Guide to: Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
As marketing becomes more data-driven, understanding the customer has never been more crucial. But with more channels and data sources to contend with than ever before, it can be tough to make sense of all the information available.
A CDP is a software system that aggregates, processes, and activates customer data from a variety of sources. Think of it as a central repository of customer information that allows you to create a unified view of each customer’s interactions with your brand. This includes data from your website, mobile apps, social media, email marketing, CRM, and other sources.
How a CDP Works
A CDP integrates data from various sources into a single database, employing various algorithms to perform processes such as data cleaning, identity resolution, and segmentation. Once the data is consolidated and optimally organized, the CDP can activate the information for marketing activities, such as personalized campaigns, targeted messages, and product recommendations.
How Does a CDP Benefit Marketers?
CDP gives marketers the ability to create more targeted and personalized campaigns that are both effective and efficient. Because it centralizes data, a CDP can provide more accurate customer insights, which enable more strategic decision-making, better resource allocation and targeting, and improved ROI.
How Does a CDP Improve Customer Experience?
By gathering and presenting relevant customer data in real-time, a CDP enables businesses to provide better customer experiences across all channels. With accurate customer information, marketers can personalize messaging and provide relevant content at the right time, through the right channel to the right customer. This fosters a more meaningful and engaged relationship, resulting in improved customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
Most Relevant Articles
For further reading, try these articles first:
Realizing the Benefits of First- and Zero-Party Data for Marketers
Composable Customer Data Platforms
CMWWire: 3 Things to Consider Before Buying a Customer Data Platform
Books
House of the Customer by Greg Kihlström
Customer Data Platforms
To see a full list of platforms, you can visit our Platform Directory.
From our Directory:
Oracle Unity CDP
Combine customer data from online, offline, and third-party sources to create a single, dynamic, real-time view of each customer. Oracle Unity Customer Data Platform (CDP) applies machine learning to prescribe the best next action within any existing business processes.
Optimizely Data Platform
Formerly Zaius, Optimizely Data Platform is a customer data platform that integrates with Optimizely’s digital infrastructure and serves as a full-functioning CDP.
Summary
With a number of different CDPs to choose from, it can be a challenge to pick the right platform for your business. When making a choice, it’s important to take into account your specific business needs. Look for a CDP that can integrate with your existing tech stack and data sources, and offers robust analytics and reporting features that provide deep insights and data visualization, making data actionable.
A customer data platform is an indispensable tool for businesses that want to deliver superior customer experiences and drive engagement and loyalty. By consolidating customer data from multiple sources and making it easily accessible and actionable, a CDP can lead to more insightful decision-making, more personalized marketing, and ultimately, more successful business outcomes. As competition for customer attention continues to intensify, a CDP can provide a competitive advantage for savvy marketers who understand the importance of data-driven insights.