Customer data platforms
Asked as “customer data platform”, and as “CDP”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B software company. 49 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, six models each.
Standing · first-choice share
49%
Clear leader
49Segment20Hightouch08BlueConic22others
49% of first choices, clear leader.
Since September 2026▲+3Since September 2026: 48% → 51%, +3 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.Segment held the lead, +3 points on 48%, inside the 12-point floor.
The standing
Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all six models, for a mid-market B2B software company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrantSince September 2026
01
Segment49%14%64endorsed leader▲+3Since September 2026: 48% → 51%, +3 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.48% → 51%
Segment49%14%64endorsed leader▲+3Since September 2026: 48% → 51%, +3 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.48% → 51%02
Hightouch20%5%42accepted challenger▼−1Since September 2026: 20% → 20%, −1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.20% → 20%
Hightouch20%5%42accepted challenger▼−1Since September 2026: 20% → 20%, −1 point. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.20% → 20%03
BlueConic8%15%20accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 5% → 5%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.5% → 5%
BlueConic8%15%20accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 5% → 5%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.5% → 5%04
RudderStack4%0%31accepted challenger▼−11Since September 2026: 14% → 2%, −11 points. Past the 12-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.14% → 2%
RudderStack4%0%31accepted challenger▼−11Since September 2026: 14% → 2%, −11 points. Past the 12-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.14% → 2%05
Census2%0%11accepted challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%
Census2%0%11accepted challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%06
Salesforce Data Cloud2%38%37criticized challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%
Salesforce Data Cloud2%38%37criticized challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%07
Adobe Real-Time CDP2%50%34criticized challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%
Adobe Real-Time CDP2%50%34criticized challenger▲+2Since September 2026: 0% → 2%, +2 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 2%Show the five products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
08
Tealium0%21%38accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
Tealium0%21%38accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%10
mParticle0%20%20accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
mParticle0%20%20accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%11
Klaviyo Data Platform0%17%12accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
Klaviyo Data Platform0%17%12accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%12
ActionIQ0%15%13accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
ActionIQ0%15%13accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%09
Treasure Data0%7%15accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%
Treasure Data0%7%15accepted challenger=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 12-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.0% → 0%The floor is 12 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. How the floor is measured
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All six head-to-head pages: the top four products, each against each
Recommended versus criticized
Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.
Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
010203040506070809101112Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Segment49%
Segment49%02Hightouch20%
Hightouch20%03BlueConic8%
BlueConic8%04RudderStack4%
RudderStack4%05Census2%
Census2%06Salesforce Data Cloud2%
Salesforce Data Cloud2%07Adobe Real-Time CDP2%
Adobe Real-Time CDP2%08Tealium0%
Tealium0%09Treasure Data0%
Treasure Data0%10mParticle0%
mParticle0%11Klaviyo Data Platform0%
Klaviyo Data Platform0%12ActionIQ0%
ActionIQ0%What they warned about
A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Segment14%
9 of 64 labels negative · 8 of 6 models
“Segment's documentation says some deletion requests depend on an identifiable `userId`, are asynchronous... Those are specific limits to test—not a blanket reason to reject Segment.” GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt
Adobe Real-Time CDP50%
17 of 34 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“You should **avoid** these if you do not have an enterprise budget or IT headcount ... they carry a premium price tag and high complexity” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Salesforce Data Cloud38%
14 of 37 labels negative · 7 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“You should **avoid** these if you do not have an enterprise budget or IT headcount ... premium price tag and high complexity” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Tealium21%
8 of 38 labels negative · 6 of 6 models · 2 hard negative
“What to avoid on a tight budget * Tealium publishes no pricing; Vendr pegs mid-market deployments at $60,000–$150,000 per year” Muse Glimmer 30B, budget prompt
What they cite
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the six in this edition.
Sites the answers cite
75 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 6 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1003 links across 245 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 36 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.
52 answers · 84 citations · 13 models
27 answers · 50 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Improvado23 answers · 25 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Gartner22 answers · 31 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Brevo22 answers · 22 citations · 7 models
vendor site · Rework21 answers · 27 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 20 citations · 7 models
19 answers · 20 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Hightouch18 answers · 24 citations · 8 models
18 answers · 18 citations · 10 models
vendor site · CloudTalk14 answers · 14 citations · 7 models
12 answers · 23 citations · 8 models
Pages the answers cite
The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.
43 answers · 12 models
23 answers · 11 models
22 answers · 7 models
20 answers · 7 models
19 answers · 9 models
19 answers · 11 models
18 answers · 10 models
14 answers · 7 models
11 answers · 7 models
11 answers · 7 models
Search against answers
Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best customer data platform”, “customer data platform”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
| Company and products | Share | Own site cited | Name searches, Google | AI search demand, est. | Organic visits | Paid search a month, est. | Google ads, last 30 days | Best Google position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twilio segment.com Segment 49% | 49% | 408 | 135,000 | 4,343 | 9,086 | 0 | ||
| Hightouch hightouch.com | 20% | 363 | 12,100 | 434 | 127,772 | 23 | 7 | |
| BlueConic blueconic.com | 8% | 64 | 1,000 | 22 | 4,661 | $142 | 9 | 1 |
| RudderStack rudderstack.com | 4% | 125 | 1,900 | 42 | 46,132 | 50 | ||
| Able CDP ablecdp.com | 4% | 4 | 30 | 0 | 172 | |||
| Fivetran fivetran.com Census 2% | 2% | 224 | 60,500 | 14,424 | 41,501 company | $126 | 97 | |
| Salesforce parent site Salesforce Data Cloud 2% | 2% | 320 | 550,000 | 60,632 | ||||
| Brevo brevo.com | 2% | 386 | 40,500 | 327 | 81,741 | $17,847 | 106 | |
| Customer.io customer.io | 2% | 187 | 2,900 | 174 | 15,750 | $6,920 | 112 | |
| ZoomInfo zoominfo.com | 2% | 846 | 135,000 | 1,810 | 6,376,738 | $1,140 | 120 |
Google's top ten for the two searches hold 16 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (cdp.com, cxtoday.com, gartner.com, hightouch.com, learn.g2.com). The first result for “best customer data platform” is gartner.com.
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.ShowHide
How they answered
Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHideModelDirect“What is the best customer data platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which CDP would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top customer data platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best customer data platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a customer data platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which customer data platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Opus 5no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Claude Opus 4.8no first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-6 Astrano first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.6 Solno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.1 Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Perplexity Sonar Prono first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against
The record
One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Zero rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
| Prompt | Model | Version string | Time (UTC) | Searched | Sources | Latency |
|---|
Noise floor in this category
Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.
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Normalization in this category
Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.
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Category-scoped readings
Adobe read as Adobe Real-Time CDP
HubSpot read as HubSpot
HubSpot (Starter/Brownie Tier) read as HubSpot
Klaviyo read as Klaviyo Data Platform
Klaviyo CDP read as Klaviyo Data Platform
Microsoft read as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Oracle read as Oracle Unity
Salesforce read as Salesforce Data Cloud
Unresolved, counted raw
Acquia
AudienceStream
Microsoft Customer Data Platform
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.