What is event data?

Most companies use multiple systems to capture event data of how their prospects and customers are interacting with their sales and marketing tactics. This leads to disparate, siloed data that must be brought into a single location to make it actionable.

D&B CDP supports import connectors that allows users to bring in all event data related to their sales and marketing outreach into the product. This lets users leverage this data to create target lists via segmentation and view it holistically through the Account 360 dashboard.

Article Content: 

• What is an event?
• What are events based on? 
• What information is required in an event? 
• What are some examples of event data?
• How can I import my event data into the CDP? 

What is an event?

Events are activities related to your prospects and customers. Capturing all of the activities that your contacts or accounts are taking is important to fully understand where they are in the buying journey. Event activities may be triggered internally (e.g. sales rep creates a new opportunity in CRM) or by your prospects (e.g. opens an email in your marketing campaign).

What are events based on?

Events can be based on contacts or accounts. Outreach tactics that are tracked to a use email or login such as email marketing and product usage is typically collected and captured at the contact level, but when contact-level information is not available, the event is based on the account (e.g. 3rd party intent, Opportunity stage).

What information is required in an event?

1. Date and Time - tells when the event occurred
2. An ID to Join to - An Account ID, Contact ID or Lead ID must be included on event data for it to join to an account or contact in the CDP. These fields must be mapped as an "Id" data type. Please note that the accounts and/or contacts that the event data will join to must be loaded before your event data.
3. Information of the Event - This varies and is different for each event (ex: "Activity Type", "Event", "Stage")

D&B CDP currently offers native import connectors that automatically pull in event data from several sales and marketing systems. This enables you to have your event data automatically refreshed to ensure that your segmentation strategy is using the latest data available.

What are some examples of event data?

Red asterisks (*) indicate required fields for importing the event data.

Marketing Activities

Note:

• A Contact ID or Lead ID is needed to join Marketing Activity to a contact record.
• The "Activity Type Id" is required for Marketo connections. This is automatically mapped and translated into the corresponding Activity Type
• To relate this data to any marketing campaigns, the Campaign ID for your Marketing Activity must be mapped to the default "Campaign Id" field in the CDP.
• The required "Activity Type" field is used for Marketing Activity reporting in the Account 360 Dashboard.

Opportunities

Note:

• At least one field containing information about the event must be mapped - "Stage" is used in this example but may have any other names in your data. However, you must map your opportunities to the default "Stage" field in the CDP for Opportunity reporting in the Account 360 Dashboard.

• To relate this data to any sales campaigns, the Campaign ID for your Opportunities must be mapped to the default "Campaign Id" field in the CDP.

Sales Events

Note:

• Sales Events can be tied to contacts, leads, and/or accounts using a Contact ID, Lead ID, or Account ID. At least one field containing information about the event must be mapped - "Event" is used in this example but may have any other names in your data.
• If the Sales Event object is mapped to both a Contact ID and Account ID, but either ID is unpopulated in the Sales Event record, the record does not get imported (even if the other ID is present and exists)
• As a rule of thumb, do not map Contact ID's if you want to join Sales Event data solely to accounts. 

Tasks

Note:

• Tasks can be tied to contacts, leads, and/or accounts using a Contact ID, Lead ID, or Account ID. At least one field containing information about the event must be mapped - "Type" is used in this example but may have any other names in your data.
• If the Task object is mapped to both a Contact ID and Account ID, but either ID is unpopulated in the Task record, the record does not get imported (even if the other ID is present and exists)
• As a rule of thumb, do not map Contact ID's if you want to join Tasks data solely to accounts. 

How can I configure my event data in the CDP? 

To import your event data into the CDP, you must work with your customer success manager. Your customer success manager will help you do the following: 

(1) Work with our support team to configure your connector to automatically import data into the CDP. For information on using an automated connector, please read our help article. 

(2) Work with our support team to configure the activity groupings you want to track. For information on how to configure activity groupings, please read our help article.