We’re happy to announce another update of our CDP released last week! This upgrade focused on the Mobile Push channel, streamlining your campaign management and adding functionality for optimizing both customer experience and engagement. Let’s dive right in!

## Manage campaigns across all apps from one place
Save time and effort by configuring and running campaigns for multiple apps and OS directly from the Mobile Push interface without switching.
![Manage campaigns across all apps from one place](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515949/image5_3e1bc48f33.png)

## Optimize user interaction with your notifications for  better engagement
Configure the notification actions to improve the engagement of your push campaigns. Choose how recipients interact with your messages, whether by opening the app, browser, or a deep link.
![Configure the notification actions - meiro mobile push](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515950/image1_ffe134dd94.png)

## Add images to your messages. 
Create visually compelling push notifications — adding images to the push messages will help break through the users’ alert fatigue and boost campaign engagement. 
![add images to mobile push notifications](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515949/image6_5d37f153f1.png)

## Test and quality control your messages 
You can now send previews to test campaigns to ensure everything looks and functions exactly as intended before reaching your audience.
![testing mobile push notifications - meiro](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515952/image4_6dc4aa81bd.png)

## Improve app functionality and user engagement. 
Create a more tailored and interactive app experience where notifications do more than inform but engage and activate. With custom mobile push notification settings, you can guide users to specific app sections, personalize content, and even manage their access to features or offers.
![Create a more tailored and interactive app experience ](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515950/image3_12ed0af035.png)

## Reach your users even if they're offline
Set up custom time-to-live for up to 4 weeks. All notifications will be stored and delivered within this timeframe, ensuring users won’t miss relevant communication.
![image2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1710515950/image2_c021906fde.png)

Check our [documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/chapter/mobile-push-tutorials-tips) to learn more about how you can take advantage of the latest product improvements and get started with the upgraded version of Mobile Push.


Unleash the full potential of your customer data. Let’s talk!

Get a demo to see Meiro in action

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March update: Better version of Mobile Push

As we bid farewell to 2023, allow us to reflect on the remarkable strides we've made at Meiro throughout the year.

It's been an exceptional year filled with innovation and noteworthy core product updates in line with our commitment to delivering the best product for customer engagement and giving the power of data to business users.

Let's take a closer look at the highlights of Meiro's evolution in 2023:

## 1. Mobile Push channel for app engagement
We added the [Mobile Push feature](/mobile-push/) to our toolkit, allowing Meiro users to engage customers through personalized app notifications directly from the CDP interface.
- Segment your audience to a granular level based on a myriad of data attributes and tailor push notifications to target the right users at the right time with the right content for maximum open rates.
- Utilize CDP's rich insights and predictive behavioral signals to optimize your push notification strategy, ensuring unprecedented engagement, impact, and growth for your app.

![mobile push](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705495065/Newsletter_push_3074afc542.png)

### Use case inspiration for app notifications 
- **E-commerce:** Alert customers to new arrivals or restocks based on their browsing/purchase history.
- **BFSI:** Notify policyholders about policy renewals or claim status updates.

[Explore more use cases for Mobile Push →](/use-cases/)

## 2. Interface revamp for streamlined efficiency
We redesigned the Meiro CDP interface for more clarity and improved usability, making it more intuitive with a user-friendly side menu and navigation bar.

![newsletter-video-ezgif.com-video-to-gif-converter-2.gif](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705484779/newsletter_video_ezgif_com_video_to_gif_converter_2_e05c6161f8.gif)



## 3. Email channel for simplified campaign management
In 2023, Meiro introduced a new built-in [Email marketing channel](/email/), allowing users to effortlessly manage email marketing campaigns from start to finish without leaving the Meiro interface: 
- You have the flexibility to choose your preferred sending provider for seamless campaign management. 
- Supported MTA integrations include, but are not limited to, providers such as MailJet, Infobip, Mailgun, SendGrid, Omnivery, and many others.
- Our user-friendly Visual Editor requires no coding or graphic design skills, making it easy to create stunning email templates. 
- You can use customize pre-configured templates for a quick start with email marketing.
- Additionally, you can upload your own HTML templates for even more control over your brand identity's appearance.

![email marketing feature](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705417745/image5email_campaign_2007f2c403.gif)

### Use case inspiration for email marketing
- **E-commerce:** Automate cart abandonment emails or send tailored product recommendations.
- **BFSI:** Distribute personalized investment tips or informative financial updates.

[Explore more use cases for Email channel →](/use-cases/)

## 4. Lookalike Segments to expand your audience reach
Another addition to the core fetures were Lookalike Segments. These are specifically designed to enhance your marketing campaigns by broadening your reach and boosting conversion rates. 

What sets Meiro's Lookalike Segments apart from traditional lookalike modeling in 3rd-party advertising platforms are the following key advantages:

- Meiro's Lookalike Segments make use of customized CDP attributes tailored to your business and analyze historical customer behavior. This enables you to precisely identify prospects within your CDP database, ensuring that you targeting is highly accurate and relevant to your campaign goals.
- Dive deeper into the Lookalike Segment insights and gain a better understanding of your audience characteristics to optimize your messaging and campaign mechanics.
- Seamlessly target lookalikes in email and mobile push channels to market to a broader and highly relevant audience without leaving Meiro interface. No exports or CSV manipulation is required.
- In contrast to 3rd-party ad platforms, our Lookalike Segments can be easily exported to virtually ANY channel you prefer. You can target expanded audiences across platforms like Meta Ads, Google, HubSpot, or any other destination available through Meiro Integrations.

![Lookalike Segments Meiro](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705485951/vdke4ykavvnnsoll_nov_20_2023_13_29_22_a0038b3ffe.gif)

### Use case inspiration for lookalike audiences
- **BFSI:** Target prospects similar to high-value clients for personalized lead acquisition campaigns.
- **Retail Media:** Expand the audiences offered in vendor marketing to maximize ad relevance and likelihood of engagement in order to scale your retail media strategy and improve business results.
- **E-commerce:** Maximize your revenue potential by implementing Lookalike Segments in cross-selling campaigns, reaching users with an affinity for specific products or content.

[Explore more use cases for Lookalike Segments →](/use-cases/)

## 5. AI content assistant to unleash your creativity
Save time with content creation and get inspired by suggestions from an AI-powered tool built into native channels in Meiro CDP. 

**Practical tips:** 
- Create HTML code for email web banner templates.
- Prompt the AI assistant to generate text copy for email, push, and web personalization campaigns.

![ai assistant meiro CDP](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705489118/newsletter_ai_c281c9b661.png)

## 6. System entities for streamlined processes
We've also introduced a powerful enhancement that simplifies workflows: a set of sources, events, attributes, and stitching rules that the system automatically generates once your channel is configured correctly. 

**This upgrade brings significant benefits to the table:**
- These newly created entities are designed to ensure the seamless operation of your communication channels, effectively reducing the risk of human error in the configuration process. 
- Automatic generation of these entities translates into considerable time savings for the analysts. Rather than spending valuable hours manually configuring entities, they can now focus on more strategic tasks, contributing to greater efficiency in your operations.

## 7. Server Side GTM: New standard In Meiro implementation
We've embraced server-side Google Tag Manager for more robust and reliable data handling. Here are the gains:
- Faster web tracking implementation = faster time-to-value. 
- Enhanced control and customization in data tracking.

## 8. Attribute Simulator for risk-free testing
We've added a simulated environment for safe and effective attribute testing, enabling the opportunity to refine attributes and minimize errors before going live.

## 9. Autoload for true real-time data processing 
We've streamlined the extraction of customer events. Here's why it is good news: 
- It leads to faster and more precise, real-time events data processing.
- It simplifies the deployment process, significantly reducing errors during data integration.

## 10. Limitless connectivity
We continue building connectors, loaders, and webhooks to ensure smooth operations and data exchange. Here are some of the most prominent ones we've added in 2023:
- [Stripe](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-events/page/stripe-webhook)
- [Hubspot](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-hubspot)
- [Kochava](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-events/page/kochava-webhook)
- [Google DV360 Customer Match Audience](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-google-dv360-customer-match-audience)
- [TikTok](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-tiktok)

## 11. Kubernetes support
We're pleased to share that Meiro CDP now seamlessly supports Kubernetes! 

This integration simplifies the deployment process, making it easier for businesses to manage and scale their customer data platform effortlessly. With Kubernetes compatibility, Meiro CDP ensures a smooth, flexible, and efficient experience for the users.

## In conclusion
2023 was a year of progress that was made possible with invaluable feedback from our clients and partners. 

We appreciate your trust and look forward to continuing our innovation journey together in the years ahead!

If you wish to learn even more about the improvements and product updates made in 2023, visit our [documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/releases/chapter/releases-in-2023).

With Meiro, brands can use customer data to improve customer experience and marketing campaign performance, maximizing customer satisfaction and business profitability.

Gain holistic understanding of your customer preferences and behaviors

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The best of 2023: Recap of great product innovations

**SINGAPORE, 16 January 2024** – [Customer data platform (CDP)](/) Meiro has successfully secured US$3 million in an over-subscribed pre-Series A round, led by Southeast Asian VC firm Wavemaker Partners, with participation from angel investors at Singapore-based Angel Central. This marks Meiro’s first strategic funding round following five years of robust self-funded organic growth and profitability. 

The funding will be used to accelerate the Singapore-headquartered company’s growth trajectory. Meiro, which also has offices in Central Europe, aims to fast-track its product development, bolster its team, and expand its presence in Europe and Southeast Asia. Additionally, the company plans to enter new markets, starting with the establishment of a branch in Dubai slated for 2024.


## Founder's perspective 
“_We are thrilled to have gained the trust of some of the best brands in Southeast Asia after years of building a sustainable business. We are excited and appreciative of the opportunity to partner with the region’s most respected VC funds, Wavemaker Partners, and the Angel Central group. In choosing our partners, we prioritized synergy in values, the chemistry between the teams, and their deep understanding of our B2B enterprise software industry_,” said **Meiro Co-founder and CEO Jana Marlé-Zizková**. 

“_Due to the rapid shift towards first-party data utilization and the increasing challenges of customer data privacy regulations, there is an unprecedented high demand for technology solutions such as Meiro. While we have always been self-sufficient, this investment will help us address market demand, accelerate the development of our product and business, and strengthen our presence in the international markets while we have a competitive advantage_," she adds.

## Empowering brands with first-party data
Evolving data privacy regulations have resulted in the decreased use of third-party cookies that help brands understand customer behavior and preferences. This trend, along with soaring marketing costs, presents a considerable challenge for brands.

Founded in 2018 by [Pavel Bulowski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbulowski/), [Jana Marlé-Zizková](https://www.linkedin.com/in/janamarlezizkova/), and [Vojtěch Kurka](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurkavojtech/), who were previously data consultants for companies in Southeast Asia, Meiro is dedicated to empowering brands to better comprehend and meaningfully engage with their customers, consequently improving marketing efficiency and maximizing ROI through customer satisfaction. 

![meiro co-founders](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705397148/Jana_Pavel_V_use_this_for_media_1_33f875e1b7.jpg)

By focusing on first-party data, Meiro analyzes customers’ digital identities, enabling brands to recognize and track customers across various touchpoints. This approach was built on the principles of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) but combines it with behavioral data from mobile apps and websites, providing a true [360 customer profile](/product/single-customer-view/). Thanks to its unique graph-stitching technology, Meiro can efficiently handle millions of customer profiles. 

“_Meiro’s level of precision, scalability, and speed is crucial for businesses that manage large datasets and require quick adjustments to their marketing strategies. We’re thrilled to partner with them as they enter a new chapter and expand to new markets in Southeast Asia, Europe, as well as the Middle East_,” said **Paul Santos, Managing Partner at Wavemaker Partners**. “_Moreover, we’re impressed by how the company has bootstrapped its way to winning contracts from major global enterprises like BCA, Chemist Warehouse, Societe Generale, Dr Max Group, and DER Touristik despite stiff competition from better-funded competitors._” 

## Looking ahead

Operating on a self-sustaining business model, Meiro has effectively navigated through the global economic downturn. Now equipped with new funding, the company is **poised to grow its team from 50 to 70 members and aims to double its annual revenue**. 

“_I believe that with the growth of our team, we will be able to fulfill new tasks and ambitions more effectively. In 2024, we plan to complete the integration of additional communication channels and build GenAI use cases into our platform. We will also introduce a brand new product. In addition, we are gearing up to penetrate the hugely promising Middle Eastern market after launching our initial partnerships and securing our first clients there in late 2023_,” said **Pavel Bulowski, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder of Meiro**.

![meiro team](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1705397214/Sony_ILCE_7_RM_4_16_09_2021_A7_R4366_38d91ba484.jpg)
Meiro’s decision to seek investment aligns with the maturation of the CDP market and the increasing trend among companies towards customer-centric, data-driven strategies fueled by the depreciation of third-party cookies and heightened focus on data privacy. The founders believe that recognizing each customer as a unique individual is vital for building satisfying and profitable customer experiences, necessitating the strategic use of first-party data.


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Milestone Moment: Meiro secures strategic $3M pre-series A funding to drive global growth 🎉 

In the ever-evolving landscape of customer data management, businesses continually seek ways to optimize their marketing efforts and drive measurable returns. When it comes to [Customer Data Platforms](/) (CDPs), their true Return on Investment (ROI) lies not just in improving operational efficiency but in their remarkable ability to unlock incremental revenue streams by leveraging the power of unified customer data. In this blog post, we delve into the compelling evidence highlighting how a well-implemented CDP can drive significant revenue growth, delivering tangible results for businesses across various industries.

## Incrementality primer
What is incrementality? It is the business results from marketing activities that otherwise would not have happened without that marketing action. 

If you stop all your marketing & advertising today, there are still consumers who would purchase or repurchase from you anyway for various reasons: because they have already done their research and made a decision because it is convenient because you are a hugely trusted brand. 

Ignoring these consumers for this exercise, the true value of marketing and advertising is in the ability to influence consumer behaviors and **drive purchases that would not have occurred organically**.

## How to achieve incremental sales with CDP

For marketing to achieve incremental sales, essentially, there are only two ways: **to Influence and persuade those who would not have bought or to acquire new customers**.

## How to influence and persuade customers who won’t convert
For this audience, the first group that comes to mind would be prospects at the top of the marketing funnel who did not convert - website visitors who browsed but did not put things into their carts or cart abandoners who did not complete the transactions in the end. 

### Method #1: Real-time personalisation for abandoned carts, and abandoned browsers
Real-time [web/in-app personalization](/personalization/) can deliver significant results when it comes to nudging the users who did not convert to complete their purchase. With a CDP in place, automating the activation of abandoned browsers and [abandoned basket](/use-case/abandoned-basket/) use cases is easy. The otherwise lost sales can be recovered in 3 simple steps:

1. Attributes are defined to characterize customer profiles (e.g., information about personal data, revenue spent and opened campaigns, lifetime value, etc.).
2. The audience segment is created on the fly with no coding skills required.
3. The segment is then activated via marketing channels such as popup banners, [email](/email/), or [push notifications](/mobile-push/), using personalized attributes such as the customer’s name, viewed or recommended products, etc.

For our retail & e-commerce clients, the abandoned cart / abandoned browse campaigns that utilized the exact items that the customers have not purchased showed increased conversion by 15% and **increased cart value by 23%**. 

![cdp recommendations](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1702390845/blog_img_ae64206537.gif)

Moreover, beyond upper-funnel prospects, existing customers can actually be a huge opportunity for incremental sales if we are intentional about [upselling, cross-selling](/use-case/up-sell-and-cross-sell-with-complimentary-products/), and maintaining an excellent CX. Here, a CDP can help in several ways.

### Method #2: Smart recommendations for up-selling and cross-selling
Gone are the days when upselling is a simple “Do you want fries with that?” Consumers today have diverse tastes and preferences, and expect extremely relevant recommendations. In Meiro, we believe that product recommendations should take different flavours (or algorithms). For each prospect or client, given sufficient signals, we should be able to recommend based on: 

- **Complementary products** — recommending a case, lens protector or battery pack to a digital camera buyer. 
- **Collaborative filtering** – a fancy way to say that “Customers who have the same products as you tend to like these other products too.” 
- **Content-based recommendations** — “Since you have purchased healthy snacks, here are a few more healthy options for you.” 
- **Similar customer** — “People who are similar to you also purchase…” — the similarity here could be based on demographic, psychographic, or behaviour. 

By now we have 3-5 recommendations for a single customer that should be ranked in priority and shown to them one at a time. This ensures that we optimise the opportunity for an existing customer’s discovery of new products and services. 

![cdp complimentary products](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1702390819/Article_813c2a2677.png)

### Method #3: Service recovery for existing customers who are not satisfied or who may churn

Here, incremental revenue is all about retaining customers who could be lost without intervention. This is done by detecting early signs of potential churn and performing service recovery. Churn prediction itself is a tough business and requires a huge amount of behavioral signals, which is why it would be challenging to predict churns effectively without a single customer view and a chronological timeline of customer interactions across all channels that a CDP can provide to a business. 

![single customer view](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1702390820/Article_1_bfd3acacf6.png)

Once we can segment a group of customers with a churn probability higher than a threshold acceptable by the organization, a few things should go into service recovery: 
- [Ads suppression](/use-case/optimize-ad-performance-and-spend-through-suppression/). New ads campaign? Exclude the potential churning group from the campaigns, as otherwise, you would just be wasting the ad budget. The aforementioned Method #2 for up-sell and cross-sell is not applicable here — focus on re-winning the churning customers first. 
- Proactive outreach. Provide Customer Service with these potentially churning audiences so that the CS agents gain a full view of customer behavior and interactions to help determine the best way to perform a [service recovery](/use-case/churn-management/?tag=e-commerce-and-retail) for them. 

## How to acquire new-to-brand customers

### Method #4: A better way to create lookalike audiences 

For years, marketing practitioners have utilized lookalike audiences in major advertising platforms like Google* and Meta to expand their upper funnel. Until today brands use a method of uploading a custom list of existing customers to the ad platforms in order to generate a lookalike audience, and it is deemed an acceptable strategy. 

However, it is important to recognize that the effectiveness of the lookalike audience is contingent upon the quality of the seed audience provided to, say, Meta's Lookalike algorithm. This is where a Customer Data Platform (CDP) can make a difference, providing a higher quality seed audience and consequently improving the resulting [lookalike audience](/use-case/expand-reach-and-discover-more-leads/?tag=e-commerce-and-retail).

Through the comprehensive view of customer behavior offered by a CDP, marketers can refine their understanding of the "ideal customer profile" beyond the limited scope of "customers who have purchased recently” or particular demographics also to include: 

- Customers who repurchase over time or purchase products with the highest margins.
- Customers in the RFM segment “Champion” or “Promising.” 
- Those who are active referrers of your products. 
- Those who have engaged actively on the website, app, or email campaigns. 

This enhanced perspective allows for precise fine-tuning of the target audience and, consequently, lookalike modeling, increasing the effectiveness of customer acquisition campaigns and driving more meaningful business outcomes.

![cdp lookalike modeling](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1702390819/Article_2_87aff277c1.png)

## Conclusion

In assessing any technological investment, a pivotal question remains: “How will this investment help me deliver better business outcomes?” In the case of CDP, its return on investment lies in the capacity to yield incremental business results that would otherwise remain unrealized or fall short of optimal without a consolidated view of cross-channel customer interactions.

Embracing the concept of incrementality and adopting a robust [Customer Data Platform](/) becomes not just a strategic and competitive advantage but a crucial driver of sustainable business growth and digital transformation. 


_*Google has [ceased their Similar Audiences](https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/12463119?hl=en) as of August 2023._



Ready to take your personalization game to the next level? 

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How to maximize ROI of a Customer Data Platform through incremental revenue

Meet Lookalike Segments, our newest feature to find more users in your CDP database who share characteristics of your target audience segments, broadening reach, relevance and conversion rates of your marketing campaigns.

**It is more powerful than lookalike modeling in 3rd-party advertising platforms for the following reasons:**
- **More Precision with CDP Attributes:**
With Meiro's Lookalike Segments, as a marketer, you get to harness the power of CDP attributes and historical behavior to pinpoint more relevant prospects in your database. This not only boosts precision but also ensures your targeting remains spot-on.
- **Greater Control and Transparency:** 
Meiro empowers you with increased control over the segmentation process. Dive into the insights of your lookalike audiences with greater transparency. This means you can truly understand the nitty-gritty and fine-tune the criteria behind segment creation according to your needs.
- **Industry-Specific Customization:** 
Do you need to tailor segments to the specific nuances of your industry or market? You can achieve this by using custom attributes during the segmentation process, resulting in heightened accuracy and precision in your targeting.
- **Cross-Channel Activation:**
And the cherry on top—Meiro's Lookalike Segments are not confined to the walled gardens of third-party ad platforms. You have the freedom to export them to virtually any channel of your choice. 

Let’s dive deeper into how you can leverage this Meiro upgrade to your benefit.

## Expand your target audience segments and reach more customers
Connect with more potential customers who share the same interests and behaviors as your target audience to improve your marketing performance. Lookalike Segments will harness the profile characteristics of your existing [audience segments](/smart-segmentation/) to find more similar prospects in your CDP database.
![lookalike audiences CDP ](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1701863727/lookalikes_animaytion_a751d9e6ec.gif)

## Export lookalikes to ANY channel or platform
Send lookalike segments to other tools and platforms and target expanded audiences across Meta Ads, Google, HubSpot, or any other available destination in [Meiro Integrations](/integrations/). 
![audience export CDP](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1701864032/Newsletter_image_11_2023_2_f86e0dd5ca.png)

## Seamlessly activate lookalikes across Meiro’s native channels
Dynamically target lookalikes in our [native email](/email/) and [mobile push](/mobile-push/) channels to market to a broader and highly relevant audience without leaving Meiro interface. No exports or CSV manipulation is required.
![native channel audience activation cdp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1701864146/Article_image_11_2023_1_cef1cab4bd.png)

## Access rich insights to optimize campaigns 
Dive deeper into the Lookalike Segment insights and gain a better understanding of your audience characteristics to optimize your messaging and campaign mechanics.

![reporting dashboard](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1701864251/Article_image_11_2023_2_1c3b1d8f02.png)

## Use cases and applications of Lookalike Segments
### Discover more leads
Find more users that fit the definition of your profitable customer groups and leverage lookalikes in brand awareness or acquisition campaigns.

[Learn how to improve customer acquisition with CDP →](/use-case/expand-reach-and-discover-more-leads/)

### Lower cost per conversion
Harness the power of purchase history, demographics, and CDP attributes to refine your targeting with Lookalike Segments, optimizing your spending for customer acquisition and reducing the cost per conversion.

[Learn more about optimizing ad performance with CDP →](/use-case/optimize-ad-performance-and-spend-through-suppression/)

### Cross-sell 
Maximize your revenue potential by implementing Lookalike Segments in cross-selling campaigns, reaching users with an affinity for specific products or content.

[Learn more about X-sell & Up-sell use case →](/use-case/up-sell-and-cross-sell-with-complimentary-products/)

### Retail media
Leverage lookalikes to maximize ad relevance and likelihood of engagement in order to scale your retail media strategy and improve business results.

[Learn how you can montize 1st-party audience data →](/use-case/monetize-1st-party-audience-data/)

Want to learn more about the feature and how can it be applied across different industries to craft audience segments for lookalike modeling? Visit out [documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/lookalikes-settings) for more in-depth outlook on this feature.


Look no further. Get in touch with our team of experts to see Meiro Customer Data Platform in action.

Want to find more customers, improve marketing efficiency and ROI?

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New feature to help find more customers: Lookalike Segments

A [Customer Data Platform (CDP)](/) and a data warehouse are all concepts related to data management, and all of these systems are used to store data and enable advanced analytics. However, each concept has distinct characteristics, serves different purposes, and caters to specific organizational data management needs. In short, they are not interchangeable but can be used together to provide a comprehensive data ecosystem.

Let’s break down each concept and identify the differences between customer data platforms (CDP) and data warehouses and how they can complement each other. 

## What is a data warehouse?
A data warehouse is a centralized repository for storing, organizing, and analyzing large volumes of structured data from various sources within an organization (e.g., databases, CRM systems, ERP systems, and other external data feeds). It supports historical reporting, business intelligence, and data analysis. Data warehouses are typically characterized by their ability to efficiently handle structured data, enabling complex queries and transformations. They follow a schema-on-write approach, where data is structured and organized before being ingested into the warehouse.

### A typical data warehouse architecture
A typical data warehouse architecture consists of the following components:

- **Data Sources:** These can include databases, transactional systems, relational databases, and other sources.
- **ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Process:** Data is extracted from source systems, transformed into a standardized format, and loaded into the data warehouse.
- **Data Storage:** The data warehouse stores structured data in tables optimized for querying and reporting.
- **Data Modeling:** Data is organized into dimensions (descriptive data) and facts (measurable data) to support multidimensional analysis.
-** Query and Reporting Tools:** Users access the data warehouse through BI tools, SQL queries, or custom applications for data analysis and reporting.

![Article.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1698843987/Article_648e327b25.png)

## What is a Customer data platform (CDP)?
A [customer data platform (CDP)](/blog/what-is-a-customer-data-platform-cdp/) is designed to collect, store, consolidate, and manage customer data from various online & offline sources, such as websites, mobile apps, CRM systems, etc., to create unified and comprehensive customer profiles. CDPs focus on individual user-level data and provide a [360-degree view of customer](/product/single-customer-view/) interactions, behaviors, and preferences across multiple touchpoints. This information allows businesses to:
- Create granular customer audiences
- Deliver more relevant and timely messages
- Personalize marketing campaigns
- Drive marketing engagement
- Provide businesses with insights for data-driven decision-making.

Generally, a CDP would support data integration, audience segmentation, and activation across marketing channels. A good full-stack CDP would also include data management features such as ETL/Reverse ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) for schemaless ingestion of raw data, which allows it to ingest and harmonize data on the fly without requiring extensive data modeling upfront, saving time and resources for the client organization. 

### A typical CDP architecture
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) architecture typically comprises three key components:

- **Data ingestion: **This component is responsible for collecting and aggregating customer data from various sources, such as websites, mobile apps, CRM systems, data lakes, data warehouses, and third-party data providers. It involves data connectors, APIs, and ETL processes to ensure data is cleansed, normalized, and ready for analysis.
- **Data storage:** The core of a CDP, this component stores the integrated customer data in a unified format, often employing a data lake or data warehouse. It enables the efficient retrieval and management of customer profiles, behavior data, and transaction history.
- **Data activation: **This component focuses on making the customer data actionable. It includes tools for audience segmentation, marketing personalization, and real-time data access. Marketers and other stakeholders use this component to craft targeted campaigns, improve customer experiences, and drive engagement.


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Data warehouse vs. CDP: What are the differences and synergistic potential

As we evaluate the achievements of the first half of 2023, Meiro remains committed to continuous innovation and delivering exceptional value to our users. Throughout this period, our unwavering focus on user-centric design has defined our progress. Here's a snapshot of our accomplishments.\n\n![meiro cdp product update H1 2023](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692192163/Meiro_Product_Milestones_A_recap_of_H1_2023_e21fa023ff.png)\n\nOver the past six months, we've introduced 20 new features, each thoughtfully designed to empower you, our esteemed user. Our objective has been to provide you with deeper insights, increased efficiency, and the means to drive your business forward.\n\nYet, advancement doesn't solely hinge on the introduction of novel features. It's also about refining the existing framework to achieve utmost excellence. Adhering to this principle, we've implemented 29 enhancements to our platform. Every adjustment, every refinement brings us closer to ensuring your experience is both intuitive and rewarding.\n\nOur journey towards perfection has not been without its challenges. In our pursuit of excellence, our proficient quality assurance team has promptly identified and resolved 90 bugs, reinforcing the reliability and security of our platform. Your feedback has been invaluable in guiding these enhancements.\n\n## Introducing Key Updates\n\n1. **Revamped User Interface: **We understand that a platform's effectiveness lies not only in its functionality but also in its design. With a modernized appearance, our user interface now features a left-aligned menu for effortless navigation. We've also reconsidered feature naming to create a more intuitive and efficient browsing journey.\n\n2. **Mobile Push Notifications v1:** In today's dynamic digital landscape, real-time engagement holds paramount importance. Our latest addition, the native channel for [Mobile Push Notifications](/mobile-push/), addresses this need. Stay connected with your audience in real-time through easily accessible notifications.\n![personalized mobile push notifications](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692192959/Blog_image_detail_1_96421b92aa.png)\n\n3. **Autoload – Seamlessly Integrated Feature:** Efficient [data integration](/product/data-collection/) is the cornerstone of operational success. Through the 'Autoload' feature, you can effortlessly extract customer events from the Meiro Events database to the Meiro Business Explorer. The outcome? A smoother, error-resistant, and swift data integration process.\n![autoload integrations](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692192958/Blog_image_detail_2_bbf64458bd.png)\n\n4. **AI-Enhanced Content Creation:** Step into the future with our AI Content Assistant. Bid farewell to manual content creation and harness the capabilities of AI. Whether it's pop-ups, banners, or mobile notifications, our assistant ensures your content is not only effective but also finely tailored to the customers' expectations.\n![ai assistant for campaigns](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692192958/Blog_image_detail_3_a0f3d45183.png)\n\nAt Meiro, we're not simply developing a product; we're crafting experiences. Each new feature and improvement underscores our commitment to you. As you navigate through these updates, we eagerly anticipate your feedback. Together, we're not just envisioning the future; we're actively shaping it. Your partnership in this journey is truly appreciated.

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Meiro product milestones: recap of H1 2023

Meiro CDP is humbled and honored to be named the Company of the Year and make it to the Top 10 Singaporean Big Data Companies at the Top Asia Corporate Ball 2022/2023. This recognition is a testament to our team’s dedication, hard work, and unwavering commitment to excellence and our vision for a world where customer data helps businesses understand and engage customers in the most meaningful way. 

At Meiro, we aim to guide businesses through digital transformation and increasing data management complexity. Our team is passionate about empowering businesses with the insights they need to make informed decisions that drive revenue and create personalized experiences for their customers. Being named the Company of the Year and making it to the Top 10 Singaporean Big Data Companies is a significant milestone for Meiro. It is a recognition of our efforts to create a customer-centric approach to business, and it motivates us to continue delivering innovative solutions that transform the customer experience. 

“As CEO, I am proud of our accomplishment. This recognition is a reminder that we are on the right path toward achieving our vision of a world where businesses use customer data to create meaningful and respectful interactions. 

As we continue this journey, we remain committed to our vision and mission. We will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in customer data management, bringing together technological innovations to continue to empower and guide businesses through digital transformation and unlocking the potential of customer data.

We thank our team, customers, partners, and the Top Asia Corporate Ball for this recognition,” says Jana Marle-Zizkova, CEO of Meiro CDP.

![IMG_7550-753x1024.jpeg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685387218/IMG_7550_753x1024_44ce1bb9a8.jpg)

Meiro Recognized as One of the Top 10 Big Data Companies in Singapore of 2023

Reflect on your morning and the first moment you picked up your phone today. What was the very first thing you saw? It could have been a new message or email, breaking news, or Black Friday promo code — no matter what it was — what matters is that you have most certainly received it as a mobile push notification. No wonder — push notification is by far the most direct and effective way to communicate with users. Mobile app preference over browsers is staggering – over the last two years, Australians have increased their daily time spent in mobile apps by 50% and Singapore users by 40%. So if your business relies on a mobile app to interact with customers, making use of personalized push notifications to drive your app retention and marketing opportunities is an absolute must. 

## What are push notifications?
Push notifications are messages the application sends directly to a user’s mobile device. We all know them — they appear on lock screens accompanied by alerts, notify us of transactions, new messages, or contain a specific call-to-action. They can be sent as long as the app is installed and the user has opted-in to receive these messages. 

## Best practices for making the most out of push notifications
Mobile push notifications proved to be a powerful tool for helping developers and marketers engage with their customers. Despite the overall push notification opt-in rate being 60%, when done wrong, push notifications may drive customers to uninstall your app or disable the app’s notifications. Naturally, the question is how to create a push notification marketing strategy to drive app users’ engagement and retention. 

The key to engaging with users in a meaningful and seamless way is personalization — sending relevant and timely messages tailored to your audience’s profiles, needs, and activity — a strategy that can be leveraged with data-driven insights and Smart segmentation. Let’s get to the best practices for strategizing your push notification marketing without being too spammy, random, or basic.

### 1. Dynamic content is the key to delivering personal and relevant messages
Personalizing the content of push notifications can facilitate a 4x lift on open rates, so advice #1 is to create familiarity and include the customer’s name in your message. Another way to personalize your communication is to tailor the content to the customer’s preferences, behavior, transaction history, location, and demographics. Keep in mind that your user’s attention span is limited, and if your message does not relate to or stand out among the rest of the home screen clutter, it will likely go unnoticed. And if your message misses the target, that can undermine the user’s affinity with your brand.

![Chart-3-blog-1024x642-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687205280/Chart_3_blog_1024x642_2_a77e954419.png)

Hence, it makes sense to invest in ways you can gather refined data on your users’ activity, which can enhance your chances to anticipate certain behaviors, slice your audience into segments, and leverage these insights in your push notification strategy. 

### 2. Time your push notifications based on users’ engagement patterns
It is not enough to accommodate users’ time zones. The general rule of thumb is to send pushes around noon. Even though statistically speaking, it is a good rule to follow, for more precision, a better tactic would be to optimize your mobile push delivery to the hours when your customers are most active to catch their attention in the opportune moments. Another point to make in regard to timing — always adjust your delivery schedule to your user’s time zones.

![Chart-7-blog-1024x642.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685308427/Chart_7_blog_1024x642_8c7cf6e6e1.png)
### 3. Incorporate behavior-based delivery into your strategy
Studies show that sending push notifications based on users’ actions yields 800% greater open rates than generic notifications sent immediately. Use the data insights to your advantage and anticipate the user’s next steps and needs — tailor your call to action in response to the user’s specific behavior. This is a good tactic to prevent your customers from churning and re-engage them. For instance, let Susan know that the cashmere sweater she left in her cart will soon run out of stock, and since Jack has been listening to Drake a lot, he would appreciate you letting him know when the new album is out. Or if your company is a car or hotel-booking service, ping your customer the next time he purchases a flight ticket. 

![Blog-image-1024x459.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685308428/Blog_image_1024x459_05d1926bb5.png)
### 4. Be mindful of the customer’s platform
Android and iOS devices substantially differ in user experience associated with the push notification opt-in process and how notifications appear on the screens. But these are not the only things that set the two rival camps apart! Studies show that Android and Apple users are distinct in their personalities, and besides, Apple users, on average, spend three times more money than Android users per transaction. These people belong to different consumer segments, so a good marketer should tailor his messaging accordingly and experiment with personalization techniques to maximize user engagement.

### 5. Do not push too hard
It is easy to overdo it with the frequency of your notifications. However, there is no one-size-fits-all rule for how often you should reach out to your audience. Every company will have to adjust its strategy according to when it is appropriate for its type of business to engage with the user. For example, retailers may want to be more discrete and settle for sending, on average, two mobile pushes weekly — just enough to gently remind their customers of new deliveries, special offers, and abandoned carts. The banking system, on the contrary, may want to send a push notification to its customer with every transaction. 
![1GiI4tKCNTKPLNGk-chart-1-1-1024x683.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685308428/1_Gi_I4t_KCNTKPLN_Gk_chart_1_1_1024x683_8ae23b24c9.png)
### 6. Elicit action with your messaging
The marketer’s prerogative is to guide the customer to complete the desired action. To create actionable push notifications, Incorporate buttons such as “Shop now” or “Subscribe” into your messages to stimulate the expected response from your users. And then do not disappoint them — make sure the user lands on the right page upon clicking.

## How can CDP help to deliver personalized push notifications
Meiro makes it possible to track and utilize 1st party data on your audience to make complex audience segmentation and to communicate with your customers. A myriad of custom-defined attributes helps to deliver precise personalized messaging to the right people at the right time across multiple marketing channels, including mobile push. 

Do you want to know more about how Meiro CDP can amp up your push notification marketing or your data strategy? Drop us a line, and let’s connect soon.

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6 Ways to personalize your push notifications with CDP data insights

Today, the average customer journey involves anywhere between 20 to 500+ touchpoints, so the struggle is definitely real for marketers trying to stay on top of their game whether it’s about navigating all the industry shifts, managing the adtech stack, or unlocking efficiencies across channels.

In the face of the current economic uncertainty, 2023 marketing strategy planning discussions will heavily scrutinize all expenses, with mounting pressure on marketers to maximize the efficiency of marketing programs. How are you preparing to weather this storm?

At the recent Big Data & AI World event, Meiro had the opportunity to sit down with a panel of experts in adtech to discuss advertising efficiency, the future of it in the post-cookie world, and what’s happening in the privacy space.

Our panel of experts consisted of the following:

*Juozas Petravicius, Commercial Director at Adform
*Jonathan Edwards, Head of Data Transformation at Dentsu
*Shyam Ravishankar, Global Head of Agency Partnerships at Moving Walls

Let’s explore the key themes that were discussed and what our experts have to say:

## Role of DMPs to transform as the industry moves towards first-party data
While DMPs, or data management platforms, can handle first-, second-, and third-party data and turn that data into something useful and push it back to ad platforms, they fall short when it comes to transforming and standardizing data as CDPs do.

Read: Data-driven Marketing: The Benefits of CDP vs. DMP

So, what does the future hold for DMPs?

Juozas Petravicius, Commercial Director at Adform, commented: “We don’t see our DMP dying or we’re turning them into CDP. We see that it’s going to become just a part of our DSP solution to channel data from for example CDPs into our data activation platform. And we still have some features that I think would be essential. For example, lookalike modeling that most probably what marketers would want to do. We’ll use part of our DMP to actually facilitate those use cases, but it will not be a standalone DMP that we will be pitching. It would be part of the entire stack that would help.”

Publishing acquires a new meaning in the world of data exchange
The shift towards a cookieless future is another wake-up call for brands to invest in their own attribution and analytical capabilities to truly maximize the utilization of first-party data. We see a greater emphasis on value exchange, whether it’s retailers using data to enhance internal efficiencies or publishers optimizing omnichannel marketing for advertisers.

Shyam Ravishankar, Global Head of Agency Partnerships at Moving Walls, commented: “There is going to be a kind of disruption in the retail space. When everyone knows which customer is buying what, they will become a new media channel in themselves, and they will be going after the budget spent by the biggies like Unilever, Procter & Gambles, etc.

So there is going to be an increase in terms of cross-selling, upselling between all these brands within a particular channel for more business partnerships or alliances.”

Building the winning formula for alternative ID solutions begins with data strategy
The market is ripe with innovation in the space of identity resolution i.e. persistent cookies, advertising app IDs, and other identifiers. More identifiers per customer mean more options and opportunities for data activation. What’s the key to picking the right option here?

Jonathan Edwards, Head of Data Transformation at Dentsu, commented: “I would say, step one, work out your data strategy. What role does data play in your organization? From there you can look up, and you can think, do I have a customer strategy?

So do I know who I want to talk to, what experience I want to deliver, and how I want to measure that?

Because if you don’t have one of those, your data strategy isn’t going to work because the data strategy has to be in service of what you’re trying to do as a business. 

Once you’ve got the customer strategy and you’ve worked out what data does, then you can build out from that. And if you have that clarity, if you take a privacy stance within that, then I think it becomes far easier to pick which ID fits with your principles and you as a brand want to pursue.”

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Ad efficiency in the age of connected customer data

## Marketers have a problem

A typical business has its data siloed in at least 30 different systems – systems that are only partially connected and almost certainly aren’t unified. For the last decade or more, we’ve been talking about targeting and personalization in the marketing industry, but the problem has not been solved. In fact, it’s only become more complex. There are so many siloed systems and applications dealing with customer data that it has become even more difficult to create one holistic view of the customer than it was just a few years ago.

## Our product – our solution

Meiro is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that unifies your customer behavior data into one actionable view. It’s an easy-to-deploy data layer that sits between your data sources – CRM, DMP, offline, apps, online, social, IoT, and more – and the platforms that can use that data right now – EDM, social, DMP, SMS, email, everything. Key component of CDP is a cross-device identification engine that allows you to track customer footprints across all channels and touchpoints, from the first contact to sales to retention, online to offline..

## The power of first-party data

CDP works with first-party data, the most-valuable asset any organization has. Repeat customers are far more valuable (and affordable) than acquiring new business, and Meiro CDP will help you put Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) front and center. Your data will be unified and actionable for your teams – in real-time – with just a few clicks.

## With Meiro, you’ll do more

*   Immediately identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities based on rich customer profiles built from online and offline behavior data.
*   Build enriched custom audiences for any marketing platform (EDM, DMP), and make them available to any team.
*   Data-governance regime to stay ahead of regulatory requirements, shifting business needs, and more.
*   Easy and transparent data collection & data cleansing

Our entire philosophy with Meiro is to focus relentlessly on integrations, ease-of-use, and unlocking the power of personalization. We’re building a platform that will create a level of customer intimacy that businesses have been demanding for years.

## We think we’re on to something

We’ve seen the power of unified, standardized first-party data, and our AI-powered segmentation and personalization engines are more than up to the task. Not only will marketing departments be able to act faster on every platform, they’ll be acting from a place of knowledge drawn from every piece of first-party data in the organization. Not only will your teams be able to spring into action from day-to-day, your organization will be able to focus on Customer Lifetime Value, profitability, future behavior, churn, and the metrics that fuel long-term growth.

## Putting integrations first

Meiro integrates with every platform, but that’s not the point. Every SaaS system “integrates with every other system,” right? The difference is that we do this better, faster, and smoother than anyone else. We’ve been doing it for years! That sort of efficiency will, we think, have ripple effects across organizations. Marketing departments and IT departments will rejoice at having to deal with one another a fraction of the time!

## Who we are

We love and understand data. We’re **data nerds** with years of experience implementing data engineering and data science projects for global clients in Europe and Asia. Singapore serves as our business hub, R&D is in Central Europe, and we’re focusing our business efforts on Australia and Asia. Then, on to Europe! Why are we doing it like this? Well, we feel like so many enterprise businesses are just too US-centric. We’ve made Asia our home (or, it’s taken us in), and we want to focus on the many dynamic markets here with a product built with this region in mind. Meiro is Japanese for “labyrinth”, after all, and we’re looking to help businesses navigate the maze that is big data. Our plan is to launch Meiro in the coming weeks and encourage you to fill out the form below to find out more about CDPs, what they can do for your business, and why Meiro might just be the answer.

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Meiro | Our Manifesto

It’s been a labour of love, but Meiro - our new Customer Data Platform (CDP) is ready for action. Our goal with Meiro is pretty straightforward - we want to empower businesses to maximize the potential of their first-party data. To do that, we built Meiro for non-technical teams. Marketers can, with just a few clicks, build and deliver rich custom audiences to any team or any platform. No more data mining requests, no more swamped IT teams, no more delays. Meiro consolidates customer behavior data from every source - online, offline, in-store, CRM, DMP, and more - unifies it, and makes it available to the entire organization.

First-party data is the most valuable asset any organization has - but only if it’s managed correctly and put to use. In our view, the many promises of "big data" and marketing technology have remained largely unfulfilled. We’ve been hearing about enhanced personalization for years, but, in our experience, businesses still have their data in silos, spread across several platforms for specific teams, and they’re just not getting everything out of it. Our system lets marketers go beyond merely identifying up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, they can build a custom audience, a look-alike custom audience, and deliver content to them in a matter of minutes - and they can do it all with confidence.

The key to Meiro is connectivity. We come from the data analytics world, and we’ve seen far too many systems that promise a “360-degree customer view” but fall short on delivery. Some take a ton of manual development or engineering work, others integrate with only a select set of other systems, and almost none let non-technical users create and deploy datasets on-demand. It’s a win-win! Marketers and advertisers can jump on trends in real-time without having to go to the IT team for export, and data scientists have standardized, structured data and more time to work with it. We’ve built a system that changes the data governance landscape, and the positive effects will ripple across the entire organization - from marketing to sales to compliance. The system connects to every platform and consolidates data into an actionable view for the entire business. Marketers can deliver campaigns, IT teams have full control, transparency and visibility overall data flow, and compliance is made easy - all with one system.

In short, there’s a lot more to do, and we’re excited. Sign up for our email alerts, follow us on social, or drop us a line to find out more. Thank you! [The Meiro Team](https://meiro.io/people/)

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Meiro is here!

First, just a fair warning that this piece goes into a bit of detail of what goes under the hood - and gets a bit jargon-y - about how we work with data and how we built Meiro data layer the CDP runs on.


![Blog-img-under-the-good.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685401220/Blog_img_under_the_good_58c28d164e.png)
### Integrations, Integrations, Integrations

Meiro CDP can’t exist without the [Meiro Integrations](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/) layer and it’s worth noting upfront . A CDP is the last-mile activation piece of an extensive set of processes - all based on data unification. We come from ETL/integrations backgrounds, and our focus is two-fold:

*   Building simple(ish) integrations with complex programs
*   Tagging all of that data so it makes sense and is usable

All of the components and workspaces work to one goal - to load the data into our customer data model. We designed our model to hold every customer attribute (social profile identifiers, location, touchpoints on customer care, etc.). As well as a timeline view of touchpoints - cross-device, online/offline, you name it, it’s all there. Our model both holds and standardizes everything, so any application - IT, CRM, marketing, data analysis, and science teams, etc. - can access the data in the same way.

![Meiro-CDP-schema.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687201384/Meiro_CDP_schema_328460b05b.png)

### Under the Hood of a CDP

Every component in Meiro is a Docker container - basically, a standalone “black box” that can be written in any language, using any SDK from any data source, and communicates with Meiro Integration’s core using a simple data interface. This makes creating components (data source, processor, data destination) both easy and fast, in any language - and anyone can do it. Bring the tool to the data, not the data to the tool.

### See the Flow, Be the Flow

Institutional memory is great, but it’s good to have notes. I’ve been on the receiving end of bad processes, and it’s not great. Here’s an example that I suspect is all-too-familiar: Your team of data engineers and analysts are tasked with loading data from Google Adwords. They get a server (possibly a virtual one), write a script, ask an API for some data, and then store it into some database. 
This script lives in the server and in the minds of the programmers who built it and nowhere else. This had to end, so we built a mapping system that shows all data flows - visually. I want to see where my data is coming from and where it’s going, and we all assumed more people wanted that too. So, in our scenario, you use a component for getting the data from AdWords, use an SQL script to process it, then some pivot engine to deliver the data to PowerBI for visualization - and that’s just another workspace.

### A CDP Has to be Easy to Use

All that super-complicated and interesting data science work doesn’t mean too much if the end result is the _status quo_. The reason we got together to create Meiro was exactly this - there’s a ton of data just sitting there, and marketing people just can’t use it. And, if they can, they can’t use it fast enough and without using resources from the IT team. It’s a huge inefficiency, and we’ve seen it over and over again. So, we sketched, drew, erased, wireframed, deleted, and then did all that a few more times. We needed the end-user to be able to look at the thing and know what to do to get the data they want. So, we made it as simple as we good - WYSIWYG. Want an audience of “existing customers in London who read your last email and have an NPS score above 7”? It’s all there, in nice little containers, and the files have normal naming conventions.

### Have an Idea, Got a question?

We’re #datacurious, and are always looking to exchange ideas and solve problems. Get in touch via social or email [v@meiro.io](mailto:v@meiro.io).

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Under the hood of a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

The era of personalization is upon us, but it’s under-delivered...so far. With the right mix of tools, meaningful marketing personalization is possible. However, it tends to involve several teams and too much time. Customer data platforms (CDPs) are set to change that dynamic. Customer data has long been a valuable asset a business has. But in 2018 (even now) - most first-party data is siloed off in different teams. IT specialists are sitting between mountains of data and the teams across the business that maximize its potential. There are a number of reports and surveys that bear this out - and show that businesses want to address it sooner rather than later. Which makes now the perfect time to share the business value of a CDP.

### **Data Preparation**

The numbers don’t lie - your IT teams are spending too much time on data preparation. And they’re not happy about it. A survey of data scientists [conducted by CrowdFlower](https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2016/03/23/data-preparation-most-time-consuming-least-enjoyable-data-science-task-survey-says/#59a7c17e6f63) found that 60% of their time is spent on data preparation. Among the respondents, 57% said data preparation is the “least enjoyable part” of their jobs. Leaving aside the question of employee morale, these numbers are shocking. With the right system, all of this [data prep work can be achieved algorithmically](https://www.meiro.io/blog/under-the-hood-of-a-customer-data-platform/) and can be delivered in real-time to marketing teams via CDP. Marketers will have their data prepared for them, based on the company’s entire, unified database. While the IT teams and data scientists can get to work on things that both matter to the business and make them want to get up for work every day.

### **Data Activation**

Data activation is the missing piece. We’ve spoken with marketing teams that routinely wait several weeks for data mining requests and custom audiences - losing valuable potential business opportunities. [Adobe’s 2018 Digital Trends Report](https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/modal-offers/pdfs/0060629.en.aec.whitepaper.econsultancy-2018-digital-trends-US.pdf) showed that business leaders are prioritizing these issues.
![survey-important-marketing-trends-1-.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194487/survey_important_marketing_trends_1_fa0e900d58.png)
The top issues here - multiple touchpoints, online and offline informing each other, cross-device intelligence - are all exactly what a good CDP solves. When marketers use a CDP, they have access to rich customer views at their fingertips. Which lets them deliver content to customers at every point in the customer journey. All online and offline behavior data is unified with sales, finance, and all of your other data sources, and it’s actionable. All done without any IT team requests and no wasted time on data prep.

### **Better Personalization, Improved Experience & CLV**

Companies don't only view these things as important. They’re excited about the business value of CDP - which opens doors to this spaces and they're excited by what they can do in it.
![survey-marketing-figure-2-.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194563/survey_marketing_figure_2_ccace9ac1d.png)
The top four responses to this question are all CDP-related, even if marketers don’t yet know it. Detailed individual customer views have become the digital gold standard for marketers. It lets them target rich custom audiences with content tailored specifically to them. This puts customer lifetime value (CLV) at the forefront. An easy-to-use CDP built over an ETL database lets marketers target more effectively across the sales funnel based on every piece of data your business has. Acquire new business more efficiently, nurture repeat customers, and deliver deals and rewards to your most loyal users. Do it all without a single data mining request.

### **Data Governance**

Data governance means a few different things, and the benefits of unified, standardized data go beyond revenue in-revenue out operations. Regulations are always changing, multinationals have to work across borders with sometimes wildly different regulatory environments. One breach can mean millions (or more) in market value. Complying with these regulations is often at odds with requests from teams that are trying to be more data-driven on a daily basis. According to the Adobe report, companies are pretty confident about how they manage their data. A full 91% of respondents say they are in compliance with data protection and privacy laws like GDPR in the EU.
![figure-3.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194529/figure_3_afccf2d47d.png)
A unified database built on a compliant system solves this problem. As everything is based on integrations with the ETL database, any service changes or data flow issues can be managed at that level. All of your data is both housed securely and standardized - and changes to connected systems are reflected across the entire database simply and efficiently. The confidence level went down when the respondents were asked about the workflow portion of things. Time is by far the central business expense for almost every company in the world, and inefficient workflows can cost companies dearly - stifling action and innovation. A CDP eliminates workflow bottlenecks and allows your teams to get to the work of doing business.

### **Do Better**

Your marketing and IT teams will have the immediate benefits of an effective CDP. But, it goes beyond that, it will transform the way your business works. And that is the business value of CDP. Your data will be truly democratized, and actionable across the organization - from sales and marketing to finance and compliance. Your business will be better for it.

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The Business Value of a Customer Data Platform

We got a chance to participate in an exciting event we co-produced as part of [Big Data World](https://www.bigdataworldasia.com/) conference in Singapore and we came away impressed, optimistic, enlightened, and more. First and foremost, we were there representing both Meiro our [She Loves Data community](http://www.shelovesdata.com) project.  She Loves Data is all about getting women into tech and empowering those who are already there - and this was the perfect venue for both. The event saw staggering 16,000 visitors and even thanks to our participation, saw the growth of female attendees by 100% compared to last year. This is fantastic news for the diversity in our industry we are working for.

> “How we manage and leverage data will shape the way we do business across industries. Women should position themselves in the data debate if they want to join the strategic discussion.” Katarina Uherova Hasbani - Founder, Enrupt

**[Here's a rundown of the sessions we put together for our track.](https://www.bigdataworldasia.com/she-loves-data-live)** 

I was moderating and participating in several panels with some incredible female leaders from our industry from companies like Visa, DBS, Citi, or PwC. and insights and lessons shared by these ladies were incredibly valuable for the audience. Another very well received was a bit more technical presentation by our CTO V, who delivered his talk on 10 tips on how to do data engineering smart. [**See his presentation here and share it!**](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSgoKCBHsIOEWk--5ALKWajIS5IMnB_yI24qnenZkfrkZ5jPWYO5OZLe7A4jjFni6h1jZT3NNj_YiXx/pub?start=true&loop=false&delayms=3000) 

> "Inherent biases and inequalities in data mean we need to have more women leading in this space. And I see so much enthusiastic young talent around. Please stay curious, follow your passion, and we’ll do this together in style." Meggy Chung - Head of Data Services, Citi

![SLD-big-data-world-2018.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194657/SLD_big_data_world_2018_d7ac899edf.jpg)

A few takeaways:
----------------

Asia and Oceania are advancing quickly with very advanced marketing and sales technologies. A few years ago, there was a long way to go for businesses in the region dealing with things far less-sophisticated than their peers in the US and Europe, but the gap is closing fast. WOMEN! We saw so many women leading sessions, leading demos, leading companies all around the conference - and we love it! Are you a woman in tech? Join our community on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/shelovesdata/) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/SheLovesData/). The business side. We feel pretty good about being in the [CDP business](https://www.meiro.io/product/). We had a lot of great meetings, gave a couple of presentations, and came away feeling like marketers are hungry to use the data they have and use it well. Personalization. To the last point, the talk around personalization is getting serious. Marketers understand better than ever the sorts of data their companies have and how valuable it can be. Now, the issues are with data quality and the end-user activation piece. There are plenty of data-unification companies who are good at what they do, but there's still a wall at the last mile and it matters. There's a lot more to come. If you're hosting an event about all things data, let us know. If you're a woman in the tech world, reach out! In the meantime, here are some more photo [highlights](https://www.facebook.com/Shelovesdata/photos/?tab=album&album_id=562308294221225) from around social from the event.

> "Without diversity, we will not be able to get the best possible results. That’s why it’s important to have more and more women stepping up the career ladder. With SheLovesData we do our best to support them on their journey." Jana Marle-Zizkova - CEO, [Meiro.io](https://meiro.io/)

big-data-world-2018.jpg

Meiro and She Loves Data at Big Data World Singapore wrap up

So, Singles Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday have come and gone. How long did your teams work on these campaigns over the last month (or longer)? How easy is it to measure the impact of these campaigns? If you're a marketer at an enterprise-level company, chances are you're using 20 or more different software "solutions."
![marketing_technology_landscape_2018_slide_600px.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194758/marketing_technology_landscape_2018_slide_600px_2c219f9130.jpg)
In a way, these different systems are connected, probably with a mix of manual and automated work done by several teams. In the business, this is called a "marketing cloud" - but it's not really a cloud, and it's really hard to market things with it. 

Your workflow likely included a bunch of different teams - social, ads, pre-sales, email, web - all funnelling different data to your already-overworked IT team with requests for different audiences and segments. Because of this setup, there were likely a good number of people working through the weekend, refreshing your target audiences for Black Friday based on Singles Day data, and then again for Cyber Monday with data from Singles Day and Black Friday. Maybe this works for your organization - sales are strong, margins look good, and so on - but you could do all of this much more effectively and with A LOT less work. The answer is an enterprise-grade customer data platform (CDP). You'll stop thinking in terms of channels, and start thinking in terms of customers.

![meiro-customer-data-schema.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194832/meiro_customer_data_schema_7b5e1e4f80.png)

In short, a CDP connects to, unifies, cleanses, and activates ALL of your first-party customer data from not one or two, but all marketing channels and tools. Businesses are wasting hundreds of hours collecting and organizing data, when a CDP does this in near real-time – creating persistent customer profiles that can be activated and deployed by the most non-technical of marketers. With a few clicks, you can create rich, detailed custom audiences for any platform and channel, and personalize content based on every piece of behavioural data your company has. We are curious how you did. [Take our quick survey](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dUlUojnrLZUmss-3VK1a-Z_A-qzeGhxdVCC6SvFRoNw/edit) and we will share the result in next post! If you want to know more about what CDPs are, how they transform the way you use customer data, and – most importantly – how they can truly transform your business, here are some good places to start:

*   What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?
*   The Business Value of a Customer Data Platform
*   Under the Hood of a Customer Data Platform

Or, of course, drop us an email, Instagram comment, tweet, or whatever other platform you’d like to use to get in touch!

Blog-img-better-cdp.png

Singles day & Black Friday - How CDP can help you to do better in 2019

If you think a marketing cloud (MC) can solve all your customer data problem once and for all, you may need to think again. We’ve been talking about this piece in MarTech Today by Tasso Argyros since it came out, because it just nails it on the topic of unified data and the current state of marketing and data management technology. The big thing is first-party data. To date, MCs haven’t had the sophisticated data layer required to connect to first-party customer data sources easily and quickly. Although every MC claims otherwise, in reality, they require extensive IT/consulting support — up to a year or more in complex environments. Even after all of that, marketers’ ability to access and interact with all that data remains very limited. A “data integration layer” typically presented by MCs usually means something along the lines of:

“Oh, we can ingest your data. Here is an FTP and a structured CSV. Create the CSV exactly according to our (usually very sparse) documentation and upload it regularly on our FTP. We will then load it into the system for you.”

![Blog-img-marketing-cloud.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685401673/Blog_img_marketing_cloud_dca8e00f59.png)

## That's not data integration

That’s more work...for you. So, in the end, you’re left alone to do the integrations on your own, not the almighty MC. Then, you need to hire consultants...and so on. And, this isn’t a one-time thing. APIs change, products evolve, and more - setting up integrations is one thing, maintaining them is quite another. When you hear any martech vendor shouting something like, “We connect to everything!” beware of what’s behind that claim.

## A CDP can do it

Fortunately, an enterprise-grade customer data platform (CDP) provides a simple and elegant answer to all of this. It does so by providing an intelligent hub that takes in raw data from any source and pushes actionable data out to any customer interaction channel. It’s the end of siloed data. Most MCs are engineered to be closed ecosystems. This means that enterprises can’t deploy best-in-class solutions to stay competitive without risking data and channel fragmentation. Of course, this gives MCs tremendous pricing power over their customers; essentially, they profit from their clients’ limitations - limitation they’ve built into the system. The modern marketer deals with unthinkable volumes of data and at speeds that are never fast enough. For enterprise and SME teams alike, it’s no longer a question of having “big data,” now it’s all about using it as quickly and effectively as possible. CDPs are built for high-velocity data at scale.

Imagine you want to have some in-app trigger - “if user does X, then do this,” for example. If you want to execute it using a MC, you need to load behavioral data into the MC, which, as discussed above can be complicated and expensive. If you have data stored in AWS cloud and try to export it anywhere else, you are paying 9 cents for every 1GB. If you have a bit more data, you are paying a lot of money “just for the transfer”. This is not to mention the most important thing - that it takes time. By the time you get the data in the MC, it might be too late to do the thing you wanted to do in the first place. CDPs get you around all of this. As Tasso Argyros says,

“A true enterprise-grade CDP is not just a series of data pipes to connectors. It also enables marketers to interact with all the data, quickly and intuitively test ideas, build and validate segments, and orchestrate them across any and all channels—without waiting on technical resources.”

**Amen to that.**

Blog-img-marketing-cloud.png

Don’t rely on Marketing Cloud to Activate Your Customer Data

With a plethora of marketing data tools out there, we are bound to get confused between them. One of the most common confusion and comparisons is between the Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Data Management Platforms (DMP). We'll help you understand the two by having a detailed CDP vs DMP comparison.

How DMPs stand in this CDP vs DMP comparison
--------------------------------------------

DMPs are still important in the marketing/sales world, but they are gradually becoming complementary. General advances in technology and the resulting demands of end-users like marketers and advertisers have a lot to do with the decline of the DMP. But, there are also larger issues of [privacy, regulation, and data security](https://www.meiro.io/blog/business/gdpr-the-canary-in-privacy-mine/) that are forcing businesses to rethink how they handle their customer data. Cookie-based tech is on the ropes. GDPR in Europe is the first example of what is likely to become a trend of governments regulating data collection on the web. Companies like Apple are already [trying to get out in front of it](https://www.macworld.com/article/3338152/privacy/apple-safari-removing-do-not-track.html). Sure, DMPs achieve some semblance of data collection and delivery, but the ways in which they do these things are incredibly rigid and inflexible. They operate with unidentified user data in a huge pool of cookies. All of that happens in a black box (a data silo) with a SaaS application sitting over it. Sure, your DMP has a lot of behavioral data, but, ultimately, you can't use any of it to enrich your first-party data set. That’s a problem. This is partly by design, of course. As a customer, if you could use your DMP data like that, the subscription model would be immediately obsolete (let that sink in for a minute...). The value of a DMP isn’t the technology, which is actually pretty basic, but the compiled cookie data set it’s created over the years. 
![Blog-img-data-driven-marketing-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687194952/Blog_img_data_driven_marketing_2_a6dad90c8f.png)

Customer Data: An Evolving Landscape
------------------------------------

Chris O'Hara captured it well over at Econsultancy (in 2017!). He wrote:

> "(M)ost DMPs were architected during a time when it was unnecessary to collect data through a schema-on-read methodology—and extremely costly. Today’s unrelenting shift to AI-driven marketing necessitates this approach to data collection and storage, and older systems are tooling up to compete. If you want to create a consumer data platform (“CDP”), the hottest new buzzword in marketing, you need to collect data in this way. So, the industry is moving there quickly."

This is a crucial point. DMPs can handle first-, second-, and third-party data relatively well. They can also turn that data into something useful and push it back to ad platforms. But, as O’Hara notes in his Econsultancy piece, the data may not actually be accurate. More than that, DMPs are data silos - the likes of which CDPs are built to transform. Although DMPs ingest and then deliver data to and from a variety of sources, they do nothing for the larger data management picture within a business. Add to that the rapidly-changing regulatory (and cultural, if we’re being honest) environment around data privacy - and the issues that create for third-party data sources - and it’s a recipe for the demise of the DMP. DMPs were not built for the social web. They don’t transform and standardize data as CDPs do, and they serve little-to-no purpose for customer experience teams.

CDP vs DMP Biggest Difference: First-party Data & Customer Marketing
--------------------------------------------------------------------

First-party data has always been the most valuable data for businesses. DMPs have never achieved anything resembling persistent customer profiles. CDPs - with ETL as a backbone - are built for just this. Unified data, identity stitching, and delivering deep personalizations and rich custom audiences are what set CDPs apart from DMPs. The fact is that DMPs and CDPs are fundamentally different systems that do different things, and they can co-exist. As [Martin Kihn writes](https://adexchanger-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/is-the-dmp-finally-dead/amp/) at AdExchanger,

> “It is harder to answer the question ‘Do I need a DMP?’ today than it was last year. But it is still not an easy yes or no.”

He rightly notes that there is still a lot of business to be done on the open web, and, if you’re in the ad-buying role, get a DMP. Get two! DMPs were built for that ecosystem and can still be effective at serving data to ad platforms. But, understand that having a CDP to go with your DMP (and other systems) is really where the magic happens. For now, there’s still room in the market for DMPs _and_ CDPs, but the writing is on the wall.

Blog-img-data-driven-marketing-2.png

Data-driven Marketing: The Benefits of CDP vs DMP

We are most grateful for the chance to start our first ever Meiro breakfast session on the topic of customer experience. Companies are aware that they need to provide value to the consumer in terms of experience. However, as the number of ways a customer can interact with your brand increase and evolve, it starts getting more challenging for brands to manage, control and design a good experience for their customer. Because we love live interaction with the community, we hosted this event in the cosy cafe space of [The Hive at Carpenter Street,](https://thehivecarpenter.com/) Singapore. Over 40 participants listened in eagerly to our panel of speakers. We had [Mei Mei Lam](https://www.linkedin.com/in/meimeilam/) (Head of Digital for Shell’s Commercial Lubricants business in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East), [Eugene Yap](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugeneyapsg/) (Senior Director of Kantar), [Shantanu Dasgupta](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shantanu-dasgupta-b8181714/) (Chief Strategy Officer, S.E.A., ADK) and [Pavel Bulowski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbulowski/) (COO of [Meiro](https://meiro.io/), Co-founder [She Loves Data](https://shelovesdata.com/)) share their own strategies on tackling customer experience in this digital age. 
![customer-experience-2.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195035/customer_experience_2_2e814821f8.jpg)
Here is a short summary of the session.

The quest to find a persona.
----------------------------

> "Data and marketing cannot work as separate functions." - Shantanu Dasgupta, Chief Strategy Officer of ADK

One of the very first few tasks a marketer has is finding the characteristics of their customer. Building personas or segments of customers helps you better understand your customers - Who you are talking to and how you can reach out to them. This is often based on the experience of sales managers and the sales team. Much of this information is often outdated and not scalable, making it challenging to derive a hyper-targeted persona. The journey to find a customer persona starts with keeping a high engagement with your consumers. Reach out to those interested in the larger story of what your brand does and get to know them as individuals.

Man? Machine?
-------------

> “Use technology like how a drunk person uses a lamp post - For support.” - Eugene Yap, Senior Director of Kantar.

It should never be a case of man versus machine but man and machine. The role of a marketer and technology is different. The responsibility of developing a sense of who a business is reaching out to and putting that into cultural context still largely lies in the hands of a marketer. Technology plays the part of helping process large pieces of information and testing hypotheses. By putting assumptions to the test, it helps marketers reduce the risk of sending the wrong message to the wrong person. Despite sounding promising, poor understanding of a consumer is often a result of a lack of understanding of technology and also the fact that a lot of data is still kept in silos.

It always starts with the customer.
-----------------------------------

> "Marketers sometimes forget that they are consumers too." - Mei Mei Lam, Head of Digital of Shell

[Harvard Business Review](https://hbr.org/2010/10/understanding-customer-experie) defines the customer experience to be “...the sum-totality of how customers engage with your company and brand...”. Every interaction – after-sales care, advertising, offline stores, salesperson, affect a consumer’s impression of the brand. Creating a truly great customer service strategy begins with gathering data that helps understand a consumer on a more granular level. At Meiro, we’re lucky to be working on a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that helps businesses deliver more personalised experiences. Meiro’s CDP consolidates data from every data source – Online, offline, CRM, DMP. It unifies the information and makes it actionable. As your organisation gets more informed about the customer, you will be able to fully leverage customer experience as part of your value proposition. If you are interested in using data to design a better customer experience, contact us at [hello@meiro.io](mailto:hello@meiro.io).

customer-experience.jpg

Meiro Breakfast Session - Driving Customer Experience in the Digital Era

When it comes to customer data security and control, the foremost question that comes to mind is the location. Is it cloud or is it in a private data centre? And if cloud, what kind of cloud? Because it is being discussed at length, it clearly matters to people both in IT and in business. We believe that there is a deeper burning issue data managers should be asking. themselves and their vendors. We reflect on this on our own design of the [Meiro Customer Data Platform](https://meiro.io/product/) architecture in a way that it foremost respects the client’s current set up. It fully integrates into it and doesn’t force them to alter where and how they store their, presumably, most sensitive asset - the customer data. We believe that this is a game changer. 
![Blog-img-data-location.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685402518/Blog_img_data_location_2aabc9c398.png)

The right question we should be asking.
---------------------------------------

Location of the data is just one aspect to consider. The operating model of your CDP vendor is another. Is it a decentralized software application and you can run it where you please? Or is it a more rigid SaaS model where your data is where everyone else’s data is, and you have no say? The one benefit that the SaaS model introduced to the world was the ability to concurrently run software products from one place for thousands of customers at the same time. This drove the price of software down and allowed to offer what used to be available for large enterprise only to smaller organizations under an affordable business model. The downside of SaaS is that it is typically run on one cloud provider and therefore dictates where your customer data is being processed and stored. It's all good until it isn't; when things go wrong, [they really go wrong](https://www.techradar.com/news/salesforce-resolves-massive-outage-with-gradual-access-restoration). This is also how 95% Customer Data Platforms in the market work, as SaaS.

> At Meiro we have a different mindset. We believe that 2020s are going to be the era of distributed software application, where organizations can define where their data is kept. We have clients using storage on-prem, in AWS, in Google, in Azure or Digital Ocean and we don’t flinch. We have designed our product to keep our clients in control.

What type of deployment is the best for Customer Data Platforms?
----------------------------------------------------------------

As usual, in IT, the answer is _‘it depends’_. It depends on the client, situation, their current IT landscape as well as the business use case and security priorities. We believe that modern enterprise software should be flexible and versatile enough to integrate effortlessly with client’s ecosystem, regardless of its location. Meiro’s CDP is compatible with any cloud deployment that the organization is currently using but we can also integrate into an on-premise data centre. It is your call, as the customer. We understand the data stored can be highly confidential and sensitive. Security and protection are built into our DNA. Our platform is compliant with best practices and regulations around data protection and privacy regardless of geographical location. It is our philosophy that the data always stays with our clients and under their management and control. We believe this debate should go beyond the old cloud or on-prem dilemma, as there is more to data control than its physical location. How the software runs is another key point. Is it a decentralized application which you can run wherever you please and have full control over it? We believe the future is the latter.

Blog-img-data-location.png

Is Customer Data Location More Important Than Data Control?

## What are the common options for data management?

The initial split is pretty simple. It’s either renting a cloud or building your own on-premise. Cloud computing is defined as the on-demand computational power and storage available to multiple users without them needing to actively manage it. Or, to put it more simply: “The servers are somebody else’s problem”. The cloud can be deployed in three common ways - Public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. As these deployments provide different benefits, there are many factors that a company must consider in order to decide which cloud infrastructure is the right solution for their needs.

![Blog-img-data-on-premise.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685402639/Blog_img_data_on_premise_9da0f2b755.png)

## Cloud data management options

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are examples of a public cloud. They are public because they are provided as a shared resource to multiple users and are pay-per-demand. The service may be free, freemium or a subscription-based offering charged based on the computing resources consumed. The computing functionality may range from common services such as email, apps, and storage to the enterprise-grade OS platform or infrastructure environments used for software development and testing.

Pros:

Low costs

There is a lower entry cost as the purchase of hardware and software and setting up and running on-site data centers are not required. Maintenance and updates are also handled by your service provider, removing the need for internal IT departments to administer upgrades.

Outsourcing of security

With public cloud vendors, you automatically get access to security teams and tools that are built to protect the cloud infrastructure.

Scalability

Organizations that are on the public cloud have a few concerns when it comes to choosing to scale up or scale down for service. They can simply request more storage anytime a large request comes in.

Cons:

Data control

Under the SaaS model in mar-tech space, you are usually just renting out the application and in some cases, you don’t even directly hold the raw data and it is stored in some part of the product. When you quit your license, you lose the data access, like in the case of DMPs.

Security

With many SaaS cloud-based applications you have to accept that your data is stored in the same shared space with every other customer they have. Which is fine until it is not.

Vendor dependency

This is a real issue for many businesses that grow too reliant on one vendor and are then subject to the product, policy, and pricing changes which tend to be less than negotiable.

While public cloud is clearly the dominant model there are other two option. First, there is the hybrid cloud. It combines both on-premise and public cloud infrastructure. If you choose to use a hybrid cloud, you can move data and applications between these two deployments. For instance, you can use the public cloud for high-volume, lower-security needs such as web-based email, and the private cloud (or other on-premises infrastructure) for sensitive, business-critical operations like financial reporting.

Private cloud is technically speaking still someone else’s infrastructure you can rent. The difference is that it will be logically separated from other organizations and isolated in a network that will be exclusive to you. A good definition is here.

## On-premise

There are many reasons why organizations choose to have the entire IT infrastructure, or at least its critical parts, in their own private data center. In markets like Indonesia, it might be the lack of in-country presence of reliable cloud providers or the need for compliance with specific industry regulations when it comes to customer data management. The clear upside here is control over the data while cost and scalability would be the most obvious downside.

### Pros:
- Dedicated and secure
- Compliant
- Full control

### Cons:
- High overhead cost
- Not accessible to all users
- Not instantly scalable

Blog-img-data-on-premise.png

Data management primer: cloud, on-prem and everything in between

## Tectonic Collision and User Privacy

There are two major trends we have witnessed recently. First, internet privacy being driven by its users, which proliferate through the rise of ad blockers. These naturally also limit the tracking of users by third-party applications which are customer analytics for marketing. It is estimated that at least 22% of the internet’s users use these. If you are interested in details, check out this piece by Emarketer.

The second is driven a lot more aggressively through the dominant market force, the browsers themselves, especially Apple’s Safari or most recently Mozilla initiating a massive shift and imposing great restrictions on third-party trackers. The market share of these two is another 20% of internet users across devices. So this represents over 40% of internet users combined (but of course, there will be overlap) that your 3rd party analytics can’t see and track consistently over time, or at all.

Long story short, the reality is that as a result, your web analytics have more holes in their coverage than fine Emmental cheese. We would say this is kind of a big deal for third-party service tracking; and if I were a DMP vendor or someone who recently purchased a DMP, my palms would be sweaty.

## New Era of Data Privacy. Thank You GDPR!

Once upon a time, the internet was a beautiful idealistic place of the free: Your data was yours, dear reader, and you were more than a cookie number in some transactional database sold to everyone who wrote a cheque. With a big push for user privacy through legal reforms such as the GDPR and PDPA, we are finally seeing some light of transparency and privacy as its global adoption grows despite the initial confusion. This is great news for the users, but for brands locked in current technological frameworks of web tracking, this poses a challenge to their current SaaS analytics toolkits especially for customer analytics. And brands will have to find a solution fast.

## The Enterprise Problem

The downside of this current privacy sweep is that these initiatives are also limiting legit use-cases. In the digital age, if you are a company, you have your own website, online app, product, or e-commerce platform and you want to know what your users are doing in your web sites and apps and where they came from.

You care and have a right to care, to understand how your customer analytics - how they are behaving in your product and what behavior they exhibit. You need to be able to do this consistently over time. And for this, you need data.

The problem with SaaS tracking tools is that they use one backend for all of their customers. Meaning that from the point of view of browser, one entity (one server/one provider) knows a lot of data about web visitors from a vast number of different websites, effectively tracking a lot of behaviour across different sites about a huge volume of people. This is referred to as third-party tracking which is the target of ad blockers and privacy-focused browsers.

![prohibited-tracking.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687201809/prohibited_tracking_9dba108a6e.png)
![3rd-partytracking.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687201810/3rd_partytracking_086013fa91.png)
![data-collection4.png]

## The Solution

To successfully solve this, you have to have your own, private, separate, data collection tool that you control completely and is perceived by browsers as a native part of your application. You could have your engineers build a custom framework, which is definitely a legit option for large companies where the web app is mission-critical. Alternatively, you could use a solution like Snowplow which is open source and allows you to run it on your own server and domain, which solves a big part of this problem. It is, however, not super user-friendly when you get into advanced settings.

## How We Built For Privacy

We have built our solution with consideration for the privacy of customer’s data, accessibility, and reflecting on the current change of climate in this space. Meiro Events is not SaaS and we do not use centralized architecture. We never keep data from clients in one place - each client has their own, separate, isolated, data storage. More importantly, we are not doing and we will not do any cross-client customer analytics. Or if they want to, they simply host the solution themselves - either in their private cloud, or on-premise.

Given this property of our solution, the data collection Meiro Events provides uses the same domain and principles for data collection as the main web application, making it essentially indistinguishable from part of your app. Simply put - to all "Tracking Prevention Systems", extensions like Ghostery, AdBlock, uBlock Origin, and others, it will look like a regular web application call, and not tracking.

This is a good thing because you are not centralizing the data. You are not providing it to some other entity. You own and you use it to power your own first-party use cases which is perfectly legitimate and ethical because you are doing it with user’s consent.

## Now The Technical Bit

In order to demonstrate it, I would like to compare it to the techniques used in this amazing article by Moz. It describes very well how there is almost no difference between how you set up or name your Google Analytics tracker. It does not make a difference if you use or not use GTM, or if you rename the loaded script, or if you self host it, or if you rename the trackers. And it has one very simple reason - All these trackers are sending the events data to the centralized location - Google servers. This is not desirable, because it gets picked up by ad blockers and privacy extensions. Extensions that are used by smart users, or by simply enabled by default in privacy-focused browsers like Brave or Firefox. But do you know who does not send data to third-party servers? Meiro Events!

If you think, because you are no doubt very smart since you are already reading this, that simple proxy server on your own domain is going to solve this, then let us save you some time, we tried it and it won’t. You will lose lots of valuable data like the location because all the web traffic will appear to be coming from your proxy server.

We have our website https://meiro.io and Meiro Events deployed to the events.meiro.io. It looks like it is a part of the app, we collect data just for this domain and keep it on our servers. No one else has access there, just us. On your website, it is going to look exactly the same.

We offer the possibility to deploy our solution to any domain - If your company has a website with domain "example.com", we can deploy as "e.example.com" (just an example - you can choose the subdomain).

The effect can be seen right away.

## An Example of How We Do It

Look at the screenshots here - They demonstrate that we are collecting events from our web to our Meiro Events instance in Brave (privacy focused browser), in Chrome with Do not track enabled, in Firefox with strict tracking prevention enabled, in Safari with their newest ITP2.2. All those browsers have uBlock Origin, AdBlock and Ghostery installed (where available).

And how it goes? All greens - All web events collected. And it is because we are collecting data for ourselves, as a part of our application. We are not sharing the data with anyone and it is for our own purposes. And now you can do it too!

(https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687201809/data_collection4_7c81a1c1bb.png)

Examples demonstrating the successful data collection in different browsers.
Disclaimer: This is kind of user tracking doesn’t have the ambition to compete with your general purpose web analytics. It is not built to replace this function. It really has a completely different purpose. Here you are tracking an identified individual known only to you instead of ‘an audience’. Simple example is demographic data that tool like GA has available. With the amount of data GA processes across all websites where it runs, it is possible to use data science to attribute to different users things like gender and age group based on exhibited behavior such as types of pages visited.

## Why Should You Even Care?

Customer analytics, or to be precise, well executed strategic customer analytics in mature markets is the differentiator between the brands that make it and those who don’t. Not just the analytics but the execution and activation of it of course. In contrast to some popular views, we are seeing the slow transformation of this practice in Asia, where large, slow-moving behemoths in denial of change are naturally being disrupted by the agile innovators. Just look at the payments market in Indonesia.

An additional factor here is that in the fast-growing nature of South East Asian markets, most companies are still concerned with growth and acquisition and are still neglecting customer experience and retention.

The fuel that analytics run on is data. Unless you have a customer data that is well structured, connected and accessible, you can have the best tools, best tech stack, and flashiest dashboards, but it won’t add up. Because as always, GIGO!

user-security.jpg

Web Tracking in 2019, a Seismic Shift in Customer Analytics

> "Start with the big picture and have your roadmap. Be prepared for adjustments along the way.” - Quitterie Marque, General Manager, Data Analytics of International SOS

With more companies adopting new technology and getting more data poured in every day, how does one not lose the plot? Is it just a matter of stirring till it looks right? Last Thursday morning, we invited [Quitterie Marque](https://www.linkedin.com/in/quitterie-marque-332bba/) (General Manager, Data Analytics of [International SOS](https://www.internationalsos.com/)), [Trishe Goh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/trishegoh/) (Head of Digital Strategy, [Happy Marketer](https://www.happymarketer.com/)) and [Ken Ling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-ling/) (Head of Digital Marketing, [Esplanade](https://www.esplanade.com/)) to talk about the big topic of data strategy. Here is a summary of the session.

Understanding data strategy.
----------------------------

Data strategy should be seen as a subcomponent of the overall business strategy. It needs to provide analytical support, have trackable KPIs and enhance each business priority. It can also be understood as two co-departments - offense and defense. An “offensive” data strategy would most commonly be found in digital marketing, where efforts drive profitability, revenue or recurring customers. A “defensive” data strategy encompasses efforts around data protection and security. The key is finding the right balance of both “offensive” and “defensive” strategies for the industry.

> “Data strategy starts with change management. It has to be woven into an organisation as a culture rather than viewed and handled in silos by the management, marketing, IT, and data teams.” - Trishe Goh, Head of Digital Strategy, Happy Marketer.

Part of embracing a data strategy also requires an organisation-wide openness to new digital values and practices that are more befitting of a changing world. By subscribing to this culture, it allows companies to rapidly experiment and drive better decisions with data.

Who should be involved in creating a data strategy?
---------------------------------------------------

In most organisations, it is usually the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) who is the advocate. In other organisations, it could start with direction from the Chief Data Officer (CDO) who works hand-in-hand with the CMO. The CDO starts by deciding how data should be collected, stored and managed in a proper manner. While having an internal champion is important, data strategy is largely shared ownership. It is important to get the team involved to define use cases and determine how the data strategy is aligned with the bigger business goals.

The difference between tactics and strategy.
--------------------------------------------

A strategy can comprise of a set of processes that help businesses achieve their goals. A digital progress roadmap can be formed with a clear strategy. Various tactics fall under this roadmap. A tactic need not directly drive revenue, it could simply be deciding if a data warehouse or a data lake is more suitable. It is important for clients to recognise that execution needs to achieve the end goal and be aligned with the overall strategy. Businesses need to carefully balance tactics and strategy. They can do so by charting short, mid and long term goals which can be measured by KPIs.
![Data-strategy.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1685402991/Data_strategy_55aaf2fb65.jpg)

Internal talent and external partners, how important are they?
--------------------------------------------------------------

There are two different models. Some companies prefer to have an in-house team of young digitally savvy marketers. Legacy brands would prefer to hire external agencies to help perform audits on what they have done and identify the meaning behind the data. If businesses are just starting out, an external agency could help build a digital roadmap if they do not have in-house resources yet. For more mature companies, teams made out of all internal members may not necessarily have the full capabilities to carry out a project. And teams of only external vendors may not fully understand the business needs. We realise that having both groups work together is one of the best approaches in terms of getting both the business acumen and technical perspective in one room.

Digital transformation is about people.
---------------------------------------

> "Everyone should be equipped with digital skillsets because each function should not work in silos.” - Ken Ling, Head of Digital Marketing, Esplanade.

Data strategy isn’t all about technology. Education and culture are also integral parts of this transformation process. In order to build a digital mindset, businesses need to improve digital literacy across all levels. This can come in the form of workshops or having digital champions to spread the word throughout the organisation. Other methods include pairing new and experienced employees together where they can work together to meet a common goal. Facilitating more sharing sessions on how groups use data can also help keep the conversation going.

Data-strategy.jpg

Notes from Meiro Breakfast Session - Data Strategy

This is not to say, you don’t need a CDP. [You probably do](https://www.cm.com/blog/the-more-personalized-the-better-why-you-need-a-customer-data-platform/). If you are not sure why read this article. This is simply a summary of our years of experience building one, distilled into a Q&A article that is hopefully as fun as it is informative. In essence, this is an article for anyone wanting to build a Customer Data Platform, a product that is not their main focus. So, let’s say you sell tires. Does it mean you need to build the e-commerce solution, advertising platform, emailing platform, or CRM yourself? Of course not. Why would you build a Customer Data Platform on your own, then?
![reasons-to-not-build-own-cdp.gif](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687201985/reasons_to_not_build_own_cdp_3eb3b2e8ae.gif)
Below, a few questions with answers and some other notes for you, from the guys and girls who built a CDP.

1\. Resources spent.
--------------------

For sure building a new product is fun. You make a bunch of new features, your users (employees and co-workers) use them. All seems great until one day it is not. Because you realize you spend more time on bug fixing rather than on developing new features. It happens to all software. For the first few weeks or months, you spend 20% of your time on bug fixing and 80% on new features. In about a year, this goes sideways - you spend 80% of your time and resources on bug fixing and 20% on new features. And you NEED to do that because your users rely on it. This means keep the engineering resources locked on the product. In other words, maintenance is expensive and hard to budget for, because all plans are optimistic. If you didn’t reach scale to justify this cost and if you are building this as an internal solution for your company, surprise, surprise, you are never going to reach the scale that would make this economical.

2\. Re-inventing the wheel.
---------------------------

When you are building something from the ground up, you will run into the same problems as someone before you. And if that is not a problem covered by some open-source project or other good samaritans, you are in this on your own. Having someone go through all the problems before you and solving them using their own money, is priceless. When you are buying a product, you don’t just pay for the software you see and get to use, you also pay for all the learning, the good and bad that comes with building it so you don’t have to relive those lessons and can get down to business right away and you save the most valuable asset of all - Time!

3\. Data model.
---------------

Each product needs a data model. I guarantee that the first version of the data model you create will not be the last and you will go through countless iterations, changing and breaking it. Speaking for Meiro, I think we are at version 367, I can’t tell exactly. We lost track after version 200. For example, you will find out that you have too much data in there and you need to reduce it. So you start thinking and you go into: “Let’s not store zero data!”. This means that you will not store “0 number of transactions”, you just omit the record in the database if the value is 0, NULL or empty string. You save some rows, but now your conditions do not work… So yeah, been there, done that.

4\. Customer profile stitching and identity resolution.
-------------------------------------------------------

Looks easy from the start - Let’s just use foreign keys in the event data in some SQL joins. Nope, does not work, because customer entities can evolve and there is no join in SQL with proper recursion. You start to write it in Python. You hit the wall with memory consumption. You optimize it for CPU, now it runs too long because of I/O. You opt-in for graph database only to find your data is too big for that. Solved all of that? Welcome probabilistic [profile stitching](https://www.meiro.io/product/single-customer-view/)!

5\. Monitoring & Alerting.
--------------------------

When you build a customer data platform data model, you integrate the data, build up the data pipelines as cron jobs. Now every other morning someone calls you to tell you there is “no fresh data in CDP”. And you are the last to know about it. You need bulletproof monitoring and alerting about the performance not only of your infrastructure, the application itself but also about the data quality and regression testing of data.

6. [Integrations](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/) updates.
--------------------------------------------------------------

If you are loading data from, say, MailChimp, everything works great until it does not. One day, data stops coming. After reading logs you find out that the API changed and the old version is deprecated. And for each data source, this happens every 6 months. Good luck with keeping up!

7\. Security.
-------------

You build yourself a CDP with users, some permissions system and you store ALL OF YOUR CUSTOMER DATA in it. Are you sure you do not have any SQL Injection, CSRF, a man in the middle, XSS, and approximately a gazillion other vulnerabilities in your code? Are you ready to bet your business on that? Is your compliance and security officer? Ask yourself a question: Who will have better security? A homemade product which only my company is using and is developed by a small, internal team? Or a product used by hundreds of customers in dozens of industries? A product that has gone through multiple security scans by banks, insurance companies, and others, not talking about external penetration test? You know who my money is on.

8\. The team.
-------------

I get it that super talented and skilled developers with a background in data can do a lot but we are talking enterprise product. You are going to need a software architect, data architect, data engineer, backend dev, frontend dev, tester, documentation writer, product owner, and perhaps a business stakeholder. Sounds easy enough to put [the team](https://meiro.io/people/) together but with the current lack of developers in the industry?

9\. Documentation.
------------------

As your company is the only user of your product, there is no big incentive to write proper documentation. So you cut some corners to develop more new features faster instead, because, who likes admin right? Then, one, two, or three of your key people leave the company, because they are tired of “bug fixing all the time ”or “ no time for new features” drill. You hire new guns, but they do not know the product and tell you: “this is a mess, we need a rewrite”. See you in a year. You have just lost a year, which you could have spent doing actual work. At Meiro, we invest heavily in detailed documentation of everything we do. That is the only way to keep your product growing sustainably.

10\. Data Science - Data and Science.
-------------------------------------

You know the famous saying: “Garbage in, garbage out.”, right? Well, with advanced analytics algorithms this is ten times more applicable. You will not develop a great algorithm without good data. The more data you have, the merrier. Who will have more data for better algorithms? You as a single company, or a vendor servicing dozens of clients? That is “Data” in Data Science. Now the Science part. Do you know who creates these specials algorithms? Scientists. Are you sure you can keep them busy, motivated, and driven with only your own use-cases? Are they going to be interested in working only on one problem in one domain? In this market where great Data Scientists are paid with gold?

### Bonus reason - Security

You are going to say that customer data is the most sensitive and valuable asset your company has and I will agree 100%. You are also going to say that because of that you simply can’t allow a software vendor, an external company, and its employees that could at any point pivot, go away entirely, get acquired, go through security incident, get hacked, or go through any one of another hundred nightmare scenarios, handle your most strategic asset in the long term. I will also agree. You will probably also say that you don’t want to put your customer data into a location you have no direct control over, despite it being the cloud with the best safety track record. I will also agree with that. Exactly for those reasons have we built Meiro Customer Data Platform in a way that allows our customers to install and run it in their own environment, wherever that might be any cloud provider, any location. Even on-premise. We don’t even need access and you will control everything including software updates.

Conclusion
----------

My final advice:

> You need to keep moving. If it ain’t your core business, buy it, don’t build it. Ask all senior execs, they will tell you. This is why we do not build databases, programming languages, message queues, UI kits, logging systems, documentation systems, version control systems, CMS, CRM, emailing platform, communication tool, reverse proxy, web server, data formats, authentication methods, wikis, roadmap systems.

### **At Meiro, [we build a Customer Data Platform](https://meiro.io/product/). That’s what we do.**

Disclaimer: I am the CTO of Meiro, a CDP vendor. As you can tell from the tone of this article, I have a very strong opinion, but throughout my career, I was fortunate to stand on both sides of the fence so I have the needed perspective. I am also lucky to have assembled a world-class team to build our CDP, so I am biased. But I mean every single word I have written and I stand by it by 100%. If you beg to differ, I would love to talk to you. You can reach me at [v@meiro.io](mailto:v@meiro.io)

Blog-img-keywords-1.png

10+1 Reasons Why You Should Not Build a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

> "More than 40% of all data analytics projects will relate to customer experience by 2020." - [Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2018-02-19-gartner-says-25-percent-of-customer-service-operations-will-use-virtual-customer-assistants-by-2020)

Meiro hosted our very first Meiro Talk in Jakarta last Wednesday. Having seen that the topic of [CX in Singapore](https://meiro.io/blog/for-business/meiro-breakfast-session-driving-customer-experience-in-the-digital-era/) was so well received, we knew it would be a relevant topic to bring to Indonesia. Our panellists which included [Agni Isa Ambara](https://www.linkedin.com/in/agni-isa-ambara/) (Head of Marketing Technology at Mirum Agency), [Nanda Makes](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanda-makes-b199066/) (Digital Strategist at British American Tobacco), [Aldila Septiadi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldila-septiadi-23a53915/) (Head of CRM & Big Data Analytics at Unilever), [Guy Kellaway](https://www.linkedin.com/in/guykellaway/) (Communications Director at Nestlé Indonesia) and moderator, [Pavel Bulowski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbulowski/) (COO of Meiro, Co-founder She Loves Data) were greeted by an energetic crowd for an evening discussion which left did not leave anyone short of insights inspiration on improving CX in their business. We would also like to thank our event partner, [JustCo](https://www.justcoglobal.com/id/en), for an amazing space at AIA Central, Jakarta. When bringing up customer experience, especially in the digital space, there are many brands that have multiple online touchpoints with their consumer. Buying online advertisements, whether on Google or on social media is simple but the question is really - Does your customer care? Good CX is essentially to reduce friction and provide value whenever a customer interacts with a brand.

> “With technology such as IoT, the future is here.” - [Aldila Septiadi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldila-septiadi-23a53915/) (Head of CRM & Big Data Analytics at Unilever)

Brands are working hard to make their presence felt. However, in some cases noticed in the FMCG sector, a B2B2C model makes it challenging to obtain important data, such as transactional data. Without transactional data, businesses can lose the opportunity of being present at the right time. But with technology, the future is optimistic. With digital advancements such as [Internet of Things (IoT)](https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/where-the-iot-is-already-impacting-customer-experience/), there will be more ways to connect people to products.

![Meiro-event-customer-experience.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195325/Meiro_event_customer_experience_cd83d27632.jpg)

Why the rise of Customer Experience now, in 2019?
-------------------------------------------------

> “Data and insights are where we begin and not where we end.” - [Nanda Makes](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanda-makes-b199066/) (Digital Strategist at British American Tobacco)

Imagine a scenario where when you walk up to the counter at the coffee store you frequent and the staff already knows what you want? They then proceed to ask if you would like to sample a new type of coffee from Vietnam because they recall that you mentioned enjoying Vietnamese coffee from your recent trip there. Doesn’t it elevate your experience and make you feel warm and welcomed? A huge part of customer experience is building a relationship with brands and consumers and this concept is not a new one. So why is the topic of CX only so salient now? [Data companies](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data) are surpassing oil & gas companies at the top due to their wealth of data. In particular, these companies use customer data to enrich a customer profile. And in 2019, where touchpoints are increasingly connected, delivering a good experience is key to being ahead of the rest.

> “It is not about the price, it is about the experience.” - [Agni Isa Ambara](https://www.linkedin.com/in/agni-isa-ambara/) (Head of Marketing Technology at Mirum Agency)

Today, when customers are looking to purchase, their decision can very much be determined by the experience they had. Discounted prices may be a short term tactic to get customers but the key in retaining them lies in the ability to relate to their pain points. CX is important but it can also get complex and it can be tempting to see technology as an answer. For businesses building their own CX strategy, one piece of advice - Keep an eye on what your business objective is to avoid getting lost and overdoing.

What makes a great customer experience?
---------------------------------------

> “All I care is at each touchpoint, they recognised who I am” - [Guy Kellaway](https://www.linkedin.com/in/guykellaway/) (Communications Director at Nestlé Indonesia)

It’s no surprise - The vision starts with the consumer. Consumer-centric companies can also be termed ‘outside-in companies’. Business solutions are built around consumer pain points. Efforts are put in to get to know the customer. Once there is an understanding is achieved, brands can use that for testing to gain better insights and change the experience for the customer. At the end of the day, great customer experience is when the brand recognises the consumers at all touchpoints. The work that goes behind creating noticeable advertisements or content may not be recognised if brands are unable to see reality through their consumers’ eyes. In the digital age, what constitutes a good experience can be derived from metrics that reflect what the consumer is thinking. Brands need to break down their consumers’ journey and review various opportunities and threats. Delivering a great customer experience also needs to make economic sense as businesses need to balance resources and manpower for the benefit of both brand and consumers. 
![Speakers-Meiro-Event.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195384/Speakers_Meiro_Event_29ac8b02a2.jpg)

How should brands think about measuring customer experience?
------------------------------------------------------------

Reviewing the customer journey is a good place to start because businesses can often tie certain behaviour and brand goals to a particular phase. A basic example where consideration can be tied to webpage duration time and loyalty to consumption trends. Metrics can be used to help organisations track for consistency and identify gaps in their strategies. They are also used to justify investments and forecast future goals. But on the flip-side, metrics and KPIs could unintentionally encourage employees to merely ‘hit the numbers’ without actually causing any value to customers. Having too many or silo-ed KPIs could make it challenging for teams to make any conclusive insights. In some cases, the inability to unify data could end up with KPIs that contradict each other. Businesses have to move past the old model of retrofitting KPIs into a marketing funnel. The funnel now acts just as an indicator but it rarely gives context about whether initiatives are truly impactful.

Meiro-event-CX.jpg

Lifting The Veil On Customer Experience In Jakarta

Data is important to businesses. Data governance and compliance are critical to businesses. Data privacy breaches have dire implications on both the bottom line and reputation. Over [$1.29 million fines](https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/data-privacy-breaches-fines-hit-new-annual-high) issued in Singapore this year and a company can face up to [€20 million in fines](https://www.emarketer.com/content/five-charts-the-gdpr-is-shaking-up-digital-marketing) if found to have violated [GDPR](https://www.meiro.io/blog/business/gdpr-the-canary-in-privacy-mine/). It is an aspect of the business that companies cannot afford to ignore.

> _"We live in a data economy where data is in a sense more valuable than oil. With data privacy and protection concerns headlining almost on a daily basis, it’s becoming more important than ever for organisations to find ways to comply with the increasing amount of regulation in this area."_ _\-_ [_Koh Chia Ling_](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chia-ling-koh/)_, Managing Director of OC Queen Street_

We were very lucky to be joined by [Nimisha Tailor](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimisha-tailor-a587a8/), a competition and regulation specialist, [James Hutchins](https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-hutchins-2a090321/), Regional Technology Counsel at Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) and [Koh Chia Ling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chia-ling-koh/), Managing Director of OC Queen Street to discuss how organizations can use processes and technology to help set up proper governance and compliance frameworks. Together with the support of [Level3](https://l3.work/), our event partner, we would not have chosen to spend our morning any other way. 

![gov-and-com-mkt.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195490/gov_and_com_mkt_a8db2216cc.jpg)

Approaching data privacy
------------------------

> _"Data privacy regulation can make markets competitive. Companies that comply with the law can compete better by building trust with their customers and using the data to deliver better and cheaper products and services."_ _\- [Nimisha Tailor](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimisha-tailor-a587a8/), competition and regulation specialist_

Most companies have some idea or practices already in place to prevent data breaches and protect consumer’s information. However, as more data gets collected, stored and moved, it is not enough to rely on just common sense. Data is used differently from business to business. Organisations first need to look at the kind of data that is being collected and understand which consumer-protection laws they have to comply with. Other early steps include setting process and parameters that govern how data is managed and used.

Modernisation of compliance
---------------------------

It is challenging to keep up with the ever-changing laws of data privacy. This is where technology can help make compliance easier. In Meiro’s case, businesses that employ our Customer Data Platform (CDP) can set the type of data to be collected to prevent over-collection and also set rules that can automatically include or exclude users based on their privacy preferences. Especially for marketers, they are starting to see compliance as a key component in a customer-centric strategy. With a CDP, businesses can more effectively support a consumer’s right to privacy and elevate a customer’s experience by ensuring confidence through transparent communications.

Building the right team for data governance
-------------------------------------------

> _"Great marketers understand that trusted brands are built on fair and transparent relationships with customers. When it comes to data, this means being accountable – marketers need to engage with legal, technology and data experts as key collaborators to build lasting value for key stakeholders."_ _\- [James Hutchins](https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-hutchins-2a090321/), Regional Technology Counsel at Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN)_

Data governance and compliance must be seen as an enterprise-wide responsibility and not something that only happens in the IT department or legal department. Typically, a Data Protection Officer (DPO) is appointed to develop and lead data privacy initiatives. They often identify the appropriate leaders, such as heads of departments who oversee operations and are involved in strategy, to drive and be accountable for the type of data that they are handling. The right team will be able to combine data governance policies well with technology to enhance an organisation’s ability to make decisions with data by ensuring that users will have faster, more seamless and trusted access to the right kind of data to take action on future opportunities.

Governance-and-compliance-in-mkt.jpg

Data Governance & Compliance In Singapore - The Game Changer

Choosing the right [Customer Data Platform (CDP)](https://www.meiro.io/product/) can be a challenging task. CDP often gets mistaken for other marketing tools that simply send emails and collect data from e-commerce sites. So, [what exactly is a CDP](https://meiro.io/blog/for-business/what-is-a-customer-data-platform-cdp/) and what do they have to offer?

What is a Customer Data Platform?
---------------------------------

> “A CDP is a marketing system that unifies a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels to enable customer modeling and optimize the timing and targeting of messages and offers.” - [Gartner](https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/marketers-to-guide-customer-data-platforms/)

 

> "A Customer Data Platform is a packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.” - [CDP Institute](https://www.cdpinstitute.org/cdp-basics)

Finding a singular definition of a Customer Data Platform is not easy, as different types of platforms exist in the market. So, before you think about the type of Customer Data Platform you need, what matters most is to have an overview of your own [Martech stack](https://www.meiro.io/blog/marketing/which-type-of-a-tech-marketer-are-you/) and identify the gaps you need to fill.

Types of Customer Data Platforms
--------------------------------

Now let’s take a closer look at the different types this growing, versatile and very useful big data technology has to offer. [CDP Institute](https://www.cdpinstitute.org/) categories CDPs in three different types: 
![CDP-types.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195691/CDP_types_1e17fe8c44.png)

### **1\. Access (or Data Access) CDP**

It collects, links and stores customer information from multiple data sources. It’s suitable for companies that would like to unify all their customer data (online, offline, website, events, social and etc) to create a single profile for each customer. Information from these profiles can be used to improve sales, retention, and customer lifetime value. Another useful application of unified data is to make company systems “talk together”. This way you can save hundreds of man-hours when you automate processes that employees are still doing manually.

### **2\. Analytics CDP**

This type of CDP offers cutting-edge customer segmentation tools, in some cases even machine learning, predictive modeling, revenue attribution, and customer journey mapping capabilities. It allows a user to create new and highly customized audiences that can be uploaded to your preferred marketing tools to increase the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. This CDP is especially great for companies that work in fast-changing markets.

### **3\. Campaign CDP** 

Campaign CDPs focuses on improving your sales and marketing performance. The single customer profile here is used to elevate the customer experience across all your company touchpoints - personalized messages, real-time interactions, highly efficient product or content recommendations, outbound marketing campaigns and customer journey improvements. This type of CDP is the right choice for companies that want to perfect personalization and customer experience.

What Type of CDP Do You Need?
-----------------------------

The kind of CDP your business requires depends on the specific goals that you want to achieve. Defining business use cases will give you more clarity on the capabilities needed in a CDP. It is also important to identify the kind of data that is relevant to your business to avoid over-collecting and storing data. Knowing who the end-user is will help to determine the level of skills needed to use the platform. In Southeast Asia, the demand for mobile and digital services have made business more aware that they can get better access to their customers by taking an integrated approach when it comes to delivering good customer experience. Prioritizing omnichannel marketing shows a shift in focus on keeping connected systems to build a [single view of a customer](https://www.meiro.io/product/single-customer-view/).

> “...companies are generating more data across multiple customer touch points, they are increasingly employing analytics to track performance, segment customers, and provide the deep insights that help shape strategy.” - [McKinsey&Company](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/McKinsey%20Analytics/Our%20Insights/Advanced%20analytics%20Poised%20to%20transform%20Asian%20companies/Advanced-analytics-poised-to-transform-Asian-companies-web-final.ashx)

  For brands that engage in omnichannel marketing, look out for CDPs which integrate data from systems, channels, and devices (yes, we’re talking first, second and third-party data!) to deliver a consistent brand message to a customer. This type of CDP should further support marketing campaigns with analytics-driven insights that allow business users to understand customer behavior in a more comprehensive manner and fill the identified gaps in the [customer experience](https://www.meiro.io/blog/business/customer-experience-slowdown-cure/) journey.

Meiro Customer Data Platform and Where It All Fits
--------------------------------------------------

Meiro CDP brings together all the features of both a Data and Analytics customer data platform. We understand the need for an agile and flexible solution that fits into any part and at any time in your business strategy. Meiro CDP not only reduces friction in customer interactions but more importantly, integrates seamlessly with platforms in your current marketing stack by allowing enriched customer data to flow across various channels. A solution, built by a team of data experts, that is tailored for technical and non-technical users, we have put a focus on these core principles which help businesses plan for the future.

#### [Data ownership and control](https://meiro.io/product/data-management)

![cloud-onprem-cdp.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195645/cloud_onprem_cdp_957c47b875.png)

It does not matter if you are on-cloud, on-premise, hybrid, or using Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Adobe, IBM Cloud, Meiro’s Customer Data Platform offers flexible hosting models in key markets in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Malaysia, and New Zealand. You have full ownership of your data which you can access 24/7.

#### [Activating data seamlessly](https://meiro.io/product/data-availability)

![Data-availibility-1-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687195611/Data_availibility_1_2_33947f832e.png)

Blog-img-cdp-types-1200x491-1.png

Types of Customer Data Platform and Which Would My Business Need?

First things first - what is a CDP?
-----------------------------------

A Customer Data Platform (CDP), so far, is a marketing tool that has escaped definition. There are a lot of ideas out there as to what a CDP should be, do, and look like. However, the technology is still young, and we’re only beginning to define what a CDP actually is. Here’s [how Gartner describes](https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/marketers-to-guide-customer-data-platforms/) a CDP:

> “A CDP is a marketing system that unifies a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels to enable customer modelling and optimize the timing and targeting of messages and offers.”

If that is still too technical for you, maybe this pop-referenced version is better:

> "Think of it as a Marie Kondo for your customer data: collecting everything you have, removing excess clutter, and organising it so that it actually makes sense for your business"

![what-is-cdp-2.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687198454/what_is_cdp_2_ff61834939.jpg)
We think that’s a pretty good way of describing, in simple terms, what a CDP should do. The key is that you’re working with first-party data - email, CRM, online, offline, app engagement, sales, and more of the data you already have (likely siloed off in different systems).

### The goal of a CDP is simple: data unification and activation

Tag managers, [CRMs](https://www.meiro.io/blog/the-crm-is-dead-long-live-the-cdp/), [DMPs](https://www.meiro.io/blog/data-driven-marketing-the-benefits-of-cdp-vs-dmp/), and other data platforms are good to great at housing data, but not all data is equal. They also fall short when it comes to getting the insights derived from it to the people and systems that need it. We’re not talking about analytics and dashboards, we’re talking about actually capitalizing on what all those systems are telling you. As Gartner defines it, a CDP is a marketer-friendly, web-based interface that:

*   [Data Collection](https://www.meiro.io/product/data-collection/)
*   [Profile Unification](https://www.meiro.io/product/single-customer-view/)
*   [Segmentation](https://www.meiro.io/smart-segmentation/)
*   [Activation](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/)

First-party customer data is a complicated thing to collect, connect, tag, identify, analyze, and deliver to business users in an actionable format. But, anything that doesn’t do all of these things simply is not a CDP.

### The Single Customer View

A crucial element of any CDP is the [single customer view](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/). We know that this isn’t some kind of new effort, not by a long shot. Businesses know the value of the single customer view, and they’ve been working to get it done for decades. There are two parts to this problem:

*   High hopes put on CRM systems which, in reality, are simply databases for transactional data - at best, and tools for managing the activity of salespeople at worst. Either way, they didn’t live up to the promise.
*   The growing landscape of touchpoints where consumers interact with businesses - online, offline, events, social, and so on. It’s not easy to catch up - and stay caught up - with fast-changing consumer behavior if you’re using legacy technology and a complicated, diverse marketing tech stack that doesn’t integrate smoothly.

The single customer view, leveraging [fully integrated first-party data](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/) - both offline and online - is not an easy problem to solve. But, businesses are finally realizing just how crucial it is to their success.

### Focus on CLV

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) may be the single most important metric in business. With all of your first-party data unified and activated via CDP, focusing on the big picture becomes much easier. Building rich custom audiences based on the full range of your customer data means marketing teams be delivering quality content with the right messages at the right time. With an effective CDP, marketing teams can cater to repeat customers, approach specific segments, and react to trends in real-time.

### Ease-of-Use

There are a ton of powerful systems on the market for collating, analyzing, and visualizing data. The whole philosophy behind a CDP is that the front end - the data activation piece - is as easy to use as possible. No more data mining requests to the IT team, no more analysts spending their time with exports - just a simple interface that any non-technical marketer can use. 

What does a CDP solve?
----------------------

You know what a CDP is, you know the features, but how exactly can a CDP help you? If you don’t gain anything, what’s the point right? Let’s break it down for you. ![Problems Meiro CDP solves]
![Problems-Meiro-CDP-solve-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687198552/Problems_Meiro_CDP_solve_2_ee893a5777.png)

### Customer identity

You have customers interacting with your app, customer service, website, ads, and more while doing so from multiple devices. How do you know if it’s the same or different customer? Imagine you can create a multi-channel marketing campaign with higher ROI. All because you know how each customer is behaving and how they are influenced by each of your marketing touchpoints.

### Online/ offline

Connecting your online & offline experience for your customers can be a pain. With the current condition of unpredictability, it is important brands can synchronize their online and offline plans at the same time customers change their online & offline purchasing behaviour. CDP makes shifting online from offline and vice-versa easy for brands to maintain or improve sales.

### Integrated Stack

There are so many technologies and marketing tools out there and new ones are constantly popping up. Some require you to do a huge transition to your existing system to fit it in. Imagine adding a marketing technology that seamlessly integrates with your existing stack without any disruptions. Your life would be so much easier.

### Ads industry changes

Unless you’re Patrick Star living under a rock, you would know that the Ad industry is going cookieless. This would drastically change everything about how you do marketing and advertising. Even if you have solutions to the earlier problems, this change will make those solutions unreliable. Problems are dynamic and they differ from one company to another. We only highlighted the most common ones but what CDP solves is not only limited to that, there are more use cases for it. The best way to find out is to [talk to a CDP expert](https://www.meiro.io/lp/schedule-your-demo/).

How Meiro stands out as a CDP
-----------------------------
![Meiro-CDP-USP.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687198410/Meiro_CDP_USP_0848c15fee.png)

We already gave you all that you need to know about CDP, it’s only fair that we share how special we are compared to the rest in the market. Because no one can be the best at everything. But someone always does better than the other at something, right? So here’s how good we are:

### A next-generation marketing tool – All in one

Meiro is a full-stack CDP, which means that it takes care of data integration, cleaning, and management to data activation.

### Keep your data fully secure and under your control

Designed for private hosting in the cloud anywhere in the world as well as on-premise.

### Connect anything you already use

No need to change the tools you already use, with Meiro’s limitless connectivity, it’ll fit like a glove. Don't believe us? See it for yourself on the tools we're already connected to on our [data integrations page](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/).

### Meiro identifies your customers online & offline

Our best-in-class identity management allows a [single view of customers](https://www.meiro.io/product/single-customer-view/) or households, which shows detailed behavioral, transactional, and demographic data of your customers.

### Brilliant UX

Meiro is so easy to use. Data analysis & [audience segmentation](https://www.meiro.io/smart-segmentation/) is a piece of cake even for non-technical members of your team. Now that you know what a CDP is and why ours is special, why don’t you have a look at [our version of it](https://www.meiro.io/product/) and see how it can be the solution that you need.

Blog-img-what-is-CDP.png

What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

Sure, Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are all the [buzz in the Martech world](https://martechtoday.com/customer-data-platform-industry-sees-continued-expansion-record-funding-234811). But at Meiro, we’re still often asked the question:

> “What’s the difference between a CDP and a CRM? Don’t they serve the same purpose?”

So let’s be clear. There is a difference. Quite a big one. Let’s get into it
![Blog-CRM-vs-CDP.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1686913661/Blog_CRM_vs_CDP_1ec9ca47c2.png)

CRMs (Customer Relationship Management tools) started out in the world of B2B and have slowly made their way into utilization for B2C businesses too. On the other hand, CDPs have risen in the past few years to become a martech necessity, bringing cohesiveness and efficiency by connecting data from various touchpoints to the myriad marketing tools of today. In fact, [Gartner recently listed CDPs](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-08-29-gartner-identifies-four-emerging-trends-that-will-tra) as the first among trends that will transform marketing technology systems. In recent years, it has become apparent - CRMs are not the golden bullet of marketing. They have their role indeed, but they have shortcomings and pitfalls as well. Let’s take a comprehensive look at what they are by understanding the differences between CRMs and CDPs.
| CRM                                        | vs. | CDP                                                                          |
|--------------------------------------------|-----|------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Transactional Age Business Tool            |     | Online &amp; Offline Age tool                                                |
| Sales tool                                 |     | Marketing &amp; Customer Experience tool                                     |
| Analyzing &amp; Forecasting for sales data |     | Integrate data across multiple touchpoints                                   |
| Delivers transactional CX Data             |     | Helps to orchestrate and manage CX operations by delivering behavior CX data |
| Collates data mainly from sales            |     | Analyzes data from every digital, social, transactional data points          |
| Sales &amp; Post-sales customer service    |     | Analysis of entire customer journey                                          |
| Zero Identity Resolution                   |     | Complete record of unique customer identities.                               |
| Data Redundancies                          |     | Unified view of all customer data                                            |


Age differences
---------------

CRMs have been around a long time, but haven’t come a long way. It started out more than 30 years ago in its computerized version as a B2B tool – a notepad for salespeople to keep track of their customer interactions. Though most modern CRMs only feature a few more bells and whistles, while still featuring and delivering the same pipeline functionalities. CDPs though, have only come to the fore of marketing since 2016, and have become the tip of the marketing spear in the last couple of years. CDPs have enabled marketers to work with a complete array of customer behavior from all available online and offline data points. Creating a complete customer view became a critical factor for managing the Customer experience and getting a deeper understanding of the customer journey, the main reason for any digital transformation.

What’s changed?
---------------

In an earlier age, a company only had a handful of touchpoints and campaigns. CRMs sufficed to keep tabs on customer interactions and transactions. These days though, the number of touchpoints have increased exponentially – A study by Google identified consumer journeys of [anywhere between 20 to 500 touchpoints](https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/search-intent-marketing-funnel/#/) – email, ads, social media, mobile, websites, apps and the list goes on. Multiply that with the complexity of interactions, and the amount of data for one single customer is immense. Simply put, by design a CRM cannot analyze, integrate, or manage such quantities and various types of attributes. CDPs however offer a solution to this data complexity by unifying customer data from multiple touchpoints and consolidating it instantly into a single unified, actionable view. And here we touch upon one of the major differences, the Identity Resolution. 

Identity resolution
-------------------

When a customer walks into a store, he or she becomes a credit card number. On call, a phone number. On your website, a cookie. And when signing up for your newsletter, an email address. And consider, that this might be the same customer who interacts differently, via different devices, with each of these touchpoints. How could we link up the identity of this customer across channels? This is of course, a newer problem caused by today’s easy access to multiple channels and the increasingly high level of consumer digitalization. CRMs cannot possibly solve it. CRMs are used for tracking transactions, analyzing the pipeline, and managing customer health - tracking each channel separately. On the other hand, a CDP automatically links up multiple identities of your customers and stitches together a persistent identity to build a single customer profile. No matter whether the customer is repeated, or even anonymous. Providing marketers a richer insight of their historical and behavioral data – website visits, mobile apps, calls to the call center – all to enable a more detailed personalization.

Who uses the tools?
-------------------

CRMs are used mostly by salespeople and business dev teams to manage their customer base. CDPs are a marketer’s best friend because of their detailed customer and user data capabilities. Though certain functions of a CDP might prove valuable for decision making to other roles within your organization, such as customer service, call center, sales, and others. That’s not all. A CDP can effortlessly and securely integrate back and forth with other tools and systems, your own, or 3rd party’s. CRM, on the other hand may not be able to provide safe access to your advertising partner. Data sharing becomes a concern with every use-case when dealing with CRM. With CDP comes structured data governance, to comply with data privacy laws and regulations.

The big question remains.
-------------------------

But you might still be asking - Why do I need a CDP if I already have a CRM? The answer to that is because your CRM is simply not up to the task of fully managing the customer journey. Not anymore. A CDP can amplify and complement your marketing efforts and make the difference that a CRM alone simply couldn’t. The next step to confirm your answer about why you really need a CDP, is to do a thorough requirement analysis and ask yourself a few questions. **Q1**

#### Am I able to optimize my marketing data utilization, or are there limitations?

If you’re using a CRM, then probably not. CRMs are not built for analyzing and linking data, or for connecting to your systems. CDPs instead can effectively segment and target customer data and deliver to your activation platforms. **Q2**

#### Which systems would the CDP integrate from? Or with?

Connectivity is what makes a CDP so effortless and essential. Meiro CDP for instance, lets you connect from all your core systems like your EDM, Loyalty Programs, Websites, your CRM too, and more. Delivering to your data warehouse and then also delivering cleansed, consolidated data to systems that can action it – like ad buying, DMP, Customer care, etc. **Q3**

#### Can a CDP help solve my martech stack inefficiencies?

A CDP can be the core of your martech toolbox, with data more easily flowing within your ecosystem. You may have noticed your organization spending valuable time on data prep. Meiro CDP offers data that is directly available in the databases you own and control – cleansed, consolidated, and ready to use. **Q4**

#### Would CDP implementation bring value to other utilisations too?

By now, it’s obvious a CDP is a necessity for your marketing team. But a CDP should be useful to other teams too. Meiro CDP uses a non-technical interface that’s easy to use by any member in your organization – so it can be effectively wielded by your Customer Experience, Business Intelligence Teams, Sales teams, for sharper actionable insights into consumers - as well as Finance for making more data-led decisions.

In conclusion
-------------

Digital transformation (DT) is essential to every company's success as DT is centered around [recalibrating the organization’s operation](https://www.forbes.com/sites/avidan/2020/05/11/why-traditional-ad-agencies-have-reached-their-final-destination/#2fda788d3815) through the customer experience. And that is possible with unifying and analyzing all customer data points in CDP. Now that you know just what a CDP does, what role it has, and how it can step up from, or even complement the functions of your CRM – it’s time to look within your organization and reflect on whether you need one. We will follow up next week with a Q&A write-up that could help you to drive the internal discussion within your organization. Or, simply get in touch with us for a brainstorming session on optimizing your data-driven marketing.

Blog-CRM-vs-CDP.png

The CRM is dead. Long live the CDP

It’s been a tough time for retail, even for the biggest players like Zara who announced its net profit [fell 70% in 2020](https://www.reuters.com/article/inditex-results/inditex-says-net-profit-fell-70-in-2020-from-2019-idUSL8N2L7527). An industry that once stood solid in its brick and mortar foundations with bustling crowds now seems shaken by the developments of the past few years. First, it was the pandemic, which led to empty malls and shopping areas and sped up the need for retailers to migrate to digital. But even that migration now faces a massive obstacle – the dreaded [‘Cookiepocalypse’](https://www.meiro.io/blog/data/survival-guide-for-the-3rd-party-cookie-apocalypse/). 

![Blog-img-Shelf.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692300086/Blog_img_Shelf_41f1d433e2.webp)

Google announced that they will be phasing out 3rd party cookies by 2022, and Apple revamping its IDFA tracking – that will drastically change how retailers market their products online. For those of you who were living under a rock until just now – [3rd party cookies](https://www.meiro.io/blog/data/survival-guide-for-the-3rd-party-cookie-apocalypse/) are the pieces of code that are used to track online users across different websites, and thereby used to target & retarget them. Oftentimes, collected, sold, and resold without the users' complete consent. Which makes it pretty plain to see why these 3rd party cookies had to be killed, with online privacy becoming a requisite. The major challenge that retailers face today is an accelerated digital transformation with business models needing to be a mix of offline & online. Not to mention the lockdown & social distancing induced changes that have caused in-store footfalls to plummet – [retail in Singapore hit an all-time low of a drop of 52.1% in May](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/the-future-of-retail-in-a-covid-19-era-money-mind-13062480) last year as compared to previous years. This has affected even [major retailers such as Muji](https://www.meiro.io/blog/business/lessons-to-learn-from-mujis-collapse/), forcing them to file for bankruptcy in the US as well as shutting down branches in locations around the world, partially because of failing at eCommerce or omnichannel retail approach. Another challenge is that these conditions have also encouraged an already mobile-first generation to live even more of their life online. Online eCommerce portals have reported a significant increase even in segments that are [traditionally purchased offline such as grocery shopping.](https://www.emarketer.com/content/online-grocery-sales-will-increase-by-nearly-53-this-year) There has been a [129% YoY growth of eCommerce orders](https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2020/04/28/how-covid-19-is-transforming-e-commerce/?sh=528f31653544) in the US and Canada in 2020. And in Singapore, eCommerce is the fastest-growing segment in the digital sector. It is expected to [reach $100 billion](https://www.go-globe.com/e-commerce-singapore-trends-for-2020/) by 2025 and revenue is expected to have [9% annual growth between 2021-2025.](https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/ecommerce/singapore) How can retailers prosper and even find new opportunities in these strange and difficult times? There are few ways!

**Where are the opportunities to win**
--------------------------------------

The competition among eCommerce players is [very high in developed countries](https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/ecommerce/singapore#revenue) and is difficult to maintain the loyalty of customers which is crucial for any brand. If retailers are to break ground in the future, their strategy must help them turn these challenges into opportunities. With global e-commerce hitting almost $4 trillion, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of potential for retail brands of every size to step up and grab. Let’s take a look at the opportunities, that lie waiting for retailers if they make the right moves, that is.

#### **1) The obvious one – Connecting Offline to Online**

By connecting offline data to online journeys, retailers can avail better insights on their customers’ journeys. With some retail clients, we’ve observed that their customers behave in a way that's called ROPO – Research Online, Purchase Offline. So when data between offline & online is connected, marketers can get access to a more holistic perception of their customers. Not to mention, also justifying investments into digital marketing instead of just using a window-shopping pattern for eCommerce, and not knowing any of the events before the offline transaction. This means your attribution of marketing spend will be very inaccurate. And you don't want that.

#### **2) Data monetization opportunity**

Who doesn't love the sound of new revenue coming in? Retailers with big reach are sitting on a gold-mine of data. And if they use CDP the data are well-structured and ready to be activated. Typically, they have a national reach – very good data about user base preferences, interest in categories, etc. This means they are able to do advertising activation in both owned and paid channels with lower cost and better performance. It's all about digital audience management and activation on DSPs baby!

#### **3) Going from local to international**

By moving on to digital the right way, retailers can reach audiences they never could dream of before – breaking through geographical boundaries to even appeal to international audiences. This also brings a significant challenge of well structured logistic and data management allowing to maintain the process. The data about your customers need to be safely accessible to other teams or external companies who will provide these additional services.

#### **4) Turning a Customer into a Lifetime Loyalist**

A CDP also allows retailers to activate the customers in their CRM to increase their Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Typically in the past, this was done through loyalty marketing. However, in today’s age, it needs to be more than just points but a persistent recognition program that is designed to profile the customers, to assign them to a life stage and then to continuously find opportunities for cross-sell and up-sell. An apt example would be a baby retailer who provides an assortment of products for all ages – as they start off buying nappies, assumptions can be made on the age of the child. Through proper identification of age milestones, the retailer can then use the CDP’s tagging function to automatically push the next set of products for every life-stage or micro-moment that allows the brand to push the right product at the right time and to do it in a manner that is perceived by the Mum as adding value rather than hitting her with an offer.

#### **5) SoLoMo**

Social–Local–Mobile has been tossed around for years, the reality of it is that it’s extremely hard to execute because when the shopper shifts between online, offline and back again it’s really hard to keep track that it is the same person. A CDP solves that issue to persistently track that user. When connected to the social ad accounts of a retailer, for example, the CDP is then able to identify this person was browsing whatever products online. And when they go out into the real world and are within 500m of a physical store, the CDP can then trigger sends out of either direct messaging (email, SMS) or social ad’s (Facebook) wherein the content of that is of the product they were looking at and they can add a call-to-action offer that will push them into the physical store.
 

**What will help you to win this race?**
----------------------------------------

If I had to sum up the go-to strategy in one word, it would be strategic and smart consolidation and activation of your consumer data. Ok, that was a bit more than one word, but you get the point. The top consulting firms in the world are banging the drum about data-driven customer experience driving profit growth and marketing cost optimization and I absolutely agree. What we do at Meiro, enabling brands to utilize their first-party data better. CDP is the proverbial magic wand that retail would need to navigate prevailing conditions that empower retailers to use the most precious business commodity of the future – their consumers' data. First-party data is simply the data of their own customers that retailers own and manage. The data that customers have consented to be collected such as emails, phone numbers, cookies collected by your own website or app, customer support, loyalty program, or other touchpoints besides. But first-party data is still just data, that needs to be correctly utilized to reap its benefits. That’s where a CDP comes in by helping marketers to consolidate data from offline & online and then cleanse, segment, and activate it to their needs. A CDP sits between your marketing & data team, and this bridge is its sweet spot. Instead of delays in requesting changes from the IT planning team, CDPs empower analysts and business users to transform data on the fly. Or Meiro CDP does – we can’t really speak for the whole category. **: )** This means business users are able to easily do advertising activation in any channels with better performance, relevance, and lower budget spend.

**From a Single Customer View to Sharp Segmentation**
-----------------------------------------------------

Through best-in-class identity resolution, Meiro CDP creates a [Single Customer View](https://www.meiro.io/product/single-customer-view/) and detects different devices (such as mobile phone and tablet) and duplications (like two different email addresses used by one customer). This saves a lot of time, money, and false predictions, but the real magic happens with audience segmentation. We remove hours of work from your IT team and give the business user the ability to create customer segments based on hundreds of pre-built filters to make his life easier. But enough of theory, this is how it works in reality: Imagine with a few clicks, you can segment all the customers who browsed your website, specifically seasonal sale pages. You are also interested in loyal customers, so you filter people who bought something at least five times this year. You can add a condition to exclude all the customers who already purchased a product that is on sale in the last 7 days. Et voilá, you have all the customers who – you know – are interested in sales, but maybe didn't find something for themselves, or didn't have time to finish the shopping. Also, these customers like your brand and shop quite often but didn't buy anything from sales just yet. This segment can be sent to any marketing tool you already use as a remarketing campaign with a limited offer to save 5% on the items in the sale section which expires in 5 days. Check out other [retail examples](https://www.meiro.io/industries/retail/) on how to increase ROI and optimize your marketing budget. 

![Segmentation-Telco-1.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1692300190/Segmentation_Telco_1_9f3b9fa375.webp)

**The Future of Retail needs Future-Proofing**
----------------------------------------------

We’ve seen the challenges and solutions that retail brands must focus on to face the new cookie-less and omnichannel world. A quick summary of the strategy would be that retail marketers must not hit the snooze button on the wake-up call. It’s time to let go of advertising using 3rd party cookies even before they are discontinued and to embrace the richer future that first-party data brings – that allows a greater reach, activates past & new data to maximum effect and that focuses on increasing the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). The path from offline to online might seem daunting, but with the first right step like implementing a CDP, retail marketers can be well on their way to successfully pivoting, and taking advantage of the cookie-less future. If you’re interested in knowing more about how Meiro CDP can help your retail business strategy in the future, give us a ping. We’ll be happy to chat with you soon!

Blog-img-Shelf.webp

Click and Mortar – The new reality for retail

This is part of a three-part blog series that covers all that you need to know about cookies and the third-party cookie ban titled “Cookies 101: Bulletproofing for the 3rd party cookie ban”. In this second part of the series, we have our very own Director, Consulting & Client Solutions; Quinn; to share how Meiro CDP solves the third-party cookie problem. She covers key factors for a solution to the third party cookie ban, how browsers are shortening the lifetime of third-party cookies, how first-party cookies & first-party data is the way forward for marketing, how Meiro CDP solve the third party cookie problem, and other solutions out there for this third-party cookie problem. You can watch the video or read the transcription below.

\[embed\]https://youtu.be/EBiqAiD9Zcs\[/embed\] 

**See the other 2 blog post to this series:**

*   [How does the web cookies work & The future of third party cookies](https://www.meiro.io/blog/how-does-the-web-cookies-work-and-the-future-of-third-party-cookies/)
*   [Case study: How a CPG brand solved the third-party cookie problem](https://www.meiro.io/blog/case-study-how-a-cpg-brand-solved-the-third-party-cookie-problem/)

**Our other relevant cookie-related blog posts**

*   [Survival guide for the 3rd party cookie apocalypse](https://www.meiro.io/blog/survival-guide-for-the-3rd-party-cookie-apocalypse/)
*   [Beat the 3rd party cookie ban, here’s the plan](https://www.meiro.io/blog/beat-the-3rd-party-cookie-ban/)

A quick recap of what is a cookie
---------------------------------

Just a quick recap, from the first part: The third party cookies as you know, follow you through one website to the next and this practice is basically going to be blocked by most of the browsers. The majority of the browsers are already blocking it. The year 2023 is when Google will finally put the nail on the coffin. And right now, is the opportunity for businesses to really look into how they can continue to work within the new framework of users privacy to be at the forefront of everyone's concern, but at the same time, still retain the ability to do marketing targeting and serve the relevant content to the users. And this is something we often discuss with our clients.

Are third-party cookie problems different in Europe, Asia & Middle East?
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, sorry I didn't introduce myself – I am Quinn, the Director of Consulting & Client Services in Singapore for Meiro CDP. You might guess that data problems are my daily bread and butter. Our team does operate in APAC, Europe, and started a few projects in the Middle East – and these circumstances are shaping our product Customer Data Platform to be a sustainable solution for marketing and managing customer interactions basically anywhere. And part of this is also dealing with third-party cookies changes.

How to solve the third-party cookie ban? Customer-centric approach.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

How can your business adapt in the future? I'd like to start from a more general point of view: the ability to track precisely at a user level is gradually going to be reduced. This has a massive impact on any brand, specifically on marketing and marketing strategy. Any brand focuses on 2 groups – current customers and prospective ones. With the first group, the right strategy is to put your customer into the center to build a solid relationship and loyalty. This approach is called _customer-centric_, which requires integrating [data from different sources](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/) about your customers, products, and results of your (marketing) activities to be able to understand your customer. This is where the Customer Data Platform comes in, to really unify all this data about your customers and business. You will get behavior, transactional and demographic data from every channel that you are managing (CRM, mobile app, website, customer care, etc.). The data is the key to understanding the context around how your customers are interacting and making decisions. CDP tracks the data given by the customers, the first-party data. 

Browsers are not blocking 3rd party cookies completely
------------------------------------------------------

When I mentioned that the browsers are going to block third-party cookies, maybe calling it a “third-party cookie ban” is a little bit of a misnomer. It's not so much about blocking, as the browsers are going to shorten the validity of these cookies. So in 2023, when Google is going to throw in the towel all third-party cookies are still going to be on the website. However, the expiry is going to be anywhere between three days and seven days to one month, depending on the browser. This very short duration will make one user a completely new person within a week. Imagine how messy the tracking will become.

First-party cookie & first-part data is the way forward
-------------------------------------------------------

The trick with the first-party cookies is the longer validity. If you track first-party cookies on your website, you can prolong the validity by up to two years. It is incomparable to Google's own cookie, Google Client ID, or another third-party cookie, which lasts, in general, a few days to a few months. It's even a bit stricter with Safari ([see the Safari cookie restrictions here](https://www.cookiestatus.com/safari/)). We can see that Facebook pixel or third-party cookies have the expiry of just a few days to a couple of months in Safari. With first-party cookies, we are not going to know what the consumers dis before they come to our website, we are not going to know what they do after they go leave our website. And this then we don't have any business knowing what they do, because that's their privacy. And we need to honor that right. But what the consumers do on your website is something that is a valid and legit use case that you should be able to use.

How Meiro solves the ID problem caused by the third-party cookies ban
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Essentially, it's done by using [our own SDK,](https://www.meiro.io/product/data-collection/) which is implemented on the website. This SDK collects all the behavior data of the consumer coming to the website. The important thing is that this particular data – as we call it: the events – is sent to a server of the website owner. Meiro also stores and protects this data. All that is done by the brand itself.

### Best in Class Identity resolution to know your customers

Meiro CDP also manages the process that's called Identity resolution. Identity resolution is the precise matching of the relevant consumer data into one overview called Single Customer Profile. We match the data not only from the website but from other data sources the brand has, such as CRM for example. There is no third-party data involved, the brand is building 360 view of the customers to understand their needs and deliver them better offers.  When we compare 2 years of first-party cookies and the duration of third-party cookies – during the same time the consumers will already have been associated with hundreds of different Google Client ID (Google cookies) because they expire much faster. The consistent cookies from Meiro CDP are going to be able to keep a consistent profile (with a unique ID) and allow us to [send the relevant IDs to any activation platform.](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/)

### First-party cookies & Marketing activation

First-party in general will allow you to be able to send the data to other platforms and tools to be activated for internal purposes or marketing activation. Whether you'll need to activate the data in Google ads or Facebook, with Meiro CDP, you'll have the relevant ID to do so. See [all the data sources & data destinations Meiro CDP can connect with](https://www.meiro.io/integrations/).

Are there any other solutions to the third-party cookies problem?
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Let me list here other solutions in the market, so you'd understand what options you have to solve this issue. 

### #1 third party cookie ban solution: Google’s Privacy Sandbox

[Google's Privacy Sandbox](https://privacysandbox.com/), which includes the federated learning of cohorts (FLoC). It is the ability to target and to serve ads, not based on individual consumers, but based on groups of people who are deemed to have similar interests. The Privacy Sandbox includes FLoC, as well as a few other APIs that has different functions. I must stress here, this solution is very new and basic ally in its infancy and a lot can be changed during 2022. For example, not all browsers are required to comply. Look at the (most used browser in our team) Brave – a privacy-focused browser built on the infrastructure of Chrome – and yet, declined to implement this solution. The approach of Google is absolutely right and kudos to them for trying to come up with a solution without targeting individual users on a personal level, but we will see if this is the best solution for future digital marketing.  **Update:** _Google recently abandoned this idea of FLoC for a new concept called Topic API. Google is loyal to the plan to replace third-party cookies but proposing a new system for interest-based advertising. Topic API will assign users five interests per week based on their web activity._

*   _Topics API pinpoints five of your interests based on your web activity for one week_
*   _Google will not include any sensitive information and will let you in Google Chrome to view, delete, or turn off this feature_

 

### #2 third party cookie ban solution: Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 (UID 2.0)

You probably have heard [The Trade Desk Unified ID](https://www.thetradedesk.com/us/about-us/industry-initiatives/unified-id-solution-2-0). This identity framework enables the same cross-site targeting as the third-party cookies but is a little stricter. The methodology is a little different here, it world by using a single-on to hash an email address with the consent into this unique ID that is used for tracking.

### #3 third party cookie ban solution: Secure web addressability Network (SWAN)

The final one that we are going to talk about is SWAN, which stands for [Secure wet addressability network](https://swan.community/). It's not a technology, per se, but it's more of a network in a common agreement. Imagine that you have a network of publishers and advertisers who agree to have the same, framework for how users are going to give consent for advertising and storing the data. So when a user such as yourself goes to one of these websites that belongs to this network, when you give certain consent, or when you withdraw your consent, it will be shared with the rest of the network. Different approach to the same privacy conundrum. If you think about it as a marketer – you manage a website that should provide a very privacy-conscious solution to manage users' data, and at the same time, provide a customized and personalized experience for these users. To be able to deliver that it is necessary to focus on first-party data – that is the way forward.  Let's summarize my part from this series: third-party cookies are on the way out, it's going to be severely limited by the browsers. And now is definitely the time to start with your first-party data repository. And on top of that, you will have to integrate your customer data with a very resilient solution to do a single customer view, meaning using the CDP in order to continue to provide a personalized experience to your consumers.

Youtube-thumb.jpg

The solution to a third-party cookie ban

This time multiple adjustments in the Workspaces tab, as well as new Gmail attachment integration.

*   New integration with Gmail will allow connecting all messages directly from Gmail account emails. 
*   The new compact version of the Workspaces tab to see more workspaces on the screen at the same time. 
![workspaces-tab-1.png.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687180605/workspaces_tab_1_png_6a5e3f5718.webp)

*   “Repeat Every” and “Starting At” features have been added to the workspace schedule. 
![schedule.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687180669/schedule_1ede11aafb.png)
*   The total number and size of all files have been listed on data preview pages.

![components.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687180710/components_ad56f86f6c.png)



Meiro Integrations updates (0.42.0)

In this release Customer Definition tab that allows excluding customers without certain attributes present and profile stitching attributes.

## Customer Definition tab
Administrators can now set which attributes will be considered as mandatory for the profile stitching of customers’ data. For example, set an email address as a mandatory attribute in the Customer Definition tab and exclude from your database customers’ with unknown email addresses. Customer profile mandatory attributes can be set in the Administration tab/ Customer Definition tab. The change will be visible after cache refresh (to quicken the process please go to the Settings tab, and refresh cache manually). Learn more in [Meiro user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-administration).

![customer-defintion-tab-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181010/customer_defintion_tab_1_5a0abd3d44.png)

## Profile stitching attributes
For each customer, there is a set of attributes defined during the profile stitching. Attributes show which data was used in customers' profiles creation. This new feature may help to understand which attributes customers’ profiles have been built on, as well as to detect uncommon behaviors. To set up your customers’ profiles attributes as visible please contact the Meiro team. Profile Stitching attributes can be listed:

*   For each customer in the Customer Detail page.
*   In the Attributes tab as well as in the Diagnostic Dashboard.
*   In the Insights tab with profile stitching attributes within the insights tile.

![profile-stitching-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181051/profile_stitching_1_57c118b6fe.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.37.0)

Set up an **additional attribute of your choice in the Customers tab**. The attribute can be set by the administrator in the Settings tab. In [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/how-to-set-an-additional-attribute-in-the-customers-tab-%28coming-soon%29), you can learn in a few steps on how to set this feature.
![customers-tab-attribute-1.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181251/customers_tab_attribute_1_2239138993.webp)

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.38.0 and 0.38.1)

Filtering Disabled/ Enabled workspaces directly in the Workspaces tab.
![disable-enable-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181346/disable_enable_1_acbb743489.png)

Meiro Integrations updates (0.44.0)

With the new release of Meiro Business Explorer, we would like to introduce **customizable user definitions**. Pick and chose the right access for the right people and create the user of your choice tailored to your needs!

In this way, the security of your data will increase and with it, you can invite more people to cooperate with access to the data that is needed for their job role. Protect PII data, manage exports, view of customer details, or other areas of your Business Explorer that you wish that only a limited number of people have access to.

A customized user role can be set by an administrator. To learn more, please refer to the [user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/user-roleshttps://) where you can learn what accesses are possible to grant, as well as how to create a user role. 

![user-roles-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181438/user_roles_1_af7297b16c.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.41.0)

Log in to Meiro Integrations through the Okta platform. To set up Okta contact the Meiro team. 
![log-in-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181544/log_in_1_f5608fe4c8.png)
Plus a couple of small features that will make Meiro Integrations easier to use.

*   A configuration duration has been added to the Configuration Jobs chart.
![workspaces-duration-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181578/workspaces_duration_1_e651f92a8b.png)
*   Connected components will be highlighted when hovering over the data flow graph. This new feature will help you to orientate in complex data flows with multiple components. 

![graph.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181653/graph_9228f48545.png)
*   For administrators, the new function of toggling all accesses while creating a user has been implemented to make the process easier and quicker.
![toggle-all.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181645/toggle_all_9257567837.png)

Meiro Integrations updates (0.43.1)

With this release, we are introducing **Smart Segments** that will help you to get quick access to the most common segments available for your customer's database and attributes. They can be also a quick starting point for your team or daily segmentation. Copy Smart Segment to My Segments tab and edit it as you wish. To start, set up your Smart Segments with your Meiro Business Explorer administrator. To learn more about smart segments, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-segments#bkmrk-%C2%A0-7https://) and [guide on how to set up Smart Segments](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/how-to-set-the-smart-segments-tab/). 
![Smart-Segments-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687181786/Smart_Segments_1_bd8488fd4a.png)


Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.42.0)

**Directed Acyclic Workspaces’ Graph** allows you to organize directed acyclic graphs for your workspaces. Drag and drop, connect and set your workspaces together. To learn more about DAWG please refer to [this article about the DAWG tab](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/tab-dawg) and [DAWG detail tab](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/tab-dawg-detail).
![dawg-1-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184079/dawg_1_2_95d027feb7.png)

Delete data after execution as a default, you can manually enable this feature through ticking the checkbox.
![delete-data-1.webp](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184123/delete_data_1_9179929d85.webp)

Go through Activity Detail with the Reverse Order button. To learn more about Activity Details, please go to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/activity-details). 
![reverse.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184168/reverse_cbfeef47c9.png)
Inject workspace variables easily into Python Code, R Code, and CLI code components. To learn more, please go to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/workspace-variables). 
![workspace-variable-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184223/workspace_variable_1_e5b7ed25a6.png)

Google Spreadsheet connector supports now editing of output file names (optional) and allows to sanitize headers (if it's disabled, the sanitization is not performed on the file header). To learn more, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-google-spreadsheet).

Meiro Integrations updates (0.47.0)

This time we would like to introduce a small update with a big impact on your segmenting powers: additional **condition negation in the segment builder.**
![not-condition-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184296/not_condition_1_3eba0f7f76.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.43.1)

With Meiro Integrations 0.48.0, we are introducing the new Kafka loader for Apache Kafka.
![kafka-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184391/kafka_2_158607e68c.png)

Information about workers available will be provided in the Monitoring tab, as well as possible to check and set for each workspace. Workers are numbers of configurations that can run at the same time. 

![workers.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184451/workers_d3e5eb106e.png)
Full-text search supports now configurations' name, description, workspace name & description full-text search. 
![full-text.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184479/full_text_f694e6fab4.png)
Copy the filename to clipboard directly from Data in/ Out and Data Preview. 

![clipboard.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184520/clipboard_7d4f17fcae.png)

Meiro Integrations updates (0.48.0)

Chose to which segment destination you will grant your users access to. This feature may be useful for more complex teams. It will help you to have more control over your users' access levels and make sure that they can export only to the destination they need to. Increase your security levels and make sure that your teams have access only to the information that is needed. For example, while cooperating with agency users from outside of your company, you can grant access only to destinations like Facebook or Google Ads, but not CSV exports.
![export-1.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184587/export_1_b93debba83.png)
Access levels can be managed by the user with access to the Administration tab. To learn how to manage user roles, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/user-roles).

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.44.0)

With this release new itnegration and ipSCAPE connetor that allow you to connect data from ipSCAPE cloud commonly used by companies like Tic Toc, Infosys or Hunday. Integrate your data within Meiro and get a better picture of your customers' behaviour. To learn about connections currently possible within Meiro, please go to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations). We are happy  to fulfill your product wishes, therefore if you need other integrations just let us know!   

![ipscape.c3355e59.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184673/ipscape_c3355e59_f0eb02d786.png)

Meiro Integrations updates (0.49.0)

Please welcome insights with a new fresh look and possibility to expand all insight tiles.  Insights will help you to understand more about your customers. They can be set for all customers’ databases, as well as for each segment. Dive quickly into data that matter for you. But wait! There is more on the way. Marking insights as favorites are coming soon, followed with more data possible to set on in expanded insights. Stay in the loop. Learn [what are insights for](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/what-are-insights-for-and-how-they-work) and [how to set them up](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/how-to-set-insights). 



insights-1.png

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.47.0)

With the new release, please welcome two new integrations: [Zoom connector](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-zoom) and [Sendinblue loader](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-sendinblue)! It is possible to find a list of current components [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations). We make things possible. If you are curious what integrations are possible to set within Meiro, please [contact](https://www.meiro.io/) our team. 
![download.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687184851/download_7bb88c51e9.png)

Meiro Integrations updates (0.53.0)

With this new release, please welcome new integration: [Optimizely connector](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-optimizely). 
Find a list of currently available integrations [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations). You do not find what you need? No problem, simply [contact](https://www.meiro.io/) our Meiro team.

Meiro Integrations updates (0.55.0)

Never setting up Meiro Business Explorer was so quick and easy! Now it is all possible with a few clicks. The exciting new feature of setting your sources, destination, events, attributes and customer identity within Meiro Business Explorer. Meiro implementation has been never so quick, easy and transparent. Would like to learn more? Please reach out to the [user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/chapter/setup-guide).

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.49.0)

For those who wonder how Meiro creates customer profiles, we would like to present "Identity Graph". It is displayed for each customer profile and enables to verify how and what data exactly has been stitched together. With this new feature, Meiro brings even more transparency on board. Check out [Identity Graph](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-customers#bkmrk-%C2%A0-3) and learn more about h[ow customer profiles have been built](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-knowledgebase/page/identity-stitching-and-how-customer-identity-appears).
![t8ShEiu1nu0S7qKy-identity-graph.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687185112/t8_Sh_Eiu1nu0_S7q_Ky_identity_graph_254419ceae.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.50.0)

\[embed\]https://youtu.be/m-T\_y9CnFNE\[/embed\]   Beside bug fixes and backend changes that make Meiro quicker and more reliable, we have also couple of interesting new features to announce: **Personalize your insights tab:** Choose insights that matter. Mark them as favorite to keep them always on the top of the page. Learn more about insight [here.](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/insights---what-are-they-for-and-how-do-they-work) **Secure exports:** Have better control over your PII data. Warning message will appear each time PII data is exported from your segment to the destination. **Enriched scheduler in the segment builder:** More flexibility with export schedules. Select multiple schedules or repeat your schedule every chosen interval of time. Learn more about segmentation and how to schedule export [**here**](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-segment-detail#bkmrk-choose-destination).    **NEW TIPS & BEST PRACTICES** for [segmenting attributes with dates.](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/conditions-in-segments-date-datetime)

Blog-img-CDP-stretch.png

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.51.0-0.57.0)

  \[embed\]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoRGRioDZU8\[/embed\]  

*   Track all your events collected for the last 1 hour.
*   Inspect payloads collected.
*   Set up alerts to get email notifications if events you expect to collect do not appear.

  **Monitor events collected for the last 1 hour** In the simple monitoring dashboard inspect all events collected across all data sources for the last hour. For each event see a specific  payload that can be copied to clipboard.  **Set alerts** Set alerts on specific payloads to receive email notifications. See an overview of alerts in the Alerts tab.   
Learn more about Meiro Events Monitoring from [here.](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-events/page/user-interface)

Meiro Events Monitoring

In this release small fixes and updates. Also, see preview of attributes in the segment builder on hover.
![MBE-058-.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687185336/MBE_058_5edf175926.png)
Are you sure that you know all features of Meiro segmentation, reach out to this article and [learn about available conditions and features](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/segment-attributes-conditions-parenthesis-exclusion).

Meiro Business Explorer updates (0.58.0)

This time small adjustments and fixes:

- Added tooltips across the product.
- Fixed colours in the identity graph in customer profiles.

Meiro Business Explorer updates (v2021.04.12)

**Add customer profiles to favorites** Browsing through customer profiles and wish to keep some of them for later? No worries, just add the chosen customer profiles to favorites. You will see favorite customer profiles listed in the Customers tab.

![favorite-customers2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687185473/favorite_customers2_0ddd55cd9f.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates- favorite customers

We are closing the stack from the top end by adding full data visualization and reporting layers. Use your integrated data, build or let us help you build bespoke reports (and here are a few examples but by all means, they are not all). P.S. Do you still need your CDP data in Tableau, Qlick, Yellowfin etc etc? absolutely no problem, just plug in your cdp database, all this flexibility just for you. Just let us know. **Impact:** The newest feature enables to keep all reporting in one place within Meiro Business Explorer. This makes it easier to share and control access to the data across users. Reporting itself offers a deeper real-life dive in the data essential for data-driven decision e.g. export segment and see immediately how it influences your audience and how it is performing.  **Learn more:** about [reporting dashboards with Meiro](https://www.meiro.io/blog/news/the_latest_features-reporting_dashboards/). **Meiro team will contact you soon to set it up for you!** 

![reporting-1_720.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687185583/reporting_1_720_8a5ef7d7d0.png)

Meiro Business Explorer updates: reporting dashboards

![](https://www.meiro.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/desktop-web-article.png) Meiro Business Explorer opens a new chapter of website personalization with web banners. **How it works**  Design web banner content, colours, fonts, location, and more within Meiro Business Explorer. Set up rules for it to be displayed on the website.  Web banners are fully customizable. Track web banner performance back in Meiro, segment based on web banner impressions, and check how customers reacted. **For example, display web banners for:**

*   customers that logged in to the shopping basket but did not buy,
*   loyal customers that bought less than 1 year ago but more than 1 month ago

Promote a particular product that you think customers visiting a specific website may be interested in, Gather more information about customers through the forms based on the customer behaviour (e.g., interest in webinar page, shopping history, activity history). Send an ebook for new customers who stay on your website longer.   
![desktop-web-ebook.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687185691/desktop_web_ebook_da2e019c4a.png)

**Impact** Personalization significantly increases the efficiency of marketing & saves marketing budgets ([source](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2016/02/11/how-marketers-are-driving-growth-through-personalized-content/?sh=7dcd061d70f9)). It is proven that  70% of companies that use advanced personalization see 200% ROI, or even more than 300% if used across customer journey ([source)](https://komarketing.com/industry-news/customer-experience/study-70-of-marketers-using-advanced-personalization-seeing-200-roi-4294/). It also increases brand loyalty and helps to deal with more  impatient customers.   Web banners allow content personalization  to the right audience and display it at the right moment.  Learn more about web banners, their influence on marketing, and everyday use cases [here](https://www.meiro.io/blog/meiro-product-updates-website-personalization-with-web-banners/).

Meiro Business Explorer updates: personalization with web banners

A new component Snowflake connector has been released. To learn more about how it works, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-snowflake).

Meiro Integrations: Snowflake connector

2 new components have been released:

*   Oracle database connector- learn more from [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-oracledb)
*   Facebook Conversion loader- learn more from [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-facebook-conversion)

To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: Oracle database connector & Facebook Conversion loader

Two new components have been released:

*   SmartEmailing connector - learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-smartemailing-api-csv)
*   Criteo loader- learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-criteo) 

To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: SmartEmailing connector & Criteo loader

2 new components:

*   Youtube Insights connector- learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-youtube-insight)
*   SmartEmailing loader- learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-smartemailing)

To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: Youtube Insights connector, SmartEmailing loader

1 new component: 
SmartEmailing Trigger loader --> learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-smartemailing-trigger)
To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: SmartEmailing Trigger loader

\-Relative datetime conditions in web banners. To learn more, read [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions#bkmrk-cookie%2C-local-storag).

Meiro Business Explorer: relative datetime in web banners

-Refresh segment button in each segment enables to decide when you wish you segment to be recalculated. Until you press the button segment will keep previous values

Meiro Business Explorer: refresh segments

The new notification center on the current homepage will help to stay up to date with all changes. Currently available notifications for:

*   updates in settings of attributes & events,
*   updates about edits or exports of segments that one is collaborating on.

Meiro will send all notifications by email as well. Manage notifications settings in the Users tab. Coming soon notifications for:

*   the Web banners tab,
*   the Reporting tab

And more Learn more about the notification center from [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-homepage-notification-center). 

![Meiro-notification.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186150/Meiro_notification_76cca99d42.png)

Meiro Business Explorer: new notification center

The new components Mailkit loader- has been released, learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-mailkit) To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: Mailkit loader

*   LDAP connector-> [learn more](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-ldap)
*   Bukalapak loader-> [learn more](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-bukalapak)
*   Sklik loader->  [learn more](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-sklik)

To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: LDAP connector; Bukalapak, Sklik loaders

**NOTIFICATIONS:** 
**Notifications daily updates:** 
Instead of the email notification sent per action, Meiro will send daily email updates.   
**SEGMENTS:** 
**Featured segments:** 
The Featured Segments tab enables to keep all prebuilt segments under one, separated tab. The Featured Segments tab needs to be prepared by the Meiro team or administrator. In case of questions reach out to us. [Learn more about featured segments](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-segments#bkmrk-feature-segments-tab). 
![smart-segments-2.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186376/smart_segments_2_6626355410.png)

**Custom segments:** To make orientation in Meiro easy we changed the name of the subtab "segments" to "custom segments".  
![Screenshot-2021-10-15-at-18.02.27.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186416/Screenshot_2021_10_15_at_18_02_27_c863d2e6af.png)

**WEB BANNERS:**
**Image upload for web banners available :** Image type required: APNG, AVIF, gif, jpg, png, svg, webp / Image size required: 100 - 500 KB   **CUSTOMER PROFILE:** **Zoom in and out** identity graphs identifiers. This can be useful for graphs with a high amount of identifiers.   **DIAGNOSTIC DASHBOARD****:** **Unified colours for charts**: NO. OF IDENTIFIED CUSTOMERS OVER TIME, CUSTOMERS’ ATTRIBUTES UPDATED, NO. OF UNIQUE CUSTOMERS IDENTIFIED ACROSS X SOURCES 
![unify-colours-Diagnostic-Dashboard.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186454/unify_colours_Diagnostic_Dashboard_d23f918407.png)

Meiro Business Explorer: featured segments, custom segments, image upload for web banners, email notifications per day

Facebook Pixel connector has been released, learn more [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-facebook-pixel). To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: Facebook Pixel connector

**Minimized versions of web banners** In a few simple steps set up minimized version of a web banner that will appear when the user clicks on the close button of an expanded web banner. Minimized web banners will stay with the user during browsing through the website. Minimized web banners are useful to keep important information handy, even if you wish to allow the user to browse through e.g. promotion code or form that you wish the user to be able to expand at any time. Minimized web banners can be set both in image or HTML formats. [Learn more about minimized web banners.](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions#bkmrk-minimized-banner-for) 


**Promo codes** The Promo codes tab enables to insert CSV files with promo codes that can be used further e.g. in web banners. Learn more about promo codes [here](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-personalization-promo-codes).

Meiro Business Explorer: minimized web banners and promo codes

**Redesigned "Help" section** 
-replaced first login guide with ["Help" section](https://meiro.nifty.pm/wDuOb23m6yoK0/task/CDP-1504) with useful links customized per tab.   
**Web banners**
-added more positons to web banners (both large and minimized); [](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions)top middle, top left, top right, middle, middle left, middle right, bottom middle, bottom left, bottom right -close buttons were fixed and unified  for large/ minimized image/ html web banners [User documentation for create form & condtions:](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions) 
**Search limistation to 3 characters** -limitation to 3 characters for search customers & contains in segments/ insights
User documentation for [customer search](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-customers), [segment detail](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/segment-builder-attributes-conditions-compound-attributes-parentheses-exclusion), [insights setup](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/setup-guide-insights)

Meiro Business Explorer: "Help" section, web banners, search limitations

\-Show minimized web banner as first. 
![show-as-first.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186847/show_as_first_2113a22dcc.png)
-Trigger web banner after a chosen number of pageviews. 
![trigger-web-banner.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687186829/trigger_web_banner_5749d32acd.png)
[Learn more about web banners conditions and settings](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions).

Meiro Business Explorer: minimized web banner as first, trigger web banner after some pageviews

##### **Web banners**

*   Global settings for limiting the display of all web banners to the user after the number of page views per session ([user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-global-settings)).
*   Condition names changed & grouped ([user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions#bkmrk-conditions))

##### **Diagnostic Dashboard**

*   License usage is available for admins, access is managed by roles & permissions [(user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-data)).
*   Fix: "Number of customers" is now calculated based on hidden & nonhidden sources.

Meiro Business Explorer: set web banner with delay & condition names changed, license usage.

##### New components

*   Salesforce Marketing Cloud loader

 

##### Updates in components

*   Criteo loader ([user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-criteo))
*   Smartemailing trigger loader ([user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-smartemailing-trigger))
*   Google Ads connector ([user documentation](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-google-ads))

Meiro Integrations: Salesforce Marketing Cloud loader , Google Ads connector update, Criteo loader  update, Smartemailing trigger loader update

Multiple new features for web banners:

*   Add to web banners custom positions by modifying default positions as you wish.
*   Add width to image web banner (large or minimized),
*   Hide minimized web banner on chosen URLs.
*   Animations for web banners (fade in, slide in)

Learn more about the changes from [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/web-banners-create-form-conditions).

Meiro Business Explorer: web banners custom positions, hide minimized web banner on URLs, add width to images, animations

*   **Web banners: close button editor** Cutomize close button colors directly in Meiro interface. Select colors for: icon, background, border of the close button Defualt colors: icon #222222, background #FFFFFF, border #CCCCCC. Learn more about [customizable close button](https://docs.meiro.io/link/243#bkmrk-close-button-enable-) in web banners.
![close-button.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687187096/close_button_26bfcf9dca.png)

*   **Web banners: unlimited width for HTML and images** Width for images/ HTML web banners will not be limited. If it will not fit into the viewport, it will be responsive: 100% viewport width, 40 pixels margin. Learn more about [width in web banners](https://docs.meiro.io/link/243#bkmrk-general-settings-pos).

![width.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687187120/width_b9d81afb0a.png)

Meiro Business Explorer: web banners & custom close button, unlimited width

*   Web banners tab: search by name, added creation date, sort Learn more: about [web banner](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/tab-personalization-web-banners)

![Screenshot-2022-03-21-at-4.48.13-PM-1024x228.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/dnxlpdalu/image/upload/v1687187233/Screenshot_2022_03_21_at_4_48_13_PM_1024x228_746e204b02.png)

Meiro Business Explorer: web banners - added search, sorting & creation date

Load segmented audiences to Twitter Ads Audiences, learn more [here](https://www.meiro.io/blog/news/enable-your-customer-data-in-facebook-google-ads-a-now-in-twitter-ads/). Use the full power of data connected from various data sources within Meiro.   To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: new Twitter Ads Audience integration

New Meiro integration with Facebook Business Manager (Meta Business Suite). It enables to export Facebook cookie ids ([collected through Meiro Events from the website)](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-events/page/events-list-of-events#bkmrk-facebook-cid-sync-0), that are matched with particular customers in Meiro Business Explorer and segmented, to Facebook Business Manager (Meta Business Suite)> Facebook Pixels events. From there those can be connected further with Facebook Audiences. Learn about:

*   [how to export segment through Facebook Custom Anonymous Audience](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/segment-export-with-facebook-custom-anonymous-audience-to-facebook-pixel) (article for users of Meiro Business Explorer),
*   [how to set up Facebook Custom Anonymous Audience](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-facebook-custom-anonymous-audience) (article about implementing this export destination),
*   [how to set Facebook Custom Anonymous Audience in Meiro Business Explorer](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/setup-guide-export-to-facebook-custom-anonymous-audience) (article about implementing this export destination),

 

To check which components are currently available, please refer to [this article](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations).

Meiro Integrations: Facebook Custom Anonymous Audience loader

**Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration** The new Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration enables withdrawing data from Salesforce Commerce Cloud about orders, like the client or the shipement address, name, payment, transacted amount, items bought, etc. The extracted information can be used to enrich customer profiles within Meiro, as well as segmentation & further data activation. [Learn about what data can be extracted from Salesforce Commerce Cloud to Meiro](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-salesforce-commerce-cloud) [& how to set Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-salesforce-commerce-cloud)     [Check out all currently available Meiro integrations](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations)

Meiro Integrations: new Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration

**Control access to  personal information across the Meiro environment (for admins)** "Attribute visibility protection" section in Administration/ Roles tab, enables disabling view of particular attribute's values from selected user roles. Hidden attribute values will not be visible in:

*   Customer search results & customer profiles,
*   Attribute examples in the Attribute tab, events examples in the Events tab,
*   Insights tab (both in Data, as well as in the segments)
*   Conditions in segment details,
*   Exports to the CSV

[Learn more](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/available-roles-permissions#bkmrk-administration%2F-user)

Meiro Business Explorer: More protection for sensitive data

**WooCommerce integration** 
The WooCommerce integration enables withdrawing data from WooCommerce about orders, like transaction date, purchased items, total spend, shipping location, shipping method, payment method, and more. [Learn about what data that can be extracted from WooCommerce to Meiro](https://woocommerce.github.io/woocommerce-rest-api-docs/#orders) [Learn about how to set WooCommerce integration](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/connector-woocommerce)    
[Check out all currently available Meiro](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations)

Meiro Integrations: new WooCommerce integration

**TikTok integration**
Create custom audiences in TikTok based on the audiences segmented within Meiro Business Explorer. 
[How to set up TikTok integration in Meiro Integrations](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/loader-tiktok) 
[How to setup TikTok destination in Meiro Business Explorer](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/setup-guide-tiktok-destination) 
[How to export segment to TikTok destination and where to find your exported audience](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-business-explorer/page/segment-exports-tiktok) 
[Check out all currently available Meiro](https://docs.meiro.io/books/meiro-integrations/page/introduction-to-meiro-integrations-with-list-of-integrations)