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Dual zone CDP
David Chan’s Dual Zone model splits the CDP in two. Zone 1, the data zone, does the heavy work on warehouse time. Zone 2, the engagement zone, answers in the moment using what Zone 1 handed over earlier.
- Best for
- Organizations that need both full history and same-session decisions, with a data team and a marketing team that can agree on the handover between them.
- The trade
- Two zones to run and one seam to keep honest. The line between them tends to fall exactly where your organization is already split.
How it works
Where products draw the line
Break it
The boxes, and who holds each
- Website, app, store and CRM Marketing
Where customers leave a trace: page views, app events, purchases, account changes.
For example: HubSpot
- Event stream Your data team
Carries each event two ways at once: into the warehouse for history, and to Zone 2 for the moment.
For example: Tealium EventStream, Twilio Segment, RudderStack
- Warehouse and identity Zone 1 · Your data team
Zone 1. Joins every record into one customer and keeps the full history.
For example: Snowflake, Databricks, Amperity
- Enrichment and scoring Zone 1 · Your data team
Zone 1. Works out propensity, value and churn risk from the full history. Macro decisions that need real compute.
For example: dbt, Databricks
- Real-time profile Zone 2 · Marketing
Zone 2. A cached, current view of each customer, holding the scores Zone 1 sent over.
For example: Tealium AudienceStream, Zeotap Composable CDP
- Journeys and personalization Zone 2 · Marketing
Zone 2. Decides what this customer sees right now, and sends it.
For example: Braze, Bloomreach, Optimizely Web Experimentation
Quick check
Did it land?
1. What runs in Zone 1?
2. Zone 2 answers in the moment. What does it read?
3. Why does the line between the zones often match the organization chart?
Build this architecture
Open it in Stack Builder with the template on the canvas, then make it yours.
The template for this one is still being built.