How To Administer A Customer Data Platform - CDP

 How To Administer A Customer Data Platform - CDP

I managed two instances of Tealium AudinceStream - Test and Production or Lower and Prod. as it’s in the IT world.

Tealium AudienceStream is not the only SaaS platform that does not have an intelligent sandbox that would read and create a production read copy for deployment - one of the ways is by identifying and copying all the assets created for a new campaign, use case, release, etc.

Therefore, we at Bed Bath and Beyond agreed that the Tealium AudienceStream Customer Data Platform (CDP) will serve best for Personalization initiatives. That is after Bed Bath and Beyond’s Marketing Technology VP - Siddhart Swaroop and the CTO along with CMO had agreed to buy a Customer Data Platform - CDP technology from a vendor vs building a CDP internally. And that’s how along with the budget comes the two most important roles in Marketing Technology - Architect and Administrator. 

I have discussed more about the CDP vendor evaluation and CDP Administrator’s Role and Responsibilities @CDP Vendor Evaluation and @CDP Administrator’s Role and Responsibilities posts. 

Going back to How to Administer A Customer Data Platform - CDP: Even though I have created a playlist of training videos on @How to Administer A Customer Data Platform - CDP

In this article, I will provide a summary and will also be a synopsis for @How to Administer A Customer Data Platform - CDP on my Youtube channel @Martech Boy

Basically, the focus has to be on two things: Ensuring Test is a mirror image of Production and create processes that will differentiate user access and development activities for users between test and production.

Ensuring Test is a mirror image of Production: Ideally, test environments mimic the production environment because once the development is complete, the use case or program needs to be tested in real-life situations or scenarios - as the customer would engage in the product or service. Normally, there is a “QA” environment between Test and Production, where the UC or program/campaigns are tested. But, I personally don’t think it is required. 

Typically, developers have full access to test environments, allowing developers to create, edit, write, read and send features. However, in production only read access is provided to developers and the UC or program is recreated or “pushed to prod,” by the Administrator as they say in IT world and then several UAT is performed by the Product Marketing teams.

Therefore, as an Administration, it is important to ensure there is a governance model in place and process to develop use cases or programs in Test Environment and a process to move those use cases to production once tested and QA’ed. It is also important to have a process for rolling back a use case in the event of issues in production with minimum impact.