The Cloud Conversation Has Changed: Why CMOs Are Now Part of It
By Rob McLaughlin, CEO & Co-Founder, AUDIENCES
Earlier this week, AUDIENCES launched its Native App for Snowflake. For us, it was an important milestone. But it also reflects something much bigger happening across the industry. The cloud conversation is changing.
For years, cloud investments were largely driven by technology teams. The focus was on infrastructure and creating a trusted foundation for data. Success was measured by how effectively organisations could bring data together and make it accessible across the business. Today, those conversations are increasingly involving CMOs too.
The reason is simple. Organisations are asking how they can derive more value from the data they already have in the cloud. At AUDIENCES, we've always focused on activation. How do brands, publishers and data providers turn customer intelligence into better marketing decisions, better customer experiences and stronger business outcomes? Increasingly, the answer starts in the cloud.
From Data Storage to Data Activation
Many organisations have spent years bringing customer, transactional and behavioural data together in platforms like Snowflake. That's been a huge step forward but once the data is there, the next question becomes obvious, how do you use it? How do you reduce wasted media spend? How do you suppress existing customers from acquisition campaigns? And how do publishers unlock new revenue opportunities from first-party data assets?
These are no longer purely technical questions, they're commercial questions. And that's why marketing leaders are becoming much more involved in conversations that were once considered the domain of IT and data teams.
Why We Built the AUDIENCES Native App for Snowflake
When we speak to organisations, we often hear a similar challenge. They've invested heavily in creating a trusted customer data foundation, but activating that intelligence across media channels can still be unnecessarily complex. Data gets copied between platforms, governance becomes harder to maintain, teams operate in silos and time to activation slows down.
That's one of the reasons we launched the AUDIENCES Native App for Snowflake.
The app enables organisations to activate first-party audiences directly from within their Snowflake environment, helping marketing, data and technology teams work from a single governed foundation without moving or duplicating data. For Snowflake customers, this means they can connect trusted customer intelligence to leading media channels while maintaining control, transparency and governance.
More importantly, it helps turn cloud investment into measurable marketing outcomes. Whether that's improving acquisition efficiency, strengthening retention strategies, activating loyalty data or creating new monetisation opportunities, the objective is the same: making customer data work harder.
The Opportunity Ahead
Recent developments across the industry show that activation has become a strategic priority. The market is moving beyond storage and analytics towards outcomes. Brands want customer intelligence to influence media investment, Publishers want to unlock greater value from their audience data and Marketing leaders want a clearer connection between data strategy and business performance.
The organisations creating the greatest advantage won't necessarily be those with the largest datasets, they'll be the ones that create the strongest connection between customer understanding and customer engagement. The cloud has already transformed how organisations manage data, the next phase is about helping organisations activate it.
That's why the cloud conversation has changed and it's why CMOs are increasingly becoming part of it.
Learn more
AUDIENCES enables brands, publishers and data providers to activate first-party audiences directly from their cloud environment, including through the AUDIENCES Native App for Snowflake.
Read about the launch of the AUDIENCES Native App for Snowflake and discover how organisations are turning cloud investment into measurable marketing outcomes.
