APIs are not new news; they’ve been around for 20 years and have grown exponentially.
From powering ecommerce, social platforms and Cloud applications they have become ubiquitous since the explosion of smart phones. They improve integration and automation, leading to better services and innovation, saving time and money – linking both internal and external systems.
With 83% of respondents to The State of API Integration Report 2020 believing API integration is now a critical part of their strategy and 43% seeing a direct increase in revenue it is clear that this is the direction of travel for most organisations.
Added to this, the desire for most brands to provide a more personalised and seamless experience to their customers with 66% of consumers stating that content, that is not personalised, would stop them from making a purchase, real-time information is more important than ever.
To facilitate these real time business requirements, we have made our suite of demographic products available via our API, enabling organisations to access real-time insight about their customers directly into their marketing tech, consumer databases or websites.
The API enables you to code up new customer records instantaneously for immediate onboarding as well as providing insight across digital applications for content personalisation and messaging. With our API you will have the ability to improve business decision-making and user experience whilst achieving personalisation at scale.
CACI have taken the Acorn, Ocean and Fresco data products and made them available via our real time API. This allows for the coding of an individual instantaneously, and can change the use cases and application of the products. Here are just some of the benefits our clients are experiencing with CACI’s Demographic Data API.
Many organisations use CACI’s data products such as Ocean, Acorn and Fresco to plan the customer journey a new customer will follow as they onboard them. Understanding your audience’s affluence, lifestage, and lifestyle can make a big difference when creating tailored messaging and customer engagement strategies, by providing a view of the products your customer may be interested in, in the future. It is particularly important to get this right during the onboarding process as getting it wrong can affect the way a new customer perceives your organisation.
Knowing this additional insight at the start of the relationship can be immensely helpful, from knowing whether they are a Rising Metropolitan who may be interested in getting on the property ladder to an Asset Rich Grey who is planning for life enhancing expenditure or saving for their grandchildren, messaging can be adapted accordingly.
Similarly, if you are a leisure organisation, you might want to understand which shows your customers might be interested in attending in the future; adding CACI’s data can provide the insight you need to predict this while you build up a picture of their transaction habits.
Another benefit of using the API is that it can assist organisations with myriads of siloed legacy systems containing customer information. It can be complex and expensive to pull data that is sitting on a marketing database, using the API can be a quick and efficient way to provide marketeers access to key pieces of information that drive their marketing communications programmes.
Identifying customers when they appear on your website enables you to serve tailored page content immediately, based on customer characteristics. Adding insight to a customer or prospect in a logged in environment or when they enter their postcode on a web form, enables instant journey planning and content personalisation.
For example, on a grocer’s website, a Successful Surbubs family will be looking for different products than someone who falls into the Student Life Group. Adding this colour to individuals, means that you can personalise content and create appropriate digital journeys which are dynamically adapted as they browse.
Additionally, at the point of placing a home delivery order, appending the geo location of the property can immediately assist in planning the delivery logistics, as well as helping drivers identify properties when on route, especially when it is dark or they are delivering in rural locations.
A number of our clients are interested in understanding the types of customers who drop out of the funnel during the quote process, compared to those that go on to convert. By adding key demographic, lifestyle or your own segment information to a record as it goes through the quote process, enables you to improve the effectiveness of your digital journey planning. Understanding whether a prospect might need additional reassurance or if they are more likely to be driven by price could affect the conversion path each customer follows.
We also support our clients with bespoke APIs. For example, one organisation has a bespoke API system built by CACI, which provides real time insight to their inbound call handling teams for both sales and customer service applications, This allows for tailored scripts to be followed dependent on the customer segment.
With studies showing that it is likely 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human in the future, providing demographic information in real time can provide different routes for chatbots to follow.
With the world moving to more automated ways of dealing with data and consumers expecting things to happen in real time, being able to understand your customers or prospects immediately can make a huge difference to the customer journey, maximising the revenue opportunities available to you.
You can discover more about CACI’s suite of consumer data products here, or to speak to one of our data experts and gain a better understanding of how you can integrate these products in real-time with your CRM system, websites and call centres, please get in touch.
Third-party cookies have been a fundamental part of the online marketing mix; an essential tool that allows brands to capture data on their audience, deliver targeted advertising and build customer profiles. In particular, cookies are at the core of programmatic advertising, which accounts for 90% of the total UK digital display ad spend of £5.81bn in 2019.
But, the cookie in its current form is not long for this world.
With the ongoing focus on customer data privacy, following the implementation of GDPR, there are growing concerns around third-party cookies and how they are collected, leading to three of the biggest web browsers on the Internet taking steps to block or phase out tracking cookies; Safari and Firefox blocked third-party cookies by default in 2019, whilst Google is planning to phase out the third-party cookie on Chrome, the most popular browser with a market share of over 60%, by 2022.
When combined with the fact that the ICO guidance explicitly states that the way many websites go about obtaining consent for third-party cookies is not compliant, it’s clear that things are going to have to change!
Without the third-party cookie, the digital marketing landscape is going to need to evolve. Various methods to allow for tracking of customers and customer behaviour are already being discussed and developed as alternatives in this possible new cookie-less world.
For example, the IAB has grand plans for a standardised unique ID across the internet that would be an “improved mechanism for audience recognition and personalisation”. However, it sounds as if it will still be based on cookies and will need a lot of collaboration requiring a complex accountability system. If this proposed solution does happen, it will not be quick.
Numerous ad tech and analytics vendors are developing solutions for tracking that don’t rely on third-party cookies. Cookies have never been effective for mobiles, hence the mobile ad/device ID such as Apple’s IDFA or Google’s GAID. Whilst these systems still present privacy issues, companies like Apple and Google may be willing to work with advertisers to find a compliant method.
In addition, being able to effectively capture customer or prospect data to accurately identify, target and activate across multiple devices requires good technology. Managing campaigns across multiple marketing channels needs marketing automation, hence the rise of tools such as Customer Data Platforms (CDPs).
Digital fingerprinting – that is, using seemingly insignificant information like device used and browser plug-ins, in order to identify an individual – had emerged within the advertising industry in part to tackle cross device tracking issues which are inherent with ad IDs. However, Google, Apple and Firefox have already taken steps to implement anti-fingerprinting measures in order to deter advertisers from moving to this method in place of the cookie, making it unlikely to be a viable alternative.
The truth is, there is no obvious alternative to the cookie just now.
It is likely the death of the cookie will benefit the large players, particularly Google and Facebook, as advertisers will be forced to use their first party data in walled gardens, meaning we could be moving to a blunter approach, returning to last click attribution.
To find out more about the impact of the loss of the third-party cookie on digital marketing and for further insights on what advertisers can do in the interim, download our guide – The End of the Third-party Cookie?
As consumer expectations become more complex, and with brand loyalty increasingly more difficult to maintain, the need to deliver a personalised and tailored customer experience is crucial to your brand’s success. This is true across all industries, with consumers engaging across more channels than ever before, against a background of increasing competition.
Segmentation is a fundamental tool for marketers, helping you to understand your audience by dividing consumers into distinct groupings based on shared demographics, lifestyle behaviours and attitudes.
When we think of segmentation, it’s easy to simplify the process. Grouping customers by products or services purchased, or demographic factors such as age or gender or perhaps we may go as far as segmenting based on buying behaviour. Assuming that two customers will respond in the same way to the same offer, based purely on their prior purchase or route to purchase is not necessarily going to achieve your desired outcome. Instead, gaining deeper understanding of consumers and anticipating their needs as individuals is key.
Here we highlight the benefits of customer segmentation specifically for the financial services industry, however it is relevant across all industries and CACI can support all sectors with segmentation.
Fresco is an off the shelf segmentation created specifically for the financial services sector. It divides the UK into 12 segments and 45 sub-segments based on an individual’s life stage, affluence and attitude to money, providing a universal vocabulary with which to describe customers, prospects and the market.
Many clients have taken Fresco at micro segment level (134 segments) and combined transactional and market research data to reaggregate Fresco, building a powerful and bespoke solution tailored to their organisation.
Here are just 5 of the ways you can leverage segmentation to improve your customer experience.
Financial marketers need insight to deliver the right message, about the most appropriate products, services and advice, to the right customers. Adding a segmentation to a new customer means you can immediately start to communicate to them in the right way whilst knowing limited transactional information about them.
Looking at customers solely through the products they hold could mean you are viewing two customers with similar mortgage products as being broadly the same type of person and communicating with them accordingly. But, when viewed in terms of the Fresco segmentation, those two customers might turn out to be two completely different individuals, with very different attitudes to life, money and risk.
Understanding whether your customer is a Successful Professional, a Stretched Renter or a Retired Homeowner informs the type of products and services they might be interested in and the types of channel and messaging they are most likely to respond to.
Fresco can provide strategic insights into your customers, enabling you to evolve communications to suit your audience at an individual level.
The insights you gain when using a segmentation can also help you plan for the future. If you are attracting an older demographic and your customer database is dominated by segments such as Low Income Elderly and the Road to Retirement, you may need to review your proposition and develop products that are more suited to a younger audience, in order to expand your customer base.
Nationwide Building Society built a bespoke segmentation combining customer data, Fresco and market research allowing them to understand their individual members at a glance, and offer them the right products, services and advice to help them with their banking needs.
This new toolset helped Nationwide to better understand its customers’ needs, and develop compelling, targeted products, services and marketing messages, resulting in Nationwide winning significant new business among younger members.
As well as understanding your individual customers, it’s also important that you have an overall understanding of the market in which you operate. Having a view of the UK population will help you to understand what share of the market you have and how your share is made up compared to the market as a whole.
Money Advice Service needed to understand the total UK market to ensure its advice services were reaching the right people, at the right time. To deliver accurate messaging, it was essential to Money Advice Service that they understood the different requirements of consumers and how to group them into addressable segments.
Fresco was used as a building block and mapped to research they had conducted, and the resulting segments have been used to help with targeting. This segmentation is used to build their engagement strategy and ensure support is focussed on the right customers, and that they’re targeting the core customer groups through appropriate channels.
The same philosophy can be used to understand local area analysis and branch performance. Understanding the population in the catchment area of each of your branches helps when making decisions about whether the branches are serving the local population with the correct branch format in a more digital world.
Fresco’s segmentation allows you to answer fundamental questions that will help determine whether or not your branches are in the right areas and serving the needs of your customers. For example; do they need the same size of premises? Should they be on the high street and open more convenient hours? Should they be providing financial advice for a younger audience or assisting in the transition to digital channels for an aging population? With Fresco you can start to understand the needs of your customers and ensure your branches are operating in a way that suits the customers in the area, as opposed to every branch simply working in the same way.
By combining segmentations with digital consumer insight data from the likes of Ipsos’ iris, you can align your digital marketing tactics with the behaviours of your target audience.
When cross-referencing online behaviours with Fresco segments you can gain a better understanding of exactly what your audience are searching for and dispel any preconceptions of who would be behind certain search terms.
For example, it’s easy to assume that young professionals would be the primary group searching ‘first time buyers’, but it can also be Asset Rich Greys, as it is likely parents may be helping their children get on the property ladder. Knowing what your audience are searching for will allow you to feed these common search terms into your PPC and content tactics to ensure you’re attracting your target audience.
Similarly, understanding your target market’s online journey will help you to know where to make yourself most visible. If Asset Rich Grey’s are visiting aggregator sites, you need to be sure that your brand is present across these sites with the right messaging, to enable you to reach that target market.
To find out more about how you can leverage off the shelf segmentations in your marketing and improve on your customer experience, contact us at info@caci.co.uk
Acorn is a powerful consumer classification that segments the UK population. By analysing demographic data, social factors, population and consumer behaviour, it provides precise information and an understanding of different types of people.
But where does it come from, and how is it built? In this blog we look at the methodology behind Acorn, the data used to build it, and some important differences in classifications.
Acorn segments postcodes and neighbourhoods in the UK into 6 Categories, 18 Groups and 62 types, three of which are not private households. By analysing significant social factors and population behaviour, it provides precise information and in-depth understanding of the different types of people who live in a particular area.
With this information you can learn more about your customers’ behaviour and identify prospects who most resemble your target customers, define local demand for products and services and understand what drives effective customer communication strategies.
The methodology that Acorn and its counterparts use to create segmentations has essentially remained the same since CACI created the very first consumer classification in 1978. Census data is used as a foundation on which to build the segmentation – it contains the same data for everyone, everywhere regardless of whether it’s relevant or not – add to this some proprietary lifestyle data, do some k-means clustering and et voila! – you’ve got a consumer classification.
The consultation, Beyond 2011, identified the need to change the way in which the Census is collected (currently it’s a pen and paper exercise) to take account of new technology, cost savings and changes to data protection laws. We realised the implications of these changes and embarked on a 2-year investigation into other techniques and methodologies in order to create a better and more accurate version of Acorn.
In November 2013, we were the only commercial company able to demonstrate our new classification at the DMA’s decennial conference, Tracking A Decade of Changing Britain. The new methodology to build Acorn is no longer reliant on the Census, instead we are able to effectively utilise data from a variety of sources.
One of the key methodologies allows new neighbourhoods, regenerated areas and other areas of wholesale change that have occurred since the Census to be properly identified using a specific algorithm to identify and correctly classify new build areas. This is to ensure that Acorn is always as up to date as it possibly can be.
ONE OF THE KEY METHODOLOGIES ALLOWS NEW NEIGHBOURHOODS THAT HAVE OCCURRED SINCE THE CENSUS TO BE PROPERLY IDENTIFIED
So outside of the Census, what data goes into Acorn? Over the years we have researched a vast array of new data sources. The Open Data initiative has provided a great source of new data that is constantly updated and available at small area level.
Alongside this, we buy in a number of 3rd party data sets, including a dataset of all retirement living developments, data from the Land Registry and rental data from the UK’s leading online property portal.
We have also embarked on the creation of our own datasets, such as student accommodation and the locations of high-rise residential buildings. The advantage of having these data sets allows us to segment hard to classify neighbourhoods. As the lifestyle and consumer habits of students and those that live “vertically” differ considerably from standard residential neighbourhoods.
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT ANY CLASSIFICATION USED TO TARGET YOUR CUSTOMERS ISN’T RELIANT ON DATA THAT IS NOW OVER SEVEN YEARS OLD
Acorn is also available as a separate classification at address level called Household Acorn. We believe that the way one describes a neighbourhood (i.e. postcode) is fundamentally different to how a household is defined. This differentiation ensures accuracy. Where the size and composition of households within a postcode significantly varies, using the same classification for both can become extremely imprecise, depending on how the classification is being used.
For example, imagine a typical street in Britain with 15 households. 14 of those households are occupied by couples in their 50s-60s, where their children have left home. This neighbourhood can rightly be described as a community of empty-nesters.
The one remaining house in the street houses an elderly, single woman in her 80s. A household classification would be able to identify this household in isolation from its neighbours.
A simple calculation would tell you that there are enough single, elderly women living on their own across the country to constitute having their own household segment. But, there are nowhere near enough neighbourhoods or streets where the dominant house type are single, elderly women. So, a compromise must be made on the accuracy of either the postcode segmentation or the household classification.
There are many consumer segmentations and classifications allowing you to target different consumer types, all based on a methodology that CACI invented 40 years ago. The latest incarnation of Acorn however, is something different and fresh.
With the rapidly changing nature of neighbourhoods and the speed of redevelopment happening within many of our cities and towns across the UK, it is imperative that any classification used to target your customers isn’t reliant on data that is now over seven years old.
Acorn utilises the latest data alongside a new methodology to give the most accurate and insightful view of your customers, service users and prospects available.
You can find out more about Acorn and discover which Acorn segment your neighbourhood belongs to here, view the product sheet, or get in touch to find out how Acorn can help your business.