DATA

THE EXPLAINER CDPA 12-part monthly series by MarTech Advisor in associa�on with the CDP Ins�tute

Unpeeling what CDP means to you, one ques�on at a �me

WHAT IS CDP AND WHERE DOES IT FIT INTO MY DATA ECOSYSTEM?

Before we get into what a CDP is, lets set some context here. As a marketer, customer data is the fuel you need to keep the marke�ng machinery moving. Without data, your marke�ng efforts are guesswork at best. As marketers in the digital age are moving towards becoming data-driven marketers, your marke�ng programs too are increasingly data-driven. But you know all of this. So then, the ques�on is ‘what kind of data management core is the right engine to help achieve my marke�ng goals’?

Now, assuming a unified, or single customer view of known customers is important for you to meet your marke�ng goals more effec�vely, then the ques�on above may sound more like: ‘how do I store and organize the data I collect from my many customer touchpoints, in a way that it makes a unified view of the customer available for increasingly intelligent marke�ng ac�vi�es’?

CDP is one possible answer to that ques�on.

Your customer has many faces, but she expects a seamless experience with her favourite brands. Can a CDP help you get a unified view of all her interac�ons, responses and transac�ons across all mediums, channels and touch points?

© 2017 All Rights Reserved. MarTech Advisor.

Issue 1/12

Page 1

Marke�ng stack – components of which may or may not be integrated with each other

Customer touchpoints and interac�ons that are the outcome of the marke�ng ac�vity and which

provide back the input data for the central data system

The Heart of the marke�ng system is the Data. The ques�on is, A CDP, what kind of heart do you need?

warehouse, CRM or DMP – what will best help achieve your customer marke�ng goals?

WHAT IS A CDP? There are many ‘variants’ of CDP today, but at its core, a CDP will have the ability to gather and store PII from mul�ple internal and external sources into one place and allow you - the marketer - to leverage that for mul�ple customer -related purposes.

It has variously been called ‘the central nervous system’ ‘unified central of marke�ng and the customer view’ that delivers the most current intel about a unique customer from the - structured and unstructured; real �me and historical; anonymous and iden�fiable - data that is collected from mul�ple sources. It uses a single unique iden�fier for each customer and can link everything associated with that record back to it. In other words, a single view of all customer ac�vity, interac�ons and a�ributes.

The input is data gathered from all the touch points,the core will transform (sort, label, unify and store) this data; and will make this data available the outputto marke�ng applica�ons (analy�cs, marke�ng automa�on, social media marke�ng, website) with the ul�mate goal of selling more effec�vely and efficiently.

The idea is that a unified view of the customer will enable the brand to deliver unified brand experiences to those same customers.

David Raab defines CDP as: “a marketer-controlled system that builds a unified, persistent customer database and exposes it to external systems.”

— Customer shows the scope extends to all customer-related func�ons, not just marke�ng

— Data shows the primary focus is on data, not execu�on

— Pla�orm shows it does more than data management while suppor�ng other systems.

Gartner defines it as: “an integrated customer database managed by marketers that unifies a company's customer data from online and offline channels to enable modelling and drive customer experience.”

© 2017 All Rights Reserved. MarTech Advisor.

DOES HAVING A CDP MEAN I WON’T NEED BIG DATA OR CRM OR DMP OR A DATA WAREHOUSE ANY MORE? CAN A CDP DO THE WORK OF THESE OTHER DATA SYSTEMS?

MarTech Advisor Category Expert on CDP, David Raab weighs in: Big data is more a technology than a type of system; most CDPs are built with 'big data' technologies such as Hadoop.

Some data warehouses could do the same things as CDPs, but a data warehouse is a custom-built system that is run by IT, while a CDP is packaged so�ware run by marke�ng.

CRM is an opera�onal system for sales and customer service agents; it has detailed data but isn't designed to let other systems work with that data.

DMP is holds summarized data used primarily to support ad campaigns.

In short: 'big data' and data warehouse overlap with CDP while CRM and DMP are quite dis�nct and you'll probably need both.

CDPs ARE MOST OFTEN CONFUSED WITH: DMP’s. Do you personalize website experiences or do targeted online adver�sing for your brand based on visitor behaviour? That’s your DMP at work. In marke�ng, DMPs help us track online behaviour of unknown customers who meet certain predefined segment a�ributes, to enable be�er targe�ng of ads. But a good way to put the difference in perspec�ve is: DMPs provide a summarized customer view to support segment-based marke�ng; CDPs provide a detailed customer view to support individual-level marke�ng.

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© 2017 All Rights Reserved. MarTech Advisor.

Primary purpose

Data transforma�on

Customer view

Outcome

Tenure

Data Warehouse CDP DMP CRM

Store enterprise wide data fromal func�ons – SCM, ERP, CRM, Accounts - in one place and provide comprehensive business intelligence for management to make business decisions

What is it? Storehouse of all enterprise data

Heart of the customer marke�ng engine

Backbone for all online adver�sing opera�ons

Repository of customer contactand transac�on informa�on

Enable marketers to have a direct access to all the customerdata, make data-backed decisions and translate those into ac�on (campaigns) quicklyand effec�vely

Create lists of people who match certain predefined a�ributes and enable more targeted adver�sing to them

Enable sales to iden�fy and track pipeline and customers over their life�me

• Cleaning• Matching• Enhancing• Reassigning based on constantly changing a�ributes

• Dedupe and normalize • Allocate to a pre-defined segment based on the a�ributes match

• Dedupe and normalize• Keep account-level and customer level info up to date

Data gathering • All the data from all the disparate legacy systems of the enterprise flows into the DW

• Data from all stages of the customer journey - tags, cookies, APIs from all online behaviour + inputs from martech stack + all touchpoints + external uploads• PII• Structured + unstructured data• Streaming (real �me) and historical data• First and third party data

• Anonymous first and third party data of new and unknown customer segments• Uses tags and APIs from web browsing behaviour• Structured data• No historical data- refreshes every 90 days• Data limited to behaviour that matches pre-defined a�ributes

• Manual • From other company systems like call centre, finance etc.• From other marke�ng tools that are integrated• Misses all the online and offline touchpoints that don’t involve a documented interac�on with the company

IT teams/ Enterprise Management

Marketers Adver�sers Sales or Customer Service teamsPrimary Users

DWs are not designed specifically for marke�ng and customer-experience purposes. They give a comprehensive view of the BI that impacts the firm-wide business strategy

Rela�vely comprehensive view of the customer focused on the big picture- both a historical context and a future predic�on about the best experience for a unique customer over their en�re journey

Limited customer view, focused on the campaign/present moment in the life of the customer (without a past or future focus or contextualisa�on)

Comprehensive view of the customers transac�onal history with the company

The enterprise-wide data is transformed into BI for MIS dashboards, data mining tools, and decision support systems

Make customer data ‘ac�onable’ to deliver individualized and seamless customer experiences

Deliver more relevant adver�sing to prospects or personalised website experiences to improve conversion rate

Help salespersons sell more to exis�ng customers and track prospects to closure with all the support intel they need

Through the customer journey Campaign specific Throughout the sales cycle

A COMPARISON OF THE VARIOUS DATA MANAGEMENT ENGINES

No real matching or data transforma�on intent for customer data is inherent to the warehouse. The parameters for data transforma�on are based on the BI needs of the management for informed strategic planning decision making across all func�ons

NEXT MONTH ON THE CDP EXPLAINER SERIES: (Issue 2/12)

DO I NEED CDP? (WHAT KIND OF CDP DO I NEED?)

Sources: from MTA content library and CDP Ins�tute Library

h�p://www.bluekai.com/files/DMP_Demys�fied_Whitepaper_BlueKai.pdf

h�ps://www.blueconic.com/resources/infographic-cdp-dmp/

Vizury webinar on CDP with David Raab: h�ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvwtNxKgvs4

The Benefits of a Customer Data Pla�orm (Blueconic) an infographic showing how the a CDP improves the customer journey.

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Enterprise-wide business planning