CDP Customer Data Platforms

basic CDP definition: A CDP is essentially a hub designed to ingest all data from all sources related to customer marketing and branding activities. It is driven by, and generally owned by, the marketing team. It must then make that data actionable by ensuring it is constantly cleansed, standardized, matched and linked together in a way that makes it easily consumable by other parts of the marketing stack. This includes reporting/BI, analytics and modeling, and message orchestration across inbound and outbound channels and media.

However, when some companies began to include analytics and message orchestration that lines became blurred and the CDP definition morphed. Then, more and more companies with roots in data management platforms (DMP), tag management, cross-device tracking, cookie pooling and even bid sniffing — participating in real-time bidding auctions and then collecting data and information on devices over time whether they won the bid or not — entered the CDP game. These companies were essentially blurring the definition to shout that they, too, were a CDP.