Collecting data about customers is a critical pillar of a successful business, but recent privacy laws have made it more difficult and challenging for many marketers. Despite these privacy changes, businesses can still carry out these processes by collecting first-party data through data platforms like customer data platforms (CDPs). 

But collecting this data alone isn’t going to help you prepare for the cookieless future — you need to create a unified view of each customer and user. 

Let’s have a look at how the single customer view (SCV) can help you do this. 

What is a single customer view?

A single customer view, also known as a ‘360,’ ‘360 degree,’ or ‘unified’ customer view, is a method for collecting all of your prospects’ and clients’ data and incorporating it into a single record. Usually, customer data platforms (CDPs) produce single customer views (SCVs) when you drill down from a view of your big data to look at individual records.

An SCV contains a user’s basic contact information, buying history, and information on their interactions with other business touch-points (such as customer service or point-of-sale) throughout their customer journey.

To create a single customer view, you must ensure that customer data is captured in real-time across all your channels and internal systems. This data can come from various sources such as your website, in-store sales transactions, marketing tools, social media channels, and customer service interactions. 

Once collected, you need to clean, synthesise, and store this data in one centralised location and you’ll get a powerful overview of every action your customer performed.

What does this mean for your customers?

Let’s imagine Mia is one of your customers. She’s been a customer of yours for some time and you know many things about her. However, all of her information is located in different systems throughout your business and is stored in slightly different ways. 

With information spread across multiple systems, it might get difficult for you to find Mia’s information. Can you see that Mia has been surfing your website? Can you recognise that she called to lodge a complaint at some point? Mia thinks you do.

Each of the records of Mia’s activity tells you something about her, but none of them will show you the complete picture, if you’re only looking at one snapshot of Mia. You might be at the risk of missing opportunities to better engage and better understand her needs. While this certainly presents a problem when providing customer service, it can even go deeper and affect how your business makes decisions.

So the next time Mia contacts you, you’ll know if she’s been looking at your website, if she’s been talking about you online, or if she’s just due for another order and she will appreciate this. That’s the power of a single customer view.

Why is this important for your business?

• Addressable media campaigns – recognising which stage your customers are in the buyer journey and targeting them with relevant messages at the right time, in the right context, across the right devices.
• Deeper insights into the customer journey – understanding the macro trends of customers in general – where do new customers find a brand? what are the most successful conversion methods per channel – and determining who your best customers are.
• Personalise brand experiences – knowing whether or not consumers are still in research mode or are in the market for a product so you can start customising messages with meaning and value.  
• Target customers accurately – knowing your customers and their needs and interests will allow you to better manage media spending. 

Final thoughts

As marketers try to keep up with the changes around data, while continuing to deliver relevant campaigns to consumers, using their first-party data could help them continue their strategic initiatives.

Through a single customer view, you can benefit from your first-party data to create a more accurate depiction of who your customers really are. This solution is not only helping you deliver personalised marketing, but it ensures your readiness for a privacy-first, cookieless future.

If you’d like to know how we can help your business thrive in a cookieless world, get in touch here.