Today, we will be diving into Cardlytics. Founded in 2008, Cardlytics operates as an advertising platform integrated with the digital channels of banks. It allows advertisers to identify potential customers from their spending habits and reach those customers directly within their mobile banking applications. Today, Cardlytics is one of the largest digital ad platforms, seeing data on 50% of every card swipe in the US.

To help break down Cardlytics, I will be joined by Cliff Sosin, founder of CAS Investment Partners. During our conversation, we touch on what makes Cardlytics' value proposition so valuable to the ecosystem, how Cardlytics' measurement capabilities differ from Google, and what is needed for Cardlytics to reach its full potential. Throughout our conversation, Cliff gives a great perspective on how this management team brought unique insight to this opportunity but then faced struggles as the company started to scale. His understanding of the history of the business shines throughout the discussion. I hope you enjoy this breakdown of Cardlytics.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

[00:02:33] - [First question] - What Cardlytics does and their scale

[00:06:51] - What happens from a consumer perspective when using their service?

[00:08:14] - Numbers around the current scope of the business today

[00:08:40] - Comparing Cardlytics to Google and Facebook’s advertising models

[00:11:01] - History of the company and how they gained access to bank transaction data

[00:15:20] - Revenue splits, gross profits, and companies that have had success using them

[00:19:23] - Potential risk to the company if banks were to start offering this service in house

[00:23:02] - Possible parallels between Visa and Cardlytics as a transaction protocol for banks

[00:25:15] - Whether or not brand matters for them

[00:26:15] - Lessons learned about network effects and whether or not it applies

[00:30:24] - What opportunities excite him about improving the Cardlytics platform

[00:35:24] - The role that data and predictive algorithms could play in perfecting the user experience and business scale

[00:39:45] - Reasons that Cardlytics could slip and reverse their progress or fail writ large

[00:44:17] - What one question he’d like to answer to improve the business

[00:46:38] - Lessons he’s learned about data privacy building the company

[00:47:34] - What is impressive about Cardlytics through the lens of leaders and management

[00:50:39] - Whether or not his views on investing has changed in regards to the quality of management over the course of growing Cardlytics

[00:51:57] - What they would have to do and where they would have to spend to grow the business over the coming decade

[00:54:41] - Neobanks posing a potential threat to the tech stack they’ve build

[00:59:13] - Lessons for operators in building a business when studying Cardlytics’ story

[01:02:10] - Lessons for investors when studying Cardlytics’ story