Customer Data Platform articles and analysis

From economics to Martech: Ana Mourão on wins, governance, and positivity

Small wins, strong processes, and the human side of Martech

I had such a pleasant conversation with Ana Mourão on Couch Confidentials. She has this rare combination of sharp Martech expertise and an optimistic outlook, even when talking about the messy side of digital transformation.

What struck me most was how Ana sees Martech not just as a stack of tools, but as a system of people and processes where small wins can make a huge difference. From building 7 million profiles globally to navigating the “Groundhog Day” of transformation projects, she’s found ways to stay positive and drive impact.

Thanks again, Ana, for sharing your experience and your

Before you deploy your CDP, train your crew

From naval drills to Martech deployments, why practice still makes the difference

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating → CDP projects don’t just test your tech stack, they test your team. And most of the time, that test happens in real time, under pressure, with stakes that no one thought to rehearse.

After I published the piece on CDPs as a kind of digital transformation stress test, the comments and direct messages lit up with something that felt oddly familiar. People weren’t just reacting to the tech insights; the internet is filled to the brim with those. They were describing moments of confusion, panic, last-minute scrambles, and

MAP, CEP, or CDP? Klaviyo’s James Fang on where marketing automation is headed

A conversation about consolidation, AI, and why labels like CEP or MAP might miss the bigger picture.

Season 2 of Couch Confidentials opens with James Fang, Director of Product Marketing at Klaviyo and former VP at mParticle. We get into the weeds of Martech terminology, such as CEP, MAP, CDP, and whether those labels still mean anything when platforms are converging. James shares why Klaviyo positions itself as a B2C CRM built on a shared data platform, and how that ties into the wider trend of commoditized CDP features.

We also discuss the consolidation wave I’ve written about in the CDP Reboot and Multi-CDPs series, with James pointing to real-world cases where companies are

Beyond the Gartner Magic Quadrant

Rethinking the Quadrant / Part 3: What buyers really trust now

The Gartner Magic Quadrant has been a familiar reference point for most of my career, and if you are reading this, your career, too. It condenses months of evaluation into a neat two-axis diagram where vendors are split into sections labeled Leaders, Visionaries, Challengers, and Niche Players. It’s comforting in its simplicity, and funnily enough, complimentary wherever you find yourself on it. But as I’ve learned from working both inside companies and as a consultant, that neatness is part of the problem.

As we have seen, excluding some cultures, real buying decisions rarely happen in a vacuum.

The real battle for CDP relevance

Rethinking the Quadrant / Part 2: When definitions stop matching reality

If you follow the CDP Institute’s definition, there are four non-negotiable traits for a platform to be considered a Customer Data Platform. But there’s a huge problem. Those traits are no longer exclusive to CDPs. Customer Engagement Platforms like Braze, Bloomreach, Customer.io, Klaviyo, and ZEPIC, or composable vendors like Hightouch, are ticking the same boxes. Some were never meant to be in the CDP category, yet they’re already competing for the same budget lines.

It’s too late to say that it is purely theoretical. We have already crossed that bridge. It’s what I

Is it all a magical illusion?

Rethinking the Quadrant / Part 1: Why the Magic Quadrant no longer reflects CDP reality

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant is treated like gospel in boardrooms from Dubai to Düsseldorf. A single position in that familiar matrix can nudge millions in Martech budgets from one vendor to another. The thing to keep in mind is that the Quadrant doesn’t measure what many buyers think it does. It rewards size, vision, and analyst choreography, and not necessarily real-world usability, implementation speed, or practitioner satisfaction. It reflects power structures, and rarely performance.

This first part in the Rethinking the Quadrant series takes aim at the mechanics behind those polished charts and asks a blunt question:

What

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