A Comprehensive Guide To Salesforce CDP (Customer Data Platforms)

In today’s digitally advanced world, businesses have turned to online mode to make their process more customer-centric. Almost every individual searches for a product or service online as they find it seamless and flexible. There are various technologies introduced to improve marketing technologies. The Salesforce CDP or Customer Data Platform is the trendiest topic of today’s marketing technology. It has become the best tool in marketing. Based on the State of Marketing Report 2020, marketers who have relied on CDPs have noticed an 86% increase in their work.

Hence, customer data platform (CDP) has proven as the fastest-growing marketing technology today. To understand more about the technology and its importance, let’s go through its significance, working methodology, advantages, application and future insights in the below sections.

The Salesforce CDP is simply defined as an in-built software system that aids in collecting, organizing, assembling and centralizing each customer’s data. Further, the platform helps to build full fledged customer profiles. This platform combines marketing automation, customer database, real-time management and customer database. It is helpful when you need marketing information with user-level data.

The CDP will leverage the first-party data that can further be improved with third-party data. It offers centralized solutions, which aid the business in storing user data in a single place. Moreover, you can access customer data and information and implement personalized or customized strategies for marketing in multiple channels.

The major working process of the CDP is to gather and unify first-party customer data from various sources to build a complete structural view of each customer and their journey. The data is further available to marketers to create targeted marketing campaigns. It is helpful to develop a hyper-personalized customer experience by viewing the customer profile.

Step 1

In the initial step, the Customer Data Platforms collect every customer’s data in one place. It collects customer interactions and binds databases together.

Step 2

The platform reconciles the identities of potential customers. It helps to begin a journey with email campaigns that continue to the website. It is also known as cross-device identity.

Step 3

The data is available in real time after creating every customer’s unified profile. It helps marketers to deliver personalized experiences. It connects data to several systems, such as content management systems, email-send engines, and other platforms.

In a nutshell, Salesforce CDP is concerned with different crucial tasks such as data activation, data unification, data collection, and data insights. When the volume of customers’ data increases, companies must be aware of privacy. Customers usually aim to have their data used as personalized experiences and expect the organization they trust to protect and use data ethically. Hence, it becomes the trustworthy building block of a customer relationship, and companies must utilize customer data correctly.

Also Read: What Are The 5 Salesforce Marketing Cloud Updates To Consider?

It structures and forms a single view of the customer to integrate data from multiple sources. It also enables analytics and activation and handles integration and data management.

The engagement CDP offers real-time personalization. For instance, with websites and mobile applications, it powers real-time best offers and active engagement.

A customer Data Platform is a key enabler for companies that helps prioritize their data over external data sources. There are various advantages of CDP; let’s discuss them in detail.

In one capsule, Salesforce Customer Data Platforms collect data from various sources, such as Marketing, Analytics, Commerce, Sales, and Service clouds. It integrates third-party apps; hence in no time, you will be able to log in to multiple platforms. It makes the entire process seamless. It simplifies the process of customers login into your website with the help of their social media credentials. The best thing is to create a separate login.

As the cloud platform works together, it will build a customer profile making it easily accessible to people who use different clouds. It offers a better and more personalized customer experience. Salesforce consulting service will combine the known and unknown data. When an unknown user browses the website, and the present IP address matches the IP address, Salesforce will match the anonymous user data with the known based on the data listed.

It helps to avoid unnecessary expenses for customers once they have bought the product you offered. Now, you can establish flexible and personalized offers at different prices based on customers’ expectations. The CDP helps to drive the probability of interacting with the offers more than twice. Moreover, you can classify your customers. For example, loyal and trustworthy customers spend more, and the customers stop spending.

It unifies the customers’ online and offline data to compile activity and preferences. Further, the data will be analyzed and differentiated based on real-time customer behaviour data. It activates the target audience and increases the current interest among potential customers.

All systems, such as Commerce Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Interaction Studio, Datorama, Service Cloud, and Loyalty Management, become fully accessible with the Salesforce CDP. When your business is already using the Salesforce products, the Salesforce CDP can be used as a “native connector,” which integrates without pre-coding.

Salesforce gathers data using the CIM- cloud information model. Therefore, different data sources can be used with different formats and structures. It standardizes the interoperability of data between cloud platforms. It is organized into subject areas or domains to represent significant business concepts.

The platform helps to update information through the editing of its DMO – data model objects. Additionally, it allows you to copy and transfer data segments with information, description, and filters, which further creates new segments. Also, it is unnecessary to carefully review the information, so it is a time-saving and effortless mechanism.

Salesforce Genie is the greatest Salesforce innovation to store real-time information at massive scales and combines Salesforce data. It provides a way to create extremely personalized customer experiences. It shares similar benefits and purposes as the Salesforce CDP. But, the Genie is not the same as the Customer Data Platform.

It takes the capabilities of Salesforce CDP to extend the benefits across the product portfolio of Salesforce. It has the advantage of identity resolution, data unification and activation, which the CDP already has. However, the Customer Data Platform is still active and kicking with its practical benefits.

Also Read: Salesforce Marketing Cloud Genie- Building Real-Time Relationships With Customers

The Salesforce CDP helps marketers discover the root causes of their day-to-day marketing problems. Various problems can be solved in a simple and seamless process. In particular, CDPs can solve three major problems securely.

The initial steps for better segmentation are data organizing and unifying customer profiles. An efficient CDP will immediately surface shared traits. When marketers face problems in segmentation, the platform will make it simple to segment the customers based on their journey. Moreover, marketers will learn to deliver personalized experiences and engagement to every customer.

Sometimes, the data is disconnected, and it becomes more challenging to understand the customer’s interactive journey and create meaningful connections. When the data source numbers increase, it is more important than ever to invest in CDP, which becomes a single space to bring all data together. Therefore, the disorganized data becomes simple to surface customer insights through CDP.

Not all marketers are satisfied with linking customer identities across various data sources. In such cases, the Salesforce CDP is a centralized hub for all your customer data. It will solve customer identification issues easily and safely. With the platform, marketers can bring data together from different sources and create unified profiles for each of them.

Salesforce CDP is one of the growing Salesforce Development services that the companies access to the data to make intelligent business decisions. When you want to travel an additional mile for your business success incorporating this Salesforce technology will offer you a greater chance to stand out in a competitive marketplace.

GetOnCRM is a Salesforce Silver Consulting Partner with some adequate Salesforce Marketing Cloud Consultants to lend you a hand in boosting traffic with Marketing Cloud integration at every stage of the implementation of your sales approach. We provide Salesforce CRM consulting services for leading industries to strengthen their business growth.