Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz, is the latest guest to join the Marketing B2B Technology podcast. Inge explains how, although the fundamentals of SEO haven’t changed, the rise in AI may have an impact in the industry and offers some thoughts on how marketers can address the potential challenges. She discusses both the Moz and STAT Search Analytics platforms, their functionality and how marketers can get the most out of the platforms.

Listen to the podcast now via the links below:

About STAT Search Analytics

Inge focusses on STAT Search Analytics, a product by Moz. STAT is a SERP tracking and analytics platform for tackling large-scale SEO with accuracy and ease. STAT delivers precision SERP insights, fresh each day, helping unlock new opportunities, drive more visibility, and prove the value of SEO.

About Inge

Inge brings over two decades of technology marketing expertise to her role as Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz, where she focuses on STAT Search Analytics. Her extensive career has covered a wide range of settings, from innovative startups and small-to-medium-sized businesses to global industry leaders. Notably, Inge has contributed significantly at SAP and Layer 7 Technologies (which was acquired by Computer Associates) before her tenure at Moz. Her broad skill set includes demand generation, branding, customer engagement, channel strategy, global event management, and public relations, making her a highly respected and well versed professional in the marketing field.

Time Stamps

[00:48.8] – Inge shares her career journey and explains how Moz and STAT fit into Ziff Davis.

[03:56.5] – How can STAT help with SEO? Inge explains.

[07:39.0] – Inge explains who can use STAT and the training resources available.

[12:25.0] – Inge discusses some of the common mistakes made when optimising for search engines.

[13:52.9] – The potential impact of AI on SEO

[18:07.9] – How is SEO going to change in the future?

[25:23.1] – Inge’s contact details.

Quotes

“We’re not just reaching out. We’re engaging and understanding what makes our audience tick. And that’s the future of marketing.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz.

“Keep your eyes peeled for the next big thing, but don’t forget that it’s all about connecting with people on a human level. We’re all humans, whether we’re talking to the different personas like CEOs, CFOs, SEOs all over the world, we’re all still humans.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz.

“We’re helping SEO professionals understand their unique search landscape and how they’re positioned in it, and also helping them find new search opportunities and strategies.” Inge Boubez, Director of Enterprise Marketing at Moz.

Follow Inge:

Inge Boubez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inge-boubez/

STAT Search Analytics website: https://getstat.com/napier/

STAT Search Analytics on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stat-search-analytics/

STAT Search Analytics on Twitter: https://twitter.com/getSTAT

STAT Search Analytics on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getstat/

Moz website: https://moz.com/

Moz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moz/

Follow Mike:

Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/

Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/

Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/

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Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547

Transcript: Interview with Inge Boubez – Moz

Speakers: Mike Maynard, Inge Boubez

Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today I’m joined by Inge Boubez. Inge is the director of enterprise marketing for stat at Ziff, Davis. Inge, welcome to the podcast.

Inge: Thank you, Mike. It’s a pleasure to be here. What an honour.

Mike: It’s, it’s great to have you heard, I’m really excited. So what we always like to do before we start talking about what you do at work, and things like that, is find out how you got here. So can you tell me a little bit about your career journey?

Inge: Gosh, my career has been quite the ride, I must say, I started in the trenches of tech marketing moves through various startups, and even spent time with the giants like SAP. But I feel that zip Davis, that’s a different story. They might seem like an old school publisher at first glance, but they’re anything but when they scooped up Moz and start, I knew they were serious about leading in the digital world. And joining them felt like jumping onto a moving train of innovation, which is exactly where I want it to be.

Mike: I mean, that sounds awesome. And you’ve mentioned a few businesses there. So can you just maybe explain to the listeners who might not know, you know how stat fits in with Ziff Davis and also miles, please.

Inge: Yeah, it’s a pretty interesting landscape, I must say. So Stott sits alongside Moz Pro, and Moz. Local as the SEO vertical of Ziff, Davis MarTech arm, which happens to be called the Moz group. Now, other brands within the MAS group, our eye contact campaigner, SMTP and kickbox, which make up the email vertical, and then there is line two and E voice, which then make up the communication vertical.

Mike: Oh, that’s fascinating. I actually didn’t realise it was quite so much within that Moz group inside Ziff Davis, I didn’t know you had, for example, the email side on the voice side, so Ziff, Davis obviously invested a lot in digital technology. So one of the things they’ve done and I think through through Moz, they brought stat into the business, is that right? Absolutely. What do you see as the future for stats? I mean, how is that gonna develop? You know, how can Jeff Davis develop the brand, but also think perhaps maybe there’s an opportunity for stats and the rest of Moz to help Ziff Davis grow and develop?

Inge: Yes, and thank you for asking that question. I believe the future of stat is bright, very bright, there is renewed interest and investment in the business. And we’ve got a packed roadmap this year. And that includes rolling out a brand new website and product user interface, both of which are looming just around the corner, we’re talking about just in a couple of months. So there is a strong affinity for the stock brand, within the business, for sure. But also in the SEO industry at large. We’ve got a lot of stat advocates rooting for us. So we’re really excited to deliver on this next phase of stat. And with SIP Davis being such a big umbrella, we had the unique opportunity now to connect directly with a much larger, diverse group of sister brands to test new product ideas and get insights into cross industry use cases. And of course, there’s also the upside of continued investment in our platforms and in our people.

Mike: So you sound really positive. I mean, I think maybe one of the things I might need to do for some of the listeners is take a step back. I suspect most listeners are familiar with Mars, which is one of the best known sort of, you know, self serve SEO tools available. But can you explain what that does? And how it helps people with their SEO?

Inge: Absolutely. The short answer of what stat does is stat is a superb tracking and analytics platform built for large scale SEO needs. And the long answer is that it helps clarify where stat sits in the SEO tool market. It involves expanding on a couple of points. So first of all, that could mean that you work for a really big website, one that has 1000s, or even millions of pages that you’re responsible for, you know, think the retail and E commerce, finance, travel and hospitality or media and entertainment spaces. Or it could also mean that you work for an agency, and maybe you’re not a big agency, and maybe each client website isn’t massive, but when you add all of them up, you add up everything that you’re actively working on. It turns out that you’ve got a lot of SEO in your hands. Basically, a typical stat client ends up tracking 1000s of keywords, whether that’s for one website, or across many websites that you’re managing. Second, we’d tend to favour saying that we do SERP tracking instead of just rank tracking. Because our data is more than just here’s your tracking or ranking position and ranking URL. The SERP itself is more than just rents. It is essentially a treasure trove of consumer research. We all know that Google puts a tonne of money and effort into understanding what searchers want, and delivering on that. And competitive Intel as well. So we parse, analyse and deliver what’s on the entire 100 results, sir. So you’re also going to get SERP features, and better insights, visibility, metrics, and more. So in many ways, the large skill of stat also applies to the sheer amount of data that we collect, and the fact that we collect it daily. So by serving these precision SERP insights every single day, we’re helping SEO professionals understand their unique search landscape, and how they’re positioned in it. And also helping them and find new search opportunities and strategies, which in turn, of course, helps them drive more visibility, traffic and revenue, and ultimately helps them prove the value of their SEO. Now, SEO is both very cross functional, and also not always the most understood function within an organisation, even by the team that it sits on. So one of the biggest things we hear from SEO professionals is that they often spend a lot of time educating the organisation on the value of what they bring to the table, which is a big frustration. So having this kind of data always allows them to show the impact of their work. Additionally, compared to a discipline, like PPC, SEO has huge returns and potential, but it lacks concrete data to prove it. So stat aims to bridge that gap. By giving SEO professionals the scale of data they need to explain the value and context of their work. So I hope I’ve kind of painted the picture that you’re asking there.

Mike: I think that’s that’s a great explanation. I mean, it sounds very much that what you’ve got within the SIF, Davis organisation is you’ve got the Mostoles, which a lot of people know, very much self service, but they’re going to be looking at maybe 10s of keywords. And what you’ve got with stat is something that perhaps is designed for SEO press people really deep into SEO. So I’m really interested to learn a bit more about that and perhaps learn a bit more about you know, pricing and how people justify the cost of what must be a much more expensive tool.

Inge: You are absolutely right, Mike. So stat is designed for large scale SEO activities. It is designed more for a what then a who we do mostly attract users that have SEO somewhere in their title. So that would be an SEO manager or SEO, lead, SEO director, SEO analyst SEO technical or technical SEO experts and so on, versus a general marketer. But you certainly don’t need to consider yourself a pro or an expert, or an advanced SEO professional to use stat. So what that means is, if you’re working with the kind of scale that stat is best suited for, we’re definitely an affordable option. Our competitive per keyword pricing, for example, is designed to scale with you without breaking your bank as you go. Plus, our billing is extremely flexible. If you only need a few days worth of data, for example, whether for a pitch or a short term campaign, you can jump into stat and toggled tracking on or off for any number of keywords, and your billing will follow suit. So essentially, you’re only being billed for the days that you track.

Mike: That’s great. It sounds like you’re you’re really focusing on delivering value, which I think is brilliant. I mean, one of the things I wonder is it you know, obviously stat is incredibly powerful. But SEO is important to a huge range of people who are often non SEO experts minimal loss of marketing, people want to know the impact of what they’re doing on SEO. So how would a non SEO experts learn to use stat to improve their rankings and improve what they’re running as campaigns?

Inge: A great question. We’ve got a learning team that’s dedicated to creating training materials coursework and documentation to help get clients up to speed with stat quickly, and the top notch client success team who is available for training and strategy sessions. So we just want to ensure that our clients are staying up to date with features and functionality and also feel equipped to handle whatever new thing Google might throw their way. Now, on the marketing side, we also spent a lot of time on mid funnel content. So product use cases and client case studies for example, as it’s a valuable learning material for our clients as well. It gets a second life outside of helping leads along the funnel, if I may say so. And of course, you don’t have to be an expert in SEO to use stat. And chances are, you aren’t just starting out in SEO if you are using stat, but if you find yourself in that place, one of the perks of being part of Moz is that it is the place to learn SEO. So we’ve also got a tonne of resources at our disposal for you to utilise.

Mike: That’s great. And certainly, you know, I mean, we’re very familiar with a lot of the Moz training at the basic level that that’s awesome. But you mentioned some of the customer case studies and looking at how stat benefits customers. I’m really interested if you’ve got some examples of how customers could increase their search performance by using the stat.

Inge: A lot of times clients think that they’re competing with a handful of known business competitors. But from an organic search standpoint, there are almost always plenty that they aren’t aware of stat surfaces, those true search competitors, and how much served visibility everyone owns. You’ve now saved yourself a tonne of wasted effort and are in a position to be super targeted with your strategy. You know who your competitors are and what type of content you need to beat. And now you can chart your progress in visibility that you’ve gained from it is invaluable. Since the SERPs are more than just 10 Blue organic links. Understanding the different types of search features that appear in your search space is definitely key. Not only do they present a golden opportunity to own a larger piece of Serb real estate, crucially, their Google telling you the type of content that it knows searchers want to see now stat will show you exactly which sir features are showing up for your whole keyword site specific keyword segments and even for individual keywords. So that way, you can understand the content formats that are worth pursuing. There’s no sense in showing up to a SERP full of video results with a blog post, for example.

Mike: Oh, I love it’s a great point. And I think something often overlooked in SEO. And actually, let’s stay on that topic. I’m interested. Are there other things that you see it stat where marketers are getting it wrong? They’re trying to optimise websites for search engines, and they’re not really doing the right thing?

Inge: Well, I love this question. Okay, I’ll outline a couple of things that I’ve seen. Some common missteps are focusing on the quantity of articles versus quality, something that has really popped back up with the explosive rise of generative AI, this is quite common. Second point would be using dated SEO best practices like keyword stuffing. That’s the second example there that I see quite common. And the third would be ignoring internal links and relying on external links instead, which are far harder to get and don’t always have as big of an impact as you may hope. And lastly, what I’m also seeing is getting hung up on on two to three big head term keywords that might be at most one to 2% of the total traffic picture. They’re often highly competitive and therefore difficult to be successful with. So you end up sinking a lot of time, effort and money into them. And similar to external links, the payoff may not exactly be worth it in the end.

Mike: That’s a great point. And I think, you know, a lot of people do get hung up on those big keywords. So So I love that tip there. You mentioned AI. I mean, we’re gonna have to talk about AI. And I think, you know, some of us are wondering, is with generative AI being used more particularly becoming more of the interface of the search engine? Is SEO going to be less important? I mean, how’s that going to help marketers, once generative AI starts driving those results?

Inge: Oh, you know, this is a really, really good question. I love questions around AI, there has been a lot of apprehension around it, not just an SEO, but really in every walks of our life. So let me focus on the SEO side, we definitely don’t think SEO is going to be less important. And for a few key reasons. Number one, we don’t think generative AI interfaces will replace search engines. It’s simply not an efficient solution to many of the problems that search engines currently solve, like quick answers to simple problems, navigating to a website or seeing a range of content on a topic. Secondly, we don’t think that AI written articles will replace content in search results. Users absolutely do not want this, and Google seems committed to engaging in an arms race to detect and deter this behaviour. The kind of content that AI writes well, and that users don’t mind being a written is a kind of content that Google will likely answer in featured snippets or similar features. And number three, we don’t think search generative variants are similar AI written SERP features will replace organic results. Fundamentally, Google’s business model is sending traffic to websites, and they don’t want to do anything to disrupt that revenue stream. And again, there are just many cases where generative AI is not always an accurate answer, or ultimately what users are looking for. Things as GE experiment, unlike Google was widely rolled out. And gradually over time, they’ve shown it on fewer and fewer queries and lower and lower down the search. So unless S G pivots drastically, that gives us a decent picture on what to expect for for the time being in this realm. And as for how stat will help marketers in the age of generative AI, the SERP landscape changes, so does SEO. And so do we, just as with knowledge, graphs, and featured snippets before, when or possibly if Google decides to formally rollout as Ge will be one of the first to parse them and help our users understand them at scale?

Mike: That’s pretty interesting. I mean, it sounds like for the hype around AI, is perhaps gonna have less of an impact than some people are predicting. But what I’m interested is, how can I help particularly help people who are looking to improve their search engine optimization? I mean, you know, particularly Are you planning to use AI within the stat tool?

Inge: Well have salutely. And absolutely, we think AI can and does help with SEO. Like any other discipline, and especially technical disciplines, AI can help to parse and interpret large quantities of data, provide example code or spot anomalies. Many SEOs have used machine learning, natural language processing, and even generative AI such as GPT. In this way, for several years now, some AI SEO use cases, for example, would be producing titles, meta descriptions and alt tags at scale, grouping keywords and topics, and creating schema structured data markup for technical SEO needs. In all cases, though, human oversight is always a must. Now, we actually already employ AI in stat Domain Authority has been a machine learning metric since 2019. And our keyword suggestion tool uses NLP algorithms, among others to provide good query matches. And for sure, will continue to augment and process the data we show to users in this way. Although we had no such plan when it comes to our ragging data that has to come straight from the horse’s mouth, which is Google. And you know, it can’t be modelled or estimated.

Mike: Well, it’s good to hear that AI is having a positive impact. And it’s been used, I certainly was surprised that domain authority is an AI metric. That’s something I’ve learned. Thank you. There’s other things happening as well in SEO. So how else do you think SEO is going to change in the future?

Inge: Well, we’ve been in the SEO industry for a long time now. And honestly, as much as things change and have changed, they also stay relatively the same, at least in principles. There will always be the scheme of the day to game Google and get quick, but short lived results before they put an end to it. Today, it’s aI content. Tomorrow, I’ll do something else who knows. The long running trend though, is that if your SEO strategy relies on formulaic or thin content, the top you can imagine being replaced with a search feature, for example, then it’s going to get harder and harder for you over time, the bar, what constitutes valuable or helpful content is going to keep getting higher and higher. We expect Google to get even better at understanding nuances and relevance in queries and content. So there’ll be less opportunity to rank with questionable or relevant content, even if you’ve got otherwise good SEO.

Mike: That makes a lot of sense, I think has great advice as well around quality of content. I feel I need to ask you a question, which perhaps is a little bit cheeky. I think like most people, you know, who saw malls in the early days, muscles always generated, you know, great content. And one part of that was certainly Randall I think he was he was seen as you know, being somewhat synonymous with Mars. And obviously, he left and maybe wasn’t exactly super happy with what happened. Do you think he’ll return what what’s the future or are you looking towards a new future?

Inge: Gosh, I feel like texting ran right now. Kidding aside, I can’t speak for random on returning to Mars. But I can say that we continue to value and strive for what’s been at the core of Rand’s vision since day one of Mars and that is a community that shares really its ideas and best practices, thought leaders to champion the evolution of our craft, and innovative tools that underpin the practice of SEO, hope that answers your question.

Mike: I do you know, I think that’s really positive. I think that there was a very strong vision. And I think Moses is one of those companies that managed to continue a vision, irrespective of who’s actually driving it. So yeah, I mean, I love that answer. Thank you. And I’m very positive. I really appreciate you know, you talking about stats and about Mars. I wonder if I can ask you some more general questions, we’d love to understand, you know, what our guests are doing in terms of their own marketing as well. So how do you promote stat, what’s most effective for you?

Inge: We use all the standard channels. But I’ve always found a lot of success by attending SEO conferences and events. the SEO industry, I find is a very tight knit community where strong relationships and word of mouth go a long way. So it’s less about us showing up to an event and walking away with a tonne of ready to convert MQLs. And more about making great personal connections while we’re there. And then developing and maintaining those relationships over time, you start to see the same faces at the same events. Now, some of our best leads actually come from current but also former clients who introduce us to their network at events, which is always an honour, and speaks to our general approach of just showing up as a good partner in business. And it’s really important to us that we develop a good rapport with our clients, build trust, and forge a productive relationship, that’s going to set them up to do the most ambitious and successful SEO in their careers. That’s awesome.

Mike: You’ve beautifully said that. You help people be successful. And that’s your best marketing tool. And I love that

Inge: their success is our success. You know, this is something that we want to hone in on every day in what we do.

Mike: That’s brilliant. We’ve also got a couple of standing questions, we always like to ask people. So what’s the best piece of marketing advice you’ve ever been given?

Inge: Oh, gosh, I have had so many advisors, constructive feedback and support given to me over the years, even including where I stand right now. But you know what the best advice I ever got is to talk to people be curious and want to find out talk to people and not the demographics, you know, it’s easy to get lost in the data, and forget that there are real people in the other end, the little nugget reminded me like this little nugget reminded me to keep things real, make that emotional connection. It’s been my North Star guiding principle ever since it guides how I craft my campaigns, foster work relationships, and lead teams. What I do is I strive to treat people as people first so that we can move in the right direction together as a strong unit. And this speaks to everything that we try to do as a team as an organisation and in the product that we try to create.

Mike: I love that. I mean, our next question is what would you tell a young person who was thinking of marketing as a career maybe an SEO now you’ve been super enthusiastic? Inger, so I think you’re going to be quite positive on this one.

Inge: Don’t go in it. No, no, that’s just me being facetious to the newbies thinking about marketing, gosh, dive in headfirst. And stay curious, you might get a bit bloody you know, at times, it might be a little bit rough, but it’s worth it. This field is a wild mix of tech and human psychology for sure. And sure, it’s changing at lightning speed. And some of us may get nervous about that. But that to me is the thrill of it. Keep your eyes peeled for the next big thing. But don’t forget that it’s all about connecting with people still, on a human level. We’re all humans, whether we’re talking about a different personas like CEOs CFOs. You know, SEOs all over the world. We’re all still humans. So your ambitions, your passions, your empathy and your honesty. That’s your key to success. And that’s been my secret sauce.

Mike: That’s great advice. Ingress has been a really fascinating conversation. I feel SEO is such a complex and deep subject. Is there anything else you feel that maybe we should have covered that we skipped over?

Inge: Well, since we are in the tech world, it’s always about evolution. And the next big thing as I as I mentioned, so speaking of evolution, SEO and analytics have come a long way, right? It’s not just about keywords and backlinks anymore. Ai stepping in as we’ve touched upon earlier, changing how we understand and interact with data. It’s like having a microscope that shows us not just the what, but the why behind user behaviours. This technology is making our strategy smarter, more personalised. We’re not just reaching out we’re Engaging and understanding what makes our audience tick. And that’s the future of marketing. They insightful, data driven yet deeply human. That’s what I stand by.

Mike: That’s such a positive view of things. So thank you so much, Inge. I’m sure people listening to this would want to find out more. So how could they contact you if they’d like more information?

Inge: Oh my gosh, that is music to my ears. Well, if anyone wants to get into the nitty gritty of this stuff, or just swap stories, I am all ears, shoot me an email or let’s connect on LinkedIn. I’m always up for a good chat about the next big thing in marketing.

Mike: I really appreciate all your time. You’ve been very generous with your knowledge. Thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast.

Inge: Thank you.

Mike: Thanks so much for listening to marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes, or on your favourite podcast application. If you’d like to know more, please visit our website at Napier B2B dot com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.

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