Top 10 Data Management Platforms (DMP) in 2022

Today’s fast-paced business environment is becoming increasingly data-driven. 

Modern companies harness the power of big data to improve their decision-making processes, achieve operational efficiencies and take actionable steps to increase revenue and profitability.

However, a company must research and invest in a viable data management platform (DMP) to reap those benefits. The world of enterprise software is vast, and many organizations find it challenging to decide which software will help them achieve their goals.

What is a DMP? What key features should a DMP have to make it valuable for organizations? What are some examples of the best DMPs available? 

In this article, we’ll answer all these questions, provide you with more information about which DMP best suits your business and discuss the top 10 DMPs this year.

What is a data management platform (DMP)?

A DMP is defined as an integrated digital tool or platform that allows businesses to collect, manage and analyze data for business intelligence (BI) purposes. DMPs will gather first-, second- and third-party data from online and offline sources.

Many DMPs are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and big data analytics. DMPs store customer information, demographics and mobile identifiers, such as cookie IDs, which give businesses fine-grained insights into their audience segments. 

The digital marketing industry relies heavily on DMPs. Without a DMP to organize customer data, it would be challenging for marketers to tailor advertisements to their existing and potential customers. 

Marketers, publishers and other businesses use general DMPs for specific reasons. Government offices, sales divisions and manufacturers sometimes use them because they offer many benefits.

Some DMPs act similarly to data warehouses. Others are integrated with demand-side platforms (DSPs), which automate media buying across digital networks so marketers can leverage the most cost-effective methods to reach their audiences. These DMPs offer more value to a company than one without these capabilities.

Also read: What is customer data? Definition, types, collection methods and analysis best practices

5 Key must-have features for DMPs in 2022

One of the best advantages of a DMP is to centralize data so it can be used across an organization. However, a DMP should have other key functions that provide value to its users.

Be sure the DMP you choose has these five must-have features:

1. Audience building

Audience building is considered one of the main processes in a DMP. Marketers can identify the right groups to target and reach them through an effective campaign. A company’s audience consists of users that share a common identifier. 

For example, an audience may include all users in the United States or living in one state. After someone creates an audience within a DMP, they can export it to other systems, like a DSP, to improve the company’s ad targeting. 

2. Audience analysis

Once a marketing team launches campaigns directed at specific audiences, it must monitor its performance. This might mean determining what elements worked well, which areas could use improvement or which devices drive the most conversions.

A DMP enables marketers to analyze their audiences pre- and post-campaign. Marketers can leverage robust audience analytics reports, learn targeting accuracy and even remove converted members by reviewing repression reports.

3. Advertising data integration

A DMP must have an advertising data integration feature. This assembles and uses information gathered from several sources and transforms it into targetable segments. 

DMPs that accomplish this essentially create a data marketplace for the user, which can help marketers expand the company’s audience reach. Additionally, a good DMP should be able to work alongside or entirely replace other marketing tools a company uses. 

4. Cross-device targeting

It’s well-known that marketers are responsible for monitoring various marketing channels and understanding customer data from each one. DMPs enable marketers to create customized marketing campaigns to deliver across a user’s devices for a seamless ad experience.

Potential customers can be reached more easily using a cross-device targeting feature in a DMP. 

5. Advanced security

Like any digital data-oriented tool, DMPs must incorporate the best security practices to protect their users and sensitive data. Breaches are becoming more frequent yearly, exposing consumer information and business assets to more risks.

Many DMPs have extensive encryption capabilities to protect data and keep it backed up for recovery automatically. A DMP loses its value without decent security.

DMPs offer many other useful features, but these five should be high on your list of priorities. No matter which DMP you invest in, be sure it has these core components. 

Top 10 data management platforms (DMP) and systems in 2022

After reviewing the definition of a DMP and learning what critical features it should include, you may be wondering which DMPs and systems are best suited for your company. 

Selecting the right DMP can seem intimidating, but taking the time to research DMPs and how they stack up against each other will help make the decision easier.

Below is a list of 10 customer data platform examples you should consider using in 2022.

1. Adobe Audience Manager

Adobe, one of the most well-known and widely used software companies, has a DMP that offers many features and benefits for an organization. 

Adobe Audience Manager is a complete and transparent DMP that uses a machine learning (ML) and AI framework called Adobe Sensei. This DMP is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud tech stack and integrates with other third-party solutions.

Some of Adobe Audience Manager’s key features include advanced customer insights, exceptional audience segmentation tools and real-time processing to boost efficiency. 

Forrester named Adobe Audience Manager a DMP leader in the second quarter of 2019. Some major companies like Princess Cruises, Hyatt and Condé Nast leverage Adobe Audience Manager. You’ll have to contact Adobe to learn more about pricing details.

2. Amobee 

Amobee positions itself as an independent advertising platform. It offers end-to-end campaign and portfolio management and includes many DMP capabilities.

The Amobee Discover tool is highly useful as it provides audience intelligence, data onboarding, segment creation, sentiment and trends. Companies also benefit from media planning, execution, optimization and analysis when using Amobee.

Organizations like Pringles, Spotify, Airbnb and the NBA use Amobee. It simplifies marketing management, offers features other DMPs do not and provides users with excellent customer support. 

Amobee is best suited for companies looking for more than just a basic DMP solution, as it offers more beneficial features. Remember that a DMP with extra offerings may have higher upfront costs.

3. Audience Studio by Salesforce 

Salesforce is a leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software. However, the company also offers a DMP called Audience Studio, formerly known as Salesforce DMP. 

Audience Studio unifies and captures data from several sources to provide insights, which can be used to personalize advertising campaigns. 

Users benefit from advanced audience segmentation, customer device graphs and ML/AI tools, which can improve effectiveness and efficiency. Audience Studio also offers Einstein, an AI-powered tool that can support data science analysis. 

Audience Studio makes it possible to automate compliance and meet data privacy requirements set forth by governments worldwide. 

4. Google Marketing Platform

It’s no surprise that Google, one of the Big Tech giants, wants in on the DMP action. Google’s DMP, also known as the Google Marketing Platform, provides enterprise and small-business solutions. 

The main benefits of Google’s DMP include flexible scaling, improved data analytics, automation and connectivity, and enhanced capabilities for video campaigns.

UNICEF, Lucky Brand and DELVE are examples of organizations using the Google Marketing Platform. Users benefit from dashboarding, data visualization and easy-to-understand reporting processes, among other elements. 

A company may need to spend more money on Google’s DMP if they want more advanced features. Dashboards are automated, so anyone within an organization can easily access key metrics or critical data.

5. Lotame

The Lotame DMP enables publishers, advertisers and agencies to unlock the value of their audience data. It’s considered a targeting tool capable of collecting consumer information across all devices. This helps marketers fine-tune their strategies to create more effective, successful campaigns. 

Lotame’s DMP consists of three integrated products: Lotame Lab, Lotame Connect and Lotame Exchange. These integral components allow users to accomplish many data management tasks. Lotame is considered an unbundled model, so customers can pick and choose which services and technologies will fit their needs. 

Lotame is flexible and known for its customer support, but some users feel that more aspects of the DMP could be automated. However, Lotame’s DMP is highly useful for modern organizations and can be a game-changer for data analytics.

6. Nielsen DMP 

Nielsen is long-known for the significant role it plays in television. It now offers a cloud solution to help companies achieve smart and effective marketing. 

Nielsen’s DMP is a seamless media-buying platform that forms a complete view of customer behavior by leveraging different types of data. Some features include audience segmentation, message sequencing, media planning, profiling, orchestration, frequency capping and more.

This platform offers advanced AI capabilities and has a direct connection to Nielsen data, so it’s uniquely positioned compared to other DMPs. Nielsen’s DMP has won several awards for being one of the best on the market. 

However, less-experienced users may face challenges using Nielsen’s DMP, and some report feeling obligated when locking into a Nielsen contract. Keep these pros and cons in mind when choosing a DMP.

7. OnAudience 

Companies that use OnAudience will gain valuable insight into their audience segments, launch effective, targeted ad campaigns and potentially increase their return on investment (ROI). 

OnAudience is a DMP that makes it simple for users to analyze customer data from online profiles and automatically generate various reports. For example, you can create a report that focuses on customer interests, demographics or purchase intentions.

OnAudience can help marketers combine audience attributes based on their desired outcomes for specific campaigns. You can share data with partnering organizations, access around 27 billion user profiles and deliver personalized ads while maintaining GDPR compliance. 

OnAudience is featured in MarTechSeries, Mobile Marketing, MediaPost and The Drum. Users can also benefit from the OnAudience platform because it seamlessly integrates with global DSPs, as the company is a leading and trusted partner of several adtech companies.

8. Oracle BlueKai DMP

The Oracle BlueKai DMP website highlights five critical purposes for its users:

• Unify advertising data
• Build effective audiences
• Connect across devices
• Analyze audiences
• Activate digital campaigns

Bancolombia, Kunmap, NCBA and Mazda are some popular companies using the BlueKai DMP from Oracle. Businesses across different industries and locations can use BlueKai to create a seamless user experience (UX), whether people visit websites or mobile applications. 

Some other benefits of BlueKai include customer intelligence and acquisition, data activation, smart content, campaign management, personalization and more.

9. Permutive

Permutive says users can experience rapid growth by leveraging its DMP. On Permutive’s DMP product page, users report:

• A nine-time increase in targetable inventory
• A four-time increase in data-driven ad revenue
• A three-and-a-half-time increase in programmatic ad revenue
• A five-time increase in sponsorship revenue

Permutive’s DMP offers plenty of benefits, including targeted traffic from every source, perfect match rates — even on passerby traffic — live campaign analysis, unique audience insights and unlimited lookbacks. 

Permutive also offers many integrations, such as those with Experian, Facebook, Twitter and Salesforce. This DMP prioritizes privacy and security — it is the only DMP that uses patented and privacy-preserving on-device technology, so all data is secure.

10. SAS Data Management

SAS Institute, a major player in enterprise software, offers a DMP that uses industry-leading integration technology. Regardless of where or how a company stores its information, 

SAS’s DMP provides access to it and enables users to set and reuse data management rules. 

The SAS DMP features offer collaboration and true integration support, whereas other DMPs may lack some consolidation capabilities. It also includes messaging queuing, ETL and ELT functions, data governance, metadata management, data federation, and enhanced administration and monitoring capabilities. 

One final benefit of the SAS DMP is that users can take advantage of free demos and trials to help them decide if it’s the right solution for their unique needs. 

It’s no secret that more companies rely on DMPs, and it’s expected that more will invest in these digital solutions in the coming years. A DMP can increase revenue, offer streamlined data, optimize campaign performance and management, and more. 

Choosing the right DMP in 2022

Most of the DMPs listed above share similar functionality, but they have variations that can positively or negatively impact a business and its operations. 

DMPs come in wide varieties, so organizations must do their due diligence and spend time researching features and pricing. 

Selecting the most suitable enterprise software is essential, no matter which sector a company serves. New digital technologies empower businesses and their employees to deliver the best products and services to clients or customers. 

A DMP can be a game-changer, whether you work for a B2B or B2C, so choose the most appropriate solution for your business.Read next: ​​What is the difference between a customer data platform (CDP) and a data management platform (DMP)? Definitions, collection methods and analysis best practices