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Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Carrie Han shows how you can unlock data and take a practical approach to personalization with Squiz CDP.
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Carrie Han 17 Aug 2023

Post-webinar FAQ

1) How can I integrate CDP into my current tech stack?

Squiz Personalization is part of our Digital Experience Platform (DXP), which allows you to bring your current tech stack and solutions without needing to re-platform.

Squiz Personalization leverages Squiz's iPaaS integration to effortlessly import data from various sources within a customer's ecosystem.

For current Matrix CMS customers, you must be on the latest Squiz's Content Management system (Matrix 6 instance)  and behind Cloudflare to gain access to Squiz Personalization. This will enable you to fully utilize the content authoring process via Squiz Content Management (Matrix) and apply personalization to the new page-building and component-building experience.

2) Can I use the CDP with my current (non-Squiz) CMS?

Squiz CDP is part of our Digital Experience Platform (DXP) which does customer data consolidation and management and also delivers personalization faster and at scale for your digital applications. In the demonstration, I showed a seamless way to configure event tracking, create segments and apply personalization in Squiz CMS, without needing extra code.

You can use the Squiz personalization on a non-Squiz CMS to fully leverage the consolidated and segmented view of the customer for a portal authenticated solution and website personalization, with only a small amount of integration work to connect the CDP single customer view APIs.

And of course, come as you are with the Squiz DXP. You can continue using your CRM, LMS, marketing automation and analytics applications. You don’t need to rip and replace your whole tech stack. Customer data can be distributed to other platforms for end-to-end omnichannel personalisation.

3) Why is Squiz CDP better than third party cookies for tracking customer interactions, preferences, and behaviors?

Great question! With growing concerns about privacy and data protection, many web browsers and operating systems are moving away from supporting third-party cookies. This could pose challenges for businesses relying solely on them. However, the CDP relies on first-party data, which isn't as impacted by changes in browser policies. It offers a more secure, privacy-friendly, and effective way to collect and use customer data, especially in a future where third-party cookies might not be as reliable.

So one significant factor is ownership of data. With the CDP, businesses have the power to collect and own their own customer data. This means they have direct control over how their data is used, without depending on third-party companies to handle it.

Importantly, this data is collected with the customer's consent, making it more privacy-friendly compared to third-party cookies. You see, third-party cookies are often gathered without the user's knowledge or consent.

Personalization is crucial for delivering tailored experiences. Squiz CDP  gathers data from various sources, like website interactions,   preferences, and behaviors. Using this data, businesses can craft more personalized experiences for customers. It improves satisfaction and loyalty when customers feel like a brand really knows and caters to their preferences.

4) What sets Squiz CDP apart from other well-established CDPs that have been in use for years? Why should we choose Squiz CDP over these? (E.g. Tellium)

There are few examples of good personalization in H.E. and Government globally. That’s because it’s too hard. Squiz’s CDP and DXP makes personalization practical for our sectors.

A lot of CDPs in the market  built their tools for the huge, well resourced private sector which have resources to throw at this. And you can see it in the way they talk about personalization. They talk about 1 to 1 experiences at scale. This is complex and involves a huge amount of resources which we understand most of our customers don’t have.

We’ve made personalization practical by building a CDP and approach to personalization which matches our customer’s needs and resourcing. So when we talk about personalization what we’re actually talking about is:

  • Learning what people want,
  • Grouping people into buckets (segments),
  • Presenting these segments with relevant information , working seamlessly with the content authoring and application building experiences, and
  • Measuring to see if the personalization is working (the segments do what we want them to)
  • Thus individuals receive the experience allocated to the segment. We've kept your specific needs and resourcing in mind every step of the way.

5) Is there an added cost involved with Squiz CDP? How much does it cost?

Squiz CDP is part of the Squiz Digital experience platform, so if you are already on the latest subscription model, you will have access to the CDP. There won't be any additional fee for licensing or implementation to use of the CDP.

If you don’t have access yet, please talk to your account manager or sales team and we can discuss the price and consumption size that will suit your organization's needs.

6) Is there a way I can trial Squiz CDP?

Absolutely, if you're interested in trying out Squiz CDP, there's definitely a way to do so! To explore a trial, I recommend reaching out to your dedicated account manager or contact us with your specific use cases.

Whether you're looking to enhance personalization for your digital applications or seeking a solution for your unique requirements, we are here to assist you every step of the way. We're excited to help you embark on a journey of successful personalized digital experiences. Don't hesitate to start the conversation with us!

7) What data sources can the CDP Integrate with?

Squiz CDP is designed to seamlessly integrate with a wide range of data sources, allowing you to consolidate and unify customer data effectively. It leverages the DXP content delivery and  integrations capabilities and can integrate with sources such as:

  • Website interactions and behavioral data: Gather data from user interactions on your website, including page views, clicks, return visit, login event, navigation paths, and content interactions.
  • CRM systems: Integrate with Customer Relationship Management systems to incorporate customer profiles, purchase and engagement history, and contact information. The iPaaS integration platform provides Connectors to most CRMS systems which makes it very easy to source the data from your Dynamics CRM, Salesforce or Hubspot to enrich the Single customer view in the CDP,  and also the integration makes it very easy to share insights of the segmented customer data back into your CRM.
  • Email campaigns, surveys and forms: Pull data from email campaigns to understand user engagement and preferences. Capture data from surveys, feedback forms, and other user-generated content.
  • Marketing Automation: Connect with marketing platforms such as Marketo to access email engagement, campaign data, and customer segmentation.
  • Social Media: Extract insights from social media platforms, tracking user engagement, comments, and trends.
  • Data Warehouses: Integrate with data warehouses to combine data from multiple sources into a central repository.
  • Third-Party APIs: Connect with external APIs to pull in data from various sources, enhancing the breadth of insights.
  • Offline Data: Capture data from offline sources like events, call centers, and in-person interactions to create a holistic view.
  • IoT Devices: Integrate with Internet of Things devices to collect data from sensors and connected devices.

Squiz DXP‘s strong integration capability ensures that you can create a comprehensive view of your customers by combining data from various touchpoints. All of this information empowers you to deliver personalized experiences that truly resonate with your audience.

8) What are the future plans about measuring the success of personalization?

As for future plans regarding measuring the success of personalization, we are continuously working to enhance this aspect.

A/B testing capabilities within the DXP are on the horizon. This means you'll soon have the power to experiment, refine, and elevate your digital experiences using the tool. You can utilize A/B testing to experiment with different variations of content, course offers, or messages to understand which approach resonates best with your audience.

Stay tuned for more details as we're getting ready to introduce this feature and empower you to optimize your personalization strategies and achieve even greater results.

9) Does the CDP offer integration with ad platforms for targeted advertising?

Absolutely, yes! Our integration capabilities on the DXP offers easy integration with various ad platforms to facilitate targeted advertising. Enabling this integration as part of the source data into the CDP allows you to leverage the rich customer data and insights stored within the CDP to create more effective and personalized ad campaigns. By doing this, you can deliver relevant and tailored ads to specific segments of your customer, maximizing the impact of your advertising efforts.

This integration not only enhances your advertising strategies but also ensures that you're reaching the right people with messages that resonate. It's a powerful way to optimize your ad spend, increase engagement, and drive better results by aligning your advertising efforts with the comprehensive customer data provided by Squiz CDP.

10) Can the CDP provide insights into customer lifecycle stages?

Yes, looking at the key events during your customer lifecycle, from potential student to enrolled student to engage alumni, or the different stages of life of a citizen, is made a lot easier in the Squiz CDP.

You can track key events that signify changes in stage, and make sure you can personalize content that helps them get to where you want them to be.

It can also help with retention, engagement and advocacy at each stage of your customer or user lifecycle.

11) Is CDP data all anonymous?

The CDP captures data for both anonymous and known users.

Whilst the demo shows an example of an anonymous user, the CDP has strong data consolidation abilities. It can combine web activity data with known user data (from any of your internal systems, such as CRMs), and empower marketers with a 360 degree view of your users.

If you are looking at building a portal, for example, you can combine data from your own identity management system and use integrated social media profiles (or any type of ID information) to identify users. The CDP will create a known user profile, which will be enriched with web event tracking – including page views, login events, custom clicks, and more.

12)  How does CDP work with known, logged-in user data?

CDP gathers data from multiple sources such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Student Information Systems (SIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and various applications that store customer identity information. This data is utilized to construct a unified customer view within the CDP. The information collected from these source systems is merged in the CDP to create the Single Customer View (SCV).

Whenever any web portal or intranet, integrated with Squiz DXP, requires user authentication, it can access the customer's profile identity and segmentation details once the user successfully logs in. The attributes associated with individual users in the CDP SCV not only enable precise user segmentation but also facilitate personalized experiences for authenticated users.

13) Are all analytics statistics/reports available in real-time or is there a delay?

This differs case by case. Website behavior event feeds: When the CDP collects data directly from user interactions on a website, such as clicks, views, or other web behavior events, these statistics are updated in real-time. This means that as users interact with the website, the CDP receives and updates this data immediately.

Data integrations event feed:  If the CDP is ingesting data from external systems like CRM, ERP, Marketing Automation, or support systems, the updated data from these systems are collected when the source system integration runs. This integration might run at specific intervals or based on certain triggers.

The segment success outcome generated from the CDP data will be refreshed at least every 24 hours. This means that the aggregated and processed data presented in reports will reflect any updates from the various sources within a 24-hour timeframe. This helps ensure that the insights and analytics derived from the CDP are relatively up-to-date.

14) Where a user falls into multiple segments, how do you prioritize the personalization they receive?

After creating the different segments you need in the segment builder, you can then set how each segment is prioritized against specific content in the page builder. For example, if you had Content A (for Segment A) and Content B (for Segment B), you could use the page builder to prioritize it so that a user in both Segments A and B would see Content A instead of B.

This new page-building experience that is currently in the works will enable content editors to better control and leverage segmentation from the CDP, seamlessly author the content in the CMS and build personalisation logics.

15)  How can I measure the success of personalization?

In the CDP, you can set an outcome or success metric for each of your personalization segments. For instance, if your goal for a certain segment is to prompt them to fill out a form, you can track how that is doing right in the CDP.

A/B testing is also coming very soon. You will be able to test personalized vs. non-personalised versions to see which one better helps you achieve your goal.

We know that it’s important for Squiz CDP customers to be able to measure the success of personalization to focus on the key use cases that really help their users, so we have a lot more planned for this space.

16)  I hear changes to the Privacy Act may require us to show a customer all the data we have on them, and give them a chance to change it. How do you manage that?

As we are a global organization serving a global customer base, we are required to follow all different global regulations around privacy such as GDPR and make sure you are getting consent from all of your users. The CDP provides tools to ensure you are following all global privacy and consent regulations for first-party data.

17)  Does the cookie legislation mean that we aren’t able to capture and use the information of certain users?

As you would’ve seen in the demo, we’ve built a consent banner into the higher education website template. Similarly, we’re looking into providing different types of consent banners to suit different legislations.

For instance, in Australia and New Zealand, you need a consent banner to allow users to opt out. For GDPR compliance, you need to ask users to opt in before you can track their information.

We provide templates that you can use and configure, including cookie banners and consent pop-ups. Within these templates, you can include up-to-date versions of your organization’s cookie and privacy policies based on the relevant regulations in your region(s). These templates will ensure you’re protected, and that we’re following the best practices to help you meet compliance standards.

18)  Can we map data from google analytics into the CDP?

Yes, you can map data exported from your Google Analytics into the CDP single customer view.

To bring Google Analytics data into the CDP, you need to set up data export from Google Analytics. Leveraging the Squiz Integrations capability, the Google Analytics Reporting can be programmatically retrieved from your Google Analytics account.

Mapping and Data Transformation: Extracted from Google Analytics, the data requires mapping to corresponding fields in the Squiz CDP and potential transformations for consistency with the CDP's Single Customer View schema.

Data Enrichment and Utilisation: Within the CDP, enrich data with the CDP event feeds from the value updated from your Google Analytics and other sources to form a comprehensive customer profile. This consolidated data serves for segmentation, personalization, and generating valuable insights.

However, we advise you to choose only the necessary attributes for user segmentation and analysis of specific segments. This approach helps avoid excessive data and unnecessary noise.

19)  How does the content for personalization get tagged?

You can use your existing CMS systems to assign metadata, which will be automatically picked up by the event tracking rules that have been set in the CDP.

We’re also working on making the page-building experiences more user-friendly by adding this capability – this will be coming in the new page builder which you can expect to hear more about over the next few months.

20)  As developers, we are frequently asked "How will my page look" with existing personalisation. Are there ways to preview/spoof personalized data for stakeholder viewing?

With A/B testing coming soon (November), you will be able to build experiments and view variations of your content based on different segments. This will empower you to preview the result and keep going back to tweak and optimize until you find the content that best resonates with your audience.

21)  Realistically, what skills and resources would be needed to set up and maintain the Squiz CDP for a business who has no CRM in place at the moment?

We’ve designed the Squiz CDP to be as user-friendly to non-technical users as possible. Initially, you will need some level of front-end knowledge and understanding around what fields you want to pull in to set up the integrations – however, this is quite simple as it is a low-cde interface. Once the data is inside the CDP, non-technical users can easily manipulate and make sense of the data.

Whilst a CDP does not replace a CRM, it does enable you to centralize the important data on your end users, and build personalized, data-driven digital experiences for them.

22)  What’s the difference between a CRM and a CDP?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are designed primarily for managing and optimizing customer interactions, sales processes, and customer service. They focus on maintaining a comprehensive view of customers' contact information, communication history, purchase history, and preferences. They are great for sales leads, customer support and lead nurturing.

CDPs are designed to collect, unify, and centralize customer data from various sources and touchpoints. They focus on creating a single, comprehensive customer profile that can be used by various departments and systems. CDPs are great at integrating data, getting a 360-degree customer view (single source of truth for customer data), segmenting audiences, and personalization.

In some cases, businesses may use both CRM and CDP systems together, with the CRM focusing on day-to-day customer interactions and sales, while the CDP provides a robust data foundation for marketing and personalization efforts. The choice between CRM and CDP depends on your specific business needs and objectives. You can use a CDP without a CRM and vice versa.

23)  What’s next on the roadmap for the DXP? Is there a way for us to find out what’s coming in the near future?

Watch our most recent product roadmap update (August 2023) here. You can also keep an eye on our roadmap page – we keep this updated quarterly with the latest additions.

Have another question or would like to see a demo?

Reach out to us directly with any questions or to book a demo at ask@squiz.net