Argue for a CJA platform

Marketing technology investments need to be carefully considered, including detailed benefits and a clear path to return on investment. As digital landscapes evolve, companies are under increasing pressure to move beyond traditional analytics, which often provide only fragmented insights into customer behavior. Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) represents a paradigm shift, providing a unified, cross-channel view that enables deeper understanding and more accurate attribution of customer interactions.

Many leading brands are currently evaluating new CJA platforms. However, feature overlap and unclear unique selling propositions can make it difficult to develop a compelling business case. In addition, it is difficult to document specific analytics gaps with measurable estimates of business value. Finally, data realities – including siloed teams, data hygiene, governance and redundancies – present further hurdles when adopting a new CJA platform.

At iCrossing, we have identified three key themes that can accelerate and clarify the development of a business case for CJA:

1. Develop use cases with specific, measurable benefits

Software vendors often present predefined use cases to demonstrate the performance of their CJA platforms. While these examples can be informative, it is important to develop tailored use cases that reflect your organization's unique needs and goals.

Engage key stakeholders to identify how the platform will add value to your business. Calculate the benefits of delivering actionable insights with the right latency and accuracy. When defining these use cases, consider the people, processes, and alignment needed to fully realize value.

For example, for a large international retailer, appointment scheduling is critical, but traditional methods of tracking abandoned appointments were not sufficient to measure the true physical and digital customer journey. iCrossing identified the necessary business stakeholders, systems of record, and data sets to create a complete customer journey view in Adobe's CJA that measures appointment history at every omnichannel touchpoint. By creating a more comprehensive view, the company was able to optimize friction points and increase conversion rates by double-digit percentages.

By defining compelling, organization-specific use cases, you can demonstrate the value of CJA through business outcomes rather than technical details.

2. Change of perspective from anonymous data traffic to known customer contact points

Traditional digital analytics focuses on how users interact with a single experience, often aggregating data to evaluate page performance, traffic, and conversion rates. In contrast, CJA focuses on individuals and their interactions across the organization, both online and offline.

The power of CJA lies in its ability to consolidate data from multiple channels and resolve individual identities by stitching interactions together into comprehensive customer profiles. This enables much clearer attribution modeling and insights into how different cohorts respond to content in different ways.

For example, understanding a customer's journey from an email campaign to a store visit can help you uncover key touchpoints where personalized interventions can drive conversions. When developing the business case, ensure value statements leverage this evolved capability to demonstrate incremental business value.

3. Consider dependencies, process changes and training

While CJA capabilities are powerful, transitioning from current analytics platforms to CJA requires careful consideration of dependencies, process changes, and training needs. Replacing existing systems without considering these factors can lead to unintended consequences.

Ensure campaign dependencies from paid media teams are clearly mapped to the new systems of record. Also, consider SEO pageview metrics in the new system. Keep in mind that report suite interfaces will change, PII will be embedded in CJA, and teams will need to understand the new analytics data model.

Managing this transition requires broad stakeholder engagement to accurately assess the effort, risks and remediation required. Taking these factors into account will solidify the business model and ensure it is widely supported across the organization.

Management of organizational changes and risks

The transition to CJA is not only a technological shift, but also a cultural shift. Teams must develop a customer-centric mindset and value data from every touchpoint. Leadership plays a critical role in driving this change and helping to overcome resistance through clear communication, comprehensive training, and emphasis on the benefits.

To mitigate the risks associated with this transition, a detailed risk management strategy is required. This includes contingency planning, ongoing communication with stakeholders, and phased implementation to minimize disruption and ensure a smooth transition.

Organizations that address these key issues will build a compelling case for CJA, allowing them to focus on delivering demonstrable value to software vendors. As programs move from selection to implementation, the use cases developed can guide pilots, proofs of concept, and minimum viable products (MVPs), facilitating the gradual deployment of enterprise-wide change.

At iCrossing, we have a proven approach to address these issues and ensure a successful CJA implementation:

• Evaluate your analytics program and identify potential use cases

• Participate in prioritizing use cases and identifying risks.

• Assign the data set requirements to the specific use cases and check the feasibility

• Evaluate teams and analysis processes for impact

• Achieve new results with business value and effort

• Develop a rubric for evaluating CJA solutions that fits use cases