Customer data platforms are essential tools for any business, especially those in the retail and eCommerce industries. They can help you better understand your customers, boost sales and streamline your operations. But what exactly is a real-time CDP? And why should you use one? Take a look at some of the key benefits of customer data platforms.
What are CDPs?
A CDP is a platform that collects and analyzes customer data, allowing you to make better decisions about your business. Your CDP will help you understand what customers need, how they interact with your products, and how all of this impacts their loyalty.
To use a CDP effectively, you’ll need to create a strategy for gathering and organizing the information it provides. This can be incredibly challenging if the data isn’t already available in one place—but don’t worry! Most CDPs provide integrations with other software platforms so that you can easily import vital info into one central location.
Why Use a CDP?
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a specialized database system that ingests data from all of your customer touchpoints, including web and mobile traffic, third-party sources like CRM tools and loyalty programs, marketing automation platforms, social media and more. These inputs are then consolidated into one central location where they can be analyzed to provide valuable insights into your customers’ behavior.
Benefits of using a CDP
Using a CDP can also help you achieve some of the following benefits:
- Increased Revenue: With access to all your customer data, you’ll be able to identify areas where you can increase revenue by reducing churn and increasing sales. For example, you may discover that customers are frustrated with their experience in the checkout process or with returning items. You can then use this information to improve these processes and provide better service, resulting in happier customers who spend more money on your products and services.
- Increased Customer Loyalty: By using a CDP, you’ll be able to understand your customers better so that they feel like they’re being treated as individuals rather than just another number in an email list or database file. This will make them loyal to your brand because they know their needs are being met consistently. Therefore less likely to abandon the ship when something goes wrong with their account or order.
Features of a Good CDP
A good Customer Data Platform (CDP) has the following features:
- Integration: A CDP should have connectors to all of the different systems you use and should integrate with third-party tools, like CRM or marketing automation platforms.
- Security: Your data needs to be secure, so the platform should have robust security measures in place to protect it from malicious attackers or accidental loss. If a hacker were to get access to your CDP’s data files, they could do a lot of damage—but if they had no way of accessing them in the first place, then there wouldn’t be anything for them to steal!
- Data quality and governance: The software will also make sure that each piece of information is labeled correctly so that it can be easily retrieved later on when needed
Adobe Real-Time CDP goes beyond other solutions by assembling actionable, real-time profiles for personalization at scale.
In the past, businesses needed more access to customer information because they used spreadsheets or databases that were difficult to manage. Nowadays, with CDPs, businesses have access to new insights to help them make better decisions about their customers and products.
