CDP Series – Part 1: RFP Process and Selection Webinar Re-cap

This is part 1 of a 5-part webinar series on Customer Data Platforms (CDP). This series will cover all aspects of a successful CDP implementations from the RFP phase to the implementation and post implementation phase.

In part 1 of this webinar series, our VP of MarTech Strategies, Jerry Helou will walk you through the RFP process and selection. This webinar will help you define the right use cases, bridge the gap between technology, data, and people, as well as how to evaluate and select the right CDP vendor.

Key takeaways from each step in the RFP process are given below. You can also watch the full webinar to gain a better understanding of the RFP process.

RFP Process and Selection Key Takeaways

Step 1 – Use Cases:

The first step in the RFP process is to identify the use case you’re trying to solve for. The key here is to develop specific use cases for your business rather than being vague. A good approach when defining your use case is to generate a library of use cases based on priority (high/medium/low) and expand on the high priority use cases. Keep the number of use cases between 2-3. This will prove helpful when you request your CDP vendors for a demo.

Step 2 – Understanding Technology, Data, and People:

In an ideal world, you will want to feed your CRM, web, and mobile data into the CDP which is connected to your marketing automation tool, website (for personalization), and app. For the CDP to fit in perfectly in your MarTech stack, you will need to understand the technology (such as APIs and real-time pipelines) that will be needed to import data from these various data sources (CRM, mobile, and web) into the CDP while also ensuring that the ingested data is in the right format and granularity.

You also want the right people involved in the RFP process. Ideally, you will want an architect, business owner, a project manager, and someone from the procurement team who can ask all the right questions of the vendor during the RFP.

Step 3 – Inviting the right vendors:

You should know the type of CDP you want based on your use cases. There are thousands of CDPs that serve various use cases and evaluating each one on them is nearly impossible. Therefore, you need to select 3-5 vendors by evaluating their product against your business requirements.

A couple of things to keep in mind when selecting the right vendors:

• Look at your existing stack and shortlist vendors that will fit in well with your MarTech stack. For example, if your organization belongs to the Adobe stack, then you should consider Adobe as a potential vendor.
• Perform research on Gartner and Forrester. Although they will have different criteria for evaluation, they can serve as a good starting point when evaluating different vendors.
• Look at vendors that have experience within your vertical. For example, if you belong to the financial services industry, then it might be a good idea to consider a vendor who has clients within the same industry.

Step 4 – Scoring:

In order to evaluate the various CDP vendors, you will need a scoring system in place that will assess the various criteria and give weights to each criterion. Some important factors to consider when evaluating a CDP are data collection, segmentation, and activation.

Step 5 – Pricing:

When negotiating price with a vendor, you need to figure out how much data and profiles (known and unknown) will be fed into the CDP. You also need to consider year 1 data vs year n data when negotiating a multi-year deal. For example, in year 1, you may have 10,000 users visiting your site, but in year 5, you may have 50,000 users visiting your site. You need to take this into consideration and set the right expectations when negotiating a price with the vendor.

Step 6 – Selection:

Selection will depend on how well each vendor has scored in various criteria. You can also request a proof of concept although this should be used as a last resort. When doing a POC, remember to keep it as simple as possible and try to complete the POC within 30 days. Remember to include the right people (who will eventually be using the CDP) in the POC as well.

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