6 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your CDP

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While most marketers agree that a CDP is pretty much a must-have, it’s still suffering the downside of being a new category in that there’s still a lot of confusion as to what a CDP actually does

The proof? One recent study found that only 51% of marketers “definitely grasp the difference” between a DMP and a CDP. The more uncertain marketers are about what a CDP does, the less likely they’ll be able to get meaningful results from using one. So, instead of focusing on technical definitions or a list of features, let’s explore some common problems that a CDP helps marketers solve.

1. Create a single customer view while reducing data silos

Many organisations suffer from inefficient customer data usage and organisation. As marketing has evolved to include more customer journey touchpoints, the risk of data remaining stuck in a silo has increased. This in turn makes it more difficult for marketers to compile a single customer view or ‘golden record’ that takes into account every interaction an individual has with a brand – and therefore harder to provide a personalised marketing experience.

A CDP is a system of record for marketers that enables them to unify customer data from all sources in order to get a comprehensive understanding of their customers’ behaviours, needs and preferences. This is the foundational purpose of a CDP, and provides the starting point for effective personalisation across the marketing, sales and services functions.

2. Manage user consent effectively and at scale

Working with customer data is a sensitive matter. Not only do you have to be sure to get the user’s consent before collecting data, countries around the world are also enacting stringent data privacy regulations to safeguard user privacy. 

On their own, most companies are ill-equipped to perform consent management on a large enough scale throughout their organisation - and that’s where a CDP comes in. The right CDP (and not every CDP does this) should give marketers complete confidence that they’re using data in compliance with all existing regulations, and with the user’s explicit consent. In particular, marketers should keep an eye out for CDPs engineered for European compliance standards, even if they themselves are not based in Europe (their customers might be). Ideally, marketers should be able to master and orchestrate user’s consent choices throughout the entirety of the customer journey.

3. Multi-channel personalisation

You can’t deliver customised experiences across all touchpoints unless you have a unified customer view – so without a CDP, delivering multi-channel personalisation is essentially impossible. Compiling all your customer data in one place allows you to segment your audience more strategically, as well as identify the best option for targeting someone across any channel.

In this case, a CDP gives marketers unparalleled insight into the customer journey and allows them to activate that data in real time across various channels, facilitating a hyper-personalised experience for the user that makes them feel more connected to the brand.

4. More accurate data modeling

As marketing becomes more data-driven, the ability to use that data to create smart insights has become invaluable. For most organisations, that involves a Data Science team to create and apply models to datasets (hence why the single customer view is so critical). But as anyone who’s tried to request the time of a Data Scientist will know, this is easier said than done.

A CDP with machine-learning capabilities can be part of the solution, allowing marketers to easily apply algorithms to their data in order to more accurately predict key characteristics like churn propensity or upsell value.

5. Improve customer retention

It doesn’t matter how good your acquisition strategy is – if you can’t retain your customers, you’re pouring money into a leaky bucket. With a CDP, marketers can survey the behavioral patterns of both past and existing customers to identify people in danger of dropping out, and react immediately with messages and offers that will keep them in the fold.

6. Maintain addressability in a post-cookie world

Without third-party cookies, marketers will struggle to offer targeted ads to consumers at scale, with adverse effects on ROI. But having a CDP coupled with integrated Universal IDs will allow marketers to continue to operate with a high level of accuracy across the programmatic space.

Next steps 

As customer journeys become increasingly complex, and data privacy laws make it more challenging to maintain data compliance, having a CDP on hand allows marketers to cut through the noise and focus on providing thoughtful, personalised experiences. But as we’ve seen, the list of problems that a CDP can help solve is as long as the proverbial piece of string - so success depends on being able to get focused on what’s most important at the risk of trying to tackle all things at once and failing by doing so.