About ten years ago, I was working at a small data company in the offline predictive analytics and data management industry at a time when offline data, segmentation, predictive analytics, algorithms and machine learning were largely the domain of database marketers and CRM teams. Though many of my colleagues were excited about the potential future of online customer acquisition, real-time segmentation and bridging the gap between offline data and online data, the data management industry and the respective companies all slowly realized the opportunity. The most aggressive shifted employees to exciting new roles and opportunities that drove further growth. The least aggressive continued with business as usual and missed the outsized opportunities and outcomes created by companies like LiveRamp, DataLogix, BlueKai, Krux and others. More than anything else, the most successful firms were the ones who saw this convergence and opportunity as something to be seized – one that would allow them to leverage their offline expertise with new technologies, faster and at a fraction of the cost. I believe that we can achieve the same sort of transformation here in the advertising and marketing space.
