Neil Hoyne

Managing Relationships in the Age of Data

Behaviour and Psychology, Big Data and Analytics

The ContraMinds Podcast is available on

Neil serves as the Chief Measurement Strategist at Google.

He is also a Senior Fellow at The Wharton School.

Most recently, Neil authored a book titled, Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts. In this book, he offers a simple, research-backed playbook that anyone can use to find their best customers and develop relationships that last.

Neil holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Purdue University, an MBA from the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and a Certificate of Management Excellence from Harvard Business School.

Show Notes

The gap between sophisticated data tools and scarcity in building relationships [03:31 – 05:12]

Digital Marketing – Making Statements vs. Conversations [05:55 – 08:04]

Challenges to Measuring Path-to-Purchase [08:50 – 10:25]

On the “Single Interaction, Marry Me Syndrome” [11:10 – 13:58]

Art of making Simple Conversations [14:40 – 19:37]

Common mistakes Start-Ups make when it comes gathering Customer Data [20:29 – 23:17]

Challenge of building Engagement in Digital Marketing [25:48 – 32:13]

Marrying Authentic Relationship Skills with Data-Crunching Skills [33:54- 37:32]

The relevance of CLV as a metric in today’s world [37:57 – 39:25]

How should CPG companies look at CLV [41:03 – 42:33]

Alternatives to CLV as a metric in a Digital World [42:57 – 45:29]

How can we leverage Information and Research done by Academic Institutions [46:24 – 51:48]

Some Papers and People who have influenced Neil [52:47 – 58:21]

Cross-Pollination and Driving this thinking within the Company [59:02 – – 01:01:31]

How to start Campfire-like learning moments [01:01:59 – 01:05:52]

Archetypes or Personas of people to identify and invest [01:06:04 – 01:08:56]

The importance of a Testing Culture [01:09:27 – 01:10:52]

On the Uses and Abuses of Metrics [01:11:50 – 01:16:08]

 What should an 18-year old at a University be studying today [01:16:33 – 01:21:06]

The books that have influenced Neil [01:21:14 – 01:23:05]

What does the word “successful” means to Neil [01:23:09 – 01:24:40]

Neil’s Dream Dinner Guest List [01:24:47 – 01:26:08]

The Best Advice Neil has ever received [01:26:15 – 01:29:23]

What is something that Neil believes in that nobody agrees with him on [01:29:28 – 01:32:06]

A Guest Neil would like to see featured on ContraMinds [01:32:37 – 01:33:24]

Additional Content

Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts

Buy the Book

When the world’s biggest brands want to sharpen their digital marketing strategy, they call Neil Hoyne – Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist and Senior Fellow at The Wharton School. In his first book, he offers a simple, research-backed playbook that anyone can use to find their best customers and develop relationships that last.

Under pressure for quick results and facing fierce marketplace competition, too many marketers are boxed into spaghetti-to-the-wall forms of digital marketing that limit the potential of their long hours, countless experiments, and warehouses of data. And in the end, they watch their competition sprint ahead.


But what if you built a business around long-term relationships with customers, using data to understand who they are, what they need, and where to find more customers just like them? You can. And you’ll leave your competitors, with all of their data and their short-term thinking, to poke around in the scraps. In Converted, you will learn how to:


  Understand the full value of each relationship

  Engage in an ongoing conversation with your best customers

  Ask the right questions so you can anticipate your customers’ needs

  Find more great customers


Episode Transcript

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