Data Platform (CDP)

Customer Data Platforms have been a trending topic these past couple of years, especially after Gartner listed them as “The Next-Generation Marketing Platform”. On the one hand, there is a lot of noise around this new generation of technology and on the other, CDP seems to be rather complicated for those who are not yet familiar with these new concepts.

In this article, we will try to summarize the pros and cons of building your own CDP, whether you are a business owner or IT guy. Let’s start with the pros.

Pros of building your own CDP

1. Consolidated view of all your data in real-time

One of the main pros of having your own CDP is that you will have a consolidated view of all your customer data in one place. In other words, you won’t have to connect multiple systems to centralize your data. It does not matter if multiple people from different departments are using different tools to manage their own data. All of them will use your CDP instead, which is still better than having multiple silos storing different parts of the same customer profile.

2. Better structure and quality of your data

While you can connect a couple of tools to centralize all your data in a CRM system, building your own Customer Data Platform allows you to structure and clean your data first. Without having to worry about other connections, you can use your own internal IT guys to set up a better foundation for the future of your company, as far as customer data is concerned.

3. Full control over your platform
Even if you do not have an internal technical team that will build your CDP, it would be a good idea to go with a company that gives you full control over your data. This is exactly what a CDP does, no matter the technical background of your employees. It is in fact so easy to use, even IT guys can work with it in case they need to connect their own tools to the platform to get the most out of it.

4. Better personalization

Centralized data allows you to apply personalized marketing campaigns. There is no need for departments to talk with each other anymore since every single one of them works with the same system and can apply different triggers according to their own needs or preferences. Besides, these triggers are all done in real-time, so companies can be much more agile and react to different events as they happen.

5. Better loyalty management

Thanks to a consolidated customer profile with all the data in one place, companies can have a better view of their customers’ behavior and preferences. This allows them to interactively engage with every single user and boost their loyalty to the company. In other words, if a customer has an issue with a product or service, they can be immediately redirected to the right help desk for faster resolutions and better user satisfaction. This is one of the biggest pros of building your CDP, even though companies have been using this kind of approach long before CDPs existed.

6. Better Business Intelligence (BI)

Another advantage of having your own CDP is the ability to use predictive analytics to conduct better business intelligence. Thanks to real-time data, you will be able to have a better understanding of your customers’ behavior, even in case they are far away from your operations. All this data is also used to feed machine learning algorithms, so you can have a better understanding of your business strategy in the long run.

7. More efficient marketing campaigns

Last but not least, companies can conduct more efficient offline and online marketing campaigns thanks to their own CDP. Since all data is centralized in real-time, you will be able
to plan your marketing strategy much more efficiently. This means you will be able to better engage with your customers and boost their loyalty towards the company.

Cons of building your own CDP

Even if there are numerous benefits of having your own Customer Data Platform, it is important to have in mind that this approach has some downsides as well.

1. Initial costs are higher

Even though it is easy for companies to make their own CDP, the initial investment needed is much higher than if they were to connect their tools with an existing third-party platform. Of course, this gap will become smaller over time, but it still means that up-front investments are needed for your company to reap all the benefits of this new system.

2. Internal IT resources are needed

One of the biggest cons of building your own CDP is that it will take some time before you can reap all the pros mentioned earlier in this article. This means that you will need to invest in internal IT guys for a while, so they can set up and maintain the system. Again, this won’t be a problem anymore after some time passes and your platform is fully functional, but it might still be a con for small businesses which do not usually have their own IT team.

3. A bit complex to use

Even though we mentioned above that building your own CDP is simple and easy for companies, this might not be true for small business owners who are usually less tech-savvy. Therefore, they will need to put in some effort before achieving the full functionality of the system.

Conclusion

Now that you know both the pros and cons of having your own Customer Data Platform, it is time to check if this system can fit your company’s business objectives. Even though building your own CDP might be expensive at first, it will pay off sooner than you think once all its
functionalities are implemented. Therefore, small companies should try and test this solution for a limited number of users and see if they can achieve the desired results. If this is the case, then it might be a good idea to invest in building your own CDP to boost your company’s productivity in the long run.