---
type: "Glossary Term"
title: "What is a CDP (Customer Data Platform)? | Roicool"
description: "What is a CDP? A platform that unifies customer data from your sources per person: how it differs from a CRM and a data warehouse, and the composable option."
url: "https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/cdp"
lang: "en"
dateModified: "2026-10-20"
resource: "https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/cdp"
alternates:
  tr: "https://www.roicool.com/sozluk/cdp.md"
generated: { by: "process:roicool-cms", at: "2026-10-20T15:58:41.981Z" }
related:
  - { title: "Data warehouse", resource: "https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/data-warehouse.md" }
  - { title: "Reverse ETL", resource: "https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/reverse-etl.md" }
  - { title: "Marketing data warehouse", resource: "https://www.roicool.com/en/services/marketing-data-warehouse.md" }
  - { title: "Glossary", resource: "https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary.md" }
---

# What is CDP?

A CDP (Customer Data Platform) is software that collects customer data from a company's different sources (website, app, CRM, ecommerce, support), unifies it at the person level and sends those unified profiles to marketing and advertising tools as segments. It is designed to be used directly by marketing teams.

## In short

In practice, a CDP ties website behaviour, app usage, purchases and support history to the same person, so marketing works from one profile instead of scattered records. A CRM manages the sales relationship and a data warehouse serves analysis; the CDP turns unified profiles into audiences that tools can act on. Some companies skip a packaged CDP and unify profiles in their warehouse, then push them out with reverse ETL. A cart abandoner, for example, can join an email flow and an ad audience on the same day.

## Key points

- A CDP unifies customer data from many sources into one profile per person.
- A CRM manages sales relationships and a data warehouse serves analysis; a CDP builds marketing segments.
- Unified profiles are sent to email, advertising and personalization tools as audiences.
- A composable setup uses the data warehouse and reverse ETL instead of a packaged CDP.
- Unified data makes personalization, segmentation and ad audiences more accurate.

## CDP, CRM and data warehouse

|  | CDP | CRM | Data warehouse |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Purpose | Unified customer profile and segments | Sales and relationship management | Analysis of all data |
| User | Marketing | Sales, service | Analysts, data team |
| Data | Behavioral and identity data | Contacts, companies, deals | All kinds of data |

Instead of buying a CDP, some companies use a "composable" setup built on a data warehouse: profiles unified in the warehouse are sent to tools with reverse ETL.

## Why it matters

Unified customer data improves the accuracy of personalization, segmentation and ad audiences. Which setup fits depends on data volume and the team: [marketing data warehouse](https://www.roicool.com/en/services/marketing-data-warehouse).

## Related terms

- [Data warehouse](https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/data-warehouse)
- [Reverse ETL](https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/reverse-etl)

## Related service

- [Marketing data warehouse](https://www.roicool.com/en/services/marketing-data-warehouse)

Breadcrumb: [Home](https://www.roicool.com/en) › [Glossary](https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary) › CDP (Customer Data Platform)

Related pages:

- [Glossary](https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary)

Source: https://www.roicool.com/en/glossary/cdp · Last updated: 2026-10-20