Marketing’s disconnection from the data asset

A tour of Twickenham Stadium was something nice to tick off the bucket list. Attending eTail Connect Spring 2026 for the first time, hosted at the very same home of England Rugby, might not have been quite so high on my list of life ambitions, but it was certainly insightful.

As the name suggests, the event is focused squarely on the retail sector. Attended by marketing, digital, and ecommerce leaders from both globally recognised brands and more specialist retailers, it’s a great opportunity to tap into trends in an inspiring location (at least for me).

A common issue for big and small

The title of this post might have been a spoiler, but it was something I heard from one of the world’s biggest retailers, a niche UK online store, and many in between: marketers feel disconnected from their customer data. 

With this data recognised as a core organisational asset, the need to extract its full value is imperative.

While the details differ – the smaller UK store needs to work out how to use its siloed data, the global giant how to make its huge data warehouse more accessible – the fact that the issue was expressed in the same terms interested me. Marketers feel distant from the key asset which underpins their ability to be effective.

Many companies, the global retailer included, have invested in data warehouses and data science teams. This work has ticked the (critical) compliance box, but they now need to show a return in business value creation. 

Thankfully, forward-thinking data leaders recognise the need to federate customer data, making it available and usable to the marketing team. And advances in technology are making it more feasible.

The technological trends that are driving a new approach

Specific trends have combined to support a new approach to collecting, hosting, and using customer data. 

Firstly, the cloud.

Yes, I know, and before you think I’ve slipped back into the early-2010s, it’s obvious that hosting data in the cloud is far from a new trend. It’s the way that that data can be manipulated within the cloud which is transformational.

Previous iterations of the cloud were, simply, massive data stores. Use of the data would often demand its copying and extraction into third-party software solutions. 

The major cloud companies now offer application marketplaces (where you’ll naturally find imagino’s Customer Experience Platform). These allow data to be interrogated and manipulated within the cloud platform itself. This approach is both more agile and, as a zero-copy approach, meets data integrity and compliance demands.

Using customer data where it already resides essentially rings the death knell for the traditional CDP market. Particularly in today’s challenging economic environment, retailers aren’t prepared to invest multiple six-figure sums in solutions that will take 9-12 months to implement. The need to put customer data to work, quickly, is the driver.

And this ability is amplified by the natural language interface provided by generative AI, layered on top of the application. Marketers can interrogate their customer data and build audience segments in an instant using familiar language. 

Agentic AI: risk or opportunity for retail marketers ?

Several attendees at the event were also keen to discuss the potential for agentic AI as a tool for retail marketers (as opposed to as a tool for consumers to automate their shopping, which is seen as more of a challenge to the sector).

One spoke of a scenario where they’d have an agent which synthesised external information – cultural trends, for example, or the weather forecast – and automatically suggested and activated segmentation strategies based upon these. 

Far from seen as a potential risk to the marketer’s own role, this automated analytics and insight function was regarded as giving the marketer more time to focus on the creative execution.

Giving marketers – and maybe agents – the access they need

Returning to the main theme, all marketers want is the ability to put customer data to work. And that means customer data in all its forms. Combining customer marketing data with customer service data, for instance, immediately opens new opportunities for engagement and value creation.

In many cases, the only barrier to realising the potential is the one that already exists. Legacy solutions no longer fit for the fast-moving, responsive world of personalised marketing to which we all aspire. 

It’s time to break through that barrier, like a marauding front-row forward with Twickenham’s goal line in sight…