6 big picture issues when evaluating a Customer Data Platform

If you're considering a customer data platform, here are a few big picture ideas to keep in mind.

People like to say the devil is in the details, but I think the devil is more clever than that, so if you want to avoid disaster you need both the bird's eye view and the snail's-eye view.

Start with the CDP's origin story. What was it before it was a CDP? It might have been an email service provider (ESP), a marketing automation platform, a tag management system, or some other type of marketing technology.

You want to know this because that origin story will reflect the corporate mindset. It gives you an insight into the way they're inclined to think about things.

You also want to know if the CDP is a walled garden. Is the CDP so integrated with other technologies that you're going to have trouble if you try to use some other service. For example, if the CDP is integrated with an ESP, does that mean you're going to have trouble if you choose to use another ESP? Or if the CDP is integrated with a particular CRM package, does that mean you have to use that CRM?

This is related to what I call the best of breed vs. swiss army knife question. Some CDPs adopt a fairly narrow perspective on what they're supposed to offer. For example, they may focus on creating the "single customer view," and expect you to rely on other service for website activations, content recommendations, marketing automation, paywall management, and so forth.

They'll say they're "best of breed" in their narrow focus on customer data, and they recommend that you use other "best of breed" services for other things.

There's some sense in that, but there's also the question of cost, and how many different services you want to try to integrate. I use the analogy of the swiss army knife because none of the tools in a swiss army knife are best of breed. The knife isn't the best knife, the corkscrew isn't the best corkscrew. But you have all of them in your pocket.

You need to think long and hard about which approach is likely to work better for your company.

The same idea applies to reporting. Does the CDP offer internal reporting, or do they expect you to integrate with external BI tools?

There's no right or wrong answer to any of these questions. You want to go through these big picture issues to see if there's compatibility and a good fit. Does their offering serve your needs?

If you're looking into CDPs, you'll also see the term "composable". It's a concept that applies to software in general, and I think of it like Lego blocks. A "composable" system offers a lot of independent modules that address specific needs or functions, and can easily be plugged in to other systems. In the CDP context, this might mean that you have your own customer database, and various CDP functions sit on top of that -- where in a typical CDP configuration, the CDP would house the customer database.

After you've reviewed all of these issues, verify it with actual clients. The CDP may say they integrate with such and so ESP, but there are good and bad integrations. Find out. Call the ESP and see what they think about it. Find some customers who rely on that integration. In short, sales people like to say yes. You need to find out what sort of a "yes" it is.

Now -- for the snail's eye view, you're going to have to give me a call, because that depends on your particular situation. There's no way I can do a general purpose podcast on that.

Resources

The myth of the single customer record
https://krehbielgroup.com/2022/10/04/the-myth-of-the-single-customer-record/

What is the best Customer Data Platform?
https://krehbielgroup.com/what-is-the-best-customer-data-platform/