How to Choose a Data Management Platform (DMP)

HOW TO CHOOSE A DATA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM FOR YOUR COMPANY10 questions to ask every vendor on your “short-list”

by Matt AnthonyVP Data Science and Analytics

INTRODUCTION

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So you’ve decided you need a DMP. Congratulations on making a really smart decision – to put data and customers at the center of your strategy and programs! Now the key challenge is to choose the right platform for your business. You have a number of choices in DMPs – each with its own unique sets of strengths and features. As with all platform decisions, making the right choice will have a big effect on the amount of value you ultimately derive from a DMP.

Because a DMP is a complex piece of technology, it can feel daunting for a marketer to thoughtfully evaluate alternatives. That’s why we’ve created this paper – to help simplify and streamline the process. This short list of questions gets to the heart of what matters strategically in a DMP so that you can make your decision with a focused yet sufficient set of information.

The questions in this document fall into five broad categories, each one of the core capabilities necessary for a robust DMP. Each capability area contains just two questions to help you focus on the most important discussions with your potential partner:

COLLECT: Data collection and ingestion

ORGANIZE: Data management and profile development

ANALYZE: Ability to examine, transform and export insights and audiences

ACTION: How the platform integrates with your of partners and platforms

SERVICE: Critical component of any enterprise technology offering

The balance of this document reviews the questions and the rationale for each. While this list of questions is no substitute for a thorough technological examination of your options by your IT team, these key queries can help you ensure that the broad strategic needs of

your company can be fulfilled with the platform you choose.

Copyright © 2015 All rights reserved worldwide. | www.apsalar.com

See the top of the next column for the list of broad topics.

3Copyright © 2015 All rights reserved worldwide. | www.apsalar.com

Can the platform collect or ingest ALL of the first party data types you wish to unite, including mobile app, mobile web, PC web, website interactions, estore activity and purchases and email CRM interactions?

QUESTIONSTHE

COLLECT

Your DMP is supposed to be the source of record for all of your data and customer intelligence. That means it needs to be able to collect or ingest all key first party data sets, including mobile app, mobile web, pc web, CRM interactions, site analytics, estore data and any other key data sets you might have. Most DMPs find mobile app data very hard to collect, process and associate with anonymized customer profiles. And given that mobile apps represent more than half of connected customer time, that’s a big issue.

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2Can the DMP work with all of the data collection partners you currently use, including your web analytics solution, ad server, email solution provider, estore platform, and mobile app attribution platform?

Your data platform should conform to you and your brand, not the other way around. Make sure that your DMP can ingest data from all of your preferred partners, so you keep implementation as simple as is practicable.


How does the offering unify and standardize all of the disparate datasets into anonymized profiles? What partner are they leveraging for device matching, and how accurate is the matching?

ORGANIZE

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Perhaps the most critical task of a DMP is creating 360 profiles that encompass data from all sources. It’s important to ask questions about how each vendor does that. There are two big things to consider here – their adherence to digital privacy principles and practices, and the methodology with which they connect cookie data to other types of data. It probably makes sense to involve a tech expert in this part of the evaluation. There are a variety of companies in the business of device mapping today, and they vary with regard to the scale of matches they can provide, coupled with the accuracy of those matches. Ask about both. Make sure you are satisfied with the quality of their answers. And if you already have a partner of choice in this area, ask if they will work with them.

Can it offer additional contextual or 3rd party data as an enhancement to the first-party data that you bring to the platform?

First party data can help you understand customers and predict their needs better than any other type of data, but it can also be very beneficial to enhance your customer profiles with third party data including demographics, lifestyle and life stage, psychographics, and more. A good DMP will have preexisting relationships with leading third party data companies to make the process of enhancing your profiles in this manner easier.

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Does the platform allow for data to be transformed and exported to external platforms, including as audiences?

ANALYZE

Data is as data does, meaning that your objective in having a DMP isn’t just collecting and organizing information but actually putting it to good use. The DMP you choose should make it easy to analyze your data, create cohorts and audiences, and make them available to your other platforms and partners for use in improving your marketing effectiveness. Most DMPs do fine on this score, but make sure and ask. Audiences are also valuable inputs for lookalike modeling, a tactic that media companies use to find more people “like” your best responders.

What kinds of packaged/out-of-the box analytics does the platform offer? Will technical experts be able to explain how they chose the methods of analysis, and why they’re appropriate? Does the platform enable custom analytics so that additional types of analysis beyond the out-of-the-box methods can be quickly and efficiently conducted?

The power of a DMP is in doing more than creating audiences, although that is a very important task. If you think about a DMP as a living organism for a moment, imagine that audience export is like a reflex action. Absolutely critical to survive and thrive. It is analogous to the question – what happens when I do X. But strategic marketing leaders are at least as interested in the whys? as they are in the “whats.” For what reasons do these sorts of customers act in these ways? What are the drivers of my business? Are there ways to innovate to power even more rapid growth? Many DMPs have built-in reports and analyses, which can be useful in getting value from your platform quickly, but it’s important to understand the basis of these analyses – is the methodology sound?

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Can the platform automate the process of connecting audiences and profiles to my marketing platforms and partners of choice, or does it require manual integrations?

ACTION

Most marketers have (or have heard) tales of platform integration challenges. A recent survey of leading retailers showed that they were working with an average of 27 platforms and media partners, which perhaps explains why integration is both important and challenging. Your DMP should simplify this process, with pre-developed integrations that your brand can literally plug into.

Can the platform ingest actions and export data in real-time to drive individualized marketing experiences?

The best DMPs combine an ability to deliver data to other platforms periodically (in batches) or in real-time. Real-time data sharing is increasingly valued by marketers because it enables a brand to capitalize on perfect moments of opportunity. Brands can take action immediately when consumers take “trigger” actions. Perhaps the easiest to understand example here is the cart abandon. If a customer uses your app or estore and places items in a cart, and then fails to make a purchase, real-time data sharing would enable you to use marketing automation to send a push notification or email to incent the customer to finish their transaction. Studies show that the sooner after an abandon that you can reach the customer, the more likely they are to take the desired action.


Does the platform offer custom analytics services to support my internal marketing and analytics teams?

SERVICE

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It’s probably no secret to you or your organization that experienced big data analysts and statisticians are in short supply these days. As more and more companies have embraced the importance of data-driven marketing, the demand for data experts has increased far more quickly than the supply. It is very valuable to have a data management partner with experienced staff to help make up for any resource shortfalls you may have as an organization.

Does the provider offer enterprise-grade service and support during both implementation and on an ongoing basis?

Your DMP should empower you and your team, and having smart and knowledgeable platform experts available to assist you is important. You’ll need a strong implementation team, excellent training resources, thorough documentation, and ongoing enterprise-grade account management sup-port to get the most from your platform. Ask for specifics here, so there are no surprises after you sign the contract.


Choosing a DMP is a decision of profound importance – one that requires that we take a methodical and informed approach. I hope that this short list of questions helps make your process simpler and more effective.

As with many things in life, the key to taking the right action is not in having the answers so much as it is in asking the right questions. While it makes sense for you to have tech experts involved in your decision-making, thoughtful queries from strategic marketing generalists can also play a valuable role in driving the best choice.

CONCLUSION


ABOUT APSALARApsalar, the leader in mobile data management, helps direct marketing brands get better marketing effectiveness by providing a mobile data management platform that delivers a true understanding of customer behavior in apps and across other marketing channels. The Apsalar Mobile DMP enables brands to measure marketing effectiveness, enhance, manage, enrich and segment profiles to build audiences, and easily and safely connect to other marketing partners so brands can confidently share their data and audiences. San Francisco-based Apsalar is privately held, with more than $17Million backing from leading venture capital firms including Thomvest Ventures, DCM, Battery Ventures and DN Capital. For more information, visit www.apsalar.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHORMatt Anthony is VP of Data Science and Analytics at Apsalar, where he is responsible for the global data strategy as well as the analytics practice of the company. Prior to Apsalar, he was Senior Director of Analytics at Mediaplex, the technology & analytics arm of Conversant, where he developed and led the analytics service line of the company. Before Conversant, he served as the Director of Analytics for the eCommerce division of leading US retailer, The Sports Authority. Matt also served as Director, R&D at Datalogix where he oversaw algorithm & technological research supporting their full product line. He holds an M.S. in Statistics from Harvard University and a B.S., magna cum laude, in Mathematical Social Science from Dartmouth College.

Can the platform collect or ingest ALL of the first party data types you wish to unite, including mobile app, mobile web, PC web, website interactions, estore activity and purchases and email CRM interactions

Specifically, can the DMP work with all of the data collection partners you currently use, including your web analytics solution, ad server, email solution provider, estore platform, and mobile app attribution platform?

COLLECT

ORGANIZE

ANALYZE

ACTION

SERVICE

How does the offering unify and standardize all of the disparate datasets into anonymized profiles? What partner are they leveraging for device matching, and how accurate is the matching?

Can it offer additional contextual or 3rd party data as an enhancement to the first-party data that you bring to the platform?

Does the platform allow for data to be transformed and exported to external platforms, including as audiences?

What kinds of packaged/out-of-the box analytics does the platform offer? Will technical experts be able to explain how they chose the methods of analysis, and why they’re appropriate? Does the platform enable custom analytics so that additional types of analysis beyond the out-of-the-box methods can be quickly and efficiently conducted?

Can the platform automate the process of connecting my audiences and profiles to my marketing platforms and partners of choice, or does it require manual integration?

Can the platform ingest actions and export data in real-time to drive individualized marketing experiences?

Does the platform offer custom analytics services to support my internal marketing and analytics teams?

Does the provider offer enterprise-grade service and support during both implementation and on an ongoing basis?


THE TEN QUESTIONS TO ASK POTENTIAL DMP PROVIDERS

SUMMARY:

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How to Choose a Data Management Platform (DMP)

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