Wyng Partnership Enables Personalization with Zero-Party Data
The zero-party data platform Wyng has found a strategic partner to bring its real-time data connector to life. The company recently announced a deal with Qualtrics, an experience management firm, and the release of Wyng Connector for Qualtrics, a real-time data connector available in the Qualtrics XM Marketplace.
Wyng’s new connector will enable brands to feed zero-party data from Wyng to Qualtrics Experience ID, where the data can then be analyzed and activated to generate personalized experiences at scale.
Consumers Expect Personalization
With 71% of consumers now saying they expect brands to personalize their experiences, and 76% of consumers reporting feelings of frustration when that doesn’t occur, Wyng Co-Founder Wendell Lansford believes now is the time for firms like his own to step up with solutions developed to meet today’s demands.
“Personalization is fueled by data, and zero-party data is the gold standard,” Lansford says. “Unlike first-party data, which is a historical log of events, consumers can change zero-party data over time, as their individual interests, preferences, and tastes change.”
Wyng’s integration with the Qualtrics solution allows brands to leverage zero-party data to deliver highly-personalized customer experiences across channels. It piggybacks on the success of Qualtrics’ Experience ID, which was launched in October to provide brands with a single view of everything customers and employees have shared with their companies and to enable companies to personalize those experiences. Wyng’s new connector for Qualtrics offers a way to feed data from the Wyng platform to Qualtrics Experience ID, where users can analyze and activate it in order to personalize experiences.
Investing in Microexperiences
To collect zero-party data, brands are encouraged to utilize certain “microexperiences,” including onboarding quizzes, guided shopping experiences, question pop-ups, conversational opt-ins, and personalized forms. Through these microexperience formats, brands can collect preferences, interests, values, and other zero-party data from customers on their own brand websites.
Unlike some competing solutions, the Wyng Connector for Qualtrics gives brands a way to put customers in control of the data they share. Customers can keep their data up-to-date and fine-tune their brand experiences in real-time through unified preference centers, which are located on a brand’s own website or mobile app. By maintaining control over certain first-party data points, customers can decide whether those data points should be used to personalize their experiences—effectively converting first-party data into zero-party data. This is similar to how Amazon uses data from recent purchases.
“Consumers want personalized experiences, but they want personalization to be on their own terms,” Lansford says. “The fact is, personalization and privacy are two opposing forces, in conflict with each other.”
Privacy vs Personalization
That push and pull between wanting personalization and also valuing privacy is the source of growing tension between consumers and marketers. Lansford believes the best way to mediate between the two forces, and resolve the tension, is to give consumers visibility and control over the data that fuels personalization.
“Nobody wants their every move to be tracked, traded and targeted without having visibility and control,” he says. “That’s where zero-party data comes in. ZPD is, in essence, personal data that consumers have ongoing transparency, choice, and control over. It solves the privacy-personalization paradox, and that’s why it’s so important.”
With this new partnership in place, brands that integrate Wyng with Qualtrics will be able to create custom “preference portals” to give customers transparency and control of their data. They’ll also be able to combine zero-party data with experience data from Qualtrics, to personalize digital experiences at scale.
“The privacy-last era of marketing is over. Gone are the days of aggregating and using data opaquely, whether the consumer likes it or not,” Lansford says. “We’re now in the privacy-first era … Consumers want personalized experiences, but they want personalization to be on their own terms. In order to build trust and relevance, brands will empower consumers with transparency, choice, and control.”
Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.
