LiveRamp’s CFO Rebuilt Pricing From Scratch | Lauren Dillard

Lauren Dillard (0:00)

One of the biggest misconceptions in business is that if the data is compelling enough, people will naturally come along. And I think in my experience, that is almost never how change works. People don't just look at the analysis, they interpret what it means for them. Great pricing, as you pointed out, isn't about charging more. It's about aligning how you monetize your product with the value customers receive, the cost to deliver that value. And ultimately where you believe the market is heading. Talent can be one of the biggest sources of competitive advantage if you treat it that way and if you nurture it in that way. And if you truly believe people are your greatest asset, then they should be managed with the same rigor and intentionality. I've joked that simply changing a pricing model is largely a math exercise, albeit a very complicated one that spans many Excel tabs. Bringing it to life, however, is is much, much harder.

CJ Gustafson (1:03)

Is this thing on?

Lauren Dillard (1:06)

Yesterday's price is not today's price.

CJ Gustafson (1:18)

Welcome back to Run the Numbers. My name is CJ. I'm a recovering tech CFO. And on this podcast, I unpack the frameworks and tactics, the top CFOs in the world use to get the job done. On today's show, I have Lauren Dillard, the CFO of LiveRamp. Dilly Dilly.

Lauren is a true renaissance woman. Within LiveRamp itself, she's worked in investor relations, communications and even marketing for you. What a come up to the chief financial officer spot.

She teaches us why storytelling and influence often matter just as much as technical finance expertise in her role. And Lauren has led the company through a number of transformations, what they level set on before jumping in, and then how they communicated that change to the street as they went through it. And finally, we talk about the partnership between finance and HR. We often say people are our greatest asset. Okay, but how do you budget for them? And then how do you incorporate a humanistic strategy into being a finance leader? Lauren was a great guest and I think you're going to love this podcast. All this and much more right after this. Lauren, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Lauren Dillard (2:21)

CJ, thanks for having me.

CJ Gustafson (2:22)

So maybe it would be helpful just for the benefit of listeners if you could give the 30-second overview of what LiveRamp does. I think a lot of people have heard of the company. Maybe they've been following it in the background. What does your company do?

Lauren Dillard (2:34)

So at a high level, LiveRamp provides technology that helps companies use data to deliver more relevant and personalized advertising and do so safely and responsibly. So most companies we work with have valuable data and specifically customer data sitting across many different systems. But connecting it with partners or using it across their ad stack is technically difficult and then has become increasingly sensitive from a privacy perspective. So our platform, you can think of it as providing the infrastructure that allows those brands and their partners to connect and collaborate around that data. I often describe LiveRamp as the connective tissue of the advertising ecosystem.

CJ Gustafson (3:23)

That totally makes sense. It's actually super relevant to something me and producer Ben were talking about yesterday because we have ad partners for this show. We love our ad partners and there's always kind of this fuzzy thing, especially around podcasts for attribution. So I can see how that's super valuable for CMOs, especially for the ones who are like, hey, I know 50% of my marketing budget is spent well. I just don't know which half.

Lauren Dillard (3:44)

Yeah, absolutely. Attribution has quickly become one of the more popular use cases our customers leverage our platform for. An example I would give there, imagine a retailer, let's say Target. I've got three young daughters. I'm at Target at least once a weekend. Is trying to understand whether advertising on Netflix is actually driving purchases. So back to your comment on attribution. The retailer has transaction data. Netflix has information about who saw the advertising, but neither party should simply hand over its customer level data to the other. LiveRamp allows both parties to connect those datasets, do it in a privacy conscious way, measure the outcome, so perform the attribution, but in a way that doesn't expose either party's sensitive information.

CJ Gustafson (4:38)

That makes a lot more sense than just sending over an Excel spreadsheet with 50,000 people's names and addresses and attributes.

Lauren Dillard (4:46)

It sure does.

CJ Gustafson (4:47)