Survey of Australian marketers reveals single view of customer remains elusive


Just five percent of marketers have a single view of the customer despite 78 percent reporting it necessary to reach business goals
Just five percent of Australian marketers have a single view of their customer despite 78 percent reporting a single customer view as important or essential to improving return on marketing spend and providing the seamless experiences that today’s always-on customers expect.
 
The study released today by Signal also found that while the vast majority of marketers know a single view of the customer is critical for success, with 94 percent reporting that fragmented data and fragmented customer profiles hinder their marketing efforts.
 
“In today’s connected world, cross-channel identity is the make-or-break requirement for marketing success. But while consumers are always on, marketers are not able to connect the dots and create the seamless experiences consumers demand.  The research shows that identifying customers as they move from desktop to mobile to purchasing and beyond is currently a nearly impossible task for most marketers,” said Warren Billington, Signal’s Managing Director, APAC.
 
“Truly knowing customers is the marketing challenge of our time. There are steep obstacles including organisational silos and technology complexity, but the solutions to create a unified customer view do exist to empower marketers with clean, matched customer profiles that they can control and use however they want, wherever they choose to create impactful, relevant experiences,” said Billington.
 
Additional key findings include:
  • Creating a panoramic customer view is integral to business success. Understanding customer behaviour across channels, engaging customers across channels, and retaining customers and building loyalty are reported as the top three business benefits of a single customer view.
  • The downsides of not having a single customer view are impactful. 66 percent of respondents state that fragmented data leads to incomplete marketing measurement while 60 percent report it hinders the ability to personalise customer experiences. 44 percent also state that they can’t understand the customer journey with incomplete data, and 20 percent say it causes inefficient media buying.
  • Gathering and matching data are top challenges. 60 percent of marketers are unable to merge customer profile fragments as data becomes available, and 59 percent can’t collect and connect data across channels.
  • Current marketing solutions aren’t helping marketers address these challenges, with 79 percent of respondents reporting gaps in the data capabilities or effectiveness of their chosen solution. Only five percent of respondents say their tools are doing a good job in helping them develop a unified view.
  • Marketers struggle to collect and connect data from many of the most popular consumer touch points, both digital and offline. Only 30 percent of marketers are able to collect and integrate mobile app data, and just over half can collect and integrate data from their CRM systems.  Just 36 percent of marketers are able to collect and connect ad impression data, and only 29 percent can do so with Point of Sale (POS) data.
The results are drawn from a survey of nearly 200 Australian marketers conducted in March 2015 by Signal, the global leader in real-time, cross-channel marketing, who established an Australian office in 2014.  Signal also carried out the same survey with nearly 200 marketers in the US, Canada, Latin America, UK and Europe, Asia, and Middle East. 
 
The Australian report can be viewed here and the global report here.
 
Signal’s Fuse platform gives marketers a comprehensive, flexible solution for leveraging and owning their cross-channel data to resolve cross-channel identity.
 
About Signal
Signal is the global leader in real-time, cross-channel marketing technology. Signal’s Fuse Open Data Platform helps marketers collect data from any offline or online source, resolve identity across all consumer touch points, and deliver unified profiles to any marketing or analytics endpoint – all in real time. The platform is ecosystem- neutral and helps data and marketing technologies work better together, driving increased engagement, loyalty, and conversions.
 
Signal’s technology runs on more than 45,000 digital properties in 158 countries and its platform facilitates billions of data requests monthly, supporting top brands around the world that generate more than $1.5 trillion in commerce, including Allstate, Audi, Crate & Barrel, DeVry University, GAP, JetBlue Airways, Macy’s, 1-800-Flowers.com, Starcom MediaVest Group, Starwood Hotels and Resorts, and many more.
 
Visit www.signal.co to learn more and follow Signal on LinkedIn and Twitter.