Planning the Move from Salesforce DMP to Data Cloud for Marketing
Key considerations when making a move from DMPs to CDPs
Marketing, advertising, and personalization in the digital world are changing. With privacy laws continuing to increase protections for consumers, the futures of third-party data and cookies are uncertain. Currently, marketing data strategies and enabling technologies are shifting toward collecting, processing, and activating data gathered directly from consumers — first-party data. The remaining days of marketers primarily relying on second- and third-party data are short.
One tool leading the charge in the transition to the first-party-data world is the customer data platform (CDP). Simultaneously, focus is shifting away from data management platforms (DMPs), many of which are being reengineered to function more like CDPs, hoping to stay afloat amid changing tides. Transparency and ethical collection of data are ever greater themes in the world of CDP marketing data; in contrast, DMPs and their tracking capabilities have been black box, making some people uncomfortable.
Recently, CDP options have proliferated with many CIOs and other leaders picking a CDP based on where their first party data resides — the customer relationship management (CRM) platform. As the №1-ranked CRM, Salesforce with its Data Cloud for Marketing will be the obvious choice for many marketing teams as their go-to CDP, especially for users of Salesforce Audience Studio (formerly Salesforce DMP) — scheduled to be retired soon.
This article offers an overview of key considerations for transitioning from Salesforce Audience Studio (DMP) to Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing. The key implications of this transition are crucial to understand for enabling a successful migration.
Similarities and differences
Salesforce Audience Studio (DMP) and Data Cloud for Marketing perform similar overall functions. Both tools ingest data, create marketing audience segments, and activate segments across various destinations to drive marketing outcomes and customer experiences. The key differences are the types of data collected and how they are used.
- CDPs focus on first-party data — personally identifiable and known. CDPs store data for longer periods than DMPs, excel at resolving customer identities into unified individuals with high match rates, and activate specific segments.
- DMPs focus on second- and third-party data — anonymous or pseudonymous. DMPs attempt to create a universal identifier stitched together from various anonymous identities, resulting in lower-quality matches and lower match rates. DMPs focus on activating anonymized/pseudonymized segments and look-alike audiences via programmatic advertising channels — often to acquire new customers.
Migration considerations and implications
Develop a clear data strategy.
Due to the focus on first-party data, data strategy takes center stage, as a brand must now choose what data to collect and how. Companies are building their own, custom, walled gardens of customer data.
The result?
More control over data quality, retention, and management … and more responsibility on internal data owners to maintain data quality and governance, throughout the data lifecycle.
Understanding the segment definitions, required attributes, and where and how to collect them in a governed fashion is vital. A clear data strategy helps align cross-functional teams.
Build cross-functional buy-in.
Data is ingested into Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing from multiple sources, including Salesforce Sales/Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce, Loyalty, and — using MuleSoft Anypoint — virtually anywhere else you can think of. Teams that own those data must buy into the CDP vision and be willing to work with CDP architects.
Anticipate changes to data ingestion.
Salesforce DMP ingests data through control tags on websites, media tags in email, first-party data onboarding, server-to-server connections, mobile app software development kits (SDKs), and others.
Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing ingests data through native connectors to other Salesforce Clouds, AWS S3, MuleSoft, and more. Ingestion runs more smoothly, thanks to these built-in connections.
Understand the differences in identity resolution methods.
CDPs resolve and unify individual people using personally identifiable information (PII). PII includes items like name, email, phone number, and address, as well as other information tied to a known person. With PII, CDPs are able to use deterministic matching. Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing stores and merges pseudonymous data, once a user becomes known. This yields more confident segmentation — and a lower usage bill from Salesforce to boot.
DMPs use probabilistic matching in an attempt to create a universal ID and build profiles. This method is intrinsically less accurate and misses valuable 1-to-1 personalization.
There is an increased role of data modeling in segmentation.
Segmentation in Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing is more involved than in DMP. More specifically, data modeling plays a major role. A standardized model is used to map and model ingested data. The model can be customized and the data remain tied to individuals. Maintaining the data model and restricting the access to key individuals is crucial.
Because DMPs are focused on advertising, segmentation is more rigid and limited. Data is anonymized and aggregated into pools of people. An attribute library exists, but not much data modeling is used.
Reconsider your methods of activation.
Salesforce Data Cloud for Marketing activates audiences back to other Salesforce Clouds — especially Marketing Cloud — for customer engagement and Amazon S3 for activation virtually anywhere. Advertising Studio (not to be confused with Audience Studio or Salesforce DMP) lets you target potential customers using social, search, and display —all familiar to DMP users. Marketers can activate first-party data for reengaging, suppressing, and finding look-alikes on Facebook, through Google, and elsewhere.
In contrast, Salesforce DMP activates mostly to the programmatic advertising ecosystem, though there are connections back to websites and email systems through a process called reidentification.
Conclusion
Marketing is moving to a first-party-data world, and CDPs are leading the charge. Although they require more thoughtfulness to implement, they benefit marketers and customers alike. Marketers benefit from centralized data provided directly by customers, enabling better experiences and relationships. Customers benefit from more ethical collection of their data and sublime customer experiences.
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