Glossary | D | Data Management Platforms (DMPs)
What are DMPs?
Data management platforms, or DMPs, are software platforms that organize and store first-, second- and third-party audience data from multiple sources. DMPs provide marketers, advertisers, and publishers the tools to build audience segments, and activate advertising campaigns targeting those segments.
The average person generates hundreds of data points per day, which are collected by companies that can each see small and oftentimes overlapping windows into that person’s consumer profile.
For example, a person might go to breakfast, where they read the news on a mobile app and look at photos on Instagram before getting back into their car to get groceries on their way home.
Along the way, this person generated multiple data points—their credit card company saw how much they spent on breakfast and where, their news app saw which types of articles they clicked on (and the location of where they ate breakfast), Instagram suggested content based on their interests (and saw the location of where they ate breakfast), and the grocery store saw the exact items that the person bought at the store, because they used their retail loyalty card in the checkout line.
Companies that collect customer data use a DMP to organize and store that data, and in some cases, sell access to that data to other companies. By using customer data from multiple sources on a DMP, advertisers can build a more complete picture of their customer, based on demographics, income, interests, geographic location, and similar.
Once a company has built an audience segment using a DMP, they can export it to other platforms, such as DSPs or SSPs, to be used for targeted advertising and content personalization.