Treasure Data released an interesting report, NGDATA announced a new partner program and Bloomreach acquired Exponea. Lot’s happening but let’s start with the Treasure Data report first.
New Trend?
A recent report by CDP vendor Treasure Data found out that 59% of respondents will invest in a new CDP in 2021. Of these, 33% will prefer an off-the-shelf CDP and 67% will prefer a custom CDP solution.
I found this data point very interesting. It is not clear if a custom CDP refers to customised version of an off-the-shelf CDP or a completely in-house, ground-up developed CDP. However, what this certainly points to is that:
- Every customer use case is so different that it is almost impossible to pick up an off-the-shelf product and start using it without considerable customisations. And this, when there are 100s of products that call themselves a CDP.
- Different CDPs have different sweet spots and it is a fragmented marketplace
Interestingly, another CDP vendor, Belgium-based NGDATA announced a partner program called “NGDATA Inside”. NGDATA is offering their CDP platform as a plugin that other software vendors can embed inside their existing products or offerings to offer CDP-like capabilities. You will essentially buy another software product from these partners and that product will come embedded with CDP.
I see a connection between Treasure Data finding and NGDATA announcement. I think we are seeing a new trend emerge – CDP as a feature-set rather than a specialised best-of-breed, stand-alone offering. And yes, this is very different from “Suites” or Marketing Clouds of large enterprise software vendors, because when they say “Suite”, it is really a collection of stand-alone products in most cases.
We’ll see how this trend plays out. For now though, it is safe to say that there are many types of CDPs and several different approaches for doing what you want to do. So it’s best to focus on your own needs and then pick whatever solves those needs.
’Tis The Season of Acquisitions
Digital experience vendor Bloomreach announced they are acquiring CDP vendor Exponea and have raised $150M in funding.
Exponea will add CDP, journey orchestration and experimentation capabilities to Bloomreach’s content management, search and recommendation capabilities. Congratulations to both the vendors, but as an end user, keep in mind that any seamless integrations (if such a term exists) take time. So do your due diligence if that’s a key requirement.