Founded in 2014, Zeotap’s mission is to bring the user-focused targeting capabilities of platforms like Google and Facebook to the rest of the digital mobile ecosystem. It has established a global data platform for mobile advertising, which integrates hard-to-access deterministic user-level data from large-scale companies, placing a focus on data security and privacy. It is headquartered in Berlin, with offices in New York, Milan, Madrid, Paris, London, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
MI speaks with Projjol Banerjea, Chief Product Officer & Founder, who is responsible for the company’s global cross-operator platform through which telecom operators’ data is made safely available to the advertising ecosystem.
Let’s read:
Q) What is it to be the next-generation customer data platform?
By nature, a Customer Data Platform (CDP) aggregates customer data collected from various sources and data types – structuring it into individualized and central customer profiles into what is referred to as a ‘single customer view’. This golden record then enables a marketer to action their data across their entire tech stack: for example, connecting a customer’s journey on marketing channels to their customer experience record.
Also read: Zeotap Unveils New Brand Identity To Reinforce Data And Technology Focus
A next-generation CDP is a system of record for marketers that not only enables them to create that golden record but also encompasses the following qualities:
Rigorous privacy and security compliance. Today’s privacy and security standards are stricter than ever, and a next-gen CDP should be completely watertight when it comes to privacy and security standards.
Consent that is ‘baked in’. A next-gen CDP has the ability to not only master (unify) consent but also apply consent orchestration in the activation of the data (which means fewer headaches for your Data Protection Officer down the line).
Extensive data integrations. It should serve as the layer of technology that unites a marketer’s Martech and ad tech stack, ingests customer data from wherever it’s held, and activates that data wherever it’s needed on an ongoing basis.
Accurate identity resolution. A next-gen CDP must be able to accurately unify customer identities – without it, it’s impossible to create that ‘golden record’, and many functions of the CDP are rendered obsolete.
Machine learning-powered segmentation. Next-gen CDPs offer marketers the ability to create machine-learned segments without the support of a Data Scientist.
Custom audience segmentation, meaning the ability to create custom audiences off of any data points and then use them across multiple channels like email, social media ad campaigns, or even within apps themselves through deep linking features. This allows for a seamless transition between platforms.
Q) How do they benefit brands to better understand their customers through identity resolution?
Brands often deploy multiple tools to collect customer data, but it can be hard to get them all to speak to one another; this leads to data silos and a fragmented customer experience. A next-gen Customer Data Platform enables identity resolution by acting as a system of record for marketers. It collects and unifies first-party data—such as customer behaviour, demographics, and purchase history—across all of a brand’s touchpoints, channels, and sources. Brands can depend on this to deliver only the most relevant experiences across any interaction, based on one source of truth.
Q) How to leverage data in a privacy-first future?
The introduction of new data privacy regulations around the world—such as GDPR, ePrivacy, and CCPA—means it is more important than ever for marketers to prioritize the customer consent journey. This involves shifting perspective from gathering the right view of the customer versus the whole view of the customer.
While it seems like a subtle shift, it’s an important one: it forces you to challenge what kind of data you collect, how you manage it, and what you use it for. The results are twofold – a transparent dataset that delivers value to the marketer, and good experiences for their customers that are compliant with their consent preferences.
Also read: Mobile Data Platform Zeotap Appoints Rob Norman And Anne MacDonald To Global Advisory Board
Q) What is the Future of customer data platforms and related tools and how these platforms will evolve further to meet changing marketing needs?
The deprecation of third-party cookies in 2023 and increasing data privacy and security regulations are pushing marketers to adopt tools that help them build a consented first-party dataset. An efficient Customer Data Platform ticks both of these boxes – by enabling marketers to continue to build and act on the data they’ve collected themselves, and to create that ‘golden record’ of both data and consent.
As we move further into this ‘new normal’, CDPs are poised to become the go-to for marketers, as those who’ve adopted one will have the ability to maintain a solid data foundation, continue driving personalized experiences across all marketing channels, and have a high level of confidence in their data privacy and compliance practices.
Q) What is your Expected trend and growth of CDPs among Indian businesses and markets?
In July, RedSeer– one of the largest management consulting companies in India—reported that India’s consumer digital economy is estimated to become an $800 billion market by 2030.
With this development, we estimate that a growing number of Indian organizations will adopt Customer Data Platforms as their data management tool of choice. CDPs will prove to be a critical infrastructure for businesses to ride this wave of top-line growth and become more efficient in their data collection and management processes.
