Customer Data Platform (CDP)

CDP · Customer Data Platform

Definition

Unlike a CRM, which manages sales and communications, and a DMP, which handles anonymous audiences for advertising, a CDP works with identified customers and builds persistent profiles enriched in real time. Its core value is a single customer view that holds regardless of the channel an interaction happened in.

How a CDP works

Data sources               CDP                     Activation
─────────────────         ─────────────────       ──────────────────
Website (events)  ──→                             Personalization
Mobile (SDK)      ──→  Identity resolution   →    Email campaigns
CRM               ──→  Unified profile       →    Retargeting
Offline POS       ──→  Segmentation          →    Push notifications
Email platform    ──→                             A/B tests

CDP vs CRM vs DMP

	CDP	CRM	DMP
Data type	First-party, behavioural	Sales, communications	Anonymous, cookie-based
Profiles	Identified	Identified	Anonymous
Retention	Long-term	Long-term	90–180 days
Real time	Yes	Limited	Yes
Primary use	Personalization, marketing	Sales, service	Advertising

Identity resolution

The central technical job of a CDP is to merge data about one person from sources that do not know
about each other:

An anonymous cookie on the website → the visitor signs in → the record is linked to an email address
An offline purchase made on a loyalty card → linked to the online profile
A mobile device ID → linked to the web cookie through the email used at sign-in

The quality of identity resolution determines how complete the single customer view is.

Segmentation in a CDP

On top of the unified profile, a CDP builds segments:

RFM segments: Champions, Loyal Customers, At Risk, Lost
Behavioural: viewed but did not buy in the last 7 days, purchased 3+ times
Predictive: churn probability, probability of a next purchase
Affinity segments: interest in the Electronics category above 80%

Frequently asked questions

How is a CDP different from a CRM?

A CRM manages sales and communications and is built for account managers. A CDP is a data platform built for marketing and real-time personalization. A CRM stores records that people enter by hand; a CDP collects behavioural data automatically from every digital channel.

How is a CDP different from a DMP?

A DMP works with anonymous cookie-based audiences for ad targeting, and the data usually lives for 90–180 days. A CDP works with identified customers, builds long-lived profiles and activates the data well beyond advertising — in onsite personalization, email and the CRM.

What is a single customer view?

A single customer view (SCV) merges everything known about one person into one record: offline store purchases, onsite behaviour, email history, mobile app data. It is achieved through identity resolution — matching email address, phone number, cookie and device ID.

How is a CDP used for personalization?

The CDP serves enriched profiles in real time: the personalization engine requests a user profile, receives their segments, RFM status, affinity profile and purchase history, and returns relevant recommendations and content.

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