How to Buy a CDP: The Best RFP Template for Choosing the Right Customer Data Platform

Not sure if your all-purpose software RFP template is up to the task of helping you choose the right customer data platform (CDP)? Afraid you’ll miss a critical feature that makes the difference between a good return on marketing investment (ROMI) and seeing red in the project payback column? Concerned that you don’t know what you don’t know when it comes to buying the best CDP? Lots of CMOs, digital marketers, and CTOs have faced the blank, generic request for proposal (RFP) form with the same doubts and questions. Afterall, buying a CDP is a significant investment for any organization.

We’ve walked through this process with hundreds of customers, and we’ve heard their key concerns and project requirements. Based on this experience, we’ve created the ideal CDP RFP template to help you ask the right questions, at the right time—before you’ve committed scarce resources to any one CDP vendor.

RFP Template Takes on a Busted CDP Myth

The CDP RFP template also responds to something that many CxOs have learned the hard way: needs are different, and you have to find the right CDP fit with your organization.

“Probably the biggest myth is that CDP is a one-size-fits-all solution,” says David Raab, founder and head of the CDP Institute.

“Companies have different needs, and there are different CDP products that fit those needs. So it’s important to find the CDP that’s right for you, not look for some mythical CDP that’s best for everything,” Raab says.

Customer Data Platforms Drawing More Interest—and Confusion

Digital marketers and CMOs of established brands and retailers alike are turning to CDPs, largely for CDPs’ ability to build customer data profiles and make faster personalization decisions for offers and experiences that improve sales.

That’s recently drawn new entries into the CDP market—which ClickZ estimates will top $1 billion in revenue by the end of 2019—and the variety of capabilities that different vendors offer has caused confusion as to what to expect in a CDP. Some new CDP entrants are deeper point-solutions with capabilities in an existing CRM or content management products, with varied focus on data management.

Omnichannel Marketing and Personalization Drive CDP Adoption

And of course, it’s easy to see why there’s so much interest in CDPs. Marketers have embraced CDPs as the most efficient and reliable way to unify customer information from multiple data sources and channels. As a result, marketers are finally able to handle customer identity resolution automatically and deliver true omnichannel personalization.

“The more we invest in data to personalize the recommendation experience, the more we see improvement in conversion rates,” says Peter Szulczewski, CEO & Co-Founder of Wish.com, which uses Treasure Data enterprise CDP in its operations.

RFP Template Asks for Answers about the Most Critical CDP Features

This complimentary RFP template asks more than 200 questions to help give you a comprehensive view of any CDP software vendor, including:

• The vendor’s financial strength, history, and potential for growth

• Marketing and advertising technology expertise

• Detailed capabilities and limitations for data management, identity resolution, ML-based analytics, reporting, segmentation and activation

• Security profile and privacy program management for ongoing system and data protection

Taken together, these questions are a smart way to help all of the decision-makers and stakeholders in your organization understand the relative merits of the many different CDPs now offered, as well as the fit with their own departments and organization.

Download your copy of the RFP template now, and get your CDP project off to the right start.

Confused about CRM vs. CDP? Learn more by clicking over to our guide.