Customer Data Platform Evaluation: A How-To Guide

Thinking about giving customer data platforms (CDPs) a try? Want to see what they can do to give your business an edge over the competition? Do you know what advantages to look for and which specific functions deliver the most benefits to your company? Here’s a simple how-to guide for performing your own customer data platform evaluation.

Customer Data Platform Evaluation

More and more companies are adopting CDPs in the face of increased competition for consumer attention and loyalty. Market research forecasts a CAGR of 34.6% from 2021 to 2026 for the global CDP market. With numerous providers rushing to meet the increased demand, how do you find a CDP solution that meets your business needs and expectations?First, evaluate your needs. It might be helpful to look at specific CDP functions that offer particular advantages for different users. These capabilities can then serve as points of comparison in your customer data platform evaluation. Below are four CDP functions to consider:

1. Omnichannel Capability

Customer channels are multiplying in the digital landscape, making it a challenge for brands to stay connected. A good CDP solution should have the capability to capture customer data that’s available at every touchpoint—including offline channels and external sources of information. CDPs like Treasure Data are also able to capture bulk, streaming, and real-time information for a rich customer data foundation. The more customer data collected, the richer the potential insights will be.Another point to consider is the CDP solution’s ability to establish an omnichannel presence. This means that customers should receive consistent messaging, advertising, support, and branding on the following channels:

• Websites
• Mobile websites
• Mobile apps
• Social media pages
• Email
• In-store displays
• Customer support
• Others

Having the ability to collect omnichannel customer data and establish an omnichannel presence for your brand is a must when evaluating customer data platform solutions.

2. Data Ingestion

Next, a good CDP solution must be able to ingest different types of information from online, offline, and external data sources. These include:Structured data: organized, pre-defined data like customer names, addresses, and phone numbers contained in rows and columns.Unstructured data: random data with no pre-defined organization or structure, like audio files, text messages, PDFs, survey forms, call center recordings, and others.Semi-structured data: data with some definition and structure, like email messages with the sender’s name and addresses that contain unstructured content.Ideally, a CDP solution offers schema-less ingestion to collect raw and event-level data. This allows users to capture information even as definitions change over time. Another useful feature is seamless integration with a company’s existing martech stack for fast, efficient data ingestion.

3. Customer Profile Unification

So, you’ve got a CDP with omnichannel data collection and schema-less ingestion capabilities. So far, so good. Next, you’ll need to look for proprietary methods of unifying customer profiles using the raw material the CDP collects. A good CDP solution should be able to:Resolve identities by correctly attributing multiple data points to the right individual.Create a persistent customer profile by assigning a permanent ID to individual clients.Update profiles by collecting information from connected channels and sources.Use anonymous user data by tracking Javascript, mobile tags, and device IDs.Process billions of data points to continually unify and enrich profiles.Why is this important? The strength of a brand’s customer data foundation determines the quality of the insights you are able to extract. Unified customer profiles provide the foundation for accurate analysis, audience segmentation, lookalike audiences, personalization, and other initiatives to transform customer experience and drive growth.

4. User-Friendliness

Lastly, a good customer data platform solution should be easy to use and intuitive—even for “technologically challenged” personnel. Look for the following features:

• Intuitive dashboard and controls
• A simple user interface
• Accessible data visualization
• Responsive customer support

One of the CDP’s greatest advantages is its centralization of customer data to serve the needs of marketing, sales, customer support, and IT teams. Therefore, using customer data and insights to shape marketing or sales activities should be easily accomplished with minimal reliance on IT staff.In summary, brands should check for the following functions in any customer data platform evaluation: omnichannel data collection and activation capability, schema-less data ingestion, customer profile unification, and user-friendliness. Enterprise-grade CDPs are ideally designed to integrate with the existing martech stack to enable scalability. CDP solutions should also be easy to use and intuitive to support marketing, sales, and customer service activities with minimal IT assistance.

Enjoy Enterprise-Grade CDP Benefits With Treasure Data

Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud, an integrated suite of cloud-based customer data platform solutions, helps companies improve campaign performance, achieve operational efficiency, and create connected customer experiences. Check out our capabilities:

• Omnichannel data collection
• Ingestion of structured and unstructured data at petabyte scale: up to 1 million rows per second
• Processing of up to 30 trillion records per day
• Enterprise-grade security for customer data privacy and protection
• Simple and intuitive graphical user interface (GUI)
• And more

Our powerful customer data platform is designed to be accessible to non-tech users. Equipped with an easy-to-use interface, marketing, sales, and customer support teams can take advantage of Treasure Data’s benefits with just a few clicks. Join global names like LG, AB InBev, Subaru, Shiseido, and more to see what Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud can do for you.To learn more about how to evaluate a customer data platform like Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud, consult an expert today. Want to learn more? Request a demo, call 1.866.899.5386, or contact us for more information.