gartner - Martech Therapy

The CDP split is official (and it’s not the one vendors were selling)

For years, CDPs have been stretched like the industry’s Spandex. Data foundation one moment, orchestration layer the next, now even the “context brain” for AI. In this year’s Magic Quadrant, Gartner finally names the split. And it changes how everything should be read.

Reading this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms gave me a familiar feeling.

Not, not that of reading a short novel, with its 46 pages. Not excitement. Not disbelief. More the quiet recognition you get when something you’ve been circling for a while finally lands on paper. The conclusions didn’t come out of nowhere. They arrived right on time for the category.

For years now, CDPs have been asked to stretch in every possible direction. Think of them as the industry’s Spandex. One moment they’re a data foundation. Then an orchestration layer. Then

The CDP RFP Dating Game

How agencies, vendors, analysts, and executives hide behind the smiles

On paper, a Request for Proposal (RFP) looks like the fairest way to choose a Customer Data Platform, or anything else for that matter. I am sure if my wife had known about RFPs when we met, I would have been on the receiving side of one. Good thing she didn’t. An RFP is an attempt to make sense of vastly complex and different products through structure, neutrality, and vendor A vs vendor B data in neat columns. But if, like myself, you’ve been in this business for a while, you know the truth 👇🏻

Most RFPs are wired

When the customers speak, even Gartner listens

Hightouch’s Strong Performer nod shows how Voice of the Customer reshapes the CDP debate

Gartner released its 2025 Voice of the Customer report for CDPs at the end of August, and, well, I don’t want to say I told you so, “this was identified early on as a likely outcome”.

Memedroid on X: "I told you so #memes #professional #learning #itoldyouso #funny https://t.co/IRPCi2lj1x" / X

As I suggested in my earlier pieces on Gartner and the CDP market, where, based on Peer Insights, I generated a ‘review-driven’ alternative quadant, Hightouch scored a ‘Leader’ position compared to being completely excluded from the original report.

Based on the newly published official ‘review-driven’ quadrant, Hightouch has now earned a Strong Performer recognition. It’s always interesting when predictions line up with

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. They’

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 see

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