A Primer on Data Management Platforms

What Are Data Management Platforms (DMPs)?

Data management platforms (DMPs) collect and house first- and third-party data related to your business. People often refer to Big Data when discussing DMPs, but the management platform actually takes the data and helps filter and analyze the information.

All of this data has to go somewhere, which is why marketers choose to house it in DMPs. Data management platforms store the information, help sort it and present it in a way humans can understand. Without DMPs, there’s no way businesses could make effective decisions based on the information presented to them.

Your Data Comes From Various Sources

One of the biggest problems marketers have with analytics and tracking is marrying various data sources. Between collecting data online through tags and cookies to uploading internal sales information, it can seem impossible to compare one customer experience to another:

• How can an in-store order be tracked back to a digital marketing interaction on Google Analytics?
• How can a business understand how its performance compares to other companies in its industry?
• How can you compare first-click analytics data from one tool with last-click attribution on another?

These questions require systems that collect and organize data to find answers. Without them, brands are left trying to line up mismatched data points and comparing apples to oranges. They risk either using incorrect data to make their decisions or ignoring essential points that could highlight problems in their organization.

The team at Lotame explains that DMPs are the pipes of your data process. They collect information from a variety of sources and bring it to one central location, where it can then get sorted again in ways that make sense.

DMPs Share Information With Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs)

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) execute commands based on the data sent through DMPs. If Big Data is the information collected, artificial intelligence tools (sometimes with the help of machine learning) are the workers that take the information and mold it into solutions. These tools range from basic-level programmatic marketing, where customers see content related to their needs, to advanced eCommerce chatbots and sales tools to move buyers deeper into the sales funnel.

These processes work together to make your digital marketing efforts more effective for your customers. With high-quality information, both you, as a human, and the robots you work with can make the best decisions for your brand.

Marketers Can Use DMPs Throughout the Buying Process

Brands use DMPs to improve their business in multiple ways, but marketers, in particular, can use them to create better customer profiles. The marketing industry is in the process of rejecting basic age and gender demographics for their audience segmentation. Instead, brands are focusing on customer intent and taking steps to sort people based on their needs and buying potential.

Many companies use DMPs to sort customer data and better understand purchase history, buying patterns and probability of buying again. With this information, brands can increase their overall efficiency by targeting the right customers instead of mass broadcasting to people in their general demographics.