Q&A: Using Customer Data and CDPs to Deliver Personalized Experiences Across the Journey

Jul 18

Our team answers some of the tough questions we frequently hear from enterprises looking to use their data to deliver targeted, personalized experiences for their customers.

Q1: We’ve invested in a CDP and several enterprise tools (AEM, Marketo, Salesforce, etc.), but personalization still feels out of reach. Why?

A: Because while your tools are connected, they’re likely not integrated where it counts.

Most enterprise stacks look great on paper—but in practice, the data doesn’t flow smoothly, content isn’t tagged properly, and the teams using these systems are working in silos. You’ve got profiles in your CDP, but they’re not informing campaign logic. You’ve got segments in Adobe Target, but no one’s sure which journeys they apply to.

The issue isn’t the tech—it’s orchestration. We solve this by building the connective tissue between systems: making sure your data, content, workflows, and personalization rules operate in sync across platforms.

Q2: What does a CDP actually enable—and what are its limitations without integration?

A: Think of your CDP as the source of truth, not the solution itself.

It stores identity, behavioral, and preference data—but it doesn’t automatically apply that intelligence to your marketing experiences. Without:

Clean, normalized data
Real-time connections to your CMS, campaign tools, and analytics
Activation layers like AI, personalization engines, and automation

…it’s just another vault of disconnected information.

To truly activate your CDP, you need infrastructure that connects it to your creative, delivery, and performance systems. That’s where architecture, not just tooling, makes the difference.

Q3: Where should we start if we want to personalize customer journeys?

A: Start with your foundation—specifically, your data.

Before you personalize anything, you need to:

Centralize customer data from CRM, web, email, product, and support systems
Normalize taxonomies (personas, content types, intent stages)
Clean duplicates and resolve identities
Define clear business logic for what terms like “active,” “engaged,” or “qualified” mean

This normalization layer enables your CDP to surface useful insights, which can then be used to trigger real-time personalization across your digital experiences.

Q4: Is personalization something we can apply at the end of a campaign?

A: Not if you want it to work.

Real personalization isn’t a layer—it’s a system. It’s baked into how you tag content, how you structure journeys, and how your tools decide what to show to whom and when.

You need:

Campaigns built with dynamic personalization rules
Assets enriched with persona and intent metadata
Workflows that update in real-time as user data changes
Content platforms (like AEM) that can serve variants intelligently

We help teams build this as a repeatable system—so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every campaign.

Q5: How does AI actually contribute to personalization? Isn’t it overhyped?

A: When your foundation is strong, AI becomes incredibly effective—not just a buzzword.

With normalized data and smart content tagging in place, AI can:

Suggest relevant content based on previous behavior
Generate copy variants tailored to different personas or tones
Predict where a user is in their journey and recommend next best actions
Drive localization, compliance, and even tone adaptation across markets

We’ve helped clients use AI to generate hundreds of asset variants, tied to campaign stages, translated by region, and aligned with product behavior—all reviewed by humans before go-live.

Q6: Do we need to hire an entirely new team to make this work?

A: Not at all. You don’t need a new team—you need better integration across your current one.

What most organizations lack isn’t headcount—it’s alignment. We help your marketers, developers, ops teams, and brand owners understand how their work connects to the bigger personalization engine.

That includes building admin dashboards and campaign interfaces that make personalization usable—so teams can define targeting once and activate it across every experience.

Q7: What does success actually look like?

A: When personalization works, it feels effortless—for both the customer and your internal teams.

You’ll know it’s working when:

Customers see the right message, in the right language, at the right time
Campaigns are responsive, not static
Teams can launch personalized experiences without engineering support
Your CDP becomes a daily-use asset—not a data graveyard

But make no mistake: It’s not magic. It’s architecture, automation, and human alignment done right.

Q8: Why 216º? What makes your team different?

A: We’re not just technologists—we’re translators, integrators, and straight shooters.

We partner directly with your teams to:

Normalize and activate your customer data
Build interfaces that work across teams
Design workflows that scale personalization
Architect real-time systems that evolve with your business

We don’t believe in “plug-and-play” AI. We believe in plug-and-partner. That means showing up, getting hands dirty, and delivering results without jargon or fluff.

Final Thought:

You don’t need more tools. You need better connections—between your data, your teams, and your tech.

If you’re ready to turn your CDP from a vault into a value engine, we’re ready to help.

Sergio Claudio