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5 Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform & Why It Matters to Customers

· 15 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

In today's competitive business landscape, understanding your customers' behavior and preferences through customer segmentation analysis is crucial for personalized marketing strategies. Imagine being able to tailor your marketing messages to individual customers based on their specific needs and interests. A Customer Data Platform can make this a reality, offering a centralized solution to collect and unify customer data from various touchpoints. This article will delve into the benefits of a Customer Data Platform and why it's essential for modern businesses.

Rengage's solution, Drive Loyalty and Growth, offers a powerful tool to help you accomplish these goals. By leveraging the insights from customer segmentation analysis, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with your audience, improve customer satisfaction, and boost your bottom line.



What is a CDP?

What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a powerful tool that businesses can use to harness the power of customer data. This tool combines customer information from multiple sources, cleans and unifies it, and creates a single view of each customer. The single customer view created by a CDP can provide businesses with invaluable insights into their customer’s preferences, behaviors, and interactions with their brand.

Personalizing marketing campaigns

One key benefit of a CDP is that it enables businesses to create personalized marketing campaigns. By understanding customer preferences, behaviors, and past interactions with the brand, businesses can tailor their marketing messages to resonate with each customer. This personalization can help increase engagement, conversion rates, and customer loyalty.

Improving customer experience

A CDP can help improve the overall customer experience by providing a more personalized and relevant interaction with the brand. For example, businesses can use a CDP to deliver targeted messages to customers at the right time, through the right channel. This can improve the overall customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Driving growth

The goal of a CDP is to drive business growth. By better understanding customers, businesses can create more targeted marketing campaigns, increase customer engagement, and drive more conversions. This can lead to increased revenue, customer loyalty, and, ultimately, business growth.



Benefits of a Customer Data Platform

Man enjoying perks - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

Driving Customer Loyalty: Building Stronger Relationships

Driving customer loyalty is essential for any business. A customer data platform (CDP) can help you build stronger relationships by providing insights and tools to create a personalized experience that resonates with your customers. With a CDP, you can enhance your marketing efforts and offer tailored solutions that cater to your customers’ needs, ultimately driving loyalty and growth for your business.

Understanding Your Customer

A CDP goes beyond basic demographics. It analyzes customer behavior across touchpoints, purchase history, website interactions, and even social media sentiment. This allows you to understand your customers' motivations, interests, and pain points more deeply. By gaining this deep insight into your customers, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with their needs and preferences, driving loyalty and growth organically.

Identifying High-Value Customers

Analyzing customer behavior and lifetime value can help you identify your most loyal and profitable customers. This allows you to tailor your marketing efforts and personalize experiences to retain these valuable customers. With a CDP, you can create personalized offers, rewards, and incentives that cater to your high-value customers, encouraging continued loyalty and growth for your business.

Predictive Personalization

A CDP can analyze past behavior to predict future needs and preferences. This allows you to proactively address customer needs with targeted recommendations, special offers, and support before they ask. By providing personalized experiences anticipating their needs, you can build stronger relationships with your customers and drive loyalty and growth for your business.

Loyalty Programs that Resonate

With a CDP, you can design loyalty programs that cater to your high-value customers' specific preferences. This could include personalized rewards, exclusive discounts, or early access to new products. By tailoring your loyalty programs to meet the needs of your most loyal customers, you can drive increased engagement, repeat purchases, and ultimately drive loyalty and growth for your business.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



Benefit 1 of Customer Data Platforms: Drive Customer Loyalty

woman using mobile - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

Many marketers now turn to customer data platforms (CDPs) to streamline their processes and make data-driven decisions. One of the primary benefits of a CDP is its ability to boost marketing return on investment (ROI). By harnessing customer data, organizations can create targeted campaigns that resonate with their audiences.

The Power of Data Integration

This leads to increased customer engagement, higher conversion rates, and improved ROI. A CDP allows marketers to collect and analyze customer data from various sources, such as websites, mobile apps, social media platforms, and email marketing campaigns. Marketers can gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences by consolidating this data into a single platform.

Personalized Marketing at Scale

Armed with this knowledge, they can create personalized marketing campaigns that are more likely to convert. With the ability to segment audiences based on various criteria, marketers can ensure their messages reach the right people at the right time. This helps to avoid irrelevant advertising and wasted resources. By tracking customer journeys across channels, marketers can also understand which marketing initiatives are driving conversions and optimize their marketing spend accordingly.

A/B Testing and Optimization

CDPs enable marketers to conduct A/B testing of different marketing messages, landing pages, or email subject lines. This helps to identify the most effective approach for maximizing engagement and conversions. A CDP can help marketers make every interaction count by delivering the right message to the right person at the right time.

Benefit 2 of Customer Data Platforms: Boost Marketing ROI

calculating roi - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

Optimizing Operational Efficiency: Streamlining Workflows

I cannot overstate the importance of streamlining workflows. When customer data is spread across various different silos and needs to be collected manually from multiple sources, it can result in a significant resource drain. A quality CDP eliminates the need for manual data gathering. This means that valuable time and resources are saved for your company, and the risk of human error is significantly decreased. This increased efficiency benefits not only your bottom line but your workforce, providing them with the means to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Eliminating Data Silos

CDPs eliminate the need to gather data from multiple sources manually. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors. Data silos are a source of frustration for many companies, requiring a significant amount of resources to rectify. By implementing a customer data platform, a business can significantly ease the burden of breaking down those silos. This is achieved through the centralization of customer data, thereby ensuring it is accessible to all departments. This elimination of silos can save valuable time and reduce the occurrence of errors.

Automated Tasks

Automated repetitive tasks tend to be time-consuming. For example, customer segmentation, data cleansing, and reporting are all examples of tasks that can be automated with a CDP. This plays a significant role in freeing up time for workers to focus on more strategic initiatives. A company can optimize workflows and improve overall productivity by automating these tasks.

Improved Collaboration

A unified customer experience is key to success in every company. This is especially true when it comes to marketing, sales, and customer service. But how does one achieve this? The solution is simple: provide a central view of customer data. By accessing this shared information, all departments are empowered to deliver a more unified service to customers. In turn, this improved collaboration across departments will positively affect the customer experience.

Simplified Compliance

Today, compliance with customer data privacy regulations is a top priority for many businesses. Unfortunately, the compliance process can be quite complex and requires dedicated resources to navigate. Fortunately, CDPs can assist in this area. By leveraging a customer data platform, a company can easily manage and identify customer data in line with GDPR or CCPA regulations. This level of compliance simplification can save a company time and resources, while also reducing the associated stress typically entailed with such an endeavor.

Benefit 3 of Customer Data Platforms: Optimize Operational Efficiency

optimizing efficiency - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

CDPs provide a wealth of data and insights that can be translated into actionable strategies.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Customer data can inform product development, improve customer support initiatives, and optimize pricing strategies. This ability to leverage data for decision-making purposes can be instrumental in empowering data-driven decisions within an organization. With access to a comprehensive set of data, you can get a clear picture of who your customers are, what they want, and how they interact with your brand.

Optimizing Products, Support, and Pricing

The insights gleaned from a CDP can inform your product development, customer support, and pricing strategies, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that can lead to improved business outcomes and more satisfied customers.

Personalized Experiences and Customer Satisfaction

Leveraging a CDP for insights into customer behavior can help you understand your customers' needs and preferences more thoroughly, allowing you to tailor your products or services to better meet their expectations. By utilizing this data, you can create personalized experiences for customers that resonate with their individual preferences and increase the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Actionable Insights

CDPs provide a wealth of data and insights that can be translated into actionable strategies. Customer data can be used to inform product development, improve customer support initiatives, and optimize pricing strategies. This ability to leverage data for decision-making purposes can be instrumental in empowering data-driven decisions within an organization.

With access to a comprehensive set of data, you can get a clear picture of who your customers are, what they want, and how they interact with your brand. The insights gleaned from a CDP can inform your product development, customer support, and pricing strategies, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that can lead to improved business outcomes and more satisfied customers.

Data-Driven Culture

A CDP fosters a data-driven culture within your organization. Every decision can be backed by real customer data, leading to more informed choices and better business outcomes. When a company has a data-driven culture, it means that all decisions are made based on data and not intuition or gut feeling. It allows companies to make informed decisions backed by customer data, leading to better business outcomes. By fostering a data-driven culture within your organization, you can ensure that every decision is based on real customer data. This can lead to a more informed decision-making process and better business outcomes.

Predictive Analytics

By analyzing customer data, you can predict future trends and customer behavior. This allows you to be proactive in your approach and adapt your strategies to changing customer needs. Predictive analytics can help you anticipate customer behavior and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Continuous Improvement

A CDP facilitates continuous improvement by allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, customer service initiatives, and other customer-centric efforts. You can then use these insights to refine your approach and achieve better results over time. A CDP facilitates continuous improvement by enabling you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, customer service initiatives, and other customer-centric efforts. You can then use these insights to refine your approach and achieve better results over time.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

Benefit 4 of Customer Data Platforms: Empower Data-Driven Decisions

making data driven decisions - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

Understanding Cross-Channel Behavior: A Customer Data Platform (CDP) enables businesses to gain insights into how customers move across different channels. By understanding customer preferences and behaviors across various touchpoints, companies can optimize marketing efforts to meet customer expectations. Understanding this cross-channel behavior allows for targeted marketing and personalized engagement strategies.

Seamless Experience

To ensure a seamless and consistent brand experience, businesses must understand how customers interact with their brand across various touchpoints. A CDP provides a unified view of customer interactions, enabling companies to deliver a consistent brand experience regardless of the channel a customer chooses. This consistency helps build customer trust and loyalty, as they receive a seamless experience at every touchpoint.

Personalized Interactions

With the unified customer profile created by a CDP, businesses can deliver personalized interactions across all touchpoints. This personalization can manifest in various ways, such as targeted recommendations based on online browsing behavior in-store or personalized support messages via social media. Businesses can enhance customer engagement and satisfaction by tailoring interactions based on a customer's behavior and preferences.

The Importance of Customer Understanding with a CDP

customer uderstanding CDP - What are Benefits Of A Customer Data Platform

Understanding your customers' motivations and the problems they are trying to solve is crucial when it comes to creating personalized marketing messages. Using a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to gather, organize, and analyze customer data, you can gain valuable insights into your customers' needs and wants. This understanding allows you to create targeted marketing campaigns that address specific pain points and offer solutions that resonate with your customers.

Analyzing Customer Behaviors

By tracking customer interactions with your brand across different channels, you can better understand how your customers engage with your products and services. A CDP can help you identify patterns in customer behavior, such as the type of content they engage with or the products they typically purchase. This information allows you to tailor your marketing messages to meet the needs and preferences of your customers, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Identifying Customer Preferences

Understanding your customers' needs and behaviors is essential, as is knowing their communication preferences. By leveraging a CDP to collect and analyze customer data, you can gain insights into the types of marketing messages that resonate with your audience. This information lets you personalize your marketing campaigns based on your customers' preferences, increasing engagement and driving conversions.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Rengage provides a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding and activation to conversion and churn, enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing users.

Insights into Segments with Rengage

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features. Journey Moments offer insights into your micro-segments, while Journey Builder provides an intuitive multi-channel marketing automation solution.

Get Insights into Customer Behavior

Rengage also offers insights, prediction and attribution to help you understand how specific customer journeys contribute to user conversions. These insights can help you make data-driven decisions to optimize your customer journey and improve user engagement.

Book a Free Demo with Rengage

Ready to transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth? Book a free demo with Rengage today to learn more about how our platform can help you unlock the full potential of your customer data and drive better business outcomes.



How To Choose CDP in 2024

· 14 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Are you finding it challenging to sift through the myriad Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) available to find the perfect one for your customer segmentation analysis needs? As businesses strive to understand their customers better, choosing the right CDP has never been more critical. This blog will explore the essential aspects of selecting the right CDP for your customer segmentation analysis needs, providing valuable insights and actionable tips on what to look for in a CDP to help the readers understand how to choose CDPs and then suggest a few pointers too.

Are you grappling with understanding how to choose CDPs for your customer segmentation analysis? Rengage's solution, drive loyalty and growth, offers a valuable tool to help you navigate this complex landscape. Let's delve into the blog to learn more about the considerations and tips to make an informed decision!



An Overview of the Different CDP Programs

Person Using a Laptop - How To Choose CDP

The CDP Climate Change program is one of the most significant aspects of CDP's work. It's a vital initiative because it compels companies to disclose and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. I like to say that if you're not measuring something, then you're not managing it. That's the core principle of CDP's approach to climate change.

By providing a standardized format for companies to report their emissions, CDP helps companies assess where they stand on climate change and then take action. The CDP Climate Change program includes companies reporting on their greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, and low-carbon strategies.

CDP Water Security Program

The CDP Water Security program focuses on water withdrawal, wastewater discharge, and water management practices. These "three Ws" are the drivers of water security, which ensures that a company can continue to operate without disruptions caused by water withdrawal limitations, wastewater discharge restrictions, or other water management challenges.

Water security is an issue for companies in the energy, agriculture, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and many others. Every company relies on water in some way, which makes the CDP Water Security program one of the organization's most relevant programs.

CDP Forests Program

The CDP Forests program concentrates on forests, deforestation, forest conservation efforts, and sustainable forestry practices. Many of the world's largest companies rely on commodities like palm oil, soy, and lumber derived from deforested land. Understanding the risks associated with deforestation and ensuring that commodities are sourced responsibly are essential for companies with complex supply chains.

The CDP Forests program is also important for organizations that operate in regions where deforestation might be a significant issue. Whether they're sourcing timber from tropical rainforests or palm oil from Indonesia, many companies can use insights from the CDP Forests program to inform their business decisions.

How to Identify Your Company's Needs

Persons sitting across the Table - How To Choose CDP

Assessing Environmental Footprint:

To assess a company's environmental footprint, I recommend analyzing energy consumption, water usage, and waste generation. This involves gathering data on the energy consumed, the amount of water used, and the volume of waste generated throughout the company's operations and supply chain. By doing so, you can identify the areas where your company has the most substantial environmental impact and determine the most effective strategies for reducing that impact.

Identifying Reporting Priorities:

I suggest considering regulations, stakeholder concerns, and sustainability goals to identify reporting priorities. Regulations about environmental reporting provide a clear roadmap for the kind of information you need to disclose. Stakeholder concerns offer valuable insights into the areas where your company's environmental performance could be improved. Sustainability goals can help you establish which environmental aspects are most important to your company's overall mission and values.

Selecting Relevant Programs:

Based on the impact assessment and reporting priorities, I recommend selecting the most relevant CDP program(s). For example, if your company uses a lot of energy, the Climate Change program could be a good fit. If water management is your company's top priority, the Water Security program would be better. By aligning your company's environmental focus areas with the appropriate CDP program, you can ensure that your reporting efforts are as impactful and effective as possible.



Evaluating Readiness for Disclosure

Person Pointing at a Laptop - How To Choose CDP

Assessing Disclosure Readiness

Data Availability

In CDP reporting, it is crucial to check if your company has all the necessary data on hand to respond to the CDP questionnaire sections. This involves reviewing existing reports, internal databases, and data collection protocols to ensure that the information required for CDP reporting is readily available.

Internal Expertise

Identifying personnel within your organization who possess the requisite knowledge and expertise to compile data accurately and complete the CDP questionnaire is fundamental. Having the right team in place to manage the CDP disclosure process ensures that the information provided is precise and aligns with the reporting requirements.

Resource Allocation

Allocating sufficient resources within your company, such as time and personnel, is essential for effectively managing the CDP disclosure process. By dedicating the necessary time and human capital to CDP reporting, your organization can streamline the process and enhance the quality of the final submission.

Data Collection and Management

Identifying Data Sources

Various potential data sources within your company can be leveraged for CDP reporting. These include utility bills, water usage records, production logs, waste management reports, and more. Identifying these sources and ensuring their accessibility is key to compiling accurate data for CDP reporting.

Establishing a Data Collection System

Establishing a data collection system involves creating standardized templates, designating data collection points across your organization, and utilizing data management software where necessary. This helps streamline the data collection process, making it more efficient and ensuring that all required information is captured.

Data Quality Assurance

Implementing data quality checks is vital before submitting the CDP response. By verifying the accuracy and consistency of the data collected, you can enhance the credibility of your CDP report and align it more closely with the CDP's expectations.

Person Writing Notes - How To Choose CDP

Registration

Registering your company with CDP is quite straightforward. Firstly, you need to register on the CDP website and select the program that aligns with your organization's goals and objectives. You must provide basic company information, such as your company name, address, and contact details. Once registered, you will gain access to the CDP online platform to start your disclosure journey.

Completing the Questionnaire

The next step after registration is accessing and navigating the CDP online platform to complete the questionnaire. The platform is user-friendly and guides you through the questionnaire. For the 2024 platform, an integrated format might combine different program elements, making it easier for you to complete your questionnaire effectively.

Verification (Optional)

Verification of your CDP response is an optional step where an external verifier reviews your disclosure for accuracy and completeness. The verification process enhances the credibility of your disclosure and demonstrates your commitment to transparency and accountability.

Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features. Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments, Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation, Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



Understanding the New CDP Platform

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The CDP platform underwent significant changes in 2024, most notably the introduction of an integrated questionnaire format. This new format combines separate sections for climate change, water security, and forests into a single, cohesive questionnaire. This streamlines data entry and increases efficiency, especially for companies participating in multiple CDP programs.

The new platform also aims to improve coherence by consolidating all environmental data into one place, allowing for a more holistic view of a company's sustainability efforts. The enhanced user experience is another noteworthy benefit of the new platform, with a more intuitive interface designed to improve navigation and data entry.

Potential Benefits of an Integrated Questionnaire

One key benefit of the integrated questionnaire format is streamlined data entry. By combining previously separate sections into a single questionnaire, companies can avoid redundant data entry and complete the disclosure process more efficiently. The new platform could also improve coherence by centralizing all environmental data, making it easier to demonstrate how a company's sustainability efforts connect across different areas.

This holistic view can help companies better understand their environmental impact and strategies. The new platform's enhanced user experience could make navigating and finding relevant information easier, improving overall user satisfaction.

Potential Challenges of a New Platform

Despite the benefits, transitioning to a new platform can present challenges. Companies might face a learning curve as they familiarize themselves with new functionalities and data entry processes. Navigation difficulties could also arise if the new platform is complex, complicating the process of locating specific features. Data transfer issues, such as compatibility between old and new systems, could further complicate the transition to the new platform.

Recommendations for Businesses

To adapt to the changes in the CDP platform, businesses should stay informed by regularly checking CDP's official website and resources for updates on new platform functionalities, tutorials, and user guides. In case of any questions or difficulties, businesses should not hesitate to contact CDP's support team, who can provide clarifications and troubleshooting assistance. Businesses should be prepared to spend time familiarizing themselves with the new platform, considering attending webinars or training sessions offered by CDP to begin using the new system effectively.

How to Use CDP Scores and Feedback

Person Analysing Reports and Data - How To Choose CDP

CDP Scoring Methodology

CDP uses a scoring methodology to assess a company's environmental disclosure and performance across various criteria. These criteria include completeness of response, awareness of environmental issues, management approaches, and action and performance.

Peer Comparison and Score Ranges

CDP assigns scores based on a letter grading system (A to D-), with A being the highest score. These scores are then compared to industry peers, allowing companies to benchmark their environmental performance relative to others in their sector.

Benefits of a High Score

Receiving a high CDP score comes with several advantages, such as enhanced reputation as a sustainability leader, increased investor confidence, improved access to green financing, and stronger stakeholder engagement.

Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

Leveraging Feedback for Improvement

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CDP provides a detailed feedback report after the scoring process, highlighting a company's strengths and weaknesses in its disclosure along with specific areas for improvement. This feedback report is a valuable tool for identifying potential gaps in a business's environmental practices.

Identifying Improvement Opportunities

The feedback report can reveal areas for growth, such as the lack of data collection or monitoring procedures, insufficient transparency in reporting environmental impact, or the absence of clear and measurable environmental goals. By utilizing the feedback report, companies can pinpoint and address these weaknesses.

Setting New Goals and Initiatives

CDP feedback can aid in setting new and more ambitious environmental goals. Companies can implement new data collection and management systems, develop and execute environmental management plans, and set SMART goals for emissions reduction, water conservation, or sustainable sourcing practices.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

At Rengage, we have revolutionized the customer journey management process by delivering a comprehensive solution that enhances customer journeys. Our platform provides actionable insights and measurable outcomes, all achieved without a single line of code. We specialize in accelerating the customer journey from onboarding and activation to conversion and churn. By leveraging Rengage, our clients can unlock revenue from their existing user base while ensuring customer loyalty and growth.

Journey Moments: Unveiling Insights into Micro-Segments

The Journey Moments feature of Rengage provides users with invaluable insights into their micro-segments. By understanding these segments deeply, businesses can tailor their marketing strategies to meet each group's specific needs and preferences. Analyzing segments at a granular level allows organizations to personalize customer interactions, creating memorable experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

Journey Builder: Crafting Intuitive Multi-Channel Marketing Automation

Rengage's Journey Builder empowers businesses to create and manage multi-channel marketing campaigns effortlessly. Users can design complex customer journeys that span various touchpoints through an intuitive interface. By orchestrating interactions across channels, brands can build cohesive customer experiences that resonate with their audience, leading to increased conversion rates and improved customer retention.

Insights Prediction and Attribution: Unveiling the Impact of Customer Journeys

Rengage's Insights Prediction and Attribution feature enables businesses to measure their customer journeys' impact accurately. Organizations can attribute conversions to specific interactions along the customer journey by tracking and analyzing user behavior. This level of insight allows brands to optimize their marketing efforts, focusing on strategies that generate the highest return on investment and drive sustainable business growth.

Book a Free Demo: Transforming Customer Interactions into Personalized Experiences

If you want to transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth, we invite you to book a free demo with Rengage. Our team will guide you through our platform's capabilities, showcasing how you can leverage our solution to enhance your customer journey management practices.

Start your journey towards improved customer satisfaction and increased revenue today with Rengage.



The Best Omnichannel Measurement Strategy

· 11 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

In the fast-paced world of retail, understanding what drives your customers' purchasing decisions is key to maximizing your profits. An effective customer segmentation analysis can help you identify your customers' different needs and preferences, allowing you to tailor your marketing strategies accordingly. Conducting this type of analysis can be a complex process involving data collection, interpretation, and implementation.

When it comes to omnichannel measurement, getting a comprehensive view of your customers' purchasing behavior can be challenging. Luckily, Rengage’s drive loyalty and growth solution can help. By providing real-time visibility of customer interactions across all channels, you can gain valuable insights into customer segmentation analysis and adapt your marketing strategies to suit your customers' preferences better. With Rengage, you can effortlessly pinpoint which customer segment is most engaged with your brand, ensuring your marketing efforts are targeted and effective.



What is Omnichannel Measurement?

What is Omnichannel Measurement

Omnichannel measurement is a comprehensive strategy that allows businesses to track and analyze customer interactions across multiple touchpoints. This includes online platforms, physical stores, social media, email marketing, and more. By capturing data from all these channels, businesses can gain a comprehensive view of their customers and make data-driven decisions that enhance their marketing strategies.

By focusing on omnichannel measurement, businesses can understand how customers interact with them across different channels and adjust their marketing efforts for improved results. It goes beyond tracking individual channels to provide a holistic view of the customer journey.

Why Omnichannel Measurement Matters

Understanding a customer’s journey across different channels is critical, especially in today's digital world. Customers are more connected than ever, and they expect a seamless experience when interacting with a brand. By measuring omnichannel performance, businesses can identify pain points, optimize the customer journey, and enhance the overall customer experience.

Key Elements of Omnichannel Measurement Strategy

To build the best omnichannel measurement strategy, you need to consider the following key elements:

1. Centralized Customer Data

Collect and consolidate customer data from all touchpoints to understand customer behavior and preferences.

2. Integration of Data

Integrate data sources across channels to provide a unified view of customer interactions.

3. Attribution Modeling

Use attribution models to understand how different touchpoints contribute to conversions.

4. Customer Segmentation

Segment customers based on behavior, preferences, and buying patterns for targeted marketing efforts.

5. Real-Time Reporting

Monitor and analyze data in real-time to make informed decisions quickly.

6. User Experience Optimization

Focus on improving the customer experience across all touchpoints to drive engagement and conversions.

By implementing these key elements in your omnichannel measurement strategy, you can gain valuable insights into your customers' behavior and interactions with your brand. This, in turn, will help you optimize your marketing efforts and drive better results across all channels.



Setting SMART Goals: The Foundation of Measurement

Setting up goals - Omnichannel Measurement

Effective measurement starts with knowing what you want to achieve. Clearly define your goals using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). This ensures your measurement strategy aligns with your overall business objectives.

For example, instead of a vague goal like "increase brand awareness," a SMART goal could be "increase website traffic by 20% within the next quarter through a targeted social media campaign."

Selecting the Right Metrics

Seletecting metrics - Omnichannel Measurement

Choosing the right metrics is crucial for optimizing omnichannel measurement. Not all metrics are created equal.

Understanding Customer Behavior

It is essential to choose ones that align with your SMART goals and provide insights into customer behavior across channels. For instance, website traffic is a vital metric for measuring the number of visitors to your website and can be segmented by source to understand how customers are finding you.

Conversion Rates Across Channels

Another key metric is conversion rates, which measure the percentage of visitors who take a desired action on your website. By tracking conversion rates across different channels, you can identify the most effective touchpoints for engaging with your customers.

Customer Retention and Acquisition

Focusing on metrics like Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can help you determine the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and provide insights into customer retention strategies.

Personalized Customer Journeys with Rengage

Rengage, a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, can help you drive loyalty and growth. With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and measure how your journeys impact users' conversion.

Book a free demo with Rengage to learn how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



Improving Data Integration

working on integration - Omnichannel Measurement

Unified Customer View

Integrating data from various channels provides a unified customer profile, showing the complete customer journey and each channel's contribution to the experience.

Improved Attribution Modeling

Integrating data accurately assigns credit to different touchpoints throughout the customer journey.

Personalized Marketing

Integrating data allows personalized marketing efforts. For example, you can target website visitors who abandoned their carts with retargeting ads on social media.

Invest in tools and processes to facilitate data integration, such as Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to collect and unify data from various sources.

Attribution Modeling for Customer Attribution

team understanding customer attribution - Omnichannel Measurement

Understanding customer attribution is crucial for businesses looking to optimize their marketing strategies. With customers interacting across multiple channels before making a purchase, it can be difficult to pinpoint which touchpoint deserves the credit for the conversion. Attribution models address this challenge by assigning credit to different touchpoints based on their role in the customer journey.

Here are some common attribution models:

Last Click Attribution

This model assigns all credit for the conversion to the last channel a customer interacted with before making a purchase. While simple, it can overemphasize the importance of the final touchpoint and undervalue earlier interactions that may have influenced the customer's decision.

First Click Attribution

This model credits only the first channel a customer interacts with. This may not be accurate, as customers often revisit different channels before converting.

Time Decay Attribution

This model assigns credit to all touchpoints a customer interacts with but gradually reduces the weight given to interactions further back in the journey. This provides a more balanced view of the customer journey.

Position-Based Attribution

This model assigns a specific weight (e.g., 40% to the first touchpoint, 40% to the last touchpoint, 20% to all touchpoints in between) to different interactions in the customer journey.

No-Code Customer Journey Management

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

The Benefits of Crafting the Best Omnichannel Measurement Strategy

team happy with top benefits - Omnichannel Measurement

Improved Customer Experience

Understanding the customer journey across all touchpoints is the key to fostering brand loyalty. When customers feel acknowledged and appreciated, they are more likely to return. By measuring your omnichannel performance, you can create a seamless and personalized experience that resonates with individuals. Analyzing the data can help you make informed decisions about marketing strategies. This tailored approach can differentiate you from competitors and improve your customer experience.

Enhanced Marketing ROI

Data-driven insights from omnichannel measurement are invaluable when it comes to identifying effective marketing channels. When you know what works, you can optimize your budget allocation for better returns. By measuring the impact of each channel, you can focus your resources where they are most effective. This helps you get the most out of your marketing budget and enhance your marketing ROI.

Increased Sales and Conversions

Understanding your customers across channels helps you tailor your marketing messages and calls to action for higher conversion rates. Analyzing the data allows you to identify trends and preferences and adapt your strategies accordingly. This personalized approach can increase sales and conversions, ultimately boosting your bottom line.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Omnichannel measurement empowers you to make informed decisions about your marketing strategies based on real customer data. This data allows you to accurately measure the impact of your marketing efforts and make adjustments as needed. Relying on data rather than guesswork allows you to refine your strategy for better results. This data-driven decision-making process is essential for staying ahead of the competition.

Competitive Advantage

In a crowded marketplace, standing out from the competition is crucial. You can set yourself apart from competitors by understanding your customers and delivering a superior omnichannel experience. Customers who have a positive experience with your brand are more likely to become loyal customers. Combining data-driven insights with a personalized approach can create a competitive advantage that sets you apart in the marketplace.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Our platform Rengage offers an all-encompassing solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys. We work tirelessly to deliver insights and measurable outcomes with no code needed, ensuring a smooth and accelerated customer journey from onboarding and activation to conversion and churn. One of the key benefits of Rengage is its ability to help customers unlock revenue from their existing user base.

Data-Driven Campaign Management

With Rengage, you will gain access to insights into your segments, allowing you to run campaigns effortlessly using our intuitive journey manager. We also provide insights to measure how your journeys impact user conversion through our innovative Journey Moments and Journey Builder features. Journey Moments provide deep insights into your micro-segments, while Journey Builder offers an intuitive multi-channel marketing automation solution that streamlines your marketing efforts. Our platform offers insights prediction and attribution to help you stay ahead of the curve.

Personalized Customer Journeys at Scale

If you're looking to transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth, Rengage is the perfect solution for you. Book a free demo today and discover how you can leverage our platform to create personalized experiences that will keep your customers coming back for more.



10 Essential Customer Data Platform Capabilities for Better CX

· 12 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Customer Segmentation Analysis is vital for businesses that enhance customer loyalty through efficient data management. Imagine having a panoramic view of your customers' preferences and behavior, allowing you to tailor personalized experiences that naturally cultivate loyalty. In this blog, we explore the capabilities of Customer Data Platforms and how they can help you master Customer Segmentation Analysis.

Looking to Increase and maintain customer loyalty through efficient data management? Rengage.ai 's solution, Drive Loyalty and Growth, is a powerful asset in achieving this goal. This tool effectively enables you to leverage customer segmentation analysis, creating tailored strategies that foster deep customer connections and long-term loyalty.



What is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

What are Customer Data Platform Capabilities

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a piece of software that consolidates data from multiple tools to create a single centralized customer database containing data on all touch points and interactions with your product or service. This database can be segmented in a nearly endless ways to create more personalized marketing campaigns. The main benefit of a CDP is having a comprehensive, persistently updated view of the customer.

How does a CDP differ from a CRM or DMP?

A CDP differs from a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system because it centralizes customer data from multiple sources and allows for segmentation. A Data Management Platform (DMP) is also different as it is designed to serve advertisers and media buyers and does not focus on individual-level data. A CDP creates a single, easy-to-understand customer profile by uniting data from various touch points. This profile is usable to other systems, such as Facebook ads platforms or other marketing tools.

How can a CDP benefit companies?

A CDP allows businesses to understand their customers better and adjust their marketing strategy accordingly. For example, a company can use a CDP to segment its customer data to create more personalized marketing campaigns. Marketers can collect data from touch points like Facebook, the company’s website, email, and any other place a customer might interact with the company.

This data is consolidated into a unified customer profile and used to create customized marketing campaigns. Through segmentation, businesses can better understand their audience and create more personalized marketing campaigns.

What are the key capabilities of a CDP?

Three essential capabilities of a CDP are identity resolution, trait and audience building, and activation. A CDP's identity resolution feature unifies user history across various devices and channels into a single customer view for each user.

The trait and audience-building capability synthesizes data into traits and audiences for each customer, including users displaying intent, and integrates this into overall account activity. Activation allows businesses to push user—and account-level audiences to various tools in their stack to personalize real-time outbound messaging.

What Is the Primary Purpose of a Customer Data Platform?

Primary Purpose - Data Platform Capabilities

CDPs help unify customer data to make marketing efforts more effective. An intelligent, holistic view of your customer can help you make customer interactions, communications, and engagements more relevant. Many CDPs now feature more advanced capabilities, such as governance and continuous analytics. A CDP makes combining a trusted customer profile easy and adding intelligence from internal, external, and third-party sources.

A CDP makes the data easy to access and easy to use. These can include deep analytics, marketing activation, and broader customer experience initiatives. You can then share that trusted data with other systems and processes. You can also use that data to inform marketing segmentation, personalization, and next best actions.

Here are a few things you can do with an enterprise CDP:

  • View individual customers, both existing and prospective, from many perspectives.
  • See customers in the context of their relationships, households, social networks, and B2B hierarchies.
  • Extract context from web chat, email, and phone data. Then attach it to customer records
  • Apply AI and machine learning to customer behavior so you can infer attributes, attitudes, lifecycle events, and more

Streamlining Customer Journeys

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user. With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



10 Essential Customer Data Platform Capabilities

Person testing features - Data Platform Capabilities

1. Customer Data Unification

CDPs ingest all types of customer data from various sources, creating a unified customer profile that updates continuously.

2. Data Processing Across Multiple Formats and Types

CDP's can ingest data in any format without needing data transformation, collecting raw, event-level data.

3. No Timelines on Data Retention

CDP's provide consistent data management and storage without limitations on data expiration.

4. Machine Learning and AI Capabilities

CDP's offer AI and ML capabilities for deriving actionable insights from customer data.

5. Dynamic Profiles

CDP's use machine learning and AI to create dynamic customer profiles based on behavior and attributes.

6. Personalized Experiences

CDP's enable personalized marketing programs and messages, ensuring customers receive relevant content.

7. Data Scalability

CDP's can ingest and process billions of events daily, scaling as your data management strategy evolves.

8. Customer Journey Flexibility

CDP's can adapt to changes in customer journeys and integrate with various applications to activate customer data.

9. Privacy and Security

CDP's provide enterprise-grade security, including encryption, authentication, and regulation compliance.

10. Quick Time to Value

CDP's offer quick implementation, turnkey integrations, and professional services to get you up and running fast.



4 Types of Customer Data Platforms

Major Types - Data Platform Capabilities

1. Marketing Cloud CDPs

Marketing cloud CDPs are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing tool sets within specific software ecosystems like Adobe, Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, or Oracle. These CDPs collect and manage data, create single customer views, and connect with corresponding tools to enhance marketing campaigns. They play nicely with proprietary software systems and are particularly useful for organizations deeply entrenched in a specific software ecosystem.

2. CDP Engines and Toolkits

CDP engines and toolkits allow organizations to customize CDP functionalities based on specific organizational needs. These tech-heavy solutions are usually utilized by IT teams to build tailored applications on top of existing CDPs. While these solutions are not as user-friendly as other CDP types, they provide flexibility and customization beyond the standard capabilities of most CDPs. These solutions tend to come with a higher price tag.

3. Marketing Data-Integration CDPs

Marketing data-integration CDPs focus on data operations, offering robust data manipulation and governance capabilities in a user-friendly interface. Both IT and marketing teams can collaborate easily within these CDPs, enabling seamless data handling and campaign segmentation across multiple channels. This CDP type lacks comprehensive analytics views, which may limit decision-making capabilities.

4. CDP Smart Hubs

CDP smart hubs are designed for marketers, providing a plug-and-play solution with a focus on personalization and campaign execution. These smart hubs leverage user behavior and event data to trigger tailored responses in real-time. By analyzing user data and creating predictive models, smart hubs enhance customer journeys by tailoring experiences to individual customers.

How to Choose a Customer Data Platform

Choosing the ideal tools - Data Platform Capabilities

1. Data Management

When evaluating a Customer Data Platform (CDP) solution, it is crucial to assess its data management capabilities. A CDP's ability to ingest data from various databases and channels and process streaming data is vital for the success of your marketing initiatives. Ensure the CDP seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack and effectively manages all customer data.

2. Analytics and Intelligence

Analyze the analytics and reporting features offered by the CDP solution. The availability of intuitive analytics tools enables your team to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. These insights can then be used to create targeted marketing campaigns and improve overall customer experience.

3. Cross-Channel Orchestration

Consider the cross-channel orchestration capabilities of the CDP solution. A robust CDP should provide the functionality to unify the customer experience across all touchpoints. By leveraging data syndication, you can deliver consistent messaging and personalized experiences to customers, regardless of the channel they engage with.

4. Privacy, Security, and Compliance

Prioritize the privacy, security, and compliance features of the CDP solution. It is essential to safeguard customer data and adhere to regulations and best practices concerning data management. Ensure that the CDP enables you to easily manage and remove customer data in compliance with government regulations, ensuring customer trust and minimizing risks.

5. Platform and Services

Evaluate the features and services offered by different CDP solutions. Compare the platform capabilities, such as scalability, flexibility, and ease of use, to determine which solution aligns best with your business requirements. Assess the level of service the vendor provides, including support, training, and ongoing updates, to ensure a successful implementation and utilization of the CDP.



Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Customer segmentation is a crucial aspect of any marketing strategy. It involves dividing customers into groups based on common characteristics such as behavior, demographics, or preferences. Rengage enables businesses to create and manage customer segments effectively.

By leveraging the platform's intuitive Journey Builder feature, marketers can design and execute marketing campaigns tailored to each segment, ensuring that messages resonate with the right audience. This personalized approach fosters a deeper customer connection, increasing brand loyalty and customer retention.

Predictive Insights and Data-Driven Decision-Making with Rengage

Data plays a significant role in customer segmentation and personalization. Rengage's Insights Prediction feature empowers businesses to make informed decisions based on predictive analytics. By analyzing customer interactions data, businesses gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences.

This data-driven approach enables businesses to anticipate customer needs and tailor their marketing efforts accordingly. Marketers can leverage these insights to create targeted campaigns that effectively engage customers and drive conversions.

Multi-Channel Marketing Automation with Rengage

In today's digital landscape, customers interact with brands across various touchpoints. Rengage's Journey Builder feature offers a comprehensive solution for multi-channel marketing automation. Marketers can create seamless customer journeys that span different channels, ensuring a consistent brand experience across platforms.

By reaching customers where they are most active, businesses can increase their chances of engagement and conversion. The platform's intuitive interface simplifies the process of creating and deploying multi-channel campaigns, enabling marketers to optimize their marketing efforts effectively.

Measurement and Attribution with Rengage

Tracking the success of marketing campaigns is essential for refining strategies and improving performance. Rengage's Journey Moments feature provides businesses with insights into micro-segments, enabling them to measure the impact of their campaigns on user conversion.

By analyzing customer interactions at a granular level, marketers can identify successful strategies and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach to measurement and attribution allows businesses to continually optimize their marketing efforts, driving better results and maximizing ROI.



31 Powerful Customer Data Platform Tools for Better Insights

· 25 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Are you struggling to efficiently analyze your customer data to enhance your customer segmentation strategies? Understanding your customers' behavior and preferences is crucial for tailoring your marketing campaigns and improving the overall customer experience. This blog on customer data platform tools will help you navigate the complexities of customer segmentation analysis to enhance your segmentation strategies and boost customer engagement.



What Is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

What are Customer Data Platform Tools

A customer data platform (CDP) is software that businesses use to organize and manage all of the information they collect about their customers in one place. In essence, they’re data management platforms that collect, sort, and standardize huge amounts of information automatically—on a scale that humans can’t.

A Digital Vault for User Information

Think of it like an enormous digital filing cabinet or a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style warehouse for all of your customers’ information. This often includes things like their contact information, what products they’ve purchased, and how they interact with your website – down to the minutiae of which pages they look at, for how long, and what they do next.

Making Smarter Decisions with Unified Data

The core idea behind a customer data platform is that having all of this information in one spot makes it easier for businesses to better understand their customers and make smarter decisions about how to market and sell to them.

Your Customer Data Virtual Assistant

In other words, a customer data platform is like having a virtual assistant who knows everything about your customers and can help you target them better with messaging, activations, and campaigns.

What does a CDP do?

A customer data platform (CDP) is like a vacuum that can suck up all of the relevant behavioral customer data points that can help businesses communicate with them. They then take this data and standardize it into a format that’s accessible by other tools, such as customer relationship management (CRMs) and customer experience management (CEM) tools.

That integration between raw data and the tools that utilize it gives businesses a more complete understanding of their customers and helps marketers create more personalized experiences for them.

Specifically, this kind of data management platform can help you with:

Collecting and centralizing customer data from various sources

A CDP makes it easy to gather customer data from all over and keep it all in one spot, so you can have a complete picture of your customers, including their demographic, purchase history, transactional, and behavioral data.

Customer profiles, segments, and personalization

A CDP can take all of that rich, ever-evolving information and use it to build personas and profiles for each customer or customer type. It can then divide those profiles into different groups or segments based on things like age, location, or purchase history so you can target your marketing efforts more effectively. Because of how personal it is to each customer, that should make your marketing more impactful and meaningful.

Integration with other marketing and sales tools

Customer data platforms are designed to integrate seamlessly with the business tools you’re already using – like email marketing platforms or customer relationship management systems – to make reaching your customers much easier. That also includes the ability to automate and streamline a lot of your marketing campaigns and processes.

Adhering to data compliance

Customer data is delicate and can lead to regulatory issues if handled erroneously. Any customer data platform worth its salt should fully comply with today’s international data privacy legislation. This means you’ll keep your customer data safe and within the legal remit of regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Top 9 Benefits of a Customer Data Platform

Benefits - Customer Data Platform Tools

1. Create unified customer profiles

CDPs don’t just collect and store data; they process it into customer profiles that can be used to create single customer views (SCVs). Also called 360-customer views, SCVs are profiles created by a CDP from all the data gathered on a single customer. They provide marketers with a unified view of insights like their behaviors, information, purchase history, and interests.

2. Eliminate data silos

When different teams or departments each keep track of different sources of customer data, it creates data silos. A CDP gathers all customer data into one place, even if data is streaming in from various sources. That way, a company can access all their online and offline data from every touchpoint all at once and create informed decisions on what experiences will resonate with their customers best.

3. Improve personalization

Customers expect digital experiences to be personal. Having a unified view of each customer helps brands identify which experiences will be most relevant and personal. This includes understanding what your customers want to hear and when and through which touchpoints they are most likely to interact with your brand — even as their preferences change.

4. Increase data privacy and compliance

CDPs help brands keep customer data secure and in compliance with regulations by combining data sources, creating complete and up-to-date profiles, and quickly accessing those profiles.

5. Increase revenue

Personalization can lift revenues by 5–15% and increase the efficiency of marketing spend by 10–30%. Using SCVs to create more personalized experiences, companies can increase customer engagement and brand loyalty, resulting in higher conversion rates and revenue.

6. Improve omnichannel customer experiences

CDPs use actionable customer insights to activate experiences across relevant mobile, web, email, and social media channels. Because these experiences are informed by a unified profile, CDPs can adapt and curate a personalized, consistent journey — even as a customer’s needs and behaviors evolve.

7. Increase efficiency

CDPs reduce data gaps between departments and avoid the redundancy that occurs with data silos. By constantly updating data from various sources, CDPs instead have the most up-to-date insights on the kinds of experiences that will resonate with your customers. Using AI and automation, CDPs then use these profiles to create experiences informed by when, where, and how a customer likes to engage — and then deliver just the right experiences.

8. Improve customer experience

By turning unified data into SCVs, you can better serve your customers by creating personalized content that meets their needs. This shows that you value your customers while differentiating your brand to increase retention, loyalty, and, ultimately customer lifetime value (CLV).

9. Use a single platform for B2C and B2B businesses

B2B and B2C marketers can benefit from a CDP’s comprehensive understanding of customers. Instead of requiring manual workflows, advanced skills, and IT support, real-time CDPs empower marketers to create profiles made up of consumers, professionals, or both — enabling teams to work closer together to personalize experiences for any audience.

Streamlining Customer Journeys: Activation, Conversion, and Beyond

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



4 Types of Customer Data Platforms

Illustration of types - Customer Data Platform Tools

1. Marketing Clouds

Marketing Clouds provide a range of cloud-based marketing tools that can be utilized for various marketing activities. They are highly versatile, can be used for marketing campaigns, and are ideal for managing data. With the availability of diverse tools, marketers and advertisers can use marketing clouds to target leads with a personalized approach. Marketing Clouds are also known for their data storage capabilities and tracking. The data recorded by these tools can be used to evaluate a campaign's overall performance.

2. Smart Hubs

Smart Hubs are a central hub for a company's marketing technology or martech. They work as a collection of tools to enhance the company's marketing and advertising campaigns. Marketers use smart hubs to segment data and focus on a specific group of customers. Marketing teams can also use smart hubs to analyze the data, create custom marketing campaigns, ensure data accuracy, and create visual reports. Smart Hubs stand out because they provide custom analytics tools for reports and can be used for data automation.

3. Marketing Data Integration

Marketing Data Integration CDPs place data first, with API capabilities. They are designed to provide companies with a robust platform that includes features for integrating data from different sources. These tools are ideal for companies looking to streamline their data processes and simplify customer data management. Marketing Data Integration CDPs are known for their compatibility with other CRM tools and ease of data analysis use.

4. Engines and Toolkit

Engines and Toolkit CDPs are platforms businesses build if the available CDPs are deemed insufficient or to answer specific needs. They are customizable and ideal for companies that need a solution tailored to their specific requirements. With their flexibility in features and customization options, Engines and Toolkit CDPs stand out for their ability to meet unique business needs. These platforms can be tailored to match a company's branding and data management requirements.



31 Customer Data Platform Tools to Consider

1. Rengage

Ideal Software - Customer Data Platform Tools

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

2. Segment

Segment is a customer data platform by Twilio that enables users to collect and route their customer data to various integrated systems. It is favoured because of its easy setup, real-time tracking, and modifiable dashboards. This customer data platform gives you the power to send data to multiple destinations. It also includes some really cool features, such as cross-channel engagement design (journeys), a way of customising your data pipeline (functions), and a simplified way of transforming and loading customer data (warehouses).

3. Bloomreach Engagement

Bloomreach is a commerce experience cloud that acquired Exponea this year and incorporated its customer data platform capabilities into its product kit. The Bloomreach CDP, called Bloomreach Engagement, offers online and offline data tracking, a unified single customer view, and advanced customer data analytics. It also has some great machine learning aspects and predictive recommendations, which make it really intuitive.

4. Totango

Totango’s DNA-CX (Dynamic No-Schema Active Customer Index technology) is an intelligent customer data platform that lets users connect all customer data streams. This software is great for being able to segment your customers and see different metrics which help you identify which among your customers you need to prioritise.

5. Blueshift

The Blueshift Smarthub Customer Data Platform is another great option if you’re looking for a CDP that will deliver real-time experiences throughout the entire (omnichannel) journey. It’s extensive AppHub also provides users with a wide variety of data integrations, which is certainly a plus! Fan favorites on this platform include real-time data unification, audience segmentation, 1:1 personalization and predictive intelligence.

6. Insider

Ranked among the world’s top 5 marketing platforms on the Forrester Wave for Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Insider is certainly a top-rated customer data platform. The platform enables marketers to connect their data across various channels, predict future behaviour with its AI intent engine, and create individualised customer experiences.

7. Tealium AudienceStream CDP

Tealium AudienceStream Customer Data Platform is a great customer data platform if you’re looking to bring together fragmented chunks of data from all kinds of data sources and bring it together. Leverage various business rules and enrich your data as it flows in. Unique features of AudienceStream (the platform built into Tealium) include identity resolution, data enrichment and cross-channel audience management. The platform offers over 1300+ turnkey integrations, allowing users to connect their systems and data effortlessly.

8. Listrak

As a cross-channel marketing platform, Listrak offers various ‘components’ including unified customer data. It’s a great platform for those seeking versatility and top-notch automation capabilities. Users are particularly happy with the data visualization capabilities, AI recommendations and predictive analytics features. Keep in mind that this platform requires a bit more onboarding due to its steep learning curve.

9. Lytics

Lytics is ideal for digital marketers looking to build personalized digital experiences quickly and easily using an affordable platform. According to G2, Lytics’ ability to identify and target specific users within a segment has proven instrumental in the way many organizations conduct business. Depending on how large your data segments are, the platform can be a bit on the slower side.

10. Treasure Data

Treasure Data is a well-known customer data platform that enables its users to unify all kinds of data, including marketing hubs, IoT, weblogs, and geolocation data. This CDP offers 150 out-of-the-box connectors, so you can bring this data together easily and in real time. It’s also got a great up-to-the-minute real-time data analysis feature so that users always know what’s going on their digital channels.

11. BlueVenn by Upland Software

BlueVenn, recently acquired by Upland Software, is a customer data platform and omnichannel marketing hub. What’s great about this platform is that it offers easy-to-use data loaders and an intuitive user interface that requires little to no support from IT. This browser-based solution also includes drag-and-drop analytics, predictive insights and segmentation tools.

12. SAP Customer Data Platform

Just over a year ago, SAP launched its own Customer Data platform. This new technology focuses on four main priorities: connecting data from multiple sources, purpose-driven data governance, processing large volumes of data, and hyper-personalising using a 360-degree customer view. It also offers a back office system connection and real-time insight activation.

13. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is — you guessed it! — a part of Microsoft’s customer data platform (CDP) that helps deliver personalized customer experiences. The solution is divided into Audience insights and Engagement insights. Audience insights focus on connecting data from transactional, behavioral, and observational sources for a 360-degree view. In contrast, Engagement insights enable users to understand how customers are behaving on the various channels.

14. Oracle Unity

Oracle Unity is an attractive CDP for both B2C and B2B brands which aggregates traditional marketing and advertising data, including online, offline, and third-party customer data sources. Looking to connect individuals across devices, channels, domains, and networks and create accessible profiles, using advanced privacy and identity controls? Then this might be the CDP for you.

15. Salesforce Interaction Studio

This tool is particularly useful for streamlining offline and online customer interactions. It leverages AI technologies to segment customer data and helps users personalize interactions based on existing portfolios and the customer’s previous behavior. What’s more — this data is all gathered in real-time from every digital touchpoint including web, mobile, retail, advertising and phone.

16. RedPoint Global

RedPoint Global is a comprehensive customer data platform that gives businesses a signal view of the customer. Offering up hundreds of out-of-the-box connectors, users can ingest data from loads of different data sources. This CDP also leverages predictive models and machine learning to optimize customer decisions. Part of the RedPoint Customer Engagement Hub, users also have access to in-line analytics and intelligent orchestration.

17. Optimove

Optimove’s cloud-based CDP is primarily directed toward aggregating data into a 360-degree customer view to understand customers and optimize marketing campaigns. It pulls data from first-party raw data, on-site and in-app customer activity, third-party data, and campaign response analytics. It then offers insights regarding where customer preferences are headed and how companies should proactively respond.

18. Emarsys

Emarsys is primarily a marketing customer data platform that uses a holistic view of each customer. Its focus is on consolidating data to offer companies insights for one-to-one customer engagements that drive revenue growth. It combines this data consolidation with the ability to integrate an endless number of online and off-line channels, including direct mail, the web, SMS, mobile apps, digital ads, email and more.

19. FirstHive

FirstHive offers a customer data platform (CDP) that aggregates first-party data from online and off-line sources, allowing brands to use its insights then to create personalized marketing campaigns. Its decision engine also learns from your data to then offer suggestions on how to communicate with customers in personalized ways. You can also use rules-based actions to create real-time personalized communication from scratch across channels.

20. BlueConic

BlueConic’s CDP helps companies manage and glean insights from customer data while protecting it in compliance with global privacy legislation zones. It allows users to create complete customer views, segment that data, orchestrate customer life cycles for highest customer value, and predict the value and quality of current and potential customers. From there, users can create ad and marketing campaigns to drive revenue growth.

21. ActionIQ

ActionIQ’s CDP is designed to offer superior customer experience by breaking down silos in customer data. It offers a 360-degree view of customer identities, granular audience segmentation, journey design and orchestration tools and capabilities, and the ability to act in real-time in response to customer needs and actions. Its platform offers custom solutions for companies in the financial, media, retail, B2B, insurance and travel and hospitality industries.

22. mParticle

mParticle helps brands build a single view of their customers, create segments, and utilize predictive analytics. mParticle also offers schema management and transformation tools that help developers manage data quality. This CDP supports lots of data integrations with tools for product, development, and marketing teams, including Insider, Google Analytics, BigQuery, and Amazon RedShift.

23. CaliberMind

CaliberMind is CDP software that analyzes, cleans out, organizes, and activates your data. It helps you see where your funnel is leaking, what your perfect client is like, how to shorten the sales cycle, and what prospecting techniques are working for you. CaliberMind’s philosophy is that no lead or investment should ever go to waste.

24. MVF

MVF operates a marketing platform that focuses on customer acquisition. Using data obtained directly from its clients’ customers on their own channels, the company provides industry-specific customer insights for B2B clients. Its clients are in industries such as logistics, accommodation, health, food and beverage, education, and business services.

25. Enigma

Enigma uses proprietary machine learning and AI technology to comb vast data sets for business intelligence information, which is used in various contexts including B2B sales and marketing—the Enigma Sales and Marketing platform guides targeting, acquisition, segmentation and engagement in B2B accounts.

26. Appier

Appier provides a customer data platform that utilizes a no-code AI feature that makes it easier for marketing teams to identify valuable customers, develop personalized ad campaigns at scale and anticipate user needs. The platform aggregates customer information from various data sources like the user company’s customer relationship management software, social media websites and marketing software, and then creates individual customer profiles.

The AI can then surface behavior patterns of the company’s profitable customers and use that information to identify future customers for companies to target. Users can build additional machine learning models with a few clicks via its tagging system.

27. Klaviyo

Klaviyo provides a flexible customer data platform for retail companies that integrates with more than 200 marketing tools including e-commerce website Shopify, review website Reviews.io and shipping software AfterShip. In addition to viewing real-time updated customer profiles, users can grow their customer base via automated email and SMS marketing campaigns. Users can also segment their customer bases around topics like predicted customer lifetime value, specific purchases and discount code usage to send targeted content.

Klaviyo is beginner-friendly, offering live workshops on using its platform and insights on the latest marketing techniques. It also offers a flexible pricing structure that charges users based on how many emails or SMS messages they send rather than a monthly or annual fee.

28. Ortto

Ortto provides a customer data platform designed specifically for software startups and nonprofits. In addition to helping users unify their customer data, they can create a custom set of qualifying activities to track, and then automatically funnel customers to a sales or product-led path based on their actions.

Ortto also uses AI to track when customers engage with your marketing content, what time of day they most often interact with it and what subject lines perform best. For nonprofits, services include the ability to attribute revenue to each funding campaign, engage with donors across multiple channels and run A/B testing for each campaign.

29. Planhat

Developed with customer success and product-led growth in mind, Planhat offers a customer data platform to help companies provide existing customers with a better experience. The platform allows users to create onboarding plans for customers, track health scores by customer segment to identify churn risks, develop playbooks for high-touch customers and evaluate the success of those engagements.

For product-led growth companies, users can also track the customer journey and get upsell alerts when a customer shows qualifying behavior. Planhat also takes several steps to protect customer data, including three-layered permissioning process, regular penetration testing and maintaining SOC 2 Type II certification.

30. SALESManago

SALESManago provides a suite of services designed to help e-commerce companies grow their businesses. The customer data platform allows users to build 360-degree customer profiles, use AI to anticipate customer behavior and identify product recommendations, and automate marketing activity based on customer behavior.

Users can also collect less obvious data like how long a customer hovers over an image, what elements they click on (like changing a product color or size), and how much time they spend scrolling on the website. Those insights are then used to inform product recommendations and marketing engagement. Other features include search engine optimization, marketing campaign management and multi-channel outreach resources.

31. Zeotap

For global companies, it can be challenging to find a customer data platform that keeps up with the rapidly evolving data privacy regulations worldwide. Zeotap offers a CDP that prioritizes data security and staying on top of those regulations with multiple ISO certifications, a GDPR certification of compliance and Cloud Security Alliance compliance.

Beyond its security efforts, Zeotap’s platform allows marketing teams to tap into their trove of customer insights from multiple platforms, create customer segments, and set up personalized marketing campaigns based on how those customers are likely to act. The platform specializes in serving users in the banking, retail, insurance, travel, telecom, and consumer packaged goods industries.

How To Choose the Best Customer Data Platform Tool

Discussion on choice - Customer Data Platform Tools

Determining Your Budget

When choosing a Customer Data Platform tool, it's important first to determine your budget. Many CDPs do not list prices publicly, so you must visit their website and follow their instructions to request a custom quote. Not all features are included in the core plans; some are only available as add-ons. Make a prioritized list of the features and tools you need, and be sure to ask what add-ons are available to complete your list and their added cost.

Determining Tools and Integrations Needed

Different CDPs can integrate a unique list of tools and platforms. This means that some of the platforms your company uses to house customer data may not be able to be integrated with all CDPs. Make a list of the key platforms, data sources, and tools you need to integrate with your CDP and give that list to the CDP provider to ensure your integration needs will be met.

Mapping Out Business Goals

It's crucial to map out your business goals when selecting a CDP. Some CDPs will go over your company’s use cases with your customer data to determine your business goals. To prepare, bring together all of your key stakeholders who are likely to use your CDP and list their goals, then prioritize them from critical to nice-to-have. Also, consider best practices, such as how your data should be protected by your chosen CDP.

Formalizing Your Selection

Once you have a few CDP providers that align with your business needs, it’s time to formalize your selection. Look for customer reviews to help narrow down the best provider for you. Then, to confirm your decision, reach out and schedule a meeting to start a conversation between your chosen CDP provider and your key stakeholders.

Checking the Essential CDP Features

A good CDP should have essential features such as data integration, data cleansing and unification, segmentation, personalization, real-time data processing, analytics, multichannel support, and security and compliance. Make sure to check for these features when choosing a CDP platform.

Integrations

When selecting the best customer data platform, consider prebuilt integrations, integration capabilities, in-house integration experts, ecosystem-neutral CDP, and product documentation. These are all important factors to consider when choosing a CDP tool.

Vendor Stability

Choose a CDP vendor that is built to grow and meet your industry-specific needs. Stability and the ability to evolve with the clients' challenges and needs are crucial factors to consider.

Flexibility

Opt for a CDP that can adapt and integrate with multiple data types as well as all your existing data sources. Check for prebuilt integrations and assess how well it can integrate with your marketing, sales, and operational sources.

Support

Evaluate the level of support offered by the CDP provider. How is the onboarding experience? What support is offered during implementation? Understanding the level of support provided is crucial when choosing a Customer Data Platform tool.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Rengage is the platform to transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth. Our innovative features, such as Journey Moments and Journey Builder, offer unparalleled opportunities to engage with your segments effectively. With Journey Moments, you gain insights into your micro-segments, enabling you to target your marketing efforts with pinpoint accuracy.

With Journey Builder, you can leverage an intuitive multi-channel marketing automation tool to reach your segments where they are most likely to convert. Through predictive and attributive insights, you can measure your customer journey's impact on your users' conversions. Want to see Rengage in action?

[Book a free demo](drive loyalty and growth) today to learn how we can help you unlock revenue from your existing user base.



6 Steps to Implement a Robust Customer Data Infrastructure

· 14 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Customer Data Infrastructure plays a crucial role in enabling businesses to gain valuable insights and drive growth through customer segmentation analysis. Imagine understanding your customers so well that you can deliver personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth. This blog will provide you with insights on how to achieve this goal, helping you to not only understand your customers better but also deliver personalized experiences that foster loyalty and growth.



For a seamless and effective approach to achieving your objectives, consider utilizing Rengage.ai's solution. This tool will help you understand your customers better and deliver personalized experiences that foster loyalty and growth.

What Is Customer Data Infrastructure & Its Importance

What is Customer Data Infrastructure

A customer data platform (CDP) is software designed to collect and unify first-party customer data from various sources to create a comprehensive view of each customer. These sources can include behavioral data, like website and app interactions, transaction records, and demographic details such as names and addresses.

Why do Businesses Need a CDP?

There are three key reasons why businesses need a CDP.

  • CDPs gather and connect all first-party data, eliminating silos within the marketing tools used by marketers and providing a consolidated, accurate overview of customer data.
  • CDPs handle customer data management by ensuring that it meets data privacy regulations and manages consent and data flows between various marketing systems.
  • A CDP enables businesses to activate customer data by segmenting audiences and leveraging the insights gathered for marketing purposes across multiple platforms and channels.

The Importance of a Robust Customer Data Infrastructure

Customer data infrastructure is crucial for modern businesses because of the vast amount of valuable data that businesses collect from their customers and consumers. This infrastructure enables businesses to store, manage, and analyze this data effectively. Having robust customer data infrastructure allows companies to gain a deeper understanding of their customers, needs, and preferences, enabling them to deliver personalized experiences.

Understanding Customers Better and Delivering Personalized Experiences

Robust customer data infrastructure helps organizations understand their customers better by collecting, unifying, and structuring customer data to create comprehensive customer profiles. By segmenting this data, businesses can identify patterns, preferences, and behaviors to personalize customer experiences effectively. Data activation on a customer data platform allows businesses to take action on customer insights and deliver relevant, targeted messages to customers across various marketing platforms.

4 Major Benefits of a Customer Data Infrastructure

Major Benefits - Customer Data Infrastructure

1. Improve Customer Insights with a 360-degree Customer View

Customer Data Infrastructure (CDI) helps businesses consolidate customer data from various sources into a single, organized platform. This allows organizations to have a consolidated and consistent view of each customer, enhancing customer insights by providing a 360-degree profile based on data collated from all systems. This ensures data consistency, making it easier to access and analyze.

2. Leverage Machine Learning for Advanced Analysis

CDI systems can utilize machine learning capabilities to process large volumes of customer data efficiently. By analyzing these vast datasets, CDI systems can identify patterns and insights that would otherwise be challenging to uncover manually. This enables organizations to gain deeper insights and make data-driven decisions effectively.

3. Increase Operational Efficiency by Speeding Up Efforts

Centralizing customer data through a CDI solution eliminates the need to search for data across multiple platforms, accelerating the execution of marketing campaigns, audience segmentation, and other customer-related activities. This operational efficiency enables organizations to be more agile and responsive in catering to customer needs.

4. Save Time and Cost by Streamlining Data Management

By centralizing customer data storage and management, businesses can eliminate redundant tools and reduce the time spent on manual data cleaning and organization. This streamlining of processes not only saves time and effort but also reduces operational costs associated with managing scattered customer data.

Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



2 Main Types of Customer Data Infrastructure

Main Types - Customer Data Infrastructure

1. Core CDI Overview: The Foundation of Customer Data Infrastructure

The basic building blocks of any Customer Data Infrastructure are the core components. These include the front-end website, back-end systems, databases to store collected data, webhooks, and event pipelines. The website refers to the user interface where customers interact with the organization, while the back-end systems process and store this data.

Databases are crucial for organizing and storing customer information efficiently. Webhooks are unique URLs generated by some APIs that transmit data to servers when specific events occur. Event pipelines are data pipelines that collect and distribute customer data throughout the organization.

2. Enhanced CDI Overview: Building Upon the Core for More Robust Customer Data Management

Beyond the core components, an effective Customer Data Infrastructure should include enhanced elements like schema definition and governance, identity resolution tools, and personally identifiable information (PII) handling. Schema definition and governance establish rules for data processing to ensure data consistency and compliance with legal requirements. Identity resolution tools consolidate user data into a unified profile, and PII handling is crucial for securely managing sensitive customer information in accordance with privacy laws.

6 Steps to Implement Customer Data Infrastructure at Your Organization

Steps for Implementation - Customer Data Infrastructure

1. Data Strategy

I always advise businesses to establish a data strategy before diving into building a customer data infrastructure. This involves setting clear objectives for what you aim to achieve with your data. Whether the goal is to integrate specific martech solutions or enhance customer profiles, it is crucial to have a clear direction to guide your efforts. Consult your data and infrastructure teams to understand the possibilities and limitations.

2. Data Model

The data model plays a critical role in determining how your data and metadata will be organized. It defines how the data collected by your tools will be structured and cataloged to ensure compatibility with other tools. Collaborate with your data and infrastructure teams to develop a standardized data model that aligns with your CDI and remains flexible to accommodate future needs.

3. Data Storage

You need a reliable solution to store the data you're gathering. There are three primary options to consider: a data lake, a data warehouse, or a hybrid of both. For marketing purposes, a data warehouse or a hybrid approach is typically more suitable. The choice between a data lake and a data warehouse depends on your business goals, existing tools, and selected data model.

4. Data Hygiene

Data hygiene is vital to ensure that the data you possess is clean and organized effectively. Perform a thorough audit of your existing data to identify incomplete, outdated, or duplicated entries before integrating it into your storage solution. Establish a data cleaning process that aligns with your data model to enhance data quality.

5. Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) Pipeline

The ETL pipeline is where your data storage shelves are filled and organized. This process involves extracting data from marketing tools, transforming it according to your data model, and loading it into your storage solution. Your technical teams will likely handle these tasks and optimize the ETL pipeline to ensure the seamless ingestion of data.

6. Data Governance Program

Implementing a data governance program is essential to maintain data integrity, availability, usability, quality, compliance, and security. Establish internal policies and procedures around data handling to address any issues related to data accuracy, accessibility, and protection. Have a plan in place to address any data governance issues that may arise.

What Tools Do I Need to Implement Customer Data Infrastructure?

Required Tools - Customer Data Infrastructure

Tools to gather and ingest data

1. Third-party tools

These tools help collect data from various sources, such as social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, Meta, SnapChat), analytics tools, and ad placement integrations. This data is essential for creating a comprehensive Customer Data Infrastructure (CDI).

2. Customer data tools

These tools are crucial for tracking events, gathering data from web or mobile apps and web servers. They provide the raw data that is ingested into the CDI.

Tools to process and integrate data

3. Data storage solutions

A data lake or data warehouse is necessary for storing and managing the vast amounts of customer data. Platforms like Snowflake, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud BigQuery offer cloud storage solutions for scalability.

4. Cloud storage solutions

Tools like Fivetran facilitate the movement of data from various sources into the central data warehouse. This integration is a crucial step in ensuring that all relevant data is captured in the CDI.

5. Identity resolution and data activation tools

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) help in resolving identity across various touchpoints and activating data for personalized marketing campaigns. These tools play a vital role in enhancing customer experiences.

Tools that use data

6. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms

CRM platforms leverage customer data to improve customer interactions and drive sales. By integrating CRM data into the CDI, organizations can enhance their customer segmentation and targeting strategies.

7. Customer journey orchestration platforms

These platforms analyze the customer journey and help in creating personalized experiences. Utilizing data from the CDI, organizations can tailor marketing messages and offers based on the customer's stage in the journey.

8. Internal dashboards

Internal dashboards provide real-time insights into customer behavior, which can be used to optimize marketing campaigns, product development, and customer service strategies. Integrating the CDI with internal dashboards allows for data-driven decision-making.

9. Reporting platforms

Reporting platforms help visualize and analyze customer data to derive actionable insights. By connecting the CDI with reporting tools, organizations can create custom reports, dashboards, and data visualizations.

10. Artificial intelligence or machine learning tools

AI and ML tools leverage customer data to predict customer behavior, personalize offers, and optimize marketing efforts. Integrating these tools with the CDI enhances the accuracy of customer segmentation and targeting.

11. Data governance tools

Data governance tools ensure compliance with data privacy regulations and maintain data integrity within the CDI. By implementing robust data governance practices, organizations can minimize risks associated with data breaches and enhance customer trust.

12. Future data needs or projects

Anticipating future data needs and projects is essential for the CDI's scalability and sustainability. By aligning the CDI with the organization's long-term goals, businesses can effectively adapt to changing customer behaviors and market trends.

3 Tips & Best Practices for a Robust Customer Data Infrastructure

Best Practices - Customer Data Infrastructure

1. Obtaining Clean Data

To get the most out of your customer data infrastructure, the starting point should be obtaining clean, accurate, and relevant data. Your sales team needs access to precise market information, allowing them to develop strategies to increase sales in areas with limited market coverage.

By ensuring that you have collected the right data, you can avoid targeting the wrong market and wasting time and effort. Having a straightforward process for collecting clean data reduces the risk of skewed or duplicated statistics, ultimately guiding you to make informed decisions.

2. Goal Definition

Every business has various forms of data, collected either manually or through automated processes. To enhance this process, it is crucial first to define your business goals. Whether you aim to penetrate untapped markets or enhance the product experience for existing customers, setting clear goals helps prioritize the data that is most critical for your objectives.

3. Security & Auditing

The final step in ensuring a robust customer data infrastructure is maintaining security and conducting regular audits to eliminate confusion. Utilizing tools like BigQuery audit logs can help you understand the queries made on your infrastructure. Implementing a robust authentication and authorization process is crucial. By creating strong user authentication methods, the owner can restrict access to datasets through row-level security, enhancing the security of your customer data infrastructure.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Transforming Customer Interactions with Rengage Customer Data Infrastructure

In customer segmentation analysis, I can confidently say that implementing a robust Customer Data Infrastructure (CDI) like Rengage can revolutionize customer interactions and drive business growth.

Enhancing Customer Journeys

With Rengage, businesses can seamlessly manage and enhance customer journeys. By leveraging the power of no-code solutions, companies can accelerate customer journeys from onboarding to conversion and minimize churn rates. Through insightful data analysis, Rengage enables businesses to unlock revenue from existing user bases.

Insights into Segments

Rengage provides valuable insights into customer segments, allowing businesses to better understand their audience. By exploring micro-segments, companies can craft more targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with specific customer groups.

Intuitive Journey Manager

Through Rengage's Journey Builder feature, companies can create multi-channel marketing automation campaigns with ease. This intuitive tool streamlines the process of designing engaging customer journeys, ensuring that businesses can connect with their audience effectively.

Predictive Insights and Attribution

Rengage's predictive insights help businesses forecast customer behavior and attribute conversions accurately. By understanding how different touchpoints influence user actions, companies can optimize their customer journeys for better outcomes.

Measuring Impact

With Rengage's Journey Moments feature, businesses can track how their customer journey initiatives impact user conversion rates. By gaining a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of various campaigns, companies can refine their strategies for greater success.





28 Best Customer Data Platform Solutions for Superior Analytics

· 25 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Are you looking to dive deeper into customer segmentation analysis for your business? Understanding customer segments and their unique behaviors and preferences can unlock valuable insights that lead to personalized interactions. Using the best customer data platform, you can analyze customer journeys to enhance the overall customer experience efficiently, thus fostering growth and loyalty among your clientele.

Rengage's customer data platform drives loyalty and growth and provides seamless solutions for businesses hoping to better understand their customers. By analyzing customer journeys to enhance the overall customer experience and build personalized interactions, Rengage can help you achieve your goal of fostering loyalty and growth.



What is a Customer Data Platform?

What is the Best Customer Data Platform

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a tool that collects and unifies customer data from various sources into a single, centralized repository. This tool is essential for businesses looking to understand their customers better and deliver personalized experiences. With a comprehensive view of customer data, marketers can tailor their marketing strategies to meet their customers' needs and preferences.



9 Major Benefits of a Customer Data Platform

Major Benefits - Best Customer Data Platform

1. Create unified customer profiles

CDPs process data into customer profiles for single customer views. These profiles, also known as 360-customer views, consolidate insights like behaviors, purchase history, and interests into a comprehensive customer snapshot. This enables marketers to understand clients better and craft personalized experiences.

2. Eliminate data silos

Data silos arise when disparate teams hoard different customer data pieces, hindering a holistic understanding. A CDP consolidates data from varied sources, letting businesses access all customer data from every touchpoint at once, enabling informed decisions on customer experiences.

3. Improve personalization

Personalized digital experiences are now the norm. Unified customer views help brands ascertain the most relevant and personal experiences for customers. This includes understanding what clients want, when, and which touchpoints they prefer to engage through.

4. Increase data privacy and compliance

Data security is paramount with customers opting to share data for personalized experiences. CDPs ensure complete and up-to-date customer profiles, helping brands keep data secure and compliant with regulations.

5. Increase revenue

Using SCVs for personalized experiences boosts customer engagement and loyalty, leading to higher conversion rates and increased revenue. Personalized experiences can elevate revenues by 5-15% and enhance marketing efficiency by 10-30%.

6. Improve omnichannel customer experiences

CDPs amalgamate data from all touchpoints to create dynamic experiences corresponding to customer needs and behaviors. This allows brands to deliver personalized experiences across various channels, ensuring consistent and tailored customer journeys.

7. Increase efficiency

CDPs bridge gaps between departments and eliminate data redundancies by consolidating all data onto one platform. Continuously updated insights allow for creating experiences that resonate with customers, leveraging AI and automation for efficient operations.

8. Improve customer experience

Unified data translated into SCVs helps create personalized content that addresses customer needs. This fosters a sense of understanding, enhancing brand loyalty and customer lifetime value.

9. Use a single platform for B2C and B2B businesses

CDPs offer valuable insights for both B2B and B2C marketers, enabling personalized experiences tailored to any audience. Real-time CDPs empower marketers to create profiles from consumer and professional data seamlessly, enhancing collaboration and personalization efforts.

Streamlining Customer Journeys

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



4 Main Types of Customer Data Platforms

Major types - Best Customer Data Platform

1. Marketing Clouds

Marketing Clouds refer to a suite of cloud-based marketing tools designed to help businesses manage and optimize their marketing efforts across a wide range of channels and platforms. Marketing Clouds are typically used by larger enterprises with significant marketing budgets and a complex network of digital touchpoints. These platforms often include features such as customer journey mapping, segmentation, automation, personalization, and analytics.

2. Smart Hubs

Smart Hubs are like a central hub for a company’s marketing technology. Smart Hub CDPs consolidate data from various sources and channels, such as CRM, ERP, and social media, and make it accessible and actionable. Smart Hub CDPs help marketers create more targeted and personalized campaigns by providing a comprehensive view of their customers and their interactions with the brand. These CDPs are especially useful for companies looking to unify their data sources and break down data silos.

3. Marketing Data Integration

Marketing Data Integration CDPs place data first, with robust API capabilities. These CDPs help businesses integrate data sources, such as first-party, second-party, and third-party data, to create a unified customer view. Marketing Data Integration CDPs make connecting and analyzing customer data easier, helping businesses craft more effective marketing strategies and campaigns.

4. Engines and Toolkit

Engines and Toolkit CDPs are built by businesses when the available CDP options are deemed insufficient. Some companies prefer to build their CDPs from scratch or customize existing solutions to meet their unique needs. This approach allows businesses to create a CDP that aligns perfectly with their specific requirements and objectives. Engines and Toolkit CDPs are ideal for companies that have sophisticated data management needs or operate in highly regulated industries.



Top 5 Features to Look for in a Customer Data Platform

Features - Best Customer Data Platform

1. Real-Time Data

One essential feature businesses should look for in a Customer Data Platform is real-time data processing capabilities. This feature ensures that customer profiles and data segments are updated within a few seconds. With real-time data processing, businesses can personalize customer experiences in real-time, leading to increased customer engagement and satisfaction.

2. Behavioral Triggers

Another crucial feature when evaluating a CDP is its ability to create customer profiles based on behavior across multiple channels. This feature allows businesses to understand better their customers' preferences, interests, and behaviors, enabling them to create more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns and experiences. By leveraging behavioral triggers, businesses can enhance customer engagement and drive conversions.

3. Analytics and Insights

CDPs with robust analytics and reporting capabilities are invaluable for businesses seeking actionable insights from their customer data. These platforms should provide businesses with the tools to analyze customer data, segment customers based on various criteria, and derive meaningful insights to drive their marketing strategies. By leveraging analytics and insights, businesses can make data-driven decisions, optimize their marketing efforts, and enhance the overall customer experience.

4. Secure and Compliant

Data security and compliance are paramount considerations when choosing a Customer Data Platform. CDPs must adhere to regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to protect customer data and privacy. Businesses must prioritize CDPs with robust security measures to safeguard customer data and ensure compliance with relevant data protection laws.

5. Integration Options

Businesses should evaluate the integration options offered by different CDP vendors. A best-in-class CDP should seamlessly integrate with the applications and marketing automation platforms businesses already use or plan to use. By choosing a CDP with extensive integration options, businesses can streamline their marketing workflows, consolidate customer data from various sources, and create a unified view of the customer. Integration options play a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of a CDP, enabling businesses to leverage their existing technology stack and maximize their ROI.



28 Best Customer Data Platform Vendors

1. Rengage: A Comprehensive CDP Solution

Tools - Best Customer Data Platform

Rengage offers a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys. The platform delivers insights and measurable outcomes with no code. It accelerates customer journeys from onboarding to churn, assisting in unlocking revenue from existing users.

Key features include:

  • Insights into segments
  • Running campaigns with an intuitive journey manager
  • Measuring the impact on user conversion through Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

The Journey Moments feature provides insights into micro-segments, while the Journey Builder offers intuitive multi-channel marketing automation. Insights prediction and attribution are also included in the platform. Rengage is ideal for businesses seeking to transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

2. MVF

MVF operates a marketing platform that focuses on customer acquisition. Using data obtained directly from its clients’ customers on their own channels, the company provides industry-specific customer insights for B2B clients. Its clients across in industries like logistics, accommodation, health, food and beverage, education and business services.

3. Segment

Segment is a CDP that helps businesses collect, clean, synthesize, and activate first-party data across different touchpoints, such as Facebook, email, and website. Through a single API, Segment can also connect customer data from different business departments, such as marketing, sales, service, and web analytics.

4. Optimove

Optimove’s Relationship Marketing Hub brings customer data together in a single customer view. The GDPR- and ISO-compliant platform combines first-party data, third-party data, on-site/in-app user activity, and campaign response history.

5. Totango

Totango enables users to connect and view data from customer data streams, including contract and transactional data, support tickets, and demographic and behavioral data. You’ll also be able to access and compare real-time customer health data with other metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score).

6. Bloomreach

Bloomreach’s CDP, Bloomreach Engagement, offers a single customer view, online and offline data tracking, and customer analytics, such as on-site data, backend data, and offline data. The platform also leverages machine learning to make predictive recommendations, like ranking customers based on their actions, such as their likelihood to make a purchase.

7. Insider

Insider can connect data across multiple channels, such as apps, websites, email, and CRM, predict behavior like customer intent using its AI engine, and create personalized experiences at customer touch points. Customer profile management is centralized with Insider’s journey orchestrator, Architect.

8. Tealium AudienceStream CDP

Tealium AudienceStream enables companies to construct detailed customer profiles, with features like:

Identity resolution

Collecting and matching customer data points across different platforms, devices, and browsers

Cross-channel audience management

Create a solid data foundation to organize audience data

9. Blueshift

Blueshift unifies and organizes first-party customer data in a single customer view. Features include cross-device identity resolution, real-time data, and customizable datasets.

10. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

This real-time CDP combines transactional, behavioral, and demographic data to create comprehensive customer profiles. Features like sentiment analysis enable you to identify opportunities to improve customer experience.

11. Oracle Unity

Oracle Unity combines online, offline, first-party, second-party, and third-party data into a real-time customer view. Identity resolution enables you to connect individual identities across various channels. Data models built for different industries lets you get granular.

12. Emarsys

Emarsys connects sales, product, and customer data to provide a holistic view of the customer. The platform helps you synthesize historical and real-time data to provide personalized experiences for your customers.

13. Enigma

Enigma uses proprietary machine learning and AI technology to comb vast data sets for business intelligence information, which is used in various contexts including B2B sales and marketing—the Enigma Sales and Marketing platform guides targeting, acquisition, segmentation and engagement in B2B accounts.

14. ActionIQ

ActionIQ’s composable customer data platform gives enterprise brands control over the storage, access and use of their customer data. Its solutions allow them to unify data to build comprehensive profiles for every customer, target the right audience segments and customize and manage the customer experience. The company serves brands in industries such as retail, financial services, media and hospitality.

15. Appier

Appier provides a customer data platform that utilizes a no-code AI feature that makes it easier for marketing teams to identify valuable customers, develop personalized ad campaigns at scale and anticipate user needs. The platform aggregates customer information from various data sources like the user company’s customer relationship management software, social media websites and marketing software, and then creates individual customer profiles.

The AI can then surface behavior patterns of the company’s profitable customers and use that information to identify future customers for companies to target. Users can build additional machine learning models with a few clicks via its tagging system.

16. BlueConic

BlueConic is another customer data platform that allows companies to centralize customer data, create individualized customer profiles and curate personalized marketing campaigns. In addition to those services, its AI allows users to run data models to assess which customers are likely to buy their products, customer similarities, and lifetime value.

The platform also tracks when customers abandon their shopping cart in real-time and allows users to trigger personalized content to lure them back. For early-stage companies or those new to CDPs, BlueConic also offers a nine-question assessment designed to help them assess their readiness for its platform. Questions are designed to help companies evaluate their customer data accuracy, accessibility, and utilization, all key ingredients to get the most out of a CDP.

17. FirstHive

Like other customer data platforms, FirstHive helps companies centralize customer data from disparate sources and run analysis to find high-value customers and design personalized campaigns to convert them. It also specializes in helping companies in manufacturing, retail, finance, and digital content identify and convert customers. For retail firms, users can craft product recommendations, run loyalty campaigns and deliver a personalized shopping experience. Manufacturers can collect data to identify buyers to target across each stage of the supply chain, from wholesaler to distributor to after-sale services, run localized campaigns and gather insights on the product to shape its development.

Digital media companies, meanwhile, are able to leverage its AI tool to assess how customers engage with its content. And banking firms can tap into its anti-fraud and predictive AI to ensure they’re building the right customer base. For marketers looking to stay on top of the latest marketing strategies, FirstHive also organizes frequent webinars on customer engagement strategies.

18. Klaviyo

Klaviyo provides a flexible customer data platform for retail companies that integrates with more than 200 marketing tools including e-commerce website Shopify, review website Reviews.io and shipping software AfterShip. In addition to viewing updated customer profiles in real-time, users can grow their customer base via automated email and SMS marketing campaigns. Users can also segment their customer bases around topics like predicted customer lifetime value, specific purchases and discount code usage to send targeted content.

Klaviyo is beginner-friendly, offering live workshops on using its platform and insights on the latest marketing techniques. It also offers a flexible pricing structure that charges users based on how many emails or SMS messages they send rather than a monthly or annual fee.

19. Lytics

Lytics is a customer data platform for retail, media, B2B software and financial services companies. Lytics allows users to access customer data straight from a data warehouse like Google BigQuery or Snowflake and then turn it into a personalized marketing campaign.

Users can segment their audiences, tap into its predictive analytics to identify buyers at risk of churn and craft marketing campaigns that span multiple channels like social media, SMS and email. Marketers can also tag content to trace user behavior, run account-based marketing campaigns based on that behavior and identify cross-sell opportunities — key features for any subscription-based software company.

20. Ortto

Ortto provides a customer data platform designed specifically for software startups and nonprofits. In addition to helping users unify their customer data, they can create a custom set of qualifying activities to track and then automatically funnel customers to a sales or product-led path based on their actions.

Ortto also uses AI to track when customers engage with your marketing content, what time they most often interact with it and what subject lines perform best. For nonprofits, services include the ability to attribute revenue to each funding campaign, engage with donors across multiple channels and run A/B testing for each campaign.

21. Planhat

Developed with customer success and product-led growth in mind, Planhat offers a customer data platform that aims to help companies provide existing customers with a better experience. The platform allows users to create onboarding plans for customers, track health scores by customer segment to identify churn risks, develop playbooks for high-touch customers and evaluate the success of those engagements.

For product-led growth companies, users can also track the customer journey and get upsell alerts when a customer shows qualifying behavior. Planhat also takes several steps to protect customer data, including a three-layered permissioning process, regular penetration testing and maintaining SOC 2 Type II certification.

22. SALESmanago

SALESManago provides a suite of services designed to help e-commerce companies grow their businesses. The customer data platform allows users to build 360-degree customer profiles, use AI to anticipate customer behavior and identify product recommendations, and automate marketing activity based on customer behavior.

Users can also collect less obvious data like how long a customer hovers over an image, what elements they click on (like changing a product color or size), and how much time they spend scrolling on the website. Those insights are then used to inform product recommendations and marketing engagement. Other features include search engine optimization, marketing campaign management and multi-channel outreach resources.

23. Simon Data

Simon Data helps marketing teams work more efficiently and create personalized customer experiences across multiple channels. Similar to other customer data platforms, it aggregates data from disparate marketing tools so that users can build in-depth customer profiles. From there, users can send real-time messages based on customer actions or set triggering events that automatically send outreach when a user exhibits that behavior.

The platform also helps users take advantage of anonymous web traffic, matching customer activity with known profiles that can be used to send targeted ads. Simon Data integrates with over 50 tools, including BigCommerce, HubSpot and Salesforce.

24. Treasure Data

Treasure Data provides a customer data platform that aims to help marketing, sales and customer service deliver a better customer experience. The platform can create unique customer profiles, make it easier to segment audiences with one click and utilize AI to predict the best marketing campaign to capture that customer. It also enables sales teams to identify qualified customers through data rather than lengthy BANT-style questions, project their expected lifetime value as a customer based on their current behavior and data and provide insights for personalized outreach.

Treasure Data aims to improve customer service by funneling customers to the first available service agent, providing that agent with real-time customer insights so they can properly help them and collecting service intel back into the system. Companies needing fast product adoption can choose from a selection of pre-built applications to run anything from real-time recommendations on next best action to customer lifetime value predictions.

25. Zeotap

For global companies, finding a customer data platform that keeps up with the rapidly evolving data privacy regulations around the world can be challenging. Zeotap offers a CDP that prioritizes data security and staying on top of those regulations with multiple ISO certifications, a GDPR certification of compliance and Cloud Security Alliance compliance.

Beyond its security efforts, Zeotap’s platform allows marketing teams to tap into their trove of customer insights from multiple platforms, create customer segments and set up personalized marketing campaigns based on how those customers are likely to act. The platform serves users in the banking, retail, insurance, travel, telecom and consumer packaged goods industries.

26. Zeta Global

Marketers need a trove of data to predict what customers want and deliver tailored marketing to them. Zeta delivers on that with its customer data platform. The software collects data from the company website, social media, and other marketing tools and then crafts unique customer profiles, identifies preferences of anonymous website visitors, and provides real-time scoring to measure the quality and churn risk of the customer.

Zeta also uses predictive AI to help marketers deliver personalized content. Its low-code interface, meanwhile, makes it easier for marketers to create workflows, segment customers and run custom data reports with a click of the button.

27. SAP Customer Data Platform

SAP is an enterprise-level customer data platform that provides unified customer views and real-time insights to enhance segmentation, uncover trends, and fuel personalized customer experiences. Acquired in 2017, SAP CDP focuses on enterprise organizations across several industries, offering functionalities well-suited to managing large volumes of customer data.

SAP CDP connects and resolves data from various sources in your organization to prevent data silos and ensure access from a central access point. The platform also provides real-time customer data, ensures smart segments, and delivers hyper-personalized experiences to deepen your understanding of customers and gain rich insights into their interactions with your brand.

28. mParticle

mParticle helps brands build a single view of their customers, create segments, and utilize predictive analytics. mParticle also offers schema management and transformation tools that help developers manage data quality. This CDP supports lots of data integrations with tools for product, development, and marketing teams, including Insider, Google Analytics, BigQuery, and Amazon RedShift.



5 Steps for Choosing the Best Customer Data Platform

Steps for choosing - Best Customer Data Platform

1. Get stakeholder buy-in

CDPs ingest data from different departments of your organization. For this reason, getting buy-in from internal stakeholders is vital when choosing your CDP. Your allies should come from the sales, IT, customer success, marketing, and finance departments.

Including IT in the discussion seems obvious. This department knows if a CDP's SDKs or APIs fits your company's tech stack. Discussing a CDP with your organization as a whole allows you to ensure multiple types of data are collected.

For example:

  • Sales teams use a CRM platform to manage their pipeline.
  • Customer success teams use onboarding tools to discuss with new clients.
  • Marketing teams use analytics and attribution tools to track metrics like MQLs.
  • Product teams use analytics data to improve the user experience of your web properties.

Getting input from these teams will help you understand what they hope to get from a CDP. This will also improve companywide adoption of your CDP.

2. Outline your core challenges or use cases

What your company expects from a CDP likely goes beyond the general function of consolidating data. Outlining use cases specific to your brand will help you find your ideal customer data platform.

While this is the responsibility of your stakeholders, you'll need to identify common themes. This allows you to find and evaluate CDP vendors that can solve the challenges you outlined.

Some common CDP use case cases are:

  • Customer data unification.
  • Enhanced personalization.
  • Multichannel messaging.
  • Having actionable analytics.

After outlining your use cases, reach out to your peers in companies that use a CDP. Your goal is to learn about the CDP they use to address similar challenges. This will help you build a shortlist of CDP solutions.

3. List the tools you need to connect to your CDP

Knowing the tools you'll connect to your CDP will help evaluate vendors and assess their integrations.

For instance, if one of your goals is to have a cohesive multichannel messaging strategy, you may need Google Analytics, live chat tools, business intelligence tools, and advertising tools like Facebook.

The use cases outlined in the previous step are also useful here. They can help you identify the tools you need. Make sure your CDP integrates with pre-existing systems. If a CDP is incompatible, rule it out.

4. State the capabilities of your ideal CDP

Beyond integrating with your existing tech stack, it's essential to consider a CDP's core capabilities. For instance, if your company handles sensitive customer data, an ISO 27001 or SOC 2-certified CDP is ideal.

Other requirements to look out for are:

  • Data governance.
  • Level of quality enforcement.
  • GDPR and CCPA compliance.
  • Identity resolution features to get a 360-degree view of your customer journeys.
  • CDPs with control over different roles and permissions.
  • The volume of data you can store.

5. Compare CDP vendors

Find suitable vendors by assessing colleagues' recommendations, checking pricing pages, and reading CDP comparison pages. G2 and Capterra will be helpful resources as you search. 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.

After finding some excellent CDPs, ask your stakeholders to rate the CDP's ability to meet their team's requirements. They could even take the CDP for a test drive by using a free trial. From there you can find a solution that works best.



Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Rengage provides a powerful solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys. Our platform is designed to deliver actionable insights and measurable outcomes without coding. With Rengage, you can accelerate customer journeys from onboarding and activation to conversion and churn. We enable you to unlock revenue from your existing user base, providing the tools you need to drive growth and foster customer loyalty.

Insights into Segments

Rengage lets you gain valuable insights into your customer segments, helping you understand their behaviors and preferences. By better understanding your audiences, you can tailor your marketing efforts to suit their needs, ultimately driving higher engagement and conversions.

Intuitive Journey Manager

Our platform features an intuitive journey manager that simplifies the process of creating and launching campaigns. With Rengage, you can easily design multi-channel marketing automation sequences that drive personalized interactions and engage your audience at every touchpoint.

Journey Moments

One of our standout features is Journey Moments, which provides insights into micro-segments of your customer base. By understanding the nuanced behaviors of different customer groups, you can create more targeted and effective marketing strategies that resonate with each segment.

Journey Builder

Our Journey Builder feature enables you to create personalized customer journeys that drive meaningful interactions and deliver value to your audience. By leveraging insights and data from Rengage, you can design campaigns that align with customer needs and preferences, boosting overall conversion rates.

Insights, Prediction, and Attribution

At Rengage, we understand the importance of data-driven decision-making. Our platform provides insights, predictions, and attribution models that help you understand the impact of your customer journeys on conversion rates. By leveraging these capabilities, you can optimize your marketing strategies and drive higher ROI.

Book a Free Demo

If you're ready to transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth, book a free demo with Rengage today. Our platform is designed to help you unlock the full potential of your customer data and deliver outstanding results.



Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform Guide

· 14 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

In customer segmentation analysis, distinguishing between a Customer Data Platform (CDP) and a Data Management Platform (DMP) can be a game-changer. Imagine you're looking for innovative ways to drive customer loyalty and growth, but you're unsure which platform to invest in to refine your customer segmentation analysis. This blog will provide insights to help you confidently navigate this essential decision.



Looking to boost customer loyalty and growth? Rengage.ai is your go-to solution. This tool can help you streamline processes and optimize customer segmentation and analysis, allowing you to make data-driven decisions that will drive your business forward.

What Is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

What is the comparison between Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform

A customer data platform (CDP) is an advanced customer data management software solution consisting of a centralized database that can ingest, integrate, manage, and deliver customer data to other technology solutions to personalize the customer experience (CX) at scale.

The Power of a Single Customer View

According to Gartner, in the first-ever Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms (Get a complimentary copy of the report here, courtesy of Treasure Data.), a CDP is defined as “software applications that support marketing and customer experience use cases by unifying a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels. CDPs optimize the timing and targeting of messages, offers and customer engagement activities, and enable the analysis of individual-level customer behavior over time.”

Data Collection and Integration

CDP software collects and integrates all forms of customer data to create a unified customer profile (also known as a single customer view (SCV). This unified view can then align all business efforts around a single source of customer truth. CDPs can collect consumer behavior, demographic, and transactional data to track and analyze customer interactions with your organization.

CDPs for Sales, Service, and Compliance

CDP platforms were created to manage first-party, second-party, and third-party data from multiple disparate channels, unite customer-centric efforts across marketing, sales, and customer service. CDPs also give brands the ability to manage data and consent centrally attributes to stay in compliance with emerging data privacy regulations.

What Does a CDP Do?

A CDP improves the efficacy and efficiency of your data-driven marketing campaigns. They accomplish this by deploying data-driven insights to tailor personalized experiences at scale.

Combining Structured and Unstructured Data

CDPs allow you to combine structured, unstructured and semi-structured data to create single customer view. A CDP can ingest data from any source, including email, social media, loyalty, and systems like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and data management platforms (DMPs). Customer data platforms can analyze and segment customer profiles using rules or machine learning, perform predictive scoring, and provide customer journey orchestration.

Integration with the MarTech Stack

Customer data platforms are designed to integrate easily with the rest of your technology stack through pre-built connectors or application programming interfaces (APIs). This allows CDPs to function as a smart hub, making your technology stack more agile, flexible, and scalable by allowing you to plug in the best-of-breed software for your particular industry and applications

Democratization of Data

CDPs allows data to be democratized across the entire organization (marketing, sales, customer service, support, etc.) A CDP allows a business to tailor its communications and build lasting customer relationships, improving retention rates and lowering churn. CDPs are also a great way to reduce customer acquisition costs in favor of higher retention rates.

Marketing Activation and Personalization

A CDP makes customer data available to other systems for campaign activation with insights that improve the customer experience across the entire omnichannel customer journey. CDPs allows marketers to apply advanced personalization, identify and segment key target audiences, provide relevant product and content recommendations, and implement retargeting programs.

What Are the Most Common CDP Use Cases?

The two most common CDP use cases are personalized customer experiences and targeted advertising. Other common CDP use cases include:

Profile Unification

Customer data records can be combined into a single 360-degree view of the customer, allowing you to do more effective personalization and reduce ineffective ad spend.

Segmentation

A CDP allows marketers to identify and target high-value audiences with advanced segmentation capabilities.

Data Unification

CDPs unify customer data into a single customer identifier that can be enriched over time, reducing duplicate profiles and inaccuracies.

Predictive Scoring

Marketers gain the ability to predict customers behaviors, like who is likely to churn, purchase, click, or convert.

Retargeting

A customer data platform can improve retargeting by connecting customer data to advertising data, creating optimized audience segments, with the ability to automate activations.

Customer Journey Optimization

Iterative insights allow marketers to quickly test, learn and improve marketing efforts across the entire omnichannel customer journey.

Next-Best Action

Next-best action relies on robust customer data, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the next-best step sales, service, or marketing teams can take to improve the customer journey and increase conversion.

Programmatic Advertising

CDPs enable you to target customers better with programmatic advertising.

Lookalike Modeling

Advertise across channels to both knowns and unknown audiences with lookalike modeling based on key audience attributes.

Customer Loyalty

Measure and predict customer loyalty, and customize communications to increase the lifetime value of your most loyal customers.

Personalization

Once segments and audiences are identified, marketing, sales, and customer service teams can tailor messaging that speaks directly to target audiences and is delivered through the right channel at the right time.

Data Governance

A CDP enables IT and data teams to enforce data access policies and permissions across teams, ensuring that specific teams only have access to the needed data.

CDPs can integrate with consent management solutions, allowing customer data privacy preferences to be integrated directly into unified customer profiles.

Demand Planning and Inventory Management

Predictive analytics allows organizations to use customer purchase preferences, transaction data, and inventory data to predict demand and manage inventory mix across channels.

Business Efficiency

A strong customer data foundation forms part of the blueprint for accurate attribution, making forecasting more effective.

What Is a Data Management Platform (DMP)?

Person looking at analytics - Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform

A data management platform (DMP) is a comprehensive tool designed to build individual customer profiles, generate big-picture analytics, and enable personalization in marketing campaigns. This technology is a game-changer for app marketers, providing real-time insights on customer behavior and interests to automate digital ad placements.

With a DMP, marketers can leverage business intelligence and automation to maximize data potential, gain insights into consumer behavior and preferences, optimize advertising budgets, and comply with data privacy regulations.

The Role of a DMP in Programmatic Advertising

Data management platforms are crucial in programmatic advertising, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate media buying. In mobile user acquisition, DMPs are instrumental for app marketers to target specific audiences, track user behaviors, optimize campaigns, and measure results. By consolidating first-party, second-party, and third-party data, DMPs offer a comprehensive view of customer behavior.

The Three Types of Data in a DMP

Party data includes information collected directly from a source, such as a website or app, which is typically owned by the company itself. Second-party data, on the other hand, is initially collected by one entity and then shared with another through a formal agreement. This category encompasses data like social media profiles and customer reviews shared with a trusted partner.

Third-party data is sourced from multiple origins, aggregated, and sold by a third-party entity. This data is widely used in programmatic advertising to target specific audiences, monitor user behaviors, optimize campaigns, and gauge performance.



In-Depth Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform Comparison

Indepth Comparison - Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform

Data Sources

The data sources utilized by Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and Data Management Platforms (DMPs) differ significantly. CDPs are designed to work primarily with first-party data, information gathered directly from your clients. On the other hand, DMPs manage third-party data, which is information obtained from external sources. While CDPs also work with some second-party data, DMPs focus more on pseudonymous data obtained from a larger scale.

Data Models

Regarding data models, CDPs collect personally identifiable information (PII) tied to individual users, whereas DMPs work with anonymous and pseudonymous data to build audience-based personas and segments.

Primary Use Cases

CDPs are primarily used to build customer profiles based on known and unknown customer behaviors, helping marketers personalize experiences. DMPs, on the other hand, help marketers understand how unknown users interact with their brand and provide insights into how to convert customers, making them ideal for targeted advertising campaigns.

Capabilities

While CDPs retain long-term data and are at a low risk of violating privacy regulations, DMPs store data for shorter periods and are at a higher risk of privacy regulation violations.

Data Retention

CDPs offer flexible data storage for medium- to long-term data storage, making them suitable for longer-term strategies. DMPs, store data for shorter intervals of around 90 days, making them ideal for short-term strategies.

CDP and DMP in Action

CDPs are used by companies like Dick’s Sporting Goods to personalize the customer experience and expand loyalty programs. In contrast, DMPs are used by companies like Princess Cruises to understand guest preferences and streamline advertising campaigns.

Drive Loyalty and Growth

Book a free demo with Rengage to learn how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

When Should I Use a Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform?

Deciding on when to choose - Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform

Before deciding which customer data platform (CDP) or data management platform (DMP) is right for your business, several key factors must be considered. Understanding the differences between CDPs and DMPs is crucial. CDPs unify data across various customer touchpoints to create a single view of the customer. At the same time, DMPs collect, organize, and activate anonymous user data to assist marketers and advertisers in targeting their ads more effectively.

Data Storage and User Focus

The type of data collected and stored by each platform, the duration for which the data is stored, target users, and the ability to provide a single view of the customer are categorized for each platform. CDPs can store personally identifiable information (PII) and non-PII data, as well as first-, second-, and third-party data.

DMPs only store anonymized, non-PII data, primarily known for their ability to collect and activate third-party data. CDPs have long-term data storage capabilities, while DMPs typically store data for around 90 days. Understanding these key differences is essential as they can significantly impact your marketing strategies and data requirements.

Reaching the Right Audience with Targeted Messaging

Another aspect to examine is how each platform can help you achieve your marketing goals. CDPs and DMPs facilitate the connection between different tools and orchestrate data, enriching customer profiles and audience lists with real-time data from various sources.

Leveraging this data for personalization can be a winning strategy for companies in today's dynamic marketplace. A CDP may be more suitable for long-term customer relationships and user engagement depending on your business objectives. At the same time, a DMP can assist you in reaching and targeting new prospects if your business is in growth mode.

Implementation Considerations

The resources required to use these platforms effectively should also be considered. Setting up CDPs and DMPs can require significant time and effort, as they rely on customer data to function efficiently. Implementing a CDP involves consolidating cross-channel first-, second-, and third-party data to create a unified view of the customer.

DMPs, on the other hand, require tagging, behavior categorization, rule creation, and audience building to track user journeys and gather valuable customer data over time. In most cases, assistance from your engineering and analytics teams may be necessary to maximize these platforms' potential effectively.

Can I Use a Customer Data Platform Alongside a Data Management Platform?

Combination of both technologies - Customer Data Platform vs Data Management Platform

CDPs are your best bet for long-term customer engagement and relationship building, as they store PII customer data for an extended period. This helps your customer data get more accurate and reliable over time, so your business can use it to send personalized content and campaigns to your known customers.

DMPs, by contrast, are better suited for businesses needing to drive leads and conversions in the short term. They help you reach bigger audiences and serve targeted ads and marketing campaigns to individuals most likely to do business with your brand.

Potential Complementary Use Cases for CDP and DMP in Tandem

Depending on the type of CDP, there are also potential opportunities to combine platforms. For example, you can use real-time DMP data to personalize interactions with anonymous visitors, helping your company establish and maintain trust.

Of course, you can connect your CDP and DMPs to share data across the two platforms, allowing your business to benefit from first- and third-party data. You can drive new leads with your DMP and connect and engage with known customers via your CDP.

Integration Challenges or Limitations in a Dual CDP/DMP Setup

While CDPs and DMPs can work together, businesses typically use them for two distinct purposes. A dual CDP/DMP setup may have some integration challenges or limitations. In many cases, the benefits of using both platforms outweigh these integration challenges.

Leveraging first-party data for personalized experiences while also tapping into third-party data for broader audience targeting can significantly enhance a business's marketing efforts. By addressing any integration challenges and utilizing the strengths of each platform, businesses can effectively deploy CDPs and DMPs in tandem.

Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Our customer segmentation is top-notch. We ensure every Rengage user can access a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys. With Rengage, we deliver insights and measurable outcomes with no code in a single platform that accelerates your customer journey from onboarding, and activation to conversion and churn. We aim to enable customers to unlock revenue from their existing user bases.

Building Powerful Customer Journeys with Actionable Insights

Rengage provides unique tools and features that make customer segmentations and journeys seamless, intuitive, and actionable. Through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features, users can leverage insights into micro-segments, intuitive multi-channel marketing automation, insights prediction and attribution. With Rengage, you can run campaigns, measure how your journeys impact users' conversion, and gain an in-depth understanding of your segments to drive personalized experiences that foster loyalty and growth.

Let's dissect the elements of our customer segmentation and journey features to fully understand how Rengage can transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences.

10 Compelling Customer Data Platform Use Cases & 18 Tools to Use

· 19 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Customer Segmentation Analysis is a vital component of customer data platform use cases, allowing businesses to transform customer experiences into personalized interactions that elevate loyalty and growth. Imagine accurately anticipating your customers' needs and preferences, tailoring your products or services to their preferences. This article will shed light on how customer data platform use cases can breathe life into such scenarios, helping you unlock your potential for creating individualized experiences that drive customer loyalty and business growth.



Rengage's solution drives loyalty and growth. We help you realize your goals of transforming customer experiences into personalized interactions, ultimately enhancing loyalty and business growth.

What Is a Customer Data Platform?

Capabilities of Customer Data Platform Use Cases

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is software that compiles and manages comprehensive customer data for analyses, tracking, and customer interaction management. CDPs collect and unify customer data from various sources to create a central database accessible by other systems.

The key benefits of utilizing a CDP include creating a single customer view, enabling personalized marketing campaigns, and enhancing customer segmentation and targeting. Unlike CRMs and DMPs, CDPs are specifically designed for marketing purposes, focusing on building complete customer profiles for targeted and personalized marketing strategies.

How to Utilize a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Businesses can leverage a Customer Data Platform (CDP) in numerous ways to enhance their marketing efforts and improve customer engagement. These use cases include connecting online and offline interactions, customer segmentation for targeted marketing, personalized customer experiences, lead scoring for prioritizing sales opportunities, retargeting and lookalike advertising, product recommendations, A/B testing for optimizing campaigns, omnichannel automation, improved email deliverability, generating better online reviews, enhancing customer lifetime value (CLV), and enhancing conversion rates.

Differentiating CDPs from CRMs and DMPs

While CDPs, CRMs, and DMPs all deal with customer data, they serve distinct purposes and functions within the marketing landscape. CRMs focus on sales and customer relationship management, providing tools to improve customer relationships and manage interactions. DMPs, on the other hand, are designed for advertising, specifically supporting web display advertisements.

In contrast, CDPs are tailored for marketing purposes, aggregating first-party customer data from multiple sources to build integrated customer profiles for targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. CDPs work seamlessly with DMPs and CRMs, allowing marketers to maximize their marketing efforts and improve customer experiences across various channels.



7 Key Functionalities of a Customer Data Platform

Key features of Customer Data Platform Use Cases

1. Collecting first-party data

First-party data is crucial for any organization, as it gives a more accurate view of the customer. The CDP lets you collect individual-level data from online and offline sources. This data covers both current and potential customers and their behaviors with the company. Since this data is gathered directly from the source, it tends to be more precise than second or third-party data collected by other entities. Operating on first-party data also assists in complying with international data protection laws, as you are more likely to obtain valid consent for its collection by asking the users directly.

2. Data privacy and management

With a CDP, you can address data quality from the point of collection and maintain its integrity throughout the data pipeline. You have governance over the data collected and maintained in the CDP and control over the sources of information. This centralized data provides a single source of truth regarding a customer's data and the processing purposes users have agreed to. If requested, the CDP also enables quick modification or deletion of specific user data.

3. Single customer view

The CDP unifies and attributes the collected information to individual users, providing access in single customer views. These profiles incorporate all gathered information, like demographics, purchase history, and behavioral data. By understanding all touchpoints of the customer journey, you can gain insights into their interests, potential future purchases, or the need for personalized discounts to re-engage after a period of inactivity.

4. Identity resolution

A CDP can tie disparate data from multiple channels to the same customer profile through identity resolution. This process merges data using matching identifiers like e-mail addresses, user IDs, or cookie IDs. Using multiple identifiers provides an advantage over analytics tracking tools that often depend on cookies tied to a browser, not a specific user. Relying on cookies for user data can lead to downstream data quality issues, especially when connecting cookie-based data to other tools and systems.

5. Audience segmentation

Segmentation is fundamental for creating audiences that group customer profiles matching specific conditions. Once audience segments are built in your CDP, you can send them to downstream tools for data activation. Centralized audience segmentation saves time and guarantees that the segments are consistent and up-to-date across systems.

6. Data activation

Data activation involves translating customer data insights into action in other systems and tools. For example, you can add users from a specific audience to an email list and send them a discount code or display an ad banner on the website with a complementary product based on their previous purchases. The CDP's integrations enable businesses to access data where and when needed, freeing engineers from managing third-party code.

7. Work in real-time

CDPs empower marketers to work in real time, enhancing the process of preparing audience segments or targeting users with relevant content. Customer information is reflected in real time in updated profiles. As a result, the data sets expand, letting you constantly access up-to-date customer details.

Book a free demo to learn how to transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



10 Compelling Customer Data Platform Use Cases

Example of Customer Data Platform Use Cases

1. Unified Customer Data

Unifying customer data is the most common CDP use case. The first step in creating a data-driven customer experience is to compile a 360° view of your customer, but forming this view can be challenging when your data is scattered across systems and teams. A customer data platform must be able to unify data from any and all sources in your organization — from your website and call center systems to your customer relationship management (CRM) system and beyond. Without this, you’ll lack a single source of truth for your customer data, meaning your marketing efforts will be based on incomplete or inaccurate data and, therefore, likely fall flat.

2. Enhanced Personalization

After collecting and unifying your customer data and then cleaning and deduplicating it, you can mine that data to generate a more robust understanding of your customers, which will help you personalize their journey with your brand. Use your CDP to build segments of your customers based on their behaviors, so you can enhance your future engagements with them.

Customer segments can be created based on various factors, such as browsed product categories, web pages visited, spending level, in-store engagement, etc. You can deploy customized experiences that align with their behaviors and preferences using these segments. Going deeper, you can also support personalized marketing at the individual level by using insights from your CDP.

3. Mapping the Customer Journey

Businesses increase sales when they understand the touchpoints that convert a prospect into a paying customer or where they may get hung up in their customer journey. To get that big picture view, organizations pull data from chatbot interactions, product pages visited, on-site event attendance, visitor origin (SMS, email, or social media), and so on to map the customer journey.

A CDP offers a solution by providing a centralized location for all that data, so marketing teams can more easily produce informed customer journey maps and, by extension, strategies that optimize the customer experience.

4. Optimized Customer Experience

A CDP-informed customer-journey map offers a solid foundation for improving CX delivery. Once an organization knows where pain points in the customer journey occur — perhaps a specific step during checkout often leads to abandoned carts — then teams can go about righting the ship.

CDPs with machine learning (ML) baked in can enhance customer experiences even more. How? ML-enabled CDPs derive insights, such as behavioral patterns, from huge datasets that would take humans months, if not years, to analyze.

5. Multichannel Messaging

Once your customer data is unified and you have a complete profile of your customers, you can use your CDP to optimize marketing campaigns across all online and offline channels. With a customer data platform, you can deliver the right message to the right individual through the right channel.

6. Fewer Privacy Risks

As consumer views on data privacy grow more conservative, audiences have begun demanding more from organizations, such as consent before data collection. A CDP can help organizations meet these privacy changes by combining data to produce a so-called “golden record” for a unified view of a single customer.

7. Actionable Analytics

Remember that a CDP is not just another database to store your customer data and then forget about it. A customer data platform’s value comes from the insights you derive from it to inform your marketing strategy. Your marketing team can use these insights to design campaigns to keep these audiences engaged or find similar, “lookalike” customers who can be nurtured into becoming future best customers. With actionable analytics, a CDP brings your customer data to life, enabling smarter, more successful marketing.



Top 18 Customer Data Platform (CDP) Vendors to Consider

1. Rengage

Ideal Tool for Customer Data Platform Use Cases

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.

2. Segment

Segment is a customer data platform by Twilio that enables users to collect and route their customer data to various integrated systems. It is favored because of its easy setup, real-time tracking, and modifiable dashboards. This customer data platform allows you to send data to multiple destinations. It also includes some really cool features, such as cross-channel engagement design (journeys), a way of customizing your data pipeline (functions), and a simplified way of transforming and loading customer data (warehouses).

3. Bloomreach Engagement

Bloomreach is a commerce experience cloud that acquired Exponea this year and incorporated its customer data platform capabilities into its product kit. The Bloomreach CDP, called Bloomreach Engagement, offers online and offline data tracking, a unified single customer view, and advanced customer data analytics. It also has some great machine learning aspects and predictive recommendations, which make it really intuitive.

4. Totango

Totango’s DNA-CX (Dynamic No-Schema Active Customer Index technology) is an intelligent customer data platform that lets users connect all customer data streams. This software is great for segmenting your customers and seeing different metrics, which help you identify which customers you need to prioritize.

5. Blueshift

The Blueshift Smarthub Customer Data Platform is another great option if you’re looking for a CDP to deliver real-time experiences throughout the entire (omnichannel) journey. It’s extensive AppHub also provides users with a wide variety of data integrations, which is certainly a plus! Fan favorites on this platform include real-time data unification, audience segmentation, 1:1 personalization and predictive intelligence.

6. Insider

Ranked among the world’s top 5 marketing platforms on the Forrester Wave for Cross-Channel Campaign Management, Insider is certainly a top-rated customer data platform. The platform enables marketers to connect their data across various channels, predict future behavior with its AI intent engine, and create individualized customer experiences.

7. Tealium AudienceStream CDP

Tealium AudienceStream Customer Data Platform is a great customer data platform if you’re looking to bring together fragmented chunks of data from all kinds of data sources and bring it together. Leverage various business rules and enrich your data as it flows in. Unique features of AudienceStream (the platform built into Tealium) include identity resolution, data enrichment and cross-channel audience management. The platform offers over 1300+ turnkey integrations, allowing users to connect their systems and data effortlessly.

8. Listrak

As a cross-channel marketing platform, Listrak offers various ‘components’, including unified customer data. It’s a great platform for those seeking versatility and top-notch automation capabilities. Users are pleased with the data visualization capabilities, AI recommendations, and predictive analytics features. This platform requires a bit more onboarding due to its steeper learning curve.

9. Lytics

Lytics is ideal for digital marketers looking to build personalized digital experiences quickly and easily using an affordable platform. According to G2, Lytics’ ability to identify and target specific users within a segment has proven instrumental in how many organizations conduct business. Depending on how large your data segments are, the platform can be a bit on the slower side.

10. Treasure Data

Treasure Data is a well-known customer data platform that enables its users to unify all kinds of data, including marketing hubs, IoT, weblogs, and geolocation data. This CDP offers 150 out-of-the-box connectors, so you can bring this data together easily and in real time. It’s also got a great up-to-the-minute real-time data analysis feature so that users always know what’s going on their digital channels.

11. BlueVenn by Upland Software

BlueVenn, recently acquired by Upland Software, is a customer data platform and omnichannel marketing hub. What’s great about this platform is that it offers easy-to-use data loaders and an intuitive user interface that requires little to no support from IT. This browser-based solution also includes drag-and-drop analytics, predictive insights and segmentation tools.

12. SAP Customer Data Platform

Just over a year ago, SAP launched its own Customer Data platform. This new technology focuses on four main priorities: connecting data from multiple sources, purpose-driven data governance, processing large volumes of data, and hyper-personalizing using a 360-degree customer view. It also offers a back-office system connection and real-time insight activation.

13. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is — you guessed it! — a part of Microsoft’s customer data platform (CDP) that helps deliver personalized customer experiences. The solution is divided into two segments: audience insights and engagement insights. Audience insights focus on connecting data from transactional, behavioral, and observational sources for a 360-degree view, whereas Engagement insights enable users to understand how customers behave on the various channels.

14. Oracle Unity

Oracle Unity is an attractive CDP for B2C and B2B brands that aggregate traditional marketing and advertising data, including online, offline, and third-party customer data sources. Looking to connect individuals across devices, channels, domains, and networks and create accessible profiles using advanced privacy and identity controls? Then this might be the CDP for you.

15. Salesforce Interaction Studio

This tool is particularly useful for streamlining offline and online customer interactions. It leverages AI technologies to segment customer data and helps users personalize interactions based on existing portfolios and the customer’s previous behavior. What’s more, this data is all gathered in real time from every digital touchpoint, including web, mobile, retail, advertising, and phone.

16. RedPoint Global

RedPoint Global is a comprehensive customer data platform that gives businesses a signal view of the customer. Offering hundreds of out-of-the-box connectors, users can ingest data from a wide range of different sources. This CDP also leverages predictive models and machine learning to optimize customer decisions. Part of the RedPoint Customer Engagement Hub, users also have access to in-line analytics and intelligent orchestration.

17. Emarsys

Emarsys is a customer engagement platform with robust CDP capabilities for streamlining customer data. The company serves over 1,500 businesses in the retail, e-commerce, travel, sports, consumer products, and media industries. Emarsys includes predictive analysis, automated AI-based updates, reporting and analytics, and cross-channel automation and personalization. You can also explore industry-specific solutions for the e-commerce, travel, and retail sectors.

18. Optimove

Optimove is a relationship marketing hub with CDP functionality. Used by 500+ customers, the GDPR- and ISO-certified platform creates single customer views with first-party data, third-party data, and campaign response history. This allows the platform to segment data, enabling businesses to create personalized multichannel campaigns. With Optimove, you can access scalable data infrastructure, customizable dashboards, predictive customer analytics, and other features to boost customer engagement.



How to Choose the Right CDP for Your Business

Discussion on choosing for Customer Data Platform Use Cases

1. Get Stakeholder Buy-In

When choosing a CDP, it's crucial to get buy-in from internal stakeholders. This includes allies from sales, IT, customer success, marketing, and finance departments. Having IT involved ensures compatibility with your tech stack, while input from other teams helps understand what they expect from a CDP.

2. Outline Core Challenges or Use Cases

Identify specific use cases that go beyond data consolidation. This will help you find a CDP that aligns with your brand's needs. Reach out to peers in similar companies to learn about the CDP solutions they use for similar challenges, and build a shortlist of potential vendors.

3. List Tools to Connect to Your CDP

Knowing the tools you'll connect to your CDP is essential for evaluating vendors and assessing their integrations. This step helps in ensuring that your CDP integrates with pre-existing systems. Incompatibility should lead to the elimination of a potential vendor.

4. State the Capabilities of Your Ideal CDP

Consider core capabilities such as data governance, quality enforcement, compliance, identity resolution, control over roles and permissions, volume of data storage, and more. For instance, if your company handles sensitive customer data, look for an ISO 27001- or SOC 2-certified CDP.

5. Compare CDP Vendors

Assess recommendations, check pricing pages, and read comparison pages on platforms like G2 and Capterra. Not all CDPs are equal; some may be better suited for small businesses, while others cater more to midmarket and enterprise companies. Narrow down your search accordingly.



Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Rengage offers a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights, and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion, and churn, enabling you to unlock revenue from your existing user base. With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and measure how your journeys impact user conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

Journey Moments: Insights into Your Micro-Segments

Rengage's Journey Moments feature offers insights into your micro-segments. By diving deep into your customer segments, you can better understand their behavior, preferences, and needs. This enables you to tailor your marketing efforts more effectively, delivering personalized experiences that resonate with your customers. With detailed insights into each micro-segment, you can create targeted campaigns that drive engagement and conversion.

Journey Builder: Intuitive Multi-Channel Marketing Automation

Rengage's Journey Builder feature allows you to effortlessly create intuitive multi-channel marketing automation campaigns. With drag-and-drop functionality and a user-friendly interface, you can seamlessly design complex customer journeys that span multiple touchpoints. Whether you want to onboard new users, reactivate dormant customers, or encourage repeat purchases, Journey Builder makes it easy to map out the ideal customer journey and automate communications across different channels.

Insights Prediction and Attribution

Rengage's Insights Prediction and Attribution feature provides you with valuable insights into the performance of your customer journeys. By tracking key metrics and attributing conversions to specific touchpoints, you can understand which marketing efforts drive results and optimize your campaigns accordingly. With data-driven insights, you can make informed decisions about your marketing strategy, refine your customer journeys, and maximize your ROI.

Book a Free Demo with Rengage Today!

Ready to transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth? Book a free demo with Rengage today to learn more about our customer data platform and how it can help you unlock revenue from your existing user base. With Rengage, you can gain valuable insights, run targeted campaigns, and measure the impact of your customer journeys, empowering you to drive sustainable growth and build lasting customer relationships.



25 Powerful Customer Data Platform Options to Unify Marketing

· 16 min read
Akram Hassan
CEO Rengage

Are you struggling better to understand your customer base for effective marketing strategies? Get into Customer Segmentation Analysis within the marketing data platform landscape. This deep dive into segmentation and customer journeys will help you unlock the mysteries surrounding customer behavior to create personalized experiences that enhance loyalty and drive growth. Learn how to leverage these insights to refine your marketing efforts for optimal results.



We've designed Rengage to help you achieve your customer segmentation analysis goals effectively to drive loyalty and growth.



What Is a Marketing Data Platform?

Person using Laptop - Marketing Data Platform

Think about the last time you purchased a computer online. Your research process was probably something like this:

  • Google searched, “The best computers of the year”
  • Visited a number of computer review websites
  • Visited a few retailers that sell computers
  • Watched a few videos to learn more about the technical details of different computers

When you finally decided on what type of computer to buy, you probably researched the best place to buy it from. You visited a few additional websites to compare costs, shipping times, and return policies.

Throughout all of that, chances are you interacted multiple times with the company that you ultimately purchased from — through website visits, live chat, Facebook ads, and email.

The Role of CDPs in Personalized Customer Experiences

You might’ve noticed that each interaction with that company resulted in a more personalized experience. The ads you saw on Facebook felt extremely relevant to you, the website may have made subtle changes to seem more personal to what you were looking for, and their email follow-up, even though it was automated, felt like it was crafted for you. How was the company doing all of this? They were likely using a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to tailor their marketing to you.

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is software that combines data from multiple tools to create a single centralized customer database containing data on all touch points and interactions with your product or service. That database can then be segmented in a nearly endless ways to create more personalized marketing campaigns.

CDPs Consolidate Customer Data

The best way to explain this is by example. Say a company is trying to get a better understanding of their customers. Their CDP would collect data from touch points like Facebook, the company’s website, email, and any other place a customer might interact with the company. The CDP will collect all of those data points, consolidate them into an easily understandable unified customer profile, and then make that profile usable to other systems that might need it — like the Facebook ads platform.

Leveraging CDPs for Audience Segmentation and Targeted Marketing

That process allows the company to use segmentation to better understand its audience and create more personalized marketing campaigns. For example, the company could easily create an advertising audience based on everyone who has visited a specific page on its website and also its live chat feature. Or, it could quickly segment and view data on site visitors who’ve abandoned their carts.



3 Key Components of a Marketing Data Platform

Person using mobile while Making Notes - Marketing Data Platform

1. Packaged Software

A CDP is a prebuilt system, configured to meet the needs of each client. It requires some technical resources to set up and maintain the CDP, but it is less technical than a typical data warehouse project. This reduces the time, cost, and risk and gives business users more control over the system.

2. Persistent, Unified Customer Database

A CDP collects customer data from multiple sources, creating a unified, complete view of each customer. It pools and tracks customer data, such as behavioral data and demographics, to create a 360-degree view of each customer.

3. Accessible to Other Systems

A CDP has the ability to share data with other platforms, enhancing customer management and creating highly targeted, personalized marketing campaigns.

Enhancing Customer Journeys with Rengage

We provide a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys, delivering insights and measurable outcomes with no code. We accelerate your customer journey from onboarding, activation to conversion and churn. Enabling customers to unlock revenue from their existing user.

With Rengage, you can get insights into your segments, run campaigns with an intuitive journey manager, and get insights to measure how your journeys impact users conversion through our Journey Moments and Journey Builder features.

  • Journey Moments: insights into your micro-segments
  • Journey Builder: intuitive multi-channel marketing automation
  • Insights prediction and attribution.

Book a free demo to learn about how you can transform customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.



Top 9 Benefits of a Customer Data Platform

Person Writing on Laptop - Marketing Data Platform CDPs don’t just collect and store data. They process it into customer profiles that can be used to create single customer views (SCVs). Also called 360-customer views, SCVs are profiles created by a CDP from all the data gathered on a single customer. They provide marketers with a unified view of insights like their behaviors, information, purchase history, and interests.

For example, each time a customer engages with a brand — whether it’s logging into a mobile app, reading a blog post, searching for a product, adding that product to a cart, leaving it in the cart, or buying a different product later — it’s all filtered into a SCV that acts as a summary of every way that customer has interacted with that brand. This clear and unified view allows marketers to better understand their customers and deliver more personalized experiences.



How Does a Customer Data Platform Work?

Person Pointing on Laptop - Marketing Data Platform I believe the CDP system is a powerful tool for collecting data, tracking customer behaviors, and storing valuable information. This data can be collected from various sources—CRM platforms, marketing systems, and data streams. The goal is to make all customer data available in a single place.

As a hub, the specialized system will identify each customer by collecting data from different sources and will be able to stitch together data to create a unified customer profile. This is a process called "customer resolution."

Harmonize Your Data

In this process, the CDP will harmonize the data collected by stitching together different data sources to build unified customer profiles. It means linking different data sources together to create the customer identity. The process known as cross-device identity resolution allows companies to understand the full picture of their customers' journeys.

It allows companies to understand how customers interact with their brand, and these insights can be used to create a customized journey. This is a beneficial process for companies that want to build a personalized journey for their customers.

Experience Your Data

Data activation is the next step with the unified customer profiles created by the CDP. This process makes the data available for teams to personalize and create real-time customer experiences. Data activation is made possible by connecting the customer data in CDP to different platforms used by companies to engage with customers.

These platforms may include email send engines, automated workflows, real-time analytics, demand-side platforms, and content management systems. This is an essential process to create and maintain personalized customer experiences in real time.

Pull Insights from Data

The CDP platform is a great tool for gathering insights and pulling data from customer profiles. The unified customer profiles created by CDP allow companies to see the entire catalog of data each customer shared and track their entire customer journey.

These insights can be used to segment customers into groups, create lookalike audiences, and create personas to help reach out to new audiences. The CDP is a great source of information proving the efforts' reach, revenue, and marketing ROI.



25 Best Customer Data Platform Options for 2024

1. Rengage

Rengage - Marketing Data Platform Rengage is a comprehensive solution that accelerates customer journeys from onboarding to conversion, enhancing insights and outcomes with no code. Features include intuitive journey management through Journey Moments and Journey Builder, insights prediction, and attribution.

2. Insider

Insider offers easy customer data activation across websites, mobile apps, and messaging channels. It brings together all customer data for seamless activation.

3. Bloomreach

Bloomreach’s eCommerce personalization platform, including a CDP named Customer Data Engine, collects customer data from various sources. Its platform supports activation channels like email, SMS, and on-site, with automation and content management features.

4. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud includes a CDP to aggregate data, better understand customers, and optimize marketing campaigns. Activation channels supported are email, SMS, on-site, and mobile apps, with tools for personalization, content management, and journey orchestration.

5. Emarsys

Emarsys features an Integrated Data Layer CDP that combines, cleanses, and analyzes data for a single customer view. It uses AI-powered audience segmentation to surface customer insights and supports activation channels like email, on-site, SMS, and mobile apps.

6. Segment

Segment, a standalone CDP by Twilio, integrates with popular marketing tools, customer support platforms, and data warehouses. It supports many activation channels and can be integrated with Twilio Engage for SMS and email campaigns.

7. Tealium

Tealium's CDP combines five products for unified customer profiles, data management, tag management, data collection, and machine learning-based behavior predictions.

8. mParticle

mParticle helps create a single customer view and segments and offers predictive analytics. Schema management tools help maintain data quality and support integrations with multiple tools for product, development, and marketing teams.

9. Treasure Data

Treasure Data unifies data and ensures compliance and security, supporting marketing, sales, and customer success teams. It offers data hygiene and advanced analytics use cases but lacks built-in activation channels.

10. Whatagraph

Whatagraph is a marketing data platform connecting, visualizing, and sharing data from over 40 sources. It helps consolidate customer insights from various data points and move data to Google BigQuery for advanced analytics and deeper insights.

11. Adverity

Adverity empowers marketers with an integrated data platform for connecting, managing, and using data at different scales. It blends disparate data sources to create business intelligence.

12. Klaviyo

Klaviyo focuses on email and SMS solutions for businesses, offering easy-to-use email marketing and automation services.

13. Ortto

Ortto helps collect unified customer data, offering segmented insights into the buyer's journey through automated email responses, personalized email builders, and templates.

14. Totango

Totango offers customer marketing platforms for small and large businesses, supporting customer success technologies. Big-name clients like Zoom, Google, and SAP use it.

15. Autopilot

Autopilot provides a global marketing platform with a CDP for unified customer data and powerful data segmentation. Its automated email response feature, drag-and-drop email builder, and templates are highlighted.

16. Blueshift

Blueshift is an AI-based marketing platform for engaging customers throughout the B2C lifecycle. App Hub facilitates tech stack connections and third-party platform integrations for easy use.

17. Listrak

Listrak offers cross-channel marketing with a strong email builder, behavioral triggers, customer insights, text message marketing, and predictive analytics using machine learning and statistical modeling.

18. SALESmanago

SALESmanago combines customer data and experience to provide seamless marketing solutions, helping top clients achieve significant results.

19. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Microsoft provides personalized alerts, customer interactions, and automation using API through its Customer Insights platform, with a simple interface for easy navigation.

20. Actito

Actito streamlines marketing efforts for mid-sized to large businesses, offering tailored buyer experiences and customer satisfaction.

21. Funnel

Funnel encourages data-driven marketing with clean and accurate data collection, advertising support, analytics, and CRM features.

22. SAP Marketing Cloud

SAP Marketing Cloud offers a 360-degree view of customer information, real-time data feeds, a convenient interface, email deliverability, and strong analytics tools.

23. Lytics

Lytics leverages data using science and machine learning, providing audience segmentation, behavioral scoring, identity resolution, content affinity, journey orchestration, and personalization tools.

24. BlueVenn by Upland Software

BlueVenn, now under Upland Software, offers robust tools for unifying customer data, drag-and-drop analytics, excellent segmentation, and integration options for accurate customer profiles.

25. Optimove

Optimove caters to marketing and CRM professionals in data-focused environments, having served over 500 brands with $75 million funding and expansions across three locations.



How To Choose the Best Customer Data Platform

Question Mark Symbol - Marketing Data Platform

Determining Your Budget

When evaluating a Customer Data Platform (CDP), determining your budget is one of the first crucial steps. Many CDPs do not openly display their pricing, so you must request a custom quote to understand the costs involved. Be sure to prioritize the features and tools you require and inquire about any add-ons that may come at an additional cost.

Tools and Integrations Needed

Different CDPs offer integration possibilities with various tools and platforms. As a result, some platforms your company uses to store customer data may not be compatible with all CDPs. Make a list of the essential platforms, data sources, and tools that must be integrated with your CDP and confirm with the provider that your integration needs will be met.

Mapping Out Business Goals

Certain CDPs will analyze your company's use cases to establish your business objectives with customer data. They will ensure that the software they offer can meet these goals. To prepare for this, gather your key stakeholders and compile a list of their goals. Prioritize these goals from critical to nice-to-have, and consider best data protection practices.

Formalizing Your Selection

Once you have narrowed your options to a few CDP providers that align with your business needs, it's time to formalize your selection. Use customer reviews to help you identify the most suitable provider. To confirm your decision, reach out and schedule a meeting to open a dialogue between your selected CDP provider and key stakeholders.

Essential CDP Features

When selecting a CDP, consider essential features such as data integration, data cleansing and unification, segmentation and personalization, real-time data processing, analytics and reporting, multichannel support, and security and compliance. These features are crucial for creating a customer-centric marketing strategy.

Integrations

A well-designed CDP should seamlessly integrate with your current tech stack. When deciding on a CDP, consider prebuilt integrations, integration capabilities, in-house integration experts, ecosystem-neutral CDPs, and the quality of product documentation. Ensure that the platform can connect with any part of your tech stack and support custom integrations.

Other Important Considerations

It is important to recognize that a CDP requires a long-term commitment once integrated into your digital ecosystem. Ensure stakeholders understand what they are committing to and how to derive value from the platform. Evaluate vendor stability, flexibility, and support when choosing a CDP to drive growth and success for your business.



Create Personalized Experiences That Drive Loyalty and Growth with Rengage — Book A Free Demo Today

Rengage offers a marketing data platform that provides a comprehensive solution for managing and enhancing customer journeys. It delivers insights and measurable outcomes without the need for coding. With Rengage, we accelerate your customer journey from onboarding and activation to conversion and churn, enabling you to unlock revenue from existing users.

Insights into Segments

Gain valuable insights into your customer segments with Rengage. Our platform helps you better understand your audience, enabling you to tailor your marketing strategies to meet their specific needs.

Intuitive Journey Manager

Run campaigns seamlessly with our journey manager feature. Create personalized customer journeys that drive engagement and conversions across various channels without the need for complex coding.

Journey Moments and Journey Builder

Journey Moments provides insights into your micro-segments, helping you understand how different types of users interact with your brand. The Journey Builder feature offers an intuitive multi-channel marketing automation tool that simplifies creating and managing customer journeys.

Predictions and Attribution

Our platform provides predictive analytics to help you anticipate customer behaviors, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that enhance your marketing efforts. Rengage offers attribution mechanisms that allow you to measure the impact of your customer journeys on user conversions.

Book a Free Demo Today

If you want to transform your customer interactions into personalized experiences that drive loyalty and growth, book a free demo with Rengage. Discover how our marketing data platform can revolutionize your marketing strategies and unlock new revenue streams from your existing user base.