Tag: Customer Data Platform

Melbourne, Australia – Amperity has been recognised as one of the Customer Data Platform Leaders in the 2025 Modern Marketing Data Stack Report of Snowflake, an artificial intelligence (AI) data cloud company.

The recognition positions Amperity as among the leading providers of customer data platform solutions, helping businesses activate their customer data by creating targeted audience segments and delivering them to marketing platforms.

The Modern Marketing Data Stack report identifies the technologies, tools, and platforms that Snowflake’s customers use. It aims to show how marketers and advertisers can use the Snowflake AI Data Cloud along with partner solutions.

The report highlights the contributing factors leading to a departure from the martech ecosystem, combining AI, data gravity, and privacy. It shows how this paradigm shift has given rise to new marketing trends in the industry.

Analysing customers’ usage patterns, Snowflake identified technology categories that organisations consider when forming marketing data stacks. 

The categories under marketing and advertising tools and platforms include tools for analytics, data enrichment, identity management, customer data and engagement, programmatic solutions, and performance measurement. Meanwhile, the categories under data tools and platforms include data integration, data privacy management, and business intelligence.

The report highlights the AI Data Cloud Product Partners and their solutions as “leaders” or “ones to watch” within each category. It also shows how Snowflake customers enable data-driven marketing strategies through the technologies.

“In a new age of innovation, we’re witnessing a changing of the guard around AI and how marketers capitalise on this massive opportunity as the very shape of the marketing stack evolves, leveraging the Snowflake AI Data Cloud to access and act on data directly where it resides. Amperity has distinguished itself as a leader in the Customer Data Platform category by transforming its approach to AI-driven data management. This empowers our joint customers to unify and activate high-quality customer data at scale within Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud, maximising their marketing budget efficiency and activation effectiveness,” Denise Persson, chief marketing officer at Snowflake, said.

Curt Lockton, senior vice president of partnerships at Amperity, commented, “We are honored to be recognised as a leader in the Customer Data Platform category by Snowflake. This acknowledgment underscores our shared vision to empower marketers with AI-ready, identity-resolved customer data. By enabling brands to create a true 360-degree view of their customers, Amperity and Snowflake are ushering in a new phase of data-driven marketing, turning deep insights into actionable strategies, driving enhanced engagement, stronger loyalty, and substantial revenue growth.”

The promise of martech has never been more enticing. From customer relationship management (CRM) systems to advanced analytics and automation tools, martech solutions offer the potential to enhance customer experiences, offer ‘mass personalisation’ and drive customer acquisition and business growth.

However, the Arktic Fox 2024 Digital, Marketing & eComm in Focus study reveals a troubling reality: many marketers are struggling to make full use of the martech tools now at their disposal.

According to the study, many marketers are struggling with data management in general and martech in particular. Billy Loizou, Asia Pacific area vice president at Amperity, isn’t surprised many marketing and marketing-adjacent professionals feel under growing pressure. “Marketers want to take advantage of the available tools, but they are struggling to execute,” he notes. “This is hardly a new situation, but when you add in factors such as the rise of Gen AI, imminent reforms to the Privacy Act, flat marketing budgets, and Google changing its mind on deprecating third-party cookies, it’s not surprising so many CMOs are nervous.”

You’ll need martech’s to hit your KPIs

Marketers’ focus unsurprisingly remains on business growth – 77% of respondents said it was a key strategic priority.

Growth is tied to customer acquisition, which came in second (48%) on the list of priorities.

So far, so unsurprising. But subsequent priorities reveal marketers hope to fatten the bottom line by leveraging technology. The third most common priority (42%) was “Building our customer data strategy and better utilising our first-party data”, and the equal fourth (36%) was “Digital transformation”.

The study also revealed marketers and digital leaders remain focused on achieving goals that are only feasible with martech tools. Personalisation was classified as “important” or “very important” by 72% of respondents, who were also firmly committed to CX management (87%), online sales and lead generation (77%) and martech utilisation (76%).

In other words, if they don’t have the right martech tools and staff who understand how to use those tools, most marketers won’t be able to achieve their business goals.

Man vs machine
There’s a consensus that marketers and digital professionals aren’t making the most of martech solutions, but there’s debate about why that’s the case.

The easy explanation for the underutilisation of martech is the much-discussed skills gap. It’s certainly the case that martech can be challenging to master and often requires a solid understanding of data analytics, customer segmentation and automation workflows. 

For marketers who lack a technical background, navigating these complexities can be daunting. Plus, as new tools and platforms emerge, marketers must continually update their skills to stay relevant.

But the problem seems to run deeper than a lack of staff capable of using increasingly sophisticated and powerful technological tools, Loizou argues. The first point he makes is that confusion continues to exist around what different marketing technologies are used for.

“The study showed that CRMs and marketing automation platforms still get most of the attention and investment,” Loizou says. “But those aren’t tools that solve the ‘messy data’ issues that so many businesses still confront. It’s Consumer Data Platforms (CDPs) that do that and provide an enterprise-unified view, which can solve many of the other challenges businesses now face.” 

The need for a CDP ties into another issue Loizou argues the study highlighted – CMOs having spent big on tech stacks that have subsequently failed to meet expectations.

The rise of best-of-breed solutions

“To grossly oversimplify, the approach in the past was to buy the equivalent of a turnkey, off-the-shelf, full-stack solution from a big-name tech company,” Loizou says. “Given that 80% of respondents in the 2024 study reported their utilisation of martech was ‘average’, ‘low’ or ‘very low’, that doesn’t seem to have worked out well. The understandable but ill-advised reaction is to devote fewer resources to martech and martech staff training. That’s happening to some extent, with only 12% of respondents reporting they plan to increase their martech budget over the next 12 months.

“But the noteworthy development is the declining popularity of single-vendor solutions. When asked about their plans for future martech investments, 14% said they were leaning towards a single vendor, 29% claimed they were open-minded, and a whopping 57% stated they were leaning towards ‘best-of-breed’ solutions.” 

All that noted, Teresa Sperti, the founder and director of Arktic Fox, says organisations usually have plenty of room for improvement regarding training. “When we undertake digital training sessions or partner with clients on strategy, it’s not uncommon for us to explain where the organisation’s data resides and help them connect the dots around their martech ecosystem,” she says. “Brands that have built strong internal capabilities and robust foundations in data and tech are thriving, while others are finding it difficult to shift gears.”

Don’t fall for ‘shiny new toy’ syndrome
“In recent times, we’ve seen around a 1000 new martech ‘solutions’ hit the market every year, and there are now more than 11,000 of them out there,” Loizou notes. “With so many tools available, each touting benefits more remarkable than the last, it can be tempting to fall victim to ‘shiny new toy’ syndrome. But my advice is to prioritise simplicity and integration and focus on what’s most important – delivering the kind of industry-leading CX that will keep your existing customers loyal and attract plenty of new ones.” 

Consolidation, co-option and communication
At the launch of her report, Sperti expanded on why she believed there had been a downward trend in martech utilisation in recent years. After reiterating the point that less than one in five marketers reported that their martech utilisation is currently “strong” or “semi-strong”, Sperti noted, “More than 80% believe that they have average, low or very, very low utilisation. And we are spending a lot of money on this as an industry, so that should create a few alarm bells for people. So why is this occurring?

“There are a few causes. The first is a stack creep issue. I buy a few platforms and then providers’ product roadmaps evolve. As a result, I end up with a whole lot of features and functionality that I already have in another platform or that I simply don’t need. 

“And the second cause is more around gaps in skills and capability of team members. ‘martech strategy and implementation’ was identified as the third biggest skill gap across the country within teams for the second year running. So, of course, we have a gap in our ability to effectively utilise the tech.”

Deena Coleman, group general manager, digital & marketing at Accent Group, backed up Sperti’s argument, pointing to the centrality of (well-utilised) martech at her organisation.

“As we’ve been reviewing our strategic business goals and how we’re going to get growth over the years, for us, it’s been looking at: OK, have we got the right technology? And have we got the right data foundations?

“We need to get that data foundation right, get the customer view right, and make sure that it’s really clear across the business and within the brands because we are a complex business… So, bringing on a new customer data platform and getting that at the crux of everything we do, then building everything out around it, is very important for us.”

Coleman had the following advice for those marketers struggling to win over corporate decision-makers. “I always take the approach of, ‘What is keeping executives – or anyone I need to bring along on a journey – up at night?’ Once you hone in on that point, you can get them aligned to what you’re doing from a digital transformation point of view. [You focus on how digital transformation] will help them do things such as hit their EBIT numbers.”

Coleman also recommends keeping it simple. “Remove the tech jargon because sometimes if you overcomplicate it in that space, you lose people along the way. So it’s about education, the alignment with what they’re trying to do, and bringing people along on the journey.”

Singapore – AI-powered enterprise customer data platform Amperity has announced a new composable approach for customer data management known as the ‘Lakehouse’ CDP.

Through this initiative from Amperity, brands can seamlessly share live data sets between a CDP and a lakehouse without maintaining ETLs or copying data.

IT teams can optimise how data is stored and processed with any platform that uses lakehouses’ open table formats to save time and lower costs. This composable and more secure flow of data ensures brands can fuel the data-intensive demands of Generative AI and 1:1 personalization with high-quality data.

To enable the Lakehouse CDP’s core benefits, Amperity is adding a key new feature: Bridge. Amperity Bridge allows users to point and share data to and from a lakehouse rather than using the slower, less secure method of reverse ETL.

This uses each lakehouse’s open, industry-standard data formats so that data is available across the tech stack through a shared catalogue. This provides the benefits of zero-copy for greater control and compliance without unnecessary network calls and processing.

Going into more detail, the Lakehouse CDP’s features allows brands to utilise AI-powered ID resolution, quick shaping of data for activation, a tool that gives quick access and activate high-quality data from a lakehouse, and a secure platform for sharing data.

Talking about this approach, Barry Padgett, CEO of Amperity, said, “In today’s data-driven landscape, brands are struggling to unlock the true potential of their customer data due to the siloed nature of traditional data management tools. Amperity’s Lakehouse CDP rides the wave of open data sharing, enabling brands to build cross-platform data workflows.”

“Our goal is to ensure high-quality customer data is available across all platforms that use lakehouse architecture without replication. With Amperity, businesses can meet the data demands of Generative AI and personalization at scale with unparalleled data governance,” he added.

United Kingdom – Airline Virgin Atlantic has tapped enterprise customer data platform Amperity to aid in the airline’s unification, management, and activation of its digital and transactional customer data in order to deliver personalised customer experiences and drive revenue growth.

Virgin Atlantic looks after a vast amount of customer data generated from digital touchpoints and offline transactions throughout the customer journey. As part of its ongoing data transformation, the travel company will use the CDP to create a personalised ecosystem and improve the digital experience.

Amperity’s platform uses patented machine learning algorithms to deliver industry-leading identity resolution, audience segmentation, and predictive analytics which allows Virgin Atlantic to create the most relevant content and communications for each customer. 

Tom Barber, head of data at Virgin Atlantic, said, “When it comes to innovating for our customers, Virgin Atlantic never stands still. We’re building a digital core at the heart of our business so that our customers benefit from a seamless shop, book and service experience for our flights and holidays, with an innate understanding of their preferences across the end-to-end journey.”

He added, “We’re excited to adopt Amperity to help us get to know our customers better than ever, supporting personalised and meaningful content and experiences at every touchpoint, with the advantage of consistent and secure first-party data and customer segmentation.”

Meanwhile, Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity, commented, “Today, customer data is at the heart of any ambitious organisation, especially one that aspires to make every interaction feel more like it is a one-to-one experience versus a one-to-many approach. By tapping into Amperity, the platform for customer data, Virgin Atlantic will be able to take advantage of patented identity resolution, with strict governance and activation capabilities that will make experiences even more connected and relevant.”

It’s been years since markets have discussed using first, second, and third-party data in the digital world. We have also been faced with the announcement of no tracking on iOS and the delayed implementation of cutting third-party cookies by Google to 2024.  Marketers have been approached by various data agency partners and customer data platform (CDP) partners such as Insider, Tealium, Adobe, Sitecore, and more to sell their data platform solutions. 

Unfortunately, I have seen that with much fanfare, many markets, after buying into the solutions provided by data agencies or platform providers, fail to make full use of the investment they have made in those platforms. Those CPD platforms become half-baked into the client’s data ecosystem or sit as an orphan that no one knows how to maximise their use. Now that the selling part is done, what needs to happen is to have a true partner, internal or external, that has to orchestrate all the data you have in harmony to bring the most out of it.

Photo Courtesy of Element61

The Ensemble: Overview of Your First-Party Data

It’s a misnomer that markets think only in silos and treat their first-party data as the data gathered from their paid and owned media. While it’s doable, capturing the data from earned media and putting it into your CDP is challenging, as you don’t have complete control of the user-generated content.)  There is a wealth of data across all platforms that each marketer has- paid media data, organic data, customer CRM data, loyalty program data, and more. In short, you have massive amounts of consumer data that interact with your company’s properties in various ways. Two industries stood out for having the most first-party data across all industries: banking and finance, as well as travel and hospitality. 

The issue we have on hand right now is that marketers fail to do a collective overview of all the first-party data they have been collecting via various channels. They jump right into selecting a CDP platform only for paid media.  This is the most common mistake that I see marketers make.  Your CDP is more than an enhanced version of your GA4, Adobe Analytics, Google Campaign Manager, or Looker. Without the proper assembling, you would have a CDP platform that costs you millions but brings nothing in return in revenue.

Overtune: Setting the Stage

After analysing all the available data, you must set the stage to make them work for you.  You must have both marketing and business data plugged into the system. Otherwise, you will have data only collected from systems such as Sitecore or Salesforce or from media activities from media channel connectors into your CDP system.  You need to have both the front-end data (marketing data collected) and the backend data (customer, sales, and CRM data) join via the CDP to allow data segmentation and predictive modelling. You need to include both sides of the information to maximise your media efficiency and drive home results to prove to your CFO the return on investment on your CDP platform.

Intermission: Operational Excellence

This is the section where I see most marketers fall off a cliff and fail to ensure their CDPs.  After plugging in your media data and your CRM/Customer Data, you need to start utilising the CDP platforms for what they should do – Predictive Modeling and Customer segmentation.  With this, you can begin to orchestrate your media activities and segment the audience you have been collecting.  With the CDP, it will help you exponentially increase the power of your first party data beyond standard remarketing, which, unfortunately, I see too many marketers end up using a CDP platform only for the sake of remarketing.  With your CDP’s proper predictive modelling and segmentations, you can adequately leverage your data for future customer engagement, whether paid or owned media. You can create bespoke creative messaging and landing pages for different audiences based on your segmentation and predictive analysis from the CDP platform.

Finale: Results Framework

Your C-Suite will start questioning the investment in your CDP solutions. Now, it’s the final chapter to prove the return on investment in your paid and owned media activities and how they link it to the business metrics rather than just the marketing metrics. Ultimately, revenue is what all businesses seek, rather than simply looking at how much media efficiency you drive through CPC, CPM, or CPV.  Those metrics are important, but they won’t bring you home as the hero of your company. You need to be able to quantify how your CDP platform helps you drive the actual business outcomes for your company.

Many marketers are now panicking and need help managing the first party data once the cord of the cookies is finally cut by Google.  It’s the best and worst times to start looking at your current data collection systems, whether in Looker, Adobe, GA4, or even as simple as using Google Campaign Manager. There is still time for you to transition from a basic analytics or cookie collection platform to a real CDP.  Media and Data Scientists are here to help translate a very technical aspect of CDP into a layman’s term and help you connect the dots internally between your CEO and the CTO.  This is a must for an agency, be it a media, data, creative, social, or performance agency, to perform well beyond the cookie-less world.  You need to have a professional expert who knows your business needs and understands the challenges of your current data privacy and the data ecosystem.  With the proper orchestration, you can make all your first party data dance in harmony and bring impactful revenue to your business.

This article is written by Antony Yiu, chief executive officer at PHD Hong Kong

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023. What’s NEXT 2023 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

Sydney, Australia – Amperity, the customer data platform (CDP) for enterprise consumer brands, has announced the appointment of Rian Smith as new business director and Sam Bessey as its new lead solutions consultant. The latest senior hires are expected to scale Amperity’s presence in the region amidst a period of rapid growth to meet the strong demand from brands looking to accelerate their digital transformation. 

Smith, formerly head of sales for APAC at Cheetah Digital, will be driving Amperity’s strategic new business initiatives and creating market demand. 

“With the surging demand for a CDP like Amperity in the region, there couldn’t be a better time to come on board and help local brands embrace their messy customer data to drive delightful customer experiences safely and securely while also achieving outstanding business results,” said Smith.

Meanwhile, Bessey, who was previously a senior manager at Accenture, brings a similar depth of experience to his new role. As lead solutions consultant, he will be assisting new and existing clients to unlock value from their customer data, using Amperity’s best-of-breed CDP. 

“As businesses adapt to the challenges and changes presented over the last few years and face new challenges in the year ahead, CDPs can help drive relevancy in real-time interactions to accelerate business growth,” commented Bessey.

“I’m thrilled to be on the ground, helping brands strike a balance between understanding how to engage with customers successfully while, simultaneously, respecting their data privacy to win in this new era of personalisation through the power of Amperity,” he added. 

Billy Loizou, area vice president at Amperity, shared their delight in welcoming the two seasoned hires and believes that both will help accelerate the opportunity brands have to serve their customers by bridging them to Amperity’s expertise.

“Brands are accelerating business transformation to better understand their customers, unlocking the ability to acquire more high-value customers, all whilst driving down their operational costs. The need for brand differentiation, seamless customer experiences, marketing measurement and data governance has transcended a CDP’s traditional function as a marketing tool to that of a central pillar of the entire enterprise software mix,” said Loizou.

New data has revealed the CDP market size is expected to grow from AU$7.18b in 2022 to AU$29.47b by 2027, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 32.4% during the forecast period. APAC is set to hold the highest CAGR which can be attributed to the heavy martech investments in the region resulting in increased demand for CDPs. 

Smith and Bessey are the latest to join Amperity in the APAC region, following its international expansion. The martech company recently opened a new office in the United Kingdom and a data centre in Ireland to complement its current presence in the former.

Washington, USA – Amperity, the enterprise customer data platform (CDP) for consumer brands, today announced Reckitt, the global consumer packaged goods company (CPG), has appointed it to maximise the value of its omnichannel customer data to deliver relevant, personalised customer experiences.

Combining first-party data and third-party data can have an immediate and significant impact on brands looking to truly understand their customers, and deliver highly-relevant experiences throughout the customer lifecycle. Amperity’s integrations with leading platforms like Amazon and Facebook aim to enable companies like Reckitt to reach more users while enriching advertising campaigns through Amperity’s insights on cross-channel behaviour, data sciences scores, and content affinities. 

“Historically, CPGs have had very little access to first-party data making it incredibly difficult to truly know the customer and deliver relevant omnichannel experiences,” said Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity. “Reckitt understands the need to build their own customer relationships. By embracing a first-party data strategy, Reckitt now has access to accurate customer profiles that will exponentially strengthen their reach.”

Amperity has also announced this month its support for Amazon’s AWS for Advertising & Marketing initiative. The initiative features services and solutions purpose-built for the needs of different players in the industry, whereas Amperity has created a secure, modern data stack that would help brands to maximise the value of their first-party data.

The martech platform has also recently unveiled new key leaders. Megan McDonagh and Billy Loizou were named CMO and area vice president respectively.

Seattle, USA – Amperity, the leading customer data platform (CDP) for enterprise consumer brands, today announced the hiring of Megan McDonagh and Seema Kumar to be part of their global leadership roster. Together, the two bring extensive expertise within their respective industries to Amperity’s growing leadership team.

McDonagh will serve as the company’s chief marketing officer, while Kumar will serve as the company’s chief people officer.

“The company is experiencing unprecedented growth, and we are thrilled to welcome both Seema and Megan to the team as we take Amperity and the customer data platform category to the next level,” said Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity. 

“Both have a successful track record for building and scaling organizations to support rapid growth, and equally important, they share in our mission to help people use data to serve the customer. I look forward to working with them as we elevate our brand awareness around the globe, and continue to demonstrate why Amperity is a great place to work,” Padgett added.

McDonagh is a seasoned marketing executive with a strong track record of innovation, creativity, and growth acceleration with industry-leading tech companies. She is known for building enduring customer-centric brands, driving results-focused marketing programs, delivering rewarding customer and partner experiences, and inspiring high-performing global teams. Most recently, McDonagh served as CMO at RealWear, the leading provider of assisted reality wearable solutions and before this spent over 20 years at Intel in various marketing leadership roles.

“Amperity represents a perfect trifecta with an extremely passionate customer base, differentiated mission-critical technology, and a vibrant culture powered by dedicated employees who love doing what’s right for our customers,” said McDonagh.

“I am incredibly excited about the opportunity at Amperity and the scale the company has achieved to date. I look forward to bringing my experience to Amperity and helping enterprise brands drive exponential impact by realizing the full value we can bring to their business.”

Meanwhile, Kumar brings more than 20 years of people operations and human resources experience to Amperity. In her role, she will oversee all workplace and people operations, including recruiting, benefits and rewards, organizational and people development, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Most recently, she served as vice president, human resources at F5 Networks. In that role, she led initiatives to attract and develop talent and to shape the culture for accelerated business growth and transformation. 

“We’re at a unique point in time where we have the ability to impact and embrace how we think about the future of work, and how we create a truly inclusive environment where we can thrive—both personally and professionally,” said Kumar. “I’ve been truly impressed and energized with the emphasis the executive team places on its people, company values and mission. I’m excited to join at this time of growth, and partner with team members of all levels to ensure Amperity continues to be a place where everyone is empowered to do their life’s best work.” 

Singapore – Meiro Customer Data Platform has formed a strategic partnership with Ameex Technologies to jointly deliver data-driven and personalised customer experiences. Ameex Technologies is a digital transformation and delivery partner that helps clients ideate, design, build and deploy next-generation digital technology solutions.

The focus of the alliance is said to be driving long-term value for businesses using rich, meaningful and ethically managed customer data. Headquartered in the USA, Ameex Technologies has offices in India, Singapore, and Belgium. It is a digital growth partner for global Fortune 500 brands, building user-centric, integrated, and reusable technology that aligns with current and future strategic business needs.

Jana Marle-Zizkova, Meiro co-founder and CEO, said, “The Meiro-Ameex partnership is an exciting step forward for us. Meiro helps clients to grow their business and deliver outstanding personalized experiences by eliminating data silos and activating customer data seamlessly across online and offline touchpoints. Ameex provides a comprehensive understanding of complex marketing technology integrations alongside deep omnichannel expertise and agile delivery experience. Together, we harness the full potential of digital transformation to rapidly deliver scalable and cost-effective solutions for ad & marketing budget optimization and increasing revenue streams. We place our clients on a solid path to success in an ever-fluctuating digital business landscape.”

Commenting on this new partnership, Ranga Srinivasan, the president and CTO of Ameex, said that one of Ameex’s biggest strengths has always been helping customers make sense out of their data and with Meiro’s CDP platform, they hope to take that to the next level and enable their clients to gain actionable insights from their omnichannel customer journey. 

“This is a very exciting time for Ameex to be collaborating with Meiro as we further solidify our footprint in the Asia Pacific to serve our Singapore clients & expand into emerging markets like Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. We look forward to combining our data-driven, strategic consulting approach with Meiro’s CDP capabilities to help our clients deliver highly personalized, timely, and seamless experiences for their customers,” said Srinivasan.

Sydney, Australia – Independent customer data platform, mParticle, has announced its expansion to APAC with the official headquarters in Sydney, Australia.

mParticle enhances data quality of companies, as well as manages regulatory compliance, and delivers high-quality customer experiences. It also integrates with other technology firms such as Braze, Amplitude, Snowflake, and Amazon Redshift, as well as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Adobe Marketing Cloud, among others.

Through the expansion, the platform will be serving customers across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, as well as Japan, and South Korea.

The APAC office will be led by Kris Fagan, mParticle’s vice president for APAC. Fagan believes that the APAC market is home to some of the world’s most well recognized and innovative brands at the forefront of their industries.

“We’re eager to help brands in this region deliver the personalized experiences consumers expect across all channels with a proven approach to customer data infrastructure,” said Fagan.