There was an exercise guru Susan Powters who hit it big in the 90s by getting up on stages looking fit, strong, and powerful. She’d lost I think 100 pounds by debunking the fad diet communities gimmicky shake drinking starvation plans that preyed on real people looking to improve their health. If you’re in your late 30’s at least you’ll remember her. She eventually wanted to have a baby, her agents told her no so she fired them all and went to do her own thing. Susan, we hope you’re loving life and enjoying all your well-earned money.
MarTech and the 1PD space needs a Susan Powters. I’m not volunteering but I’m going to give you some of my opinions and a few pieces of advice. Look up my experience – I’ve been doing this for a while and I’ve seen it ALL.
Have you ever been in that meeting with the sales guy in the 400 dollar blazer, the dark jeans, the latest apple watch, and the grin from ear to ear as he’s taking you through the latest “game-changing” piece of technology? He’s telling you how you’re going to be able to use your customer data to increase your ROI by 100% – maybe in 3 months and it’s going to be SO easy.
Maybe he can or maybe he’s full of…
Here’s what you want to ask him – whether you’re buying a CDP, purchasing a 3rd party set of data or looking into a machine learning tool, etc.
- Why can’t I do what you’re talking about with the tools that I have now? Most of the time you can – save some money work with what you have and get smarter about how you create your audiences and where you spend your advertising dollars.
- Is my current data ready for your product? Most of the time it isn’t, but that’s OK however someone is going to do that work to get it ready.
- How will my customer or prospect be targeted better with your product and show me specifics on how you’ve done it before. Make sure they know your brand, your market, and similar customer types.
- Is my organization set-up to handle your tool? How much of your product will I use today vs. evolve into. Do we have the right skill sets – if not how does my team need to change?
- Finally, dig into how they’re going to charge you. Data storage, executions out of the platform? Also, ask them how your fees grow make sure you tie that to an ROI model. You deserve to make sure you’re getting more value as they’re charging you more.
With that said please remember there are so many great companies (I’ve worked for them) in this space that have created real products and advanced AI to enable and support brands in making customer experiences and advertising more targeted.
These questions will help you weed out the ones that can really help vs. the others.
Best of luck and let’s STOP THE INSANITY.
-Rob Dennison
