If you are trying to expand your global footprint by introducing your brand to the Latin American market, there are important elements to consider when it comes to your data strategy.
The following topics should be discussed during your planning sessions:
1. Data Maturity
Working with US-based companies for several years, one of the first questions I get is usually regarding the level of data availability in Latin America compared to the US. While data availability and granularity may not be at the same level as with the US, countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina score high in the global data ranking. Whether you are planning for customer segmentation, prospecting or analytics projects, the depth of the core data variables available can support your B2C and B2B campaign efforts.
2. Data Quality and Enhancement
Your database is one of your most valuable marketing assets. It should be continuously updated to enhance its data quality. Latin American data standardization services can vary from the automated to the manual level. The process scope can range from checking for missing data and up-to-date data validation to privacy compliance suppressions, depending on a particular country. Among some of the unique characteristics is the name field convention. It is typically more extensive to accommodate first/last name length variations and the address structure is not standard across all countries. The data audit and hygiene phase has proven to improve data accuracy, which in turn has an impact on data enrichment.
Data enrichment is a valuable marketing investment as it will improve your ability to target more effectively and will enable your marketing dollars to be directed where impact will be the highest. Data append match tests are a common practice and provide the client with an estimated projection of what can be expected in terms of availability of variables and saturation, once the process is run for the entire database.
3. Tax ID: The main match key
In Latin American countries, the tax ID for both consumer and business are the main matching key for data enhancement. While it may be easier to collect tax ID from businesses, the same may not apply to certain products/services on the consumer side. In this case, the data match can be done using proxy variables such as maternal/paternal name, birthday, and maiden name, in addition to name and addresses. However, lower match rates should be expected. In this case, geo-level data can be used to augment the data enhancement with variables such as presence of children, income, socio economic status, and education.
|
|
Chile |
Argentina |
Colombia |
Peru |
Brazil |
Mexico |
|
Tax ID |
RUT |
CUIT |
NIT |
RUC |
CPF |
RFC |
4. Marketing Channels
a. Telemarketing
Most consumers in the US would cringe at the idea of receiving a telemarketing call any time of the day regardless of the product or offer. In contrast to the US, consumers in Latin America are more open to the traditional marketing channels. Telemarketing is widely used and very effective. Email is developing and getting more sophisticated in some countries. Privacy laws and “Do not contact” lists exist for most of the LATAM countries, and some are stricter than others.
Compliance
| Country | Compliance surrounding the use of Historical Customer Data | Suppression File |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil | Of the LATAM countries, Brazil is the least restrictive. Best practice is to suppress against do no call list (Procon) | Procon (applies to landlines, mobile numbers) |
| Mexico | Consumer data protection laws require opt-in. A nationwide DNC list and process exists. Obtainment of consent is highly recommended. | Listas REPEP (applies to landlines, mobile numbers) |
| Argentina | Consumer data protection laws require opt-in. A nationwide DNC list and process exists. Obtainment of consent is highly recommended. | No Llame (applies to landlines, mobile numbers) |
| Colombia | Consumer data protection laws require opt-in. A nationwide DNC list and process does not exist. Obtainment of consent is highly recommended. | No government managed suppressions |
b. Digital Data
In addition to offline data, digital data can be used to expand the customer reach across each country. Data can be collected from the client’s website and segmented based on the marketing strategy. The tagging of main sites/landing pages is mandatory for campaign optimization and analysis of results.
For LATAM, more than 150 clusters can be provided when broken into variables such as age, gender, lifestyle, and income in support of data-driven media buy. Some examples of the taxonomies available are:
- Intent/credit card holders & online shoppers – regularly use credit cards to shop online, visit e-commerce or price comparison websites
- Interest/presence of children – households interested in children’s education, feeding, children’s health, apps, and games
Doing business in LATAM can create some unique challenges. Planning for each individual country’s nuances will exponentially accelerate your go-to-market strategy implementation and return on your investment.
