When it comes to capturing and managing data about your current and prospective customers, the acronyms DMP and CDP are often mistakenly used interchangeably. For those increasing digital maturity in their organisation, it can be confusing; particularly when trying to understand the shift from 3rd party to 1st party data as well.
What do the acronyms stand for? A DMP is a Data Management Platform, whereas a CDP is a Customer Data Platform, and both are designed to collect and use customer data. However, despite the often overlapping information, they are different tools that perform distinct functions in how and what they do with customer data.
Data Management Platforms (DMPs)
So, which one do you need? Or is it both? Below we highlight the differences between the two platforms and how they benefit organisations to deliver the most effective, targeted messages to their audiences.
DMPs focus on 3rd party data and were designed to optimise ad targeting. They’re a well-established tool great for acquisition marketing such as direct mail, advertising, and data exchanges. A DMP will collate and classify audience and campaign data from multiple sources via cookies.
Based on the way DMPs package data they help marketing teams better understand their audience groups and therefore deliver better ads and optimise digital campaign performance. Further, the platform is designed to reach audiences similar to the ones already identified and help grow a customer base.
However, given that DMPs play in the 3rd party data space, the information collected and stored is de-identified - it’s the same anonymous information that can be obtained and shared by many, and doesn’t specifically reflect the interests of your unique customer base.
Customer Data Platforms (CDPs)
Similarly, a CDP uses 3rd party data but distinguishes itself with the management and application of 1st party data and the personally identifiable information that DMPs can't collate. They also have a broader scope in the number of ways they can be applied. By gathering data from multiple channels, a CDP creates a highly personalised view of individual audience members, which can lend itself to very specific messaging opportunities. CDPs such as Wondaris are ideal for teams who want to leverage existing tech stacks and may not have the capacity for manual input - the ability to automate the collation and activation of data into multiple channels with simple click-through workflows reduces the time to roll out campaigns and delivers better efficiency and ROI.
Another benefit of a CDP is that by being able to collate and store such specific data (in a privacy-safe way) you are able to better nurture long-term customer engagement.
How do they compare?
A simple way to summarise is that a DMP works with customer segments, whilst a CDP drills down to a single customer view. The former is a short-term data collection exercise, whilst the latter stores its data long-term.
So do you need both? It really depends on the use case for the business, but for many organisations the answer is ‘yes’. Because a CDP can store and utilise 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data including personal identifying information (and therefore lends itself to a wider range of applications and effective targeted campaigns), it would appear to be the clear one-stop shop for marketers. We don’t discount the use of a DMP and its place in ad network campaigns, and/or if you’re looking to reach new audiences. Its ability to complement customer data as well as identify new or unknown customers can feed into a CDP for more complete customer profiles.
The Wondaris cloud platform allows you to link all of your business and marketing data sources so you can better understand what’s driving people to your brand and how you can ensure they stay loyal to you long-term. Connect with the Wondaris team today.
Want to try Wondaris? Get in touch.
It’s time to dig deeper into customer experience; the cornerstone of your brand’s success. These days ‘optimisation’ means far more than just understanding your audience segments. You need to set out to achieve a highly personalised experience for each and every customer.
Thankfully, there are multiple tools that help you to do just that. And, you don’t have to choose one over the other. Many of them work together, and in fact, can unlock more useful insights when they are used in conjunction.
Two platforms, in particular, are your customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platforms (CDP). For those who are less familiar with these, let’s take a closer look at each one and their distinctions, before delving into how you can use them in tandem.
Your Customer Relationship Management tool (CRM) is the platform that stores all the important information about your current and potential customers. It functions as a database and usually relies on members of your team to be inputting and updating data manually and giving this data context, with labels or pipelines.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP), on the other hand, is a platform that pulls data from multiple external sources and uses this to create a unified view of your customer and their behaviours.
Now, let’s look at some of the benefits you can experience when you use them together:
1. Data Sharing
Your CRM is the central source of truth for your customers. This information, once shared with the data in your CDP, is elevated to a new level as you are able to zoom out and see your customers through a different lens. By sharing data, you can spot trends, identify new areas of opportunities, or perhaps hone in on existing opportunities that aren’t being nurtured properly.
2. Actioning Data
If your CRM is the expert tool for managing relationships, then your CDP is the expert tool for managing the path to purchase. Together, these make for a formidable combination. Rather than simply collecting a lot of data, you can take action and make information, quick iterations to your online presence and cross-channel marketing to drive more sales and increase profitability.
3. Segmentation
Together, these platforms paint a clearer picture of your users. Specifically, which of your live advertisements are best performing with certain segments. You can then utilise this information to become even more granular with your audience until you’ve identified clear homogenous groups, and crafted highly relevant messaging for each of them. What’s more, this highly optimised segmentation can unfold in real time and be continuously improving as customers are interacting with your brand online.
4. Shared Functionality
The shared functions of your CRM and CDP allow you to compile more intelligent customer lists, look-alike lists and segments, and tailored campaigns. And this is just the basic shared functionality. You can do even more optimising and refining if your CRM has machine learning capabilities.
So we’ve learned that both CRMs and CDPs play a critical role in delivering a successful customer experience. Rather than pitting one tool against the other, have each of them work to their strengths and use them in conjunction to unlock deeper insights and new revenue opportunities.
If you’d like further support to better understand and nurture customer-centric experiences, the team at Wondaris is happy to help. Our cloud platform allows you to link all of your business and marketing data sources so you can better understand what’s driving people to your brand and how you can ensure they stay loyal to you long-term.
Want to try Wondaris? Get in touch.
Note: This is an excerpt from our May 6th Press Release.
Google’s Customer Match is an advertising tool that enables users to create custom segments from their existing customers by leveraging their 1st Party Data. Previously, users had to manually upload data files, or invest in development to build through Google’s API.
Through the partnership, Wondaris joins a group of endorsed 3rd party providers that are able to upload this data via a native integration, thereby mitigating the data security and integrity risks involved with manual data entry processes.
The Wondaris and Google CMU will allow businesses to upload high-value audiences securely through simple and clickable workflows.
“We are excited to offer this powerful automation tool for our customers,” remarked Wondaris CEO Simon Pereira.
“Through the CMU integration, a process that might have taken marketers and data teams several days manually can now be managed with a few clicks, in a privacy-compliant way.”
Wondaris can be found directly in the Google Ad Platform by following these steps.
Step 1.
In your Google Ads account, navigate to Tools & Settings & select Linked Accounts.
Step 2.
Scroll down to find Wondaris or Search "Wondaris" in the top right search bar.
Step 3.
Click on Details.
Step 4.
Click Link & Authorise Wondaris.
Step 5.
Go to Wondaris and import your Customer Lists.
Wondaris is a cloud-based customer data platform that helps companies quickly and easily build high-value audiences from their 1st party data and activate them into multiple marketing channels with simple, clickable workflows.
We provide a complete data ownership and portability solution, with the ability to centralise data from any of the public cloud vendors, including Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Azure and Snowflake, either via the pre-built connectors or businesses’ existing integration stack.
Wondaris offers businesses a privacy-safe, secure, and infinitely scalable environment to leverage and manage 1st Party Data to drive more effective marketing and better customer experiences.
Want to try Wondaris? Get in touch.
Technology is changing at an exponential rate, and in such a rapidly evolving landscape, it is easy to get confused by the seemingly endless terminology and acronyms that come with those changes. So in this post, I have attempted to explain the difference to between two big buzz words being thrown around the traps.
Data Lake and Data Warehouse are now commonly used terms within the world of big data and are often used as if they are interchangeable. However, they are not, and in fact, it’s the core function of each that differentiates them.
A data lake is for the storage of unstructured, unorganised raw data; and its purpose and audience is undefined.
Data warehouse stores processed, structured data for a specific purpose and audience.
Because of these differences, it is essential to understand why you are storing data to decide which is right for your business. They do not need to exist in isolation or as a single repository; however, most organisations will have a single data lake but might have multiple data warehouses.
Unfortunately, the strength of each is also generally the weakness of the other and as the world shifts to a customer experience economy, most organisations will discover they need both to meet the current and future demands of their internal and external stakeholders.
However, as access to cloud storage and computing becomes more affordable, even small businesses have the opportunity to leverage the power of almost infinite storage and compute power.
The key is to make sure you understand the “Why”. if you know that then you can articulate what you need for your business and that is what will guide your decisions.
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