Many companies are struggling with the decision: do we invest in a CDP or a DMP? I think there's another aspect to consider when you're trying to align stack to your marketing strategy. Are you B2B? If yes, then you really should be considering ABM platforms as well.

The Rundown

Here's a quick primer on the key aspects of these three platform types:

CDP

Customer Data Platforms do these important things which are unique to them:

  • Manage anonymous-known visitor data stitching (deterministic, probabilistic)
  • Manage user privacy preferences
  • Push data to all sorts of places including analytics platforms (which are bloated systems, ripe for cleanup efforts)
  • Integrate data models for audience segmentation

DMP*

Data Management Platforms do these important things which are unique:

  • Provide marketers with access to 3rd party data via a marketplace, allowing audience targeting in advertising based on that data
  • THAT'S ALL

*Data Management Platforms (DMPs) have been around. They are not new. They were the first to the scene and have claimed the generic and broad acronym DMP. This does not mean they are de-facto data management platforms. If anything, now that there are other scoped platforms in the space, they should become known as "Data Marketplace Platforms". Go ahead and keep the acronym, but calling themselves data management platforms is too ambiguous. It gives them market share which they do. not. deserve.

ABM

Account-Based Marketing platforms do these unique things:

  • Corporate targeting via a 3rd party data marketplace, (IPs, domains, known parties, etc)
  • CRM integrations which reveal account-level activity to sales teams

The Gist of it all

These platforms are not interchangeable. They each perform very important roles in a balanced breakfast. If you're asking CDP vs. DMP, you are asking the wrong question. The best thing is to acknowledge that both are required to do all of this:

  • Comply with GDPR
  • Optimize anonymous audience marketing
  • Optimize remarketing
  • Orchestrate data science-based user segmentation
  • Target companies of interest
  • Inform sales teams of all relevant activity with their accounts

Change the question: What to do first?

Put as succinctly as possible, this is the recommended order of implementation:

CDP

If you want to do business in the EU (and soon California), you need a CDP. There is no way around it. No other platform enables regulatory compliance around user data governance better than a CDP. This is a must-have. A must-have. Luckily there are lots of options here. But foregoing a CDP is not an option.

DMP or ABM

Companies with huge ad spends need a DMP to optimize targeting. If a company is mature in digital advertising, then this investment alone could likely save enough in spend to pay for the CDP and the DMP. And it's enhanced in implementation if the CDP is already in place, organizing and orchestrating 1st party data.

For companies targeting businesses, this is the next wave of optimization. IN fact, this could be a better investment than the run-of-the-mill DMP. If one was to compare a DMP with any other option, it would be an ABM platform.

TL;DR

Simple:

If your company model is B2B, then use ABM strategies to boost your sales team performance right away. If your company model is B2C, then use a DMP to improve your ad spend performance at attracting customers. But always use a CDP, because it is the main driver for people-based marketing and personalization.