Cloud 4 marketing

As cloud technologies continue to proliferate, and the market becomes more accepting of cloud, the move toward fully integrated C4M (Cloud for Marketing) solutions has also accelerated rapidly. 

There is a good reason for that, with the promise of being able to deliver fully integrated personalised digital experiences, across multiple channels and devices. C4M represents the holy grail of advertising, an immersive and personalised experience at the right time and the right place. 

There are a lot of SaaS-based solutions that claim to be C4M, but if you look at the functionality that is required to be a real C4M solution, many offerings fall short of the mark. 

This is not necessarily a shortcoming of the products but more a reflection of how quickly this space is evolving, in particular around the importance of 1st party data, ownership of data, privacy and the emergence of the experience economy which is driving the "Hyper Personalisation" movement. 

According to Chris Rozic, CEO of Datisan, one of Australia's leading C4M consultancies, best practice cloud for marketing is:

The ability to leverage your first-party data through analysis & activation via the flexibility, scale & security that a cloud environment can provide. 

When asked what he considered are the mandatory requirements for a good C4M solution, he noted these four essential attributes:

• Complete ownership of data - Ownership is a must, with changing regulations, privacy and security concerns you have to be in control of your data. Plus having control allows you to use your data how and where you want to without being beholden to 3rd parties.
• Democratisation - The ability to easily utilise 1st party data for marketing & CX outcomes. If the solution does not allow for the democratisation of data at scale, then it is not going to help you realise the full value of your data.
• Highly secure/compliant - The risks of having so much data in one place demand a solution that can meet strict security and compliance laws (including provisions for access control, auditing & reporting).
• Scale & flexibility - with this space evolving so quickly you need a solution that will scale with you to ensure you can meet future needs (including speed to process & ability to change things for any need).

The reality is however that for most businesses the major blockers to attaining a truly, scalable, secure C4M solution that will allow hyper-personalisation while respecting the privacy of your customer, will be internal business issues rather than C4M software limitations.