Unlock the power of customer data: A Piwik PRO data activation playbook

A CDP is a single platform that simplifies collecting, managing, unifying, and activating customer data across different touchpoints.

Through CDPs, companies can import and connect data from various sources, enrich it, and apply it to marketing strategies such as segmentation, personalization, and automation.

Piwik PRO’s CDP integrates seamlessly with other platforms, allowing you to leverage the strengths of each tool without having to choose one over the other. It provides robust data analysis and activation capabilities while leaving room for specialized tools to excel in their areas of expertise.

Key features of CDPs include:

• Integration and unification of customer data from disparate sources, like web & app analytics, CRM, email marketing tools, social media, and others, helps break data silos.
• Single customer views (SCVs) comprehensively overview user interactions and traits across channels and touchpoints. Data is merged into profiles using matching identifiers like email addresses, user IDs or cookie IDs. Read more about single customer views (SCVs).
• Customer segmentation allows for grouping customer profiles based on shared conditions, such as demographics, previous interactions and purchase intent signals.
• Reliance on first-party data about current and prospective customers and their behaviors helps comply with data protection laws.
• Data activation on external platforms makes it possible to act on customer data and target users with relevant activations. For example, if users frequently visit a product page without making a purchase, they can receive an email or ad encouraging them to buy.
• Audience detection triggers ensure your tags fire exactly when visitors join specific audiences, letting you deliver personalized experiences in real-time.

Data activation is the process of turning customer data from various touchpoints into valuable insights to drive marketing, sales, and customer experience initiatives.

With data activation, you can deliver real-time, tailored experiences across channels – through personalized content, product recommendations, targeted email campaigns, ads, pop-ups, or even direct interaction with a sales or support representative.

Piwik PRO allows you to activate data by sending selected, highly relevant user data to thousands of destinations. With the platform, you can automate audience activation across almost any tool using webhooks. If direct integration isn’t available, you can still connect to any platform using workflow automation tools like Power Automate or Zapier.

Popular platforms for data activation include Hubspot, Slack, Mailchimp, Google Ads, Shopify, and Marketo. You can even set up advanced integrations to suit your business requirements.

Key data activation features in Piwik PRO CDP:

• Seamless integration with marketing automation tools, email software, CRM, analytics and others.
• Native integration with Analytics, Tag Manager, and Consent Manager.
• Integration with Google Ads.
• Segmentation based on behavioral and demographic data.
• Real-time data activation.
• Enhanced privacy & security features.

Understanding how to activate data at each stage of the customer journey is the key to success when designing strategies based on customer data. 

Each phase presents distinct opportunities to engage users and drive value from acquisition to retention. Categorizing use cases by journey stages allows businesses to align their tactics more closely with customer needs, whether onboarding new users, nurturing active ones, or preventing churn. 

In the following sections, we examine data activation use cases prepared by marketing and analytics experts for each customer journey stage.

Guide new users with tailored emails, ensuring they complete critical steps like setting up profiles while addressing friction points early on.

Personalized notifications boost mobile app engagement and conversions. Persona-based personalization, which considers both user traits and behavior, allows you to deliver highly relevant content throughout the user journey.

Key outcomes:

• Boost engagement: Send timely notifications that capture attention and drive action.
• Increase conversions: Tailor experiences to specific personas, resulting in higher conversion rates.
• Strengthen connections: Deliver content that resonates, creating more meaningful user interactions.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Signed up in the last 7 days.
     • Did not complete key onboarding events, such as creating a profile or setting up their preferences.
2. Activate the audience via an email automation tool, such as Mailchimp.
3. Trigger personalized onboarding emails based on the missing actions.
   • For instance, if the user hasn’t completed their setup, send a “Getting Started” email. If they’ve completed the setup but haven’t used a key feature, send a “Discover Features” email.
4. Measure activation success:
   • Monitor onboarding completion rates and email click-through rates (CTR). 

* While our CDP allows you to track and segment users based on their progress through different stages, calculating the exact completion rate for onboarding flows involves more complex analysis. You can easily identify users who have completed certain steps (e.g., A but not B or A & B). However, for ratio-based metrics like the completion rate, you can export the data to CSV and perform manual calculations.

Use in-app messages, tours, tips, and walkthroughs to help users set up their accounts and start using your product.

Personalized in-app interactions enhance user satisfaction, reduce friction, and improve the onboarding process. Businesses can guide users through the setup and increase product adoption by delivering context-sensitive messages and interactive product tours.

Key outcomes:

• Improve satisfaction: Provide personalized tips that help users navigate your product smoothly.
• Reduce friction: Use context-sensitive messages to address potential challenges during onboarding.
• Boost adoption: Guide users with interactive product tours, ensuring quicker engagement with your product.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Signed up for your product.
     • Completed an easy task in your product; for email marketing software, it may be importing a CSV file with email addresses.
2. Activate the audience by triggering messages in your mobile app that will drive users to the setup moment.
   • For email marketing software, the setup moment can be verifying your business email domain.
3. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Completed the setup moment event.
4. Activate the audience by triggering messages in your mobile app that will drive users to the “aha!” moment:
   • For email marketing software, the “aha!” moment can be creating and sending an email campaign. Trigger an in-app walkthrough showing users how to do it.
5. Measure activation success:
   • Track the number of users who completed both the setup and “aha!” moment.

Retarget users who showed intent but didn’t complete purchases, bringing them back into the onboarding funnel.

Tailored offers help recover lost sales and convert users into customers, boosting revenue, reducing costs, and providing personalized experiences. Strategically applying incentives can lower cart abandonment and build customer loyalty.

Key outcomes:

• Recover lost sales: Use targeted offers to win back potential customers.
• Reduce cart abandonment: Motivate users to complete purchases and reduce drop-off rates.
• Foster loyalty: Develop personalized experiences that encourage long-term engagement.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Opened at least 3 of your emails.
     • Browsed at least 3 of your product pages.
     • Added items to the cart and abandoned it before making a purchase.
2. Activate the audience.
   • Create an activation that shows site pop-ups with products added to the cart and encourages users to complete their purchases.
   • Optionally, you can add an incentive to your offer, such as a discount or free delivery.
3. Measure activation success:
   • Track pop-up CTR and the number of completed purchases.

Convert trial users to active customers, give paying customers early access to the new product, or encourage abandoned cart shoppers to finalize their purchases.

Retargeting ads help re-engage users who have previously visited your website or interacted with your content. By showing ads to users who’ve already expressed interest, you increase the likelihood of conversions and boost brand awareness.

Key outcomes:

• Increase conversions: Direct interested users to landing pages with targeted ads, making it easier for them to take action.
• Generate brand awareness: Keep users informed about new products and features, strengthening brand recall.
• Maximize ad effectiveness: Focus on users already familiar with your brand for a higher click-through rate.

Steps: 

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP: 
   • Identify users who: 
     • Created a trial account in the past 5 days. 
     • Haven’t created a paid account.
2. Activate the audience via paid media, such as Google Ads:
   • Create an activation that sends users to a Google Ads customer list for retargeting prospects.
3. Measure activation success:
   • Monitor conversion rates.

Offer high-value users exclusive pre-launch deals to maintain engagement and foster loyalty and lifetime value.

Engaging and supporting high-value customers drives revenue, growth, and brand visibility. By nurturing these customers with exclusive offers, you can improve customer lifetime value (CLV) and foster long-term trust and engagement.

Key outcomes:

• Increase CLV: Focus on high-value customers to boost long-term revenue.
• Build trust: Offer exclusive deals that enhance customer loyalty and engagement.

Maximize impact: Prioritize strategies that generate the most value and drive sustainable growth.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Completed at least 5 transactions.
     • Spent at least x amount in your store.
2. Activate the audience in email marketing software, such as Mailchimp.
   • Create an activation that sends an email detailing the special offer and encouraging them to sign up for it.
3. Measure activation success:
   • Track email CTR and the number of completed purchases.

Encourage users to return to make a transaction or consume content.

Personalized mobile app engagement drives higher user interaction and conversions. By delivering timely, relevant notifications using persona-based personalization, your brand can create tailored experiences that resonate with users at every stage of their journey.

Key outcomes:

• Boost engagement: Send relevant notifications that capture users’ attention and prompt action.
• Increase conversions: Use persona-based personalization to tailor content for higher conversion rates.
• Enhance user experience: Provide personalized content throughout the entire user journey.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users who:
     • Have completed at least 1 transaction
     • Haven’t placed or returned an order in the last 30 days
     • Have shown interest in a specific product through a survey
2. Activate the audience by sending push notifications.
3. Trigger notifications with an offer encouraging users to buy from you or consume your content.
   • Examples of offers:
     • An apparel brand pushes a discount on running shoes only to customers who have bought running gear in the past.
     • A learning app pushes a new video only to users who have explicitly specified interest in the topic of the video.
     • Consider creating two versions of the offer – one for existing customers and the other for those who haven’t yet made a purchase, each with a distinct message.
4. (Optional) Start a re-engagement campaign – Create an audience of users who haven’t made a purchase after receiving the notification and deliver a more tempting offer.

Identify users with declining engagement and re-engage them with personalized solutions, product tutorials, or new feature updates.

Targeted churn prevention campaigns help re-engage at-risk users and strengthen loyalty. By detecting disengagement early, you can offer personalized solutions, product tutorials, or feature updates to keep users engaged.

These campaigns address key challenges:

• Identify churn risks: Use behavioral data to spot disengaged users and take timely action.
• Enhance customer experience: Resolve issues with personalized support.
• Strengthen loyalty: Deliver relevant messages via users’ preferred channels.

Steps:

1. Create an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
   • Identify users with decreasing engagement, such as reduced website visits in the last 30 days or inactivity with key features. Combine this data with other signals, such as lack of recent purchases or unresolved support tickets, if available.
2. Activate the audience via paid media, such as Google Ads:
   • Build a “Churn Prevention” audience and deliver personalized ad campaigns offering product tutorials or updates on new features.
   • Use Piwik PRO’s privacy-first data capabilities to ensure compliance while targeting the right users.
3. Optionally, enrich the audience* with:
   • CRM or survey data to understand reasons for disengagement.
   • Details about potential account deactivation from customer service records or surveys.
4. Measure activation success:
   • To assess the campaign’s impact, track key metrics such as engagement, click-through rates (CTR), and churn reduction. **

* You can also use the reverse functionality to remove disengaged contacts from your customer list. This helps prevent unnecessary spending on re-engagement campaigns, especially in channels like Google Ads, where retargeting disengaged users may not lead to the desired results.

** While Piwik PRO allows you to measure the number of users coming from a campaign, CTR calculations require data from the advertising platforms (e.g., Google Ads, Facebook), as they provide both clicks and impressions. To get a more comprehensive view, you can integrate Piwik PRO with BI tools, which can help combine data sources and offer deeper insights into campaign performance.

Customer satisfaction can be improved by audience suppression strategies, which pause engagement until issues are resolved. This ensures well-timed re-engagement, enhances customer experience and reduces negative feedback.

Key benefits:

• Avoid frustration: Resolve issues before re-engaging to maintain a positive brand perception.
• Reduce costs: Exclude unqualified users to optimize campaign performance and budget.

Steps:

1. Select all users with open tickets:
   • Source this information from your ticketing system using the user attribute “open_ticket” with values set to “true” if a user still has open tickets.
2. Implementation:
   • Use the HTTP API to ingest data from a third-party source, likely the tracking API.
   • Create a user attribute such as: open_support_tickets = true
   • When creating an audience in Piwik PRO CDP:
     • Set the audience condition to: open_support_tickets = false
   • This will effectively add users to the audience only if they do not currently have open support tickets.
3. Audience activation:
   • Send the created audience to:
     • Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Mailchimp or Customer.io
     • Paid media channels such as Facebook Ads and Google Display Ads
4. Ensure data integration:
   • The CDP must frequently or continuously update the connection between the support portal and its database for optimal performance.

Activating data is not a structured, one-size-fits-all process. It involves continuous experimentation and testing to find the optimal approach.

Here’s a breakdown of the possible steps you can take to activate data with Piwik PRO:

1. Consolidate data

The first step in the data activation process could involve consolidating information from various sources. This step ensures you have a unified, 360-degree view of your customers, laying a solid foundation for segmentation and activation.

2. Segment audiences

Now, you can define specific groups, personas, and audiences. This could involve organizing customers into relevant groups based on shared behaviors, demographics, or other attributes. Examples of segments might include “frequent buyers,” “new subscribers,” or “inactive users.” Segmentation allows you to select specific groups that you can later target with personalized messaging.

3. Create personalized content

At this stage, you can plan on-site content that will meet the needs of different personas and user groups. Examples of such content include personalized banners or ads, email newsletters or tailored discounts.

4. Enrich customer profiles

You can enrich profiles with additional data from customer relationship management (CRM) systems, ecommerce platforms, and offline sources like in-store transactions. Depending on your segments, you may add details such as customer lifetime value (CLV), purchase history, browsing behavior, and more.

5. Optimize campaigns

The next step is to sync audiences with advertising networks and launch targeted campaigns. This involves sending data to marketing tools like Google Ads or Facebook Ads and re-targeting users to optimize your ad spend.

6. Create activations

At this stage, you can automate sending data to other platforms and activate data across websites, mobile apps, and other digital channels. You can send behavioral data (such as user interactions or downloads) to the CRM, import scoring from the CRM, or manage targeted email campaigns in Mailchimp for customer audiences segmented by their stage in the funnel.

For example, you can display product recommendations to high-value customers based on their recent purchases or send a re-engagement email to inactive users with a personalized discount.

7. Measure results and optimize

The final step is to measure the performance of your campaigns in real-time. Using integrated analytics tools, such as those available in Piwik PRO, you can track key metrics like conversion rates, engagement, and ROI. This allows you to refine your segments, optimize future campaigns, and continuously improve your data activation efforts.

Here is how our clients transformed their data strategies with Piwik PRO CDP: