When organizations fail to meet their top-line revenue goals, there are two areas they often look to first: customer acquisition or retention.

And shortcomings in both of these can stem from a data problem.

Despite a decades-long spotlight on the importance of activating customer data in meaningful ways, many organizations still struggle with technology that isn’t set up to deliver personalized customer experiences. And this stops them from meeting their goals. 

Without the right toolset, organizations face significant challenges:

• Disconnected martech solutions mean siloed teams are working from fragments of customer data and likely duplicating efforts.
• Former “cure-all” solutions like marketing clouds can be restrictive with vendor lock-in and quickly balloon in cost as an organization’s needs grow.
• Teams spend countless hours manually creating audiences and campaigns when modern tools can do this almost instantly (and with impressive accuracy).

Customer data platforms (CDPs) have emerged in recent years as a powerful tool for helping organizations unify data across teams and activate those insights to deliver personalized experiences. CDP adoption is quickly rising, too, with the retail and digital media industries anticipated to more than triple their CDP spend by 2028. 

But not all CDPs are created equally. If you’re searching for a CDP you’ll need to sift through literally hundreds of potential vendors, which is a job in itself — not to mention the immense, business-breaking pressure riding on the decision.

To help streamline your search and enable your organization to find the best customer data solution for your team, let’s explore how to structure your CDP request for proposal (RFP) and guide your selection process. We also want to discuss an important topic you may be overlooking: Composability. 

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What is a customer data platform (CDP) RFP? 

A customer data platform request for proposal is a process in which an organization defines its criteria for a CDP and invites vendors to provide more information about how their solution could fulfill the organization’s needs.

How to know it’s time to look for a new customer data solution

It’s usually a sign that your current technology isn’t hitting the mark (whether it’s an existing CDP or a homebuilt solution) if your teams lack operational efficiency or face challenges when trying to do things like:

• Creating more personalized customer experiences
• Identifying relevant cross-sell and upsell opportunities
• Unifying data from in-store and digital experiences
• Providing customer support that reflects past interactions

RFPs are common for helping organizations document and explore their range of requirements for any tech purchasing decision.

Common items in a CDP RFP

A CDP RFP should uncover how the vendor empowers marketing and sales teams to accomplish customer 360 and maximize their ability to act on customer insights. 

A CDP RFP typically covers areas like:

Company information

High-level details about the vendor, how long it has been in business, and customer references. These details help a company assess the business fit of a potential vendor and establish trust that the vendor will be an effective partner for the intended duration. 

Privacy and security

Information about how the vendor stores customer data, which security certification(s) they have, and whether they support account security features like multi-factor authentication and single sign-on. Data security is paramount for ongoing success — even a single data breach could cause financial and reputational losses that significantly outweigh the potential cost savings of a solution with subpar security.

Data management features 

Technical details on data collection/ingestion, processing, and storage capabilities, as well as identity resolution and data enrichment capabilities. These features can unlock major time savings for teams while bolstering data quality. The RFP should also inquire about upcoming features or the vendor’s capability roadmap.

Integrations 

Source connections or destinations the platform can support, or additional solutions it directly integrates with. This information ensures the CDP will seamlessly blend with the existing martech and priority channels, addressing current and future needs.

Onboarding and ongoing customer support

Details about how long the onboarding process usually takes and what support the vendor provides throughout the process. This should include whether vendors offer a help center or knowledge base with self-service resources and content to help customers. Implementation support can be critical for helping a team hit its stride with a new solution and achieve the desired return on investment faster. 

Pricing

Pricing structure and factors that influence the total cost, including add-on fees for support or the required steps to implement the solution. Many tech decisions come down to price, so it’s essential to understand how specific features or support options factor into the cost/savings equation.

Of course, this is just scratching the surface of what an RFP should include and the exact questions you can ask to dig deep into these areas. 

Download GrowthLoop’s free CDP RFP template for more than 75 questions across 15 categories to ensure you cover every important consideration. 

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What most CDP RFPs are missing: Composability

CDPs allow people within the organization to not only access data, but create audience segments and deliver personalization at scale. They fall into two general categories: composable and traditional (or packaged). 

The two represent very different approaches to solving the same marketing problems — but traditional or packaged CDPs are increasingly falling out of favor because of their high maintenance needs and lack of flexibility.

What is a composable CDP?

Traditional CDPs offered significant advantages compared to other options when first introduced. However, the emergence of cloud data warehouses has made the need for a traditional CDP almost moot, considering traditional CDPs create inefficiencies by copying and storing data — essentially replicating a data warehouse.  

At a high level:

• Traditional or packaged CDPs store a copy of the company’s data and control which channels sync with the data. Copying data presents inherent security risks, and traditional CDPs are not schema-agnostic (adding data management considerations).
• Composable CDPs are an activation layer that sits on top of the cloud data warehouse and integrates with tools without needing to transfer or copy data. Composable CDPs use the data cloud as the single source of truth and enable best-of-breed tech flexibility while enabling enterprise-grade security. 

Benefits of a composable CDP

If your organization is leveraging a data cloud, then your team has likely spent a lot of time, money, and resources making that the center of your data universe. A composable CDP sits on top of that to make data available in a secure way, whereas traditional CDPs copy and store data. 

Composable CDPs present several unique benefits given how they operate:

Data security

Anytime an organization stores, copies, or moves data from one secure system to another, there is always an element of risk. By leveraging composable solutions, teams inherit all the data cloud’s strong security measures and extend that to the composable CDP.

Cost

Because composable CDPs do not copy data, they provide greater control over costs and pricing mechanics than if an organization consistently moves and copies data — such as when using a traditional CDP or alternative solution. 

Martech flexibility

Composable CDPs also empower marketing teams to integrate their customer data with any marketing tool. If a team swaps out an email service provider or wants to use a new content management system, for example, the composable CDP enables the team to build the best-of-breed stack and quickly achieve the benefits of any new channel solution.

Implementation speed

Composable CDPs work off data in the warehouse, meaning organizations can often get up and running much faster than if they need to move data or create an entirely new architecture. 

What does the CDP RFP process entail?

If you’re unfamiliar with conducting an RFP but supporting your organization’s CDP RFP, the following steps are typically involved:

Appoint a CDP RFP lead

Most CDP evaluations are started by either:

• Marketing or other business stakeholders
• Data or technology stakeholders

It's helpful for your organization to identify someone who sits between these groups, such as the VP of MarTech, to orchestrate the process. The ideal lead will unify and understand the needs of both groups to evaluate options and ensure the solution will deliver on the team’s goals. 

Identify CDP requirements

Perform a listening tour and survey cross-organizational groups to create a list of required capabilities for the CDP. What will it take for your new CDP to fulfill your organization’s needs and goals?

Two especially helpful questions are: 

• Marketing channel owners - What data is not easily accessible to you that would help you do your job better? 
• Data and IT stakeholders - How often are you asked to pull or collect data and deliver that to marketing?

Involve security and privacy teams early on in the CDP evaluation given the fact that these technologies interact with potentially sensitive customer data. 

Create the CDP vendor shortlist

Research CDP vendors and identify those who align with your requirements. Sites like G2 are helpful for quickly finding vendors and reading user feedback. It can also help to ask peers in your network if they have preferred CDPs (or horror stories about which ones to avoid).

CDP vendor evaluation

Conduct calls with your selected vendors and review their capabilities against your criteria. As your discussions progress, you may host onsite vendor meetings (especially with high value RFPs). Our CDP RFP template includes a scoring column to help you easily rate and compare vendors across each CDP requirement category. 

CDP implementation

After you select your vendor and sign the paperwork, you can start the implementation process. Depending on which solution and vendor you chose, there may be several required steps before the team can activate the new CDP, including customer data preparation. With some composable options, you can get started in as little as five minutes.

We have additional resources to help implement your CDP, including Snowflake composable CDP implementation and Google BigQuery composable CDP implementation.   

Composable martech enables lasting innovation

Choosing a CDP for your organization is a major decision that will either future-proof your marketing strategy, or lock you in with ineffective solutions that fail to deliver the experiences your customers deserve.

Thoroughly assess your existing customer data solution and speak with stakeholders across your organization to understand what you need to get ahead. Resetting your strategy can help you build a new foundation that gives you the flexibility to use any channel tool.

Get more advice on how to choose the right customer data solution, and download our free CDP RFP template to supercharge your search.