203: From Data Dreams to Practical Marketing Outcomes with Spencer Burke of Braze

This week on The Data Stack Show, Eric and John welcome Spencer Burke, Senior Vice President of Growth at Braze. Spencer shares his 13-year journey at Braze, discussing the company's evolution and the critical intersection of marketing and data. The conversation highlights the challenges marketers face in leveraging data effectively, the necessity of clean data for successful campaigns, and the often-fractured collaboration between marketing and data teams. Emphasizing the importance of improved integration and communication, the episode underscores how these elements drive successful customer engagement and marketing strategies. You won’t want to miss it. 

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• Spencer's Background at Braze (1:54)

• The Early Days of Braze (2:41)

• Finding Product-Market Fit (4:44)

• First Major Customer (6:33)

• Unique Aspects of Braze's Growth Team (8:07)

• Startup Culture Experience (10:40)

• Data and Marketing Perspectives (12:50)

• Common Marketing Data Challenges (15:50)

• Changing Dynamics in Marketing Tech (18:12)

• Evaluating Marketing Tools (19:38)

• Transformation of Marketing Tools (22:18)

• Marketers Becoming More Technical (24:10)

• API Utilization in Marketing (25:46)

• Connecting Customer Experience (29:09)

• Flexibility in Data Integration (32:05)

• Pushing vs. Pulling Data (34:35)

• Anomaly Detection in Data Reporting (37:02)

• Understanding the Importance of Core KPIs (39:09)

• Making Data More Consumable (42:38)

• Final Thoughts and Takeaways (44:51)

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.