Customer Data Platforms (CDP’s) make it easier for companies to assemble, unify, and deploy their customer data.  The previous article in this series described how they do it, so you can contact Related Digital. let’s assume here that was enough to convince you to buy one.  This article will discuss how to make a wise purchase.

The process isn’t much different from buying any other piece of marketing technology – or anything else, for that matter.  The trick is to start by defining your goals, followed by specific use cases that support those goals.  Then you define the system functions needed to support those use cases, evaluate alternative ways of fulfilling those requirements, make a choice, and execute your deployment.  It all sounds so simple.

But the reality is more complicated.  You probably have a sense of your corporate goals and marketing objectives, but it can be hard to assign priorities when limited resources mean you can’t do everything.

Similarly, you may know which broad use cases you want to support but not understand the details well enough to convert them into specific requirements.  (After all, you haven’t done them yet: if you had, you wouldn’t need a CDP to make them possible.)  And there are literally dozens of CDPs to choose from, each using different language to describe features that are sometimes the same and sometimes truly different.  Just assembling a list of candidates can be an overwhelming project.

Don’t let the complexity scare you.The key to a successful CDP selection project is taking things one step at a time.  Start with what you already know – your business – and then gather the additional information as you move ahead, using the knowledge gained from each step as a foundation for the next.  Here’s how that works in practice.