Data Marketing: Understanding Customers at the Device Level

Increasingly, knowing your customers through data marketing is knowing them via the devices they carry

Today’s reality is the result of two different yet correlated upheavals. First came the rise of the internet and the World Wide Web, now well into its third decade. Then there was the introduction of smartphones with the beginning of the 21st century.

These two technological developments have resulted in an enduring cultural change. The potential of smartphones, tablets, and even the latest smartwatches and other wearable devices has done more to normalize the need for an always-on mobile connection to the internet and spawned a connectivity arms race of sorts that keeps pushing the limits of wireless connectivity forward.

It is no exaggeration to say that today, people live a significant portion of their lives with and through their highly personalized mobile devices. They get their news and entertainment through them; they research future purchases and transact most of their business through them. A data marketing strategy that does not target this activity is akin to posting a billboard ad printed with invisible ink.

The challenge: many potential customers, with multiple devices

All of this technological/social change has brought forward an increasingly complex data-tracking challenge. Take one individual; we’ll call her Eva. To a certain extent, we can observe her online and offline behaviors, particularly when it comes to online commerce. We can see her browser searches, where she lives and works, her email use, her social engagement, and so on.

Yet, how can anyone be sure that all this activity is Eva’s? How can anyone be certain that behind all this activity is a real, honest-to-goodness human being?

The answer: mobile device ID tracking

A mobile device ID identifies specific mobile devices and ties them to a user. These connections between devices and actual humans can be made during an opt-in process, often during email list signup or vendor account creation. Tracking this mobile device ID, associated with a real name and tethered to a phone, a tablet, a notebook computer, or even a smartwatch, allows the compilation of actionable marketing data that can be used to better serve the very consumers who provide it.

Not only that, mobile device IDs make fraud easier to detect and harder to perpetrate.

When marketers understand their users better, they make meaningful offers

There’s no quicker way to alienate an online prospect than to present them with irrelevant offers and discounts on things they’ll never buy. By successfully tracking user data through their mobile device IDs, marketers can form a complete picture of a particular consumer’s purchasing patterns as well as tastes and preferences. Doing so can keep pizza shops from spending resources sending special offers on deep-dish pepperoni pizza to vegans, for example. Or gas stations can avoid sending a credit card application to a person whose sole personal vehicle is a Tesla.

The better you know your target and can identify them, the less money you spent on wild click chases.

Show up where people do their buying

By successfully tracking mobile device IDs, you can get to people where they do their buying. Going back to Eva from above, what if you could determine that she does most of her in-depth research for a future car purchase on her tablet but only carries a smartphone when she’s actually out car shopping? Perhaps that presents an opening to deliver advertising on her tablet after being location-tagged through her phone at a competing dealership? Correlating her onsite shopping with her research history could result in providing the right pitch, at the precisely correct time, and help your dealer close a sale.

The data is out there; when it is collected and correctly attributed, everybody wins 

Consumers’ correctly attributed and interpreted online activity yields better search results, better product recommendations, and better offers and potential savings due to more accurate offers based on their real interests and buying habits. Marketers win by being able to effectively reach consumers when they’re ready to buy, based on recent browsing and transactional data. And we all win when online fraud is made harder and less attractive to perpetrators.

BDEX makes this all possible with our Identity Graph/Identity Resolution tool. We sort through billions of data signals in real time to identify behaviors that signal an intent to buy, then we pinpoint the actual person behind them. The result is empowered marketing that delivers real human connectivity, and ultimately more sales and happier customers.

BDEX endows your marketing with the power and depth of human connectivity. Call 917-410-6616 or contact us to learn how marketing solutions from BDEX can help you engage your ideal consumer with communication that generates actionable data for future marketing efforts.