SAP Customer Data Platform – 7 frequently asked questions

What is the SAP Customer Data Platform?

The upcoming of SAP Customer Data Platform was announced in October 2020 at the SAP Customer Experience LIVE conference. During his keynote, Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE, assured that the next-generation customer data platform would make it easier to create individual consumer profiles using data from multiple distributed sources, including websites and social channels. Unifying such insights will help marketers to redefine the customer experience and significantly improve marketing and sales strategy, going far beyond regular advertising activities.

With SAP Customer Data Platform, you’ll gain access to real-time customer data to enhance buyer segmentation, increase target audience engagement and provide a consistent experience across all digital contact channels. SAP CDP also serves as a central repository for marketing data consent to ensure the highest level of information security for both parties. “A single source of truth” with unified client data will also help determine what consent we rely on when carrying out marketing campaigns, when that consent was given or withdrawn, for what type of operations, and by whom.

What are the three core pillars of the SAP Customer Data Platform?

“Unify, Respect, Activate” are the three core principles that drive the SAP Customer Data Platform. This philosophy is the foundation for creating consistent client profiles, respecting their privacy, and using data to personalize marketing activities, ultimately leading to improved customer relationships and better business outcomes.

What are the main features and capabilities of the SAP Customer Data Platform?

Nowadays, enterprises don’t struggle with a lack of access to customer information but with the difficulty of effectively leveraging the potential hidden in unstructured data. Indeed, many companies are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data collected from various customer touchpoints. These scattered bits of data, left unconnected, provide only a small fraction of their real value.

SAP Customer Data Platform addresses the challenges related to collecting, managing, and leveraging customer data to understand audience preferences better. The platform offers advanced analytical tools that make it easier to identify buyers’ needs, facilitating delivering better targeted and more personalized experiences.

Who is the solution aimed at, and what business benefits does SAP CDP offer?

SAP Customer Data Platform supports organizations in customizing marketing operations based on collected consumer data, as well as improving the customer experience, whether on the website, mobile apps, or in desktop stores. Using the capabilities of SAP CDP, marketing and sales representatives can design more effective and personalized advertising campaigns, offers, and messages, leading to enhanced audience engagement and higher conversion rates.

With SAP CDP, consumers can be segmented based on a variety of criteria, such as demographics, preferences, or buying behavior, making it easier to understand the expectations of different groups of purchasers and tailor marketing activities and offers to meet their needs. Furthermore, the platform provides analytical tools for in-depth, comprehensive market analysis and consumer trend tracking, providing valuable insights for strategic business decision-making.

Which data sources can be seamlessly integrated with the SAP Customer Data Platform?

Through seamless integration with diverse data sources, including e-commerce, CMS, CRM and ERP systems, mobile websites, social media, apps, and marketing automation platforms, the SAP Customer Data Platform gathers valuable customer insights and creates consistent profiles based on that information. Data unified this way empowers marketing and sales professionals to personalize communications across all brand touchpoints. By adopting this strategic approach, businesses can proactively anticipate audience preferences and deliver precisely what customers expect or require in real-time.

What are the differences between SAP Customer Data Platform and SAP Customer Data Cloud?

In the rapidly evolving technology industry, business users frequently encounter a barrage of marketing jargon, which often leads to confusion and makes it challenging to grasp the distinctions among various market solutions.

While the names SAP Customer Data Platform and SAP Customer Data Cloud may sound strikingly similar, it’s essential to note that they represent different services provided by SAP. Although both services are cloud-based, allowing for seamless deployment and scalability to meet varying business requirements, they are equipped with entirely different sets of features.

SAP Customer Data Cloud draws on Gigya’s heritage to support marketers in administering the entire customer lifecycle, including creating personalized registration and login processes. With SAP CDC, users can easily manage all the profiles: create accounts, log in using various authentication methods, and take advantage of social media integration capabilities. In addition, SAP CDC provides tools for building and governing complete customer accounts, allowing users to store and update demographic information, preferences, purchase history, and other relevant data.

The primary benefit for end users is the ability to leverage a single login across multiple corporate applications. This streamlined authentication process greatly simplifies interaction with the entire system environment, maximizing efficiency. That’s why SAP CDC is highly recommended for organizations aiming to unify data and centrally manage all marketing consents, as it plays a pivotal role in ensuring secure access to applications and services.

While SAP CDC focuses primarily on managing customer identities and providing secure access to applications and services, SAP CDP offers a range of tools for comprehensive consumer data administration, covering integration, personalization, analytics, real-time updated segments (e.g., for VIP buyers) and orchestration of customer-directed communications.

How does SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement complement the SAP CDP offering?

SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, as an integral part of the SAP CX product portfolio, provides advanced tools for automating and analyzing the effectiveness of marketing activities, the potential of which, combined with customer data collected through the SAP Customer Data Platform, allows creating even more personalized advertising messaging.

SAP Emarsys enriches the SAP CDP offering and empowers marketers to automate the process of building communication scenarios, send personalized SMS or e-mail marketing campaigns based on systematized customer data, leading to increased audience engagement and an improved conversion rate, aligning with the initial objectives.