If you were thinking it has been some time since the advertising world saw another technology acronym introduced, get ready to welcome the “CDP”.

After DSPs, DMPs and SSPs, chat about “Customer Data Platforms” has been getting louder in 2018.

But what is a CDP and what is their future?

In this video interview with Beet.TV, mParticle CEO Michael Katz says it’s all about “integration and interoperability”, a way to help businesses collect customer data from the multiple channels they may use, plus enrich it, combine it, slice and dice it.

In other words, a CDP is the response to a very modern marketing challenge – it is the enemy of silos.

“We have gone from a world where everyone is anonymous, to this logged-in experience,” Katz says. “[A CDP] links user behaviors on one platform to deliver a seamless experience, [so that] the brand knows if I drop off and where to pick up.

mParticle offers its own CDP, a software sector which already has its own specific industry group, predicting CDPs will become a $1 billion industry by 2019.

“What it represents is CRM for consumer businesses,” Katz says. “Nobody would argue that Salesforce owns CRM from a B2B standpoint. But B2C CRM hasn’t been solved.”

So how much of that will Katz’ platform take? Since 2013,the outfit has raised $76.3 million in funding. But the CDP CEO says there is a long road ahead.

“We’re so early on both in our trajectory as well as the market opportunity,” Katz continues. “There’s certainly a lot of buzz around CDPs. It’s reached peak Hype Cycle over the last six months.”

He is targeting continued international expansion, as he aims to help businesses bring their world of data in to focus.

This interview is part of a series titled Advertising Reimagined: The View from DMEXCO 2018, presented by Criteo.  Please find more videos from the series here