Who are your consumers?

An Identity Crisis

The rise of digital technologies has made consumers interchangeably use physical and digital touchpoints through their consumption journeys. This makes it extremely difficult for brands to identify them as unique users and understand their preferences and lifestyles.  

The COVID-19 pandemic is a true black swan event that has brought in colossal changes to consumer behavior, making identity resolution even trickier. One of the biggest impacts is seen on the channels consumers choose to consume content, research and buy.  

Moreover, recent events such as the deprecation of third-party cookies by major web browsers and the user privacy-related updates in iOS14 have left brands grappling with the anyway complex question of consumer identity resolution. 

All these developments have left brands across industries wondering with one big question- Who are my audiences really?

The WHAT is always preceded by the WHO 

Every brand needs to understand and engage with its audiences at various critical steps- segmentation, new product launches, expanding into new markets, targeting audiences, and offering them personalized products and services. To achieve all this, brands need a comprehensive understanding of their audiences- where do they live and work, which brands do they shop from and how frequently, what leisure activities they like, what are the most important moments and aspirations of their lives, and so on. Not only this, brands today need to understand the complete life cycles of consumers and string together every piece of information to arrive at actionable intelligence. This means digging deep into consumers’ short-term and long-term goals, people they get influenced by, and how much information they are willing to share. 

To understand these WHATS about consumers well, understanding the WHO becomes a prerequisite. A unique identity of every user across touchpoints is the first building block of every personalized interaction thereafter. 

Understanding who your audiences are can immensely help your brand engage with them at the right place and at the relevant life moments. Here is an example. 

With a multitude of options for consumers in every industry today, a fragmented consumer understanding leads to increased churn or no first buy at all. Knowing who your audiences are, is, therefore, the cornerstone of brand-consumer relationships.

Near’s solution to identify and understand your consumers

Near’s persistent ID, PROXIMA, helps brands recognize consumers through their digital and real-world journeys as unique users. Since PROXIMA is not dependent on third-party cookies or IDFAs, the identity graph it builds is agnostic to the aforementioned macro changes. 

Brands can achieve their business goals faster when they begin with an identifier this persistent. 

What’s more- once you understand who your unique consumers are, Near also helps you understand their digital and physical trails to give you actionable insights about WHERE they are and WHAT they are doing. 

Once brands choose whether they want to use a pre-existing identity graph or create a completely new one, they can employ this user identity to easily reach their customers across their transient user journeys in the most relevant manner. One big step towards successfully navigating black swan events- isn’t it?