We delve into how the collaboration of a customer data platform (CDP) with your data warehouse facilitates a unified approach for data and marketing teams.

Working in data or marketing teams, or managing them, presents challenges, particularly in ensuring smooth data transitions. Often, data engineers are prepared to structure the data warehouse but require input on key queries from the marketing team, who may be planning their next big campaign without all the necessary data connections established.

This misalignment can cause significant setbacks, leading to rework or, worse, erroneous customer communications.

In this discussion, we examine how integrating a CDP with your data warehouse helps maintain alignment between marketing and data teams. We explore the roles of data engineers, data analysts, and marketers, focusing on their interdependencies and the challenges they face.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Data Engineers: These are the tech experts who manage the database and optimize data structures in the data warehouse, ensuring efficient data queries.
• Data Analysts: While not as deeply involved in technical details, data analysts wield considerable technical knowledge, creating reports and analyzing data for business applications.
• Marketers: They understand customer needs and utilize data analysis provided by the data team, often posing new questions that require further exploration.

The Importance of Collaboration:

Effective collaboration among these roles is crucial. Data engineers and analysts provide the technical expertise, while marketers bring insights into customer preferences. However, the technical complexity of tools and the dynamic nature of data analysis can pose challenges.

Data regulations can also swiftly change, impacting how data is used. It’s essential for data teams to have robust tools for data management, just as it is for marketers to have accessible tools for data activation.

CDP and Data Warehouse: A Synergistic Relationship

Recently, the trend has been towards ensuring that CDPs are compatible with data warehouses. This is logical, as alongside the real-time customer data managed by CDPs, businesses have critical data stored in their data warehouses concerning subscriptions, products, and accounts.

A hybrid approach is beneficial, combining real-time data needs of business teams with the batch processing capabilities needed by technical teams. For instance, at Segment, we have focused on a hybrid CDP solution that supports both real-time and batch data requirements.

From the start, Segment’s integration capabilities with data warehouses offer scalability and flexibility for data teams, while providing marketers with a user-friendly interface for real-time data access. This enables the creation of precisely targeted audiences and their activation across numerous integrations.

Conclusion

For successful data activation across an organization, it’s crucial to meet the needs of all stakeholders involved in the data hand-off. Data teams need a robust data warehouse, and marketing teams need an intuitive set of data activation tools. Failing in either aspect can disrupt the process and lead to dissatisfaction.

By adopting a CDP that complements your data warehouse, you enable your data team to provide valuable insights for marketers, helping ensure that customers find exactly what they need from your business. This foundational strength, coupled with the ability to expand as necessary, is key to this integrated approach.