Customer Data Platform Growth Shifts to New Markets: CDP Institute Report

The Customer Data Platform industry is shifting to new users, industries, and regions for a second wave of growth, according to the latest member survey from the Customer Data Platform Institute.

Great progress has been made towards customer data unification in recent years, with more than half of survey respondents (57%) reporting for the first time that they have a unified customer database and 68% reporting a deployed CDP. Yet in-process and planned deployments have fallen from 25% to 17% of respondents, hinting at slower future growth.

Still, bright spots remain. Expected deployments are higher among B2B firms, mid-size businesses, and companies outside the Americas.

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The survey shows a shift towards martech management by IT teams, rather than individual departments or martech organizations. But it also finds that satisfaction with martech results is highest when a martech team is in control. Traditional “packaged” CDPs are still more common than “warehouse-native” (composable) approaches, although nearly one-quarter of service vendors report that most or all of their projects use a “warehouse-native” approach.

Other key findings of the study include:

• Just 10% of companies over $10 billion in revenue report entirely disconnected systems, compared with 50% of companies under $10 million. Similarly, 81% of the largest firms report a CDP deployment is complete or in progress, while only 27% of the smallest firms have a CDP deployed and none are working on a new one.
• For the first time, more than half (56%) of companies with unified data also had a CDP. In past reports, more companies had achieved unified data without a CDP than with one.
• Users report that 64% of deployed CDPs are returning significant value, a figure that has been falling over time. Vendor claims have also grown more modest: fewer now say that nearly all implementations are successful, although more say that the majority of projects succeed.
• Users see unified data as the primary purpose of a CDP, cite organizational issues the greatest obstacles, and prioritize integration as their top selection requirement. Companies that select systems on cost continue to be less successful than companies that select on features. These are consistent with results of past member surveys.

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