As you race to adopt AI-powered shopping experiences, are you creating a new data black box that will make your customer journey less understood, not more?
Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new channels like generative AI, but the foresight to ensure these new touchpoints don’t become blind spots in your customer journey. It demands that our data strategy evolves as quickly as our customer-facing technology.
Today, we’re going to talk about the hidden challenge of AI-driven commerce. As major brands roll out compelling shopping experiences on platforms like Google’s Gemini, they risk creating a new data black box. When customer interactions happen inside these AI environments, the insights from those conversations can become disconnected from the overall customer journey, making it difficult to measure impact and act on what you’ve learned.
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Zack Wenthe, Director of Product Marketing & Customer Data Evangelist at Tealium. Zack, welcome to the show!
About Zack Wenthe
Zack Wenthe is a seasoned product marketing and customer data expert, currently serving as Director of Product Marketing & Customer Data Evangelist at Tealium, where he helps brands unlock the power of unified customer insights and drive meaningful engagement through data-driven strategies with the power of value-add storytelling in product marketing. He’s a prolific speaker, writer, and storyteller in the martech space, known for breaking down complex ideas into practical, revenue-focused narratives.
Zack Wenthe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zackwenthe/
Resources
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Transcript
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Hi, I’m Greg Kihlstrtöm, host of The Agile Brand. And here’s a question for you. As you race to adopt AI-powered shopping experiences, are you creating a new data black box that will make your customer journey less understood, not more? Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new channels like AI-based search and shopping, but the foresight to ensure these new touchpoints don’t become blind spots in your customer journey. It demands that our data strategy evolves as quickly as our customer-facing technology.
Today we’re going to talk about the hidden challenge of AI-driven commerce. As major brands roll out compelling shopping experiences, they risk creating a new data black box. When customer interactions happen inside these AI environments, the insights from those conversations can become disconnected from the overall customer journey, making it difficult to measure impact and act on what you’ve learned.
To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Zack Wenthe, Director of Product Marketing and Customer Data Evangelist at Teali. Zack, welcome to the show.
Zack Wenthe: Thank you. I’m I’m excited to be here and uh uh look forward to it.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, looking forward to to diving in as well. Before we do though, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Teali?
Zack Wenthe: Sure. Yeah, so my, you know, my role, I I love the uh Customer Data Evangelist title. It just means I get to come do fun things like you know, be on this podcast and you know, join webinars and and talk to customers and and, you know, get out. I I’ve been in the space. I’ve been in the CDP and customer space for almost eight years now, which, you know, makes me an elder uh in the in the CDP category. And , but you know, I was in MarTech for for, you know, over a decade before that in consulting. I was, you know, a marketing technologist before Scott Brinker made that cool. , you know, and and obviously started my career in marketing. So, you know, I’ve been around around the space and I, you know, I’ve never seen anything change faster than it is now. And so I I love getting on you know, shows like this and kind of talking about what we’re seeing and you know, hopefully spur some ideas and thoughts for others who are kind of navigating all of this.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, yeah, and we’re going to we’re going to cover quite a bit today. So we’ll want to want to start like we always do, just kind of looking at this from the the strategic level here and talking about, you know, certainly as you as you said and as we all experience every minute almost of every day, AI getting integrated into something. In this case, we’re going to talk about integrating AI into the customer journey. So from that strategic lens, what is the biggest risk for a brand that adopts agentic commerce or, you know, AI shopping assistance, things like that, without really having a plan to capture and unify that interaction data from the start?
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, I think, you know, with the with let’s maybe define agentic commerce, you know, quickly is the idea that, you know, your chat experience is actually going to also be your shopping experience, where uh a conser searches for a pair of shoes, , and then they can do an instant checkout without leaving that, you know, that chat window, , whether it be, you know, Claude or OpenAI or Perplexity or or or whatever, wherever your favorite experience is. , and so to your question though, of, you know, what is that what is that risk or what is that challenge to strategy? It’s your whole, you know, kind of checkout journey experience is shifting out of your environment in your control in in a lot of ways to a walled garden, to a third party who is handling the discovery, is passing on information to you, but obviously you don’t know how that conser browsed, what the what the decision criteria was, what they were comparing it against potentially. And so you miss out on a lot of that , that shopping experience, obviously. And as I think consers are starting to use AI for discovery, brands are also starting to realize, hey, yeah, we want to be there, but is it worth giving up all of that all of that data and all of that journey in order to be where where the consers are. And I think that’s the question that people are really, you know, kind of wrestling with right now.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I mean, that really does kind of shift the definition of a customer touchpoint. I mean, you know, some of some of what you said, you know, kind of thinking back to the advent of social commerce, there’s some, you know, the the walled garden thing can can apply there. There are those some key differences here. , so, you know, how how should marketing leaders reframe their definition of a customer touchpoint when now we’re talking about conversations in a Claude or ChatGPT or or whatever that the brand to your point doesn’t not only they don’t directly control, they’re not really involved in that, right?
Zack Wenthe: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you you obviously the shift is going to, you know, impact you know, different brands in different ways. But I I think if you think of the kind of traditional discovery process of buying something. I I’m going to buy a couch, and I want to go and I want to look for, you know, okay, well I need a, you know, I need a big enough to fit the size of the room and I want this kind of fabric and I want all of this information. All of that kind of research and discovery now can be done in a lot of ways in a in an LLM or AI-based, you know, chat experience. And so from a touchpoint, you’re you’re not having a touchpoint because your brand is being represented, but it’s almost being represented by a, I mean, it’s not almost, it is being represented by a third party, and you don’t have a lot of control over what information gets presented, how you’re shown against uh your competitors, or whether the recommendations, you know, it’s making is right. It’s almost as if say a retail store, it’s like a guy standing outside your front door telling you about couches before you before you walk in the door. And you’re like, I don’t have a lot of control over what he’s saying. I’m just hoping they eventually walk through my door. And that’s going to be a shift for a lot of a lot of organizations.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah. So then, how do brands collect data, you know, in in in these instances and what should they be thinking about what kinds of data should they be trying to capture from these interactions where where they can?
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, so I think there’s there’s two there’s two tiers of data, , that are that are that are coming right now from a kind of an agentic experience. One is a more traditional kind of referral, people are doing search, they click on a link, they land on your website, and then they make a purchase, they don’t, they sign up for your credit card, whatever, whatever that action is. And in that scenario, what’s happening is it’s almost high intent but low directionality data that’s coming in because somebody’s landing cold on your website and then almost immediately going into or hopefully immediately going into some sort of buying pattern. , you know, and and so you don’t know really what led them there. And so that’s where your brands are going to have to really start to think about first-party data, zero-party data, asking surveys. How did you find us? What was important? What were the what were the drivers, you know, kind of asking those press, you know, those kind of process questions either post checkout or even, you know, kind of pepper in some of those uh along the along the checkout flow to kind of get some information. , because you’re just going to be missing out on a lot of that that context, which we can talk about kind of what that affects. , but I said there was two kinds of data. So then the other side is really where you have protocols like OpenAI came out with, , you know, their commerce protocol, Google has theirs, where literally the checkout exchange actually, they’re not even coming to your website. There’s a backend, you know, connection to your e-commerce system. You add it to the cart, you do instant checkout right through uh right through that chat experience and you just get basically fulfillment information. You get the customer name, you get the information, you get the product, and and that, now you’re missing out on a whole lot of Yeah. experience. And as brands have started to figure out, those who are testing it, you don’t get to inject coupons or promotions to maybe influence basket and purchase size, you don’t have loyalty information. There’s a lot of things missing right now in those protocols. And I think that’s that’s still has to be worked out. I think there’s a lot of kind of back and forth uh negotiating going on and you know, in that space.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: So, you know, just given where things currently stand and certainly this is a fast-moving space, but you know, where things currently stand, what what architecture or what technical components, you know, what what needs to be in place to be able to pipe what AI interaction data is available, , back into a system like a CDP and to make it as usable as possible.
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, so I think you have to have at least a couple basic things. You want to have some level of tracking on your website. Obviously, , you know, most retailers, most brands are already going to have that. So when somebody does click through from a, you know, from a third party they land, you’ve got some information going on. You just know that, you know, the anonymous to known path may be a lot different in this in this kind of Yeah. cycle. So you want to be able to obviously resolve those identities, connect them to a known profile a lot faster, , you know, before the checkout process where so that’s where a CDP or something, you know, potentially comes in. , the other the the other big thing I think that a lot of brands are starting to kind of figure out is, you know, if they are going to tie into a an agentic commerce protocol. Now they have to have the data feed, they have to have their inventory feed, they have to have their conser details, you know, structured in a way that the LLMs can use it. So now, not only do you have to worry about it on the on the kind of, you know, incoming side, but you have to start to have uh an outgoing kind of set of data available for those agents to conse and to use and hopefully, you know, to drive whether that’s personalization or checkout or or , you know, that connectivity Yeah. back to, you know, back to your underlying ERP or wherever you’re managing all of the data. So, it’s not a small lift to to just to say, hey, we’re doing this now.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Right, right. Yeah. Well, yeah, and I I was talking with another CMO actually earlier today, similar enough to what you were saying before about, you know, the the concept of a website and how we even just to talk about metrics here, you know, the traditional metrics for we want engagement on the site and we want maybe return visits or some indications of interest or something. Now we’re talking about they’re coming in, they’ve done their research already. They’re it’s websites alone, not to mention other other touchpoints, but are very transactional at this point, right? So what what are the what are the KPIs or what are the measurements that marketers should be looking at given, you know, there’s there’s a paradigm shift here.
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, I think, you know, I think there’s two levels or or two kind of KPIs that are starting to kind of bubble up. One is those deep page uh kind of first hits. So like I’m landing on a product page, or I’m landing on a detail page. , you know, starting to measure the incoming because you may know it’s coming from agentic, you know, from a referral tracking perspective. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. It’s it’s, you know, it’s still kind of a a black box in a lot of, you know, a lot of scenarios. But looking at that vole because ultimately, agentic commerce is much more like a a Google ad kind of purchase, where it’s higher intent, lower vole traffic than maybe organic or or kind of like research-based top of funnel kind of traffic. So, looking at that vole of people coming in at that at that kind of lower level, , and seeing how, you know, are they purchasing? Where are they dropping off? Using the tools, you may not know the conser, so you may have to use things like , you know, heat maps and and kind of browsing you know, browsing replay to understand, okay, well they were on the page, they scrolled down, they got to shipping, they abandoned. So, you know, you’re you can start to look at some of the traditional kind of friction points there. , but the other side of that then, obviously, is going to be looking at how does this traffic or how does this purchase convert compared to my traditional traffic. Because, you know, news recently from some of the major, you know, players, obviously Walmart, talked about how their agentic traffic was converting significantly less than , you know, regular traffic on on their site. So they’re pulling back on agentic commerce. , one of the big reasons is instant checkout from OpenA you know, from from OpenAI was a single item. Well, people buying at Walmart wanted three, four, five things and how how do we, you know, so basket size, average order value, all of those things start to get affected. And it’s like, well, is is that growing audience worth the the the handoff? And I think that’s the that’s the other thing that CMOs and kind of brands are are really going to start to understand is, yeah, we may be taking a hit on the organic side, we may be taking a hit on the on the, you know, the research and the search side, but, you know, is investing in trying to capture that audience worth the the the revenue that we may or may not get, you know, from agentic. And I think that’s still TBD on on a lot of people’s you know, plans.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s like, , you know, they don’t they don’t take anything away, they just keep adding more things, right? So it’s it’s , this is another one of those things. And and to your other point, the other traffic is not going away. I mean, it at some point it may go go away completely. But they, you know, they said print advertising was going to go away to, you know, a few, you know, a couple decades ago. So, , but I I guess this also sets up a challenge for marketers because now you’ve got this high intent transactional visitor to your site. And you’ve got the traditional, you know, I’m going to browse, I’m going to look around and and maybe maybe I’ll buy, maybe I’ll come back or or whatever. , you know, how how do marketers deal with kind of that those two very different mindsets? I mean, you can certainly you can track source, but to your other point, it’s not 100%, you know, it’s not 100% accurate in all cases. So, are marketers just going to be kind of living in these two worlds for for a while now?
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, I think they are. And I think that’s, you know, I I mean, honestly, they learned to do that obviously in in from a social perspective, from a search perspective. I think I think we’ve we’ve kind of learned that pattern, , to to adjust to kind of these new channels. But I do think from a from a learning perspective, you know, a lot of retail marketers or a lot of, you know, kind of brands can definitely look to CPG companies who, you know, have kind of figured out the whole, hey, we don’t own the checkout experience. So we have to really figure out how to, you know, how to get that right data, how to how to be top of mind at time to buy, when, you know, we don’t maybe control the flow. And and so I think there’s going to be, you know, best practices and kind of like, you know, learnings kind of stolen from that space. Honestly, this is stuff that B2B marketers have been dealing with for a long time where we know 70% of the buying cycle is probably done by the time they talk to, you know, you know, sales. So, I think there are there are going to be kind of a roadmap for navigating a lot of this, , at least strategically, stealing from other places. But, , you know, I think the other part of it is is be open to the changes, be willing to test, try things. Don’t get too hung up in the X is you know, I mean, there’s so much clickbait, you know, email is dead. Everything everything is dead. , and and and yet everything is alive and, you know, I think the only thing that’s dead is like the amount of resources we have to do all of it. , right. Yeah. And maybe energy. Yeah, just don’t get hung up on on on the hype. Just test and try and learn and and, you know, keep moving.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah. Well, and and to to your point about the B2B, I think there’s been so much talk about B2B looking more like B2C lately that now, you know, it’s it’s interesting and I totally agree with what you’re saying. It’s it’s a it’s a little bit, , you know, flipped flipped now as well. And and I guess along those lines, you know, I just I do wonder, you know, as agentic, again, it’s not going to 100% replace other other methods. But as as it continues to grow, the that role of of brand marketing, I you know, I think it kind of to your other to your other point kind of looks more like the CPG space or, you know, where there is an intermediary in between. And so how does this, you know, how does brand marketing change for those that are, you know, should they should they follow the CPG playbook or the B2B playbook? You know, does it and and also, you know, are we marketing as much to agents as we are to to hans? And what is that mean? What does that even mean to market to agents?
Zack Wenthe: Yeah, yeah. I I think, you know, obviously, marketing to agents means you want your content to be discoverable. You want it to be well-formed and structured. It’s all the things we we know to do from an SEO perspective and from a from a searchability, from an accessibility, screen reader, alt, you know, all of the best practices we’ve been told to do all along. Now become maybe there’s a forcing function to really make sure that we’re doing it. , because obviously, you know, hans may be a little bit more forgiving when, you know, when they land on your site than an agent is, because they just don’t, they won’t have the knowledge or the context and if they hit, you know, a roadblock, they’ll go, okay, well, find a new source. , right. You know, because obviously an agent is very outcome-driven. So they’re going to look for a way to solve the ask that the the conser did. , but to the other side of that is, yeah, is brand marketing important in this space? I think it’s going to be way more important than it than it maybe has been in in other performance marketing channels because the the way a conser prompts the LLM is going to have a dramatic impact on the results you get, the products that get served. So if I start with a search for, you know, hey, I’m looking for a couch kind of like X, Y, and Z, that’s going to be a very, very different kind of like criteria and and, you know, how you’re getting compared against, hey, I’m just looking for a leather couch. And and so, you know, yeah, getting the consers to kind of think of you at, you know, in your category or think of you in your space, , build those relationships outside so that when they are searching, , you they’ve talked about you. I think that’s the other thing that people haven’t talked about and and and I talked about this actually at a conference, , you know, is memory within inside the LLM is going to be like this forcing function for for brands that I don’t think anybody’s figured out quite how to tap. But the more you talk to your LLM about a brand or about a type of thing, , the more likely it is obviously to to use that in the future. And, you know, my job, I create a lot of content, I I use Sony cameras. So I talk about like, oh, hey, I’m trying to I’m trying to pack, I’m I’m doing this. And I mention it and now it knows what kind of cameras I have. It has the three. So now anytime I bring up, oh, hey, I’d kind of like, well, for your Sony camera, you should have, you know, that that memory drives a lot of that recommendation experience. So, again, getting people to talk to the their LLMs and talk to their their chat experiences about your brand is going to, , you know, potentially have a big, big impact.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah. Well, Zack, thanks so much for joining today. And thanks for sharing everything. A couple of last questions as we wrap up here. First one, if we were having this interview one year from today, what is one thing that we would definitely be talking about?
Zack Wenthe: How different one year ago was, and how we had all these grand ideas and how it none of it’s going to none of it’ll be anywhere what we thought it was going to be. , you know, nobody thought agentic a year ago was was what it is today. And so I think, , yeah, just how how fast it’s changed and how fascinating it is that that the innovation curve is, so rapid.
Greg Kihlstrtöm: Yeah, yeah, I love it. And last question for you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
Zack Wenthe: That’s a good question. I think, you know, I have two things. One is I, you know, I I test and I try. I spend, you know, at least a couple hours every week randomly trying something out. so in the AI space, you know, Vibe coding, I’m a marketer. I don’t know code. I mean, I know code. I’m a nerd, so but like I’m not you don’t want me writing any production code. But I’ve tried Vibe coding. I’ve I’ve done it, you know, so I think just experimentation. , but I’m also a fan of like the classics. go back and read old books. Go back and like anchor yourself in in in older like thoughts to get away from. It clears your mind. It gives you a like some perspective. , I lately I’ve been rereading Don Quixote. I don’t know why. I just thought I’d do it. , and and to me, it’s just that shut off that that I think allows me then when I come back to not consistently think about today, but also like, hey, there’s a lot of world that existed before and there’s a lot of world that’ll exist after today.
