Michael Kaminsky talks with a marketing expert about why you need to own your customer data instead of depending on Meta or Google. Building a Customer Data Platform lets you keep high-quality first-party data and control your relationships, especially as European privacy rules tighten.
What is your sort of most important piece of advice for, let's imagine someone starting on this journey, they want to start embracing test and learn. What's your advice to them or what are your recommendations on the most important things they need to put into place?
I would definitely say that you need to start invest in your own data and invest in your own customers. You cannot be reliant on Meta or Google or other tech platforms. You have to have your own data. Also, at least from a European context, we are losing a lot of that data that those systems can actually provide us with. So the competitive advantage for us is definitely being able to have that data ourselves to provide, to give to our partners. Because the more data you have and the better quality of data you have to give to your partners, the better outcomes they can give you back.
What are the key aspects of the data system that a business needs? Is it, you mentioned the customer data platform, so CDP. What else are like the core parts of your data system that support this?
We are a huge customer with Salesforce. We use their CRM system. And I think, of course, investing in your own data also means for me investing in a CRM setup. So being able to not just relying on outreach media like Meta or Google, but also have a part of your marketing setup where you have established a direct line to your customers so you can communicate with them directly. I would say CRM is probably our most effective platform for generating both short-term sales. So if we have something, a new product line that is coming out, we often see that And when we burst that out through CRM, that is where we get the highest cashback short-term-wise at least, but also on the longer run, because you can actually use your CRM to build your relationship with your customers, to have a way to continuously communicating with those customers. CRM and first-party data, that's really what's most important from our perspective.
