Customer journey orchestration engine Thunderhead has announced a ThunderBay, an AI-driven platform that creates individual-level optimized cross channel journeys. The system deals with the interdependencies among events, history, time, and path which overwhelm conventional methods. All good, even though the press release includes a gratuitous swipe at “CDPs and their ilk.” Ilk?

Sure enough, data quality is the top concern of location data buyers, according to this 451 Research study for Cuebiq. Privacy ranked fourth, just behind dealing with multiple data sources and walled gardens. The study found that 98% of marketers use location data to some degree, although just 27% consider it a key component of their strategy.

With CDP vendors increasing their workforces by 3.4% in six months, compared with an average of 0.2% each six months over the prior two years, the sector seems to be growing again, according to our own semi-annual industry update. There is much talk of composable CDPs but they still employ no more than 5% of the sector workforce. What is a clear trend is the acquisition of independent CDPs by vendors interested in adding a CDP to a larger system (usually an activation system).