Your BuyerGenomics (“BG”) database will generate actionable customer intelligence and help your organization methodically grow sales and profitability. 


All we need from you is the record of:

  • Who Bought
  • What Product
  • For How Much
  • When
  • Through What Channel


This document is for you to reap the benefit of BG as soon as possible.


Implementation Process


Roles

Setting up BuyerGenomics is a straightforward process, generally measured in days, not months. For smooth implementation of BG, we recommend you to identify an executive sponsor and a data manager, requiring modest time from each.


  • The executive sponsor will play an important role of providing marketing strategy and directions in the use of BG, ensuring seamless transition to best practices of intelligent marketing operation.
  • The data manager will be responsible for delivery of new and historical data from various systems on the client side. The key responsibility of this role is to ensure proper alignment of data, while most of the heavy lifting will happen on the BG side.


A dedicated account manager on the BuyerGenomics side will be working closely with your team, answering day-to-day questions regarding data transfer and providing guidance in everyday usage of the toolset.


Implementation Process

Initial BuyerGenomics implementations are completed in less than 2 weeks from the kickoff date with all involved parties, granted that we receive usable transaction history files in a timely fashion.


The following are the key steps of typical BG implementation process:
 

  • Kickoff meeting with executive sponsor, data manager, and BG Account Manager
    • Data requirement review and QA session
    • Finalize data transfer method
    • Discussion regarding ongoing data feed from the client
    • Review of custom fields such as various item details and descriptions
  • Initial “historical” data transfer via mutually agreed upon method
    • Data quality assurance (by BG)        
    • Initial data audit report (shared if necessary)
    • Follow up meeting if there are any issue with data
  • Data load (by BG)
    • BuyerGenomics launch
    • Q&A session
    • Initial review and training with active and potential users
    • Continuous data feed and BG update


Input File Format

Our goal is to minimize your involvement in file conversion and transfer. Please let us know if you have any question regarding file or data formats.

  • Plain text files are preferred, but please let us know if other formats should be considered for your convenience. The following formats are preferred:
    • Tab or pipe delimited ASCII 
    • Comma (with “ ”) delimited ASCII
    • Fixed fielded ASCII text file (separate data layout including field position and length required)
  • Please name the data file as MyCompany_YYYY-MM-DD_YYYY-MM-DD, containing the client’s name and the period covering the transactions submitted in the file. 
    • For example, a tab-delimited file with transactions ranging from Jan 15, 2016 to Feb 15, 2017 would be: MyCompany_2016-01-15_2017-02-15.txt.
    • Provide header row with variable descriptions, or separate data layout including field descriptions.


Data Requirements

In order to provide a 360 degree customer view based on their behavior, BG requires personally identifiable information and transaction data. Please note:

  • Customer, transaction and item details can be shared in 3 separate tables in a relational structure, or pre-merged (or denormalized) format on an item level. Required elements are:
    • Customer information: Name, address, email, phone number, and if available, customer ID
    • Transaction information: Unique transaction ID, transaction date, transaction amount
    • Item information: SKU number, item descriptions, product categories (up to 3 levels), plus user specific item feature fields (up to 6 fields) 


Important: The date range must be set using the Transaction Date in the Transaction Table, and only corresponding Customer and Item records should be selected based on it.


  • Returns are considered unique transactions. Please let us know if the transaction IDs are reassigned or re-used for return transactions.
  • Please include field names in the header rows as outlined in the detailed data specifications below..


Important Notice Regarding Data Originating EU Countries and U.K.

Starting May 25, 2018, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) goes in effect in the EU and the U.K., providing data subjects control of their personal data and imposing strict rules on those hosting and processing such data anywhere in the world.


All merchants who operate in the EU and the U.K. must comply by communicating their clear intention and purpose for data storage and usage in no obscure terms, and must purge records upon request. 


Provided with explicit “opt-in” tag (see the attached input data layout below) for each customer from the EU and the U.K., BG will store customer information and their transaction data.  


Records came in only with email address without valid address or country of origin, BG will examine the domain name of the email address (e.g., xxxx.co.fr from France), phone number (with country and area code), and IP address (if provided) to identify the origin to best of our ability.


Records without opt-in tag from the EU and the U.K. will be isolated from BG, and may be purged depending on the client’s data privacy policy regarding GDPR.  Records from unknown origin will be determined during the onboarding process, as each client’s footprint differ greatly.


Please let us know if you have any questions regarding GDPR and data storage in BG.


The following includes specific data elements that are required.


Customer Data


#



Data Field



Description



Example



Notes



1



CustomerID



Unique identifier provided for each customer.



10000023D



Must be provided if customer table is not merged with transaction records.



2



Email



Customer email address.



john.doe@gmail.com



Notify us if multiple email addresses are available.



3



FirstName



First name of the customer.



John


 

4



LastName



Last name of the customer.



Doe


 

5



Address1



First line of the billing address.



123 Main Street


 

6



Address2



Second line of the billing address.



Apt. 1A


 

7



City



City of the billing address.



New York


 

8



State



State of the billing address.



NY


 

9



Zip



Zip code of the billing address.



10001



Pass as string to ensure leading zeros are not removed.



10



Country



Country of the billing address.



US



Provide country code listing if the country names are not spelled out



11



PhoneNumber



Phone number of the customer.



12345678910



Mobile number is preferred.



12



Birthday (optional)



Birthday of customer



1/31



If available < May violate privacy policies >



13



Anniversary Day (optional)



Wedding anniversary of customer



12/20



If available < May violate privacy policies >



14



Opt-in Flag



Opt-in indicator for data storage and marketing activities in accordance of GDPR in EU/UK



Y/N



Must be provided for buyers from EU & UK.



15



Opt-in Date


(for GDPR)



Data and marketing opt-in date in accordance of GDPR in EU/UK



5/31/2018



Recommended for buyers from EU & UK; Needed for email-only “hand-raisers” in U.S.



16



Data Source


(for GDPR)



Source of personal data



Web purchase, webinar, survey, email promotion, etc.



Recommended for buyers from EU & UK



17



Language of Opt-in (for GDPR)



Language of opt-in customer



French, German, Italian, etc.



Recommended for buyers from EU & UK



Transaction Data


#



Data Field



Description



Example



Notes



1



CustomerID



Unique identifier provided for each customer.



10000023D



Must be provided if customer table is not merged with transaction records.



2



TransactionID



Unique identifier provided for each transaction.



R561248385456



Please note if new TransactionID was assigned for returns.



3



TransactionDate



The timestamp of the transaction.


Date-time:Thu, 21 Dec 2000 12:01:07 +0200

Unix timestamp:

977407267

Date-time/timestamp preferred; date-only acceptable.


If timezone not included, the default EST timezone (-0500) will be used.



4



TransactionStatus



The status of the transaction.



Completed

Returned

Pending



Standardize by client convention.



5



TotalAmount



Total US dollar amount paid for the transaction by the customer.



121.58



Mandatory field.



6



DiscountAmount



Total US dollar amount discounted from transaction by promo/coupon.



14.47



% Discount will be calculated based on this field.



7



TaxAmount



Total US dollar amount paid in tax.



7.13



0 if not applicable.



8



ShippingAmount



Total US dollar amount paid for shipping.



0



0 if not applicable.



9



TransactionChannel



The channel through which the transaction was conducted.


W: Web

R: Retail Store

P: Smart/Mobile Phone

T: Telephone

M: Mail

O: Other


Notify us if different values are used.



10



PaymentMethod



The method of payment used by the customer.



G: Gift Card

V: Visa Card

M: Mastercard

A: American Express

D: Discover Card

C: COD/Cash

P: PayPal

Y: Apple Pay

W: Google Wallet

O: Other

Notify us if different values are used.




Gift Card takes priority over other payment types.



11



Affiliation



Location/site where the transaction was conducted.



Madison Avenue



Standardize by client convention.



Product Data



#



Data Field



Description



Example



Notes



1



TransactionID



Unique identifier provided for each transaction.



R561248385456



Must be provided if not merged with transaction records.



2



SKU



Unique identifier of the item purchased.



88881846SM



SKU number for the item, excluding variant features (e.g., size, color, shape, etc.)



3



Price



The US dollar price of the item at time of purchase.



5.23



Notify us if price at time of purchase is not available.



4



Quantity



The quantity of the item purchased.



4



Number of units.



5



ItemName



The name of the item purchased.



Crew-cut T-shirt



Standardize by client convention.



6



ItemDescription



The description of the item purchased.



Men's Blue Crew-cut T-Shirt Size Medium



Standardize by client convention.



7



ItemCategory1



The first-level category for the item.



Mens



Standardize by client convention.



8



ItemCategory2



The second-level category for the item.



Shirts



Standardize by client convention.



9



ItemCategory3



The third-level category for the item.



T-Shirt



Standardize by client convention.



10



Item Features (optional)



Additional item features, such as size, color, designer, etc.


Size: XL
Color: Blue

Designer: XYZ, etc.


Up to six (6) unique additional item feature fields can be accepted.