Home / How Stradem fits
Stradem works alongside the platforms you run
Your platforms hold the data and deliver the messages. Stradem compares initiatives across marketing, product and sales and shows which to start with. Your platforms run the approved actions, and your team makes the decisions.
The relationship
How information and decisions move through your systems
Your data
- Customer data in your customer data platform or data lake
- Journey, campaign and channel results
- Experiment and test results
- Finance and cost data
A small or partial data set is enough to start.
Stradem
Where to activate, and what it returns
- Values every option.
- Shows where to activate first.
- Shows where your stack performs best.
- Records each decision with its assumptions.
What your team gets
- The customer groups worth activating first
- An action your team can deliver and test
- A value estimate for each option
- Where your stack performs best and what to change
- A decision log with the assumptions and result
Your platforms and teams run the approved action, and the results return to Stradem. See how Stradem fits alongside your platforms
What each system does
Your platforms do their jobs. Stradem compares the investments across them
Many platforms now offer decisioning, optimization and reporting. Stradem works on the question that connects them: which initiatives to start with, and what each one was worth.
| System | What it does | What Stradem adds |
|---|---|---|
| Customer data platform and warehouse | Customer profiles, identity, audiences and consent | The customer groups worth activating first, found from the counts and outcomes in your data |
| Journey and decisioning platforms | Choosing, timing, testing and delivery of messages and offers for each customer | Helps your team decide which initiatives to start, and gives the platform owner an approved brief |
| Analytics and experimentation | Reporting, metric definitions, test assignment and gain measurement | The test plan, and what the measured result was worth in dollars |
| Marketing measurement | Measures and models marketing performance, and supports budget planning and optimization | Uses existing measurement as evidence to compare specific initiatives and delivery requirements across marketing, product and sales |
| Finance and planning | Budgets, costs and the numbers of record | One comparison of cost, return and readiness across opportunities |
| Product, sales and service teams | The actions outside marketing | A place for those actions to be compared on the same basis as an offer |
Journey platforms and next-best-action
Your platforms choose customer treatments. Stradem helps your team decide which initiatives to act on first
Journey and customer decisioning platforms choose treatments, optimize goals and measure gain. Stradem works one level up, on initiatives that compete for budget and delivery capacity across teams. An initiative can use a journey platform, a sales process or a product change.
| Question | Journey and decisioning platforms | Stradem |
|---|---|---|
| What should this customer see now? | Decides in the moment and delivers it | Helps your team decide which journeys and offers to start, with their safeguards |
| Where should contact change? | Uses rules and decisioning models to select and optimize customer treatments within the platform | Helps identify which changes merit investment and testing, including their cost, delivery requirements and expected additional value |
| Which initiative gets the budget and the team's time? | Provides the capacity and reach to build a journey | Compares journeys, product changes and sales actions by value, return and whether the team can start |
| Did it work? | Reports journey metrics and gain by group | Measures what the initiative added in dollars and records the decision |
In the worked example, a next-best-action engine refines which engaged account sees the second-product offer. The offer program, an onboarding fix and added sales coverage compete for the same budget.
An approved brief the journey owner builds from
The implementation brief lists what the journey owner needs to build the action. The owner builds it in the platform and the platform runs it.
- Audience ruleThe eligible accounts, defined in your customer systems.
- Offer, timing and exclusionsWhat the customer sees, when, and who stays out.
- SafeguardThe limit at which the journey pauses, such as a weekly unsubscribe rate.
- Test planThe comparison group, the sample, the metric and the results date.
- OwnersA sponsor, a delivery owner and an owner of the measure.
Customer data platforms
How Stradem sits on top of your customer data platform
A customer data platform or data lake unifies profiles and defines audiences. Stradem works from that data. It finds the customer groups worth activating first and values each opportunity in dollars. Customer-level records stay in the platform.
| Question | Customer data platform | Stradem |
|---|---|---|
| Who is in this segment? | Holds profiles, identity and audience definitions, and counts customers in each segment | Receives the counts, with usage, order and renewal measures, as agreed aggregate files |
| What is it worth to act? | Supplies the audiences an action can reach | Values the opportunities, checks the return the team needs and whether each can start, and recommends where to begin |
| Did it work? | Reports outcome totals by group | Measures what the action added against the comparison group and records the decision |
What a first engagement needs
Agreed aggregate data and an owner for each platform
The Value Assessment starts from files your team already produces. A small or partial data set is enough. We check whether they hold the segment definitions, aggregate measures and outcome data the decision needs, and we agree an exchange method for each layer.
- Customer dataCounts of accounts or customers, with usage, order and renewal measures. Stradem builds the segments, or starts from yours.
- Costs and limitsProgram cost, capacity and budget for each action under consideration.
- OutcomesConversion, retention or margin totals by group and period.
- OwnersOne named owner for the data, the platform and the action.
Questions about fit
Is Stradem a customer data platform or data lake?
Your customer data platform or data lake holds the profiles and audiences. Stradem sits on top of it, takes in agreed aggregate counts and outcomes, and shows where to activate first.
What if we have a small or partial data set?
Start with what you have. One audience, one journey or one channel is enough for a first comparison and test. Stradem shows which data gaps to close first, and the comparison grows as your data does.
Why not build this ourselves on our existing platforms?
Your platforms store the data and run the actions. Stradem adds what sits between them: it compares initiatives on one basis, values each one, shows what each needs to start and measures what each added. A team can build this itself. Building it also means staffing and maintaining the models, the workspace and the decision log. Stradem provides them ready to use, and the Stradem team has the first decision ready in three to four weeks.
Does Stradem use propensity models?
Stradem's standard approach uses aggregate measures and the results of propensity models your team already operates. It uses those results to prioritize opportunities and design tests. Stradem finds customer groups with room to grow from agreed measures of usage, purchase, renewal and cost. A customer who is likely to buy may buy without an offer, so the test measures what the action added.
We already measure marketing performance. What does Stradem add?
Measurement platforms measure and model marketing performance and support budget planning. Stradem takes those results as evidence. It values the next initiatives across marketing, product and sales, including initiatives outside media, such as an onboarding fix, and shows what each needs to start. Every decision goes into the decision log with what it was expected to return and what it returned.
Does Stradem need access to customer profiles?
Stradem works from agreed aggregate counts, costs and outcomes. Customer-level eligibility and assignment stay in the platform and in your other customer systems. The first engagement starts from files your platform can export, and read-only connections are scoped with the platform owner.
Does Stradem replace a journey platform or a next-best-action engine?
Your journey platform and your engine keep choosing and delivering the treatment for each customer. Stradem helps decide whether the program around them is worth starting, issues the approved brief for the one selected and reads what the program returned. An onboarding fix in the product or added sales coverage can return more than a journey, and the comparison shows it.
Do we need to replace anything?
Your platforms stay in place. Stradem works from the evidence they produce and returns briefs for your teams to build in them.