Living Without CDP: A Tale of Automation

Hey there! I'm Oleg Zankov, CTO of Latenode. Today, we're going to talk about CDPs, why they're useful, and the alternative we had to resort to over at Debexpert. This info will come in especially handy for those who are in charge of user engagement in their product. So, let's get the ball rolling!

Core Product <-> Users

A CDP, or Customer Data Platform, is a platform centered around the user. A CDP collects info about user interactions with the product (Event Data), creates user profiles (User Profile), helps establish personalized interactions (Marketing, Ads), and allows for the analysis of grouped data (Analytics).

At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer: all user data is gathered in one place, where it can be analyzed and used for further communication. But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Let's take Bloomreach (formerly Exponea) — a market leader in CDPs — as an example. This platform offers deep user analysis, website personalization with A/B tests, and user communication via email, messaging apps, SMS, web, and mobile push notifications. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

But to get to that point, you'll need to spend a ton of time syncing Exponea with your main product. Since a CDP operates around its own database, your team will need to tag and implement the synchronization of all the data you plan to use through the CDP. Every event from every source needs to be transmitted via an API. Unsurprisingly, this duplication process can take anywhere from three months to a year. And that's not even considering the additional costs of maintaining the system when your product inevitably changes.

Suddenly, everything doesn't seem as promising, especially if user segmentation and analytics aren't your main gig and you need to interact with users based on triggers right here and right now.

What's a Trigger, Anyway?

When we were building debexpert.com, the pain of creating and maintaining the process described above became a key reason for ditching CDPs, but it wasn't the only one.

As we found out, in platforms like CDPs, the user is the central unit. And from the system's point of view, only a user's action can act as a trigger. This can be a serious limitation in some cases.

Let's consider an example:

A user checks out the programming courses tab, doesn't buy anything, and leaves → you send them an email with a unique offer.You launch a discount on programming courses ↛ you send an email blast to users who have viewed programming courses in the past month.

The second scenario is simply not possible in most CDPs, because launching discounts isn't a user action. Feel the difference? At Debexpert, we felt it when we realized the need to notify users at all stages of auction organization. For clarity: debexpert.com is a platform for debt portfolio auction sales.

A Better Alternative in 2020

We sought a solution to this problem, and three years ago we decided on Integromat – a zero-code platform for process automation with a more flexible trigger setting. We immediately realized it was just what we needed and created over 150 scenarios, of which 70% were user communication via push notifications on the platform, SMS, and email.

It takes only one day to set up a scenario that:

1. Collects the necessary information about the conducted auctions.
2. Forms tables with the necessary information for: a) Seller b) Buyer c) Accountants and Managers of Debexpert.
3. Sends each user group personalized emails.

For such tasks, Integromat was the first platform in 10 years that met our needs. Why was? Because in September, the guys are discontinuing support for the project, offering a much less attractive alternative, which we wrote about here.

A better Alternative in 2024

After a few years of using other no-code platforms, we became aware of its limitations and decided to develop a solution to address them. This led to the creation of Latenode, which combines the ease of use of a no-code platform with the capabilities of full code. It's an all-in-one platform that offers the best of both worlds.

Now, if your requirements for no-code tools match ours, then Latenode could be our common shelter. Currently, the platform is in the beta testing phase and offers free access to anyone ready to automate processes without code (or with minimal use) and willing to provide us with constructive criticism. In return, we'll continue to develop a product that meets our shared needs to the max. And we're happy to implement solutions for those who face limitations with Latenode and tell us about them.

Join us on our Discord server. Here, we share announcements, answer questions related to no-code automation, and engage in lively discussions. Hope to see you there soon!