Latest / Talk Commerce / Live from Shoptalk Transforming Marketing Strategies with AI | Karen Wood
Transcript
- [00:00.3] I'm Isaac Mori. Welcome to another special episode of Talk Commerce, filmed live at Shop Talk Las Vegas. In today's episode, we'll be hearing from Karen Wood, the CMO of TreeData. Here's that conversation now. [00:16.0] We're here at, Shop Talk in Las Vegas. I'm, here with Karen from Treasure Data. Could you tell us a little bit about what you guys do? Yeah. So Treasure Data is an agentic experience platform, and we provide solutions to marketing teams for retailers, for e commerce companies, as well, so that they can use data and use AI in order to increase the, improve the experience of their customers. Great. [00:41.2] What are some of the biggest data opportunities that you see new customers leaving on the table that you help them take advantage of? Yeah, so many companies spend a lot of money to acquire new customers, and they throw money at acquisition campaigns without thinking about who are the, VIPs that they actually want to attract or they're customers who are most likely to become very valuable or very loyal. [01:03.5] So there's kind of that side as well. They look for us to identify those that they actually want to spend to acquire. And then often they're sitting on a treasure trove of data, if you will, of their customers. And so how do you take the customer data that they've already given you? [01:19.5] Maybe a customer has already purchased once, you want them to come back and purchase again. So we help brands use that data and really unlock the potential of that data to get them to really build that brand loyalty with that company. Awesome. I took a demo a little bit earlier today, and one of the things that stood out to me was the concept of, like, I think advocates, you call them, or people who are spreading the word. [01:42.3] Can you talk a little bit about how you help identify those and what they can mean for a brand? Yeah, exactly. So, a lot of companies, you know, have a loyalty program, but a loyalty program doesn't necessarily identify who those advocates are. So we look within the data to identify all of the signals from things that customers are doing in real time across the web or ads that they're clicking on combined with, like, if they've, if it's a physical store, if they've entered a store, or, done any kind of activity. [02:10.5] We string that all together and then use propensity modeling and AI in order to identify exactly who that, you know, that advocate will. Even if they're not the advocate right now, they, they could be. And so how do you build a campaign then to cultivate that relationship and turn them into an advocate. [02:27.7] Yeah. Awesome. Well, you brought up a buzzword that I have to ask about here at Shoptalk in 2026. Legally obligated. Legally obligated. So AI, how are you gu? And what does it mean for, for the product and for your customers? Okay, this could be like a two hour answer, so I'll do my best. [02:45.8] So at Treasure Data, you know, we, we are an AI native company and that means two things specifically as a company, the way that we operate and how we do business day to day is all AI native. So you know, I run our marketing team. Our marketing team uses our own tools and AI tools all the time in order to just work faster and make our lives easier, do more with less and, and really harness data. [03:08.9] So just operationally we're AI native and then our technology is AI native too. And that benefits our customers because we are able to improve and iterate and grow our technology stack exponentially faster than any other like legacy SaaS company, especially those legacy clouds. [03:26.7] So we're moving really, really quickly and we've innovated some, and developed and actually launched some like lots of new technology within the last year that sits on top of our, our trusted data source. So imagine you're a marketer your day and you just want to take data out of a database and like run a campaign to like, okay, we'll use the advocate analogy to like to drive, to acquire better advocates or engage with those advocates. [03:52.1] With AI you can simply use natural language to say, find me this audience, activate this campaign. Done. You're done with your day. Like in the old days you would have to submit a ticket, wait for it to help you, wait for the results to come in, optimize. We're talking like months, like from months to minutes is basically what we're able to provide because we're AI native. Awesome. [04:14.0] So here at Talk Commerce we have an audience of a lot of maybe smaller and medium sized business people who are earlier in their journey. And I know you guys have some special programs and ideas for medium sized companies. Could you talk to those a little bit? Yeah, yeah, we have a lot of a lot of our customers are medium sized and you know, so they might have smaller teams or in a way those medium sized companies are the ones who really need AI the most because they need to be able to do more with less and the teams are strapped. [04:42.6] So like the circle is, the struggle is real. So I would say, you know, using our AI technology specifically, is one thing, the other thing is we have an AI marketing cloud which is sort of an all in one stack. And for medium sized businesses in particular, they're interested in not just access to the data and using AI to activate the data, but they're interested in just going to one platform to activate the data, to send emails. [05:08.5] So we, you know our marketing cloud does that to send email to personalize on the web, build creative. So we have our, you know, again it's an all in one kind of solution which for the, for the mid market is kind of custom built for them in a way. And then we also have really attractive pricing incentives right now, especially for companies that might be currently using a legacy customer data platform or a legacy esp. [05:32.1] Want to get off of that old monster and migrate over to something that's more innovative and AI forward. And so we have again some special pricing incentives for those companies. Awesome. Any other features or products that you want to speak to? Kind of share with our audience? Yeah, I mean you mentioned you got a demo earlier. [05:48.7] Love to hear that. You know we, it's, it's our, it's our AI stuff. So we have a, we have something called Marketing Super Agent which is a web based basically AI native solution that allows marketers to, much like with Manus or any of the other AI tools that are out there, it asks you what do you want to do today? [06:07.3] But it's, it's built for marketers. So what do you want to do today? I want to understand conversion rates from lead to opportunity. I want to understand conversion rates from click, you know, clicking an ad through to did they actually convert? I want to find customers likely to churn. [06:24.0] I want to find my VIPs in my audience. Like you just start talking to it and then it gives it to you and then you say great, now I want to, you're just talking to it now. I want you to send it off to meta or I want you to send it off to you know, your ESP or whatever. [06:40.1] Like it's just it's a very different way than it used to be because in the old days marketers would have to log into their application, you know, pull down a. It just again from months to minutes. That's our tagline of the, of the show. Yeah. Awesome. [06:55.3] Well, any final words or hot takes as we wrap up? Okay, my hot take is nobody knows what to do with AI and if they do say that they do, you know, talk to them a little bit more, I would say and try to dig in. [07:10.4] You know, at Treasure Data, you know, I'm our cmo. I use AI. I use our own AI every single day. I use our platforms to again to, to optimize our campaigns and make our team more successful. But I'm also still learning. And so it's really important at shows like Shop Talk to network and talk to others. [07:29.6] And you know, I've been in so many great conversations here about AI learning how other people are using it. And then it's also helpful because we also sell AI solutions to hear real world feedback from actual retailers and E commerce companies, so that they can actually like, I can get that feedback, take it back to the product team and we can make sure we're developing solutions that resonate. Cool. [07:54.4] Well, you just made me think of a bonus question. Okay, great talk about the experience here at Shop Talk. Oh man. Really, really great conversations. I mean, we do a lot of events here at Treasure Data. One thing that has really stood out about Shop Talk is, the caliber of conversations. [08:11.1] I think people seem a little more relaxed here than at some of the other conferences I've been to, which, I think leads to more genuine conversations and genuine connections. I mean, the networking here has been amazing. And yeah, we're definitely, we're definitely going to be coming back next year, that's for sure. [08:28.7] Well, thanks so much for your time, Karen. Yeah, thanks so much. Great conversation. Thanks a lot. Thanks.