Category: Uncategorized

The pressure of responsible data privacy in marketing and advertising is certainly the most important sea change in media since the beginnings of social. Interestingly, social media is probably most responsible for the awareness of data practices, some malicious and some unfortunate that began the swell of consumer data regulations. We know now we are…

It’s not often I get three people reaching out to me the same day to get my POV on a webinar but that happened last week after Ari Paparo’s quite informative “Cookie Apocalypse” briefing on the Google Chrome announcement. Why were people reaching out to me? The timing of Google’s announcement killing third-party data is…

Scott Brinker posted last week about the rise and diversity of ‘marketing technologists’ over the past decade. I remember when he coined the term because nine years ago this week, I was the first marketing technologist he interviewed on his blog. This got me thinking about current org roles, titles, responsibilities and as Scott puts it,…

Tag management may be the single most important piece of marketing technology. However, very little is widely known about tag management since it is seen as a solution to a technical issue rather than a marketing problem. That they have turned out to be the same thing as we move into the next decade is…

There may be no more important business challenge in the future than data commoditization. Brands must begin setting data strategies to ensure customer data, especially the constant stream of behavioral data, will maintain business advantage over time. This is a difficult and hugely important problem to solve. Without data advantage in the future, is there…

For the last 1.5 years I’ve spent my time working with enterprise consumer brands on their customer data strategy and execution. For many large brands this is a key workstream as they move data to the cloud. Naturally, the topic of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) is always in the conversation. If I had to boil…

It has been six months since sharing 2019 CDP Thoughts and Projections so I thought it might be time for a CDP check-in.  I’ve now spent the last year and a half looking at Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and working with Enterprises around their needs and processes for customer data strategy and instrumentation. I’ve known…

Same As It Ever Was As you read this essay, keep in mind the importance of web analytics. Most business on the web are built from these measurement tools. Publishers with page views. Advertising with impressions. Maybe most important of all, e-commerce with conversion rate. All the apps, sites and stores are built on top…

2018 was my first full-year involved in the CDP space but having spent a veritable lifetime in first-party data, analytics, APIs and machine learning I came to the market with both an appreciation for the technology being built and the problems CDP was looking to solve. I am impressed by the maturity of CDP solutions…

At this point data is captured on almost all products and services. Latency varies. Quality varies. Value varies. Use varies. But event data is collected even if it is just sales volume. However, not many products collect data in order to work. The ones that do of course have taken over the world. This is…

With regrets to The Smiths and one of the great B-sides of all-time, CDPs are the son and the heir of a Martech shyness that is criminally vulgar. Why are some brands shy about CDPs? From what I’ve seen in the market there are three primary blockers. Businesses are not mature enough with data Businesses…

This summer I immersed myself in customer data platforms having decided earlier in the year the technology is transformative. I believe CDPs are the biggest thing in Marketing SaaS since the advent of site analytics. CDPs are a generational, transformational, business technology. The power of CDPs includes setting the stage for true customer identity resolution…

  Lost in all the DTC hype is that it never really was direct-to-consumer. Google and Amazon were always at the start and Facebook at the loose-end. They are where intent is most valuable – the first and last mile to your brain. Where you can be influenced the most. Powering direct-to-consumer for the products…