By now you are probably aware that the customer journey is fractured among any number of channels and devices. Multi-device and multi-channel journeys take twists and turns as consumers move from one channel to the next and back again, and may start off on one device such as a smartphone, move to a tablet, and then finally head into a store to make a purchase. Any number of scenarios such as this occur whether a consumer is buying a car, searching for a home repair service, or buying a pair of shoes.

Insights are embedded along the customer journey that can give brands a competitive advantage into understanding  purchase intent, channel preferences, and which relevant content and messaging will be most apt to encourage consumers to move along the journey.  However, gaining a holistic customer view to access these insights continues to be a challenge for brands across industries.

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A study by SAP called “Context, Commerce and Customer: Best Practices to Exceed Expectations,” details the importance of integrating customer data with marketing technology like marketing automation and CRM systems. About 55% of marketers report working on technology systems that extend marketing’s view of the customer to include insights from all impact and interaction points in the customer journey. However, 17% of respondents were not convinced that achieving this integrated view of data was possible at their organizations.

According to the report, “The top points of marketing technology impact are increased measurability and tracking of campaigns and programs (42%), increased engagement across the customer journey (41%), and automated processes and campaigns, connected engagement dots, and accelerated rate of engagement at a lower cost (all at 25%). The top sources for marketing data cited by the research include: contact-level data (81%), campaign data (69%), CRM system data (68%), billing/payment data (50%), and sales data (49%).”