Customer Data Platforms: Use People Data to Transform the Future of Marketing Engagement | Martin Kihn - Christopher B. O’Hara

Master the hottest technology around to drive marketing success 

Marketers are faced with a stark and challenging dilemma: customers demand deep personalization, but they are increasingly leery of offering the type of personal data required to make it happen. As a solution to this problem, Customer Data Platforms have come to the fore, offering companies a way to capture, unify, activate, and analyze customer data. CDPs are the hottest marketing technology around today, but are they worthy of the hype? Customer Data Platforms takes a deep dive into everything CDP so you can learn how to steer your firm toward the future of personalization. 

Over the years, many of us have built byzantine “stacks” of various marketing and advertising technology in an attempt to deliver the fabled “right person, right message, right time” experience. This can lead to siloed systems, disconnected processes, and legacy technical debt. CDPs offer a way to simplify the stack and deliver a balanced and engaging customer experience. Customer Data Platforms breaks down the fundamentals, including how to: 

• Understand the problems of managing customer data
• Understand what CDPs are and what they do (and don't do)
• Organize and harmonize customer data for use in marketing
• Build a safe, compliant first-party data asset that your brand can use as fuel
• Create a data-driven culture that puts customers at the center of everything you do
• Understand how to use AI and machine learning to drive the future of personalization
• Orchestrate modern customer journeys that react to customers in real-time
• Power analytics with customer data to get closer to true attribution

In this book, you’ll discover how to build 1:1 engagement that scales at the speed of today’s customers. 

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Recent surveys have shown that 80% or more of today's customers not only tolerate, but actually expect some level of customization as they interact with brands. It's all built on a foundation of customer data. Marketers are employing an unbelievable number of tech tools and systems — easily in the hundreds for most of us — in an attempt to capture, unify, and leverage data. The result is a mess of disconnected information, siloed systems, outdated processes, and general confusion.

What if all this data were in one place? And what if that place were a tech solution that could help us make sense of the data and use it to create the brand experience our customers demand?

Customer Data Platforms are emerging as the single-system answer to our marketing data prayers. This new and poorly understood technology category deserves an in-depth analysis, which is exactly what Customer Data Platforms provides. Written by two Salesforce luminaries, this book covers the what, the why, and the how of CDPs, for a one-stop guide that customer-driven companies can use to create success with customer data.

Whenever we talk about data, privacy is not far behind. Privacy is a growing concern among consumers of all segments. An explosion of privacy-first behavior has made it increasingly difficult for companies to actually capture the data they need to meet customers' expectations. This book shows readers how to resolve this "Privacy Paradox," setting up CDPs that can capture and manage data without sacrificing customer trust.

By the end of Customer Data Platforms, marketers will be armed with 10 action steps to build and manage an enterprise-level CDP, and use it to engage customers, win business, and move forward in the world of customer-driven marketing.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR CUSTOMER DATA PLATFORMS

"At Salesforce, we have built a 'Customer 360' approach that puts customers at the center of everything we do. The backbone of this capability is understanding how to organize data so companies can create meaningful interactions with their customers at every touchpoint — whether it be sales, commerce, service, or (of course) marketing. Getting great at provisioning seamless experience is the biggest challenge and opportunity for marketers over the next decade. Kihn and O'Hara help executives, CMOs, and chief digital officers break down the challenges of siloed data, put context and organization around the emerging category of customer data platforms, and offer real life use cases and customer stories that unlock the path to success."
—Stephanie Buscemi, CMO, Salesforce

"What could be more exhilarating than the prospect of a buying experience that creates value and delight for customers at each stage of the journey? And what could be more frightening than violating customer trust by nefarious use of personal information? In Customer Data Platforms, Chris O'Hara and Marty Kihn expertly guide us through a sea of advanced technology and business practices that point to ways that companies can create a virtual heaven for their clients and prospects. Especially helpful is their coherent explanation of the history and terminology those in ad tech can often take for granted — CDPs, DMPs, marketing clouds, GDPR, identity resolution, first-, second-, and third-party data, for starters. A must-read for marketers, agencies, ad tech professionals, journalists, and business leaders."
—Kevin Mannion, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Advertiser Perceptions

"Putting the customer at the center of everything you do is one of the keys to undergoing digital transformation, but wrangling disparate customer data and tying legacy systems together is harder than it looks. Customer data platforms are the latest emerging technology promising to unify marketer data, but what is the true promise of such systems, and how do you start? Kihn and O'Hara offer a comprehensive guide that defines the category, unlocks interesting use cases, and provides insights for marketers embarking on digital transformation. Practical and timely, Customer Data Platforms is a great primer for any marketer looking to better understand how to apply customer data to drive better experiences."
—Alysia Borsa, EVP and Chief Business and Data Officer, Meredith Corporation

About the Author

MARTIN KIHN is SVP, Strategy, Marketing Cloud at Salesforce. Previously, he spent 5 years as a leading Gartner analyst covering marketing, advertising, and data.

CHRIS O'HARA is Vice President, Global Product Marketing at Salesforce for the Data & Identity Group, covering all things data-driven marketing and customer experience.