The Forrester Wave™: Customer Data Platforms For B2C, Q3 2026

Customer Data Platforms For B2C Vendor Product Comparisons 2026

Key features and pros and cons of top Customer Data Platforms For B2C products:

Adobe - Leaders

Pros:

Excels in data management with industry data models, data governance policy management, flexible and high-speed customer profile assembly
Strong audience generation through a range of agentic AI and standard techniques
Builds on legacy data and analytics strengths with productized clean room, optimization, and marketing mix modeling modules
Superior roadmap focusing on hybrid and native data access, expanded media integrations, and new AI tooling and workflows
Strong commitment to enabling adoption through partner programming (certifications, education, solution accreditation) and customer success efforts (use case playbooks, training, dedicated adoption team)

Cons:

Journey orchestration has improved but requires continued development to mature and meet customer expectations
Packaging and pricing can be complex to forecast and rationalize
Utilizing full functionality requires multiple additional Adobe products
Customers report challenges with Adobe professional services and high licensing costs

Salesforce - Leaders

Pros:

Focused on developing data ingestion capabilities across a range of processing models, selection of integrations, unstructured data support, data governance, and context layer for AI
Diverse activation capabilities including journey orchestration and marketing applications supported by in-line AI features
Access to the Salesforce Agentforce platform
Largest partner ecosystem in the study with established marketplaces for services and applications
Unparalleled global distribution and localization capabilities
Unrivaled customer community size and sentiment

Cons:

Complex to deploy due to breadth of functionality and integrations
Customers note gaps in reporting and measurement capabilities
Above-par roadmap split between ongoing CDP development and supporting data sources, types, and structures for AI systems

Amperity - Strong Performers

Pros:

Excels in data-handling capabilities like data ingestion, integrations for analytics and engagement endpoints, data management, and matching techniques for profile assembly
Superior modeling and AI foundation
Product packaging and consumption-oriented pricing model is among the most transparent and flexible in the evaluation
Customers praise extremely flexible and capable environment for accessing, managing, and unifying data into robust customer profiles
Strong data management capabilities and professional services

Cons:

Vision and product plans are more incremental than innovative and lean heavily on infrastructure
Activation functionality like journey orchestration and optimization are on par with other vendors as an intentional result of laser focus on data quality and decisioning
Customers would like deeper reporting and analytics functionality

BlueConic - Contenders

Pros:

Solid capabilities for data management, customer profile compilation, and analytics that support segment discovery and journey analysis
Modeling workbench feature provides flexibility for insights, data enrichment, and AI efforts
User friendly and highly accessible for marketers
Customers indicate satisfaction with marketer-friendly user interface, audience generation features, and out-of-the-box integrations

Cons:

Selection of integrations for data ingestion and activation lags category standards
Anonymous audience targeting requires customization and supports few industry identity options
Limited, albeit visually appealing, journey orchestration application
Product repackaged around modular 'growth plays' is unique but challenging for customers to rationalize pricing based on use cases
Small roster of go-to-market partners and limited customer community engagement
Customers note gaps in journey orchestration and decisioning
Only one reference customer responded to Forrester's outreach

Hightouch - Strong Performers

Pros:

Warehouse-native solution features efficient and strong data source integration, customer profile compilation, and activation integrations
Strong tools for managing paid media and match-boost features to improve onboarding
Innovative ground-up approach reimagines how marketers work across composability and agentic AI
Customers praise data source integrations, customer profile compilation, and usability

Cons:

Lacks formal professional services
Composability shifts data tasks and administration to data warehouse rather than directly controlling them, offloading many data management, governance, consumer privacy, and performance controls
Not ceremonial about product planning, lacking fully articulated product roadmap
Journey orchestration and reporting features are still maturing
Composability differentiation has been reduced as warehouse-native architectures commoditize among CDPs

Rokt - Contenders

Pros:

Solid support for foundational CDP functions including data source integration, data management (including monitoring features and prebuilt industry data schemas), and insights and activation endpoint integrations
Anonymous audience generation with match boost and AI-supported discovery features
Solid roadmap expands AI for insights and targeting, data quality and transparency features, and efficient audience generation
Customers praise ability to ingest digital channel data, build customer profiles, and offer technical support and professional services

Cons:

Anonymous audience targeting, profile compilation, and reporting capabilities lag competing solutions
Some capabilities like analytics and journey orchestration are not roadmap priorities by design and lag other CDP solutions
Limited native and industry identity capabilities
Has been slow to capitalize on early AI investments and fully leverage opportunities to cross-pollinate mParticle's CDP with its own ad products
Achieved slower growth and lower market penetration relative to other vendors
Customers want improved reporting and audience insights

Tealium - Contenders

Pros:

Exceptional range of data source and activation integrations, allowing solution to collect and distribute data from and to virtually anywhere
Continued expansion of data warehouse and AI integrations to complement MCP server and modeling workbench
Customers indicate satisfaction with data source and activation integrations

Cons:

Lagging data governance and limited customer profile compilation capabilities reduce utility of data accessibility
Lacks complete journey orchestration functionality
Below-par roadmap focuses almost exclusively on delivering connectivity and data for AI systems and upgrading product usability
Data-ingestion-based pricing model is difficult to align with marketing use cases and budgets
Customers struggle with product user experience that is very technical and spread across many modules and interfaces
Did not provide reference customers for this evaluation

Treasure AI - Strong Performers

Pros:

Excellent data governance capabilities that automate and monitor controls at all levels of data, workflows, integrations, and applications
Released agentic AI platform featuring agentic marketing functionality for personalization, campaign planning and execution, and creative development
Product strategy, including roadmap, packaging and pricing, and innovation, realigned around agentic AI featuring five AI suites covering range of activation use cases
Customers indicate satisfaction with customer profile compilation and ability to activate audiences across paid and owned media

Cons:

During transition to agentic marketing, needs to rationalize legacy and agentic user experiences to ensure access to functionality and user productivity
Solid strategy captures AI zeitgeist, but remains to be seen if strategy aligns with marketer readiness for agentic AI in practice
Customers still easing into using AI features
Only one reference customer responded to Forrester's outreach

Uniphore - Strong Performers

Pros:

Strong core CDP functionality for data source integration, customer profile compilation and management, optimization and measurement, and egress integrations for analytics and engagement
High overall usability thanks to clean and modern interface
Offers application assistant and basic generative AI features like segment naming
Differentiated consumption-based pricing model is modular and includes strong monitoring capabilities
Customers praise technically strong option for large-scale, warehouse-native, and hybrid CDP requirements, technical support, user experience and self-service, activation integrations, and commercial model

Cons:

Agentic AI development lags the category
Localization and global distribution are limited relative to competitors despite upgraded international support
Vision, innovation, commercials, and product strategy are appropriate but lack differentiation from competitors
Focuses more on training than developing community and advocacy programs
Customers would like improvements in reporting and more sophisticated AI features

Zeta Global - Strong Performers

Pros:

Uniquely offers full data and identity services suite
Differentiated range of analytics and forecasting tools
Excels at journey orchestration
Roadmap balanced between agentic AI and data activation, building agents for insights and campaigns, agentic AI platform, and creative and campaign execution
Customers praise audience insights, journey orchestration, and professional services capabilities

Cons:

Due to CDP's primary role supporting Zeta Marketing Platform, has limited data source integrations, external analytics, and activation options compared to other solutions
Released Athena system to support insights and campaign development, but customers are still ramping up usage
Provides on-par data management, governance, and audience targeting
CDP is data-centric and optimized to operate as embedded component of Zeta Marketing Platform
Customers report challenges in implementing data ingestion and workflows

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2026?

A: Adobe, Salesforce

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

A: Leaders in the Forrester Wave are vendors that exhibit strength across all critical CDP functions and demonstrate superior strategy through strong vision, roadmap, innovation, partner ecosystem, adoption support, and market presence. Leaders excel in areas such as data management, profile assembly, audience generation, decisioning capabilities, and have strong customer feedback indicating successful implementation and value delivery.

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

A: https://www.forrester.com/policies/forrester-wave-methodology/

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Customer Data Platforms For B2C in 2026

Customer Data Platforms For B2C Vendor Product Comparisons 2026

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2026?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in Forrester Wave terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Forrester Wave?

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