Fragmentation comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes in marketing. The term can be used when discussing data, individual markets, media channels and even attention.
One of the major challenges marketers face is fragmented data streams. This occurs when an organisations’ data streams are scattered and technological silos are created. The more data being collected from different sources, the more likely it is that this data will become stuck in these silos making it difficult to see the big picture and truly understand audiences.
One solution to this problem is a piece of technology called a Customer Data Platform (CDP). The CDP Institute defines this as a “packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems”. This is a prebuilt system that takes data from all sources and makes this data available to other systems to be used in different forms of marketing.
Paul Hickey, Managing Director of SpeakData, says Customer Data Platforms help businesses achieve that single customer view, something that is especially important now that third-party cookies are being phased out.
This also means there is more focus on good first-party data because bad data comes at a significant cost. According to research firm Gartner, poor data is responsible for a loss of $15 million annually, while many businesses don’t know how much bad data costs their business
