No one’s shopping experience is the same. Each of us has a distinct journey that points us either in-store or online, on our phones, tablets, or computers, through search and social, and ultimately leads us to purchase a product or service. With marketers focusing on being everywhere to reach consumers, what is often forgotten is how valuable their existing customer databases are and how those databases can help better target customers across channels.Leading with people firstIn a case study released by Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Facebook Marketing Science, we explore marketing and sales data through the lens of a customer and their path to purchase. Salesforce observed a two-week marketing campaign of a US online outdoor equipment and apparel company to understand what would happen if this advertiser leveraged their customer data to coordinate across email and Facebook News Feed ads.The online retailer targeted 565,000 of their existing email subscriber list with email and Facebook marketing through Salesforce Marketing Cloud. They executed email marketing via the Marketing Cloud, matched these same subscribers to Facebook in a privacy-safe way1 via Facebook Custom Audiences, and executed ads on Facebook via Social.com. Using Facebook offline conversion measurement to measure the in-store impact of the Facebook campaign the study analyzed anonymized email subscriber data, engagement data, ad impressions and transaction data to create three exposure segments:
- 18% only opened email
- 27% only saw Facebook News Feed Ads
- 16% opened emails AND were exposed to Facebook News Feed ads
Cross channel coordination appeals to marketers’ best customersConsumers are comfortably switching between devices throughout their day, making it important for marketers to not only activate campaigns across channels but also their marketing messages. In this case, the advertiser’s most valuable customers were those who both opened the email and saw the News Feed ads as they were being reached by multiple channels. Coordinating messaging across channels resulted in reaching customers who were 22% more likely to purchase than those only reached by email.
Leverage CRM to extend email-open reachBased on their business objectives, marketers can activate their customer data, to create a customer list they care about. In this case, this advertiser used the list to talk to their existing best customers with News Feed ads, extending the email campaign reach by 77%.
Beyond targeting to their existing customers marketers can take the next step and build upon the data from their customer database through lookalikes, identifying their new best customers.Through this case study we are able to illustrate the value a marketers’ existing CRM database is and how it can help better target customers by:
- Activating their CRM across channels to extend reach to their most valuable customers
- Coordinating messages across channels to build a seamless consumer experience
- Prospecting new customers by leveraging a marketers customer database
