Hubble Contacts co-founder Jesse Horwitz is skeptical about digital voice. "The younger you go [demographically], the more they text. They don't want to talk to machines if they don't want to talk to each other."

Imagine a future in which Patagonia excludes creative including sweaters and coats from a campaign targeting users who never raise their Nest thermostats above 68 degrees.

"We were hungry to learn more about why consumers engaged or didn't with an ad," she said. "We were operating like a large company but it was not who we were."

"Programmatic is like fishing," said Ahmed. "You try to find audiences, it's like the ocean, there are so many fish out there. If you're re-targeting, you're fishing in a small pond."

"We increased sales of our featured product by almost 200% by using one-to-one recommendation based on what we see other customers like them doing."

As you might expect, Hershey has a sweet spot within its audience strategy. And that is the trio of a singular view of its consumer, bringing business upfront and finding the right partners in media with the right technology to target its audience.

As it prepares for a cookie-free world, Dell is gearing up to provide a true, omnichannel experience. "We have to stop marketing to customers like devices and cookies and start marketing to them like people."

Agencies have been playing a sort of telephone game between how hey thinks about the consumer and how a media agency may translate that according to their world.

"People are looking for car advice," Yogi Jashnani, CMO, Advance Auto Parts. "We ask, how do we insert ourselves in those conversations without it feeling like an ad. Social has become a big part of our media mix."

"We changed to work with progressive marketers so that our engagements are leading to revenue. We do a data audit, what' s in their CRM, website visitors. We take data and give ideas about what's missing."