CDP Platform: What It Is and What Data It Collects

A CDP platform is an effective tool for achieving marketing goals within a company. The system's interface is utilized for campaign management, customer information collection, and analytics. This marketing service aids in addressing various business challenges, ranging from increasing sales volume to evaluating the effectiveness of advertising tools.

What is a CDP

A CDP platform is a feature-rich tool for implementing a company's marketing tasks. With the platform, one can gather and store user information, as well as analyze their behavioral scenarios.

All data entering the database is consolidated in one place. This enables marketers to have more comprehensive information about users and apply it in their ongoing work, such as creating personalized marketing campaigns, predicting customer behavior, and implementing the most effective marketing strategies. CDP collects and stores diverse personal information, allowing the formation of a profile of the target customer.

To integrate a CDP platform into your business, the collaboration of several employees is required:

Marketer: Develops scenarios for specific business cases.

IT Specialist: Manages the technical support of the platform, addresses emerging errors, and optimizes the system's performance.

Analyst: Monitors the service's performance, conducts testing, and collaborates with marketers to develop effective marketing campaigns and select optimal advertising methods.

It is advisable to involve multiple specialists, each responsible for their segment of work. In some cases, one specialist may handle various tasks, but it is preferable to engage different employees for more effective execution of each task.

Why CDP is needed

Consolidate customer data

For a company, it is more convenient to have all data stored in one place. This prevents the risk of losing information. Data is extracted from various sources: websites, stores, applications, programs, and social networks. Subsequently, this data is centralized in a unified database. This database contains everything a specialist needs to work with a customer: name, gender, age, orders, and calls.

If customer information is scattered across different locations, it is not only inconvenient but also hinders and slows down the work of specialists, making campaign management more complex. There is a risk of losing customer data.

Personalize customer interactions

Another advantage of the CDP system is the segmentation of customer profiles. Segmentation is done based on various criteria: age, gender, date of birth, needs, and other characteristics. This allows understanding which offers and promotions will be relevant. This saves a significant portion of the budget, preventing unnecessary spending on ineffective campaigns targeted at a small audience.

Analyze customer behavior

Through the marketing platform, the interaction of customers with the company is tracked: what purchases they make, which services interest them the most, and much more. Analysis allows adjusting operations, predicting which products need to be stocked, and keeping them in inventory.

Formulating hypotheses and forecasting demand

With the help of a customer data platform, specialists determine which products are needed by your audience and at what price.

For example, if customers are actively purchasing electronics from an Asian manufacturer this month, specialists will forecast that there will be demand for specific brands next month. This enables the planning of promotions, special offers, or mailings accordingly.

Setting up a unified loyalty program

Using the CDP data platform, a unified loyalty program is configured for all sales channels. The bonus system encourages customers to return to you for their next purchase. For instance, if a person buys an expensive product or service and earns points, they are likely to return to spend those points and acquire new ones. Digital marketing platforms make it convenient to configure and track the bonus system for customers.

Increasing customer satisfaction with the company

CDP is an excellent tool for personalized advertising campaigns. The marketing platform identifies the most suitable advertisements that align with the user's interests. Irrelevant offers won't irritate the customer, thus increasing loyalty and trust in the company.

Advantages of CDP

CDP platforms act as intermediaries between customers and businesses, identifying the target audience of your company, as well as how each individual customer interacts with it.

There are numerous other advantages to using an omnichannel platform, in addition to a detailed buyer profile, user identification, and the ability to create an accurate customer journey map.

CDP platform also:

• Optimizes marketing strategies;
• Improves segmentation;
• Increases sales;
• Enhances customer satisfaction;
• Improves targeting;
• Provides detailed analytics.

Data collected by CDP

Identifying Data. Full name, gender and age, address, contact information: email, phone, social media accounts, employment details and position.

Descriptive data. Income level, ownership of transportation and housing, marital status, number of children, hobbies, interests, and previous places of employment.

Behavioral and quantitative data. Purchase data, customer activity, number of opened emails, product views, reviews, interactions with customer support.

Qualitative data. Reasons for purchasing a particular product, evaluation of delivery service, willingness to recommend the service. This type of data reveals the customer's taste and preferences, providing comprehensive information about their interactions with the company.

How CRM differs from CDP

A CRM system is a tool that automates the sales funnel, integrates various communication channels into a unified strategy, gathers information about customers and potential clients, and stores the history of their interactions with the company. In CRM, it is possible to track when a user first appeared, their actions, the stage of the purchasing process they are in, whether they are a loyal customer, and so on. This tool helps identify customers, remember their preferences, categorize them into groups, and gradually improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns based on statistical data.

On the other hand, CDP has a broader spectrum of data collection. The platform helps obtain and systematize various types of information from social networks, websites, search engines, applications, CRM, and other sources. Moreover, CDP collects data even about unidentified users. The customer data platform is also capable of merging online and offline information about customer actions.

Using artificial intelligence, some platforms can predict user behavioral factors and create segments that are most suitable for a specific campaign.

How to сhoose a CDP system

Define the Tasks Addressed by the CDP Customer Data Platform

Identify the company's problems that can be solved through CDP implementation. For example, disorganized storage of customer information may be one problem that can be resolved by organizing data through the creation of segments based on interests and location. In this case, marketing software will effectively address the task.

Select CDP providers

CDP providers differ in various aspects such as price, technical capabilities, service, and support. To avoid mistakes in selection, it is not recommended to simply subscribe to the first result in search. It's advisable to choose around ten providers to determine which one best suits your needs. Compare them based on price and services offered, study reviews, and connect with demo versions of marketing automation platforms.

Contact a suitable provider

Once you have chosen a provider, it is recommended to verify whether the information and prices on their website are accurate. If everything is in order, you can proceed to request a CDP presentation, asking for a sample contract and the final cost for financial planning.

CDP implementation stages

The timeline for implementing marketing software depends on various factors:

The level of integration complexity is associated with the functionality and set of tools that need to be connected. The stricter the requirements, the more time-consuming the implementation process.

The characteristics of the business and the specifics of the company's operation determine the configuration of the service according to specific needs. The more complex the tasks, the longer the implementation process will be.

The required level of data detail. Some companies only need basic customer contact information, while others require detailed data such as behavioral factors and interaction history. Configuring complex parameters will require additional time from a specialist.

The need to merge identifiers arises when the same customer interacts with the company through different channels, leading to the creation of multiple profiles. To prevent this scenario, the option of merging identifiers is provided. Implementing this functionality allows for more efficient use of the service, but the implementation process becomes more prolonged.

The implementation procedure of the service generally includes the following stages:

• Preparation: It is necessary to develop plans for using tools and provide detailed descriptions of the implementation procedures.

• Integration: The service connects to the website to identify visitors. Additional tools are utilized to accomplish tasks. At this stage, all information sources and databases previously used in the organization are connected for importing stored data.

• Information analysis and training take place during operations. Before commencement, identifiers, event tracking scenarios, and tool parameters are configured. Subsequently, tools can be applied for analytics and business performance evaluation.

• New functionality can be introduced during operations. The system is configured considering the peculiarities of business processes and company requirements.

Which companies need CDP for operations

A CDP becomes essential for companies that gather and store extensive volumes of data about their customers. Such companies require a platform capable of providing:

• Collection and storage of customer information.

• User data segmentation into categories for further utilization.

• Analysis and processing of information, presenting it in the form of reports, tables, and charts.

Small businesses and startups, on the other hand, shouldn't implement CDP as they have a limited number of customers and distribution channels, resulting in restricted access to data. Implementing CDP would be expensive for them and may not be beneficial. Instead, it is more practical for startups and small businesses to analyze customer data using other methods, either manually or through simple programs.

Conclusion

For modern marketing, it is crucial to gather, store, and structure customer information from various sources, hence the need for marketing services. Customer Data Platform (CDP) platforms are becoming increasingly popular.

The implementation of a CDP platform provides the opportunity to interact effectively with customers and increase the company's revenue. It is essential to choose and implement this tool correctly, considering its objectives.

CDP systems handle large volumes of data and are suitable for large organizations. Such services organize and analyze information coming from all sources.

It is important to remember that such a marketing platform may prove to be unreasonably expensive for small businesses and emerging companies.