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Page | 1 The Relevancy Ring – CDP Buyer’s Guide 2018

Copyright © 2018 The Relevancy Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

The Relevancy Ring – CDP Buyer’s Guide 2018

By Nicholas Einstein

And David Daniels Vice President of Research CEO and Founder The Relevancy Group The Relevancy Group [email protected] [email protected] @OtherEinstein @EmailDaniels

Foreword: About the Research Welcome to The Relevancy Ring, a quantifiable measurement of six enterprise class Customer Data Platforms (CDPs). During the three-month research process, we spoke to marketers about their needs and aspirations, then we evaluated how the vendor solutions are poised to eradicate marketer challenges.

The report details the aspirations and hurdles that marketers face, the most desirable vendor features and attributes, and in-depth analysis of these six vendors. This information is valuable for both vendors and clients alike, as we uncover the necessity of what defines a positive and productive relationship. The report combines data from a June 2018 executive survey of 406 executive marketers, as well as documented CDP demos related to four key themes: Implementation, Data Mapping + Matching, Integrated Customer View, and Reporting. We also utilized vendor questionnaires and our near two-decades of knowledge of the Martech sector, and conducted one-on-one phone interviews with several of the marketers who use these tools and surveyed their clients.

We used a collaborative and objective process as opposed to a subjective singular analyst-driven market evaluation. The methodology details our entire recipe, but readers can feel confident in knowing that our vendor evaluation process is objective and does not stem from one analyst’s singular point of view.

An excerpt of this research is presented in our digital magazine for marketers by marketers, The Marketer Quarterly. Available for free with registration online, as well as through apps in iTunes, Google Play and Amazon.

I hope you find this research useful and informative.

All the Best,

David Daniels CEO & Founder, The Relevancy Group, LLC Publisher & Founder, The Marketer Quarterly, LLC

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Table of Figures:

SECTION I – The CDP Landscape + Outlook Figure 1: Profile of Executive Marketer Survey Participants Figure 2: CDP Utilization Among Participants Figure 3: Top Ten Benefits from Deploying a CDP Figure 4: Top Tactics Enabled by CDP Utilization Figure 5: KPI Improvement + Efficiency Gains Since Implementing a CDP – “Strongly Agree” SECTION II – Data Sources + Organizational Requirements for a CDP Figure 6: Top 10 Systems & Data Sources Integrated into Customer Data Platforms B-to-C + B-to-B Figure 7: Where CDP Management Falls in Organization Chart SECTION III – Vendor Selection Criteria + D.I.C.E. Framework Figure 8: Top 10 Considerations for Selecting a CDP Solution Figure 9: D.I.C.E., a Framework to Manage Vendor Selection Figure 10: Typical CDP Implementation Timeframe by Vendor SECTION IV: Evaluation of CDP Vendors

Figure 11: The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards – CDPs 2018 Figure 12: The Relevancy Ring Related Reading

• The Relevancy Ring - ESP Buyer's Guide 2018, Enterprise Edition

• Identity Management: Relevance and Accountability Across Devices, Time and Space

• Inbox Evolution: Consumer Email Marketing Trends and Behaviors

• The Connected Companion: The Implications of Mobile and Smartphone Ubiquity, 2018

For more information on The Relevancy Group LLC Visit www.therelevancygroup.com, call (877) 972-6886 or email [email protected]

Follow on Twitter: David Daniels @EmailDaniels, The Relevancy Group @RelevancyGroup and The Marketer Quarterly @TMQ_Magazine

Reproduction by any method or unauthorized circulation is strictly prohibited. Distribution rights are available for purchase. The Relevancy Group’s reports are intended for the sole use of their clients. Press see our citation policy http://www.relevancygroup.com/press. All opinions

and projections are based on The Relevancy Group’s judgment at the time of the publication and are subject to change. TRGSS1418

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http://www.relevancygroup.com/shop/inbox-evolution-consumer-email-marketing-trends-and-behaviors

http://www.relevancygroup.com/shop/the-connected-companion-the-implications-of-mobile-and-smartphone-ubiquity-2018

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SECTION I – CDP Definition + Utilization

Introduction: About the Enterprise Marketer Much of the data featured in Section I of this report was generated through a June 2018 survey of more than 400 qualified marketing executives. Responders came from a range of business verticals but were concentrated in the Financial Services, Media & Publishing, Retail/E-commerce, and Tech sectors. The data represents a solid mix of roles within organizations as well, with responders from within all levels of the marketing organization – practitioners and leaders are well represented.

Figure 1: Profile of Enterprise Executive Marketer Survey Participants

Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey n=406 6/18, U.S. Only

Fifty percent of our survey respondents reported currently using a CDP vendor with another 32 percent reporting that they’re considering implementing a CDP within the next 12 months. For specific data on CDP efficacy and satisfaction, we have focused on the responses of the more than 200 executive marketers who reported currently using a CDP vendor. What is a CDP? In a relatively short period of time, Customer Data Platforms have carved out a dynamic, new, and expanding space for themselves, within the enterprise marketing stack. Although the term was coined as early as 2013, it is primarily over the past 18 months that vendors have embraced the moniker and marketers have realized the distinct value proposition that a CDP brings to the table. CDPs enable marketers to:

• Join and Combine Data – Marketers who are facing increasing volumes of useful customer data are increasingly turning to CDPs to help them join and integrate these often disparate and unnormalized customer data sources to make them more easily available for marketing applications - targeting, personalization, measurement, to name a few. They enable the utilization of real-time data at massive scale allowing for progressive customer profiling.

CMO – 23%

Director – 20%

Manager – 16%

Associate – 16%

Marketing IT – 15%

VP/SVP/EVP – 8%

Executive, other – 5%

Titles of Marketing Participants Enterprise Marketer Technographics

Mean Size of Customer Database10.1 Million Records

Monthly Unique Site VisitsMean 30.6 Million; Median 18 Million

Annual Marketing Budget $37 Million Dollars

Average CDP Team Size, 4

Mean Annual Revenue$548 Million Dollars

Primary Industries: Retail/eCommerce,Financial Services, High Tech, Media/Publishing



• Create and Manage Profiles – CDPs can help marketers navigate the waters between known and unknown users through various probabilistic and deterministic identity methods. This enables CDPs to stitch together user profiles to more accurately identify and address people as individuals across channels and devices.

• Enrich and Augment Data – While primarily focused on first-party data, CDPs can help marketers enrich data on a continuous basis by incorporating a variety of sources and efficiently augmenting these to ensure accuracy and usefulness to other systems across the enterprise.

• Syndicate and Activate Audiences – CDPs help marketers identify the appropriate customers and prospects to address through both paid and organic methods across online and offline channels. By using a CDP to inform audience selection and content recommendations, many marketers can individualize more campaigns at a more precise level, driving increased response rates and more efficient paid media spend.

A wide range of marketing technology vendors have noticed the traction, momentum, and excitement that CDPs have garnered in the marketplace, and are now using the moniker in their marketing and adjusting their messaging to include CDP. This has created confusion for buyers, which this guide attempts to mitigate. The Relevancy Group defines Customer Data Platforms as data management solutions specifically designed for marketers that enable a view of the customer that is:

• Holistic: Able to interface with and encompass the wide array of data sources available to marketers today.

• Integrated: Able to map and tie those diverse data sources together seamlessly, accurately and cleanly mapping to individual people and their journeys.

• Persistent: Providing an ongoing, evolving, always-available, always-updated data stream over time.

Put more succinctly, CDPs are HIP. The final definitional element of a CDP relates to control. A CDP gives the marketing team full mastery of data usage, control, and security. That includes determining who within the organization has access to the data integrated within the CDP, and whether and how that data gets leveraged externally. In an environment where data and data requirements are dynamic and growing, this element of marketer control is critical. This is particularly useful for complying with the EU’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The CDP Landscape is Blossoming Marketer demand for the products and services that CDPs offer is growing rapidly, and the CDP vendor landscape is exploding as new firms enter the space and old firms pivot towards the CDP moniker. The six firms we spotlight in the second half of this report are currently some of the top choices in the space but represent only a small fraction of the total number of participants. As we will explore in depth, the firms in the space are as varied and almost as numerous as the marketers they are working to serve. Of the executive marketers surveyed for this research, 50 percent report currently using some sort of CDP vendor to help them manage and leverage their customer data (Figure 2). These marketers serve a variety of key industries and market to both other businesses and consumers directly. Most are data-



driven marketers in organizations on the forward edge of the innovation curve and have realized the limitations of existing solutions in the marketplace to serve the needs of their increasingly demanding customer bases. Of the 50 percent of executive marketers who do not yet use a CDP solution, 32 percent are planning on implementing one before Q3 2019. Less than 20 percent of the marketplace is not yet convinced to the point of planning to implement within the next 12 months. But as customer success stories continue to gain headlines and vendor solutions mature, these non-believers may very well be changing their viewpoint. Based on this data, The Relevancy Group forecasts growth in the CDP vendor space to continue at a rapid pace that will match the increasing utilization by enterprise marketers.

Figure 2: CDP Vendor Utilization Q2 2018

Question asked: Does your company currently have a CDP vendor? Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey n=406 6/18, U.S. Only

Why Are Marketers Embracing Customer Data Platforms? Enterprise marketers across business verticals have high expectations for CDPs and data indicates that these needs are largely being met by the top vendors in the space. Those who have already implemented a CDP solution or are planning on implementing one in the next 12 months expect to get the following primary benefits from the technology (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Top Ten Benefits from Deploying a CDP

Question asked: What are the most important benefits you get (or expect to get) from deploying a CDP solution? Base: Those whose company currently have or planning to have a CDP vendor n=334. Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer

Survey 6/18, U.S. Only

50%

32%

9% 9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

Yes, currently No, but planning in thenext 12 months

No, and not planning toselect one in the next

year

Not sure

44% 43% 40%36% 34%

30%26% 24% 23% 23%

0%

20%

40%

60%

More powerfultools forquerying

customer data

Improvedaccess to

customer data

Improvedpersonalization

of marketingmessages

Improvedcontrol over

customer data

Simplerinfrastructurefor managing

customer data

Improvedpersonalizationof advertising

messages

Improvedsecurity for

customer data

Single interfacefor accessingand analyzingcustomer data

Integration ofinternal and

external sourcesof customer

data

Better view ofcustomer datafor marketing

team



1. More Powerful Tools for Querying Customer Data – Many marketers have more customer data

than they can effectively leverage with the tools currently at their disposal and are looking to CDPs for this functionality. Forty-four percent of marketers cite more powerful querying tools as the most important benefit of deploying a CDP.

2. Improved Access to Customer Data – Forty-three percent of marketers note the top benefit of

CDP deployment is better access to valuable customer data. Customer data often resides in numerous disparate systems throughout the enterprise, both within and outside the marketing organization, and a large percentage of marketers can’t efficiently access the data for marketing purposes. Improved access to dynamic changes of customer data in real-time is a key benefit that CDPs enable.

3. Improved Personalization of Marketing Messages – More relevant messaging drives more

positive customer experiences, and 40 percent of marketers see improved personalization as the most important benefit of deploying a CDP. CDPs help marketers drive more personalized experiences across channels not only by informing campaigns with [often real-time] customer data, but also by using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help orchestrate data that drives more highly personalized experiences.

4. Improved Control Over Customer Data – A significant percentage of marketers find themselves

without the appropriate level of control over their first-party customer data to make it available for marketing purposes, and 36 percent cite improved control as the primary benefit of deploying a CDP. For a wide variety of valid reasons, customer data can’t often be manipulated to the degree that marketers wish within the systems where the data resides. Marketers can get better access to customer data, as well as improved control, by bringing it into a CDP.

5. Simpler Infrastructure for Managing Customer Data – The systems and technology used to

address customers and prospects across channels with personalized messaging at scale are often numerous and disparate. Most marketing organizations use a wide range of tools to orchestrate, personalize, execute, and measure customer experiences. This often requires heavy technical lifting to make the best use of these tools. CDPs can help simplify the infrastructure required to manage customer data by providing a completely unified customer view within a single system. Thirty-four percent of marketers report this as a top benefit of deploying a CDP.

6. Improved Personalization of Advertising Messages – One of the driving forces behind CDP

adoption is the ability to leverage customer data for personalization in online advertising. Thirty percent of marketers see this as a top CDP benefit. Not only do CDPs make online advertising efforts more effective through increased personalization, they also improve ad efficiency by better informing audience selection.

7. Improved Security for Customer Data – Twenty-six percent of marketers cite security as a top benefit of deploying a CDP. Customer data is precious and must be treated as such. In some organizations, customer data is made more susceptible to potential breeches through outdated data management systems and practices. CDPs can help enterprises tighten data security through more robust security protocols and integration methods. Many of the solutions reviewed in this guide enable data at rest to be encrypted.



8. Consistent View of Customer Data Across the Entire Organization – In many organizations

multiple departments– marketing, sales, support, and product, to name a few – need access to customer data. In many instances, these departments are looking at different views of the customer based on inconsistent data. CDPs can help provide a more consistent view of the customer across the enterprise by more efficiently integrating data sources, managing customer identities, and ensuring that the various systems using customer data are kept updated in real-time.

9. Integration of Internal and External Sources of Customer Data – Customer data comes from a wide variety of sources from both within and outside the enterprise, which needs to be efficiently integrated to provide maximum business/marketing value. Twenty-three percent of marketers cite integration as a top benefit.

10. Better View of Customer Data for Marketing Team – Providing a better view of customer data for the marketing team is a primary goal for CDPs. Twenty-three percent of marketers cite this as a primary benefit. For a large percentage of marketers, CDPs do in fact provide a much more comprehensive and complete view of customer data which, as we’ll explore later , is translating into real business results for those marketers that have already implemented.

CDPs Enable Key Tactics for Driving Positive Customer Experiences Marketers who have already implemented a CDP leverage several key tactics that are enabled via these platforms. While many marketers who have not yet implemented a CDP also apply these tactics, data indicates more efficiency among those using a CDP.

• Individualized email personalization: Sixty-two percent of marketers across business verticals who have implemented a CDP use it to help drive individualized personalization in email (Figure 4). The email channel, which is responsible for driving upwards of 20 percent of total revenue for many brands, was once primarily a broadcast channel with marketers “blasting” messaging out to large segments of lists. Today, due to the availability of rich customer data, marketers can hone each message to be individually relevant to each recipient. This hyper-relevance drives significant lifts in response rates and business results from the channel.

• Addressable advertising: Opportunities for addressable advertising have never been more plentiful and are now extending beyond the web to television and offline opportunities. But the efficacy of addressable advertising is highly contingent on quality and the availability of the customer data that informs it. Fifty-five percent of those who have already implemented a CDP use it to help drive audience selection and measure addressable ads. CDPs can also give marketers better visibility into the value of different types of customers and therefore help them hone and optimize customer acquisition cost benchmarks/limits.

• Real-time targeting: Messaging and advertising that reaches the intended target at precisely the appropriate time has a much greater chance of driving intended behaviors than messaging that is delayed, batched, and/or deployed at a scheduled cadence. To execute highly relevant campaigns at these precise moments, 53 percent of marketers who have a CDP use it for real-time targeting. “Speed of data” is critical to these marketers and the data agility that a CDP affords is a key towards reaching the right target, at the right time, with the right message.



• Optimized customer experience: Forty-nine percent of marketers with a CDP use it to drive personalized website experiences. One of the primary benefits for many marketers that leverage a CDP is the ability to progressively profile website visitors based on various identity management mechanisms and to serve them content that is most relevant based on known and inferred attributes. This functionality is critical to marketers across business verticals but especially so for those in media and publishing who may offer mixtures of free and paid content [i.e.: five free articles a month]. CDPs can help identify users in real-time and serve them the appropriate content. Overall, this greatly improves the customer experience.

• Targeting optimization: Retargeting site visitors, cart abandoners, and other prospects with messaging in other channels is a highly utilized tactic by almost all online marketers. It is generally easy to employ, is relatively low cost, and often generates higher response rates than other campaigns. Most marketers who retarget at scale, however, do so inefficiently. This often creates negative customer experiences, because these marketers continue to retarget customers, with the same offer, even after they have made the purchase. Forty-two percent of marketers use their CDP to help them suppress online advertising based on purchase data, and 27 percent change the ad or offer based on purchase or behavior data. By employing these tactics, marketers with a CDP can drive much more effective and efficient media spend.

Figure 4: Top Tactics Enabled by CDP Utilization

Question asked: Based on your utilization of a CDP, which of the following tactics, if any, do you utilize? Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only Base: Those whose company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.

62%55% 53%

49%42%

27%

10%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Individualizedpersonalization

in email

Addressableadvertising

Real-timetargeting

Individualizedpersonalizationon our website

Suppress onlineadvertisingbased on

purchase data

Change ads andor offers basedon purchase orbehavior data

Change thechannel that we

market thecustomer to,e.g. mobile,

versus online



CDPs Drive Efficiency and Efficacy Across Industries Marketers across business verticals are in overwhelming agreement that the implementation of a CDP has improved their KPIs and enabled their marketing and advertising operations to become more efficient. Marketers in different industries use their Customer Data Platforms in different ways, but the majority that have implemented a CDP agree that Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have improved, and marketing operations have become more efficient by doing so (Figure 5). Marketers in the Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail/E-commerce, and Tech sectors indicate that their KPIs have improved more relative to efficiency gains since implementing a CDP, while those in Media/Publishing have realized greater efficiency relative to KPI improvement. This slight variance is likely due to the some of the identity management tactics being leveraged in Media/Publishing that help them drive efficiency, like stitching together profiles into single identities that allow for more sophisticated paywalls. Despite the small variance between business verticals, marketers of all stripes are in strong agreement that their KPIs have improved and marketing operations have become more efficient since implementing their CDP.

Figure 5. – KPI Improvement and Efficiency Gains Since Implementing a CDP – “Strongly Agree”

Question asked: How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements: Our marketing and advertising KPIs (Key

Performance Indicators have improved since utilizing a CDP. Our marketing and advertising operations have become more efficient since utilizing a CDP. Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only. Base: Those whose

company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.

89%97%

79%86%

90%

79%

92% 93%

81%88%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Financial Services Manufacturing Media/Publishing Retail/eCommerce Tech/High-Tech

KPI Improvement Greater Efficiency



SECTION II – Data Sources + Organizational Requirements for a CDP Which Systems and Data Sources Feed CDPs? One of the primary benefits of a CDP is the ability to aggregate and integrate a wide range of data and make it available for a wide range of marketing purposes. Regardless of whether one markets to other businesses or consumers directly, the following are the top 10 key systems and data sources that marketers in our executive panel are integrating into their CDP (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Top 10 Systems and Data Sources Integrated into Customer Data Platforms, B-to-C, B-to-B

Question asked: What systems and data sources do you have integrated into you CDP? Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only. Base: Those whose company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.

1. CRM Data – As the cornerstone of many marketer’s data-driven marketing efforts, CRM data and CRM systems top the list as the most integrated into CDPs for both B-to-C and B-to-B marketers.

2. Customer Profiles and Demographics – Integrating customer profile and demographic data is critical for marketers across verticals and sectors. A primary benefit of the CDP technology is the ability to efficiently manage these assets.

3. Customer Online Spending – Online spend data, especially when updated in real-time, is highly valuable for most marketers. The ability to normalize and syndicate this data to other systems is important to both B-to-C and B-to-B marketers.

4. Customer Service/Support Information – Service and support data is often dynamic and can live in a wide range of systems. Those marketers that integrate into a CDP make the data readily available to key customer stakeholders.

5. Website Behavior – Another cornerstone for many marketers, real-time website data can be some of the most valuable when targeting users with personalized messaging.

64%61%

54%48%

39%33%

29%

22% 22% 21%

61%58%

48% 48%

41%35%

29%25% 23% 21%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

CRM data Customerprofiles,

demographics

Customer onlinespending

Customerservice/support

information

Web-sitebehavior

Email marketingresponse data

Digitaladvertising

response data

Customer offlinespending

Mobilebehaviors,

including apputilization

Previousmarketing offers

B-to-C B-to-B



6. Email Marketing Response Data – Email response data is underutilized in many marketing

organizations. But over one third of B-to-C and B-to-B marketers who have implemented a CDP, feed it with email response data.

7. Digital Advertising Response Data – By efficiently integrating digital response data into their CDP, marketers across sectors are better able to monitor the efficacy of paid media efforts and attribute sales to the channels and campaigns that drove them.

8. Customer Offline Spending – To gain a complete picture of the customer journey and to more accurately measure marketing effectiveness, nearly one quarter of B-to-C and more than 25 percent of B-to-B marketers integrate offline spending.

9. Mobile Behaviors, Including App Utilization – As more marketers conduct more commerce through mobile apps, this data has become more critical to marketers of all stripes.

10. Previous Marketing Offers – The artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms that drive some of the data orchestration and personalization from CDPs are informed by data from previous marketing offers. The timelier the information, the more useful/effective.

Bi-Directional Data Integration Is A Key Aspect of CDP Integrations Given the role of the CDP, data integration is a fundamental aspect of the offering. On average these CDPs have 80 partners a piece. These are partner systems that marketers can ingest data from or that they can send information to for targeting and/or retargeting. All solutions that we reviewed worked with notable vendors across the Martech and Adtech ecosystems. All CDPs had the ability to consume data via SFTP or Open JSON APIs with most doing an excellent job of publicly posting their API and script. Several vendors have a market place for pre-built connectors to necessary and popular applications, but some were more user friendly than others. We particularly liked the connectors of BlueConic, Ignition One, Lytics, and Tealium. Who Manages The CDP? There is high variance by size of organization, but the average enterprise marketer has four employees dedicated to managing CDP and the mean mid-market organization dedicates three.1 These resources do, however, reside in a few common locations and generally work in tight partnership together (Figure 7). For 69 percent of marketers across business verticals, management of the CDP is the responsibility of the marketing IT department, and for 54 percent it’s the marketing operations team. We’re using an overlap formula here, and these terms can be interchangeable in some organizations. But it’s important for buyers to note that specific marketing tech/ops resources are required for most organizations to implement, manage, and make best overall use of a CDP. These resources generally partner with members of the marketing department (49%) and corporate IT (49%) to manage the CDP. Since Customer Data Platforms are generally tightly woven into the fabric of the website through tags on pages, 31 percent of the marketers using a CDP marshal resources from the team specifically tasked with managing the website to help manage the CDP as well.

1 Question asked: How many FTE's (full time equivalents) do you have dedicated to managing your CDP? Source: The Relevancy Grou p Executive

Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only. Base: Those whose company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.



Figure 7: Where CDP Management Falls in Organization Chart

Question asked: Where do the individuals who manage your CDP fall in the organization chart? Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only. Base: Those whose company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.

69%

54%49% 49%

31%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Marketing ITdepartment

MarketingOperations

Marketing Corporate ITdepartment

Online/Web-siteoperations



SECTION III – Vendor Selection Considerations and D.I.C.E. As noted previously, a large percentage of marketers across the enterprise and mid-market plan on implementing a CDP solution within the next 12 months. Of those that have already implemented a solution, the following represent their top considerations (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Top 10 Considerations for Selecting a CDP Solution

Question asked: What are your top considerations for selecting a CDP solution?

Source: The Relevancy Group Executive Marketer Survey 6/18, U.S. Only. Base: Those whose company currently have a CDP vendor n=204.

Data Security and Control Capabilities – Data security and control previously surfaced as a top benefit of implementing a CDP and is the number 1 consideration for marketers across the mid-market and enterprise, with 52 percent and 61 percent respectively citing it as a top consideration when selecting a CDP. Larger businesses with more data often require more stringent security protocols/methods, which some CDPs can address and manage better than others. However, security and data control is critical to all marketers and should be top consideration for most. Integration, Matching, and Mapping of Disparate Data Sources – Fifty-three percent of enterprise marketers and 35 percent of enterprise marketers cite integration/matching/mapping as top considerations. Larger organizations generally rely on more data sources and therefore should be more focused on the ability to match and map these disparate data sources. Smaller organizations generally rely on fewer sources, which most CDPs can easily accommodate. Pre-integrations with or Ease of Integration with Third-Party Data Sources – CDPs that feature more pre-built and easy integrations with external data sources are better positioned to deliver near-term value for marketers of all sizes. Thirty-seven percent of mid marketers prioritize these pre-built ‘connectors,’ while 49 percent in the enterprise space cite them as top vendor considerations. Those making blind assumptions about what should be common connectors can get burned without doing appropriate due diligence on exactly which connectors are productized and which are not.

23%

27%

15%

32%

24%

47%

48%

37%

35%

52%

18%

21%

24%

26%

29%

37%

43%

49%

53%

61%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Training

Uptime and reliability

Ease of use

Customer care and support

Visualization/dashboard/reporting capabilities

Data analysis tools and capabilities

Ease of integration with existing internal data sources

Pre-integrations with/ease of integration with 3rd party data

Integration, matching, and mapping of disparate data

Data security and control capabilities

Enterprise Mid-Market



Ease of Integration with Existing Internal Data Sources – Connecting existing internal data sources is one of the primary functions of most CDPs, and as such is a top vendor selection priority for marketers in both the mid-market (48%) and the enterprise (43%). Data Analysis Tools and Capabilities – There is tremendous variance in the data analytics tools and capabilities provided out-of-the-box from CDPs. Marketers in the mid-market tend to rely more heavily on these tools (with 47 percent prioritizing them in the vendor selection process), while enterprise marketers often rely on more specialized outside systems for analytics and therefore prioritize them less (37%). When selecting a CDP, marketers should have a clear idea of how they want to handle analysis and prioritize these features appropriately. Customer Care and Support – Customer care and support is an important consideration when selecting any vendor of any type and CDPs are no exception – 32 percent of those in the mid-market cite it as a top criterion, and 26 percent in the enterprise agree. The Relevancy Group always advises buyers to plan for worst case scenarios and prioritize support. Visualization/Dashboard/Reporting Capabilities – Like data analysis tools, there is tremendous variance between the reporting and visualization tools being offered by CDPs in the space. Some simply make data available to existing reporting and data visualization systems, while others include the ability to build dashboards within the tool itself. Twenty-four percent of mid-market and 29 percent of enterprise marketers prioritize these tools when selecting a CDP partner. Uptime and Reliability, Ease-of-Use, and Training – These elements round out the list of top 10 factors. Uptime is a must for any system serving the needs of data-driven marketers. The Relevancy Group is pleased to report that most of the vendors in the space score high marks on this critical metric. Ease-of- use is another core tenet of CDPs, in that they are generally made for use by marketers, not data scientists, so UX and solid design is important to most. Training is another key aspect of a mutually beneficial and long-term vendor/customer relationship and is prioritized by marketers of all sizes as such. Evaluate Prospective CDPs Partners on D.I.C.E.: Data, Innovation, Collaboration, Efficacy Considering the challenges, aspirations and attributes that are important to marketers when selecting a CDP, The Relevancy Group has developed a framework to guide the selection process (Figure 9). Marketers seeking an effective CDP vendor partnership should utilize the four-point Data, Innovation, Collaboration, Efficacy (D.I.C.E.) framework: Data: Data management is a primary reason for implementing a CDP and it is critical that the partner demonstrate their data management capabilities.

• Assess their APIs, as well as pre-built integration to internal and external data sources. To maximize interoperability and flexibility, these APIs should be based on the latest JSON REST standards.

• How repeatable is their ability to integrate? Integration is an area where often a great amount of time is allocated towards implementation.

• Review their ability to work with many sources of data, including the types of real-time data that are most important to you. Most CDPs tap into customer data, as well as inventory systems, back-end commerce transactions, and call center/customer service information. Determine if the



partner has experience working with the data you require. If so, how have they applied this for other clients, i.e. contextual marketing or moment marketing?

• Evaluate their platform expertise and their ability to be an extension and possible replacement of other Martech vendors in your marketing stack and/or your own marketing IT department.

Innovation: Must be a key consideration for every marketer seeking a vendor solution. After all this potential partner should be evaluating your program and enhancing it with fresh ideas.

• Progressive innovating to an existing program is a favorable approach to rip, replace and build from scratch. Explore the vendors that have a track record in the ability to deliver quick wins and build on them.

• Understand what their ability is to innovate and ideate on your specific marketing tech stack. What is their approach to wrangle your aspirations and make them a specific plan?

• Is their inspiration repeatable? Some partners offer pre-built connectors and/or a library of APIs, while others rely on a more custom one-off approach.

• How do they prioritize innovation on your account? Investigate how the partner determines which innovations should be tested and implemented on your account. It is easy to fall into utilizing the newest innovations just because they are the shiny new marketing tools. Instead seek partners that have a methodology of how they are going to select which and when these innovations will be deployed.

Collaboration: The lifeblood of any relationship is how you interact with the team working on your account and the mechanisms to ensure smooth operations.

• How well can they leverage the best of your team? Dig into the partner’s process and ability to optimize creativity by exposing the best ideas of your internal team and accelerating them.

• What tools do they utilize to collaborate and share information?

• Consistency is very important. Understand the vendors employee turnover rate. Will you have the same team across the tenure of your relationship? Interview reference clients and ask them if they have had the same team.

• Insight is a portion of collaboration. Understand if the vendor is thought of as an industry leader. Do they participate in industry conferences? Are they known as a speaking authority? Do they share and participate in market research? The partner should have the systematic capability to share new market trends and insights with your team on a regular basis.

Efficacy: It is important not only to measure the effectiveness of the vendor relationship but review their track record in their ability to correctly deliver technology, features and innovations on time.

• Determine how your firm will measure efficacy and ensure that appropriate SLAs are placed in the terms of service.

• Do they have a playbook for your industry, company and/or sector innovation? Do they have a playbook or mechanism to ensure that campaigns, data assets, as well as innovations are repeatable? Industry experience and focus is necessary and must be prioritized in the vendor selection process.



Figure 9: D.I.C.E., a Framework to Manage Vendor Selection

Source: The Relevancy Group, 8/2018

CDP Implementation Times Vary by Vendor and Complexity CDP Implementation timelines vary based on the complexity of the integration, data and system access, marketer availability but most importantly quality control measures that ensure an accurate reconciliation process of customer matching. Most CDPs have multiple phases of the implementation which generally are as follows:

• Planning – Collaborating with business stake holders to identity data sources and systems. Identity use cases. Developing a timeline and an implementation plan.

• Integration – Tied together data sources and systems to the CDP’s system. This requires IT support from the client, as well as work from an outside services partner.

• Reconciliation – Ensure all data is reconciled and that match numbers are as expected. Quality checking the data and testing to ensure configurations meet business expectations.

• Launch – Training, defining success measures and launching the effort often in a phased or use-case driven approach.

• Post-Launch Configuration – Typically involves a machine learning component to further optimize the deployment. Additional functionality and use cases are rolled out over multiple weeks.

Vendor Specific Implementation Detail:

AgilOne: “A typical implementation timeline is three to four months, mainly depending on the readiness of our clients, who will provide our implementation team with sample & full historical data feeds and in our clients' availability during the data reconciliation process. AgilOne works with clients in a highly collaborative fashion to ensure that the onboarding process with the AgilOne platform is successful. The team defines strategic marketing use cases with the customer that support both business and IT requirements.” Agile One leverages a five-step implementation approach.

BlueConic: “There are four phases of the onboarding process. A key first step is to determine the success metrics for the overall project. The CDP project should never be completed, but rather it should continue



to develop by either adding new use cases and/or deepening existing use cases. We define a successful onboarding as one in which the customer has the ability to implement use cases with core knowledge of features and functionality, as well as the achievement of a set of agreed-upon milestones relative to the technical implementation of the product. BlueConic customers will continually add new data sources, integrations, and use cases after the initial onboarding period, which can be anywhere from two-four months. Additionally, BlueConic offers extensive resources to all customers in our knowledge base. This includes a section for ‘The Basics,’ which includes relevant articles during onboarding, such as getting started, key concepts, settings, and general use.” BlueConic has a very detailed four-step implementation process and is one of the more comprehensive approaches that we have seen.

IgnitionOne: “The onboarding process begins as a dedicated Solutions Consultant, who works with the customer during the sales process, creates a Project Requirements Document (PRD) to ensure implementation matches the customer’s unique goals and expectations. Once mutually agreed-upon, the Solutions Consultant is supplemented by a technical account manager, who helps oversee technical implementation per the Project Requirements Document (PRD). As implementation continues, the account team commences customer training – which may include a mix of in-person and/or web-based trainings that are specific to the customer’s needs. Timeframes for onboarding clients depends on the solutions adopted and can range from a few days to a few weeks -- with custom implementation typically taking longer.” IgnitionOne breaks down the five-step process into a more granular 10-step process that identifies each task and its dependency. Lytics: “Lytics’ onboarding process consists of five phases that can be successfully executed within a 45-60-day window depending in part on the client's availability and participation. For new client on-boarding training, our process is straightforward and takes our clients’ needs into consideration. For strategic clients, we send two Lytics team members on-site to conduct user training near the conclusion of the implementation. This is usually a full-day on-site where we cover user training, but also try to consult on a roadmap of ideas for how the software can best be leveraged in the client environment. In cases where clients are in need of more detailed ongoing support, we have placed Lytics personnel on-site for the duration of their contract as part of a custom services offering.” Lytics adheres to the five-step implementation plan.

RedPoint: “Enterprise Implementation includes: Discovery (Requirements and Design), Build, Unit/System Test, User Training, User Acceptance Test and Deployment. RedPoint uses a discovery and documentation process followed by an initial rollout for the Customer Data Platform. This includes batch and real-time data processing, and conversion of the historic marketing data platform. Deployment of the marketing automation layer is handled separately from the CDP. While many factors can affect the effort and duration of a customer's solution, we typically see implementation time frames in the range of 8 – 12 weeks.” For RedPoint customers with well-defined limits on extension of their data model, merge/match requirements, and range of connections, RedPoint offers the RedPoint Accelerator, which allows definition, implementation, and test in less than four weeks. RedPoint offers excellent support through both internal services teams and external services partners and adheres to the five-step process.

Tealium: “Tealium’s methodology for implementation involves customer education in parallel to taking a hands-on approach during the core deployment steps. A standard net new deployment of the Universal Data Hub is 90 days and follows a 5 step process that includes the following: 1 - Requirements gathering (tag specs, data requirements, use cases, segments), 2 - Data layer strategy (provide best practice



recommendation to meet all requirements), 3 - Installation (customer implements Tealium Data Layer and universal tag on site, while Tealium begins initial configurations within tool), 4 - Testing & Validation (Tealium to audit Data Layer, verify configurations meet specs), 5 - Go Live (release to production). This includes full-service configuration work within in-scope Tealium applications, QA testing, etc. Tealium trains customers to be self-sufficient in using Tealium applications by the time the deployment phase is completed. Typically, customers would spend up to five days to complete the full set of training content, although this would be split into individual chunks based on their requirement.” Tealium uses a slightly modified five-step implementation process focusing on up front data layer strategy to ensure real-time data flow as opposed to reconciling data post-collection.

Figure 10: Typical CDP Implementation Timeframe by Vendor


Section IV: Evaluation of CDP Vendors

The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards Client satisfaction can’t be simulated. The Relevancy Group spoke with a selection of reference clients from each vendor and leveraged our email marketer survey panel to collect anonymous satisfaction data from buyers of these solutions. While we weight panel data in our final analysis, these data points highlight the customer’s pure voice. The Relevancy Group is proud to present Gold and Silver Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards, which are measures of client satisfaction across 10 categories (Figure 11). These client affirmations signal customer trust and respect for CDP vendor partners in these categories.



Note that there are ties, as in some cases the mathematical differences were so slight in the No. 1 Gold position or in the No. 2 Silver position that we couldn’t distinguish a clear winner. The Relevancy Group finds that client satisfaction and overall vendor reputation often drives vendor selection.

Figure 11: The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Awards – CDPs 2018

The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction Award Categories

Gold Award Silver Award Product Innovation Tealium RedPoint, Lytics

Infrastructure/Stability BlueConic Lytics

Educational Resources BlueConic, Lytics Tealium

Account Management Tealium AgilOne

Technical Services RedPoint Lytics

Integration Capabilities RedPoint IgnitionOne

Technical and Customer Support IgnitionOne RedPoint

Usability AgilOne RedPoint

Overall Value AgilOne IgnitionOne, Tealium

Industry Expertise BlueConic, Lytics IgnitionOne

Source: The Relevancy Group-Relevancy Ring ESP Reference Client Interviews 8/18

The Relevancy Group Executive Survey n=406, 6/18 U.S. Only

Scoring CDPs To Marketer Aspirations, Challenges and 2018 Themes – The Relevancy Rings We asked the participants in this guide to demo their capabilities on the following themes that encapsulate 2018 marketer aspirations, challenges and themes. They are as follows:

• Integrated Customer View: Utilize identity management methods to recognize unknown and known customers as individuals across channels. The ability to view individual customer profiles and their transactions, behaviors and interests.

• Data Matching, Mapping, and Hygiene: How does the CDP integrate and map data sources to both inbound and outbound sources. We reviewed how the CDP utilizes hygiene methods to ensure that data sources have a high degree of confidence.

• Measurement: This theme relates directly to measurement challenges and the analysis aspirations including that of the everychannel marketer. We also reviewed the traditional reporting tools including custom dashboards, reporting and business intelligence visualizations.

Attributes Measured. We scored each vendor on three areas for each one of these themes.

• Completeness: A measure of how complete this functionality is within the vendor’s platform. For example, did they apply to every channel and system events, and were they native to the application.

• Uniqueness: A measure of how unique the functionality is from their industry peers. For example, is the vendor utilizing AI/machine learning, repeatable playbooks or a framework.

• Quality: A measure of the quality of the user interface of this functionality. Functionality that was particularly usable and intuitive scored higher.



Understanding the scoring.

• Each analyst scored each of the themes and each of the attributes. Those scores where then averaged and are displayed in the Relevancy Rings in each vendor profile.

• Scoring: 0-5 points for each attribute scored. o 0=No capability o 1=Significantly below expectations and/or requires customization o 2=Below expectations and/or requires customization or partner o 3=Meets expectations, similar to peer group. This is a baseline and not a bad score o 4=Above expectations, better than most o 5=Significantly exceeds expectations, best in class

View the Relevancy Rings in the Vendor Profiles. The scorecard data is below (Figure 12).

Figure 12: The Relevancy Ring Scorecard Data – CDPs, 2018

AgilOne BlueConic IgnitionOne Lytics RedPoint Tealium All Participant

Average Integrated

Customer View Completeness

4 4 4.5 4 4.5 5 4.3

Integrated Customer View

Uniqueness 3.5 4 4 4 3.5 4 3.8

Integrated Customer View

Quality 4 4 4 4.5 4 4.5 4.2

Data Matching, Mapping, and

Hygiene Completeness

4 4.5 4.5 4 4.5 4.5 4.3


Hygiene Uniqueness

3 3.5 3.5 4 4 4 3.7


Hygiene Quality

4 4 4 4.5 4 4 4.1

Measurement Completeness 4 5 4 4 4 4 4.2

Measurement Uniqueness 4 4 4 4 3.5 4 3.9

Measurement Quality 4 5 4 4 4.5 4.5 4.3


Vendor Profiles - Vendor Profile Icon Map

TRG Analyst Take The Client Take Innovation Award

About the Company

Deployment Options Primary and Ideal Industries



AgilOne – https://www.agilone.com/

AgilOne was founded in 2006, making them one of the most experienced vendors in the space. With a focus on serving the needs of B-to-C enterprise marketers, AgilOne's mission is to “restore the personal relationships companies once had with customers before channel-specific

marketing silos got in the way.” Their customer base is exclusively enterprise with the majority in the Retail sector, though Travel and CPG represent areas of growth too. Like other CDPs, AgilOne enables a single customer view through their Identity Resolution Engine which tracks both anonymous and known customers. A backstitching subsystem connects events to known customers when an anonymous visitor becomes identified through any identity element - exact and fuzzy matching rules join identities together to form a master customer record. This functionality is difficult to illustrate in a demo setting, but the AgilOne team impressed us by their ability to articulate how the system standardizes data, cleanses and enhances it, then dedupes and links profiles to make the data actionable across channels. AgilOne also uses machine learning and analytical algorithms to enhance customer data, and like most other CDPs, enables third-party data appends like social data, weather data, and data from third-party apps to help their customers build deeper and richer customer profiles. The AgilOne application includes a Metrics tab that provides access to dashboards and key customer metrics, an “Actions” tab where users can build segments and push them out for channel-specific activation, a “360 Profiles” tab which allows users to drill down into individual customer profiles, as well as a “Data Export” tab. Everything available in the AgilOne platform can be accessed through the interface, which is clean and simple, or through RESTful API, which is how many enterprises prefer. We appreciated that flexibility and appreciated the myriad of pre-defined queries and reports that come out of the box; we were impressed by their measurement tools as well. AgilOne also includes a wide range of “Connectors” to integrate channel-specific messaging partners like ESPs. Security is paramount at AgilOne, their SOC 2 certification is evidence of their commitment to it. Buyers in the Retail, Travel, and CPG verticals with complex data requirements would do well to consider AgilOne.

AgilOne earned high customer satisfaction marks in most of the key areas that The Relevancy Group Measures. They received especially high scores in the areas of Account Management, Usability, and Overall Value, but garnered solid marks across the board. Customers we spoke

with had high praise for the AgilOne account management teams and commented that “the people at AgilOne are top notch.” One self-admittedly demanding client we spoke with primarily uses the platform to measure customer value in real-time, and lauded the platforms effectiveness, remarking that, “AgilOne gave [them] the tools and insights required to scale [their] customer acquisition efforts with confidence.” At least one customer experienced some frustrations during implementation which were mitigated by “truly first-rate customer service.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? AgilOne has technology integration partnerships with over 50 vendors and can integrate virtually any marketing technology. The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Usability, Overall Value; Silver: Account Management About The Company – AgilOne has U.S. offices in Sunnyvale and San Francisco, CA; and New York, as well as employees located globally in London, Paris, and Manila. All of their customers are enterprise and 80 percent are in the Retail vertical.

https://www.agilone.com/



Deployment Options – Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Primary and Ideal Industries – Retail, Travel, and CPG

AgilOne Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


AgilOne Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings

The Relevancy Group-Relevancy Ring CDP Reference Client Interviews 8/18




BlueConic – https://www.blueconic.com/

BlueConic was established as a U.S. company in 2014 but has European roots and still has product and engineering resources in The Netherlands. Their mission is to "liberate customer data to make individualized marketing a reality," and was among the first companies to embrace

the CDP moniker. They have built a strong reputation for serving the needs of enterprises, as well as mid-market customers and serve marketers in Retail/E-commerce, Financial Services, and Travel/Hospitality, but especially focus on the specialized requirements of those in Media/Publishing, with about 50 percent of their U.S. customers in this vertical. BlueConic understands that each customer has unique budget, data processes, existing technologies, and resource constraints, and approaches engagements with a Customer Data Platform Proficiency Framework which categorizes clients and helps them get maximum near-term value from the system. The platform comes configured with a wealth of pre-built integrations with data partners, analytics systems, media partners, and the like. Not only is BlueConic in compliance with GDPR as a data controller, but in April they also introduced an end-to-end GDPR compliance solution as a standard feature of the platform to enable all BlueConic customers to be GDPR compliant. The company has experienced tremendous growth over the past 12 months and now boasts more than two thousand integrations installed. The platform is organized into four main sections where users engage with “Listeners,” “Segments,” “Dialogues,” and “Connections,” and features a fully customizable dashboard upon login. This includes an overview of the different channels connected in some capacity to BlueConic. We were extremely impressed by this dashboard and the rich “insights gallery” that BlueConic makes available to customize it. The platform also includes an impressively deep set of tools for managing paywalls and other specialized functions for publishers. BlueConic should certainly be on the list for those in Media/Publishing who are looking to drive more fruitful customer relationships.

The BlueConic clients we surveyed are long term customers who have been working with the platform over an extended period and are highly satisfied with the products and services they have been receiving. The firm outshone peers in the areas of Infrastructure/Stability,

Training/Educational Resources, and Industry Expertise. They earned near top scores in Account Management and Overall Value as well. “BlueConic is powerful, stable, and easy to use,” said one reference customer, while another client gushed that “working with BlueConic is quite honestly the highlight of my day.” At least one client expressed a desire for more online training and documentation, but offered praise to the BlueConic services folks, calling out that “they’re great at helping [us] th ink through problems and forge solutions.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Advanced functionality in areas of lightboxes, toaster pop-ups, and paywalls makes the solution an excellent fit for those in the media/publishing vertical.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Infrastructure/Stability, Training and Educational Resources, and Industry Expertise

About the Company – BlueConic is headquartered in Boston, MA and has a product and engineering team in The Netherlands as well. Customers are spread between mid-market and enterprise with 60 percent based in the U.S. and 40 percent located in Europe.



Deployment Options – Deployment Options – Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Primary and Ideal Industries – Media/Publishing, Retail/E-commerce, Financial Services, and Travel/Hospitality

BlueConic Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


BlueConic Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings





IgnitionOne – https://www.ignitionone.com/

IgnitionOne was originally founded in 2001 and has been in the data-driven marketing space ever since. They officially began offering CDP-type functionality in 2013 through the acquisition of a platform called Knotice and have been updating the platform on two-week release

schedules since then. IgnitionOne’s mission is to “enable marketers to find, value, and engage their best customers across digital channels to maximize results,” and they primarily serve customers in the Retail, Travel & Hospitality, and Automotive sectors. They serve marketers in Telco, Financial Services, and CPG, as well. Customers come from both the mid-market and enterprise are much more heavily concentrated in the latter. Like the other CDPs we reviewed, IgnitionOne comes with pre-built connectors, as well as the ability to custom engineer new or unusual ones. Unlike virtually all of the other CDPs we reviewed, IgnitionOne leads with services. While virtually all CDPs offer services for integration, support, and account management, IgnitionOne places a heavier emphasis on agency-type services than many of the other vendors. The CDP platform is comprised of an Audience Console to create and activate audiences across channels, and also includes a website personalization engine. We were especially impressed by the real-time website visitor dashboard, which allows users to dig into individual profiles. These are depicted as “rings” on a scatterplot, and reveal engagement scores, prospect status, lifecycle metrics, and more. The view even features individual user trend data and is highly configurable. Marketers in Retail, Travel/Hospitality, and Auto who may appreciate an extension of their team in the forms of specialized services should look to IgnitionOne.

IgnitionOne earned top customer satisfaction scores in Technical and Customer Support, and near top marks in Integration, Overall Value, and Industry Expertise, as well. Universally satisfied clients confirm that “the platform continues to evolve,” and that “the services team at

IgnitionOne routinely exceeds expectations.” While IgnitionOne’s services teams received high praise, at least one client wished that the platform was more “self-service” so that she didn’t need to rely as heavily on them.

What’s innovative for the marketer? IgnitionOne offers 24/7 support included at no additional cost. Their support team has unfettered access to all company personnel 24 hours a day.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Technical and Customer Support; Silver: Integration, Industry Expertise, and Overall Value.

About the Company – The vendor has North American offices in Akron, Atlanta, New York, Mexico City, and Toronto, as well as European based employees in Brussels, London, Munich, Paris, and Warsaw.

Deployment Options – IgnitionOne is deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Retail, Travel & Hospitality, Automotive



IgnitionOne Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


IgnitionOne Harmony Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings





Lytics – https://www.lytics.com/

Lytics was founded in 2013 in Portland, OR. Their business is concentrated on serving mid-to-large enterprises in the Media/Entertainment, CPG and Travel/Hospitality sectors. Their mission is “to enable brands to achieve relevancy at scale across all marketing channels” by “surfacing

rich insights from all customer data to deliver the best next experiences for each individual customer.” Unlike many of the other CDPs in the space, and in this report, Lytics puts a heavy emphasis on customer success and offers Data Science, Strategic Consulting, and Managed Services, in addition to the usual Implementation, Integration, and Account Management offerings. The Lytics platform includes a dashboard that highlights total audience characteristics and tabs to Orchestrate and Personalize, as well as tabs for Audience, Content, and Data. The user profile visualizations featured in the Data section are excellent and highlight key user data efficiently and effectively. Within the data section of the platform, users can also quickly and easily conduct a schema audit, which surfaces field level metrics for all data streams. Also of note is the interactive content map, which illustrates the results of several natural language processing engines (both public and proprietary) and identifies topics and entities that enable marketers to serve the most relevant content to each individual user, in the right downstream channel. While the system provides significant data insights, it doesn’t offer any ad-hoc reporting per-se. Instead users looking to do data analysis do that work in their BI studio of choice. Customers looking for a CDP with data, as well as campaign orchestration and “customer journey” functionality should keep Lytics top of mind, for sure.

The customers we spoke with couldn’t say enough positive things about the technology and service they received from the teams at Lytics. Awarding them top marks in the areas of Training and Industry Expertise, customers raved about “lightning fast response times” and appreciated

“ready access to senior management.” Lytics outperformed most peers in the areas of Product Innovation, Stability, and Technical Services as well, with clients commenting that “[Lytics] is a great partner” and the staff feel like a “real extension of our team.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? Lytics has 100+ different platform integrations out of the box, and multiple methods of ingesting or exporting data.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Training & Educational Resources, Industry Expertise; Silver: Product Innovation, Infrastructure/Stability, and Technical Services.

About the Company –Founded in Portland, OR in 2013, Lytics first delivered product in 2014.

Deployment Options – Lytics is deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Media, CPG, Travel/Hospitality, Retail and Financial Services



Lytics Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


Lytics Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings





RedPoint Global – https://www.redpointglobal.com/

RedPoint has been building CDP functionality since it was founded in 2006, long before the CDP moniker was coined. Clients across many industries use RedPoint, but their base is primarily comprised of Retail, Financial Services/Insurance, Travel and Hospitality, and Healthcare (payer).

RedPoint also provides industry-specific solutions in Retail and FinSrv that incorporate key CDP capabilities. The RedPoint Customer Engagement Hub is comprised of three solution areas – the RedPoint Customer Data Platform (CDP), In-Line Analytics, and Intelligent Orchestration. Customers use the CDP for the matching, stitching, “golden record” functionality, and data stewardship. In-Line Analytics is leveraged for generating insights and next-best-actions driven by automated machine learning. Intelligent Orchestration is focused on activating customer knowledge and delivering personalized experiences in real-time across all touchpoints. One big differentiator for RedPoint is the ability to deploy the solution on premise, in the cloud, in a hybrid environment, as well as inside Hadoop-based Big Data environments. This flexibility is surely appreciated by marketers who face constraints outside the firewall. The company offers strategic, implementation, and integration services, but their primary focus is on software and meeting customer requirements for speed, quality, cost, and functionality of the implementation. Identity resolution is a critical component of all CDPs and we were especially impressed by RedPoint’s methodology and technology in this area which, unlike some other CDPs, allows for combining probabilistic and deterministic methods of identity management. RedPoint also boasts an impressive real-time analysis tool that helps to support site personalization, and machine learning to drive clustering, regression, and predictive analytics for selecting next-best-actions and offers. The platform includes a powerful drag-and-drop canvas for orchestrating data and comes with pre-configured tools like product recommenders. Customers looking for a tool that can combine a CDP with activation and campaign orchestration should consider RedPoint.

RedPoint earned especially high marks relative to peers in the critical areas of Technical Services and Integration. They also scored high in Product Innovation, Technical/Customer Support, and Usability. Many of the customers we spoke with presided over large, sophisticated, marketing

programs and placed significant reliance in the RedPoint product and services teams to help them drive their core business objectives, both for marketing and, more broadly, customer engagement. The people at RedPoint are “the best and the brightest” and “do excellent work,” remarked one customer, and another lauded the technology by pointing out that “it is the absolute only solution in the marketplace that could meet our needs.” Customers appreciated the “tremendous flexibility” of the platform, but at least one wished for more pre-build connectors to external deployment partners.

What’s innovative for the marketer? RedPoint supports Hadoop and Big Data environments both as data sources/repositories and as a distributed computing platform. This allows customers with data lakes and Hadoop clusters on premises and in the cloud to take advantage of the latest

NoSQL databases and distributed compute capabilities to scale for real-time streaming data, Internet of Things, and machine learning / artificial intelligence initiatives.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Technical Services and Integration Silver: Product Innovation, Technical/Customer Support, and Usability About the Company – RedPoint is headquartered in Wellesley, MA and has another North American Office in Broomfield, CO, as well as offices in the UK and the Philippines.



Deployment Options – RedPoint can deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, in customer-controlled public cloud instances, on premises, or in a hybrid environment.

Primary and Ideal Industries – Retail, Financial Services/Insurance, Travel and Hospitality, and Healthcare

RedPoint Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


RedPoint Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings





Tealium – https://tealium.com/

Tealium was founded in Southern California in 2008 as a tag management solution and began offering CDP type services in 2013. They serve customers across the spectrum from small business to large enterprise and focus on the Retail, Technology, Travel/Hospitality,

Media/Publishing, and Financial verticals. Tealium wants to be the industry-standard platform for businesses aiming to unleash innovation and deliver exceptional customer experiences with a real-time, universal data foundation that makes customer data purposeful, actionable, and secure. Tealium’s AudienceStream is the CDP component of their Universal Data Hub product which includes their tag management solution, IQ, and their EventStream product which manages server-side events. Like many of the other CDPs in the marketplace, Tealium doesn’t put an emphasis on reporting/analytics in the platform, instead relying on a wide range of connectors and easy access to external systems. The user interface of the Tealium platform is clean and crisp and offers access to IQ, EventStream, and AudienceStream. The Relevancy Group appreciates tools with deep functionality that appear simple and are easy to use – which Tealium does. The Connector Marketplace within the platform offers ready access to virtually all major adtech, analytics vendors, and big data vendors, ensuring most customers will find what they’re looking for. Enterprises who already use Tealium for tag management should certainly consider looking at AudienceStream, as well.

The Tealium customers we spoke with are all enterprise marketers who consider the vendor to be a vitally important partner. These companies, without exception, expressed high levels of satisfaction with Tealium’s people, process, and technology. Clients were “extremely happy”

with the Tealium Account Management and Support teams, who have “been tremendously helpful with the adoption, implementation, and strategic use of the tool.” Tealium earned top satisfaction scores in Product Innovation and Account Management, and near top scores in Training and Overall Value. Customers appreciated the “extreme flexibility” of the platform, but at least one client pointed out that the power and flexibility can lead to complexity and the tool “requires time to master.”

What’s innovative for the marketer? TealiumIQ, the vendors tag management solution, serves as the foundation for their CDP offering and includes over 1000 turnkey vendor integrations.

The Relevancy Ring Award – A measure of client satisfaction: Gold: Product Innovation and Account Management; Silver: Creative Services, Production Services, Training, and Overall Value

About The Company – Tealium is headquartered in San Diego and has U.S. offices in New York and San Francisco. Deployment Options – Tealium is deployed as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution.

Primary and Ideal Industries – E-commerce/Retail, Technology, Travel/Hospitality, Media/Publishing, and Financial



Tealium Product Functionality Relevancy Rings


Tealium Client Satisfaction Relevancy Rings





METHODOLOGY STATEMENT In Q2 of 2018, The Relevancy Group conducted research to capture the state of the enterprise Madtech space and evaluate six CDPs that elected to participate in this research.

The Executive Marketer Survey: In June 2018 The Relevancy Group conducted a survey of 406 qualified marketing executives. We qualified respondents based on their database size, email sending volumes, and other attributes such as the respondents’ role/title. Respondents self-identified their company size and market sector category. We collected descriptive information about these organizations including revenue and budgets as well as items such as the size of the marketer’s customer database. The survey utilized skip ordering and randomization and screener questions. Survey data was used for anonymous satisfaction reference data and to inform the weighting placed on features evaluated in the vendor questionnaire. The Vendor Questionnaire: The Relevancy Group designed a questionnaire that mimics the requirements documents that are utilize when conducting a CDP RFP (Request for Proposal) during vendor selection. This questionnaire contained over one hundred and fifty questions that provided detail on the vendor’s company, strategy, products, staff and infrastructure. Questionnaire responses were scored against The Relevancy Group’s five-point capabilities scale. Product, infrastructure and services information was then weighted by marketer survey responses. The weighting reflected the specific attributes and product features that surveyed marketers prioritized.

Client Satisfaction Data: The Relevancy Group gave vendors the option of providing three reference clients for each vendor. The interviews with these customers occurred over the phone and each followed the same reference questionnaire. We asked reference accounts to score vendors on a scale of 1 to 5 across several attributes that quantified their satisfaction with the vendor’s product, infrastructure, services and support. These interviews also included a general discussion related to the client’s relationship with their vendor. Client Satisfaction data was aggregated with anonymous satisfaction data from the vendor’s clients that participated in the June 2018 executive marketer survey. This survey data included the same questions and satisfaction scale that were used in the reference questionnaire. The Relevancy Group utilized this combined reference data to inform The Relevancy Ring Client Satisfaction awards and scores.

Briefing and Demo: We asked the vendors to demonstrate their offering and focus on four themes that aligned with marketer aspirations and challenges. Those themes included Integration, Implementation, Data Mapping, Matching, Hygiene, and Reporting. Two TRG Analysts participated in the demos and scored the vendors on their ability to satisfy use cases on a scale of 1 to 5. We also scored the quality of the demo, innovation, product roadmap and overall quality of the presentation.

Reproduction and Copyright: Reproduction by any method or unauthorized circulation is strictly prohibited. Distribution rights are available for purchase. The Relevancy Group’s reports are intended for the sole use of their clients. Press see our citation policy http://www.relevancygroup.com/press. All opinions and projections are based on The Relevancy Group’s judgment at the time of the publication and are subject to change. Copyright © 2018, The Relevancy Group, LLC.

About The Relevancy Group, LLC | www.relevancygroup.com | (877) 972-6886 | [email protected]

Founded in 2010 and led by tenured industry analyst and marketer David Daniels, The Relevancy Group (TRG) provides market research and advisory services. We measure consumer and executive behaviors to develop strategies that optimize a return on marketing investments. Each Analyst has a minimum 15

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years of experience in digital marketing. In addition to working with some of the top brands and vendors in the digital marketing economy, TRG produces dozens of surveys, research reports and webinars each year. Team members remain highly sought-after public speakers that continue to entertain and enlighten audiences at conferences around the world. We also publish the digital magazine for marketers by marketers, The Marketer Quarterly. Available for free with registration online, and through the MQ app on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon.

About The Author | Nicholas Einstein | @OtherEinstein | [email protected] Nick is VP of Research and Principal Analyst at The Relevancy Group. He managed worldwide email marketing operations and customer relationship management for RealNetworks and subsequently served for five years as VP of Deliverability & Strategic Services for a prominent Email Service Provider (ESP). He has led customer success management, development, email strategy, implementation, and social marketing teams at several organizations, and is a recognized thought leader in the areas of email and social marketing. Nick received his BA in Anthropology & Sociology from Kenyon College and MBA from the University of Washington. About The Author | David Daniels | @EmailDaniels | [email protected] As CEO of The Relevancy Group, David directs market research and advisory services essential to digital marketing. Direct Magazine said David is “one of the most influential experts in email marketing, if not the most influential.” In 2017 David was named Email Marketing Thought Leader of The Year by the DMA’s email experience council. Co-author of the book ‘Email Marketing An Hour A Day’, David has held senior level positions at Forrester, JupiterResearch, Apple, Anthropologie and other top brands. David is also the Founder and Publisher of The Marketer Quarterly a digital magazine and app for marketers by marketers available for free with registration online and via the Apple, Google, Amazon app stores.


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