What is a customer profile?

A customer profile is a way to group data you have about your customers and their interactions with your brand. Ideally, this data is unified using identity resolution so that you can get a holistic view of data across various sources. A unified customer profile may consist of:

  • Demographic information, such as age and gender
  • Geographic location and address
  • Behavioral data, such as purchase history, email and SMS engagement, and website activity
  • Psychographic information, such as interests and lifestyle indicators

Customer profiles help brands build stronger relationships with their target audience by centralizing all the data about them in one place. Brands can use this knowledge to create personalized content that’s actually relevant for people, ultimately boosting the ROI of marketing initiatives.

How to create customer profiles for effective brand marketing

To create comprehensive customer profiles, follow these steps:

1. Use a tool that unifies data, like a customer data platform 

Customer data is typically scattered across different platforms, including your customer relationship management (CRM) system and any integrations you use to power your ecommerce store. A customer data platform (CDP) collects data from multiple sources, such as your website, email, and SMS campaigns, and unifies it into a comprehensive customer profile.

When choosing a CDP, make sure it can integrate with other software via pre-built integrations or APIs, handle large volumes of data, and make predictions based on past data.

Once you choose your CDP, you’ll be able to import data from other software solutions in your tech stack. As you gather more information about your customers through their interactions with your brand, your CDP will automatically update the customer profiles.

2. Segment your audience 

The best thing about customer profiles is that they reveal recurring behavior among certain groups of people. When you segment your customers into groups with shared characteristics, you can send them personalized messages that resonate a lot more.

Some segmentation examples include:

  • New subscribers who know little about your brand and need more education
  • Customers who have left reviews and need either a thank you or a follow-up from your support team
  • People who have abandoned high-value carts and perhaps need a discount to push them to finish their purchase

When you segment your audience with a CDP, you’re showing that you know them—and making better use of the data they gave you.

3. Keep your customer data clean

Maintain data hygiene by reviewing your customer profiles and removing or fixing any errors, such as data that’s:

  • Corrupted
  • Incorrect
  • Incomplete
  • Duplicated

Regularly cleaning data helps make sure your customer profiles are always accurate and up-to-date, helping you manage them more effectively across multiple channels.

3 benefits of unified customer profiles

Here are the advantages of unifying your customer data into complete profiles: 

1. Unified customer profiles help you make data-driven decisions

With single, unified customer profiles, you can accurately attribute the success of your marketing initiatives.

For example, a particular segment of customers may respond better to certain email subject lines. With unified customer profiles, you’ll be making data-driven decisions that are reflective of what your audience actually engages with.

2. Unified customer profiles improve customer service

Customer profiles provide a clear and holistic view of each customer’s history. With all of this information, brands are better able to accurately address their inquiries, resolve issues, and make personal recommendations. This is what can improve customer retention.

3. Unified customer profile data saves time and resources 

Customer profiles help brands focus their efforts on people who have demonstrated high intent to buy. They also help brands develop marketing initiatives that target the right people at the right time.

To reap these benefits, try Klaviyo CDP. Klaviyo CDP unifies and cleans customer data scattered across multiple channels into cohesive profiles.

With unified customer data, you’ll be able to:

  • Segment your target market based on interactions with your brand
  • Create personalized marketing messages that resonate with your audience
  • Monitor the success of your marketing initiatives and adjust them for each granular audience segment 

Ready to understand your customers and their dynamic behavior? Sign up for Klaviyo today.

Additional resources