Customer data platforms are gaining popularity as highly valuable marketing tools that will help create unified platforms for organizations to enhance their customer journey. It is in the best interest of the people to understand what CDP is and how it compares against other systems, such as DMP and CRM.
In this article, we will cover exactly that and more.
Keep reading to learn more about customer data.
What Is A Customer Data Platform?
A CDP, a.k.a customer data platform, is a type of software that organizes and aggregates customer data across various touchpoints.
This process is then used by other software, marketing efforts, and systems in order to provide an enhanced customer experience. CDPs structure and collect real-time data into centralized customer profiles.
What Is Customer Data?
CDPs only exist because of the uprising of the value for customer data, both in marketing operations and business. Customer data is the information that consumers leave behind as they interact with touchpoints on the internet or in-person. For instance, blogs, e-commerce stores, websites, in-store visits – all provide some sort of data.
When it comes to customer data, there are four types that stick out the most.
Identity
Identity covers the data that is based on a single customer profile within the CDP. This type of data allows a business to identify each customer and prevent costly mistakes.
This type of data includes, but is not limited to:
Name, demographic, location, contact info, social info, professional info, and account information.
Descriptive
Descriptive covers the expansion of the faculties of identity data to provide a greater picture of the customer. This data will vary depending on the type of company and the customer they are looking for.
This type of data includes but is not limited to:
Career information, family information, lifestyle information, and hobby information.
Quantitative
Quantitive covers the ability to understand how a customer has engaged with the company through the medium of their actions, transactions, and reactions.
This type of data includes, but is not limited to:
Transaction information, online activity, email communication, customer service.
Qualitative
Qualitative covers the context of a customer profile. It gives the customer a data character. This data collects attitudes, opinions, and motivations expressed by a customer, whether it’s related to the company or not.
This type of data includes, but is not limited to:
Opinion information, attitude information, motivation information.
From this, you can safely presume that CDPs are valuable tools in organizing all of this data, as each of the categories will vary based on the industry and type of business being run.
Now let’s take a look at how CDP differs from CRM and DMP.
CDP vs CRM
CDP and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools collect customer data and provide value to the company. But that’s that for similarities.
A CDP autonomously develops unique customer profiles with data collected across all online and offline sources. A CRM can only track the intentional interactions of a customer, done by manual entry.
CDPs collect data on anonymous visitors, whereas CRMs report on potential or known customers.
CDPs analyze the entire customer journey and behavior. CRMs focus on forecasting and sales pipelines.
CDPs track both offline and online customer data. CRMs cannot pick up offline data unless manually entered.
CDPs handle many data points from a variety of sources. CRMs collect individual-entered points of data, and they can get mislabeled or lost.
CDP vs DMP
CDP works with anonymous and known customers, storing all of their personally identifiable information. While DMPs (Data Management Platforms) work exclusively with anonymous settings, such as devices, IPs, and cookies.
CDPs influence all kinds of marketing decisions. DMPs focus on better advertisement and audience reach.
CDPs collect first-party data from the source. DMPs collect third-party data from services, managers, and providers.
CDPs keep the data for a long time to build accurate customer profiles. DMPs keep the data for short period of time to build and attract lookalike audiences.
Benefits Of A CDP
CDPs start by improving your company via enhanced customer relationships and work in conjunction with your existing software. So let’s take a look at the key benefits.
Data Silo Avoidance
In the world of business, data silos refer to being limited from all parties of the organization. When business scales too fast, technology cannot keep up. Data silos reduce collaborative involvement and decrease the productivity of your organizations.
CDPs Solve This Problem
They unify customer data and employees. Every single employee will have access to customer data in some form. The marketing team can access it for attribution and analytics. The sales team can access it for closing deals. The operations team can access it for payment and behavior analysis.
Data Collection
Data is all over the place. How can we determine its accuracy? CDPs via first-party data collection, such as site visits, social media followers, and subscribers deliver data that helps make marketing decisions straight from the client base.
CDPs always reflect the most accurate audience information.
Customer Relationships
For customer-centered marketing to work, one must know the customer. CDPs build customer profiles in a way that allows an organization to involve and engage each and every individual. The software helps inform the company of the customer’s behavior and develop identity graphs for interaction.
CDPs equip you with the tools to manage the relationships and manage the audience effectively and accurately.
Customer Data Evolved
Now that you understand the importance of customer data and how a CDP takes care of all the hassle that comes with it, you are well on your way to taking your business to the next level.
