In this report, you will learn how to handle key considerations like data governance, efficiency management, virtualization principles, consent management, unification, and activation to build a holistic view of what is happening in your business.

CRM is crucial to any first-party data strategy because it sits at the center of every customer interaction: through behavioral and environmental triggers, your customer is feeding inputs that influence future experiences, like product recommendations and personalized messaging. Essentially, data makes personalized experiences possible—and when done right, those experiences in turn generate more data that brands can act on. With the death of the cookie on the horizon, these insights will become even more critical to your marketing strategy.

There’s no better time than now to unify data within a CRM ecosystem to improve the efficiency of teams, inform future business strategies and, of course, enhance customer experiences overall. These efforts involve building data pipelines that help them better learn about their customers and engage with the right message at the right time. With the help of automation, a powerful collaborator that helps teams pull off outcomes that only eluded them before, the sales team can focus on only the most qualified leads. 

Not sure where to get started? No worries; I’ve gathered a couple brands who have successfully transformed their CRM ecosystems to fuel personalized experiences at scale.

Translate behavioral cues to key business insights.

Beyond driving conversion, one of the most impactful results of a strong CRM strategy is being able to leverage behavior data to guide better consumer experiences—of which Australian Community Media (ACM) makes a prime example. ACM is a large media organization that operates over 140 local news mastheads across Australia, serving both free visitors and paying subscribers. That’s a lot of relationships to manage and readers to serve. To those ends, the brand relies on email marketing and onsite personalization via Salesforce Marketing Cloud to reach and continually engage with readers.

ACM wanted to better understand subscriber behavior to create more personalized, relevant experiences in the form of automated content recommendations. Previously, this content was manually selected by editors or determined by publish date. Using Marketing Cloud Personalization, we were able to pull from subscribers’ engagement and platform behavioral data (like affinities toward news categories) to build personalized recommendations—boosting not only relevance but also employee efficiency.

This data did more than simply help serve personalized content to email subscribers. Armed with insights into which topics readers enjoy the most, editors can now easily plan out future content and focus on the kinds of stories their readers care about the most. More broadly, these same insights allow ACM editors to better predict engagement across the user journey—showing how CRM data can extend beyond marketing to unlock critical business insights that ultimately serve audiences. The best part: automated content recommendations free the editors to focus more on these strategic concerns of how to build better impact.

Elicit engagement to personalize at scale.

If you struggle to glean insights from audience behavior, here’s a tip: make it as easy as possible for customers and prospects to tell you more. This simple step was the cornerstone of Woodlea’s CRM refresh. Woodlea is a master-planned community of 7,000 lots located 30km west of Melbourne. With a need to focus on buyers at the right time, their sales representatives wanted to be able to give special attention to novice buyers. But this posed a challenge: how could they personalize communication and experiences at scale?

We began by helping the brand insert forms into email sent to buyers, a move that increased engagement while generating significant user data in the process. The newly interactive emails included simple questions and a prompt for recipients to build out their profile in Woodlea’s customer portal (powered by Salesforce Experience Cloud). The fact that these forms were embedded into the actual email content made it a seamless user experience and increased the percentage of leads who engaged. This first-party data then fed back into Woodlea’s Salesforce CRM, allowing for automated lead nurturing and qualification. These efficiencies freed the sales team to focus on two key buyer personas: those ready to make a purchase and first-time buyers who needed more attention throughout the buyer’s journey.

Enhance CRM to start building your first-party data foundation now.

The best time to transform your customer experience was yesterday, but there’s still time before cookie deprecation to experiment with new ways of generating first-party data—and CRM is at the heart of the process. From eliciting user engagement to gain key insights, to building efficiencies through automation and automation, linking data and inputs across a connected CRM ecosystem goes a long way in serving stronger, more personalized customer experiences and key business goals—so don’t wait.

Need help or don’t know where to start? Reach out to learn more.

Indeed, the efficiencies and opportunities that AI enables can radically uplevel brand experience and output, though unlocking their true potential relies on understanding how to uplevel teams to use the technology effectively. Those who can fully leverage the power of AI and infuse it within every aspect of their business will dominate the market. But for those lagging behind, this is a Kodak moment: there will be no loyalty for businesses that are slow to deliver AI-powered experiences that make consumers’ lives easier.

Throughout this guide, we’ll showcase AI’s potential to transform marketing today and tomorrow, as well as the actions you can take right now to reap those rewards and lead in the new era.

To help brands in their transition, our data experts have written a guide that explores how brands should approach personalization going forward—including how to assess new technology providers, frameworks and methodologies to structure your planning—and long-term goals to strive for. Access your copy by filling out the form immediately below.

Need answers at a quick glance? Continue reading on for a quick FAQ that will help you get started.

Will I still be able to use Google Optimize after September 2023?

No, Google plans to sunset the product entirely. This can be taken to mean that the product will no longer be accessible past this date, and experiments running at this date will turn off.

Does this apply to Optimize 360 as well as the free product?

Yes. Google intends to sunset the product entirely, across both the free and 360 tiers. Note that by the sunset date, all organizations should have migrated their GA360 contracts to GA4, meaning that Optimize 360 is provided free of charge.

Should I use Optimize with UA or GA4 up until the sunset date?

This is entirely dependent on your existing UA and GA4 setups. UA 360 will continue to be available until Optimize’s sunset date, so you can continue to use it if you are more comfortable with that dataset. Otherwise, you can use GA4 data to power reporting and audiences. Linking Optimize with UA is available even after renewing GA360 contracts with GA4.

What should I do if I want to continue testing and personalizing my website after Optimize is sunset?

You will need to procure an alternative testing and personalization platform. Our report details the factors that should go into making that decision, and you should note that alternative platforms will have different commercial models than Optimize.

Will I still be able to use Google Analytics with a new third-party Experience Optimization tool?

Google has announced that they are investing in integrations between GA4 and third-party tools, with the intent being that GA4 will act as a centralized measurement hub that can be used to analyze and report on experiments that are delivered via a different platform. Media.Monks can provide more details on these integrations as they are made available by Google.

What will happen to my historical data?

Optimize uses Google Analytics data for reporting, meaning the raw data from past experiments will still be available in GA (and BigQuery if using GA360). Regardless, we recommend our clients collate test results in a central register to build an insights and learnings repository to fuel future decision-making.  Media.Monks can support the creation of a learning repository before the sunset if required.

Key watch-outs:

• An Optimize container can only be linked to UA or GA4 one at a time, not to both. Media.Monks do not recommend running experiments out of dual containers, so you should choose whichever dataset has the most actionable data.
• There are many factors that go into selecting an alternate vendor, and a proper assessment takes time. Organizations should bring this process well ahead of September 30 to ensure the continuity of capabilities.
• Deploying, validating and ramping up a new testing/personalization platform could take a number of months, meaning organizations should start the selection process now.

To get detailed steps on how to prepare for the Optimize sunset and plan your post-Optimize goals, simply fill out the form above to download our report.

Since its launch in 2021, Epic Game’s MetaHuman Creator, a cloud-based app for developing digital humans, has extended its range of possibilities by adding new features—such as Mesh to MetaHuman. Using Unreal Engine, this plugin offers a new way to create a metahuman from a 3D character mesh, allowing developers to import scans of real people. In other words, it makes it easier to create a virtual double of yourself (or anyone else) almost immediately.

Inspired by this significant update and following our tradition of enhancing production workflows using Unreal Engine, our team of dedicated experts decided to build their own prototype. Needless to say, they learned a few things along the way—from the practical possibilities of metahumans to the technicalities of applying motion capture to them. As explained by the experts themselves, here’s what you need to know about creating and unlocking the full potential of virtual humans.

Be everywhere at once—at least virtually.

If you ever fantasized about cloning yourself to be able to comply with all your commitments or complete your pending tasks, metahumans may be just what you were looking for. Virtually, at least. As digital representatives of existing individuals, metahumans offer endless possibilities in terms of content creation, customer service, film and entertainment at large. Sure, they won’t be able to do your dishes—at least not yet—but if you happen to be a public figure or work with them, it’s a game changer. 

By lending likeness rights to their digital doubles, any influencer, celebrity, politician or sports superstar will be able to make simultaneous (digital) appearances and take on more commercial gigs without having to be on set. As John Paite, Chief Creative Officer of Media.Monks India, explains, “Celebrities could use their metahuman for social media posts or smaller advertising tasks that they usually wouldn’t have the availability for.” Similarly, brands collaborating with influencers and celebrities will no longer need to work around their busy schedules.

The truth is, virtual influencers are already a thing—albeit in the shape of fictional characters rather than digital doubles of existing humans. They form communities, partner with brands and are able to engage directly and simultaneously with millions of fans. Furthermore, they are not stuck in one place at a time nor do they operate under timezone constraints. In that regard, celebrities’ digital doubles combine the benefits of virtual humans with the appeal of a real person.

A new frontier of personalization and localization.

Because working with virtual humans can be more time-efficient than working with real humans, they offer valuable opportunities in terms of personalization and localization. Similarly to how we’ve been using Unreal Engine to deliver relevant creative at speed and scale, MetaHuman Creator takes localization to a new level. As Senior Designer Rika Guite says, “If a commercial features someone who is a celebrity in a specific region, for example, this technology makes it easy for the brand to replace them with someone who is better known in a different market, without having to return to set.” 

But not everything is about celebrities. Metahumans are poised to transform the educational landscape, too, as well as many others. “If you combine metahumans with AI, it becomes a powerhouse,” says Paite. “Soon enough, metahumans will be teaching personalized courses, and students will be able to access those at a lower price. We haven’t reached that level yet, but we’ll get there.”

For impeccable realism, the human touch is key.

To test how far metahumans are ready to go, our team scanned our APAC Chief Executive Officer, Michel de Rijk, using photogrammetry with Epic Games’ Reality Capture. This technique works with multiple photographs from different angles, lighting conditions and vantage points to truly capture the depth of each subject and build the base for a realistic metahuman mode. Then, we imported the geometry into MetaHuman Creator, which our 3D designers refined using the platform’s editing tools. 

“Because Mesh to Metahuman allows you to scan and import your real face, it’s much easier to create digital doubles of real people,” says our Unreal Engine Generalist Nida Arshia. That said, the input of an expert is still necessary to attain top-quality models. “Certain parts of the face, such as the mouth, can be more challenging. Some face structures are harder than others, too. If you want the metahuman to look truly realistic, it’s important to spend some time refining it.” 

Once we got our prototype as close to perfection as possible, we used FaceWare’s facial motion capture technology to unlock real-time facial animations. While FaceWare’s breadth of customization options made it our tool of choice for this particular model, different options are available depending on the budget, timeline and part of the body you want to animate. Unreal’s LiveLink, for example, offers a free version that allows you to use your phone and is easy to implement both real-time and pre-recorded applications, but focuses on facial animations only. Mocap suits with external cameras allow for full-body motion capture, but with mid-fidelity, and recording a real human in a dedicated mocap studio unlocks highly realistic animations for both face and body. 

At the same time, the environment we intend the metahuman to inhabit is worth considering, as the clothes, hair, body type and facial structure will all need to fit accordingly. Naturally, different software may adapt better to one style or another. 

While this technology is still incipient and requires some level of expertise, brands can begin to explore different ways to leverage metahumans and save time, money and resources in their content creation, customer service and entertainment efforts. Similarly, creators can start sharpening their skills and co-create alongside brands to expand the realm of possibilities. As Arshia says, “We must continue to push forward in our pursuit of realism by focusing on expanding the variety of skin tones, skin textures and features available so that we can build a future where everyone can be accurately represented.”