- Option 1: Segment data in Customer Insights - Data and target Customer Insights - Data customer profiles in journeys.
- Option 2: Segment data in Customer Insights - Journeys (using limited Customer Insights - Data's data) and target Customer Insights - Journeys contacts/leads in journeys, enabled by CustomerId Backstamping (aka COLA stamping).
Option 1 has been available for a few years now and hence in this blog, we'll focus on Option 2 and explore the factors to consider when choosing between Option 1 and Option 2.
While you can utilize both options, it is recommended to manage segmentation within a single application for simplicity and ease of use. Be sure to refer to the 'Feature Support Matrix' section of this blog to verify if the features are supported for your implementation.
Before diving into the evaluation, let's first understand CustomerId backstamping.
CustomerId Backstamping (aka COLA Stamping)
Option 2 relies on establishing a relationship between D365 tables (Contacts, Leads) and D365 Customer Insights – Data’s 'Unified Customer Profile.' This relationship is created by linking D365’s COLA (Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Accounts) tables with the Unified Customer Profile in D365 Customer Insights – Data, a process referred to as CustomerId backstamping or COLA stamping.
Since the Contact, Opportunity, Lead, and Account tables each serve different roles and levels of granularity, your use case will likely require only one of these tables to be ingested into Customer Insights - Data for CustomerId backstamping, with 'Contact' being a common choice.
To establish this relationship, a prerequisite is to ingest data from one or more of the COLA tables into Customer Insights - Data using specific data ingestion methods. The relevant table(s) must be included in the unification process as detailed here. Once unified, the CustomerId (the primary key of Customer Insights - Data’s unified profile) is backstamped as a column in the ingested and unified COLA table(s). An important point to note is that COLA stamping only works when all the relevant D365 apps are installed in the same Dataverse environment.
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CustomerId backstamping can unlock various use cases across D365 applications that use these underlying tables, including segmentation discussed in Option 2 as well as email personalisation and attribute branching, using Customer Insights - Data profiles and measures (created as per guidelines). An example of email personalisation is also included in the subsequent sections.
Option 1: Segment data in Customer Insights - Data and target Customer Insights - Data customer profiles in journey
Journey Target : Customer Insights - Data customer profiles
Segmentation : Customer Insights - Data segments
This is a simple approach to introduce Customer Insights - Journeys when you are already using Customer Insights - Data. The data segmentation is done within Customer Insights - Data, while the Customer Insights - Journeys journeys use the customer profiles as journey audience by selecting segments created within Customer Insights - Data.
Steps
Figure 1: Sample journey on Customer Insights - Data segments- Create measures within Customer Insights - Data and use in personalisation and journey branching. (ActivityTime is a measure created in Customer Insights - Data with 2 calculations: MinActivityTime and MaxActivityTime)
Figure 2: Sample Email personalization screenshotEvaluation
Pros
- Simple to implement solution where profiles, segments and measures (created as per guidelines) are seamlessly available in Customer Insights - Journeys.
- This solution can target customers that do not exist as Dataverse contact/lead.
- All features are General Availability.
Cons
- Features specific to contacts like viewing of interactions (email sent etc.) and personalised emails on Contact timeline and Contact insights (Interaction data for selected contact) are not available for Customer Insights - Data customer profiles.
- With this option, Customer Insights - Data attribute availability in Customer Insights - Journeys for personalisation and branching is limited to unified profile and measures created as per guidelines. Use of custom relationship with unified profile or measure table in Customer Insights - Journeys is not supported.
- Segmentation in Customer Insights - Data based on behavorial/interaction data (emails opened etc.) is not possible.
- Marketeers need to use two different applications for Segmentation and Journeys.
Considerations – when to use
- Customers primary use case is generating insights/analytics based on high data volume and segmentation based on these insights.
- Customers who would like to target audience that do not exist as Dataverse contact or lead.
- All Customer Insights - Data's data is available for segmentation, and customer uses cases of personalisation and attribute branching can be fulfilled using only customer profiles and measures (created as per guidelines) and do not require additional tables.
- The use case does not include viewing of interactions (email sent etc.) and personalised emails on Contact timeline and Contact insights (Interaction data for selected contact).
- Customer Insights – Data has a limit on the number of segments and measures as defined here, however work is ongoing to increase this limit.
Option 2: Segment data in Customer Insights - Journeys (using limited Customer Insights - Data's data) and target Customer Insights - Journeys contacts in journeys
Journey Target : Customer Insights - Journeys contacts
Segmentation : Customer Insights - Journeys segments based on Customer Insights - Data customer profiles and measures (created as per guidelines)This is a simple approach to introduce Customer Insights - Data when you are already using Customer Insights - Journeys. The data from various sources is unified in Customer Insights - Data to create customer 360 profiles and 1-dimensional measures, created as per guidelines, where CustomerId is the dimension. Segmentation is done within Customer Insights - Journeys on contacts or leads using the customer insights profiles and measures (created as per guidelines) from Customer Insights - Data. This approach is possible because of the relationship established between COLA tables of Dataverse with Customer profile as discussed in the previous section.The Customer Insights - Journey's journeys uses contact as journey audience by selecting segments created within Customer Insights - Journeys based on Customer Insights - Data's data. (This could also be done for ‘lead’ segments but the focus for this blog is ‘contact’).
Steps
Figure 3: Sample contact segment using Customer Insights - Data's data- Create Customer Insights - Data measures (as per guidelines) and use in personalisation and journey branching (in relation with ‘contact’). (ActivityTime is a measure created in Customer Insights - Data with 2 calculations: MinActivityTime and MaxActivityTime)
Figure 4: Sample personalisation from contact to Customer Insights - Data measures- Pre-requisite for this solution is to link ContactId with CustomerId by ingesting the contact table from Dataverse into Customer Insights - Data and using it in unification process as explained in the CustomerId backstamping section.
Evaluation
Pros
- This approach is suitable for customers looking to view interactions (email sent etc.) and personalised emails on Contact timeline and Contact insights (Interaction data for selected contact) within Customer Insights - Journeys.
- Customers use case spans across other Dataverse tables to be used with ‘contact’ or ‘leads’ (apart from Customer Insights - Data unified profiles and measures) in segmentation/journey.
- Ease of use for marketeers since segmentation and journey are on the same application.
- Customer Insights - Journeys has a higher service limit on the number of segments that can be created, as compared to Customer Insights - Data.
Cons
- Since the solution is dependent on CustomerId backstamping process, newly created contacts/leads will not be part of the segment/s that are based on unified profile attributes, until they go through the cycle of Customer Insights - Data ingestion, unification and CustomerId backstamping.
- Can only target audiences that are present in Customer Insights - Journeys as contact/lead.
- Customer Insights - Journeys segments are possible only using limited Customer Insights - Data's data - profiles and measures (created as per guidelines). Use of custom relationship with unified profile or measure table in Customer Insights - Journeys is not supported. This results in limited capabilities compared to the segmentation options available in Customer Insights - Data, which can use data from multiple sources and tables, such as unified activities and raw transactional data.
Considerations – when to use
- Good option for customers already on Customer Insights - Journeys contact-based segmentation/journeys and now looking to extend the usage to include Customer Insights - Data's data.
- This approach is suitable for customers looking to view contact insights (Interaction data for selected contact) or individual personalised email at ‘contact’ level within Customer Insights - Journeys (Ex: D365 Customer service and D365 Customer Insights app installed on the same Dataverse and hence use same ‘contact’. Customer service agents refer to latest interactions to support customer queries/issues).
- Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Apps (such as Customer Insights - Journey, Sales, etc.) are used as the core CRM solution, where all target audiences are already setup as contacts/leads.
Other Related Topics
Audience source/configuration in Customer Insights - Journeys
Audience configuration lets you manage your audiences by allowing selection of attribute to be used as email or phone number (for text message sending) for customer communication. Consent Centre
Customer Insights - Journeys consent v4 is contact-point based and hence works for messages sent to contacts, leads, and Customer Insights - Data profiles. Customer consent is stored per email address or phone number, as opposed to being stored per contact record.
