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Greg Kilstrom
ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com hi, I'm Gregg Kilstrom, host of the Agile Brand, and here's a question for you. What if the marketing playbook you've relied on for the past decade is quickly failing to get results? When customers rapidly shift their behaviors, agility requires being willing to rethink how you build and earn customer relationships from the ground up. Today we're going to talk about the shift away from rented audiences and unreliable signals toward building durable first party data assets. Specifically, we'll cover why the classic B2B and B2C buyer intent signals are becoming less reliable and what to look for instead. How to navigate a new era of marketing measurement when privacy regulations and platform changes obscure the full picture and the practical steps required to build a first party data strategy that creates durable customer relationships, not just a larger database. Welcome to Season eight of the Agile Brand Podcast. This season we're going all in on Expert Mode, MarTech, AI and Customer Experience, talking with the people and platforms behind the brands you know and love. Again, I'm your host Greg Kilstrom and I help Fortune 1000 companies make sense of martech, AI and marketing ops. Hit subscribe or follow to make sure you always get the latest episodes and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And make sure you check out our sponsor Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world adoption. For more information, go to techsystems.com now let's dive in to help me discuss this topic. I'd like to welcome Alexi Hatch, CMO at Acoustic. Alexi, welcome to the show.
Alexi Hatch
Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Looking forward to diving in here. Before we do, though, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role at Acoustic?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, absolutely. So I am the current CMO at Acoustic, so I lead all brand communications, growth, demand, go to market, strategy currently. And then, you know, I, weirdly enough, have always been in B2B tech my entire career. I happened to end up there in college and I love it and I like genuinely love the complexity of it and what we do. I genuinely love marketing and you know how at times it's completely annoying and it's changing so much and the tech is changing so much. But I genuinely love at all and so, and I think it's really fun to evaluate, like how do we, how do we deliver the best experience that we really want to give our customers? And I think that's marketing's job.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, I love it and agreed. I've spent a bit of time myself in the industry and yeah, frustrating as it may be on some days, it's, it's, it's never, it's never boring, right?
Alexi Hatch
Yes, never boring, that's for sure.
Greg Kilstrom
So let's, let's start talking here about what I was teeing up in the intro. I wanted to talk about this quite foundational shift in strategy and I've been seeing a lot of discussion around this, I'm sure you have as well, about that traditional buyer intent signals are becoming just simply less dependable. From your perspective, what are some of the primary drivers behind the shift and what foundational risks does it create for brands that don't adapt their strategy?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, for sure. When you think about intent, it's like the further that you get away from your customer, the less valuable whatever the interaction is. And so when you're looking at intent, like it depends on where that came from. Intent also, I believe, has a half life. Right. It decays immediately, essentially. As soon as that intent shows up, it starts decaying and it starts going away and becoming less important. So when you think about third party data, how far away is that from when the actual first signal of intent came to fruition and when did the consumer act on that? And so I think that that's why it's becoming less valuable is when you, you know, it has to be consented to and then it has to be collected and then it has to be packaged and it has to be put into a database and then it has to be bought and then it has to be activated on. Right. The person that has this intent likely has already made the decision. And so that especially on third party data is becoming, you know, less, it's becoming less real and valuable. And then when you look at first party data, when you're, you know, more valuable closer to the customer, but it really is dependent on how quickly you can activate on that data and how, you know, if you can actually get in front of them at the right moment.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, and I think a lot of the focus on the third party data discussion at least, you know, a year or possibly more back, was more due to the, you know, the impending cookie apocalypse and all of that. It's just like we got, we got to stop using these third party cookies and third party data and all this stuff. But I mean, you bring up a great point. And in terms of it's not just that and it's not just how the things are sourced, it's just that the fundamental quality and recency. Right. Of the data is, is questionable at best. So then obviously this leads to the first party data discussion, you know, beyond simply collecting more customer information, which I think that whole cookie apocalypse discussion and data privacy discussion kind of led to. Okay, well now let's start collecting all the first party zero party data we possibly can. You know, beyond simply just doing that. What is a truly strategic approach to first party data look like at the enterprise level?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, I think it goes back to like how much of it are you collecting? Where are you collecting it from, where does it live? And then again, how quickly can you activate on it? Right. Because I, as a marketers, I don't necessarily think that we have a data problem. Right. Like we have an unbelievable amount of it, whether wherever it comes from, I think we have a timing problem. And so when you look at first party data, it's okay, how much of it are you collecting? Where is it coming from? Is it tagged appropriately? You know, is it living in the correct database and all of that. But then how is it getting from one system to the next to activate on it? How fresh is that data? You know, is all part of those questions that you should be asking of how can we activate on it? But really when I think about an enterprise strategy, it's great, everyone can collect it. How complete is the data? I think is a good question. Are you sampling first party data? Are you collecting it completely? Do you have the right tagging strategy? But really it's is the Strategy there to activate on it is really the core question.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about, you know, how we, how we then put this into practice. And so, you know, a lot of marketing teams are still deeply integrated with third party data despite all the kind of the rush to get more first party and zero party data. But personalization is still running very much so on third party data for, for many orgs. What, what would you suggest to. I don't, I don't even know if weaning off of third party is the right analogy to make. But you know, what do you suggest as a phased approach to, to decouple this reliance as, you know, and rely more on, you know, to your point, more, more reliable and more recent first party data without seeing a dip in performance because you're in that kind of midway point.
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, for sure. I think this is when we think about data in general, where it comes from. It's not an or question. I think it's an and question. I don't necessarily think that third party data has to go away. Right. Like all marketers in some way have some type of promotion calendar, you know, that they're trying to get out a certain promotion at a certain time that is relevant based off of whatever factor that's in there. Right. I'm going to argue that that's less dependent upon first party data. Like I think that the segments that you have probably can deliver the relevance that are needed. So I think it's when we talk about first party data it's more of how does this add on to your strategy, an idea? There is like everybody talks about the leaky funnel, you know, like where are we losing engagement, where are we losing revenue, where are we losing, you know, fill in the blank. And I think that a lot of that comes down to real time activation. Right. So I think it's more of third party data has its place in time across more of that, you know, promotional calendar, you know, very planned out activity. Whereas first party data is much more about what is that real time opportunity capitalizing on the moment piece. And so as a marketing leader, I think you should be asking yourself the question of how does data fit inside the strategy and what data do I need to in order to execute this strategy? And I think that will highlight where you actually have a first party data gap and then you can make decisions moving forward there.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what good looks like when you see a brand that's doing a great job of building activating first party data. What are the characteristics that you're seeing across multiple brands that are doing this? Are there certain tactics that are working well? What are you seeing there?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, I think it's about relevance. Like it's when you know something that I very much believe is that the best brands are the ones that their consumers don't feel like a stranger to them, you know, and it's because they have this information and data, whether that's going on the website and it feels personalized to you, whether it's going into a store and the associate already knows what's in your closet because they have record of everything that you've bought. Right. And all of that is a very personalized experience that a consumer feels. And so I think that this all ladders up into a question of what is that personalized experience that you're trying to give, you know, and how are you delivering that to them. But really it's the best brands are the ones where consumers feel seen, they feel known, and those are the ones that are doing it. And they're doing it through collecting that first party data. Right. And making it accessible through all their different systems.
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Greg Kilstrom
Everyone that I talk with is certainly and they always have been asked to prove ROI and things like that, but it just seems like it's like we, we always keep saying we keep getting busier and busier. I think we keep getting asked more and more to prove value and roi. And there's certain things that are not helping some of the traditional ways of doing this. You know, privacy changes from Apple, Google have certainly made attribution a little more challenging over the years. How should leaders be reframing their approach to measurement to account for some of these things and just do, maybe do attribution better?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah man, do I have thoughts on attribution. One of the hills that I will die on is that every problem is an attribution problem. And I think that for the past 20 years, marketers have been asked to prove what happened in the past. And really the question is, is like, well, how do I make it better for the future, right? And so even if, you know, picture even having like the most perfect attribution model where you can see exactly what step and what channel led to this conversion, I asked the question like could you even replicate that if you even had the answer, can you do something about it? And I just don't know.
Podcast Guest or Advertiser
Right.
Alexi Hatch
And a lot of that is because consumers are in control. They are the ones that are choosing how to buy, when to buy, where to go, where to research, brands have no control over that. So all of those multi touch that's coming from a consumer's choice that we have no control over. And I would so much rather like get attribution to a point where hey, I can make real time decisions off of it versus looking at it, having the most perfect model, knowing exactly what led into this conversion and can't replicate it. You know, so I'd rather make a decision based off of 85% of the data versus wait three weeks to lose out on something that I can activate on, you know. So I think the question that marketing leaders need to ask is truly like how valuable is like multi touch attribution. How far are you going to take it before you just say like, hey, we need to get this to a point where I can make a decision today and feel confident about that decision versus knowing every little nitty gritty point that got to this conversion point. So I think that we've, you know, in the, and the need to prove our effectiveness in a lot of ways we've gone too far and tried to get the perfect attribution model and I just don't think it exists and I think it's actually hurting us and our ability to move faster.
Greg Kilstrom
Well, yeah, and I think that, I think that's a common theme here. And what we've been talking about is just the speed to action is, is, is critical. And I would even say the, you know, how consumers are finding things. And you know, I've had many other conversations about how this, the funnel itself is getting shortened because people are showing up more, more educated and aware and so they're, they're showing up ready to buy instead of this, this longer process. Even with that, as well as some of the other things that you've touched on here, are there, are there different KPIs, are there other measurements that become more important than, than some of those, those, you know, those more traditional things like what should CMOs and others be really reporting on that reflect some of the, some of the real challenges and real opportunities here?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, I think that this is, it's certainly man, I mean marketers are in a place where we're just being challenged from like every angle right now. Because as you said at the start, right, that that playbook is being completely challenged really for the first time in a long time. And so certainly measurement is a part of that. Like when I think about data health and database health, right. It used to be all about well, how many net new contacts are we adding to the database? That's not really helpful anymore. What I really want to know is how live and living and breathing is this database which leads into, you know, how many are returning, how many of these, of these consumers are returning? What new data are we collecting on them? What information, how real is this first party data? You know, and so I think that that becomes more of a KPI where you're changing it from contacts added to how quickly it's evolving or how fast it's being refreshed that leads into retention and you know, your consumers, are they coming back to you. And I think that that's a core part of the KPIs as well, it's not just, oh, how much, you know, how much revenue are you producing in this quarter, it's how much revenue is coming from previous customers, you know, lifetime value. All of those things, I think just become much more important moving forward outside of, you know, some of the traditional and standard metrics that maybe we've looked at across the funnel.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, well, and then activating this and kind of going back to that part is, is activating and having that strong relationship between AI driven personalization and first party data, is that going to be, I mean, it seems like it's going to be a primary competitive differentiator for brands. Like how to, to what extent, I guess, would you, would you say it's going to be?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, you know, I, my love and hate relationship with AI. I love it mostly, you know, but I think that when we think about personalization, the question really is, is it personal, is it personalized content or is it a personalized experience? Those are two very different things. And I think what marketers have historically looked at is personalization equals personalized content. And AI does an incredible job at that. It has made it completely commoditized like any marketer can now do it. Whereas, say just a year ago it was actually incredibly difficult because we didn't have the resources, the tech, the intelligence, the whatever. And so I think it's less about, is personalization the competitive advantage? I don't think so. I think it is the personalized experience that is, which then goes back to how quickly can you activate on this data to deliver that personalized experience? How quickly can you capitalize on the intent that somebody is showing? How quickly can you prove out that you're relevant and that you understand this consumer. And so I think that it's personalization of the experience, not the content. And that's where AI hasn't quite delivered it. Right. Because it produces content, but it doesn't activate on it. And so you need other parts of your data in your tech stack to be able to activate on it in order to deliver that.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, well, and I think you bring up a great point in just saying the word personalization and AI, there's a lot of different, there's a lot of nuance in both of those terms. Right. You know, because personalization could be, you know, insert first name here. Which, how valuable do I find that when it's like, Greg, open this email, like none at all. And same with AI, it's like I could plug some generic information that I got out of an LLM. And yes, that was technically AI personalization. But so, yeah, I mean, I think what's the right conversation that needs to be had, had around this stuff, rather than throwing around buzzwords and things like that? Like what, you know, what, what's. What's the most important conversation that leaders should be having to really prepare in the right way and not just kind of paper over some of the details?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, to me, it's always going to go back to the consumer, and I think it's. Brands need to be really asking themselves is, have they evolved to deliver what their consumer wants, or are they still trying to deliver what they always have to the consumer? Those are two very different worlds. I think marketing has been built historically as kind of we are in control, the brand is in control, and you can experience it. We will, we will personalize the best that we can, but that doesn't mean that we've necessarily been built around the customer. And so I think the questions to be asked is, regardless of what we're trying to sell, regardless of our brand, what do consumers want? What is the experience they want from how they interact with us, how they find us, how they do research, and then asking you yourself, do we actually have the ability to do that? Do we have the tech? Do we have the data? Do we have the content? Do we have the people? And I think that that question alone is going to open up a lot of conversation to say, you know what? I don't think that we actually are built due to delivery the experience that consumers want today. That will then lead to a lot of different decisions. And I think that that's an important conversation for executive teams to be having right now. Is, are we actually building to what consumers want and are we delivering what they want?
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, with, with all the stakeholder shareholder board pressure to just do AI or, you know, whatever the case may be. But I, I hear a lot of do AI out there. You know, to your point, it's like, well, you know, take a step back, right? And what, what do people actually want? And I think, you know, I'd love to hear your thought on. I think a lot of it can be solved by some recent tools. And yes, they, they probably involve AI, but. But yeah, just, you know, take a step back. Right?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, totally. I mean, and I think that there's never been an easier time right now from a marketing. You know, marketers are receiving so much pressure from different angles to do AI, to do better, to, you know, have better attribution. There's never been an easier time to Forget about the consumer because you're so focused on the tech or how your day to day looks or whatever that no one is taking the time to slow down and to say, hang on a second, I think we've forgotten the point, which is we are trying to get in front of our customers to create an excellent experience for them. Are we actually doing that? You know, I'm a big believer in like slowing down to speed up, which I know a lot of people don't like, they don't like the concept of it, right. But I'm like, if you can slow down just for a minute to really think through what, what do you want to do? What's the magic that a marketer wants to create for these people, then it will really help you speed up in the future and to truly deliver that. So, you know, I'm always going to go back to it's, this is a people's business, you know, like, yes, we never actually interact with a lot of these people because it's all digital. But there's people on the other end of that click. There's people on the other end of that purchase, whatever it is. And I think we can't ever forget that, regardless of the pressures that we're receiving from whoever it is and however technology evolves in the future.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Alexi, thanks so much for joining today. It's been, it's been great talking with you and got two last questions before we wrap up here. First one, if we were having this interview one year from today, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?
Alexi Hatch
Man, a year from now feels like a different world. And I think that there's, I would say that there's probably two things. One is, I do actually think a year from now agents will be purchasing things more so than I know it's kind of happening right now a little bit, but I think it'll become a little bit more mainstream next year. And so, you know, we've been optimizing towards SEO. Like how do you optimize towards a robot? You know, like, I think that that's a key part of this conversation is like, this is a brand new audience. Like I. What does this look like? I think that's a very real possibility in a year. And then I do think like that timing piece of how quickly this is all being activated on is really core here. Technology is getting closer to it. I think strategy is putting more pressure on reducing the lag between signal to action. And so I think that that's going to be a very real conversation that happens next year that feels like the last, almost last remaining competitive moat is that timing piece. And so I think that's going to be talked about too.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. And last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Alexi Hatch
Yeah, agile in my role is always assume that every thought that I have has an expiration date. You know, like everything that I know today probably is going to be less relevant tomorrow. And to be okay with that, to be excited about, you know, learning a different way of doing things. You know, I think a great example would be as a marketing leader, like looking at other go to market functions and seeing maybe, maybe marketers need to look like more like product marketers, you know, or product, product teams. And I think that that's very true is that a marketing leader is going to look much closer to a product leader in the future. And so I think it's learning from others really bucking that playbook, that playbook and saying like, hey, like let's go and reinvent this thing and all of that. And really it's kind of assuming that again, what I know has an expiration date and we got to learn something new. So thank you so much for having me. I really, really enjoyed the conversation.
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, it was great, great talking with you again. I'd like to thank Alexi Hatch, CMO at Acoustic for joining the show. You can learn more about Alexi and Acoustic by following the links in the show notes. This episode is brought to you by Tech Systems. They're leaders in full stack tech services, talent solutions and helping companies put it all in action. You can learn more@techsystems.com that's teksystems.com and thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand podcast. If you like the episode, hit subscribe and drop a rating so others can find the show too. And if you're interested in consulting, advisory work, or if you need a speaker for your next event, feel free to reach out. Just visit GregKilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile. Nothing beats tradition like weekly game nights at Mom's house and Tostitos crafted with Masa made the traditional way, starting with whole corn kernels with flavors worth gathering around like a hint of lime and Mexican street corn and no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. That's the Tostitos way. Bring Tostitos to your next game night and you'll be winning either way. Tostitos tradition matters
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Episode: Acoustic CMO Alexi Hatch on Rebuilding Your Customer Relationship Strategy
Date: July 17, 2026
Host: Greg Kihlström
Guest: Alexi Hatch, CMO at Acoustic
In this episode, Greg Kihlström welcomes Alexi Hatch, CMO at Acoustic, for an in-depth conversation about the tectonic shifts in customer relationship strategies, especially as marketing technology, AI, data privacy, and the need for agility increasingly upend traditional playbooks. Together, they explore why first-party data is the new strategic imperative, how brands must navigate measurement in a privacy-first world, and what separates truly customer-centric brands from the pack.
[04:10–05:55]
[05:55–08:02]
[08:02–10:26]
[10:26–11:50]
[13:50–16:39]
[16:39–18:56]
[18:56–21:47]
[21:47–25:17]
[25:17–26:40]
[26:40–27:51]
"Intent has a half-life. Right. It decays immediately, essentially."
— Alexi Hatch, [04:43]
"We have a timing problem."
— Alexi Hatch, [06:57]
"Every problem is an attribution problem."
— Alexi Hatch, [14:32]
"I’d rather make a decision based off of 85% of the data versus wait three weeks to lose out on something that I can activate on."
— Alexi Hatch, [15:15]
"The best brands are the ones where consumers feel seen, they feel known."
— Alexi Hatch, [10:47]
"Personalization of the experience, not the content… That’s where AI hasn't quite delivered yet."
— Alexi Hatch, [19:22]
"Always assume that every thought that I have has an expiration date."
— Alexi Hatch, [26:48]
The conversation is candid, pragmatic, and future-focused, challenging marketers to adapt quickly, prioritize genuine customer understanding, and not get blinded by flashy technology. Both Greg and Alexi emphasize agility, real-time decision making, and never losing sight of the human at the other end of every interaction.
Final advice:
"Slow down to speed up... It's a people's business." — Alexi Hatch, [23:49–25:17]