Buyer's Guide: Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)

How to choose a customer data platform (CDP)

With the latest developments in customer data platforms (CDPs), it’s easier than ever to connect with your customers on a true one-to-one level. But how do you know which CDP solution is right for you?

Brands need a CDP that does more than just organize customer data. To drive better reach and maximize your digital media activation, you need a CDP that can enhance your data to its highest potential.

3 steps to finding the right CDP solution for your business

This buyer's guide will help you navigate the process and find a platform that will give you a 360-degree view of your customers, organize and enhance your first-party data and enable better insights and granular measurement.

1. Organize and enhance your existing first-party data

A CDP equipped with identity resolution allows brands to unify, harmonize and cleanse their first-party data. This is critical since customer data is often inaccurate, duplicative or incomplete.

Identity resolution fills in gaps about a customer beyond what you know about them, including what they browse, buy and engage with outside your channels. Some CDP providers go a step further by providing proprietary data that can be used on day one to build robust profiles.

it's also stronger than identity matching. Identity resolution connects real people who might have multiple emails or devices. Matching typically relies on digital identifiers and can be unreliable in producing valuable and predictive signals.

2. Get a 360-degree view of your customer

Having that extended view of who your customer is beyond your owned channels gives marketers the power to personalize their messages in ways that resonate. Augmented data bolstered by things like demographic, psychographic and buyergraphics builds more complete profiles on the person-level.

A better customer experience starts with a cohesive, intelligent and non-fragmented omnichannel approach. Brands can reach their customers with relevant messages and creative on all devices, even connecting paid and owned campaigns.

A persistent, unified view of an individual means you can speak to their customers about the right products on the right devices at the right time. It also illuminates the customers who have perhaps fallen off: people who are seasonal shoppers, people who have gone to a competitor, or people who are strong in-market candidates for a product you hadn't previously thought to market them.

3. Enable better insights and granular measurement

Thanks to unified data, brands can measure campaign efficacy and draw insights back into what they already know about an individual. This allows marketers to construct a multistep journey with real-time personalization across all channels to optimize performance and engagement, and then analyze those results in real-time to adjust or double-down on a strategy depending on its efficacy.