Data Intelligence Organizations improve customer experience and revenue

“Data intelligence companies – and specifically behavioral data intelligence companies – are focused on removing these limitations by helping the marketer unlock a much broader view of the consumer’s buying journey,” says Eli Schwarz, Vice President of Data Strategy & Partnerships at Jornaya, in an exclusive interview to Enterprise Talk

ET Bureau: How can a data intelligence company help in driving revenue growth and enhance customer experience?

Eli Schwarz: Revenue growth – and ultimately, lifetime value – is an outcome of creating substantial customer experiences and customer-centric marketing programs. When these experiences are tailored to the individual consumer, delivered at the right-time, and focused on the consumer’s interests and intent, they ultimately deliver the highest returns to the marketer.

Marketers have traditionally been limited in their ability to create these types of personalized experiences because they’ve lacked insight into which consumers are truly in-market and where they are in their buying journey.

Data intelligence companies – and specifically behavioral data intelligence companies – are focused on removing these limitations by helping the marketer unlock a much broader view of the consumer’s buying journey.

Current customers are inundated with marketing messages and have more options than ever before. They have the luxury of weighing their options, seeking multiple opinions, and comparing service providers. In studying the Jornaya network of shopping behavior, we found that more than one-third of mortgage and insurance shoppers and nearly two-thirds of education degree seekers submitted inquiries to 2 or more websites before making a decision.

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And of every investigation, there were multiple website visits with research and comparison shopping in the months leading up to the consumer’s decision to buy. The vast majority of consumers’ shopping behavior occurred outside of any individual marketer’s website and direct communications.

Martech solutions with customer journey analytics provide marketers with knowledge of key inflection points in the customer’s buying journey outside of their direct purview, which they otherwise would have missed. They can learn when a customer or prospect is beginning their buying journey.

Conversely, they have already ended their buying journey. They can apply this information to their outreach efforts to prioritize in-market consumers with high intent and suppress marketing to consumers with little or no intent.

Leveraging these insights allows marketers to efficiently allocate spend and time by focusing on leads with higher conversion chances. A recent Forrester study showed that companies using a customer journey analytics solution achieved nearly 200% return on investment over three years.

Additionally, the accuracy of messaging allowed for a better customer experience since the individual is received what they need instead of being bombarded with messaging that is irrelevant to their shopping journey.

ET Bureau: How can businesses increase their first-party data value by tapping into in-market movements?

Eli Schwarz: The level of focus and investment that we see from marketers who are looking to maximize value from their 1st party data assets is steadily increasing, and this trend is expected to continue as privacy regulations evolve and as the advertising industry shifts away from reliance on 3rd party cookies and opaque consumer audiences.

Most marketers are still in the early stages of their journey in this area – they may not even have a full picture of the assets that they own, much less an ability to activate them – and it’s important to build foundational capabilities to verify, link, and manage these assets before they can be deployed effectively.

When managed effectively, 1st party customer and prospect data provide a treasure trove of value to the marketer who wants to create personalized experiences and engagements that lead to retention and revenue growth through cross-sell or acquisition campaigns.

For many marketers, their CRM is an untapped source of rich data on current customers and prospects – and when this data is enriched with critical insight into changes in the customer or prospects’ in-market activity, it can be activated to improve customer retention and increase customer acquisition.

A common goal among marketers is to improve the timing and relevancy of their current customer marketing communications powered by 1st party data. Incorporating a behavioral data intelligence partner can bolster marketers’ 1st party data by providing insight into critical inflection points in the consumer’s buying journey that can help right-time outreach to a current customer – or tailor the content of the communication to match the customer’s true interest and need.

ET Bureau: Consumers are concerned about privacy. How can technology maintain data security and improve customer loyalty?

Eli Schwarz: Compliance with data privacy regulations is quickly becoming table stakes – it’s simply something every business has to do. Truly ensuring consumer privacy and meeting consumer expectations for privacy and consent, however, is what drives exceptional customer experiences.

Trust is at the center of customer loyalty, and nothing can ruin that faster than having personal information being mishandled or shared without permission. Privacy has grown to be even more important to consumers – with many reporting; they would cease business with a company over data sharing practices. In response, privacy regulations are growing – with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the recently launched COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act of 2020, and similar rules being anticipated for New York, New Jersey, and Washington. Despite having a similar goal, all these regulations will likely have different nuances, making compliance even more challenging and complex.

At Jornaya, we’ve brought consumer privacy and compliance protection to the forefront of everything we do. All martech solution providers should implement a privacy-first platform, system, and culture to ensure compliance to include current regulations like TCPA and ensure that consumer expectations for consent are met before marketing is initiated.

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In 2019, we extended our products to help marketers comply with the CCPA. We will continue to evolve these capabilities to help marketers stay ahead of the future privacy regulation curve.

ET Bureau: Lastly, how can organizations find new customers and develop business relationships? How can Jornaya assist here?

Eli Schwarz: Network! We’ve seen the power of networking first hand for many years, as we’ve facilitated introductions and connections between our partners. This year, we’ve taken these efforts to the next level with the launch of V!AJornaya, the only comprehensive industry directory for the lead generation and performance marketing ecosystem. This directory has already facilitated hundreds of connections between our partners, helping to create new business relationships and customers. We sit in a unique and privileged position, as our technology is used to power business relationships between all of these companies.

Eli Schwarz is Vice President of Data Strategy & Partnerships at Jornaya, where he leads commercial strategy and go-to-market efforts for the company’s indirect partner and Publisher revenue channels, as well as the growth and management of the company’s proprietary data assets, which are fueled by a network of over 35,000 websites and 1000+ Publisher partners.