INDUSTRY EXPERT

Obtaining meaningful insights through data can be a difficult area to navigate but this invaluable information can support a business ’ marketing approach and provide a better understanding of its customers ’ behaviour . Nick King , President and Chief Product Marketing Officer at Snowplow , tells us how organisations can best utilise prediction software to help make informed decisions and realise their future goals .

Behavioural data describes how customers have interacted with a business , which can in turn inform businesses as to how they should work with customers . Accurate data is used to drive more customisations in Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) and Machine Learning ( ML ).

Businesses are unable to utilise the power of behavioural data as they rely on the manual process of extracting data from their existing SaaS applications . These applications include analytics platforms and customer data platforms ( CDP ) feeding data to their warehouse or lake .

Extracted data was never designed to be utilised outside the platforms they were generated in , leading to significant and labour-intensive data-preparation in advance of deployment .

From our own research report , we know data practitioners spend 26 – 50 % of their time finding , cleansing and preparing data for analysis rather than generating insight and value for their business . you might download a business ’ Augmented Reality app and try on some of the clothes or glasses before purchasing in store .

That is typical behavioural data , but it is difficult to track from a digital perspective . If you can ’ t fill in the non-digital gap you may make assumptions that the VR app isn ’ t working , for example , but that could be the main factor that commits people to a purchase .

Another element is that data has grown so much due to how customers are interacting with businesses and how businesses work with their partners . Being able to link events in the user ’ s behaviour is important and when you have more sophistication in collecting and reading that data , your business intelligence is far more accurate , allowing you to build interesting use cases around AI and ML .

Customers also now demand and expect to have a great user experience , so businesses need to meet these expectations through using data collection for their AIs to result in a unique and effective user experience . That ’ s why it ’ s important to understand users ’ behaviour and the reasons we set into motion building a solution that provides everyone with access to this type of technology .

Why is personalisation important when it comes to insights ?

Traditionally , businesses would target either a segment or a generalised population , but over the past 10 years we have micro-segmented potential buyers , in recognition that we are all unique individuals , creating numerous journeys .

Nick King , President and Chief Product Marketing

Officer at Snowplow

Snowplow helps to remove that complexity of data preparation by enabling businesses to purposefully create data for the data applications . Snowplow makes it simple to manage things like compliance , privacy and ensuring accurate and informative data , changing how businesses manage behavioural data across their customer base .

Why is it so important to understand users ’ behaviour today ?

As a buyer , you might start online , using multiple touchpoints to go back and forth to a website . Then

Therefore , personalisation has become more complicated but , with more specific and granular data and systems , the results can be invaluable . However , there is an unfulfilled opportunity to automate that further .

Secondly , businesses spend significant amounts of money on acquiring customers and then maintaining them , with ever increasing ad spends without knowing what works effectively . If you can use your data correctly , you can become more precise with your spending and with the right dollar in the right place , gain far more efficiency .

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