Marketers in this CleverTap survey also seemed remarkably down-to-earth. They listed segment-level campaigns as their most important use for customer data (75%), while personalized customer messages ranked sixth at 46%. They also said lack of quality customer data is their top internal pain point (42%), far ahead of lacking real-time data (25%). Lots more here including key issues by industry, which are always intriguing.
At least some marketers have gotten the message that customers only like personalization when it helps them. This Acquia report found 62% of marketers are focusing on personalizing customer service while just 49% are focused on personalizing communications. In fact, personalization ranked towards the bottom of their tech priorities (43%), behind marketing automation (63%), CDPs (54%), and AI (44%).
Respondents to Duke Fuqua’s long-running The CMO Survey were in a cheery mood, with the highest optimism scores in three years and 72% believing that marketing has grown more important during the pandemic. The good vibes extended to their view of customers, whom they felt value a good experience more than product quality, trust, service, price, and innovation. Data integration for customer tracking is their fastest-growing investment.
Salesforce announced three enhancements to Salesforce Data Cloud at Dreamforce this week. There is an expansion of unstructured data types it can address including audio and video; there will be a sub-second “real time” layer for data from ingestion to activation; and the connector eco-system has been expanded. Salesforce also emphasized close collaboration between Data Cloud and its new Agentforce AI bots.