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How Customer Data Management Works in Ecommerce

How customer data management will help your ecommerce store

One of the vital differences between digital marketing and natural marketing is the data trail that digital leaves behind. By understanding and using that data, you’ll be able to make smarter marketing decisions for your business.

There are currently 1.8 million eCommerce stores that operate in the US alone. One sure-fire way to put you a cut above the rest is by analyzing your customer data and making changes going forward.

Data analysis doesn’t come easy to a lot of people. Mathematics may have been something you wanted to leave back in your school days. Luckily, by using a customer data platform (CDP) in your marketing, you’ll be able to run the calculations automatically.

Instead of tiring away while crunching the numbers, you’ll be able to generate practical and comprehensive data reports. 

By acting upon these figures, you’ll be able to personalize your marketing strategies (read more about the topic on this article), boost your customer retention rate, and increase the customer lifetime value of your eCommerce store.

In this article, we’ll be exploring the primary data points that fuel data-driven marketing. These are the most vital points of data for eCommerce business, charting your data-backed path to success.

What is Customer Data Management?

Every action that a person takes on your site leaves a trail of traceable data. From how long they spend on a page to which items they click on, everything produces data.

The process of customer data management is about gathering and organizing this data. 

Once organized, you’ll then be able to analyze it and draw conclusions about what you should change or adapt within your business.

A customer data platform (CDP) like Verfacto will allow you to collect this data and store it in one place. Members of all your respective teams will all have access to the data, allowing them to optimize their respective roles. 

By employing a CDP, you’ll be able to manage your data without spending your own time on the organizational stage. Considering that the Harvard Business Review reported that 80% of a data analyst’s time is spent on discovering and preparing data for analysis, that’s a huge amount of time—and money—that you’ll be saving.

Instead of employing someone to find data for 80% of their time and then analyze it for 20%, you’ll be able to cut out this middleman entirely. An integrated CDP will collect data automatically, continually running calculations to give you the most up-to-date facts and figures.

What Customer Data Does a Customer Data Platform Collect?

Three core customer data types allow for effective data-driven marketing. While there are more than three types of data, these are the main ones that are critical for eCommerce platforms.

  • Identity Data
  • Quantitative Data
  • Qualitative Data

Let’s break these down even further.

Identity Data

This data point refers to foundational information about a customer. This includes key information like name, date of birth, gender, address, email address, telephone, payment preferences, and more.

These are mainly collected when a user signs up to your website, or checks out with an item. Collecting these will allow you to contact the user directly, offer them discounts to increase their likelihood of returning, and keep them up to date with everything your company is doing.

Quantitative Data

When someone says the word ‘data’, this is more what comes to mind—hard numbers based on customer habits and behavior. Quantitative data examples would include the number of purchases, AOV, cart abandonment rate, product returns, online views, click-through rates, and more.

When using a customer data platform like Verfacto, quantitative data is automatically collected and compiled. By accessing the platform, you’ll be able to see a direct x-ray of your eCommerce store, including all the necessary data from this format.

Qualitative Data

Contrasting to quantitative data, qualitative data asks questions like ‘How,’ ‘What,’ and ‘Why.’ This data allows you to perceive how customers respond emotionally to your store. You can obtain this data by launching small surveys for users to fill in exchange for a discount or a promotional rate.

For example, you could ask a customer what they like/dislike about the sales funnel in exchange for 50% off shipping.

Filling in these surveys will only take a few seconds but will grant the user a benefit while also revealing essential data to your company.

Points like customer motivations, opinions, and attitudes would all fall under this heading.

What Can Customer Data Management and Analysis Reveal?

Once you collect your data on a data management platform and analyze it, you’ll gain a vital insight into ways that you can improve your marketing process. 

Want to improve your sales funnel? Then check the data to see where people are exiting out of your sales process. 

Want to upsell products and increase your AOV? Check out product pairing suggestions based on Verfacto’s data-driven marketing approach.

Want to increase customer retention? Check out which products have the highest % of return customers and place more emphasis on marketing those.

Acting upon customer data will allow you to change the way that you interact with your user base. From inbound marketing on distinct channels and device analysis to calculating customer lifetime values and dividing your audience into user segments—data can pack quite a punch.

Targeting users based on their data is known as behavioral targeting. This will allow you to directly accommodate for your individual users, giving your site a personal feel.

But that’s not everything. Here are just a few of the changes that customer data management can allow you to make:

  • Improve your customer acquisition rates
  • Improve your customer retention rates
  • Optimize your sales platform, include the sales funnel
  • Improve revenue by making intelligent product-pairing suggestions

And that’s only the beginning!

Final Thoughts

Collecting and analyzing customer data is the fuel that drives data-driven marketing. Without having to waste time guessing, data-driven marketing allows you to optimize how you do business. 

An integrated customer data platform like Verfacto allows you to take control of your customer data. We’re currently offering a one-month free trial to all users, so you can see how efficient your store can be for yourself. 

Everything starts with that first data point. 

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