Nowadays, the world is constantly changing. From technological advancements to societal shifts, change is inevitable and happening faster than ever before. While change can be uncomfortable and even disruptive at times, it also presents new possibilities and opportunities for innovation and growth. By embracing change and staying agile, we can position ourselves to thrive in this ever-changing world.
In today's data-driven industry, companies need to manage and leverage customer data effectively to stay competitive and deliver personalized experiences that meet their customers' needs. However, managing customer data can be a complex and challenging task, especially when it comes to data security and privacy with the need for data accessibility and performance. This is where a Customer Data Platform (CDP) comes in. A CDP creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.
The two zone approach to CDPs focuses on building a robust Cloud infrastructure for the client and using the benefits of Saas CDP vendor to save time, efficiency and assure scalability and much more. When focussing on a Google Cloud infrastructure one suitable CDP ISV (independent solution vendor) solution is Zeotap as they are built with Google Cloud infrastructure. Therefore, in this article, the assumption will be taken that a client is using Google Cloud with Zeotap.
Why choose to Buy + Build when you can have the best of both worlds?
When it comes to choosing a CDP solution companies often have to face the decision to either buy a CDP solution from a ISV or to build a CDP themselves e.g. in using Looker in Google Cloud.
A Buy + Build hybrid approach for a Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be a good option for companies that want to balance the benefits of a pre-built solution with the flexibility of custom development. Here are some reasons why:
- Time-to-market: Buying a pre-built and tested CDP solution can save time on development and testing. Building your own CDP will most likely involve a project timespan of over a year while using a pre-built solution will let you execute first use cases in only 8 weeks.
- Customization: Custom development allows for greater customization and flexibility in terms of features and functionality. This can be especially useful if a company has unique data needs or workflows that cannot be met by a pre-built solution and allows companies to leverage their own unique ML/AI capabilities and build them into the CDP.
- Integration: A Buy + Build hybrid approach for a CDP can ensure seamless integration with the extensive Martech & Adtech landscape, allowing companies to easily connect with other tools and platforms in their marketing technology stack.
Combining a Two Zone Approach for CDP
The hybrid approach focuses on building a CDP in two zones:
- The Google Cloud
- SAAS CDP vendor (e.g. Zeotap)
Here is how it all works together:
The hybrid approach enables clients to easily connect to their 1st party data.
Examples of 1st Party data:
- On-Site User Behavior through Google Analytics
- CRM Data from SAP
- Transactional data from your e-commerce system
- and many more...
Additionally, clients can get access to twond Party Data, data shared through partnerships via Data Clean Rooms, which can be incorporated into the infrastructure.
That means that it's possible to seamlessly ingest existing data to Zone 1 and two, making the transition smooth and hassle-free.
2. Zone one - Google Cloud
Zone 1, powered by Google Cloud, is designed to help marketers unlock the full potential of customer data. With Zone 1, clients can enjoy a range of capabilities that enable efficient data management, in-depth analysis, and precise targeting.
- Data Storage and Management: Zone 1 securely stores all customer data, ensuring easy access whenever needed. It effortlessly brings together data from multiple sources, creating a unified and comprehensive view of the customer landscape.
- Advanced Analytics: Discover hidden trends and valuable insights within data to inform marketing strategies and make data-driven decisions.
- Machine Learning and AI: Enrich first-party data with powerful insights, such as
- Purchase Prediction
- Customer Lifetime Value prediction
- Brand affinity
This empowers clients to create highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Zone 1 adapts to ever-changing business needs and scales effortlessly to handle growing data volumes.
- Security and Compliance: Rest assured knowing customer data is automatically encrypted at rest by Google to ensure the best security and protection, while also maintaining compliance with relevant regulations like GDPR.
3. Zone two - SaaS CDP Vendor
With Zone two, in this case, powered by Zeotap, clients can enhance their customer data management capabilities by complementing Zone 1. Zone two offers marketers the following benefits:
- Identity Stitching: Leverage advanced ID stitching capabilities for holistic marketing and personalisation use cases
- Audience Segmentation: Leverage Zeotap's advanced segmentation capabilities to create highly targeted audience segments with an intuitive UI for marketing campaigns.
- Cross-Channel Orchestration and Activation: Utilize Zeotap's platform to activate customer data across various marketing channels, ensuring a consistent and personalized customer experience. The full customer journey can be easily orchestrated by leveraging the capabilities of Symphony, Zeotap’s workflow user interface by using out-of-the-box martech & adtech integrations.
- Native ID Extension: Increase match rates in digital marketing, retail media, and personalisation use cases
- Consent Orchestration: All activation activities will automatically respect the specific user consent. Zeotap offers a comprehensive consent orchestration solution and lets clients specify how long data is stored. This can be done at a very granular level to make sure that all marketing activities are compliant with the specific regulations and the users’ preferences.
- Seamless Integration: A CDP provides pre-built integrations into the existing tech stack. Zone two works hand-in-hand with Zone 1, combining the strengths of both Google Cloud and Zeotap to create a comprehensive and efficient customer data management solution.
What applies to the data sources also applies to diverse activation opportunities. With Zeotap's journey orchestration and activation features, defined audiences can be used across various activation tools, such as Google Adwords or DV360 for media activation, TikTok for social media activities, Optimizely for on-site personalization, Airship for push notifications, or Braze for SMS & e-mails.
In summary, that means, marketers can further enhance their data-driven decision-making, personalization, and their customer journey orchestration efforts. Together, Zone 1 and Zone two provide a powerful, holistic approach to managing and leveraging customer data.
Benefits of a Two Zone Hybrid Approach
Combing the two zone approach offers many benefits, some of which are mentioned below:
- Optimize Cost: You can minimize the total cost of ownership by splitting up workloads between zones. Both zones are designed to be used for their use-cases and an additional benefit is funding opportunities through Google Cloud.
- Enhance Efficiency: By using the best of both worlds approach, clients can leverage the CDP for efficiency. The main goal of the infrastructure is to establish first-use cases in a short time (8 weeks).
- Improve Scalability: This aims to give everyone what they want and need. Meaning:
- A Google Cloud infrastructure for developers
- And one central intuitive User Interface for every marketer to orchestrate campaigns across many different channels
In this way, everyone can use what they are familiar with and what they need for their day-to-day.
- Data Monetization for Retail Media: A CDP can serve as a base to monetize data for Retail Media. With a CDP, you can generate tailored customer segments that hold significant value for others. This provides an opportunity to monetize customer data by selling these valuable segments to interested parties.
- Data Sovereignty: Enables companies to retain control over their data and ensure compliance with data protection regulations. By storing sensitive data in a private zone, companies can ensure that their data is subject to local data protection laws and regulations, as well as their internal policies.
In conclusion, the Buy + Build hybrid approach for a Customer Data Platform (CDP) offers companies the best of both worlds. By combining pre-built solutions with custom development, companies can save time, customize features, and seamlessly integrate with their marketing technology stack. The two-zone approach, powered by Google Cloud and a SaaS CDP vendor like Zeotap, provides efficient data management, advanced analytics, personalized marketing campaigns, and compliance with data protection regulations. This approach optimizes costs, enhances efficiency, improves scalability, enables data monetization, and ensures data sovereignty. Embracing this hybrid approach empowers companies to thrive in a data-driven and rapidly changing business environment.