In conversation with NDA, StackAdapt’s director for enterprise sales Kenny Ginnap explains why marketers are struggling with fragmentation, how first-party data and programmatic should work together, and why the future of B2B marketing is more about AI-driven decisioning than additional campaigns…
What does StackAdapt do?
We’re a leading AI-powered advertising and orchestration platform. We primarily work with brands and agencies that are looking to unify data, activation and measurement across all channels into a single platform.
What does your role involve day to day?
I’m on the enterprise team, and our entire goal is to work with the largest brands and agencies that are looking to evolve how they’ve been doing programmatic buying over the past 15 years. We’re working with brands and agencies that want greater efficiency, better performance and real-time decisioning across the funnel.
There are a lot of platforms out there. What does StackAdapt offer that’s different?
In addition to the AI and first-party data component, we’ve brought all of the programmatic channels into a single operating platform. We’ve also created a martech component, so brands and agencies can bring in their first-party data, connect it to programmatic activation and make smarter, more intelligent buying decisions. That helps performance, but it also helps bring together a lot of the fragmentation you hear about in the market.
Are fragmentation and cross-funnel measurement still the big issues clients are grappling with?
Yeah, absolutely. Marketers are dealing with a couple of things right now. One is the change in the buyer profile. Buyers have really changed over the past 50 years. The people they’re marketing to now are digital natives, they’re self-directed, and by the time they’re thinking about making a purchase decision, their minds are often 95% made up.
The second thing is the increased fragmentation in how consumers are consuming content today. The channels have exploded in terms of where time and attention is, so the challenge is how do you reach those new buyers, stay top of mind, and connect the dots across a fragmented channel landscape.
What are the big priorities for StackAdapt over the year ahead?
A good year for us is helping more marketers and agencies connect their media investment to revenue, and shifting from pure media metrics to things like LTV and CAC — the business metrics that ultimately drive marketing investment.
We also want to help them make smarter decisions by bringing in CRM data, connecting it to programmatic and having programmatic not just be a channel, but more of a connecting and operating layer that ties everything together.
You also lead B2B at the company. What are you hearing on that side?
The thing we’re hearing is that it’s not about more channels, and it’s not about more campaigns. It’s more about connected, AI-driven decisioning systems and helping brands and agencies operate across the entire customer journey.
