dataPRather than waiting for people to find products, brands are now matching products to the people.

Consider this hypothetical example: Beats by Dre targets Peter, a 30-year-old marathon runner, with ads for a pair of runner-friendly headphones even though he hasn’t specifically searched for that product. Instead, the brand found him by leveraging data from disparate sources like website visits and marathon sign-ups.

Some of the world’s leading advertisers, such as Netflix, Amazon and Sephora, already use the power of customer data and sophisticated personalization techniques to drive business results in this way.

Sephora, for example, has leveraged its wealth of customer data to personalize end-to-end user journeys. By integrating customer data into its website and application platforms, the beauty purveyor uses customers’ past purchases to predict their interests and future purchases. This unification of online and offline customer data provides a seamless, personalized experience that has led to a six-fold return on investment for the beauty brand, according to Dynamic Yield.

Depending on who you ask, personalization has the power to lift revenue from 5 percent to 15 percent and can increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10 percent to 30 percent. But, delivering personalization at scale requires a combination of the right data and the right technology.

Indeed, an Econsultancy survey commissioned by Resulticks confirmed the importance of housing customer data in a central location accessible by all teams. The survey, which analyzed the omnichannel readiness of enterprise businesses across Southeast Asia, found that one of the factors that separate omnichannel ‘leaders’ from the ‘laggards’ in the region is the use of a centralized data platform – 92 percent of leaders reported using one, versus 82 percent of laggards, who are using disparate data systems.

What’s more, data management is where many of the survey respondents said they struggled most when implementing omnichannel practices – 38 percent cited integration across systems as being poor, while 30 percent said they were unable to act on data in real time.

By using a central platform, the entire business can see all customers’ data throughout their purchasing journey. This insight will eventually enable a business to gain the coveted 360-degree view of its customers. Business can then begin to deploy personalized campaigns at scale and engage with customers down to an individual, segment-of-one level in a more authentic manner – and, eventually, in real time.

For those brands grappling with data and tech challenges, starting out with personalization does not hinge on the existence of a centralized platform. Businesses can still work with the data and capabilities on hand now to begin reaching and engaging with customers on an individual level.

Brands can get started with basic information such as age, gender and past history with the company to run strategic campaigns across different channels with the aim of capturing new and deeper customer data. As that is occurring, brands can simultaneously build up a centralized data platform with more sophisticated information, like triggers and habits for each customer.

As personalization strategies become the aim and focus of omnichannel marketing efforts across the region, it’s important that brands fully understand customer data and what their audience wants from them. Take the time to analyses the data, develop meaningful insights and leverage them to drive marketing decisions.

It’s only when customer data insights are incorporated well into marketing campaigns that personalization can make a huge impact on customers. And it’s only with a centralized data platform that brands can personalize campaigns at scale, providing customers with a better experience – the key to growing their businesses.

Redickaa Subrammanian, Founder and CEO of Resulticks