The Real CDP Revolution Isn't in Martech Suites, It's in the Cloud

In the overviews of CDP Institute and other Martech overviews, you will hardly find the large cloud platforms. They are not 'packaged' and therefore do not fit their definition of customer data platform software. At the same time, public clouds in unified customer data analytics are growing by 30% year on year, on revenues of tens of billions.

In many industry overviews, including those from the CDP Institute, you'll still struggle to find the large public cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS, and Microsoft Azure prominently featured. They don't fit the traditional "packaged" Customer Data Platform (CDP) definition. Yet, the public cloud segment of unified customer data analytics is booming, driven by massive-scale data management and revenues in the tens of billions.

What is driving this change, and why are the traditional CDP lists missing it?

The public clouds are often only recognised in Martech lists through a foundational component, like a data store (Google BigQuery, Snowflake, AWS Redshift) or an activation product (Google Analytics). What these lists fail to show is the true revolution: the combined set of natively integrated components that manage the entire data lifecycle, from collection and unification to analytics and activation.

Crucially, these clouds also provide essential, enterprise-grade supporting functions like data governance, process orchestration, and security, all accessible through a single console.

This unified approach has led an increasing number of major companies, like Coolblue, BOL, Rituals Cosmetics, eBay, and Philips Healthcare, to build their core Customer Data Platforms foundations, including Martech features and tools, directly on public cloud platforms, such as Google Cloud.

This shift allows for the creation of scalable, bespoke solutions like a global customer identity graph and advanced audience segmentation, all built on top of a single, reliable cloud data lifecycle management layer.

The Paradigm Shift: Why Cloud is Winning the Enterprise

The cause is twofold, creating a definitive paradigm shift in how large enterprises handle customer data:

1. Big Martech suites didn't deliver on the promise of open, flexible, and natively integrated platforms.

2. Cloud platforms are delivering on these CDP requirements and adding hyper-scalability, native Generative AI capabilities, and full orchestration as a bonus.

Big Martech Suites: An Integration Challenge

Major Martech players, such as Adobe and Salesforce, promised platforms but, in many cases, delivered complex software suites. Their offerings, while powerful, often rely on acquisitions, meaning not all components are truly natively integrated; instead, they communicate through costly APIs.

Furthermore, the massive cost of licenses, storage, and computation often makes these walled gardens prohibitive for large-scale data operations. Salesforce, for example, is shifting focus toward its Data Cloud solution, emphasising its evolution beyond the traditional CDP, but the core challenge of deep, outside-the-ecosystem integration remains.

Meanwhile, a parallel movement is the rise of Composable CDPs. These smaller, innovative vendors leverage the customer's existing cloud data warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, etc.) as the "golden source" for customer profiles, focusing purely on audience segmentation and activation. They represent a significant competitive threat to packaged CDPs, as they directly benefit from the cloud's foundation.

The New Competitive Edge: Flexibility and Orchestration

The secret to competitive advantage isn't just the data itself. Data is inert unless you can execute on it properly. To win the hearts of external and internal customers, the priority is:

• Flexible, integrated technology that can adapt instantly.

• The ability to execute and orchestrate complex business and technical processes at scale.

The public cloud, with its open architecture and massive computational power, is uniquely delivering this flexible, integrated technology and process orchestration, particularly with the seamless integration of Generative AI across all data layers.

The Cloud as the Hub of Martech Engineering

For mid-to-large companies with massive customer databases, the best strategy is now a "Build, Compose, and Buy" model rooted in the public cloud.

The core principle is to build foundational CDP features (like identity resolution and master data management) and compose them with native cloud services. Then, buy specialised point solutions where the cloud doesn't offer a best-in-class native option—for example, a sophisticated user interface for creating customer process flows (like certain features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Selligent).

This approach provides the best of both worlds: a natively integrated, orchestrated foundation from the cloud, complemented by the functional depth of specialised vendors.

This is the principle of centralised architecture as a common ground for Martech.

By centralising core functions, such as the common data model, persistent customer data, identity management, and analytics, in the cloud, you achieve several critical advantages:

1. Flexibility and Lower Risk: Having core data functions in the cloud enables you to easily switch between different Martech activation apps, reducing vendor lock-in.

2. Enhanced Performance: A centralised, high-performance architecture feeds point solutions with the right, unified fuel, drastically improving their performance by eliminating data duplication and migration.

3. Governance and Security: Critical aspects, including privacy, security, compliance, and data quality checks, are managed centrally and consistently by the robust, enterprise-grade cloud controls, significantly reducing complexity and errors.

Cloud platforms are no longer just a "data lake" feed for external tools. They are vertically integrating upwards, rapidly adding marketing-related functionality.

For instance, creating a powerful identity graph that starts with an event stream from Google Analytics and persists a global customer ID in BigQuery ensures all customer interactions are linked without data ever leaving the secure cloud environment, a crucial application of the data gravity principle.

Conclusion

The real CDP revolution is centred on the public cloud, not the traditional Martech suites. While packaged CDPs and Martech giants are rapidly growing and integrating, the core of centralising functions, adding native AI, and orchestrating the entire customer data lifecycle is an advantage that public cloud platforms are uniquely positioned to deliver.

Both cloud-based CDPs and specialised Martech tools are growing fast and can be reinforcing partners - if the architecture is implemented properly. The art of Martech today is finding the optimum balance between your cloud foundation and the thousands of specialised apps available.

Your next steps should be to define your modern data strategy, engage stakeholders across IT and Marketing, and secure a smart, experienced solution architecture to lead the build.