How to Get Your CDP to Work with Your MarTech Stack

Building a Martech Stack is a complicated process, which involves critical decisions on what tools and platforms to include that can help increase employee productivity, aid in better decision-making processes, centralize information, and streamline processes for efficient business operations. Let’s see how your Customer Data Management (CDM)Opens a new window strategy fits with your overall MarTech stack.

An optimum MarTech Stack is a collection of various tools and technologies to better understand customers, automate and scale processes, centralize information by pulling it from disparate sources and analytics to make informed decisions and orchestrate actions in real-time across diverse customer touchpoints.

There are a plethora of tools and numerous options in the MarTech ecosystem such as Advertising, Automation, Analytics, CMS, CRM, Conversion Optimization, Email, Measurement, Retargeting, Social Media Testing, Testing tools, etc. However, marketers often face a challenging question — is CDP a wise investment and where will it fit into their MarTech Stack?

Let’s first understand what a Customer Data Platform (CDP) is.

What is a CDP?

A customer data platformOpens a new window creates a unified view of customer data, pulling it from various sources, by cleansing, validating, and merging customer information. A CDP enables marketers to have easy and direct access to customer data to make data-driven decisions and execute those decisions in a timely and efficient manner, to deliver consistent, seamless experiences to your customers.

Learn More: What is Customer Data Management – Part I Opens a new window

Do You Need a Customer Data Platform?

If you want customers to have a consistent brand experience irrespective of the marketing channel or data source; and you truly want to join the dots between customer data from multiple internal and external, structured and unstructured, identifiable and anonymous data points, you need a CDP.

~ Chitra Iyer, Editor-in-Chief, Ziff Davis B2BOpens a new window

Once you have identified that a customer data platform is one of the core tools of your MarTech Stack, you need to understand how it will fit into your MarTech Stack and work with the rest of the components.

3 Ways to get Your CDP to Work with Your MarTech Stack

While referring to CDP, Chitra Iyer, Opens a new window writesOpens a new window , “It has variously been called ‘the central nervous system’ of marketing and the ‘unified central customer view’ that delivers the most current intel about a unique customer from the structured and unstructured; real-time and historical; anonymous and identifiable – data that is collected from multiple sources. It uses a single unique identifier for each customer and can link everything associated with that record back to it. In other words, a single view of all customer activity, interactions, and attributes.”

So a CDP can be the core of your Martech Stack, while the other tools revolve around it.

Here are three ways you can get a CDP to work with your MarTech Stack.

1. Use CDP to Manage Siloed Data Across MarTech Tools
 

Customer information is often siloed across a MarTech stack’s databases, which implies an opportunity loss because of crucial time wasted while sifting through data to find meaningful insights, and then deciding on appropriate actions.

Here’s where CDPs help. They can help gather all customer data in a centralized, unified customer database. The data is specific, down to behavioral data, interactions, location, web clicks, browsing history, cookie data, all linked to a unique identity for each customer. This helps deliver the most recent structured information about customers in near real-time, which helps you increase conversions at the right time and right place.

Also Read: 5 Baby Steps to Building Your Customer Data Management StrategyOpens a new window

2. Nurture Customer Relationships with CDP and CRMs
 

CDP provides a comprehensive view of customers and prospects. It can track a buyer’s journey across channels and touchpoints to link customers with the first point of contact and the final purchase.

A CDP can help identify customers’ specific interests and preferred channels. This ‘richer view’ of customers can power up Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, by centralizing customer interaction data. This can help facilitate intelligent and informed management of customer interactions, business transactions, and internal processes.

Learn More: 5 Best Practices for Customer Data Management Opens a new window

3. Prioritize Your Needs

Your MarTech Stack is a dynamic entity to which new tools and features need to be added as technology and needs evolve. But CDPs are crucial for the continued growth of your MarTech Stack, as they assemble and unify data, making it easily accessible, and reducing the effort required for data management.

Once you identify your data needs and gather data for purchase intent, location, weather, or identity resolution, you can choose CDPs that give you maximum Return on Investment (ROI). For instance, you can invest in a platform that:

• Builds a unified database and then connects it to other applications
• Integrates CDP with internal or external data sources
• Provides analytics and reporting features to drive decisions
   

Learn More: 5 Best Practices for Customer Data ManagementOpens a new window

Key Takeaways

A CDP is a powerful tool that helps you get a holistic view of your customers. But, to fit all the grooves of your marketing stack, you have to first identify your goals and look for Opens a new window Opens a new window new window” target=”_blank”>a CDP that will unify all other tools and technologies seamlessly, and allow for more flexibility to move data within your ecosystem.

What are the key considerations for you while integrating CDP with your Martech Stack? Tell us on TwitterOpens a new window or LinkedInOpens a new window or FacebookOpens a new window ; we’re always listening!