New Customer Data Platform Options Emerge During Pandemic Slowdown: CDP Institute Report

The Customer Data Platform industry continued to grow in the first half of 2020, but at a slower pace as cautious buyers absorbed pandemic-related budget cuts and assessed new entries from enterprise software vendors. The CDP Institute’s semi-annual Industry Update found a record number of new vendors entered the industry but that growth in employment and funding was the lowest in two years.

The CDP Institute estimates industry revenue for the 2020 at $1.3 billion, a respectable 30% increase of $1 billion in 2020. Enterprise software vendors listed for the first time include Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAS. These firms were added because they now offer products that meet the CDP Institute’s RealCDPTM standard. Estimated 2020 sales for these vendors are modest but are expected to grow rapidly in future years.

In all, a record twenty-two vendors were added to the report. More than half were U.S.-based and the majority offered campaign management and message delivery in addition to the core CDP function of building and sharing unified customer profiles. Most of these were large, established companies that were adding CDP to existing products. A minority were small, new companies that with products designed as CDPs from the start. These were more likely to be based outside the U.S., with particular growth in Europe.

The period also saw a sharp slowdown in investment activity, with only one major acquisition (Evergage purchased by Salesforce) and one large funding round ($45 million for mParticle).  There were no significant acquisitions made by CDP vendors and no CDP vendors left the industry. The preceding six month period saw six major funding events, three acquisitions of CDP vendors, four acquisitions by CDP vendors, and four CDP vendors ceasing to exist.

“The CDP industry was entering a transitional phase even before the pandemic, with increased competition from CDP capabilities embedded in larger systems,” said CDP Institute CEO David Raab. “The pandemic has accelerated this development and put increasing pressure on small CDP developers. But the need for CDP capabilities remains strong and many firms are prioritizing CDP investments as they prepare for the post-pandemic world. We expect that industry growth will accelerate as economic activity picks up and buyers have a chance to assess the new options that are now becoming available.”

A free copy of the complete report is available here.

About the Customer Data Platform Institute

The Customer Data Platform Institute educates marketers and technologists about customer data management. The Institute publishes industry news and educational materials, provides vendor comparison reports, builds directories of industry vendors and service firms, and offers Webinars, workshops, and consulting on related issues.

Customer Data Platforms are defined as “packaged software that maintains a unified, persistent customer database which is accessible to external systems.” They are the only types of packaged software specifically designed to create and share a complete view of each customer. Institute Founder and CEO David Raab named the Customer Data Platform category in 2013.