Data has played a key role in programmatic advertising and digital marketing ever since the Internet moved online back in the mid 1990s, helping advertisers and marketers show their messages to the right audience and learn more about their online behaviour.
But it wasn’t until the late 2000s when real-time bidding (RTB) emerged that the role of data took on a whole new look.
The introduction of RTB allowed advertisers to reach their audience on an individual basis across multiple publishers and apps. And the key ingredient that made this happen was data, specifically, third-party data.
DMPs were introduced as a way to collect this valuable data and allow advertisers to create audiences, which could then be used during RTB auctions.
Since then, the role of third-party data and DMPs has changed significantly due to the rapid privacy changes.
But the role data plays in programmatic advertising and digital marketing has not changed. In fact, it’s become even more crucial.
This has given way to a new breed of data platforms like customer data platforms (CDPs) and many others.
In this blog post, we list the top DMPs, CDPs, and other data platforms that are shaping the future of programmatic advertising and digital marketing.
What Is a Data Management Platform (DMP) and How Does It Work?
A data-management platform (DMP) is a piece of software that collects, stores, organizes, and reports on and exports data. It is mainly used by advertisers (brands and agencies) to improve the targeting of online media campaigns.
Publishers can also use DMPs to optimize the monetization of their inventory (ad space) and personalize their websites with product and content recommendations. Because these platforms collect huge amounts of data, they are useful for performing advanced analysis on user behavior and cross-device and cross-channel attribution.
DMPs are typically associated with third-party data, and for that reason, their popularity has been declining due to the ongoing privacy issues, such as the GDPR and privacy changes that Google and Apple have made to their browsers and mobile devices.
However, they are still a key part of programmatic advertising and many newer DMPs don’t rely on third-party data at all.
The Main Components of a Data Management Platform (DMP)
Below are the main components of a DMP.
What Is a Customer Management Platform (CDP) and How Does It Work?
A customer data platform (CDP) is a piece of marketing technology that collects and organizes data from a range of online and offline sources.
CDPs allow companies to gather and collect data from their properties (e.g. websites and mobile apps) and other data systems (e.g. CRMs, web analytics tools, and data warehouses), allowing them to create a single customer view (SCV) of their customers and visitors.
With a CDP, marketers can view detailed analytics reports, create user profiles,
audiences, segments, and single customer views, as well as improve advertising and marketing campaigns by exporting the data to other systems.
Because CDPs allow companies to gain deeper insights into their customers’ behavior, they can also benefit other departments within an organization, such as product and support, account management, and legal.
The Main Components of a Customer Management Platform (CDP)
Below are the main components of a CDP.
The Criteria
There are a lot of mixed opinions about what constitutes a DMP and CDP and how they differ from each other.
We’ve used the following criteria to construct this list.
Data Management Platform (DMP): We included companies that either operate as DMPs (e.g. collect and store third-party data, as well as other data) and/or market themselves as a DMP.
Customer Management Platform (CDP): We included companies that either operate as CDPs (e.g. collect and store different types of data from various sources and can create a single customer view) and/or market themselves as a CDP.
Data Platform: Any other type of data platform that doesn’t fit within the DMP or CDP criteria, but we can be used in the programmatic advertising and digital marketing industry. Examples include data marketplaces and data platforms for consumer privacy.
Although we’ve included a few identity resolution companies in this list, we haven’t included all of them. To see a list of the top identity resolution and ID graph companies, check out our blog post about identity solutions.
If you think we’ve missed a company from the list or need to update something, then please let us know.
The Top Customer Data Platform (CDP) Companies in 2023
Acquia
Acquia is the open source digital experience company that helps the world’s most ambitious brands with technology to embrace innovation and succeed using solutions for content, community and commerce.
Founded: 2007
Headquarters: Boston, MA
Private or public: Private
ActionIQ
ActionIQ as an Enterprise CDP, helps F500 companies connect their first-party customer data, orchestrate cross-channel campaigns, and measure incremental lift across all digital and offline channels.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
The ADEX
The ADEX is one of Europe’s leading DMPs and data marketplaces. The Adex DMP is a self-hosted data technology solution for managing, activating, analysing and collecting user data from various online and offline channels to achieve a more efficient way of digital marketing. The ADEX data marketplace allows companies to sell their to DSPs, SSPs, ad exchanges, ad servers and other DMPs.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
Private or public: Private
Adobe Real-time CDP
Adobe Real-Time CDP allows to integrate and activate known and unknown customer data into robust, real-time customer profiles that let marketers deliver personalized experiences across any channel at scale.
Founded: 1982
Headquarters: San Jose, CA
Private or public: Public
AgileOne
AgileOne designs and develops global workforce and procurement solutions for Fortune 1000 companies that focus on consultative approach providing solutions that streamline business processes and deliver efficiencies to human resources, procurement, and suppliers.
Founded: 1999
Headquarters: Torrance, CA
Private or public: Private
Aginity
Aginity empowers individuals, teams, and departments to realize the full potential of enterprise analytics with the only active analytic catalog solution for data analysts, data engineers, data scientists, and business users, enabling them to interact with their data and analytic code in a whole new way.
Founded: 2005
Headquarters: Los Gatos, CA
Private or public: Private
Amperity
Amperity is the leading Customer Data and Identity Platform that leverages machine learning and cloud-scale to help the world’s most loved brands take control of their customer data.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Private or public: Private
Appier
Appier is a technology partner helping effectively implement and leverage artificial intelligence to drive businesses growth and maximize data by uncovering hidden insights and personalizing customer outreach.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Taipei, Taiwan
Private or public: Private
Ascent360
Ascent360 partners with B2C marketers to simplify complex data in a customer data platform that creates a single source of siloed data sources.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Golden, CO
Private or public: Private
BlueConic
BlueConic is the world’s leading customer data platform that liberates marketers’ first-party data from all the disparate systems in which it exists, and makes it available wherever it is required for marketing.
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: Boston, MA
Private or public: Private
BlueShift
Blueshift helps brands deliver relevant, connected experiences across every customer interaction in its SmartHub CDP that uses patented AI technology to unify, inform, and activate the fullness of customer data across all channels and applications.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Private or public: Private
BlueVenn
BlueVenn is the first and only multi-channel marketing automation app with an integrated Customer Data Platform that enables our 400+ clients worldwide to unify and integrate every byte of customer information across their business into a Single Customer View (SCV).
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Bristo, UK
Private or public: Private
Cloud Manthan Software Solutions Pvt Ltd.
Cloud Manthan provides end to end services in building solutions from inception to go live on various cloud platforms.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra
Private or public: Private
CustomerLabs
With AI-powered next-generation technology, CustomerLabs is a real-time, no-code CDP that empowers small and medium businesses with the power of data. CustomerLabs helps eCommerce, SaaS, B2B, & all other digital marketers & businesses by collecting data in compliance with data privacy laws.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Delaware, USA
Private or public: Private
Exponea
Exponea is a Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) that ingests and analyzes all your customer data, stitches and enriches it with AI, and activates it to intelligently orchestrate personalized experiences across all touchpoints, in real-time, at scale.
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: London, UK
Private or public: Private
Klaviyo
Klaviyo™ is a unified customer platform that gives online brands direct ownership of their consumer data and interactions, empowering them to turn transactions with customers into long-term relationships—at scale.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Private or public: Public
Lattice Engines
Lattice’s advanced suite of AI-based marketing and sales solutions are built to drive 1-to-1 affairs across the entire buyer’s journey by personalizing experiences to increase the efficiency of their sales and marketing teams by prioritizing contacts for lead and account based programs (ABM).
Founded: 2006
Headquarters: San Mateo, CA
Private or public: Private
Lytics
Lytics is a customer data platform (CDP) built for marketing teams to improve business performance by connecting the right data to Lytics’ powerful AI engine in order to combine unique behavioral insights, machine learning, and real-time campaign orchestration.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Portland, OR
Private or public: Private
Mediarithmics
Mediarithmics is an end-to-end Data Marketing Platform that allows brands to easily launch personalized, cross-channel marketing campaigns in real time using programmatic technologies to protect, structure and leverage data to create new profitable business models.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Paris, France
Private or public: Private
mParticle
mParticle is the customer data platform for brands leading the CX revolution to unify data and simplify partner integrations with enterprise-class security and reliability by accelerating growth, retention, and monetization.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
NGDATA
NGDATA helps brands in data-driven industries, such as financial services, telecom, utilities and hospitality, to drive connected customer experiences in its AI-powered CDP and Digital Transformation Services.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
NP6
NP6 is the only French omnichannel marketing automation platform designed to increase customer engagement and loyalty that allows to centralize all data into a single intuitive interface to finely segment audiences and communicate with customers on favorite channels.
Founded: 1999
Headquarters: Bordeaux, France
Private or public: Private
Numberly (1000mercis Group)
Numberly is a marketing technologist with the mission to help advertisers build long-lasting relationships with their clients through a people-based approach that allows their clients to better understand their needs and interact with them more effectively.
Founded: 2000
Headquarters: Paris, France
Private or public: Public
Optimove
Optimove is the leading Relationship Marketing Hub, empowering CRM Marketers to create and manage large-scale, customer-led journeys in order to increase customer engagement and accurately measure the incremental impact of all marketing interactions.
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Piwik PRO
Piwik PRO is an analytics and customer data platform that allows for tracking web, app, product, and internet behavior of users in a secure and private manner by adhering to the strictest privacy regulations and retaining full data ownership.
Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Wrocław, Poland
Private or public: Public
QuickPivot
The QuickPivot platform combines big data analytics, discrete customer insights, intuitive visual segmentation, and simple customer journey mapping in one unified SaaS offering for smart and nimble marketers with big ideas.
Founded: 1997
Headquarters: Burlington, MA
Private or public: Private
RedPoint Global
Redpoint platform allows companies to transform their customer experiences across the enterprise and drive higher revenue by providing a remarkably unified, single point of control where all customer data is connected and every customer touchpoint intelligently orchestrated.
Founded: 2006
Headquarters: Wellesley, MA
Private or public: Private
Segment
Segment is a customer data platform (CDP) that helps companies harness first-party customer data by accessing reliable data for all teams and offering a complete toolkit to standardize data collection, unify user records, and route customer data into any system.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Private or public: Private
SessionM
SessionM is a customer engagement and loyalty platform empowering the world’s most innovative brands to forge stronger and more profitable customer relationships.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Boston, MA
Private or public: Private
Tealium
Tealium revolutionizes digital businesses that enable organizations to leverage real-time data to create richer, more personalized digital experiences across every team, technology, and customer touchpoint.
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: San Diego, CA
Private or public: Private
Treasure Data
Global leader in Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and enterprise data management. Providing the ability to aggregate and translate massive volumes of scattered and siloed data.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Mountain View, CA
Private or public: Private
Velocidi
Velocidi is an award-winning customer data platform (CDP) company specializing in fashion e-commerce that provides machine learning solutions to predict customer behavior, and seamlessly activate audience segments on advertising platforms.
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Yespo
Yespo is an omnichannel CDP. It collects and manages user data from online and offline channels and third-party data sources. The platform allows marketers to start various omnichannel marketing campaigns, creating flexible and scalable automated journeys. Yespo’s AI solutions help to deliver personalized messaging and boost customer experience.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Warsaw, Poland
Private or public: Private
Zylotech
Zylotech CDP platform connects information and insights of customer data to enable micro-segmentation, non-obvious pattern discovery, and recommendations to activate cross/upselling and retention marketing for marketers.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Cambridge, MA
Private or public: Private
The Top Data Management Platform (DMP) Companies in 2023
1plusX
1PlusX is an Al-powered Advanced Data Management Platform that enables leading media companies to unlock the full potential of their data through Al algorithms that recognize patterns in user behavior across clients and transform them into predictions and meaningful customer insights.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Zürich, Switzerland
Private or public: Private
Acxiom
Acxiom is a technology and services company that enables people-based marketing everywhere through a simple, open approach to connecting systems and data that drives seamless customer experiences and higher ROI.
Founded: 1969
Headquarters: Conway, AR
Private or public: Private
Adform
Adform is a data management platform that provides clients with enhanced control and transparency across their advertising operations, including ownership of all data from their campaigns to enable seamless management of the whole campaign life cycle.
Founded: 2002
Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
Private or public: Private
Admixer
Admixer is a Data management tool that helps advertisers, ad agencies, and publishers improve their performance and monetization capabilities with laser-focused audience targeting .
Founded: 2008
Headquarters: Copenhagen, Denmark
Private or public: Private
Adobe Audience Manager
Adobe Audience Manager allows to create the best audiences on any channel or device with the collection to segmentation to targeting and optimization to excel data at every phase of customer journey.
Founded: 1982
Headquarters: San Jose, CA
Private or public: Public
AuDigent
Audigent is an audience intelligence platform that provides brands with actionable data, analytics and insights that optimize the targeting, engagement and ROI of online, mobile and social video ads while opening up new revenue streams for artists and other social influencers.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Audience Solutions
We are experts in digital marketing and offering clients a full-service solution with the exclusive access to Toronto Star, a first and third-party data which allows advertisers to reach custom audiences across Canadian inventory sources.
Founded: 2000
Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
Private or public: Public
Cxense
Cxense was an AI-powered Data Management and Intelligent Personalization platform that helped leading publishers and marketers around the globe deliver personalized experiences that grow subscription revenue and boost targeted advertising.
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: Oslo, Norway
Private or public: Public
LiveRamp
LiveRamp is the leading data connectivity platform for the safe and effective use of data powered by core identity resolution capabilities and an unparalleled network to enable companies and their partners to better connect, control, and activate data to transform customer experiences and generate more valuable business outcomes.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Private or public: Public
Lotame
Lotame is the world’s leading unstacked data solutions company, helping publishers, marketers and agencies find new customers, increase engagement, and grow revenue through audience data.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Private or public: Public
MediaMath
MediaMath builds a new accountable & addressable supply chain for the industry to access the purest supply reaching real humans at the scale they need across channels like mobile, CTV and display and can use a combination of advanced AI and human expertise to drive improved results over time.
Founded: 2007
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Neustar
Neustar is an information services and technology company offering industry-leading solutions in Marketing, Risk, Communications and Security that responsibly connect data on people, devices and locations, continuously corroborated through billions of transactions.
Founded: 1996
Headquarters: Sterling, VA
Private or public: Private
Next 14
Next14 helps companies emerge from the underlying confusion and predict consumer behavior through strategies and solutions that combine data and creativity, physical and digital to reach customers in the most effective way.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Milan, Italy
Private or public: Private
Nielsen Marketing Cloud
Nielsen’s Data Management Platform powers some of the biggest brands, ad tech platforms, publishers and agencies in the digital ecosystem. The real-time end-to-end platform allows clients to capture, profile, syndicate and optimise faster than any other platform.
Founded: 1923
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Public
Nugg.ad
Nugg (getnugg.com) is an online and mobile ordering platform for medical marijuana, dedicated to connecting patients with trusted cannabis providers.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Marina del Rey, CA
Private or public: Private
OnAudience
OnAudience.com is one of the biggest data providers in the world with a database that includes more than 27 billion of anonymous user profiles that have developed proprietary DMP technology, which is serving to store, analyze and monetize data.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: London, UK
Private or public: Private
Oracle Data Management Platform formerly BlueKai
BlueKai serves as a staple of the Oracle Data Cloud, as well as the Oracle Marketing Cloud to accelerate business growth and brand loyalty across an integrated portfolio of digital marketing solutions to help marketers use real-time intelligence and customer signals to deliver personalized experiences.
Founded: 2007
Headquarters: Marina del Rey, CA
Private or public: Private
Permutive
Permutive is the only publisher data platform built on edge computing that enables publishers to increase their data driven advertising revenue and make revenue diversification a reality, whilst keeping user privacy at the heart of our technology.
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Retargetly
Retargetly is the leading independent data solution platform that processes over 25 billion data events a month and transforms them into actionable analytics that drive business results across the board.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Miami, FL
Private or public: Private
Salesforce (Krux)
Salesforce DMP helps companies worldwide deliver more valuable, more personal marketing, media, and commerce experiences to unify people’s data from all screens and sources into a single view of the individual.
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Private or public: Private
Tail Target
The Tail is a digital behavior data platform that works based on statistical models and integration with sites, service software and applications through the cookies of internet browsers to identify and relate the habits of users.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: São Paulo, Brazil
Private or public: Private
ZEFR
Zefr is a video advertising platform that delivers pre-flight, targeted video ad placements enabling advertisers to deliver scaled video campaigns based on unique brand preferences, with precision, control, and effectiveness.
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: Log Angeles, CA
Private or public: Private
Other Top Data Companies in 2023
AirGrid
AirGrid is an audience machine learning platform that allows advertisers and publishers to operate on privacy-first currency in the open marketplace to create a more efficient and transparent ecosystem.
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: London, UK
Private or public: Private
Bombora
Bambora is the leading provider of Intent data for B2B sellers and marketers that base on the knowledge that businesses are actively researching for and the intensity of that exploration to better understand their audiences and serve advertisers and monetize their inventory.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Datmean
DatMean is the leading audience technology company specializing in sale of deterministic data to help advertisers with the access to the top-quality data so they can better target their audience and obtain better results in the advertising and marketing campaigns.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Madrid, Spain
Private or public: Private
Eyeota
Eyeota is an audience technology platform that enables the intelligent use of data to make smarter business decisions, understand customers and enrich marketing strategies.
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Eyereturn
Eyereturn provides actionable data and insights across search, social and display campaigns that allows customers to have the ability to make transparent and informed decisions in unified control campaigns.
Founded: 2000
Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
Private or public: Private
Glimpse Protocol
Glimpse Protocol is a data platform which aims to bring technological innovation by respecting privacy and empowering consumers in the ownership of their data to build the next generation internet and decentralised services at its core.
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: London, UK
Private or public: Private
InfoSum
InfoSum has developed the world’s leading federated data platform which enables advertisers, media owners, data providers and other advertising technology firms to collaborate across multiple data sources, without requiring the underlying data to be moved or pooled.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Basingstoke, UK
Private or public: Private
Inmar Intelligence
Inmar Intelligence is the second-party data marketplace platform focused on leading the data market’s evolution towards transparency, relevancy and choice with brand sharing data with non-competitive in exchange for compensation.
Founded: 2007
Headquarters: Boston, MA
Private or public: Private
Narrative
Narrative is a data streaming platform that simplifies the buying and selling of information by eliminating the inefficiencies in data transactions that hold businesses back from maximizing the success of their most important data-driven initiatives.
Founded: 2016
Headquarters: New York, NY
Private or public: Private
Zeotap
Zeotap is a Customer Intelligence Platform that helps companies better understand their customers and predict behaviors, to invest in more meaningful experiences, enabling brands to build on a nucleus of first-party data to win new customers and grow their loyal base.
Founded: 2014
Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
Private or public: Private
