What are Data Management Platforms?
A Data Management Platform is a software system that collects, stores, organizes, and analyzes data from multiple resources. The core capability of the data management platform lies in its ability to create audience segments by analyzing the collected data.
Data management platforms provide well-segmented data to marketers by comparing various parameters and customer behavior. This segmented data helps marketers create personalized and precise marketing strategies for each of the segmented or target groups.
Data Management Platforms Vs. Customer Database Platforms
DMPs and CDPs are different technologies that are used in the utilization and management of customer data but they serve different purposes.
The Purpose of Customer Database Platform
The primary purpose of CDPs is to create unified customer profiles by consolidating data from various resources. CDPs deal with first-party data and are ideal for customer engagement and personalization as they analyze the preferences and interests of each customer.
Also read: What is CDP? What Are the Benefits of CDP in Marketing?
The Purpose of Data Management Platform
The primary purpose of DMPs is focused on audience segmentation for various personalized and targeted advertising campaigns. DMPs help businesses to manage and create audience segments based on various criteria. DMPs deal with both first-party and third-party data and are ideal for digital advertising and ad retargeting. However, learn more about how DMPs are utilized effectively by marketers.
Use of Data Management Platforms in Marketing
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Centralized and Segmented Marketing Data
Marketing data consists of large volumes of different types of data. Marketing data is collected from various sources and parameters including sales data, customer data, lead-gen data, conversion data, social-media behavior data, etc. The parameters can be wide depending on the niche, industry, and type of the marketing campaign.
As mentioned above, marketing data is collected from various resources and it involves the combination of different audience segments. DMPs centralize the data collected from different sources and segment all the data based on various perspectives.
For instance, the audience data can be segmented according to different criteria based on age, gender, location, social media behavior, interests, etc. Data management platforms centralize the data from all the possible channels and organize the data into a systematic structure so that marketers can easily extract information.
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Effective Data Integration
Data integration can be a huge challenge especially when marketers are planning multiple campaigns across various channels. Marketing plans involve a combination of strategies that demand data based on various attributes.
For instance, an email marketing campaign requires marketing data including email addresses, subscriber preference, active and inactive recipients, open rates based on subject lines, etc.
A social media marketing campaign requires marketing data including demographics, engagement rate (likes, comments, shares), ad spend, social media content format, timing, etc.
Likewise, every marketing strategy requires a combination of marketing data and it gets difficult for marketers to collect the data every time from different platforms or systems.
Data management platform helps businesses and marketers to integrate data from disparate sources into a single platform. From transaction histories to demographics, online behavior, and social media interactions marketers can integrate and manage the data holistically using DMPs. Hence data can be accessed in one place and eliminates the data silos.
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Cross-Channel Marketing and Cross-Device Targeting
DMPs are the essential tools for marketers to implement cross-channel marketing as they provide essential infrastructure and capabilities to store and analyze data from different resources.
Data marketing platforms collect data from various marketing channels including websites, social media, CRM systems, third-party data vendors, mobile applications, etc. Also, DMPs have the capability to segment the data based on various attributes. Marketers can leverage this ability of DMPs and understand the target audience preference for each marketing channel including social media, display advertising, emails, etc.
This helps in efficient cross-channel campaigns that are more targeted, personalized, and resonate with the audience’s expectations.
Also, data management platforms can perform cross-device tracking. DMPs link user interactions across multiple devices and centralize the data. Marketers can either use unified data or segment the data for each device (mobile, tablet, desktop, laptop).
With the help of DMP’s cross-channel marketing and cross-device tracking capabilities, marketers can deliver super-targeted and personalized messaging for specific audience groups and optimize messaging for each device’s preferences.
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Data-driven Marketing Decisions
The results of marketing strategies directly influence the critical decisions of businesses. But is important to extract valuable insights from the marketing campaigns.
DMPs help marketers fetch insights about marketing campaigns and their impact based on historical data and real-time campaign performance. Data management platforms help businesses to make data-driven decisions based on pre-campaign analytics and post-campaign analytics.
DMPs provide comprehensive access to data by tracking interactions and touchpoints of customers across multiple devices and various parameters. These insights help marketers analyze, measure, and optimize their marketing strategies and help businesses in valuable data-driven marketing decisions.
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Reduces Ad Spend Wastage
Marketers launch multiple ad campaigns across multiple channels. Generalized ad campaigns without the proper understanding of target audience needs lead to wastage of Ad spend.
As discussed above, data marketing platforms are great tools for collecting, consolidating, and analyzing huge amounts of data and segmenting the audience list based on various parameters. With the help of segmentation, marketers can understand the preferences of their audience, customize the ads, and prevent the wastage of Ad spend.
Conclusion
Data Management Platforms help businesses extensively in launching targeted ad campaigns that are essential to reach a specific group of audience at the right time. DMPs also allow real-time optimization of Ads on the go and provide greater flexibility for businesses to reach out to the right segment of the audience that is likely to convert.
DMPs significantly rely on third-party data sources by deeply analyzing the audience preferences with the help of cookies. However, in the evolving era where customer behavior cannot be tracked with the help of cookies, DMPs will primarily depend on first-party data sources that ensure transparency and privacy to the target audience.
