The Raptor Blog

Why personalization is impossible without a Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Written by Laura Bjerre Schwalbe | Nov 18, 2025 10:24:39 AM

For years, marketers have been promised “personalization at scale.” You’ve probably heard it pitched in countless ways: smarter e-mail recommendations, dynamic web content, better product suggestions. And many of those tools deliver value in their own right. 

But expectations have moved. Recent global consumer research shows that about 80% of people are comfortable with personalized marketing, and a large majority expect it. Yet two-thirds say they have recently had negative personalization experiences that pushed them away (BCG). 

And those bad experiences usually fall into two camps:

  • either the message is irrelevant, because the brand is working with incomplete data
  • or it feels invasive because the brand is misusing data without context

So, the old way of doing personalization in marketing doesn’t cut it anymore.

If you’re serious about delivering a data-driven personalized experience, you need to be able to get a full view of your customers and target them where and when it matters.  

That’s why true personalization today is impossible without Customer Data Platform software.