{"id":19828,"date":"2021-08-31T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fullcontact.com\/?p=19828"},"modified":"2023-06-27T15:31:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T21:31:25","slug":"cdps-what-is-a-cdp-and-what-to-look-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullcontact.com\/blog\/identity-resolution\/cdps-what-is-a-cdp-and-what-to-look-for\/","title":{"rendered":"CDPs: What is a CDP and what to look for?"},"content":{"rendered":"

aCDPs: What is a CDP and what to look for?<\/h2>\n

Customers\u2019<\/span> increased desire for personalized messaging<\/span><\/a> comes with the need for you to better understand them. It can be difficult to sift through and connect the disparate silos storing behavioral data, demographic data, and transactional data. This can make it challenging for you to connect a customer service call to a previous purchase to an unauthenticated website visit and create that personalized customer experience across channels and devices.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The promise of a CDP is connecting all of these touchpoints.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Defining a CDP<\/h3>\n

While there are many different definitions of a CDP floating out there, <\/span>t<\/span>he CDP Institute<\/span><\/a> defines a Customer Data Platform as \u201cpackaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hubspot<\/span><\/a> simplifies that definition further, explaining that a CDP \u201caggregates and organizes customer data across a variety of touchpoints and is used by other software, systems, and marketing efforts. CDPs collect and structure real-time data into individual, centralized customer profiles.\u201d And as Gartner\u00ae<\/span> states<\/span><\/a>, \u201cA CDP is a marketing system that unifies a company\u2019s customer data from marketing and other channels to enable customer modeling and optimize the timing and targeting of messages and offers. It includes a user-friendly interface that helps activate customer data and enable personalization across multiple channels.\u201d [1]<\/span><\/p>\n

By organizing your customer data from various sources, a CDP can help you understand your customers by consolidating data from various touchpoints, helping you create a 360-degree picture of how they engage on your website, your app, your platform, etc.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How You Can Use a CDP<\/h3>\n

Imagine a prospect, Jessie Lee, performs an organic search for vitamins on her laptop and finds your website. A couple of days later, she visits your website again, this time from her phone. A week later, she signs up for your newsletter. Upon receiving your newsletter the following month, she signs up for a free trial. After the free trial expires, Jessie doesn\u2019t visit again for a few weeks but then signs up for a monthly subscription using a different email address.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Without a CDP, these touchpoints are stored all across your marketing ecosystem. This means you might not make the connection between all of Jessie\u2019s engagements and preferences. But a CDP can act as the first step in a<\/span> persistent<\/span><\/a> Identity Resolution<\/span><\/a> solution, unifying and consolidating all of your data points into a single customer view to better inform you of Jessie Lee\u2019s engagements.<\/span><\/p>\n

What to Look for in Your CDP<\/h3>\n

Gartner research revealed that, \u201cGartner\u2019s 2020 Marketing Technology Survey finds that marketer adoption of customer data platforms (CDPs) continues to grow: 87% of respondents fully deployed or are deploying a CDP, up from 74% in 2019.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0[1]<\/b><\/p>\n

Determining the best CDP for your business needs comes down to what you need it for. <\/span>Sure, you\u2019re going to consolidate your customer data into a unified database–but what\u2019s your ultimate goal doing so?<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you trying to:<\/span><\/p>\n