{"id":1641,"date":"2024-12-23T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web-stil.info\/?p=1641"},"modified":"2025-05-02T22:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T22:17:09","slug":"composable-cdp-a-new-era-of-customer-data-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web-stil.info\/index.php\/2024\/12\/23\/composable-cdp-a-new-era-of-customer-data-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Composable CDP: A New Era of Customer Data Platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"
Making sense of customer data in today\u2019s digital landscape often feels like piecing together evidence in a crime scene. In fact, when our team started exploring composable CDPs as a solution, I found myself at a whiteboard drawing circles and lines between all our different data sources and looking suspiciously like something from an episode of Law & Order<\/em>.<\/p>\n Traditional customer data platforms (CDPs) promised to help make sense of it all, but these legacy solutions often fall short as they try to do everything at once. Sometimes, you need a solution that lets you pick and choose exactly what you need, which is where composable CDPs come in. It\u2019s like upgrading from a Swiss Army knife to a fully customizable tool belt.<\/p>\n Whether your customer data is scattered across a dozen systems or you\u2019re just starting to think about better ways to manage it, this guide will help you understand if a composable CDP might be the solution you\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n After my whiteboard revelation about our scattered data sources, I learned that a composable CDP takes a fundamentally different approach to managing customer data.<\/p>\n The name \u201ccomposable\u201d comes from its ability to let you \u201ccompose,\u201d or build, exactly the customer data platform<\/a> solution you need. As Arvind Rongala<\/a>, CEO at Edstellar, an AI-powered skills management platform, puts it: \u201cComposable CDPs give organizations the most freedom because they can add only the parts they need, like data storage, identity resolution, analytics, and involvement, based on their own needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n I think of it like building with LEGO blocks rather than buying a pre-built toy. I can choose which pieces to use and how to put them together.<\/p>\n Robin Grochol<\/a>, vice president of product management at Twilio Segment, explains the core purpose: \u201cBusinesses need a clean and consistent view of each customer across every function, from marketing to ecommerce to customer support and more.\u201d<\/p>\n A composable CDP includes several key elements:<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Traditional customer data platforms, or legacy CDPs, have been around for years, acting as the go-to solution for companies trying to wrangle their customer data. If a composable CDP is like building with LEGOs, a traditional CDP is more like buying a pre-built playhouse \u2014 it comes with everything included, whether you need it or not.<\/p>\n Every legacy CDP vendor offers several bundled features, including:<\/p>\n Because CDPs integrate with various SaaS applications and databases, you can sync your customer data and audiences to these downstream systems.<\/p>\n As Brendan Fortune<\/a>, director of product at Customer.io, points out, \u201cTraditional CDPs provide an all-in-one suite. They aim not only to ingest your data but also to clean, govern, and analyze it.\u201d<\/p>\n The fundamental problem that CDPs solve \u2014 helping you manage and activate your data at scale from a single source of truth \u2014 isn\u2019t going away anytime soon. In fact, CDP demand continues to increase.<\/p>\n However, with the rapid adoption of modern cloud data warehouses like Snowflake<\/a>, Redshift<\/a>, BigQuery<\/a>, and Databricks<\/a>, many organizations now realize it no longer makes sense to maintain an architecture that creates two conflicting sources of truth: <\/strong>one in the CDP and one in the data warehouse.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n With data and marketing teams working off two independent sources of truth for customer data, several problems are introduced. These include inconsistent data between BI and operational tools, inflated storage costs, security concerns, and an inability to activate all available customer data.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why organizations like Warner Music Group<\/a> and Chime<\/a> are choosing to implement an architecture that enables them to activate data directly from a single source of truth: the cloud data warehouse. This shift has given rise to what we now know as the composable CDP.<\/p>\n To understand which approach might work best for your organization, I talked to experts from leading CDP providers and companies that have made the switch. Here\u2019s what I learned about how these two approaches compare.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n When I started asking industry experts about the key differences between these two approaches, I discovered it\u2019s not just about features but fundamentally different philosophies in handling customer data.<\/p>\n Alex Schlee<\/a>, founder and CEO of Anamap, broke it down clearly for me. \u201cThe key difference between traditional CDPs and composable CDPs is the ability for companies to define their own data structure and use their own data warehouse as the resting place for the data,\u201d Schlee explains. \u201cTraditional CDPs have a separate database with a specific format that needs to be accommodated to correctly store events.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what each approach brings to the table.<\/p>\n Traditional CDP<\/strong><\/p>\n Composable CDP<\/strong><\/p>\n Twilio Segment\u2019s Robin Grochol sees CDPs as more than just data tools \u2014 they\u2019re enterprise-wide solutions. As she explains, \u201cInstead of each business function operating in its own silo, with a unique set of tools and an incomplete view of the customer\u2019s experience, a CDP can act like an enterprise service, creating customer profiles, journeys, and predictions that drive use cases across the business.\u201d<\/p>\n With this enterprise-wide impact in mind, Grochol outlines the critical features to look for in any CDP solution:<\/p>\n When evaluating CDPs, I gathered some crucial advice from industry experts. Brendan Fortune from Customer.io suggests starting with a simple audit.<\/p>\n \u201cIdentify in what departments your customer data lives today. If there are more than three departments with data sets you intend to unify, CDPs are a must. As is a full-time Project or Program Manager!\u201d Fortune shared.<\/p>\n He also recommends asking vendors about their best customers and why. You should be able to see your company fitting that profile.<\/p>\n Sebastian Gierlinger<\/a>, vice president of engineering at Storyblok, emphasizes two additional critical areas:<\/p>\n So when should you choose one over the other? Gierlinger strongly advocates for composable solutions when building modern tech stacks.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you are building a modern stack and you are not bound to any obligations already, I would always opt for using the composable solution no matter if it is CDP, ecommerce, CMS, or any other component of your infrastructure,\u201d he explains. \u201cComposable systems allow you to already be prepared for future developments like new distribution channels, new frontend technologies, or additional requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Customer.io\u2019s Brendan Fortune offers an important counterpoint: \u201cIf you don\u2019t have a team dedicated to consolidating, cleaning, governing, and analyzing your company\u2019s data, you\u2019re better off with a traditional CDP.\u201d<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Before making your decision, ask yourself these key questions:<\/p>\n Sebastian Gierlinger from Storyblok emphasizes the importance of having essential elements in place first: \u201cMake sure that you have systems in place that produce relevant data. The best CDP cannot fix a broken process or an unreliable product. Once the basics (web, product, CRM) are working, a CDP can be the boost your business needs.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n After learning about both approaches, I was curious about what makes organizations choose a composable CDP over a traditional one. The answers from industry experts revealed several compelling benefits backed by real results.<\/p>\n As mentioned above, Twilio Segment\u2019s Grochol emphasizes that a composable CDP breaks data silos by creating customer profiles, journeys, and predictions that can be used across all departments.<\/p>\n Compared to a legacy CDP, there are many benefits to this approach. Here are the key advantages that stood out in my research.<\/p>\n Legacy CDPs have very rigid modeling capabilities, locking you into a strict user and account-based model. Composable CDPs break free from these limitations by supporting multiple entity types and related models.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen companies are choosing between standard and composable CDPs, they should think about how flexible they need to be,\u201d notes Arvind Rongala of Edstellar. \u201cA composable CDP is the best choice if you expect to have complicated data ecosystems or a lot of component updates.\u201d<\/p>\n Legacy CDPs only focus on event-level clickstream data, creating a fragmented view of your customer. Composable CDPs have access to any and all of the data living in your data warehouse \u2014 not just clickstream events (e.g., data science models).<\/p>\n Since composable CDPs can integrate with a wide variety of existing systems, they improve data accessibility across departments.<\/p>\n \u201cData can be directly accessible in a data warehouse or BI tool, which makes it easier for data and business analysts to derive insights from it,\u201d explains Sebastian Gierlinger from Storyblok. \u201cA traditional CDP is often accessed through a single interface and would not allow such flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n The shift toward composable architecture brings up another important consideration. \u201cThe single biggest benefit to composable CDPs is avoiding vendor lock-in,\u201d Alex Schlee of Anamap points out. \u201cWhen the same data structure can be used across any composable CDP vendor, it makes your company data more portable.\u201d<\/p>\n Gierlinger also highlights a crucial advantage, \u201cComposable CDPs allow businesses to keep sensitive data in localized storage systems, which can be critical for complying with data residency requirements.\u201d This flexibility ensures companies can meet specific compliance needs and adjust quickly as requirements change.<\/p>\n With a legacy CDP, you pay twice to store and process the data that you already have within your own warehouse. With a composable CDP, you can use your existing data investments rather than purchasing another off-the-shelf tool.<\/p>\n Composable CDPs enable an iterative approach rather than one massive project. As Gierlinger notes, \u201cInstead of executing one big project that will show results once everything is up and running, you will have multiple smaller projects that show partial results immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Legacy CDPs can take over a year to implement, and that\u2019s not even accounting for the onboarding time it takes for your teams to learn how to use the tool. The modularity of a composable CDP allows you to start activating your data immediately with the tools your teams are already familiar with.<\/p>\n Legacy CDPs force you to store data outside of your own cloud infrastructure, giving you little control over what happens to it. With a composable CDP, your data is never stored outside of your existing data infrastructure, giving you full governance and control over how it\u2019s managed.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Here are a few ways composable CDPs help businesses create hyper-personalized omnichannel campaigns and workflows that drive better results.<\/p>\n Using a composable CDP, you can access any and all of the custom data models living in your warehouse \u2014 such as lifetime value, last login date, active users, active tickets, features enabled, lead score<\/a>, likelihood to purchase, etc.<\/p>\n You can then sync that data directly to objects and fields that you can leverage in your CRM for personalization and segmentation.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say your marketing team wants to target a list of shopping cart abandoners with a special coupon to encourage them to check out. Or maybe your product team wants to send an email to inform inactive users of a new feature.<\/p>\n In either case, a composable CDP can easily deliver the data from your data warehouse to your CRM.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easier for your teams to build more comprehensive workflows and sequences using the audiences that your data team defined in your warehouse.<\/p>\n For example, you can automatically enroll users into marketing campaigns based on their audience type or the attributes that you\u2019ve outlined in your CRM. You can also use these attributes to create different branches of the workflows based on user activity, engagement, or attributes.<\/p>\n This has huge implications from a sales standpoint because you can use workflows to route new leads to individual sales reps so they can take action faster.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n When researching composable CDPs, I found it helpful to look at how different organizations are actually using them in the real world. Here are some of the most interesting examples I discovered.<\/p>\n LegalZoom<\/a> offers an excellent example of combining modern data warehouse infrastructure with CDP capabilities. As Twilio Segment\u2019s Robin Grochol shares:<\/p>\n \u201cLegalZoom centralized their data in Snowflake to gain a unified view of business operations and customer behavior. With Segment integrated on top of Snowflake, marketing teams can self-serve, creating audience segments and personalized customer journeys without needing technical assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n Check out this video to learn more<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sebastian Gierlinger from Storyblok describes how a composable CDP transformed its sales operations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe introduced a composable CDP with a custom presentation layer for the sales team, which led to a huge increase in upsell since the team was able to identify active customers that are operating close to the next plan level.\u201d<\/p>\n A fascinating example comes from Brendan Fortune at Customer.io, who shares how CDP architecture choices impact user experience. When a large design software company wanted to send personalized messages to users trying new features, they had to weigh their options carefully.<\/p>\n While a traditional CDP could trigger messages within seconds through direct API streams, a composable CDP pulling from their data warehouse would take a few minutes \u2014 an important consideration for real-time engagement scenarios.<\/p>\n Let me walk you through a detailed example of how a composable CDP works with your CRM. HubSpot\u2019s CRM platform offers a great illustration of these capabilities in action.<\/p>\n As a platform that helps businesses manage customer interactions, automate marketing workflows, and optimize sales funnels, HubSpot becomes even more powerful when integrated with a composable CDP like Hightouch<\/a>.<\/p>\n This tool allows data and marketing teams to sync the valuable insights from their data warehouse to a CRM.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Want to streamline your customer data management? Start with a solid foundation using HubSpot\u2019s CRM platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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How Legacy CDPs Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Composable CDP vs. Traditional CDP<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Must-Have Features When Evaluating Any CDP<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Pro Tips for CDP Evaluation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Before You Consider a Composable CDP<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Flexibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Data Availability<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Improved Data Accessibility<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Enhanced Privacy Compliance<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Cost<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Implementation Agility<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Time-to-Value<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Security<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Composable CDP Use Cases<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Profile Enrichment<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Audiences<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Workflows and Sequences<\/strong><\/h3>\n
CDP Implementation Examples<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Streamlining Marketing Operations<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Boosting Sales Performance<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Real-Time Customer Engagement<\/strong><\/h3>\n
HubSpot + Hightouch: A Closer Look at Composable CDP Integration<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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