Customer Data Platforms: A New Way to Build Marketing Databases

Customer data is at the top of many corporate technology agendas. But traditional data warehouses are slow and costly to build and often don’t meet marketers’ true needs.

This session introduces a new class of system, the Customer Data Platform, that streamlines customer database development. CDPs ingest data from multiple sources, create persistent customer databases, add marketing intelligence, and make the results available to execution systems.

They include more database management features than traditional marketing automation software and are easier to use than traditional customer data management systems. This session defines the characteristics of CDPs, discusses specific vendors, and gives use cases for CDP deployment.

Attendees will leave with an understanding of how their companies can take advantage of CDP systems to give marketers the data they need to provide optimized, cross-channel customer treatments.

Topics will include:

The need for better customer databases
How CDPs differ from existing customer data management solutions
Situations where a CDP is a good solution
Key features to consider when evaluating a CDP
Classes of CDP vendors and members of each class
Trends in the CDP industry

David M. Raab is a Principal at Raab Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in marketing technology and analysis. He is the author of the Guide to Customer Data Platforms, B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Toolkit, and Marketing Performance Measurement Toolkit. In addition, he has published hundreds of articles for publications including Information Management, DM Review and DM News. Additional research appears regularly on his blog http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com. As a consultant, Mr. Raab advises major consumer and business marketers on marketing processes, technology and service vendors. Typical projects involve marketing process analysis, needs definition, vendor selection and customer management system deployment. Mr. Raab also consults on related issues with industry vendors including service bureaus, software developers and advertising agencies. Mr. Raab holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia University and MBA from the Harvard Business School.