What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

A CDP is software that enables you to collect customer data from a variety of sources, such as websites, mobile apps, social media, and customer support and commerce interactions.

It then creates a complete profile of each customer. This profile includes details such as demographics, behavior, purchase history, and preferences. This data is then used to generate insights that then lead to personalized marketing campaigns, better customer experiences, and optimized sales strategies.

In our view, a CDP has 5 distinct modules:

1. Visualization of data: these are the traditional dashboards that allow users to slice and dice the data in various ways.
2. AI models: The models in the CDP generate advanced level of predictive insights about scenarios such as customer behavior, content monetization, churn analysis, promotions uplift etc.
3. What-if scenario analysis: This advanced visualization module is based on the outputs of the AI models. It allows you to answer questions and get clear insights for decision making. For example, “what will be the impact of this promotion for customer segment A”.
4. Data repository: It’s common for a CDP to have its own data repository. However, for organizations with a highly mature data warehouse, this layer could be implemented in a federated fashion thus avoiding the need to permanently store data into the CDP itself. There are pros and cons to each approach.
5. API integration: Since integration of insights is the biggest challenge facing organizations today, the significance of this layer cannot be overemphasized. This layer allows all the enterprise applications and content management systems to use the AI insights.