What You Should Know About Data Management Platforms (DMP)

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What You Should Know About Data Management Platforms (DMP)

For companies that collect large amounts of data regarding the impact of marketing and advertising campaigns, data management and analysis is key. Data management platforms (DMPs) help companies store and analyze data that can come from multiple sources. Since advertising and marketing campaigns, as well as customer and audience sentiment and reactions, are ever-changing, DMPs are crucial to companies for quick and easy analysis.

DMPs are used for customer insight development, targeted media buying, CRM software optimization, and marketing content optimization, just to name a few. Due to the breadth of DMP functionality, businesses across industries must make sure to align their goals with what a DMP can offer. Specific companies have different reasons for managing data, and must make sure their DMP organizes, analyzes, and presents customer data in an effective way. Depending on a company’s particular industry, the type of data gathered and the way it is used will vary. As you consider adopting this technology, be aware of what data you need to gather and access, as well as what works well for your particular industry.

Key Benefits of DMPs

Improve audience data collection, organization, and utilization
More effectively market and prospect potential customers
Customize content gathered from a CRM or other data sources
Improve channel and campaign flexibility
Generate unique audience insights

Why Use DMP Software?

Cross-referencing first- and third-party data can lead to extremely positive results for marketers. Examining both types of data provides opportunity to hyper-target and hyper-personalize marketing toward customers, helping deliver the right message at the right time. That being said, it’s important to note that DMPs integrate first- and third-party data differently from one another. Integration of data is such a priority for businesses because it helps create rich, well-rounded customer profiles, allowing marketers to create more thoughtful, targeted messages. When shopping around for a customer data platform, understand how data can be input and exacted from the platform.

Benefits that users said they received from implementing and using DMPs include a unified data hub and a higher accuracy in audience targeting and segmentation.

Data hub — DMPs are, by definition, centralized storage hubs for behavioral data. Many reviews left for the products in this category discuss the effectiveness of those hubs. As your business scales, you are likely to cull marketing data, user data, and audience data from various channels using a diverse stack of software. Just as master data management software is designed to centralize and manage internal operations data, these tools help to manage consumer insights in one convenient place. DMPs will often integrate with CRM platforms so that valuable marketing-based information can be exported as CRM data.

More accurate targeting — Segmentation and targeting of customers needs to be accurate, or companies face losing customers. Tracking audience data in response to advertising and marketing campaigns significantly helps retargeting efforts, especially if a company wants to expand their audience. Collecting data from a variety of sources helps businesses create robust customer profiles, enabling them to better understand who they are targeting. Also, when determining the direction of a campaign, a larger data set typically leads to better results, and assists greatly in advertising efforts and placements.

Who Uses DMPs?

The high-level insights made possible with these tools are especially useful for certain departments within an organization. The following are the ideal users of this technology.

Marketers — For a digital marketing team involved with programmatic ad buying and campaign development, there is no limit to the amount of consumer insights that are worth collecting. Marketers can leverage the audience data within these platforms to make educated choices in the messaging, timing, and placement of advertisements on digital channels. From content marketing to location-based mobile ads, each decision needs to be carefully thought out, due to the resources and effort involved. Having this far-reaching consumer data in one convenient location is a boon for marketers seeking to make the most of every campaign.

Sales — There is a plethora of sales software designed to give these teams a leg up on the competition and perform at the highest level. Data management platforms can complement these solutions by giving sales teams a deeper understanding of target customers and the channels they frequent. While marketing teams leverage this centralized data for digital advertising campaigns, sales leaders can use it to refine outreach tactics and assemble the best possible list of leads. The sales and marketing departments should work in tandem to ensure that messaging is aligned and the needs of customers met. Sharing the insights that are gathered on DMPs can go a long way in unifying these efforts.

Product — A product strategy should never stop evolving. When a product team has a firm grasp on brand reputation, customer behaviors, and audience demographics, they can deliver the right offerings at the optimal time, and shape these products and services around the consumers who stand to benefit. This also goes for executive teams and others involved with plotting the direction of a brand’s offerings or marketing. Having easy access to audience data from a wide array of sources helps decision-makers keep a finger on the pulse of their most valuable assets: the consumers.

DMP Features

Marketing is the first step in the customer journey. The powerful software in this category can help light the way for successful marketing by giving brands a complete view of their target market, from social media to their favorite mobile apps. It also provides a window into the successes and failures of ongoing marketing efforts. The following are some common features of DMPs that enable a business to understand the customer experience so that they can communicate their message more clearly than ever.

Audience data and insights — Analytics are a key piece in the DMP puzzle, allowing you to contrast your audience against first- and third-party data sources. This helps you learn more about who they are and how they engage with your content. Each platform offers different insights on audience behavior, demographics, and interests in relation to your branding and marketing. It is important to determine which system aligns with your goals to build a well-informed target audience. Depending on your reach and active marketing channels, your audience will vary in size and complexity, and so will the analytics you collect.

Data integration — Tools in this category provide first-party data integration with ad servers, DSPs, and SSPs, and other data sources for inbound and outbound data transfer. They may also offer second- and third-party integration. Second-party integration allows the user to combine first-party data with additional first-party unstructured data of strategic partners. Third-party integration involves integrations with external data providers, and the real-time import of their structured and unstructured data. Examples of these are businesses such as ad agencies and companies with similar clients, as well as open source databases on the web.

As DMP solutions collect this disparate data, they will unify the information into a single customer view, so users can manage the analytics without the need for multiple windows or separate tools. Users can program these tools to standardize second- and third-party data from different sources and agencies so it enters the system in the company’s preferred format. Administrators can also create filters to weed out unnecessary data points during the transfer.

Data cleansing — A number of apps in this category include technology for cleaning and enriching data as it enters the system. This can include processes like fixing typos, deduping/merging leads, and autocorrecting the formatting of data to fit your company’s preferences. The cleansing features in some cases will automatically normalize the field values in your data. Some products offer exception management tools, which scan your databases and correct anomalies that found their way into the system.

Account and lead scoring — Analytics tools within DMP products have a variety of benefits to the user. Among these is the creation of customer segments for future marketing. With a thorough data analysis, you can create unique user profiles and prioritize certain groups that are most likely to respond positively to your marketing. This allows for not only advanced targeting in your marketing strategy but also an increased focus on personalization for these high-ROI clients. Furthermore, agencies can streamline their pipeline with lead routing and account assignment features in some platforms. Some platforms take advantage of modern machine learning software to help companies define and reach their optimal audience.

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