A practical guide to CDPs for retail teams
Get a more complete picture of every customer with a CDP
System | Primary function | Data type | Typical users |
|---|---|---|---|
Customer relationship management platform (CRM) | Tracks individual customer profiles and purchase history | Contact records, order history, marketing and customer service engagement | Marketing, customer service, retention teams |
Data management platform (DMP) | Builds anonymous audiences for advertising | Cookie-based, expires quickly | Media buyers, advertising |
Data warehouse | Stores all business data | Everything, structured and unstructured | Data teams, IT, analysts |
CDP | Unifies and activates all customer data | Behavioural, transactional, profile | Marketing, customer service, retention teams, IT, data teams |
Capability | What it does |
|---|---|
Unified profiles | Consolidates data from all sources into a single customer view |
Lifetime data retention | Stores historical data without expiration limits |
Unlimited lookback for segmentation | Lets you segment based on behaviour from any time period |
Predictive analytics | Forecasts customer lifetime value (LTV), churn risk, next order date, average order value, and more |
Real-time segmentation | Updates segments instantly as customer behaviour changes |
Webhooks and APIs | Connects to any system in your stack |
Pre-built integrations | Offers ready-to-use connections to the other tools your tech stack |
No-code transformations | Cleans and standardises data without developer help |
Identity resolution | Merges duplicate profiles using smart matching rules |
Custom objects | Stores data beyond standard profiles and events |
Data warehouse syncing | Imports enriched profile data and custom models from your data warehouse |
Enterprise security | Provides multi-brand account management and compliance features |
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