Overcoming Data Challenges in Marketing: Navigating Privacy, Silos & Insights
A conversation with Liana Dubois, Chief Marketing Officer at Nine.
Marketing has always been about knowing your customer. But in today’s digital-first world, marketers are drowning in more data than ever before—spread across platforms, governed by shifting privacy laws, and often trapped in silos that make it impossible to see the whole picture.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” That’s how Liana Dubois, Chief Marketing Officer at Nine, frames the challenge. With over 12 years at Australia’s largest locally owned media organization, Liana has lived through the industry’s transition from siloed datasets to a unified, privacy-first strategy built on first-party data.
In this conversation, she breaks down the realities of marketing data today: how to extract insight from information overload, why first-party data is the cornerstone of personalized marketing, and why creativity—not just algorithms—remains the beating heart of growth.
The Data Dilemma
At Nine, the challenge is on a massive scale. With television, radio, publishing, marketplaces, and a streaming service (Stan, Australia’s answer to Netflix), the company has touchpoints with nearly every Australian. In fact, 22 million of the country’s 27 million residents are signed in to one of Nine’s platforms.
That scale is a marketer’s dream—and nightmare.
“Having a 22 million-person dataset is wonderful,” Liana says, “but it doesn’t give me all the answers. It tells me who I’ve got, how many I’ve got, and what they’re doing on our platforms. But it doesn’t tell me why they’re with me, or what they do when they’re not.”
Here lies the trap many marketers fall into: mistaking data points for insights. Numbers can tell you what is happening, but not why. And if you don’t understand the why, you can’t design strategies that deepen loyalty or attract the next wave of audiences.
From Data to Insight:
Data = The What (e.g., “1M users watched Nine Now last night”)
Insight = The Why + How (e.g., “They watched reality TV for social connection—so let’s design campaigns that tap into that human truth”).
Breaking Down the Walls
Nine didn’t always have this holistic view. The company was once four separate businesses—TV, publishing, radio, and streaming—each operating with their own datasets.
The turning point was implementing an Adobe Customer Data Platform (CDP), which allowed Nine to collapse silos into a single customer view.
“The CDP has been paramount,” Liana explains. “It’s the only way we could truly see audiences moving between the Sydney Morning Herald, Nine Now, and our other brands. Without it, we’d still be flying blind.”
For organizations still wrestling with siloed data, her advice is blunt: make a CDP your first investment.
The Power of a CDP:
Before → Four isolated businesses, fragmented data.
After → Unified customer view, enabling personalized journeys and smarter monetization.
The Rise of First-Party Data
If data is the fuel of modern marketing, then first-party data is the premium grade. Nine made a strategic choice years ago: requiring logins across platforms. At the time, it felt risky. Today, it feels visionary.
“Whether or not cookies sunset doesn’t matter,” Liana says. “First-party data, treated ethically and with a privacy-first lens, will only become more important.”
For brands relying heavily on third-party data, this is the wake-up call. Consumers are increasingly selective about who they share data with, and governments are tightening regulations. Only those who build trust and collect data transparently will thrive.
Why First-Party Data Wins:
✅ Owned & durable
✅ Privacy-compliant
✅ Higher accuracy
✅ Stronger personalization
❌ No reliance on third-party cookies
The Privacy-Personalization Balance
Marketers are obsessed with personalization. But done wrong, it crosses into “creepy” territory.
“If I’ve bought a polka-dot blouse, why am I still stalked around the internet by polka-dot blouse ads?” Liana laughs. “That’s not helpful. That’s just lazy targeting.”
Her recommendation: avoid over-indexing on micro-targeting. Hyper-granular personalization may squeeze short-term gains, but it fails to nurture long-term demand.
Instead, Liana advocates for cohort-based targeting at scale—big enough to avoid creepiness, broad enough to capture future demand, yet precise enough to feel relevant.
Targeting Spectrum:
❌ Micro-Targeting → Creepy, short-term ROI
✅ Cohort Targeting → Balanced, scalable, future-proof
Measuring What Matters
With over a century of legacy across publishing, radio, and TV, Nine doesn’t just measure clicks or impressions. It measures brand equity and audience trust—metrics that can’t be captured in an overnight ratings report.
“We fall victim to treasuring what we measure,” Liana warns. “Instead, we need to measure what we treasure.”
Her approach mirrors the brands that advertise on Nine. McDonald’s, Uber, Audi—they don’t just measure transactions. They measure growth in customer base, frequency of engagement, and emotional resonance.
Balanced Marketing Scorecard:
| Metric Type | Example | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Audience Growth | New viewers, subscribers | Expands reach |
| Engagement | Time spent, repeat visits | Builds loyalty |
| Brand Health | Awareness, trust, salience | Long-term equity |
| Commercial Outcomes | Ad revenue, conversions | Ties marketing to business goals |
AI, Ethics, and the Future
Like most CMOs, Liana is excited by AI—but cautious.
“AI will only ever be as good as its tradesperson. We’re probably in peak hype cycle now. Eventually it will normalize, like the internet or data once did.”
She sees ethics becoming a dominant theme in marketing tech’s future. In fact, she predicts the rise of a new role: the Chief Ethics Officer.
Back to the Heart of Marketing: Creativity
Despite the hype around data and AI, Liana’s closing message is simple: marketing is still about humans.
“Humans buy on emotion and justify with fact. Let’s bring back a renaissance of creativity—storytelling that makes people feel something. Because that’s what drives growth.”
In her view, data should inform creativity, not replace it. The best campaigns are powered by insights but carried by emotion.
📑 Template: Creativity + Data Playbook
Use data to uncover insights (the “why”)
Translate into human truths
Build campaigns rooted in emotion & storytelling
Measure both brand impact & performance metrics
Final Word
In a world obsessed with dashboards, data lakes, and martech stacks, it’s easy to forget the basics. Marketing isn’t about chasing every new metric. It’s about understanding people, respecting their privacy, and telling stories that move them.
As Liana reminds us:
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
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