Salesforce CDP or Customer Data Platform allows marketers to capture, unify, segment, and activate all the customer data. It provides marketers a single source of truth for every customer to help them personalize their experiences across marketing, commerce, sales, service, and many more.

This platform simplifies and connects records from various data sources to provide a single customer view. This platform was known as ‘ Customer 360 Audiences’. This is a different platform that suits well with Salesforce and enhances the marketing Cloud Platform. It is designed to provide a unified view to marketers to understand the customers better.

It is possible to merge the various customer activities into one single, combined identity profile in a single integrated platform. Salesforce CDP fulfills those requirements very well.

Customer Data

There are different data categories for customer data.

Basic Personal Data
Interaction Data
Preference Data
Behavioral Data

All these data help a marketer understand a customer and make a customer profile. Attaching all these data adds power to satisfy a customer. For a personalized, relevant offer to customers, marketers need to collect, integrate, and update each customer’s data. Here comes the need for CDP, which is the most exciting platform for marketers.

Work Process Of Salesforce CDP

This platform works as a central hub, where customer data come from different channels like Salesforce Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Sales Cloud. These data from the various platforms are mapped to a unique customer ID. The customer data becomes related, searchable, and actionable to the marketers through this central ID.

Customer 360 started the journey with two products. First, customer 360 Audiences is a Customer Data Platform(CDP), with some added Master Data Management (MDM) capabilities.

Organizations can decide which functionality to choose while choosing the CDP and MDM capabilities. Generally, a marketing manager needs a CDP to get the correct customer segmentation; on the other hand, a Customer Service Executive needs an MDM as he might want to see the 360 views of a customer in terms of cases complaints, requests for refunds, etc.

Customer 360 was launched as a central part of Salesforce Vision. Since then, Customer 360 offering companies a complete view of their customers on a 1: 1 level for personalized customer interaction.

Salesforce Customer 360 is optimized for scale and connects Sales, Service, Marketing, IT, Analytics, and Reporting.

Recent Improvements Of Salesforce CDP

Salesforce Customer Data Platform (CDP) has recently undergone several enhancements aimed at improving its functionality and usability. One of the significant advancements is in enhanced consent and preference management, which ensures that customer communications and data usage align with individual choices and legal requirements.

Unified Data Model and Automated Data Mapping

The platform now features a more robust and scalable unified data model, standardizing data across various sources to improve consistency and facilitate actionable insights. Additionally, AI-driven automated data mapping and harmonization reduce the time and effort needed to integrate and normalize data from disparate sources.

Dynamic Customer Journeys and Cross-Channel Orchestration

Dynamic customer journeys have been improved to adapt in real-time to customer behavior, providing more relevant and timely interactions. The platform’s cross-channel orchestration capabilities have also been enhanced, ensuring a seamless and consistent customer experience across multiple channels such as email, social media, mobile, and web.

Advanced Segmentation and Data Enrichment

Advanced segmentation and AI-powered lookalike audience features enable marketers to target customers and prospects more effectively, while integration with third-party data providers enriches and augments customer profiles with additional attributes.

Predictive Analytics and Event-Driven Architecture

Predictive analytics and scoring capabilities have been improved to help identify high-value customers, forecast customer lifetime value, and predict churn, aiding in more strategic decision-making. The support for an event-driven architecture allows real-time responses to customer actions, triggering personalized engagements based on live events.

Expanded Partner Ecosystem and Collaboration Tools

Expanding the partner ecosystem with more third-party applications and connectors available in the Salesforce AppExchange facilitates easier integration and extends the platform’s capabilities. Improved collaboration and sharing features enable teams to share insights, segment definitions, and customer journey maps within the organization, fostering better teamwork and alignment.

Customizable Dashboards and Geospatial Data Capabilities

Customizable dashboards and reporting options allow users to create tailored views and reports to meet specific business needs and objectives. Geospatial data capabilities introduce location-based information into customer profiles, enabling location-aware marketing and analytics.

Enhanced Data Governance and Integration with Support Tools

Enhanced customer data governance provides more control over data access, usage, and lineage, ensuring responsible and transparent data management. Furthermore, deeper integration with customer support tools like Salesforce Service Cloud offers a more comprehensive view of the customer, enhancing service interactions with context-rich data.

These improvements collectively enhance Salesforce CDP’s ability to unify customer data, derive actionable insights, and deliver personalized experiences across all customer interactions.

These were an overview of the Salesforce CDP. People who have already purchased the Marketing Cloud Audience Builder can continue using that, but new customers are advised to add this platform to their ecosystem.

Are you interested in Salesforce CDP or looking for a seamless Salesforce implementation? Please feel free to contact CloudVandana; we would happily arrange a demo for you.

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