Using Technology to Fill the Gaps in Your Marketing Funnel

“I’ve always looked at data and patterns to solve customer and business problems and marketing problems,” said Shana Sood, chief marketing and communications officer at Prudential. She has always leveraged her background as a data analyst in her current role, which focuses on customer marketing and technology, she said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s January virtual conference. When reaching the customer requires a multi-layered approach, analytics can help fill the gaps, she says.Sood envisions Prudential’s technology as serving two layers of customers: B-to-B-to-C, from the tech team to the financial advisors to the clients. She analyzes both existing technology stacks and new models to determine the best approach to “collect the breadcrumbs all the way from the start,” identifying client needs and simplifying financial jargon so end users can better understand it. “For me, how technology bridges this gap is: first, tell us how the customer is speaking about these products, how the customer is thinking about these products, [and] how they shop. What are their journeys?” she said. “And then, how do I then prop up my advisor with the right tools and the right education to be able to [provide] the right product based on whatever the customer needs at that point.”The key, she says, is “data-driven personalization,” which integrates with the content management system, Adobe website interaction insights, and the Salesforce marketing cloud. Prudential’s platform includes a feedback loop that shows the customer journey: what they searched for on the website and where it led them. It then uses that info to identify the best emails to send the customer based on their current needs. It also helps determine the next best action, such as a phone call from an advisor to help the customer with their financial decisions. “All of this is made possible with data pipelines between multiple systems,” Sood said. Because financial decisions impact many areas of a person’s life, they can be highly emotional moments. Sood sees retirement planning and life insurance selection as major emotional hurdles. “These things very quickly and very vehemently trigger avoidance from the customer, because as humans, we don’t want to see ourselves old. We want to avoid the topic of not being here,” she said. No matter how simple or complex the product, the customer must be emotionally ready for the conversation. And of course, an already fraught discussion can easily become bogged down by financial compliance language and daunting legalese.It’s Sood’s job to bridge the gap between emotional need and financial product being sold: “When you have a kid, you’re going on Google and you’re searching for, ‘How do I finance their education?’ You’re not searching for, ‘How do I open a 529?’” When the average consumer doesn’t know what “529” means, including that phrase in all your financial messaging may not help. But bidding on keywords like “confused about kid’s education” will. “You’re almost translating,” said moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, business reporter at the Seattle Times. Incorporating Emerging Technologies Sood sees AI as the latest step in a much longer evolution of data-driven marketing. For decades, teams have used statistics and manual analysis to predict customer behavior. AI “has removed a lot of those manual gymnastics.” Rather than replacing human judgment, AI is accelerating it, especially through generative and agentic use cases that help scale content and decision-making.At Prudential, that means empowering advisors with AI tools that synthesize complex product information into clear, conversation-ready guidance. Instead of navigating a “labyrinth of pages and microsites,” advisors can prompt an AI agent to surface the most relevant products for a client’s needs, streamlining preparation while leaving the final judgment firmly in human hands. Sood says AI reduces friction and manual labor, but “it is [ultimately] the judgment of the advisor on what packet to use and what to say.” AI’s greatest gift to the industry has been streamlining a process that has long existed. Shana Sood, chief marketing and communications officer at Prudential Financial, was interviewed during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)Sood cautions that AI should be used sparingly in the financial services industry because it involves taking risks with people’s money. Identifying fraudulent behavior is a serious concern possibly best left to human critical thinking. She also warns that website personalization techniques have to be carefully employed so that they are compliant with FINRA and SEC regulations, subtleties that sometimes AI does not understand. That is my biggest challenge [with AI],” Sood said. “I have to be very mindful, and I have to adopt the regulatory framework in using and scaling a new tool.” The implementation of AI tools, she says, should involve a thorough exploration of customers’ needs, many rounds of testing and case studies, consultations with legal and regulatory experts, and an intentional measurement plan that notes both financial successes and harms. Sood sees herself as a “realist” when it comes to technology. I’ve worked in the data grind so much that I am always aware of the 100 ways we can fail in adopting a new technology,” she said. “You can adopt a new shiny tool, but then if your processes and people are not structured to use it, then it’s going to fail.” And she emphasizes that less is more: KPI’s need to be consolidated at a business level. “If a company has multiple product teams or multiple business divisions, and each of them is incentivized to sort of make their email program deliver more click-throughs and more engagement, they will keep bombarding their customers with their next best message without realizing that ultimately it’s the same customer that is being reached out [to] by all three of them.” Sood says strong vendor partnerships help organizations strike the right balance between healthy skepticism and falling behind, especially as competitors adopt new technologies. She emphasized the importance of digging beyond headline success stories to understand how and why a tool delivered results, and whether those conditions actually apply in a financial services environment. Once relevance and adaptability are established through due diligence, the goal is to move quickly into testing, embracing early adoption without skipping the hard questions.A Legacy Company Looks to the Future As Prudential enters its 151st year, the corporate culture continues to innovate and grow. “At Prudential, there is a very intentional strategy to carve out innovation centers. Not blunt-force tools to disrupt everything. There is a very careful balance,” she said. “We carve out a very intentional sort of audience, a test case [for a specific] environment, we will try a new tool, and we will see how it does.” Progress is not just about chasing new technologies but also refining the ones already in place. To better reach their audiences, Sood says companies should start by maximizing the value of their existing technology and data, “milking the cash cow” of the current tech stack. Most organizations already hold rich customer, behavioral, and churn data, but it lives in siloed systems that prevent teams from spotting patterns or delivering timely, personalized experiences. Simply connecting those systems isn’t enough. Without cross-channel orchestration, aligned content, and clear next-best-action strategies, even unified data won’t translate into meaningful customer engagement.Looking ahead, Prudential anticipates a major wealth transfer from Baby Boomers to Millennials. Don’t assume that the wealth transfer will keep your paradigm the same. “Don’t assume you can use the same language [and] tactics to be able to resonate with who the wealth is being transferred to. If it is more women, if it is more young customers, then you have to change how you’re staggering on the digitization spectrum,” she said. The organization is currently researching future customer needs, motivations, behaviors, and communication styles to refine how it presents itself to them. “Anything that can simplify and unify—that is what is most needed in the financial services landscape.” Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by ArtemisDiana/iStock)