Customer Data Platform – An Expert Guide

ntroduction 

Any business’s expansion largely depends on its clients’ input. For the business to operate efficiently, it must manage several data types. Customer data is one of the most important types of data for product creation and targeting. Therefore, having a consumer data platform is now crucial for businesses. 

Several data points represent every consumer. These include facts about their age, preferences, location, basic demographic characteristics, browsing history, previous purchases, interactions on social media, etc. 

There is a need for a customer data platform because these clients are intricate persons, and it is crucial to develop a complete customer profile with all necessary data points. Infact, from 2021 to 2022, CDP global revenues rose by 25% to $2 billion. If the same pattern holds, revenue will reach $2.5 billion in 2023. 

What Is A Customer Data Platform?  

The CDP platform is a software program that collects client information from several sources and keeps it in a single database. The customer experience and marketing teams primarily use this to accelerate the acquisition of every byte of customer data from appropriate channels, devices, and platforms and its transformation into a unified customer profile. 

Companies frequently use CDP Software as the sole source of consumer information. This also serves as a reliable foundation for managing and reporting customer insights. This makes accessing data, whether it be online or offline, quite simple.  

How to Build a Customer Data Platform: 

There are four steps to creating a customer data platform: 

Integrate the Data: 

Any customer data platform should start by compiling all pertinent first-person consumer data into a single, centralized database. This incorporates information from several sources, as was previously mentioned. You should link the data based on common elements like client name, email address, or phone number. 

Clear and Arrange the Information: 

Next, you should confirm that the data is accurate and comprehensive. This entails locating and correcting any blank or incomplete fields, eliminating duplicates, and checking the data’s accuracy. The information can then be arranged according to consumer segment, location, or other crucial factors. 

Data Integration and Identification Clarification: 

You can gain helpful insights into previous consumer activities through data unification, also known as identity resolution, which combines data from many sources and links it to specific customer profiles. You can use automated systems to gather, analyze, and combine data from several sources into a coherent data collection. 

Enrichment of Data: 

The next stage is to streamline your data so that it is prepared and available information for everyone on your team after cleaning and matching it into a uniform format. In order to improve data quality, data enrichments include adding missing information and standardizing all merged data. A refined, better, and enhanced data grouping is obtained through the use of data enrichment. Your brand’s presence can be improved by having access to enriched data that gives you more understanding of your customers and business. 

Customer Data Platform Characteristics 

Many companies provide different CDP products, but the best of the best offer a few key qualities that every marketer should consider: 

On-the-go Solution: 

All consumer data is neatly organized and accessible. The CDP in marketing does not demand as much technical know-how as a traditional data warehouse, but certain technical tools are required to set it up and administer it. Salesforce’s CDP is one example. 

Individual Customer Data Visualization: 

The consumer data collected and maintained using a CDP can be visualized using specific data streams for each user. This 360-degree view of the customer is made possible by the fact that all client data is housed in one location. 

Types of Customer Data Platforms 

The following are the types of Customer Data Platforms: 

Data CDP: 

Customer data sets are combined into unified profiles by data CDPs. These are shared with third-party execution channels, such as content management systems and email delivery services (CMS). The data sources include the following: 

• The activities made on a website, via an app, or through other channels like live chat or digital assistants, as well as the regularity and duration of those encounters  
• Transactional information from POS or e-commerce platforms, such as customer purchases and returns 
• Demographic information, including the name, month and year of birth of the customer, and residence 

Analytics CDP: 

The data aggregation process is given an extra layer of intelligence by analytics CDPs, which also use predictive analytics for path mapping and AI-driven audience discovery. 

Studying customer behavior is necessary to make business decisions about marketing, product development, sales, and other areas. Your data would most certainly be disorganized and compartmentalized without a CDP, making it almost useless for customer analytics.  

You may identify which components of your marketing initiatives are most responsible for attracting new clients using attribution models.  Additionally, consumer analytics will contribute to the increased customer value of your product. That will lower your risk of client turnover and boost customer happiness – two objectives that most businesses constantly pursue. 

Campaign CDP: 

Campaign CDPs integrate cross-channel coordination capabilities with data aggregation and insight for highly segmented audiences. Any marketing effort that you wish to design, manage, and track in Salesforce is referred to as a campaign. The overarching objective is to produce something (a piece of content or an event, for instance) that increases demand for your goods or service. 

Marketing Cloud CDP: 

Marketing cloud CDPs are the most recent CDPs and are available from well-known cloud providers. A major contrast for marketers, especially at larger corporations, was that these organizations were best placed to develop a new set of tools to meet the need. 

Integrated solutions for managing the customer journey, emailing, phone, social media, site personalization, ads, content production, content management, and analysis of the data are all included in the Marketing Cloud. 

How Does Customer Data Platform help in Customer Loyalty?  

A healthy ecosystem is needed to create growth and retention. The pre-built features of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) connect to your current internal systems, making it reliable and useful in removing silos. 

Real-time customer data aggregation is done via a CDP. It can dependably segment and profile data, making the marketer’s job much simpler than it was even five years ago. 

Marketers can locate high-value consumers thanks to a CDP’s capacity to “slice and dice” customer data and place it in the appropriate context. These are clients who have expressed interest in your goods or services and are thought to be on the verge of buying. 

Conclusion 

CDP platforms are sophisticated pieces of software. When used properly, one could give you a lot of knowledge about your clients. After that, you can use what you’ve learned to improve your efforts in product development, sales, and marketing. As businesses move towards more data-driven decision-making, CDPs make more sense now than ever. The Executive Program in Strategic Sales Management by UNext can help you learn about CDPs and other concepts in modern-day sales management.