Customer Data Platform Institute Helps Marketers Build a Unified Customer View

SWARTHMORE, Pa.--()--Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) help solve marketers’ biggest data problem: building a unified customer view. Yet few marketers know that CDPs exist. The Customer Data Platform Institute (www.cdpinstitute.org) launched today to close this gap.

The Institute defines Customer Data Platform as a “marketer-managed system that creates a persistent, unified customer database accessible to other systems”. CDPs are an alternative to enterprise data warehouses, data management platforms, and channel applications such as email engines. CDPs are specifically built for marketing uses, incorporate first party data including personal identifiers, and are open to access by all company systems. This lets them succeed where other approaches have not.

According to Institute founder David Raab, “The growing need for complete, accessible customer data has fueled the rise of CDP systems. Nearly two dozen vendors fit the definition but awareness of CDPs is still very low. The Institute will educate marketers about CDP capabilities and to help them take full advantage of these powerful new systems.”

A recent survey found that 90% of marketers consider an omnichannel customer view important for marketing effectiveness, but less than 20% currently have such a view. (LiveRamp, The State of People Based Marketing, October 2016). Another study found that the technology issues were the biggest barriers to delivering a unified customer view (Experian, The 2016 Digital Marketer, April 2016). CDPs remove many technical obstacles with features such as schemaless data stores, machine learning, and cloud-based deployment.

The Institute is sponsored by leading CDP vendors who recognize the need for vendor-neutral education and community. Sponsorship lets the Institute provide resources at no charge to members. The Institute is managed by Raab Associates, independent industry analysts who identified CDPs as a distinct category in 2013. Raab will be assisted by an Advisory Board of marketing practitioners and sponsor experts.

Initial Institute offerings include a library of white papers, surveys, evaluation guides, case studies, and product information; daily newsletter and blog; public forum for marketers and industry experts; and directory of industry vendors. All are available on the Institute Web site at www.cdpinstitute.org.

Institute sponsors include: AgilOne, Ascent360, BlueConic (Gold), BlueVenn, Ensighten, Lytics, mParticle, RedPoint Global (Gold), Segment (Gold), Signal, and Treasure Data (Gold).

Contacts

Customer Data Platform Institute
Susan Raab, 914-241-2117
sraab@cdpinstitute.org

Release Summary

The Customer Data Platform Institute launched today to educate marketers about martech systems to build omnichannel marketing databases to create a single customer view. Membership is free.

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Contacts

Customer Data Platform Institute
Susan Raab, 914-241-2117
sraab@cdpinstitute.org