Institute says 80% of CDPs are showing significant benefits

Their update also reveals a number of other interesting findings that are worth sharing:

- The importance of relating data unification projects to business goals – put simply, a single customer view is only worth what you can use it for. The most popular uses mentioned in the report were customer data analysis, orchestration of customer communications and selection of messaging. For our part, we would like to add customer journey-based marketing attribution.

- The biggest CDP deployment problem is the client’s organisation – in effect users need to get cooperation across an organisation and then invest in the team skills required to use the capability properly.

- CDP projects that are managed by marketers are more likely to be successful than those managed by IT – the most likely explanation we would suggest is that marketers are going to rely on their CDP to deliver marketing results and this requires having full operational effectiveness. They cannot risk it failing.

- Companies are showing increasing concerns about privacy compliance – this is most probably the result of increased publicity being given to data security breaches and personal data privacy issues. Indeed, we find it hard to understand how an organisation can manage customer consents without a unified customer view.

- CDPs are no longer in the category of marketing technology that only very large companies can afford – many of the survey respondents engaged with CDPs were working for companies with sales in the $10m to $100m range, which is small by US standards.

The update is fascinating reading for anyone interested in introducing a CDP, or maximising value from an existing CDP. Membership of the Customer Data Platform Institute is free, visit their website for more information. For further information on Unifida's CDP, visit https://unifida.co.uk/unifida-cdp-insight-led-marketing/