In October of this year, at the ROMI conference, Natalia Ustymenko, Head of Direct Marketing at the omnichannel CDP eSputnik, presented her cases. The expert shared insights on effectively automating and optimizing marketing communications, as well as personalizing customer experience.

When discussing automation, everyone understands that it helps save time and money. However, in practice, the situation is somewhat different: most companies use non-integrated tools for customer communication, creating what’s known as information chaos. Instead, CDP offers a solution that allows combining all marketing channels into a single platform, optimizing costs, and increasing communication efficiency.

CDP (Customer Data Platform) is a powerful tool that helps companies collect, unite, and analyze all information about their customers from various sources. Think of it as the “brain” of your marketing that knows everything about each of your customers.

As we know, many companies face difficulties during marketing automation. Most often, the main reason for this is the lack of a unified user profile. Automation allows combining customer data and creating a personalized experience at all stages of interaction.

Successful Marketing Automation

The first step in this process should be quality collection of user data – both direct information they provide themselves through registration or subscription forms (email, phone, interests) and indirect information that can be obtained automatically (website behavior, geolocation, etc.). However, to collect more detailed information about visitors, it’s necessary to use scripts that track their actions on the site even without prior identification.

Special attention should be paid to mobile applications, as they are currently one of the most promising e-commerce channels. Deep analysis of data related to user behavior in mobile apps helps accurately determine which products and services interest customers most, when they are most active for interaction, and which communication channels are most attractive to them.

To convert new subscribers into active users, it’s necessary to build an effective welcome series. For example, Shafa immediately segments visitors based on their goals, allowing for the development of individual interaction scenarios. For new customers looking for specific products, personalized recommendations, safe shopping advice, and simple website usage instructions are offered. Meanwhile, for sellers, a separate onboarding process with detailed instructions for creating listings and promoting products has been developed.

Looking at the case of the Varus supermarket chain, one can see how effectively they use welcome chains. Initially, the company limited itself to email newsletters but later switched to a clear personalized approach. Through a combination of email and Viber mailings, Varus specialists achieved significant growth in customer engagement and loyalty.

Thus, new users are offered special offers and bonuses, while active shoppers receive personalized product recommendations.

Push notifications are another simple and effective way to stay connected with customers. Unlike email newsletters, they appear directly in the user’s browser, ensuring high delivery speed. This allows reminding customers about promotions, new items, and special offers at the moment when they are most likely to make a purchase. Additionally, web pushes can be easily integrated with other tools, making them an indispensable element of any marketing strategy.

Since email and phone numbers often change, it’s worth considering using External ID from the CRM system as the primary identifier. All other communication channels, including mobile tokens, can be linked to this ID. This will help create a more complete picture of the user and increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Using the collected data, you can divide your audience into groups based on various criteria, such as:

It’s worth noting that MAUDAU, a marketplace for everyday items, uses segmentation to determine which bonuses most effectively attract new customers. Their specialists offer various interaction options (surveys, gifts, subscription forms) to better understand user needs.

Many marketers notice a paradox: after promotions, the customer base grows sharply but then “melts” just as quickly. Why does this happen? It’s simple: users receive the promised bonus and, having satisfied their immediate curiosity, lose interest in further interaction. Clearly, such promotions often attract only one-time buyers. Therefore, the key task should not be simply expanding the base but creating a quality pool of potential customers ready for long-term interaction.

The case of Prom.ua shows how data can help optimize marketing budgets. Through detailed analysis of user behavior, the company found that email marketing wasn’t delivering expected results. This allowed them to redirect resources to more productive channels, such as mobile applications.

Quality Personalization and Widgets

An important aspect that is often underestimated is website personalization for each user through various widgets. For instance, subscription forms allow collecting data about customers that can be used for further personalization. Those who have already subscribed can be offered surveys, encouraged to complete their profiles, or shown personalized recommendations. Dnipro-M company demonstrates an example of this approach: their registered users see widgets with unique offers.

Similarly, the NPS (Net Promoter Score) system can be used to collect feedback about purchases and adjust further communication based on received ratings. Why is this important? Quality personalization increases user engagement, improves conversion rates, and enhances brand loyalty.

App Inbox

Another innovative tool for web marketing is App Inbox. It’s similar to push notifications but with greater customization capabilities. This tool can be used to create trigger campaigns, segment audiences, and track marketing activity effectiveness. This is exactly what Zootovary.com does.

Personalization of online experience has transformed traditional websites into interactive platforms that anticipate each user’s needs. Thanks to smart algorithms, websites can adapt to individual preferences: if you often view pink phones, the algorithms identify your interest in this color and offer you new models in pink.

Bright examples of successful personalization in Ukrainian retail are Foxtrot and MasterZoo. By analyzing customer behavior, Foxtrot discovered that customers choosing new gadgets often complement their purchases with accessories. This observation allowed the company to expand its assortment and significantly increase the average check.

In turn, MasterZoo achieved success by improving recommendation algorithms, which contributed to sales growth and new customer acquisition. Additionally, the pet store gained high profits thanks to transformer models that provide deep aggregation of user data.

What about trigger marketing campaigns? Imagine that every visitor’s step on your site can automatically launch a personalized message through an appropriate channel. These can be:

Thanks to collecting and analyzing user behavior data, complex automation scenarios can be created. So, if a client views a certain product, we can send them a personal discount or remind them about us in a few days. Or, if a user leaves their cart unfilled, we can offer them a bonus for completing the purchase. The possibilities for creating such scenarios are practically limitless, and the number of trigger and condition combinations is limited only by the digital marketer’s imagination.

Already known for its innovations, Dnipro-M decided to expand customer communication beyond traditional email newsletters. The company implemented a multi-channel automated system that includes:

This enabled the creation of complex marketing scenarios aimed at increasing sales volumes. Thanks to automation, the company can send personalized messages only to those customers who haven’t made purchases yet, as well as use the most productive channels for each audience segment. Thus, Dnipro-M found that App Inbox is most effective for their users, despite push notifications having wider coverage.

Marketers usually spend the most time creating and sending promotional mailings: complex letter structures with many elements require great attention to detail. However, modern marketing platforms help significantly simplify this process.

Using dynamic blocks and familiar personalization, different elements can be automatically inserted into each email depending on the recipient’s individual characteristics. Instead of manually changing banners and recommendations in each letter, templates can be created where the system automatically inserts information relevant to each client.

Let’s look at another interesting case from Adidas, which demonstrates successful combination of email marketing and widgets – interactive website elements that allow personalizing user interaction. Adidas proved the effectiveness of this approach by using widgets about unused birthday bonuses. This tool appears at the end of the user journey, encouraging website visitors to make a purchase. Thanks to this simple but effective marketing technique, the company managed to increase conversion rates and show care for each customer.

Conclusion

Finally, instead of spending hours on routine work with email newsletters, marketers can focus on data analysis and developing effective marketing strategies. Automation allows collecting and analyzing large volumes of customer behavior data, helping to better understand their needs and preferences. Thanks to automation, marketers gain access to detailed analytics that allows tracking the effectiveness of each campaign and making necessary adjustments.