IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle – Perfecting the Science of the Customer Journey

IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle provides visibility into unique, event-driven customer segments that equip marketers with the most effective tools to cultivate high-value customers.

Traditionally, many online marketers have based web analytics largely on single-session clickstream data, tying conversion to the customer's last marketing touchpoint. The issue is that most conversions occur only after multiple days and multiple site visits or other online interactions. Over-reliance on basic web analytics can prevent marketers from fully understanding the customer's journey and key points of influence over a period of many months.

IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle is the industry's first application geared to enable online marketers to track and understand how customers progress through long-term conversion lifecycles. A lifecycle is characterized by milestones ranging from first-time visitors to advanced customers who engage with your brand through repeat purchases, newsletter subscriptions, product reviews, and following you on Facebook or Twitter, and more.

Lifecycle is so much more than another method or tool. Even in its first generation, Lifecycle reveals the areas we should research, test and optimize, then shows us how those efforts affect the overall flow and development of customer relationships. We can move away from the analysis of individual touch points and towards a holistic program of business enhancement. And this approach is something our colleagues outside of marketing can see, understand and

endorse.

Robert Keith Brosnan, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing,
Seton Hall University

Understanding the Customer Lifecycle

Leveraging Lifetime Individual Visitors Experience (LIVE) Profiles data, IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle gives online marketers a deep, broad perspective into the customer lifecycle over many months and enables you to evaluate which campaigns and tactics are most effective in prompting customers to progress from milestone to milestone.

The IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle application, a feature module for the IBM Coremetrics Explore ad hoc reporting solution, gives marketers the ability to:

Look beyond single-session metrics to understand the customer lifecycle
Pinpoint key interactions and events that prompt customer progression through lifecycle milestones
Tailor marketing initiatives differently to early-, mid- and late-stage customers
Analyze marketing effectiveness for granular customer segments at various stages
Continuously evaluate and optimize techniques to accelerate lifecycle progression
Retarget segmented customer groups with personalized campaigns

Using Insights to Fuel Marketing Applications

Use the insights you derive from IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle to fuel your IBM Coremetrics marketing applications, including email, display advertising, and on-site recommendations. Because you're tracking customers as they migrate through lifecycle phases over time, IBM Coremetrics Lifecycle is uniquely suited for targeting individuals who fall below the averages for time and number of sessions to progress to the next milestone.

With insights into which campaigns, channels, touchpoints, and customer characteristics are in play, marketers can continuously optimize their initiatives to generate maximum value. Lifecycle can measure the time and sessions required for customers to progress, and set goals to reduce the time it takes to reach milestones by using the tactics and techniques that are the most effective. You can explore which techniques and offers work best for early-stage customers, and what is most effective for late-stage customers.

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