Know your business requirements before evaluating CDP options

Evidence shows many organizations either building or will build their own “CDP,” frustrating actual CDP vendors.

My take on the reason has nothing to do with the quality, completeness or effectiveness of any commercial CDP solution.

Instead, I think the real reason is that most marketing leaders have not been able to articulate their requirements beyond frustration with access to customer data and what that means to being a modern digital marketer. This leads to a laundry list of desires, as opposed to a precise articulation of use cases the marketing organization is looking to address that target specific business outcomes.

Presented with a wide range of “CDP” offerings that address some similar, but often very different requirements, these leaders naturally question if there is a true CDP market offering as opposed to a lot of different data solutions designed for marketing.

They may not admit it, but these marketing leaders want to be lead to the right choice – the one recognized for meeting the definition of CDP best. Unfortunately, there is no such definition, so they can’t be lead to a technology buying decision. Marketing is more accustomed to buying focused applications and services, not multi-use platforms that require them to determine the use case roadmap.

So stepping back, defining your requirements and building your solution appears the only path.

Funny enough – that is exactly what the marketing leader should do before evaluating CDP vendors to begin with. My advice: don’t waste your time until you have a plan and understand the capabilities marketing requires beyond a list of pain points.