Salesforce unveils new marketing cloud and CDP features

Salesforce has unveiled an updated and renamed customer data platform (CDP) and other new features in its marketing cloud suite.

During the Salesforce World Tour in Sydney, the cloud-based giant announced it has rebranded its CDP from Salesforce CDP to Customer Data Platform to help marketers “create a single source of truth”.

The company has highlighted new CDP innovations including, streaming insights and data actions where marketers can capture near real-time data signals such as a new customer, a recent product transaction, or payment issue, to trigger workflow events.

For example, a new car purchase triggers an email campaign inviting the new customer to set up their driver profile, share it on social media, and get a discount on their first car wash.

Another new feature is the advanced identity resolution that uses AI to match and merge disparate data for better customer identification. Duplicated fields — such as an address, email, or phone, as well as records with names that have multiple spellings or frequently shortened nicknames, as in “Sam” and “Samantha” — can be merged to help ensure the most complete customer profiles.

The new anonymous feature for its CDP enables marketers to track profiles and build a rich history of data on customers when they are in the anonymous state and then connect that data to their profiles once they become known.

According to the company, an online retailer can analyse a web visitor’s interactions, stitching data together when they have signed in to the site with their previous interactions, allowing for better personalisation like improved product recommendations.

Lidiane Jones, EVP & GM, Salesforce Digital Experiences said, “Seventy-six percent of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs, yet only 34 percent feel like companies actually treat them as individuals.

“Any company not investing in this area is putting their entire business at risk. With Salesforce’s powerful service and marketing innovations layered with AI, businesses can deliver the personalised, connected experiences that build trust, loyalty, and longevity with customers.”

Marketing Cloud Intelligence, formerly known as Datorama, helps marketers unify analytics and leverage AI insights to continually optimise outcomes that increase customer value and growth.

New Intelligence innovations announced today including new enhancements to intelligence reports for engagement and intelligence now enables marketers to explore and analyse deep data sets with new interactive visualisation tools.

Mecca the largest premium beauty retailer in Australia and New Zealand, is using Salesforce to deliver innovative and personalised digital experiences for customers.

Sam Bain, chief digital officer at Mecca said, “Salesforce Service and Marketing Clouds are helping us focus on three areas to bring the magic of our in-store experience to the digital world.

“We want to bring service to our customers in a really human way, bring education and storytelling to help customers pick the right products for them, and tailor it to make it as personalised as possible.”