What is data onboarding?

Data onboarding is the process of transferring your offline or online customer data into an online platform in order to use it for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics.

Data onboarding is a critical process for businesses that want to utilize their customer data for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics. But with so many options available, it can be difficult to know where to start.

In this blog, we'll explain what data onboarding is, why it's important, and how the process works. We'll also explore key factors to consider when choosing a data onboarding partner, such as speed, cost, ease of use, and control. By the end of this blog, you'll have a better understanding of how data onboarding can benefit your business and what to look for in a data onboarding partner.

What is data onboarding?

Data onboarding is the process of transferring your offline or online customer data into an online platform in order to use it for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics. This is done by matching customer data to digital identifiers, pieces of information that can be used to identify a specific user online, such as an email address or a cookie.

By onboarding your first-party data, you can create more personalized experiences for your customers and reach your target audience more effectively. By doing so, you can increase the chances of converting these prospects into paying customers, and ultimately drive more revenue for your business.

Why is data onboarding important?

Data onboarding is becoming increasingly important as digital marketing continues to evolve. With the rise of privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, third-party cookies are being phased out, making it more difficult to track user behavior across websites. By onboarding your first-party data, you can still target your customers with relevant ads even if third-party cookies are no longer available.

In addition, onboarding your first-party data allows you to create a more complete view of your customers. By combining offline and online data, you can gain insights into your customers' behavior across all channels, which can inform your marketing and business strategies.

How does the data onboarding process work?

The data onboarding process can be broken down into several steps:

1. Upload

The first step of the data onboarding process is to upload your offline, first-party data to a data onboarding provider.

If you are working with a legacy data onboarder, you will need to consider the format of your data to ensure that it is compatible with their requirements. Additionally, you may need to clean and normalize the data before uploading it to ensure that it is properly structured. This can be a frustrating and time-consuming process, especially if any errors force you to start over. This is why it’s important to find a provider that can handle the formatting and preparation of your data for you.

2. Hash

Once your data is uploaded, it should be hashed, a process that converts the data into a fixed-length string of characters. Hashing is important for privacy reasons, as it allows your data to be matched without revealing any personally identifiable information.

3. Match

After hashing your data, the next step is to match your customer data to online user IDs associated with that customer. This is done using the hashed identifiers created in the previous step. The goal of this step is to identify which online user profiles correspond to your offline or online customer data.

4. Activate

The final step of the data onboarding process is to activate your data. This means that your onboarded data is now ready to be used for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics. By activating your data, you can create more personalized experiences for your customers and target them with relevant advertising messages.

Key factors for successful data onboarding

To ensure a smooth and cost-effective data onboarding process that provides you with necessary control over your data, pay attention to several critical factors when selecting a data onboarding partner.

Speed

When evaluating data onboarding partners, be sure to ask about their onboarding speed and how quickly you can expect to start using your data. The faster the data onboarding process, the quicker you can start using your data to inform your marketing and business strategies.

Legacy data onboarders often take a week or longer to process and deliver your onboarded data. This can be a frustrating experience, especially when you’re eager to launch a new campaign. These delays can also lead to missed opportunities to target customers who may have been interested in your product or service.

With Narrative, onboarding and activating offline customer data takes 15 minutes or less. The platform automatically formats and normalizes your data, eliminating the need for your engineers to do so manually, and instantly delivers the onboarded data to advertising platforms so you can start using it as soon as possible.

Cost

Cost is another important factor to consider when evaluating data onboarding partners. Onboarding data can be an expensive process, especially for small businesses, so it's crucial to find a vendor that fits your budget.

Some vendors may charge a flat fee for onboarding, while others may charge per record or per data source. It's important to understand the pricing structure upfront and ensure that it aligns with your budget.

In addition to the upfront costs, it's also important to consider any ongoing costs associated with data onboarding. This includes maintenance fees, data storage fees, and any additional fees for accessing or analyzing your data.

Overall, when evaluating data onboarding vendors, be sure to consider both the upfront and ongoing costs associated with the service. Look for a vendor that can provide a high-quality service at a cost that fits your budget.

Ease of use

Another important factor to consider when evaluating data onboarding partners is ease of use. Legacy data onboarders often require significant technical expertise to use, which can be a barrier for small businesses or companies without dedicated engineering teams.

When evaluating data onboarding providers, look for a solution that is user-friendly and requires minimal technical expertise. This can help you save time and resources, as well as reduce the risk of errors or delays in onboarding your data.

Narrative's data onboarding process is designed to be user-friendly and requires no technical expertise to use. The platform automates the formatting and preparation of your data, eliminating the need for manual data cleaning or normalization. In addition, Narrative's platform integrates with a wide range of advertising platforms and data management solutions, making it easy to use your onboarded data for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics.

Control

When evaluating data onboarding vendors, it's important to consider how much control you will have over your data. Having control over your data is crucial for ensuring that it is properly managed, secured, and used in a way that aligns with your business goals and values.

One aspect of control to consider is data ownership. It's important to understand who will own the data once it's onboarded and stored in a platform. Some vendors may claim ownership of the data, which can limit your ability to use it in the future or transfer it to another platform.

Another aspect of control to consider is data security. Make sure to ask vendors about their data security protocols and how they will protect your data from unauthorized access or breaches. You should also consider whether the vendor is compliant with relevant data privacy regulations, such as GDPR or CCPA.

Finally, it's important to consider how much control you will have over how your data is used. Some vendors may offer limited options for data usage or may use your data for their own purposes, such as creating their own analytics models. Make sure to ask vendors about their data usage policies and ensure that they align with your business goals.

Overall, having control over your data is essential for ensuring that it is properly managed and used in a way that aligns with your business goals and values. When evaluating data onboarding vendors, make sure to consider data ownership, security, and usage options to ensure that you have the level of control you need.

Narrative: Fast, Cost-Effective, and Easy Data Onboarding

Data onboarding allows you to create more personalized experiences for your customers and target them with relevant advertising messages. Narrative’s data collaboration platform makes the onboarding process as fast, cost-effective, and user-friendly as possible.

With Narrative, onboarding and activating offline customer data takes 15 minutes or less. The platform automatically formats and normalizes your data, eliminating the need for your engineers to do so manually, and instantly delivers the onboarded data to advertising platforms so you can start using it as soon as possible.

Narrative also offers competitive pricing, with a variety of pricing plans to fit every budget. And with its user-friendly interface and minimal technical expertise required, Narrative makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to onboard their data and start using it for targeted advertising, personalization, or analytics.

By onboarding first-party data, you can gain valuable insights into your customers' behavior across all channels and use that information to inform your marketing and business strategies. With fast, cost-effective, and user-friendly data onboarding solutions like Narrative, implementing data onboarding has never been easier.