Cleaning up your information is a necessary a part of any platform migration course of. Much like a deep clear of your home, a full dive into organizing and cleansing up your information will not be essentially the most glamorous of duties, however it’s obligatory.
In Part 1 of our Growth Marketing Platform Migration Guide, we walked you thru an usually ignored step: the message and use case audit. The worst factor you are able to do, although, is cease there.
With your messaging technique sorted out, there may be nonetheless a lot to do. Keeping your information clear previous to the migration ensures you can be in a greater state of affairs post-migration than once you began.
So, right here in Part 2, we’ve outlined a fast and simple solution to shield your self from falling into the identical lure as soon as your platform migration mission ends.
Prepping for the Data Deep Clean
Before diving into discussing any information migration, it’s essential to notice a pair issues.
First and foremost, in case your information is a multitude in your present system and also you do nothing to scrub it up once you migrate to the brand new platform, you’re going to seek out your self in the very same state of affairs in a short time.
To put it bluntly, when you’ve got a pile of sh*t and you progress that pile of sh*t, you continue to have a pile of sh*t…however in a brand new location. Don’t come into your new platform and make it messy from the second you check in. That gained’t work.
Cleaning up your information is the one most essential piece of any migration. Your crew may complain about doing this, nevertheless it’s a lot better to spend the time making the proper modifications upfront than it’s to waste months on a migration solely to seek out your self with comparable points as earlier than.
Secondly, even when your information schema works nice in your present system, it doesn’t essentially imply it’s going to work completely within the new platform.
Be conscious of the variations between the 2 platforms and, once more, spend the time making the mandatory modifications upfront. Be certain to ask questions on information schema once you’re evaluating totally different platforms so you possibly can pay attention to bigger modifications you may need to make.
We will dig deeper into evaluating which development advertising platform is best for you in Part 3.
Categorizing Your Data Schema
Similar to the way you listed out your messaging within the message audit train, you’re going to additionally lay out your information schema. You ought to be capable to break down your information into three important classes: User Data, Event Data, and General Data.
User Data
As the title suggests, person information is the data you’ll wish to retailer within the new platform about every particular person person.
At the only degree, this could possibly be info like first title and final title. In a contemporary development advertising platform, your choices are far more particular and quite a few. Maybe you’ll have an array of product IDs which are presently being beneficial to the person or product IDs hooked up to a person’s transaction historical past.
Regardless, the perfect place to begin cleansing this information is in your present platform.
Start by getting an export of the person information you presently have and make an inventory of every of the person fields. Again, going by an audit course of, establish which fields you wish to hold and if there are any that must be up to date.
Once you’ve achieved that, it’s time to establish if there are new information factors you’ll wish to begin monitoring within the new platform.
The best solution to establish these new information factors is by utilizing the message audit you already created. Are there new or up to date messages you’ll be sending that require new information? If so, add it to the schema.
Aside from referencing the message audit, you must also establish new information factors for customers by contemplating new audiences that you simply may wish to construct. If there are person queries you possibly can’t obtain in your present system, ask your self: what person information is required to make them attainable within the new platform?
Once you’ve got a complete checklist of the entire information factors you wish to retailer about your customers, it’s useful to supply some additional info to maintain the entire crew on the identical web page all through the info migration.
For every of the person fields you’ve listed, add within the information sort of that discipline (string, integer, boolean, and so forth.), an instance discipline worth, and a fast description of the sphere’s function if it isn’t apparent.
In finishing this course of, you clear your information and set your self up for easier monitoring as you look to scale in your new platform.
Event Data
Event information are the actions your customers take that you simply wish to observe.
As an instance, let’s say your organization is a health app. Some occasions you’d wish to observe embody a “Signed Up” occasion when a brand new person creates an account, a “Created Goal” occasion when a person provides a brand new health objective, and a “Workout Completed” occasion every time the person finishes a exercise.
Within these occasions, it’s best to be capable to present additional details about what really occurred (the “event fields”). For the “Workout Completed” occasion, you’d possible have info, akin to the particular exercise the person accomplished, the quantity of energy they burned, and the size of the exercise.
If you’re already monitoring person actions in your present system, it’s best to once more begin by itemizing these out and figuring out if any ought to be eliminated or modified earlier than the info migration course of begins.
Utilizing your message audit, decide if there are any new occasions you’ll want to begin monitoring shifting ahead. If you’re planning on sending new triggered messages, does it make sense for these to be triggered by a brand new occasion? If you wish to construct an viewers primarily based on whether or not the customers have or haven’t achieved some motion, is that motion already one thing you’re monitoring?
After itemizing out every of the occasions you’ll observe, broaden on this by including within the occasion fields for every of them.
Simply figuring out that customers “Viewed a Page” isn’t that useful. Ask your self what info would make the occasion extra helpful. Is there info that might make messages triggered by this occasion extra personalised? Which information fields do it’s essential to question for primarily based on these actions?
Use this course of as a possibility to get extra granular, clear, and arranged together with your occasion monitoring information. In doing so, you open up the chances for hyper-personalized messaging down the highway.
General Data
Your common information is often info that’s frequent throughout all or most of your customers.
An ideal instance of that is an e-commerce firm’s product catalog. That firm may want to have the ability to embody sure product info of their email templates, however since this information is identical for each single person, it doesn’t make sense to retailer it as User Data.
This information ought to be saved individually, both in a desk that your new platform supplies or maybe inside a knowledge feed that’s hosted by yourself finish and simply referenced by the brand new platform.
Either means, it’s essential to establish when you’ve got any common information as a way to talk about your choices for utilizing it throughout your platform evaluations.
Laying the Groundwork for Now and Later
When you come from a trip, you don’t wish to instantly have a collection of chores to do to scrub up your property.
In essence, you might be avoiding this drawback—and defending your future self—by cleansing up your information earlier than the platform migration course of begins.
You are additionally growing your probabilities of accelerated development in your new platform by doing all your due diligence and figuring out what new information fields it’s best to seize.
It’s a win-win, now and sooner or later.
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