The customer data platform (CDP) is a comparatively recent development. Until now, its focus has been largely on gathering information regarding individual customers from various sources into a unified profile, with the goal of providing more relevant content and delivering highly personalized experiences based on this comprehensive understanding. Today, Adobe revealed plans to develop a product specifically for business-to-business (B2B) customers, a significant market that has previously lacked this type of data consolidation.

Brian Glover, Adobe’s director of product marketing for Marketo Engage, and the leader of this new product initiative, notes that these types of transactions are considerably more intricate, and B2B sales and marketing teams are actively seeking a CDP solution.

“Over the past two years, we have been focused on integrating Marketo Engage with the Adobe Experience Cloud, and now we are expanding the Experience platform with a new generation of B2B products, beginning with this B2B CDP offering,” Glover stated.

He explained that adapting a CDP for B2B sales presents distinct challenges, primarily because these sales typically involve multiple decision-makers, necessitating tailored messaging for each individual based on their role in the purchasing process.

Typically, an individual consumer has a clear idea of their needs, and can be guided towards a purchase decision. However, B2B sales are generally longer and more involved, often requiring approvals from various departments. For instance, a technology purchase might include input from the CIO, the end-user team or department, the finance department, and the legal team, potentially involving a Request for Proposal (RFP) and a sales cycle lasting months or even years.

Adobe contends that even with this complexity, B2B sales should benefit from the same personalized messaging strategies used in business-to-consumer (B2C) sales, and perhaps even more so. Despite this, B2B marketers encounter the same data fragmentation issues as their B2C counterparts.

“In B2B, the complexity of buying groups and accounts introduces an additional layer to the data management challenge, as you ultimately need to connect individual people data with account data, and then integrate the two,” Glover clarified.

By developing a more complete understanding of each person involved in the buying process, it becomes possible to assemble a comprehensive view of the entire account, as Glover describes. He believes that a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is not designed to handle this level of complexity, and requires a specialized tool like a CDP specifically designed to support B2B sales and marketing.

Adobe is currently collaborating with select customers on the product’s development and anticipates entering the beta phase before the end of next month, with general availability planned for sometime in the first half of the following year.