Customer Data Platform
Understanding Customer Data Platform
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) can be defined as a software that sums up and organizes customer data across a diversity of touchpoints and is utilized by other software, systems, and marketing efforts. CDPs gather and structure real-time data into distinct, centralized customer profiles.
Majorly, there are four main types of customer data that CDPs collect and organize.
1. Identity Data
It is the foundation of each customer profile in a CDP. Identity data includes:
- Name information
- Demographic information
- Location information
- Contact information
- Social information
- Professional information
- Account information
2. Descriptive Data
Descriptive data develops on identity data and gives you a fuller picture of your customer. Descriptive data includes:
- Career information
- Lifestyle information
- Family information
- Hobby information
3. Quantitative or Behavioral Data
Quantitative data permits businesses to understand how each customer has engaged with their organization. Quantitative data includes:
- Transaction information
- Email communication information
- Online activity information
- Customer service information
4. Qualitative Data
Qualitative data provides context for customer profiles; it gives customer data personality. Qualitative data includes:
- Motivation information
- Opinion information
- Attitude information
As you can observe, CDPs gather and organize a vast variety of data. It’s vital to note that considerable amount of specific data and data categories will differ based upon your business and industry.
Why you need a Customer Data Platform?
Business necessities and Customer Data Platform use cases differ significantly from organization to organization, but few of the key operational needs and aspirations for a CDP project are:
- To create a unified 360° customer view
- To improve data compliance
- To facilitate accurate data analysis
- To unify the marketing stack
- To improve personalization and customer engagement
Why Companies Make Use of CDPs?
- Identification and preparation of all customer characteristics and behavior across systems: both online and offline
- Allocation of segmented customer lists for your business intelligence or campaign execution
- Examination of customer behavior for improved segmentation
- Description of insistent customer profiles and management for future use
- Inspection of lifetime customer journeys
Conclusion
Encashing the benefits of a CDP denotes moving your business over to a model where data commands actions, and your key task is managing the data. It’s exponentially more efficient, but it demands for a new way of viewing business processes as well as paying for and setting up the tool itself.
Take that jump, though, and you’ll be in a situation to build your whole business around your customers, meeting them wherever they are with messaging that you know will resonate. ROI will go up, conversions will go up.
