.svg){kind=small}
Looking to make sense of your customer data? Meet customer data platforms, or CDPs for short. They’re the next step beyond traditional CRMs and a must-have tool for modern marketing.
With a CDP, you can pull together all your customer information, from email addresses to clicks, into one easy-to-use, unified customer database.
Many industry experts have highlighted the power of CDPs to give you a complete view of your customer journey.
They help you target your audience more effectively and turn hidden data into real insights.
So if you’re in marketing or advertising, a CDP could be the game-changer you’ve been waiting for.
What is a customer data platform (CDP)?
A customer data platform is software that gathers and arranges customer data from different sources into one customer database. This gives businesses a single source of truth for all customer-related information.
Why do you need a CDP?
Understanding your customers is no longer a luxury but a necessity for businesses that want to provide a consistent customer experience.
A customer data platform (CDP) serves as a key component in your customer data infrastructure. It offers a wide range of benefits that fit various business needs.
Get to know the reasons why investing in a CDP is a must. 👇
#1 Real-time customer interactions
CDPs offer real-time insights into customer behavior. It lets you react promptly to customer interactions. This is particularly useful for customer service teams who need immediate access to customer data to resolve issues efficiently. 💡
#2 Single customer view for individual customers
A CDP gives a complete view of every customer, merging data from many interactions. The combined profile lets businesses understand individual customers better and create personalized campaigns accordingly.
#3 Audience segmentation and privacy regulations
CDPs are great for audience segmentation. They create specific audience segments based on various criteria. And you don’t have to worry about privacy regulations – CDPs ensure customer data is handled responsibly and securely.
When using Xtremepush, creating user segments is a piece of cake. 🍰
#4 Predictive analytics and modeling
Using artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive models, CDPs predict customer behavior. AI is therefore useful not just content creation (and subsequent plagiarism checks) as part of your marketing strategy, but also driving your CDP for journey mapping and matching strategies with customer lifetime value.
#5 Integration with external systems
You can integrate CDPs seamlessly with external systems. For example, third-party data sources and other management platforms.
And smooth data flow across departments leads to a more accurate customer profile.
CDP vs DMP vs CRM: what’s the difference?
Before diving into the nuances, let’s clarify what CDPs, DMPs, and CRMs are. Also, learn how they have different roles in data management and customer engagement.
Here are the main differences:
01 Customer journey
CDPs are great at tracing the full customer journey and gathering data from multiple customer touch points, data management platforms (DMPs) concentrate on unknown data and brief campaigns, and customer relationship management (CRMs) handle relationships after acquiring a customer.
02 Unified customer profiles
CDPs create unified customer profiles based on a variety of data sources.They’re a bit different from CRMs, which primarily focus on transactional data, and DMPs, which deal with segmented audience data.
03 Personalized experience
CDPs use unified customer profiles to shape marketing strategies for a personalized experience. On the other hand, DMPs are less personalized, and CRMs focus on handling current relationships.
04 Source of truth
CDPs act as a single source of truth for customer data. They make certain that the marketing team has consistent and up-to-date information. DMPs and CRMs can offer data insights, but they don’t cover everything.
Core functions of a CDP
Check out these functions to make your marketing efforts and customer relationship management better than before.
✔️ Collect and unify all first-party data
CDPs collect and unify first-party data from many sources, even offline ones. And centralized customer database key for identifying and forming a single customer profile. Businesses get a full view of customer details and traits.
✔️ Customer data management
Effective customer data management is at the heart of any CDP. It involves keeping accurate customer records, maintaining data quality, and complying with privacy regulations.
Business users need this up-to-date data to make informed decisions.
✔️ Personalization
Using customer groups and prediction models, CDPs achieve large-scale personalization. It boosts customer loyalty and supports more targeted marketing campaigns, suggesting the best next steps.
✔️ Customer data activation
CDPs don’t just hold data. They put it to work. Through custom integrations with your technology stack, they can activate customer data sets in real time. It’s particularly useful for campaign management and delivering personalized customer treatments across various touchpoints.
✔️ Insights
CDPs give a sales team clear insights from collecting and analyzing customer data. The insights are often integrated into marketing clouds and used to optimize marketing efforts over a period of time.
The information can also include customer behavioral patterns and preferences, which are invaluable for potential customer’ acquisition.
What problems can CDPs solve?
➡️ Disorganized data
One of the most pressing issues businesses face is disorganized data. CDPs create a centralized customer database so that different departments can access it. Companies can eliminate data silos and guarantee everyone uses the same, accurate set of customer records.
➡️ Customer identification
Customer identification challenges? CDPs might solve them. They use identity graphs and identity resolution technologies to create a unified profile for each customer. It is a necessity for companies that interact with customers across multiple channels, both online and offline.
➡️ Simple segmentation
While simple segmentation can be done through other platforms, CDPs do take it to the next level. They use real-time data and predictive analytics to create dynamic segments useful for personalizing your advertising campaigns.
➡️ Incomplete customer views
Many businesses struggle to get a complete picture of their customers. CDPs collect data from many sources, including external ones, to give a holistic view of customers.
➡️ Compliance with privacy regulations
As data privacy worries grow, following privacy rules becomes harder. CDPs are designed to handle customer data in a way that complies with laws like GDPR, giving businesses peace of mind.
➡️ Inefficient marketing efforts
CDPs boost marketing, giving insights into how customers act and what they like. Thanks to the info, businesses can target their marketing campaigns better, leading to a higher ROI.
Solve them all with Xtremepush
But, to have all these problems solved, you need a solid tool. Xtremepush is the answer here.
How does it work?
Xtremepush CDP creates detailed customer profiles. It gathers data from multiple sources, so campaigns are always up-to-date.
The platform also gives a complete view of each customer, integrates with existing systems, and helps to drive revenue and grow customer relationships.
With over 20 years of experience, their team offers top-notch support and seamless integration with other tools.
Try Xtremepush! Request a demo.
What are the different types of customer data platforms?
Knowing the various CDP types makes it easier to pick the right one for your business goals and customer interactions.
Each type has special main features and extra skills made to tackle certain problems.
Analytical CDPs
Analytical CDPs focus on customer data analysis and provide deep insights into customer behavior over time. These platforms are often integrated with business intelligence tools and feature advanced analytics. And also, they’re perfect for businesses wanting to know more about customer attributes and likes.
Campaign CDPs
Campaign CDPs are made to manage outbound marketing campaigns on many channels – they offer ready-made integrations with advertising platforms and marketing systems. And don’t worry about grouping audiences and shaping ad groups – it is much simplified with campaign CDPs.
Operational CDPs
These CDPs deliver real-time CDP capabilities, such as customer identification and message delivery. They have a centralized database that stores data from multiple customer service channels.
The outcome? ➡️ Improved customer satisfaction, retention rates, and increase in conversion rate.
Enterprise-grade CDPs
They come with a robust set of features, including customer data integration, advanced identity resolution, custom pricing options, and more.
Big organizations (the ones looking for a robust, scalable solution) often choose these based on recommendations from the CDP Institute.
Compliance-focused CDPs
With more people worried about their data privacy, some CDPs put a heavy emphasis on compliance.
They stick to privacy laws and offer control over customer data. And it makes these CDPs ideal for businesses that put data safety and following rules first.
Final words
CDPs have become a powerful tool for businesses that want to better their customer interactions.
They give unmatched control over direct customer data, pulling it from offline paths and outside sources.
The ability to collect data is boosted by ready-made connections. It makes it easier to sync with multiple customer service channels and marketing systems.
What’s more, CDPs offer real-time capabilities, such as advanced identity resolution or custom pricing options. They all enable businesses to create amazing, personalized marketing campaigns with precision.
They are recommended by the CDP Institute for their robustness and versatility, as they provide businesses with the tools they need for effective customer data integration.
If you want to get customer insights, orchestrate customer journeys across channels, or simply improve customer retention, CDPs are equipped with a set of features to do this. They are just an indispensable part of the modern tech stack.
Businesses that choose the right type of CDP can not only optimize their marketing automation platforms but also decide well for good business results.
Want to give CDPs a go?
Use Xtremepush and revolutionize customer engagement and data management with real-time insights. Book a demo today!
FAQ
How do CDPs help in understanding customer preferences?
Customer data platforms (CDPs) collect data from different systems, like online reviews and customer purchases. This data is then analyzed to understand customer preferences. All to help businesses match their marketing automation systems for more powerful customer personalization.
What is the role of email addresses in CDPs?
Email addresses serve as one of the key customer identifiers in CDPs. They are stored in a central location within the customer databases and are useful for segmenting audiences and orchestrating customer journeys across channels.
How do CDPs integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) systems?
CDPs typically provide box integrations with different customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Then, you can build a more comprehensive customer profile, combining first-party data from even a free CRM with analytics from other analytics systems for a more rounded view.
Can CDPs help in reducing customer acquisition costs?
Yes, CDPs can cut customer acquisition costs by providing relevant insights into customer behavior. This lets businesses fine-tune their customer engagement strategy and put their efforts where they are most likely to turn anonymous individuals into customers.
How user-friendly is the user interface of a typical CDP?
The user interface of a CDP is made to be easy for both those good with tech and those not. With features like custom voice and calling capabilities, CDPs give the same experience across different user roles.
What are the advanced features of analytics CDPs?
Analytics CDPs cover a number of advanced features, such as product analytics, model scores, audience builder, audience management, and analytical applications. They are particularly handy for businesses looking to act on customer info and improve their overall business performance.
