Why a Strong Data Foundation is Business-Critical with Kendell Timmers, SVP and Head of Data & Insights at The New York Times

This episode features an interview with Kendell Timmers, Senior Vice President and Head of Data and Insights at The New York Times. She spearheaded the paper’s cross-functional advertising mission and built their industry-leading first party data program that powers their digital advertising business. Kendell is a data and analytics expert who has served companies like American Express, ZS Associates, and US Airways.

In this episode, Kailey and Kendell discuss NLP, personalizing paywalls, and creating a unified view of the customer in a privacy-forward way.

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Key Takeaways:

• The unsexy side of data, like definitions and processes, allow marketers to make campaign decisions and build audiences in a consistent manner.
• Personalizing paywalls is all about striking a balance between letting your consumer sample your product and understand it’s worth, and then making a conversion or sale.
• Marketers can lean on data to serve as the foundation for emotion. Pairing your product to an emotional ad builds a strong connection with your customer and drives higher conversions for your advertiser.

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“It's about keeping data from getting siloed into different domains where everybody's creating their own definition and having it all in one place where it's discoverable and usable. So that the dashboards that everybody needs to use to make decisions all reflect consistent definitions, for instance.” – Kendell Timmers

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Episode Timestamps:

‍*(02:04) - Kendell’s career journey

*(07:51) - Industry trends in customer experience

*(10:41) - Challenges in the customer engagement journey

*(13:47) - How Kendell defines “good data”

*(16:14) - How The New York Times is using good data

*(24:35) - Changes in the next 6-12 months in customer data

‍*(28:28) - An example of another company doing it right with customer experience (hint: it’s The Disney Bundle)

*(29:27) - Kendell’s recommendations for building your data foundation

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Links:

Connect with Kendell on LinkedIn

Connect with Kailey on LinkedIn

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