able to continue to enjoy access to high-quality ad-funded content safe in the knowledge that their privacy is protected end to end.