CDP Institute grants NGDATA RealCDP Certification

The CDP Institute certifies NGDATA as RealCDP

The RealCDP certification identifies CDPs that meet a five-point checklist of features needed to provide a complete, unified, accessible customer database. This is an initiative from the CDP Institute, an impartial industry body that helps marketers make the best use of their customer data. The Institute recently conducted a RealCDP audit of NGDATA’s CDP, and we’re proud to say we are now certified as a RealCDP. This is quite an honor, as this means that NGDATA’s Intelligent Engagement Platform is the first CDP vendor in Europe to receive such a recognition.

But what does it exactly mean to be RealCDP certified, what are the criteria that need to be met, and what are the benefits that businesses gain from having a CDP that has met, and exceeds these criteria.

CDP checklist for businesses

So why the need for the RealCDP audit? The need originates from the growing popularity of CDPs. Such platforms are the answer to a pressing problem of dispersed customer data and the lack of complete customer profiles. But of the various CDP vendors on the market, some fall short of expectations. This is why the performed audit focused on 5 core CDP capabilities:

• ingest data from any source
• capture full detail of ingested data
• store ingested data indefinitely (subject to privacy constraints)
• create unified profiles of identified individuals
• share data with any system that needs it

And with many CDP vendors out there, these criteria are required otherwise businesses will be disappointed.

Real-time communications require a unified view of customer data to support coordinated, optimal treatment of each customer and prospect across all channels throughout the customer journey. Credible CDPs allow marketers to create such a unified customer view and allows them to maximize customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Also, vendors that meet the basic requirements of delivering a complete database, vary notably in the other features they offer. This generated quite some confusion. In fact, Gartner indicated in a survey that 50% of marketers are mixing up their CDP with a CRM or a DMP (read more about how a CDP differs from a CRM and a DMP). All of this makes it difficult for customers to choose the right CDP vendor.

In order to create standards within the industry to help businesses buy better CDPs, the CDP Institute launched the so-called ‘RealCDP program’. It consists of two initiatives:

• RealCDP certification: This identifies systems that meet a five-point checklist of features needed to provide a complete, unified, accessible customer database.
• CDPFinder: This is a collection of templates and reports that helps buyers sort through the different types of CDPs to find the right system for their needs.

Key findings of the audit

The combination of the 5 capabilities determines if the vendor meets the true promise of a CDP. All 5 points must be checked off, otherwise, the CDPs will show shortfalls that limit the user’s possibilities. The audit thus identified capabilities allowing to ingest, maintain, historically store and unify data into a Single Customer View.

NGDATA has proprietary out-of-the-box capabilities to enrich those core CDP capabilities. Our CDP platform has a comprehensive and sophisticated set of predefined models that reduce time to market for our clients so they can see results faster than other CDPs. The data architecture is designed to support the most sophisticated analytical, personalization, and customer journey navigation capabilities.

The five-points checklist developed by the CDP Institute is a good guidebook to hold onto. We’ll continue to strive for the best quality possible and we’ll keep improving our platform according to the needs of the market.