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Customer data platform (CDP)


A customer data platform (CDP) is software that allows non-technical marketers to digitally manage customer relationships easily and efficiently. The term was coined by martech consultant David Raab in 2013. Raab defines CDP as any system that can gather customer data from multiple sources, identify when data is related to the same customer, perform predictive analytics using the database and allow marketers to use the results to make informed decisions.

A customer data platform combines customer data from internal and external sources in a variety of formats, including structured and unstructured data, to create a single profile for each customer. In addition to being able to handle queries like a regular database, CDP software can also include tools for data management and operations, along with ancillary features, such as analytics and reporting. Some CDP products also use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in their feature set.

Many vendors have begun to offer CDP products including Amperity, BlueConic, Evergage, Foshpa, Leadspace, Optimove and Segment.

How do CDPs work?

A CDP ingests data from internal and external sources to create a unified view of the customer. Ingested data may come from exported files, such as a CSV file, or from real-time access through APIs and microservices. Most CDPs are built on a NoSQL database.

Once data is collected, it is displayed in a centralized platform. A unique identifier is used to link all of an individual customer's information from multiple sources so that it is accessible to all relevant teams and systems. Marketers can then use the customer data to complete tasks such as measuring marketing campaign performance, conducting predictive modeling or performing customer segmentation.

Benefits of CDPs

A unified view of a customer and their relevant data provides an understanding of customer usage and behavior that is more complete and thorough compared to a set of discrete and separate views (e.g. per delivery channel). Having this unified and accessible view of customer data facilitates better customer experiences via personalization, product delivery and customer support.

CDP's provide fast and cost-efficient access to customer data for marketers and related business users. Because a CDP is commercially available, off-the-shelf software, it is quicker to implement compared to an internally-sourced, custom development project.

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