One of the most common challenges that B2B marketers face is the spread of too much customer data across martech platforms. This is due to far too many marketing channels in use combined with the growing need for better processes and easier martech to help enable a unified personalization experience and centralized single source of truth when it comes to all this customer data. 

The rise of Customer Data Platforms can greatly be attributed to this need and the core challenge it solves for marketers, if adopted well and implemented with the right tactics across teams. 

Different CDPs have different capabilities and can help solve varied needs for organizations, based on their core problem or goal. In order for marketers and sales teams to gain the utmost value from their CDPs, it is important to try and choose the best-suited customer data platform. 

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Here are a few pointers you can skim through to help you build a strong foundation to help identify the best-fit CDP for your team and business:

A CDP and Plan that Aligns to your Data and Marketing Channel Needs

Do you already run a strong multi-channel marketing process throughout the year? And are you looking to avoid silos and centralize all the analytics and data from these channels into one system so as to know more about which prospect is interacting most with your brand and also who your actual audience and traffic is? 

A company that has a single-channel or few-channel marketing process versus one that has a very elaborate multi-channel marketing process will need different kinds of data platforms and analytics systems to help them understand more about their audience and effectiveness of campaigns. For teams with an elaborate marketing process, CDPs that boast of great data volume structure, and above-par data management features will be more useful. While identifying platforms for teams that have fewer channels at the current moment, shortlisting platforms that easily allow you to scale without the need to migrate to another system will be useful. 

Multi-channel / Cross-channel Analytics

Based on the point above, marketers who are looking at unifying data from various online sources will then need a CDP that has stronger cross-channel attribution and analytics systems in place. This can help drive better cross-channel performance in the future as well because the data can be used to drive better marketing messaging and campaigns of value based on the real-time and past behaviors of customers and visitors collected in the system. 

For lean teams who may not have the bandwidth and capability to run multi-channel campaigns effectively or those that prefer to focus on fewer channels will need to shortlist CDPs accordingly without the need for the above. 

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Easy Deployment and Constant Onboarding /Tech Support

If you’re looking for a CDP (among the plethora of many out there!), you will need to adjust to the new platform’s systems and features and that might take some time. Connecting your marketing channels into that one platform might require some element of technical support. 

For marketers on a budget, identifying a CDP provider that assists with onboarding without the need to pay separately for an onboarding process might be very handy. 

If it gets complicated to set up a new platform and takes too long to implement the use of it into daily marketing processes, the value of the platform to your organization suffers. A key tip here lies in ensuring you undergo a fair bit of research and training and read all the know-hows that are usually published on a provider’s resources or blogs to keep you ready for the final deployment / implementation stage. 

Enhanced Reporting / Customized Dashboards

Most CDPs will track the data and save it in a central location but for wider teams, using this data to drive campaign performance is key to enhancing the value of the CDP. This is where marketers need to identify platforms that allow them to create their own segmentation for instance so that they can drive better value personalization experiences for their marketing lists. 

Customer Data Platforms can create a lot of value and drive impactful customer interactions. But to ensure your CDP helps you achieve your business and marketing goals, it is crucial to invest in a system that suits your immediate and near-future needs while ensuring you use the platform’s core features to drive true ROI.

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