DMS and CDP integration guide

What to check before you decide

Ask about latency. Some uses can wait a day.

Others, such as suppressing a customer who just bought, need data within hours. Get an answer on how often the data refreshes, how failures are reported and what the platform assumes when data is stale.

Consent and permitted use are central. Customers hold rights under privacy laws, and a dealership that arranges financing is also covered by the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Define what the platform may do with DMS data and what it may not, for example no sale or sharing with outside parties. Ask how deletion and opt-out requests flow back to the DMS and to every connected tool.

Look at access. The DMS vendor may control how outside systems read data and may charge a fee. Find out who pays, what the contract says about your data, and what happens to the feed if you change DMS.

Test identity. Take fifty customers and compare the platform's profile with the DMS record. Look for merged people, split people and missing vehicles.

Keep documentation: the field list, the refresh schedule, the owner, the consent rules and the last test date.

Agree on the list of campaigns the platform may power from DMS data and keep it short, then review it twice a year, because every new use of customer records should have a named owner who has checked the consent basis, since data that was fine for a service reminder may not be fine for a conquest offer.

List the fields you chose not to send and the reason for each, because the discipline of leaving data out is part of the control, and the list shows a regulator or a manufacturer that the feed was designed on purpose.