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I’ve recently been running workshops to help companies plan deployment of their Customer Data Platforms. Much of the discussion revolves around defining use cases and, in particular, deciding which to deliver first. This requires balancing the desire to include many data sources in the first release of the system against the desire to deliver value quickly. MORE
Informatica announced last week that has purchased AllSight , a Toronto-based Customer Data Platorm vendor. This is interesting on several levels: A CDP vendor is being bought by an established enterprise data management firm. MORE
Until recently, most marketers were content to leave privacy compliance in the hands of data and legal teams. But laws like GDPR and CCPA now require increasingly prominent consent notifications and impose increasingly stringent limits on data use. This means marketers must become increasingly involved with the privacy systems to ensure a positive customer experience, gain access to the data they need, and ensure they use the data appropriately. MORE
As marketers finish their initial emergency adjustments to coronavirus lockdowns, they are starting to think about longer-term plans. While the shape of things to come is impossible to guess, reporting on industry changes has become a marketing trend of its own. Here are a dozen-plus studies I’ve seen in the past week, most of which are on-going. Retail Behavior Data Adobe this week launched their Digital Economy Index , a long-term project that gained unexpected immediate relevance. MORE
October 22 was a landmark day for the CDP industry. MORE
Customer success platform Gainsight recently released a Customer Data Platform module for its system. This followed Freshworks’ acquisition of Natero , another customer success platform that builds a unified customer database. Totango, another customer success platform, also positions itself as CDP. There's nothing questionable about these claims. Customer success platforms were among the earliest classes of systems identified as CDPs. MORE
Adobe fully released its Real Time Customer Data Platform last November. Although they had briefed me on it before then, it was only this week that I finally caught up with them to discuss the final product. Since this is a topic of great interest – and confusion – it’s worth sharing what I learned. Part of the confusion has to do with Adobe’s habit of reusing product names. MORE
The CDP Institute published its semi-annual Industry Update report today, which you download here for free. Although every word and image in the report is a jewel, there’s no question that the main story in this edition is CDP industry consolidation. Events in the past six months (stretching a bit to include early January 2020) include seven new funding rounds, three acquisitions of CDP vendors, four acquisitions by CDP vendors, and four asset sales by CDP companies. MORE
Jamie knew something was wrong when his alarm clock didn’t greet him by name. Weird, he thought. Things quickly got weirder. The water in the shower wasn’t set to the right temperature. The traffic report mentioned an accident nowhere near his route to work. When the radio played a song he had specifically banned from his play list, he knew something serious was wrong. Clock, please run a system check,” Jamie muttered, annoyed. Silence. MORE
Let’s take a break from Customer Data Platforms to do some trend-spotting. I spy with my little eye…privacy systems! Specifically, there's a crop of systems that are privacy-safe alternatives to dominant social, search, email and other common consumer technologies. One well known example is DuckDuckGo , which positions itself as “a search engine that doesn’t track you”. But there are plenty of others. MORE
Is real-time processing a requirement for a Customer Data Platform? It’s a deceptively simple question that can’t be answered without resolving two additional questions: What do we mean by real-time processing? How do we decide what is and isn’t a requirement? Let’s tackle the definition of real time first. There are at least four different flavors of real time processing that relate to CDPs. Real-time updates. MORE
One of the more jarring aspects in Adobe ’s briefing last week about its Marketo acquisition* were several statements that suggested Marketo and Adobe’s other products were going to access shared customer data. This would be the Experience Cloud Profile announced in March and based on an open source data model developed jointly with Microsoft and stored on Microsoft Azure.** MORE
One of the unwritten laws of punditry is that one event is random, two events are interesting, and three events make a trend. By that measure, the purchases of data analytics vendors Looker by Google , Tableau by Salesforce , and Origami Logic by Intuit within a three week span must signify something. Is it that martech suites must now include business intelligence software? I think not. Even though the acquired products were fairly similar, each of these deals had a different motivation. MORE
Everything you need to know about 2020 is covered by the fact that “apocalypse bingo” is already an over-used cliché. So I doubt many marketers have found spare time to worry about data security – which most would consider someone else’s problem. MORE
The next stop on our privacy software tour is Osano , which bills itself as “the only privacy platform you’ll ever need”. That's a bit of an overstatement: Osano is largely limited to data subject interactions, which is only one of the four primary privacy system functions I defined in my first post on this topic. The other three are: discovering personal data in company systems, defining policies for data use, and enforcing those policies.) MORE
I spend much of my time these days trying to explain Customer Data Platforms to people who suspect a CDP could help them but lack clear understanding of exactly what a CDP can do. At the end of our encounter they’re often frustrated: a simple definition of CDP still eludes them. The fundamental reason is that CDPs are not simple: the industry has rapidly evolved numerous subspecies of CDPs that are as different from each other as the different kinds of dinosaurs. MORE
The CDP Institute just published a report on the CDP Industry in Europe (download here ). This was based primarily on the global Industry Update released last month. This showed especially fast growth in Europe, with a year-on-year increase of 74% in the number of European vendors and 80% in European CDP employment, compared with growth outside of Europe of 38% in vendors and 59% in employment. MORE
We released a new member survey last week at the CDP Institute. You can (and should) download the full report , so I won’t go through all the details. You can also view a discussion of this on Scott Brinker's Chief Martech Show. But here are three major findings. MORE
One piece of paper stands between me and ending the year with a clean desk: a list scribbled on hotel stationery that compares different customer data systems to different types of motor vehicles. Richard Scarry meets CDP Institute , you might say. So, just in case your New Year’s plan includes explaining marketing technology to a five year old, here we go: Data Warehouse = School Bus. The seats in a business are lined up in nice neat rows, designed to carry one type of cargo very eciently. MORE
“If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made” runs the old joke. The irony-impaired managers of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) seem to have taken this as serious advice, last week announcing creation of a “Center for Brand Purpose” that will help companies publicize their social purpose. MORE
Recent discussions with Customer Data Platform buyers and vendors have repeatedly circled around a small set of questions: what are the use cases for CDP? This really means, when should you use a CDP and when should you use something else?) what are the capabilities of a CDP? This really means, what are the unique features I’ll find only in a CDP? It might also mean, what features do all CDPs share and which are found in some but not others?) which CDPs have which capabilities? MORE
Call me a c**k-eyed optimist, but marketers may actually be getting better at buying software. Our research has long shown that the most satisfied buyers base their selection on features, not cost or ease of use. MORE
Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle all made announcements regarding Customer Data Platform products this week. None are world-changing: Salesforce described a planned extension of Customer 360 ; Abobe announced triggered journey campaigns that draw on its “real time CDP”, and Oracle described CDP services from systems integrators. But the fact that all three vendors are addressing the topic raises some interesting questions. Why does this matter to technology and marketing professionals? MORE
Naysayers doubted that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy rules, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and related privacy regulations would have any real impact on the flow of consumer data. But it’s now clear that they will, as European regulators show they will interpret the rules to require meaningful consent to data sharing , will treat cookies as personal identifiers , and will assess significant fines for data breaches. MORE
There are obvious similarities between Customer Data Platforms and privacy systems: both find customer data in all company systems; both assemble that data into unified profiles; and both govern access to those profiles. Indeed, some CDP vendors have expanded into privacy management by building consent modules to their systems or by integrating third-party consent managers. MORE
The CDP industry had a great 2018, growing by 60% and reaching $740 million revenue, according to the CDP Institute’s just-released Industry Update (click here to download ). The industry added 29 vendors and 2,653 employees, slightly more than the 26 vendors and 2,233 employees added in 2017. Vendor funding increased $568 million in 2018 vs $492 million in 2017. But the smooth growth hides some interesting twists. MORE
Friday afternoon brought an unconfirmed Forbes report that communications platform Twilio is buying CDP Segment for $3.2 billion. The deal would be Twilio’s third acquisition this year, following much smaller deals in January for telephony platform Teravoz and in July for IoT connector Electric Imp. MORE
I finally caught up with Oracle for a briefing on the CX Unity product they announced in October. Although it was clear at the time that CX Unity offered some version of unified customer data, it was hard to understand exactly what was being delivered. The picture is now much clearer. Here are straight answers to important questions: It’s a persistent database. MORE
It’s been quite fascinating to watch the Customer Data Platform industry develop over the past few years. So far, we’ve seen two main trends emerge: extension of CDP product scope beyond the core of building the customer database itself and expansion into new industries. Both shed light on what we can expect to happen next. Product Scope CDP product scope has a more convoluted history than you might think. MORE
Salesforce has sipped the Kool-Aid: it led off the Dreamforce conference today with news of Customer 360 , which aims to “help companies move beyond an app- or department-specific view of each customer by making it easier to create a single, holistic customer profile to inform every interaction”. But they didn’t drink the whole glass. Customer 360 isn't assembling a persistent, unified customer database as described in the Customer Data Platform Institute's CDP definition. MORE
Acquia , which is moving past its roots in Web content management to become a multi-channel “digital experience platform” (DXP), took a big step in that direction today with a deal to buy the AgilOne Customer Data Platform. The deal follows Acquia’s May 2019 purchase of open source marketing automation platform Mautic and September 2019 purchase of site building tool Cohesion. MORE
Customer Experience Matrix
OCTOBER 11, 2020
Friday afternoon brought an unconfirmed Forbes report that communications platform Twilio is buying CDP Segment for $3.2 billion. The deal would be Twilio’s third acquisition this year, following much smaller deals in January for telephony platform Teravoz and in July for IoT connector Electric Imp.
Customer Experience Matrix
AUGUST 18, 2020
Everything you need to know about 2020 is covered by the fact that “apocalypse bingo” is already an over-used cliché. So I doubt many marketers have found spare time to worry about data security – which most would consider someone else’s problem.
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Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 6, 2020
We released a new member survey last week at the CDP Institute. You can (and should) download the full report , so I won’t go through all the details. You can also view a discussion of this on Scott Brinker's Chief Martech Show. But here are three major findings.
Customer Experience Matrix
AUGUST 27, 2020
Until recently, most marketers were content to leave privacy compliance in the hands of data and legal teams. But laws like GDPR and CCPA now require increasingly prominent consent notifications and impose increasingly stringent limits on data use. This means marketers must become increasingly involved with the privacy systems to ensure a positive customer experience, gain access to the data they need, and ensure they use the data appropriately.
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Customer Experience Matrix
JULY 25, 2020
Call me a c**k-eyed optimist, but marketers may actually be getting better at buying software. Our research has long shown that the most satisfied buyers base their selection on features, not cost or ease of use.
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Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 13, 2020
The next stop on our privacy software tour is Osano , which bills itself as “the only privacy platform you’ll ever need”. That's a bit of an overstatement: Osano is largely limited to data subject interactions, which is only one of the four primary privacy system functions I defined in my first post on this topic. The other three are: discovering personal data in company systems, defining policies for data use, and enforcing those policies.)
Customer Experience Matrix
NOVEMBER 3, 2018
I spend much of my time these days trying to explain Customer Data Platforms to people who suspect a CDP could help them but lack clear understanding of exactly what a CDP can do. At the end of our encounter they’re often frustrated: a simple definition of CDP still eludes them. The fundamental reason is that CDPs are not simple: the industry has rapidly evolved numerous subspecies of CDPs that are as different from each other as the different kinds of dinosaurs.
Customer Experience Matrix
FEBRUARY 13, 2020
Adobe fully released its Real Time Customer Data Platform last November. Although they had briefed me on it before then, it was only this week that I finally caught up with them to discuss the final product. Since this is a topic of great interest – and confusion – it’s worth sharing what I learned. Part of the confusion has to do with Adobe’s habit of reusing product names.
Customer Experience Matrix
JUNE 11, 2019
One of the unwritten laws of punditry is that one event is random, two events are interesting, and three events make a trend. By that measure, the purchases of data analytics vendors Looker by Google , Tableau by Salesforce , and Origami Logic by Intuit within a three week span must signify something. Is it that martech suites must now include business intelligence software? I think not. Even though the acquired products were fairly similar, each of these deals had a different motivation.
Speaker: Ruth Stevens, President of eMarketing Strategy
In a pandemic, it’s more important than ever to focus on retaining and expanding current customers. So, how can sales and marketing support the retention effort? Join Ruth Stevens as she dives into this fast-paced session and reviews the 7 key strategies for current customer marketing, to enable sales and expand customer value.
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Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
Salesforce has sipped the Kool-Aid: it led off the Dreamforce conference today with news of Customer 360 , which aims to “help companies move beyond an app- or department-specific view of each customer by making it easier to create a single, holistic customer profile to inform every interaction”. But they didn’t drink the whole glass. Customer 360 isn't assembling a persistent, unified customer database as described in the Customer Data Platform Institute's CDP definition.
Customer Experience Matrix
DECEMBER 30, 2019
One piece of paper stands between me and ending the year with a clean desk: a list scribbled on hotel stationery that compares different customer data systems to different types of motor vehicles. Richard Scarry meets CDP Institute , you might say. So, just in case your New Year’s plan includes explaining marketing technology to a five year old, here we go: Data Warehouse = School Bus. The seats in a business are lined up in nice neat rows, designed to carry one type of cargo very eciently.
Customer Experience Matrix
APRIL 1, 2020
As marketers finish their initial emergency adjustments to coronavirus lockdowns, they are starting to think about longer-term plans. While the shape of things to come is impossible to guess, reporting on industry changes has become a marketing trend of its own. Here are a dozen-plus studies I’ve seen in the past week, most of which are on-going. Retail Behavior Data Adobe this week launched their Digital Economy Index , a long-term project that gained unexpected immediate relevance.
Customer Experience Matrix
SEPTEMBER 24, 2018
One of the more jarring aspects in Adobe ’s briefing last week about its Marketo acquisition* were several statements that suggested Marketo and Adobe’s other products were going to access shared customer data. This would be the Experience Cloud Profile announced in March and based on an open source data model developed jointly with Microsoft and stored on Microsoft Azure.**
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Every sales forecasting model has a different strength and predictability method. It’s recommended to test out which one is best for your team. This way, you’ll be able to further enhance – and optimize – your newly-developed pipeline. Your future sales forecast? Sunny skies (and success) are just ahead!
Customer Experience Matrix
DECEMBER 16, 2018
It’s been quite fascinating to watch the Customer Data Platform industry develop over the past few years. So far, we’ve seen two main trends emerge: extension of CDP product scope beyond the core of building the customer database itself and expansion into new industries. Both shed light on what we can expect to happen next. Product Scope CDP product scope has a more convoluted history than you might think.
Customer Experience Matrix
MAY 19, 2019
Is real-time processing a requirement for a Customer Data Platform? It’s a deceptively simple question that can’t be answered without resolving two additional questions: What do we mean by real-time processing? How do we decide what is and isn’t a requirement? Let’s tackle the definition of real time first. There are at least four different flavors of real time processing that relate to CDPs. Real-time updates.
Customer Experience Matrix
APRIL 27, 2020
I’ve recently been running workshops to help companies plan deployment of their Customer Data Platforms. Much of the discussion revolves around defining use cases and, in particular, deciding which to deliver first. This requires balancing the desire to include many data sources in the first release of the system against the desire to deliver value quickly.
Customer Experience Matrix
OCTOBER 7, 2018
Recent discussions with Customer Data Platform buyers and vendors have repeatedly circled around a small set of questions: what are the use cases for CDP? This really means, when should you use a CDP and when should you use something else?) what are the capabilities of a CDP? This really means, what are the unique features I’ll find only in a CDP? It might also mean, what features do all CDPs share and which are found in some but not others?) which CDPs have which capabilities?
Speaker: Christopher Ryan, Founder and CEO of Fusion Marketing Partners
Sales & Marketing departments that work together guarantee higher acquisition, better nurturing, and more effective sales. Join Christopher Ryan for this insightful webinar, presenting the wide funnel lead nurturing model. Don't miss out on this opportunity to get your teams working together and your revenue performance optimized.
Customer Experience Matrix
FEBRUARY 3, 2020
The CDP Institute published its semi-annual Industry Update report today, which you download here for free. Although every word and image in the report is a jewel, there’s no question that the main story in this edition is CDP industry consolidation. Events in the past six months (stretching a bit to include early January 2020) include seven new funding rounds, three acquisitions of CDP vendors, four acquisitions by CDP vendors, and four asset sales by CDP companies.
Customer Experience Matrix
OCTOBER 27, 2019
October 22 was a landmark day for the CDP industry.
Customer Experience Matrix
JUNE 17, 2019
Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle all made announcements regarding Customer Data Platform products this week. None are world-changing: Salesforce described a planned extension of Customer 360 ; Abobe announced triggered journey campaigns that draw on its “real time CDP”, and Oracle described CDP services from systems integrators. But the fact that all three vendors are addressing the topic raises some interesting questions. Why does this matter to technology and marketing professionals?
Customer Experience Matrix
APRIL 30, 2019
Let’s take a break from Customer Data Platforms to do some trend-spotting. I spy with my little eye…privacy systems! Specifically, there's a crop of systems that are privacy-safe alternatives to dominant social, search, email and other common consumer technologies. One well known example is DuckDuckGo , which positions itself as “a search engine that doesn’t track you”. But there are plenty of others.
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Download this template that includes calculations, formulas, definitions and a customizable dashboard. The template includes subscription momentum metrics (ARR, customer count, avg. ARR), churn and retention metrics, and customer lifetime value metrics.
Customer Experience Matrix
NOVEMBER 24, 2018
I finally caught up with Oracle for a briefing on the CX Unity product they announced in October. Although it was clear at the time that CX Unity offered some version of unified customer data, it was hard to understand exactly what was being delivered. The picture is now much clearer. Here are straight answers to important questions: It’s a persistent database.
Customer Experience Matrix
JANUARY 1, 2019
The CDP industry had a great 2018, growing by 60% and reaching $740 million revenue, according to the CDP Institute’s just-released Industry Update (click here to download ). The industry added 29 vendors and 2,653 employees, slightly more than the 26 vendors and 2,233 employees added in 2017. Vendor funding increased $568 million in 2018 vs $492 million in 2017. But the smooth growth hides some interesting twists.
Customer Experience Matrix
MARCH 9, 2020
The CDP Institute just published a report on the CDP Industry in Europe (download here ). This was based primarily on the global Industry Update released last month. This showed especially fast growth in Europe, with a year-on-year increase of 74% in the number of European vendors and 80% in European CDP employment, compared with growth outside of Europe of 38% in vendors and 59% in employment.
Customer Experience Matrix
MARCH 3, 2019
Informatica announced last week that has purchased AllSight , a Toronto-based Customer Data Platorm vendor. This is interesting on several levels: A CDP vendor is being bought by an established enterprise data management firm.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Sales enablement is the strategic process of providing sales teams with the content, guidance, and mentorship needed to engage targeted buyers. It’s all about equipping sales professionals with the tools they need to put their best-selling foot forward. And if sales teams want to continuously sell better -- and faster -- their sales enablement process must have a game-winning strategy. It's time for you to start selling smarter - and hitting your sales number - with the best B2B database in the market. Get started today.
Customer Experience Matrix
MAY 11, 2019
Jamie knew something was wrong when his alarm clock didn’t greet him by name. Weird, he thought. Things quickly got weirder. The water in the shower wasn’t set to the right temperature. The traffic report mentioned an accident nowhere near his route to work. When the radio played a song he had specifically banned from his play list, he knew something serious was wrong. Clock, please run a system check,” Jamie muttered, annoyed. Silence.
Customer Experience Matrix
JUNE 1, 2019
Customer success platform Gainsight recently released a Customer Data Platform module for its system. This followed Freshworks’ acquisition of Natero , another customer success platform that builds a unified customer database. Totango, another customer success platform, also positions itself as CDP. There's nothing questionable about these claims. Customer success platforms were among the earliest classes of systems identified as CDPs.
Customer Experience Matrix
OCTOBER 14, 2019
Naysayers doubted that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy rules, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and related privacy regulations would have any real impact on the flow of consumer data. But it’s now clear that they will, as European regulators show they will interpret the rules to require meaningful consent to data sharing , will treat cookies as personal identifiers , and will assess significant fines for data breaches.
Customer Experience Matrix
NOVEMBER 18, 2018
“If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made” runs the old joke. The irony-impaired managers of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) seem to have taken this as serious advice, last week announcing creation of a “Center for Brand Purpose” that will help companies publicize their social purpose.
Speaker: Brian Carroll, CEO and Founder of markempa
Marketing and sales feel pretty tricky right now. What worked before now feels out of touch, but have you made plans for how you'll continue to move forward? You've likely tried everything: expert recommendations, best practices, the latest tools, and automation. But your results are falling short. Here's the thing: All the automation tools, best practices, data analytics won't help get better results now until you master empathizing with your customers. In this webinar, you'll learn how to go beyond rational-logic based sales/marketing and adjust your sales enablement strategy to better understand how buyers feel so that you can connect and help them on their journey.
Customer Experience Matrix
DECEMBER 11, 2019
Acquia , which is moving past its roots in Web content management to become a multi-channel “digital experience platform” (DXP), took a big step in that direction today with a deal to buy the AgilOne Customer Data Platform. The deal follows Acquia’s May 2019 purchase of open source marketing automation platform Mautic and September 2019 purchase of site building tool Cohesion.
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