- Segment: Best overall
- Emarsys: Best for automated omnichannel customer engagement
- Optimove: Best for predictive segmentation
- FirstHive: Best for manufacturers
- Lytics: Best for expanding advertising reach
- BlueConic: Best for international data privacy management
- ActionIQ: Best for customer experience management
- Bloomreach Engagement: Best for commerce businesses
- Totango: Best for composable customer success platform
Updated: Jul 29, 2024, 6:50pm
A customer data platform (CDP) collects data from online and off-line sources and standardizes it to create comprehensive customer profiles. Then, these profiles are used to build campaigns and customer experiences that attract and retain high-value customers. Forbes Advisor researched the best customer data platforms to help you make the right decision for your needs.
- The Best Customer Data Platforms of 2024
- Summary: The Best Customer Data Platforms of 2024
- What Is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?
- Benefits of a Customer Data Platform
- How To Choose the Best Customer Data Platform
- How Much Do Customer Data Platforms Cost?
- Methodology
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Next Up In Business
The Best Customer Data Platforms of 2024
Summary: The Best Customer Data Platforms of 2024
Based on industry experts and user reviews, these leading CDPs are considered the best customer data platforms available today. It’s important to remember, businesses should evaluate each platform based on their specific needs and requirements to find the best fit for their organization.
Company | Forbes Advisor Rating | Starting price | Single Customer Profile | Automations | LEARN MORE | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Segment | ![]() |
5.0 | ![]() |
Free (up to 1,000 monthly visitors); $120 per month (up to 10,000 monthly visitors) | Yes | Yes (onboarding, retargeting, reminders and more) | Learn More | Read Forbes' Review | |
Emarsys | ![]() |
5.0 | ![]() |
Not disclosed, must contact for pricing | Yes | Yes, via a number of channels and triggers | View More | ||
Optimove | ![]() |
4.9 | ![]() |
Not disclosed, must contact for pricing | Yes | Yes, multichannel campaigns | View More | ||
FirstHive | ![]() |
4.9 | ![]() |
Not disclosed | Yes | Yes, including predictive recommendations | View More | ||
Lytics | ![]() |
4.8 | ![]() |
Not disclosed | Yes | Yes | View More | ||
BlueConic | ![]() |
4.7 | ![]() |
Not disclosed | Yes | Yes | View More | ||
ActionIQ | ![]() |
4.7 | ![]() |
Not disclosed | Yes | Yes, including omnichannel customer journeys | View More | ||
Bloomreach Engagement | ![]() |
4.4 | ![]() |
Not disclosed | Yes | Yes, Marketing Automation | View More | ||
Totango | ![]() |
4.3 | ![]() |
$2,988 (with annual contract) | Yes, single 360 customer view | Yes | View More |
What Is a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?
A customer data platform is a software that collects and organizes customer data from various channels and sources, such as CRM systems, marketing automations tools, e-commerce platforms, social media and email channels, websites and more. The platform collects data from these sources and creates a unified customer profile that can be accessed and used by marketing, sales and customer service teams.
Three main types of customer data include, behavioral, demographic and transactional. This data is collected and used to analyze customer behavior, helping to gain insights on what the customer is doing and what the customer needs, allowing for a more personalized and targeted experience. Customer data platforms often are used by businesses that have large amounts of customer data and need a centralized platform to manage it effectively.
Benefits of a Customer Data Platform
There are several benefits that businesses can gain from using a customer data platform (CDP), including the following:
- Centralized customer data: A CDP allows businesses to consolidate customer data from various sources into a single, unified view. This makes it easier for businesses to understand their customers and deliver a more personalized experience. Solid CDPs have the ability to easily integrate with your existing data and work seamlessly with other systems you already use.
- Improved customer insights: A CDP provides businesses with a deeper understanding of their customers by analyzing their behavior, preferences and demographics. This information can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns and improve customer engagement. Some CDPs have advanced built-in AI capabilities allowing for more predictive recommendations and intelligent insights.
- Better customer segmentation: A CDP enables businesses to segment their customers based on various criteria, such as purchase history, behavior and demographics. This allows businesses to deliver more relevant messages and personalized offers to their customers.
- Streamlined marketing operations: A CDP can automate many marketing tasks, such as data cleansing, segmentation and campaign management. This can save businesses time, money and resources, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their operations.
- Improved return on investment (ROI): By delivering more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns, businesses can increase their ROI and revenue growth by tracking real-time insights and advanced analytics. Using a CDP can enhance your marketing agility by identifying opportunities based on preferences, location and other relevant factors.
- Secure customer data: By ensuring sensitive data is kept secure, you can establish customer confidence and trust by adhering to current and future privacy regulations and industry benchmarks, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and FedRAMP
Overall, a customer data platform can greatly help businesses to gain a better understanding of their customers, improve customer engagement and drive revenue growth.
How To Choose the Best Customer Data Platform
Choosing the best customer data platform for your business can feel like an overwhelming task, especially with an array of options on the market. Here are some guidelines to help you make the right choice.
Determine Your Budget
Many CDPs do not list prices publicly. You must visit their website and follow their instructions to request a custom quote. As you do, remember that not all features are included in the core plans. Some are only available as add-ons. So, make a prioritized list of the features and tools you need and be sure to ask what add-ons are available to complete your list and their added cost.
Determine What Tools and Integrations Are Needed
Different CDPs offer the ability to integrate a unique list of tools and platforms. This means that some of the platforms your company uses to house customer data (your CRM, for example) may not be able to be integrated with all CDPs. Make a list of the key platforms, data sources and tools you need to integrate with your CDP and be sure to give that list to the CDP provider to ensure your integration needs will be met.
Map Out Business Goals
Some CDPs will go over your company’s use cases to determine your business goals with your customer data. They will then ensure that those goals can be met with the software they offer you. To prepare, preliminarily bring together all of your key stakeholders who are likely to use your CDP and make a list of their goals, then prioritize them from critical to nice-to-have. Also consider best practices, such as how your data should be protected by your chosen CDP.
Formalize Your Selection
Once you have a few CDP providers that align with your business needs, it’s time to formalize your selection. Look for customer reviews to help narrow down the best provider for you. Then, to confirm your decision, reach out and schedule a meeting to start a conversation between your chosen CDP provider and your key stakeholders.
Essential CDP Features
Here are some essential features to consider when choosing a good CDP platform:
- Data integration: A good CDP should be able to integrate with various data sources such as CRM, social media, email marketing platforms and other third-party systems. This feature allows you to consolidate customer data from different sources and create a unified customer profile.
- Data cleansing and unification: A CDP should have features that help clean and unify customer data. This feature ensures that the data you collect is accurate, complete and consistent.
- Segmentation and personalization: Look for a CDP that provides segmentation and customer personalization capabilities. This feature allows you to create targeted marketing campaigns based on customer behavior, preferences and demographics. These strategies also help to re-engage clients and hold on to top-paying customers.
- Real-time data processing: A good CDP should be able to process data in real time. This feature allows you to respond to customer behavior quickly and provide a personalized experience. An AI-infused CDP platform will also use predictive analysis to make future predictions.
- Analytics and reporting: Look for a CDP that provides analytics and reporting capabilities. This feature allows you to track customer behavior, measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and optimize your strategies.
- Multichannel support: Choose a CDP that supports multiple channels such as email, social media, mobile and web. This feature allows you to create a seamless customer experience across different channels.
- Security and compliance: A good CDP should have up-to-date security and compliance features to protect customer data and comply with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Integrations
A well-designed CDP platform should seamlessly integrate with a company’s larger tech stack, making it an ideal choice for businesses that want to incorporate top-notch solutions into their data management platform. This allows for easy swapping of apps as needed. Let’s take a look at some of the most important integration considerations when choosing the best customer data platform.
- Prebuilt integrations: Out-of-the-box integrations will handle the bulk of the work when it comes to moving data to and from the CDP. As a result, you won’t require ongoing IT assistance when it comes to data integrations and delivery. Before choosing a CDP, check the prebuilt integrations offered by the vendor and their compatibility with your existing tech stack. While some level of customization may be necessary, the vendor’s out-of-the-box integrations should cover most of the apps in your data stack.
- Integration capabilities: Consider the vendor’s integration capabilities when selecting a CDP. Look for a vendor that offers an extensive, full range of integration capabilities that can future-proof your data management efforts. Look for integrations that can cover different source categories including web, mobile and IoT as well as destination categories such as analytics, advertising and storage.
- In-house integration experts: Look for a CDP platform that not only has a strong set of out-of-the-box integrations but a quality integration team that provides a strong level of support. These integration experts can help with custom integrations.
- Ecosystem-neutral CDP: Choose an ecosystem-neutral CDP that uses APIs to connect to any part of your tech stack. Vendor-specific CDPs will limit you to the applications and systems provided by the vendor. Opting for an ecosystem-neutral CDP enables you to use industry-leading solutions for each job.
- Product documentation: Check for the vendor’s prebuilt integration documentation. How easy and user-friendly are the integrations? How long will it take to achieve each integration? Are there any product limitations based on the plans? These are some important questions to ask when considering a CDP platform.
Other Important Considerations
It’s important to recognize that although a customer data platform has its advantages, it also requires a long-term commitment as it becomes deeply integrated into your digital ecosystem.
It’s crucial that customers, especially those with limited knowledge or technical expertise, understand what they are committing to and how to derive value from it. Let’s take a look at some important questions stakeholders should ask vendors before signing on:
- Vendor stability: Has the product been a good partner in doing business and can it evolve with the challenges and needs of the clients? It’s important to choose a vendor that is built to grow and meet your industry-specific needs.
- Flexibility: Does it have an array of prebuilt integrations? Look for a CDP that can adapt and integrate with multiple data types as well as all your existing data sources. Take a look at your marketing, sales and operational sources and see which data ingestion platforms it offers as existing integrations (for example, Adobe, AdRoll, Google Analytics and Salesforce).
- Support: How is the onboarding experience? What is the level and support offered by the CDP provider? Understand the value of the CDP and evaluate the steps it takes to prepare implementation, documentation and help when needed.
By taking these additional factors into consideration, you can confidently choose a CDP that can provide long-term value to your businesses and support your growth and success.
How Much Do Customer Data Platforms Cost?
The cost of a customer data platform can vary depending on several factors, such as the size of your business, the number of profiles that need to be managed, the level of complexity of your data and the features and functionality you require. Some CDPs charge based on the number of customer profiles or records, while others charge based on the volume of data or data processing.
Some CDPs also offer free plans—this is ideal for organizations just getting started but free plans usually have a limited number of visitors and records per month. Many also offer a free trial allowing you to test the platform before committing to a paid plan.
Entry-level pricing can range from $120 a month to $1,500 per month to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for tailor-made offers. Pricing depends on the provider and the features and services needed. Platforms that target mid-market to large companies often have higher price structures due to license costs, a more experienced sales team and dedicated customer success managers.
There are many variables to consider when it comes to cost:
- The size of your contact database
- The number of events and sources collected from the site
- The number of users (per-user pricing is very common)
- The level of support included in the plan
- Basic functionality and add-ons
- The budget for your CDP
It’s also important to note, the cost of a CDP should be viewed as an investment in your business. It’s also essential to factor in the potential return on investment (ROI) that you could achieve by using the platform, which can ultimately justify the investment in a CDP.
Methodology
We collected and evaluated customer data platforms (CDPs) based upon five criteria: pricing, general features, additional features, ratings and reviews, and expert score. Here is a closer look at each of these criteria and how they were used to create this best-of list.
Pricing
When evaluating customer data platforms (CDPs), pricing is an essential factor to consider. As part of the evaluation process, pricing was scored based on the availability of a free trial, free version and public transparency of pricing. This factor accounted for 10% of the total weighted score.
General Features
We evaluated CDPs based on general features so that businesses could choose a platform that meets specific needs and requirements. These features included the ability to create and execute targeted email and online marketing campaigns, manage leads, optimize your website, create a single unified view of each customer and compatibility with multiple devices. General features accounted for 30% of the total score.
Additional Features
Along with general features, the evaluation process of customer data platforms also includes additional features. These features have the ability to improve marketing efforts and drive revenue growth. Additional features we took into consideration included the ability to track and analyze key marketing metrics, predictive modeling, personalized product recommendations, campaign/timeline management and ROI tracking. These additional features accounted for 20% of the total score.
Ratings and Reviews
A high number of ratings and reviews indicate that the platform has been widely used and tested by a large number of businesses. We determined the scoring based on the number of reviews as well as platforms with an average rating of 3.5 or higher. This factor accounted for 10% of the total score.
Expert Score
We also evaluated the platform based on specific criteria such as any additional standout features or unique capabilities, the value of money, how it compares to competitors, how widely used it is within the industry and how user-friendly and intuitive the platform is. Our expert scoring accounted for 30% of the total score.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What does a customer data platform do?
A customer data platform unifies data from multiple tools (or sources), creating a single source of truth around customer behaviors and interactions across all brand touchpoints. This data is then made available to marketing teams to be used for the creation of highly targeted ad and marketing campaigns.
What are customer data platform examples?
Examples of customer data platforms include Twilio Segment, ActionIQ, BlueConic, Lytics and FirstHive. All of them aggregate customer data from multiple sources to create one source of truth in the form of customer profiles.
What's the difference between a CDP and CRM?
Both CDPs and CRMs collect data on customers to create single and complete customer profiles. However, while a CDP uses behavioral and interactional customer data to help marketers create highly personalized ad and marketing campaigns across channels, a CRM’s data is used by sales teams to track and manage customer-facing interactions, such as customer support tickets and upsells.
How do I set up a customer data platform?
After you have selected the best customer data platform for your business, it is essential to identify which teams in your organization will be responsible for the setup process. These teams must include the CDP implementation in their product management road map and test the data to ensure its accuracy and effectiveness.
In most cases, marketing teams will not have the necessary expertise to set up a CDP independently. Therefore, it is recommended to work with a marketing operations team. If available, tech or data teams should take on the responsibility of the setup process.