The CMO Club

Why AI Adoption Fails Without Clean Data

• Breanna Lawlor

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Most organizations approach AI adoption as a technology initiative. Shelly Alvarez argues that's the wrong place to start. The real work is helping teams build the confidence to experiment, make mistakes, and rethink how work gets done—without sacrificing quality along the way.

In this conversation, Shelly, VP of Marketing Services at Apply Digital, shares how her team is embedding AI into the organization's operating model. From creating an internal AI council to proactively bringing AI-powered solutions to clients before they're requested, she offers a practical look at what it takes to move an organization from AI curiosity to meaningful operational change.

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Breanna Lawlor:

Most organizations treat AI adoption as a technology problem. But if you're a CMO right now, the harder truth is that the tech is often the easy part. It's the people, trust, and culture where rollouts tend to stall. And right now, with AI moving faster than most teams can absorb, the leaders who are getting results aren't the ones with the most sophisticated tools. They're the ones who are building psychological safety for their teams to experiment, fail, and keep going. Today, I'm joined by Shelly Alvarez, VP of Marketing Services at Apply Digital. She leads the post-sales delivery teams responsible for turning client strategy into execution, and she's been navigating a full organizational AI transformation in real time. In this episode, we talk about how Shelly built an internal AI council that proactively surfaces solutions before clients even ask for them, why she puts quality above speed as her guiding philosophy, even when the pressure to move fast is coming from the top, and what it took to shift her team's energy from tension to genuine excitement about where things are heading. I'm Breanna Lawlor, and this is the CMO Club Podcast. Shelly, welcome. Shelly, thank you so much for meeting with me and being willing to speak with me on The CMO Club. I'm very excited to be here at Iteros Activate Summit. It sounds like you've been here before. More importantly, I'd love to hear a little bit about you, your role, and the company you work within.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah. Well, thank you for the invite. I appreciate you including me here. Of course. So I'm Vice President of Marketing Services- … at Apply Digital. So I manage our delivery teams that are post-sales. And for those of listening, we were formerly Ragnarok. Yes. And we were acquired by Apply Digital last year. It's been about a year now, so.

Breanna Lawlor:

Very exciting. To be acquired there's a lot that comes with this. Yes. There's new energy, new resourcing, hopefully. Yes. Has it changed how things are operating?

Shelly Alvarez:

Yes, it really has. So getting acquired- Yeah … was a change. Yes. And then we just had another big change last month-ish. We got a new CEO. Nice. New energy, exactly. So two big… Yeah. Yeah. Two big changes. And his focus, he comes from an AI background, and his name is Ali, but we call him, affectionately we call him Dr. Ali. Nice. Yeah, so he is really changing our landscape- … of AI. He's shifted our mindset, and I know a lot of people will think about AI of it's a cost savings or a cost-cutting- Sure endeavor, and he's really shifted our mindset of no, that's not what he wants to do. He wants it to be a multiplier. Ah. So for us to be able to go, you know, bigger, better, faster- Yes … in everything that we do. So he has positioned and kind of challenged us to say, all of the processes and all of the deliverables that we do today, how can we do it differently with AI, right? Okay. And so that's really kind of our marching orders- Yes … this year. And He's also really big on experimenting. So we celebrate our wins, and we also laugh at our fails because and- And learn from them. And learn from them. If, if you're using AI, you're gonna have some failures. And you know what? I'm a big advocate of you gotta inject laughter into everything you do. So- Sure helps … if you've got some funny fails- Yes … you know, share them and laugh about them, learn from them- … and go on. So.

Breanna Lawlor:

Thank you for sharing all of that, too. Yeah. And you had mentioned something sort of in our preamble that your new CEO wants AI to be somewhat embedded in the DNA of- Yes … the organization. In your view, what does that look like? Because when it's embedded, it's not just- Mm … layered on top to existing- Yeah … workflows. It's AI native at our core, this is how we're operating from a completely different standpoint. So can you- Yeah … walk me through kind of the A to B process of shape-shifting the organization?

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah. No, absolutely. It kinda goes back to what I said about those everything from our processes- Right … to our deliverables. Right? We are being challenged with mapping out what does the non-AI way look like- Yes … and then what does the AI way- … look like, and how do we get there? Right. And then even when you get to the AI way, how do you continue to make it better, better, better- Yes month over month or, or year over year? Yeah. So is it challenging the status quo? I'm gonna say that. Challenging that status quo of- Right … even if you have something today that's working really well-

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah… Shelly Alvarez: how Right. So. I think that, yeah, that's how you stay ahead of the curve.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah, yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

For your customer base- … the people that you're working within, are they as AI forward as your organization is, or d- is there a little bit of friction there and as far as- Hmm … what you're trying to do internally and then how you're presenting, how you're showing up externally?

Shelly Alvarez:

I think that they are We had the keynote this morning here at Iterable. Yes. Nova was rolled out, right, all of the AI tools. So I know that both of our customers are, you know, in the AI atmosphere. I think if you would've asked me that question three years ago- Yeah … we were trying to convince people that they need to use AI. We don't see that anymore. You know- So it's opposite customers, yeah. Customers aren't, they don't need to be convinced. But they are asking for direction, right? They're asking for help of- Yeah … where can we use it? Where do we maybe not use it, right? Yeah. Right. And how do we get in that low-hanging fruit, right? Like, where's a great starting spot for AI? So I think that's where we're seeing most of our customers come in- Yeah … of where do I start? Yes. How do I get started?

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes.

Shelly Alvarez:

And where do I not jump into the deep end?

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

Would you consider Apply Digital an enterprise level organization?

Shelly Alvarez:

Yes.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes. Okay.

Shelly Alvarez:

Absolutely.

Breanna Lawlor:

So with that, there are gonna be some deep-rooted processes- Yeah ways of working that fundamentally can be hard to change.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

What have you seen to work well when you're making these changes, whether that's empowering your people, or you're trying to lead with curiosity and experimentation, and what results are you getting back?

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah. So I'm gonna kind of circle back to- Please do around to what I said. Don't, don't go to the deep end, right? Sure. Start at the shallow end. Yeah. And where we're seeing AI work really well is in that operational layer. Totally. Right? Things that are very repeatable. Building reports, pulling analytics. Yes. I teased earlier today in our session that AI never

tells you at 5:

00 on Friday that they have to leave- because they're going to happy hour, right? If you're having someone- Not yet. Yeah, not yet. Yeah. Come on, Claude. Yeah. No, you don't need to leave. But so if you're depending on people to re- pull reports

on a Friday at 5:

00- Sure. Right … that's a great use case for-

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes… Shelly Alvarez: AI, right? I think we're also seeing personalization at scale of where… I can remember back when I was on the brand side-… We would have a data team don't need that now, right? No, it changed. You can have smaller teams, you know, getting to those same outcomes. So maybe that one might be too scary for people. Could be. They're like, "Wait, I'm not ready for personalization." But you should be ready to do your reports. Yeah. And I think you should also feel very comfortable of AI finding anomalies, right? Yes, yeah. It's really good at sifting through things- Big time … very quickly. Yeah. You know, you can ask it,"Go find my worst performing-… campaign, or my best performing campaign- Absolutely or a campaign that stopped," right? Yeah. It can find it- … like that. So to answer your question, where do we still wanna be cautious- Yes … right? AI is going to only be as good as the data. So if it's garbage in-… you're gonna get garbage out. Right? This has come up a lot-

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah … in conversations with other leaders. Your, your data's got to be solid, and you may get faster- … to an answer, but you're just gonna get faster to a wrong answer. Yes. Right? So you-

Breanna Lawlor:

Does it have to be unified, or can it still be fragmented? You said data has to be solid.

Shelly Alvarez:

I'm gonna go with unified, and that has to be an evolution. Yes. Not everybody can say, "Okay, next month, I'm gonna have a unified database," right? No. I know it ha- But you do have to get towards a unified database. That way, you've got one source of truth. Because if it's constantly fragmented- Right … you're gonna constantly have hands going- Yeah … into those different silos- Yes … and making changes- … and just causing more chaos for anyone.

Breanna Lawlor:

And they're not always communicating with each other.

Shelly Alvarez:

They're not.

Breanna Lawlor:

Right? Yeah. So especially if there's a, a human component. Yeah. AI can make mistakes. Yeah. Human can make mistakes. Hopefully we all learn- Absolutely … from that and then- Yeah … we iterate on it. Yeah. Do you feel like you have a fairly strong customer base with which you can experiment and try things out internally as far as your own AI process adaptation and also what you're trying to serve up for your customers?

Shelly Alvarez:

Oh, absolutely. One really fun thing that we're doing with our team is we're meeting on a weekly basis, and I'm gonna call it, for lack of better words, my AI team, right? It … They do other things, but it's our little AI council.

Breanna Lawlor:

That's great.

Shelly Alvarez:

And even if customers haven't asked them to do something, we've challenged them. You know, go find something that your customer's doing- Ooh, yes … that's manual, and go see if you can do it bigger, better, faster with AI.

Breanna Lawlor:

Excellent.

Shelly Alvarez:

So they just- Great … yeah, they proactively do it- … and then they go show it to the customer. So we don't have to wait for the customer to come to us.

Breanna Lawlor:

No.

Shelly Alvarez:

Let's see what we can develop for them. And it's okay for them to say no.

Breanna Lawlor:

Of course.

Shelly Alvarez:

It happens. Yeah. If a customer says, "I don't wanna do it that way. I'm not-" Yeah… "comfortable with that."

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah.

Shelly Alvarez:

No worries.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes. Yeah. Of course. You will find some way to do it. Yeah. And it usually comes from, this is a pain point. Yeah. We've been repeating this. It's been very manual. There's gotta be a bigger, better way- Yeah … that we can do it. And you're like- Yeah … ding, ding, ding. We've got the solution for you. Yeah. But having… Taking that proactive approach is really valuable because in the conversations that I've had with leaders over the past few months, one thing that comes up is curiosity. There's usually a tipping point. People have fear, but if you have a willingness to try things out, you're often gonna get to a more informed result than if you were just to do the same thing. Yep. But people are looking for a guide through that process. Yeah. It's really hard to just have the onus be on you, whether you're a leader- or you're a contributor, to just go ahead and experiment and change all our processes overnight. You need someone- Yeah … to be like, "Here's what we did. Tell us w- where you wanna get to. We'll walk you through step by step-" Yeah … "how to get there." So much to be said for the foundational layer. I know you referenced the operational layer as a fundamental component, too. In your view, are there a few different stages to this AI progression as far as adoption?

Shelly Alvarez:

I think so. Like with everything that you do, it's gotta be an evolution. Yes. Right? Don't go to the biggest, scariest, most complex problems that you need to solve, right? Get comfortable, right? Get comfortable with some of those more simplistic things. Yeah. Those reports that you're running or the data that you need to go get. You're gonna end up trusting the AI more. You're gonna end up trusting yourself more. You're gonna get more excited. If I have an AI win- Yeah … because I've gotten AI to build something for me that I was- Sure doing manually- … i'm super excited about it. Yeah. Right? I'm proud. I'm telling people. Yeah. Right? So just start with those more simple challenges- Yeah … and then work your way up to more complex.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah. Simple things that arguably take a lot of manual effort- Yeah … and can be replicated, and that's where this tool then becomes available- Yeah and can yield- Yep … some impressive ROI.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yep.

Breanna Lawlor:

I'd love to hear sort of the, a temperature gauge in your conversation earlier with people in the room during your speaker session. What kinda came up? What were some common challenges or themes that presented themselves? Oh. And were you surprised at what came up?

Shelly Alvarez:

The common theme that came up- … which, okay, I'm gonna show my age, I've been in CRM space for 30 years.

Breanna Lawlor:

So you have a wealth of expertise.

Shelly Alvarez:

Thank you. Yes. As my kids would say,"You're advanced. You know, not old. You're advanced, Mom." Thank you. We've had the same challenges for 30 years. And that's getting to clean data.

Breanna Lawlor:

Right.

Shelly Alvarez:

Right? That somehow we've, you know, as humans, we have not solved that, right? No. So that was a theme today. How do you make sure that you can trust your data?

Breanna Lawlor:

Right.

Shelly Alvarez:

How do you make sure that you have clean data before you use AI? Right? Because think I said it earlier, garbage in, garbage out, right? If you are using AI, but your data isn't where it needs to be- … then, like I said earlier, you're just gonna fail faster, right? So-

Breanna Lawlor:

It's like a make-work situation.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah. So that was a theme that came up today, and so did it surprise me? Yeah. No. And I think if you and I sat down 10 years from now-

Breanna Lawlor:

Right

Shelly Alvarez:

we could have the same conversation. Yeah. Because I think it's naive to think that every customer is gonna solve their data challenges, because these customers are still growing. Whether they're acquiring another company or adding a new product- Yes … right, they are have some growth maybe that wasn't expected, or changes- Right that wasn't expected. Sure. So you just have to make a conscious effort to- Yeah … continuously work on that data to keep it as clean and structured as possible.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah, and that's a really good point to keep in mind. Yeah. Maybe isn't the most glamorous aspect of it- Yeah … but if you do the fundamental work, there's- Yeah so many things you can layer on top of it. And get results. I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. Okay. But you had mentioned speed and cleanliness of data as being a source of importance. If you had to choose one theme as far as your philosophy to approaching AI for the year- Okay … and you had to choose between speed, experimentation, and quality- what would you lean into? You can only choose one.

Shelly Alvarez:

I can only choose one? And one.

Breanna Lawlor:

Only choose one. You… And you can get creative with how you respond to this.

Shelly Alvarez:

Okay, I'm gonna back out of it. I'm gonna take speed off the table.

Breanna Lawlor:

Okay.

Shelly Alvarez:

Okay, I'm taking speed off the table, but now I've gotta choose between quality and experimentation? You're asking a marketer to choose between quality?

Breanna Lawlor:

I know. How dare I?

Shelly Alvarez:

I know. Okay. So we're always challenging our customers to experiment more, but I've gotta then take that one off the table. It's gotta be quality, right? I think no matter what you do, no matter how much you experiment, no matter how slow, fast you go, you've gotta put quality over everything. So I'm very comfortable with my answer there. Quality over everything.

Breanna Lawlor:

And do you think a lot of that comes from having sound knowledge of your customers, and then informing the AI that you're using of what sort of you wanna get to as your end result, and having that clean data? Is that kind of- Yeah the lens that you're looking at it from?

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah. You know, my customers care about speed, but they care about quality a lot more, you know? And, and sometimes when we're building a solution, they don't even wanna know how we got to the solution.

Breanna Lawlor:

Isn't that fascinating?

Shelly Alvarez:

They wanna know that we have the solution for them, right? Okay. That that's what we were hired- … to do. So-

Breanna Lawlor:

Can you share a little bit about the industries that you often work within- … or kind of, like, where they're at as far as their process when you come in- Yeah … and support?

Shelly Alvarez:

We have a variety of industries. So we don't really have anything that we say we just do this particular- Sure industry. We love working, well, with all of them, but we have financial. We succeed very well there. We succeed very well-

Breanna Lawlor:

That's, that's an interesting point because- Yeah … you know, I had a conversation earlier, and finance was an industry that was- Okay … sort of flagged as a maybe a little bit more cautious around- Yeah aI.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

So can you speak to that? If that's someone that you're working with- Yeah … how are you navigating that?'Cause they have a little bit more rigorous structures in place from a privacy standpoint, and regulation-

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah,… Breanna Lawlor: and There's, there's a lot there, and if things don't go as planned, there's a lot of serious repercussions. Yeah. I would say that for our customers that are in financial or in fintech, we have- Mm … more collaboration with them than we do with any other customer. Huh. Right? Let's just say a shoe customer perhaps, right? Sure. If you make a mistake on an email in shoes, we're all gonna live. We're all gonna be okay, right? But if you make a, a mistake with a customer in a more regulated industry, there are some higher stakes there. So- … what I see on our customers that may be more in retail, they may hand us something that we execute, but our customers in the financial space- It's collaboration all day long, right? To make sure that we understand their needs, that they make sure they understand if we have any limitations, and then- Yes vice versa as well. So just really extensive collaboration- … with that type of industry.

Breanna Lawlor:

A true partner to figure out- Yes … what safeguards need to be in place so that we can- Yes … run wild with this, you know, thing we're focused on.

Shelly Alvarez:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Knowing those parameters- Yeah … where everyone knows them- Yeah so that we don't step on anything that we shouldn't be stepping on.

Breanna Lawlor:

No, that's wise. And you're an expert- Yeah … in your space, marketing services, VP of marketing services. Yeah. But the p- people on the side who are your clients in finance- Yeah … are an expertise in their area. Yeah. And then you have this symbiosis as you- Yeah connect and figure out what outcome do we wanna get to, and then maybe are you reverse engineering the process a little bit with them, knowing where you wanna get to and how AI can support? Or is it like you build it as you are flying it?

Shelly Alvarez:

That's a very interesting thought. I'm, I'm kinda thinking about that a second. Do we reverse engineer it? Probably not.

Breanna Lawlor:

Knowing, knowing what outcome you wanna get to, and then-

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah… Breanna Lawlor: how it can help. I mean, sure, I'm sure that there are… My team could be listening right now and go, "Shelly, remember, yes, we reversed it here." Yeah. But usually more we're marching, you know, in the direction- of the solution. Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

That makes sense. I wanna ask you something 'cause you- Yeah … related to your team. I feel like when you're in a, a leadership position, you have this role where people look to you for guidance, they look to you for answers. You're also tasked with empowering your team, empowering your clients, and then following the mandate of whatever the board or leadership suggests, whether they're your partners or above you. How do you navigate that tension and take action meaningfully when it comes to AI and knowing what next best step to take?

Shelly Alvarez:

Hmm. Okay.

Breanna Lawlor:

And maybe you don't feel that. Maybe you don't have the internal or the external pressure. Maybe you're like, "I'm good. We're, we're just rolling with this." And feel free to say that, too.

Shelly Alvarez:

I think it would be a naive answer to say there's no tension with AI, right? Sure. There is tension with AI. So I think that the mandates have to come from the highest leadership. Sure. You know, and I, I mentioned that earlier- Yeah … with our new CEO. He, one of the v- very first day on the job, I think- Yeah… he said, he said, "You know, we're not using AI to, for cost savings or job eliminations." Sure."We're using AI to multiply. We're using it as a multiplier to go bigger, better, faster." So the fact that he said that- yeah … just took so much tension off of my team. And then I think we've also, not just with AI, this has always been kind of a part of my philosophy, leave room for mistakes.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes.

Shelly Alvarez:

Leave room- Fair learning for mistakes, right? So we're gonna make mistakes with AI. So one of the things that I do, my leadership style, I tell everybody about my mistakes.

Breanna Lawlor:

Oh, good.

Shelly Alvarez:

You know, all of my AI mistakes- I'm gonna call.… all of my AI mistakes. I'm like, "Look at what I did," right? Yeah. So then I've created this environment for them to make mistakes, too. Yeah. So eliminate some of that tension that maybe they have- Yeah … of, and be open, too, of I tried w- this with AI, and I never could get to a good outcome. That's fine. That is absolutely fine. Yeah. Let's use it where it's going to perform best.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes, yes. Yeah. And that only comes from trying it out- Yeah and then taking that knowledge and trying again. Yeah. So yeah, the show and tell aspect, I think, has come up again. You're holding a position of power, but you can also rely on other people in your team to help inform you.

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor:

Two-part question and then we'll sort of get to our closing. Okay. And the two-part is, what is really exciting to you over the next three months, six months, and what are you really proud of as far as impact that you've had over the last couple of months, six months?'Cause things are moving so fast- Sure … I really don't wanna map out to 10 years from now to your- Yeah … point earlier, but.

Shelly Alvarez:

Sure. Oh, I'm gonna give a cheesy answer- … but it is, you know, I'm, I'm really looking forward to seeing how my team rises to that challenge- Yes … of transforming their jobs to that non-AI to that AI. And I've already seen it. I've just seen this renewed excitement. You mentioned tension. And I have seen it shift from tension to excitement.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes.

Shelly Alvarez:

You know, we have that weekly meeting now where my team shares things that they've come up with- Sure … using AI. So I think that has enabled them to move from that environment of tension to that environment- Yes of, "Look what I did."

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah.

Shelly Alvarez:

Right? So I'm excited to continue to see that- Sure … and kind of that renewed energy.

Breanna Lawlor:

Yeah.

Shelly Alvarez:

I would say renewed energy that I wasn't expecting.

Breanna Lawlor:

Uh-huh.

Shelly Alvarez:

Right? Yeah. So that's been kind of fun as well. And what you asked-

Breanna Lawlor:

Just reflecting on the last little while, what sort of impact or influence are you particularly proud of? Because it sounds you know, you hold a lot of cards here-

Shelly Alvarez:

Yeah… Breanna Lawlor: as far with people on your team and externally as well. Is there anything that comes to mind that you're like,"I was able to do this in this amount of time, and these are the results"? And it can be small, and it can also just be really high level, too. So I am really proud of, I mentioned it earlier, but this proactive approach that my team is taking-

Breanna Lawlor:

Yes… Shelly Alvarez: with AI, that for the customer- Mm … to ask them for a solution. They're just going in- … playing around with it, seeing what they can create- Right … and then going to the customer with a potential solution that the customer didn't even ask for. That's been informed.

Shelly Alvarez:

So yeah. Yeah. That, I'm, I'm really proud of them for that.

Breanna Lawlor:

I think- Yeah… that's a really good mindset. Yeah. There's a curiosity component there that can- Yeah … actually deliver pretty meaningful incomes- Yeah … outcomes, rather, if you do it strategically. Yeah. And it sounds like that's what your team is focusing on. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that note, and for making the time to connect.

Shelly Alvarez:

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Breanna Lawlor:

It's been awesome to hear your insights, and kudos to you for t- having this positive mentality- Yeah … and how you approach it, and getting those results for your customers as well.

Shelly Alvarez:

Well, thank you.

Breanna Lawlor:

Awesome.

Shelly Alvarez:

Thanks again.

Breanna Lawlor:

Right on. Thank you, Shelly.