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CDP architecture

Customer data platform architecture, built on your warehouse.

A CDP is identity resolution, unified profiles and audience activation. Increasingly, the best place to build all three is the warehouse you already own. We architect that layer, or integrate a packaged CDP properly if that genuinely fits you better.

  • Identity resolution
  • Composable CDP
  • Consent-aware activation

What you get

One customer, one definition.

Identity resolved first

Deterministic matching first, documented probabilistic rules where needed.

Profiles in your warehouse

Analytics and activation share one definition.

Opt-outs that propagate

Consent enforced at activation, on every sync.

Build or buy, modeled

A cost model before any commitment.

The problem

Bought a CDP, still cannot answer the question.

The common failure is buying a CDP before resolving identity. The tool arrives, the same customer still exists as four records across ecommerce, email, support and ads, and now that fragmentation is being synced outward to every channel at a cost per profile. Meanwhile the analytics team keeps working from the warehouse, so there are two competing definitions of a customer. The unification problem was never a tooling problem.

What we architect

What's included.

  • Identity resolution logic with deterministic matching first and documented probabilistic rules where needed
  • A unified customer profile model in the warehouse: attributes, events and computed traits
  • Audience definitions built as version-controlled, testable SQL rather than clicks in a UI
  • Reverse ETL activation into ad platforms, email and CRM, with suppression and exclusion handled
  • Consent and preference state carried through to every destination, so opt-outs actually propagate
  • A build-versus-buy assessment with real cost modeling before any commitment

How we work

How we run it.

  1. Step 1

    Profile your existing customer data and measure how badly identity is actually fragmented

  2. Step 2

    Resolve identity in the warehouse and validate against known duplicates

  3. Step 3

    Model profiles and traits in dbt, so analytics and activation share one definition

  4. Step 4

    Activate to one destination, prove the loop, then expand

What we use

Tools, platforms and methods.

  • Snowflake
  • BigQuery
  • dbt
  • Hightouch
  • Census
  • Segment
  • Python

FAQ

Common questions.

Should we build a composable CDP or buy a packaged one?

If your data already lives in a warehouse and you have analytics engineering capability, composable is usually cheaper and far more flexible, because audience logic becomes reviewable SQL rather than UI state. Packaged CDPs earn their cost when you need event collection SDKs, real-time personalization, or a non-technical marketing team owning audiences directly. We model both against your actual volumes rather than arguing it in the abstract.

What does identity resolution actually involve?

Deciding, with rules you can defend, when two records are the same person. Deterministic matching on email, phone and customer ID comes first and covers most cases. Probabilistic matching on device and behavior fills gaps but introduces false merges, so we document the rules and keep them tunable rather than hiding them in a black box.

How does consent work across activation?

Consent state lives on the profile and is enforced at the point of activation, not left to each destination. Suppression lists propagate on every sync, so an opt-out or deletion request removes the person from downstream audiences rather than lingering in a platform-side list.

Can this coexist with a CDP we already own?

Yes, and it often improves it. We resolve identity and model profiles in the warehouse, then feed clean, unified profiles into the CDP as a source. You keep the activation tooling your team knows and stop paying to sync fragmented records.

Architect your customer data layer.

Tell us where customer data lives today and we will assess identity fragmentation before recommending build or buy.

Talk to an engineer