Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Making Sense of Martech
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration Complexity, $215B Losses, & Why Your Stack Still Doesn't Talk | 11 mars 2026 | 00:38:06 | |
"If you don't understand your internal customer, you're failing both the internal customer and the business." Jacqueline
Jacqueline and Juan tackle Martech's second-biggest pain point: integration complexity, data silos, and the operational fragmentation that's threatening to cost the industry $215 billion by 2027.
Drawing on McKinsey's latest research and exclusive insights from enterprise leaders preparing for Martech World Forum Melbourne, the hosts dissect why marketing technology stacks are still failing to connect — and what you can do about it. From the composability-versus-suite debate to the cultural dynamics between marketing and IT, this episode explores how Martech professionals can move from reactive duct-taping to proactive, federated infrastructure. Whether you're navigating AI decisioning demands or simply trying to get your CDP and engagement platforms to speak the same language, this conversation delivers practical, no-BS guidance on governance, data gravity, and working forward instead of backward.
The episode also previews the newly launched Enterprise Martech Outlook (EMO) research project, a major initiative mapping the evolving enterprise Martech landscape.
Timestamps 00:00 — Enterprise Martech Outlook (EMO) research launch and Melbourne conference preview 05:05 — The $215 billion black hole: McKinsey's warning on Martech losses 09:50 — Three root causes of integration complexity: language, legacy, and IT dependency 18:30 — Interoperability planning and working forwards, not backwards, and misaligned incentives 28:00 — Data gravity and governance: Identifying your center of gravity and mapping data flows 35:30 — Best-of-breed and the monolith vendor problem
Sponsor
Connect Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@theMartechweekly.com.
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| Consulting Dependency Isn't a Bug - It's the Business Model with Satya Upadhyaya | 04 mars 2026 | 01:02:57 | |
"Martech isn't complex - we've made it complex." - Satya
The conversation challenges analyst-led buying, Gartner-driven procurement, and lift-and-shift thinking. Instead, Satya argues for practitioner-led architecture, simpler operating models, and building internal muscle before buying more tech.
Key insights
Real Martech maturity comes from governance, marketing ops, and knowing what problem you're actually solving.
Timestamps 05:40 The three phases of martech transformation 11:45 When help becomes dependency 16:30 Procurement safety vs operational fit 22:55 Lift-and-shift isn't transformation 30:35 The chief marketing technologist identity crisis 46:20 Strategy is easy. Execution is the real test 59:30 Audit first. Build muscle. Then buy tech.
Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at hightouch.com/msom.
Connect Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.
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| Beyond Just Do It with Linda Cereda | 25 févr. 2026 | 00:54:22 | |
"At Nike, we learned the hard way — tech wasn't the constraint. The operating model was." – Linda Martech leaders love to talk about AI in marketing, next-best-action, personalization at scale, and the promise of a composable CDP, but most teams still struggle to connect data strategy to an operating model that can actually ship. In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Linda Cereda, former Global VP of Marketing Data at Nike and the first GM of the SNKRS app, to unpack how one of the world's most iconic brands built a marketing data engine that didn't collapse under its own ambition.
Linda shares her journey from digitizing scarcity-driven product drops on SNKRS to overseeing global next-best-action models and enterprise measurement systems. She breaks down the real work behind decisioning: defining the actions worth nudging, ranking them by LTV, aligning cross-functional teams around measurable business goals, and building model families that connect audience, timing, channel, and content — without turning the organization into a science fair.
We also explore why so many companies are "stuck in 2017" despite owning expensive tools, and why buying a vendor contract feels like progress but rarely is. From reducing forecasting error by 44% using zero-party data to rethinking seasonal planning in favor of contextual, real-time nudges, Linda makes one thing clear: modern AI tooling is useless if your workflows, governance, and measurement rhythm aren't built to support it.
Timestamps
01:02 From Men in Black with Raybans to Nike 08:00 Why global brands struggle to update their "operating system" and the trap of tool-led progress 16:32 Building the SNKRS app: Solving scarcity, hype, and the #IAmUpset consumer crisis 20:44 Using machine learning and zero-party data to slash forecasting errors and improve fairness 29:20 The reality of Nike's $XXm Adobe deal and the risks of vendor lock-in 40:02 The future: Composable CDPs, AI decisioning engines, and synthetic personas 48:37 Automation versus transformation: Why you shouldn't buy a Ferrari without a driver or fuel
Sponsor
Brought to you by Hightouch — the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.
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| Dirty Data, AI Everywhere, & ROI Nowhere | 11 févr. 2026 | 00:52:37 | |
In this Office Hours episode, Jacqueline and Juan unpack why marketing technology feels simultaneously stable and deeply uncertain. Q4 earnings show revenue holding steady, yet the market is re-pricing everything around one question: when does AI translate into real revenue? As AI roadmaps stretch into long-term infrastructure bets, pressure to monetize now is exposing the gap between AI adoption and measurable ROI.
They also examine the identity crisis around "platform" positioning and customer data platforms (CDPs), where many vendors claim ecosystem status but operate as point solutions. Increasingly, leverage belongs to companies that own high-quality customer data, not just strong product narratives.
From there, they tackle enterprise marketing's biggest challenge: data fragmentation. With few organizations achieving a true Customer 360 view, they break down why the problem persists and what it takes to build disciplined, commercially grounded data practices instead of buying another dream.
Timestamps 03:49 — The "mirage" quarter: revenue stability vs strategic risk 05:38 — AI doesn't always equal value, and monetization is the bottleneck 06:33 — Category identity crisis: "platform" branding vs point solutions 10:20 — Gartner's CDP Magic Quadrant: hype, churn, and composability confusion 17:56 — The cost of data fragmentation 25:43 — The "Jenga tower" of org complexity and how stacks collapse 45:54 — The playbook: define customer data ideals and don't let vendors drive
Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register!
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
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| Confessions of an Email Provocateur with Dela Quist | 04 févr. 2026 | 01:40:10 | |
Why impressions — not clicks — reveal email's real power, and who's quietly profiting from your inbox.
Email is still treated like a messaging channel, and that mistake is quietly destroying value. In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Dela to challenge the default rules of email marketing and reframe the inbox as what it actually is: owned media and intent infrastructure. Nearly every sacred KPI is put on trial, including opens, clicks, suppression, and frequency caps, and replaced with a media-first lens focused on reach, impressions, and long-term behavior.
Dela breaks down why email only feels "free" because you are the product, how Gmail captures behavioral data at a massive scale, and why unopened and even archived emails still drive search, site visits, and revenue weeks later. The takeaway is blunt. Brands overpay for paid media while underusing the cheapest, most measurable audience they already own.
Sponsor
Timestamps 00:55 — The lie at the center of email marketing 08:55 — Gmail didn't give you free email: it took your data 12:10 — How unopened emails still create intent and sales 18:20 — Advertising works even when attribution fails 29:10 — Why "inactive" subscribers are your most valuable audience 43:05 — Your list is a legal right, not a platform asset
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com. | |||
| Pilots to Proof: AI Agents in the Enterprise with Keanu Taylor | 28 janv. 2026 | 00:34:47 | |
Pilots to Proof: AI Agents in the Enterprise with Keanu Taylor
AI agents are being positioned as the answer to shrinking budgets and rising expectations, but most enterprise teams are still stuck in pilot mode.
In this Office Hours episode, Jacqueline is joined by guest host and industry analyst Keanu Taylor to examine what's actually working inside large organizations. Drawing on insights from his research, the conversation explores why many "AI strategies" amount to fragmented experiments, and what it really takes to move from internal pilots to external decisioning. Instead of chasing one all-powerful agent, leading teams are breaking work into hierarchies of specialized micro-agents, backed by better data context and governance.
ROI shows up in unexpected ways: efficiency gains often unlock deeper strategic insight rather than just cost savings. And none of it works without adoption, which means real hand-holding, expectation management, and treating data governance as infrastructure, not a meeting-room exercise.
Timestamps 00:04 - Introducing Keanu Taylor and the marketing technology shift 01:42 - What 13 enterprise consumer brands are testing with AI agents 02:56 - Navigating the era of doing more with less in martech 07:10 - Why autonomy doesn't mean AGI: the rise of micro-agent hierarchies 10:33 - AI decisioning agents explained and how they're finally delivering value 15:02 - Two-sided ROI: efficiency gains that unlock effectiveness and insight 20:52 - Adoption reality: mistrust, user inertia, and the need for hand-holding 31:21 - Moving data governance from meeting rooms to infrastructure
Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register!
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.
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| Sweet, Suite Relief with Adam Greco | 21 janv. 2026 | 00:59:45 | |
"Suite Fatigue is the moment you realize you're paying more every year for less flexibility and less value." — Adam
Marketing was supposed to get simpler. Instead, it got more expensive, harder to operate, and increasingly rigid. Jacqueline sits down with Adam Greco (previously at Salesforce, Adobe, and Amplitude) to unpack the rise of "Suite Fatigue," the growing frustration with all-in-one marketing technology platforms that promised the world but delivered fragments.
They get into why this moment feels different, how renewal pressure and slow innovation are turning "one vendor" into a long-term liability, and why the data warehouse is increasingly becoming the backbone of modern marketing stacks. The big question underneath it all: if you were starting from scratch today, would you still choose the same suite?
Sponsor
Timestamps 01:05 — Suite Fatigue defined: when the "simpler stack" turns into a tax 10:57 — What people admit out loud vs. what they only say off-record 15:54 — The core symptoms: lock-in, slow innovation, and forced migrations 18:12 — The Franken-suite reality: shallow integrations + pay-to-play support 27:33 — Why speed to activation breaks first in legacy stacks 43:02 — "Okay, boomer." Can suites make a comeback? 53:08 — What to do next when the math stops working
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.
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| The 6 Pain Points Martech Leaders Face | 14 janv. 2026 | 00:55:11 | |
"We've seen companies locked into vendors for a decade with no way out." – Juan
Jacqueline and Juan kick off 2026 with a quick reality check: stepping away from screens feels great, but the Martech stack doesn't magically get simpler while you're gone. They get brutally practical, drawing on conversations with 300+ brand-side marketers to map the six biggest pain points emerging across enterprise teams right now.
They dig into why "Customer 360" is still mostly a fantasy, how integration complexity turns stacks into brittle Jenga towers, and why AI pressure is creating more chaos than value. From auto-renewal horror stories to redundant CDPs and initiatives chasing optics instead of ROI, the message is consistent: confidence comes from evidence, not experience bias — and the cost of getting it wrong has never been higher.
Sponsor
Brought to you by Hightouch — Went all-in on a big marketing suite but still struggling to get value? You're not alone. Our sponsor, Hightouch, spoke with 50+ enterprise teams and found 79% are frustrated by high costs, slow innovation, and rising complexity, often needing specialized teams just to keep things running. They'll share the full findings in a live webinar on February 12, plus what they're seeing from organizations updating their Martech stacks. Get the report and register!
Timestamps
02:10 — An exclusive announcement for listeners 03:50 — Why experience-based advice keeps failing enterprise teams 07:45 — Six themes from 300+ marketer conversations: what's breaking in enterprise 10:50 — Data fragmentation and the myth of Customer 360 15:00 — Why evidence-based decisions are the only way forward 18:20 — Integration complexity, legacy sprawl, and cross-team coordination failures 26:15 — AI pressure without value: herd mentality of GenAI, risk, and bad customer experiences 31:00 — Adoption and operating model problems: utilization dropping, skills gaps growing 36:00 — Measurement, attribution, and ROI proof gaps: why nobody trusts the numbers 41:30 — Scaling personalization and execution speed: the bottlenecks no tool can fix
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! Always feel free to email us at podcast@themartechweekly.com.
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| Battle of the Bots with Mariska Calabrese, beehiiv & Jakub Alexa, Omnivery | 07 janv. 2026 | 00:55:39 | |
Email feels free, but the economics are brutal: zero-cost sending makes abuse infinitely scalable.
In this episode, Jacqueline sits down with Mariska and Jakub to unpack the "bot layer" that's quietly wrecking modern email: security scanners, crawlers, and malicious automation that inflate clicks, poison dashboards, and trigger the wrong automations. They get specific about why bad actors iterate faster than platforms, why "heuristic guesswork" leads to painful false positives, and how beehiiv opted for radical transparency by showing verified clicks alongside raw data. The conversation also jumps channels: Jakub argues RCS could undercut SMS on price and become the next high-volume abuse playground.
This episode was recorded in October 2025. Any references to global events were included as illustrative context, not as commentary on current news.
Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps
01:20 – Worst unsubscribe nightmares, Roman aqueducts, and unexpected heroes 05:40 – Why "free" email creates systemic abuse (and why volume hides the bad actors) 08:06 – How threat actors bypass trust indicators 11:02 – The reality check: protection isn't getting easier, it's getting more complicated 19:02 – Defining non-human interactions (NHI) and bot detection 24:12 – Bot detection: definitive data vs heuristics, and why false positives hurt more 26:20 – Elevating verified human engagement at Beehiiv 33:13 – RCS vs SMS: the pricing lever that could supercharge abuse 46:14 - Global privacy legislation and the future of trust
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/
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| The Renaissance | 31 déc. 2025 | 00:08:59 | |
Farewell, 2025 — what a year.
It marked the revival of Making Sense of Martech, and we owe it all to you and the incredible guests who took a chance on us.
Here are a few standout moments. Wishing you happy holidays and a brilliant new year!
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/ | |||
| The Blooper Reel | 24 déc. 2025 | 00:03:33 | |
Merry everything and more. Here's your very own present from us to you!
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/ | |||
| 2026 Predictions: Agents, AI Decisioning, & The Techstack | 17 déc. 2025 | 00:29:38 | |
As 2025 closes out, Juan and Jacqueline team up with Keanu Taylor, The Martech Weekly's Head of Research, to read the tea leaves on what 2026 has in store for marketing technology. Their forecast is a "make or break" year in which the winners won't be the loudest early adopters, but the teams whose data and operating habits are clean enough for AI actually to stick. Keanu predicts a sharper split between the AI "haves" and "have-nots," with organizational readiness acting like gravity on every agent, model, and workflow. The bet: 2026 will expose which stacks are built for decisions, not demos — and which ones were never ready for either.
Timestamps 01:08 ExactTarget's 25th Birthday/Anniversary
Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
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| Make Martech Cool Again: A Conversation with Jason Lyman, Customer.io's CMO | 10 déc. 2025 | 00:28:36 | |
"Marketing to marketers is the dream job, but it makes everything that much more high stakes." – Jacqueline In this Hot Seat episode, Jacqueline sits down with Jason, CMO at Customer.io, to ask a simple question: what would it actually take to make martech cool again? Drawing on stints at Dropbox, BetterCloud, and Microsoft, he unpacks how brand storytelling, design, and experience can turn forgettable software into something people genuinely want to be around — and why so many teams lost that plot after the early cloud-era glory days. From Bob Ross livestreams to "Raiders of the Lost Lifecycle," this is a playbook for injecting swagger back into marketing without sacrificing pipeline, rigor, or credibility.
Sponsor Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps 00:25 – First Martech tools, Mixpanel obsession, and Jason's weekly grilled cheese ritual 06:30 – Shaping brand storytelling: experience at Dropbox, BetterCloud, Microsoft 11:43 – What made early Salesforce so magnetic and why Martech lost its spark 16:40 – Making Martech cool again: inside Customer.io's Bob Ross, Hot Ones, and Raiders of the Lost Lifecycle concepts and playful brand identity 20:00 – What modern marketers actually want from live experiences 25:55 – Can mascots, memes, and influencers bring consumer fandom dynamics to Martech?
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/
Production Credit: Edited and produced by @the32collective_ / https://www.the32collective.co/
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| Adobe's Semrush Gamble, BFCM Enters the Upside Down, & AI-Washed Earnings | 03 déc. 2025 | 00:50:59 | |
"Adobe didn't just buy an SEO tool – it bought a negotiating position with the AI overlords of discovery." – Juan
Jacqueline and Juan unpack what "more human" marketing actually looks like when AI is mediating everything from search to Black Friday deals. They break down Adobe's acquisition of Semrush, quarterly Martech earnings, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shift toward mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL's surge, and ChatGPT's three-year impact on how people search, think, and buy.
Brought to you by Hightouch — the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps 00:04 – MWF NYC debrief and why this year felt like a turning point for Martech 05:10 – Stranger Things and what "good" co-marketing actually looks like 10:30 – Woo-Woo vs data: how much of marketing is still intuition dressed up in dashboards 16:20 – Adobe buys Semrush: GEO data, media consolidation, and why Adobe blinked on AI search 24:40 – Quarterly Martech earnings: mid-market outpaces the enterprise and AI narratives without ROI 33:30 – BFCM early numbers: mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL growth, and fewer margin-killing discounts 36:56 – ChatGPT's third anniversary: national rollbacks and the societal risks of AI 42:15 – Subscriber question: How to drive change inside organizations when tooling and incentives clash?
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! https://theMartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ | |||
| Is Your Inbox Insured? Deliverability is The Ultimate Insurance Policy with Matt McFee, CEO of Inbox Monster | 26 nov. 2025 | 00:34:14 | |
"If you're not treating deliverability as revenue insurance, you're already losing money." — Matt
This Hot Seat episode puts Matt McFee, an email veteran and founder of Inbox Monster, under the microscope. Jacqueline digs into how he went from Wall Street and Yahoo to co-founding BriteVerify, acquired by Validity, and why he thinks most brands are still wildly underestimating deliverability. He unpacks why inbox placement is really a revenue insurance program, not just a technical hygiene task, and why the real customer "moment of value" usually happens months after the contract is signed.
Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps 01:03 – What would make Martech better? 05:22 – What 25 years in email have taught him about the inbox 07:32 – Lightbulb moment that led to found BriteVerify and Inbox Monster 11:58 – AI previews, creative rendering, and why annotations actually matter 15:48 – What marketers should be paying more attention to in deliverability 19:55 – Quantifying deliverability as a revenue insurance program for stakeholders 25:02 – Opinions on industry innovation and consolidation 28:23 – What vendors can do to better help marketers
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow us on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Questions: https://themartechweekly.com/podcast/question/ Confessions: https://www.themartechweekly.com/podcast/confession-corner/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSoMPodcast/comments/1morng8/office_hours_questions/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/making-sense-of-martech
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| Privacy by Design & Ethical AI with David Joosten, Cofounder of GrowthLoop | 19 nov. 2025 | 00:40:09 | |
"Zero party data reflects what customers say they want; first party data reveals what they actually do." – David In this Hot Seat episode, Jacqueline sits down with David Joosten, co-founder of GrowthLoop and coauthor of First-Party Data Activation, to unpack why so many brands are "doing" first-party data yet still serving generic experiences. They dig into the tension between what customers say versus how they behave, and why marketers need to reconcile that gap with experimentation, empathy, and better use of their own data. Discover why embracing AI decisioning and continuous experimentation are crucial, and learn how to navigate the ethical red lines of using first-party data and AI responsibly in marketing. A must-listen for marketers looking to future-proof their data strategy.
David goes deep on why composable should be the default (not a buzzword), how to think about clean rooms without creeping out your customers, and what AI decisioning actually changes about the marketer's job. From compound growth engines and agentic workflows to team structures and org politics, this is a roadmap for leaders who want first-party data to drive real, measurable growth — not just prettier dashboards.
This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our sponsor Hightouch. Looking for a smarter way to activate your customer data? Hightouch is the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps
01:03 - Rapid Fire: AI generated content (Yay or Nay) and the marketing buzzword that needs to go.
02:30 - Is there ever a time to use third-party data ethically?.
03:54 - The most underrated skill for marketers today.
07:06 - Reconciling the gap between zero-party data (aspiration) and first-party data (behavior).
09:16 - The evolving role of first-party data in the next 3-5 years.
11:50 - Can clean rooms truly scale without compromising trust, and what's the next evolution of ethical data collaboration?
17:18 - What a "future-ready" Martech stack looks like in practice.
21:30 - Ethical red lines for AI: ensuring innovation respects privacy.
33:53 - The three-part advice for CMOs looking to future-proof their data strategy.
Connect & Subscribe
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions.
We may feature you in an upcoming episode!
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| AI's Report Card, The BFCM Machine, & Why Attribution Sucks | 12 nov. 2025 | 00:52:36 | |
"92% of enterprises say AI is a priority, and 78% also say they can't integrate it." — Juan
In this Office Hours episode, Jacqueline Freedman and Juan Mendoza unpack the biggest Martech realities of the season: record-breaking BFCM performance and the widening "AI hype gap." From $10.8 billion in U.S. online spending (69% on mobile) to reports revealing that 95% of marketers want AI personalization but only 2% have delivered it, the duo exposes where Martech optimism meets operational reality.
The episode wraps with a philosophical debate on attribution, why it's not a model but a mindset, and how every marketer needs a "margin for mystery" to keep creativity alive.
Don't miss the webinar "Has Martech Failed Marketers?" on November 13, featuring Scott Brinker and Adam Greco. Hightouch's latest survey found that nearly 75% of Martech struggles are rooted in data, not tools or strategy. Learn how to fix your data to unlock cleaner reporting and true personalization at scale.
Timestamps
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Engage with the community on Reddit and follow Making Sense of Martech on LinkedIn, and don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube.
Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! | |||
| Don't Get Catfished By AI with Brian Minick, COO of ZeroBounce | 05 nov. 2025 | 00:46:03 | |
"Curiosity is the number one trait I'm looking for when hiring." — Brian Minick
Send them here:
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| Adios Ohana, AWS Meltdown, & Overcoming Analysis Paralysis | 29 oct. 2025 | 00:41:23 | |
"You're supposed to be your customer relationship management platform of the era, and you're not listening to your very own customers." — Jacqueline Freedman
Jacqueline and Juan dissect Salesforce's Dreamforce rebranding of all major products to Agentforce, the erosion of its once-strong Ohana culture, and Benioff's billionaire behavior. They unpack the AWS outage, explore operational resilience, and talk about how to overcome analysis paralysis.
Brought to you by Hightouch On November 13, Hightouch is hosting Has Martech Failed Marketers? featuring Scott Brinker of chiefmartec and Adam Greco to unpack what's really behind the pain and how fixing your data unlocks cleaner reporting and true personalization at scale. RSVP at www.hightouch.com/has-martech-failed
Timestamps 00:23 — Scott Brinker's "You Are the Change Agent" for Martech World Forum. 02:53 — Making QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) fun with a "meme wall". 06:41 — What happened to "Ohana" at Salesforce/Dreamforce?. 09:11 — Salesforce product renaming: The "Agent Force" trend. 19:26 — The massive AWS Outage felt by companies globally. 26:01 — Hot Take: Alan Trevor on using AI decisioning backwards. 34:49 — Office Hours Question: Overcoming analysis paralysis. 37:37 — The connection between analysis paralysis and a lack of courage/risk-taking. 40:07 — Confession Corner: Forgetting an elevator pitch in front of the CEO.
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions — we may feature you in an upcoming episode!
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| Martech Avengers Assemble with Neha Dadbhawala, Head of Martech at SEEK | 22 oct. 2025 | 00:31:05 | |
"Marketing engineers are the lovechild of marketers, product managers, and software engineers — they're the Avengers of your Martech stack."
Join Jacqueline and Neha, Head of Martech at SEEK, to unpack how the role of the marketing engineer is reshaping the future of digital transformation. Neha shares her insights on bridging strategy and execution, building operational readiness, and applying systems thinking to deliver scalable marketing outcomes. From the rise of AI to managing legacy tech, Neha reveals what it takes to drive meaningful innovation across marketing, technology, and customer experience.
Key Insights
Timestamps
00:30 — Rapid-Fire Intro: Neha's favorite Martech tool, the "build vs. buy" dilemma, and her least-favorite buzzword: "hyper-personalization." 3:30 — Defining the Marketing Engineer: The evolution from technologist to system architect and problem solver. 7:00 — Skills for the Future: Systems thinking, product mindset, and emotional intelligence as core leadership traits. 9:30 — Operational Readiness & the 70-20-10 Rule: How to plan for change and innovation simultaneously. 14:00 — Agility in Legacy Systems: Managing tech debt while maintaining scalability and speed. 18:30 — Breaking Silos: Why shared data definitions and transparent priorities unlock collaboration. 25:00 — The Future of Martech Careers: How marketing engineers can evolve into CMOs, Chief Growth Officers, and beyond.
Connect & Subscribe Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions — we may feature you in an upcoming episode!
Brought to you by Hightouch - the leading composable CDP and decisioning platform trusted by brands like Domino's, Chime, and Aritzia. 90% of customers have a real use case live within their first week, delivering world-class personalization at scale. Learn more at www.hightouch.com/msom. | |||
| Stop the Hype: Taylor Swift's Loyalty Playbook, Zeta & Marigold Merger, and Braze's AI | 15 oct. 2025 | 00:33:37 | |
"Don't be the Taylor Swift of Martech." - Jacqueline Freedman
Jacqueline and Juan break down three of the latest Martech moments: Braze's all-in AI decisioning push, Zeta Global's acquisition of Marigold, and what Taylor Swift's marketing playbook reveals about loyalty and fandom.
Drawing from recent Martech World Forum events in London and San Francisco, they cut through the hype around AI, vendor economics, and what real enterprise teams are actually doing to make Martech work.
Highlights Discover how Taylor Swift's variant strategy rewrites loyalty and first-party data engagement. Learn why most AI decisioning pilots stall—and how to tell if your org is ready. Understand what the Zeta–Marigold deal says about Martech consolidation and the future of loyalty tech. Explore how enterprise teams turn "global rollouts" into many small, scalable wins. Hear why authenticity and data discipline still beat automation and hype.
This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our sponsor Hightouch. This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our sponsor Hightouch. Looking for a smarter way to activate your customer data? See what Hightouch can do for you at hightouch.com/msom.
Timestamps
Connect & Subscribe: Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions — we may feature you in an upcoming episode! | |||
| The Need to Ban "Inbox Placement" with Lauren Meyer, CMO of SocketLabs | 08 oct. 2025 | 00:37:40 | |
"There's a big difference between consent and attention — you still have to earn the attention." - Lauren Meyer
Lauren Meyer, CMO of SocketLabs, joins Jacqueline Freedman on The Hot Seat to discuss what marketers get wrong about email. She shares how to earn real engagement, why "inbox placement rate" is a lie, and how to prove email's value inside your org. A must-listen for anyone in marketing ops, lifecycle, or Martech leadership who wants to make smarter, data-backed email decisions.
Looking for a smarter way to activate your customer data? See what Hightouch can do for you at hightouch.com/msom.
Highlights Learn why consent alone isn't enough and how to earn lasting attention. Discover how to win internal buy-in with small, proof-of-concept projects. Understand why marketers must accept churn and stay consistent. Cut through noisy metrics and drop "inbox placement rate" from your reports. Get smart about measuring engagement post-MPP using replies, site visits, and revenue. Spot vendor red flags: no one can "guarantee" inbox placement.
Episode Breakdown 2:16 — Epic Fail Story: The migration mistake that led to 3,000 spam complaints and a deliverability meltdown. 8:15 — The Consent Myth: Why consent is just the handshake and attention is the real battle. 12:54 — Fighting for Email: How to advocate for email internally with small proof-of-concept wins. 15:08 — Data Hygiene: The B2B vs. B2C data gap and why you should offer personal email sign-ups. 17:52 — Data Overload: Why giving marketers too much data leads to paralysis and bad assumptions. 19:52 — The Metric to Ban: Why "Inbox Placement Rate" is unreliable and based on robot "seed testing." 22:06 — Vendor Red Flags: What to ask about human support and why no one can guarantee inbox placement. 25:02 — Post-APP World: How to measure engagement through conversions, replies, and site visits, not opens. 33:09 — AI Limits: The doctor vs. over-the-counter analogy for AI in deliverability.
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! | |||
| Scaling to Billions: How to Design the Ideal Stack with Natalie Miles Fuerst of Grammarly | 01 oct. 2025 | 00:43:07 | |
"No one's data is perfect. I think the biggest challenge though ends up being more people, because what often happens is that companies of a certain scale, marketing orgs of a certain scale, oftentimes we start adding on products or new verticals and we hire marketers to be in charge of those specific products or verticals, and they work in these silos and isolation of each other." - Natalie Miles Fuerst In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, we sit down with Natalie Miles, Staff Product Manager for Martech at Grammarly and former Head of Martech at Chime and Credit Karma. She is an expert in managing massive data volumes, driving scalable personalization, and assembling composable marketing technology stacks. This is a must-listen for leaders and practitioners navigating the complex world of high-volume email, the composable CDP space, and the ever-present "build vs. buy" debate in the age of generative AI. This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our sponsor, Hightouch. Looking for a smarter way to activate your customer data? See what Hightouch can do for you at hightouch.com/msom.
Highlights Learn the biggest challenge of scaling audience segmentation and deliverability to billions of emails per year, and why it's a "people problem" before a data problem. Hear a hilarious and painful "epic fail" story involving a compliance email, a financial services company, and a sex hotline. Understand the pros and cons of warehouse-native (composable) CDPs versus traditional, off-the-shelf solutions, and why the term "CDP" is fuzzy. Discover the key difference between real-time and batch data delivery and how to decide what your use case truly needs. Natalie's "dream scenario" tech stack for a high-volume, modern company, including her top picks for reverse ETL and ESPs. Learn how to define a North Star metric that aligns with customer engagement signals with long-term LTV and business outcomes.
Episode Breakdown 00:01:35 - Rapid Fire: Night Owl, Favorite Martech Tool (It's not an ESP), and Vibe Coding. 00:03:43 - Professional Admiration: Why Credit Karma's marketing cohort was a special "incubator." 00:05:33 - Epic Fail: The compliance email, the phone number, and the sex hotline. 00:09:20 - Reversing a Major Martech Decision: When a personalization tool isn't worth the price. 00:11:29 - Scaling to Billions of Emails: The challenge of data hygiene vs. the people problem. 00:15:54 - Composable CDPs: Deciding between real-time bvs. batch data. 00:20:20 - Predictions: The future of composability and why "CDP" is a fuzzy term. 00:26:02 - The Age-Old Questions: Build vs. Buy in the age of Generative AI. 00:31:48 - Aligning Customer Engagement: How to define a North Star Metric that drives LTV. 00:35:53 - The Dream Martech Stack: Natalie's top picks for a high-volume, modern comapny. 00:39:25 - The AI Risk: Why you don't want to be the "first adopter" of an AI-powered ESP.
Key Takeaways The biggest Scaling Challenge is Organizational: At high volume, the main issue isn't data quality but the "tragedy of the commons" where siloed teams send overlapping campaigns, leading to user fatigue and churn. Having an "air traffic control" function is crucial. Composability Solves for Alignment: The fuzzy definition of "CDP" and it's high cost highlight the need for composability. The warehouse-native approach is "very bullish" because the underlying data should be the single source of truth for both marketing and product/finance. Build vs. Buy is Fluid: The decision has historically leaned toward buying third- party tools because in-house development often results in difficult-to-use and unreliable tools, diverting precious engineering resources from core product capabilities. However, the emergence of generative AI could dramatically change the "build vs. buy calculation". The North Star Must Connect to Value: A true North Star metric should be time-bound, align with the natural cadence of product usage (e.g., daily active users for Grammerly)
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode. Hope you enjoyed the episode! | |||
| WTF is CRM? B2B vs. B2C with Topcon's Karla Vince & Klaviyo's James Fang | 24 sept. 2025 | 00:47:18 | |
"I think a CRM is not a tool, it's a discipline, it's a system minimization of how we manage relationships across time channels and teams." - Karla Vince In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, we host our first-ever debate to define what a CRM is and if the definition is changing as the line between B2B and B2C blurs. We're joined by Karla Vince, who leads marketing automation at Topcon Healthcare, and James Fang, Director of Product Marketing at Klaviyo. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the history of CRM, its modern definition, and where it's headed. Highlights *Understand the historical origins of CRM, from ancient Rome to the modern cloud-based solutions. *Hear a lively debate on whether CRM is a B2B-only discipline or if a B2C CRM is a valid concept. *Discover how the term CRM has expanded to include marketing, service, and analytics, and if the term is becoming overextended. *Learn how the industry's perception of CRM is evolving and the potential for new definitions. *Get insights into how AI is poised to reinvent the CRM, making it more proactive and predictive. Episode Breakdown 06:57 - The surprising history of CRM, from ancient Rome to Salesforce. 09:28 - Defining CRM: Is it a discipline or a technology? 11:01 - The "C" in CRM: Who is the customer?. 12:38 - Where is the line? At what point is the term "CRM" overextended?. 15:17 - How do different business models and industry toolsets shape the definition of CRM?. 26:39 - Do B2B and B2C CRMs have parallels?. 31:12 - Did Salesforce's popularization of CRM elevate or dilute the term?. 35:11 - The future of CRM: The vision of a true 360-degree customer view. 42:12 - How AI will reinvent CRM and the role of personalization. Key Takeaways *CRM is both a discipline and a technology. While it has historical roots as a system for managing relationships, it has evolved into software that enables the management and analysis of customer interactions throughout the entire lifecycle. *The definition of "customer" is contextual. In a B2B context, a customer can be a lead, a contact, an account, or a partner. In a B2C context, it can be a first-time visitor, a subscriber, or a repeat purchaser. *The future of CRM is proactive. Instead of just being a record-keeping tool, future CRMs will use AI to offer predictive triggers, smarter workflows, and conversational intelligence. *Competition is pushing innovation. New players and changing business models are putting pressure on traditional CRM giants to evolve, leading to new developments and improvements in their core products. Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! | |||
| From Fashion to AI: Fabletics' Marketing Edge with Adrian Rohr, VP of Marketing CRM | 17 sept. 2025 | 00:46:42 | |
"If you empower your team to make their own decisions, they're just more motivated—and that drives great outcomes." - Adrian Rohr In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, we sit down with Adrian Rohr, VP of Marketing CRM at Fabletics, to uncover how one of the world's leading activewear brands is redefining customer engagement in-house with AI-powered CRM and omnichannel personalization. This conversation is a must-listen for marketing leaders curious about AI orchestration, CRM transformation, and building high-performing in-house teams. Highlights Discover how Fabletics built a proprietary tech stack that powers everything from supply chain to marketing execution. Learn why Adrian believes AI content generation — not send-time optimization — is the real performance driver. Understand the competitive advantage of running your team entirely in-house with speed, flexibility, and institutional knowledge. Discover how the team leverages 250+ data points daily to drive personalization at scale. Hear Adrian's take on the future of lifecycle marketing and why marketers will soon become "AI shepherds."
Episode Breakdown 04:54 — How "Silicon Valley meets Fashion Avenue" defines Fabletics' tech-first DNA 07:00 — Replacing fragmented CRM tools with a unified, AI-powered orchestration platform 10:20 — Inside Fabletics' team structure and culture of empowerment 17:00 — Why Fabletics keeps everything in-house: speed, control, and deep domain knowledge 25:30 — The future of AI in CRM: 1:1 personalization, omnichannel orchestration, and enterprise-scale platforms 31:50 — Optimizing subject lines with AI—plus where human oversight still matters 36:50 — Clean data, empowered teams, and advice for brands struggling to scale 39:50 — Looking ahead: AI shepherds, org chart shifts, and the need for a true "connecting platform"
Key Takeaways AI is transforming content generation more than send-time optimization, driving significant gains for triggers and transactional messaging. Fabletics' speed, ownership, and flexibility allow campaigns to pivot instantly. Data hygiene and a centralized tech stack eliminate silos, creating an actual omnichannel experience. Over the next 1-3 years, marketers will transition from being manual executors to AI shepherds. Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions and confessions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode! | |||
| Living Interfaces, OpenAI Collabs, & Enterprise AI with Josh Payne, CEO of Coframe | 10 sept. 2025 | 00:30:56 | |
"We see the future of digital experiences as living — personalized and self-improving 24/7." - Josh Payne In this episode, Jacqueline Freedman puts Josh Payne in The Hot Seat to unpack "living interfaces," AI-driven experimentation, and what agentic marketing really looks like in practice. Josh shares lessons from collaborating with OpenAI, why most CRO tests fail, and where generative engine optimization (GEO) is headed next. We delve into enterprise realities, including privacy and governance, avoiding spaghetti code, and what a "living interface" entails. Highlights
Timestamps 03:50 - What "living interfaces" are and how they create real-time, self-improving digital experiences 04:57 - Partnering with OpenAI: visual grounding, UI generation, and early access to models 11:25 - Why most CRO tests fail—and how AI agents flip the economics of experimentation 14:50 - What "agent marketing" means: automating workflows and scaling high-leverage loops 17:45 - Common AI pitfalls and why clear goals, specs, and evals matter 24:20 - Navigating privacy concerns and model choices in enterprise AI 27:30 - How Josh filters the AI noise and stays sharp Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions. We may feature you in an upcoming episode. | |||
| Trapped by Tech? Data as an Asset, and Smarter CDP Investments | 03 sept. 2025 | 00:42:53 | |
In this episode of Office Hours, Jacqueline Freedman and Juan Mendoza unpack the overwhelming success of their podcast launch, share details about the upcoming Martech World Forum London 2025, and dive into AI adoption, vendor dependency, and the evolving world of customer data platforms (CDPs). Highlights Podcast launch success & what's next: global reach, sponsorship buzz, and better audio quality coming January 2025 Martech World Forum London 2025: key speakers, VIP dinner, and how to network with enterprise leaders
Timestamps & Highlights 00:00 - Podcast Launch Success 02:11 - MarTech World Forum London 2025 03:32 - Vendor partnerships: necessary evil or obstacle? 14:46 - Generative AI reality check 24:29 - CDP pricing evolution 32:03 - Hot take: Pepsi's $57M AI campaign vs Wendy's $9 clapback 35:17 - Pawan Verma on customer decisioning 38:03 - Question of the Week 40:51 - Confession Corner
Why You Should Listen
Ways to Connect
Submit your confession or question for the next episode: Submit Here | |||
| Is SMS Dead? Welcoming the RCS Revolution with Eric Miao, CSO of Attentive | 27 août 2025 | 00:41:48 | |
"Design thinking isn't just about aesthetics - it's about solving the right problems with empathy." - Eric Miao Highlights
Timestamps
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions, we may feature you in an upcoming episode. | |||
| Will AI Replace Your Marketing Department? Former CMO of OfferFit, Jessica Vogol, Weighs In | 20 août 2025 | 00:26:13 | |
"The most important conversations about your career are happening when you're not in the room." - Jessica Vogol In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, host Jacqueline Freedman speaks with Jessica Vogol, former CMO of OfferFit, acquired by Braze, and marketing leader at Movable Ink. Jessica brings a practical lens to hot-button topics in marketing like AI, personalization, and vendor hype. They dive into what real personalization means today, why marketers should be skeptical of vague AI claims, and how to build high-impact teams without chasing every new tool. Whether you're in marketing ops, ABM, or leading a team through Martech transformation, this conversation delivers insight without the fluff. Highlights
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions—we may feature you in an upcoming episode.
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| Inside Iterable: Exclusive Interview with New CEO Sam Allen | 20 août 2025 | 00:38:50 | |
"The secret is you don't let the old man in." - Sam Allen, quoting Clint Eastwood In his first official interview as CEO of Iterable, Sam Allen joins host Jacqueline Freedman for an unfiltered conversation on leadership, AI, and the future of marketing technology. Drawing on lessons from the Marine Corps and Salesforce, Sam shares his philosophy of servant leadership, why AI should act as a marketer's co-pilot, and how companies can move beyond "vendor" status to become trusted advisors. He also reveals his strategic vision for Iterable's future and what CMOs must do to stay relevant in today's fast-changing Martech landscape. If you're a marketing leader navigating AI disruption, growth, or organizational change, this episode is for you.
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Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions, we may feature you in an upcoming episode.
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| Trouble at Yotpo & Litmus, AI is a Drug, and Analyst Firms' Future | 20 août 2025 | 00:36:10 | |
Martech is in upheaval: welcome to your must-listen podcast to understand the current state of the Martech industry. In this Office Hours episode, hosts Jacqueline Freedman and Juan Mendoza dig into the corporate shakeups, shifting power dynamics, and AI debates that are reshaping the industry. From Yotpo abruptly shutting down its email arm before the holidays, to Litmus layoffs after acquisition, to Amplitude dethroning Adobe in the latest Forrester Wave, no corner of Martech feels stable. The duo also questions whether analyst firms like Gartner still matter and get "spicy" debating if AI is a powerful copilot or dangerous crutch for marketers. If you're a Martech leader, marketing ops pro, or exec marketing technology bets, this episode gives you the no-BS insights you need to stay ahead. Highlights
Timestamps
Subscribe to Making Sense of Martech wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review, share with your team, and send us your questions - we may feature them in an upcoming episode. | |||
| The Resurrection | 06 août 2025 | 00:00:37 | |
Are you overwhelmed by the ever-changing world of marketing technology? Searching for clarity, insight, and insider knowledge? Welcome to Making Sense of Martech, the official podcast from The Martech Weekly, hosted by Juan Mendoza and Jacqueline Freedman. Each week, we break down the tools, strategies, and trends shaping the future of marketing. You'll hear candid conversations with top industry leaders in The Hot Seat, and get practical answers to real-world challenges in our Office Hours format. What to expect every Wednesday:
This show delivers the same trusted research and clarity you've come to expect from The Martech Weekly. It's designed to cut through the noise, save you time, and help you lead with confidence. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to stay ahead of the curve—and don't be shy. We'd love your feedback or ideas for what to cover next. Links & Resources:
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| TMW Case Study #004 | Building a better data foundation by HP | 19 nov. 2024 | 00:38:15 | |
From third-party to first-party: Building a better data foundation What do you think of when I say "tech start-up?" Those words probably conjure up thoughts of a small team working out of the founder's garage somewhere in Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, or Cupertino. The reason that image springs to mind is because that is how a bunch of the biggest and most influential tech companies started out over the years. But who started this trend? Well, it's not a plucky start-up anymore, but the answer is Hewlett Packard. Way back in 1939, Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded HP in a one-car garage at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto, which is now adorned with a plaque reading: The Birthplace of Silicon Valley. A lot has changed since then: Far from their fledgling days when they produced audio oscillators (which Disney used to test the sound equipment for the movie 'Fantasia'!), HP is now a multinational IT mainstay. The original HP split into two companies in 2015: Hewlett Packard Enterprise for enterprise products and services, and HP Inc for its personal computer and printer business. The split between its B2B and B2C customers was reflected in its data architecture. Like many legacy businesses, HP found itself in a situation where it had separate platforms and data stores for commercial and consumer data managed by a plethora of different stakeholders, leading to a severely siloed data landscape. Over the last few years, HP has overcome these challenges by bringing together its fractured data landscape into a modern, composable data architecture befitting its history as the origin of the Silicon Valley mythology. To understand how HP went about this transformation, The Martech Weekly sat down with Kumar Ram, Global Head of Marketing Data Sciences, and Luis Alonzo, Head of Customer Data Strategy and Engineering. Kumar and Luis's responses have been edited for clarity and congruency. | |||
| TMW Case Study #001 | Scaling Martech QA with computer vision and robots | 29 mars 2024 | 01:26:15 | |
Welcome to our very first TMW case study! Kicking off this series, we're featuring Rappi, the Latin American super-app that connects consumers with merchants that sell a wide variety of products, and drivers that can bring those products to their doorstep. The three-sided business is not only a logistical challenge, but also a Martech challenge. Rappi's array of marketing campaigns and offers, driven by a sophisticated deep-linking strategy, is crucial to its success. It did, however, lead to the need for an impossibly large amount of QA to ensure the successful delivery of customer experience workflows, ensuring that would-be customers don't fall off their buying journey at any point, from clicking on an ad through to landing in the app and making a purchase. Leading the Martech and Adtech practice at Rappi is Satya Ramachandran, who brings over 12 years of Martech experience to the table, having previously worked as a data engineer building distributed databases. In this case study, we'll walk through how Satya not only scaled the Martech QA process using computer vision and robots, but turned QA into a profit-driving initiative with champions throughout the business, rather than just a cost center. Satya's responses have been edited for clarity and congruency. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
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| Making Sense of Martech Special Announcement | 06 févr. 2024 | 00:03:47 | |
Making Sense of Martech's very own Juan Mendoza on looking ahead to the rest of 2024 | |||
| #66 | Tim Mason & Sarah Jarvis on the case for Omnichannel | 23 janv. 2024 | 01:12:41 | |
A conversation with Tim Mason & Sarah Jarvis from Eagle Eye. In this episode we're joined by Tim Mason and Sarah Jarvis . Tim is the CEO of Eagle Eye, a leading loyalty and personalization platform and a top 10 TMW 100 global innovator. Tim has spent more than 30 years building loyalty strategies in retail, including working as the Deputy CEO and CMO of Tesco UK PLC. Sarah Jarvis is a senior marketer, also at Eagle Eye, and a regular contributor to Forbes UK. Both are the authors of the recently released 2nd edition of Omnichannel Retail: How to Build Winning Stores in a Digital World. In this episode, we delve into the multifaceted concept of Omnichannel, exploring its definition, and we hear Tim and Sarah's case for its importance. We also discuss the ethical considerations businesses face in the pursuit of omniscient customer knowledge, offering insights into responsible practices amid growing data privacy concerns. Additionally, we explore successful examples of companies implementing omnichannel strategies and examine the challenges organizations encounter when introducing omnichannel to their businesses, along with strategies to overcome internal hurdles. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
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| #65 | Rohit Maheswaran on the shifting sands of attribution | 02 janv. 2024 | 00:49:15 | |
A conversation with Rohit Maheswaran. In this episode we're joined by Rohit Maheswaran, the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Lifesight a marketing measurement platform offering a suite of attribution, MMM (Mixed Media Modelling), and incrementality tools. We tackle the shifting sands of attribution and how marketers are using different models and tools as the ways of last click and multi-channel attribution fade away and more marketers are embracing a back-to-the-future style of measurement using experimentation and MMM. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
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| #64 | Cory Munchbach on the life of a Martech CEO | 19 déc. 2023 | 01:05:48 | |
A conversation with Cory Munchbach. In this episode we're joined by Cory Munchbach. Cory is the CEO of BlueConic, a leading Customer Data Platform. In this episode we talk about Cory's recent journey to becoming the CEO of the company, what it really looks like to lead the vision and strategy of a private equity backed company, growing and scaling a product right in the middle of one of the hottest categories in the Martech industry, and her outlook for the coming year in the CDP category. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
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| #62 | Lauren Maffeo on designing data governance for good | 14 nov. 2023 | 01:03:02 | |
A conversation with Lauren Maffeo. In this episode we're joined by Lauren Maffeo. Lauren is an award-winning service designer working full-time at Steampunk where she serves the U.S. federal government. She is a founding editor of Springer's AI and Ethics Journal and an adjunct lecturer of Interaction Design at The George Washington University. Lauren has written for Harvard Data Science Review, Financial Times, and The Guardian. She has also presented her research on bias in AI at Princeton and Columbia Universities, Google DevFest DC, and Twitter's San Francisco headquarters and is the author of Designing Data Governance from the Ground Up. In this episode we talk about the societal impact of data governance, the link between human-centered design and managing data in a company, the anti-patterns in data management, the importance of culture in breaking down data silos, balancing transparency with security, the link between data quality and misinformation and many other topics… See timestamps below.
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| #61 | Ari Paparo on the fool's errand of media | 24 oct. 2023 | 01:15:43 | |
A conversation with Ari Paparo. In this episode we're joined by Ari Paparo the famous host of the very popular Marketecture Podcast and the CEO and founder of LaunchScience, a newly launched (pardon the pun) startup in the category of process management for GTM and product teams. Prior to these two new ventures, Ari founded and exited Adtech platform Beeswax to Comcast and worked stints at Google, Nielsen, and AppNexus.
Timestamps Time Topic | |||
| #60 | Juan Mendoza talks with Kerry Guard on The Digital Marketing Rennaissance | 17 oct. 2023 | 01:07:49 | |
A collaboration with Kerry Guard. In this episode, we've got something different for you the MSOM audience with our very own Juan Mendoza being interviewed by Kerry Guard from tea time with tech marketing leaders! In this episode, we cover things ranging from audience capture through to building a media company. What you do with an audience and the value of it. We also talked about latest trends in marketing technology, tracking GDPR and the ever present issue of a more private web and how markets are reacting to it.
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| #59 | Eric Seufert: Everything is an Ad network | 10 oct. 2023 | 00:57:00 | |
A conversation with Eric Seufert. In this episode, I'm joined by Eric Seufert to talk about his thesis-slash-catch phrase "everything is an ad network." Eric is a successful entrepreneur, investor and media founder who is focused on the intersection of mobile apps and Adtech. Eric worked a number of Adtech roles in Europe which led him to founding and exiting analytics platform for mobile developers Agamemnon. He is now investing in companies in the Adtech space with Heracles Capital and runs the deeply respected and always interesting Mobile Dev Memo. In this episode, we talk about Adtech branching out into all kinds of new commerce, retail, and platform media channels, Europe's role in the development of mobile apps and gaming, what will happen to the web if Eric's catchphrase "everything is an ad network" becomes a reality, privacy and the threat of walled gardens, whether or not programmatic has a future, media power laws, the 1% of ad networks and many other topics…
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| #58 | Gareth Noonan the rise of the B2B Adtech paradigm | 03 oct. 2023 | 00:49:25 | |
A conversation with Gareth Noonan. In this episode we're joined by a leader in the world of B2B adtech and martech, someone whose expertise has truly left an indelible mark, Gareth Noonan. Gareth Noonan is an accomplished General Manager at Demandbase, recognized for spearheading international cross-functional teams in Sales, CX, and Operations. With a track record of steering business units to generate over $150M in revenue, Gareth's proficiency extends to Programmatic Strategy, Operations, Sales, Business Development, and Product management. He's an expert in mobile app and desktop video, OTT, native, and display advertising across all screens. Gareth has held prominent positions at leading industry players. He served as the General Manager for Americas at Smaato, driving impactful strategies in the Adtech landscape. As the SVP of Operations at AdFormics, Gareth contributed to their success for nearly three years, showcasing his strategic prowess. Currently, Gareth is the GM of Advertising at Demandbase. In this episode, we discuss the journey of building Demandbase's demand-side platform and their pivotal shifts in Adtech thinking, the challenge of adapting B2C-centric Adtech to the intricate B2B landscape, the significance of a B2B-specific DSP for Account-Based Marketing strategies, the concept of the "dark funnel" in marketing and its impact on B2B campaigns and lastly, we explore the rise of Connected TV in the B2B realm.
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| #57 | Bobby Tichy & Michael Burton on hyper specializing in the stack | 12 sept. 2023 | 00:59:59 | |
In this episode, we're joined by Bobby Tichy and Michael Burton, co-founders at Stitch. Both Bobby and Michael are well-respected within the martech industry, bringing a unique perspective to customer engagement, CX, tech stacks, and the martech industry overall. Bobby Tichy is a veteran of two of the most well-respected brands in martech, Marketo and Salesforce, where he led and supported implementations for many big brands. After his time with those two companies, Bobby moved onto Lev, a Salesforce consultancy, before the company was acquired in 2022 by Cognizant. At that point, Bobby teamed up with Michael to co-found Stitch, a martech consultancy that focuses on Braze and MarTech architecture. Now in his role as Chief Solutions Officer, Bobby leads the company's solutions team, and loves to talk about martech architecture, customer engagement platforms, the customer journey, and more. Michael Burton is also a veteran of Salesforce who has worked at several other companies, including ExactTarget, which went on to be acquired by Salesforce. After leaving Salesforce, he also made his way over to Lev, where he rose up the ranks from Senior Director to SVP to CEO, the position he held when the company was acquired. Now serving as the CEO of Stitch, Michael is continuing to focus on building and scaling professional services for marketing technology. His areas of expertise include meaningful metrics, customer engagement, CX, and the martech industry as a whole. In this conversation, we dive into going through the process of a company acquisition, implementing the right martech stack, CX strategy, Stitch's partnership with Braze, and a look to the future of martech.
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| #56 | Michaela Aguilar on the Martech buying problem and the role of education | 05 sept. 2023 | 00:59:03 | |
In this episode we have Michaela Aguilar. Michaela is the head of business partnerships and ecosystems at Acoustic, a customer engagement platform company. Most recently Michaela has been leading a new Martech course with ADMA here in Australia called the Marketing Technology Certificate. Michaela also works as a Mentor at not for profit group Women in Data, and has a long and storied career in customer experience optimisation and analytics. In this episode, we talk about the connection between education and Martech utilization, solving some of the education problems in the Martech industry in Australia, and how marketers should be thinking about and buying tech.
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| #55 | Josh Manion on Data Assurance and privacy-positive tech in Martech & Adtech | 29 août 2023 | 00:41:52 | |
A conversation with Josh Manion. In this episode we have Josh Manion joining us. Josh is the CEO of Vault JS, and previously worked as the founder of Ensighten, and the CEO Stratigent, both successful companies in the analytics, Adtech and data management space. Vault JS offers an advanced AI solution that continually scans data collection technologies in brands and alerts teams to suspicious activity, data leaks or accidental sharing with third parties. something they call "data assurance". In this episode we talk aboutVaultJS' approach to building privacy-positive tech in the Martech and Adtech space, what data assurance is, data leakage horror stories, and the current state of data monitoring in the Martech industry.
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| #53 | Alexandra Theriault on intersection of martech & adtech and the role of first-party data in a post third-party-cookie world | 15 août 2023 | 01:08:13 | |
A conversation with Alexandra Theriault. In this episode, we have Alexandra Theriault, the chief growth officer at Adtech company Lotame. Alexandra has been working with Lotame for more than 15 years, playing several key roles in the company as it has grown into an international Adtech player. Lotame plays a key role in advertising and increasingly in the Martech industry through its widely used cookieless Panorama ID , data marketplace and recently announced Spherical platform, a CDP accelerator. Complementary to the CDP and accelerating that into Adtech use cases. In this episode, we talk about why Lotame has decided to step into the Martech world with the Spherical platform, the role of first-party data in a post third-party-cookie world, how identity is changing in Adtech and if we'll start to see a divergence or paid and owned focused CDPs.
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| #52 | Rajan Kumar on why companies fail to get the most out of Martech | 08 août 2023 | 01:01:45 | |
A conversation with Rajan Kumar. In this episode, we have Rajan Kumar, CEO and cofounder of The Lumery. He's an unusual guest because not too long ago Raj was my boss! It's a pleasure to have Raj on to talk about their latest research entitled Stacks on Stacks on Stacks - The Voices of Martech. Raj has pioneered a unique approach to MarTech consulting, combining the optimization of tech stacks with the development of clients' internal capabilities, processes, and data-driven cultures, ensuring lasting outcomes can be achieved. Rajan is passionate about building high-performance teams through supportive culture and loves collaborating with forward thinkers. In this episode we talk about the "Ferrari in the garage" problem in Martech, how leaders in enterprise brands thinking about investing into Martech, coordination problems in Martech, the path to progress, and the influence of personal ambition when buying and using Martech. Go here for show notes, links, and resources. Follow Juan Mendoza on LinkedIn and Twitter. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else. You can find Rajan on LinkedIn . | |||
| #51 | Shoshana Wodinsky on the perils of privacy in a world of ad networks | 01 août 2023 | 00:47:08 | |
A conversation with Shoshana Wodinsky. In this episode, I'm joined by Shoshana Wodinsky, a technology researcher and former investigative reporter doing some of the best investigative journalism in the space of Adtech, privacy and online surveillance. Shoshana is the investigative director for consulting firm Web X Ray. Shoshana has had her work cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. She is a prolific writer, penning articles like, How Google Ruined the Internet (According to Texas), Here's How California's Prop 24 Could Better—or Break—Our Privacy for Good, Opportunism, Thy Name Is Zuckerberg to name a few. Go here for show notes, links, and resources. Follow Juan Mendoza on LinkedIn and Twitter. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else. You can find Shoshana on LinkedIn . | |||
| #50 | Roger Dunn on the rise of retail media and navigating the trade-offs between ads and experience with online commerce | 11 juil. 2023 | 00:57:29 | |
A conversation with Roger Dunn. In this episode, we are joined by Roger Dunn. Roger is a consultant in retail media space and recently worked as Head of Retail Media for Australia & New Zealand at Criteo, where he helped retailers setup & scale their own retail media networks, as well as forming partnerships and broader up-skilling of agencies. Roger previously spent the majority of his career agency side specialising in retail and e-commerce and played a crucial role as founder of GroupM Commerce in ANZ, he was also the e-commerce lead for WPP AUNZ and more. On the Agency side, Roger has also help created the Amazon Academy & Amazon Unboxed event at GroupM, building strong relationships with key partners like Amazon, eBay & Woolworth's Cartology. In this episode, we talk about the rise of retail media and where it sits in the broader media landscape, how it compares to other type of media, the current silos and inefficiencies, navigating the trade-offs between ads and experiences as well as channels and opportunities. Go here for show notes, links, and resources. Follow Juan Mendoza on LinkedIn and Twitter. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else. You can find Roger on LinkedIn . | |||