A few days ago, I shared a blog post on the top 10 reasons companies choose composable CDPs, and I heard from many people with important questions and feedback. Several people I spoke with were intrigued by Composable CDPs but have already heavily invested in a packaged CDP. While many are frustrated that their packaged CDP isn’t living up to the vision they were sold initially, their organization has no appetite to spend more money or time on a new CDP.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks and wanted to share my thoughts on why CDPs often fall short and what you can do about it.
Signs your CDP is falling short
A CDP’s main job is to unify customer data across sources and make it actionable. However, for many organizations, the reality looks quite different. Here are some common struggles I’ve seen:
- Never-ending implementation: Many CDPs force you to overhaul your data collection and reconfigure everything inside their system. Implementations can drag on for months or even years.
- Lack of scalability: Your business evolves, but your CDP is too rigid to grow with you. If it can’t keep up with all the new data generated by new product launches, changing priorities, or an expanding tech stack, it can hold you back.
- Limited flexibility: If your CDP forces you into a one-size-fits-all mold and doesn’t adapt to your unique data structure, it’s more of a bottleneck than a solution.
- Low adoption: The best CDPs empower both data and marketing teams. But if marketers don’t trust the data or find the platform unintuitive, they’ll avoid using it, which causes frustration and inefficiency.
If you want to learn more about these challenges, check out this blog post by two of my colleagues: signs your CDP is holding you back.
The hidden cost of a faulty CDP
When a CDP doesn’t live up to expectations, the impact goes beyond technical headaches and has significant consequences for business outcomes:
- Wasted marketing spend: Incomplete or inaccurate customer data leads to inefficient campaigns and lower ROI.
- Lost revenue opportunities: Without a complete customer picture, businesses miss out on upsell, cross-sell, and retention opportunities.
- Employee frustration: Morale takes a hit when teams spend more time troubleshooting than strategizing.
- Technical debt: Building workarounds for a broken system only adds complexity and future costs.
Making a change (without the headache)
If your current CDP isn’t delivering value, change is necessary, but let’s be honest: after investing so much time and effort into a tool, starting over can be a non-starter. The good news? You don’t need to rip and replace everything at once. A more thoughtful approach is to start small and build from there.
“At Massive Rocket, Global Braze and Snowflake Agency, we've delivered over 200 customer engagement projects over the last 7 years—most of these being CDP implementations. We've seen first-hand how easy it is for customers to integrate Composable CDPs into their tech stack. Our clients see ROI and impact immediately.”
Thierry Sequeira
CEO at Massive Rocket
Step 1: Re-evaluate your use cases
When you first bought your CDP, you had specific use cases in mind. Have you been able to achieve those use cases? Are those use cases still relevant, or has your business evolved since you started the CDP implementation? From what I have learned, many companies realize their original vendor selection no longer aligns with their current strategy.
Take FabFitFun, for example. They wanted to optimize ad spend by suppressing customers who were already engaged, but their CDP couldn’t handle the complex data models required. When they switched to Hightouch, they unlocked new capabilities instantly and saw decreased reactivation costs as well as a 2x increase in e-commerce purchases from new members.
Step 2: Assess your architecture
For most enterprises, the data warehouse has become the single source of truth. Yet, many CDPs fail because they try to create a separate customer data hub that never fully integrates with existing tech stacks.
Notably, content platform Minno wanted to build audiences using custom data in Snowflake that didn’t directly map to their CDP’s data structure. Building these audiences proved to be impossible. With Hightouch’s warehouse-first technology, they gained access to the necessary data and were up and running in one day (because connecting to the data warehouse is relatively easy!).
Step 3: Optimize your workflow
Many CDPs claim to offer “self-service” tools, but their interfaces are clunky, and their data requirements are rigid. If your marketers dread using your CDP or avoid it altogether, that’s a big red flag.
At Calendly, their former CDP didn’t offer the right self-serve tools. Marketers relied on data teams to pull manual customer lists whenever they needed a specific audience. With Hightouch, marketers could fully own their audience segmentation, streamlining work for both teams.
Step 4: Start small with a low-lift test
Switching CDPs doesn’t have to mean a massive, painful overhaul. A better strategy is to test one high-impact use case with a new tool and build from there.
For instance, Docusign ran a Hightouch proof-of-concept in under three months and ultimately reduced data activation time by 66%. Instead of waiting years to see results, they saw immediate improvements, which paved the way for broader adoption.
Final thoughts
A CDP should empower your business, not hold it back. If your current CDP isn’t delivering results, it’s time to change. The goal isn’t just to collect data, it’s to turn that data into meaningful action.
If you’re facing CDP challenges, please book a meeting with me. I’d love to hear about your experience.
