It’s no secret that technology continues to outpace even the nimblest marketing plans. So how do we outsmart smart homes and stay relevant to consumers? I sat with our CEO Michael Caccavale to discuss.

The ways in which consumers are acquiring goods and services are ever-expanding. We are in the driver’s seat when it comes to competition among brands, both in price and value. And beyond that, we are more in control of the customer experience than we’ve ever been. How are brands responding to that? I recently had a chat with our CEO Michael Caccavale about direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing and what it means to marketers.

For marketers, leveraging their data management platform (DMP) is the key to mapping, measuring, and ensuring each marketing dollar is well-placed. According to eMarketer, “DMPs help marketers find the inventory they seek by creating custom audience segments.” And once you know your target audience, you know where to spend. Great if you have a DMP. What if you don’t? I sat down with our CEO Michael Caccavale to discuss.

Gary Satterfield and I go way back. We met while I was working on a marketing research project for Gary twenty years ago at a utility. And he’s since gone on to become an expert in the retail energy space and was kind enough to sit down with me and my team to talk shop. The topic of deregulation, removing restrictions in a particular industry, ran a thread through much of our conversation. This has implications for consumers – and therefore, marketers.

As marketers – and as consumers – connecting the dots between previous and future behavior is the key to appreciating a good offer when we see one. And today, that’s not as simple as recommending a fun pair of boots after I bought designer jeans. With our offices, mobile devices, and homes all connected and talking to each other, being on time and on message is increasingly complicated. I recently sat down with our CEO Michael Caccavale to talk about the challenges and opportunities that marketers can uncover when we look at the smart home market.

Marketers use many different channels to reach customers, and they’re increasingly building omnichannel strategies that can follow and engage an audience on multiple different platforms. But when it comes to the marketing tools they use, too often these solutions are siloed from one another.

It’s always shocking to find that a major retail brand doesn’t have a mobile app. Meanwhile, it’s equally stunning when a small business has built a killer mobile experience for its customers.

But when you understand the role omnichannel plays for retail and other major industries, the shortcomings of the big-box retailer are much more confounding than the smaller company’s assertiveness in building a better mobile presence.

Coming off of the holiday season, retailers have an opportunity to look back at what worked – and what didn’t – and refine their plans for the new year. And while the holiday retail spike can provide a lot of insight, it’s important to look at the broader view to understand the entire year. Our CEO Michael Caccavale and I took a look at eMarketer’s consumer behavior roundup and discussed some fundamental considerations that marketers simply cannot overlook any time of the year.

Marketing technology providers talk a big game about integration but few live up to the hype. More often than not, the addition of a new marketing technology to an existing program creates a new silo – a repository of data that does not flow freely within an organization but remains stagnant within a single piece of technology. But, much like kindergarteners, marketing technologies need to be taught to play well together and to share.

We’ve long known that social media is a deep data mine. It’s a space where (digitally speaking) communities gather, where people give of their personal information, and where companies can deepen their relationships with consumers through relevant content. That Facebook, our once favorite cat video- and baby photo-filled distraction from work, has become the central focus of election tampering signals a significant shift in our perception of social media as purely “social.” It is, in fact, a very powerful tool. Our CEO Michael Caccavale and I recently discussed this in more depth.