You probably don’t care that the Looker data analysis platform just announced connectors to load data from AdWords, YouTube, and DoubleClick into the Google BigQuery data store. Neither do I.  But it’s an excuse to note that Looker and similar products are NOT substitutes for CDPs because they don’t unify customer identities when inputs lack a shared customer identifier. It’s an easy distinction to miss, and one that probably leads quite a few people down quite a few dead ends.  Consider yourself warned.

The CDP Institute recently asked several senior IT managers for their opinions on Customer Data Platforms. They had a number of objections that deserve to be taken seriously. Read more on our blog.

Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation.  The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.