In our earlier weblog publish, we mentioned how ActionIQ companions with Databricks to deal with the important thing problem organizations face in reaching their personalization targets: discovering the stability between enterprise self-service and knowledge governance. ActionIQ, powered by its HybridCompute know-how, presents a singular integration sample that permits organizations to deploy their composable CDP straight inside the Databricks Lakehouse setting. This integration presents a number of benefits over the standard bundled CDP structure:
- It reduces operational burden by eradicating the necessity to copy knowledge throughout techniques
- It centralizes knowledge governance and ensures knowledge consistency
- It accelerates time to insights by way of a no-code interface for non-technical customers
We additionally outlined an instance workflow during which a retail model seamlessly leverages ActionIQ and Databricks, through the HybridCompute integration, to activate personalised content material and presents for goal prospects based mostly on their particular person buy propensity scores for varied product classes.
Integrating ActionIQ with Databricks through HybridCompute, Enabled by Question Pushdown
Now, let’s discover the important thing steps required to finish the workflow with ActionIQ’s composable CDP deployed inside the Databricks Lakehouse through a Linked Software. On this integration sample, ActionIQ connects to a buyer’s Databricks account to course of knowledge however would not persist knowledge exterior of the Databricks account.
The 4 high-level steps in establishing this connection are:
- Guarantee knowledge readiness in Databricks
- Arrange the Databricks connection inside ActionIQ
- Generate SQL queries from ActionIQ
- Use the question outcomes to drive buyer engagement
For every step, we’ll current each the idea and the implementation particulars utilizing the retail use case outlined above. Please word that the info utilized within the use case is artificial and has been created solely for the aim of demonstration and illustration.
Step 1: Guarantee Knowledge Readiness in Databricks
As a Buyer Knowledge Platform (CDP), ActionIQ implements a customer-centric knowledge mannequin that’s purpose-built round one dimension: your definition of a buyer. The queries generated by ActionIQ lead to an inventory, or viewers, of distinct person IDs of shoppers that meet sure standards, in addition to profile attributes and aggregated attributes that describe these prospects. Translated to SQL, these queries all include a GROUP BY non-customer-centric question.
Let’s assume the propensity scores are already calculated and recorded in a desk residing within the Databricks Lakehouse (Determine 1). Earlier than connecting Databricks with ActionIQ, your IT crew must mannequin the propensity scoring knowledge to make it query-ready in ActionIQ. This may be achieved by creating one other view of the desk, mapping the Databricks identifier household_key
to the aiq_id
anticipated by ActionIQ (Determine 2).
Step 2: Arrange the Databricks Connection inside ActionIQ
As soon as the propensity scoring desk is correctly modeled, your IT crew, particularly the CDP administrator, can proceed with establishing ActionIQ’s HybridCompute integration with Databricks.
To start, you’ll collaborate together with your Databricks administrator to ascertain correct permission management, guaranteeing a safe connection between the 2 techniques. It is suggested to create a separate Databricks service principal and grant ActionIQ entry to your Databricks assets. Moreover, you’ll arrange a separate SQL warehouse for question pushdown workloads. To permit ActionIQ to make use of the newly created warehouse, you’ll grant the ActionIQ service principal “Can Use” permissions on the warehouse and entry to the propensity scoring desk you want to use in ActionIQ.
Leveraging the Unity Catalog in Databricks Knowledge Explorer, you’ll be able to set granular permissions on the desk or column stage, specifying what customers can entry and make the most of later inside ActionIQ. Moreover, you might have the pliability to configure read-access-only permissions for the propensity scoring desk in Databricks. Which means customers connecting by way of ActionIQ can solely push down queries to knowledge from the desk and are restricted from making any modifications.
Following the permission set-up, your CDP administrator will begin configuring the HybridCompute integration straight inside ActionIQ’s self-service UI:
- Create a brand new Databricks connector in ActionIQ (Determine 3)
- Present your Databricks account info, together with Server Hostname, Token, Port and HTTP Path (Determine 4). These particulars will be accessed below Connection Particulars in your Databricks workspace.
- After coming into the required info, check the Databricks connection (Determine 5). In case of a check failure, an error message will likely be displayed to help with troubleshooting. Upon seeing the “connection profitable” message, finalize the configuration course of by clicking on “Add Connector” or “Save”.
Congratulations! You’ve got now efficiently arrange and configured ActionIQ’s HybridCompute integration with Databricks Lakehouse through native question pushdown. By pulling solely the desk metadata (schema, row depend) from Databricks Lakehouse, the propensity scoring desk is now discoverable from the ActionIQ person interface (Determine 6).
Step 3: Generate SQL Queries from ActionIQ
Now, your advertising and marketing crew can begin implementing the use case they envisioned. The first goal is to have interaction prospects who exhibit a excessive propensity rating for bread and a average propensity rating for mushy drinks. The technique entails concentrating on these prospects with a bundled supply designed to incentivize purchases in each product classes. The communication will likely be delivered by way of both e mail in a e-newsletter format or paid media channels, relying on the purchasers’ most well-liked channel.
Viewers Creation
Inside ActionIQ’s Viewers Middle module, your advertising and marketing crew can create the target market section immediately utilizing the intuitive no-code UI. This may be achieved by combining two primary audiences (determine 9) —— prospects with excessive propensity rating (>= 0.66) for bread (determine 7) AND prospects with average propensity rating (in between 0.33 and 0.66) for mushy drinks (determine 8).
At this step, additionally, you will create extra viewers segments mandatory for the cross-channel buyer journeys you propose to construct later. For instance, one among these segments will likely be particularly designed for e mail communications, figuring out the recipients of the personalised e mail e-newsletter. Moreover, you’ll create a separate section for paid media promoting. All of those viewers segments will be simply created with the ActionIQ Viewers Middle UI (Determine 10). The linked software seamlessly interprets these person actions into SQL queries which can be able to be executed within the Databricks Lakehouse.
Step 4: Use the Question Outcomes to Drive Buyer Engagement
When it is time to have interaction prospects utilizing this knowledge, ActionIQ robotically pushes the question all the way down to the Databricks Lakehouse through JDBC to return the related subset of data. Because the outcomes stream into ActionIQ, the question processor performs additional transformations to reach at a closing consequence set that is aligned with the person’s wants. It is necessary to notice that solely the info required to satisfy the person’s motion and use case is returned, and it’ll not be saved for longer than the job execution.
Journey Orchestration
Following the execution of the queries, the viewers section outcomes are returned again to the ActionIQ person interface. From there, your advertising and marketing crew can begin developing multi-stage buyer journeys to activate the bundled supply, that includes bread and mushy drinks, focused on the meant viewers. Inside the target market —— prospects with a excessive propensity for bread AND average propensity for mushy drinks —— the journeys will be additional cut up based mostly on prospects’ channel preferences as follows (Determine 11):
- If the shopper is a part of the emailable viewers section, they are going to obtain the bundled supply by way of the e-mail e-newsletter.
- For patrons not included within the emailable section, the bundled supply will likely be delivered through paid media promoting. Moreover, this group will be evenly distributed throughout totally different paid media channels for testing functions.
When you’re able to activate the designed journey, the target market segments and their related attributes will likely be written to the designated channel vacation spot (corresponding to Sparkpost, Fb, Pinterest, TikTok), through File switch or API.
Actual-Time Personalization
Moreover orchestrating personalised buyer expertise on outbound channels, your advertising and marketing crew can lengthen the identical stage of personalization in actual time to guests in your web site. By leveraging the ActionIQ Profile API, your personalization engine can retrieve the excellent buyer profile, encompassing all attributes and viewers membership, inside milliseconds (Determine 12). This empowers you to personalize the online banner supply for every buyer, presenting the related product class aligned with their excessive propensity rating.
Conclusion
As demonstrated within the step-by-step workflow above, this retail model efficiently achieved personalization with out knowledge replication by leveraging ActionIQ’s HybridCompute integration with the Databricks Lakehouse. On this state of affairs, entrepreneurs effectively operationalize the propensity mannequin developed and skilled in Databricks, with out having to maneuver or copy knowledge into ActionIQ. They will seamlessly uncover audiences and orchestrate constant, personalised experiences throughout channels utilizing ActionIQ’s user-friendly interface. The advantages for the enterprise are substantial, because the activation of personalised presents results in elevated buyer engagement, improved conversion charges, and finally, income progress.
to be taught extra about how a Composable CDP might help you scale your buyer knowledge operations? Attain out to the ActionIQ crew.