Audience research
Part of How to research customer data platform buyers in England without manufacturing a persona
Customer data platforms buyer personas: research method
A research method for customer data platforms buyer personas, using role hypotheses, traceable evidence cards and UK data-protection safeguards.
Research on customer data platforms buyer personas should begin with the decision being studied, not a fictional biography. For example, a team assessing Salesforce Data Cloud, Adobe Real-Time CDP or Twilio Segment might need to understand who defines an audience, who manages data flows and who approves a use. These are examples of platforms, not endorsements or a comparison. Treat each role as a hypothesis until traceable participant evidence supports it.
What to take away
- Proto-personas are evidence cards for a stated decision, not fictional people with invented biographies.
- Every card needs traceable source records, contradictions kept visible and a scheduled review date.
- Promotion to a research summary requires a declared sampling frame, stable eligibility rule and independent review.
- Do not infer protected characteristics from a name, photograph, postcode or online behaviour.
- Retire a card when the workflow, authority, regulation, technology or evidence base changes.
Use a blank evidence card
Complete these fields only from traceable research:
Evidence card fields
- Decisionexact customer-data choice
- Organisation eligibilityEngland rule
- Respondent rolebuyer to participant
- Authoritydecide, advise, operate, observe
- Evidenceworkflow record or observation
- Frictionrecent failure, delay, uncertainty
- Constraintsrules, systems, access, timing
Field / Required record
- Decision
- The exact customer-data choice being considered
- Organisation eligibility
- England geography rule, function and recent qualifying event
- Respondent role
- Accountable buyer, procurement, privacy, security, governance, operator, analyst or affected participant
- Authority
- What the respondent can decide, advise, operate or observe
- Evidence
- Workflow record, document or direct observation supplied with permission
- Friction
- A specific recent failure, delay or uncertainty, in the participant's terms
- Constraints
- Confirmed rules, systems, access, timing and dependencies
- Contradictions
- Evidence that does not fit the emerging pattern
- Sample and dates
- Frame, eligible and responding denominators, field period and method
- Limits and expiry
- What is unknown and when the card must be reviewed
Keep the prompt, participant statement, observed evidence and editorial interpretation in separate columns. A respondent's account may be accurate and still describe only one setting. A pattern in several interviews does not establish its prevalence among England businesses.
Worked example: CDP audience activation
This completed sample card is illustrative, not a report of interviews or a validated buyer persona. It makes a specific CDP decision visible while keeping unsupported findings and unknowns explicit.
- Decision:Should an England organisation use a customer data platform to build and activate an audience from website events?
- Organisation eligibility:An England organisation assessing a CDP; no sector or size rule is set, so recruitment eligibility remains provisional.
- Role hypothesis:A person accountable for the audience decision; an operations or data engineering role responsible for event flows and identity matching; and a privacy reviewer.
- Authority:Unverified. Establish who owns the business decision, approves the processing and authorises spend.
- Evidence:None supplied for this illustrative scenario. No participant statement or system record supports a claim about role, need or capability.
- Friction to investigate:Incomplete event data, identity corrections and hand-offs to activation destinations; these are research questions, not findings.
- Constraints to check:Purpose, data minimisation, accuracy, retention and a lawful basis for the processing.
- Status:Hypothetical and unvalidated. Do not present this card as a research finding.
Build role hypotheses, not characters
For a CDP selection or implementation, role hypotheses can follow the workflow: a marketing or customer-insight role may define audience purpose and activation needs; data engineering or operations may map data ingestion, identity resolution and corrections; and privacy may review the purpose, data flow and safeguards. These are recruitment hypotheses, not fixed job titles or proof of authority. An accountable-buyer card might ask who owns the decision and what evidence would change it. A privacy card might map approval questions for one purpose and data flow.
Role hypotheses, not characters
Accountable buyer
- Core prompt
- Which decision owned?
- Evidence sought
- What would change it?
- Excluded
- No assumed age
Operations
- Core prompt
- Recent identity correction
- Evidence sought
- Systems touched
- Excluded
- No personality
Privacy
- Core prompt
- Approval questions
- Evidence sought
- One purpose data flow
- Excluded
- No tech confidence
These are prompts for recruitment and analysis. They contain no assumed age, personality, technology confidence or appetite for risk.
Do not infer protected characteristics, disability, identity, residence or language from a name, photograph, postcode or online behaviour. If inclusive participation is relevant, ask what adjustment or format supports the task without forcing unnecessary disclosure. The Government Social Research guide to inclusive research practices offers public-sector prompts for recruitment barriers and participation. It does not authorise demographic profiling.
Keep provenance and privacy visible
The UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 apply to relevant personal-data processing in the UK. The ICO's A guide to the data protection principles covers purpose limitation, minimisation, accuracy and storage limitation. These principles support collecting only what the research decision needs and correcting a card when the source evidence changes. For each proposed processing activity, identify and document an appropriate lawful basis under Article 6 of the UK GDPR; the principles alone do not determine it.
Provenance and contradiction review
- Link card to authorised source records
- Apply purpose limitation and minimisation
- Schedule contradiction review before merging
- Preserve both conflicting records
- Check same version and task
- Mark disagreement without smoothing
Before merging evidence, schedule a contradiction review. One operator may describe a join as routine while the data owner records frequent manual exceptions; preserve both records. Check whether they concern the same version and task, then mark the disagreement without smoothing it into a convenient shared motivation.
A useful card tells the decision maker where evidence conflicts and which further observation could resolve it.
If an external researcher or analysis service handles participant material, determine roles from real decisions. The ICO's Controllers and processors guidance explains why contract labels are not enough. Record recipients, access, transcription, retention, export and deletion before hand-off.
Promote a card only with evidence
Mark every proto-persona hypothetical and unvalidated at creation. Promotion to a research summary requires a declared sampling frame, stable eligibility rule, field dates, instrument version, sufficient source records for the intended decision, contradictory cases and independent review. The label should remain evidence summary, not representative England buyer, unless a proportionate study supports that claim.
Retire a card when the workflow, authority, regulation, technology or evidence base changes. Keep prior versions so later readers can see which finding supported which decision. If no eligible participant evidence exists, leave the card blank. A neat fictional narrative is not a substitute for research.
Before you act
- Record the decision, role, authority, evidence and friction.
- Keep prompt, statement, evidence and interpretation in separate columns.
- Link each card to its authorised source records.
- Mark every proto-persona hypothetical and unvalidated at creation.
- Schedule a contradiction review before merging evidence.
- Leave the card blank if no eligible participant evidence exists.
Common questions
What is a proto-persona in this approach?
It is a set of hypothetical evidence cards, not a fictional person. Each card represents a role in a stated decision and records only traceable research, with no assumed age, personality, technology confidence or appetite for risk.
When can a card become a research summary?
Promotion requires a declared sampling frame, stable eligibility rule, field dates, instrument version, sufficient source records for the intended decision, contradictory cases and independent review. Until then the label stays hypothetical and unvalidated, not a representative England buyer.
How should conflicting evidence be handled?
Preserve both records, check whether they concern the same version and task, and mark the disagreement. Do not smooth it into a convenient shared motivation. A useful card shows the decision maker where evidence conflicts and which further observation could resolve it.
