How real-time CDPs help marketers create personalized, timely, and contextual experiences
With hundreds of platforms, channels, and integrations, providing a seamless, consistent customer journey across all touchpoints is one of marketers’ biggest challenges.
So, how do you connect multiple platforms together and ensure you can keep up to date with constant consumer behavior changes?
Updated on 1 Mar 2024
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The answer is with a customer data platform (CDP), which tracks every customer interaction in real-time, allowing brands to analyze data and create relevant segments to provide more personalized experiences.
In this guide, we’ll dive into CDPs, explore why they’re essential for businesses and their key benefits, and share some practical tips for finding the best CDP for your needs.
What is a real-time CDP?
A CDP with real-time processing is a centralized system that instantaneously collects, integrates, and analyzes customer data from various sources. Unlike traditional CDPs, which may delay data processing, real-time CDPs provide instant insights into customer behavior, preferences, and interactions across connected channels.
Why is using real-time data so important?
Real-time data enables brands to create timely and personalized customer experiences, delivering relevant content, offers, and recommendations by leveraging up-to-the-minute insights into customer actions and preferences. This immediate responsiveness meets and anticipates customer needs, creating a seamless and engaging journey that elevates satisfaction and cultivates a sense of value.
Moreover, real-time data allows you to adapt to market trends and incorporate instant feedback to improve customer experiences. This dynamic approach transforms the customer experience, reinforcing brand loyalty and driving business success by creating more meaningful connections.
Five key benefits of real-time adopted CDPs
Coming up are five benefits of real-time CDPs:
- Get a 360-degree customer profile to better understand customers
Real-time CDPs create comprehensive customer profiles by consolidating data from various touchpoints. This holistic view enables personalized marketing campaigns tailored to individual preferences, optimizing engagement and driving campaign effectiveness.
2. Access up-to-date insights with instant data processing
Real-time CDPs excel in processing and analyzing data as it is collected, ensuring marketers can access the most up-to-date insights. By eliminating delays in data processing, marketers can respond promptly to changing customer behaviors. This real-time capability enables agile decision-making and allows marketers to capitalize on timely opportunities.
3. Reach customers wherever they are through cross-channel integration
Real-time CDPs enable you to leverage data across every channel and use that data to build journeys that are relevant and timely for each customer. By tracking when and where customers interact with your brand, you can tailor your outreach, avoiding overexposure and enhancing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
4. Personalize experiences for a more convenient shopping
72% of customers say they will only engage with personalized messaging.
Personalization is a powerful strategy for brands, making customers feel valued and understood and making shopping easier and more convenient.
With the advanced personalization capabilities of a CDP, you can target customers at a specific point in their lifecycle to build a unique experience and encourage them to take action.
With real-time adopted CDPs, you can quickly optimize personalization efforts in real-time based on changes in behavior or AI-based predictions for every customer. That way, customers build deeper connections with the brand and are more likely to purchase.
5. Optimize campaign performance
By monitoring campaign performance in real time, CDPs enable you to make data-driven adjustments to optimize targeting, messaging, and timing, maximizing the effectiveness of your campaigns.
6. Access up-to-date insights with instant data processing
Real-time CDPs excel in processing and analyzing data as it is collected, ensuring marketers can access the most up-to-date insights. By eliminating delays in data processing, marketers can respond promptly to changing customer behaviors and market trends. This real-time capability enables agile decision-making and allows marketers to capitalize on timely opportunities.
3 CDP use cases for enhancing CX and driving revenue
Ready to get inspired? Here are three CDP use cases for marketers like you to leverage.
- Unify customer data on a single platform
With many solutions used in the average Martech stack, customer data is often locked away in different systems. A CDP unifies this siloed data, becoming a single source of truth for marketers to make data-driven decisions.
CDPs also offer extensive integrations, guaranteeing smooth data flows between the different parts of your tech stack.
- Predict customer actions with the help of AI
The latest advancements in AI and ML enable CDPs to create more precise segmentation and targeting opportunities for marketers with behavioral predictions. You can target users based on their:
- Projected customer lifetime value (LTV)
- Likelihood to purchase or churn
- Discount or attribute affinity
- Interest clusters
- And more
3. Analyze your audience to optimize performance
Collecting all customer data in a single platform helps marketers efficiently analyze their customer journeys. With Insider’s advanced CDP, you can build a fully customizable Audience Analytics dashboard that shows you the number of unknown users, channel reachability, funnel completions, and more.
How do you choose a real-time adopted CDP?
Being wary about changing up your martech stack is natural—it’s a good thing. Follow these 10 tips to find the best real-time CDP for your business and needs.
- Identify your needs
Start by understanding your business objectives and marketing goals. Determine what specific functionalities and features you require from a real-time CDP to meet these objectives effectively.
- Evaluate scalability
Consider the scalability of the real-time CDP solution. Assess whether it can accommodate your business’s growing data needs and adapt to increasing demands over time.
- Check integration capabilities
Look for a real-time CDP that allows you to seamlessly make customer data integration with your existing systems and third-party applications. Ensure compatibility with your technology stack to streamline data management and enhance operational efficiency.
- Prioritize security and compliance
Security is paramount when it comes to customer data. Choose a real-time CDP solution prioritizing data security and compliance with relevant regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Ensure it has robust encryption protocols and that data access controls are in place to safeguard sensitive information.
- Make sure it can adapt easily
Tech is advancing and changing every single day, make sure your real-time CDP solution can adapt to evolving marketing needs, emerging channels, and technological advancements. Choose a flexible platform that allows customization and integrations to ensure you don’t get left behind.
- Evaluate customer support
Assess the level of customer support and assistance the real-time CDP platform provides. Ensure that they offer reliable support services and resources to help you maximize the solution’s value and address any issues or concerns that may arise.
- Trial and test
Before making a final decision, consider conducting a trial or pilot of the real-time CDP solution known as proof of concept. Test its functionalities, performance, and usability to ensure it meets your specific requirements and delivers the expected results.
- Gather feedback from your team
Lastly, gather feedback from key organizational stakeholders using the real-time CDP solution. Collect customer feedback and insights to ensure the chosen solution meets their needs and preferences.
Getting started with Insider
Insider’s customer data platform enables you to effortlessly build a comprehensive 360-degree customer view. Our platform ranks as the top leader in seven categories in G2’s Winter 2024 reports, including the marketing automation leader, offering unmatched support and a perfect 100/100 user satisfaction score.
Our platform is the best solution for start-ups and enterprise companies looking to form 360-degree customer views and develop customized, cross-channel customer experiences. Insider’s support team will help you quickly get the correct data into the system, so you can focus on segmenting your audience, uncovering valuable insights, and driving more revenue.
With your data in one place, Insider’s CDP can help you connect data together to predict customer behavior, personalize your brand campaigns, and grow your business. Book a demo with our team today to learn how Insider can help you reach your revenue goals.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Insider’s CDP offers real-time capabilities, providing businesses with insights on customer behavior and preferences.
CDP is essential for businesses to unify customer data from various sources, enabling them to create personalized marketing campaigns, enhance customer experiences, and drive growth.
Real-time CDP works by continuously collecting and analyzing customer data from multiple touchpoints, allowing businesses to instantly respond to changing customer behaviors and deliver timely, relevant interactions across channels.
