CDP Comparison & Selection Strategy

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

1. What's your primary goal?

   • A) Choosing between CDPs (evaluation/comparison)
   • B) Deciding if I even need a CDP
   • C) Planning a CDP implementation
   • D) Unifying customer data across channels
   • E) Activating audiences to ad platforms, email, CRM
   • F) Setting up real-time personalization
   • G) Warehouse-first / composable CDP approach
   • H) Other — describe it

2. What's your technical maturity?

   • A) No data infrastructure — starting from scratch
   • B) Basic analytics (GA, Mixpanel) but no unified profiles
   • C) Data warehouse exists (Snowflake, BigQuery) but not activated
   • D) Current CDP that we want to replace
   • E) Homegrown system we've outgrown

3. Who will own the CDP?

   • A) Marketing team (need no-code/low-code)
   • B) Engineering team (API-first, developer tools)
   • C) Data team (SQL, warehouse, dbt)
   • D) Cross-functional (marketing + engineering + data)

4. What's your scale?

   • A) Under 100K monthly active users
   • B) 100K-1M MAU
   • C) 1M-10M MAU
   • D) 10M+ MAU

Skip-ahead rule: if the user's prompt already contains enough context, skip to Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

Problem domain	Route to
Tealium-specific setup or config	/sales-tealium {user's question}
BlueConic-specific setup or config	/sales-blueconic {user's question}
Treasure Data-specific setup or config	/sales-treasuredata {user's question}
RudderStack-specific setup or config	/sales-rudderstack {user's question}
mParticle-specific setup or config	/sales-mparticle {user's question}
CRM data dedup without a CDP	/sales-data-hygiene {user's question}
Email marketing strategy	/sales-email-marketing {user's question}
Retargeting ad strategy	/sales-retargeting {user's question}
Contact enrichment	/sales-enrich {user's question}

When routing, provide the exact command.

Step 3 — CDP comparison reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full CDP comparison — positioning, feature matrices, pricing guidance, decision frameworks, implementation timelines.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

You no longer need the comparison reference — focus on the user's specific situation.

Decision framework (quick version):

• Marketer-first, no-code segmentation, mid-market: BlueConic
• Enterprise, 1000+ integrations, tag management heritage: Tealium
• Enterprise, AI/ML-native, 400+ connectors, heavy SQL: Treasure Data
• Developer-first, quick implementation, warehouse-centric: Segment
• Mobile-first, SDK-focused, gaming/media apps: mParticle
• Open-source, self-hosted, full control: RudderStack
• Warehouse-native activation (reverse ETL): Hightouch
• Identity-focused, retail/hospitality: Amperity

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and pricing that may be outdated.

1. CDPs don't fix bad data — if your source systems have duplicates, missing fields, or inconsistent formats, the CDP will unify garbage. Clean data at the source first (use /sales-data-hygiene).

2. Identity resolution quality varies wildly — duplication rates of 10-30% are common across CDPs. Test identity resolution with your actual data in a POC, not just vendor demos.

3. "Real-time" means different things — event ingestion may be fast but profile updates or downstream activation may lag by minutes or hours. Test end-to-end latency, not just ingestion speed.

4. Implementation takes 2-6 months for enterprise CDPs — Tealium and Treasure Data require careful planning and often professional services. Segment and RudderStack can POC in days.

5. Event-based pricing catches enterprises off guard — high-volume sites can see costs spike unpredictably. Negotiate volume commitments and overage caps upfront.

Before recommending a specific platform skill

This skill covers a strategy domain across many platforms. Before pointing the user to any specific platform skill (any /sales-{platform} listed in ## Related skills, e.g., /sales-mailshake, /sales-klaviyo, /sales-apollo), read that platform skill's actual SKILL.md first. The 1-line description in ## Related skills is enough to identify a candidate — it's not enough to commit to it or to write a prompt that invokes it well.

How to read it:

• If ~/.claude/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md exists locally, Read it.
• For sales-* skills, WebFetch directly from this repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md — e.g., for sales-mailshake: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sales-skills/sales/main/skills/sales-mailshake/SKILL.md.
• For non-sales-* skills (third-party), look up {org}/{repo} in ~/.claude/skills/sales-do/references/skill-sources.md if installed and fetch the same skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md path under that repo.

After reading, ground your recommendation in something concrete from the SKILL.md (its scope, a sub-flow, its argument-hint shape, or a "Do NOT use for..." negative trigger). Align any generated invocation with the platform skill's argument-hint. If the platform skill turns out not to fit the user's situation, swap to another or handle the question here directly rather than recommending a poor fit.

Related skills

• /sales-tealium — Tealium platform help — Real-Time CDP, iQ Tag Management, EventStream, 1300+ connectors
• /sales-blueconic — BlueConic CDP — profile unification, segmentation, audience activation, Jebbit Experiences
• /sales-treasuredata — Treasure Data enterprise CDP — AI Marketing Cloud, 400+ connectors, SQL-based
• /sales-rudderstack — RudderStack platform help — warehouse-native CDP, Event Streams, Reverse ETL, open-source
• /sales-mparticle — mParticle platform help — hybrid CDP, real-time event streaming, identity resolution, 300+ integrations
• /sales-data-hygiene — CRM data quality — clean your data before feeding it to a CDP
• /sales-retargeting — Retargeting strategy — activate CDP audiences to ad platforms
• /sales-integration — Tool integration — connecting CDP to CRM, email, ad platforms
• /sales-enrich — Contact enrichment — augment CDP profiles with third-party data
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: CDP selection

User says: "We have 500K monthly users across web and mobile. Our marketing team needs to build audiences without engineering help. Budget is $50K-$100K/year." Skill does: Compares BlueConic (marketer-first, mid-market pricing) vs Tealium (enterprise, more integrations but steeper learning curve) vs Segment (developer-first, may not suit a non-technical marketing team). Recommends BlueConic for the marketer-first UI, or Tealium if the 1,300+ integration catalog is critical. Result: User has a shortlist of 2 CDPs to evaluate with clear pros/cons for their situation.

Example 2: Do I need a CDP?

User says: "We use HubSpot for CRM, Mailchimp for email, and Google Ads. Our data feels messy. Do we need a CDP?" Skill does: Asks about pain points — are profiles fragmented? Do you need real-time activation? How many data sources? For a 3-tool stack, suggests starting with native integrations and /sales-data-hygiene before investing in a CDP. A CDP makes sense when you have 10+ data sources or need real-time audience activation across channels. Result: User understands the CDP readiness threshold and knows what to try first.

Example 3: Composable vs bundled CDP

User says: "We already have all our data in Snowflake. Should we get a traditional CDP or use a composable approach?" Skill does: Explains the composable CDP approach (Hightouch, Census) vs warehouse-native features from traditional CDPs (Tealium Composable CDP, Segment Linked Audiences). Compares cost, implementation time, and activation capabilities. Result: User understands the trade-offs and can choose the right architecture for their warehouse-centric stack.

Troubleshooting

Profiles not unifying across channels

Symptom: Same customer has multiple profiles — one from web, one from email, one from mobile Cause: No shared identifier connecting profiles across channels. CDPs merge on matched identifiers (email, customer ID, phone). Solution: Implement progressive identification — capture email/login on every channel. Use identity resolution rules that prioritize deterministic matches (email) over probabilistic (device fingerprinting). Test merge rules in a sandbox.

CDP implementation taking too long

Symptom: 6+ months in, still haven't activated first audience Cause: Trying to boil the ocean — connecting all data sources, building all segments, and activating all channels at once Solution: Start with one use case (e.g., abandoned cart audience → Facebook retargeting). Get that working end-to-end in 4-6 weeks. Then expand iteratively. The biggest CDP implementation risk is scope creep, not technical complexity.

Data quality issues after CDP deployment

Symptom: CDP profiles have incorrect data, duplicate merges, or stale attributes Cause: Source data quality issues — the CDP unified garbage from garbage sources Solution: Run /sales-data-hygiene on source systems first. Audit identity resolution rules for false merges. Set up data quality monitoring in the CDP dashboard.