A2Z of Data Management Platforms

As digital media has become more and more complicated and more user data is being made and collected daily. Agencies, marketers and publishers required platforms to sell, buy and manage audience data which was not that effective with analytic tools. So, how can you store all the valuable audience data, analyze it and then use it to derive results? This is where Data Management Platform comes in.

What is a Data Management Platform (DMP)?

A data management platform or DMP is a platform that is used for profiling, collection, and activating. These are for first, second or third-party data of the audience. These are from all kinds of sources including offline, online, mobile and more. It is the main fundamental of data-based marketing and lets businesses gather consumer insights. A large amount of data is useful for data-based marketing. Still, you won’t be able to do much from the raw data. Therefore you need to organize it and convert it into a useful format to understand. This is done by DMP.

How Does DMP Work?

Data Management Platform collects random audience data from various sources. These are mobile web, web analytic tool, social, offline, online video, CRM, etc. Any good DMP will collect data from a deeper level like keyword and URL info.

The first-party data is the information from in-house systems and is collected directly from the customers. It is done in the form of past actions like downloads, clicks, video completions, video uploads, interests, etc.

How is an audience built over DMP?

Once you are done profiling and analysing the data, it is now time to build an audience in Data Management Platform. This way you can easily use it to target customers online in digital marketing. Using the data collected from the DMP audience, marketers can define the target audience in advance for any specific campaign. So, you can easily build a sports audience based on their actions across the internet. Instead of spending money on advertising for a sports website. To build an audience in DMP, data sources from the first, second and third parties are merged with Boolean Logic. This turns every value into false or true. You can build the niche in any niche you want, just the scale you need to care about.

Here are a few data points you can use to build your audience:-

• Interest     
• Gender              
• Age     
• Location     
• Income     
• Size of family     
• Browsing history
• Social media accounts like Twitter, Facebook  
• Likes and dislikes

Benefits for advertisers and publishers

Businesses and professionals from every industry can benefit from DMP. Here’s how:-

Publishers

Media owners or publishers include people who manage and own websites. DMP lets publishers access first-party audience data and enhance it by adding audience insights. It helps them to increase CPMs for programmatic and direct-sold inventory. Many publishers also choose to sell the customer data through a 3rd or 2nd party data exchange.

Advertisers

Agencies and marketers use DMP platforms to find and classify audiences at a deep level and get an additional layer of audience data, irrespective of the data source. These insights into the most valuable customers will help marketers to recognize and target prospects resembling them. This helps in increasing the audience base. Data-driven marketing strategies can be created targeting these audiences so that the right audience can be reached out to at the right time and on the right device.

Popular DMPs in market

Here are some popular DMPs in the market which you can check out for your business - 

• Adobe Audience Manager

It is a recognized DMP integrated into Adobe Marketing Cloud.

• Oracle CX Marketing     

Formerly known as Oracle Marketing Cloud, it is designed to help marketers plan and activate marketing campaigns through display search, emails, video ads and mobile automatically.

• Mapp Digital

Created by marketers keeping the needs of marketers in mind. Mapp is a collection of software and customer-based services like a decent DMP, tools to optimise mobile, app, email and web marketing.     

• Lotame

Lotame Solutions, Columbia, created Lotame, a cross-screen DMP that uses “second-party” data ( data acquired through strategic partners)

• Salesforce Audience Studio

It is designed to help users analyse audience data and gain insights by profiling and collecting data to promote long term customer relationships.

Digital marketing is a developing sector that needs a multi-way approach for interaction and communication with consumers. As a business you need to communicate with the audience effectively using as much audience data as you can. Data Management Platform helps you make that possible!