In today’s rapidly evolving marketing landscape, organizations are on the hunt for fresh, **innovative approaches** to maximize their data potential. The primary goals? **Personalize** offers and messages, craft engaging campaigns, and enhance customer journeys—all while driving **campaign effectiveness** and improving **bottom-line results**.
With **MarTech** acting as a crucial catalyst for these objectives, the industry is swiftly gravitating toward the integration of **customer data platform (CDP)** capabilities within broader customer engagement and experience solutions. This shift is largely driven by the convergence of **data, AI**, and **analytics technologies**. As major players in the space begin to acquire stand-alone CDP vendors, it’s time to delve into why this trend is likely to continue and the immense value of the **”embedded” approach**.
Understanding the Basics of CDPs
Since the early 2010s, marketing teams have embraced the concept of **customer data platforms (CDPs)**. The **CDP Institute** defines CDPs as “packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.” Most importantly, CDPs strive to provide a **cohesive view of the customer**, aggregating disparate data sources from email, social media, web platforms, point of sale transactions, and more.
The essential features of CDPs, including **data ingestion**, **identity management**, **audience management**, and **marketing channel activation**, are evolving. Now, these capabilities are merging with advanced analytics, **AI**, and data **governance**, creating what some refer to as the new **“CDP nirvana.”**
Challenges: The Path Forward
Despite their success, marketers continue to demand **more** from their data and CDPs. A recent report from **Harvard Business Review Analytic Services**, sponsored by **SAS**, highlights the obstacles faced in the current marketing technology landscape.
Surveying 388 marketing decision-makers, the report revealed that:
- Most MarTech stacks consist of numerous isolated solutions, creating silos.
- 38% of respondents identified the difficulty of integrating new technologies as a top barrier to positive customer trust.
- Data-related obstacles, such as poor data quality (37%) and lack of real-time data access (29%), were also significant concerns.
This underscores an urgent need for **composability** and consolidation within marketing tech stacks—an essential strategy for tackling today’s sophisticated marketing challenges.
The Rise of Embedded AI
As **artificial intelligence (AI)** gaining traction in recent years, marketing organizations are excited to leverage these technologies alongside **customer data** for mutually beneficial outcomes. While few MarTech tools currently utilize AI to oversee their entire framework, many now include embedded AI capabilities, aimed at streamlining marketing processes.
Whether detecting patterns using traditional AI techniques or crafting engaging content through generative AI, these embedded solutions are pivotal in achieving marketing goals. The trend of embedding AI within marketing technologies is not just a passing phase—it’s here to stay.
CDPs: Evolving into Embedded Solutions
Similar to AI, the integration of CDP capabilities into larger marketing and customer engagement solutions is on the rise. The concept of **composable CDPs** allows businesses to create customized solutions through flexible, modular components, sidestepping the limitations of a one-size-fits-all CDP.
The primary goal of any CDP remains the **activation of data** with intelligence. By embedding CDP capabilities within wider MarTech solutions, marketers can enhance their **power and flexibility** in data utilization.
The Advantages of Embedded CDPs
Adopting an embedded CDP approach transcends traditional models, offering profound insights into customer behavior through **predictive analytics**, contextual engagement, and tailored customer experiences.
While traditional CDPs excel in data ingestion, they often struggle to detect real-time events. By fusing AI and advanced analytics with CDPs, marketing organizations can capture live events and respond with relevant communications through consumers’ preferred devices or channels. Features like **real-time decisioning**, **next-best actions**, and **triggering** empower marketers to react to unfolding events while prioritizing **data privacy**.
Additionally, embedded CDP capabilities propel marketers from rudimentary segmentation to **AI-powered journey orchestration** using reinforcement learning. This allows customer engagement solutions to derive actionable insights from data patterns, optimizing consumer interactions and paths.
Ultimately, customer engagement solutions equipped with embedded CDP capabilities offer unparalleled access to unified customer data via **AI-driven journey orchestration** across channels. By integrating **next-best-offer features**, real-time decisioning, and seamless compatibility with essential marketing functions like planning and attribution analysis, organizations can unify and amplify their customer insights.
Future-Proofing with Embedded CDPs
As marketing entities pivot toward customer engagement solutions boasting embedded CDP functionalities, they begin to **future-proof** their MarTech landscapes. The trend is shifting towards virtual, **just-in-time customer profiles** built against a cloud data warehouse, reducing costly data duplication and ensuring data accuracy.
This **API-based approach** enables organizations to maintain agility in their MarTech integrations, preventing vendor lock-in in a fast-evolving digital marketing environment. Enhanced centralized decision-making and data orchestration, powered by a more versatile, scalable architecture, hold the potential to drive superior business results.
Jonathan Moran serves as the head of MarTech solutions marketing at SAS, focusing on global product marketing initiatives surrounding customer experience and marketing technologies. With over 20 years of experience in the marketing and analytics realm, Moran has worked with Fortune 500 clients across industries, helping them navigate complex digital marketing challenges.
