A customer data platform (CDP) is built for successful marketing, collecting and unifying data, customer profiles, and consolidating first-party customer data to create a coherent view of each customer.
This data is useful for marketers as it provides the foundations for a personalized campaign, something proven to boost ROI.
A CDP is a streamlined approach. Organizations previously relied on other solutions to manage their customer's data, typically using platforms such as DMPs, MSPs, and data lakes.
A thoroughly utilized CDP offers far more functionality and tangible benefits than previously thought possible by these solutions.
What type of data does a CDP collect?
Identity data
Customer identity is the very foundation of a successful and thorough CDP profile. By considering identity, businesses can identify unique customers and reduce potential duplications. Identity data can include a customer's full name, address, email address, phone number, age, gender, user IDs, and social media presence, among other items.
Behavior data
Behavior data ensures a business has an understanding of how customers are engaging with their company. Building this data case usually consists of a collection of transaction information, communications, and online engagements. Companies can track the 'types' of products each customer is buying, their returns, shopping cart abandonment frequency and what it contains, and the average size of their purchases. Every time a customer visits the website, their browsing history and time spent on your site can be logged. Other factors, including email open rates, clicks, and replies, are collected and measured for further analysis.
Personality data
Personality data is possibly the most diverse and expansive set of data that CDPs can provide. Personality data is an in-depth description of your customer, considering factors such as job history, family size, how often they eat out, where they frequent, and much more. The returns from this analysis will vary depending on your company's aims.
Qualitative data
Qualitative data can provide vital context to your customer profiles. By asking a customer what triggered them to make their purchase or how they would rate a product, you can gain a more comprehensive insight into their motivations and overall satisfaction with your product/service. This can guide you in future changes to your company or offering.
What should you consider when deploying a CDP?
Suitability is the most critical factor to consider when deploying a CDP. The right CDP for each business will vary, as the data collected must be suited to your individual goals.
When selecting a CDP, businesses must consider the capabilities it offers. A company will get more out of its CDP when it unifies all available customer data. Providing machine learning and data modeling features that make customer data actionable and provide meaningful reporting can push a company into the next stage of its marketing journey.
When assessing the various CDP options available, it is equally important to consider the data analytics capabilities and ease of integration with the full range of tools and channels your team of marketers depends on.
Acquia has listened to businesses and their worries surrounding 'CDPs and understands the unique nature of data analysis. In response, we’ve built a platform that can be tailored to help you and your goals with ease.
What makes Acquia different?
Acquia offers the "only CDP that meets enterprise needs."
Our fully meta data-configurable approach surfaces any unique attributes or specifications across the whole data pipeline, guiding your business through every step of the process.
The platform, built upon a modern SaaS architecture, supports large volumes of transactions, events, and profiles while simultaneously providing immediate insights with actionable and interactive queries.
A successful CDP does more than mesh together customer data; it can create cost-saving measures, deliver revenue growth, and build trust within your customer base. It can also allow marketers to suppress audience segments from ad campaigns, eliminating waste ad spending on non-relevant or previously targeted customer groups.
CDPs can also create revenue growth via personalization and real-time marketing attempts. A strong CDP allows your team to arrange customer acquisition campaigns across various channels, up-scaling the value of your customer data and ensuring the campaigns being run are based on evidence in advanced customer segments.
Businesses always want to build trust within their customer base. CDPs can assist in this goal by providing a view of customer data across every channel, ensuring it complies with emerging privacy regulations. This way, companies can ensure customers' privacy preferences are maintained, building trust.
Creating a single, unified view of your customer base is more than possible for your business with access to the right tools. Tools such as Acquia's CDP provide a thorough and in-depth response to the question "who are my customers?" This can boost ROI, increase purchases, facilitate customer acquisition, and provide an evidenced approach to advertisement.
By understanding your customers and utilizing the data available effectively, you can sway the tides of your marketing attempts, building a strategy that your customers will love.
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