How To Choose The Right Customer Data Platform (CDP) for Your eCommerce Business?

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In today’s constantly evolving marketing environment, having a deep understanding of customers is more important than ever. Consequently, more and more companies are looking toward Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to enhance their initiatives and strategies.

 

Overview of The 3 Main Types of CDPs

Data CDPs

CDPs in this category focus on either (rarely both):

• Standardizing all company data for purposes of data quality, normalization, governance, and access
• Eliminating the data headaches and limitations that traditionally accompany legacy email and marketing solutions, which tend to be restrictive in the types and volume of data they can accept

The primary purpose of a data CDP focused on the first bullet is to make it easier to collect data once, transform it as necessary, and make sure it gets wherever it needs to go. The analysis and activation focus, here, could be more extensive.

Examples of data CDPs include:

• Segment
• Tealium
• mParticle
• Simon Data
• Treasure Data
• Bloomreach

Marketing cloud CDPs

CDPs in this category are the result of efforts from well-established enterprise software companies to shift their integrated suite value propositions to a more open and flexible embrace of enterprise data.

It’s equivalent to buying a CDP, marketing platform, and analytics tool from 3 separate companies. The primary purpose of a marketing cloud CDP is to vertically integrate with other tools in the cloud provider’s technology ecosystem and to gain access to enterprise-level feature sets such as robust security and governance.

Examples of marketing cloud CDPs include:

• Adobe Real-Time CDP
• Data Cloud for Marketing by Salesforce
• Oracle Unity CDP

Analytics CDPs

CDPs in this category provide data management plus analytical applications, including advanced customer segmentation. Applications may also extend to machine learning, predictive modeling, revenue attribution, and journey mapping.

The primary purpose of an analytics CDP is to enable cross-functional data insights, reporting, and analysis.

Examples of analytics CDPs include:

• Lexer
• Amperity
• Amplitude

 

How to choose a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

Choosing the right CDP for your eCommerce business involves several crucial steps:

1. Bring Stakeholders into the Process

Involve key stakeholders from various departments to ensure the CDP meets the needs of the entire organization.

2. Outline Your Core Challenges or Use Cases

Identify your main challenges or use cases for a CDP. Popular use cases include:

• Unified customer data
• Enhanced personalization
• Mapping the customer journey
• Optimized customer experience
• Multichannel messaging
• Fewer privacy risks
• Actionable analytics

Once you’ve detailed your use cases, Sigma Infosolutions can assist in narrowing down the suitable CDP solutions that tackle similar challenges.

3. Determine the Tools Needed

• You need to get a handle on the tools your company uses that will be connected to your CDP.
• To get an idea of what tools and functionality you will need, start by focusing on your use cases. Which tools do you need to accomplish the specific use cases that you laid out in Step 2? Make a list of those tools.
• Next, make a list of all the tools that interact with your customers in one way or another. You will want to include website tools, CRM systems, real-time live chat, payment processors, email platforms, and help desk systems, just to name a few.
• Once you have determined the tools you need, make sure the CDPs you are evaluating already have those integrations. If one doesn’t have the majority of the tools you use, knock it out of contention. This step might narrow your list by a large number.

4. Gather requirements

• There’s more to a CDP than a way to consolidate data and solve your use cases. You also need to think of the other requirements for your CDP. Requirements are different from your use cases because a requirement is more like a feature, rather than an outcome.

 
For example, let’s say one of your requirements is that the CDP you choose should help you get a solid understanding of each piece of data that you are collecting. To pull that off, you’ll need a CDP that can help you build a data-tracking plan.

• If you are not sure what other requirements you need to consider, here’s a list of common requirements that our customers have:
1. We would like our CDP to help with GDPR and CCPA compliance
2. Our CDP should help us get a full view of our customer journey
3. Our CDP needs to have top-notch security

5. Compare CDP vendors

• At this point, you should have a list of just a few CDPs that fit your use cases, have the necessary integrations, and meet all of your requirements. Now, it’s time to compare each CDP. Don’t take pricing into consideration yet. We will get to that in the next step.
• Remember: All CDPs aren’t created equal. Some may work best for small businesses and others for midmarket and enterprise companies. So narrow your search for a CDP accordingly.

 

Conclusion

Selecting the right CDP for your eCommerce business involves understanding your needs, identifying necessary tools and integrations, and comparing vendors based on your specific requirements. By following these steps, you can choose a CDP that enhances your marketing strategies and provides a deeper understanding of your customers.