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Syntasa

Customer story · Media & Entertainment

Enterprise and behavioral data joined in two months, inside Sky's own Google Cloud.

Sky used Syntasa inside its own Google Cloud to bring complex Adobe Analytics data together with the rest of its customer data, so it can recognize each customer across every channel.

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Results

Every customer, recognized across channels.

  • Time to joined data2 monthsto join enterprise data with previously unused behavioral data
  • Channels4website, apps, on-demand TV and call center, joined around each customer

Context

One customer, many touchpoints.

Sky is one of Europe's leading entertainment and communications businesses. At the time of this work it served 22.5 million customers in 11 million households across five countries.

Customers meet Sky on its website, apps, on-demand TV and in the call center, and the digital platforms are tracked with Adobe Analytics. To understand customers' needs, Sky wanted to bring that clickstream into its Google Cloud and join it with the rest of its customer data.

The goal was to speed up the return on Sky's Google Cloud investment, and to feed the joined data back into marketing, service, sales and product decisions.

The constraint

Rich behavioral data, in all the wrong places.

  1. Untapped Adobe dataSky had vast amounts of Adobe Analytics behavioral data that was notoriously complex and difficult to process.
  2. Many sources, no single viewCustomers produce data every day across many sources and touchpoints, and Sky needed it combined in one place.
  3. No new tag, no new siloSky didn't want another SaaS product that would add a tag and silo its data further.
  4. The data had to stay in Sky's cloudAny platform had to run in Sky's private Google Cloud account, so the data raised no security or GDPR concerns.

Deployment

From clickstream to a customer you recognize.

Syntasa runs natively in Sky's Google Cloud and works with the martech and adtech tools Sky already had.

  1. Step 1: Make Adobe data ready to query

    Syntasa transforms, processes and enriches the Adobe Analytics data into tables analysts can query, inside Sky's Google Cloud.

  2. Step 2: Recognize each customer

    An identity graph joins each customer's behavior across devices and channels, and links it to CRM and viewing data.

  3. Step 3: Put models to work

    Data scientists experiment with open-source machine learning, then productionize the models and push the results back to Adobe's marketing tools.

“Syntasa lives natively in our GCP environment.”

Sky, on why it chose Syntasa, Launch + Learn, London

Outcome

What changed for the business.

  • One customer, every channel

    Sky recognizes each customer across channels and matches them to relevant experiences, improving both the experience and business results.

  • Joined in two months

    Enterprise data sources were joined with vast amounts of previously unused behavioral data in two months.

  • Insight for every team

    Analysts use behavioral and enterprise data at the individual level, to inform marketing, service, sales and product development.

  • Back into the marketing stack

    Model outputs flow back to Adobe Campaign, Audience Manager and Target, so the tools Sky already used get smarter.

“Syntasa and GCP have enabled Sky to dream again.”

Rob McLaughlin, Head of Digital Decisioning & Analytics, Sky UK

What came next

From joined data to personalization.

At Syntasa's Launch + Learn in London, Sky's Digital Decisioning team showed how it uses the joined behavioral data across owned and paid channels.

  • Sports recommendations that convert

    Sky reported 57% higher sports purchase rates when online browsing behavior was added to its sports-preference and upgrade-propensity models.

    57% higher purchase rate

  • In-life engagement

    Behavioral traits, such as having box sets but not watching them, drive retention messages to the customers who need them.

  • Audiences across owned and paid

    The same insight feeds audience targeting on Sky's own sites and apps, and in display, social and search.

FAQ

Questions teams ask first.

Resources

Hear it from the Sky team.

Case study · PDF · 4 pages

Read the full Sky story.

The full story, with the architecture, how it works, a timeline and the detailed results.

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