The Truth About Visitor ID: Fixing Data Quality in GTM | Larry Kim | S4:E2

Season 4, Episode 2 of Force and Friction, we sit down with one of the biggest names in digital marketing, Larry Kim, the founder of WordStream, and now CEO of Customers.ai, and a leading advocate for data transparency in go-to-market strategies.

Larry pulls back the curtain on the visitor identification industry, exposing widespread data quality issues, explaining how bad data damages GTM performance, and sharing why accuracy, not inflated match rates—will define the future of Martech.

If you care about revenue growth, lead quality, email deliverability, or ad performance, this episode is a must-listen.

Larry Kim

Larry Kim is one of the most influential figures in digital marketing. He’s the founder of WordStream, the PPC and Facebook Ads platform acquired for $150M by Gannett. He’s now the CEO of Customers.AI, an AI-powered website visitor identification and remarketing platform that promises 10x higher data accuracy than traditional vendors.

Larry's Career Highlights:

• CEO of Customers.AI – Raising the bar in visitor ID accuracy.
• Founder of WordStream – Scaled to $150M exit.
• Marketer of the Year – US Search Awards, Search Engine Land.
• Guest lecturer at Harvard, MIT, BU – and received special recognition by the US Senate for job creation.
• Creator of the 2025 Website Visitor Identification Industry Report.

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Here are the core areas we discuss in today's episode:

From WordStream to Customers.ai: A Shift Toward Accuracy-First Marketing:

Larry shares his journey from building WordStream into a $150M exit to launching Customers.ai, based on the insight that remarketing and website visitor identity are the true low-hanging fruit for marketers, if the data is trustworthy.

“Every marketing channel eventually leads to your website. If you know who’s there -accurately, it’s the ultimate force multiplier.”

The Big Problem: Why Visitor ID Technology Hasn’t Gone Mainstream

Visitor ID sounds amazing, but the industry hasn’t delivered. Larry breaks down the painful truth:

• Traditional visitor ID vendors have 70–95% error rates.
• Most businesses churn within 4–5 months because the data simply isn’t accurate enough.
• Bad visitor ID data harms deliverability, poisons CRM systems, and sabotages ad campaigns.

“Bad data is toxic waste for your go-to-market system. It doesn’t hurt immediately, it kills you slowly.”

Match Rate vs. True Match Rate: Why the Metrics Are Misleading

Larry explains how many vendors have gamed metrics by chasing high match rates without caring if those matches are correct.

“You can have a 40% match rate and still be 90% wrong. Match rate without accuracy is meaningless.”

He stresses the importance of true match rate, the percentage of matches that are actually correct, and how Customers.ai focused on getting the data right.
 

How Bad Data Wreaks Havoc on GTM Systems:

Bad visitor ID data has far-reaching consequences:

• Tanks email deliverability
• Corrupts CRM and marketing databases
• Destroys AI ad training models on platforms like Google and Meta

“You think you’re helping your ad targeting. But if you pump in wrong data, you’re actually training the AI to find the wrong audience.”

Larry calls this “data sabotage”, and it’s why most brands give up on visitor ID.

The Customers.ai Difference: Building a Data Company, Not Just Another Platform:

Unlike most competitors who resell low-grade ad data, Customers.ai built its own identity graph, signal systems, and engineering layers from scratch.

“We didn’t just license data. We rebuilt the entire stack from zero. That’s why we’re 5x–16x more accurate.”

Their in-house model delivers 70–85%+ accuracy consistently, changing the game for visitor identification.

Proof in Performance: The Jordan Craig Case Study

Larry shares the powerful Jordan Craig case study undertaken using Customers.ai:

• Customers.ai delivered a 2.79% conversion rate from visitor ID leads.
• Competitors delivered less than 0.01% to 0.24%.
• Revenue per ID was 15x higher using Customers.ai data.

“When you send clean data, you get real conversions. When you send noise, you sabotage your entire funnel.”

The Future of Visitor ID: Infrastructure, Not an Add-On

Larry believes visitor ID has been niche because of bad data—but high-accuracy solutions like Customers.ai will soon become core infrastructure for every serious GTM team.

“Visitor ID isn’t a ‘nice to have.’ If you do it right, it’s the foundation of better ads, better sales outreach, better email marketing—everything.”

As the technology matures, it could become as essential as CRM or paid search..

Final Thoughts:

Larry Kim’s conversation is a wake-up call for revenue, marketing, and RevOps teams:

• Data quality matters more than volume.
• Match rates don’t mean anything without accuracy.
• GTM success in 2025 and beyond will be powered by clean, verifiable data.
  

   

Download the full State of Visitor ID 2024 industry report for case studies and benchmarks.

 

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Mike Midgley is the CEO at 6teen30 Digital and a dynamic digital entrepreneur, nxd, strategist, public speaker, Winning by Design certified Revenue Architect and Host at The Force & Friction Podcast.

Mike has achieved successful six and seven-figure exits over a 30+ year career, raised in excess of £1.6m [$2.5m] in Venture Capital and franchised his businesses 68 times.

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