One of the CDP concepts people seem to struggle with is the role of the web profile. Some people assume that once you import customer data into a CDP, you’re able to target those people on your website.

Not necessarily.

Maybe this story will help.

Joe has been a faithful shopper at Food R Us for 20 years. He shops every Monday evening without fail, except for the 2 weeks he spends in Bermuda. He always greets Jane, the manager, and he always gets in Samantha’s checkout line.

Jane and Samantha know that Joe is a fly fisherman, owns a classic Mustang, and drinks a gin and tonic every evening before bed. Over the years they’ve learned a lot of little details about his life. One of Joe’s quirks is that he always pays cash.

During the pandemic, Joe had to order his groceries online. He set up an account, and for seven months his groceries were delivered to his front door. The system got to know his habits, and gave him appropriate coupons and special offers.

After the pandemic, Food R Us implemented a new point of sale system that integrated data from the online shopping system. This would allow them to marry in-store and online data and get a more complete view of the customer.

One Saturday, Jane, the store manager, was telling Bradley, the regional marketing coordinator, about her favorite customers. Joe’s name came up, and Bradley wanted to look him up in his fancy new database and show off.

“What’s his last name?” Bradley asked.

Jane laughed. In all those years, she’d never asked.

“What does he usually buy?” Bradley asked, and Jane easily rattled off his regular purchases.

But try as they might, they couldn’t find Joe’s online record.

That Monday, Joe came in like normal, and Jane asked for his last name.

“Esposito,” he said.

Jane immediately logged in to the customer data platform and found him. Or so she thought. There was a Joe and a Joseph Esposito in the database.

Jane quickly visited Samantha and asked her to find out which side of town Joe lived on. With that information, she was able to connect in-store Joe with online Joe. But that still didn’t connect Joe’s in-store purchases with his online profile. In order to do that, Samantha would have to enter something to identify Joe, such as his phone number.

This same problem applies to your website and your other customer data. You can load everything you know about your customers into your CDP, but you can’t identify them online until they provide some information that allows you to connect those records.

That’s usually an email address, but it can be other things.

It’s very important to understand this concept. Most of your web visitors are anonymous — even if they’re in your store every day. Even if they get your magazine, or your e-newsletter.

In order to connect the web profile with the other customer data, you need some data that ties it all together.