How to Approach Your CDP Implementation

While customer data platforms (CDPs) promise the ability to transform customer experience, many implementations fall short of expectations. For the last seven years, Brandon Moore, Associate Director at Infoverity, a Treasure Data partner and a leading systems integrator and global professional services firm, has helped clients through their CDP and customer data management journeys. Brandon has a clear understanding of the key factors that drive successful CDP implementations—and the pitfalls that can derail them before they even begin.

Moore recently shared critical missteps to avoid in a CDP implementation and provided actionable strategies to ensure your CDP becomes a cornerstone of your data-driven CX strategy. Now, we’re sharing them here with you.

If you’re unhappy with your CDP implementation, take advantage of the CDP Trade-Up program, now including the Migration Agent for a 4-week, AI-powered migration. 

Identifying stakeholder groups

In the rush to get started with a CDP program, Moore said that many organizations fail to identify and align stakeholder groups. Generally speaking, there are three key stakeholder groups to identify, each with its own objectives:

1. The core team – This team is responsible for implementing the CDP, typically with a focus on solution launch, and value provided through new features and capabilities.
2. Project stakeholders – Extended business teams that view the CDP as an enabler for meeting key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives and key results (OKRs), and business goals.
3. Executive sponsors – This group has a broader, longer-term view of how the CDP will help facilitate a more comprehensive business initiative (e.g., a digital transformation program, data intelligence program, or a move toward becoming a more data-driven organization). 

Moore recommends focusing all stakeholder groups on the point of maximum CDP value. Depending on the complexity of your company and the use cases, this could be between 6–18 months post launch. Building a roadmap ahead of time ensures clarity on what you plan to achieve, and when you expect to measure results. Moore recommends starting small, with a handful of use cases that have agreed upon value and socializing the roadmap across extended teams.

Defining appropriate CDP goals

Many organizations fail to establish appropriate CDP goals. Well-defined goals typically fall into one or more of three broad categories:

1. Increasing revenue: Focus on driving measurable growth through goals such as higher purchase frequency, increased repeat purchases, greater average order value, improved customer retention, and faster conversion rates.
2. Decreasing costs: Cost efficiencies by leveraging automation to reduce manual efforts, optimizing advertising and marketing spend for better ROI, and freeing up resources for higher value tasks.
3. Reducing risk: Minimize the likelihood of errors stemming from poor data quality and suboptimal processes. Strengthening adherence to data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, while also meeting industry-specific compliance standards. 

Moore said business leaders should also recognize that CDPs are enterprise initiatives, and strategic enablers for you to build the business of the future. Along with identifying common use cases, take time to think about how to use the insights from your data in the CDP to identify future opportunities, such as market expansion opportunities.

After setting appropriate goals, Moore suggested two specific next steps. First, mapping of CDP goals back to measurable KPIs, as it is important to take snapshots of baseline measurements to properly understand the impact of the CDP solution over time. Second, leverage analyst insights (McKinsey, Gartner, Forrester, etc.), the 10-Ks of publicly traded competitors, and your own professional network to compare goals you have set against industry benchmarks. It’s important to not aim too high or too low, as these are the benchmarks against which CDP success should be measured.

Get your data and tech foundation right

One of the primary drivers for investing in a CDP is the ability to deliver personalized experiences. However, organizations must understand that data is the foundation of successful personalization. Achieving meaningful outcomes depends on the availability of high-quality, contextually relevant information.

Organizations should develop a first- and zero-party data strategy to collect meaningful information that powers personalization. Be intentional about what data you collect, when you collect it, and always maintain transparency with customers about how their information is used. The ultimate goal is to build trust—so only gather the data necessary to deliver the experiences you aim to provide.

It is also important to understand your organization’s data landscape before committing to supporting a specific use case. Moore recommends analyzing and profiling data early in the process to assess availability, record volumes, and overall data quality. This will allow for more informed use case prioritization based on available data. Certain use cases—such as machine learning or predictive analytics—often require deep, well-structured datasets. Additionally, recognizing when third-party data sources may be needed to fill gaps is key to ensuring success. Moore also talked about a lack of focus during data onboarding. He said that you do not want to make your CDP a solution in search of a problem. Instead, your CDP data should be tied back to one or more of the following:

• Is it useful for segmentation?
• Is it useful for activation?
• Is it useful for identity resolution and creating a single view of the customer?
• Could the data be a valuable input variable for any predictive analytics and machine learning models?

Map the CDP into your enterprise architecture

You probably already have an idea of where the CDP will sit in your enterprise architecture. It sits in the center, with source systems on one side and activation systems on the other. It’s a basic model most organizations consider. 

However, too often, there isn’t enough due diligence on how a CDP will impact enterprise architecture. What happens if you have a master data management system (MDM) or an enterprise data warehouse (EDW)? What if you already have a data science team doing predictive modeling? Or if an existing system provides functionality that your CDP offers?

It’s critical to spend time upfront mapping out cross-system interactions and understanding the CDP features and functionality your people will use to perform their jobs.

Moore also advises partnering with key stakeholders across your IT organization, including enterprise architects, legal, data governance, networking, information security, and your CDP provider and systems integration (SI) partner, to understand where the CDP will sit in your enterprise landscape and the integration strategy for engaging with inbound and outbound systems. Do this before you get too deep into your implementation.

Drive change and adoption across the organization

Implementing change is different for every organization, but effective change management is critical to succeeding in your CDP program. Moore offers a few suggestions to get you on the right path.

First, identify one or more CDP champions who understand the value of the solution. The CDP champion(s) should socialize and act as a liaison across different groups to ensure alignment, gather ongoing feedback, and intake new use cases and requests.

Second, implement stakeholder and end-user training early and upfront. Awareness is crucial, as is skill development and knowledge transfer. By bringing your groups along for the entire implementation process, you will help them become more comfortable with the CDP and understand how it will change the way they work.

Finally, there is often a lack of big-picture planning related to operational change management and solution adoption. To help, Moore recommends focusing on four basic organizational change management (OCM) principles to drive successful CDP adoption:

1. Form a collaborative, cross-functional team to create shared value and understanding of ownership across teams.
2. Invest in training and support, and capture feedback throughout the entire lifecycle of the CDP.
3. Prioritize stakeholder engagement. CDPs are living, breathing solutions, and your business partners’ needs will change over time. It is vital to build advocacy, gather feedback, and address concerns.
4. Implement a communication plan that regularly shares the value of the CDP, along with the KPIs and OKRs it is helping to unlock.

Final thoughts and next steps

Implementing a customer data platform (CDP) is never just about the technology; it’s also about strategy, process, and people. Align your teams, build trust in your data, and set clear, measurable goals that drive value over time. As Moore shared, the most successful CDP implementations don’t chase shiny use cases; they start with a solid foundation and a roadmap that everyone can rally behind.

If you’re planning a CDP rollout or reevaluating an existing implementation, now’s the time to pause, reflect, and refocus. Ask yourself: Are we clear on what success looks like? Do we trust the data we’re feeding into the system? Is the organization ready for change?

 Want to go deeper? 

• Watch Moore’s full talk at CDP World for real-world advice from seven years of implementation experience, and learn more about Treasure Data and Infoverity’s partnership.
• If you’re unhappy with your CDP implementation, take advantage of Treasure Data’s CDP Trade-Up program, now including the Migration Agent for a 4-week, AI-powered migration.
• Infoverity offers CDP solution audit services or complimentary discovery sessions to ensure your platform is optimized for maximum impact and can also work with Treasure Data to support your migration strategy.
• Join us at CDP World 2025 to hear from more experts and peers.