What Is Data Enrichment?

Even in a marketplace where a growing number of customer interactions happen in digital channels, it’s still difficult to form a complete understanding of your customers. While robust first-party data gives you a glimpse at what you currently know about your customers and how they engage with you, the insights are limited.

Data enrichment can help you go deeper.

What do brands already know about their customers?

In today’s digital landscape, your organization has access to more forms of customer data than ever before. Every time a customer interacts with your brand, they create valuable data points, also known as first-party data, that can provide you with intelligence such as:

• Content and product preferences
• Preferred communication channels
• Demographic information

Chances are you already have a database of customer information that includes basic characteristics, preferences, transaction history, and possibly geographic data. Various analytics tools can show you how your customers navigate through your webpages, how they interact with your social media content, which emails they’re most likely to open, and what topics they’re likely to discuss with your customer service agents. Plus, data activation methods can help you gain more benefits from valuable offline data such as in-store transactions and loyalty programs.

First-party data is valuable, but it’s also imperative to understand your customers at a holistic level. And let’s face it: Your interactions with a customer are limited to the dimensions of your brand. There’s a lot you don’t naturally get to see about your customers.

That’s where data enrichment comes in.

What is data enrichment and how does it work?

A data enrichment provider can augment a brand’s first-party data with qualified consumer traits from audience data pools to enhance digital marketing strategies, optimize customer acquisition, and transform loyalty and retention programs. By integrating high-quality, validated audience data with your own, the data enrichment process provides a holistic view of your current customers and gives you the information needed to extrapolate that understanding for more-effective prospecting. Data enrichment enables marketers to better understand the behaviors their customers exhibit while not interacting with their brands, which can provide new and valuable segmentation data.

What are the benefits of data enrichment?

Enriched data fills in the missing pieces of your first-party data puzzle so you can develop content and offers that appeal to your customers and find new customers like them. After all, it's not enough to just maintain your business; you need your revenue to grow, not just with loyal customers and by increasing their value, but also with net new customers.

New and established inbound marketing funnels can also benefit from data enrichment. Asking for too many data points through a web form can be a risk; the more data information you ask for, the less likely people are to fully complete the form or fill it out truthfully. Data enrichment enables you to limit your data requests while still being able to obtain a detailed view of your customers. This means you don’t have to worry about asking interest and behavior questions because you can enrich your data at a later point. You can focus on getting the most important insights to serve the customer’s immediate needs.

Who needs data enrichment services?

Every organization can benefit from data enrichment—and at every stage of the marketing and sales funnel. With a holistic view of your customers and target audience, you can improve conversions, enhance the customer experience, and earn brand loyalty.

Marketing and sales leaders can leverage data enrichment services in combination with first-party data to scale and sustain engaging campaigns. Considering that 77 percent of consumers have paid more for a brand that offers personalized services and experiences, it is more important than ever to tailor your marketing efforts through a better understanding of your customers.

When should you leverage data enrichment?

No matter how your marketing strategy has evolved, you can leverage the data enrichment process to increase the value of your first-party data and improve your marketing efforts. Brands looking to expand their offerings into a new market, deepen engagement with current customers or reach new prospects can benefit from the expansive insights data enrichment provides. The process can give you a better understanding of your new market at times when you don’t have a lot of first-party data attributes.

Contrary to popular belief, brands with large customer databases often stand to benefit the most from enrichment because expansive databases are more prone to errors and data decay. For example, enrichment can update or validate existing customer records to account for recent changes in income, family status, job title, and more.

What should you look for in a data enrichment provider?

A dedicated data enrichment provider will help you achieve the benefits of enriched data over the long term. Here are some questions to ask when choosing a data enrichment provider:

• How do you validate and certify your data?
• How large is your database of qualified user identifiers?
• Which markets and verticals do you support, and do they line up with your growth plans?
• Is your data compliant with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and/or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? What about other relevant privacy regulations?
• What does your future look like without third-party cookies? (Even though Google will not maintain support for third-party cookies on Chrome, their usefulness will continue to decline as consumers opt out of tracking.)

An effective data enrichment provider will partner with you to achieve your business objectives. Be prepared to ask questions about how the provider will help you to address the barriers preventing you from reaching and delighting your customers. For instance, if you’re looking for a solution to augment your account-based marketing efforts, ask if your provider can help you target users who own certain brands or who can influence buying decisions.

With the right data enrichment provider, you can develop a tailored path to purchase.

Want to learn more? Contact our team at www.eyeota.com/contact-us for more information about B2B and B2C identity solutions.