Customer Data Platforms

Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are on everyone’s lips. However, the number of providers and the definition of what constitutes a CDP is rather confusing. We provide an overview.

Salesforce CDP Segmentation — *CDPs like the Salesforce CDP offer wide-ranging capabilities for organizing unstructured data. (Image source: salesforce.com)*

What functionalities should an application cover so that it can legitimately be called a CDP? Not so easy to answer, since – as is so often the case – the development of the functionalities precedes the classification of the tools. The CDP Institute site(https://www.cdpinstitute.org/) lists four different types of CDPs:

Data CDP
These include systems that collect data, assign customer profiles based on IDs, and then make this data available to external systems via interfaces.

Analytics CDP
These systems provide analytical applications that allow customer data to be segmented, visualized, and enriched with machine learning, predictive modeling, and more. The segments with the enriched data are then transferred to external systems via interfaces.

Campaign CDP
Campaign CDPs help with granular segmentation and detailed assignment of campaign codes or treatments. These are then commonly used to control campaigns across multiple channels.

Delivery CDP
This includes systems such as traditional email service providers, mobile engagement apps, or even CRM systems. For these providers, the above-mentioned CDP functionalities were added at a later point in time.

At fluent:cx, we see Salesforce as the platform that covers all types of CDPs in one. But different departments and the different use or provision of data in turn leads to heterogeneous perspectives on the topic within a company.

From our perspective, a CDP is not necessarily the tool that can solve all data problems in an organization. A CDP cannot necessarily replace a data lake – or warehouse – in all cases, and a master data management (MDM) solution also plays an important role in some cases.

CDP Data Stream — *Salesforce CDP consolidates data sources and allows for a unified view. (Image source: salesforce.com)*

Nevertheless, for a marketer, an intuitive CDP is an important tool and is therefore, in our view, one of possibly several components of a data-first foundation in a company.

With our expertise, we want to help them translate their requirements and thoughts on CDPs to the Salesforce Platform.

Data Tools Analysis: What systems are in use today that may fall under the definition of a CDP and what tasks do they perform today?
Data Sources Analysis: Which data about the customer are available today and which are relevant for the marketer?
Data Insights Analysis: What analytics such as scoring, machine learning insights, etc. are already available or needed?
Segmentation analysis: Which segments or data are needed? What falls under segmentation or personalization (macro vs micro segmentation)?