One of the biggest challenges for marketers today isn’t collecting valuable customer data, it’s putting that information to use.
Every time a customer visits a company website or engages with its social media page, they leave behind a trove of valuable data that often gets stored across multiple platforms. It often requires a data specialist to aggregate that data, another to analyze trends and a web manager to update the site with targeted ads for those consumers. The bigger a customer base grows, the longer it can take to deliver the type of personalized marketing experience that is most likely to convert browsers into buyers.
Enter customer data platforms.
Top Customer Data Platforms
- Appier
- Bloomreach
- Emarsys
- Klaviyo
- Lytics
- Ortto
- Planhat
- Tealium
- Treasure Data
- Zeotap
A CDP not only aggregates customer information from disparate sources such as email engagement, website visits and social media activity, but it also provides tools to build individual customer profiles, assess a buyer’s expected lifetime value with the company and run personalized campaigns. In short, it’s a one-stop marketing shop.
Still, finding the right CDP that integrates with your suite of marketing tools and fits the size of your team can be challenging. To help you find the right platform for your company, here are some of the best customer data platforms available.
Top Customer Data Platforms
Tealium stands out as a flexible customer data platform, integrating with more than 1,300 data, sales and marketing tools, including Adobe, Salesforce, Amazon AWS and more. The platform enables users to aggregate data from those tools and create unique customer pages. They can then build customer segments without code through the platform, organize marketing campaigns and ensure advertising efforts are reaching high-value customers. Tealium’s platform caters to customers in retail, healthcare, financial services, sports and travel industries.
Developed with customer success and product-led growth in mind, Planhat offers a customer data platform that aims to help companies provide existing customers with a better experience. The platform allows users to create onboarding plans for customers, track health scores by customer segment to identify churn risks, develop playbooks for high-touch customers and evaluate the success of those engagements. For product-led growth companies, users can also track the customer journey and get upsell alerts when a customer shows qualifying behavior. Planhat also takes several steps to protect customer data, including three-layered permissioning process, regular penetration testing and maintaining SOC 2 Type II certification.
Appier provides a customer data platform that utilizes a no-code AI feature that makes it easier for marketing teams to identify valuable customers, develop personalized ad campaigns at scale and anticipate user needs. The platform works by aggregating customer information from various data sources like the user company’s customer relationship management software, social media websites and marketing software, and then creates individual customer profiles. The AI can then surface behavior patterns of the company’s profitable customers and use that information to identify future customers for companies to target. Users can build additional machine learning models with a few clicks via its tagging system.
Klaviyo provides a flexible customer data platform for retail companies that integrates with more than 200 marketing tools including e-commerce website Shopify, review website Reviews.io and shipping software AfterShip. In addition to viewing real-time updated customer profiles, users can grow their customer base via automated email and SMS marketing campaigns. Users can also segment their customer bases around topics like predicted customer lifetime value, specific purchases and discount code usage to send targeted content. Klaviyo is beginner-friendly, offering live workshops on how to use its platform and insights on the latest marketing techniques. It also offers a flexible pricing structure that charges users based on how many emails or SMS messages they send rather than a monthly or annual fee.
MVF operates a marketing platform that focuses on customer acquisition. Using data obtained directly from its clients’ customers on their own channels, the company provides industry-specific customer insights for B2B clients. Its clients across in industries like logistics, accommodation, health, food and beverage, education and business services.
Treasure Data provides a customer data platform that aims to help marketing, sales and customer service deliver a better customer experience. The platform can create unique customer profiles, make it easier to segment audiences with one click and utilizes AI to predict the best marketing campaign to capture that customer. It also enables sales teams to identify qualified customers through data rather than lengthy BANT-style questions, project their expected lifetime value as a customer based on their current behavior and data and provide insights for personalized outreach. In addition, Treasure Data aims to improve customer service by funneling customers to the first available service agent, providing that agent with real-time customer insights so they can properly help them and collects service intel back into the system. Companies in need of fast product adoption can choose from a selection of pre-built applications to run anything from real-time recommendations on next best action to customer lifetime value predictions.
For global companies, it can be challenging to find a customer data platform that keeps up with the rapidly evolving data privacy regulations around the world. Zeotap offers a CDP that prioritizes data security and staying on top of those regulations with multiple ISO certifications, a GDPR certification of compliance and Cloud Security Alliance compliance. Beyond its security efforts, Zeotap’s platform allows marketing teams to tap into their trove of customer insights from multiple platforms, create customer segments and set up personalized marketing campaigns based on how those customers are likely to act. The platform specializes in serving users in banking, retail, insurance, travel, telecom and consumer packaged goods industries.
Like other customer data platforms, FirstHive helps companies centralize customer data from disparate sources and run analysis to find high-value customers and design personalized campaigns to convert them. But it also specializes in helping companies in manufacturing, retail, finance and digital content identify and convert customers. For retail firms, users can craft product recommendations, run loyalty campaigns and deliver a personalized shopping experience. Manufacturers can collect data to identify buyers to target across each stage of the supply chain from wholesaler to distributor to after-sale services, run localized campaigns and gather insights on the product to shape its development. Digital media companies, meanwhile, are able to leverage its AI tool to assess how customers engage with its content. And banking firms can tap into its anti-fraud and predictive AI to ensure they’re building the right customer base. For marketers looking to stay on top of the latest marketing strategies, FirstHive also organizes frequent webinars on customer engagement strategies.
For marketers to predict what customers want and deliver tailored marketing to them, they need a trove of data. Zeta delivers on that with its customer data platform. The software collects data from the company website, social media and other marketing tools and then crafts unique customer profiles, identifies preferences of anonymous website visitors and provides real-time scoring to measure the quality and churn risk of the customer. Zeta also uses predictive AI to help marketers deliver personalized content. Its low-code interface, meanwhile, makes it easier for marketers to create workflows, segment customers and run custom data reports with a click of the button.
BlueConic is another customer data platform that allows companies to centralize customer data, create individualized customer profiles and curate personalized marketing campaigns. In addition to those services, its AI allows users to run data models to assess which customers are likely to buy their products, customer similarities and customer lifetime value. The platform also tracks when a customer abandons their shopping cart in real time and allows users to trigger personalized content to lure them back. For early stage companies or those new to CDPs, BlueConic also offers a nine-question assessment designed to help them assess their readiness for its platform. Questions are designed to help companies evaluate their customer data accuracy, accessibility and utilization, all key ingredients to get the most out of a CDP.
PureSpectrum’s technology solutions allow brands to survey target audiences so they can collect customer insights. The company’s Marketplace Platform comes with capabilities that cover survey design, targeting across a variety of countries and languages and data visualization capabilities to enhance consumer research.
Simon Data helps marketing teams work more efficiently and create personalized customer experiences across multiple channels. Similar to other customer data platforms, it aggregates data from disparate marketing tools so that users can build in-depth customer profiles. From there, users can send real-time messages based on customer actions or set triggering events that automatically send outreach when a user exhibits that behavior. The platform also helps users take advantage of anonymous web traffic, matching customer activity with known profiles that can be used to send targeted ads. Simon Data integrates with more than 50 tools, including BigCommerce, HubSpot and Salesforce.
Created for retail and manufacturing companies, Bloomreach’s customer data platform specializes in helping users provide a personalized and smooth experience for each customer. In addition to providing a unified source for all customer information, users can create personalized ad campaigns across different channels like email, text or social media via drag-and-drop tools and optimize their commerce page to match user profiles. Bloomreach also offers a discovery feature that utilizes machine learning to predict potential users and provide more accurate product recommendations and a content tool from which they can manage and customize their website for customers. Users on software review website G2 gave Bloomreach high marks for its flexibility and variety of features.
Sojern delivers travel marketing solutions tailored to hospitality industry companies that include tourist attractions, hotels and airlines. Its technology equips companies with the tools they need to find the right travelers, engage them and foster loyalty throughout their journey. The company has its headquarters in San Francisco.
Turning the trove of customer data into insights that you can build a marketing campaign around can be time consuming and difficult. Optimove provides a customer data platform that aims to simplify the process. Powering this process is its AI marketing bot, which autonomously analyzes data from marketing campaigns to surface areas for improvement. Users can then apply those changes with a single click. Optimove also provides tools to create and manage marketing outreach across multiple channels, including email, web pop-ups and in-app messaging. The platform is designed with retail, gaming and app companies in mind, according to its website.
Lytics is a customer data platform designed for retail, media, B2B software and financial services companies. Lytics allows users to access customer data straight from a data warehouse like Google BigQuery or Snowflake, and then turn it into a personalized marketing campaign. Users can segment their audiences, tap into its predictive analytics to identify buyers at risk of churn and craft marketing campaigns that span multiple channels like social media, SMS and email. Marketers can also tag content to trace user behavior, run account-based marketing campaigns based on that behavior and identify cross-sell opportunities — key features for any subscription-based software company.
Segment provides a flexible customer data platform for customers across a variety of industries including retail, B2B and mobile apps, as well as one that can be streamlined for startups or scaled up for enterprise firms. Users can track real-time customer experiences, schedule automated marketing outreach based on different customer actions and analyze the success of different marketing campaigns. Segment also integrates with more than 300 marketing tools — including Google Analytics, HubSpot and Intercom — and ensures all data collection and application are unified across the entire marketing tech stack.
Insider is another customer data platform that allows marketers to draw on data from sources like social media, website interaction and their company’s CRM to build unique customer profiles. From there, users can easily segment customers via drop-down menus based on product interests, brand affinities and likelihood to purchase and then deliver targeted marketing campaigns to those customers. Marketers can also create coordinated cross-channel ad campaigns for segmented users and customize the website with pre-built templates. Insider specializes in serving the retail, automotive, media, travel, finance and telecom industries, according to its website. And it counts brands like Gap, Samsung and Virgin among its customers.
Marketing tech company tms works with brands across the globe, providing them with services and digital solutions to help them strategically engage customers. Its amp’t product suite includes data and analytics capabilities intended to fuel marketing efforts. For example, tms says its CampaignIQ tool “creates multi-channel, multi-tactic marketing campaigns driven by data insights.”
Totango is a customer data platform designed to help customer success teams reduce churn and expand their customer revenue. In addition to providing a centralized customer data source, the platform is designed to be quick to pick up and implement. Thanks to its modular approach, users can pick which customer success goals they want to run reports on and improve when they need it, rather than adopt a complex suite of features all at once. This includes onboarding, identifying renewal risks, winback customers and more. Users can also sync Totango to Slack, enabling employees on other teams to access mini customer profiles with a query. The platform also integrates with major revenue and data tools like Salesforce, Snowflake, Zapier and more.
Ortto provides a customer data platform designed specifically for software startups and nonprofits. In addition to helping users unify their customer data, they can create a custom set of qualifying activities to track, and then automatically funnel customers to a sales or product-led path based on their actions. Ortto also uses AI to track when customers engage with your marketing content, what time of day they most often interact with it and what subject lines perform best. For nonprofits, services include the ability to attribute revenue to each funding campaign, engage with donors across multiple channels and run A/B testing for each campaign.
ActionIQ’s composable customer data platform gives enterprise brands control over the storage, access and use of their customer data. Its solutions allow them to unify data to build comprehensive profiles for every customer, target the right audience segments and customize and manage the customer experience. The company serves brands in industries such as retail, financial services, media and hospitality.
Blueshift provides a customer data platform that aggregates customer information into one portal and then uses AI to turn that information into personalized marketing campaigns. The platform is able to pull data from a user’s CRM, mobile app, e-commerce website, contact center call logs and more. It then uses AI to predict customer outcomes, ranking how likely they are to do things like purchase the product, churn or engage with marketing. Under each customer profile, users can also craft personalized ad campaigns, set triggering events for marketing outreach and apply its recommendation algorithm to surface personalized content for each customer. Blueshift also integrates with dozens of marketing and data tools like Adobe’s Advertising Cloud, Google Marketing Platform and Snowflake.
SALESManago provides a suite of services designed to help e-commerce companies grow their businesses. The customer data platform allows users to build 360-degree customer profiles, use AI to anticipate customer behavior and identify product recommendations, and automate marketing activity based on customer behavior. Users can also collect less obvious data like how long a customer hovers over an image, what elements they click on (like changing a product color or size), and how much time they spend scrolling on the website. Those insights are then used to inform product recommendations and marketing engagement. Other features include search engine optimization, marketing campaign management and multi-channel outreach resources.
Creating an efficient and personalized marketing campaign requires sifting through and making sense of customer data. Similar to other customer data platforms, Emarsys unites customer insights from areas like sales engagement, support calls and web behavior to help companies identify their top potential customers. But the platform also attempts to make personalized marketing easier by allowing users to tap into its AI algorithm to segment users and send customized content to them. In addition, users can evaluate the impact of their cross-channel campaigns to identify what’s working and what isn’t through easy-to-read value measurement charts. Emarsys is well-established as a CDP for retail companies, counting brands like Puma, Home Depot and Sephora as a part of its customer base, according to its website.
Enigma uses proprietary machine learning and AI technology to comb vast data sets for business intelligence information, which is used in a range of contexts including B2B sales and marketing. The Enigma Sales and Marketing platform guides targeting, acquisition, segmentation and engagement in B2B accounts.
RTB House helps its client brands drive their sales, personalize their retargeting and complete pure branding with the use of its ad-buying engines and deep learning ad campaigns. Its advanced customer data platform integrates AI and deep learning to analyze and use customer data, thereby enhancing targeting and personalization. It also offers data analytics to help businesses better understand customer behavior and preferences to improve marketing strategies.
