When Cory Munchbach first started at BlueConic in 2015 as director of product marketing, the customer data platform category didn’t even formally exist yet.
And so she’s seen quite a bit of change between then and Thursday, when she was promoted from COO to CEO of BlueConic.
The CDP category has exploded since 2015, when a multitude of companies started identifying themselves as CDPs (regardless of whether they had the capabilities). Then the marketing clouds rushed in and brands were blinded by the buzz.
Five years ago, most of the requests for proposals (RFPs) that BlueConic received were overly broad and betrayed a level of confusion. Marketers were throwing every potential CDP use case at the wall to see what might stick and still struggled to understand the difference between a CDP and a data management platform.
More recently, there’s been a qualitative shift in the types of questions marketers ask, Munchbach said. It’s become less about “So, uh, what can a CDP do for me?” and more “I need help with this specific thing.”
“Brands know how to articulate what they’re looking for now,” she said.
Privacy as a priority
But beyond the natural maturation that happens within any new technology category over time, marketers must contend with massive industry changes (primarily privacy-related) and ongoing uncertainty (mainly economy-related).
“In the last two years, I haven’t had a conversation with prospective buyers, whether they end up choosing BlueConic or not, where privacy wasn’t one of the top three topics they wanted to address with a first-party data solution,” Munchbach said.
And as multiple state privacy laws go into effect in the US, including in California and Virginia, the privacy landscape – and regulatory compliance – will only get more complicated.
“I’m very in favor of a more privacy-oriented, transparent approach to data, but I wouldn’t say that the laws we have, including GDPR in Europe, have done much to create clarity on what that actually means in practice,” Munchbach said. “For example, do a million cookie pop-ups create a better internet experience?”
Recent enforcement actions haven’t exactly clarified matters.
Sephora’s $1.2 million fine from the California Attorney General, which was part of a settlement in August over CCPA violations, has been viewed by many as a sign that privacy enforcement is about to get serious in the US. But Munchbach found the Sephora case “underwhelming.”
“There aren’t super-clear guidelines that came out of this enforcement and it also feels like a slap on the wrist,” she said. “There haven’t been any other enforcement actions since then and that’s not going to deter people.”
Looking ahead
But with change as the only constant, one of Munchbach’s top strategic priorities as CEO will be to consider how to enable privacy “at the database level.”
“We want to give privacy a broader remit within the tech stack,” she said. “We spend a lot of time thinking about things like data governance, the lineage of data, making data movable and what all of this means for analytics and advertising.”
More broadly, BlueConic, which sold a majority stake in the company to Vista Equity Partners early last year, will keep on working with Vista to get “more efficient,” which is always the top agenda item on private equity’s to-to list.
As to whether getting more efficient means an eventual roll-up or BlueConic making an acquisition of its own, Munchbach was not at liberty to say.
Beyond that, Munchbach plans to continue “being boring.”
“I’m a big fan of being boring,” she said. “Put your head down, keep your eyes on your own paper and just do your best to deliver results responsibly, consistently and inclusively.”
Inclusivity is one of the main keys for unlocking business growth, said Munchbach, who joins a still regrettably small crowd of female tech CEOs. They remain a rarity in ad tech.
For that to change, women need support in the workplace that allows them the opportunity to move from the manager level to the director role.
“Part of the solution will be figuring out what prevents women from taking that step,” Munchbach said, “because it’s more than just baked-in sexism.”
Munchbach is taking over as CEO from BlueConic’s previous CEO and founder, Bart Heilbron, who will stay on as a board advisor. She joined BlueConic in 2015 after nearly five years as an analyst with Forrester, moving from director of product marketing to VP of marketing to SVP of strategy, COO, president and, now, chief executive.
BlueConic has roughly 180 employees and plans to hire for open roles this year across customer service, product and engineering.
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