Akamai

Introducing: The Customer Data Profile To allow their marketing teams to activate data most effectively, our team recommended implementing a customer data platform (CDP). From audience management and measuring content affinity to enabling data enrichment for customer journey optimization and decreased marketing spend— CDP-led strategies allow you to better understand where your customers are in their journey and what content they need to see next. In short, this enables an interest-based audience strategy that simplifies personalization. Our first phase of the partnership included educating stakeholders on the end-to-end value of a CDP to help determine a solution that best fits their needs.

Customized Strategy, Customized Solution Before recommending a solution, we dove deeper into Akamai’s current tech stack to better understand what gaps existed, where the data was coming from, and how to bring it all together. This included a full vendor evaluation (RFP), inventory of tool use, a generated list of potential matches, recommendations, and deploying a formalized vetting process to ensure the best possible software partner. There is no one-size-fits-all software, and we’re passionate about building solutions that stick.

Managing The Change After analyzing the benefits of purchasing software versus building a CDP in-house, we decided to invest in an outside vendor. We then worked on establishing a system of permissions and organizing management teams before coordinating system training. This was a robust, coordinated effort to bring in the right teams at the right time—ensuring the right data, technology, and stakeholders are being considered and everyone is moving in the same direction.

Delivering The Expertise Once their CDP was deployed, our partnership evolved—helping Akamai unlock all of the nuances behind its new technology. To do this effectively, we identified valuable use cases for the CDP.

We delivered a crawl/walk/run plan that included the stitching of multiple data sources to set the foundation for more effective audience management. We shaped the movement into interest-based audiences for use in Marketo as well as enabled Personalization use cases for Adobe Target. We setup connected APIs that enabled Akamai to not only access traditional web behavioral data but also enhance with first party data for more informed test & learn strategies. Akamai continues to expand its multichannel focus on first party data and the CDP has enabled them to be fully prepared for the cookieless future.