How to Identify Your Best Customers Across All Devices

Hint: Linking relevant data points is the key.

Persistent Identification refers to the process of marrying consumers to their connected devices, with the ultimate goal of ensuring persistent, cross-device recognition for a single view of the consumer. Today, the average identification rate for eCommerce companies is approximately 5%.

So while many brands have large email lists, they’re not able to associate their audience to an email address across every device a user might be browsing on. Most companies can only identify the traffic that logs in, which for eCommerce brands is typically around 2% of their audience.

US broadband households now own more than 10 connected devices, including a mix of connected consumer electronics, smart home, and connected health devices, and as they buy more, they base their purchase decisions on a product’s ability to work with the existing devices in their home. So how can brands create a connected experience for consumers who are becoming increasingly accustomed to a multi-device and multi-channel shopping experience?

Think of brands like Amazon which can successfully identify their audience across every device and channel (mobile web, desktop, Alexa, Prime Now app), because they require that most users remain logged in.

While not all companies will be able to replicate the identification feat of Amazon, with the help of identity resolution and people-based marketing technologies, brands can begin to get a single view of their consumer that spans any and every device.

Today, brands have a plethora of data on each of their customers. From purchase data to email engagement to device information, the list of potential data points is endless.

Until recently, however, that data has remained dark and unusable, due to the limitations siloed channels have put on it. There has existed no way to combine the information from in-store POS sales to online sales to email engagement and website browsing behavior to create actionable insights.

With an identification-first approach, however, tapping into those dunes of dark data suddenly becomes possible, since it all ties back to that first point of identification – the email address. Now, brands can organize all their data the people-based way, attributing every piece of data (regardless of which device it originated on) to the single individual in question.

These customer data profiles shouldn’t be limited to historical data, either. They should simultaneously record behavioral data, or the actions that consumers are taking on your website in real time, including:

• Which device they’re on
• Whether they made it to a product or category page
• If they’ve added items to their cart
• Which categories and/or products were visited
• Whether or not they read the product reviews

Ultimately, by linking together these data points (the brand’s first-party consumer data with the individual consumer’s behavioral data) and connecting it all to the consumer in question, brands suddenly gain a singular view of their consumer.

No longer fragmented across different channels and devices, or the multichannel perspective, brands can finally visualize consumers as consumers first and foremost. The fact that they are consumers who then engage across various devices and channels as part of their single journey to conversion becomes secondary and unlocks the omnichannel view.

Find out how J&C can help you identify your best customers no matter what device they’re on. The result will be better retention and better business outcomes.

Contact me today at dquigley@jacobsclevenger.com. I’ll show you how we’ve helped other companies like yours do the same.