Hey Alex, I'm happy to have stumbled into your Substack today. I've been interested in what you're doing at Snowplow for some time now. I applaud you for writing down this founder's vision; I enjoyed reading it. But I still don't understand precisely what you mean by a "tag." I'm currently covering the data integration space for various companies and investors, and even though I read this twice, I'm still not grokking it. I get the notion of first-party data and the value of collecting it, but I'm still unsure I could articulate why you're different -- it has something to do with this notion of a "tag?" Unless I missed it, this post doesn't crisply define what a tag is.
Can you give me a concrete example of what a "tag" is, how it's used, and how it's the "primary key" to understanding customer behavior?
Thanks Mark, sure thing. A "tag" is old adtech/martech language for a piece of JavaScript (or similar) that is placed on a brand's website to track customer behavior at the source. The concept of a "primary tag" is that one of these tags is going to be the source of truth for this customer behavior. These tags are so important because this customer behavior *does not live anywhere else* - you can't find it in your SAP, or your Zendesk, or your CRM. Snowplow is different because we have been laser focused for 12 years on observing the complex & evolving customer journey and storing this behavior in a customer's data platform (e.g. Snowflake or Databricks) for *all* downstream use cases, not just adtech/martech. With the rise and rise of AI, Snowplow's data team-centric approach has been validated.
Couldn't wait till the weekend to read this and I gotta say, it resonates hard. Big ups to the Snowplow team for sticking to their source of inspiration and a problem they deeply understand.
Thank you Arpit - we really appreciate you! You are a big reason why modern data, martech & growth teams are able to navigate this powerful but complex landscape effectively.
Hey Alex, I'm happy to have stumbled into your Substack today. I've been interested in what you're doing at Snowplow for some time now. I applaud you for writing down this founder's vision; I enjoyed reading it. But I still don't understand precisely what you mean by a "tag." I'm currently covering the data integration space for various companies and investors, and even though I read this twice, I'm still not grokking it. I get the notion of first-party data and the value of collecting it, but I'm still unsure I could articulate why you're different -- it has something to do with this notion of a "tag?" Unless I missed it, this post doesn't crisply define what a tag is.
Can you give me a concrete example of what a "tag" is, how it's used, and how it's the "primary key" to understanding customer behavior?
Thanks Mark, sure thing. A "tag" is old adtech/martech language for a piece of JavaScript (or similar) that is placed on a brand's website to track customer behavior at the source. The concept of a "primary tag" is that one of these tags is going to be the source of truth for this customer behavior. These tags are so important because this customer behavior *does not live anywhere else* - you can't find it in your SAP, or your Zendesk, or your CRM. Snowplow is different because we have been laser focused for 12 years on observing the complex & evolving customer journey and storing this behavior in a customer's data platform (e.g. Snowflake or Databricks) for *all* downstream use cases, not just adtech/martech. With the rise and rise of AI, Snowplow's data team-centric approach has been validated.
Couldn't wait till the weekend to read this and I gotta say, it resonates hard. Big ups to the Snowplow team for sticking to their source of inspiration and a problem they deeply understand.
Thank you Arpit - we really appreciate you! You are a big reason why modern data, martech & growth teams are able to navigate this powerful but complex landscape effectively.
Haha like you, I'm also sticking to my source of inspiration.
Simple things are deliberately made complex for a few to profit from the complexity – I find it downright disgusting.