• by Jess Nelson , November 1, 2016

A new trade organization launched on Monday to help marketers tackle the unification of customer data into a single, holistic profile for more personalized and data-driven offers.

The Customer Data Platform Institute has been established as a vendor-neutral community and education library. The Institute is managed by Raab Associates, the independent technology analyst firm that first identified Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) as a category in 2013. 

Customer data platforms enable marketers to create a unified customer view from multiple internal or external databases, effectively unifying siloed information for more personalized and relevant marketing offers.

“The growing need for more complete, more accessible customer data has fueled the rise of CDP systems,” states Institute founder David Raab. “We’ve identified nearly two dozen vendors who fit the definition. But awareness of CDPs is still low. The Institute will educate marketers about CDP capabilities and help them take full advantage of these powerful new systems.” 

The CDP Institute currently offers a library of research for marketers to peruse including white papers, surveys, product evaluation guides and case studies. Additional supporting collateral includes a daily industry email newsletter, blog, directory of vendors and a public forum.

Not to be confused with the newly rebranded Data & Marketing Association (DMA), the CDP Institute specializes in unifying customer data.

“The CDP Institute is designed to raise awareness for CDP technology and the solution it solves: resolving the issue of creating a unified customer profile across enterprise and marketing silos to achieve better one-to-one engagement in context,” says Dale Renner, CEO, RedPoint Global. “The DMA covers a lot more ground both in terms of cross-channel strategy and data-driven marketing. Plus, it’s 100 years old next year, so it has a bit of history. The CDP Institute is bright, shiny new.”

Red Point Global is one of the CDP Institute’s sponsors at launch, alongside AgilOne, Ascent360, BlueConic, BlueVenn, Ensighten, Lytics, mParticle, Segment, Signal, and Treasure Data. Sponsors provide resources at no charge to Institute members.

The CDP Institute’s Advisory Board includes practitioners from JPMorgan Chase, Spotify, Wiley, Suther Strategic LLC and Acxiom. 

“As organizations look to maximize the business value of their data assets, marketers have become very focused on finding ways to monetize their customer data,” says Renner. He asserts that Big Data adds “variety, volume, and velocity” to the mix, helping marketers capitalize on data and monetize their audience.

“But we still have a long way to go to drive awareness of the capabilities and benefits of this technology,” says Renner. “The CDP Institute, in our eyes, has an important charter: to both raise awareness of CDPs and to educate the market about why this technology is critical to the enterprise.”