“I think that we are headed for a privacy-centered world. And so there is no such thing as discussing personalization without having a strong privacy point of view. And certainly, we do.”
How much of business success is about conviction? Raj De Datta, the CEO of and Co-Founder of Bloomreach, believes very strongly that we’re in “a first-party world” and that Bloomreach is set up to thrive in this environment. Tune in as Raj shares Bloomreach’s compelling story: “Bloomreach was a rocket ship and then it was nearly dead, and… it’s a rocket ship again.”
Mentions:
- “The Digital Seeker: A Guide for Digital Teams to Build Winning Experiences”
- “Beyond the Status Quo With Raj De Datta, CEO and Co-Founder of Bloomreach” (Business X Factors podcast)
Key Insights
Is Success Ever a Problem? (17:01)
Raj explains that success can end up being a detriment if it takes you away from the grander intention. This is a lesson he learned during the earlier stages of Bloomreach when the company became too reliant on a product that could not scale. Getting back to the original goal of the company put Bloomreach back on a great track.
“So the value proposition kind of worked really well in its early days, almost too well. And so instead of building out the rest of the vision earlier, we stayed with it for too long, I think, and ultimately, realized this wasn’t a business that was going to scale. And so by kind of 2015, 2016, actually what we did is just get back to the vision and say, ‘Let’s actually go build exactly what we said we would go build at the beginning… ’”
How Can Bloomreach Guide Marketers To Make Good Decisions? (13:33)
“A very big part is in surfacing insights from the data so that you can prompt people to do the right thing rather than leave it as an open canvas for the marketers and the merchandisers. So, we build a lot of things that say, ‘All right, your goal is you’re trying to drive… you’re trying to take the people that might leave you as a brand and get them reengaged. Or you’re trying to think about the people who spend more, your most loyal customers — what do you do with them?’ So, you start to identify these next actions and these next playbooks for specific cohorts [and] identify the cohorts… [and] determine the experiences largely, automatically.“
What Does a “First-party World” Mean for Businesses? (27:50)
“It’s all a first-party world. And a first-party world requires… a customer data platform requires the level of personalization that we have built. That’s the foundational layer for how you personalize. You don’t get to take the shortcuts of just looking at the cookies and what people clicked on. You got to actually build profiles yourself as a brand. And then you got to feed that to Facebook if you want them to show relevant ads related to your brand in the newsfeed.”
Raj offers up in the example above how companies must use first-party data to ensure ads are meeting the right customers on Facebook’s newsfeed. But his example expresses the new reality concerning increased use of first-party data that brands must accept. In doing so, they may find customers who are both appreciative of their personalized experience and likely more willing to share their personal data to have their desires met.
About the Guest:
BiO: “Raj serves as Co-Founder and CEO of Bloomreach. Before launching the Company in 2009, Raj was entrepreneur-in-residence at Mohr-Davidow Ventures, served as Cisco’s director of product marketing, and was on the founding team of telecom company FirstMark Communications. He also worked in technology investment banking at Lazard Freres. Raj serves on the Council for Player Development for the US Tennis Association, as a Founder Partner at seed-stage venture capital firm Founder Collective and an individual investor in over 20 Silicon Valley start-ups. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering with a certificate in Public Policy and International affairs from Princeton University and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.”
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