CDP

A customer data platform (CDP) is software that pulls customer data from a company's own systems, links it to the right person, keeps one lasting profile per customer and shares those profiles with other tools.

The CDP Institute, the industry body that named the category, updated its definition in 2026. In its words, a CDP builds and keeps a persistent, unified customer record that other systems can use, and takes the main responsibility for customer identity and record structure (CDP Institute, accessed 9 November 2026). David Raab named the category in 2013.

A CDP differs from a DMP in three ways. It works mainly on known, first-party data, such as CRM records, loyalty IDs, orders and email activity, rather than anonymous cookies. It keeps data for the long term instead of for one campaign. And it serves email, service, analytics and personalisation as well as advertising.

The Institute describes three ways to deliver a CDP: own-store (packaged) products that keep their own copy of the data, warehouse-native (composable) tools that work on data already in the company's warehouse, and hybrids. For advertising, a CDP usually feeds hashed emails or IDs into a clean room or an identity framework rather than into bid requests directly.

Example: A grocer's CDP joins a loyalty card number, an online account and an email address into one profile of a household that buys baby products every week. The grocer sends the profile's hashed email into a clean room, where a nappy brand can measure campaign reach without ever receiving the record.

Related terms: DMP, clean room, hashed email, identity resolution, entity resolution.

Authoritative source: CDP Institute, "What is a CDP?" (definition updated 2026, accessed 9 November 2026).