The Unified Customer Database (UCD) is the core Customer Data Platform (CDP) that powers all Insider One products. It enables every product to operate on a single, unified customer behavior history collected from:
- Third-party tools (via user data upserts)
- Online channels (web, mobile app)
- Offline channels (such as call centers or in-store systems)
All connected data sources contribute to a single customer profile. For more details on how data is collected, refer to the Data Ingestion article.
How does the Unified Customer Database work?
The database stores customer behavior data from different sources and unifies it based on identifiers, which can be anything particular to the user (email address, phone number, user ID, etc.). UCD stores events and attributes, the first of which can have parameters.
Events are what users do on all online and offline channels, which can cover add-to-carts, purchases, visits, logins, etc. For instance, a “Purchase” event has parameters such as “Product Name”, “Product Color”, or “Product Size”. Attributes enable you to collect users' information, such as age, gender, birthday, and singular items for each user. For instance, “Last Visited Product” is an attribute in the “Visit” event. If any user is logged in with the same identifier (e.g., an email address) on web and app channels, attributes such as “Last Visited Product” and “Last Visited Page” can be unified.
When User A browses the same business from different digital assets, the last-visited product is updated for this user on all online and offline channels. New events such as “Purchase,” ”Add to Cart,” and ”Custom Event X” are recorded to the respective user profile upon being triggered on all online and offline channels.
Why UCD matters
By combining events and attributes from all connected channels, the Unified Customer Database enables:
- Cross-channel segmentation
- Accurate targeting
- Consistent campaign execution
- Personalized user experiences at scale
This unified data foundation allows Insider One products to deliver relevant, timely, and behavior-driven experiences that increase engagement and conversion rates.
Use cases
You can leverage Insider One's Unified Customer Database in various use cases as follows:
- Send emails to the users who did not open their app in a specific period of time and remind them of the app's benefits to regain and retain them.
- Send an App Push to users who did not open/click any Emails or Web Pushes within a specific period to keep them engaged with your brand.
- Take users who sign up on the website on an Architect journey and send an email to drive them to install your app. After 7 days, if the user has not installed the app, send another message (e.g., Email, Web Push, etc.) to nudge them to install the app.
- Send a Web Push to users based on your CRM data (e.g., loyal customers, risky customers, etc.) to retain them with personalized product recommendations.
- Export raw user data and import it to your own tools to run business intelligence analysis or update your CRM systems.
- Get the attributes and events of a user to send personalized messages from your own messaging solutions.
- Check whether a user belongs to a specific segment to target them in your own engines (e.g., website content management tools).