Dave Taylor, CPO at Alliant, shares insights on data innovation, AI, privacy compliance, and the future of data-driven marketing.
Welcome to the Martech Cube, Dave. We’ve seen data become a powerful catalyst for transformation across industries. In your view, what are some of the biggest opportunities—or challenges—that lie ahead in this space? And what mindset should leaders adopt to truly unlock its potential?”
Can you please share a bit about your professional journey and what led you to your current role as Chief Product Officer at Alliant?
My career started in IT helpdesk support for a local municipality doing anything from fixing broken printers to building simple databases. I then found a passion for geospatial technologies and solutions, which led me to my time at Priceline.com.
After Priceline I spent about a year at GE Capital creating products that were focused on solving business problems with geospatial technology. After GE made the announcement that they were breaking apart GE Capital, I looked in the mirror and realized that I really loved solving business problems with data, and so I spent the next five or so years working in data analytics.
After some business strategy changes and various acquisitions, I found myself tying all of my past experiences in IT, data analytics, and business strategy into a newly defined product role. After leading and creating the product and data analytics teams at Commerce Signals, and seeing the company through the acquisition by Transunion, I am now at Alliant, where I can continue to leverage my tech, business, and data knowledge to create powerful data solutions for our clients.
How is Alliant leveraging data-driven strategies to enhance product innovation in today’s evolving marketplace?
Alliant is a data analytics company at its core. From the way in which the Alliant core data asset, the DataHub, is created, to the solutions that Alliant offers, every strategic decision is made with data to back it up. From a product innovation standpoint, we are always trying to squeeze every ounce of value out of every piece of data that Alliant has, with the customer in mind. Innovation really occurs at Alliant when we are building new solutions or improving existing ones to meet the needs of our customers.
What are the biggest challenges companies face when optimizing their data solutions, and how can they overcome them?
One big challenge is the pressure companies feel to amass too much data.
“ What you do with the data you have, and what new product ideas you can come up with that leverages the data you have, is even more important than just having “more data.” The proprietary nature of your data solutions and the aggregation and data science techniques that companies enact can go a long way in differentiating them in the market.”
With privacy regulations constantly changing, how does Alliant ensure compliance while maintaining data-driven effectiveness?
Alliant takes a security-first approach to data privacy and compliance that is built into our DNA through people, processes, and technologies. This includes an in-house compliance & privacy officer and team, strict compliance with CPRA and all other state privacy laws, SOC II Type 2 certification, systems and technology in place for encryption, monitoring, and much more.
Alliant is able to lead in compliance while thriving in data effectiveness through the DataHub – a unique and secure Member database powered by billions of aggregated consumer transactions from 500+ brands and product lines. This data is transformed and enriched with third-party data sources and, in turn, serves as the foundation of our audience solutions – giving Alliant a massive identity map of U.S. consumers.
AI and machine learning are transforming the data landscape—how is Alliant integrating these technologies to drive better outcomes?
Alliant deploys AI capabilities to improve data quality and unlock revenue growth potential for customers. We use AI for more efficient processing and categorization of vast amounts of raw transactional consumer data to specific products and product types.
Alliant analyzes more than 1 million transaction descriptions each month and, to date, the process of reviewing, tagging, and preparing disparate datasets for inclusion in Alliant’s products had relied heavily on manual processes. Through the AI-powered Classify solution powered by our partner Above Data, Alliant can now ensure better data quality and consistency for the insights that form our industry-leading audience products.
From a leadership perspective, what strategies do you use to drive product innovation and keep teams aligned with the company’s vision?
There are a couple different strategies that I try to leverage. First, it is having a keen awareness of the market and overall competition to understand where to place our bets and, more importantly, where not to place bets.
Second, I always try and encourage and empower employees to act as internal entrepreneurs. All new product innovation ideas could come from any department, and I welcome collaboration across departments and feedback on what is and is not working with the current products.
Third is to always try and embrace technology and embed those technological decisions within any new product innovation. Technology and product need to always be in close contact to ensure the product roadmap can fit within both the company’s vision but also the current and future tech stack.
What trends do you see shaping the future of data-driven marketing and analytics in the next few years?
With an ever-evolving and expanding consumer privacy landscape, I see companies having to do more with less. By “less,” I don’t mean less data providers necessarily but less useful first-party data assets, which means more emphasis on good quality third- and second-party data. With the advancements of AI, companies will be looking for that edge in how it can be applied to help squeeze every ounce of value out of their data and marketing capabilities.
For companies looking to maximize the value of their data, what key steps should they take?
Strongly consider joining a data cooperative and/or finding the right data partner to reap all the strategic advantages, including the best possible version of your enriched first-party data, improved business outcomes and marketing ROI, secure data privacy and compliance, and insights to acquire and retain high-value customers.
What personal advice would you give to professionals looking to build a successful career in data and product leadership?
Find an industry that interests you and learn as much as you can about that industry. Start with simple datasets and work your way into more complex datasets.
It is important in a product leadership role to understand many aspects of a business, but from a career standpoint, don’t try and learn everything all at once. Product leaders need to understand the business, the technology, the data, the marketing and how to tie it all together. Trying to accomplish it all at once will be overwhelming, and you don’t need to be an expert in all areas. Continue to expand your knowledge and recognize what you do well, but most importantly what you do not do well. Surround yourself with exceptional talent and never be afraid to lean on your team.
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Dave Taylor, Chief Product Officer at Alliant
Dave serves as Alliant’s Chief Product Officer, guiding product strategy and development and overseeing the Data Science and Data Engineering teams. Dave has an impressive product development and management background in creating valuable data solutions for brands and agencies. During his 20+ year career, he has held leadership roles at Commerce Signals, a Transunion company, GE Capital, and Priceline — advancing consumer data product efforts. Dave holds a Masters Certificate in IS/IT Project Management from Villanova University and a BS in Information Systems from Marist College.
Alliant is trusted by thousands of brands and agencies as an independent partner bringing a human element to modern data solutions. The Alliant DataHub — built on billions of consumer transactions, an expansive identity map, advanced data science, and high-performance technology — enables marketers to execute omnichannel campaigns with responsive consumers at the center. Data security and privacy have been core values since day one, and Alliant continually validates people, processes, and data through meaningful certifications such as SOC2, IAB Tech Lab Data Transparency, NQI certification from Neutronian, and quarterly quality scoring with Truthset. LinkedIn.
