Talking Stack - Marketing Technology Podcast show

Talking Stack - Marketing Technology Podcast

Summary: As Marketers – B2B, B2C, Enterprise, SMB – we can’t help being somewhat overwhelmed by just how much is going on in MarTech! Make sense of Marketing Technology & Digital Marketing headlines with the Talking Stack experts - David Raab, Anand Thaker & handpicked Guests - and host Chitra Iyer. We promise practical connections between the Big News & your life as a marketer. It’s 20 minutes of honest, educative, thought-provoking - and often entertaining - discussion about all the latest in Digital, Omni-channel, Privacy, Customer Experience, Customer Data Management, Content Experiences, Social Media Marketing, B2B Marketing, Search, Mobile Marketing; AdTech, Performance Marketing, SalesTech, and more!

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Podcasts:

 How Marketers Can Use Second-party Data + Global Voice, Video, Social Trends| S3 EP 04 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:21:02

Report of the week: HootSuite’s Global Digital Overview 2020 Top 3 takeaways from the report we discuss: 1.What customer engagement is going to look like in 2020 and beyond: leveraging employees as a crucial link in CX 2. Will marketers find their ‘purpose’ with video in 2020? 90% of internet users said watching videos was their number one activity online- how will marketers’ approach video content to drive business outcomes – especially with a growing list of martech vendors that enable video production in pennies and minutes? 3. Thinking about ‘what is the best investment in voice in our context’? One of the biggest surprises with Voice is that it’s turning out to have more applications at the back of the house than in customer-facing applications. Worth tracking for B2B especially. 4. Finally- the increasing scope of social media marketing- again a lot of confusion over the purpose (Engagement? Brand building? Customer service? Leads? Social commerce?) and the business outcomes one can expect from investments in social media marketing, even as expectations grow. Trend of the week: Second-party data LiveRamp launches Safe Haven for data partnerships David explains in laymen terms what second party data means, how marketers can get access to it, and the business case for its rapid growth. News of the week: CoronaVirus Workarounds and Disruptions Here is a list of companies that have come thru with workarounds to help businesses stay in motion: •CampTek Software Announces Coronavirus Conference Cancellation Bot •Cappasity to Provide Retailers with Free Access to Its Immersive Technologies to Counter COVID-19 Losses •Evolve IP Has Been Enabling and Empowering Work From Home for Over a Decade, Offers Collaboration and Virtual Workspaces In a Time of Need •Microsoft, Google, and Zoom are trying to keep up with demand for their now free work-from-home software •Odo Security Offers Free Remote Access Solution for Employees Working from Home During the Coronavirus Outbreak •Oneclick offers Instantly available IT solution for home office workplaces •StarLeaf supports business continuity during coronavirus crisis including launch of free-to-use collaboration services •Trustifi Offering No-Cost Email Encryption Licenses to Safeguard the Influx of Remote Workers •Vidyo is giving away temporary licenses to connect remotely- no strings attached

 Expert analysis of the latest CX news feat. Adobe, Sprinklr, Freshworks, Lytics| S3 EP 03 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:26:26

David Raab, Anand Thaker and Chitra Iyer analyze what the latest announcements in MarTech mean to marketers. Featuring latest CX news from Adobe, Verint, Adobe, Sprinklr, Freshworks, Wipro Digital, Rational Interaction, Thunderhead and Lytics. Gartner’s recent prediction asserted that 89% of companies will compete solely on CX - the market for CX spending is growing exponentially. And today’s analysis is about that. We first set context on the scope of CX and the core components needed to create a comprehensive ‘CX ecosystem’. Here are the recent CX news, trends and concepts we analyse on the show: 1. Wipro acquires Rational Interaction, a digital CX consultancy for $52 million. Interesting because technology vendors get the ‘tech’ but probably need help getting CMOs to see how the story and the tech are connected. As Rajan Kohli, President of Wipro Digital says, “[The acquisition] bolsters our end-to-end proposition for CMOs. We’ve combined Rational’s ability to engage and delight through the customer journey with Wipro Digital’s technical expertise and scale”. And Kahly Berg, CEO of Rational adds, “In terms of MarTech, customers need a unified human story and connection built into the technologies that support their experience as consumers”. 2. Sprinklr Releases 400 New Features across its 5 Products: the platform’s 5 components each address a core CX component - marketing, advertising, customer care, social media (which they call engagement) and research/data. The simple structure is nice, in the context of marketers being able to better visualize marketing applications and outcomes of tech investments. 3. Verint Expands Its Adobe Partnership to Support More Personalized Customer Journeys: Verint is focused on collecting VoC data, and Adobe experience cloud enables all aspects of campaign delivery. We talk about the additional value this could create for Adobe users. 4. Thunderhead Announces Automated Individual-Level Journey Design The customer journey orchestration engine announced an AI-driven platform to create individual-level optimized cross channel journeys. David explains “The system deals with the interdependencies among events, history, time, and path which overwhelm conventional methods”. Here’s what it means to marketers. 5. Freshworks, a customer engagement software company, acquires AnsweriQ Inc., a provider of ML and AI for enterprise scale. Basically this AI to inform customer service – helping agents sound much smarter and well informed, but also to sell more, and better. Could it be a game changer if it actually works? And in CDP news this week: 1. Lytics Integrates with Google Cloud BigQuery, To Enhance Its Customer Data Platform: David clarifies what it means for enterprise marketers to move massive amounts of customer and raw data into Google’s cloud-based data warehouse environment for real-time analytics. Follow us on Spotify, leave us a review on iTunes. Have a great week. Thank you! MarTech Advisor-https://www.martechadvisor.com/multimedia/podcasts/series/talking-stack Spotify- https://podcasters.spotify.com/episode/5r1OJ8Y7ApfpfabEUjyLEA Apple Podcasts- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/expert-analysis-latest-cx-news-feat-adobe-sprinklr/id1373600978?i=1000467319287

 Sensible Martech Choices, Latest Marketing Surveys, and Identity Resolution News | S3 EP 02 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:37:20

This week we talk about making sensible martech stack decisions in the giant martech candy store; what makes the ‘D2C approach’ work, findings from 3 new marketing surveys; and David Raab’s expert commentary on 3 news items from the identity resolution space. Section1: talking martech with Pat Maigler, Sr. Manager Marketing Strategy and Operations at Williams Sonoma Inc. (All opinions expressed are Pat’s own, and not representative of Williams Sonoma Inc.) Top 5 highlights of the discussion 1.Growing into a career in marketing technology: Pat’s journey 2.How marketers have evolved into becoming data-driven decision makers: observations from a 2- decade long career 3.Choosing the right martech tech in the giant martech candy store: •How to assemble a sane and rational martech stack •Working with IT as collaborators – not adversaries •Avoiding frankenstacks: when to choose platforms and clouds versus assembling your own •How to prioritize strategic needs and satisfy operational needs in your stack 4.The question of integration: do clouds and platform components integrate better than elements in an ‘assembled stack’? How do newly merged or acquired companies deal with integration of martech? 5. What helps D2C marketers punch above their weight; and what traditional marketers can learn from it Section 2: Highlights from 3 marketing reports that hit the stands this week 1. The State of Branding Report 2020 from Bynder about the use of technology for mainly branding applications 2. The Incite Group released the State of Marketing Report 2020 – which also had some 1000+ marketers responding to questions largely abt content n social streatgies 3. Chief Outsiders, a company that offers Executives as a Services, CMOs to be specific, released a report on CMO priorities for 2020 Section 3: David Raab explains the 3 news items about Identity Resolution this week 1. Merkle Launches Merkury Identity Resolution Platform – what are private identity graphs and what can marketers do with them that they couldn’t do before? 2. 180byTwo Launches Unifi - an AI-Powered Customer Data and Identity Platform for B2B Marketers – after the demise of Radius and the general understanding that B2C is much more conducive for CDP-scale platforms, why this? 3. Kount unveils ‘Identity Trust Global Network’ – what is identity verification and why should marketers care? Follow us on Spotify, Google podcast or leave us a review on iTunes. Have a great week. Thank you! Spotify- https://podcasters.spotify.com/episode/3H2fmi1DKkDdakFzQQ2iVY Google Podcast-https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6NDM0MDYzODIwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M&episode=dGFnOnNvdW5kY2xvdWQsMjAxMDp0cmFja3MvNzYzMTY1MTE0&ved=0CAIQkfYCahcKEwiYpLba0t3nAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAg iTunes-podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mart…1373600978?mt=2

 The Growth of First Party Data Tech & Campaign CDPs in 2020 |S3 EP 01 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:33:22

Segment 1: The Growth of First Party Data Tech David Raab of the CDP Institute, growth advisor Anand Thaker, and Chitra Iyer talk about the rise of first party data tech - from personalization platforms to experience clouds, data integration to CDPs and everything in between. Highlights of the discussion include: - Factors behind the rise of ‘first party data tech’ - What’s problematic about ‘consent’ replacing cookies - Why publishers will make data vendors irrelevant over time (and the trouble with that). Hint: think mini walled gardens and the need for fair data exchange co-ops - Why CDPs could take over where DMPs left off Segment 2: The CDP Institute’s 2020 CDP Industry Update The CDP Institute revealed all the data that’s shaping the CDP industry as we head into 2020, and we have the man himself- David Raab – to answer questions that we think you are thinking. Starting with the over 8 CDP acquisitions in 2019 to the most recent one by Salesforce, to why marketers need simpler labels to help define what the platforms do. Highlights of the discussion include: - Why and how the CDP industry is consolidating and why the number of stand alone CDPs will come down - The Salesforce acquisition of Evergage. Omer Artun, Founder of AgilOne - a CDP that itself got acquired by Acquia in 2019, is now the Chief Science Officer at Acquia. Here’s his comment on the Evergage acquisition: “Salesforce knew they had a huge gap in customer data and customer intelligence. Their service cloud, marketing cloud (Exacttarget), CRM and Demandware don't talk to each other in any customer specific way. They first claimed Krux would become their customer hub, then they bought Mulesoft then bought Dataroma, a marketing dashboard company which they are trying to build a CDP around. Now, they are putting their money behind Everage. However, Evergage is not a CDP - it's web personalization that can handle profiles. Most brands are looking for robust identity resolution, analytics capabilities that can stitch and analyze many sources of data. Evergage can neither stitch in an enterprise manner nor offers analytics with any rigor.” So, how will this acquisition exactly help its customers? We tell you. - The role of CRM in the data driven marketing landscape and why labels will matter (or not) when it comes to offering CX solution platforms - Why ‘campaign CDPs’ are the fasted growing CDP segment today (even though ‘data CDPs’ are the most funded) Get your free copy of the CDP Institute’s 2020 Industry Update for free, from here. https://www.cdpinstitute.org/general Hail of the Week: We start 2020 on a positive note with a big hail for privacy related funding: - SuperAwesome out of the UK (just raised $17 million) for kid-safe media - SECURITI.ai raised $50 million for privacy technology - Google is planning to block third party cookies - Global Alliance for Responsible Media is working to identify and boycott harmful online content Follow us on Spotify, Google podcast or leave us a review on iTunes. Have a great week. Thank you! Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/4CmetQ62mdBz62KtfXetiZ Google Podcast-https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6NDM0MDYzODIwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M iTunes-https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/martechadvisor-podcasts/id1373600978?mt=2

 5 Big MarTech Themes for 2020 | 64 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:52:49

Brent Leary, David Raab, Anand Thaker, and host Chitra Iyer talk about 5 significant martech themes that will – or should matter in 2020: 1. The Customer Data Management space • David explains why his biggest milestone in 2019 was Salesforce, Adobe, and Oracle coming out with seemingly legit CDP’s, and “the very specific technical change” they have made since they entered the CDP conversation • Privacy is the other big significant concept. “It’s getting marketers rethinking how they will approach the concept of customer data” • Brent: will CDPs finally go beyond marketing and become an enterprise tool? • Anand: there are 2 drivers of CDP investments. “Privacy is a driver – but it’s a stick. CDPs as an engine for digital transformation/ customer experience is the more aspirational reason why CDP investments will grow – it is the carrot.” 2. Will Adtech and MarTech finally converge to cut out the biggest silo in CX? • Anand: Silos keep a lot of the possibilities around customer experience wanting • David: The biggest change is media addressability - that will lead to convergence • Acquisition activities and retention activities should not be separate – there will be a convergence of every tech possible (we’re calling it ‘omni-tech’!). 3. What’s worth watching in Sales tech? • Brent: will salespeople finally stop hating CRM in 2020? • Brent: Voice + AI is going to be hugely transformational for sales tech • Brent and David: the subscription economy is changing the nature of the sales job • Anand: the ‘AI-fication’ of sales tasks and the retraining of sales to be value creators are keys to the future of sales – not sales tech per se • Brent shares his report from what he found the most interesting at Dreamforce 2019. 4. Analytics and the future of data visualization for marketers • Visualization versus voice or visualization + voice? The panel discusses what will be the most useful for marketers 5. Transformative technologies to look out for - The vote goes to Voice - with a really smart integration layer that can take voice queries and connect to the right system in the backend - Is Location the underrated tech we should care more about? Please follow and review us on Spotify or iTunes Thanks podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk…st/id1373600978 www.martechadvisor.com/multimedia/podcasts/ podcasters.spotify.com/podcast/4Cmet…etiZ/overview

 The Performance Aspects of Rich media + a New CDP Trend|63 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:28:48

What is rich media and why is it instrumental in the end user experience? Sanjay Sarathy, VP Marketing of Cloudinary, talks rich media and how marketers can get better outcomes from developing a practical approach to their non-text media strategy. 2/3rd of the web is images, or non-text content. And the world of non-text content is evolving fast- what with video, voice, AR-VR etc. all vying to play starring roles in most marketing strategies today, and users themselves evolving how they interact and engage with these non-text formats at different stages of their buyer journey. What are the 4 key things we see brands that ‘get’ rich media are doing? Here’s a hint: 1. They do an optimal mix of video, audio, devices, UGC and studio etc. 2. They recognize that different channels require different forms of media 3. They are constantly iterating and improving and evolving both - media that performs as well as media that underperforms 4. Well before they reach the stage of defining technology and processes, they have figured out the personas and their priorities In Section 1, Sanjay Sarathy, David Raab, Anand Thanker and Chitra Iyer delve into the 7 most common questions’ marketers want answered about rich media: 1. What is rich media and how can it impact customer experience? 2. Can we automate the creation and delivery of variations of one really great rich media asset? 3. What are the performance implications of rich media and how can I balance engagement with the cost of content creation? 4. How can I move beyond relying on our own content and manage and scale user generated media and content safely and intelligently? 5. How should I optimize for all possible touchpoints and formats that rich media allows? What trade-offs should we make to help decide our rich media content creation and distribution strategy? 6. How impactful can using search optimised rich media be for brand discoverability 7. How do you quantify engagement to make a business case for rich media? Focus on o Usage metrics (time on page, conversion, sharing) o Performance metrics (is my page or app or content asset performing better than it did X months ago in terms of streaming speed, page load and all the things that ultimately improve engagement rates) Plus 8. Sanjay Sarathy shares Cloudinary’s own martech stack 9. David (who was recording from Germany) plays his AI drinking game (see the pic if you don’t believe us) Section 2: A New CDP Trend We take a look at what even David Raab has called a trend in the CDP space - the acquisitions of AI based predictive tools by CDP vendors in November. There were 3 in November to be precise, but its getting more common. Is it because marketers want predictive capability out of the box without additional integration; just another way for vendors to differentiate themselves in a confusing and crowded market; or is it about plugging the analytics gap between data organization and data activation at two ends of the customer data spectrum? We delve into why that may be and what is pushing CDP vendors to shore up their solutions in this direction. PS - the 3 Novemebr acquisitions were: - Amperity bought Custora - Manthan bought Rich Relevance and - Netcore bought Boxx.ai Please follow and review us on Spotify or iTunes! Thanks! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk…st/id1373600978 www.martechadvisor.com/multimedia/podcasts/ podcasters.spotify.com/podcast/4Cmet…etiZ/overview

 How to Use Insights From Permissioned First Party Data | 62 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:26:27

Gary Laben from permissioned-first party research data provider Dynata tells us how marketers can use research-based data to bridge the gaps in our understanding of the customer. ‘Understanding the consumer’ is easier said than done (understatement of the year!). As Gary Laben from Dynata, David Raab from the CDP Institute and Anand Thaker of Intelliphi discuss in this episode of The Talking Stack, it will take a lot of technology and a lot of skills to do that in any meaningful way. Certainly, more than one methodology is needed to assemble all the data and insights needed to minimize the gap! And in today’s episode, we see how the present tech-enabled, democratized version of first-party research can help marketers do just that. Here are the top 5 areas of discussion in episode 62 of The Talking Stack: 1. The ‘democratization’ of research and how the technology around market research is changing and evolving the space from the ‘do it for me’ model to the ‘do it together’ model and finally the ‘do it myself’ model 2. Is everyone a market research expert? What are the skills needed to avoid the simple and not-so-simple mistakes we make when it comes to conducting and leveraging research-based insights? 3. Do we overestimate what’s possible with data? What are the limits with how much we can react and respond to what the data is telling us? Anand, David and Gary take us from the philosophical to the practical when it comes to humans understanding humans and how e data can be used as ‘a basis for the actions.’ 4. Why marketing teams will shift focus from customer intimacy to customer primacy and customer centricity in 2020 and beyond 5. David’s apt wrap-up quote: “Personalization and great customer experiences are not the same thing.” You may not need a lot of data to deliver great customer experiences – there may be basic but valuable experiential things that get deprioritized because we are focused on chasing the more glamorous data-driven or technology-driven aspects of experience. if possible, find a minute to follow us on SoundCloud , Spotify or leave us a review on iTunes and we'd be grateful. Have a great week.Thank you.! https://www.martechadvisor.com/multimedia/podcasts/how-to-use-insights-from-permissioned-first-party-data-62

 Central Decision Hubs, Buyer Journeys, Customer-Centric Marketers and the Future of CRM | 61 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:35:45

Join Jeff Nicholson VP, CRM Product Marketing at Pegasystems and David Raab in a great conversation around relationships and the future of CRM, where they will explore such questions as: 1. Can you orchestrate something you don’t have any control over? (i.e the famed ‘customer journey’?) 2. What’s best for the customer and why the future of customer-centric marketing is not about the next best offer but the next best action (which may not be an offer at all) 3. How marketing success metrics are changing in the world of customer-centric marketing 4. Why are CEOs not getting value out of CRM and why are CRMs unable to drive value for company-customer relationships? 5. How to move from systems of information to systems of relationships? How can we build systems that serve up insights right into the moment, instead of systems that just serve up data? (Hint: heard of ‘Real Time Interaction Management’? 6. How central decision hubs with federated (not consolidated) data structures are helping marketers become channel-less in their approach, and why it matters that you build the logic for the journey independent of the channel, if you are a marketer heading into 2020 and beyond. 7. Why the buyer’s journey and the customers journey are two different things, and how your customer-centric marketing needs to respond to that 8. With technology and data and analytics getting better, faster, smarter, how can marketers keep up? What the ONE TRUE skill of marketers in the future going to be? 9. The matter of integration: how to serve up insights into the moment across a range of channels that may not be able to talk to each other, and how to pick a vendor that doesn’t fear integration across the ecosystem of technology. 10. Why getting the ‘offer or next best action’ right is important, but not getting it wrong is equally important (you will probably overlook this if you only care about campaign conversions instead of relationships over time) Plus: David and Jeff share predictions on what customer engagement and relationships will look like in 2020 and beyond. if possible, find a minute to follow us on SoundCloud , Spotify or leave us a review on iTunes and we'd be grateful. Have a great week.Thank you.! https://www.martechadvisor.com/multimedia/podcasts/central-decision-hubs-buyer-journeys-customercentric-marketers-and-the-future-of-crm-61

 The Path to $46 million In Sales From Social Media Marketing | 60 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:28:58

If you track social media marketing best practices, chances are you’ve heard of Santiago Solimei, the global head of social media at the Melia group of hotels. While their success with social media marketing has been extensively covered in the press, let me remind you of the outcomes: the company has been named one of the 10 most influential brands on social media; and has built a solid online community (over 6 million followers) around its 545 brand and hotel accounts on different social media platforms in 167 countries. If you think those numbers are staggering, then listen to this - Social media generates 24% of the traffic to melia.com and more than €42 million in sales have been attributed to social. Today, Santiago takes us through a social media marketing masterclass which will have you asking: “How strategic is my social media strategy really?” Santiago calls social media the ‘golden thread that connects all the stages of the consumer journey’. But, lets be honest - for many marketers ‘social media’ is a must-do where mere social media presence becomes the end in itself. Often, there is no real ‘strategy’ beyond setting up the social handles and getting an agency (or worse, a couple of interns) on board to man the stations. However, approached strategically -and in the right context, of course – your social media ROI could be much higher than you probably think possible. Listen in as we talk to the man who has put his money where his mouth is when it comes to proving the business case for social media. Here are some highlights of the stuff we discussed: - Why Melia Hotels wants to be a ‘social first’ company, and the key levers to get there: - The role of the CEO in driving business outcomes from social media, and hiring the right kind of people for a digital/ social first team - Developing an organization wide social media charter for global enterprises - Converting social media engagement to revenue (while remembering that selling is not the ultimate goal of social media) - The fans set the rules – and other rules of social media engagement - Building a balance between branded and experiential content, studio content and user- or influencer-generated content – and why nothing is ever actually ‘free’ – not even UGC - The difference between ‘community’ and ‘audience’ - How to behave like an online publisher/ experience seller/ content generator/ media company (while still retaining the essence of a hotel and travel company) - The 4 pillars of your social media strategy: o The right people o The right platforms and tools o The right budgets for media and campaign management o The right budget for amplification and content boosting

 The Real Life of Martech Managers: Career, Challenges and Choices | 59 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:26:32

Steve Petersen, marketing technology manager at WGU, an online institution for higher education shares what the job profile really involves, real life practical challenges on-the-job, the reality of choosing the right technology, and on being a good partner to your martech vendors. Here are the top 3 highlights – but don’t miss the details in our conversation! 1. Want to build a career in martech? Here are Steve’s top tips • Listen to your dad! • Learn new stuff/ technologies when you get a chance, whether technical or functional- trust me, it will come in handy one day • Dabble in a lot of stuff by saying yes to workplace opportunities – it keeps you fresh and ready for bigger and better roles that may not exist today • Seek inspiration from organizations beyond your own sphere. Steve recommends you benchmark yourself with your direct competitors in your domain, but also with other best-in-class digital-first organizations, irrespective of the industry. Think Amazon et al. 2. How do you pick the right vendors and what are the big red flags to look for? He recommends using what’s out there- from speaking with consultants - Gartner, Forester, Cabinet M, Real Story Group - to reading peers interviews (on MarTech Advisor!) and of course, also, listening to vendor testimonials, what your colleagues may have worked with in the past and other signs. 3. How do you prioritize what’s most important in terms of allocating resources? Everything from A/B testing to analytics and what management wants to accomplish larger business goals…Steve also shares the foundational components of WGU’s martech stack - Salesforce, Marketo, Optimizely, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manage (AEM) If you are looking for a martech career or want to know what a serious martech manager’s job involves, don’t miss this conversation with Steve Petersen right eon MarTech Advisor’s Talking Stack.

 Artificial Intelligence In Marketing: Use-Cases, Readiness, Skill Sets, Challenges And Ethics| 58 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:29:16

Today we are talking about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in marketing with Loren McDonald, who is Program Director, Marketing Research at Acoustic, and a well-regarded figure in the AI in Marketing space, having been the marketing evangelist for IBM’s Watson platform for over a decade. We start with clarifying the various terms related to AI in marketing – from predictive analytics to ML to AI and RPA and everything in between, how can marketers not be confused about what this really means to them? And how much do marketers really need to know about AI, technically, in order to make the right marketing technology purchase decisions? Loren suggests a level of conversational competency- knowing enough to ask the right questions about how it’s going to solve your specific problems is central to that approach. What are some of the most common misperceptions about AI? Most importantly, it’s not a magic black box – a lot of work must go into AI-readiness. What are some of the challenges with leveraging AI and ML for B2B use-cases? Of course, the volume of data points is lesser because there are fewer customers, so does that automatically translate into the AI no having enough to work with for pattern recognition? Lorens suggestion is to design marketing messages in a way that encourages ‘data interactions’ - design not just to drive clicks but design in a way that the system can learn as much as possible from simple, day-to-day customer actions and interactions on site and elsewhere. The real B2B challenge when it comes to trusting the data is also salespeople collecting and recording subjective data – since B2B is all about the relationships and networks versus a straight line buying decision, its imperative for B2B AI to be adept at understanding nuance, relationships and the networks that govern the buying decision. Finally, we talk about why consumer companies like McDonald's are investing so heavily into AI-powered technology – where is it going to fit into the overall CX? Are they motivated by owning the customer journey or by the need to automate human tasks at the order taking level? And what are the ethical issues involved with ML and AI-powered marketing? All this and more with Loren McDonald, Anand Thaker, and Loren McDonald, this week on The Talking Stack! If you enjoy it, take a moment to like us on Soundcloud or leave a review on iTunes! It will help keep the show going!

 Gartner’s Digital Marketing Hype Cycle 2019 Explained | 57 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:35:42

This week, we dig into the Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising 2019, with Mike McGuire who takes us through the category selection and what the different phases (should) mean to us, marketers. We also talk through the 3 of the 4 technologies identified in the report as being transformational for marketing over the decade - currently, these 3 are all at the ‘peak of inflated expectations’ but will soon be entering the ‘trough of disillusionment’. Customer Data Platforms AI for Marketing Real-Time Marketing We connect the dots between the 3 technology categories in the context of ‘data’, as well as talk about the distinctions between real-time data ingestion/ integration, real-time marketing, and our responses as marketers, which don’t have to be ‘real-time’ as much as what Mike calls ‘customer time’ for the best customer experiences. David adds, “people don’t want personalized ads - they want personalized service experiences.” While on experiences, we throw in the ‘adtech-martech convergence’ conversation for good measure, and David tells us he’s (coincidentally) been hearing a lot more CDPs plugging directly into a DMP (versus DSPs as was the practice so far)…we live in interesting times. I ask them why some people (like me) have such different ‘buyer’ and ‘prospect’ experiences with the same brand, from the same device, in spite of all the technology available for ‘seamless’ experiences. Is it an identity resolution gap or an adtech-martech gap? Listen in as David and Anand both arrive (from different routes) at a very likely explanation. We end out the session with David and Anand taking us to some of the main themes from MarTech Conference East and what was particularly exciting to them. Don’t miss it! (or read the full transcript on the next tab) Additional Resources: For more information on the technologies driving marketing innovation, listen to the Panel Discussion: Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising webinar. The full report is available to Gartner for Marketers clients here: Hype Cycle for Digital Marketing and Advertising 2019.

 Lean Surveillance, Brand Value and Other MarTech Disruptions | 56 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:37:01

We’re excited to welcome Duane Schulz to the Talking Stack this week- not just because he brings decades of perspective from both enterprise and start-up experiences, but also because he is a passionate champion of responsible marketing that creates true brand value. Here’s what we talked about: On Steering the marketing and martech digital transformation at Xerox: Duane highlights a 4 step framework they followed when he led the dual marketing and martech practice there: 1. Discover: identify the tech people had already deployed across a very distributed marketing operation (over 30 different marketing teams globally) and finding the stacks that had been created intentionally - and unintentionally 2. Organize: develop a taxonomy that combined the need for a centralised layer and a decentralizes ‘satellite layer’, and give the decentralized marketing organizations the freedom to make their own choices while still governing centrally 3. Structure: identify the resources/ skills/ training and funding needed at the centre and on the ground and create a new organizational structure to manage the stack 4. Plan: building a multi-year progression model – people tend to underutilise every martech tool they use- so we made a plan to progressively go to higher levels of optimal usage and defined the steps needed to get there- all the while, still rolling out new tools in parallel! On the differences in the way marketers choose martech today versus at a time when the landscape had 1500 logos on it The biggest development is the level of maturity we have now in tech selection and management, of course. We didn’t have a stack model back then - the big change is the way the (martech) tools are organized by functions and purpose in managing the customer journey versus what they do. Today, we also have a complex ecosystem with tons of plugins versus a few monolithic pieces of technology. On a Brand Value and Lean Surveillance approach to marketing Brands should approach privacy as a human right not a compliance matter- what if we embrace it and make it key part of the marketing function? Today, tracking has become an euphemism for Surveillance, and we are not doing it mindfully. Each tool in our stack is weaponised with tracking- which the vendors of these tools are doing on my behalf. CEOs and CMOs are carrying a lot of risk in their stack that may blow up on them one day- but they are also carrying a lot of opportunity to create brand value – what if we thought about that as the potential value of our stack instead of short term metrics like leads? This thinking is disruptive because marketers don’t want to mess with their demand gen numbers and traffic numbers (in the short term). But building trust and brand value beyond just the privacy and consent conversation needs disruptive thinking such as the concept of Lean Surveillance– a set of principles and practices that Duane elaborates in the conversation. Some of the nuggets include: • Be mindful about the inbound data you collect • Make a decision about buying or sharing data (Duane’s advice is - don’t buy data, don’t share data) • Avoid ‘misdirection’ and dark patterns- they detract from letting people make clear and wilful choices • Seriously consider walking away from lead scoring (highly disruptive but don’t miss Duane’s argument!) • Create a ‘tracking policy’ that sits next to your privacy policy • Audit yourself • Practice privacy by design • And many more….

 Business Intelligence Beyond Dashboards + What’s up with B2B CDPs? | 55 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:27:00

This week we speak to Pedro about Business intelligence (BI) and Data intelligence solutions for the data-driven workforce – people who need data to do their work, but are not necessarily data experts. Pedro’s take on BI is all about creating ‘data-driven experiences’ – that are accessible by more than just data the analysts; and which go beyond just ‘reports and dashboards’. Here are some of the highlights of the conversation: 1. Getting value out of your data with data-driven experiences Multiple sources of business data has always been a messy problem. A modern BI experience can not only deliver a single source of truth on the business data; but can also help trigger operational business workflows based on dynamic data and articulate the data from different sources in a highly accessible and actionable way 2. Data-driven pain points for marketers: - Conflicting data: how many times do you go into a meeting hoping to make meaningful decisions based on data but end up arguing on which data is correct? - Narrow view of data- there is a lot of great business data that’s outside of the marketing source but marketers are often stuck in their own bubble or even sub-function - Lack of a data culture/ data literacy, which need cultivation, processes and investments in people - Lack of data leadership: executive sponsors who appreciate the value of data and can define and drive the data strategy 3. How do you reward curiosity about data and drive BI adoption? Marketing is inherently suited to drive adoption by doing several ‘marketing’ type things to build interest, reward curiosity and encourage usage in innovative new ways. 4. The future of BI and data visualisation People- marketers and other functional managers – live on apps like Slack and email – not in BI tools. BI needs to be available through those interfaces in simple query languages. The BI tool has got to empower people to harness the power of data to drive value for the business. 5. Going from data chaos to data enabled - It starts with data-leadership – followed by building the technology, people and processes - Build partnerships with groups outside of marketing such as IT, that can see data as a long-term initiative - Cultivate a data culture and find partners that understand the value of having a data culture - Define what you want to measure - business rules, KPIs and success metrics - Put robust governance mechanisms in place - Select tech that will support your goals, and go beyond the current, most-obvious use-cases - Empower people to execute the strategy and take it further - Data has a business purpose – be aware that applications and use cases keep evolving - and so should your data and BI strategy Segment 2: What’s up with B2B CDPs? David, Anand and Chitra talk about the changing mix of CDP vendors- are B2B CDPs going out of style? Why? And why are ‘campaign CDPs’ the ones driving the industry’s growth? Join us as we dive into these mid-year CDP industry trends.

 Mobile Marketing, AdTech, and the Future (it's more than 5G)| 54 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 00:30:13

Segment 1: In conversation with Jake Jake Moskowitz, VP of Data Strategy at Emodo + Head of Emodo Institute Here are the highlights 1. The mobile ad tech ecosystem The mobile marketing has consolidated in the last 5 years or so- there are clear centralised players where the money flows – namely the walled gardens and the open ecosystem. Jake explains all the elements of the ecosystem and how they work – a great segment to understand what’s what in mobile ad tech. 2. Is there a difference between mobile marketing and mobile ad tech? It may hard to see it from the outside, but the fact is that Mobile has taken over digital marketing, and Jake believes it happened the day Facebook advertising went mobile. “Even though a lot of marketing money is going to mobile, it’s not something marketers are specifically creating a strategy for, because the platforms are set up to build out a seamless experience between devices.” 3. What’s the biggest challenge with Mobile Ad tech today? The biggest challenge is that the platforms are catering to the lowest common denominator – this has watered-down the advertiser’s ability to be picky. People worry mainly about where the ads are running – and not worrying enough about the ‘how’ of the data. “Half or more of data is wrong - and yet people just assume it’s right because it’s in front of them – and I don’t think platforms today are doing enough to enable people to be pickier about the data on which they base their programmatic decisions”. 4. What can we do to fix the data reliability and accuracy problem in ad tech? Both Agencies and Vendors are starting to talk the language of quality – 3 years ago it was completely about scale and price. “The point is not to expect perfection - you have to keep making the trade-offs between quality (engagement) and quantity (reach) based on what your context. When it comes to decisions between scale and accuracy, the key is to balance both.”. 5. On 5G: what it is - and isn’t - about . Jake, who runs a podcast about 5G called FIVE, gives us the abridged version of what we need to know- as marketers- about 5G and its impact on the future of marketing. “5G should not be about speed in terms of ‘how fast you can download a movie’ - the real game changer has to do with latency - the interaction between a device and a network – the responsiveness timing. It will change the way marketers can use VR, AR, video, smart home devices”. Marketers need to think of 5G as a system of complementary technologies. It’s not about 5G alone. It is the combination of 5G + IoT + AI which is going to make probabilistic data far smarter. Soon, this will be the only way to make decisions fast enough for marketers to do real-time marketing. Depending on deterministic databases sitting on an AWS server 2000 miles away will not allow marketers to be able to keep up with the kind of new consumer expectations at scale in a 5G future. Jake says the 3 things marketers should think about in a 5G future are: 1. Building innovative, immersive customer experiences 2. Getting access to quality AI 3. Getting attached to the best data input sources We also talk about Locational Data being the only inherently data uniquely available from mobile, and how marketers need to make the most of it, in a world governed by regulations and consumer awareness. (The 6th episode of FIVE podcast is all about the Privacy Conundrum) Segment 2: Trend of the Week: Business Roundtable redefines the purpose of corporations 181 CEOs committed to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. Anand explains why Marketers should care. “Brands are closer to consumers with digital. Consumers now dictate how a company should build a business.” He also wrote a blog post about it that we think you should read.

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