CDP vs data warehouse: There's no debate; warehouses win

Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) were initially hailed as essential tools for organizing and managing customer data by creating unified customer profiles without heavy engineering involvement, but they have encountered significant challenges and limitations. While CDPs were designed to unify data for marketing teams, they often fall short, offering only partial solutions and sometimes overlapping functionalities with other tools like Data Management Platforms and Customer Relationship Management systems. They frequently fail to provide a single source of truth, necessitating additional business intelligence tools, and lack the flexibility required by diverse businesses. In contrast, modern data warehouses, when combined with Data Activation platforms like Fivetran Activations, can serve as a more effective solution, acting as the central source of truth and enabling data activation across an organization without the need for complex SQL knowledge. This approach allows businesses to leverage existing data warehouses to achieve what CDPs promise, with greater flexibility and without the pitfalls of traditional CDPs.