The D2C Data Sovereignty Playbook: Tarun Kishore, CBO, Saptharushi

Duration: 18:10 2673 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

Tarun Kishore, Chief Business Officer at Saptharushi, challenges the conventional D2C mindset by arguing that while brands obsess over reaching customers across various channels, they are inadvertently paying a hidden cost to forget them. He introduces the concept of three distinct "rents" businesses pay: the visible reach rent seen in marketing spend like CAC and marketplace fees, the signal rent where platforms learn about customers while brands only see acquisition costs, and the critical memory rent where all customer data is lost once a user leaves a specific platform. Kishore provocatively states that brands are essentially paying to forget their customers because without owning the data, they start from zero every time they exit an ecosystem, leaving them with no long-term understanding of the customer journey beyond immediate transaction metrics. The landscape is shifting due to three major realities: the fragmentation of the customer across different touchpoints, the evolution of consent into a foundational infrastructure, and the transition from relying solely on AI models to leveraging data graphs. Currently, platforms only see fragmented slices of a customer's behavior—whether late-night quick commerce purchases or weekend marketplace browsing—meaning no single entity possesses a holistic view except the brand itself. However, upcoming regulations like India's DPDP Act will make consent a tradable asset that must flow with the customer rather than being a static checkbox, requiring brands to build explicit, revocable consent architectures immediately. Furthermore, in the AI era, simply buying better models is insufficient; true efficiency comes from building proprietary customer graphs that allow brands to own their intelligence rather than renting it from platforms that are smarter about the brand than the brand is about itself. To address these challenges, Kishore outlines a five-step playbook for brands to regain sovereignty over their data and relationships. First, companies must audit their rent bills to understand what they are paying to forget customers and align teams on long-term strategy rather than just quarterly CAC targets. Second, consent management must be treated as core architecture capable of proving the purpose of data usage and allowing easy revocation. Third, brands need to resolve customer identities across channels before designing any communication to ensure they are truly talking to the same person. Fourth, instead of purchasing third-party signals, brands should enrich their profiles through exchanges with non-competing partners who share consented data. Finally, organizations must measure their own graph and create internal scorecards rather than relying on platform-specific ROAS metrics that reflect the platform's performance rather than the brand's true health. Ultimately, Kishore concludes that customer sovereignty is not a brand-centric concept but one that centers entirely on the customer's rights, control, and trust. He warns that if brands continue to rely on rented reach without owning their data infrastructure, they risk becoming obsolete within six months as regulations tighten and consumer expectations evolve. The path forward requires a strategic pivot where brands stop paying to forget and start investing in building robust graphs, managing consent proactively, and resolving identities to create a unified view of the customer. By adopting this playbook, brands can secure their future loyalty, retention, and growth in an increasingly fragmented digital ecosystem where owning the data relationship is the only sustainable competitive advantage.

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Thank you. Uh good afternoon. I think this is the first individual session. I heard some very good conversation. Some of the things that I picked up uh I see somebody very thank you. Uh few things that I heard in the morning and in the last session uh were very very very very uh intriguing and something I believe in. Uh people were talking about But obsessed being obsessed with the customer. People are talking about omni channel right and we are all trying to understand our customer right while we are selling on one platform or another one whether it's a retail or whether it's a D2C platform or a qcom we all are trying to understand our customer right now while in the during the day from morning to evening you all will hear how can I reach my customer better, faster, cheaper, all these things. I want to talk to you about something that you are giving up while you do. So, it might be little provocative to hear that, but that's the reality. I will try to give you certain provocations. I'll give you certain trends or realities and then possibly give you kind of a playbook or a sprint on a Monday that you can use for your own businesses. You own the customer but you rent the reach. What happens? I'll just say the provocation number one I will ask s one question that hardly anybody would be asking today. The second there are three rents that you are paying as a business. Out of these three rents only one is the one which is seen by your CFO in their P&L. And the last one, you're paying to forget her. It's like having a girlfriend going on a date when I know she's getting married tomorrow with somebody else. Provocation. How? So, everybody's saying, "How do I reach her?" Nobody asked this. Who owns what you learn about her while I reach her? That's the big question. While I'm reaching my customer on any other platform, I'm losing out on any learning about that customer's journey and what I know about her to that platform. Three bills, three rents that you are paying as a business. The first one is the reach rent that everybody knows. If I ask anybody in the room, all the founders, all the CMOs, they will be able to tell you this number to the last decimal. Whether it's marketplace fees, retail media, CAC, anything that's what we live and I have lived over the years before I actually started my own stuff. The second rent is the signal rent. Every campaign that we run teaches the platform something about our customers while the brand is only seeing a CAC. The third rent that the brand is paying while acquiring a customer is the memory rent. the this it's a specific question to ask yourself or your data team or your marketing team and as a founder if I go off that platform today what do I know about that customer because till the day I'm on that platform I'm only talking about number of customers number of orders everything the day I'm off that platform do I know anything about it nothing so actually you have paid three rents on only one line item in your P&L dark slide. You're not just paying to reach her. You're paying to forget her because the day you go off the platform, everything's gone. You start from zero. Okay. So now what? Lots have changed in last couple of years. You've seen the the discussion on QCOM. You've seen on the D2C brands coming in. Lot of things have changed. But what has changed with the customer and the ecosystem? The shifts have moved uh in how a customer buys, how the customer's consent is being used and will be used going forward in next couple of weeks around 8 weeks down the line when the DPDP is coming in and how AI is making use of that or making you enable enable to use it better. Right? So first thing that has happened is that the customer has got fragmented completely and we know that everybody's saying it's not linear and we all are customers in our own lives. So we are fragmented. The second the consent becomes the infrastructure like consent was always some banner. I click it and that's about it. Going forward I'm going to talk about how it's not going to be just a banner. It is becoming a layer infrastructure for all the brands. And the one who move fast on that, who takes the leap on that is the one who's going to be winning. The third, the asset you think is an asset is not an asset. But the graph is going to be an asset. And I'll talk about that. So first, she got fragmented. Nobody sees her whole. What do I mean by that? Say quick commerce. I go and shop 11 11 p.m. refill. The platform says, "Oh, this is a customer who wants it every in the night late night buyer." All right, that's one side of a customer. They say, "This is the customer. Is that the customer?" Marketplace. I go and buy something on the weekend. Oh, this is a weekend shopper looking for certain specific things, sale. I come to the brand site, you heard loyalty, they think she is the loyal customer. Four, I go to the store, I buy a running shoe on a store, they think I'm old school buyer who wants a touch and feel. So nobody knows the customer at a as a whole. Everybody is talking to you and telling you about the customer in their own pieces which they define as a full customer profile. But that's not what it is because these platform only see a fragment of a same customer. Who has the advantage? Nobody else sees the customer in full or nobody meets this customer even twice except the brand itself. The only person who has a chance to meet this customer more than once is the brand. Right? But the unfortunate part is almost nobody is using it to their advantage. And that's the requirement. That's the need for of the R for the brands to do that. And they only can do it, not the platform because they only have a fragmented view of a customer. Shift two, the consent stops being a banner. It becomes an infrastructure. We all have heard about DPDP. That's the most unique thing that has happened in the world. Our DPDP laws which are coming are much more advanced than any of the advanced countries they have today. And we will realize that one of the important things that is coming into that is how consent has to be captured and flown and being tradable with the customer. The customer has the complete control. This was the thing till date. While I'm saying yesterday, it is today as well. The checkbox in the footer that's what is consent is all about today. But that's not going to be after 8 weeks. You have to have explicit consents which can be revokable right it can be audited it can be traded it it is it has to flow and travel with the customer that's the need of our and that's what will the brands will have to do with their customer data November 2026 please note that and I'm sure lot of D2C brands and all the global brands that we are working with are already thinking about it but we have to gear up for this November. That's when the consent management registrations open they are looking for a neutral consent management system which will force the consents to be updated and moving with the customer and anytime you me as a customer should be able to revoke our consent which we have given to any platform. If you're not having that then that's the sprint for you not for next quarter tomorrow. So it's very very clear that we are really seeing something coming in but I don't know if you have acted as fast as it should be. Shift three in the AI era. Now we have been talking a lot about AI and you will listen to lot about AI going forward as well. What happens in AI era? Everybody in the room is trying to buy a better model, right? Everybody says I want better AI model, right? But is that what it is all about going forward? And now as well, it's already happening that no model is the best. You'll always find a better model. You will find a different model. What makes a difference is the graph. This is where the entire AI efficiency will lie wherein you use the model you use the build the graphs which make AI model work better for you right and not many companies are doing that but they are striving to do that. I can see a very clear movement from a partial fragmented view or a just an AI model to moving into a graph which is called a customer graph which makes the AI model more effective and efficient. So one thing which I believe and would want to say and make it a point that AI models rented rented on somebody else's infra makes them smarter not you. So as a brand the more we focus on our own graphs it will make you as the brand as the marketeer more smarter than the platform which is owning all the learning all about you. Yeah. So while I did some provocation, I gave certain realities. What do I do? I give you a very clear playbook with five things to do and you can do it today or just wake up on Monday morning, speak to your team, sit with the team and do this playbook. Audit the rent bill which we spoke about. consent as an architecture right because that's imperative resolve the identities first we all have been talking about it I'm I'm going to double click on all these points rich enrich by exchange I'm going to double click on that measure your own graph what we spoke about the graph you need to measure your own graph so playbook one audit the rent bill you cannot C what happens is as I said if you remember there is one rent that is coming into the P&L you need to look at the other two boxes and align your teams and ask this question if we stop tomorrow what we will know about the customer will they know anything about it if they don't do know anything about it then you are actually paying to forget her so please make this as a strategic discussion. This is cost of reach is a finance number like what he said but signal is a strategy discussion and this is a long-term strategy for the brand. We are so obsessed with CAC. We are so obsessed with the first trend that we forget this and a lot of brands are facing this and I have a firsthand uh experience of it because I have a women entrepreneur in our family running a D2C business and they went through this the day they went off the platform they lost everything. There's nothing left with them. Second build consent as an architecture which is imperative for any brand in this era. After 8 weeks you will be forced to do that. If you don't do then you are just doing a disservice for the brand because you will not exist or you'll not be able to use any of your customer understanding. The whole thing the question that you need to ask is can you produce what she consented to and for what purpose and prove that the customer can revoke that consent. If you're not able to answer this question today, you have a task on hand my friend. This is just few weeks down. You better do it today because you'll be forced to do it and you'll not have time. And it's not like an overnight you can turn this out. You have to do that. It's not that your first print as I said not your quarter three. It's tomorrow right? If we are not here >> three resolve your identity now we we heard lot about omni omni channel uh communication omni channel strategy we do all those things we do omni channel creatives and communication without even knowing if I'm talking to the same customer on different platforms so that before I go to the communication I need to understand my omni channel behavior of my customer first And that can only happen if I resolve the identity of my customer first before I design a communication and a creative. Uh we start reverse but we need to go here. How many distinct customers you have? This is the question you ask your CMO, your marketing, your data team. If they say X million, ask them how sure are they? The confidence level and the shortity will tell you where you are. So resolving the identity is what is critical and that we are doing we we as a product we are able to do that for certain brands and publishers and that's where it is very very critical. The fourth one enrich by exchange not by purchase. So we we all have marketers have been in a habit of taking third party data signals right. What I'm saying is please do not buy 3P signals just like that. Name three non-competing brands who can have the kind of customer you want for yourself. When you have done the consent, when you have done the the ID resolution, this is your next step. You will be able to see the profile of your customer and understanding by non-competing brands. That's why some of the leading brands have already started doing it. And this is what will make a difference. This is what will lead you to the graph. This is what will lead you to the better ROI, not the CAC. The last measure your own graph. Once you have done all that, you have your own graph. You will be able to measure yourself, not a platform's ROAS. A platform will give you a ROAS which is their own rate, you know, scorecard. It's not your brand scorecard. We mistake a platform scorecard as a my brand scorecard. That's that's the mistake we should not do going forward because there are so many wall gardens. We will get lost in that. So you take a control and do your own scorecard. So you can take a picture of this slide. This is what you got to do. This is your holy grail which you got to do next Monday. If not today, tomorrow. These are hard-hitting questions. We will revisit a lot of strategies but this is what will lead you to a better customer loyalty retention repeat whatever you heard about and understanding in next 3 years if you want to stay fine. So last one sovereignty does not end with her with the brand it ends with her right it's not the brand the sovereignty with is with the customer we need to put that ahead that's where the entire customer's consent the purpose and revocability has to come in okay the light slide went out I just want to say you own the customer don't pay to forget her. You've been paying to forget her. That's the only thing that you should ask for. What are you paying for? And if you know the answer of that, you won't stay for long. If not, you're dead in next 6 months. Thank you very much.