Best Customer Data Platform (CDP) Software | OMR in Comparison

Customer Data Platforms (CDP): Our comparison reveals the best Customer Data Platforms software - here you'll find additional useful information

In today's marketing, as well as in sales and in support, data and its purposeful use for maximum success is vitally important! It's also clear that even the best information can never reach its full potential if it's not adequately organized. This is where Customer Data Platforms can be incredibly helpful: they are typically a collection of tools that allow businesses to gather data from various sources and manage it efficiently. Often, CDPs include various additional features and offer extra possibilities, far beyond these core functions. Good Customer Data Platforms provide, among others, the following features and benefits:

• They offer a data-driven 360-degree view of target customers.

• Customer Data Platforms collect data from different sources in one centrally accessible location, including first-party, second-party, and third-party data - both online and offline.

• They help standardize customer profiles across diverse systems.

• They can connect with other systems that, for instance, make it easier for marketers to run campaigns or execute them more precisely, or that make specific processes in sales more efficient.

What exactly are Customer Data Platforms?

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are used to consolidate customer data in a central database, manage it purposefully, and combine it. These tools particularly provide marketing teams with relevant insights that are needed for the efficient execution of campaigns. A CDP can retrieve information from online sources, such as websites, apps, and email marketing software, to create a complete overview of customers. Additionally, it's possible to integrate offline data from surveys or interviews. Once this data has been retrieved, a CDP can help businesses predict the optimal next step with specific customers. Companies gain the opportunity to learn many important things about their target group, making them very effective at turning them into buyers or retaining existing customers. Customer Data Platforms are also used by sales and customer service teams to tailor the respective support to individual customers. Email software, data warehouse software, and other systems that store data can usually be connected to a CDP.

These are popular Customer Data Platforms (CDP):

• econda Analytics

• Selligent Marketing Cloud

• Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

• Bloomreach

• CrossEngage

• Tealium

• Mapp Cloud

• Optimizely Data Platform

• Custobar

• Uniserv

Who needs Customer Data Platforms?

Customer Data Platforms are usually used by the following three groups or departments in a company.

• Marketing Teams: As already mentioned, a significant advantage of CDPs is that they allow marketers to manage data very efficiently, possibly merge it, and organize it in other ways. They thereby gain maximum control over the information. This data comes from numerous sources, which allows a holistic view. Ultimately, users get the opportunity to improve customer segmentation, optimize their campaign tactics, or increase engagement with their content.

• Sales Teams: Sales teams often use CDPs very advantageously as part of account-based selling. Such a system can be a strong support in organizing accounts and always taking them into account in the best possible way. For example, Customer Data Platforms can issue real-time alerts or allow rules to be set if a contact within an account performs certain activities (such as opening a specific email or visiting a proposal page on a website). CDPs can notify sales staff when their customers reach certain milestones and help determine when the best time and method are to make contact. In addition, CDPs quickly provide salespeople with extremely detailed information in discussions with prospective customers, which allows them to respond very precisely to their needs, thereby greatly increasing the likelihood of closure. Data from marketing automation and CRM software, among other things, can be included. Virtually any business- or department-critical tool that collects data can be queried via an interface.

• Customer Service: Customer service staff can also benefit from a CDP when communicating with customers. The information collected there helps the support to proactively respond to customer needs and challenges. Ideally, the customer service gains a deeper understanding of the target group through the software, can better understand their conditions and requirements, and finally solve problems or wishes more precisely.

What typical functions does Customer Data Software provide?

Of course, Customer Data Platforms - like virtually all software solutions - are always somewhat differently equipped. They have specific application areas or are specifically matched to various requirements and budgets context of different equipment. Therefore, it's hardly possible to state what functions CDPs can generally have. Rather, the point below is to highlight some core functions that many Customer Data Tools provide.

Data Enrichment with CDPs

At their base, CDPs standardize customer profiles and provide a complete view of target customers. Many use solely first-party data to create such profiles, but some also enrich information by incorporating external data sources - integrating second-party, and third-party data.

Customer Data Platform Interfaces

Every CDP provides interfaces. Without them, data collection wouldn't be possible. These interfaces are also important to choose the right CDP type for your own company. It should be ensured that all the data to be collected can really converge in the CDP, creating a central database for all information and benefitting to the maximum. For example, the CRM should always be compatible with the CDP. The same applies to the used ERP software, social media management software, e-commerce platforms, data management platforms (DMP), etc.

Security and Compliance of CPDs

Any software that deals with customer data brings with it data protection concerns. The GDPR requires companies to protect their customers' data and absolutely prevent data leaks. Those in charge should thus ensure that the selected CDP has reliable security settings and complies with data protection regulations. It should also be clear which systems might interact within the CDP and retrieve and possibly forward data. Corresponding information or prerequisites are extremely important for a safe use of Customer Data Platforms - without having to fear sensitive penalties.

Reporting and Custom Dashboards in Customer Data Systems

CDPs can be equipped with strong reporting functionalities and custom dashboards. Many CDPs offer a basic reporting feature, but some also include more differentiated tools for more demanding reports, with the ability to automatically generate reports and export them for further visualizations, analyses, etc. For instance, some Customer Data Platforms can provide comparisons of customer engagement across various segments, as well as revenue attribution and ROI reports. Custom dashboards help in choosing the data that's most important to the company and further segmentations, to be able to use data as efficiently as possible.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in CDPs

More and more CDPs include features that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). This can automatically determine, for example, the best products or other solutions for customers based on their previous behavior and make very reliable predictions about likely future activities. AI can highly effectively support marketers in adapting messages for individual customers. This allows the creation of personalized experiences which can be very convincing because they speak to the customer orientation of the business. Over time, corresponding processes can be further optimized by ML. Marketers are automatically informed, for example, which personalization tactics work and which don't.

Cross-Channel Automation with Customer Data Platforms

CDPs expand "conventional" marketing automation by including data from very different sources – not solely from marketing or exclusively from sales, but cross-divisionally. Conventional marketing automation software can perform cross-channel automations, but it's hardly able to use information from customer profiles that result from multiple sources. Here, usually only silos of data are used. However, CDPs can certainly use customer profiles that are compiled from information from all departments, and then automate cross-channel marketing campaigns via email, digital ads, direct mail or even SMS promotions.