Tag: Data

I’ve long advocated that businesses need to take data protection seriously and any business that hasn’t already gotten its first-party data act together needs to prioritise that in 2023. Whether it’s Google getting rid of cookies, Apple making mobile ad tracking harder or governments introducing more legislation, things are only trending in one direction with data privacy. 

California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), is going into full effect on 1 January 2023 set to clamp down on B2B data. Meanwhile The Australian Federal Government has recently announced harsher penalties for data breaches, including fines amounting to a whopping $AUD 50 million.

Empowering your business as data privacy tightens

When it comes to the impending deprecation of third-party cookies, ID resolution emerges as a valuable resource. By building a hearty, privacy-compliant, first-party data set, ID resolution provides a buffer against increasingly strict privacy policies that limit the use of third-party data. And even more, it helps improve marketing performance and ROI too with smart segmentation, which helps brands cut down on redundancies.

Data clean rooms (DCRs) can also supply advertisers with access to information they otherwise wouldn’t have. And, especially with the impending demise of third-party cookies, every piece of information is gold. 

As privacy rules become stricter, DCRs will skyrocket in popularity. In fact, recent predictions indicate that by 2023, 80% of advertisers with media buying budgets over $1 billion will use DCRs.

However, a DCR is only an extension of a first-party data strategy. Connecting a CDP to a DCR allows first-party data to be anonymised and analysed alongside third-party sources. A CDP can also receive data from the DCR in the form of segments or targeted audiences it can then share with connected marketing platforms for activation.

Think of it this way: You can use Venmo or PayPal without a checking account attached to it, but it’s a much better experience (with better outcomes) if they are connected. Together, a DCR and a CDP allow organisations to manage, process and analyse their data in a way that’s efficient, safe and compliant.

Unlocking the value of customer data to drive business growth

Marketing budgets are under increased pressure. Businesses are continuing to focus on retaining their existing customers rather than spending big to acquire new ones. In relation to e-commerce, it’s not so much that consumers have stopped spending altogether – they are just buying different things. For instance, they’re now picking up a $30 lipstick every month rather than a $60 facial cream.

With supply chains being what they are, it’s crucial to pick up shifts in consumer preferences ASAP. Comprehensive, readily accessible, first-party data also makes it easier for businesses to understand what their customers want when they are feeling unsettled and financially stressed.

This means it’s more crucial than ever to remember customer metrics drive business metrics. Businesses will be more reliant than ever on a first-party data strategy next year to hold on to customers and remain one step ahead of their ever-evolving purchasing habits. 

It’s also important to remember customer data isn’t just for marketers. After building a unified customer database, that data is then available to advertisers, marketers, analysts, IT operations teams and product developers. This is precisely what it means to be customer-centric — using your customer data to inform all aspects of the business, not a single channel or department. When everyone shares the same understanding of customers, the business is equipped to provide the best experiences and the most impactful strategies for long-term growth.

Making the most of ‘messy’ data to make 2023 a success

While centralised data storage systems like warehouses and lakes are great ways to keep all the data together, especially at the scale most enterprises deal with (we’re talking hundreds of billions of data points), they don’t organise and cleanse large volumes of ‘messy’ data so that you can make the most out of it. 

It’s far from a ‘one and done’ solution. That’s where a CDP comes in. It powers up your data warehouse or data lake by:

  1. Cleaning customer data for superior ID resolution, providing teams answers to key questions about customer behaviour
  2. Providing built-in attributes that neatly lay out all the information needed to gain a picture of each customer, so you can perform advanced segmentation to find and reach the right audiences for a given campaign
  3. Managing workflows to activate use cases and bring the data to life
  4. Speeding up time to insights by providing access for non-technical teams
  5. Feeding data seamlessly into a range of different tools

2023 is the year for brands and organisations to embrace a ‘better together’ mentality when it comes to their data needs. 

This article is written by Billy Loizou, area vice president of Amperity.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023. What’s NEXT 2023 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share on upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to be part of the series. 

Enterprises are creating billions of rows, articles and pieces of data every minute of every day. With multitudes of applications and information sources all creating mountains of data, ensuring the data is managed and delivered to the right team at the right time can be overwhelming. 

As organisations look to building resilience in 2023, they must find better and simpler ways to access and analyse their data efficiently – doing so is key to making better data-driven decisions and winning in a saturated market. 

In the recent ‘Demystifying Data Integration: Automation Hacks Every IT Professional Should Know’ webinar hosted by SnapLogic, a leader in intelligent integration and enterprise automation; SnapLogic industry experts Jeremiah Stone, chief technology officer, and David Wilmer, principal product marketing manager, broke how enterprise automation makes organisations more competitive in today’s cut-throat landscape.

Data integration is more critical than ever

Data integration is critical to the success of organisations today. And yet, according to recent SnapLogic research in partnership with Vanson Bourne, 83% of ITDMs (IT decision-makers) are not completely satisfied with the performance and output of their data management and data warehousing solutions. This dissatisfaction stems from issues relating to data formatting, regulations and speed of data movement and accessibility within the organisation.

“Organisations know that integrated data instils data trust and that trust is critical in basing important business decisions on analytics,” Wilmer says. “But regardless of data integration’s importance, many organisations are still finding it difficult.”

On average, enterprises have approximately 254 applications, 40-60 tools per team and more than half (56%) of SaaS applications are not owned or managed by a company IT department. As app sprawl increases, data from each app gets siloed and becomes inaccessible to other parts of the organisations, teams and apps.

According to the same SnapLogic research, more than half (53%) of respondents say they do not entirely trust their data for decision-making. Wilmer says this isn’t surprising, considering the number of disconnected data sources organisations typically have.

“At the same time, 40% don’t completely trust their data for decision-making because poor integration means data is missing or incomplete,” he points out. “Disparate data sources increase data silos. That means your data can’t flow between systems, which lowers the confidence in data.”

No data integration means no data insights, which leads to impaired decision-making – it’s an equation that adds up to adverse business outcomes and poor user experience. In fact, the average organisation reports losing more than AU$1.45m each year due to poor data management. To remedy this and leverage the power of SaaS, data must be integrated.

Tip to streamline and simplify 

Leveraging modern tools and technology is the ultimate hack organisations can implement to streamline and simplify complex integration processes. The first way to do this is by eliminating manual coding. 

“Manual coding is tedious,” Wilmer says. “It’s prone to errors. It requires specialised skills. So you want to look for a modern platform that provides low/no code solutions.”

Low/no code solutions benefit entire organisations because they can be used by everyone, regardless of profession. These easy-to-use solutions empower staff to solve complex problems without relying on IT engineers to make sense of the data first.

“Everyone from tech-savvy engineers to business-savvy analysts needs to have access to data when and where they need it,” Wilmer stresses. “It should no longer be the bottleneck to business success.”

Stone agrees, adding that while he loves expressive development, code-centric integrations reduce the accessibility of the business rules that are codified into those integrations. 

“Organisations reap tonnes of benefits by taking a visual, no/low code approach to integration,” Stone explains. “For one, it’s accessible to people with business knowledge. But also, customer after customer that I’ve worked with finds that it reduces the risk of management and maintenance of those integrations because they’re actually easier to hand off between team members.

“Integration is a clever way to solve a difficult, persistent problem,” he continues. “The combination of seeing how you can empower different skill sets to participate in the integration process and using a model-driven or visual way to create, support, and maintain the integration is a powerful approach to solving any problem.”

Another way to simplify the complex is to focus on event-driven circumstances. Wilmer says there’s still a time and place for ‘bulk and batch’ processing, but an agile business needs real-time insights, which can only be achieved through streaming and API event-based data movement. “Modern applications need to be connected to share data,” he explains. “Event-driven data sharing powers enterprise automation.”

Beyond that, it’s important to scale with the cloud. “Obviously, when batch and high-volume process is necessary — and it will be — we want to scale with the cloud,” Wilmer adds. “Cloud computing has brought a seemingly limitless ability to reach peak performance and data processing.

“A data integration platform cannot be the bottleneck to achieving this agility. Look for a data platform that is born on the cloud and has the same ability to automatically scale with the cloud to maintain the desired performance.”

Finally, when it comes to simplification, think: consolidating integration. “It shouldn’t take four separate tools that specialise in only one or two methods of data integration to achieve business goals and objectives,” Wilmer insists. “Look for a complete integration platform that can do all four simultaneously to achieve integration, application integration, API management and governance.”

Winning with intelligent integration and automation

The enterprises that will win in the data economy are those that can harness data from every source and turn it into powerful insights. With data as the driving force of the future, it’s imperative to have an integration platform that can seamlessly integrate, automate and mobilise data to any data warehouse with a simple, powerful solution.

Successful integration leads to positive business outcomes and desirable user experiences. That’s why data-driven organisations integrate data to build a single source of truth. “This takes blending operational data with historical data, which involves data warehousing, capturing real-time data and streamlining data for analytics — all things that deliver immediate and tailored customer experiences,” Wilmer says. 

“The more automated this becomes, the quicker you can achieve these outcomes. Enterprise automation drives efficiencies in technology, so you can deliver the goals and promises of your business.”

Stone adds, “Think of it this way, everyone always wants to eat the ice cream first. But you have to eat your broccoli first. Integration is like eating your broccoli to get strong and get those payoffs and benefits.”

SnapLogic is an intelligent integration platform that enables enterprise integration and automation. “With SnapLogic, you will accelerate the value of your data through ease of use and intelligent designs,” Wilmer says.

“SnapLogic simplifies your integration in the cloud by mobilising the data and automating the processes that drive your business, enabling you to achieve enterprise integration and automation in a single platform — one that is purpose-built for the cloud and works with any cloud platform.”

Having that ability and the agility to pivot with technology and respond to challenges swiftly gives enterprises a leg up on the competition — competition that is scrambling to connect, reconfigure and rebuild their data integration processes.

Watch the full, on-demand webinar here.

James Campbell

This article is written by James Campbell, regional manager of SnapLogic for ANZ.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023. What’s NEXT 2023 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share on upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to be part of the series.

Singapore – Philippine electric company Meralco has tapped system software company Talend as part of the company’s customer-centric digital transformation. Meralco will leverage Talend’s Data Fabric in order to deliver healthy data and enable advanced analytics through its new data platform.

The electric company’s data-driven strategy plans to improve its data insights and drive innovation across the organisation to further level up customer experience and operations.

To help the company navigate the rapidly changing market conditions, Meralco embarked on its digital transformation journey in 2020 with a solid data driven strategy to power customer centricity through data. It implemented the Meralco Data Platform (MDP) to improve customer experience, service delivery, and operational efficiency. 

Through the MDP, Meralco is revolutionising its data collection, processing, and utilisation, to serve as the unified business intelligence and analytics platform that leverages its data to extract information and insights.

The MDP is a significant milestone in Meralco’s data driven strategy as this is consistent with the strategic directions of Meralco President and CEO Atty. Ray C. Espinosa, which is to elevate the utilisation of data and technology to advance the company’s goals of delivering value to the business and providing excellent customer service.

Meralco also uses Talend to broaden data access and offer a self-service platform for business users to consume quality data. With Talend, Meralco has innovated and modernised its data infrastructure, supporting a new data lake, data warehouses, data science workbenches, and the rationalisation of a business intelligence platform.

Rocky D. Bacani, first vice president and head of information, communication, technology and transformation at Meralco, said, “By unlocking the value of information to insights and harnessing the connected intelligence across Meralco, we bring to light where and how we can drive exceptional service to our customers, streamline our internal operations and create new opportunities for innovation – fully recognizing the power of data as an enabler of business growth.”

Meanwhile, JJ Tan, regional director for Asia at Talend, commented, “The energy sector demonstrates that it is one of the most strategic industries for global economic recovery in this post-pandemic period. Meralco, with Talend, is treating data as an asset and working to extract as much value from it as possible. We’re delighted to support Meralco in its effort to deliver healthy data across the organisation. By embracing the power and capabilities of a modern data platform, Meralco is well placed to meet the rapidly evolving needs of the markets and customers.”

Manila, Philippines – Philippine-based data analytics platform Packworks has officially launched its business intelligence tool ‘Sari IQ’, which provides data analytics on the behaviour and spending habits of consumers who buy their needs in traditional ‘mom-and-pop stores’, known locally as ‘sari-sari’ stores.

The platform launch was announced by Ibba Bernardo, Packworks’ co-founder and chief marketing officer, at the IMMAP DigiCon Valley 2022 held virtually on October 11, 2022.

The Sari IQ dashboard provides real-time and historic information on consumer spending and can be configured to develop an analysis for product types sold in small retail formats. It gives retailers and multinational brands complete visibility into sari-sari stores’ operations, allowing them to extend their slow-moving products and services to a wider pool of customers. Analysis through the platform also helps them come up with data-driven decisions to increase sales of sari-sari store owners by understanding and predicting consumer demand within their area.

Moreover, the platform tracks information from Packworks’ broad network of almost 200,000 sari-sari stores nationwide that use its super app called ‘Super Sari Store’.

“Sari IQ is the trusted, go-to partner for sari-sari stores that empowers businesses to be on top of their brand’s performance and make data-driven decisions every day,” said Andres Montiel, Packworks’ chief data officer.

In Packworks’ latest study, Sari IQ showed that Filipinos tend to care more about their hygiene than their empty stomach as they prioritise buying self-care products such as hair shampoo and conditioner in sari-sari stores located in areas previously battered by natural calamities.

Singapore – Companies in Singapore are the most likely in the Asia-Pacific region to use data analytics and visualisation, with about 83% of Singapore companies reporting having a digital transformation strategy. This is according to the latest data from CPA Australia.

About one-third of respondents said their organisation will start or continue implementing a digital transformation or technology strategy in the next 12 months. Meanwhile, About two-thirds of Singapore respondents said their business worked with technology companies or vendors in the past year to supplement their technology needs.

In addition, Singapore-based businesses are already the top users of robotic process automation (RPA) in the region, with 57% of local respondents saying their company deployed RPA as a business tool.

However, the survey reveals many companies need external support to overcome barriers to digital transformation. High financial costs and a low return on investment were a challenge for 37% of respondents while 35% pointed to a shortage of technology talent

CPA Australia Singapore Divisional President Max Loh said the take-up of technology by businesses in Singapore would pay dividends.

“New technologies enhance organisational efficiencies by automating many mundane as well as high volume tasks. This allows employees to focus on work that needs strategic thinking, such as customer engagement or creating more value for organisations and stakeholders,” he said.

Loh added, “Technology will play a pivotal role in an evolving future workplace. It’s critical for companies to invest in and fully embrace advanced technologies to maintain their advantage in a globally competitive marketplace.”

2022 is fast recharging economic and business activity globally, with data and analytics playing a key role in helping organisations build resiliency and thrive in this uncertain landscape. 

Analytics opens fresh opportunities to innovate, drive transformation, mitigate risk, and allow organisations to remain competitive. 

But are we doing enough with data and analytics to drive success in our organisations? 

This is the question that was recently unpacked in a panel discussion by Sisense, which celebrated the release of its Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 – Asia Pacific Edition alongside Abhishek Singh, chief information officer at UNICEF Australia; Patrick Hill, chief product officer at Propic; and Annette Slunjski, managing director at the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia (IAPA).

In this piece, we take a deeper look at the conversation and debate that unfolded around the challenges and opportunities of leveraging data and analytics to drive success in the APAC region. 

Offering personalised, customised data more important than ever

Sisense’s report reveals that almost half (45%) of APAC data professionals surveyed agree that offering personalised, customised data and analytics to customers could allow them to increase the average selling price of their products or services. At the same time, 43% of respondents also agree that data and analytics would help build loyalty and retain customers. 

It’s clear that embracing data analytics is key to a brighter business future. Patrick Hill, chief product officer at Propic, is a huge advocate for the power of data analytics. He’s experienced, firsthand, the ‘data difference’.

“Data analytics is key to providing Propic customers with extra value,” he explains. “At head-office level, we provide data that gives customers real-time understanding of what’s going on internally in their databases next to the industry data. Bringing those two together means they can manage uptime and downtime very quickly.”

“At a local level, real estate agents need real-time data to prove their service as well. They need to be able to ‘point and shoot’ their work to make a sale.”

Propic is an artificial intelligence (AI) for real estate specialist company. The maturity of using data at every layer of the stack is not so commonplace in the real estate industry, Patrick says. “Being the home of AI, we’re always pushing the boundaries of data maturity for our real estate agency clients.

“AI and the proof-pointing inside our product, on our dashboard, shows the benefit of our AI platform. It’s driving our ability to sell more products and instruments,” he says.

Abhishek Singh, chief information officer at UNICEF Australia, highlights how data is “absolutely gold” for the not-for-profit sector. “We use data in the same way that large corporations use data. We look at it and ask what we can do with data,” he says. 

Annette Slunjski, managing director at the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia (IAPA), asked Abhishek how his organisation is handling customers’ demanding greater personalisation against the backdrop of the demise of the third-party cookie. 

To avoid overstepping that delicate boundary, Abhishek recommends leading with transparency. “Make sure your approach is very clear,” he says. “Ensure your organisation is behind you on what you want to do with the data because the data strategy is owned by everybody.” 

Tapping into the untapped 

When it came to rating their organisation’s ability to maximise the value of its data, respondents across the APAC region gave, on average, only a 6 out of 10 rating. The finding comes as no surprise to Annette.

“Are we doing enough with the data we have? The answer is no. And there are many reasons why,” she says. “Organisations know they need data. They’ve heard it’s the new bacon; it’s valuable. So, they hire a chief data officer (CDO) with good intentions.

“But then they never really pay attention to what the CDO tries to do. They won’t restructure to take advantage of the insights. They won’t give the CDO the runway to do something with the data that actually makes a difference. It’s all lip service – becoming data-driven doesn’t work like that,” Annette stresses.

Another key point that Annette highlights is related to data quality. She encourages organisations to work on their data quality to really start reaping benefits. “I can guarantee that if you start working on data quality today, you will get a benefit tomorrow,” Annette says. 

“Everyone wants a shiny AI project without paying attention to their data. If you don’t deal with your data quality; then in six months, that shiny AI project just might not deliver the benefits you thought – and the c-suite will likely become disillusioned. But if you work on your data quality, then every single system you have now will benefit.”

While Patrick agrees that data quality is key, he adds that the first thing an organisation needs to do is define what it wants to do with the data. “You need to know what your end objective is,” he says. “If you don’t know what your end objective is, then you’re wasting your time.”

“At the same time, we shouldn’t still be talking about end-of-month reporting, but live reporting. AI can listen, categorise, document and predict patterns, behaviours and trends every minute of every day,” Patrick adds.

Data best practice needs less talk, more action

To improve organisational data strategies, 40% of respondents agree that it’s important for employees to become data literate and adopt business intelligence tools as part of their daily workflows. While it would be nice to simply wave a magic wand to accomplish this; the truth is, it takes patience and commitment..

When it comes to adapting to change, Patrick is reminded of what Steve Jobs has to say. He said when it comes to using technology, humans aren’t very sophisticated. So technology should be easy. If they open an email, send an email, and open a webpage; then they’re super users.

“That’s still true today. It needs to be easy. With embedded analytics, it’s really easy to go on that journey of digital transformation.”

Concluding the conversation, Abhishek says it’s just as vital to knock down organisational silos. “If you don’t, you’ll have a very disjointed effort. Everyone needs to derive functions that support each other in relation to the strategy. 

“Bring awareness and let your people share their input on what they want to do with data. Everyone must be on board. Otherwise, you’ll be creating something that nobody in your organisation even knows about.”

Download the complete report here.

This article was written by Rohan Persaud, director of channels and alliances at Sisense for APAC.

Sisense is a business intelligence company. Sisense Fusion is its highly customisable and AI-driven analytics cloud platform that infuses intelligence for companies.

Singapore – Digital brand agency Bonsey Jaden and tech firm CUE Group have introduced a data-drive solution which is primed for the retail industry that delivers a deeper understanding of consumer practices with real-time analytics, at all levels of operations and marketing.

RetailX, developed by CUE Group, is one of the latest solutions to be included as part of Bonsey Jaden’s 360 integrated approach to necessary digital transformation.

The partnership comes after the recent investment of CUE Group to Bonsey Jaden in September 2021, aiding to boost the digital development of enterprises, industries, and governments.

With existing methods of data monitoring, companies should be able to understand the flow of traffic in both their physical and online outlets, as well as identify unique patterns among their specific clientele. However, many ultimately fall short in implementation; although solutions similar to RetailX already exist for the benefit of face-to-face retail, the landscape of consumer behaviour is constantly shifting, highlighting the common fallacy that depending on artificial intelligence is the only way forward.

“In a similar vein, the greatest advantage with RetailX is achieved by giving equal importance to an expert team, and understanding that top-down data interpretation is possibly the most crucial step in not only sales advancement and improvements to customer experience, but also in business as an entire field—including marketing,” both companies said in a press statement.

RetailX acts as an enabler that gathers and analyses in-store traffic data to empower retailers with key insights to make smart business decisions, from the obvious to the out-of-sight—from identifying customer foot traffic both in and out of a brick-and-mortar to a full consumer profile, including but not limited to age, gender, and purchasing patterns. 

In addition, the data gathered through RetailX introduces a new perspective for store operation management, paving the way for a more targeted and personalised shopping experience, potentially accelerating sales growth.

Daniel Posavac, group CEO of Bonsey Jaden, said, “Since embarking on this new relationship with CUE Group, it has been exciting to explore how we can integrate their avant-garde technologies with our own unconventional ideas and applications. We look forward to bringing RetailX beyond the retail industry into other industries that could benefit from it, such as hospitality, health and fitness, food and beverage, and many more.”

He added, “The information we get in the end allows us to strategize more efficiently, for both online and offline consumers of all identities and personas—we can cover more ground while keeping it personal.”

Digital ad spend on Android devices has soared 23% from 2021 to 2022 reaching USD 2.7 billion in Q1 for APAC alone, according to an AppsFlyer study. This shows both growth and opportunity, which also means more competition for app marketers out there.

To add to the list of challenges, the industry experienced major shifts in privacy policies – such as the iOS14+ update that shook the world in April 2021. Indeed, we are only a few years away from Android’s privacy update coming into play. So, with the growth of the industry coupled with the volatile landscape of privacy, it is extremely important for app marketers and developers to make data-driven strategic decisions that help them stand out from the crowd.

Supporting data metrics to help your mobile app stand out

1. ATT Prompt Opt-in Rate

According to AppsFlyer’s data, in APAC alone, 57% of apps have implemented the ATT prompt and 46% of users have opted-in to the prompt. This shows a generally optimistic response from consumers willing to consent to data tracking.

Despite the region displaying positive sentiment towards data tracking, it is still important for marketers to continuously improve their ATT user consent rate. Using ATT opt-in rate as a KPI for your team would enforce a clear target around how to improve consent. Running A/B tests on both the pop-up and pre-pop up screens could help make a real impact among your user bases. A 1% increase in opt-in rate would unlock at least hundreds to thousands of app users for re-engagement if they churned.

2. Optimising conversion value setting

The SKAdNetwork Conversion Value represents an action performed by users in an app. For example, a purchase within the app, or completing a specific level in a video game. This value is later attributed to the source of install to enable campaign measurement.

There are many ways you can utilize the conversion values. From basic strategies to calculate revenue to advanced combo-split strategies to understand cohort data, deterministic signals, value prediction, and revenue simultaneously; it is important to optimize your conversion value settings to understand your users effectively.

3. LTV & ROAS metrics

In 2022, app marketers are acclimating to the loss of user-specific data. With these shifts, marketers are incentivised to place a larger emphasis on lifecycle marketing to make up for the reduced returns of remarketing campaigns. Acquiring the most valuable users for your app now requires a strong understanding of your highest performing channels, campaigns, ad sets, and creative variations: often measured using LTV and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) metrics.

Privacy-centric methods in attaining data

Beyond the three data points mentioned above, marketers can explore other metrics to navigate the user-centric digital world we face today. A few suggestions include:

1. Embracing more non-SKAN forms of measurement

2. Using probabilistic measurement methods

3. Modeling conversions

4. Incrementality

Keep an eye out for up-and-coming technologies to help measure marketing effectiveness. A prominent example is Data Clean Rooms (DCRs): a sandbox environment to help marketers collect, analyze, aggregate, and share data of all kinds, across both internal and external stakeholders.

Maintaining your user retention rate above industry benchmarks is a key success indicator for today’s mobile-first businesses. Modern technology delivers a lightning-fast user experience, helping marketers successfully execute the coveted ‘consumer is king’ approach. Another key factor fueling off-the-chart retention numbers is the ability to connect existing data with a holistic view of every user journey across platforms, channels, and devices. Technology is the foundation of every marketing tech stack, cementing its place as the source of truth for marketing data.

This article is written by Naval Handa, marketing analyst of AppsFlyer for APAC.

Belgium – Selligent Marketing Cloud, the omnichannel marketing and customer experience platform, has released a report unpacking the critical issues brands need to address to effectively engage Generation Z (Gen Z) customers.

Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2010) is finally emerging in the consumer marketplace. Having grown up with more access to technology than any other generation before them, Gen Z sees technology as less of a ‘shiny’ object and more of an extension of modern life.

As such, Gen Z’s relationship to data is also different, and privacy isn’t much of a priority. In fact, the report reveals that only half of Gen Z respondents say they have control over their personal data.

This generation is also rewriting the rules when it comes to consumer engagement in areas like technology, shopping, media and brand loyalty. The report finds:

● 75% of Gen Z respondents say they shop on smartphones, compared to 69% of millennials

● 49% of Gen Z respondents say they obtain news and information from YouTube, compared to 37% of millennials

● 55% of Gen Z respondents want to wait until technology is proven to work before they adopt, compared to 47% of millennials

Going forward, it’s vital marketers forge a new toolkit aimed at reaching and engaging with Gen Z exclusively. By learning and understanding this generation’s motivations, behaviours and preferences, they can better create strategies that drive this significant consumer segment to action.

‘Phygital’ retail experiences matter to Gen Z

For retailers, having a presence across digital and physical channels is no longer enough to reach the youngest generation of consumers. Gen Z expects technology to enhance their physical experiences rather than replace them.

Interestingly, this age group shows a clear preference for in-store shopping over millennials in several categories, including electronics (43% vs. 37%) and clothing (43% vs. 40%). Gen Z also visits physical stores more often than any other age group: 59% visit a store at least once a week, the report reveals

Retailers, therefore, need to reinvent the shopping experience, merging the physical (brick-and-mortar) with the digital (online/web) in a way that appeals to Gen Z – a process newly coined as “phygital”. This term often goes hand in hand with “digitalisation at the point of sale” – the fusion between eCommerce and physical stores.

An educated, skeptical audience wants more from media

Rather than turning to traditional media brands, Gen Z is more likely to seek information on social-media platforms than older generations. In fact, almost half (49%) say they are more likely to make a purchase after seeing a post or ad on social media than through any other channel (SMS, website or email). When searching for information, Gen Z turns to influencers on platforms like TikTok (23% – twice as many as other generations) or YouTube (49% compared to 37% for millenials).

“This generation was raised with social media and can, therefore, adapt to various formats and types of content more easily. For this reason, companies have a unique opportunity to merge advertising and content strategies for this audience, as well as create and integrate different touchpoints with their consumers,” said Anne Jarry, marketing director for Europe and North America at Selligent.

“In a trusted environment, delivering highly relevant messages, such as personalised videos embedded in a newsletter or a live-streamed event on TikTok, is much more appealing to Gen Z than other generations. This generation requires an entirely new approach and opens up opportunities to brands that are worth capturing,” added Jarry. 

“The Gen Z transformation is upon us, and marketers must be ready. Those who haven’t evolved their marketing strategies to connect with this consumer segment are already falling behind. Gen Z’s behaviour and motivations are different from their predecessors. They consume information, interact online and even shop differently, therefore, it’s critical for marketers to adapt. As a generation that desires control, brands need to empower Gen Z to effectively capture their unique preferences and form relationships, especially as third-party cookies phase out entirely, making personalisation even more vital to reaching Gen Z,” said Ramses Bossuyt, global VP of client success at Selligent.

Philippines – In celebration of Privacy Awareness Week, Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank), in partnership with the Aboitiz Equity Ventures (AEV), recently held the fourth iteration of its annual privacy and security event ‘SELYADO’ as part of efforts to promote a culture of security and privacy consciousness among Filipino individuals and organisations.

Going with the theme “Safeguarding Data and Information of Individuals, Businesses, and Communities,” this year’s SELYADO focuses on engaging micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in relevant discussions that will help them protect their customers’ privacy and data, which is essential in today’s continuously growing digital economy.

The opening ceremony for the five-week event took place online last 18 May. The event will continue every Wednesday in the next four weeks with the following topics: ‘Data Proficiency for Beginners’ (25 May), ‘Cybersecurity for MSMEs’ (1 June), ‘Updates on DP Regulations and Data Privacy Trends’ (8 June), and ‘Empowering Your Business through Data Governance’ (15 June).

On the discourse of cybersecurity, UnionBank’s Chief Information Security Officer Joey Rufo, said, “We want to use SELYADO 4.0 to touch base with MSMEs to make them aware of how cybersecurity can be a strong value proposition for their business. How a trusted business can enable growth as consumers will only transact with organisations they can trust with their information and money.” 

“As we celebrate Privacy Awareness Week together with the National Privacy Commission, we envision inclusive digital transformation and innovation in aiding MSMEs to cater to the data and information needs of their growing sector—inclusive, because we want to empower them to know how they can protect their data and that of their customers,” said UnionBank’s Data Protection Officer and Head of Artificial Intelligence and Data Policy, Atty. Sasa Montes.

“Together with the Data Privacy Group and the Cybersecurity Team, we bring SELYADO 4.0 with the cybersecurity specialisations that we are very proud of in UnionBank,” said UnionBank’s SME and Micropreneurs Head Jaypee Soliman. 

According to Soliman, their partners are also present in the event to bring their knowledge, expertise, and even their technologies to the MSMEs. “These partnerships are very critical, because this fight cannot be handled by one, it cannot be handled by a few, it has to be all of us together learning, understanding, implementing, and even advocating for our security,” added Soliman.

UnionBank’s Head of Blockchain and API Business Group Cathy Casas was one of the speakers during the event, where she talked about the Metaverse and how the emerging idea of a fully immersive virtual world is changing how organisations think.

“We feel that from the Metaverse, especially as blockchain is embedded here, at least the concept of it, it’s not just important now but it will continue to grow in importance in the coming years,” Casas said.

Atty. Darwin Angeles, also one of the event’s speakers, talked about the importance of developing an intellectual property (IP) strategy and touched on how cybersecurity can help protect a business’ IP, which is typically what sets one apart from the competition. 

“Security infrastructure is very important because we want to protect something that’s important to us, and for a business, intellectual property, or our brand identity that gives us competitive edge, can be that crown jewel for our business for which we want to seek protection for,” Angeles said.

The third speaker, NPC Deputy Privacy Commissioner Atty. Dug Christopher Mah, did a presentation on accountable personal data management for MSMEs, which reiterated that MSMEs must strictly follow the rules set by the commission in order to ensure the privacy and security of customers.

“Data privacy and data security must be part of the core organisation and a strategic concentration for all businesses to safeguard the privacy rights of their customers, especially their data subjects,” Mah said.

In the closing remarks, Dr. David Hardoon, said, “We’re doing this to make sure that security, governance, privacy are a hygiene, and I used the word ‘hygiene’ in its utmost positive and developmental sense, that it is something that facilitates us to develop, to innovate, and build solutions that benefit us, both within the organisation, and of course our consumers.” 

According to Dr. Hardoon, this initiative is ultimately about making sure that privacy is a driver for business development, a driver for innovation, a driver for possibilities.