Category: FLYDE News
To mark the first anniversary of FLYDE Talks, Paco Herranz, Founder and CEO of FLYDE, brought together for the first time in a single session the five experts who appeared on the program throughout its inaugural year. Andrés Azpilicueta (digital marketing expert), Luis Serrano (Head of Growth, Real Madrid CF), Víctor Moreno (Data Scientist, TomTom), Álvaro Pariente (Founder and CEO, BEOC9) and Enrique Miralda (digital strategy expert, FLYDE) sat down together to speak frankly about what the marketing and data sector has been debating for twelve months and has yet to resolve.
The session was structured around two thematic roundtables. The first, with Andrés, Víctor and Álvaro, focused on AI, data and measurement. The second, with Luis and Enrique, addressed customer strategy and the gap between what companies say about retention and what they actually do. The event closed with a rapid-fire question round for all five guests.
What follows is a summary of the most relevant conversations from the session.
AI AS AN AMPLIFIER, NOT A MIRACLE NOR A THREAT
The first question of the session was direct: is the current wave of AI making teams move faster, or is it generating chaos? The answer from Víctor Moreno, Data Scientist at TomTom, was equally direct: it depends on how you use it.
Víctor introduced the concept of workslop: work that generates more work than it resolves. The problem is not the tool but how it is used. Delegating to AI the tasks we do not want to do, without reviewing the output, is exactly the pattern that produces generic content, incorrect data and poorly grounded decisions.
"AI is like alcohol. It amplifies your character. If you are chaotic, AI will make you more chaotic. And at the other extreme, if you are very conservative, it will scare you. It is very important to be aware of that and use it accordingly."
Andrés Azpilicueta, digital marketing expert, added an editorial dimension: on LinkedIn there is an ever-growing volume of content that reeks of synthetic output. The democratization of AI has not democratized quality. It has multiplied the volume of generic content. The solution is not to avoid using it, but to personalize it with your own voice and judgment.
Álvaro Pariente, Founder and CEO of BEOC9, connected this argument to the data layer: AI amplifies what you already have. If what you have is disorganized, it amplifies that disorganization. The companies seeing real differentiation are those that first structured their data and then applied the technology.
“If we have the same tool as any competitor and we use it the same way, we will not differentiate ourselves. Companies that are approaching it from the data side, harmonizing that data and making it available to a good AI model, are the ones creating real competitive advantage.”
AI IS NOT PROGRAMMED FOR SILENCE
One of the most important nuances of the session came from Víctor, who put on the table a reality that many of us encounter every day: AI is not programmed for silence. If you ask it for a number, it will give you a number, even if that number is incorrect.
“Companies using AI need to put their data to work. And there needs to be a clear culture around how to use it. If you ask AI to give you a number of customers, it will give you a number, because it is biased towards giving you answers. You have to make sure you verify it and use it appropriately. It is like when politicians use statistics to say what they want: a number can always be given, but which one is correct depends on the context.”
Álvaro flagged a related operational risk playing out in many organizations: employees who, in the absence of clear policies, are using public AI tools with private company or client data, with no security framework in place. Data governance is no longer just a GDPR issue.
MEASUREMENT AND ATTRIBUTION: THE PROBLEM NOBODY CAN SOLVE
Andrés has spent years at the intersection of measurement, attribution and marketing investment decisions. His diagnosis: measurement is going to keep getting more complex as new channels emerge and as practically every consumer communication channel becomes transactional.
There is a structural problem that persists: different measurement tools do not produce the same data. Google Analytics says you generated six sales and Adobe says four. That gap is not new, but it has widened with the rollout of Google Analytics 4 and changes to Chrome’s cookie policy. Making investment decisions based on data with that level of uncertainty is equivalent to optimizing against a reality that does not exist.
“Now is a good moment to take two steps back, reinforce the mature channels, understand the gaps we sometimes have in measurement between platforms, and at the same time start experimenting with the new channels, like social commerce or traffic coming from an LLM.”
Víctor added that the way teams interact with attribution data is going to change fundamentally. The typical weekly PowerPoint report that each department presents to the management committee with its own numbers will probably disappear.
“That PowerPoint report presented weekly will no longer exist as such. Instead there will be an agent, an interface you query, and not only do you get the number, you also get information and detail, breakdown by department, by source."
HOW TO AVOID COMMON MISTAKES DURING IMPLEMENTATION
One of the most practical questions of the session was direct: of all the data and AI projects you are seeing, which one would you shut down? The three experts on the first panel agreed on the diagnosis.
The most common mistake: thinking too big
“What I encounter most is thinking too big. Trying to do many use cases at once. I want an attribution project, I want to automate manual tasks, I want personalization, and you try to put ten or fifteen things into a single tool. I would avoid doing too many at once. Start with one, measure the ROI, measure usage, measure adoption, and when you are ready, move to the next."
The strategic mistake: the "Big Bang" implementation
“This is a bad year for a Big Bang implementation. Specifying everything, writing two hundred pages of requirements, waiting for the miracle to happen in two and a half years when the platform is ready. The sprint mentality is excellent: rapid initiatives of one month, one and a half months maximum to solve one specific use case, measure the impact, then move to the next,”
The security mistake: opportunism without governance
“I am a strong believer in cobbler, stick to your last. If I have a CRM I use for client relationship management and I have my leads, it is very easy to take a cloud service, take OpenAI, connect it via API and suddenly go to my cloud, ask it questions, and have it access my data. For me that is opportunism. You are delegating security and relationship work to an LLM. It is fine to connect them, but you have to be careful about what you are compromising,”
RETENTION VS. ACQUISITION: THE IMBALANCE THAT PERSISTS
The second roundtable shifted register entirely. Luis Serrano, Head of Growth at Real Madrid CF, and Enrique Miralda, digital strategy expert at FLYDE, addressed the classic question: why does 70% of marketing investment still go to acquisition when it is five times more profitable to retain an existing customer?
For Enrique, the imbalance is not irrational but structural. Advertising platforms live off acquisition investment. Once the customer is yours, once it is your data and your responsibility, the platforms no longer have as much to gain.
“There is enormous pressure, and it seems like there is more business or a lot of momentum around acquisition. Once the customer is yours, the advertising industry obviously no longer has as much of a role.”
Luis added the dimension of internal incentives: in many companies success is measured by how many new people come in, not by how many come back.
“Getting someone to come once is marketing. Getting them to want to come back is business. Which do you want, marketing or business? That is the key."
WHO IS IN CHARGE OF CUSTOMER STRATEGY?
Paco asked Enrique about his book, in which he proposes the role of Chief Customer Strategy Officer. His central argument: if a company’s main asset is its customers, why is there nobody in the organization whose sole responsibility is to understand them and protect them throughout their entire lifecycle?
“The main asset of any company is its customers. Everything revolves around that. But in practice, marketing has one picture of the customer, CRM has another, loyalty has another. Each has its own mission and they are not always operating under the same strategy. What I have always missed, and why I wrote the book, is a role that reports to senior leadership with the sole mission of understanding the customer in depth across their entire lifecycle, and coordinating with all the departments that interact with them to ensure a coherent experience."
Luis described how Real Madrid has addressed this challenge through the Growth function, and how Enrique’s argument resonates with his own experience.
"Trying to look after the customer from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave, improving their experience, taking them where they want to go rather than where we want to push them, I find that absolutely fundamental."
HYPERPERSONALIZATION: REAL PROMISE OR A MIRAGE?
The conversation between Luis and Enrique moved towards one of the most repeated topics in marketing and one of the least executed: hyperpersonalization. Luis was honest: the goal is one-to-one, but they are still far from it.
"What we do is put that user at the center and try to reach ‘one fan, one experience'."
Enrique added the argument he has been making for years: any company, regardless of what it sells, can turn customers into fans if it genuinely cares about them.
“You have to try to turn your customers into fans. Why would I become a fan of someone who sells luggage or shoes? Because of the quality of the product, how they treat me, the prices, the service. The big challenge is having a genuine commitment from the top to deliver real value to customers, and for that to permeate downwards. That is what makes the difference."
THE FINAL ROUND OF QUESTIONS
The session closed with three rapid-fire rounds for all five guests.
What is the piece of advice or phrase you repeat to yourself most often?
“Try, iterate and share. The person who knows most about AI is the one who knows best how to use it, not the one who knows most about it.”
“The customer is always talking to us, even when they say nothing. Through their behavior, where they click, where they subscribe.”
"Value, value, value. ROI, ROI, ROI. The number of AI use cases is so vast you can easily get lost. From start to finish: what value does it bring to the company, to the employee, to the customer.”
“Apply judgment. AI is a very good employee, but I have to work harder at being a better manager. The judgment about how I want things to happen is still mine.”
“Do not stop learning how to use AI. You do not need to be an expert in all the engineering behind it. You need to be a great user of AI.”
What question are you asking yourself that you have not yet been able to answer?
"Am I providing more value thanks to AI? More than I would without it and more than any other person could provide using AI?
“Am I using AI to do more things or to do things better? I am not sure they are the same.”
“Who is going to decide what happens with artificial intelligence? Depending on whose interests prevail, it could be something very good or something not so interesting.”
“The three pillars of innovation: how much value you create, how much you destroy, and how much you capture. A difficult balance to manage, but you need to be conscious of it.”
“Will we have reached AGI when we get there? Or will another wave come along and we will move on to something else? I leave it open.”
What would be your headline for this session?
“New conversion funnel: see, compare, ask AI, decide.”
“Let’s actually put the customer at the center.”
“Let the technology work for you.”
"How far will we go with all of this?"
“Do not put off until tomorrow what you can tokenize today.”
CONCLUSIONS
The anniversary session left a conclusion that cuts across both roundtables and applies regardless of sector or company size: problems with data, measurement and the customer are rarely technological problems. They are problems of organization, incentives and mental models.
Three ideas that came up repeatedly throughout the session:
- AI amplifies what you already have.
- Retention is business. Acquisition is marketing. As long as companies keep measuring success by how many new people come in, they will keep investing where it is most expensive and least profitable.
- Nobody owns the customer. Until there is a role with that explicit responsibility, data will remain scattered and customer strategy will remain a slide in a presentation.
HOW FLYDE CAN HELP
The conversations in FLYDE Talks reflect the same challenges we see every day with our clients: scattered data, unreliable attribution, customer strategies with no clear owner. FLYDE is the layer that connects those systems, unifies the customer profile and activates data in real time, without replacing the tools that are already working.
If you want to see how to apply these ideas in your company, contact us to schedule a demo.
In the fifth episode of FLYDE Talks, Paco Herranz, founder and CEO of FLYDE, sat down with Enrique Miralda, an expert in digital strategy and ecommerce with over 20 years of experience. More than an interview, it was a dialogue between two professionals who work day-to-day with companies at very different stages of digital maturity. The conversation focused on why most companies don’t have a real customer strategy and what it takes to build one.
WHO OWNS THE CUSTOMER IN YOUR COMPANY?
If you ask most organizations who is responsible for the customer, the answer is usually silence. And according to Enrique Miralda, that silence is the clearest sign that no real customer strategy exists.
Customers are the primary asset in any business. Yet what typically happens is that marketing has one view, the CRM team has another, and the customer experience department limits itself to handling complaints. Each department manages its own version of the customer and those versions rarely match.
The result is that the same customer can receive contradictory messages from three different departments on the same day, without anyone realizing it. Paco reinforced this from his direct experience with FLYDE clients: the absence of a clear owner isn’t just an organizational symptom; it’s the most telling sign that no real customer strategy exists.
THE IMBALANCE BETWEEN ACQUISITION AND RETENTION
Enrique noted that around 70% of marketing investment goes towards acquiring new customers, with barely 30% directed at retention. This happens despite the fact that retaining a customer is five times more profitable than acquiring a new one.
And there’s an even more critical insight: unless a company has a gross margin above 45-50% or a very high average order value, its business will not be profitable until the second purchase happens. A new customer is not profitable the day they arrive. They become profitable when they come back.
Paco added another angle he sees repeatedly in FLYDE’s own sales process: often there are several departments talking to the customer through different channels, with no coordination, and none of them actually listening. The problem isn’t too much communication but rather the lack of a unified customer view to back it up.
CRM VS. CDP: THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING
One of the most common misconceptions is that a CRM is enough to manage customer strategy. Enrique is clear: the CRM has a concrete and valuable function, but it has important limitations.
A CRM provides a snapshot of current customers, but it doesn’t work with anonymous users, has no real predictive capability, and doesn’t unify the customer view across all channels. A customer who buys in a physical store, on the website, and through an app can appear as three different people.
A CDP (Customer Data Platform) is designed to solve exactly that: unifying all customer information into a single profile, diagnosing behaviors, predicting future actions and prescribing the best strategies for each segment.
EVERY BUSINESS IS A FINANCIAL BUSINESS
Enrique is particularly critical of the lack of financial perspective in marketing and ecommerce teams. Measuring profitability through gross margin is a common mistake. What matters is the contribution margin, which deducts all real costs: payment commissions, shipping, packaging, returns and marketing campaigns.
It is perfectly possible to have a positive ROAS and still be losing money. Everyone making decisions about customers should be able to answer this question: at what point does this customer start to be profitable for my business?
THE CDP AS AN INVESTMENT, NOT A COST
For Enrique, there is no room for doubt: he knows of no more profitable investment in ecommerce than a well-implemented CDP. With the right agility, it is common to see a return that covers the platform cost within 60 to 90 days. In some cases, a single use case has generated enough margin to pay for the tool for two years.
The key is speed of implementation. Tools like FLYDE are designed so that business teams can operate with maximum independence from IT, activating use cases in weeks, not months.
CONCLUSIONS
Companies that build a real customer strategy share five characteristics:
- They have defined who owns the customer within the organization.
- They balance investment between acquisition and retention.
- They understand the difference between CRM and CDP, and use each tool for what it was designed for.
- They measure in terms of contribution margin, not gross margin or ROAS in isolation.
- They start with concrete use cases that demonstrate fast ROI, and scale from there.
The question every company should ask is not what new tool they need, but who is responsible for ensuring their customer is treated with excellence at every touchpoint.
DOWNLOAD ENRIQUE’S EBOOK
If this conversation has raised questions about how to implement a CDP, how to measure its return, or how to structure the use cases that generate the most value, Enrique Miralda has just published the book that answers exactly that.
CDP – Customer Data Platform: How to Convert Data into Business is a practical guide covering everything from the minimum technical requirements you should demand, to a 90-day roadmap with real use cases, contribution margin metrics and step-by-step numerical examples. It also includes chapters on AI applied to CDP, weekly operating models and a comparative guide to the leading platforms on the market.
This is not a book about concepts. It is a manual for going from “we have a CDP” to “the CDP is generating value.”
The ebook is currently available in Spanish.
We’ve launched Brain, an AI copilot that brings natural language capabilities to the FLYDE Customer Data Platform. You can now ask questions and get answers directly from your data without needing SQL knowledge or waiting on technical teams.
Ask Brain your questions in natural language. Get actionable answers based on your real business data.
With Brain, you can create datasets, build audiences, analyze results, generate reports, and make strategic decisions powered by predictive intelligence, all by writing in natural, conversational language. Brain also helps you ask better questions, deepen analysis with suggested follow-ups, prepare presentations instantly, and collaborate seamlessly across teams.
BRAIN IN CORE: GENERATE DATASETS WITHOUT WRITING SQL
Core is FLYDE’s app for data storage, conversion, and transformation. It is where you connect data from different sources, consolidate everything into one place, and build the datasets that power your marketing decisions. Historically, creating datasets has required technical knowledge, writing SQL queries, or waiting for your IT team.
Brain changes that entirely.
When creating a dataset in Core, simply describe what you need in plain language; fore xample, “I want sales by user and loyalty points.” Brain interprets your request and automatically generates the SQL query needed to build it.
This enables marketing and business teams to work independently, dramatically shrinks turnaround times, and accelerates data exploration. SQL generation democratizes advanced analytics, allowing more team members to work directly with data.
BRAIN IN MARKET: CREATE AUDIENCIES AND ANALYZE BEHAVIOR
Market is FLYDE’s audience activation and management application. It’s where you build customer segments that fuel your campaigns, activate them across channels, and understand their behavior.
With Brain in Market, you can create new audiences using natural language instead of manually applying filters. Describe what you need and Brain translates it into the appropriate filter logic.
Example: A bookstore has overstock of the novel, A Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez and wants to run a targeted promotional campaign via email. Rather than manually configuring filters, you can tell Brain: “Create an audience of customers who are likely to buy A Hundred Years of Solitude and opted in to promotional emails.” Brain generates the audience in seconds, and explains the logic to you, every step of the way.
Brain can also analyze your audiences and propose strategic opportunities for action. You can ask follow-up questions directly within reports to understand behavior and surface additional insights.
Example: You have an audience of high-churn-risk customers. You say to Brain: “Analyze the main characteristics of my clients who show strong signs of churn and help me figure out how to retain them.” Brain analyzes the data and identifies key behaviors and characteristics as well as recommended next steps.
MARKET TALKS: ADVANCED ANALYTICS CONVERSATIONS
Market Talks is FLYDE’s advanced analytics application. While Market focuses on audience creation and activation, Market Talks is where you explore the metrics most relevant to your business, such as sales, channel performance, segment behavior, and revenue trends.
If you say to Brain, “Give me an in-depth analysis of purchases by channel for the last year,” Brain will deliver detailed insights, strategic interpretation, downloadable charts, improvement recommendations, and suggested A/B tests based on findings.
Need to present findings to leadership? Ask Brain to generate a downloadable PowerPoint presentation with key insights.
You can also save your conversations with Brain using custom names, organize them in folders, and share with teammates. Analysis becomes a collaborative asset.
BRAIN GUIDES YOU TO DEEPER ANALYSIS
One of Brain’s most powerful features is offering automatic suggestions for follow-up questions. After you complete an analysis, Brain proposes new paths of exploration based on patterns in your data.
After analyzing sales by channel, Brain might suggest: “Want to compare margin by channel? See how this compares to last year? Understand which segments are driving most of your growth?”
This system combats shallow analysis and interpretation bias. Instead of stopping at the first answer, Brain guides you deeper, acting as a thinking partner that drives a more mature analytical culture.
The impact on your business is direct: better-informed decisions, discovery of hidden opportunities, early detection of risks, and stronger alignment between data and strategy.
THE CONVERSATIONAL APPROACH
Brain works consistently across Core, Market, and Market Talks. You describe your data needs in Core. You create and analyze audiences in Market. You run advanced analytics in Market Talks. The same conversational approach can be used everywhere.
This reduces friction when moving between analysis and action. You stay in a natural language workflow instead of switching between interfaces, languages, and tools.
GETTING STARTED WITH BRAIN
Brain is live across Core, Market, and Market Talks. Start using it on your next dataset creation, audience build, or analysis.
Brain can also integrate directly with your existing ecosystem to provide an intelligent layer of analysis with a conversational approach over business data without changing your data infrastructure. Contact us if you would like to see a demo of Brain in action.
In the fourth episode of FLYDE Talks, Paco Herranz, founder and CEO of FLYDE, spoke with Álvaro Pariente, data and enterprise technology expert and founder and CEO of BEOC9, to analyze the key factors that will determine business success this year. The conversation explored crucial topics such as how to organize data, the role of CDPs (Customer Data Platforms), and why many companies are not seeing real results from artificial intelligence.
THE CRITICAL TRIANLGE: BUSINESS, DATA AND IT
Álvaro began by highlighting a structural issue affecting many organizations. For years, companies have been digitizing processes and collecting data across multiple systems. However, this transformation created a problematic divide between three departments that should be working together:
- IT: decides on architecture and systems
- Business: defines the “what” and how to impact the customer
- Data: often scattered between IT and business, with no clear owner
The result is predictable: data silos, lack of coordination, and multiple departments engaging the same customers as if they were entirely different companies.
The solution is not technological but rather organizational. Before investing in tools or implementing AI, companies need to align these three pillars internally and give them equal importance. Only then can they extract real value from their data.
THE REAL PROBLEM: ATTRIBUTION AND FRAGMENTATION
A perfect example of this lack of organization is conversion attribution. When multiple departments interact with a customer through different channels (paid media, email, etc.), each one claims the conversion as its own.
The problem becomes even more troublesome in fast-growing companies that are investing aggressively in acquisition, because proving the return on each channel is critical.
THE EVOLUTION OF CDPs
Álvaro explained how the market has evolved from MDM systems (Master Data Management) to the new generation of CDPs. MDM systems required long projects, complex integrations, and the creation of a centralized “Golden Record” that often became invasive for existing systems.
Modern CDPs offer a different approach:
- Less intrusive: they connect to existing systems without disrupting operations.
- Continuous data collection: they unify data from multiple sources in real time.
- Identity resolution: they build a single customer view without requiring a centralized record.
- Fast activation: they allow immediate use of that information in the right channels.
- Compatibility with your tools: they do not require a single-vendor infrastructure and can connect with Adobe, Salesforce, Braze, or other tools.
Paco emphasized the importance of this point: no single vendor can cover every use case a business needs.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ABOUT AI
This was the most critical point of the conversation. Álvaro was direct:
“Without data organization and data scale, AI, in my view, will not take you anywhere.”
The problem is not the AI model. The problem is the data.
WHY MANY COMPANIES ARE NOT SEEING RESULTS WITH AI
ChatGPT works because it has access to a massive encyclopedia of information on the internet. But when a company wants to apply AI to its business, it is not querying the internet. It is querying its own internal data.
And that is where things become complicated:
- If your data is not organized
- If your prompt is poorly structured
- If your systems lack coherent information
- If your data is fragmented into silos
The result will not be what you are hoping for, no matter how much money has been invested in sophisticated technology.
The companies seeing real value from AI all share one thing in common: they organized their data first (customer information, internal processes, organizational knowledge), and only then applied technology. Not the other way around.
AN EXAMPLE: SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
Paco shared a concrete case: a company with millions of customer interactions whose only measure of satisfaction was sending Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which most people do not respond to.
The solution is clear if the data is organized: run those conversations through AI-powered sentiment analysis. The company already has all the information needed to determine whether a customer is happy, frustrated, or about to leave a negative review.
No new data is required. The data is already there. The only missing piece is applying the right technology on top of a well-organized data foundation.
SECURITY AND GOVERNANCE: NON-NEGOTIABLES
A critical point was emphasized: you cannot send private company data into a public LLM without proper safeguards. Doing so would expose employee and customer data.
The solution is to use models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) within a secure architecture that includes:
- Data governance policies
- Access control
- GDPR compliance in Europe
- Clear management of what data is served, what is exposed, and what is received
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
The conversation also addressed how implementation timelines have changed. Álvaro was clear: 18-month projects are a thing of the past.
The strategy that works today is:
- Focus on one single use case (not seven)
- Implementation in a maximum of 2 to 3 months
- Measurable impact on a specific KPI (churn, lifetime value, RFM)
- Iterate and expand once value is proven
This approach has clear advantages:
- Reduces time and costs
- Makes ROI traceable
- Drives adoption and change within teams
- Results improve exponentially with each new use case
As Álvaro said: “If consulting doesn’t deliver value, and value is tied to KPIs, then we shouldn’t be there.”
THE GARTNER MAGIC QUADRANT
The conversation closed with an analysis of the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for CDPs (2026), the third report since the category was created in 2024.
Key trends identified include:
- Expansion beyond marketing: CDPs are no longer only for segmentation and campaigns. They are increasingly being used for B2B use cases, customer service, sales, and operations.
- Composability as the standard: the ability to integrate with multiple systems without requiring a full single-vendor suite is becoming a baseline requirement.
- AI and natural language access: platforms that allow users to query data using natural language are enabling business users (non-technical teams) to extract insights without needing SQL.
- The importance of connectors: competition is being defined by the speed and quality of integrations. It is no longer acceptable for a connector to take three months when it should be as simple as “pushing a button.”
CONCLUSIONS: A ROADMAP FOR COMPANIES THAT WILL WIN IN 2026
The main lesson from FLYDE Talks Episode 4 is clear: the companies that integrate data, technology, and business strategy will be the true winners in 2026.
It is not about having the most advanced AI model. It is about:
- Organizing your internal structure so data, IT, and business teams work together
- Implementing a CDP that unifies information without being invasive
- Applying AI to your own data with proper governance and security
- Starting with specific use cases that prove ROI quickly
- Scaling iteratively
The question every company should ask is not “What new tool do I need?” but “How do I make my current investment deliver more value?”
HOW FLYDE CAN HELP
Is your company’s data ready for AI? At FLYDE, we will continue driving conversations that help organizations understand this new landscape and take advantage of AI within a secure, results-driven framework. Contact us to explore how you can leverage new technologies within your company.
At the third FLYDE Talks event, FLYDE Founder and CEO, Paco Herranz, was joined by Víctor Moreno, Staff Data Scientist at TomTom, to explore the current state of generative artificial intelligence and its technological, professional and social implications. The discussion covered how we got to this point, what is truly changing, and the challenges companies must face in this new phase. A full recording of the event (in Spanish) is available.
A TECHNOLOGY THAT WASN’T BORN YESTERDAY
The conversation highlighted that while generative AI is currently trendy, AI itself is not a new concept. Its roots go back to early examples such as data analysis during World War II or the rule-based systems of the 1970s and 1980s.
The recent leap forward is not due to a new idea, but to technological advances that finally made long-standing concepts viable. GPUs enabled massive and efficient parallel computation. Natural Language Processing (NLP) allowed text to be converted into numbers more accurately. And the availability of large volumes of data made it possible to train much more powerful models.
THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF AI
The most recent change has been the democratization of access. Previously, working with AI required specific technical knowledge. Today, anyone can use it through simple interfaces like ChatGPT. This shift goes beyond workplace implications and into the social realm, changing how we perform personal tasks, such as asking an assistant for trivial data.
Víctor highlighted how this change is transforming even the way we ask questions. We rely on assistants to solve doubts, summarize information, or make initial decisions. This change is profound: it effects how we think, evaluate and structure our work.
By lowering the barrier to entry, adoption accelerates. Companies that do not adapt risk falling behind—not due to a lack of technology, but due to a lack of understanding of how to incorporate it effectively.
THE VALUE OF AI IN PRODUCTIVITY AND CREATIVITY
Víctor highlighted two key areas of value:
- Productivity: AI allows large amounts of information to be processed, content to be summarized, alternatives to be proposed, and tasks that previously took hours to be automated. For example, in programming, AI is improving productivity by an estimated 10–15%.
- Creativity: AI enhances creativity by removing the “fear of the blank page” and offering new ways to solve problems or start projects.
SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS IN MARKETING
Marketing is among the areas in which generative AI is growing exponentially. Personalization has been taken to a new level, handling thousands of micro-segments. Content can adapt dynamically. Campaigns can be optimized in real time. The list goes on.
At FLYDE, we’ve developed tools like FLYDE Brain, which proposes audiences from simple descriptions, analyzes behaviors, and suggests campaign optimizations, empowering teams to unlock more of AI’s potential for data-driven marketing.
Other AI applications in marketing include:
- Virtual replicas, which simulate how a customer might react to a message.
- Virtual replica farms, to conduct quick, low-cost surveys and market studies.
KEY RISKS AND CHALLENGES
Despite the progress, generative AI has significant limitations that must be carefully managed.
- Work slop: Poorly generated content can reduce productivity and damage credibility.
- User responsibility: Models are designed to respond, not to question. As Víctor explained, they can “lie” if the prompt pushes them in that direction. Ultimately, the user is responsible for what is generated. If “the car crashes,” the driver is responsible.
- Security risks: There is a risk of prompt injection, where the text consumed by the agent can be modified to influence its actions, potentially leading to unwanted access to databases if proper protection is not in place.
- Legality and data: In Europe, regulations such as GDPR require responsible and secure use. Platforms like FLYDE allow AI to work with real customer data in a controlled environment, avoiding unnecessary risks.
- Rising costs: Token prices will increase, so responsible and efficient use of AI is necessary.
FINAL ADVICE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ADAPTING
Víctor emphasized the importance of adapting to the new paradigm, comparing it to the shift from the steam engine to the electric engine: industries took decades to realize they not only had to replace the engine, but completely change their work structures to leverage the new technology.
Looking forward, the challenge for companies will be learning to integrate this technology in a safe, responsible, and strategic way. At FLYDE, we will continue driving conversations that help understand this new scenario and leverage AI within a safe, results-oriented framework.
Contact us to learn more about how FLYDE can help your business leverage AI’s capabilities.
In this episode of FLYDE Talks, Luis Serrano, Head of Growth at Real Madrid, sits down with Paco Herranz, Founder and CEO of FLYDE, to explore how the concept of Growth Marketing has evolved in an environment shaped by artificial intelligence, extreme personalization, and data privacy—and how it can be applied to the unique context of football.
With this new episode of FLYDE Talks, we continue to bring together leading voices from across the marketing world to discuss, clearly and without jargon, the ideas that are transforming the industry today.
WHAT DO WE REALLY MEAN BY GROWTH?
Paco opens the conversation with a question every growth professional has asked themselves: What exactly do we mean by “growth”?
For Luis, the term has expanded significantly. What once referred to scaling digital channels now means understanding growth from a holistic perspective: digital and physical channels, data, user experience, and brand value.
“We’re no longer just talking about digital channels,” he says. “We’re talking about everything.”
Growth is no longer about funnel optimization alone; it’s about connecting every touchpoint between the user and the brand under one unified objective.
REAL MADRID’S ‘NORTH STAR’: THE SATISFIED MADRIDISTA
Paco and Luis agree that successful growth depends on having a clear metric that guides the overall strategy: the famous North Star Metric.
At Real Madrid, that North Star is the satisfied Madridista: a fan who trusts the club, shares their digital identity, and enjoys a full, consistent experience across online and offline channels. The satisfied Madridista is the “guiding star” behind every growth initiative at the club.
To measure that satisfaction, the team tracks KPIs that range from fan acquisition and retention, including engagement metrics, NPS (Net Promoter Score), and churn. The challenge lies in turning every interaction into a source of value, for both the fan and the brand.
‘ONE FAN, ONE EXPERIENCE’: UNIFYING DATA FOR ONE-ON-ONE PERSONALIZATION
From FLYDE’s perspective, growth can only scale if data is unified. It starts with data collection—first, second, and third party—and continues with data unification to create a single customer profile, the key to enable precise segmentation, activation, and measurement.
The unified customer profile is the foundation of any growth strategy. It allows teams to move from analysis to action: building micro-audiences, orchestrating omnichannel campaigns, and, most importantly, measuring attribution accurately. The real challenge isn’t gathering more data, but rather knowing where each impact truly comes from.
Real Madrid applies this philosophy with a simple vision: One fan, one experience.
From email to app, store to stadium, every interaction is tracked and optimized to deliver the best possible experience within the club’s ecosystem.
The ultimate goal is true micro-segmentation, evolving from “many-to-many” to “one-to-one,” offering each fan exactly what they need. As Luis puts it simply: “If I have a cat, why are you offering me dog food?”
Read more about the importance of data unification.
‘SEO IS NOT DEAD, AND GEO IS SEO.”
“SEO isn’t dead—and GEO is SEO.”
Through experiments with LLMs and metasearch engines, Luis found that generative AIs don’t search websites directly—they search search engines. In other words, for an AI to index your content, you still need to rank well on traditional search engines first.
So optimizing for visibility in AI results still means doing SEO: paying attention to microformats, structured data, and quality content. New tools, like Adobe’s LLM Optimizer, can even estimate how readable and indexable your content is for AI.
The takeaway is clear: the future of organic traffic will be hybrid and those who master SEO today will remain visible in the age of AI. At least based on what we know today.
MACHINE LEARNING AND GENERATIVE AI: THE NEW MARKETING DUO
Luis asks Paco how FLYDE integrates AI, and Paco explains that for him, AI isn’t a trend but a natural evolution of data-driven marketing.
FLYDE uses Machine Learning for key tasks:
- Measuring KPIs
- Detecting customer value patterns and projections
- Predicting churn
- Recommending products or audiences
On top of that, FLYDE has developed Brain, a generative AI layer across the platform. Brain acts as a data assistant, enabling any user, technical or not, to interact directly with their data ecosystem: building audiences, suggesting actions, analyzing campaigns, or even generating complex queries.
Its mission is to democratize access to data and remove the “blank page fear.”
As Luis jokes: “AI is like a shrimp cocktail—we have so many things to pick from that we don’t know where to start.”
THE CDP: THE NATURAL EVOLUTION OF THE CRM
Both speakers agree that a Customer Data Platform (CDP) like FLYDE is the strategic backbone that ties everything together.
At Real Madrid, the CDP is built around the Madridista Community, integrating data from e-commerce, the app, the Bernabéu tour, RMP Play, social media, and even in-stadium activity.
Thanks to this integration, the club can microsegment and activate data in real time. For instance, if a user is near the stadium, the system can trigger a personalized app notification with an offer or reminder.
The result is a coherent, contextual, and measurable experience—where data powers emotion.
Contact us to learn more about what the FLYDE CDP could do for your business.
PRIVACY AND REGULATION: GROWTH WITH RESPECT FOR THE USER
The new era of marketing comes with a non-negotiable condition: privacy.
Luis emphasizes that Real Madrid applies a strict transparency policy because trust is part of the fan experience itself.
Meanwhile, FLYDE advocates for ethical data usage. Its technology supports privacy-safe attribution using inferred data (such as average age, income level, or household type) to improve performance without compromising user trust.
The goal isn’t to know more, but to use what we already know better.
TOWARD A MORE HUMAN, MEASURABLE MARKETING
Growth marketing in 2025 operates at the crossroads of AI, CDPs, and customer experience.
But beneath it all lies a single principle: brands grow when they understand that data only matters when it creates satisfaction, trust, and real value.
Paco leaves us with an important conlcusion. Sustainable growth is born from the connection between data and people—and when done right, that connection is the future of marketing.
Growth marketers today need to be able to optimize campaigns across multiple channels, unify fragmented data, manage acquisition costs, and adapt to rapid industry changes. The challenge is not just executing campaigns but building a scalable, data-informed growth engine that drives sustainable results. The world of marketing has never been more complex… nor full of opportunity!
In this blog, we explore five critical challenges marketers face and how leveraging data activation and analytics can turn these obstacles into growth opportunities. By addressing these critical areas, marketing professionals can implement measured, scalable strategies that drive both immediate performance and long-term customer value.
For those who want to explore these challenges in depth, watch the full recording of FLYDE Talks 2 with Luis Serrano, Head of Growth at Real Madrid, where he shares practical insights on building scalable, data-driven growth strategies.
CHALLENGE 1: BALANCE SUSTAINABLE LONG-TERM GROWTH WITH SHORT-TERM GAINS
Marketing teams often face tension between demonstrating immediate results and nurturing long-term value. Sacrificing customer retention and lifetime value in favor of marketing qualified leads (MQL) or short-term revenue can create the illusion of growth while undermining sustainable performance. Advanced analytics can quantify the impact of retention versus acquisition, allowing leaders to defend their strategy with data rather than intuition. By modeling customer lifetime value alongside near-term KPIs, teams can make informed trade-offs that satisfy stakeholders without compromising long-term growth.
CHALLENGE 2: UNIFYING FRAGMENTED DATA
A single, reliable view of the customer is foundational for effective growth marketing, yet most organizations struggle with siloed systems, from CRM and ads platforms to product analytics and web tracking. Fragmentation reduces visibility and often biases measurement toward easily attributable channels.
Centralizing data enables marketers to track the full journey, uncover hidden opportunities, and deploy more precise targeting strategies. Tools that integrate data in real time and provide actionable segmentation allow for campaigns that are both sophisticated and measurable. If you are looking to build a sustainable and scalable growth strategy, unified data is an absolute must.
CHALLENGE 3: CHANNEL SATURATION AND RISING ACQUISITION COSTS
Undoubtedly many growth marketers are feeling the pressure of escalating customer acquisition costs (CAC) and formerly profitable channels becoming less cost ineffective. Growth marketers need frameworks for modeling CAC sensitivity and simulating different channel strategies to stay ahead. By forecasting cost changes and evaluating alternative acquisition levers, teams can anticipate disruptions and allocate budget dynamically, rather than reacting when profitability declines. This analytical rigor separates reactive teams from those driving consistent, scalable growth.
CHALLENGE 4: AI ADOPTION THAT ADDS TRUE VALUE
Artificial intelligence can accelerate campaign execution and uncover new insights, but its effectiveness depends on thoughtful application. Simply using AI to automate routine tasks does not differentiate a brand. Leading teams integrate AI into predictive modeling, hyper-personalization, and attribution analysis. To maximize impact, efficient algorithms must be used together with human creativity. The key is leveraging AI to provide insight and support smarter decision making rather than merely speed or volume.
CHALLENGE 5: CONTINUOUS INDUSTRY EVOLUTION
Growth marketing operates in a dynamic environment where technological, regulatory, and behavioral shifts can rapidly alter the rules of engagement. Strategies must be adaptive, incorporate scenario planning, and operate within agile measurement frameworks. Teams that continuously stress-test assumptions and adapt to emerging trends are better positioned to respond to disruptions while maintaining momentum.
LEARN MORE FROM AN INDUSTRY LEADER
The challenges of growth marketing are complex, but actionable strategies exist. In FLYDE Talks 2, Luis Serrano, Head of Growth at Real Madrid, to explores these topics in depth. Watch the full recording of the event.
MADRID, SPAIN – June, 11, 2025 – FLYDE, a customer data platform offering an easy-to-use solution for businesses to unify fragmented data and drive growth, announces the successful launch of its new thought leadership series, FLYDE Talks. The inaugural event, entitled, “The Challenge of Attribution in Omnichannel Marketing,” drew nearly 200 registrants across Europe and Latin America, signaling strong demand for discussions on practical, data-driven marketing.
Held on June 5, 2025 via LinkedIn Live, the virtual event featured digital marketing expert Andrés Azpilicueta, broadcasting from Mexico City, Mexico alongside Paco Herranz, CEO of FLYDE, based in Madrid, Spain.
Marketers and business leaders tuned in for a candid conversation on the limitations of traditional attribution methods, and how the centralization of customer data can help address the challenges of attribution in omnichannel marketing.
“We are thrilled with the overwhelming response to our first FLYDE Talks event,” said Paco Herranz. “The challenge of attribution in omnichannel marketing is a critical issue for businesses seeking efficiency and growth. Sparking interest among nearly 200 engaged professionals reaffirms the relevance of the series in driving meaningful conversations around data-driven marketing strategies.”
A DEEPER LOOK: INSIGHTS FROM THE LIVE DISCUSSION
The talk explored how marketers can go beyond siloed data and surface-level campaign metrics to fully understand customer journeys and drive profitable decisions. Topics discussed included:
Key Trends in Digital Marketing
- Artificial Intelligence: Its ability to process data and empower human teams is undeniable.
- Zero-Based Budgeting: Requires justifying every euro spent, reinforcing the need for truly omnichannel ROI measurement.
The GA4 Challenge and the End of Cookies
- The shift to Google Analytics 4 and the phasing out of third-party cookies can cause differences of up to 30% in reported sales.
- Defending the budget requires both tactical metrics (by channel) and strategic metrics (a global view).
- FLYDE adds a first-party tracking layer to audit and correct these discrepancies.
Attribution Beyond the Last Click
- Every touchpoint adds value. Limiting to “last click” can lead to misguided decisions.
Strategic Metrics and Segmentation
- Go beyond Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): focus on Customer Lifetime Value and how it varies by type of customer (repeat, occasional, etc.).
- Not all attributes weigh equally: advanced segmentation optimally prioritizes each factor.
- Centralize your data to build the “golden record”: the foundation for reliable attribution and truly personalized marketing.
FLYDE TALKS: A PLATFORM FOR INDUSTRY DIALOGUE
FLYDE Talks is designed to be a recurring series spotlighting challenges (and solutions) facing modern marketing and growth teams. Each event will feature live case studies, expert guests, and real-time walkthroughs across industries like retail, sports, travel and hospitality, and SaaS.
“FLYDE Talks represents a vital initiative for us as a company to create an open space where marketing and data professionals can share knowledge, ask tough questions, and explore innovative strategies together,” said Katie Gortz, Marketing Manager at FLYDE.
FLYDE Talks will resume in September and forthcoming information will be published through the company’s LinkedIn page.
With regard to FLYDE Talks Episode 2, Azpilicueta hinted: “There’s huge potential in showing how a football club, for example, can use data to tailor experiences for different types of fans—casual buyers, season-ticket holders, international shoppers.”
ABOUT FLYDE
FLYDE is a customer data platform built for teams who want full control over how data flows, performs, and drives revenue. By integrating online and offline sources into a single, actionable view, FLYDE helps businesses optimize campaigns, boost retention, and connect with high-value audiences in real time. Contact FLYDE for a demo to learn more.
FLYDE is proud to announce its acceptance into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Provider (ISV) Accelerate Program, a co-sell initiative for AWS Partners that provide software solutions that run on or integrate with AWS. This milestone reflects FLYDE’s technical excellence, customer commitment, and alignment with AWS best practices—following a rigorous vetting and approval process.
The AWS ISV Accelerate Program is an exclusive program for software providers that meet high technical and business standards. Gaining acceptance into the program means that FLYDE’s platform has been carefully evaluated by AWS for its scalability, security, and performance within the AWS ecosystem.
“This isn’t a badge you simply apply for—it’s earned,” said Paco Herranz, CEO of Flyde. “Joining the AWS ISV Accelerate Program is the result of months of architectural reviews, documentation, and validation. It confirms that our infrastructure is solid and that we’re ready to grow with AWS by our side.”
FLYDE also underwent the AWS Well-Architected Framework review, which evaluates design across a series of critical pillars: operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, and sustainability. This designation validates that FLYDE not only runs efficiently on AWS, but also follows cloud-native best practices for secure and scalable data infrastructure. It’s further assurance that FLYDE is built on a foundation of robust, resilient, and secure cloud infrastructure.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR FLYDE’S CLIENTS?
- Faster, more secure deployments thanks to AWS-native architecture
- Improved scalability for growing businesses
- New channels of support and innovation via collaboration with AWS sales teams
- Confidence in as a thoroughly vetted solution, built to perform at enterprise standards
FLYDE’s inclusion in the ISV Accelerate program also paves the way for deeper integrations with AWS services and access to joint go-to-market opportunities through Marketplace, which will ultimately benefit clients with faster implementations and enhanced product support.
FLYDE’s AWS-native CDP unifies customer data across omnichannel environments and transforms that data into predictive insights and personalized actions at scale. And with Brain, FLYDE’s AI copilot, you can turn your business questions into actionable answers, based on your data, using natural language.
ABOUT FLYDE
FLYDE is a Customer Data Platform (CDP) that unifies data from multiple sources—such as eCommerce, in-store purchases, CRM systems, email campaigns, and advertising platforms—into a single, comprehensive customer profile. Using ML/AI-powered predictive models, FLYDE processes this data in real-time, to empower businesses to anticipate customer behaviors, preferences, and trends, boost acquisition, lifetime value (LTV), and retention.
Contact us for a demo and let us show you how FLYDE makes data accessible and actionable, empowering businesses to deliver smarter, more personalized experiences.
FLYDE is an easy-to-use Customer Data Platform designed to meet the needs of businesses looking to improve their customers’ experience, increase retention, ROI, ROAS, and Customer Engagement.
In this blog, we will discuss the new functionality of the platform: Customer Profiling guided by predictive AI models.
What is customer profiling?
Customer profiling is a tool that allows businesses to better understand their customers and tailor their offerings to meet their specific needs. With FLYDE’s customer profiling, businesses can select a product from their catalog and see the main characteristics of the customers who purchase it. Predictive AI models evaluate all available data your company has on your customers such as their behavior, purchase patterns, product preferences, browsing habits, and more.
How does FLYDE’s customer profiling work?
Suppose a company has a product in its catalog and wants to better understand its precise customers to adapt its marketing strategy. With FLYDE, the company can select that product and use predictive AI models to identify the main characteristics of the customers who purchase it. For example, the models may reveal that customers who buy that product earn more than €40,000, log into the ecommerce page twice a week, and often make purchases in physical stores.
How can customer profiling improve your marketing strategy?
Predictive AI-guided customer profiling can significantly improve your marketing strategy by allowing you to better understand your customers and tailor your offerings to their specific needs. By using this new functionality of FLYDE, you can personalize your marketing messages to meet the specific needs and desires of your customers.
Additionally, customer profiling also allows you to improve the segmentation of your marketing campaigns. By better understanding your customers and grouping them into segments based on their characteristics, you can personalize your messages and offers for each specific segment. This will allow you to reach your customers with more relevant messages, increasing the likelihood of conversion to sales.
Identifying new potential customers with Customer Profiling
In addition to helping you better understand your current customers, FLYDE’s customer profiling also allows you to identify new potential customers. The platform’s AI uses the purchase behavior data of your current customers to find patterns and similarities between them.
These patterns help you identify new business opportunities by finding potential customers who have a similar profile to your current customers. By understanding your customers’ preferences and behaviors, you can use that information to reach a wider audience that is more likely to buy your products or services.
With FLYDE’s customer profiling, you can discover new market segments that may not have been on your radar and adjust your marketing strategy to reach them more effectively. This can result in a higher return on investment and increased customer loyalty.
Why FLYDE
Do you want your company to move on to the next level? A CDP is the key tool that will allow you to maximize the potential of your data and grow your business. Having control over all your data is now very simple.
Moreover, if you do not have IT or Data Scientist teams, this tool will allow you to outsource this function. And if you have them but want to reduce their workload and give more autonomy to your marketing and business teams when it comes to working with data, implementing an easy-to-use CDP would be the best option for your company. It will allow any single member of your company to use it, as this softwares are prepared for them.