We live in the Information Age, where data is king. Get the right information, and you can be ahead of the game and outdo your competitors, no matter what your business’ activity is.
But is it really so simple?
In the days of instant data collection, technically you have access at the drop of a hat to every information you need to make your business fly. And yet, many businesses drown in the sea of data instead of sailing to success. The reason for that is, as in all things, proper management.
It’s not enough to just have the data, you must be able to properly use it. And with the constant influx of information, from standard user behavior to the Internet of Things, maximizing the potential your data has and increasing your business’ revenue and scope is becoming more complex.
This is where the Data Management Platform, or DMP, comes in.
A DMP can become your business’ most vital tool, and one that will bolster it in ways you may not have considered before. In fact, there are at least 8 things a DMP can offer you, 8 reasons you should get one today, and we will talk about them all below.
But first things first:
What is a DMP?
In short, a Data Management Program is simply a computer program. It’s software designed to gather data through various methods. It then categorizes, groups, and organizes that data into meaningful chunks called segments.
These segments are what you will use to make informed decisions about your business’ audience, from upselling methodology to personalized remarketing and targeted, highly successful marketing campaigns.
The DMP gathers three types of data:
First-party data, which is the data your own business gathers from its existing audience. For example, data from your own website’s usage (like signing up), analytics, and social media data are all first-party data.
Second-party data, which is the data gathered from your partners and to which you have access. That type of data is literally someone else’s first-party data that you have direct access to after some kind of partnership or agreement.
Third-party data, which is data available from specialized data providers. They are prepared, ready-to-use segments intended to grow your audience, and can be available in the billions if you work with a good data broker.
Once you have the segments you need, you can then study their specific needs, wants, and key interests and design custom-made campaigns that will target only those users, instead of a lot bigger sample of random people who may or may not engage.
A proper DMP will also give you vital feedback on these campaigns while they are still ongoing, and salient data analyses and feedback once they are complete, so you can further improve and enhance your message and its dissemination.
It already is clear that a DMP will not only help your business keep the finger on the pulse of its target audiences’ needs, wants, and requirements, but that it will give it laser focus on the differentiations that transform a campaign from simply being okay to being fantastic for your business.
When you begin using your DMP, you will immediately see the following benefits- making the DMP a lifesaver tool for every occasion:
Benefit 1: Your revenue will drastically increase
The main point of a DMP is to help you finetune your marketing and ad campaigns to increase conversion rates, engagement, and brand recognition.
A perfectly calibrated ad campaign, for example, that is targeted only to those who will engage in it, is going to be cheaper to run and will achieve a much higher increase in clients and revenue in general. So, you don’t only get a bigger profit margin than before, but also the maximization of engagement which will result in higher conversion rates.
Benefit 2: Everything will be cheaper for your business
Thanks to the DMP, the practice of bulk-advertising across large audiences, hoping that within them you will find the one that does engage, will be a thing of the past. The exact process that will maximize your ad campaign’s conversion rate, and thus your revenue, is the one that will minimize ad waste: you won’t need to buy access to large audiences. You will only need to buy access to the people that will engage with your message, which means a considerably smaller group.
Being able to be surgically precise about who sees your campaigns means that marketing and advertising will instantly be cheaper yet a lot more beneficial to your business- a perfect combination!
Benefit 3: Cross-Device Technology
Often, it’s not only the content of a marketing or ad campaign that is important, but the way it is displayed. How users interact with content across devices (e.g. from their laptops as opposed to their phones or iPads) varies significantly and can harm your conversion rates if it’s not taken into account.
The DMP has the capacity to ensure that your message reaches the right user, at the right time, on the right screen using the vast data analyses it constantly performs for your benefit.
With the DMP, you will guarantee a seamless brand experience for your audience no matter which screen it is they’re using. At the same time, should you wish it, you will also get valuable information on their device usage and other qualitative information to use in the future.
Benefit 4: Know your audience better
It’s not just about making better marketing campaigns, when it comes to using the DMP. It’s about getting to know your audience as if you met them in person. The data from your own customers will be properly organized so that you can immediately and easily understand what they like or value the most in your brand, why they stay with your brand, or how to further increase their loyalty. You will be able to know what they need, what they’d like to see next from your brand, and what would compel them to have word of mouth work for you as much as a standard campaign would.
With the accuracy of organized feedback on different aspects of your audience’s needs and wants, you can be ahead of the game when it comes to new developments in your business.
Benefit 5: Expand your audience
With the DMP you can actively expand your audience through its two methods of analyzing data for that exact purpose: through lookalike modeling and audience extension.
Lookalike modeling is basically using your DMP’s AI to expand your audience. You train your DMP on a sample of your best customers, and the program will find new customers most likely to interact and engage with your brand, effectively adding new people to your audience.
Audience extension adds to your audience from third-party data, which is an ideal approach for businesses with a limited first-party dataset. Through third-party data, you will immediately have a bigger target audience and thus procure more clients in a fraction of the time it would take with more traditional means.
The bonus element in both these methods is that you don’t just generate leads, but you are guided to some of the best candidates for top-tier customers for your business!
Benefit 6: Integration of data
Through a DMP you can easily and efficiently access and incorporate second-party and third-party data with your first-party data, effectively increasing your target audience and acquiring valuable intelligence for expanding your business and your audience while maximizing revenue and minimizing costs. Not only is the access already in-built, but it is easier to collaborate with data brokers and get extra data directly from other businesses without additional steps to the process.
Benefit 7: Organized data, for you, all the time
Data is useless if you can’t understand what it tells you. And the best way to understand data is to organize it in ways that are relevant to your own business goals. The DMP does exactly that for you, all the time: it collects all the data there is, constantly. Then, it groups and processes the information so that your team can make informed decisions and educated guesses on how to navigate your business in a constantly changing business environment.
The DMP is a lifesaver- it is designed to be your compass in the turbulent waters of today’s business world. From streamlined, effective, and affordable marketing campaigns to strategy about the new steps to take in expanding audiences and adding to your products or services, the DMP will help you map your way to success.