The hidden reasons your CDP project is failing

It’s common for companies to invest in a new technology and then, a year later, wonder why they’re not getting anything out of it. Sometimes it’s the Jane Fonda effect: “I’ll get in shape if I buy the workout video.” Unfortunately, technology, like workout videos, doesn’t work that way. 

In this article I’ll outline some of the key ways CDP projects fail, but I’m going to start with a generic overview of why any sort of big project or investment might fail. 

Why your big project isn’t working

There are a number of possible reasons the big project isn’t working.

You didn’t establish clear goals

If you aim at nothing, you hit it every time. It’s important to have clear goals for any new venture, but that’s not enough. You also need a commitment not to stray from those goals without a very serious reason. 

Your goals don’t align with your overall strategy 

That’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes a new technology is part of a skunk works project that doesn’t have to fit in precisely with your overall strategy.

Watch out for this: A new technology can be used as a way to sneak in revolutionary change. A technology dreamer on the staff might think the company is horribly old-fashioned, and if they just bought into the new thing, it would shake up the old guard and usher in the Age of Aquarius. That is, of course, a recipe for disaster, but a recipe too many executives pursue. 

Key stakeholders didn’t really buy in 

Whoever is affected by the new initiative has to believe in the goals and methods, and not grudgingly or just by paying lip service. “He who’s convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” If you don’t get genuine buy-in, you’ll have resistance later. 

Departments are not aligned 

Even if everyone agrees you need the new whatsit, they might have different ideas about its purpose or use. Buy-in means being aligned on the strategy and the tactics. 

Nobody is in charge 

Most big initiatives affect several parts of a company, which is why you need key stakeholders and departments to align. That doesn’t mean you need “rule by committee.” Someone has to be in charge, and everyone has to agree that person is in charge and respect their leadership.  

You didn’t budget for the staff / resources 

The new technology has a price tag, but there are other things that go into total cost of ownership, like the personnel to manage it, the cost of overruns, increased storage or bandwidth costs, and the inevitable mission creep. You want to avoid mission creep, but it’s prudent to budget for some since it’s unlikely you thought of everything when you came up with your initial requirements and goals. 

You picked the wrong technology 

Saving money on your RFP process can cost you later. Buying the wrong technology will hamper your efforts, at best, or cause you to go through the whole process again. 

You underestimated integration challenges 

Every salesman will tell you, “sure, we can do that.” You need to ask probing questions to make sure their idea of “doing that” is the same as yours. Also, when vendor A says they integrate with vendor B, ask vendor B about it, and ask some of vendor B’s customers too. 

You’re trying to do too many things at once 

If your company has a habit of chasing one thing in January and another in March, big projects are going to be a challenge. The person you put in charge will need resources — which you budgeted for, but are now being redirected to the latest shiny object. 

Dig deeper: The customer data platform market

Why your CDP project isn’t succeeding 

Here are some challenges more specific to CDP deployment.

Misunderstanding what a CDP does

One of the most common misunderstandings I see is also one of the most basic: a failure to understand the distinction between online and offline profiles (a.k.a., “known” and “unknown”). Just because you’ve imported your customer data into your CDP does not mean you can target those people online. You have to connect the web record with the back-end data — often by collecting an email address. 

CDPs don’t automatically solve problems. They’re just tools, and you need to know how to use them. It’s hard to understand how everything works in the world of marketing technology, but before implementing a CDP it’s wise to have a pretty good idea how they work. For an easy, short introduction, read my new book, “What is a Customer Data Platform? And why should I care?” 

Picking the wrong CDP 

You need a CDP that has experience in your industry and with companies with a similar business model. Each industry has peculiar expectations and requirements, and you don’t want to have to explain them, or constantly fight against a different set of assumptions. A CDP that has all B2B clients won’t understand B2C needs. You also want to align on company size. If you’re a small company, you don’t want a CDP that focuses on large companies. And vice versa. 

Messy data

To get close to the “single customer record” of idealistic CDP lore, you have to be able to consolidate customer information. If your data is fragmented, inconsistent, poorly maintained or infrequently updated, that’s going to be difficult. Some CDPs include tools to help with this process, while others expect you to clean things up using other services. In either event, messy data is going to mean a lot more trouble and expense, both for implementation and for ongoing updates. 

Lack of clear use cases  

Above I spoke about the generic need for clear goals when implementing a new technology. Once you have clear goals, you need specific use cases — that is, a specific scenario or example of how your CDP can be deployed to achieve a goal. These should be developed before the RFP process so vendors can explain exactly how their technology can achieve your objectives. 

Clear use cases are necessary to show value, which should be part of your use case definition — that is, how do these use cases lead to increased revenue or decreased cost? The collective gain from your use cases has to be enough to pay for the cost of the CDP. 

Overestimating out-of-the-box capabilities  

Have you ever been to a resort that advertises an ice-skating rink, and when you got there with your skates the rink was about the size of your kitchen? Technology companies can do the same thing. They develop a “minimal viable product” version of a feature or function so they can include it on their website. 

If a function is crucial to your use cases, make sure you investigate it carefully to ensure it can do everything you need. 

Integration complexity

“We have an integration with them” does not mean “we have a working, current, easy-to-use, well-supported integration with them.” Sometimes an integration was developed three years ago for one client and hasn’t been updated since. In the meanwhile, technologies changed and the integration doesn’t work any more – but it’s still on the list of integrations. 

Some integrations work like magic and take a few minutes to set up. Some are ongoing headaches that require complicated workarounds and constant supervision. Be sure you know what you’re getting into. 

Underestimating the need for expertise  

CDPs are built for marketers, so it’s easy to assume a reasonably tech savvy marketer should have no trouble building out all your use cases and managing the CDP. 

It doesn’t work that way. You’ll still need expertise in specific areas (JavaScript, SQL queries, JSON, XML, APIs, tag management, etc.). If you don’t have internal expertise in these areas, you’ll need to pay for support services from the CDP or from some other partner. 

Privacy and compliance challenges 

A CDP must comply with data privacy laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA). Some CDPs have built-in consent management tools that can help with this, or they can integrate with third-party tools. 

Neglecting long-term maintenance and growth

CDPs require ongoing management. If the CDP is the central hub for all your customer data, all those connections are going to change as technology evolves on each side. Your business will change over time, and your CDP implementation will have to change with it. It’s not a “set-it-and-forget-it” tool. 

You’ll also have to pay attention to your CDPs cost structure and how that’s likely to change over time. If you’re charged based on “profiles under management,” that’s going to increase every year, as will the size of your database, the number of events tracked, or however your CDP chooses to bill. 

CDP can be a great asset to your organization, but it’s not magic, it’s not cheap, and it doesn’t run itself. Get on the right path from the start by considering the potential pitfalls above and planning carefully to avoid them.