A CDP (customer data platform) is a software solution that helps businesses unify and activate their customer data. One of the key components of a CDP is data mapping. Data mapping is the process of identifying and linking the same customer data across different sources. This allows businesses to create a single, unified view of their customers. A CDI (customer data infrastructure) is sometimes also considered in a CDP rfp or used to map data into a CDP. Luckily Lytics has both a CDI (Lytics Conductor) and a CDP (Lytics Decision Engine) so consider the following best practices a guide for both.
There are a number of best practices for data mapping in a CDP. Here are a few of the most important:
- Do not map too much data to start. One critical mistake that many companies make is trying to start with too much data. Lytics has found across our customer base that over 80% of data that is mapped into customer profiles is never used for segmentation. So remember, start smaller and start from the marketing needs / usecases before adding in additional requirements for data that will slow down the process of actually getting to business value.
- Start with a clear understanding of your business goals. Tagging along with only mapping the data you need, you need to ask the question: What do you want to achieve by unifying your customer data? Once you know your goals, you can start to map your data accordingly. Consider what active Marketing campaigns or Analytics reports need data today and use that as the starting point for what data to map first.
- Identify the key data points that you need to map. These data points will vary depending on your business goals. However, some common data points include customer name, email address, phone number, and purchase history. Once again, review with your marketing and analytics teams to see what data they are currently using.
- Use a consistent data schema. This will help to ensure that your data is properly mapped and that you can easily access it. Lytics has a data schema for every integration we have built, which is a solid starting point since we already did the work! Next up you will need data specific to your business like purchase information or clickthrough data. Lytics Conductor can help you create these schema elements in real time based on the data available to you from your connected data sources. https://www.lytics.com/conductor/
- Use a data mapping tool. There are a number of data mapping tools available that can help you to automate the process of mapping your data. Lytics Conductor is a User interface for connecting to tools using out of the box Lytics integrations and then mapping that data to customer profiles within a UI. https://www.lytics.com/conductor/
- Test and validate your data mappings. Once you have mapped your data, it is important to test and validate the mappings to ensure that they are correct. Get data into the system, check that it looks correct, then check that the user profiles are being created correctly. Once the audit is done, send more data over!
By following these best practices, you can ensure that your data mapping in a CDP is effective and efficient. This will help you to achieve your business goals and gain a better understanding of your customers.
Here are some additional tips for data mapping in a CDP:
- Involve the right stakeholders in the data mapping process. This includes representatives from marketing, sales, customer service, and IT.
- Use a data dictionary to document your data mappings. This will help to ensure that everyone involved in the process understands the mappings.
- Keep your data mappings up-to-date. As your business changes, your data mappings will need to change as well.
By following these tips, you can ensure that your data mapping in a CDP is a success. This will help you to make better decisions about your customers and improve your overall marketing and sales performance.
Check out more about data mapping within the Lytics documentation: https://docs.lytics.com/docs/identity-resolution