A First Party Data Series: The Role of Behavioral Data in Your Customer Data Foundation

In part three of our first party data blog series, we will take a look at behavioral data. Simply put, behavioral data reveals specific ways your customer interacts with your business. From purchasing history to social interactions to which store locations a customer prefers, behavioral data is valuable for organizations looking to create a deeper and more targeted customer experience. 

By analyzing and interpreting behavioral customer data, you can identify patterns and trends in customer behavior and preferences, such as which products are most popular or which marketing channels are most effective. This information can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns, improve product offerings, and enhance customer experiences.

What is Behavioral Data?

There are many ways a customer can interact with your company, both online and offline, that produce behavioral data. All of these unique events should be tracked, collected, and organized into your customer profiles.

Purchase history data describes the products and services that your customers have purchased in the past, including the frequency, quantity, and value of these purchases. Website and app usage data describes how your customers interact with your website or mobile app, including which pages they visit, how long they stay on each page, and which actions they take (such as filling out a form or making a purchase).

Social media engagement data describes how your customers engage with your social media channels, including likes, comments, and shares. And email and marketing campaign data describes how your customers interact with email marketing campaigns, including open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.

So, if identity data tells you that you have a customer named Kristina Stevens who lives in Florida with a specific login ID, and descriptive data tells you she’s thirty-five years old, married with two children, has an MBA, and works in finance, behavioral data tells you her favorite channel of engagement and which products she likes best. 

How Can Your Company Use Behavioral Data?

There are numerous opportunities to be found within the insights gained through behavioral data.

Retargeting: Behavioral data can be used to retarget customers who have interacted with your website or products but have not completed a purchase. This enables you to re-engage customers and increase the likelihood of a conversion.

A/B testing: A/B testing can be conducted with the use of this kind of data, where two versions of a product or website are tested to determine which is more effective in driving customer engagement and conversions.

Personalized marketing campaigns: Create targeted marketing campaigns that are tailored to individual customer preferences and behavior. For example, you might use website usage data to deliver personalized product recommendations or to target customers with specific offers or promotions.

Enhanced customer experiences: Improve customer experiences by identifying areas of friction or frustration in the customer journey. For example, website usage data can lead to the optimization of the user interface or to streamline the checkout process.

Increased customer retention: Behavioral data can be used to identify customers who are at risk of churning and to develop targeted retention strategies. For example, purchase history data can be used to identify customers who have not made a purchase in a while, and you can then offer them targeted promotions or incentives to encourage them to return.

Predictive analytics: Use this data type to build predictive models to forecast customer behavior and preferences. This enables better anticipation of customer needs and tailoring your products and services accordingly.

Improve product development: Finally, behavioral data can provide valuable insights into how customers use your company’s products or services, including which features or functions are most popular and which are underutilized. This data can be used to inform product development and to identify opportunities for innovation.

How Does a CDP Help Collect and Organize Behavioral Data into the Data Foundation?

Overall, behavioral data can provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, and can be used to inform a wide range of business decisions. However, you must have the tools available to collect, organize and analyze behavioral data for it to be scalable and valuable. A Customer Data Platform answers those needs. 

By utilizing a CDP to support a robust first party data strategy, you can gather this data from all customer interactions and build out a framework for organizing and analyzing this data for strategic insights and activation. A CDP combines, cleans, and standardizes all data, including behavioral data, to ensure consistency and accuracy, providing that solid data foundation needed to thrive in the wake of third party data loss. Optimizing your data foundation is especially valuable during times of economic difficulties by helping you better allocate spend, hone in your targeting, streamline efficiencies, and increasing customer retention. 

Tealium’s vendor agnostic approach to data management, helps our customers take full advantage of their customer data across the tech stack and the organization as a whole. Learn more about our powerful data integration capabilities through our Integrate Everything product offerings.