A CDP is an integrated customer database that unifies a company’s customer data from online and offline channels to enable modeling and drive customer experience. CDP addresses the need for marketers to access, analyze and act on their customer data across multiple channels, devices and life cycle stages. It’s not there to create another database or source of customer data, but to synchronize customer data for personalization and journey optimization across all possible touchpoints.

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To be considered a CDP, it must:

Be manageable by a marketer and not an IT analyst.

Focus on known customers and prospects who have opted in to something or anonymous visitors to your site.

Unify customer data from disparate sources, linking identity, behavior, purchase and demographics together in a single record.

Activate data — not store it for posterity — by creating actionable customer segments.

Support real-time data streaming to take immediate action such as enable site or app personalization or trigger emails.

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A CDP is worth investigating if your organization:

Has a trove of customer data, names and contact information, purchase history and cross-device logins.

Wants to model and activate that data through personalized multichannel experiencesIs not interested in or already has a DMP for third-party data integration and programmatic media.

Has multiple-point execution tools that are not easily integrated.

Wants more (marketer) control than a CRM system provides

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A CDP is not a:

Master data warehouse i.e. all the data about a customer and the business.

Degree analytics dashboard.

Content / catalogue management system.

Holistic (online and offline) marketing orchestration tool.

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Top-Tier Vendors:

Lytics

Lytics connects a company’s marketing data about customers from multiple sources (e.g., structured, unstructured, anonymous and known profiles) and creates behavior-rich user segments (e.g., likely to churn, most active on mobile, coupon lover). These customer segments sync with a company’s marketing tools — from web-site personalization and ad retargeting to email marketing and content optimization — to improve marketing campaign results and reduce inefficiencies.

Lytics also offers built-in web personalization tools so marketers can easily execute campaigns in minutes.Other vendors work with only one or two types of data (such as customers who’ve signed in via a social media tool or provided an email address). Lytics builds a profile based on any fragment of customer information using sophisticated data science and conducts probabilistic matching to merge identities.

Tealium

Tealium “universal technology platform” collects data from every source and provides flexible options for the distribution of that data across desktop, mobile web, mobile apps, IoT and connected devices. Tealium EventStream, part of Tealium’s Universal Data Hub, is a lightweight data collection and delivery solution to manage all cloud based (server-side) data from one, central hub where anyone can orchestrate the data powering customer experience.

mParticlem

mParticle will collect and control customer data in one place and recognize your customers at every step in their journey. Personalize interactions across channels, partners, and screens.In the next couple of weeks, mParticle will be rolling out new consent management and data subject request management features to further help brands meet GDPR compliance standards.

Ensighten

Ensighten Pulse solution enables global brands to get a real-time copy of every customer interaction and every digital ad impression that they own. Ensighten Manage solution unifies customer data across brands, domains, mobile apps and display advertising  — all within a critical layer of security that ensures governance and data privacy.

Redpoint

RedPoint Global developed the concept of the “golden record” that enables a unified and complete view of a customer. Leading enterprises use RedPoint’s technology to help them optimize customer engagement and achieve sustainable profitable revenue growth.Treasure DataTreasure Data Enterprise CDP gives visibility into the customer, making data driven marketing a reality. Integrate all data across the martech stack – from any format, across any time period, create and unify audience profiles, activate campaign channels with better context