Columbia, MD, May 6, 2014
Merkle Announces the General Availablity of its Cloud-Based Connected Recognition Service
Merkle (www.merkle.com), a leading technology enabled, data driven customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm and the nation’s largest privately-held agency, announced that it has released its Connected Recognition identity association tool for general availability to its clients, after a successful year in beta.
Connected Recognition (cR) is a cloud-based solution that enables the management and association of identity attributes across all channels and media. It allows marketers to create a holistic 360-degree view of their customers, by providing a longitudinal examination of a customer’s overall experience with a brand, also known as the event stream. The cR solution is the technology that fuels the execution and optimization of integrated offline and online marketing and sales strategies, while supporting a brand’s commitment to consumer privacy. This includes the association of opt-out information across the customer record to allow the marketer to maintain better governance of consumers’ expressed preferences.
cR creates an integrated identity map, inclusive of both data standardization and data hygiene. The processes are unique and customized for each type of data (e.g., website, mobile device, email, mailing address). The solution creates a common, anonymized identifier by which to connect the data and entails a combination of traditional offline customer data integration (CDI) with additional processing to handle anonymous linkages, also known as digital data integration (DDI).
“As the number of addressable channels and media has exploded, organizations have been clamoring to rationalize and associate the resulting plethora of available data,” said Matthew Mobley, chief marketing technology officer for Merkle. “After significant investments in time, capital, and talent, we are excited to release the Connected Recognition platform that accomplishes this goal. By linking the traditional data integration methods of yesterday with the digital data integration needs of today, we are able to create a map of an individual across multiple channels, which in turn enables brands to deliver a uniquely personalized customer experience.”
The individualized identity map and event stream produced in this environment can become a major driver in the success of marketing organizations. It furnishes the ability to understand customers and segments, improve budget allocation across multiple customer touchpoints, and deliver truly personalized experiences to individuals. The results are performance and efficiency gains that have amounted to a 13-15% incremental lift in top segments for Merkle’s clients who have been using cR in beta.