Evergage: the real-time personalization and customer data platform
A few weeks ago, we hosted a webinar where we talked about Evergage, the real-time personalisation and customer data platform that has been recently acquired by Salesforce.
It was a great session which we thoroughly enjoyed. But, we were enjoying it so much that we ran out of time and unfortunately we couldn’t respond to all the questions that we received. So, we decided to post them here to answer them briefly. Note: we haven’t changed any of the questions or the way they were written, so if you’re one of the attendees who submitted a question, thank you again for being part of this.
However, if you didn’t join the webinar or if you don’t know much about Evergage, but you’re still interested in it, let us give you a quick introduction to it:
Companies use Evergage to tailor interactions with customers and prospects to increase loyalty, engagement and conversions. Evergage enables marketers to transform the dream of 1-to-1 engagement, across channels, into a reality. Combining in-depth behavioural analytics and advanced machine learning with data from existing sources, Evergage provides the one platform to build a single, comprehensive customer view (including prospects) and activate that data to deliver highly personalised, individualised experiences.
Going back to the webinar questions, here they are.
- So, is Evergage a substitute of a CRM or a partner?
- Salesforce’s acquisition of Evergage will enhance the power of Salesforce Marketing Cloud with expanded real-time personalisation capabilities. Evergage will complement Marketing Cloud’s robust customer data features by boosting its audience segmentation and engagement platform capacities.
- What’s the difference between a CDP and a DMP?
- Great question. A CDP works fundamentally with data it collects from your own channels. We’re talking about 1st-party data (i.e. the data that you own) that has been pulled from sources such as your web, CRM, points of sale, call centres, or stores, amongst others.
The most common types of data a CDP often operates with includes (but it’s not limited to) names, email addresses, purchase information, transaction records, page visits, page views, etc.
A DMP, on the contrary, will primarily use 3rd-party data collected from a large number of websites (thousands, sometimes millions). This data (commonly cookies and device IDs) can then be utilised to build anonymous audiences that marketers could tap into for retargeting and advertising purposes.
We would probably need a whole session purely dedicated to discussing the differences and similarities between these two kinds of platforms.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that a CDP doesn’t necessarily have to replace a DMP (or vice versa).
In fact, when used properly they’re a great complement for each other!
- What are the main limitations of CDP due to GDPR law; and how are companies dodging these issues?
- Technology platforms such as Evergage have been working really hard in the past two years to help their clients enable GDPR compliance.
Evergage, for example, is fully committed to complying with the Regulation by establishing clear processes in regards to the way they process personal information on behalf of their customers.
Things like security policies, data breach procedures, data centres location, subject data requests, etc. are just a few of the boxes they will need to tick before we could even consider them as a potential vendor.
- How does the web anonymous data match with personal data coming from CRM? Is it only possible if the web visitor informs his email somehow? (login or lead submission)
- That’s pretty much they work it works. Let me explain…
A CRM usually runs with data that comes from internal divisions such as sales, marketing, customer service, human resources, etc. This data is hardly ever anonymous, as most of the time the system forces us to add details like names, addresses, account numbers, etc. In other words, CRMs mostly operate with identified customers, leads, employees…
Therefore, it’s very complicated for a CRM platform to collect and process unidentified data and assign it to a specific user (let alone doing it in real-time). This is unfortunate because there are lots of activities that take place on some channels, for instance our website or physical stores that never get a chance to be recorded. For example, people just browsing our online shop or walking into one of our branches who don’t complete a transaction, register or open an account. All this information remains unknown as there is no way to track it (and unless we have explicit consent from them, we shouldn’t anyway).
So, this is where the value of integrating both a CRM and a CDP is. By doing so, it is feasible to continuously match these undefined transactions with a real person as soon as they allow us to identify them and give us permission to do so (e.g. when they signup or buy something), and this way being able to create a 360° view about them.
It is indeed an incredibly powerful way to enrich our marketing data and get to know our customers better.
- Can a CDP be used for tracking geo locations for nearest stores through mobile app?
- We can track and send communications (emails, SMS, Push notifications) based on where they are. For example, if a person is walking near one of our stores, a CDP is able to trigger a message offering a discount or a reminder to encourage them to actually visit the shop or browse our website.
There are other cool features you can get with a CDP, like using real-time weather conditions on your web or email campaigns. If you happen to work in industries such as retail or travel, these types of functionalities (geo-location, real-time weather) could really take your marketing efforts to the next level.
- Does Evergage allow to personalize in real-time?
Real-time personalisation is one of the most powerful features (if not the most) that CDPs offer. For example, with Evergage you can personalise email content at open time based on attributes and interactions that the platform has identified about your customers. So, we’re able to send an email populated with dynamic elements built on what the subscriber was looking on our site. This way, the experience is always relevant and tailored at the individual level.
Another good use case is the ability to show a different homepage to different personas. Each time a new or a known visitor arrives on our website, a CDP collects clues and elements about them (like the pages they’re most engaged with, or the interest they’re showing for a specific asset) which would allow us to tailor a unique and relevant experience (i.e. our web) for every one of them.
There are dozens or even hundreds of fresh and innovative personalisation examples we could discuss. The combination of features that we have with a CDP (data + content + channels), pretty much enables us to build any kind of personalised experiences.
- Does Evergage have APIs in order to expose the interaction of client in the different channels?
Evergage is very flexible in terms of integration options. It’s easy to connect Evergage with other internal/external systems to exchange a variety of datasets that can be used to build personalisation elements and campaigns.
You can use Evergage’s JavaScript/SDK integrations for activation purposes.
- CMSs and websites
- Content catalogues
- Ecommerce platforms
- Mobile apps
- SaaS & Web applications
You can also utilise Evergage’s Connector Gears for:
- AdTech (e.g. Facebook, Google, DSPs, etc.)
- Analytics tools (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, etc.)
- Call centre systems
- Chat tools
- CRM applications
- Customer data ETL
- Data Management Platforms (DMPs)
- Direct Mail Systems
- Email Marketing Systems
- Point-of-sale systems (POS)
- Product catalogue ETL
You can find more information about Evergage’s integration capabilities here:
https://www.evergage.com/modules/integrations/
- Hi, is Evergage a proper product to activate or integrated to personalization builder within Salesforce Marketing Cloud?
Evergage is now part of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud suite of products. It will enhance the power of Marketing Cloud with expanded real-time pers.
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