The hardest aspect of being a marketing leader is often needing to prove the ROI of marketing initiatives.
The next is justifying a major marketing investment and providing the budget-holders with compelling evidence that gets you the sign-off to make a purchase.
A marketing technology investment, such as a Customer Data Platform purchase, is often significant and requires you to create a well thought-out business case, which often requires input of 3rd party statistics, to offer proof points in favor of the purchase.
The 30 page Customer Data Excellence report from BlueVenn and London Research in May 2019, is the result of a survey to nearly 200 organizations (with annual revenues of $50 million+) to find out (a) if they have invested in a CDP, and (b) what gains they are seeing in their marketing strategies as a result.
The research explored how companies are harnessing CDPs to provide better customer experiences, and found that CDP-equipped companies are significantly more likely than their peers to have a range of data-driven marketing capabilities relating to people, processes and technology.
Customer Data Platform Proof Points
The survey found that respondents at organizations with CDPs are at least three times more likely than those at other companies to agree firmly that they have the following attributes:
- A full view of their customers across digital and offline interactions with their brand (41% vs. 5%).
- Use of attribution beyond first/last-click to improve their paid media performance (31% vs. 6%).
- Use of machine learning for real-time decisioning/data analytics (26% vs. 6%).
- Ability to deliver real-time personalization of content based on visitor behavior (36% vs. 8%).
- Testing and optimization capabilities that are central to their website and email strategies (40% vs. 13%).
- Ability to set up and execute multichannel campaigns from a single technology platform (38% vs. 12%).
To CDP or not to CDP?
The Customer Data Excellence survey found that 51% of organizations are already using a CDP, while another third (35%) are planning to invest in one. So with 86% having either already invested, or planning to invest in a CDP already, if you’ve not started to do your due diligence on Customer Data Platforms yet, then you need to – fast!
Perhaps the most compelling of all results in the survey was that CDP owners were also found to be two-and-a-half times more likely to have significantly outperformed against their organization’s main marketing goal in 2018.
Ultimately, the question should not be ‘to CDP or not to CDP?!’ but in fact ‘when to CDP?!’
The Seven-Stage Customer Data Maturity Model
Using the statistics from the survey, Andrew Campbell, MarTech Director at Home Agency, also contributed significantly to the report and created a new seven-stage Customer Data Maturity Model. 
This is a strategic ladder of advanced marketing capabilities and seeks to provide structure for organizations who are embarking on a new data-centric customer experience strategy.
Continue reading the latest research? Download the Customer Data Excellence Report now.
Download this 30 page research report into Customer Data Platform Usage and see how CDP-equipped organizations are 2.5 times more likely to overachieve against their marketing goals.
