What Is Segment And Why You Should Use It For Your Customer Data Platform

Companies of all sizes are looking for faster and easier ways to take advantage of data through analytics and BI.

In particular, knowing who your customers are, how they interact with your business, products and services is a modern necessity. In a customer-centric world where data can help improve the overall customer experience and relationships, you need to have solutions in place that make data easy to access as well as all-encompassing.

So how do companies do that? Especially in a world where data is coming in from every angle and often siloed into single applications.

Well, that is where customer data platforms like Segment come in.

What Is Segment?

Segment is a popular choice when it comes to customer data platforms (CDP). Segment helps simplify and streamline the data collection process while providing tools that make it easier for companies to transform, send, and archive the data they hold.

Ok, let’s remove all the marketing and hype speak.

Basically, CDPs are prebuilt system that centralizes customer data from all sources and then makes this data available to other systems like data warehouses and other integrations. Making it easier to manage all of your various data flows.

Going back go Segment. The high-level benefits are that Segment saves developers time spent coding and connecting solutions and helps them focus more on the data itself. Data enrichment is possible by tying Segment into your other tools, like your data warehouse, and you can even monitor performance, use it to inform decisions, and create very personalized user experiences with the help of unified data, identity resolution tools, and more.

What Are the Benefits of Segment?

Segment provides a lot of benefits for developers who are looking to improve their analytics workflows.

One API

Work with cleaner code thanks to Segment’s single API that you can use to collect data across platforms. It’s ideal for data engineering teams, particularly those seeking to streamline production, thanks to SDKs for iOS, Android, Javascript, and more than 20 server-side languages.

Integrations

Hundreds of integrations help you use Segment to collect and use data in a manner that powers operations. Connect to your favorite tools for advertising, analytics, attribution, customer management, deep linking, email, enrichment, feature flagging, live chat, marketing automation, performance monitoring, personalization, surveys, video, and more.

Documentation

Explore detailed documentation that offers explanations of everything Segment can achieve in an easy-to-understand format. Aside from collecting data, the documentation gives insight into responsible management and use of customer data with the help of Segment’s countless tools and integrations.

Built-in QA

Quality assurance (QA) is made easy with Segment’s built-in QA tools that automate the process. Use Segment to put QA on auto-pilot, testing your tracking code for you so you don’t have to manually look for property and data-type errors. Segment will do this, and so much more, for you, so your team can focus on what really matters.

Start for Free

Unlike many other CDPs, Segment allows developers to get started for free — and not just with a free trial, but with a generous free tier. The free Segment membership includes up to 1,000 visitors per month along with two data sources and access to over 300 integrations.

Segment vs. Rudderstack

Rudderstack is another option when it comes to customer data platform created for developers.

Out-of-the-box, Segment connects to more tools than Rudderstack, although the latter is continuously adding new sources. Still, despite Rudderstack’s ongoing efforts, Segment wins by a wide margin — not just because of its 300+ integrations, but also because Rudderstack tends to skew more technical, making it difficult for sales and marketing professionals to utilize it without more effort on behalf of engineering teams.

As far as in-built functionality goes, Segment and Rudderstack neatly tie. While Segment offers a no-code solution, it comes at an extra cost. Rudderstack, on the other hand, bundles transformations into every plan, but it will require the time and effort of your engineering team to make it work.

These tools also support the same data warehouses, though sync speed varies between the two. With Segment, you can sync your data daily with the Team plan, while Rudderstack can refresh the data in your warehouse as often as every 30 minutes. If you want to sync more often with Segment, you’ll need to upgrade to the Business plan, which lets you sync every hour.

Lastly, security is a major concern whenever you’re considering a customer data tool. Rudderstack does not store your customer data, but Segment does. Both take data privacy seriously, and Segment even offers a privacy portal for all workspaces so you can retain a transparent understanding of where your data is and how it’s being handled at all times.

Should My Organization Use Segment?

As you read through Segment’s features and explore its competitors, you’re left to decide whether or not Segment is the right fit for your company. If you’ve been exploring Rudderstack for some time, you may already be familiar with many of Segment’s capabilities, since their functionalities are so alike, but what about everything else? Here are the questions you should ask to arrive at your answer.

Which Integrations Are You Using?

It’s true that Segment offers over 300 integrations, whereas Rudderstack offers fewer than 100, but sheer volume doesn’t matter in the unlikely event that Segment’s catalog doesn’t include your favorite tools. Therefore, you should definitely compare the integration catalogs of Segment and Rudderstack side by side, so you can ensure Segment integrates with the tools you’re already using.

If a tool you’re considering doesn’t fully integrate with your existing stack, the next step is evaluating whether you can change your stack or if it’s worthwhile to pursue a custom integration.

Do You Have Dedicated Development Resources?

Considering your available development resources is another critical factor in deciding between Segment, Rudderstack, and other popular alternatives. Rudderstack skews more technical and can be difficult for sales and marketing teams to use without additional work from your engineering team. Meanwhile, Segment offers a low-code solution, but you’ll have to pay substantially more to gain access to it.

If you have limited development resources or if your ideal CDP won’t make you bother developers for everything, Segment’s low-code solution is the clear winner here. However, there’s a final aspect that’s sure to factor into your decision.

What’s Your Budget?

Your company’s budget will surely have the final say in whether you choose Rudderstack or Segment, but it’s a trade-off between how much of your development resources you’re okay with using. For instance, if you have a tighter budget, you’re going to have to find the development resources necessary to support Rudderstack. On the other hand, if you have a bigger budget, you might consider stretching it to gain access to Segment’s low-code solution.

Segment and Rudderstack both offer free plans, although Segment’s free plan limits are much less generous than Rudderstack.