What is customer data? Definition, types, collection methods and best practices for analysis

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Contents What is customer data? Key attributes Types of customer data Customer Data Collection: Key Methods Top 10 Best Practices for Customer Data Integration and Analytics in 2022 What is customer data?

The modern business world is driven by data, and some of the most valuable is customer data. Finding the best way to satisfy customers requires studying their needs and that means analyzing the data trail they leave behind.

Customer data comes from a variety of sources. Some of the most concrete information comes from sales made; successful deals contain a wealth of actionable data that explains what went well during the sales process and provides a solid guide for planning future sales presentations.

The actual transaction details, however, are just the beginning. Companies also regularly collect information from advertisers and sales channels that follow customers as they explore their options and make a decision. These details from advertising channels, websites, and in-store sites provide useful benchmarks that can help revise and focus the overall sales story.

Finding the best way to bring this data together, clean up any irregularities, organize it for consistency, and then analyze it is the challenge of modern business. It requires a data scientist's knowledge of statistics as well as a marketer's instinct for the customer and a visionary's sense of what the future might bring.

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"All of this [data] converges and the [customer data platform] is the central hub for marketing teams and more," said Ryan Fleisch, director of product marketing for Profile & Activation at Adobe. "It's so important that more teams use and route the data to a central location where everyone reads the same manual."

Key attributes

There are many different forms of customer data, and it comes from a variety of sources...