A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is software that collects, unifies, and activates customer data from various sources to create one centralized database with profiles for each customer. CDPs provide companies with an efficient way to manage customer data and drive personalized, data-informed customer experiences across the organization. Often being linchpins for overarching CX software solutions, CDPs are flexible and scalable solutions that help businesses dynamically adapt to changes in customer journeys, customer needs, and customer trends.
CDPs commonly integrate with numerous other business systems to help companies scale customer experience strategies with clean, unified customer data. For example, CDPs often work hand-in-hand with Customer Intelligence software to analyze data and provide customer insights. However, some CDPs also provide inbuilt customer intelligence features. CDPs can also be integrated with CRM software to empower sales teams with granular customer insights, to help personalize sales strategies and drive more revenue.
Key Capabilities & Features of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
Data Collection: CDPs collect data in all formats from various internal and external sources, including native integrations, third-party APIs, and SDKs. CDPs can collect structured data, unstructured data, and behavioral data. Some examples of the data collected by CDPs include:
Sales Transactions
Customer Addresses
Chat Transcripts
Web Logs
Social Media Comments
App Installations
Cart Abandons
Data Unification: CDPs analyze all the data collected to identify patterns and unify information into customer profiles. Data unification is valuable for creating accurate, effective audience segments and delivering a personalized customer experience based on data insights and customer patterns. Collected data points include (but aren't limited to):
Purchases
Preferred Channels
Past Interactions
Loyalty Status
Data Activation: CDPs use collected, unified data to create new insights such as lead scores, recommendations, customer behavior predictions, and audience segments. These insights, together with customer journey mapping tools, can be used to craft personalized experiences for customers.
Data Analytics: Leading CDPs provide inbuilt data analytics and reporting so that companies can analyze customer data to identify customer sales trends and behaviors, determine Customer Lifetime Value, and predict churn rates.
Top 10 Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
Top 10 Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) sorted by Wheelhouse Score.
Lytics is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that collects, unifies, and activates customer data to help organizations make data-driven decisions, streamline business processes, and drive more revenue. Lytics is a privacy-focused CDP that ensures data security and compliance while helping companies leve...
BlueConic is a privacy-first Customer Data Platform (CDP) that collects, unifies, and activates compliant, first-party data across an organization’s business systems to enhance customer experiences, while also helping drive revenue growth. BlueConic enhances core business initiatives with data...
Tealium is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that collects, processes, and activates customer data to provide companies with real-time, actionable data insights. Tealium also offers AI technology that organizations can leverage to gather filtered, refined data to activate across key business tools and ...
Emarsys, a SAP company, is an omnichannel Customer Engagement platform with robust tools to help marketers build, personalize, and scale effective, cross-channel marketing campaigns that produce optimal results and drive revenue. Emarsys is an industry leader in campaign personalization and is trust...
Salesforce Data Cloud connects, unifies, and activates data from any source to empower sales, customer support, and marketing teams to deliver personalized customer experiences. Simultaneously, Salesforce Data Cloud also helps drive growth, with AI-powered data insights and workflow automations.
Klaviyo is a unified Data & Marketing Automation platform that helps companies centralize and activate real-time customer data. In turn, Klaviyo's AI-powered insights help create meaningful, personalized customer experiences in email, SMS text messages, reviews, web apps, and mobile push notific...
Twilio Segment is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that provides companies with tools to gather, unify, and activate their data into various systems. Leading brands use Segment to enrich customer journeys in real-time, build predictive, highly personalized ads, and leverage AI to make strategic, data-...
ActionIQ is a Consumer Data Platform (CDP) that provides real-time, actionable data insights that teams can access anytime during a variety of Customer Experience (CX) processes and interactions. Top enterprise brands in the Finance, Retail, Transportation, and Media industries use ActionIQ’s ...
SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is a Customer Intelligence platform with an embedded Customer Data Platform (CDP), Journey Creation tools, and Data Activation capabilities in one streamlined, omnichannel marketing hub. This platform is designed to help companies of all sizes make informed marketing de...
Blueshift is an Intelligent Customer Engagement platform that provides companies with an integrated Customer Data Platform (CDP), customer data activation tools, and omnichannel automation capabilities to create meaningful connections throughout the customer journey. Blueshift’s user-friendly ...
