The Evolution of Sales Enablement in the Age of AI - Yega Kumarappan - Paperflite
Yega Kumarappan explores how sales enablement has evolved from simple content distribution into an AI-driven discipline focused on helping sellers close deals. He explains how Paperflite has grown into an agentic platform that supports sales teams across the entire deal lifecycle, spanning prospect intelligence, content intelligence, conversation intelligence, deal intelligence, and AI-powered coaching. These capabilities help sellers access the right information at the right time, track buyer engagement, and predict deal outcomes with greater confidence.
The conversation also highlights a broader shift in the market: ownership of sales enablement is moving from marketing to sales as AI makes its impact on revenue more measurable. Yega emphasizes that while content creation has become easier, distribution and ROI measurement are now the biggest challenges.
Finally, he reflects on the growing importance of “knowledge sovereignty”—the need for organisations to capture and leverage their unique expertise—arguing that this will be critical for standing out in a world of increasingly generic AI tools.
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About Paperflite
Paperflite is a content experience and intelligence platform designed to help businesses maximise the impact of their content and drive stronger audience engagement. It enables teams to easily discover the most relevant content across the organisation, share it seamlessly across multiple channels, and track how audiences interact with it.
With a strong focus on user experience, Paperflite delivers a visually engaging way for prospects, customers, and partners to consume content. Its built-in analytics engine provides deep insights into buyer behaviour, helping teams understand what resonates and take the right actions to improve conversations and conversions.
About Yega Kumarappan
Yega Kumarappan is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Paperflite. Former Head of Technology Prototyping at Cognizant, Yega spent over a decade building and prototyping innovative solutions for global enterprises before founding Paperflite in 2016. Known for his futurist perspective, Yega focuses on shaping how modern sales and marketing teams use content, data, and AI to drive better customer engagement and outcomes.
Time Stamps
00:00 - Introduction to Yega Kumarappan and His Career Journey
02:42 - Why Paper Flight Exists
11:23 - Who Buys Enablement
13:14 - Distribution and ROI
16:04 - Inbound Marketing Strategy
19:15 - Knowledge Sovereignty in AI
22:30 - Marketing Advice and Mindset
27:23 - Where to Learn More
Quotes
“Sales enablement has moved from distributing content to actively helping sellers close deals.” Yega Kumarappan, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Paperflite
“The real value is delivering the right knowledge at the exact moment it’s needed.” Yega Kumarappan, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Paperflite
“Creating great content is no longer the hardest problem—distribution is.” Yega Kumarappan, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Paperflite
“Whoever masters distribution wins.” Yega Kumarappan, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Paperflite
“It’s not just about content anymore—it’s about proving its impact on revenue.” Yega Kumarappan, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Paperflite
Follow Yega:
Yega Kumarappan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yegakumarappan/
Paperflite website: https://www.paperflite.com/
Paperflite on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/paperflite
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 Yega Kumarappan at Paperflite
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Yega Kumarappan
Mike: 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. I'm Mike Maynard, and today we're going to be talking about sales enablement. Sales Enablement really got a lot of hype a few years ago, and I think it's still important to make sure that sales people are effective and have the right content. So I'm joined by Yega Kumarappan, who's the co founder of Paperflite, and he's going to tell us all about sales enablement. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
Yega: Thank you so much, Mike. It's it's exciting to be here. Thank you so much for the introduction.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. Jaeger, I'm really interested. You know, can you tell us a little bit about your career and what were the reasons for you to actually go and found Paperflite? What were the problems that drove you to do that?
Yega: Well, Mike, I started my career as a as a developer. So I was writing code. When I started my career, switched into different, different responsibilities. I was running larger, larger organizations, larger teams. I think it's the organization that I worked with, where, where I spent most of my time.
Was very entrepreneurial in nature, and the kind of projects, the kind of responsibilities that I had, I mean, let's say before starting Paperflite, or before founding Paperflite, I was heading technology prototyping. Was based on New York. Was heading technology prototyping for this company called cognitive and we used to work with pretty much all the research agencies out there and and any marquee organizations, like, say, a Ford or a Lego or a Nike or Adidas of sorts.
While the research agencies would work on, you know, what's the future? What do we see coming up in the next 20 years? 25 years for these brands? They work with the brands. And our focus was to, was to bridge this gap technologically, to see, I know you're predicting self driving cars, but how does a tech look like within these self driving cars and and is that even feasible? Is how much of it is feasible. So we were prototyping all of that technology, proving feasibility.
So our exposure was, was more into cutting edge tech, into startups, into the marquis law, was that what the problems that larger businesses were were trying to solve, and everything that research was putting right in front of us, so all that put together was kind of the foundational layer for us to think about even, even building something.
And I know you had a question around, why this specific problem? Why Paperflite? And this is the reason is, this is something that was was really close to us, because we we faced this problem firsthand as a venture. We were building a specific product within Cognizant as well, which was funded, run as a venture.
And this was something very new around crowdsourcing. There's so much of material that we had put together, collateral, marketing, collateral, sales, collateral, and we were trying to distribute all of this to our sales teams, our own marketing teams.
And the problem we had was was pretty much into into distribution. To start with the teams that were putting this venture together. They were building all of this together. Were design heavy, so our output in terms of material, in terms of videos and brochures and all of that were pixel perfect, really good, and we were trying to distribute all of this material.
And all that we had in the market was shared folders and shared file systems. And there were a few products in the market, but they definitely did not do justice to how content is supposed to be distributed, or even proving the value of the content.
That was the first problem. And the second problem was we didn't know what was the ROI of all of this content that we are building. I mean, there's so much of money that was being put into building all of these videos and and case studies and all of that, and and when, when the question came as to what, what is the ROI of all the material that you put together, there was a big question that that we did not have an answer, like a direct answer for and these products did not solve that for us.
So two parts. One is the the exposure, the the foundational confidence that made sure that you know you could possibly build something. And when you when you drill deeper into what do you really want to build, we picked up on a problem that was really close to us. There was something that we'd faced in the market. We knew what existed, what did not exist. So that's that's why Paperflite.
Mike: That's really interesting, because you've talked a lot about content distribution, rather than necessarily purely sales enablement, and I think that's maybe why sales enablement had this big boom, and then, you know, kind of fell a little bit out of fashion, was it didn't really solve the whole problem is, is that what you saw as being the issue?
Yega: Amazing, beautiful question. Actually, the way you drafted. Uh, yes, we did. We did start with with content distribution, because content was considered the, the largest lever for for sales enablement.
Yes, we built the whole platform. We wanted to model this based on some of these heavy content platforms like Netflix or the the prime of sorts, where there's huge content, and the platform makes sure that whatever you're looking for is right there out in front of your eyes.
That's exactly how we started. But today, how Paperflite has evolved is into a suite of agentic products that help modern sellers pretty much close deals.
So so we we work alongside the sales step through the life cycle of a deal, right from when a prospect enters until the deal is closed.
So our agents, if I were to put it in a certain structure, we start with prospect intelligence, which is when a prospect comes in. How much do we know about the prospect, the organization, the the individual background, the problems that they face, what have they worked what what is their social presence at all of that put together? What are their priorities? All of that goes into the prospect intelligence, the buying power, the size of the organization.
Everything is something that the the prospect agent takes care of. And then we get into the content intelligence, which is, which is, where the entire knowledge of the organization that you represent as a sales rep, the sites on.
So that's very foundational for us at this point, because that's, that's, again, another problem that we started with. So we were very strong in that area of bringing together disparate sources of content, information, knowledge from, you know, from actual conversations, from material that was was prepared, all of that together, and making sure it is, it's available, it's accessible in a very structured manner.
So that that's your content intelligence part of it, that's what the content agent does. And then we have the conversation intelligence, or the conversation agent, which kind of works through the cycle with the sales reps, right from your initial discovery call to the to the follow up conversations, helping you figure out, how do I handle an objection, how do I negotiate? How do I handle this pricing conversation?
So there's all of this conversation intelligence around, how do I nudge this deal forward? How do I move forward? And then we have the deal intelligence, because we kind of work alongside the sales up through the throughout the life cycle, we keep track of everything from how the first conversation was, what kind of email communication happened. What kind of content was shared? How was the content engaged with?
What areas do you think the buyer is interested in? What is the buyer behavior in general? How many stakeholders do you have? Is this the right amount of number of stakeholders that you have for a deal of this size, a deal in this industry, in this region, what's the deal behavior generally.
So we have all of this. There's metadata and telemetry available that we're able to predict what is the confidence level that this deal will actually go through, and how has that number either moved up or moved down because of certain activities.
Like, for example, you may have shared a bunch of collateral with your buyer, and the buyer is not has not opened it has not engaged with that content at all. Usually what happens is the sales step over. A follow up conversation would ask, Hey, I sent you all of this material. Did you get a chance to look at it?
That's the first question. It's very natural. But in that case, we get to know, what did they really look at? What are they really interested in? Product A, Product B? Is it the pricing? Is it the legal, contractual term? Is it the security part of it? What are they interested in?
So it gives you so much insight that I'm able to tell you, hey, you know what? This deal is not heading in the right direction. You might want to schedule a meeting immediately, and you might want to reach out to other stakeholders who might be required to get this deal through. You know, that's the deal intelligence part of it. That's a deal agent that takes care of the entire workflow until the salesf closest the deal.
Now, one piece that we felt, other than orchestrating this whole sequence, one piece that could that's very critical in this whole sequence is also, how do we prepare the rep?
We're talking about, tracking the data itself, working alongside the rep. But am I helping the rep? Am I making him a better person? Him or her a better person? How am I coaching this person?
And that's where AI kicked in, compared to traditional coaching that always existed, which was, you know, consider rep onboarding at this point in time. Is, is a sequence of slide stack and material and material and a bunch of questions that you answer to certify yourself, saying, you know, I'm ready, I can get on the call, quite possibly one or two role plays with your managers to really figure out if you're ready or not. And that's it, and that's it.
And and then we also discount this whole knowledge decay factor, because onboarding happens once, and how much do you train them over and over and over again.
Now this is how the current sales training products work. And when we put AI into this coaching, and when I apply the foundational information that we have about how the deal is actually progressing, I'm able to coach the rep on specific topic, on specific products.
Or, I mean, it could be product knowledge, could be industry knowledge could be the sales skill in itself, the framework, or how do you negotiate? Or it could be just, just something like pricing negotiation, or, how do you handy this competitor that was brought up in the conversation?
So you will have to sharpen your skills on, on a specific aspect of this competition, so that information at that right moment during the course of the deal makes a world of a difference in how the deal gets to gets to be closed, successful.
Also, what you're noticing is there is this very interesting concept of this learning overhang, which is a rep can never be completely fully prepared. There's only so much that you can store within you, so there's always a lot of knowledge which is overhanging that you don't have.
It's not on the top of your mind, but if it's available exactly at the right moment, it could, it could completely change the game, which is exactly where the our AI coaching platform kicks in, connecting all of these pieces together.
So it's a bunch of agentic products that live with the sales that through the lifecycle, making sure you're coached, making sure the deal is tracked, you kind of make sure you have the guardrails nudging the deal to in the right direction, making sure it gets it gets closed. That's what we do right now.
Mike: That's a very comprehensive range of features. It's interesting. I mean, in the early days of sales enablement, we saw a lot of marketing teams buying sales enablement products, and it was basically a way to throw content at the sales team. So we've generated this, this presentation. We want the sales team to use it. Let's have a tool that forces them to use it, or makes it easier for them to use it, presumably.
Now with, you know, the evolution of the tools and the complexity and features of Paperflite, you're actually seeing, you know, more of a sales team purchase for this. Are you and people? Sales people are buying it because it helps them, rather than marketing people buying it to kind of force sales people to do what they want.
Yega: Good question. Again, it depends on the structure of the of the buyer organization. What we're seeing is there are some mature organizations where sales enablement, in itself, is a function, and you have budgets, and you have you orchestrate a certain set of tools and processes, and all of that.
In those cases, the sales enablement function becomes a direct buyer for us. In organizations where this function does not exist, it kind of becomes a shared responsibility, but it leans more towards a marketing organization, because you control the source of it, which is the knowledge, the content, and then the ability to orchestrate.
But what we're seeing now it is shifting more towards the sales organization, because we see this tilt from from marketing into more sales with AI kicking in, because you see, you see a direct impact of sales enablement on the revenue, on on how deals are actually being closed, in how efficiencies are brought in.
So we see more of sales organizations looking at this entire platform, because it's a bunch of agents that and work with their teams, and it helps them meet their targets much, way better than how it has always been.
Mike: And that's always a big motivator for sales people, isn't it, meeting their targets? I'm interested. We've talked about getting customers or prospects to engage with content. There's been a lot of research showing that customers are spending less time actually talking to sales and more time doing their own research.
Is this where you see a tool like Paperflite really helping, because you're helping the sales people provide the content that's going to push prospects to become customers.
Yega: Absolutely, like I said, it also goes back to the learning overhang, which is there's a lot of there's a lot of knowledge that you might not be able to store you, and it becomes very difficult for you to pick the right information at the right time. It's always hard.
And if there is, if there's an agent which is helping you serve with the right information, exactly when you're on a call, like if I'm on a conversation with you, and if you ask a question and I don't have the answer for it, and if I have the answer, pop the answer pop up right there, it helps us absolutely yes. I mean,
Mike: you're solving a lot of problems as well with this product, and I'm interested you know, in terms of B2B organizations, where do they struggle in this whole process of creating and distributing content? Is it around the creation, the distribution, getting in front of the prospects, or is it measuring the impact and knowing what's worked? What's the biggest challenge?
Yega: I think it started with creating great content. I would say the problem, at least before AI kicked in, the largest problem we had was creating great content. I mean, the content has to be really good. It could be video, could be anything.
But then, with so much of content creation happening with with all the with all the AI platform, creating great content is not it's not a challenge as much. I mean, it's it's still become a struggle to stand out, because everybody's it's a level playing field. I mean, everybody's creating great content at this point in time.
I think it's all about it's all about distribution. Today. Right? Because it is somebody who holds the distribution controls everything, because variation has become really easy, or at least Tech has made it very easy, but distribution is the challenge, and whoever masters distribution wins it.
But I would still not I know you talked about, is it creating great content? Is it distribution, or is it the the impact on revenue? I would still not discount the revenue impact part of it, because that's the end goal. I mean, that's the that's everything measuring its impact on revenue has always been the struggle.
So so products and platforms that help you figure out what's the ROI of content wins. I mean, that's the that's, that's the most critical problem that you can get solved. I think that's, that's the largest challenge, that's a larger problem.
But other than that, between creating great content and and distributing content, I think, I think distribution wins.
Mike: I mean, that's really interesting. And I think clearly shows how marketing themselves have changed over the recent years. I just want to take a slightly different hat Jaeger, and talk a little bit about how you're growing Paperflite. And we're always interested to know, when we have people on the podcast, how they approach marketing.
So at a high level, what's your marketing strategy for Paperflite?
Yega: We are a you're 100% inbound organization, which also means that for us, the customer experience, customer reference, is a huge growth engine for us at Paperflite.
So we we promote our customers. We make them the celebrity that's it's very important. It's the experience that they go through and and how do we and how do they see value within their organization? How do we distribute that message to the rest of the world? Is very critically for us.
I mean, there is whole runway series that we that we started, like three years ago, where we would, we would shoot some of our customers in their in their home ground, like walking into their office, like while they are, while they're working on the application, talking to the teams, and pretty much make a, make a five minute video out of it.
Make them, make them the celebrity, like this is, I'm talking professional DOPS and videographers and lighting and all of that stuff. And make sure they it comes out like they are the celebrity of the of that whole episode.
And that's actually worked really well for us. It gives it goes back to distribution, goes back to great content, and it goes back to putting the customer at the center. So for us, the largest growth engine is our customers. Is the experience is, is a value that you see in our product.
Mike: And the interesting thing, I mean, you talk about it all being about customers, but you're very much an international business. You know, you're selling to large global enterprises. I mean, did you have to design that kind of, you know, capability for international expansion from day one, or, you know, was that something that just grew as you acquired bigger customers.
Yega: We've always built Paperflite for the for the International user base. We were, you were very clear that you're not a cheaper alternative. I mean, it comes with its own good and bad, because it does put a lot of pressure on us to lead, to lead the way.
I mean, it's not we cannot, we cannot follow competition. That's an option. In that case, it does put a put a little bit of pressure on us. But we enjoyed that because that even when we started this whole Netflix style of content, was something was that was introduced to the to the industry, for the first time, nobody's seen something like that, if all of our users were exposed to only folder structures, and we've enjoyed that journey.
We've built a narrative that that way. We've been very clear from day one that, you know, Paperflite is not a cheaper alternative. It is. We will lead the way. We will solve the problem and not follow competition.
So so it's never been about the feature parity or the feature list versus the actual problem we solve and the value we bring to our customers.
Mike: I mean, that's, that's really interesting. And, you know, I think kind of thinking big from the start has definitely helped you in terms of that growth pivoting on to sort of a more general question. I'm interested, is there something that is happening within B2B marketing, you know, some kind of shift that's not appreciated, that CMOS, you know, should be paying more attention to.
Yega: I think all of us agree that there's a lot of attention on AI and adoption of AI with products that are, that are that are springing up every second.
But I think CMOs and CROs should, should actually be conscious about, about the sovereignty of their knowledge. I'll tell you what I mean by that, which is AI is, is a generalist. What's important at this point in time is It's about figuring out the ability to capture the tacit knowledge that they have as an organization, because that's what that's what makes them stand out.
That's what defines them, the ability to capture that tacit knowledge into into a set of sort of set of weight, put it in the model that that you can control.
What I mean is the the products should be, or the solutions that you pick should be more inclusive of the context, so that they can deliver value.
But if you were to pick a plugin product, because I found an AI solution, which is actually building a landing page for me, it is helping me draft an email. It is it's preparing a PowerPoint slide stack for me.
If you ever pick those products, it might not solve the actual problem, which is also why organizations are finding very difficult to to to identify value from these products, because, because it's a it's a plug in product versus we need to be conscious about what's our process and we're in.
What have we built? And how are we building on top of that, tacit knowledge? And how are we connecting all these pieces together? Do they all come, come out together, conveying one message, one flow, is very important.
I think that's that's an area that we don't focus a lot because there's so much of distraction on the other side, so many shiny objects, shiny products out there.
Mike: that's fascinating. Because, I mean, we've seen it in, you know, PR, for example, where two different companies have submitted basically the same article to a publication, obviously, because they've both put roughly the same prompt into chat GPT and got roughly the same content out.
And I think you're right. I mean, getting that average, that what everybody else is getting is not really going to differentiate anyone going forward, but, but you know, what you're saying is getting our organization's knowledge that what makes you unique and special today, and that's what can make AI deliver better results tomorrow. Is that a good summary?
Yega: Yes, absolutely, yes.
I just want to say also that there's a lot of stuff that's changing, which is, you know, I think from even for cmo and CRO standpoint, the there's a mindset change that needs to happen. There are workflows that need to change. There is there's work, work structure, roles, everything is changing.
So we and there has to be a lot more focus on newer frameworks of work, which will combine or stitch all of these pieces together, all these different products that you're talking about, make sure it works for you, and it not that you just use this, use the pointed solution, one at a time of sorts.
Mike: Yeah, I think that's a great point. Yeagers has been really interesting before he goes a couple of questions. We'd like to ask everybody around advice.
So I know that you're not a specialist marketer, but I'm always interested. You know what's the best piece of marketing advice that someone has given to you?
Yega: Always tell yourself that you're selling the best product or the solution that's out there.
I do feel this also. I feel marketing and what you market need not have a bearing. Marketing as a science, as an engineering, as an aspect is very different from what you're marketing.
Of course, the longer term success is dependent on both these functions delivering their best. Of course, marketing function has to do really well, and the product that you're marketing has to also be the best. That's that's the most ideal situation.
But as a marketer, if I was, if I was a marketer, that was my my job. If that was, that was my proficiency, I will have to understand what I'm selling, but I have to tell myself that I'm selling the best product out there for this, for this target market that I'm taking this out to.
So that kind of gives me the confidence to go all out and and positioning is everything. And it's a, it's kind of a spiral, because you position, I mean, you might have a mediocre product. You position that really well. You get amazing customers. The product evolves, and then, and then your positioning evolves, and then your product evolves, and the positioning evolves.
So that's kind of it kind of has a flywheel effect. But if I, if I tell my if I really go back and figure out, oh, this is a product, you know, these are areas of weaknesses, it's okay. It's okay. It's kind of an okay product. And that's what I tell myself.
My marketing effort in itself is not going to be the isn't going to be out of the world, it's not going to be larger than life. I will be constraining myself. So I have to tell myself that this is what I'm selling, but eventually it'll fall in place.
Mike: I love that. I think that's it's slightly different from what a lot of marketers would say, but that makes it really but that makes it really interesting.
The other question I'd like to ask you, we've talked a lot about how things are changing so rapidly, and how technology, particularly AI, is impacting marketing.
So if you were talking to someone who maybe just graduated, was starting their career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Yega: Right? You said that a lot of things are changing. One one larger change that I'm seeing Mike is the kind of kind of people that view that we're following at this point.
Let's take the Demis Hassabis, who heads Deep Mind, or the Dario who heads Claude or yuel, or. Sure you know all of them. What we see, even Elon, for that matter, what we see is they are, they are neuroscientists, they are, they are, they are physicists. They're really deep domain experts. They're all PhDs.
And these are names that we are actually looking up to for how they want to how we're going to shape the rest of the future. It's not, I think there's not as much focus on on the businessmen or the or the technologists or the college draw calls or the there's not as much focus as much as we have on these PhDs, because they're pretty much defining what's what's happening.
What this means at a deeper level is there's a lot of emphasis that that we're giving to understanding humanity and human behavior in itself.
So I would think it's not just the technology. It's not it's not just the products and the solutions and all of that. When you start off, you know, in marketing as a career, marketing always has relied on human psychology to a larger part, it is only a lot more than what it used to be right now.
So be aware of the fact that there is a shift from from technologies and products. It's not about the tech stack anymore. It's about it's about your approach. It's about your taste. It's about your vision. It's about what do you what? What is your your skill, your specialty as an individual, that actually makes a huge difference.
So I think it's very important to take that time to recognize your, your strength, your speciality, and build on it.
And it's not just the tech. The roles in itself are blurring. I mean, even from a marketing standpoint, you you would have you would have somebody writing copy, you will have somebody doing design, you will have somebody doing the growth, marketing part of it, someone manages all the channels, partnerships, and this, this is how it goes.
But what you see, all these roles are actually blurring, and the most part of it can be run with AI agents, versus what, what will define, or what will have you stand out is is your individuality.
So take that time to recognize what your strength is, what your taste and and how do you want to approach taking a product to the market and then use these tools to enable you? That's what I said.
Mike: I love it. That's amazing advice. And really, I think, positive for people coming into the industry, this has been fascinating. We've covered a lot. I'm sure there'll be a lot of people listening who want to look into Paperflite a bit more, find out a bit more about the product.
So what's the best way for them to find out more and maybe get some questions answered?
Yega: Absolutely, Paperflite.com is definitely one place, and I'm super active on LinkedIn. So anybody, anytime, any messages I do respond to messages on LinkedIn.
Mike: That's awesome. Jaeger, it's been fascinating. It's been a great interview. Thank you so much for being a guest on B2B marketing technology.
Yega: Thank you, Mike. It was, it was a pleasure. 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 favorite podcast application.
If you'd like to know more, please visit our website, at Napier, B2B.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Inside Menlo Microsystems: Marketing Switch Technology Innovation
In the latest episode of our Marketing B2B Technology podcast, Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Microsystems, joins Mike to explore what it really takes to build and market a category-defining innovation.
From starting her career as an engineer to leading marketing at a fast-scaling deep tech company, Jackie shares why technical credibility, clarity, and customer-focused storytelling are essential, especially when your audience is made up of engineers and your product challenges decades of established thinking.
You’ll hear how Menlo Micro is redefining switch technology with its “Ideal Switch” platform, and why success in this space isn’t about hype but education, proof, and trust.
The conversation also dives into the differences between large corporations and startup environments, highlighting the importance of focus and fast decision-making in driving rapid growth. Jackie shares insights on marketing to engineers, balancing brand building with commercial results, and how the role of sales is evolving in modern B2B.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Menlo Microsystems
Menlo Micro sets a new standard for switches with the Ideal Switch, a chip-scale platform that overcomes performance, efficiency, and scalability bottlenecks of electromechanical relays (EMRs) and semiconductor-based switches.
It’s the first disruptive switching technology in over 30 years and the only platform scalable across both power and frequency domains. The Ideal Switch enables smaller, lighter, faster, more reliable, and energy-efficient systems. From AI and quantum compute to aerospace, defense and power electronics, the Ideal Switch eliminates bottlenecks and reduces the total cost of ownership across today’s most demanding applications.
Menlo Micro unlocks new possibilities. For more information, visit www.menlomicro.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.
About Jackie Rutter
Jackie Rutter is a seasoned marketing and business leader with over 25 years of experience driving growth across global technology markets. As Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro, she leads the company’s worldwide marketing and communications strategy, delivering measurable impact including doubling revenue in the past year and expanding Menlo Micro’s presence in critical applications including GPU/CPU & HPC T&M, Quantum Compute, AI Data Centers and Industrial Automation.
Previously at Analog Devices, Jackie was instrumental in scaling the business from $3.5 billion to over $12 billion in revenue, leading high-profile acquisitions, global marketing programs, and demand-generation initiatives that strengthened ADI’s position in energy, mobility, and industrial markets.
Jackie has a proven track record of building high-performing teams, developing scalable marketing strategies, and driving market share growth. She is an active advocate for women in engineering and technology, contributing to IEEE and the GSA Women Leadership Initiative, and regularly shares her leadership insights at industry events.
Time Stamps
00:00:00 - Introduction to Jackie Rutter and Her Career Journey
00:04:00 - Understanding Menlo Microsystems and Its Technology
00:06:50 - Marketing Challenges in Redefining a New Category
00:09:10 - Building Credibility in Marketing to Engineers
00:10:40 - Learning from Early Marketing Missteps
00:12:10 - Balancing Brand Building with Lead Generation
00:15:40 - Creating Effective Thought Leadership Content
00:18:30 - The Role of Sales in Modern B2B Marketing
00:24:30 - Closing Remarks and Contact Information
Quotes
"Even the most powerful innovations, the most powerful technologies fail if people don't understand why it matters. What's the impact to the end application? What's the impact to the end user?" Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
“You need clarity, you need focus, you need passion, you need very, very fast decision-making. So that environment is what's enabled us to double revenue in under a year, which is something that's pretty impressive." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
"What MEMS switches is a totally disruptive platform. So it eliminates trade-offs in engineering, mainly on size, on weight, on power consumption and the amount of power density that it drives." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
"Category creation means education first, right? You can't start selling something that people don't even know they've got a problem with. So it's about education." Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
"Engineers want clarity, they want data, they want transparency, honesty.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
Follow Jackie:
Jackie Rutter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-rutter/
Menlo Micro website: www.menlomicro.com
Menlo Micro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/menlo-micro
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Jackie Rutter at Menlo Microsystems
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Jackie Rutter
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 Jackie Rutter, who's the CMO of Menlo Microsystems. Welcome to the podcast, Jackie.
Jackie: Hi, thank you, Mike, and thank you for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on. We like to have guests just give us a brief intro about themselves. Can you tell us a little bit about your career? What pulled you into marketing? And then why you've chosen Menlo as your current company?
Jackie: Yes, so I actually began my career as an engineer, as you know, Mike. So I've always been close to technology. And what pulled me into marketing was realizing that even the most powerful innovations, the most powerful technologies fail if people don't understand why it matters. What's the impact to the end application? What's the impact to the end user? And how it changes people's decisions and decision-making. And that's why Menlo was so compelling for me. I wanted to join a company where I could drive truly impactful outcomes across the company. So one that nurtured and encouraged my entrepreneurial spirit and my creative skills and where I can contribute beyond marketing. So Menlo's technology, so the ideal switch platform is a switch, and it's one of the most fundamental hardware components in many different products. And it's not just incremental, the benefits it does, it's actually challenging decades, in fact, centuries of traditional switch technology. So the opportunity to define a new category, but also support not just corporate marketing, but the significant revenue. growth, business strategy, product development across the company was sort of the kind of challenge I was looking for. So I couldn't really resist Menlo. Yeah.
Mike: And before we go any further, we should probably confess something because we've known each other for a very long time, haven't we?
Jackie: We have, Mike. You hired me my first ever proper job after university at IDC on a young age of 22, I think. Yes.
Mike: Three or four years ago.
Jackie: Absolutely only. Yes.
Mike: Yeah. So anyway, I mean, you've had a really great career since, um, you know, work with me at IDT. You worked for analog devices, one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. And now you've moved to Menlo, which is really a startup scale up, uh, kind of business. So what's it like moving from a very large corporate to a much smaller, much more fast growing company?
Jackie: Oh, so large companies like Analog Devices, it taught me discipline. It taught me to align at scale. And at ADI, for example, I worked on the Linear Tech acquisition, on the Maxim acquisition afterwards, where success really depends on building trust across thousands of people and maintaining that customer confidence globally. Now at a scale up, Like Menlo, pace is different. You need clarity, you need focus, you need passion, you need very, very fast decision-making. So that environment is what's enabled us to double revenue in under a year, which is something that's, you know, pretty impressive and where you need to really align across engineering, sales, marketing, leadership, you name it. And I particularly like that fast pace. I find it really energizing.
Mike: That's great. I mean, we should talk a little bit about what Menlo does. And I think, you know, one thing to say is we're both engineers or we're engineers. So we need to kind of keep this, you know, pretty straightforward because a lot of people listening to this are marketers who are not technical. So you mentioned something called MEMS. Talk a little bit about what Menlo does and what the technology is they use.
Jackie: So Menlo is setting a new standard in switch technology, in switches, which is with their ideal switch platform. And it's a chip scale switch platform that delivers real step function improvements in performance, reliability, efficiency, and lowering that total cost of ownership. So unlike legacy switches, which sort of force trade-offs between performance and size and weight and reliability etc. What MEMS switches is a totally disruptive platform so it eliminates trade-offs in engineering mainly on size, on weight, on power consumption and the amount of power density that it drives. So if you think of our customer base, which are OEMs, OEMs of high-performance electronic systems, they're either constrained by very chunky and slow electromechanical relay, so basically an on-off switch, mechanical switch, and also bulky heat sinks of semiconductor switches or solid-state switches, which they need a bulky heat sink next to them because they dissipate so much heat. So now OEMs, our customers, are breaking free, to say, from design limitations so they're able to build smaller and faster and lighter and more reliable, more efficient products. And this is why Menlo is exciting to work for because it's really positioning the company as a category defining leader in modern switch technologies. And what I would say too is what makes it more interesting is what it enables. So at CES, for example, we validated the first MEMS and MEMS is basically micro, it's a tiny electromechanical switch. And what we did was we validated a half a megawatt hot switch panel, which for the engineers listening is very, very sexy. And we did that with microchip state-of-the-art powered test facility for an end customer, which is the US Navy. And this is a massive milestone where in the men's field, you know, nobody thought it could be achievable. And that single demonstration, which we did at the end of last year and we sort of announced at CES, that really changed conversations across AI data centers and how you're protecting assets like your GPUs and your CPUs in the racks in data centers from protecting your robots in industrial factories and even the energy infrastructure market. And that conversation changed overnight. That's what we do. That's why it's exciting to be at Menlo.
Mike: And that sounds really cool and really impressive. But from a marketing point of view, I think there's a big challenge there. You mentioned that you're defining a new category. You're basically telling engineers everything you've learned, everything you've done in the past, you need to change and do something different. So how do you go about marketing a product that's trying to really redefine how people design their systems to do something completely new?
Jackie: Yeah, so it's all about category creation. So it's about education. So MEMS had a credibility problem, like I mentioned before, and actually more than 30 plus companies failed to commercialize it. So we had to solve the perception challenge before we could sell anything first. So, we positioned the ideal switch as more as a scalable, commercially proven switch technology, backed by real deployment, backed by real customer adoption. So, that's why Marketing with partners, such as Microchip, with customers like Nvidia, Rosenberger, MiniCircus, GE, U.S. Navy, da, da, da, da, right? That reinforces and reframes all that reframing moved customers and investors, because they're not privately owned company, investors are very important too, from the skepticism to conviction to actually customer adoption.
Mike: I mean, that's interesting, you know, I mean, obviously, this partnering and then building the proof points is a classic way to to bring in a new category. But you're bringing a new category to a market that really is very technical engineers. So what do you think is sometimes, you know, underestimated or misunderstood about marketing to engineers?
Jackie: engineers, we don't resist marketing. In fact, some of us actually go into marketing, but what we do resist is ambiguity. So an engineering audience, they want clarity, they want data, they want transparency, honesty. So that's why the partnerships that I mentioned earlier with NVIDIA and Microchip and others is so powerful because Each of those partnerships are rooted into very real technical validation, and it's not positioning language. And I think that's where we get that credibility when we're talking to an engineering audience.
Mike: And I mean, also from the same side, you know, Menlo is a very engineering driven company as well. And so, you know, you've also got to fight for credibility for marketing. You mentioned engineers don't necessarily hate marketing, despite the reputation. But how do you build credibility for marketing in a company like Menlo?
Jackie: Marketing at Menlo is really an extension of engineering and that could well be because of my background too and how we drive the marketing team. But at Menlo, the marketing team works really directly with the design teams, with the apps engineering teams, with standard bodies like NIST and customers to ensure that every claim that we're putting out there is defendable. And that's how we can secure credibility and If engineering apps, if the design team of the CTO office doesn't believe it, then it doesn't go out, right?
Mike: So I mean, that sounds like, you know, kind of a smooth process. You establish the facts, you then communicate them. Everybody loves the product. But I've got to ask the tougher question. And I know this happens a lot in companies, particularly when they're growing very quickly, is things go wrong. So I'm interested to know, you know, what hasn't worked as expected or maybe what surprised you from the change from large companies to small company? And what did you learn from it? How did you develop?
Jackie: I think early on in Menlo, we tried to build awareness probably too broadly, you know, we were going for everything. And I think we learned very quickly and with your guidance, Mike, that we had to focus and focus matters probably more than reach. So once we concentrated on specific high value problems, such as how do you protect your most, most expensive, most critical assets in a data center, which is your GPU, your CPU, and these racks. How do you reduce the testing side in quantum computing on the cryogenic side of temperatures? How do you make the energy grid more reliable? How do you protect your most valuable asset in a factory like your robots, etc? Once you concentrate in those very focused problems, challenges, then your engagement, then your adoption starts to accelerate significantly. So I think that was the biggest learning, at least once I've been at Menlo, is we tried to build awareness too broadly. I think where we started to see the outcomes and actually increase that escalation of outcomes was focusing.
Mike: And that's really interesting. I mean, you've you've talked about, you know, strategies which are really quite a lot around building the brand and building credibility. So, you know, quite long term strategies. I mean, companies that are growing fast have a reputation of focusing on the bottom of the funnel and just, you know, lead generation. So how do you balance that need for building the brand and the long term marketing versus short term, you know, lead generation?
Jackie: Right, so you're right. The marketing strategy for Menlo, as Menlo is entering the scale-up phase, it's all about strengthening Menlo's market position by establishing the ideal switch as an industry standard. So that was about generating awareness of our growth, about scaling test and measurement or validating GPUs, CPUs, high-performance devices. about scaling aerospace and defense on the RF communication side, whilst also entering high-TAM power electronics market. So it's about positioning the ideal switch as a new standard, outperforming traditional switching technologies, and then building that credibility like you mentioned. So three pillars really, category education, technical proof, customer and partner validation. And it's all about really answering one question of how does this technology fundamentally move the needle for our customers, for our customers' customers. And so tactics that we use, not so much from lead generation because we have a very focused customer target list, but it's what marketing tactics work best for that.
Mike: That's interesting. I mean, that sounds really mature and much more like a bigger company. Do you think your experience at much larger companies has actually helped Menlo really behave and act like a company that may be slightly bigger than it is at the moment?
Jackie: I think having a wide marketing experience of marketing products and solutions in different company sizes absolutely is valuable. I think I've got a tool kit, a marketing tool kit that I've obviously gained throughout the experiences. So I do bring that those marketing tactics that best work for Menlo. have it in mind that they are in a scale-up mode and we need to be accelerating customer adoption. So technical content, yes, is great. Application-driven storytelling is even better. And without a doubt, customer testimonials, customer joint product announcements, customer strategy partnerships that provide that credibility, absolutely for the stage where Menlo is, is that advantage. And for example, having gone public with NVIDIA about our collaboration. That really established credibility in markets like test and measurement, which traditionally are conservative markets, but with the adoption of AI, with the need of protecting your most valuable assets in AI data centers, we've seen this astronomical increase in valuation from companies like Advantis. I think they're like $115 billion valuation company, Teradyne, Formfactor. So yes, obviously experience of marketing solutions, positioning, those types of solutions at different size companies obviously is of advantage.
Mike: And one of the things you talked about there that I found really interesting was content because, you know, a lot of marketers, particularly in B2B, they, you know, just trip off all thought leadership. It's the important thing. And it's sometimes actually not really leading thought at all. Whereas what you're doing is you're actually having to generate something that really is ahead of your customers. You're telling your customers where they should go. I mean, how do you create that sort of thought leadership content and make it effective?
Jackie: Yeah, so thought leadership for Menlo at that stage of being in the growth mode is absolutely critical. I know everybody's saying thought leadership is critical, but it has to be earned. So a great example was when we secured a third party validation through Tony Fadell and he's like the iPod inventor, right? He's the guru. He's the business person. Everybody, you know, listens from Apple, from Google, et cetera. And he featured Menlo on Newcomer podcast and that credibility reaching out to lots of investors, technologists, industry leaders. That's something that I've got to say no traditional marketing campaign could achieve in that short period of time. So I know thought leadership absolutely critical, but it has to be earned.
Mike: That's interesting. You talk about Tony Fadell, and he obviously comes from a B2C background rather than B2B. I mean, a lot of people are talking about this convergence of B2B and B2C, yet we've also had this discussion about how engineers are very special and how they need very different marketing. So what's your view? Do you think B2B and B2C are fundamentally the same thing, or do you think they're different?
Jackie: Oh, I think there is some convergence. I think particularly on clarity and the customer experience, I think the substance is still technical. But audiences now expect that intuitive digital journeys, that clear narrative that I was mentioning earlier, the human storytelling, but that could be through an application. So even in deep tech B2B environments, I think you're still seeing a lot of that B2C marketing. So yes, I think there is convergence.
Mike: And that's interesting. I mean, you talk about the journey and that leads really into another question. I was thinking about, you know, there's been a lot of research showing that in B2B people are spending much less time talking to a salesperson. Traditionally, when you bought stuff with B2B, you spent a lot of time talking to salespeople and now they're doing the research themselves. So they're relying on marketing content. Is that something you're seeing at Menlo and how are you changing your marketing to adapt to it?
Jackie: Yeah, so I think customers, you're absolutely right, they're arriving far more informed. I think marketing now shapes decision earlier. And it's about helping the customer apply the technology to their specific systems, to their specific constraints. whether that's size, weight, power consumption, driving power density. However, in some of the markets that Mendo operates, and that's the ones with the very long design cycles, aerospace and defense, healthcare, I think that's where sales, sales account management is critical for the success. So, yes, Some customers are spending less time in sales, but it depends on the market and the design cycle. I think sales is still going to be around for a bit.
Mike: And I don't think we're going to see sales people disappear. That's not the case. You know, I'm interested because you're asking people to somewhat take a big leap of faith and jump to a new way of doing things. Do you think actually having that human involvement from sales maybe is more important to make people more confident to make the change?
Jackie: Yes, absolutely. At least in Menlo, you're not talking about transactional relationships. You're talking about relationships at every single level of an organization and whether we like it or not. And I'm a firm believer of AI and one that uses it a lot. But when you're talking about multi-million dollar contracts, you would expect that human element at every single level of the organization.
Mike: That's great. I mean, you mentioned something. We've gone quite a long way into the podcast without mentioning AI. I guess we will have to talk about it. You said you're a big fan of AI and a big user. So I'm sure people will be interested to know where you and your team are actually seeing practical value from AI.
Jackie: Yeah, I mean AI is reshaping marketing and it's reshaping marketing very fast. I think you need to embrace it or you'll lose. I think where I am and where Menlo and the marketing team at Menlo is using it is excellent for accelerating research, drafting, synthesis. I think where it falls short and where you need, you know, human brains, I think is on the judgment side. I think in complex technical markets, I think experience, context, credibility, it still matters far more than the automation side. So yes, obviously, we use AI, but we use it basically on the research, drafting, synthesis side of things.
Mike: It's been quite a positive podcast, because apparently we're still going to have salespeople and marketing jobs in the future. So that's good news.
Jackie: Yes, but it'll be different. It'll be different. Yeah, it'll be different, but it'll be more productive. Yeah.
Mike: This has been really interesting. You know, I could go on asking you questions forever, but there are kind of three questions that we like to ask people that are a bit more fun. So, you know, if you don't mind, I'd like to start off by saying, what's the most innovative campaign you've seen recently?
Jackie: Oh, okay. For me, the most innovative campaigns are the flashy ones. They're the useful ones, right? So anything that genuinely helps customers, engineers design better systems that stand out far more than sort of a clever, sexy slogan, then that's what I find more innovative. So, and I'll give you an example, and it's only happened this week. We've got NVIDIA GTC going on and ABB, and NVIDIA have partnered in this, I thought, pretty smart campaign to bring in AI-powered robotics to factories. So what they've done is they've used this huge graphic power that NVIDIA has with their GPUs, and they've used it to visually train and shape robotic factory automation with ADB's, obviously, know-how in robotics. So I thought that was That was interesting for me and flashy because it was useful, right? I learned something. So there you go. And that was only this week.
Mike: And that's great. And obviously, I love it because it's one of our clients. So thank you.
Jackie: I didn't know that. But yes, even better.
Mike: OK, the next question we like to ask is, what's the best marketing advice that's ever been given to you?
Jackie: Okay, it's gonna sound like I'm sucking up to my boss, but I'm not. But through the Menlo interview process, our CEO, Russ Garcia, he said to me, he said, clarity builds trust. And I think that's so important, particularly in Menlo and particularly when you need to build that credibility. So that clarity builds trust. It's something that I've been guided through now with everything that I'm doing in marketing for the last 16 months or so that I've been at Menlo.
Mike: That's awesome. OK, and then the last of these three questions is if you're talking to a young person who is just starting in a marketing career and obviously looking at things like AI and seeing things change so rapidly, what advice would you give them?
Jackie: Gosh, first of all, don't be scared. Change, you need to embrace it, because the only thing that's not going to change is change, right? But I would say… What's helped me? So it's learn the technology. So I obviously an engineer, I've got passion for technology. I'd say learn the technology, learn the business, stay curious, stay super curious, ask questions. And I think the best marketeers that I've encountered through my own career understands how things work, and how people make decisions. Think of the different marketing personas or your customers' personas. A CEO, a CTO is definitely going to think differently than your test engineer, for example. So I would say to a younger marketeer, don't just learn how to promote, learn the technology, learn the business, stay curious. It's also a lot more fun.
Mike: That's fantastic advice to end on. Jackie, this has been amazing. It's been really interesting. If people have questions and want to reach out to you afterwards, what's the best way for them to do that?
Jackie: You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn, or you can just reach out to me through Mendo Micro's website if you're keen on the technology, on partnerships, or even if you've just got mentoring needs. Yeah, LinkedIn or the Mendo Micro website.
Mike: That's amazing. Jackie, thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Jackie: Thank you so much. It's been fun.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
What “The Great Geo Gold Rush” Reveals About the Future of Search
Our recent webinar, “The Great Geo Gold Rush,” explores a fundamental shift in how brands must approach visibility in an AI-driven search landscape. As search evolves from keyword-based queries to conversational, intent-driven prompts, success increasingly depends on a brand’s ability to deliver clear, authoritative answers to real customer questions. This shift moves beyond traditional SEO tactics, requiring a more strategic focus on structured, high-quality content designed to meet audience needs directly. By embracing this approach, brands can strengthen visibility, build credibility, and develop deeper customer relationships in an increasingly competitive environment.
Traditionally, SEO focused on keywords, specific phrases users typed into search engines. Marketers optimised content to rank for those terms, aiming to drive traffic through search results. However, the rise of AI-driven search tools, such as ChatGPT and other generative models, has fundamentally changed this model. Queries are now more conversational and complex, with users expecting complete, contextual answers rather than a list of links. This shift demands a rethink of how content is created and structured.
To remain visible, brands must prioritise understanding the questions their audience is asking and create content that answers them directly. Structuring content using Q&A formats, question-based subheadings, and FAQ sections can significantly increase the likelihood of being surfaced in AI-generated responses. This not only improves visibility but also positions brands as trusted, authoritative sources.
Being featured in AI-generated answers is becoming a critical battleground, yet many B2B brands are not optimising for it. This gap presents a significant opportunity for those willing to invest in content that aligns closely with customer intent—improving share of voice and driving meaningful growth.
Understanding which AI models matter most to your audience, and tracking performance accordingly, is essential. Metrics such as visibility, share of voice, and citation frequency provide valuable insight into how effectively a GEO strategy is performing. These insights enable brands to continuously refine their content and engagement strategies to better align with evolving customer expectations.
In a landscape saturated with AI-generated content, authenticity is increasingly important. Human, experience-driven perspectives are more likely to resonate, build trust, and differentiate a brand. As organisations focus on answering questions effectively, maintaining a distinct voice is critical.
Ultimately, the webinar reinforces a clear message: answering customer questions is no longer a tactical choice, but a strategic requirement. Brands that invest in high-quality, question-led content, and measure its impact effectively, will be best positioned to succeed.
Embracing this approach is not just about keeping pace, but about gaining a competitive edge.
Watch Napier’s on-demand webinar where we explore how search is evolving and how it’s affecting B2B marketing strategies: https://napier-partnership-limited.webinargeek.com/the-great-geo-gold-rush-3
Maximizing Content Creation: The Power of AI and Video in Modern Marketing
Katherine Mayer, Product Manager at Kapwing, a cloud-based video editing platform, joins the podcast to discuss how video editing is evolving with AI and how marketers can create high-quality content more efficiently than ever before. The discussion covers the unique advantages of browser-based editing, the integration of AI tools, and how Kapwing serves a diverse range of users, from individual creators to marketers.
Katherine emphasizes the importance of combining human creativity with AI, highlighting how Kapwing facilitates collaboration and simplifies the editing process. She also addresses common mistakes marketers make when creating video content and the specific challenges faced by B2B marketers.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Kapwing
Kapwing is an AI-powered creation platform built for creators, marketers, and enterprise teams. By blending a fast-moving product culture with cutting-edge technology, Kapwing stays ahead of content trends and makes video creation accessible to everyone.
About Katherine Mayer
Katherine Mayer is a Brooklyn-based Product Manager with 3 years of experience building AI-powered products at Kapwing. She specializes in 0-to-1 product development, AI/ML strategy, and monetization. She has launched tools like an AI dubbing product with 30k monthly active users and a text-to-speech tool scaling to 128k MAU.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Guest Introduction: Katherine Mayer from Kapwing
00:01:44 - Overview of Kapwing and Its Customer Solutions
00:02:46 - The Role of AI in Video Editing at Kapwing
00:08:35 - How Kapwing Supports Marketers
00:09:50 - Repurposing Content for Marketing Efficiency
00:12:10 - Examples of Impactful Marketing Videos
00:14:28 - Common Mistakes in Video Production
00:17:01 - B2B Marketing Video Considerations
00:18:25 - Future of AI in Video Marketing
00:21:09 - Best Marketing Advice for Professionals
00:23:12 - Advice for New Marketing Professionals
00:24:46 - How to Get Started with Kapwing
Quotes
"AI can be used on top of that to sort of enhance the process to automate some of these more monotonous tasks that take a long time and are expensive." Katherine Meyer, Product Manager at Kapwing.
"I really think it's valuable to be able to learn more about what you want in your career by connecting with your coworkers and other professionals in the space." Katherine Meyer, Product Manager at Kapwing.
"I think that it is, in some ways, there's maybe more trust built when you hear someone and can see someone speaking the words that they're sharing." Katherine Meyer, Product Manager at Kapwing.
Follow Katherine:
Katherine Meyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katmeyer
Kapwing website: https://www.kapwing.com/
Kapwing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kapwing
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Katherine Meyer at Kapwing
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Katherine Meyer
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. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Katherine Mayer. Katherine is a product manager at Kapwing. Welcome to the podcast, Katherine.
Katherine: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Mike: It's great to have you on. What we always like to do when we start off is learn a little bit about the person on the podcast. So I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your career and why you chose Kapwing as your current company.
Katherine: Yeah, I'd love to. So I am based in New York. I started working at Kapwing almost five years ago. And I chose the company because I was doing a living abroad situation and actually teaching in Spain. I was working at a high school. I was also working at a real estate company there doing part-time work and tutoring. And I loved wearing multiple hats, but I wanted to combine it into working at one company. And I was interested in startups. And so I, you know, looked on a ton of websites. I found Kapwing. I've always been interested in video editing. I did that when I was younger. sort of for personal projects. I've used that in different jobs and I really liked the idea of working at a company that had a video editor as a product. And so I, you know, applied. I really liked the team and what they were working on and the problems they were solving. And so I joined. And I started at Kapwing on the customer support team. And I did that for about a year and a half and then moved into product management.
Mike: That's really interesting. You know, you've hinted that the company is involved in video. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about what Kapwing does and also the problems it solves for its customers.
Katherine: Kapwing is a cloud-based video editing platform, and we serve individual users as well as teams to help the content editing process move smoother. So we serve a wide range of customers, including individual creators, so maybe someone creating videos for their YouTube channel, to marketers who are creating professional advertisements for social media or for television. And we've been around since 2019. And yeah, I think that's kind of an overview of what we do, but happy to dig into it more.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, the first thing I noticed when I go to the website, is that obviously you talk about AI, I think everybody's talked about that, particularly around video. But you also talk about having tools as well. Does this mean that, you know, as a solution, you think that there's a lot that can't be done by AI? So it needs a mixture of humans and AI?
Katherine: I would say so. So what positions Kapwing well to use AI, I'd say, is that we have a really strong structure and a great product that is sort of stable on its own to deal with these really heavy video editing flows. And then I think that AI can be used on top of that to sort of enhance the process to automate, you know, some of these more monotonous tasks that take a long time and are expensive. And I think that what AI can do is sort of enhance what an editor or someone who is, you know, creative is already doing. But I think that you sort of need the context first to be able to add AI on top of that and create really high quality pieces. So I guess to more clearly answer your question, I think that AI can do a lot of things, but AI needs sort of the context and the direction that people bring to create really high quality pieces.
Mike: That makes a lot of sense. So I mean, obviously, you're a combination of tools for humans to use and AI as well. So what does Kapwing do that's really, really good? Where do you excel?
Katherine: Yeah, so we've done a lot of work to make editing in the browser performant. As I mentioned, and as you know, and the listeners probably know, video editing involves, you know, a lot of big files. And some projects can be really large and complicated with transitions and different layers. that is a problem that we have really invested in. So I think like five years ago, editing a really large project with lots of video assets on the browser was buggy and hard to do and slow. And Kapwing is really good at attacking that problem of making that performance better in the browser. And it's been really fun, you know, in my career to see the evolution of that and to to be there for those advancements. I also, you know, think that Kapwing excels in providing a collaborative space. That is, you know, sort of a benefit of being a cloud-based platform is that you can have your whole team on the site. You can log in from anywhere and, you know, review projects, edit projects, and you can do that together. So I think that I would note the performance of Kapwing as well as the collaborative features. And then finally, I would say, you know, we're a really small team and we move really fast. And so in this world of new technologies coming out, including AI, It's really important in our space to move fast and to add new tools that are popping up. I think something that is really amazing right now with where we are with technology is that a lot of different people have been enabled to create new things and that could be something you know, like video, or that could be a new model. And one example of this is, we've been seeing this cling model, which has this motion feature where you can add a video of a person doing some sort of physical motion, and then a reference image and transfer the motion from the video to the image. And that's something that our content team, you know, found. And we were able to integrate that new model into our tool in a day so that we could have users jump on those trends. And I think that that, like, the way that we can move so fast is something that we, you know, excel in and is something that differentiates us and helps us serve our customers better.
Mike: I mean, that sounds great. There's a lot there. The thing you really, I think, brought out was this uniqueness of editing in the browser. So the benefit of that to users, is that primarily collaboration? Or why do you think people want to edit in the browser?
Katherine: Yeah, it's definitely collaboration. But even for people who are, you know, editing on their own, it's, you know, you don't lose work. I think like something that I really loved is I don't have to consistently be saving my work, it's all auto-saved. And so that is a pain point that I think video editors have felt who have worked on the desktop. And then again, I do think that being on the browser allows us to plug into different integrations and allows us to move fast and add new technologies versus having to sort of build that out and have users update a desktop application. And then one other thing I'll mention is that you can access your projects from different devices. So I could open my phone and log into my account and have my projects there. Or if I'm working on a different laptop, I can go to the website and access my projects. So I would say that that is sort of a benefit of the nature of being cloud-based as well.
Mike: I mean, that sounds great. Looking at, you know, our audience, which obviously is predominantly marketers, I'm interested, you know, how does Kapwing help marketers? I mean, maybe you could give us some examples of some of the content that marketers are using the platform to generate.
Katherine: Yeah, so there's a lot here and I've spent a lot of time talking to marketers about creating video and their pain points. I guess I'll answer this question in a few different parts. One is that I think that it's really nice to have a tool where you can organize different types of assets. So If I'm a marketer, I have some images that I need to edit, and then I want to integrate those images into, let's say, a video for maybe an intro. I can do that all in one place. So it's really nice to have a space where you can keep your multimedia assets and be able to reuse them for different projects. I think of the repurposing flows as really important for marketers, and I'm sure you can relate to this, having a podcast and repurposing different parts of that podcast for short form video. So Kapwing makes it really easy to create long form content or bring your long form content in and produce more high quality content, which can be in the form of clips. You could export different audio bytes from video. So I would say our repurposing features are really helpful to marketers. And then something else that I have worked on a lot at Kapwing is around localization. So translating a video into a different language and basically repurposing it for an audience that speaks a different language, is somewhere else in the world. And I think that that is really powerful for marketers as well, to be able to share their message globally, essentially. So I think that our repurpose flows, whether that is taking a long-form video, clipping it down, or translating a video, are really helpful tools for marketers and help speed up what would be a really long and expensive process for different teams
Mike: Yeah, and I think that's really important. I think one of the things we see with our clients is that quite often they'll generate some great content and then move on. And to be able to repurpose, reuse, generate clips, I think that's a huge benefit for marketers and possibly something that's somewhat underrated, don't you think?
Katherine: Definitely. And something else that I just thought about when you were responding there is that there's also, you know, a lot of different avenues you can take with repurposing content. I'm also seeing marketers take their articles and their written content and be able to produce, you know, different assets from that. You could think of writing an article and using that as a script for a short form video. I think it's really important to be able to take advantage of this hard work and great writing that people do to produce more content and get it out there and produce it in ways that are sort of digestible to different audiences.
Mike: That sounds great. I mean, do you have some examples of some of the projects you've seen where marketers have created really impactful video?
Katherine: Yeah. So one video we focus on a good amount is this talking head video. And I've worked with teams to help them essentially do the flow that I was talking about before. I'll call it article the video. So take a content piece that they've written and create a script from it and take a video or record audio of themselves doing this voiceover. And those do really well on social media. I think that it is, in some ways, there's maybe more trust built when you hear someone and can see someone speaking the words that they're sharing. I'm interested too in some of these tools that provide the option to not be on camera and create these talking head videos. So this would be like an AI avatar tool. I think there's still a lot to be done there in terms of quality and building trust with audiences when it comes to that sort of technology. But that's something that is pretty interesting to me. And I think I've also seen some really great examples of users taking, let's say, like product photos and being able to really easily now with our technology on Kapwing and elsewhere to, you know, turn a simple photo into a high quality advertisement with maybe sometimes some image generation as well as combining different voiceover layers, music, sound effects. So it's really amazing the quality that people can get right now. And I also see this in the wild, too. I just was looking at an ad for this shoe brand that they took this Wizard of Oz concept, and I think part of it was sort of made with AI and generative video, but it really It really was a great use and a good example of how creativity can be paired with these technologies to tell a very powerful story about a brand or a product.
Mike: I mean, that's interesting. It feels like there's so much opportunity. I guess, you know, one of the things that puts people off is they're worried about rushing in and producing a video that everyone looks at and goes, well, that's not good. So what mistakes do marketers make when they're generating videos? What can they avoid?
Katherine: Yeah, that's a good question. So I think that the planning process when coming up with a video is really important, especially if you're going to be using some of these AI tools to generate any video assets, audio assets, or image assets. I think that we've found success in our experience with giving our tools more context about our brand and the brand voice that we're going for. I think that there is maybe this misconception that AI is so powerful that you could send a one-sentence prompt and magically get back something that is postable and doesn't fall into the category of AI slop. But right now, I would really recommend that people try out these different tools and also feed in a lot of context around their brand, their voice, what they're looking for. I find that AI is really good at coming up with scripts and also being sort of a creative brief partner. And so, yeah, I would sort of recommend coming in with the context of your brand. And you don't need to necessarily have an idea or multiple ideas. I think that you can, you know, try out having this AI tool, whether it's, you know, on something like Kapwing or whether you're chatting on GPT or Cloud. But I would try out, you know, coming up with a creative brief with the AI and seeing where you get from there. I also think that there's a misconception that you have to be on camera or you have to be sort of recording voiceovers to make good video. And there are so many tools out there that can help with that process if that's not something that the individual is interested in doing or if that's a painful part of their process. So, yeah, I would get out there and try a lot of different stuff, but come in with the context of your brand so that you can create pieces that fit with that.
Mike: And, I mean, a lot of our audience are B2B marketers rather than B2C. So, I mean, presumably there's a real importance to get it right in B2B. It's a little bit different to B2C because I think there's a lot more risk associated with purchases in B2B. Do you agree?
Katherine: Yeah, I would agree. I think that I've been, you know, asking this question when I'm doing research around our own users and the products we're building and I see that there's sort of more risk because they may be, you know, more reputation there and handling larger deals. I also think it depends on the product because You know, if I'm selling a doctor service, there's sort of a different trust that I want to build with my customers there. But I wouldn't stray away from using some of these tools to help build content. But yeah, I definitely see that there's a bigger quality bar and less room for, I guess, experimentation with B2B customers.
Mike: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, we've talked a little bit about AI-generated video versus video that you film with real people. I mean, how do you see this changing? For example, what percentage of marketing videos do you think will be AI-generated in, say, a couple of years' time?
Katherine: Yeah, it's a great question. So I don't know if I can predict what percentage of videos will be made fully with AI, but I would say that the majority of marketing videos will have some sort of AI involved in the creation. Yeah, I think that's what I would say there.
Mike: I'm interested, you know, obviously you're involved in building the Kapwing business as well. So kind of at a high level, what's your strategy for marketing the product and getting more users?
Katherine: Yeah, that's a great question. So we have built our business off of mostly organic growth. Our CEO, Julia, I think of her as sort of an SEO wizard. We've, you know, really gotten into search optimization and creating really intentional articles, landing pages that really all have to deal with content creation and have positioned our business as an expert in that space, specifically on search. And so, yeah, I think that is our main strategy and we're still digging in there and trying to figure out sort of the needs of consumers and what people are, you know, trying to learn about when it comes to content creation. I think that the This AI movement and AI moving more into content creation and content marketing has brought an opportunity for us to do more research and do more research pieces on how this content is performing, what kind of models there are out there. and really become an expert in the space and a place where people can come and sort of read about different models or try them out. And that has been our main marketing avenue. We do have YouTube videos. We work with some really great video creatives and editors. who do use Kapwing as well to create content. And that is, you know, a really important avenue for us to market our new features and to give users more information on how to leverage them in their own workflows. But yeah, we've built sort of our business off of organic search.
Mike: That's really interesting and great to hear a really positive SEO story. It's been really interesting talking to you, Catherine. But before you go, there's always two questions we'd like to ask to try and get some of your insight that's going to help listeners. So the first thing I'd like to know is, what's the best marketing advice that you've ever been given?
Katherine: That's a great question. I will say I'm not a marketer, so I'm not an expert in marketing. I wouldn't say that. But I think being a product manager at a startup, I've gotten to learn a lot. And one of the areas I've learned about is marketing. I think that it's really important to use this motto of done is better than perfect. And I know not everyone has that affordance, but we have found a lot of success in our business in finding really good problems and then just shipping things out and seeing what happens. I think there's a graceful way to do this. And we talked about in this podcast being more intentional about sharing the context of your brand and with what pieces you put out there. But I think that in my career in product management and in my experience in marketing, it's always better to sort of make a decision, or in this case, ship something out than not ship something out at all. And I guess one other thing I would say is that, you know, I think that there's a lot of fear around new technology and my, you know, advice, especially for marketers, would be to just try things out. I think that I've also found, you know, in my own personal projects and in my professional projects that Trying out new technologies has been eye-opening and has changed my process. And I still keep my core creativity and message that I'm trying to share. But just by doing and going out there and trying things, I've been able to share that message more efficiently and effectively.
Mike: I think that's great advice. I love that. The other question we always like to ask and hopefully not going to say move into product management here is what would you tell someone who's just starting a career in marketing? What advice would you give them?
Katherine: Yeah. I think in general, what I've found in my career starting up, the advice I would give is to just talk to people at your company about what they're currently doing, what they've done in the past. I think as a young professional, it's really important to just be consistently learning on the job. I know that the marketing space moves really fast and there is also still so much value in these sort of soft skills that people have, you know, gained throughout their career. And I've just personally learned so much from just picking the brains of my co-workers who maybe just join the company or have been at the company for a long time, I really think it's valuable to be able to learn more about what you want in your career by connecting with your coworkers and other professionals in the space. So that is kind of the general young professional advice I would give that I'm still benefiting from today and in my career right now.
Mike: I love that and it's great you've given advice that I think could apply to almost any role, not just marketing there. That's fantastic. Katherine, it's been really interesting and I'm sure that there's going to be people who want to go out and try Kapwing now. So if people want to find out more or maybe test a product, what can they do?
Katherine: Yeah, so you can head to kapwing.com. That's K-A-P-W-I-N-G dot com. And we have, you know, a very clear way to get started on our site. It's free to sign up and have an account. You'll get the ability to test different features on the site. And I'd love to hear what you think. I'll also share my professional email. It's Katherine at Kapwing.com. I'm always interested to talk to, especially marketers, about their workflows, what their pain points are, if they have any feedback on Kapwing. So feel free to give it a try and reach out and let me know what you think, I guess.
Mike: Well, that's awesome. And very kind of you to share your email address as well. Yeah. Catherine, thank you. It's been fascinating. I'm certainly heading to the site to try out the product. Thanks very much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Katherine: Thank you for having me, Mike.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
TIMGlobal Visits TechniShow 2026
We were delighted to receive a guest blog from TIMGlobal, sharing their perspective on TechniShow 2026:
Showcasing 75 Years of Innovation in Manufacturing Benelux
During the exhibition, TIMGlobal representatives visited several prominent industrial companies, including Hexagon, Clevr, TopSolid, Mark3D, Spinner, Limas, Tezmaksan Robot Technology, and MVD. Each showcased innovative technologies and products reflecting the latest advances in automation, machining, robotics, and digital manufacturing. Insights from these meetings will be featured in TIMGlobal’s upcoming issues.
A Milestone Edition for the Industry
For the first time, TechniShow was fully integrated with ESEF Maakindustrie, offering visitors a unique opportunity to experience the entire manufacturing supply chain in one venue.
“This edition shows where the manufacturing industry currently stands — not in abstract visions of the future, but in working solutions, strategic guidance, and concrete innovations that can be directly applied in the workplace,” said Ricardo Vivas van Leeuwen, Cluster Manager for Manufacturing & Logistics at Jaarbeurs.
Factory of the Future Takes Center Stage
A key highlight of TechniShow 2026 was the FPT Factory of the Future, an initiative in which 22 technology companies collaborated to demonstrate a fully operational production environment. The setup illustrated how connected machining, robotics, automation, and AI converge into an integrated ecosystem.“The Factory of the Future is no longer a vision, but a reality. Everything needed for predictable production already exists. The challenge is integration — and that’s precisely what we’re demonstrating here,” explained Ires Veerman, Industry Manager at FPT & NEVAT.
Innovation and Inclusion Lead the WayInnovation was celebrated through the TechniShow Innovation Award 2026, recognizing forward-thinking companies that advance smarter, more sustainable, and efficient production. This year’s finalists — Gühring, RoboJob, and Voortman Steel Machinery — were selected from a wide pool of entrants for their tangible contributions to industrial advancement.
Complementing the focus on technology, this edition also introduced Women in the Making, a new initiative featuring a keynote and panel discussion on leadership, diversity, and visibility within the manufacturing industry. “Innovation power is also about who’s at the table. With Women in the Making, we’re giving diversity and leadership a structural place within TechniShow,” added Vivas van Leeuwen.
Spotlight on Defense and Strategic Resilience
The final day of the event turned attention to the defense industry. Mart de Kruif, retired Lieutenant General and former Commander of the Royal Netherlands Army, delivered a keynote address on geopolitics, leadership under pressure, and strategic decision‑making. A panel discussion followed, exploring the defense supply chain and the role of Dutch manufacturing companies.
“Safety, technology, and security of supply are increasingly interconnected. This is a strategically relevant domain for many manufacturing companies,” said Vivas van Leeuwen.
With a vibrant mix of innovation, collaboration, and forward-looking discussions, TechniShow 2026 reaffirmed its position as a key platform for the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands and beyond. TIMGlobal is pleased to have been part of this landmark edition and looks forward to sharing more insights from the event in its upcoming publications.
The Future of B2B Buyer Experiences: ABM, AI and Personalization – Katie Jones – PathFactory
Katie Jones, EVP of Marketing Operations at PathFactory explains how PathFactory personalizes content delivery for buyers, allowing them to navigate their purchasing journey without traditional barriers like content gating.
The discussion highlights significant changes in B2B marketing over the past four years, particularly the advancements in AI capabilities. Katie emphasizes the importance of focusing on pipeline generation rather than traditional lead metrics and the necessity of building strong relationships with sales teams and CFOs to measure marketing success effectively.
Looking ahead, Katie predicts a shift in how buyers interact with websites, suggesting that their role will evolve as AI and large language models reshape information-seeking behavior. The episode concludes with Katie sharing her proudest achievements, including a successful ABM campaign, and offering valuable advice for aspiring marketers on understanding products and company strategy.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About PathFactory
Providing the right content to the right individuals at the right time has become essential to enabling B2B teams to hit revenue targets. PathFactory is a content intelligence and personalization platform that enables B2B marketers to create personalized content experiences for both accounts and individual buyers. With PathFactory, go-to-market teams access the industry's deepest and most detailed content engagement analytics to track buyer and content engagement throughout the entire buyer journey.
About Katie Jones
Katie Jones is the EVP of Marketing and Operations at PathFactory, responsible for leading the company’s marketing strategy and operational execution with a clear focus on pipeline and revenue impact. With more than eight years at PathFactory, she has built and scaled a strong marketing organization grounded in data, personalization, and buyer-centric experiences. Katie lives outside Toronto with her husband, two daughters, and their dog, Hank.
Time Stamps
00:00:17 - Guest Introduction: Katie Jones from PathFactory
00:01:50 - Overview of PathFactory's Services
00:05:43 - Addressing AI Concerns: Hallucinations and Accuracy
00:12:37 - Measuring Performance and Overcoming Delays
00:15:41 - Shifting Towards B2C Marketing Strategies
00:18:50 - Future Trends: The Evolution of Websites
00:21:55 - Key Marketing Advice for Success
Quotes
""You need to build a really strong relationship with your CFO. If your CFO doesn't understand the strategy and the way that you're going to market... then you're never going to be successful in your company." Katie Jones, EVP of Marketing Operations at PathFactory.
"You need to really understand your product and how that drives the strategy of the company. If you don't understand your product, you can't market it." Katie Jones, EVP of Marketing Operations at PathFactory.
"Understanding the product is huge in order to grow. Tools will keep changing, but the strategy in which your business is built on is the thing that will endure." Katie Jones, EVP of Marketing Operations at PathFactory.
Follow Katie:
Katie Jones on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-jones-0188a12a/
PathFactory website: https://www.pathfactory.com/
PathFactory on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pathfactory/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Katie Jones at PathFactory
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Katie Jones
Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today.
Mike: Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Katie Jones. Katie is the EVP of Marketing Operations at PathFactory. Welcome to the podcast, Katie.
Katie: Thank you very much for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. So we always like to get a little bit of background on people when we start. So tell us a little bit about your career and why you've chosen PathFactory as your current company.
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. So I started out my career at BlackBerry, for those of you who remember the iconic phone that we all miss. And I actually used PathFactory as part of my technology stack when I was there. I was in marketing, marketing operations, and I fell in love with the company. I did a few other jobs in between, but ended up coming to work here as a solutions architect to support other customers and within the sales cycle to drive other people to adopt the technology. And then I've kind of moved up alongside as the company has grown and worked in many different parts of the organization. So I led our customer success team, I've worked on the product. And most recently, I've been leading the marketing and operations team here. So I've been here for about eight years.
Mike: It sounds like you're doing an awful lot there. We actually talked to Cassandra Jowett from PathFactory about four years ago, so a lot of listeners will be familiar with what you do, although maybe you're not quite up to date. So can you just briefly explain what PathFactory does and the kind of customers you serve?
Katie: Yeah, absolutely. So Path Factory is all about providing a better buying experience in the B2B world. So in the B2C world, when you think about the way that you buy or the way that you consume content on things like Netflix or Amazon, it's very easy to find the thing that you're looking for, but then find very relevant other things that you could easily add to your cart or binge through a series on Netflix or find the most relatable movie or whatever the case is. And consumers have been very accustomed to this buying behavior. And what we're doing at PathFactory is bringing that into the B2B world. So we allow B2B buyers to educate themselves easily instead of having to go through a treasure hunt on their website. or get emailed a piece of content week after week through a nurture communication and fill out a form every time you see a piece of content you want to read. And we allow to kind of put that whole journey off the back of one single click so somebody could educate from top of funnel to bottom of funnel and be ready to talk to somebody from a sales perspective right off the back of that single click. And we do this with the ability to personalize this at the most granular level, if that's to the person, the account, the vertical. And then we utilize AI to provide recommendations and the ability to do that at scale. Our customers really fall in the big enterprise companies like Cisco and MetLife, NVIDIA. And then we also work with mid-market and small business companies like Sysdig and Litho. So we really do span any B2B company really that's trying to educate their buyer.
Mike: I mean, as you mentioned, PathFactory has been around for a while. I'm interested to know what's changed in the last four years since we talked to Cassandra. I mean, you mentioned AI, that seems to have been a big thing.
Katie: Mm-hmm. Yes. So even I think back when you talked to Cassandra, we still had a bit of AI brought into the platform, but it was very, you know, it was more new age at that point. It was really based on content recommendations and looking at the relationship from pieces of content within your content corpus or your content library that related to each other so that you could make those recommendations in the moment to your buyer. So we've grown up that capability. So we look at not just how the content relates to it, but the engagement behind the content, what the content's about, the vertical around it, the types of content, et cetera, all the things that we collect on the content. And we use that to recommend. But we also brought AI into the platform in a few different other functions. One is through an agent. So you can have one-to-one communication with a buyer agent either on a campaign level to talk to the agent about the campaign that you're running or looking through to really drive answers to the questions that you have. Or on websites is another very common use case for our buyer agent that our customers use. So they put us right on their website instead of somebody having to go and filter through a resource center or look through the million blogs that you have. You can just have a conversation with the agent that agent is trained fully only on your content and the content that you put into the agent. So you could have multiple agents based on different content. But the benefit of that is that it'll lessen the likelihood of hallucinations or incorrect content or other random content that you'd find on the internet. because we are providing it just this small universe of your content. It allows it to be very accurate and provide the answers that you need in the buying cycle. And we were actually just recognized in the Q4 Forrester Wave for conversation automation for that agent, which was a really exciting milestone for us.
Mike: And that's great. I mean, I think a lot of people will be wondering, how much of a problem is AI? We hear a lot about issues about hallucinations. As you said, you're just training on a corpus of content that you're going to provide. But is there still a risk of incorrect information, particularly if you're talking about very technical products, or is that just something that the market is overly concerned about?
Katie: No, I mean, I think there's always a risk with it. At the end of the day, it's not humans. Humans can't check every query. And even though queries that you can go back and look at the answers. So we provide that within our back end, even for our product, where you can go look at the queries people are are asking, you can look at the answers, you can look at the content that it referenced, and you can make corrections. You can say, okay, well, there's a lot of people asking questions about this specific topic. I only have one or two pieces of content. It's not hitting the mark. I need to make some more content about that to drive better accurate answers through the agent, which is great. It's great that we can provide that insight because if I go to chat GPT or Claude or whatever the case is and I'm asking questions, not only is everybody going to ask a slightly different question, it's always going to be a slightly different answer. and there's no way to keep up with that. So it's really this is lessening the chances at least when it's based on your own content and you're controlling more of the conversation and the information that your buyers are getting. But there's always going to be a margin of thought, if you will, that the agent is going to fabricate a little bit. So it's not 100%. But that's why people still, especially in the B2B world, still talk to sales before before they purchase. And I mean, B2B buyers know that not 100% of the information you get in a sales cycle is 100% true either. So, you know, you have to take everything with a grain of salt and do your own research.
Mike: You just mentioned something I found very interesting. It's not just Power Factory customizing the journey that's important, but also you're giving intelligence to the marketing team about what people are looking for in the conversations with those agents. I mean, how important is that to your customers?
Katie: Yeah, I think it's hugely important, right? We go from this world of SEO and really this black box around it where people have theories on how you can make inputs to improve your SEO. And over the years, we've gotten a lot better at that. And now I think we're kind of starting again from zero with LLMs and trying to figure out how we surface. your brand in those answers. When you're on your own properties this allows you to see what people are really asking about and not only will that provide the insights on your own campaigns and your websites to how you can improve your journey on your your first party properties, but that in turn will then help support how you surface in LLMs as well, because the content that you're creating is about what's interesting to your buyers. And I think those insights, not only from the questions that people are asking, but the content that people are interested in is what gives PathFactory a very unique edge, because we've always been able to surface within our analytics, the topics, the interests of the buyers. That allows me as a marketer to create better content, but it also creates way better insights to my sales team, and it provides a better buying experience to my buyers. Because instead of my salesperson saying, okay, so do you want to buy A, B, C, D, or E? He's like, oh, I've seen you've been researching around B. This topic seems to be very interesting to you. Is this what you're looking at? And then you can actually accelerate the buying journey, even through the sales cycle, because you have so much more knowledge.
Mike: I guess one thing that interests me there is, obviously, everyone could benefit from that. And you said there's quite a wide range of customers using Pathfactory, but is there a particular thing that defines someone who'd be a good customer? Is it somebody who's got really complex products or lots of content? What really makes Pathfactory that superpower?
Katie: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think definitely people within, you know, the tech world typically do really well with us and buy more complex buying like cybersecurity where we've done really well with, we're doing really well with healthcare right now. And I think the biggest thing is really having an open mind as a marketer to change the way that you're doing marketing. in the B2B landscape. You can't just nurture through email communications and put ads with forums gating all of your content anymore. And if you've changed the way, not only you as the marketer, but your organization has changed the way that you're okay with measuring marketing attribution and ways that you're doing marketing well, then I think you could be very successful with PathFactory. The content piece is something that comes up probably in every single sales cycle. It's not about having, you know, tons and tons and tons of content. Although with AI, everybody is having more and more content than they've ever had before, for better or for worse. It's about having the right content and reusing that content across the buying journey where you see fit. And our analytics really help support that use as well.
Mike: makes a lot of sense and you lose the fact that you know things are changing and marketing you can't just put up some content behind a form and gather leads magically now i'm interested you know for path factory you're obviously leading the marketing there what's your marketing strategy for the company
Katie: We've always had this, you know, I think even when you spoke with Cassandra four years ago, she probably brought up the great gate debate is what we used to refer to it as. And unfortunately, we're still having the gate debate today where you'd think that people would be more open minded around removing the friction points across the B2B journey. Because if you look at your B2C life and the way that people like to purchase, they just people don't want to give over their information if they don't have to. And often it's because it's abused by brands and you get, you know, 82 emails in a week and you're like, this is why I didn't want to fill out a form. So we've really, you know, hunkered down on that idea of removing every friction point from the journey. So we don't gate really anything. The only times we put up a form is if you raise your hand and want to talk to sales or take a demo or to sign up for an event or a webinar or something like that. Other than that, you get all of PathFactory's content for free, if you will, and we market with that in mind. So we're not looking, I mean, we do email nurture and stuff like that because that's kind of table stakes to our database. We're not looking at lead conversion or MQLs as data points for success. We look at it from a program basis to see, you know, what the engagement is, et cetera, to make sure our programs are working. But at the end of the day, what we're looking at is pipeline generation. So we do activities that drive more pipeline generation. And the main thing that we're really focusing on, we're a pretty lean team, and we really want to be precise around who we're going after is just a really strong, scalable ABM campaign. So personalized experiences, the pages that people are getting are personalized to their vertical, their company, their role with content that aligns to that. And then easy ways for them to raise their hand to be provided with direct contact with their sales rep to reduce the waiting time even between steps when you are interested in talking to sales. So I'm not sure if that totally answers your question, but that is really kind of our broad marketing strategy.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I'd love to focus on pipeline. Let's look at something that really is a business metric rather than an artificial definition of MQLs or SQLs. I mean, I guess the problem a lot of companies have, particularly in the B2B space, with measuring performance by pipeline is quite often there's a big delay. You run a campaign, people don't actually put their hand up until later quickly. But I think some research, how do you deal with that delay?
Katie: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is you need to build a really strong relationship with your CFO. I think the CMO-CFO relationship is something that isn't really talked about enough. And if your CFO doesn't understand the strategy and the way that you're going to market and how you're measuring and the delay there, then you're never going to be successful in your company. Your CEO is one thing. Your CFO is, you know, he's the one who's allowing you to spend the money to drive the budget. And understanding there that there is a lag is really important education. So historical data is definitely big. Looking at other things like the quality of leads that you're providing to your sales team, conversion rates from your SQL to SQO, and then your time from SQO to close. Those things can help justify a bit more of your marketing campaigns. Maybe not direct attribution, but it will help your case to say that, OK, we've seen an increase in the quality of leads that we're providing. We're having a higher ACV value. You know, we have a shorter sales cycle. Those things, at the end of the day, they attribute back to your marketing team. You also have to have a good partner in sales, though, to make sure that you guys are working together, that you understand the strategy together, that you understand that it's a handoff from one to another. It's not, oh, it's marketing's fault. It's sales fault. It's a go to market initiative. And I think those are the things that you really need to focus on as a leader is building those relationships and really driving the education across your executive team.
Mike: I mean, that's fascinating. It sounds like, you know, you're really moving away from, you know, how B2B marketing might have been done five, 10 years ago, much more towards consumer. You've mentioned removing the gating from content. Are there other things you're doing that, you know, really is more of a move towards B2C type marketing?
Katie: Yeah, I think really building trust within your community is huge. So just remembering, I think in B2B marketing, it's very easy to forget that the people that you're selling to are just people. They have families and lives. They're doing their own job. They're trying to showcase that they're doing a good job in their job. And I think one of the big things that I learned at PathFactory a long, long time ago with one of our founders Nick, he was all about relationships and ways that you could build up the marketer at the end of the day who's buying PathFactory. How do we make them successful? And I think in B2C people market to people a lot better, where in B2B you kind of lose that. So bringing that into your strategy is really important. I think community is a big piece too. So along the same lines that you're you're trying to relate to the people at the person level, but understanding how they go to their peers, the questions that they're asking if you've been successful with them. That back channel is huge in B2B tech sass because nobody wants to make the wrong decision on what tech to bring in. So making sure that you are in those communities, not selling all the time, but being a trusted advisor, being a support to those people within your community, I think is really helpful. And one thing we did last year in the name of AI is we ran a roadshow in a number of different US cities. And we were talking about different ways to bring in AI in your organization, specifically in the marketing org, but across the company even. We had some people from product and customer success come and present on a panel as well. And we just wanted to talk about what's working, what's not working, how are you using it, what are ways that people can go leave this event and go get started today and not feel so overwhelmed by AI. It had nothing to do with PathFactory. We didn't talk about our technology at all. We didn't follow up with those people after that came and said like, hey, you want to buy PathFactory? Because he came to our roadshow. It was a way to be a trusted advisor and build trust in your brand. It's hard because my CFO is like, nothing really came from that. So should we do that again? But you know what? We had great feedback from those people. We did have deals that accelerated. We had renewals that came from it. So at the end of the day, you really need to remember that it's people and just trying to build people up.
Mike: I love that advice. I mean, we've talked a lot about what's changed in the last five or so years. I'm interested from your point of view, what do you think is going to change in the next five years?
Katie: Can I just say AI and we can move on?
Mike: I think the answer is no, because everybody says AI.
Katie: You're not going to let me off that easy. I mean, I think AI is going to be huge. But one of the big things that we're seeing is the use and I guess the visits on websites. So they're already going down. It was already kind of a piece, especially B2B websites are they're not the best places. They're very convoluted and there's a lot of content on them. They're hard to navigate. But I think people visiting websites and using websites in the way that you're using today is going to completely change in the next five years. Some people say the website won't even exist. I do think websites will still exist in five years, but for a completely different purpose. I think they're going to just fuel the education for LLMs and people won't really visit them anymore. So it'll be a way to kind of educate your SEO or AEO, AGO or whatever acronym you want to use at the moment, that strategy. But as a lead converter or a way to educate your buyers, I think you're going to have to find different avenues to do that.
Mike: That's fascinating. I think a lot of people have already seen that with traffic dropping off as LLMs take over from search engines. This has been fascinating. Before I let you go, Kate, we've got a couple of questions we like to ask everybody. The first is, showcase something you've done. What's the best campaign that you've been involved in?
Katie: In my career? That's a tough question. The people that were in Cassandra and her team, they did some really creative marketing stuff when they were here. I think the creativity there is unmatched. I can't say that I'm not the most creative person. I think what I'm most proud of, since I stepped into the marketing leader role, is the ABM campaign that we launched last year. Really just because of the scale of it. So we were personalizing to 120 companies and we have a team of one Marketer and we did that alongside everything else we were doing and a lot of that goes to the scalability of our products So we're obviously using path factory in order to do that but the pipeline generated from that was great. And somebody said, Oh, you got to wait six months until you see any pipeline come from that. We saw it within the first quarter. And we just kept building on it through 2025. And we're iterating and we're making that better. And while it's not revolutionary, it's not very fun. I think just the ability to kind of go to market and see the results that quickly and scale is, I was pretty proud, for sure. Pretty proud of my team.
Mike: That's pretty cool. It's great to have people doing something ambitious with a fairly small team. We always like to know how people have improved. And so one of the things I ask everybody is what's the best bit of marketing advice that someone's given to you?
Katie: The best marketing advice? I think I think at the end of the day, the best marketing advice that I have is you need to really understand your product and how that drives the strategy of the company. When I started at PathFactory, I started on the support channel. That's how my training started. I answered support tickets. And that was the best thing that I could have done for my career at PathFactory because I understood how the product worked, the nitty gritties. I understood what the customer's concerns were, how they were using the product. I connected with customers to fix those problems, built trust. And at the end of the day, if you don't understand your product, you can't market it.
Mike: I know, that's brilliant advice. And one last question. I mean, we have some people who are just beginning their career listening to the podcast. What would be your advice to someone who's just starting a career in marketing?
Katie: It's a hard time right now. I think at the end of the day, you need to have the basic skills around strong writing and understanding, really try and get to know and understand the strategy of the companies that you're looking at. And again, understanding the product is huge in order to grow. Tools will keep changing, but the strategy in which your business is built on is the thing that we'll endure through throughout the tenure there. And I think just understanding really how buyers are thinking through that will help you succeed.
Mike: That's awesome. Thank you. I mean, this has been fascinating. I'm sure we could talk an awful lot more about our factory. I mean, if somebody would like to know more, what's the best place for them to go?
Katie: Yep, pathfactory.com is definitely the place to go for some information. You can fill out a form to get more or talk to sales or you can contact me directly. I'm more than happy to talk to anybody about Pathfactory or marketing or anything really and you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Katie Jones and I work at PathFactory.
Mike: That's awesome. Katie, thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Katie: Thank you so much.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Navigating the AI Gold Rush: Insights on Marketing Automation in 2026
In the first Marketing Automation Moment episode of 2026, Hannah and Mike dive into whether marketing automation and AI truly save marketers time. They discuss insights from recent Act-On and Salesforce webinars, exploring how lean teams can succeed, the growing scepticism around generative AI, and the need to balance technology with a human touch. The episode wraps with their Insightful Tip of the Week on using list segmentation and outside perspectives to strengthen personalization and strategy. Bottom of Form
- The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcast
- The Marketing Automation Moment on Spotify
- The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com
About Napier
Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.
About Mike Maynard
Mike is the Chairman of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.
About Hannah Wehrly
Hannah is a Director at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.
Time Stamps
00:01:39 - Market Automation Tools: Do They Save Time?
Exploration of whether marketing automation tools genuinely help save time for marketers.
00:05:03 - The AI Gold Rush: Is It Over?
Analysis of the current state of AI in marketing and the shift in perception regarding its effectiveness.
00:11:11 - AI as a Tool, Not a Magic Wand
Reflection on the realistic expectations of AI's capabilities in marketing.
00:12:56 - The Plateau of Productivity
Exploration of the Gartner hype cycle and the future integration of AI into marketing practices.
00:18:01 - Insightful Tip of the Week: List Segmentation
Hannah shares a tip on the importance of segmenting marketing lists for better personalization.
00:19:20 - Insightful Tip of the Week: Get an Outside Perspective
Mike emphasizes the value of obtaining external insights to improve marketing strategies and content.
Follow Mike and Hannah:
Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/
Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/
Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/
Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing Automation and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724
Transcript: Navigating the AI Gold Rush: Insights on Marketing Automation in 2026
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Kelly
Hannah: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.
Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard. This is Napier's podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.
Hannah: Welcome to the Market Automation Moment podcast. I'm Hannah Kelly.
Mike: And I'm Mike Maynard.
Hannah: Today we ask if market automation tools really help us save time.
Mike: I get excited about gold rushes and hype cycles.
Hannah: I talk about being human.
Mike: and Hannah and I present our tips for 2026.
Hannah: Well, hi, Mike, welcome back to the first episode of 2026 of the market automation podcast. How are you doing?
Mike: I'm doing good. Hope you're well as well. And I'm really looking forward to having some good conversations about market automation in 2026.
Hannah: Me too, but before we get started, I think we've actually got some exciting news to share, haven't we? And that's actually that our big motor race of the year has just been booked in, Napier's go-karting race.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, forget about races at Monaco or Monza. The really big race is the Napier go-kart race in a month's time. And I'm sure we'll share who wins, although I hear that there's even people driving who haven't yet passed their driving test, Hannah. Is that right?
Hannah: I can neither confirm or deny that, Mike.
Mike: For listeners, Hannah's not passed her driving test, but she's decided to enter the go-karting race. So we're all very excited to see how well she does.
Hannah: Yes. Wish me luck, everyone. Well, let's kick off, Mike, because we've got quite a bit to talk about. And actually, we've got some interesting perspectives to talk about. So something slightly different, not necessarily news, but actually some things that both of us have come across in how the market automation platforms are really marketing themselves. And what I mean by this is I came across a webinar from Acton. Now, we've talked about Acton a lot. They do webinars, you know, several times a week. But what I thought was really interesting is that they actually have just hosted a webinar, which was yesterday. So for our listeners, this was actually the 14th of January. And they talked about doing more with less. So how lean marketing teams are thriving. And I thought this was quite interesting because, you know, there's no denying that the economy is in a bit of a situation at the moment. The market is struggling slightly. And actually, Aptal are capitalizing on this to be like, OK, well, look, you might be having lean marketing teams, but look at what we can do for you. Look at how we can make our lives easier. I don't know. What did you think?
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting claim. I mean, this do more with less has been a cliche for, I mean, quite a few years now. Everybody's been pushing it. And I think it's true that teams are, you know, struggling. They are being reduced. People are having headcount looked at, and marketing is no exception to that. I think the real question is, is whether overall MarTech is actually helping marketers, or whether it's actually introducing more and more to do that's actually giving us more work. And I think there's pretty good arguments on both sides.
Hannah: I couldn't agree more, Mike. And actually, we'll talk about this a little bit later. But I think it does come down to that argument of, are people reducing headcounts because AI is meant to be the saviour? Is MarTech stack integrating with AI making everyone's life easier? I'm not actually sure that's true. And I mean, we've had conversations in the past where people can invest so much in a MarTech stack, they actually have too many platforms, too many apps that they're using, as it's not saving them any time at all.
Mike: Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, you know, stack complexity is a real issue where people have got lots of different tools and they're having to jump from one tool to another to get a campaign together. I think, you know, what Acton would say is that tools like Acton and a lot of the other market automation platforms, they can do a lot in one platform, which I think does help. But to me, what we're seeing is, yes, tools are actually making marketers more productive, but there's still a massive requirement on marketers to do more and more. And ironically, the cliche, do more, I think that's absolutely true. Whether the tools are actually enabling us to get more done at the same quality with fewer people, I don't know. My gut feel is that still today, most of the tools are still quite focused on features rather than necessarily simplicity.
Hannah: I couldn't agree more, Mike. And I think what you're saying here as well is that the marketers are having to do the strategy. They're having to actually implement things right. And again, if things aren't being used correctly, if there's not thought going into the processes of how things are set up, then actually that quality is never gonna be there and they're never gonna be achieving more results and they're just doing more and more, but actually it's less effective than it would have been before.
Mike: Yeah, I completely agree with you. I mean, maybe we should move on to the next topic because I think, you know, the thing we've been dancing around a bit is AI. So tell us about the next story you found, Hannah.
Hannah: Yes, so this was actually from Martek, and I'm an avid reader of Martek. And the reason I've actually picked this out is because they use the phrase, is the AI gold rush over? And just for our listeners, Mike's favorite phrase at the moment is gold rush. So I couldn't resist bringing it up today. But this was really interesting because the article actually talked about, you know, we've had a whole year of AI agents, you know, different AI capabilities being integrated onto platforms. And it's been this really amazing bedazzling, like, look at what we're doing, this is so exciting, this is going to be amazing. And then actually the world's taken a step back, it feels like, over the last couple of months and been like, ooh, actually, is this helping me? Or is this hindering me? Actually, is AI as advanced as we were thinking it was? Or actually, are we doing more work to get AI up to a quality that a human could do? And then that was really interesting because I read another article by Martek again, and it actually talked about human connection. So we've gone from this, use AI agents, save time, you know, increase your momentum on strategy, focus where you need to focus, to don't forget personalization, don't forget that humans matter, don't forget about connection. And I actually feel it's a real extreme from one to another, but I don't know, do you agree?
Mike: Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I don't know how familiar you are with the Gartner hype cycle. People don't talk about this so much now, but a few years ago, you know, everyone was talking about this. You know, Gartner said that when some new technology is introduced, you have this process where technology comes out and everyone gets super excited. So you get this, what they call the peak of inflated expectations. And I think, without doubt, we've seen that with AI. And some people are still at the peak, dizzy with a lack of oxygen, and saying some crazy things. But actually, what happens after that, according to Gartner, is you fall into what they call the trough of disillusionment. And I'm not sure people have quite got there with AI. But I think what's increasingly is being found is that the quality you get from AI, and certainly the differentiation is very limited. You know, it very much is a statistical reflection of all the available information on the web. And that, I think, doesn't necessarily, you know, differentiate. So I don't know, do you feel you're in the trough of disillusionment, Hannah?
Hannah: I have to say, I think I am. And I haven't heard that before, Mike. So thank you for explaining. But I think it's really hard because I think AI is still useful. Using the right way, AI can actually help your productivity. But I think by now, marketers were expecting it to be a solution to lots of things that it isn't. And last year, around this time, we were like, wow, we're all going to be out of jobs in two years. I actually now, as a marketer myself, think I'm safer. I think if you're not using AI, that's a mistake. You need to be up to date with the technology. But I also think that actually we hold so much more value than AI. And a lot of marketers are kind of coming out of this rose-tinted glasses phase and realizing that as well.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, we just ran a webinar about AI and marketing. And we did a human versus AI competition, all a bit of fun. And the thing that really brought it home to me is we were looking at some Google Ads. And one of our team, Hayden, had drafted some ads. And we got AI to draft some ads. And then we asked ChatGPT which were the better ones. And ChatGPT just went, yeah, Hayden's much better. And I thought, you know, AI is often criticized for being overly positive and, you know, the way it presents things super confidently gives you this veneer of, like, credibility that perhaps it doesn't always deserve. But the fact that AI just went, Yeah, no, human one's better. I thought, you know, really illustrated the problem. Now, I'm not sure, but I know Hayden actually does use AI, you know, to help him with the creativity. He may well have used AI for this particular campaign to suggest some ideas. But the important thing is, is the AI couldn't get all the way. You know, if you look at, I mean, my example would be self-driving cars. And I know you'd love self-driving cars because you're not yet a driver, although soon to be, I believe. So it's all very exciting. But if you look at self-driving cars, a lot of the time, maybe 99% of the time, self-driving cars are working today. But that last 1% is so incredibly difficult. And in the case of self-driving cars, if you're crossing the road at the 1% time when the self-driving car's not working, it's really, really important. So it's much harder to get that last bit. And it's also much more important to get it. That's the thing that really differentiates, that makes the campaign work, that gives you disproportionately good results. So from my point of view, as an engineer, we used to talk about the last mile, just getting that last mile solved. That's so difficult to do, and it's so much harder than the first 100 miles. that I don't think people have really understood that until now. And now they're beginning to realize that. I mean, do you feel that? Do you feel, you know, AI kind of gets you most of the way and then actually humans can do that last bit better than AI?
Hannah: Oh, absolutely, Mike. And I love how you've explained that, by the way. But yeah, I mean, if we look at my role, you know, I do a lot of the marketing for Napier. And, you know, we use AI, we use AI to do help with our blogs, you know, maybe our first draft of our content, you know, ideas for our social posts, things like that. But the difference is that we have is that we have a DC and DC is one of our content writers at Napier. And we always send our content off what we call a magic edit. So he's a brilliant editor, he's a brilliant writer. And actually the difference in the level of that content that comes back once DC has reviewed it versus just what AI spits out is that last mile. And I think that was a great way to explain it because I wouldn't post just what AI has spewed out because it's not good enough quality. It's not that I look at and go, yes, this represents Napier, this represents what we want to put out there. But once DC has done it, absolutely. Has it saved us time overall? Absolutely. But it's not done that last mile. It's not a replacement.
Mike: Yeah, and I think this is the amazing thing about AI. AI is great. It's an incredible tool. It's not a magic wand. And I think people are expecting this tool, this hammer, to actually be a magic wand and be able to do everything. And, you know, what's happened is people have now got disillusioned because they've recognized that it's not this incredible do-everything magic wand. You know, you can't go to chat GPT and say, set up and run my marketing campaign and fire your marketing team. Doesn't work like that. The interesting thing about the hype cycle, and I mean, you know, this is something listeners should go and have a look at, is actually what Gartner says after the trough of disillusionment, which hopefully we can get you out of, Hannah, and cheer you up. You go through, and eventually you end up in what they call the plateau of productivity. And I think a lot of technologies really do work like this. People get super excited. They think it's amazing. It's going to change the world. Then they think, it's not really changed the world. It's OK, but it doesn't really do everything I hoped. They get all a bit disillusioned, irrationally disillusioned, because actually there's a lot of benefit. But eventually what happens is it just becomes part of your productivity, and you almost don't notice it. And I think where AI is working more and more, we're actually seeing things being built into different tools, into MarTech tools, and they're not really standing out. When you see the flashing lights and the big neon signs saying AI, that normally doesn't work very well. Where things are using AI and not really overhyping it, I think that is where you get the biggest benefit. And so I think more and more, AI is going to disappear in marketing. We're not going to be talking about AI. It's just going to be marketing going forward. But I don't think we're quite there yet. And I think going back to that webinar from Acton, I think there's a difficult push-pull balance here. You've got definitely some benefits from the tools that are making it easier for small teams to deliver great results. but also you've got more and more demands and the tools can't do everything. I'm sure you see that in your job, you know, you can't get everything done automatically, no matter how much you'd like to.
Hannah: Oh, 100% Mike. And I want to move on because I want to keep in mind what you've just said, but actually relate it because I actually came across a webinar from Salesforce. And it's really interesting what you've just said is that, you know, people are coming out that disillusionment, they are, you know, maybe a bit depressed, you know, it's kind of disappearing, actually, the cool elements of AI is when we're like, Oh, is that AI? That's great. But what I found interesting is Salesforce has actually held a webinar and it was actually titled Building Trust in the Generative AI. And I do wonder if some of the platforms are panicking because, you know, I've talked about my love for Einstein. I've loved everything they've done marketing wise. But they're obviously feeling maybe that bit of pressure that marketers aren't that impressed. And so now they're like, oh, OK, how do we need to address it? Oh, it's all about trust. We need to be building trust. But then you've got everything else in marketing at the moment talking about building trust and building connections with actual humans. And I just thought it was a really interesting parallel of what they're actually trying to get across when we know that that isn't the focus for marketers now. I don't know. Do you think it's a mistake? Do you think it's OK? What do you think?
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably the case that, you know, Salesforce have got really excited, gotten a hype cycle, promoted AI hugely, and actually people have found it doesn't quite deliver to the promises in the real world. And so potentially some of Salesforce customers are actually in this trough of disillusionment. They are irrationally disappointed, and they should be much happier. And so Salesforce is trying to do that, but You've got to worry when running webinars trying to explain how to measure answer quality and to explain that HITL, as I believe it's called, humans in the loop, is an important thing. So it's interesting. I think what's happened with AI, this is maybe a kind of deep conversation about marketing, is that AI has shown that language is not that difficult for computers. We thought it was really hard for computers to do language. But actually, as it turns out, with large language models, it's really easy. And because we've always thought that language is a sign of intelligence, it's what sets us apart from animals, basically, then we've assumed because AI is great at language, it's great at everything else. It's not necessarily brilliant. I mean, there's some amazing things it does, but I think it gives you this sort of veneer of confidence. People thought, oh, it's incredible, it's going to be brilliant. And now they're thinking, oh, it's not brilliant, so therefore it must be rubbish. Actually, the answer is somewhere in the middle. And I think we need to get that plateau of productivity. And the smart people are ignoring the hype on both sides. They're ignoring the, fire all your marketers, run everything through AI. They're ignoring that AI is terrible, don't use it. Both of those sides are ridiculous. Let's get and focus on practically how you can use it. And I think that's what Salesforce is trying to do with the webinar. I think it's interesting. Sorry to waffle on, but just to go back to the original topic we talked about, which was the Acton webinar. I mean, one of the things I think that Acton brought up that was really interesting is small marketing teams are more agile. And one of the things I've seen is, you know, where you've got clients with very large marketing teams that are quite bureaucratic, Actually, they're finding it more difficult to get real benefits from AI than some of the smaller teams that can actually play about with AI, be a bit more flexible, and adopt what really works. I mean, do you agree with that, that smaller teams are getting the best benefit?
Hannah: Absolutely, absolutely. I think as well, when you're in a larger team, you're often in a corporation that has a lot more red tape as well. And when you can be agile, when you can be like, okay, and I actually just want to go back to something you said about having that middle ground, and you understand that middle ground as an agile team, they're getting the best use of it, and they're getting the best results from it. And I think that is really key as well. It's not just the best use, but it's actually the best results from how it's helping them.
Mike: Yeah, I totally agree. I think there's also a feeling that firstly everything needs to avoid any risk in large teams and large companies, but also everything has to be a big project as well. And we see that also in the public sector where everything has to be a huge project. Actually, sometimes you can use AI for a tiny little thing and it can be really beneficial. And I think, again, those are the parts where actually people aren't shouting about using AI. They're just using it as part of their workflow. And it's brilliant. And I think more and more that's going to happen. And probably in three years' time, we won't talk about AI in the same way we do now. It won't be a separate thing. It will just be part of the tools that we use.
Hannah: I fully agree, Mike, but I'm conscious of time. So I want to move on to our next segment. So insightful tip of the week. Now, we've talked about this, obviously, before our recording, I wanted to do something a little bit different. And that is to share a tip from each of us for what marketers should look out for in 2026. Now, I'm going to kick us off and then I think yours is going to work quite nicely into mine. So, for those marketers that are out there listening to this, my advice is remember to segment your lists. I think it's something we've mentioned so many times, but it comes down to that personalization, it comes down to that, what is again becoming that really increasingly important human connection. Like, make sure that when you are actually sending out your emails, you're not just doing a generic e-blast. You are figuring out who you're talking to, the markets, the sectors. Actually drill down to job title. It could be based on what people have brought before. The difference you will see in your results, we've seen it again and again, cannot be understated.
Mike: I love that. I mean, I think, you know, we all buy stuff online and we all get the people who bought this, bought that kind of emails. The reason we get them is they're incredibly effective at selling product. I mean, we've run campaigns for clients and, you know, increased sales by millions. And I think personalization, you know, based around not only what people do, their role, but also their behavior is super important. I love that. That's a great one, Hannah.
Hannah: Thank you, Mike. Now, what about you? What's your tip for 2026?
Mike: Well, my tip's really based a little bit on what we're doing now at Napier, and it's to get an outside perspective. And I think what we see when we go and talk to clients, so I'm thinking about some of the newer clients we've won. You look at some of their marketing, you say, it's all about you. And the client says, what do you mean? And you say, well, look, we do this, we do this, we do it. We never realized that. Or you see, you know, clients writing content, particularly technical content, and assuming people have incredible knowledge about the way that they view and approach to design. And the answer is, is that actually writing content for their own internal engineers who are experts on the project. And it's almost a, you know, a technical grandstanding thing of who can write the best, you know, detailed content. But it's not very impactful for people who aren't customers and don't understand the products. Or indeed, they can just be sounding very corporate and not very human. So I think getting someone from outside, and as I say, the reason we're doing this is our website. And anybody listening out there, it's definitely a case of cobbler's shoes. We haven't put a lot of time into the Napier website for You know, really quite a few years working on client stuff, being really busy, and you look at it and you eventually go, yeah, this really, really needs updating four years ago. But what we've done is we've brought in an outside consultant to come and, you know, really look at how we talk about ourselves. And, you know, Carl has been amazing, including getting us to say, okay, that probably is a bit insular. That's probably not the right thing to say to customers. I mean, don't you agree it's been great getting someone in from outside?
Hannah: Oh, it's been fantastic. And I think we all surprised each other with how much we agreed. So we sat in this, you know, with the consultant, with Carla, and she said this, and we went, yeah, you're right. And every single one of us said it, but it does take that outside perspective to kind of bring you out of your head and go, oh, if I was someone else, if I was on the other side looking in, I would absolutely be doing this. So I couldn't agree more, Mike.
Mike: That's awesome. It's been great. I mean, Hannah, thank you for another great episode.
Hannah: Thanks, Mike. Have a great rest of your week.
Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.
Mike: Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite podcast application and we'll see you next time.
Transforming B2B Marketing with Data-Driven Insights – Alexandra Szynkarski – Amplitude
Alexandra Szynkarski, Head of EMEA Regional Marketing delves into Amplitude's unique position in the digital analytics space, highlighting how the platform goes beyond traditional metrics to provide deep insights into user behavior. Alexandra explains the importance of understanding customer needs and the role of data-driven decision-making in acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies.
She discusses the evolving role of marketing leaders, the significance of regionalization in messaging, and the impact of AI on the future of marketing. Alexandra also offers advice for aspiring marketers, emphasizing the importance of curiosity and a well-rounded understanding of various marketing disciplines.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Amplitude
Amplitude is the leading AI digital analytics platform, helping over 4,500 customers—including Atlassian, Burger King, NBCUniversal, Square, and Under Armour—build better products and digital experiences. With powerful AI Agents embedded across the platform, Product, Marketing & Growth teams can analyze, test, and optimize user experiences faster than ever, making Amplitude a best-in-class solution and a top-ranked leader in multiple categories in G2’s Fall 2025 Report.
About Alexandra Szynkarski
Alexandra Szynkarski is a Marketing Leader based in Paris, currently leading EMEA Regional Marketing at Amplitude, the AI Analytics Platform. She specializes in go-to-market strategies, regional growth, and building high-impact programs that impact business revenue. With experience scaling B2B technology across Europe, she's passionate about helping teams turn data into better customer experiences.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Guest Introduction: Alexandra Szynkarski
00:02:25 - The Importance of Regionalization in Marketing
00:03:12 - Overview of Amplitude's Product and Differentiation
00:08:11 - Amplitude's Application in B2B Marketing
00:11:22 - The Three Pillars: Acquisition, Retention, and Monetization
00:15:56 - Quality Demand Generation and Market Positioning
00:18:08 - Localization vs. Translation in Marketing
00:21:07 - The Future of Marketing Roles with AI Integration
00:24:48 - Advice for Aspiring Marketers
Quotes
"At the end of the day, it's really about trying to understand how your prospects and your customers are moving through the digital journey." Alexandra Szynkarski, Head of EMEA Regional Marketing at Amplitude.
"Our job is to make sure that the sales teams are speaking to those high intent buyers when it actually matters. It's not about volume; it's very much about quality." Alexandra Szynkarski, Head of EMEA Regional Marketing at Amplitude.
Follow Alexandra:
Alexandra Szynkarski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-szynkarski-b1472926
Amplitude website: https://amplitude.com/
Amplitude on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/amplitude-analytics/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Alexandra Szynkarski at Amplitude
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Alexandra Szynkarski
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. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Alexandra Szynkarski. Alexandra is head of EMEA Regional Marketing at Amplitude.
Alex: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on. We always like to start off by learning a little bit about our guests. So do you want to tell us a little bit about your career and why you chose to join Amplitude?
Alex: Yeah, sure. I mean, I've spent my entire career in B2B SaaS marketing. I've worked at both early stage startups, the large enterprise corporations such as Oracle. I actually started in product marketing. Turned out to be really foundational for me because it taught me how to really understand customers, understand what they need, what their struggles are. And a lot of what I did in the beginning of my career was bringing together data and storytelling to create these really compelling go-to-market strategies that actually resonated with the customers we were selling to. Today, I lead the EMEA regional marketing team at Amplitude. We work across incredibly diverse markets, so Europe, but also Middle East and Africa. My team is hyper-focused on driving pipeline. I'd say scalable pipeline that actually converts into revenue. And so a lot of what we do is aligning very closely to the sales team in order to hit those targets. And then another piece, obviously, is what we do is we're trying to take our global marketing strategy from the company and just make sure it's genuinely regionalized. Things that work out in the US, for example, don't automatically translate into a region such as France or Germany or even in the UK. So adapting our message and our channels and our entire marketing strategy is something that's really crucial for myself and my team. And that's kind of been a consistent theme in my career. I enjoy working at companies that I get to help expand across Europe. I spent several years in the US. I am today based in Paris. I've been here now for almost a decade. And it's kind of my sweet spot. I love taking innovative technology and trying to figure out how to scale it across Europe. It's a region where every country just has its own nuances, has its own culture, different buying behaviors. And it was one of the reasons why I decided to join Amplitude. I got this opportunity to kind of build the go-to-market strategy from a marketing perspective. And I had used Amplitude in the past, so I knew that the product was amazing. I always try and join companies where I truly believe in the product and where there's true innovation, not something that's just a buzzword. At Amplitude, I think over the past few months, we have had at least a dozen major features that have been launched. The product is just incredibly powerful. We're moving really fast towards the direction of AI. It's just a lot of fun to be a part of. And I've met, you know, over my two years of being at Amplitude, so many of our customers are such champions of the product. And I also get to work alongside some really smart people as well. So, you know, all of that combination just make it a really easy decision to be here.
Mike: Oh, that's awesome. I love that enthusiasm. And there's a lot there to unpack. So I think we're going to have a great discussion, a lot of questions I want to ask. I mean, what we'd like to do, you know, really first is get a bit of a feeling about the product that you're promoting. And I've got to say, you know, there's a lot of digital analytics products out there. I'm not sure, you know, everyone's going to go, yeah, you know, the digital analytics product. So tell us about Amplitude and tell us what you do differently and why you do need to be a different product.
Alex: Yeah, it's a really good question. And there is a lot to dig into that one. So maybe just starting with Amplitude, who we are, what we do. So we're an AI-powered digital analytics platform. We're basically helping companies understand how their users are behaving with their digital products. So if you think of a mobile app that you're building or a website that you're pulling together, we're going to help you uncover all the insights around those digital products. And we're going to help you figure out how to drive the growth. how to really move the needle on the KPIs that are important to the business. We talk a lot about acquisition, retention, and monetization as kind of those three pillars that we try and help move the needle on. So really, in simple terms, we actually are trying to work with the product teams, the marketing teams, and the growth teams And our solution is trying to show them what's happening inside those digital products. We're going to show them where the users are getting value. Where are they dropping off? What are the actions or the features that actually drive those KPIs? Our customers can input a question. They can say, tell me, what is my highest value customer doing in the first five minutes within the product? tell me what features actually correlate to long-term retention. Why am I seeing a drop-off today in my funnel for checkout? And Amplitude is going to be able to answer all those questions instantaneously. And I think it's interesting because, like you said, when you talk about analytics, people don't necessarily think, oh, wow, well, super innovative. Analytics has been around a really long time and To your point, there are many, many analytics solutions on the market. But I think when people think of analytics, they think of that legacy traffic analytics solution that exists out there. The ones kind of like just looking at page views, we're looking at sessions. Where did someone come from? And obviously, all of that stuff is really important. And if you're a product manager, if you're a marketing manager, you need to have that information. But what's different with Amplitude is we don't just show you who showed up and through which channels. We're actually going to show you why they showed up, why they stayed, or why they dropped off, and what's actually driving the revenues through your mobile app or your website. So that's kind of the biggest differentiator. It's like the insights that we can actually uncover Amplitude did a really great campaign a couple years ago, they called the Aha Campaign, because we noticed that in our customers that when they started to use Amplitude and they kind of had replaced it with one of the legacy analytics tools that they were using, they kind of had this aha moment when they looked at the data and uncovered something like they had never seen before. And a great example of that is Fender, so legendary guitar brand. They had plugged in Amplitude on their e-commerce site, and they realized that there was a step in the checkout that was entirely redundant, and it was causing friction. And they saw it in the Amplitude data, and they're like, oh, this is it. This is the reason why some of our users are not actually checking out. They removed that step in the checkout, and they saw a 27% uplift in conversions. So analytics can be innovative, and it can be fun. And then just to add on that as well, I think a lot of what we do see in the market is sometimes customers are using an analytic solution. And then they're layering on top like an A-B testing tool and experimentation tool. And then maybe they have a BI tool on top of that. And then they also have like some sort of CDP bringing in like a single source of truth of their customers. And what's great about Amplitude is we actually have a single platform that aggregates all of it. You can access the product and marketing analytics. But we also have experimentation that's baked into the platform that was built from the ground up. But we also have guides and surveys that are integrated into that. So you can actually start to build tutorials for your website, for your mobile app. And we have data activations. You can take entire cohorts and user segments, just kind of send that out to different tools that you're already using. And the next frontier for us is really about baking AI into that platform. We recently released the beta of our AI agents coming into GA very, very soon. But basically, what we're trying to really build are these mini-scientists and these mini-experimentation experts that actually sit inside Amplitude. They're kind of like an extension of the product team or the marketing team. And these agents are going to proactively get those insights for you and take action on it. So our vision is kind of bold. It's really about having auto-optimized products, products that are just optimizing on their own, thanks to these AI agents. And that's what we're kind of pushing the frontier on.
Mike: That sounds very cool and very exciting. I mean, I can hear some of our B2B clients that they have complex products that aren't bought through e-commerce. And they're saying, well, I can see how analytics help in e-commerce and how if Fender's got a problem in the checkout process, absolutely. But can Amplitude help if you've got a more complex B2B product that maybe doesn't even have an online sale?
Alex: Yeah, you know, we do. So Amplitude does work across a big range of industries, I would say, but B2B is definitely one of them. I think the common thread that Amplitude has with whether that's B2C or B2B is that there does need to be some sort of digital touchpoint, right, where there's like a meaningful user behavior that's happening. And that could be obviously a mobile app, it could be a customer portal, it could be a workflow tool, you know, any kind of experience where you're trying to understand behavior that actually drives the value. And I actually don't think that the ways that we use Amplitude for B2B are that different compared to B2C. To be honest, at the end of the day, it's really about trying to understand how your prospects and your customers are moving through the digital journey, which is becoming more and more important for B2B customers. And even if you have a physical product, you're usually layering in some sort of digital touchpoint around that physical product. It could be quota creations. It could be onboarding different vendors. There's usually a digital touchpoint that actually has a lot of rich behavioral data that you'd want to dig into. And I think a great example of a B2B customer using Amplitude is Amplitude. We use our own product, and we're B2B, right? And we use it in so many different ways. It's almost, we call it drink your own champagne, what I like to call it here based out in Paris. And I do honestly feel like it's given us a little bit of an unfair advantage in the market because we use the best analytic solution on top of our analytic solution. I mean, our growth marketing team essentially uses Amplitude to guide their entire strategy. The platform is a really central hub for them. They track all the metrics that matter the most for them all in one place. And it really shifted this mindset at Amplitude for the growth team, where they actually didn't need to rely on data analysts anymore, those clunky dashboards. They could literally open up the dashboard in the morning and be like, oh, I'm seeing dips in my conversions. Like, what's happening here? Let's slice and dice the data. and let's optimize the steps in the funnel to make sure we can test some things and fix the problem, essentially. And then on the web experimentation side, our web team is using Amplitude as well to run a bunch of different tests. And I use Amplitude every now and then. I've been using the session replay feature, which is basically an actual visual of what people are doing on your website. I was digging into data and trying to figure out what are the bigger decision makers coming from enterprise organizations? What are these guys actually doing on the website? Are they even doing anything that's interesting? Are they even coming? And so I can actually see what those decision makers are doing on our website through the session replay. So yeah, Amplitude can definitely be used across B2B.
Mike: That's such a good answer. And, you know, it's really clear amplitude has got such a wide range of capabilities. I mean, one of the things you talk about is these kind of three stages, if you like acquisition, retention and monetization. And I'm interested, do you see them as being, you know, very separate kind of stages? Or, you know, do you see them linked together? And how would marketers use amplitude in each of those stages?
Alex: Yeah, I think what's important for marketers specifically to understand in those three pillars that we always call out acquisition, retention and monetization is yes, of course, they're connected. We always talk about the full customer journey, right? But I do think that there are levers that you want to pull at each stage and those are going to be completely different. And so it's always a matter for us about making sure we communicate that those three pillars need to have different levers. But at the same time, you still need to think about how you're going from acquisition all the way through to that retention and monetization. If we start acquisition, I would argue one of the things that marketers are thinking about the most, most of the time. I think sometimes what happens is we're all just trying to drive for the sign up, and we're just trying to get the leads in. We try and push the conversation when it comes to acquisition about not just getting the sign up. It's about getting the person that is very highly likely to activate and is very highly likely to become a long term valuable user. And I think when you have a tool like Amplitude, you can actually start to see which channels and campaigns are bringing in those users who are going to complete a very specific action that then turns them into a long-term valuable user. And that's when you can start to make really strategic decisions about your budget that they're using, right? Because you might see that you're getting a lot of leads from paid search. You're also getting a lot of leads from organic. They're both coming in and getting a lot of signups from it. But you might see that actually the paid search is bringing in cheaper leads. And those leads are actually not converting that well. They're not the ones that are actually sticky once they continue the conversation. And then that allows you just to have a better, to be smarter, I would say, and more revenue focused around the decisions that you're making. And then on the next two pillars, so retention and monetization, I think sometimes as marketers, we forget that there's a whole world outside of acquisition. It's not just about bringing the lead in. We should be on the hook for making sure that there is retention and that obviously there is monetization. We do code part of that funnel, right? And I think marketers have a much bigger role to play than some marketers realize. And for me, retention is very heavily influenced on onboarding, education, ongoing engagement. And when you understand where your users are dropping off, that's where you can actually start to nurture them and create those personalized sequences that should be going out. And it's the same for monetization. If you can actually identify when someone's ready to upgrade or expand, if you can surface those signals through a tool like Amplitude, that's when you can actually trigger a very relevant marketing plan for them, a marketing campaign, so we can actually drive the revenues through it and the monetization. So yeah, for me, the value is about bringing those three pillars together, but understanding that there's different KPIs associated to them that you'd want to pull for each of them.
Mike: I mean, that's interesting. You've talked a little bit about Amplitude's marketing strategy. Are you basically building a strategy on those three pillars, or do you look at it slightly differently?
Alex: Yeah, we are building it on the three pillars. We absolutely are. It's kind of our mantra at Amplitude. But my team, kind of specific, is we sit on the regional side, so covering EMEA, regional marketing. We actually sit under enterprise marketing. And so I would say at the highest level, we're very much focused on two things when it comes to the strategy. The first is very much making sure that we're helping the sales team have the right conversation with the right people at the right time. We're hyper-focused on trying to make sure we're creating the perfect moment and setting up the salesperson in the right way so that once he's in the room with the right person, he can have that conversation. For us in enterprise marketing, it's not about volume. It's very much about quality. And our job is to make sure that the sales teams are speaking to those high intent buyers when it actually matters. So that's kind of the first piece. We always have an eye on return on investment. with our marketing budget. We aren't just looking at the leads that we're bringing in, you know, post event or post campaign. We're actually looking at whether we generated a qualitative conversation for the sales team, essentially what we call pipeline. But today, we're really pushing the boundaries on that too. And we're actually starting to see, well, okay, maybe there wasn't like a qualitative conversation, but did it actually convert into hard closed dollars? Like was there actual revenue that came post event and post campaign? So we're really starting to go beyond that pipeline notion. So that's one of the first feeds very much demand generation acquisition of the very high intent buyers for the sales team. And I think the second piece of it is, the second piece of our strategy and the second pillar is trying to build a strong differentiated position in the market. And to your point, as we spoke about before, digital analytics is a very competitive space. There are a lot of tools out there and it's also a space that's evolving quite fast with AI. So it's really crucial that our prospects and our customers understand who Amplitude is and the problem that we solve and how we differentiate from all those legacy tools. So we are also investing in the brand. We have to invest quite heavily in the clarity of the narrative. We do a lot of thought leadership where we bring in different executives and different influences in the region. We work a lot with our local customer champions so that they can almost sell the platform for us. And so I would even say this piece is almost our biggest challenge out here in EMEA because a lot of the broad brand awareness that the company would launch doesn't necessarily translate here. And so we have to do a lot of regionalization within each of the countries. We have to make sure that our positioning actually is resonating on a very local level. So yeah, those are kind of the two things, a quality demand on one side and strong market positioning on the other.
Mike: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, you've mentioned again, the localisation. So I'm interested to ask you about that, because, you know, I feel localisation is much more than translation. So how do you go about making sure your messages are, you know, generating real impact in the different countries across Europe?
Alex: Yeah, it's almost like you can see it as like different, like a top down branch kind of positioning narrative, if you will, because the whole game, right, is to make sure that you're being true to the positioning of the company. You want to make sure that your top level messaging that's coming out from corporate It's still the one that you're pushing through every market. You can't fall into the trap of entirely changing your messaging for one region just because you want to. You still got to be true to the brand. And so what happens is we usually have your top level corporate messaging and positioning. And we create these sub-positioning narratives, essentially, that we kind of try to scale out across the NEA. It can go as far as actual territories. And so we might have a specific positioning for France entirely versus Germany versus everyone else. Usually do it just for very specific countries. I think like France, for example, is one that's just really different. There is a lot of translation, a lot of localization that goes into it. Germany is quite a different one, too. We're starting to get into the Middle East, but we're noticing that there actually has to be quite a bit of regionalization there. We can't quite copy and paste everything. But one of the biggest ways that we actually regionalize here in EMEA is through the logos that we acquire and through our customers that we then push into becoming our champions and creating this kind of community, I guess, if you will, per region. If you take a region like France, for example, you've got all these great logos like L'Oreal, Chanel, everyone knows them, Sephora. And they're great logos, but inherently they're French. And when you show up with that logo somewhere, anywhere, whether that's a customer story or having them speak at your event or just doing a meetup, that attracts people. Then they start to listen. Then they start to care because they're like, oh, wow, this technology is actually, they're integrated into the world here. They're integrated into the actual region. So using the local customer logos is something that has been kind of our golden nugget when it comes to regionalization. And I will say as well, I think if a company is looking to branch out internationally, there's you've got to have the right people in the field that understand the market. And so we actually have someone dedicated to South that runs France, Italy, Spain. We have someone that's dedicated to North who highly understands the Nordics and the UK market. We have someone that's running out of DAF in Germany. And these people, they understand the dynamics of B2B marketing in their region. And they're the experts and they're essentially the ones that guide me as well into what that regionalization should look like, what we should be focusing on and shouldn't be focusing on and where we can just tweak those nuances and get the wins in the positioning.
Mike: That's great. And it's really good to hear that level of detail for Europe, because working primarily in Europe, as we do, it's not just translation. And it certainly just isn't translating inches to centimeters. I'm really interested in your view of the future as well. So I mean, obviously, you've done a lot integrating AI into the platform, which I'm sure is going to have some impact both now and in the future. How do you see your role or the role of people running marketing in Europe changing over the next five years?
Alex: Yeah, I think it's a big question. I think the biggest shift for bargaining leaders, if I look over the next couple of years, is that I feel like the role is becoming a lot more strategic. I feel like it's becoming a lot more outcome-driven than it was a decade ago. I mean, this conversation of marketers being on the line for revenue, that's a conversation I've been in since the beginning of my career. I had a really great mentor when I started in product marketing, because you can almost feel like product marketing sometimes hides behind the business a little bit. And my mentor always told me, like, don't ever think that just because you're in product marketing, that you're not responsible for driving business for this company. And everything you do, whether that's positioning narratives, a launch campaign, it has to have some sort of metrics that you can tie back to the business. And that's how you're going to be successful in marketing. That's something I've taken with me from the beginning. But I feel like over the years, we're really being pushed into being hyper focused in outcome. And it's almost like our roles now are just as important in terms of driving revenue as any sales rep would be. And I think that's the, that's like the big big shift there. I've also seen conversations where we don't really talk about chief marketing officers. We talk about chief strategic officers now. I do feel like we're being pushed into more of the strategy instead of the tactics. We shouldn't be the ones just hyper-focused on campaign per campaign. We should be the ones that are really focused on the strategic depth and making sure that we can tie everything back to business, essentially. And so for me, it's essentially a couple of concrete things. The first, and kind of tying back to what I was saying, is that I think marketing leaders really need to understand the business engine. Like I said, not just the campaign engine. At Amplitude, for example, so much of my work is very much focused on pipeline quality, and it's making sure that our sales teams are speaking with the right people at the right time and not just drowning in volume. But in order to do that, I really have to understand how the business works and how the sales team work. It requires a very data-driven kind of view of the entire journey, incorporating the intent signals, the regional dynamics that we spoke about, account readiness. And then the second thing for me, and we spoke a little bit about this, it's kind of our world as well as the rise of AI. You know, we're all talking about it. Everyone knows it's here and it's coming. And I feel like I open up my LinkedIn every day and Someone's doing something great with AI, and I feel like I'm not doing enough great things with AI. There's just a lot of hype. But I will definitely say there are so many tools out there that can absolutely help you create content faster, and tools like Amplitude that help you surface insights faster. And I think what's going to be important is that you're gonna need to figure out how your narrative is really gonna stand out. You know, we've seen over the past couple of 10 years, a lot of noise through content, through digital, all that stuff. But now with AI, I feel like that is just accelerated 10 times faster. You know, AI is time to insights, it's time to content, it's speed, but it can't actually tell you what's different about your company and how you're really gonna stand out in a crowded market. And so I think finding that balance with AI is also going to be really important in the role of marketing.
Mike: That's interesting. And that feels like a whole other podcast. So I, you know, I think it's been a fascinating discussion that there's lots of things here. Before we go, I mean, maybe we can wrap this up with a couple of things. So I'm interested about, you know, market advice, you've mentioned some advice you were given when you were a product manager. But, you know, what's the best marketing advice that's ever been given to you by someone else?
Alex: Yeah. I think what I realized over the past 10 years of my career in marketing is that sometimes marketing can actually feel like a black box to everyone else. And not every person in a company, when you're sitting in a different department, actually understands all the things that marketing does. And great advice that I got was when you're in this role of marketing leadership, you really want to make sure you're driving for clarity. and not complexity. And I know it sounds really simple, but it actually is very grounding, at least for me. Our industry in marketing, we love frameworks and we love new channels and we love the buzzwords. And I just feel like at the end of the day, great marketing is about helping people understand something that matters and doing that not just externally, but also internally within the company that you're working in. And you've got to make that understanding happen as quickly and obviously as clearly as possible. So a lot of what I do is centered around figuring out how I give my team and the sales team that clarity so they can do their jobs the right way. And then obviously another piece of advice that I got kind of going back to what I was saying is that, you know, marketing should drive revenue, not activity. You've got to be on the line to understand how every single campaign you're running, every single action you're taking on the marketing side is actually tied back to revenue. Because if you can't do that, then you're just a cost center. And you're not actually driving value for the business overall. So those are kind of two things I would say. Drive for clarity, but also drive for revenue.
Mike: I love that. That's brilliant. I'm really clear. Thank you, Alexandra. I mean, the other question is we've talked a lot about the changes and clearly, you know, Amplitude is one of those companies driving massive changes in marketing. So if you were talking to someone who was starting their career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Alex: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think marketing is one of the most exciting careers you can choose. You know, there's so many pieces of it. You've got the creative piece. You've got the more operational piece. You've got more of the tactical campaigns piece. But a lot of it is actually very strategic, and it's about understanding people. understanding fully your customers and solving problems for them. It's about telling stories that actually matter. And I almost feel like if you love the intersection between being creative and having data and also building strategy, it's an incredible place to be. So yeah, I would say just continue to be curious if you want to get into marketing. I would try and get a breath of different parts of the marketing world. try and dabble in campaign marketing, try and figure out what product marketing does, understand the concepts of marketing operations. And I feel like once you understand those pieces fully, then you can have this incredible overview of what actually marketing does for a company as a whole. And that's where it becomes really interesting. That's where you can actually drive the strategy of all those different pieces. So I would just say, you know, try and be as curious as possible, understand all of those different elements and jump in. It's great.
Mike: Fantastic. I love that. I mean, this has been an amazing discussion. It feels like we probably didn't cover a lot of detail. There's so much to talk about in terms of amplitude and analytics. I mean, if people have questions and want to find out more, what's the best thing for them to do?
Alex: Yeah, I mean, Amplitude.com. You can go to Amplitude. You can sign up for a demo. You can test the platform for free. But also, don't hesitate to find me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to chat about whatever it is you want to chat about. So yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn.
Mike: That's awesome. Alexandra, thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Alex: Thank you. It was great. Thank you so much.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
The Future of Marketing – Andrea Rosi – StatSocial
Andrea Rosi, Head of Operations and Marketing at StatSocial, shares her career journey and offers insights into how StatSocial helps brands understand audience interests, media preferences, and influencer relationships to drive more effective marketing strategies.
She highlights the importance of an audience-first approach, especially in B2B marketing, where looking beyond job titles to understand people as individuals leads to more authentic and meaningful connections. Andrea also breaks down StatSocial’s marketing mix, spanning paid search, social media, and event marketing, and discusses the ongoing challenge of balancing long-term brand building with short-term lead generation.
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About StatSocial
StatSocial is a people-based intelligence platform that delivers identity-resolved, AI-ready audience data built from public social behaviour across major platforms. Powered by StatSocial's Identity Graph and Knowledge Graph, the platform enables audience insights, influencer strategy, targeting, and exposure-based measurement. Leading brands and agencies use StatSocial to understand real audiences, improve marketing decisions, and quantify impact across paid, earned, and owned channels. Learn more at StatSocial.com
About Andrea Rosi
Andrea Rosi is a leading marketing and operations expert with over 10+ years experience working with Fortune 500 companies in the marcom technology space. Her background includes expertise in go-to-market strategies, product and content marketing, product management and sales.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Guest Introduction: Andrea Rossi
00:01:46 - Overview of StatSocial's Product
00:02:18 - Understanding Audience Insights
00:06:01 - Benefits for B2B Companies
00:10:12 - Risk Aversion in B2B Marketing
00:14:19 - Balancing Data and Creativity
00:14:33 - StatSocial's Marketing Strategy
00:16:08 - Measuring Event Marketing Success
00:18:00 - Budgeting for Branding vs. Lead Gen
00:19:06 - Future of Marketing and AI
Quotes
"I think one of the biggest challenges in B2B is that engaging, analyzing and engaging audiences has been fairly limited to people's title." Andrea Rosi, Head of Operations and Marketing at StatSocial.
"It's been a really critical gap is being able to enable clients to take an audience first approach to their influencer programs. I can't tell you how many times we've spoken to clients that previously would choose influencers based on reach and engagement metrics." Andrea Rosi, Head of Operations and Marketing at StatSocial.
"It's hard to find a balance sometimes... you don't necessarily know what movement is going to go viral. So you use data to the best of your ability." Andrea Rosi, Head of Operations and Marketing at StatSocial.
Follow Andrea Rosi:
Andrea Rosi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-rosi-343b8158/
StatSocial website: https://www.statsocial.com/
StatSocial on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/statsocial/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Andrea Rosi at StatSocial
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Andrea Rosi
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. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Andrea Rosi. Andrea is the Chief Operating Officer of StatSocial. Welcome to the podcast, Andrea.
Andrea: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. I mean, what we like to do to get started is learn a little bit about you. So can you tell us a bit about your career and why you've chosen StatSocial as your current company?
Andrea: Yeah, for sure. So I started out my career mostly in product marketing, and I actually started at one of the world's biggest tech companies, Oracle. And it was a great start to my career in terms of getting a foundation for the principles I needed to bring elsewhere. But where I really thrive and have learned I want to stay is more in that startup space. So smaller companies where I feel like I can make a really big impact quickly and kind of don't have to worry about all the red tape that you run into at some bigger organizations. And so I shifted from product marketing into more commercial and general marketing. And now I've transitioned also into both marketing and operations. My role here at StatSocial is very marketing focused. I do have operational tasks that I handle, but really providing oversight to our marketing team and how we engage with our clients. But yeah, so I'm really enjoying it. And the reason I decided to come here is because I learned sort of earlier on in my career that a startup is really only as good as the leadership and the product. And our CEO here, I think, is super well-rounded and a great leader. And the product is highly differentiated in the market compared to others that I've worked with. And I just think there's so much opportunity. And so I've been here almost five years now. And we're still going strong.
Mike: So sounds great. I mean, it's a great lead into the next question, which is really to ask you about the product. What does that social do?
Andrea: So we are an insights company, and we source much of our data from social media, which if you think about how much people engage on social really delivers just a wealth of information about an individual. And so we're actually able to view an audience's aggregated interests, their media preferences, the influencers that they trust and engage with, as well as brand affinities and so on. Marketers will use all of these data points that have been really missing to inform media placements, influencer strategy, the creative that they decide to use and how it will resonate with an audience. So providing the most holistic picture of an audience, whether that be a brand's following or maybe just target consumers, to be able to craft campaigns that will resonate more deeply.
Mike: So it's interesting because, you know, what you're talking about is really finding out in depth about these audiences and not necessarily your customers' audiences, but the audiences they want to reach. So, for example, people following an influencer. I mean, that obviously sounds, you know, really useful. I mean, how do your customers use it? What's the compelling reason for using StatSocial?
Andrea: Yeah, so we support a variety of use cases. And it's kind of funny because when I first joined five years ago, we could be so many things to so many people. And now we've really honed in on where we fit in the market, which has been it's taken time and energy for sure. But so where we see The best fit is around A, insights, so better understanding prominent personas within a specific audience to be able to know what's unique about them, what their preferences are, how to best reach them. So part of it really is more just like insights and planning. The influencer component has been huge for us around being able to validate an influencer's audience and how well they actually align with the brand's target. I can't tell you how many times we've spoken to clients that previously would choose influencers based on reach engagement metrics, really like these high level, we call them vanity metrics that don't necessarily translate to anything. And then they go in and look at their audiences and realize they completely missed the mark on who they're trying to reach. And so that's been a really critical gap is being able to enable clients to take an audience first approach to their influencer programs. In the US, I will say, we also have like slightly different use cases due to GDPR reasons. And so while in Europe we do provide contextual targeting, in the U.S. there is the ability to take action on some of these more specific audiences for paid media and for measurement as well.
Mike: So that certainly makes sense. I mean, I can understand why people would want that, you know, from picking the right influencer to actually be able to reach their audience in the US. You know, I'm interested, who uses StatSocial? Who are your customers?
Andrea: Yeah, so we have honestly a range of agencies and brands. For brands, we see a lot of traction in the CPG space, travel, retail. Think about like, especially those types of brands that rely heavily on influencer, they tend to be very interested in our capabilities for that reason.
Mike: And I'm not surprised. I mean, there's a lot of customers in the B2C sector. What I'm really interested in knowing is, do you think this technology has benefits for B2B companies?
Andrea: I definitely do. Again, I think B2B targeting in Europe is very challenging. So when I speak, I'm speaking mostly to our capabilities in the U.S. around B2B. I think one of the biggest challenges in B2B is that engaging, analyzing and engaging audiences has been fairly limited to people's title, like the companies they work at, the industries they're in. And so using those data points to inform campaigns tend to make it more of like a Broadcasting campaign like yeah, you're getting in front of the right people But you're really just educating them about what you do what your company does and the capabilities Whereas there's much more of like an emotional Connection that I think can happen in the b2c space because you can better understand those consumers and you can hit them with topics that might be just something they're more passionate about than just work. So their family life, their fitness routines, all of those types of things. So I think B2B definitely has a huge opportunity, especially here in the US, if people can take into consideration who they are as people, not necessarily where they sit as a job, and speak to them in a deeper level, connect with them in a deeper level that way.
Mike: And I mean, that's really interesting because you talk about who they are as people rather than what's on their business card, I guess. I mean, do you think that's the fundamental issue with B2B is that they haven't really understood it's about who their audience is as people? Or do you think there's other issues where B2B is being held back compared to B2C?
Andrea: Through my lens, I think that It's a big part of it. I will say reaching very specific audiences is challenging across B2B as well because like a lot of times a B2B audience might be very much smaller than a B2C audience. So there's less room for error when it comes to like targeting a B2B audience. In my personal experience, we run into that in our own marketing tactics. where let's say you're looking to meet or get in front of just C-suite individuals or senior VPs, etc. That's a very small pool of individuals. So there's only so many that you can really target and so many ways to get in front of them versus if you're selling sneakers, you know, there could be a huge demographic and a huge pool of people that you can try to reach. And so it can be more broad targeting. So I definitely think part of it is just how niche B2B audiences can be. I also think it's the lack of data on those individuals that prevents us from really crafting campaigns that can resonate deeply with them.
Mike: Now it's interesting, it's obviously, you know, it is difficult in B2B to reach people through social. I mean, do you think there is anything we could be learning from the consumer marketers that would help B2B campaigns be more effective?
Andrea: I think just like the emotion that they put into it and the way that they try to connect with individuals on that deeper level. And I think part of it is that they have more data to work with potentially. But like looking at the way that B2C marketers use our data, looking at people's personality traits, you know, looking at what what their cultural differences are and like nomenclature that will really work for them and be something that triggers them emotionally. That type of approach would still work with B2B. It's they're still humans in the same way. It's just I think there's less of a connection there, if that makes sense.
Mike: Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, something we we hear a lot about in B2B, I think, you know, quite often there's a struggle between this conservative, you know, B2B don't want to say anything wrong or upset anybody at all. And then the opportunity to be, you know, maybe a little more engaging, a little more out there, but potentially turning off one or two people. I think B2B tends to be risk averse. I don't know if you agree with that, Andrea.
Andrea: Oh, absolutely. And I think it's just sometimes it's harder to make a B2B offering as sexy as a B2C offering. So there's that too. That's part of it.
Mike: Absolutely. I mean, are there any sort of really innovative campaigns you've seen that, you know, have been run maybe in B2C that really stood out for you?
Andrea: I mean, I feel like for me personally, and it's talked about so often, it's not even recent, but always comes to mind for me is like the dove campaigns, which everyone already knows about, but like, highlighting different beauty standards and just all of the campaigning that went around that was massive. Through our own clients, some of the innovative things I've seen is like Crumble Cookie. Are you familiar with Crumble Cookie? I don't know if they're actually very UK-based.
Mike: I'm afraid I'm not. That's something I've got to try.
Andrea: Just so you know, they're dangerous. But so we have them here in the US. They're a cookie company that just went wild so quickly. They deliver to homes and to businesses and they have just very unique flavored cookies and they're very active on social media. They're actually a client of ours and they looked at, they'd been targeting their standard followers on social media for a long time, and they were kind of running into a wall. And so they used our data to look at what the makeup was of their brand following and their current customers, and they compared social following to existing customers. and learned that they were incredibly different. All their followers on social media tended to be these more creator-focused, younger audiences, where the people actually purchasing were more family-oriented and had just a completely different profile. So they were able to flip everything and focus more of their partnerships on less what they thought was working for them in the past and more what their audience wanted based on their current buyers. And they increased their weekly buyer count from like 80 to 130,000. within weeks and saw just like huge returns on their ad spend compared to what they saw previously. So I think just like that audience based approach that we try to enable, but also see in even non clients campaigns is critical to marketing today. As far as content goes, though, I just the Dove campaign always stands in my head, probably because I was like a younger woman at the time. And it was just that whole movement that's still relevant today that I feel they sparked.
Mike: Yeah, and I think that's interesting. You've got on one side Crumble Cookie, which is really, you know, data driven, understand the audience, data driven, very, you know, almost, you know, not very exciting, just like work the numbers.
Andrea: Practical, yeah.
Mike: And, you know, on the other hand, and I suspect that if there's younger people listening to this, they have no idea about Dove. They see the Dove campaigns and it's not that different. When Dove first launched, people thought they were crazy. You know, and they got a lot of negative press initially about it. But actually it turned out to be fantastic. So, you know, that was unbelievably creative and edgy. And I think that's interesting. You've got two very different campaigns you've picked out there.
Andrea: I know. And it's hard to find a balance sometimes. And we struggle with that. I think all the time as marketers is you don't necessarily know what movement is going to go viral. So you use data to the best of your ability. There's more of it now than there was back then for Dove as well. But you use data to the best of your ability. But I think the creatives, the creative side of it also has to very much be at play.
Mike: Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to just pivot a bit now, it's been really interesting, but I'm interested also to understand how you promote StatSocial. So what at a high level is your marketing strategy for StatSocial?
Andrea: Yeah, so we… We've been very much focused on paid search and paid social. I think trying to capture people that are showing intent towards our solutions has been really important for us and why paid search has been so effective. Also, our content strategy and just like creating organic content that will resonate and bring in people to our site is an area we have focused. I will say that's been a challenge for me personally, because with AI, it's evolved so much. Like now people are asking chat GBT for recommendations. on what products to use in certain industries, and you need different types of content to support that type of search engine versus Google. So it's been a learning for, I think, every marketer across the board, but our content strategy has been a huge area of focus. Where we've started branching out and spending more of our budget for marketing in the past year is also around events. Because especially in the creator space, there's not so many large events to attend. And I think we've just seen success actually physically getting in front of people that we've been trying to chase via email or on social and that sort of thing. So events has been really helpful for us the past year in an area of focus for us in 2026 is just being able to both generate awareness, but also really like get in front of some, some leads that we know we have existing relationships with as well.
Mike: And that's interesting because I mean, obviously, as a company is very focused online, going, if you like back to the face to face world seems like a bit of a jump. I mean, how do you measure that? Because the obviously the results can be good, but the costs are very, very different.
Andrea: Very different. So we're a smaller company. We haven't always had the biggest marketing budget. So I think for the longest time, everything we did was through the focus of lead gen, like how can we generate more leads for the sales team that we think will buy. When we launched our influencer solutions here in the US, especially around measurement, so much still requires educating the market around that. And unfortunately, that means we have to really spend on branding and educational content and that more top of funnel content that doesn't give you that immediate gratification. And it's a hard pill to swallow, but it's just something that we know we have to have to do. And you don't always have the most measurable results from that. And so I think the way that we've handled it is like X portion of our budget is going to go towards really branding, especially around these less known use cases. Whereas we're going to spend X percent on really just lead gen focused initiatives. And that's how we do it today. I think we need more data to see if we need to iterate over time. But we have in 2025 set aside more of a branding budget because it is kind of critical based on where we sit today in the market.
Mike: And I'm really interested, you know, you talk about getting that X percent you spend on branding. I mean, how do you get to that number? Is it to some extent gut feel and faith or is there data you can use to help? It's a big problem I hear a lot about on the podcast.
Andrea: I wish I had a better answer for you. I can tell you how we reached that number was We looked at which use cases are generating the most opportunities for us. Of the use cases that are less known, we kind of took the percentage of what they're generating and said, OK, 50% of what we put towards that use case, we're going to focus on branding versus lead gen. That's how we sort of backed into the number. And so there is not an exact science to it. I think we need to just keep iterating as we go and learning. But we focus our branding efforts, a lot of them, like the more expensive ones at events. So like being able to do some branded sponsorships at events, webinars, just like being able to get our name out there through paid as well. So I think it's just a combination of all efforts.
Mike: That makes sense. I mean, I think everybody's, to some extent, got to, you know, take a guess at it, and then look at what works.
Andrea: And we do use our own data as well, just like we look at our target customer or existing customers and our followers and our target audiences and see you know, where are they engaging influencer wise, media wise, and we do invest in those channels more heavily. I think for younger companies, though, to get to be more data driven, you need more data. So it does take just like, you know, risks and guesses sometimes at first as well. So we do our best to to use not only our data, but any data we have available to inform the decisions. And then we quickly optimize as we go.
Mike: Makes a lot of sense. I mean, we've talked a lot about things that maybe 10, 15 years ago, we wouldn't be talking about. The world of marketing's changed a lot. I mean, how do you see marketing changing in the next five years?
Andrea: Honestly, AI is just disrupting everything. And it's hard for me to even fathom what that will look like in the future. But I think content creation is one of the most immediate areas that we're seeing impacted. We still have humans that write content. I think we don't trust all of our content initiatives to AI just yet, but it does optimize the process quite a bit. Also, in our industry, the way that our clients are analyzing data has changed so much. So being able to, some of our insights we export to AI formats that they can just import into OpenAI or whatever they're using, Cloud, and it spits out what they should do in terms of their upcoming campaigns. You can ask it specific questions. So I think it's also replacing the way that data analysis is done, and it's becoming much more specific. Overall, I think because of that, Marketing is going to become more personalized than it ever has been capable of being. But we just kind of need to learn as we go. It's overwhelming to think about all the changes that will come. I think that marketers also worry about being replaced in general, especially content marketers. But I think there's still a place for humans. I think it's just figuring out what that looks like with all these new capabilities.
Mike: Yeah, it makes all the sense. Certainly, I love that comment about having AI analysing. I think, you know, maybe five years ago, everyone wanted a data scientist in the marketing team, but it was the weird person who sat in the corner and they never spoke to anybody. And now you've got the data going into AI and people are engaging with it. It really has changed how people see data.
Andrea: It's also created a very competitive landscape, I think, for more crowded markets because the time to insights is so short. People need to be reacting super quickly to everything that's happening. So, yeah, it's definitely changed the way that marketers operate for sure.
Mike: Absolutely. This has been great. I've really enjoyed it. I just want to ask you, there's a couple of questions we'd like to ask everybody on the podcast. The first is, what's the best piece of marketing advice that's ever been given to you?
Andrea: I think – so my dad actually was a CMO for much of his career and he's retired now even though he acts like he's not. So he always told me like you can't change things overnight and changing too much too fast will work against you. I think sometimes when things aren't going well, you want to just flip everything on its head. But realistically, sometimes minor tweaks to a single channel can make a huge difference. And it's like the same way if you were A-B testing too many components of an ad too quickly, you don't get good data. I think being patient and making small changes over time versus freaking out and just doing everything new and different all at once has been important, especially I have a personality type that's like very go, go, go. And so I think knowing me, he knew that would resonate. So that's one piece of advice that I think I try to keep with me to keep anxiety down when I'm not happy with how things are going, but also control the process.
Mike: So that's great advice. I love that. I mean, we've talked about the threat of AI on marketing as a career. So if you were talking to somebody who was just starting their career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Andrea: Oh, boy. I think being a well-rounded marketer is going to be really important because I can't predict, no one can, which areas of marketing will be replaced faster by AI or will you know, remain more intact for longer. I think being a well-rounded marketer and embracing the technology is going to be critical versus, you know, pushing it away or feeling threatened by it. So I think You know, I was very focused in product marketing in the start of my career, which by the way, I just, I love that part of marketing so much. And from there I did kind of branch then into more go-to-market initiatives and then paid media. And I think having more of a diverse background gives you flexibility as the industry evolves.
Mike: That's great advice again. I mean, this has been fascinating. If people want to learn more about StatSocial and maybe about what you do, what's the best place for them to go to get more information?
Andrea: So our website, StatSocial.com. I'm Andrea Rosie. I can be found on LinkedIn. My email is just andrea.rosi@statsocial.com. So that's also a great way to get in touch with me as well.
Mike: It's been awesome. Thank you so much, Andrea. It's been really interesting. Thanks for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Andrea: Thank you so much for having me.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Why B2B Needs Its Own Social Media Platform – Adi Krysler – Oktopost
Why B2B Needs Its Own Social Media Platform– Adi Krysler – Oktopost
Oktopost’s VP of Marketing, Adi Krysler, joins the podcast to discuss how the platform is reshaping the way B2B companies approach social media. She explains why Oktopost was built specifically for the needs of B2B marketers—where relationships, attribution, and measurable business impact matter most—and how its social suite unifies publishing, employee advocacy, and social listening in one platform.
Adi also shares how Oktopost empowers employees to become authentic brand ambassadors, strengthening trust and expanding reach far beyond traditional corporate channels. She explores the changing landscape of B2B marketing, the increasing overlap with B2C strategies, and what modern marketing leaders need to prioritise as expectations and technologies continue to evolve.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Oktopost
Oktopost is a B2B social media management platform that helps marketing and revenue teams drive engagement, measure success, and link social media to revenue growth. Trusted by thousands of marketing professionals at some of the world's leading B2B technology and professional services companies, Oktopost offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for social media publishing, employee advocacy, social analytics, social listening and marketing intelligence, all in one platform.
About Adi Krysler
Adi is a seasoned marketing leader with an MBA and over 15 years of experience driving impactful marketing strategies in both corporate and startup environments, with companies like Wix.com, SAP, and Oktopost.
Skilled in building go-to-market strategies, product positioning, and brand growth, she combines analytical insight with creative execution to elevate business outcomes. With deep expertise in SaaS and B2B marketing, she helps shape high-performing marketing initiatives, fostering cross-functional collaboration and bringing visionary leadership to the tech marketing landscape.
Time Stamps
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:02:49 - Overview of Oktopost's Services
00:05:58 - Measuring Impact of Employee Advocacy
00:07:30 - Oktopost's Unique Position in B2B
00:11:24 - Balancing Organic and Paid Social Strategies
00:15:47 - Influencer Marketing in B2B
00:19:14 - Future of the VP of Marketing Role
00:20:36 - The Importance of Choosing the Right Tools
00:21:12 - Best Marketing Advice Received
00:22:11 - Advice for New Marketers
Quotes
"In B2B, every relationship counts, every conversation has weight, every touchpoint can influence the buying decision." Adi Krysler, VP of Marketing at Oktopost.
"We founded Octopost with the belief that B2B companies deserve their own dedicated platform that is built for these longer buyer journeys and for the multiple stakeholders." Adi Krysler, VP of Marketing at Oktopost.
"The experiences that B2B buyers are looking for are getting more similar to the B2C, where everything is very fast and it's visual and it's personalized." Adi Krysler, VP of Marketing at Oktopost.
Follow Adi:
Adi Krysler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adikrysler/
Oktopost website: https://www.oktopost.com/
Oktopost on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oktopost/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Adi Krysler at Oktopost
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Adi Krysler
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 Adi Kreisler, who's the VP of Marketing for Oktopost. Welcome to the podcast, Adi.
Adi: Hi, Mike. Thank you for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on. We always like to understand a little bit about our guests first. So can you give us a little bit of background about your career and why you're currently at Oktopost?
Adi: Sure. So my career started by fulfilling a childhood dream of being a journalist. I did that for a few years until I moved into PR. And from being a PR consultant where I worked with marketing managers almost every day, it was a very natural shift to go into marketing, which is what I've been doing in the past 15 years. I've been leading marketing in different companies, startups, also big companies like AppsFire, SAP, always focused on connecting the creativity with real business impact. And over the years, I realized that I'm much more passionate about B2B marketing than the B2C. And that's why I felt very connected to Octopus, really felt like a perfect fit because it's the only social media platform that is built specifically for B2B marketers. For me, it was the ideal place to bring my expertise and everything I learned into what defines B2B marketing.
Mike: And I mean, that leads on to an obvious question, because, you know, I think us in B2B, we sometimes feel like the consumer marketers get all the shiny toys. So why is it Octopus decided to go after B2B? Was there a reason in the history or was it just they saw an opportunity?
Adi: Well, the consumer marketing is definitely much bigger in volume, but B2B is bigger in value. And in B2B, every relationship counts, every conversation has weight, every touchpoint can influence the buying decision. And we founded Opposite Bows with the belief that B2B companies deserve their own dedicated platform that is built for these longer buyer journeys and for the multiple stakeholders. And we saw a need in the market for customers looking exactly for that. Looking for clear attribution from awareness into revenue. That's what our customers are looking for.
Mike: So, I mean, that sounds interesting. Could you just maybe break that down a bit? I know you talk about, you know, different sections of the tool that have different functionality. Do you want to just talk a little bit about what Oktopost actually does for your clients?
Adi: Sure. So we have a unified B2B social suite. So we help companies manage every aspect of their social presence from publishing and engagement and employee advocacy, social listening, analytics, We start with the social publishing. It's the platform where you can easily plan and schedule and analyze all the campaigns you're running across the different channels. With our employee advocacy product, we turn employees of the company into brand ambassadors. The marketers provide them content that is curated and approved by the marketing team and provided to the employees in a way that is very easy to share, but it also lets them share their own voice. And lastly, we have the social listening product. That's where marketers can track mentions of their brand. They can track competitors, influencers, industry trends, and do it all in the same platform.
Mike: So I'm particularly interested in the employee advocacy section, because a lot of people talk about this, and it's actually much harder than you think. So I guess the first question is, how do you actually get employees to engage and start posting about the company? I mean, what does Octopus do that makes that more likely?
Adi: Yeah, it's definitely become one of the highest growth engines in the past few years. And when we built advocacy, we built it with authenticity in mind, because people, they don't want to post something that they don't feel connected to. And what OptiPost does is makes the sharing easy. But it also personalizes everything for each team member so that every region, every product group, every person within the company, each one can find the content that they relate to. And then they can either post it as is or use AI to polish it and have it even more personalized. And that encourages employees to share more. And for the marketers, manage the employee advocacy, the balancing between having the structure of what is approved and curated by marketing, but also giving them, the employees, the freedom to share their own voice. One last thing that really encourages employees to share is the fact that we give visibility into how employees' posts actually make an impact. So if you're a sales manager, for example, you can see how a post or different posts that you've created actually brought new business into the company.
Mike: Oh, so that's interesting. Can you talk a little bit more about that? So what are you doing? How are you providing that information?
Adi: Sure. So unlike other platforms that usually focus more on the likes and the impressions and the follower count, our focus is on connecting social activity to real business outcomes. And we integrate directly with the different CRMs and the marketing automation systems. So marketers and also the employees can see how posts or campaigns and advocacy efforts can contribute to lead generation, to pipeline and revenue and also retention. We do that by providing very deep analytics. So you can segment performance by content type, audience, campaign channels, and that way the marketer can understand which tactic or which campaign draw real results. So it's basically focusing on aligning the social media with the business KPIs. And that's what marketer, especially the marketing leaders are looking for, is actually how to tie the social into the company's KPI. And in that way, social media is not just a branding channel or communication channel, it's an actual growth engine.
Mike: And that's interesting, and presumably that's really why Oktopost excels, is because you've built it around the needs of B2B customers.
Adi: Yes, exactly. So most social platforms, as I said, are built for B2B, where the main goal is to drive awareness and followers and also the focus is on B2C channels, such as TikTok, for example. But in B2B success, it looks very different. You need to engage these multiple stakeholders. You need to see how you turn influence, social influence into pipeline and do that in the right channels, which is First of all, LinkedIn, of course. LinkedIn releases new features very often. And most platforms, they struggle to keep up with all these new features, partially because they're focused on different channels. And Octopus has built a very close relationship with LinkedIn so that we have access to the new feature through APIs. And we also work together through different lunch and learns and webinars that we do together so we can support our customers' needs in the B2B space, which is very much in LinkedIn. And every aspect of our company, from product design to customer support, everything is built on their understanding of how a B2B organization works. And our account managers, our solution consultant, product managers, all they do is work with B2B companies. So when a customer needs advice or want to build their planning for the next year, they're talking with an expert who's been working with similar companies only in that space.
Mike: And I mean, I'm interested, you know, you've talked about a lot of powerful features. So who are your customers? Are they typically very large enterprises? Is it in particular markets or is it all the way across the B2B space?
Adi: So we work with global B2B organizations. So from the legal and professional services, we have manufacturing and tech industries. Some of our customers are Monday, demand-based, Fujitsu. And what all these customers share, and I make sure to have conversation with the leaders of these companies every once in a while, is that all of them really understand that excelling in social media, it's not optional. And they need to become a social organization, not just within the marketing team, but every single employee. And what we do is help these customers basically turn their organization into a social organization.
Mike: Oh, that's such a positive way to sum up what you do. I really like that. Let's look at pivoting a bit and looking about your marketing strategy for Oktopost. So I'm interested as someone who runs the marketing, how do you approach the strategy and what's your approach to actually building your business?
Adi: Well, you won't be surprised that our strategy is about leading with social, actually doing what we help our customers do. And we treat Octopus as a living example of how do we see B2B organization work. And that's why our focus is very heavily on the thought leadership, social selling, employee advocacy, because our people, they're our best storytellers. And every post, campaign, event, everything that we run, we make sure there is a clear narrative that goes across all of these channels and campaigns. And that's where we see the results.
Mike: And I'm interested, I mean, obviously, Oktopost as a business is very focused on growing the organic social. How important is paid for you on the social platforms?
Adi: Within Octopus platform, we focus on the organic side, of course, that as a marketing tactic, paid campaigns are part of our strategy. I think a struggle for every marketer is how to balance this demand gen with the brand awareness and the more organic side. And what I keep in mind and also have multiple discussions with my CEO around it all the time is the fact that demand gen is about being visible today and building the brand. it keeps you visible tomorrow. As you know, it's very hard to link attribution into brand awareness campaign, but we make every effort to tie these brand awareness campaign also into the pipeline, into conversion as much as we can. Obviously, this is not something that any marketer is able to do at this point.
Mike: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's very difficult. So I'm interested when you're building your marketing plans, how do you balance between that brand building and the lead gen side? Is it an allocation of budget or time, or is it really about building the best campaigns and then seeing how that works out?
Adi: I think it's a combination of both. So first of all, my marketing team is built in a way that we have some of the team members are more focused on the Dimension efforts and others are on the brand awareness efforts. And of course, we all understand that all of these efforts have to work together and need to feed each other. So every campaign that we build, and not only campaign, also our day-to-day work, It's always a combination of working together within the team. So if we have a campaign, then we will map out the different brand elements of it and then how DemandGen will support these efforts. while always keeping in mind our narrative and how do we want to be heard and to be seen when we're out there, whether it's on social and also in other marketing assets or events that we do.
Mike: That makes that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I'm interested, actually, you know, we've we've talked about social employee advocacy. There's clearly this merger between B2B and B2C. And a lot of people are talking about that. How do you see that evolving over the next few years? I mean, do you think B2B marketing is going to become much more like B2C? Or do you think there's still a difference?
Adi: Well, we do see the B2C coming into the B2B world. The experiences that B2B buyers are looking for are getting more similar to the B2C, where everything is very fast and it's visual and it's personalized. And we do see corporate channels also shifting their their narrative into a little more of a storytelling style. And mostly we see marketers embrace influencer marketing, you know, video snippets, interactive formats that make you feel they feel a little bit more of a consumer friendly. But in this case is they do have a data-driven backbone. And I think the challenge here will be how do we maintain trust and depth, which we do a lot with our thought leadership and it's necessary for the B2B. So how do we maintain that while keeping the speed and the creativity that goes into B2C space? It's an interesting ride and we're already starting doing that. We also embraced influencer marketing campaign recently, so we're experimenting with that as well.
Mike: Oh, that's interesting. So, you know, influencers, I think, are quite a challenge for B2B because it's still quite new. And, you know, from our point of view, there's not a huge number of influencers that are really B2B focused. Is that what you've seen? And, you know, I don't know if you can announce stuff that hasn't been developed in the product, but do you see Octopus potentially helping influencer campaigns in the future?
Adi: Well, I can say that we've experienced with influencer campaign recently and it was a challenge to understand how exactly to work with it because you're right, it's not like the B2C space where you have the influencer with the coupon codes and It's a very, very different style. And in LinkedIn, which is our main channel, of course, the influencers are thought leaders and no one will talk about a product that they don't actually believe in. So a campaign that we did a few months ago was the Octopus B2B Social Rising 30. It was an amazing idea that our content marketing manager came up with. And the idea was to celebrate the new voices that are shaping B2B social media. So what we did is spotlight in-house marketing, the people that are behind the brand, but they're also building their own personal brand and their career on LinkedIn. And these people are amazing marketers and they inspire people and they spark conversation. And some of them are really funny and it's like people that it's great to follow. And when we built it, the whole campaign, it was very community driven. So we invited people to nominate those rising 30. And it was very quickly got huge, huge organic engagement. A lot of people got involved. We got 250 nominees. It was very hard to choose. As Octopus, we focused on not necessarily those with the biggest number of followers, but actually those who really engage with their audience. And it became into like a real organic and inspiring influencer campaign. All these people, these Rising 30, they're on our website. We just released this guide where each one of them gives their own tips on how to become this influencer. And it's a great read for every marketer. I invite you to check it out.
Mike: That sounds really cool. This is probably a bit mean asking you to do this off the top of your head, but was there a particular influencer in that Rising30 that really stuck out to you as doing an amazing job?
Adi: There are a few. It was amazing to see where people took the direction that they took with it. So as part of the campaign, when we chose the Rising30, each one of them got an award. like a very nice box with the word and in a letter and in our Octi and what almost all of these winners said is they created a video of them unboxing the award and some of them took it into crazy like directions we we posted of course most of them actually all of them on our LinkedIn page some of them are you know beautiful to watch
Mike: That's amazing. I love that. I think that's an absolutely fantastic campaign. You're VP of Marketing. You're in probably one of the areas where things are changing most quickly B2B social. I mean, how do you see the role of VP of Marketing changing over the next few years?
Adi: Well, I see the role already becoming much less about campaign management, but more about getting everything to work together and work smoothly, such as connecting data, finding the right tools, building teams around shared insights, It's really about taking all of these things and combining them together to a smooth operation. And while we see AI progresses, and of course we've implemented it into Octopus and also into our own marketing tactics, So I see it taking more and more of the execution side. Us as marketers, we have more time to be, you know, more creative, more strategy. And I see the role continuing, growing into be like VP marketing as like part technologist, but a part storyteller and, you know, someone who can translate the data and the vision into decisions and actions.
Mike: That's fascinating. I think that's really exciting for people in marketing to see that, you know, you believe there's such a good future for marketing leaders in terms of spending more time on the creativity and strategy. And I think in recent years, maybe we've spent a lot more time on just getting the tools to work with all the new tools. Do you agree with that?
Adi: Definitely. There are so many tools out there and I admit that we spend quite a lot of time into just picking the right solution for us. And I'm sure our customers, you know, they did the same before choosing OptiPost and we do the same thing now that we're evaluating new tools that will help us improve, especially with emerging AI tools that, you know, there's a new tool every day. So yeah, we need to keep up, but eventually I see the time that we're spending on choosing the right vendor is very crucial to our success.
Mike: Absolutely. This has been fascinating, Abby. I really appreciate your time. Before I let you go, there's a couple of questions we'd like to ask all of our guests. And the first one is, what's the best piece of marketing advice that's ever been given to you?
Adi: I don't think it will be anything new, but I've heard more than once in my life the fact that, you know, people don't remember what you said, they remember how you made them feel. Even in B2B marketing where, you know, technically we're marketing to businesses, but at the end of the day, it's still people to people. And now, you know, people with wants and with needs and emotions. And if your message makes someone feel inspired and understood and confident, then they'll remember it long after they forget the details.
Mike: That's great. I love that. The second question is really advice to people starting out in their career. So what would you tell someone if they're just beginning in their marketing career to help them be successful?
Adi: Well, that will be something that I think when I started marketing was not as much applicable. Right now, marketers, they need to learn how to speak the language of business very early in the career. Creative skills are crucial, but the real impact comes when you connect your ideas into revenue. or your ideas into retention or reputation. And the other thing will be to stay curious. If you're not curious, you won't able to adapt to everything that is changing so quickly with marketing.
Mike: That's great advice. I think that's really important. Abby, thank you so much for this. If people are listening to the podcast and they're interested in Oktopost, want to find out more, maybe try the product, what's the best place for them to go?
Adi: Well, of course I'm on LinkedIn. You're welcome to visit our website or find me on LinkedIn, send me a message. Me and my team are always happy to speak with fellow marketers.
Mike: That's great. Abby, thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Adi: 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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Mastering Social Media in B2B – Emily Thompson – CoSchedule
Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule, joins the podcast to share practical strategies for building smarter, more consistent social media content.
She explains how marketers can use content pillars, batching, and realistic posting goals to stay organised and authentic, and explores the differences between B2B and B2C strategies—where creativity and trust are key to engagement and long-term success.
Emily also highlights how CoSchedule’s AI-driven workflows help teams streamline planning, automate repetitive tasks, and maintain a consistent publishing cadence across channels—all within a single, easy-to-manage platform.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About CoSchedule
CoSchedule is the marketing industry’s leading provider of content calendar, content optimization, and marketing education products. Its dynamic family of agile marketing management products serve more than 50,000 marketers worldwide, helping them organize their work, deliver projects on time, and prove marketing team value.
Collectively, CoSchedule products empower nearly 100,000 marketers to complete more high-quality work in less time. As recognized with accolades from Inc. 5000, Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, and G2Crowd, CoSchedule is one of the most valued companies its customers recommend. To learn more about CoSchedule, visit https://coschedule.com
About Emily Thompson
Emily Thompson recently joined CoSchedule as Marketing Manager, after two decades in B2B and B2C marketing content strategy. When people don't know what that means, she describes herself as the one who helps businesses answer the questions, "What needs to be said and how do we say it?" For her, there’s nothing more exciting than seeing marketing messaging land with precision and impact. Except maybe 49er football.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Meet Emily Thompson from CoSchedule
00:02:31 - Overview of CoSchedule's Product
00:06:26 - AI Integration at CoSchedule
00:08:07 - B2B vs. B2C Marketing Perspectives
00:12:04 - Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing
00:14:00 - Empowering Employees to Post on Social Media
00:16:48 - Measuring Success in Social Media
00:25:16 - Best Marketing Advice Received
00:28:03 - Closing Remarks and Contact Information
Quotes
"The number one thing I say about AI is it's only as smart as the person who's talking to it." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule.
"CoSchedule just does it all in one. So it's a great tool reduction software and really affordable option for marketers as budgets are shrinking and we need to work smarter and faster." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule.
"At the end of the day, you're creating trust and building relationships with your audience, whether you are B2B or B2C." Emily Thompson, Marketing Manager at CoSchedule.
Follow Emily:
Emily Thompson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-thompson-68468084/
CoSchedule website: https://coschedule.com/
CoSchedule on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coschedule/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Emily Thompson at CoSchedule
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Emily Thompson
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. I'm Mike Maynard, and today I'm joined by Emily Thompson. Emily's the marketing manager at CoSchedule. Welcome to the podcast, Emily.
Emily: Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. Hello from Fargo, North Dakota, a Midwest U.S. city that probably isn't on a lot of your listeners' travel bucket list, but it's a great place to live and build a career.
Mike: That sounds interesting. I've never been to North Dakota. My next trip to the US is actually to Boston, so perhaps a better known city. Let's kick off and just find out a little bit about you rather than necessarily North Dakota, Emily. So I'm really interested in a little bit of your career history and what brought you to CoSchedule.
Emily: For sure. So I would describe myself as a content strategist, wherever my career roams, I will always identify as a content strategist, which is a role that really didn't exist when I started in marketing 20 years ago. So really, I'm a writer. I love everything that has to do with helping brands know what needs to be said and how do you say it. So I've gotten to do that. at in-house marketing teams and at agencies, both on the B2C side and the B2B side. So I had most recently been working at an agency kind of specializing in digital marketing and email. And earlier this year, things were really starting to feel shaky with tariffs with some of our major clients. So I looked around in North Dakota for the first time And when I started talking to CoSchedule, I could see that they were ahead of me in how they were thinking about AI and how they were using AI, and in a way that almost made me feel They were so far ahead of me. And I realized it was a great career opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and be pushed. I was so busy maintaining clients that I really did not have time to study AI like I wanted to. And so it felt like a great career advancement opportunity to join the marketing team at CoSchedule.
Mike: That sounds really cool and I mean I love the fact that you joined them because you felt that you could learn something they were ahead of you. Can you just start off maybe dig into you know exactly what CoSchedule does as the product?
Emily: For sure. So we are a software designed for marketers, predominantly a social media management tool. But what sets us apart is we also have a really large project management arm of our software. So I like to describe it to marketers as imagine your project management software merged with your social media management software, that's co-scheduled. So Trello meets Hootsuite in one tool. When I first started, I had this jaw drop moment when I saw everything that CoSchedule did in one place because in my previous role as a social media manager, I had been managing social calendars in spreadsheets, outlining content in Microsoft Word, graphics on a Miro board, and approvals through email. before I got into my social media management software and CoSchedule just does it all in one. So it's a great tool reduction software and really affordable option for marketers as budgets are shrinking and we need to work smarter and faster.
Mike: So, I mean, I'm sure everyone's familiar with managing social media posts in something like Excel or a spreadsheet and, you know, tearing their hair out at that. It seems to be quite broadly applicable co-schedule. So who are your big customers?
Emily: We target marketers of all sizes. So everything from a solopreneur marketer or a friend of mine who works 20 hours a week for a nonprofit, uses CoSchedule to post a couple of social media posts a week on two channels, all the way up to major enterprises who use CoSchedule to keep their marketing departments aligned and large agencies managing multiple clients. keeping their workflow in check. It's small enough and large enough to cater both sizes.
Mike: That sounds pretty cool that it's applicable to so many people. I mean, I'm interested. There's a lot of these kind of scheduling products that are available for marketers. I mean, you talked a little bit about some of the things that CoSchedule does well. Are you OK to just expand on that and tell me a little bit more about where CoSchedule absolutely excels?
Emily: Yeah, I would say it's every social media management tool out there. And a lot of them do all of the same things will tell you that they help you create order from your social chaos, which co scheduled us as well. But really, what sets it apart is the fact that you don't just plan your social media and co-schedule, you really can manage every campaign, your emails, because of integrations, your podcast, your website content. It really has a great calendar and workflow work task management arm that people love. They love the ability to have visual into everything they're working on in marketing. in one place. Typically, social media is a separate tool from the tool you're using for that. And then another feature that really sets us apart is, I would say, is our requeue function. We have the ability to instantaneously repost high-performing content where you have gaps in your calendar. That's automatic. You don't have to do a lot of manual work to set that up. And I really think that's a great, cool tool for the B2B sector where posting consistently can be harder than in the B2C world.
Mike: I mean, that sounds great. I love the fact that it goes way beyond just scheduling your social media posts. You did talk earlier about AI. I mean, can you expand a little bit on why you were so impressed with the attitude to AI at CoSchedule?
Emily: Yeah, it'd be fun to hear your perspective on this in another location, but I tend to find that marketers are a little bit skeptic and slow, and companies are a little bit slow to feel comfortable with AI. Maybe using it in small ways, but not fully integrating it and not fully embracing it. And when I met with CoSchedule, I could see that it had been implemented into their product for years, well before their competitors were using it. they fully embrace it and have adopted it into their workflows and are planning for how it's changing the industry and have already years ago shifted how they're posting content because of AI and they just were so comfortable with AI when other companies I was talking to seemed like they were wanting me to prove that I wasn't using it ever, which I wasn't using it a ton when I was interviewing. But I think that's just not a healthy perspective in today's age to sort of stick your head in the sand and pretend that AI isn't here and shouldn't be a big part of your marketing process.
Mike: I think that's really interesting. I think it's probably true that marketers spend a lot more time talking about AI than they do using it. For sure. I mean, one of the interesting things we have as not just a B2B agency, but we're super focused on technical niches, is that AI is actually somewhat limited in terms of content generation because clearly the training data is very limited. Quite often there is no training data because we've got a brand new product that doesn't exist. Whereas I think in B2C, it might be easier to get real benefits from AI. I mean, is that something you see? Do you see a big difference between B2B and B2C?
Emily: The number one thing I say about AI is it's only as smart as the person who's talking to it. And so I think where I see the bigger gap is not between B2B and B2C, but between those who are prompting it properly and doing the work for the output versus lazy use of it. That's where I see a bigger gap.
Mike: That's interesting. I mean, it's another case of B2B and B2C being more similar than people think. I mean, overall, when you look at B2B and B2C, particularly say in social media, I mean, do you think those two disciplines are getting closer or do you still see a big difference?
Emily: I think they are getting closer. I think they are more similar than most B2B brands are comfortable with. Here's why I say that. Social media is at the 10,000-foot view. It's about creating a relationship with your public. Of course, there are a whole host of goals underneath that. At the end of the day, you're creating trust and building relationships with your audience, whether you are B2B or B2C. And you do that by showing real humans and entertaining and humor and inspiration. Because the thing about social, I always said this to my clients, is it's so darn social. Obviously you go about that differently than you would in B2C and you write it differently per channel. But at the end of the day, I've seen the best results with incredibly human posting for B2B and the best brands use social to be known and trusted. And so many of my B2B clients really would look over at their competitors who were not doing this. And they were doing really very normal, boring and safe posting that you'd expect for their industries. And they regularly would back out of really creative, good posting, because they were scared to be different, even though it was working. A story that still makes me laugh. I had a client who had doubled their social media following in one year and had started serving a hundred more people. This was a B2B company. A hundred more businesses that month than they had the month before were regularly getting praised for their social media. And every month when I met with my client, I had to talk him off the ledge because he kept looking at his competitors and seeing that his posts were not generic and were not just advertising the business over and over and over. just was scared. And so I laugh about it. But truly, at the end of the day, I think you can still have fun on social while building trust and educating your audience. It's an art form in how you go about that. And when you find the social media specialist who gets that nuance of how to have fun and be social on a B2B platform, They're very talented, and you should work hard to retain them.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think it's really hard to get that balance, and I see that with a lot of our clients. I'm interested. Obviously, there's an issue around balancing the fun with the corporate image. I mean, what else do you see people really getting wrong on their social media?
Emily: I would say cumbersome planning processes that make it a behemoth to manage and then ultimately fail because they're not sustainable is a big one. I also see people spending too much time studying what AI can tell them in seconds. For example, what time of day is optimal for posting or their analytics. I also see people prioritizing every channel equally, or I'd even say prioritizing channels that make no sense to be on, but they're scared not to be there. I see people afraid to pivot content to what works versus what's expected. And so I would tell every social media marketer to relentlessly pursue what's working and get over what your competitors are doing that's not working but is expected in the industry. And then I'd say specifically what I see B2B businesses getting wrong, especially on LinkedIn. in, which tends to be the star in the P2B sector, is not training and empowering their staff to post to their personal accounts, because people follow people more than businesses on LinkedIn. And so that's a huge opportunity that's often lost.
Mike: I mean, that's really interesting. And it's certainly a problem I know that a lot of our clients have is getting individuals to post. I mean, do you think that that's a training issue? I mean, how do you solve that as a business?
Emily: Yeah, well, I'd say it starts with empowering them and giving them permission. Because I think a lot of employees fear if I start posting regularly thought leadership on LinkedIn, they're going to think I'm looking for a new job. And a lot of companies might not might be afraid to let you post for fear that you'll be poached if you get too much interaction on LinkedIn. But yeah, I think it is training. A lot of us were never taught how to post on social media. And I think a little bit of training and guidance on what makes good content goes a long way and really At the end of the day, the best place to start is to just start posting and see what gets traction and what doesn't on LinkedIn.
Mike: I mean, this is really interesting. We're wandering off into somewhere outside of what I thought we were going to talk about initially. But one of the things I wonder is, how data-driven should you be on social? Because it's easy to post stuff that is very personal, generates lots of likes. But let's be honest, particularly in a B2B context, may not generate a business benefit. So do you think you should really chase the likes and the reposts and the data? Or do you think it's a bit more complex than that?
Emily: Social media is complex period because it's other tools are explicitly lead generation by nature and social media is brand building and trust building. And so measurement on social is incredibly hard. Gone are the days of being able to just say our engagement went up this month and we had our interactions and comments and likes went up this much and being able to bring that to your leadership and have that have that count. And that's what's incredibly hard about social is that building brand is a long term goal. It's a long term game. And it's not always told in the analytics. And you see that because every social media strategist has their favorite measurement. And they all disagree on which one is most important. And so I think gaining influence over time would be what I would be most concerned about, especially on LinkedIn. And the numbers don't always tell that story in the same way the numbers don't always tell branding growth. But trust and relationships take time.
Mike: I love that. I think that's a really good point that people should remember. I mean, let's come back a bit more to the product co-schedule now and what it helps people doing. You know, I see a lot of people with their social media or their content schedules, you know, and they tend to fall into almost two ends of the spectrum. So one, you've got, you know, marketing managers that are spending more time on scheduling. They are actually on generating content. And at the other end you have like the almost random haphazard, you know, let's just push out some posts this week and next week we'll have a schedule and of course next week they never do. So what would be your advice or tips to somebody, say a B2B marketing manager, who wanted to have a better schedule for their social?
Emily: Yeah, the obviously the one that everyone says up front all the time is batch your content, do not set the expectation on yourself that every single day, or maybe even every single week, you're going to sit down and find time to create inventive content, and keep a regular consistent publishing schedule unless you have mapped things out. And you the only way to be efficient in it is to work around content pillar posting ideas and schedule that out in advance and I'll talk about that in a little bit but there are I could give a really fancy answer here. And certainly, CoSchedule has many tools to make posting easier, like our smart campaigns that automates creation and scheduling of entire social campaigns in seconds. But really, I think what most marketers struggle with in social media, in my experience, is really the fundamentals get lost in all of the innovations. And really, I think the fundamentals are Don't set the bar at posting every single day. Set a bar that's realistic and build. Don't start by expecting that every single post is going to be a slam dunk. That's just not the way social works. So just keep showing up. And as I've said earlier, don't look to your competitors as the gold standard to replicate. Instead, I would simply step back from what you've been doing, spend a month posting almost, I would say, haphazardly. Post a whole lot of content in the spirit of testing around all sorts of different types of content. And then over the course of time, test what's working and what's not working and build your content pillars. around that so that say every Monday is audience frustration Monday. Maybe you thought that tips for how to use your service would perform and in reality people seem to like the memes or the funny things about frustrations in the industry. Make that a topic for four posts, four Mondays for the month, and engage them in the comments. One that I see that always seems to perform in the B2B sector is celebrating the successes of your business. I can almost guarantee that that will be a content pillar in your strategy. Or maybe you see that thought leadership really only performs when you make it about the reader or when you offer it via questions or video. post with gusto for a period of time in all of those categories, see what sticks, and then build your content strategy around those recurring themes to make it easy for yourself.
Mike: That's such interesting advice. I mean, so many questions come up from that. I mean, the pillars I love. Do you suggest that, you know, when people do these content pillars, as you mentioned, you know, you have a theme every day of the week. So Monday, as you say, could be customer frustration, or you better to like put, you know, a bunch of posts on the same topic into the same week and then change topic next week. But what do you think is the best approach?
Emily: I'd switch it up. I think if you started to do customer frustration Monday through Friday, it wouldn't perform as well as if it was randomly appearing throughout the month, which you know, it's not random. It's every Monday.
Mike: And that's really interesting as well. I mean, because you're kind of implying you're going to post most days of the week then, aren't you? If you theme on a Monday being customer frustration, presumably Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, all have their own themes. Do you have a view as to how often people should post? I mean, is it a case of the more the better, or can you post too much?
Emily: You know, the research shows that it actually isn't every day. I've seen with my own clients, even clients who had low budgets and only posted twice a week grew. I believe the recommendations that I've seen lately are three to five times a week for growth, so certainly do not feel that you have to set the bar at posting every single day, and certainly not multiple times a day. You can start small, see what's working, and grow from there.
Mike: Well, that's, I think, reassuring to people who are, you know, kind of intimidated by the feeling they need to get something out every day. I'd love to understand a little bit, you know, we've talked generally about how people can improve their social media and their content strategy. What about your strategy for co-schedule? What's your marketing strategy?
Emily: Yeah, to describe it at the highest level, I would say our strategy is to develop content and tools that help marketers do their job better. So CoSchedule has developed a staggering amount of content around helping marketers understand marketing over the years. When I first started and I was going through the website of all of the content they've produced over 12 years, I actually had to breathe in, breathe out, tell myself they didn't develop all of this content in one day. They have courses, so there's an education arm of their business. And they're really innovative. So, for example, in 2021, they launched a free product called Headline Studio, where marketers could evaluate their email subject lines, blog posts, headlines for what would be most effective for SEO, et cetera, open rates. And in today's world of AI, that doesn't sound revolutionary. But in 2021, that was incredibly new and helpful to marketers.
Mike: I actually remember that being launched and using it myself on email subject lines. So that's really cool. I mean, I know we're kind of running out of time. So I'm interested to know, what sort of campaigns do you look at and go, wow, that's really good. Are there any campaigns you've seen recently that are really cool or have been really well executed?
Emily: You know what can't not come to mind in the B2B space is what Shopify does on Black Friday with their live global tracker. For several years have done live time tracking of their merchants global sales on Black Friday. And they up the ante every year. So last year, I believe they even had it displaying on the sphere in Vegas, which is this just giant spherical building and the entire building has an external LED screen. I'm guessing your listeners don't have that type of budget. So I hesitate to give that example. But I think the lesson in that in a B2B context is how can we take something that we do and make it more human and more relatable and more helpful in a different category? How can we turn it on its head in a way that's different and so therefore makes it noticeable?
Mike: I think that's a great example. I think one of the things I really like about it is Shopify has stuck with it for a very long period of time. So actually, people are almost expecting that campaign on Black Friday, and they want to compare the numbers to the previous year. So I think consistency has been really good there, hasn't it? This has been really interesting, Emily. There are a couple of questions that we like to ask everyone before we let them go. So I'm going to ask those now. The first one is, what's the best piece of marketing advice that someone's given to you?
Emily: I laugh when you ask this question because I presume you don't mean the day, the very first day of Twitter when my first boss pulled me into his office and said, Emily, pay attention to this. This is going to change the world. And I looked at it and said, that looks so dumb. Why would anyone want to use that? I assume that's not the answer you're looking for. But here's one slight diversion from what we've been talking about. But this is a piece of advice I got early in my career. And I have found myself repeating it to clients over and over again. I was working at an agency. And we had just gotten an angry letter in the mail about a TV spot we had written. And how quaint does that sound to our 20, 25 years that we got a letter in the mail? And I remember my boss saying, if your marketing isn't making someone angry, it probably wasn't any good. Because if it wasn't strong enough to stir someone to anger, it probably wasn't strong enough to inspire someone to act. And I love that because, especially in social media context, the world has gotten so explosive and negative. And if you're doing anything that stands out, you're going to be making people mad. And that can cause us to shrink back in our confidence and change what we know is working because of the voices. And the challenge is to not stop because of that.
Mike: I love that. That's super positive. I mean, hopefully continuing on a positive theme. The other question we like to ask everybody is, what would you say to someone who was just starting out in their career in marketing?
Emily: Yeah, I'll give you real advice that I regularly give to people who tell me they want to do what I do someday. And it's this. I encourage them to become a voracious reader. And I tell them, you don't need to read about marketing. Just find a genre that you love. and read it, read it over and over again. And over time, you'll naturally pick up on the questions that make a content strategist an asset. What types of writing are compelling? What word pairings cause you to pay attention versus tuning them out? Who taught you something and how did they do it? What entertained you? What stood apart? Apart from the editors and brilliant marketing minds that I've worked with in my career who have shaped my thinking, I believe being a reader has been the single most helpful thing for being a marketer. And I think there's a new angle to that advice in today's world, that being a reader will protect you from outsourcing your thinking to AI.
Mike: Oh, that's interesting. Maybe a little controversial. Emily, this has been great. I so appreciate the time. If somebody is interested in CoSchedule, wants to find out more, what's the best place for them to go?
Emily: Sure. You can check us out at coschedule.com or feel free to add me on LinkedIn as Emily Thompson.
Mike: Emily, this has been brilliant. Thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Emily: Thanks for having me, Mike.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
The Role of Video in Engaging Customers – RS Raghavan – Animaker
RS Raghavan, CEO and Co-Founder of Animaker, joins the podcast to share how his passion for visual storytelling inspired a platform that makes video creation as easy as building a PowerPoint.
RS explains how Animaker has evolved from a simple editing tool into an AI-powered platform that lets anyone generate videos from text prompts, turning what once took weeks into minutes. He discusses how marketers use video to boost engagement across sales, training, and social media, and why storytelling remains the key to standing out.
He also touches on the importance of brand consistency, creativity, and continuous learning, offering practical insights for marketers looking to harness the power of video in a fast-changing digital landscape.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Animaker
Animaker is one of the world’s leading AI-powered creative platforms that helps businesses build studio-quality videos in minutes. From L&D professionals & trainers, marketers to educators, entrepreneurs and enterprises, anyone can simplify video creation and marketing at scale with Animaker and its suite of AI tools. Serving over 30Million users worldwide, Animaker's AI suite includes Steve AI, Vmaker AI, Show (AI Marketers), and Picmaker that enables organizations to harness AI for smarter storytelling, faster content productions, and stronger customer engagement.
About RS Raghavan
RS Raghavan is the CEO & Co Founder of Animaker Inc, a leading double AI patented SaaS startup in the visual content creation space with over 30M + users.
With a background in technology and a passion for creativity, Raghav has helped numerous Fortune companies run successful marketing & video campaigns and L&D training sessions. He strongly believes creativity can solve big problems and has delivered keynote talks at top conferences worldwide. RS has received several accolades, including the CII Startupreneur Award and Tech Entrepreneur of the Year He is also involved in initiatives like Say No to Cancer and Education for All.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Meet RS, CEO and Co-Founder of Animaker
00:03:06 - Creating Videos with Animaker
00:04:44 - Simplifying Video Production
00:07:38 - Standing Out in a Crowded Video Space
00:12:50 - Video's Role in the Sales Process
00:16:02 - Design Teams vs. DIY Video Creation
00:18:50 - Future Trends in Video Marketing
00:21:13 - Final Thoughts and Marketing Advice
Quotes
"Standing out comes from the story. You can literally have the same character, same background, same all of it. But still, you want to create the engagement that comes from the story." RS Raghavan, CEO and Co-Founder of Animaker.
"If you're doing a product launch, have a nice video to it. There is no excuse of not having a video to any of your product launches in the initial days." RS Raghavan, CEO and Co-Founder of Animaker.
"Marketing starts before even your product development starts. The moment a feature or something we have developed, the first thing goes in my mind is like, how come the customer is going to receive it?" RS Raghavan, CEO and Co-Founder of Animaker.
Follow RS:
RS Raghavan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsraghavan/
Animaker website: https://www.animaker.com/
Animaker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/animaker/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 RS Raghavan at Animaker
Speakers: Mike Maynard, RS Raghavan
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. I'm joined by Rago, who is the CEO and founder of Animaker. Welcome to the podcast, Rago.
RS: Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me here. I'm pretty excited to have this session.
Mike: And I'm really excited to talk to you. You've got a really cool tool that you've developed. But we'd like to start by finding a little bit out about you. So can you tell us a little bit about your career and why you chose to found Animaker?
RS: I would say I was a very, very accidental entrepreneur. I was not in the world of getting into business or something like that. When I started, I wanted to become a scientist. It was really strange when I say that people, I mean, some of my friends laugh at me, like, really? But that's always in the back of my mind. Oh, I'll like this. being in a chemistry lab. I don't know, that's an illusion I already had. Oh, being in a chemistry lab, do something experimental, come out something like this, like the EZA projects and stuff like that. I was always excited of taking a big problem and solving it. But I never thought that being an entrepreneur or being in business is the best way to do it because you have enough funds to do it, you have enough people to join your mission to do it. I think anyone in 2025 want to do in a big time, even in the research space. I do have a lot of researchers as my friends. We always say like being an entrepreneur is the easiest way to do any of the big things you are imagined of. But with that said, but when you started, obviously you don't know any of this. Right, you have no clue how your life is going to unfold. You are actually connecting backwards, the dots in the backwards. So when I started, I used to go to these demo days and hackathons and these project showcase. I used to show my science projects. So whenever I go and show these science projects, people get super excited and appreciate my presentation, my videos more than my science. I was like, oh my god, Raghav, this is an amazing video. This is amazing animation. Okay, did you get something about my science? No. So it just repeatedly happened to me. Then I slowly started realizing, oh my god, actually, I'm good at this videos and visual presentation more than my science. That self-realization, it took a while. want to do something in the video and visual space then we started this video production house as a side hustle and then slowly thought okay we want to give a powerpoint kind of experience to build animaker then that now turns into can we give a chat vpt kind of experience for video making now we are here with that animaker has grown from a simple powerpoint kind of experience to now Just prompt, you'll get a video and you're good with it.
Mike: So that's a great description. You give it a prompt and you get a video. I mean, can you expand a bit on that and talk a little bit about, you know, particularly what sort of videos people create using it?
RS: Oh yeah, I mean, to be honest, Animaker is like all sort of tool. But if you ask us, like, where do we really optimize and focus? Because end of the day, Animaker is like a PowerPoint. What can I do with the PowerPoint? You can do anything with it. You can do sales demos, you can do this exactly same in Animaker as well. If you are a marketer, marketers are a bigger segment. They create extended videos, training videos, social media, short reels, anything on the communication, anything people don't want to share textual content, they use our tool to simply add those conversations and script and generate a nice video and share it across. tired of reading anything now, nowadays. So that's sort of a big segment. And another big segment is L&D and training people, like a sales enablement, creating video courses, or even some really good internal communication. So for example, I was talking to one of my friends, he said like, oh, if it's mail from a CEO comes, I just archive it. No, that's what it's like. Nobody's reading CEO's email. If it is a small company, people take it seriously. What is a big organization? How can we really engage those internal communications pretty strong? Do a video. Have an avatar of a CEO. Even if he is busy, that's okay. Pull him in. Give a nice script. Whatever he wants to talk, the same email. Let it generate a video and send. And a lot of people have now started doing it, which is pretty awesome, I would say. There are a lot of use cases like this.
Mike: So, I mean, historically, the problem has been that creating these sort of videos has taken a lot of time, required specialist equipment. I mean, presumably what you're trying to do at Animaker is actually reduce that complexity and make it really simple to produce a video. So how simple can it be to actually produce a video?
RS: I still remember when I started, it took four to five weeks to create a video, one video, and it's nearly $40,000-$50,000. It is a $40,000-$50,000, but on the other hand, it is just one video. You make it and you post it everywhere for the next one year and you survive with it. The lifetime of a video got so less. It's just a scrawl away. When you post it, people are just going to spend like 10 seconds on it. And that's the expectation in terms of creation is also now translated. I would say those 4-5 weeks brought down to 4-5 days in a DIY era. That 4-5 days in Animaker when we started it becomes 4-5 hours. Now it is just 4-5 minutes. If you have a nice script, you feed it, two minutes, you will have everything, two minutes for you to edit, improve here and there. Five minutes you can do with your video. But it's a creative space. Even you can modify it for hours. I mean, it's not going to stop you from improving it, but the minimal successful video, now you can make it in just four or five minutes. And by the way, when I say minimal, I always say, when you are a first time video creator, a lot of things go wrong, which these AI engines are taking care of. So simple thing is like having a light background, having a light colored text that nobody can read it. AI is going to take care of it. It's not going to create a Super Bowl kind of ad for sure, but it's going to create really, really basic high quality video, which you can survey with.
Mike: And so do you see video kind of replacing email to some extent in terms of pushing marketing messages out?
RS: It will increase the engagement, I would say. Email is email still. I mean, I always believe no channel will replace another channel. It's like an add-on. Now the communications are more, the touchpoints are more. For marketers, we need to have multiple touchpoints. I always tell them, like, yeah, if you're sending like five, ten emails, maybe send a couple of emails with videos attached to it. couple of emails with gifs attached to it. Yeah, couple of emails like a simple conversation, like two, three lines of text. That's what we follow. I think to an extent, I don't think it's going to not going to replace, replace, but it is going to be like an add on to it.
Mike: That makes sense. I guess people listening who maybe haven't done a lot of video themselves, they'll be wondering, you know, with all this increase in video content and the fact that Animaker and other tools are making it easier to create, is it going to be more difficult to make videos stand out? And what should they be doing to make their videos really stand out?
RS: I don't think so in 2025, creating video is no more a difficult task, to be precise. And especially if you're a first timer. If you want to create a really high quality video, yes it is. But to stand out, I think standing out comes from the story. I think you can literally have the same character, same background, same all of it. But still you want to create the engagement comes from the story. It starts from the visuals. That's what I always tell like, yeah, people ask like Raghav, this is like an anime because a lot of things are similar. How come these like millions of videos are created and engaged and all of it. It's because of the story. After a point like yeah, it looks similar. in the first 10 seconds, but the moment you have a different story to tell using these tools, it's like having a same template, like a pitch deck. You know, we used to joke in, I don't know if you guys have heard about like this Y Combinator and Demo Days. Templates are the same, but somebody is going to raise a million dollars. Somebody is going to raise a hundred million dollars. Oh, because of the story difference, right? I think the story has to be different to stand out, I guess, always. But yeah, visually there are other ways to do it, like having a hook in the start and having a humor in the end and things like that. But that's how it is differentiated.
Mike: I love that. Just focus on the story. Great advice there. You know, obviously the audience here is a marketing audience. So could you maybe give some more examples and perhaps more details about how marketers today are using tools like Animaker?
RS: Oh yeah, marketers are our biggest segment. I mean, people are using for explainer videos. I think there is different journey a marketing team go through like the marketing department. If you're in a zero to one, I always see people started using for their explainer videos, like their product demos, launch. If you're doing a product launch, have a nice video to it. So I think there is no excuse of not having a video to any of your product launches and initial days. And then this is a marketer who is working in a Fortune 100 companies. They have a different way of like, there is a huge sales-led pitch you are doing for a 100K deal, and people are coming to you, don't just do a pitch deck. We have repeatedly saw having one embedded video in your sales demo, or in your product demo make a huge difference in a Fortune 100 companies in terms of selling those things like that. There are like multiple areas where you can embed your video experience throughout. Sometimes it could be face of yours. Sometimes it could be, yeah, the whole demo is boring. Like you're doing it for like 30 minutes with all the visual content showing your face. I always tell them every five minutes, 10 minutes, have a nice video, right? That will make a huge difference in your pictures and demos, especially if you're doing a webinar. Marketers do a lot of webinars, right? make sure you have like two three videos in your arsenal to show off whenever you think audience are not engaged enough throw those videos like that social media is a great example and especially since you said b2b is your segment i think linkedin is now a big driver for videos People have been saying skyrocketing numbers when people posting. I mean, that's a right now if you are like, yeah, Instagram, all these are great. But for B2B, don't just post your like nice, well written graphical post to videos. They have introduced a separate tab and there's so much engagement people have been saying, especially B2B leads are getting generated from those LinkedIn videos, which you can just repurpose whatever you posted in Instagram, just repurpose it in LinkedIn as well.
Mike: I love that, and I love the idea of inserting videos into webinars. That's certainly something I think I should be doing in our webinars. You've mentioned it a couple of times, I think I've mentioned it, that there are a lot of tools available to create videos now. So from your point of view, what are you trying to make Animaker really good at? What's it unique at?
RS: Okay. See, especially, I mean, there are different times we try to differentiate ourselves, we build the moat differently. But if you ask me in 2025, the biggest problem, I would I won't say like we solved it. But we that is a problem say something you will be judged based on the problem you take, and the problem which you're working on. For Animaker, the biggest differentiator is, say, for example, there is Google Vue, there is the Shadvvd, all the Soras of worlds. But they have been optimizing their engine for video clips. But the way Animaker or our engines, our researches always work towards a full-on video generation. That's our difference. You want a nice clip, like a 10-second, 20-second clip to insert in your campaign? Yeah, there are a lot of tools out there. But if you really want a full-blown video, come to Animaker because the problems are different. Clip generation is very different. But if it's a video, you have to make sure your voiceover is right. Timeline is right. Character consistency is right. Background consistency is right. There are like easily 20, 25 problems that has to put across in a way. It's not like you have to take all those problems, but you have to put it across in a way that it gives you a complete video. If you want a complete, purposeful video, Animaker is the engine which we have been optimizing and building it for a while.
Mike: No, absolutely. I mean, that makes sense. You know, VO3, it produces some amazing content, but you're not going to make a good explainer in the time you've got with those video clips. I think that's a really good example. So another thing I'm interested in is, you know, there's been a lot of research that says, particularly in B2B, customers are spending less time talking to salespeople. They're spending more time doing research, basically engaging with marketing content. What can marketers do to actually use video to kind of help the sales process, so help that top of the sales process as well as the marketing?
RS: I'll go by our example, what we do, and we have also seen few customers, especially mid-size companies, which we work with, because the other one was like very demanding in terms of building those playbooks for sales people to engage and nurture them. One, they have just like SMS, WhatsApp and other things as a touch points. Now they started introducing video as one of the touch points, but from the different channels, like sending a video via WhatsApp, sending a video via retargeting ads, having a nice video embed. Now, a lot of email tools are allowing to embed a video into your email communications, things like that. And one of the big area I always recommend people, especially marketing teams, to have a video in your landing pages. When you land someone in your page, I think still right now, both chat VBD and Google Treat the time spent on the page so seriously towards the value of your content. I always tell them have this simple hack. The moment you have a video in your landing page for whatever it is you're going to increase it because the people that video with page and video means a page with video and page without video you will easily see 10 times increase in engagement this people spend six seconds here be easily even they bounce your video they'll spend like 60 40 60 seconds which is a big boon in terms of getting a traffic and getting these people engaged or hooked into your system so just introduce videos everywhere whatever it is possible in your funnel and have a lot of repurposing I think social media and another challenge I see people always say especially in a midsize company is we don't have enough videos. No, you have a lot of videos. Go back. All your webinar contents are videos. If you record it, there is a lot of repurposing you can do. Look at your social media posts. Now everybody has their social media posts. 90% of your content is in social media. Can you take that as a B2B marketer and repurpose in your sales funnel? Not all your customers are going to come to your LinkedIn or Instagram, right? Repurpose into your email channels and things like that.
Mike: That's really interesting advice, and I think there's some great nuggets there people need to take away. I'm just going to change tack a bit. So you talked a little bit earlier, Raghu, about people having to spend $50,000 on creating a video, and now you can create it in minutes. It seems like Animaker is basically bypassing the design studio. Is that what you're seeing? Marketers actually creating video rather than going to designers to do it?
RS: I think it's an additional channels because I see the demand for videos of skyrocketed. I don't think so a single design. Say we have a huge design team. We could have get rid of them like, if it is literally replaced, we should be the first one to get rid of them. But to be honest, there is so much demand. There is so much quality difference or a demand difference where we need. I think this is like an add on channel, which you should have to survey in the world where it demands videos. everywhere. It's like having a writer. Yes, for a really great PR post, you go to your writer. Sometimes there's a simple email you write to your customer, you just type it on your own. I think that's exactly what is happening with the videos also. Yes, if you're running a big ad, like a Super Bowl ad, go to an agency. They're just posting some videos in a social media for an engagement for a quick product and launch. Come to Animaker, happy to engage. You can create one video with them. You can create 100 videos with us.
Mike: Yeah, I love that differentiation. I mean, one question I think some marketers will be asking, particularly those in bigger companies, is what about, you know, brand guidelines are remaining on brand. So with tools where you're using AI to generate video, isn't there a risk that you start deviating from brand guidelines?
RS: I think we are working on it. I think initial version, obviously most of the engines didn't take it seriously. So whatever you're saying is right. But I think that's now just like character consistency, brand consistency is one of the big problem. Almost most of our engines like our engine also working towards that. But to an extent we have achieved it. So we now we had a logo consistency conveniently in our engine. where we are also dictating AI engines to make sure your color consistency. We are working with Johnson & Johnson, where their communication team basically have their very strict marketing guidelines and brand guidelines. Basically, we introduce it as part of our training engine. Now, anyone from Johnson & Johnson with their ID come and create videos, automatically these brands logics applied to it. But if you ask me, we are fully there. No, but we'll be with that very soon. You know, it's like, like, you wake up tomorrow, it'll be done.
Mike: I love that. So I think we're probably recording this a little bit ahead of when it's published. So no doubt by the time this is published, it'll all be done. Oh, yes. So you've talked a lot about some of the changes that happened in video, particularly over the last couple of years. I mean, what do you see as being the main changes that marketers are going to see going forward over the next maybe three to five years?
RS: Oh, yeah, I mean, in the video space, and in the cross functional of marketing and videos, the biggest change I can see is the importance of story, as I've been keep telling, because of the LLM model, the stories are going to be a little bit consistent, especially if you just Everybody is going to go and prompt, tell me a great story of some, you're building a sales engine, you're asking. The story consistency is going to, because LLMs are tuned to that. Basically, whatever answers is get, it's giving an answer end of the day. I think the big differentiator where the people going to survive better in the segment is coming up with different stories. That's one thing I could see. And another biggest change where it's going to work really, really well for marketers is these newer engines that we call it as like, I don't know, you heard about this one person billion dollar company, it's called one person billion dollar.com or something that people have been tracking, or like, how, I mean, it's not you can jump from 1000 person company to one overnight, but it's going to happen stage by stage, which means that the next three, four years, I could see one marketer running the whole department. That's, I mean, that's how we narrowed down. So there will be a lot of agents. If marketers are good at using these agents to their advantage, there could be a video agent for you. Yeah, whenever you create it, use that agent to come up with the video. Oh, okay. I'm working on this. Can you also just work on this video and post me some video examples that I can use it? Having your own video agent is going to be very true in not even two, three years. I would say even another year, maybe next year and everybody going to have their own video agent, assist them with videos whenever they want.
Mike: That sounds quite exciting. Although, I mean, talking to some marketers who I think feel very stressed in part of a marketing department, the idea of running it all themselves might be a little bit terrifying.
RS: Oh yeah, I know, I know, it's a difficult time. But I'll tell you, on the other hand, if you have come this side, you feel like there is so much work to be done. Say for example, you don't need to come. And next time, your AI author may come and interview me. Maybe I won't come, like I may send my… I mean, these are like jokes before, but to be honest, there are companies who are already doing it. And the results are 70-80% it's good. It's just a bit scary.
Mike: I mean, that's exciting. That's exciting and challenging. Rago, it's been great talking to you. I've really enjoyed learning about Animaker. But before I let you go, there's just a couple of questions we'd like to ask all our guests. And the first question is, what's the best marketing advice that's ever been given from someone to you?
RS: Oh, OK. See, that's an interesting question. Say the biggest marketing advice I've ever got is, marketers always live in the edge of learning newer things. I think that's a piece of advice I always get. If you are a marketer, you should know what is happening around you, which to make to your advantage. Like people call it as like, don't do a push marketing. Like, always be a full marketer, like, how can you design something well? But from a product maker angle, that's another piece of advice I got from an entrepreneur, which I always take it, marketing starts before even your product development starts. I always see that like the moment a feature or something we have developed, the first thing goes in my mind is like, how come the customer is going to receive it? I think if you start anything so early in marketing, I mean, if you start so early with your cycle, I think marketing is going to be super easy. Then like, oh, I made all of this. Now let's figure out how to market this. It is a very, very difficult situation for the marketing team and anyone. So that's a piece of advice I got. If you're a marketer, involve yourself from the start so that it's way better. You can actually include those ideas and challenges part of it. Yes.
Mike: I love that. That's great and probably makes great products because you're making products that customers are going to love. The other question we like to ask people is more about you giving advice. So if you're talking to a young person who was just starting a career in marketing, what advice would you give them? Oh yeah, that's a good question.
RS: Again, great marketers, I always think they are like 50% great learners and 50% great thinkers. I think if you can really balance these two in your everyday, especially if you are very young, don't keep reading. Also, don't keep doing. If you do 50-50, you'll become a greatest marketer ever. The people I have worked with, they really split these two of learning all the time and thinking how to apply those learnings into their work and into their job. I feel like that is a great piece of advice I got. I would really recommend that to anyone who's just getting started. Do this to exercise all the time.
Mike: Fabulous. Rago, thank you. It's been fascinating. I mean, if people have listened to this and they're really excited about creating more video and they want to learn more about Animaker, what's the best thing for them to do?
RS: Oh, come to our website or ping me in LinkedIn. Check out Animaker.com. Use it. If you guys have any questions, happy to help. And we always get excited working with marketers. And these millions and millions of users we have acquired, just working with these marketers, learning from them, to be honest. People ask me, how come you build these millions and millions of users? Because we all work with marketers all the time. They give us like tons of ideas how to build. It's a great community of marketers, to be honest. I think we share knowledge and stuff. Happy to help in any way possible. Happy to get helped also.
Mike: That's awesome. And such a positive collaborative view. Raghu, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise, telling us about Animaker. And thanks for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
RS: Thank you, Mike, for being an amazing host. It was really, really nice talking to you. It's very refreshing on a very early morning just getting started. This is amazing. Thanks, Mike. 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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
The GEO Goldrush – How Generative AI Is Changing Brand Visibility – Leah Nurik – Brandi
As people move away from traditional search engines and turn to AI tools for answers, Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO of Brandi.ai, joins host Mike Maynard to explore how this change is transforming the way brands build visibility.
Leah shares how her background in tech and agency leadership led to the creation of Brandi, a platform that helps companies influence how AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude understand and present their brands.
She explains why Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as the new SEO, how brands can take control of their visibility in AI-driven search, and what it takes to stay relevant as the rules of digital discovery evolve.
Leah also discusses the human side of marketing in the AI era, and why critical thinking, creativity, and authenticity still matter as much as data and algorithms.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Brandi
Brandi is the first intelligence-driven platform built on Generative Engine Optimization for brand visibility. It helps improve brand presence in AI-generated answers from engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. In today’s landscape—where brand discovery increasingly happens through generative AI—Brandi provides the insights and tools to help your company earn recognition as a trusted answer.
About Leah Nurik
Leah Nurik is CEO and Co-Founder of Brandi. Leah has worked with over 400 growth-stage software companies in her 20-plus year career. She’s held senior strategy, product, and marketing leadership positions at Motorola, Symbol Technologies, Infowave, and others. She also founded and led Gabriel Marketing Group, an award-winning global public relations, branding, and integrated marketing agency focused on B2B SaaS companies. Leah’s expertise spans digital, public relations, content marketing, product marketing, and go-to-market strategy.
Time Stamps
00:00:17 – Guest Introduction: Leah Nurik
00:02:07 – Jumping from agency leadership to developing Brandi
00:03:19 – What is GEO
00:09:13 – How can brands use Brandi to boost AI visibility
00:15:45 – What markets does Brandi support
00:16:38 – What is Brandi’s go-to-market strategy
00:18:34 – The future of AI search
00:23:52 – Best Marketing Advice Received by Andy
00:24:22 – Advice for New Marketers
00:26:07 – Contact details and Brandi demos
Quotes
“The paradigm of internet search is completely shifting. If you’re not on the train, you’re not leaving the station.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
“Generative AI search will overtake traditional search. Ignoring it is like buying a horse when everyone else is driving a car.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
“AI can get you about 85% of the way there, but you still need that human overlay to make the content authentic and mission-driven.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
“The marketers who will thrive in the age of AI are the ones who can think critically, solve complex problems, and bring human creativity to technology.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
“Brandi allows you not just to measure and monitor your brand’s performance, but also to influence how AI defines your market and how you’re represented in those conversations.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
“Our codified intelligence engine is what sets Brandi apart. It decodes customer pain points, listens to market conversations, and delivers real, directional advice marketers can act on.” Leah Nurik, Co-Founder and CEO at Brandi.
Follow Leah:
Leah Nurik on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahgabriel/
Brandi’s website: https://mybrandi.ai/
Brandi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mybrandi/
Brandi on X: https://x.com/mybrandi_ai
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Leah Nurik at Brandi
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Leah Nurik
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 Leah Nurik. Leah is the founder of Brandi, a GEO tool. Welcome to the podcast, Leah.
Leah: Hi, Mike. So great to see you.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. What we'd like to do at the start is get the guests to explain a little bit about their career. So can you tell us a little bit about what you've done and why you chose to found Brandi?
Leah: Sure. I started my career in marketing and public relations. I worked for a variety of agencies during the dot com time. And then I worked for a variety of software companies running corporate communications, product marketing and marketing. And then I went and worked for Motorola Enterprise and I ran their go to market strategy for their emerging markets division at the time when mobile and mobile enterprise or enterprise mobility was on the up and coming list of technologies that enterprises were investing in. And then I founded my own agency called Gabriel Marketing Group, which serviced over 400 companies, helping them. They were mostly in the B2B tech space and sustainability tech, climate tech, and SaaS business. And we helped them grow and scale and build their brand and awareness. And then out of that came Brandi. As we saw a need for generative engine optimization and the emergence of AI influencing brand awareness, we created this platform that empowers brands and their agency partners to help increase disability across all the different platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Sonar, and Cloud.
Mike: So it sounds like a big jump going from running an agency to actually developing a software product, even if you've been working with SaaS clients. So, I mean, how difficult was it to make that jump?
Leah: You know, my background was originally in product marketing and I worked for a variety of SaaS companies. So, I mean, it's never easy to build an innovative, cutting edge product, especially in like a new world, like AI, but God, it is fun. And it's tiring and fun and involves a lot of sweat and a lot of critical thinking and a lot of relationship building with development partners and all that. But we're having a great time. We've already secured a number of customers. We just recently launched. We were in stealth mode for a while. I mean, it's not easy building a software company. If it was, everybody would do it. But I'm lucky enough that I'm surrounded by a group of super duper innovative, smart people that have all different types of expertise, including development, security, ad tech, martech, and then also the folks who are domain experts in content creation and digital marketing.
Mike: So I've heard a bit about geo or AO, this optimization around AI chatbots and AI tools. I mean, can you explain a little bit about why so many people are getting so excited about it and why people are talking about it as the next SEO?
Leah: Because the paradigm of what we knew of internet search is completely shifting. So for example, today, you can go into chat GPT and you can start at the top of the funnel, like whatever it is that you're searching for, whether you're searching for, you know, B2B solutions in the tech space like a CRM processing platform, or if you're looking for something to target cellulite or wrinkly skin or where to go on vacation, you can go into ChatGPT and start at the top and then in less than five minutes be at the bottom with a short list of vendors or possibilities that you can then either continue iterating on and investigating through these AI engines, or you can go and do your independent research. So that's why it's important, because search is completely shifting. Also, even if you do still go type things into Google first, if you're still using that paradigm, which I myself do often, now I'm getting gen AI summaries. And here in America, now you just have the option to go deep into AI mode, where it's the very similar experience with chat GPT. So if you're not on the train, you're not getting out of the station, that's for sure.
Mike: I love that analogy. I mean, how easy is it to get on the train? Is it possible to influence what these AI models are actually showing in their results?
Leah: Absolutely, 100%. So, you know, it's really like Greenfield right now in the sense of like it's 1998 of the internet, but you absolutely can influence it. And so that's what Brandi does. So Brandi allows you to not just measure and monitor your performance and where your brand is being mentioned, but also cited in developing the narrative for a market. I think that both of those things are important. So the difference between a mention and a citation is, OK, I type in, what are the best creams for wrinkly skin? And it might give me 10 creams by name. And then there's a narrative in there that it assumes it knows what wrinkly skin is. It assumes it knows what the best solution to wrinkly skin is. And it makes assumptions. So what's interesting is that brands actually have two paths that are equally important. One is, how do I influence the definition of wrinkly skin, or how do I influence the definition of what the optimal B2B CRM platform is, so that AI understands that these are the requirements for that? And then How do I get mentioned in the answers? So both are super important, right? I mean, you know, working with these innovative technology companies, so many of them, they're redefining the way problems get solved. So if you're not influencing the definition of a market or the definition of a problem or the definition of a solution, you're also missing an opportunity. And then of course, it's great to have your brand mentioned in the answer itself. So what Brandi allows you to do is to figure out where are you performing now, and then exactly how to fix it.
Mike: I mean, one of the things is we see these new announcements of the new AI models, they're not coming every day. So does it take a long time to actually influence what's in these AI results?
Leah: It doesn't. That's what's crazy. If you have the right strategy, and so much of the strategy is influenced by owned content, and owned content that speaks to the problems, the pain points, of what the people who are searching for are looking for, and then the formatting of the content itself. And then there's some technical optimizations that need to be done in the background when that content is posted. All of these engines now have live search. So I mean, you're looking probably at seven to 10 days or even sooner. So for example, Yesterday in our demo account, I was giving a demo to a prospect and I was going through the demo account and I clicked on one of the citations and it took me to a citation from the day before. One day. And that owned content was showing up. So I tell our customers, look for your content to start being ranked within like seven to 10 days, at least within four weeks. But once I think you get going, which we're not sure about how the black box works, but I think that the more I'm going to get to a conclusion, this is a hypothesis, Somebody asked Sam Altman, but from all of our experience, what we're seeing is that the more you optimize your site and the more that you get content that is readable, the sooner you get ranked and you get read. But I can't confirm that I don't work for these engines, but I can just tell you anecdotally that that's what we're seeing. But if you start from scratch and you don't have any optimization and you start doing it, you're looking within seven to 10 days most likely of seeing cited content.
Mike: That's amazingly fast.
Leah: It's way faster than traditional SEO, that's for sure.
Mike: Absolutely. I mean, let's walk through maybe how it'd work. Perhaps you could use the example of CRM, because obviously, Leah, you know I've got no idea about wrinkly skin.
Leah: Absolutely not, Mike.
Mike: So if somebody was using Brandi, can you just walk through the main steps they'd take to work out how they can appear more frequently in these answers?
Leah: Yeah, so step one, it's all about query, right? So the key is to identifying the queries that are the most likely queries that your customers are searching for. So with what we've done with Brandi is we did a ton of research and we have an underlying intelligence driven platform that has codified the intelligence of identifying markets, identifying your customer pain points, prospect pain points, listening to what people are talking about, cross-referencing it with, you know, unbiased media analysts and all that kind of thing. And then establishing what the rules are and most common type of natural language querying is. And so we give you a starting point, a jumping off point, in order to do your research of what the most likely prompts are. So that's the first step, is really looking at what are the most likely queries, and then comparing how you're doing against your competitors. So that's one. So now you know where you are. Am I coming up at all? What prompts am I coming up for? Who in my competitive network or my competitive universe is coming up more than me? And then what you can do is, you know, you get so much robust data. with Brandi, like exactly what prompts are you showing up for, but then what are the most influential domains? So you can look at, from a PR perspective, for example, you can see what media outlets are the most cited in generative AI results. So then you can make sure that your PR strategy is aligned with the outlets in addition to what else you're doing, but it's aligned with the outlets that are the most authoritative according to Gen AI. In addition to that, you can also take a look at the domains that are like native advertising or more like directories and review sites, especially for B2B, CRM and that kind of thing. When it comes to B2B tech, we see that like review sites are super duper authoritative. So from a overarching marketing perspective, you can take a look at that type of PR activities and customer campaigns that provide validated third-party earned type mentions. So that's one. And then on the other side, incredibly, especially within B2B, there is such a pull of owned content. So for example, what Brandi does is it uses that intelligence listening engine to go out and actually based upon the most likely roles, personas, it generates the right type of content that AI loves. And it gives you a whole bunch of content ideas that are aligned with the type of content that AI likes to read. And then what ends up happening is once you decide what pieces you want to create, it gives you outlines and ideas and directional advice on what it is that you need to do and to craft and to create and then how to optimize it accordingly for formatting and then headers and all that kind of stuff so it's readable by the machines.
Mike: I mean, that's a lot of things that it's going to walk you through. And obviously there are similar products on the market. So why do people pick Brandi? Where do you excel?
Leah: Oh, well, one is that codified intelligence engine. So we really have an exclusive tech edge. You can decode customer pain points and listen to market conversations, and it's all embedded in the product. So it serves up directional advice based upon that intelligence. I don't know of any other platforms out there that do that. In addition to that, this product, what I hear from prospects all the time and when they've looked at other kind of competing products, which I don't know of any products that are as complete as the one we have. I'm not, you know, I'm not making that up and selling. I'm serious. I don't know anybody who's doing all the things that we're doing. But what I hear from prospects so often when they look at our product, they go, OK, I can tell this was built by domain experts. I can tell this is built by marketers and people who really understand it. So there is a codified domain expertise that's in the product that is so focused on, it's great to have data and you want that data in order to measure against your KPIs and see the value and see the influence you're having. But data is only so good as long as you can influence it and make it better. And so our product isn't just about the metrics, although the metrics are super duper deep, but it gives you the directional guidance to go there. The people who built this product aren't just domain experts in marketing and ad tech, but they're technologists, they're AI experts, they're prompt engineers, people with incredibly deep domain expertise across all of those sectors. So you have a product that's highly scalable, highly reliable, and the performance on it is very fast and it's easy to use from a UX standpoint. We really have that, like I said, the thing that absolutely sets us apart as well is that platform. The codified intelligence don't know anybody out there that can do that. We also do implementations that allow for influencing tone of voice. integrating additional context into our listening engine to provide even more directional guidance based upon what you know as a customer. So we have that flexibility on the back end if people and brands want to actually influence the intelligence engine as well as part of an enterprise product license. And then the automation of the content optimization, and then combined with traditional digital SEO optimization, which is kind of a checkbox, but you wanna make sure that you're optimizing around traditional search too, is so easily embedded in the product. So we cover the content optimization, the readability, and then the technical and SEO optimization on the backend.
Mike: So that's quite a lot. How does that apply across different markets? I mean, are your customers just focused in the B2B tech sector or is this a product that applies to everybody?
Leah: It applies to everybody. Everybody has this problem. So we actually have two different instances, one for B2C and one for B2B. So, you know, B2C type what is traditionally in the B2B tech space where we call like funnels, like top, middle, bottom. The B2C space has very specific terminology. We also have different sentiment modules for B2C and B2B because they're reflected differently. And there really isn't anybody who doesn't need the product. I mean, that's how early we are in this game, in this AI game and seeing where the world is going. But B2C and B2B, both need it, and Brandi works for both.
Mike: That's really cool. So I mean, it sounds like a great product with a lot of opportunity. And this is obviously a marketing podcast. So I'm really interested to know, you know, you as leading Brandi, what's your go to market strategy for the product?
Leah: Well, we're going direct to brands. We have a focus on working with agencies. So, you know, I think that when you have a new market where the technology is uncertain and people are trying to figure out a complex landscape, They go to the people who do this full time and are, you know, eating and breathing it and innovating. So agencies, I think, will play a real important role. Also, you know, with agencies, agencies have the ability to layer on services like, you know, generative engine optimization content services. So these traditional digital marketing agencies that want to shift, you know, to adding more value added services on top of what they've traditionally done, will find themselves in a good situation by having their clients utilize Brandi. So that's one side, but we also go direct to brands, we have SaaS type, you know, monthly packages, for smaller brands. And then we also are in the process of closing and working with some large enterprise deals. So it's been pretty exciting. Like I said, we've been in stealth mode. So we're really, we're trying to go out and get feedback from the market for a long time prior to publicly launching the product to ensure that the product met the needs of companies that were smaller brands or had a couple of products, and then also we're creating a scalable platform for companies that had multiple, multiple brands and were large global companies as well.
Mike: So you're obviously on the leading edge of some of the things that are happening in marketing, Leah. I mean, what do you think is going to happen over the next five years? And how important is this move to AI search going to be?
Leah: I mean, I don't have a crystal ball. The world's pretty crazy. But I have 100% confidence that generative AI search will overtake traditional search. It's already the case that the majority of people are using generative engine search over traditional Google search. And even if you were to go to Google, you still are getting generative AI summaries. So you're not getting the classic list of, okay, this is the company that's appearing first in the search results because it's not the first thing you see when you go and you do a Google search. And Google has already said that they're going to just increasingly replace that with AI summaries. So, I mean, there's no denying it. If you deny it, then it's just like, hey, you wanna buy this horse versus riding around in this brand new mechanical thing that we call an automobile. You can do that, but you're not going to get there very quick, as fast as the person that's in the car.
Mike: I love it. I love that analogy. So if there's a CMO or a senior marketer listening to this, and they're thinking, I've got to do something. I mean, obviously, other than using Brandi, which clearly goes without saying, what else should they be doing to make sure that they're still going to be successful in the age of generative AI?
Leah: So, you know, when it comes to generative AI, I think that every senior marketer CMO needs to figure out what the data is that matters to them and needs to report on it accordingly. Right now, it is relatively difficult to link AI search results to inbound traffic. And you can often see, you know, okay, this came from chat GPT, but you don't always get a link. So you need to understand what data matters to you and measure it accordingly, and then make it clear that these are the targets, this is what's valuable to the board, as well as to your peers in the C-suite. So that's important so that you know what you're measuring and what you're looking to accomplish through it. The other thing is, I think that every company needs to decide how they feel about content being written by a machine. So we made a conscious decision to not include content creation in the sense of AI writing your content within Brandi. And that's for a variety of reasons of which I will expound upon, if that's okay, Mike. One is that a lot of companies, especially larger companies, have invested in their own learning models. And so they may have trained their models in a way that they're getting really great content out of that. That is a starting point for their writers. Then it's smaller brands. You still might have somebody who's publicly using like a free version of ChatGPT, who's throwing messaging documents and things like that in there and a couple of ideas. which is not owned anymore once they put it in there by the brand. So we've also heard talk around Google actually watermarking results, things like that. So I think that there needs to be a philosophical conversation as well as taking a look at the infrastructure and resources that companies have in what they're going to do in generating content. I am of the belief that AI can get you about 85% there, but you still need that human overlay in order to make the content great. And by great, what I mean is it's awesome if it's readable by machines. It's amazing. That's why we build Brandi, to make sure that it is. But it's also always about the human experience. If I'm going to read something that is not written well, and it doesn't speak to my pains, really, and it sounds like it was written by a machine, my view of the brand isn't necessarily as positive from a sentiment standpoint. So, you know, I might be like, they're trying to trick me. They're just putting it in here and answering this and it's not real. It's not mission driven. It's not authentic. So I think it is really important for every marketing organization as they go into this Gen AI era to have a philosophical conversation with themselves to figure out what does their brand want to do and what mission do they have. And it would be very easy for a lot of companies to stray from their mission when things can be easy. But we must always remember as marketers that the people who make the decisions of what they're going to buy have to have shared values. and principles with the brands that they buy from, whether it's HubSpot for B2B, SMB, CRM, or whether it's, I don't know, Go Beauty for wrinkle cream. So that's a conversation that needs to happen, I think.
Mike: And that's a really positive way, I think, to end because there's certainly a future for us humans there in terms of getting that value-driven content. It's been really interesting talking to you, Leah, but I've got a couple of questions before you go. We like to ask everybody. And so the first question is, what's the best piece of marketing advice that someone has given to you?
Leah: The best piece of marketing advice? So I would say, and this is, I'd also think a piece of leadership advice, but it pertains to every discipline, especially marketing. Recognize what you don't know and search out the domain experts who do.
Mike: Fabulous, I love that. Really clear, really succinct. The other question we like to ask is if you were talking to somebody who was just beginning their career and starting a career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Leah: That could be its own podcast in the sense of how the marketing industry is changing because of AI and what does it look like for careers going forward. But I think that one thing that is incredibly clear in the age that it's happening and starting to happen right now with generative AI is that those professionals and people who are cultivating their critical thinking skills and their skills for logic and the ability to solve complex problems are the people who will go far. And I mean, that's always been the case. But I think as a society in general, we've tended to put so much value on technology and engineering and vocationally driven education. But in this new world, it's really the people who are going to solve the complex generative AI problems on the marketing side are those people who can think critically. They can understand how to put logic and prompting together. And so I would say to those who are hiring, look for those liberal arts majors. and don't pass them aside when they have history, philosophy, and English degrees, because those are the people who are gonna probably give you the best prompts. And if you're a marketer, go take some philosophy classes.
Mike: Fascinating advice, I think that's brilliant. Leah, before you go, I'm sure people will have listened to this, they'll have heard about Brandi, they'll have heard about GEO, and they'll be interested to know more about the product and maybe even get a demo. So how could they get hold of you to ask questions or maybe find more information on Brandi?
Leah: Thanks, Mike. So if you're interested, please go to mybrandi.ai or email me directly at Leah at mybrandi.ai.
Mike: Leah, it's been fascinating. Thank you so much for your time and thank you for talking about Brandi.
Leah: Thank you for having me. Have a great day.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
A Napier Webinar: How to Change Your Marketing for the Rest of the Year
Register for Napier's webinar and learn the simple steps that will boost performance to ensure you hit your marketing goals for 2025. Learn how to:
- Discover your winning content
- Better understand your personas
- Laser-target your paid media
- Spend money where you get results
- Build a plan to ensure you hit your KPIs
Register to view our webinar on demand by clicking here, and why not get in touch to let us know if our insights helped you.
Napier Webinar: ‘How to Change Your Marketing for the Rest of the Year’ Transcript
Speakers: Mike Maynard
Welcome to our latest Napier webinar. I'm just going to give it another 30 seconds or a minute or so, and then we'll get started. So if you just want to hang on in there and I can see there's another couple of people joining, so we'll wait until they join and then get going.
Right? Well, thanks so much for joining. This webinar is kind of a little bit different. So in most of our webinars, we kind of dig fairly deep into particular topics. What we're going to do in this is we're really going to try and produce some ideas that hopefully you can take away two or three of them and use them to give your marketing a boost for the rest of the year. Obviously, what we're doing at this time of year is that we're coming back from holiday, and we look and we see that we've got to hit some annual KPIs, and it would be great to be able to, you know, make sure that we hit our KPIs this year, and also get ourselves in a situation where, if we don't modify KPIs this year, then certainly we look towards next year and try and make ourselves better objectives.
Now we're not going to talk specifically about that, but we're going to talk about overcoming the problem that I think a lot of people face at the moment, and that's, you know, we've all had a great summer holiday. Hopefully you've all had a great summer holiday, but you come back and you realize that now we have less than four months to deliver our goals by the end of the calendar year. And actually, if you take into account Christmas, and I know there's a few people on the webinar that are from the States, then you've got Thanksgiving as well. So I mean, this is really meaning we've perhaps got three months of actual time to really deliver on the KPIs. So there's only a little amount of time, and potentially you're looking at them and thinking, yeah, the summer quarter was slow, and certainly in many places, we've seen clients struggle a little bit with the economy in the Solomon quarter.
And so it's really important to come back and boost. So what we're going to do is we're going to present some ideas in this webinar as to how you can really kick start your marketing again and make sure you deliver on the KPIs. Now, obviously, if you've got any questions, I'd love to hear them. Please do feel free to put the questions. There's a Q and A section, or you can put them into the chat, and you're more than welcome to do that during the webinar as questions pop up, and then I will cover them all at the end of the webinar.
So we've got three months to do stuff. What are we going to do? Well, there's three key areas I think that we need to look at. The one is the one is the plans to hit your goals. So it's really about making sure that where we've been set KPIs, we're going to deliver on them. And I'm sure some of you are actually measured on achieving marketing KPIs, and so the goal is to deliver on them. Hopefully you've been tracking them all year. If not, now's the time to look, but certainly, let's make sure we keep the boss happy.
The second thing is, let's look to create better objectives, better KPIs for next year. You know, I think all too often, when we set KPIs, we look at what's done last year, and we try to do a little bit more or a little bit better. And that's not always a great way to do things. So if we can start looking at our KPIs, maybe we can lay the foundations for 2026, to be a much more effective year, where we're delivering results that really make an impact.
And then lastly, people, processes and systems. You know, this is about dealing with those inefficiencies that inevitably exist. I mean, it's something we're actually doing a lot of at Napier at the moment is, you know, looking where we're inefficient, where maybe we're doing things manually and they could be automated. And, you know, interestingly, although AI is obviously the big topic, and I can't get through a webinar without saying AI, actually, you know, standard automation is often all you need to actually save a lot of time. So can you free up some time so your people can then focus on delivering the KPIs rather than running admin tasks.
So let's have a look at what we're going to do before we dive into these three sections, which we'll dive into one after another. So I'm going to deal with the first thing. You might not have been looking at your KPIs. So before we do anything else, check in on your KPIs.
Look at where you are behind on KPIs. So are there KPIs where you haven't focused? How are you performing against benchmarks? Maybe you set a KPI at the start of the year, and then, actually, if you look at what's real, then you're looking and saying, actually, that's not realistic to achieve that. We had a client fairly recently, for example, that asked to set a KPI on click through rate for a campaign on LinkedIn, and the KPI they wanted was actually more than 10 times the average CTR on LinkedIn for their industry. So that's obviously unrealistic. And what we did was we broke it down and worked out how we could achieve their ultimate goal with a lower and more realistic KPI. We still are aiming above the industry benchmark, but I think that's the way of the world today.
You've got to look and see if the KPI is the right ones. Are they targeting what's going to really move the needle for your business? And I would say, and this is always difficult, but I would say, if you feel a KPI is wrong, now's the time to go to your boss and say, look, we're trying to hit this. It's just not the right thing to do. Sometimes you're going to get a no. But I think that in most organizations, if you realize that you're aiming in the wrong direction, having a course correct is seen as a good thing and not a bad thing.
The other thing to do is read your marketing plan. And this is interesting. Most people, I hope, on the call, are writing written marketing plans that outline what they're trying to achieve and the strategy that they're going to use to achieve them. And typically, these marketing plans get written and they don't get read again. And I'm sure somebody on the webinar is going to be thinking, yeah, but I've seen that research, and the research says that just writing a marketing plan, if you never read it again, actually gives you better results. That's true, but if you read it during the year, you actually get even more results, incrementally better results.
And the one thing I find is when I get people to read marketing plans, whether it's for the agency or whether it's within one of our clients, it's really interesting, because they come back and go, wow, I had some really good ideas that started the year, and this was really brilliant. I'd forgotten about it. So there's a really good chance checking in with your marketing plan is going to give you some good ideas that's going to help you boost your marketing. So those are the two basic things. I'd say they sound obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people never look at their marketing plan until they begin to draft the marketing plan for next year.
Let's now have a look at each of the sections. Now I'm going to go through this is going to be relatively quick fire. So it's really trying to throw out some ideas that are hopefully going to help you get a boost to what's going on with your marketing campaigns. So let's look at hitting goals. So let's assume we've come back and we've seen we're behind on some KPIs. How are we going to get back on track? Well, the answer is, you haven't got a lot of time, so I say realistically, about three months in terms of work time. So let's aim at what's going to be the easy wins.
The first thing is to actually level up your existing content. And the easiest thing to do is to look at what content is winning, what content is generating results, and then repurpose it. So take your content, work out what's best, and then repurpose it. Maybe, you know, put it in a different format, use it across different channels, but really double down on the content that wins.
You can also look at content that's good. So what we're seeing a lot of people, for example, that are driven by website traffic. There has been a big drop in the amount of referred website traffic from Google for a bunch of industries, and that's driven by AI. So maybe looking at getting a generative engine optimization strategy in place and optimizing your content to appear in the AI answers, that might be a really good thing to do, and it could well be something you didn't think was a priority at the start of the year. And finally, you might have some content that worked in the past and stopped working because it's become out of date. So look at going and updating some of that outdated content. So this is all really around just tweaking what you've got and really focusing on either the things where there's an obvious update to improve it, or alternatively something you know is winning, and then looking to reuse it elsewhere.
And very close to that, looking at what's winning, spend money where you get the return on the investment. You know, we've been building plans at the start of the year, and then, let's be honest, some channels perform, some channels don't perform. And so typically, after the summer, it's a great time to look at reallocating your budget and maybe moving budget from one platform or channel or publisher to another, because you know it's going to perform. Well, basically spend your money where you're going to get results.
I think now's a good time to get testimonials and case studies. This is really interesting. You know, of all the things we talk about with clients, this is probably one of the things that clients dread the most. Going and asking your customers to give you a testimonial or write a case study is really hard. It tends to be quite soul destroying because a lot of them automatically say no, but now's a great time to do it. The first is, typically your customers have come back. They've had a holiday. They're just thinking ahead. They're probably not delving right into their day to day busy work, so you've probably got some time to actually go and talk to them, and they might feel good about it, but also it's a great time, because these projects work well when you try and have deadlines. So you know, if you're trying to get sign off for a case study by Thanksgiving, say, or Christmas, that can be a great way to do it with a customer. You've both got a shared goal and a shared endpoint, and setting that deadline can be a great way to make sure the customer gives it some priorities. So it's great to get testimonials and case studies.
The other area is trade shows. So you know, the autumn or the fall period typically sees a lot of trade shows happening. It can be a very big part of the budget this time of year, and it can really help contribute to hitting goals. So we strongly recommend making sure that you really do a great job on trade shows. Now's a great time. It tends to be the spring and the autumn, where we see the trade shows peak. So if you've got trade shows, make sure you get the most out of it, and don't just think about the event itself. Trade shows are fantastic for content creation, and that can be anything from, you know, taking a videographer and doing video testimonials from clients on the booth, which I've seen work really well for some of our clients, all the way through to having your subject matter experts get together after the show closes, maybe over a couple of beers, and just talk about ideas for articles. So huge range of ways you can generate content, as well as directly making sure the trade show is successful.
Looking at landing pages, I said this was going to jump about all over the place. So, you know, it certainly does. So, you know, I think one of the things with market information is it's very easy to get things cluttered up and confused. So if you've got landing pages that are unused, you know, don't let them stay out there. Either unpublish them or delete them, and where you've got live landing pages now is a good time to look back, see what's happened over the first, you know, eight or nine months of the year, and then optimize those live landing pages to perform better. So try and understand how you can use what you've got already, make a few changes and get better performance.
Landing pages are typically one of those places where you see a hole in the funnel. So people flowing through the marketing funnel and failing to convert. I think, generally, as well as landing pages, you should look to find the holes in your funnel. So you should look to analyze where you're losing potential customers. And I think particularly what we're seeing with clients is that lead nurturing campaigns are not always delivering the results. They're not always moving customers down the customer journey. And quite often, whilst you might optimize a landing page for conversion rate, and you know, you obviously optimize digital ads for performance, you know, lead nurturing tends to be a set and forget kind of process, and that's wrong. So definitely look at your lead nurture and see what you can do to improve it.
But don't forget the digital campaigns as well. So definitely, you know, think about how you can optimize your digital campaigns. You know, some easy ways to do that are negative keywords quite often give you a big boost. If you're, you know, running search campaigns that are hitting irrelevant terms, placements. You know, everyone at Napier understands that I get incredibly frustrated, and it's the Peppa Pig argument. Don't have technical B2B ads placed in the Peppa Pig game. It probably isn't going to work. Look where your ads are running, if you're running display. And lastly, look at your audience definitions. And for those of you excited about the new Spinal Tap Movie. I might be the only person on the call who is, but I'm super excited. See if you can turn your digital marketing campaign up to 11.
Let's look at the objectives and the KPIs themselves. So sometimes, you know, we find we're running as fast as we can, and then we realize we're not quite running in the right direction, and so getting better objectives and KPIs is important. Is important, whether you can change objectives now or whether it's about setting better objectives for next year. Let's think about it now where we've got some time, rather than rushing when we're trying to build the marketing plan for next year.
So to me, perhaps one of the biggest changes in marketing is the impact of zero click. So this is where people are searching, either using, you know, search engine like Google, or using generative AI, and they're getting what they wanted without clicking through. So certainly, you know, the beginning of last year, nobody was really worried about this, maybe 1% of searches were being done through Gen AI. It was pretty insignificant. It wasn't a big deal. Today, you know, I would estimate that probably somewhere upward of 15 to 20% of searches are being done through AI, and it is a big deal now. So there's two things you've got to realize. The first is, web traffic alone is not a great indicator. It's going to be falling because of changes in the way people search, not because of anything you're doing wrong with your website. And the second thing is, is generating a strategy to appear in those generative AI results is absolutely crucial.
If you have not got a Gen AI or a GEO strategy, I would say that's probably your biggest priority, from a strategic point of view, is make sure you understand what you're going to do, so that when someone goes to ChatGPT, it talks about your brand as well as your competitors. And a very quick plug here, we've done some amazing things. We're working with a company that has a GEO tool that is absolutely awesome. It's not public yet. I can't tell you what it's going to be called or anything. It is going to be launched next month, but I've still got a couple of slots for demos this month, pre launch. And obviously the benefit pre launch is that you'll get to be able to have a demo with either the CEO or the CTO of this company as they talk to a few potential and real customers pre launch. So if you don't have a generative AI strategy, you want to appear in ChatGPT and Perplexity and Grok, definitely let me know, either put a message into the chat or send me an email, and we can help you out there with some demos.
I think you know, the next thing to do is really build better personas and customer journeys. I've mentioned, GEO has changed everything. The customer journey for your customers has changed, even if you think it hasn't, because they're using more AI based search, they're probably using AI tools to compare. So what have you learned at the start of this year, the first eight months of this year, that can improve the personas and the customer journeys you use, and particularly, you know, I think these are things that people sometimes think are written once and then forgotten about. But the truth is, is that everybody's changing. The way people behave are changing, and the way customer journeys work are changing. And if you're not updating personas and customer journeys, you're not going to be designing campaigns that will be effective.
Content calendars, another great thing to do. Hopefully you built a content calendar at the start of the year. Maybe you're using it on a rolling basis, which is fantastic. But have a look at your content calendar. See what you can do. Some of the assumptions you made about what's going to be important will have changed since the beginning of the year, and that could be anything. That can be things happening in your industry, products you've released, products that you expected to release but got delayed, you know any of that? So have a look at what content you're generating, and make sure that it's still the right content for your audience.
Look at some of the maths going on. So look at some of the attribution models. So when you're measuring stuff, I mean, KPIs are important. How many leads we getting, but what causes those leads? So how you attribute the results to different campaigns is really super important. And obviously the classic here is, you know, it's really easy to do last click attribution, what drove people to a landing page. But have a look at, you know, how your PR is impacting your results. And if your PR is not being measured and not being linked to results, then definitely look at running some experiments to work how you can attribute results to PR.
If you're doing ABM, build a better ABM target list. Again, these are quite often things that we've kicked off at the beginning of the year. We've built an ABM target list. We've run a campaign, and then nothing happens. We just keep running that campaign. That's crazy. Within your ABM campaign, you'll now have a lot of data about what's worked and what hasn't. And that could be around which personas, which job titles respond best to your messages. It can be around which companies. So you know, could be company size and how your campaigns impact that. So have a look, and of course, optimize the campaigns, but also consider whether maybe the audience, the ABM target list, is a factor and something you can update.
From the math side of analyzing performance to the human side. I think one of the longer term trends that really is beginning to have an impact is the humanization of content. And in the B2B tech sector, most organizations, and when I say most, I probably mean like 98%, are guilty of writing in corporate speak that doesn't necessarily really resonate with the reader. So look at how you're writing things, look at how you're saying things on video. Look at what you're saying in podcasts, and look at how you can actually become a little bit more human, and therefore a little bit more engaging in a company that your potential customers want to work with and become real customers for.
I've alluded this before, so I'll skip over this fairly quickly, but now's the time to start thinking about 2026. Putting together plans does take a while. Don't be that company that gets their 2026 marketing plan finalized in May 2026. Make sure it's finalized before, so that you can really hit the ground running, and you can get ahead of your KPIs rather than starting and already being behind.
So those are a few things around making your objectives better. Let's look at people, processes and systems. And this is potentially going to be a contentious one, because obviously, as we go back after the summer, what we're going to see is we're going to see people being very busy trying to get back into work, you know, potentially, you know, clearing out their email. And I'm saying, train the team. And, you know, this is something that can be difficult at this time, but I think again, what we need to do is make sure that training is something that really is an ongoing process and isn't something you do when you've got time. So you know, the reality is, yes, you probably should have done it during a quieter month in the summer. But you know, as the Chinese say, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now. So let's go for now.
In terms of processes and systems, databases are probably the area that I see a really, really big problem. We see a lot of clients allowing their databases to become out of date. They may have duplicates, outdated contacts, perhaps outdated information. I might scare you now. If you're not familiar with GDPR, one of the legal requirements of GDPR is to keep your data up to date and not hold out of date of data on individuals. This is not something a lot of people realize. So everyone's familiar with this, you know, you've got to have permission to opt out, and you've got to have clear privacy policies. And yeah, we all understand that. But actually keeping your data up to date is equally a part of the GDPR law. So I would strongly recommend, if you've not been doing this, to actually take a look at doing it.
I mean, interestingly, we've seen a big jump in the number of clients taking on our data enrichment services. So we're going in, we're looking at data. We're finding, even from relatively recent data, quite high bounce rates from emails. So we're filtering out people that have either put fake email addresses in or have gone away, and then we're adding more information, and that's key, because that really lets you do clever things. And so one of the things you can do if you add more data is to segment. And if you segment your database, you can then generate much more focused, much more personalized campaigns. So definitely look at updating your data. Look at potentially enrichment campaigns to add more information about each contact and then make use of that information. Don't let it sit there. Make use of it to create better campaigns.
I mean, of course, with systems, review your martech stack. We did something similar at Napier, and I've got to be honest, it absolutely shocked us. We had two to three times the number of tools that we thought we had in our martech stack. So I would absolutely say, as a big focus, and this is something, as I said, right at the start of this webinar, is a priority for Napier, you know, is simplify the martech stack, automate where you can, avoid all the manual, you know, Excel sheets moving across, avoid the manual copy and paste into PowerPoint for reports. Let's make things automatic, integrate between systems to make them run more efficiently. And then lastly, and I managed one mention at the start and have one mention at the end of AI. I think it's compulsory in every webinar now, but consider whether AI can benefit you.
You know, there's some very simple things AI can do around either personalizing content or providing more detail for particular contacts that are really easy to do, you know, things like categorizing companies into different industry sectors. So again, if you're interested to see what we've done with that do let me know, because I think AI in some areas is proving a real benefit, and a lot of people don't realize it can be applied to things like industry classification.
So thank you very much for listening. In summary, you've got less than four months to the end of the year, and I assume you want to hit your KPIs. So we do need to do a lot, but that is a lot you can do. So definitely look up some of these ideas. If you've got questions, or if there's areas you think we could help in terms of getting you to hit KPIs, definitely let me know. And remember, it's never too early for next year.
I hope you enjoyed this. If you did, we're going to do something fun for the next webinar. We're going to set humans against AI and we're going to have a human versus the AI machine competition. So we hear a lot about people using AI for different things. We've done a lot of testing internally at Napier. We haven't really shared any results. So what we're going to do is we're going to pick some areas, some of them where we know that AI is going to do really well, some of them where we know humans are going to do really well, and hopefully surprise you with when you should use AI and when it's beneficial and when a human can deliver a better job. So excuse me, that will be held on the 28th of October, same time, three o'clock in the UK, but an hour later in America. It's the time of the year where UK and Europe bring their clocks back, and America is still waiting for Halloween before they bring their clocks back. So slightly different time for your listeners in America, but I hope you can all join us. Thank you very much for listening.
If you have any questions, please do feel free to put something in the Q&A, or alternatively, put something into the chat and let me know if you've got a question. And I'll just give it a couple of seconds for people to put something in.
Okay, I've got one question here. So either this has been an amazing webinar and answered all your questions and you're all waiting to rush off to implement the ideas, or alternatively, it's not really excited you, but hopefully it's the first and you're ready to go. But the one question is around AI search, and it's saying, you know, I talked about hitting your goals and maybe having a GEO plan, so a plan to get into AI search results. And I said this is going to impact this year. And the question is, is it really going to make a difference this year? Because SEO typically takes quite a long time, so an SEO campaign might not bear fruit immediately.
Well, I mean, the answer is, it depends, of course, on your situation. But what we've seen with clients that have implemented these GEO strategies is they can actually see measurable results within a couple of weeks. And it is quite surprising, and it does appear that the AI search results, the AI engines, they change at a much faster rate than the classic search results. So the answer is yes, absolutely, this is one of the things I would really strongly recommend you do if you want to try and raise your visibility and awareness. Really think about AI search. It's something you can do pretty easily, and it does give you, you know, a significant bump in a fairly short amount of time.
Thank you again for listening. I haven't seen any other questions, so I really appreciate your time listening. I look forward to having the race between humans and AI in the next webinar, and hopefully you'll find that interesting too. If you do have questions that you didn't want to ask in the public forum, obviously, please feel free to drop me an email. My email is Mike at NapierB2B.com, and I'd love to talk to you. Thanks very much.
Marking Smarter Marketing Campaigns in a Tech-Driven World
Listen to Mike’s recent episode of That Tech Pod, where he discusses what real success looks like—beyond clicks and leads—how Napier chooses which industries to serve, and why some sectors generate more excitement than others. Mike also explores the role of AI in marketing, from copyright questions around image generation to how automation can support campaigns that still feel human and engaging.
This episode is for business leaders and marketers who want to learn how to turn awareness into opportunities and accelerate prospects through the sales funnel.
Listen here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1738696/episodes/17824545
Unlocking Data: How to Simplify Data Integrations – Data Fetcher - Andy Cloke
For many marketers, managing data across different platforms is a constant headache. From pulling campaign metrics into Airtable to building reports that actually make sense, the process often eats up hours that could be better spent on strategy.
Andy Cloke, founder of Data Fetcher, joins the podcast to explore how no-code integrations can transform the way marketers work with data. Andy shares how Data Fetcher makes it simple to connect Airtable with your popular platforms, automatically update dashboards, and streamline reporting.
He also discusses the growing importance of APIs in marketing, why integrations are becoming non-negotiable, and how even non-technical professionals can harness these tools to work smarter.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Data Fetcher
Data Fetcher is an Airtable extension that lets non-technical teams connect to any API without writing code. Launched in 2020 as one of the first extensions on the Airtable marketplace, it now serves hundreds of customers who pull data from over 5,000 different APIs.
The tool offers pre-built integrations for popular services like Google Analytics, Stripe, and OpenAI, plus the flexibility to connect to any REST or GraphQL API. Users can schedule automated syncs, transform incoming data, and build powerful workflows directly within their Airtable bases.
As a bootstrapped and profitable company, Data Fetcher focuses on sustainable growth rather than chasing venture capital metrics. The extension has been featured by both Airtable and G2.
About Andy Cloke
Andy Cloke is the founder of Data Fetcher, a bootstrapped SaaS that helps teams connect APIs to Airtable. After teaching himself to code and working as a freelance developer, he built and sold his first startup before launching Data Fetcher on the Airtable marketplace.
As a solo founder, Andy uses Twitter to share his experiments, failures, and wins openly to help other bootstrappers. He focuses on leveraging platform ecosystems to find underserved niches and advocates for staying focused on one project rather than chasing shiny objects.
Time Stamps
00:00:17 - Guest Introduction: Andy Cloke
00:01:49 - Previous MarTech Venture: TikTok Influencer Platform
00:02:39 - Introduction to Data Fetcher
00:05:10 - Ease of Use and Integration with Airtable
00:07:26 - Challenges Marketers Face with Data Tools
00:11:46 - No-Code Movement and Its Impact on Marketing
00:13:18 - Marketplace Insights for Software Vendors
00:19:27 - Leveraging AI in Marketing Workflows
00:20:25 - Best Marketing Advice Received by Andy
00:21:31 - Advice for New Marketers
Quotes
"Data Fetcher basically lets people have an escape patch, like a really flexible tool that lets them connect to anything, pulling the data from other places." Andy Cloke, Founder of Data Fetcher.
"An API is just a way of them saying, here's how you can get data out of this tool or write data into it in a kind of predictable, robust way." Andy Cloke, Founder of Data Fetcher.
"If SEO and YouTube are working, just focus on those, just double down and just nailing one or two channels is much more effective than trying to be everywhere and to everyone." Andy Cloke, Founder of Data Fetcher.
Follow Andy:
Andy Cloke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andycloke/
Data Fetcher’s website: https://datafetcher.com/
Data Fetcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datafetcher/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Andy Cloke at Data Fetcher
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Andy Cloke
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 Andy Cloke, who's the founder of Data Fetcher. Welcome to the podcast, Andy.
Andy: Hey, it's great to be here.
Mike: So we always like to find out a little bit about people, you know, when they come on the podcast. So can you give us a little bit of background to your career and why you ended up deciding that you needed to find Data Fetcher?
Andy: Yeah, of course. So I started off as a front-end developer and I was freelancing for various startups, doing React.js development and trying to launch my own thing on the side. So nights and weekends, I was just launching side projects, like little businesses, trying to get something going. And one of those ideas was, an IPO alerts newsletter, so managing all that from Airtable. I was trying to get financial data into Airtable. And that pain kind of led me to this idea of how do you connect Airtable to other platforms? I should probably say what Airtable is for anyone not familiar. So it's basically Google Sheets or Excel. It's a spreadsheet kind of UI that lets you build automations and visualizations into it. So it's kind of like Google Sheets on steroids is how a lot of people know it. And so yeah, back to my problem of trying to get data in, which became basically an Airtable extension, which is Data Fetcher, which I launched about five years ago. And then it's been growing steadily since then.
Mike: And it's not your first company, is it? I mean, you've previously had a MarTech company that was all about finding influencers on TikTok. Tell us a little bit about that and what happened with that company.
Andy: Yeah, so that was my previous project, which was basically a discovery platform. So I'd figured out a way to scrape TikTok and I was basically packaging that data up and helping agencies and brands find TikTok influencers to work with. And it was just brilliant timing because it was the end of 2019, just before the COVID lockdowns, when TikTok just absolutely blew up. Even my mum had TikTok for a bit. And it was just brilliant timing, rode that wave, but then realized I didn't love being in the influencer industry. It was quite faddy. The scraping it was built on could kind of keel over at any point. So I made the decision to sell the business, which bought myself a few months of personal runway to figure out the next one. But yeah, I learned a load just building it up steadily and getting it just to a few thousand in MRR.
Mike: That's fantastic. I mean, let's talk about data fetcher now. I, and you know, I'll be honest to people listening to this. The reason you're on the podcast is we had a real problem. We use air table. We're trying to pull data in. We tried some of the other tools that are available. They're all quite complicated. And I stumbled across data fetcher and it solved my problem almost immediately. So I was super excited about it. So could you talk Andy a little bit about what data fetch would do and maybe what someone in marketing might use data fetcher for.
Andy: Yeah, of course. So as I said, Airtable is a super powerful tool, but the hard bit is getting the data in there in the first place. So you might have data split across Google Analytics, across HubSpot, across multiple different tools, and you want to use Airtable as kind of your source of truth. So often people end up kind of exporting CSVs and copy and pasting data or trying to use Zapier or one of the other tools to get data in, but they're not quite flexible enough or robust enough. And so Data Fetcher basically lets people have an escape patch, like a really flexible tool that lets them connect to anything, pulling the data from other places. And it kind of sits in this sweet spot of being approachable for people who aren't technical, but they can use our pre-built integrations, and then for more technical people who maybe have some coding knowledge or some technical background, they can use the custom integrations to put in the API details themselves. So then it just handles all the authentication, pagination, those kind of slightly more technical things. It handles all that without them writing code. In terms of marketing, one of the big ones we see is people pulling in campaign metrics, so pulling in Google Ads and meta ads and Google Analytics, so pulling that into Airtable and then building out visualizations or client dashboards for their agency, things like that. Another big use case we see is programmatic SEO. So people have got a list of blog posts in their table and they want to create like the SEO meta description or like the cover image to post it on social media or anything like that. So transforming one type of content into another or creating some sort of automation around, yeah, programmatic content, I guess. And then the last one I'd just call like marketing ops. So just moving data between different tools. So between one CRM or Google sheets, whatever tool into Airtable. So they've just got that one centralized place where everything is.
Mike: So there's quite a lot. And I mean, effectively what you've done is you've built this interface between Airtable and between these tools. So it's almost pre-done. You just connect it, tell it what to do. And away it goes. Is it as simple as that?
Andy: Just about, so yeah, so we started with just the customer requests. So people needed a bit of API knowledge. And then what we saw is there are some integrations that just come up again and again and again. And so we made those kind of like built-in integrations, like a Zapier or something like that, where you can just point and click. So you can just say, select application, Google sheets, authorize, and then just like, which sheet do you want? It's as simple as that. But we've always got that balance of then having the more flexible, uh, customer requests where people can put the stuff in themselves. We've got a free plan which lets people try all of that for free and they can basically use pretty much every feature. It's just when you want to then automate that that's when they upgrade. But the beauty of having that free plan and letting people mess about with it for free is people can just test it themselves and see how they get on.
Mike: I mean, there's quite a lot to test. I mean, I was surprised you've got an integration into a website scraper. So I don't know, for example, someone involved in PR, they could potentially go and scrape data off publications, websites to analyze what the publication is covering. I mean, is that the sort of application you see people using as well?
Andy: Yeah, we see a lot of scraping and a lot of screenshotting of URLs. So a lot of people actually think it is a scraping tool itself because of the name, but we've built like a first class integration with those scraping tools because people want to do like competitor monitoring or, you know, price checking or stuff like that. And yeah, it's super powerful for that kind of use case. The most popular ones are like AI stuff, Google Sheets, and then the reporting ones. But we definitely see a bit of scraping as well.
Mike: And why do you think, you know, marketers in particular seem to need a lot of these tools? I mean, it seems like, you know, marketing is all about trying to pull data from different systems. In fact, I mean, I'll tell you, I used to be a lecturer in PR and I used to tell the students that the one skill they really needed was Excel because it's almost ubiquitous across, you know, PR agencies. I mean, why do we get into this problem in marketing that we struggle to find tools that actually do what we want and we need to pull data elsewhere?
Andy: I'd actually say it might be the availability of tools of really specialist tools that like causes the issue in the first place. So basically I think marketers want to use the best in class CRM or, you know, ads platform, whatever it is, they want to use the best tool for each job. And there are so many tools, like good tools available that you end up, yeah, with, you know, 20 or 30 different tools. But then it's like, how do I actually have an overview of all that data and these different tools? So I think that's why I end up always reaching for an Excel back in the day or a Google Sheets or an Airtable now, where they just want that one source of truth. And once you've got that and you've set that up by copy and pasting, the next step becomes an integration tool, whether it's Appia or Make or Data Fetcher. So that's kind of where it fits in.
Mike: That makes sense. I mean, I'm interested. We talked a lot about markets, obviously, a marketing podcast. But do you have some examples of some of the other customers you have in different industries? And can you tell us a little bit about, you know, some of those more interesting applications that they've got?
Andy: Yeah, I mean, one of the things building the company is just the range of different APIs and legacy systems that people are still using, but they want an escape hatch from. So for example, I've got someone who is a front end developer, and then she set up a chain of yoga studios. And she uses MindBody online for the booking, which is just like the industry default there. But it's kind of super old school and enterprise. And so She basically pulls all of her data out of MindBody Online into Airtable to build automations, whether that's welcome emails or whatever the platform can't do, she wants to build in Airtable using her front-end technical background. Other ones I've seen are a logistics company called Fox Logistics, who basically do all of their driver vetting through Airtable. So they basically are constantly hiring new drivers. And so they let their drivers kind of onboard using like a no code portal, upload their ID, so they'll upload the driver license or whatever. And then they use data fetcher to connect to open AI to scan the driver license to extract the details from it and then verify whether that person can drive for them or not. And that's happening like in real time as soon as I could drive it on boards. And then they're using Data Fetcher on the other side to do route calculation between destinations. So yeah, we see all sorts of different use cases. People have connected to over 5,000 different APIs using Data Fetcher, which just kind of boggled my mind that there are 5,000 APIs. There's probably a lot more.
Mike: So, I mean, you're talking about APIs, you mentioned APIs a few times. I don't know, let's go back to some basics. I mean, could you explain, you know, to people who are maybe marketers not really into coding, what an API is and why it's so important?
Andy: Yeah, of course. So if you imagine a tool like Twitter or a tool like Google Sheets, whatever, your data is kind of locked in there, right? And an API is just a way of them saying, here's how you can get data out of this tool or write data into it in a kind of predictable, robust way on their terms. So it's kind of like, I guess, a technical gateway to the data that's in there. And what that means is that we can build integrations on top of that and service it to our users. But it means users can also connect to that API directly without writing complete scripts or code. They can just put in the URL for the API and a header and a fairly small set of instructions that let them automatically and reliably connect to that system. So I like to talk about apps and APIs as what Data Fetcher connects to, but it's all kind of, the underlying thing I guess is APIs that it all runs on.
Mike: And this is all kind of, you know, this no-code movement, isn't it? I mean, APIs ten years ago involved getting software engineers to write code. You know, I think today a lot of marketers might have come across some of the tools you mentioned. So, you know, Zapier is one I think most people have seen, although it's kind of limited in what it can do. You know, we also use tools like Make, but some of those tools can get really complicated. So what is it you do to make sure that people who aren't programmers can actually make use of data vector and get the data they want easily?
Andy: Yeah, so we've focused on one particular workflow that people like to set up in Make or Zapier, which is connecting just Airtable to another tool, another app. So rather than trying to be everything to everyone, we've just really focused on letting people set that up really easily and being slightly opinionated with, you know, when we get the data back from that tool, this is how it will map to your Airtable records, and then letting people customize it if they want to. But by default, we just try and handle everything for people. We've also got a real focus on long tutorials and really detailed steps on letting people set that up so that we get people who haven't got an API background or a technical background, but they can set that up themselves. And then finally, our no-code integrations, just let people set those workflows up without having to learn about APIs themselves.
Mike: I mean, if I'm to summarize it, it sounds like because you're basically literally just pulling data into Airtable, that removes a lot of the potential complications, which means that you actually know what people want a lot better than if you were trying to make an incredibly flexible tool like Make.
Andy: Yeah, exactly. And then another factor is that we're a first class Airtable extension. So we are on the marketplace and we actually sit in Airtable in terms of like, you're in the same tab that you're already in when you're working in your Airtable data. And it's just, you know, sits within that. Whereas with Make or Zapier, you're kind of switching between the two and you're losing a bit of context each time. But it means we can see the live data straight away. We don't have to wait for it to load or anything. And you can kind of see the effects of what you're doing straight away.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I have to say, when I tried it, pretty much worked automatically first time. I couldn't believe it. So it was a great tool. We're obviously a marketing podcast. And I think, you know, a lot of our listeners, they're in the engineering sector, the B2B engineering sector. And that's the sector that's changed a lot, because it's moving away from selling, you know, purely products to actually having a large element of software. So it's interesting to hear how people market software. You know, so at a high level, what's your marketing strategy for Data Fetcher?
Andy: So we have a real benefit just from being on the marketplace and we get a steady stream of pretty qualified leads just from being in a fairly small marketplace and that's probably about 50% of our new leads. But outside of that we do content marketing, so we focus on integration landing pages with full tutorials within them so focusing on kind of seo for those and then each tutorial will have a youtube video that goes with it so people can learn kind of however they prefer and the volume's really low honestly some of our youtube videos will have like a couple of hundred views but then i know from looking at the conversions that we've had like 10 customers off those so it's just like the intent is super high and so it's worth the the roi of kind of making making that content even if the the headline stats look super low and then another big part of it has been the free plan so because people can see the tutorials see the video and then just try it themselves it means sometimes they'll they'll test out themselves and then six months they'll have another use case and then they come back and upgrade and so The longer in the market with that free plan, the more we just have kind of brand awareness of the product, I guess.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I think it's interesting you talk about marketplaces because, I mean, Airtables at all, it's got a marketplace. You click there, it gives you all these additional vendors you can work with. That's interesting because a lot of the listeners will be thinking about creating marketplaces for software partners. We're seeing a lot of that happening in the B2B space. So as a software vendor, what makes a really good platform? What makes a platform something that you want to participate in and support?
Andy: Yeah, it's an interesting one, because they had a real marketplace focus a few years ago when I launched, and now it's very much in maintenance mode. So I don't think they'll ever kill it, fingers crossed not, but they also don't seem to be, they haven't really changed it in about five years. And it's, yeah, it's been an interesting journey. I think one of the things that has made a huge difference is just the size of the team that they've got focused on it. So there was a point when they really neglected it, when it would take me a couple of months to get an extension approved, so to get an update approved. And then now it's super quick because they've got a couple of really good people on it. So just having the, you know, enough resources dedicated to it to kind of bring those communication times down is massive. And then discovery as well, I think it's really important. So yeah, letting people discover new things through the marketplace, whether that's featuring featuring listings, having good categories, having good kind of marketplace SEO and predictable SEO within the marketplace. So yeah, one of the points of building for it, right, is to get some distribution through it. And so that's, yeah, that's kind of like huge as well. And then the last thing is probably just the technical side of it. So the SDK, which is what you use to build extensions, is just really, really robust and friendly and well-documented. And that makes a massive difference. I had a a brief foray into building a monday.com extension to match Data Fetcher and it was horrendous and I went back with my tail between my legs to Airtable just because it was so difficult to build on Monday. Things would change, you know, month to month things would change, things were totally unpredictable and they didn't really see the issue with it. And you see that with really mature marketplaces like Shopify and stuff, they'll still just rip out whole parts of their, of their SDK and stuff like that. And it's, I'm really grateful to be on quite a stable one, even if it's a little bit neglected.
Mike: That's really interesting because it sounds like, you know, what you're saying is if you make it easy for the partners and you also make it predictable, there's no unpleasant surprises with, you know, your product suddenly stopping working because something's changed. That's what's really going to get engagement. I mean, those are key parts. And maybe that's something that marketers building marketplaces might not think.
Andy: Yeah, I think so.
Mike: So Andy, I mean, we've talked, you know, quite a lot about what you're doing and, you know, about marketing. I mean, I'm interested. Are you using Data Fetcher in your marketing or how do you see Data Fetcher and other similar no-code tools changing the way marketers go about their business in the future?
Andy: Yeah, I think it's definitely lowered the bar to what you can build as a marketer, right? So you're not waiting on developers anymore. It's massively reduced that friction, I guess, to spin up an internal tool, to build a certain visualization, to do something like that. The way that I use it as a marketer for Data Fetcher itself is for content. So for that content marketing workflow that I explained, we basically managed all of that from Airtable and Data Fetcher is pulling in the YouTube stats, it's generating the SEO meta descriptions, it's doing all that kind of That stuff is pulling in the analytics once a landing page goes live. And so it's just pulling all of that kind of content stuff into one place and then experiment with Google ads. I can pull in the ads metrics as well. But in terms of, yeah, where that fits in generally, I think it's, it allows people, even if I didn't have a technical background, I could set that up myself and we could basically have all of our content reporting and workflows like within one tool, um, which is super powerful.
Mike: And it's interesting, I mean, you've mentioned a couple of times, you know, your ability to integrate with AI. And I think the example there of writing meta descriptions automatically is a great example. I mean, do you see this being more and more important for marketers to actually identify where they can use AI to simplify and speed things up?
Andy: I think so, yeah. So everyone knows about, you know, chucking stuff into chat GPT to create a landing page or to create an event description or whatever it is. But I think being able to do that at scale is kind of the next logical step. So being able to use, yeah, an integration tool like Data Fetcher to connect to Anthropic and generate, you know, the intro paragraph, whatever it is, being able to take old content and update it or repurpose it for, you know, hundreds or thousands of blog posts, it feels like the next kind of step, as well as, I guess, repurposing where you're taking blog posts and generating images for them or generating shorts or something like that, that feels like they're kind of next, the next step, I guess, with AI.
Mike: This has been fascinating, and I think, you know, the best thing I can say is people need to, if they're using Airtable, try Lola Fetcher. But before we let you go, Andy, there's a couple of questions we always like to ask people. And so the first one is, what's the best marketing advice that's ever been given to you?
Andy: So early on with Data Fetcher, I was trying to do everything, especially because I didn't have a marketing background. I was trying to try every channel, you know, post to Facebook, get SEO and YouTube working and even do a bit of sales and stuff. And I was telling someone about this and they basically told me that if SEO and YouTube are working, just focus on those, just double down and just Nailing one or two channels is much more effective than trying to be everywhere and to everyone. And so I think that advice is just, yeah, it's proven true over the last few years. And it's really tempting, especially when a channel slows down to then think there's a silver bullet of a new one. Um, but actually that's the time to, to iterate and to get even better at that channel. So that was the best advice I got.
Mike: I love it, that's great advice, focus on your strengths basically. The other question we always like to ask people, and I know you didn't start your career as a marketer but you're doing a lot of marketing now, is if you're talking to someone who was just entering their career, just beginning their career as a marketer, what advice would you give them to make them successful?
Andy: I'd say probably just ship things. So yeah, just build stuff and get it out there and try and get anyone on the internet to care about it. Because that's the hardest bit. It's so easy to do a course or to learn a theory and stuff, but you don't really learn until you actually start doing it. And so making those mistakes and having those learning experiences are probably what will lead to the next thing succeeding, even if you can't get the first few things off the ground. It's been true for me at least. I love it.
Mike: That's brilliant. I mean, a really optimistic, positive way to end. I mean, Andy, if somebody has been listening to this and maybe they use Airtable already, they've never used Data Fetcher, how do they find out more about the tool and actually get to try it?
Andy: Yep. Just go to Data Fetcher.com or search for Data Fetcher on the Airtable marketplace and sign up for a free account and you can use basically all the features.
Mike: That's awesome. Really simple. Andy, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Andy: Thanks so much.
Mike: It was a pleasure, 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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
From Curiosity to Conversion: The Power of Experimentation - Kameleoon – Collin Crowell
In this episode of Marketing B2B Technology, Mike sits down with Collin Crowell, VP of Growth for Kameleoon North America, an experimentation platform. Collin discusses the evolution of Kameleoon as a global player in the MarTech industry, emphasises the importance of data-driven decision-making, and explains how Kameleoon enables teams to easily build and test digital experiences.
Collin highlights the challenges B2B companies face in adopting experimentation and the need for curiosity and a willingness to explore new approaches. He also offers advice for aspiring marketers, stressing the importance of understanding their audience and leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity.
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Kameleoon
Kameleoon is an agentic experimentation platform built for modern product and marketing teams. With Prompt-Based Experimentation, any team can turn ideas into live tests in minutes. Once ideas prove their impact, Kameleoon delivers accurate results and gives teams the control to roll them out safely. Trusted by brands like Lululemon, Toyota, Mayo Clinic, and Canada Goose, Kameleoon makes experimentation simple, fast, and scalable across the organization.
About Collin Crowell
Collin Crowell is VP of Growth for Kameleoon North America, where he leads sales, marketing, and partnerships. He helps experimentation teams design and run tests their way, secure executive buy-in, and get the most out of their tech stack. Based near Whistler, Canada, he spends his free time skiing and mountain biking.
Time Stamps
00:00:43 - Colin's Background and Journey to Kameleoon
00:03:05 - Overview of Kameleoon and Its Experimentation Platform
00:06:11 - Multivariate Testing and Its Complexity
00:10:28 - Challenges in B2B Experimentation
00:15:05 - The Importance of Incremental Gains
00:18:02 - Growing Kameleoon: Balancing Brand and Leads
00:21:06 - The Importance of Being Present in Target Channels
00:23:09 - Innovative Campaigns: Hot Ones and Qualtrics
00:26:00 - Best Marketing Advice Received
00:27:29 - Advice for New Marketers: Embrace AI
Quotes
“"If you can make that process as easy as possible for all of those teams, then the company becomes more data driven.” Collin Crowell, VP of Growth for Kameleoon North America.
"We all need to just work together to build better digital experiences. If you can make that what was really technically hard and difficult easy, then you're enabling those marketers to build out those digital experiences." Collin Crowell, VP of Growth for Kameleoon North America.
"If the company or the team is not interested in being data-driven or has some executive that refuses to acknowledge that there could be a different way of working, then we probably aren't going to play well in that space." Collin Crowell, VP of Growth for Kameleoon North America.
Follow Collin:
Collin Crowell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collincrowell/
Kameleoon’s website: https://www.kameleoon.com/
Kameleoon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kameleoon/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Collin Crowell at Kameleoon
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Collin Corwell
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 Colin Crowell. Colin is the VP of Growth North America for Chameleon. Welcome to the podcast, Colin.
Collin: Hi, Mike. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
Mike: Thanks for joining us. It's great to have you on, Colin. We always like to start off by letting you introduce yourself a little bit, talk a little bit about your career and why you decided to join Chameleon.
Collin: Well, thanks for asking. I joined Chameleon almost about five years ago. Chameleon, for those that don't know, is an experimentation platform. It helps companies build any type of experiment or some may know them as like A-B tests. I got into the space because I was helping build a joint venture between a German consultancy dedicated to experimentation and a Canadian agency dedicated to experimentation. And we formed what was called Go Group Digital. Go Group Digital essentially built experiments for large enterprise companies across the world. And that's really how I got to know the experimentation space and how I got to know all the tools and the experimentation space, including Chameleon. So when Chameleon reached out to me to say, hey, we're getting big enough that we want to start to build out our business in North America, I was intrigued.
Mike: That sounds really cool. I mean, one of the things I've got to ask you, though, is Chameleon's actually a French MarTech company. I mean, France is not really known as a hotbed of marketing technology. So what's it like working for a French company? Are there pros or cons of doing that?
Collin: You know, it's an interesting thanks for the question. And it's an interesting one. I think it's a tale of two worlds. I disagree. I think there are a lot of interesting French based companies in the tech space. What they've done very well, though, is sort of shed their skin, their French skin when it comes to becoming a global player. So I think we have to be really careful at Chameleon to say, like, listen, yeah, we were headquartered or founded in Paris and, you know, as long ago as 2010. But today, the company is very global. And we don't really cast ourselves as a French technology company, because I think there's something disparaging about that. when you bring it up to, say, the Americans, they're always, you know, going to have some sort of odd bias against it. But there's a lot of like big companies that you would just never realize were actually French. So there's Chameleon, there's Content Square. There's others I could rattle off that you just be like, oh, wow, I had no idea. So what's it like? It's really something we don't even acknowledge anymore. It it is nice to visit Paris a few times a year.
Mike: That certainly sounds like a good advantage. I know we've had a couple of French companies as well on. So I think Send in Blue, which now Brevo is originally French. So I may be being a bit cheeky talking about France and portraying those stereotypes. So anyway, let's talk about Chameleon. You mentioned briefly what the company does. It helps people run experiments. Do you want to expand on that and explain how people would use the product and what it would give them?
Collin: Yeah, well, you know, experimentation on paper is something so intriguing, at least it should be. I mean, the whole idea is that you should be able to make data-backed decisions about what your customers want. And experimentation just simply is a way to help you make more informed decisions about what those target audiences would like to do with you. So Chameleon basically provides a single unified platform to companies. We really are specializing in mid and large enterprise companies. And these companies have realized that if they give their teams, growth teams, marketing teams, product teams, data engineering teams, the ability to essentially say, what would happen if I did this instead of that? Would it create a behavior that my target audience or customer would find enjoyable? Well, let's test it. That can be as simple as, gosh, I really hate this message. This copy just doesn't seem to work. What would happen if I said X instead of Y? Again, you test it. You validate that Y is in fact better than X. And lo and behold, that metric that you were trying to juice or improve gets better. So that really is experimentation. As I said, that's a simple test to build, but it goes far down the rabbit hole. Product and engineering teams are essentially releasing features and they don't know what's going to happen. And so what they do is they'll progressively release a feature or they'll target a specific segment of an audience and they'll see how that audience behaves. And when you're measuring that behavior, you're able to essentially say, like, this is working. This is not working. Let's do more of this. Let's do less of this. And that's all experimentation is. And if you can make that process as easy as possible for all of those teams, then the company becomes more data driven. And it's crystal clear that if you're data driven, you're going to have a much higher chance to be a leader in your category and growing this year.
Mike: I think data is really interesting because a lot of people, particularly in marketing, they get data, they use it all the time. Running an A-B test is pretty straightforward. But if you're running a multivariate test, and I know you support those, how does Chameleon help people deal with those more complex things where maybe you're changing two or three different elements on the page?
Collin: Yeah. I mean, again, I think for all the marketers listening, one of the stereotypes in the industry is that you've got two camps, the technical camp and the non-technical camp. And poor marketers just get lumped into the non-technical camp. And so we're always trying our best to understand how well do they understand the science behind the experimentation. which really comes down to like the methodologies around the statistics of it all. Gosh, Mike, is it boring? It is, I think, the technology's job to really take all of that statistical methodology, which is very important, but yet put it in a, behind the scenes and in a way that it really surfaces the insights that the marketer is actually looking for much more easily. So we can get into the weeds about how Chameleon builds multivariate tests and how it controls what we call cross or concurrent testing, where you're running multiple tests at the same time or you're running multivariate tests. But at the end of the day, no one should care about that. You should feel like, hey, I want to go in and make sure that I'm building a digital experience that works for my target audience. And I just want to pump out a dashboard that lets me decide, yes, this is working. No, it isn't working or I don't have enough information to make a decision. So I can rattle off all the different incredible features that Camelia will have. One of them, again, would be what we call our multi-stat engine. It's going to provide those teams with Bayesian, Cupid, Frequentist, Sequential. I mean, you name it, all the different kinds of statistical methodologies. But at the end of the day, what we're really trying to do is make experimentation super accessible for any type of team, because if you don't do that, it doesn't matter how amazing your stats engine is.
Mike: I love that, we don't care, we just want a dashboard that tells us what to do. I think that's a great approach in terms of product philosophy. And maybe I think one of those follow-on questions is, so who really benefits from this? Because you talked about such a range of complexity, from introducing new features into a web app, all the way through to just changing a message. I mean, where does Chameleon really play well?
Collin: We play well where teams realize they have a crystal ball and they want to be able to look into this crystal ball and see around corners as to what their customers want. So if the company or the team is not interested or and being data-driven or has some executive that refuses to acknowledge that there could be a different way of working, then we probably aren't going to play well in that space. But if the company, or like I said, those teams inside of the company are curious, just simply curious and very aware of the interests of their customer, then it starts to become interesting because then they are looking for a solution that basically does a few things. One, can it help them build a new version of the digital experience? So the build part is, you know, I think half the battle. And we often in this industry get stuck in the build part, which is an important part, because if you can't build the new digital experience, well, then how could you test it? But to get to the next part, which is, okay, well, now that I've built that digital experience, can I target the right audience? Can I choose the right goals to measure the experience I've created? Can I roll out the experience or what we call traffic allocation in a way that makes sense and saves me time and stress? That's that configure part. And again, Chameleon is really designed to support those teams that are looking for, hey, I want to be able to build quickly a new variant. And I want to be able to validate if it's moving my customer on the right or the wrong direction. And so, yeah, if they're curious, then we should dive in and start helping them. But if they're not prepared to even just be curious, then they're not ready to start experimenting.
Mike: And do you think that's a bit of a challenge with B2B? Because I think, you know, in consumer, quite often, marketers are very data driven, very results driven. Whereas in B2B, there tends to be a lot of this, it's got to be the right corporate voice, it's got to look right, it's got to be on brand. I mean, do you think that holds back B2B sometimes?
Collin: Yeah, I think there can be. I mean, fortunately, I think it's starting to change. I think people are realizing that, again, we do some research every year. It's called more or less chameleon all team experimentation research. And essentially what we do is we look at about 150 something companies across the US and the UK, and we ask them, hey, Do you think you are a leader in your category and do you plan to grow this year? And if they answer yes to those questions, then we deep dive into like their behavior when it comes to like their work. And a couple of things pop out. Number one thing is they see experimentation as critical to their business. Just nine out of 10 of them are saying we have to experiment if we want to be if we want to be a leader and if we want to grow. And then again, I think all those biases or impediments or obstacles, they're still there, but they're able to be sort of pushed aside and manipulated and massaged like, yeah, of course, the brand's important. But are we really going to not even explore whether or not this new messaging could help us move deeper into this category? I mean, Who is against growth here? So that fortunately is beginning to, I think, grow in momentum. And I think that's healthy for B2B. It's healthy for B2C. It's just healthy for every business to think that.
Mike: I think that's very positive. I mean, you've suggested, Colin, that maybe some of it is culture, I guess is what you call it. The company's not really looking for those opportunities to grow. Are there any other things that hold back people from doing experimentation? What are the things they find difficult?
Collin: One, let's just start with like, you may not have the technical resources, like a lot of teams. And this is why experimentation platforms like Chameleon are helpful, because some of those teams may want to be data driven, and they want to experiment, but they may not have the technical capabilities to build something new, right. And this is where tools like Chameleon can come in, because we help those non technical teams build new digital experiences, most recently with what we call prompt based experimentation. Your audiences may know that you can chat with Gen AI today to create any kind of new digital experience. What Chameleon does successfully is it allows you to chat with Gen AI to build a new digital experience of your existing web products or websites. And if you can make that what was really technically hard and difficult, easy like Chameleon can now, then you're enabling those marketers to build out those digital experiences. Now, but on the flip side, if you go over to the engineering team or the product team that are far more technical, if they're pressured to just simply pump out product, pump out releases, then Again, I'm not sure that we're the right fit for them. But if the company is saying to themselves, like, gosh, is this feature good for my business? Is it good for that customer? Well, how do you determine good? Well, you essentially let the customer tell you. And how does the customer tell you? Well, through some KPIs or some metrics that you're tracking. So if they want to be really customer centric and data driven, Then those product and engineering team say, well, you know what? Let's flag this feature. Let's assign a couple KPIs to it. Let's see whether or not the customer or the users behave like we think they're going to behave. And if it's working, let's do more of it versus just like, okay, everyone, we've got our quarterly roadmap. I mean, some of the enterprise companies I work with, they're planning like, H2 2026 features. And if you look at the companies that are successful in that chameleon, all teams research report, they are not working on a semestrial basis. They're working on like a sprint like a couple of weeks basis. That's how fast these companies are able to react to what their customers are doing. So, again, you have to want to be customer centric. If you if you were not there yet, it's going to be hard for you to really leverage experimentation.
Mike: I think that's a great point. I love this reference back to research. I mean, you know, it's really interesting. Do you have some examples of what kind of uplift do people get when they do testing? I mean, I guess it varies very much upon the situation and what you're changing. But if you could give us some examples as to where people get the benefit from doing it.
Collin: Yeah. I mean, again, We all love the, you know, I'm going to pull out my American reference, you know, the home run. So everyone should sort of have a portfolio of experiments. Some of your experiments are going to be designed to like, go for big home run swings. All right. And those uplifts can be enormous. And they're the ones that everybody likes to talk about and promote and put in their case studies and success stories. They're important, but, you know, they're few and far between. When you look at some of the world's leading agencies and experts and teams dedicated, I mean, wake up every day and just do conversion rate optimization experimentation. They are wrong up to 80% of the time. So this idea that you can just hit home run after home run after home run and get uplifts all the time that just are business transformational is a complete myth. And so avoid that pitfall and trap. So your portfolio can't just be composed of home runs. It has to be composed of like Incremental gains. And this is where experimentation really comes into play. Those incremental gains are quite small, frankly, and we're talking about, you know, a percentage uplift. But if you can move the needle steadily by a percent, a half a percent. over time, these compound in such a way that not only is the team thinking about being data driven, they're also getting the compounding effects of creating a better optimized digital experience that your customer likes more than the other competitors. and this transforms into business impact. I think another thing you want to be careful of is you don't want to go off into a board meeting and tell your CFO that this test that you ran three months ago is going to generate a million dollars for the next quarter sales. The CFO is smart enough to realize that's complete BS. There are so many things that affect whether or not that test will actually generate revenue that you want to be wary of saying my tests generate X dollars and instead say my experiments generate these insights that guide our leadership, guide our teams on what's the right way to be working. And again, that overall net effect is just transformational in a positive way that you are almost statistically certain to be a leader in your category if you do so.
Mike: I love that. I love that focus on the compounding of small gains rather than find that magic bullet. I think that's a great analogy.
Collin: Well, again, look at it as a portfolio. You need to have big, medium and small swings. If you are just swinging for the fences every single time, you're just going to burn out quickly. Everyone's going to not trust you. This will just be seen as a boondoggle and it'll be discarded. But if you only do marginal tests like, you know, little tiny things, people like, what the hell? This isn't going to transform my business. I don't care about message tests or button color tests like this stuff is just little tiny things that don't mean much to us. Show me the bigger plays. And so that's why I always advise companies and teams to really think about their portfolio versus, you know, a certain one type of test.
Mike: I mean, that's really interesting, Colin. Just moving forward a bit, I'm interested to know how you approach growing the business at Chameleon. So how are you dealing with, for example, this issue between building a brand and kind of that top of the funnel stuff versus driving leads? What's your approach?
Collin: Well, you know, I always tell my team that, you know, there's no I always look at marketing as a face. You can't have just a pair of beautiful eyes or gorgeous mouth. You know, if you really want to be a face, you need to have a complete package. And for me, that transforms into like, OK, we need to get content marketing right. We need to get event marketing right. We need to get paid marketing. We need to have our social media all organized. So again, what I like to do is make sure that we're firing on all cylinders and those key channels are on those key mediums for the entire funnel. Like so everything from tofu down to like bofu or bottom of the funnel. What I am finding is more and more important, especially after you've established your own internal like owned channels and your own mediums. What you really need to do is, well, here at Chameleon is what we call the eat our dog food or drink our champagne, which is OK, great. We've now got folks in place to manage those channels and execute those campaigns and strategies. But Are we really customer centric or reader centric or audience centric? I am now a big believer in, and once you've got your owned channels understood and controlled, you need to quickly move over and start making sure that you are at the watering holes where your target customers are getting their media, their news, their information. and interacting with other your competitor brands or your your space. And so if you can really understand those watering holes and be present in those watering holes, then your own channels can get better. But until then, you're just coming up with ideas on your own and in a vacuum. And that has a very short shelf life.
Mike: I mean, it's an awful lot of sense. And I love, you know, one of the themes coming throughout this whole interview seems to be it's about balance. You know, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't focus on, you know, those big swings for the fences. But, you know, balance out what you're doing. I think that's a really interesting approach. Does that reflect your approach to marketing?
Collin: Yeah, I think so. Again, There are, of course, other strategies where you can put all of your eggs in and events marketing. And, you know, this is there's probably a thousand LinkedIn posts that will tell you, you know, do this strategy versus that strategy. Listen, I don't want to come across as like we try to be everywhere all at once. I mean, there is some balance. There is some excuse me, some commitment you have to make just for practical resource purposes. But yeah, I think this ability to not only take care of business internally, but be present in what we call external channels here at Chameleon and our team, we say rob the banks. Why do we say rob the banks? It's a bad joke about how a bank robber said, you know, answered a question. Why do you rob banks? And he says, that's where all the money is. Well, This is the same. Go to those watering holes. Rob those banks. That's where your audiences are. That's where your target customers are. So we really want to, I'd say, be 60 40 robbing the banks versus just taking care of our own channels. I think the other thing we all have to acknowledge is that search is changing. And so I think a lot of what we built inbound marketing wise was predicated in the idea of like search being successful and search blessedly, painfully is changing. Now, more and more people are turning to, you know, AI for getting their news or getting their information. And we have to be able to react to that. And one of the best ways to do that, I think, is, again, to be present in your owned and your earned channels.
Mike: I love it. Colin, it's been fascinating. Before I let you go, just a couple of questions we'd like to ask everyone. The first is, can you give us an example of a campaign that you've seen that you think is really innovative or creative recently?
Collin: Gosh, you know, I always come up with like two and they tend to be a bit more brand centric. The first one has nothing to do with us, but it's a fun one. I'm not sure people appreciate it, but hot ones.
Mike: Are you familiar with this show? Never seen, I think it's an American one, an American show.
Collin: Hot Ones is this brilliant show that is built to sell hot sauce. And it started, gosh, I want to say, you know, maybe 10 plus years ago. But essentially, they bring on celebrities and steadily feed them hotter and hotter hot sauces. And then they ask them really poignant, interesting questions. And the celebrities that are so well trained to respond to the BS PR questions, are flummoxed by the hot sauce and they give really interesting answers. And these shows, Mike, have hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. It's an incredibly popular show and it's now like I think reached mass market, certainly in the US or a lot of folks know about the show. And again, that's just pure content marketing designed to sell hot sauce. You got to tip your hat. Good job. The other campaign that I remember that I always thought was smart and I I guess I liked it because I'm in the customer experience space. Qualtrics did one. I think it was something along the lines of like chief apology officer. I'm not sure if you remember this one, but there was a really slick video campaign where they had this Sleazy executive basically gifted in the art of apologizing for crappy digital experiences and I just thought that was a smart way to draw attention to the idea that. Do you really want to have this culture in your company where you're just constantly trying to, you know, smooth out horrible digital experiences? So that one stuck with me and I wish I had always done it. And again, I think that video format, people are just glued to their screens. And so if you can just scroll with your thumb up and touch them and all those channels, then I think you have something good there.
Mike: Love it. I can just imagine everyone listening to the show still shaking their head going, I can't believe Mike hasn't watched Hot Ones on YouTube. I will go and have a look. I'm a little bit older than probably a lot of the listeners, so maybe that's the issue. Next question, Colin. I'm really interested to know, what's the best piece of marketing advice that someone's given to you?
Collin: The best piece of marketing advice that someone's given me I think going back to this idea that you need to understand the person you're trying to reach better than yourself or your product. I think we get so wrapped up in our campaigns in our amazing products and services and technologies that we forget what we're really trying to do is solve someone's problems or help them with their opportunities. And if you can really drill down and understand what it is that they want to achieve, Lo and behold, magically, all of the solutions on how to reach them and engage with them, interact with them, come to light. I know it's not the sexiest or maybe even the most original answer, but I think if we turn back to these tried and true practices, They deliver results.
Mike: Love it. I mean, obviously, we've had people say similar-ish things before, but I think it's super important. You've really got to understand things from your customer's point of view rather than from your point of view, and don't fall in love too much with your product. Learn to love the customer. And then the last question, we've mentioned it a couple of times, marketing is changing incredibly quickly at the moment. So if you were talking to someone that was just starting out on a career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Collin: If I was just starting my career in marketing, the first thing I would do would be to explore AI agents. AI agents, for the audience, are essentially tools or robots that you send out to do something specific for you. And what is so interesting today is that you can essentially assemble a team of these AI agents to probably boost your productivity by 50. It's astonishing how productive you can be. Now, what they're not going to do is be very original in what they're pumping out. They're going to default to like the lowest common denominator best practices. The language is going to probably be pretty AI bland. But the fact that you get to have the ability to correct versus create all of that content and all of that copy and messaging that these agents can bring to you is astonishing. So you can just essentially multiply your presence by 100 through agents and then have the ability to curate it and correct it in a way that fits whatever you're trying to achieve. So, again, I would really make sure that if I was into marketing, I understood those two key points. Who am I trying to reach? and how can I use AI agents to make sure that I am reaching them faster than the next guy? Because if you can put those two things on a nice looking CV or resume, you're gonna be golden. People are gonna pick you up in a heartbeat.
Mike: Love it, I think that's great advice. Colin, it's been fascinating. It's been a great conversation. If people listening to this would like to learn a little bit more about CRO or perhaps they wanna find out more about Chameleon, where's the best place to get a hold of you?
Collin: Oh, gosh, well, the easiest way to learn more about experimentation or what we call all team experimentation, where everybody can come to one single place and find a way to build experiments, whether you're technically gifted or have technical resources available to you or not, is our website. I would just visit www.chameleon.com. You'll see it probably in the copy below how to spell it. You can always find me on LinkedIn. I'm very happy to chat with anybody about where they're at with their experimentation program. And again, we all need to just work together to build better digital experiences.
Mike: That's amazing. I think it's been a fascinating conversation. I've learned so much. Really appreciate you being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Collin: Pleasure to be here. Good luck to everyone out there. Start experimenting.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Transforming the Customer Journey: How Funnelytics is Redefining Funnel Visualization
We’re joined by Mikael Dia, founder and CEO of Funnelytics, a visual journey mapping tool built to help marketers optimize conversions and better communicate strategy.
Mikael shares how the rise of multi-touch, non-linear customer journeys inspired Funnelytics, and how the platform goes far beyond funnel mapping to uncover what drives results. We explore how marketers are using visualization to align teams, boost performance, and turn complex data into clear, actionable insights.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Funnelytics
Funnelytics is a visual funnel analytics platform designed to help marketers track, analyze, and optimize the entire customer journey, without needing to be a data expert. By combining intuitive whiteboarding with powerful analytics, Funnelytics transforms complex data into clear, real-time visual maps that show exactly how users move through your marketing funnels.
Whether you're a hands-on marketer or prefer expert support, Funnelytics empowers you to grow smarter by identifying what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus next.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Guest Introduction: Mikael Dia
00:00:39 - Mikael 's Background and Journey in Digital Marketing
00:01:53 - The Evolution of Customer Journeys in Marketing
00:05:04 - Identifying the Core Problem Funnelytics Solves
00:08:36 - Understanding Funnelytics Customer Base
00:10:51 - Differences Between B2B and B2C Marketing Analytics
00:12:35 - Shifts in Customer Behavior Over the Years
00:14:29 - Sales Involvement in Selling Funnelytics
00:18:06 - The Importance of Branding in Marketing
00:20:07 - The Impact of AI on Marketing Trends
00:25:48 - How to Connect with Mikael Dia and Learn More About Funnelytics
Quotes
“Learn as much as you can about how the puzzle fits together...Marketing can be a machine, and it should be thought of as a machine. It shouldn't be thought of as how creative your next campaign is or what your logo look like and, and a lot of the stuff that falls under brand, it's all of it, it fits together to create a machine to turn strangers into customers. Learn as much about each puzzle piece to understand how can you architect that machine, for any company.” - Mikael Dia, founder and CEO of Funnelytics
Follow Mikael:
Mikael Dia on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/
Funnelytics website: https://www.funnelytics.io/
Funnelytics on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/funnelytics-io/about/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We’d also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Mikael Dia at Funnelytics
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Mikael Dia
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 Mikel Dea. Mikel is the founder of Funnelytics. Welcome to the podcast, Mikael.
Mikael: Thank you for having me, Mike.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. Do you want to start off and just give us a bit of a background about you? Tell us a little bit about your career and why you decided to found Funnelytics.
Mikael: Yeah, no problem. So I'll give you the high level so that I don't bore you with my backstory. But basically, I've been a digital marketer and online entrepreneur for well over a decade now. And I've built three businesses at this stage, two seven figure businesses, one eight figure business. The two seven figure businesses were in me running my own agency and also a nutrition coaching business that I was a partner in. And then my figure business being my software company and i really started this back in around two thousand nine two thousand ten where i became kind of obsessed with this idea of how do i take a stranger and turn it into a customer and. Really, I studied and learned all of the components of that puzzle. Everything from buying ads to SEO to conversion psychology to follow ups and landing pages. and basically the different phases of a funnel and all of that stuff and I started Funnelytics while I was running my agency to really solve my own problem at the end of the day. And it evolved into something much bigger than what I anticipated. But it was really there to solve my own problem, which is, you know, we live in a world where these customer journeys and marketing is is getting more and more complex. The different touch points and the paths that people take to become a customer is no longer very linear. Back in early 2000s, it was really easy. I could set up a little Google ad, get somebody a landing page, get their name and email, sell them, and it worked. I could do that with Facebook, but now people are jumping to review sites, checking your blog, going to Chat GPT to ask for questions, going on LinkedIn, and they're kind of jumping all over the place. And, and it's no longer simple to kind of visualize and understand that journey, you know, from a data standpoint. So what Funnelytics allows us to do is basically visualize that entire journey on a canvas. We built a digital whiteboard, basically, that allows us to map every single touchpoint of a customer journey, connect it together, and then just see the data right there on top. So I could see what's working, what's not, what are the paths that people are taking, where are those drop-offs. Really, where do I need to focus in order for us to optimize and make more money from the same marketing. Fundamentally, that is what we do. And that is a little bit of my career.
Mike: And so it's interesting. I mean, you talk about the kind of messy customer journey we see today. So presumably, Funnelytics as a tool, it's doing a lot more than mapping a simple awareness, interest, desire, action funnel. You're actually really mapping a customer journey in detail. Is that right?
Mikael: Yeah, you're absolutely right. So I don't, you know, it's interesting. The word funnel is something that gets thrown around a lot, right? Like, you know, a lot of people talk about the marketing funnel being, quote unquote, dead. I think the problem is people think of the word funnel as either this, these phases of a journey. So like you said, awareness, consideration, you know, conversion, blah, blah, blah. Or they think of it too much on the other end, like the Russell Brunson Click funnels audience, you know, the people who think of it as a, It's an opt-in page with an email follow-up and a sales video and buy, right? Like a very, very structured sequence. And the reality is it's somewhere kind of in between. It's what are the series of touch points that you've got to put together in order to take this stranger to get them to then take action and buy something. And those touch points come in the form of traffic sources, different pages on your site, different actions that they can take, whether it's engaging with a video or a button. Or, you know, conversion actions like filling out a form or scheduling a call or an order purchase or whatever it may be. So basically what Funnelytics allows you to do is take all of those different touch points and throw them on a canvas and then connect them together, sequence them together to basically understand, well, what is somebody actually doing to get to that conversion stage?
Mike: And I mean, obviously, understanding the funnel lets you do a lot of things. You said it solved a problem, but you didn't talk about the exact problem. Because I think you could solve a problem around what to optimize, you could solve a problem about where to allocate budget, you could solve a problem around reporting. So what was the challenge you found that you actually, you know, needed to solve with Funnelytics? And then how broad are you going today?
Mikael: Yeah, it's a good question. And the problem was not so much a major like, OK, well, this problem is not solvable today. It's the way that we approach solving the problem was very, very complicated. So fundamentally, what we do as marketers is we visualize these strategies, these marketing funnels, these engines, whatever you want to call it. on some sort of whiteboard, on a piece of paper, on a PowerPoint, on Lucidchart, some sort of flow diagram, right? And we basically say, okay, well, we're going to use Facebook ads, we're going to use Google ads, it's going to go over to this page over here. And on this page, where there's going to be an opt in, and now we're going to get a sequence of emails, and those emails are going to go over to this page. And we visualize all of this so that when we present it to our team, when we present it to a client, it's really clear. It's like, OK, this is the thing that is going to help us drive this conversion that we care about. But in order to see whether or not that's performing now, we've got to build spreadsheets and look at dashboards. And Facebook tells me this thing and Google tells me this other thing. And then I got to log into HubSpot and it tells me that I've got these many contacts and it doesn't match up. So I got to start trying to stitch this stuff together. And these two things don't look anything like each other. Right. I have my right brain thinking and looking at this picture for a strategy. And then I've got to switch over to my left brain and be super analytical to understand how that picture translates into these spreadsheets. And that was the fundamental problem that I wanted to address. How do I communicate the results of this strategy to my clients by showing them this is what people are actually doing? These are the conversion rates across each of these steps. This is the flow people are taking. And I always had a hard time explaining that using kind of spreadsheets and dashboards and charts and graphs. So fundamentally, that was the goal is the visibility problem, right? Basically creating awareness and showing my clients that if you can see it on a canvas, you can visually see these are the bottlenecks. And this is where we're focusing on. And for some reason, when I did it, it created this aha moment. My first prototype for Funnelytics was literally me mapping a strategy on a PowerPoint presentation and then taking the numbers, like manually calculating the numbers from Google Analytics and Facebook and all that, and putting it onto that same picture. Basically, okay, there's 500 people who clicked on this Facebook ad and they went to this page. And then from there, 30% went and opened and went here. And I just show them that and instantly they would be like, Oh, Okay, I get it. I understand where you're going to focus. I understand that if you fix this thing, I make this much more money. It makes sense to me, right? So that's, that's why I built the tool. It was really for myself.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, you're very much to say, but if yourself, it's obviously a very popular tool now. I mean, do you want to talk a little bit about the range of customers that use analytics?
Mikael: Yeah, it took us a long time to understand who was the customer and and also for me to get to a stage where my vision matched the reality, right? And I think that's one of the hardest things about building a software, especially as a non-technical founder. It's very, very easy to dream up of what this thing can do. And then you go back to engineers and they're like, yeah, it's not that simple. So in the early days, Funnelytics was really kind of attracting a lot of solopreneurs. A lot of the people who were trying to launch that first marketing funnel to try, they were more of the strategists. They would use our mapping tool more so than they would use the analytics, which made sense. Our analytics didn't really work very well, to be honest. And as we started kind of evolving and improving the analytics, our market started to shift much more towards the performance marketers who actually cared about looking at the data, less so the strategists who cared about selling that strategy, whether it was internally or to a potential client. So at this stage right now, the biggest users of Funnelytics, or at least the people that get the most value out of Funnelytics, I should say, are, you know, three to ten million dollar businesses. They are the ones who run ads. They're spending money on traffic. And really, they're trying to optimize those conversions. They don't want to spend more because as they spend more, you know, their return on ad spend starts to flatline and they're struggling to figure out how to kind of scale beyond that. Um, and when they can see what happens between the ad and the purchase and they can visualize that and they can optimize those bottlenecks, they start to get a lot of value. So usually e-commerce businesses, info product, you know, info businesses, professional services, you know, the, the types of businesses that drive a lot of inbound traffic, if that makes sense.
Mike: I'm interested because obviously the audience of this podcast is very much B2B. I mean, do you see a difference between business to business and business to consumer marketers in terms of their use of analytics and their use particularly of Funnelytics?
Mikael: Yeah. The biggest difference I think is most B2B businesses truly are, they're still very divided in terms of marketing and sales. And you kind of have this to B2C typically is much more, okay, well, we are usually selling people directly to some sort of order form. Marketing is sales because everything is led towards trying to get that conversion. What we're starting to see on the B2B side is kind of this rev-ops coming in where it overlooks both. And that Rev Ops person is the one who's trying to understand the journey. The journey doesn't end at somebody filling out a form or booking a demo or going down that path. The journey ends when the deal is won. at least on the acquisition side. Now with a tool like Font Analytics, we built a lot of functionality that allows us to pull in deal pipelines and tie that back to marketing. So we can see that entire journey from that first click that sends somebody to my site to people moving down the pipeline stages. So it kind of gives a little bit of visibility across the full customer journey. But fundamentally, it is still very different. They're starting to merge a little bit more, but it is definitely different.
Mike: So it's interesting. I mean, B2B, the behavior of the marketers has changed, obviously, with the introduction of Rev Ops and viewing more of the overall journey. What about the behavior of customers? Do you think that's changed over the last few years?
Mikael: Yeah, I mean, look, B2B customers or B2C customers, they're still humans at the end of the day. They still have emotions and they still have desires and they still get triggered off of the same psychological triggers as everybody else. And I think more and more these buyers are less and less looking to speak to sales. They're more and more moving towards, I want to learn myself and I want to figure out like, is this the right thing before I move on to that sales call? Because they know it's part of that sales process. You see a lot of product led growth companies now that Even in the B2B space, it's growing and it's moving in the right direction. So the marketing is there to really create the sale at the end of the day. Right. The marketing is there not just to create awareness, but it's there to really get that person all the way to the end. And then really the conversation, the sales conversation is a formality because You know, we either have to put together a custom quote for you or because it's too expensive and nobody's going to just put in a credit card onto that order form by themselves. Right. So I think the behavior is shifting more and more towards everyone wants product led. Everyone wants to kind of go through the journey themselves. And really, we need to think of the sales conversation as a touch point in that journey. for a specific type of offer, not think of it as this is sales and this is marketing. The sales conversation is just another touchpoint. And that's the reality of it in these days.
Mike: And it's interesting because Funnelytics is not particularly expensive, but it's certainly not a negligible purchase. So do you find you need to involve salespeople in selling Funnelytics or is it very much a online self-serve business?
Mikael: Yeah, it's interesting because we tested a lot with price points and we've gone through both the low end kind of cheaper entry product led approach. We've also experimented with the higher end, you need to book a demo approach with selling pilots and higher level prices. And what's interesting is we kind of found an interesting sweet spot for ourselves now where It's not too expensive where the average person who knows the problem and understands the problem isn't willing to give it a trial because they know that if they look at any other competitor, you know, we're in that same range of, okay, performance marketing tools. It's all within kind of, let's call it the 300 to $500 a month range for really solid tools. So they're aware enough that they're not thrown off by that price point. But what's interesting is it does push away the people who are too low for us. And it creates that barrier for them because now they're sitting there and they're like, oh, that's more expensive than what I'm willing to try, which is something that we want. Ultimately, we want to make sure that we repel the people who are going to eat up our support and make it harder for us and ask for things that aren't necessarily in our roadmap. So we've been kind of trying to figure out how can we keep that product led approach with sales assistance, as opposed to having a sales led approach where everybody must speak to somebody in order to purchase. Because once you do that, now it becomes really, really challenging to scale. Now we have to build a sales team, you really have to kind of go down that path versus we've built it is people coming from a product led approach, sales is there to assist the close based on questions. And you can still book a demo, but you don't have to go down that path. So it's working out so far for us, but we're always experimenting.
Mike: It's interesting. I love the discussion about testing price points. I mean, that's fascinating that you tried such a wide range of price points to see what worked.
Mikael: Yeah, it's always interesting because it shows you very, very quickly how your market is segmented. It's an interesting dynamic to test a whole lot of price points because when you only have one price point, You start to realize that you're putting everybody in the same bucket and they're not right. So when you do your, let's say your churn analysis, even like, okay, well we have, I don't know, 8% month over month churn, which is, you know, people are sticking around for a whole year, but it's like, okay, but who is sticking around and who is staying for 24 months versus who's staying for six months. And what is the difference? And now all of a sudden you look at some of the people who are sticking for 24 months and. There are big companies who would have easily paid and gladly paid $500 a month for your $100 a month tool, right? And by you playing around with pricing, you start to really segment the market and you start to understand where do we fit and where do we really want to play, right? What's our ideal price point for the tool that we offer for the client we want to attract? And yeah, it's been an interesting experiment.
Mike: I was just to change track a bit. One of the things we've had a lot of people talk about on the podcast is the fact that the branding is kind of back. You know, there was a big boom in performance marketing. And now actually, I think a lot of brands are realizing that you can't just focus on performance marketing, you've got to build the brand, you've got to build reputation. Is there a way Funnelytics can understand the impact of brand on the purchase decision?
Mikael: Funnelytics ultimately looks at how people come to your site and how they then navigate and then do specific actions from that. So ultimately, we can look at what drove people to your site, whether it's a refer, whether it's a specific link click. So from that standpoint, you kind of get a sense of what brings people into your ecosystem. And based on how you post on social media, or based on where they come from, you can kind of get a sense of, okay, was this more of an awareness kind of brand play? Or was this more of a conversion, you know, bottom of the funnel type of piece of content, but brand is much broader than just you know, how are people getting to your site? This right here is brand. Me being on a podcast is brand at the end of the day, right? Me kind of going out there as a founder and going on a stage and speaking creates brand awareness, which is really difficult to measure. There's no way for me to know that somebody listened to the Marketing B2B podcast and now all of a sudden goes to funnellytics.io and decides to type it in directly. And I know that that's where that person came from, right? Unless there's a specific link or something like that. So not really in that sense, to be completely honest. But I think that's a really hard thing to measure in general.
Mike: Yeah, and I think if you could solve that problem, then you'd be a very wealthy person as well.
Mikael: If there's a solution to the problem, for sure. But you know what? It's an interesting battle between tracking and privacy. Right. It's funny because obviously marketers want to track everything. We just want to make sure we have a perfect profile of who you are and what you do on our site, because that allows us to, you know, improve the experience to make you convert more. And what's interesting is consumers don't want to be tracked. But the distinction with consumers is they also don't want generic experiences, right? They want very custom experiences. They want their feed to be 100 percent tailored to them. They don't want to go to YouTube and see random stuff. They want to see what they like. I love the NBA. I love music. So I want to see that stuff when I go to YouTube. So it's this weird dynamic because. Privacy policies are increasing, but on the flip side, so is personalization and custom experiences. And those two things can't really be mutually exclusive. Like you have to track people to give them the experience that they want. Um, and you have to understand their behaviors. So it's an interesting dynamic for sure.
Mike: Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, I think it's one of the big changes. You've obviously been running Funnelytics for several years now. I'm interested, I mean, other than the increase in the desire for privacy, what do you see as the big trends that have happened over the last few years in marketing? And maybe what do you see happening over the next five years or so?
Mikael: I think you know the answer to that one. It's the same thing that everybody talks about, which is one thing and one thing only AI. It's the trend. It is the thing that is completely obviously revolutionizing everything, right? And we're just at the precipice of what this thing can really truly do and how it will disrupt marketers and how it will disrupt marketing and sales and really all aspects of business in general. And I think fundamentally, if you are not using and leveraging AI to build a better machine, you're going to be left behind. And it's pretty simple. The next billion dollar company will be run by three people and a whole army of AI, right? And that's just the reality. It's happening now. And I think if we don't adopt that, we will we will fall behind. Nobody likes doing, right? Setting up tracking, analyzing data, basically coming up with the insights. I just wanted the answer, right? I just want to know, like, what do I do tomorrow in order to hit my targets? Like, tell me and typically now it's a process, right? Okay, well, let me log in and let me stitch this data together and let me analyze and let me do, you know, make sure I have this expert here who's been doing it long enough that they can do this analysis properly. And now AI can do this in a second, right? It's instant. It can tell you by feeding it the right stuff. here's what you need to do. Fix this, this, and this, and you will have this increase and you're good to go. And that's what we need to kind of move towards. And yeah, so I mean, AI is obviously the biggest trend that has come to play in the last, I don't even know, maybe since the smartphone, I don't know. I think it's bigger than the smartphone, to be honest. It's crazy.
Mike: That's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to that button I click on that says hit my targets and everything works. So everything works.
Mikael: It's happening. Your, your campaigns are going to get created. The copy is going to be rewritten. The split tests are going to be done automatically. Like it's, and it will happen, you know, and that's a, that's the future.
Mike: Mikael, before we let you go, there's two quick questions we like to ask all the guests on the podcast. And the first one really simple and straightforward. What's the best bit of marketing advice has ever been given to you?
Mikael: Wow, the best bit of marketing advice that's ever been given to me. 50% of the sales in the follow-up. That's the first thing that comes to mind right now. Most marketers think that it's about just, cool, we've got to spend money on ads, or we've got to create content. And they neglect a lot of that process. It's multiple touch points that you need to go through in order to get converts. So I'll throw that one out there. There's probably a lot of others, but this one's the first one that came to mind.
Mike: Yeah, great. I love that. And then the other question we always ask is if you're talking to someone who is just starting their career in marketing, what advice would you give them?
Mikael: Learn as much as you can about how the puzzle fits together. What I mean by that is marketing can be a machine and it should be thought of as a machine. It shouldn't be thought of as how creative is your next campaign or what does your logo look like and a lot of the stuff that falls under brand. It's all of it fits together to create a machine to turn strangers into customers and learn as much about each puzzle piece to understand how can you architect that machine for any company.
Mike: That's awesome. Mikael, thank you so much for your time. If people are listening to this, they want to find out more about Funnelytics or get in contact with you, what's the best way to do that?
Mikael: Yeah, if you want to get in contact with me, my social media of choice is LinkedIn. It's the only one I use. So find me on LinkedIn, connect with me there. Or if you want to learn more about Funnelytics, then head over to finalytics.io.
Mike: Awesome. Mikael, thank you so much for being a great guest. I really appreciate the conversation.
Mikael: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
BCF ORG Podcast - Marketing Plus with Mike Maynard
Mike Maynard recently joined the BCF ORG – The Business of Business Podcast to share insights from his marketing career and how businesses can improve their marketing strategies. Drawing from hands-on experience, Mike offers tips that you can implement right away.
This episode is for Business Owners and C-Suite Executives looking to improve performance and profitability.
Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/98-marketing-plus-with-mike-maynard/id1514673465?i=1000660874631
A Napier Webinar: Marketing B2B Technology in Japan
Register for Napier's webinar, and discover actionable strategies for European B2B tech companies that want to connect with prospects and engage key decision-makers in Japan.
This webinar features guest speaker Shoko Maki, the CEO of ISB Marketing, a B2B marketing agency based in Tokyo that specializes in helping high-tech enterprises. The webinar will cover:
- Trends shaping B2B tech in Japan, focusing on IT and other high-growth sectors
- Practical methods to identify and engage Japanese decision-makers
- High-impact marketing strategies and channels proven to deliver strong ROI in Japan
- Real-world stories about European tech companies that have successfully entered and scaled in Japan
Register to view our webinar on demand by clicking here, and why not get in touch to let us know if our insights helped you.
Napier Webinar: ‘Marketing B2B Technology in Japan’ Transcript
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Shoko Maki
Mike Maynard
Good morning. Welcome to everyone for a webinar. We're running the webinar at a slightly different time to what we normally do. So good morning to everyone in Europe.
Mike Maynard
It's great to talk to you. I'm really excited about this webinar because we're doing something different today, we have a guest speaker, Shoko Maki. Shoko is from ISB marketing, a Japanese technology marketing agency, and she's going to talk to us about how to promote B2B technology companies in Japan. So she's really an expert. I'm sure she'll tell you a lot about her experience, as well as helping you understand how to navigate the Japanese market, which is obviously very different to either Europe or the US. So Shoko. Welcome to the webinar.
Shoko Maki
Thank you for kind introduction, Mike. I'm Shoko Maki, CEO of ISB marketing. Nice. Me too,
Mike Maynard
right? I think what I should do, you're the expert on Japan. I know a lot of our clients ask about Japan, and really it great to hear from you how as a B2B Company, you can be successful in Japan. So I'll let you run the presentation.
Shoko Maki
Of course. Okay, could you see our presentation? Okay, so let's get started. Do Hey, thank you for listening. I hope you can all hear and see me well. I'm Shoko Maki, CEO of ISB marketing. Over the years, I have met over 100 B2B tech company from the EU and US, many of them share a common challenge, it's very difficult to find The right people in the Japanese market, by right people mean the decision maker, or decision making unit DM use, and yes, I understand why. It seems difficult. You know about the Japanese language barriers and time differences and the different business customers, they are real challenges. But today I want to suggest something important we should adopt our marketing strategy for the Japanese market. By the end of this presentation, where you will have the key to unlock that over to success in Japan. Before we dive in, let me briefly introduce myself, over 20 years of experience in business development for two major Japanese it enterprises. My passion for Europe is deep, and also United States. I lived in Milan with my family for three years traveling extend extensively and discovery, the beauty of its history, nature and people, I love, traveling all worldwide. In my free time, I practice Kyodo, Japanese artery. It's a beautiful martial art, and while I drive to talk about it all day, let's save that for another occasion. In this webinar, we'll cover three key areas. Firstly, I will explain why the Japanese market is so attractive for B2B tech companies. Secondly, I will show you the characteristic of DM use in Japanese enterprises. And thirdly, I will share effective marketing strategies for building relationships with these DMU.
Let's begin with our first topic. Why the Japanese market so attractive? Let's look at some data so. As you can see, Japan's IT investment has been growing year by year.
The manufacturing sector is the largest, similar to Germany's industry structure presenting a huge opportunity. Japan is also making steady progress in digital transformation, in initiatives in 2024 companies engaging men, engaged in DX, reached around 80% a steady increase on par with the US. Finally, Japanese companies are increasing their spending on foreign IT services. Our digital balance of payments has nearly doubled in 10 years. This digital defeat highlights the market openness to over overseas solutions from major foreign tech companies. In summary, Japanese enterprises are actively activated. By adopting advanced foreign technologies. This clearly shows Japan has great growth potential for foreign tech companies. Now let's move on the next part. What are the characteristics of Japan's DMU. Again, I'll focus on the DMU of large corporations in Japan. The first characteristic is consensus based and bottom up processes. This chart is a typical Japanese organizational chart. I call this structure horizontal and vertical lines.
That is, decisions involve multiple departments and levels, with junior staff often gathering information and building consensus upwards. The larger the company, the more complex this becomes. The second characteristic is risk averse. Japanese company take time choosing solutions to avoid various risks like cyber security, data leaks and system failure failures. They prioritize stability and security. The third characteristic is to value long term relationships. Once you search Japanese customer, they often become a liquid customer. You can extend your services to other divisions or even group companies by building trust. For example, one of our HR tech clients started with a successful pilot project in one unit of a Japanese Railway Company. This led to their solution being adopted across other divisions and then to their group companies. This case shows how strong and lasting a partnership can become once established in Japan, the fourth characteristic is that Japanese companies primarily obtain business information from corporate websites. This graph shows websites are the most frequently used source. In contrast, social media like LinkedIn is quite low. We are often asked if LinkedIn works here. How many users do you think LinkedIn has in Japan?
Currently? There are only about 4 million users in Japan, while growing, it's still relatively small for B2B lead generation compared to corporate websites.
Now let's move on the third topic, building relationship. How do we build relationship with DM us again, I will focus on large manufacturers, which are a core industry in Japan.
I propose five best practice. The first is creating a Japanese website and doing SEO game use use corporate websites as their main source. Please remember, translation is not enough. You should localize it for specific industry needs. A well localized website makes you a serious player in Japan. Secondly, content marketing is great for showcasing your expertise. Thought Leadership, white papers and blocks the credibility and demonstrate your value. The third is to use trade fairs. About 600 to 1000 trade fairs are held annually. This photo is at Japan. It week, the one of the most large trade fair focused B2B market. And there are an effective channel for touch points with DM use, choose events your target customer attend and always translate and localize all sales materials. Next is collaborating with local IT partners. Let's look at zoom. You know us based video conference system provider, they prioritize partner sales in Japan, especially for large core enterprises. Do you know what percentage of zoom sales in Japan are through partners?
The answer is more than 50% zoom in Japan has hundreds of partners in Japan forming a strong business ecosystem. This shows the power of local partnerships. The final point is brand awareness through industry specific PR the Japanese it market is highly competitive. Your product needs recognition, press releases and pitches to industry journal are crucial. Native Japanese speakers should handle Media Relations and peer require a long term strategy to build trust. Now I will show you two successful customer case studies that might resonate with many of you here today. First, finago, an Irish FinTech company, like many growing foreign tech firms, they faced the challenge of breaking into a new complex market like Japan and building local credibility. We provided marketing and PR support, securing CEO interviews and creating content. They achieve around 80 price missions, significantly boosting their brand awareness and credibility and successfully acquire new customers and local partners. This demonstrates how a. A targeted approach can quickly establish your presence. Second script guide a Hungarian software development company, they understood that Japanese market entry means navigating unique cultural challenges, especially in communication and sales materials, we analyzed and localized their sales materials, ensuring they resonate with Japanese clients. These localized materials are now effectively used at trade fairs and meetings maximize their businesses opportunities. This highlights the power of culturally culturally sensitive localization for your sales efforts. We have more in depth case studies and can explain our approach in detail. If you are interested in please contact us for one on one meeting. Working with a local marketing. Marketing Agency is the best way to overcome your challenges. It's the key to lab market entry, providing straightforward access to local network of experts, journalists and IT partners. The biggest advantage is developing a go to market strategies that is customized specifically for the Japanese market. You will need an expert native Japanese team who also speak English. Now let's summarize today's presentation. Today we learn about the Japanese it market its unique DM use. Building long term relationships based on trust is essential. Here are five strategies to reach DM use. Create a Japanese website with SEO, use content marketing, participate in trade fairs, partner with local ID companies and run industry specific peer campaigns. Please remember, customization and localization are key. Working with a local marketing agency can significantly help you. Next, I'd like to briefly introduce our company ISB marketing. We are marketing agencies specialized in B2B technology based right here in Tokyo. About 80% of our service are in the B2B sector, and 70% are in the tech sector. They have three core areas of expertise. First, we have a deep understanding of the deep B2B tech field in both Europe and foreign company and in Japan and Japan, we are experienced in SAS, FaaS, HR, tech, FinTech, robotics, IoT, ERP, drone, AI and other cutting edge technologies. Second, we can provide integrated marketing services from planning to execution. Third, we have a strong relationship with Japanese tech media and also IT companies. It successfully introduces our international company customer to local partners and client, and some have already started successful businesses. This is our unique advantage. Our services mainly consist of six areas, content, marketing, public relations, marketing research, website design and management, marketing advice and marketing training. We provide a combination of these service to best meet your need. We are certified partner recognized by the Japanese government and local organization, which underscores our commitment and reliability so. Before I share my final thought, I want to tell you about the special offer just for you. We prepared a valuable ebook focused on the generative AI market in Japan, it's packed with the latest insight entrant. To get your free copy, please send us a direct message on LinkedIn. You can find our LinkedIn profile by scanning QR code on the screen with your smartphone camera. Thank you.
Okay, it looks like we are coming to the end of my presentation. Before we finish, let me share one last thought this is a Japanese phrase, seiza, hi Ju. It comes from Judo martial art I mentioned earlier. Seiza, hi ju means that if you perform in the right way, the alarm will always hit the target. In other words, if you concentrate on shooting with correct form rather than just on hitting the target, the result will always follow. I believe this concept applies to business as well. We often tend to focus on sales goals and profits, but what's truly important is to concentrate on doing things the right way with the right strategy and approach. So let's take the first step towards success together with our tailored marketing strategies, we are confident that we can help you find the right way to succeed in Japan. We look forward to working with you. Thank you so much.
Mike Maynard
Shoko. Thank you so much. That was fascinating, I think, a very short time to talk about an awful lot of things. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to put them into the Q and A or into the chat. I do have a couple of questions. First, I mean, from my point of view, when you were talking in the presentation, you mentioned a lot about localization rather than just translation. So can you talk about the difference between translating for Japan and localizing for Japan?
Shoko Maki
Thank you for your yes question and yes difference between differences between transcends vision and localization. First, I will explain the difference between translation and localization. Translation is simply changing words from one language to another. The goal is to keep the meaning the same, but in a different language. For example, if we translate a software menu from English to Japanese, Japanese users can read it in their own language. This makes the correct content understandable, but it doesn't necessarily make it feel natural or easy to use in Japanese context. Localization, however, goes beyond just changing world. Let me. Let me give an example to showcase of SAP, a German software company provides ERP enterprise resource planning system worldwide. SAP has a high market share in Japan, especially for large companies, the key to their continued success is localization. For example, they've added futures that fits Japanese accounting standards and tax regulations. Japanese businesses often issue invoice definitely for. Example. So SAP includes function to manage these processes smoothly and provide support in Japanese. They adjust the product to match the culture legal requirement and business needs of a specific Japanese entities. It includes translation, but it all also cover things like adjusting current currency, symbols, data, format, usability and adding compliance features that are needed in that particular country. And furthermore, I introduced example from zoom, but it's also SAP understand the business structural difference and from business ecosystem partner link with over 100 local ID partners and sales and technical support to them. So to sum up, translation is about changing language, but localization adapts a product to make it feel local and user usable.
Mike Maynard
Thank you. I think that that's a great summary. Shoko, thank you. Another question is you talked about LinkedIn, and I know anyone who's tried to run, for example, paid campaigns in LinkedIn in Japan will know that the number of LinkedIn users in Japan is very small. Do you have any insights why that is?
Shoko Maki
Yeah, thank you for good question. I think I'll share my insights. There are, I think there are several reasons. Firstly, LinkedIn actually not well known by business people here, compared to Facebook, but Facebook also users is decreasing. In contrast Instagram and YouTube is increasing just now, actually, there are Japanese business people around us who have never heard of LinkedIn name, or some people think it's just a job hunting tool. Secondly, LinkedIn requires you know real names. And some Japanese business people do not like disclose personal information about their career, such as educational and professional background. And moha, some Japanese companies, especially traditional ones, restrict employees from disclosing business topics to avoid the risk of leaking confidential information. So we can provide yes and we can provide the data we use of social media platform LinkedIn, 2025 this year. So if you interested in please ask us if maybe.
Mike Maynard
Thank you. That's interesting. Obviously, a very different culture in Japan regarding social media to Europe and the US. I have one last question. If you've got time Shoko, one topic you haven't mentioned, I'm sure people would be interested to know about this is cold calling. Is cold calling effective in Japan?
Shoko Maki
That is, yeah, very interesting question. In Japan, actually, cold calling is known as one of the traditional way to generate generate lead, but it is not, I think, effect not effectively in B2B, because Japanese companies tend to be cautious about unsolicited or authorized calls from unknown businesses, and yes, I emphasized on building trust, so cold calling without clear appointment tend to be avoided. Furthermore, with the increase in remote working after COVID-19 telephone communication is becoming less common. Therefore, in Japan, we recommend building
Mike Maynard
for everyone listening. I'd really recommend you go to the ISB marketing LinkedIn page and you request the. Report on generative AI Shoko. Thank you so much for being a presenter. I've really enjoyed it.
Shoko Maki
Thank you once again for your time, and I just wanted to say a big thank you. You Mike and Napier team for giving us this amazing opportunity, even if even I could not your faces audiences, but I'm very happy to hear that. Thank you.
Unlocking Demand Generation: Strategies from Alex Alexin at Insightful
Alex Alexin, Head of Demand Generation at Insightful, shares how she found her way into marketing and ultimately into demand gen. She unpacks what demand generation really means today, beyond leads, and why data, analytics, and operations are at the core of effective strategy.
Learn how Insightful uses behavioral insights to refine personas, the evolving role of employee productivity tools, and how aligning sales and marketing on metrics drives better outcomes. Alex also shares a standout campaign that cut the sales cycle by 52% and highlights the value of testing, iteration, and curiosity in modern B2B marketing.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Insightful
Insightful is a workforce analytics and productivity platform designed for modern teams looking to optimize performance, boost operational efficiency, and leverage data-driven workforce management. By integrating real-time activity tracking, behavioral analytics, and automated time mapping, Insightful simplifies employee monitoring, remote team oversight, and resource allocation, all within a single, intuitive platform.
Known for promoting productivity transparency, Insightful replaces scattered reports and multiple tools with a unified, real-time visibility layer that connects daily work directly to meaningful business outcomes.
Time Stamps
00:00:18 - Guest Introduction: Alex Alexin
00:00:42 - Alex's Career Journey
00:03:14 - Understanding Employee Monitoring
00:04:04 - The Purpose of Insightful's Software
00:05:36 - Reframing Employee Monitoring
00:06:15 - Marketing Approach Overview
00:06:33 - Defining Demand Generation
00:08:11 - Identifying Target Personas
00:12:06 - Balancing Brand Building and Demand Gen
00:12:23 - The Full Funnel Perspective
00:18:04 - SaaS vs. Other Industries
00:21:32 - Successful Campaigns and Learnings
00:24:25 - Key Marketing Advice
00:25:40 - Final Thoughts and Contact Information
Quotes
"I truly believe that the heart of demand generation is the operations behind it." – Alex Alexin, Head of Demand Generation at Insightful
"It's all about how work happens and how you can really help your workforce do better or those workflows and those processes be better." – Alex Alexin, Head of Demand Generation at Insightful
Follow Alex:
Alex Alexin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandraalexin/
Insightful website: https://www.insightful.io/
Insightful on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/insightfulio/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We’d also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Alex Alexin at Insightful
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Alex Alexin
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 Alex Alexin. Alex is the Head of Demand Generation at Insightful. Welcome to the podcast, Alex.
Alex: Thank you so much for having me.
Mike: It's great to have you on the podcast. What we'd like to do first of all is just let you give us a bit of background. So, do you want to tell us a little bit about your career and how you've ended up at Insightful?
Alex: Yeah, I would love to. So, my career in marketing started very randomly. I went to school for psychology. I was one of those kids that thought I was going to be a psychologist. And then life happened. I fell into marketing as one of three jobs that I had at the time trying to make ends meet as one did in their early 20s. And I immediately fell in love with it. After my first marketing job, which was this very small book recommendation website, I actually ended up over at Prequin, which funny enough, they just recently sold to BlackRock. They took a chance on me, and I started there. The best part of that was that Mark O'Hare, he did not want to spend money on software. So, we had an internally built CRM. And with that came its usual challenges, if anyone's ever dealt with that before. But having to work with our engineers to really understand What data I needed and why and what metrics I needed and why and how to be able to get that. I mean that just kicked off my love of demand gen. I truly believe that the heart of demand generation is the operations behind it and how everything works and the data and the analytics to see what's working and what's not. So, from there, I spent five years there just having a great time. And then I went, and I tried my hand at a 17-person company as head of marketing, their first head of marketing, which also was a lot of fun. What I've learned throughout looking at my career, which has been longer than I would like to admit, years-wise, is that I really like going to a company at a certain size and a certain place for me to be able to do and build. So yes, I've had these Head of Demand Gen, Head of Marketing, Director of Demand Gen roles, but the reality is that I am the one going in and I am building out HubSpot or I'm building out Salesforce. I'm building out those attribution models and really understanding what data we need to capture and why to make sure that all of the things we do, we know if they're working or not. And we know if they're working or not quickly. All of that then led me down a what has now been a very long HR tack in the B2B SaaS world career. And so, yeah, I'm currently at Insightful. I would say that one of the main drivers that brought me here was curiosity. It was curiosity about the software, trying to understand what is it that employee monitoring software does. And everyone thinks it's this big brother thing, but it's not. It's all about how work happens and how you can really help your either workforce do better, or those workflows and those processes be better. So, it's been a really fun journey here.
Mike: So, I'm going to go back and talk a little bit about Demand Gen in a minute, but I've got to ask you about employee monitoring because I think, like everyone else, you kind of wince a bit when you hear about it. So, do you want to tell us a little bit more about why people use Insightful and what it helps them do?
Alex: Yeah, I mean, let's go to the very base of employee monitoring. I too, I wince. But the reality is, and this is going to sound so ridiculous, but the reality is that it's just like the force in Star Wars. There is a dark side and there is a light side. Yes, you can use software like this for bad, for trying to weed out slackers and who's not working and who's not working from where they said they were. That is not what we are here to do. We empower our customers to be able to find those workflow processes that aren't working. Where are things dropping? Why are they dropping? How can you fix that? And the way that we do that is through being able to track things like the best way I could describe this is think about a customer support team. Ticket gets opened, certain ticket types. How long has that ticket been opened? How many applications did someone need to go into to fix that ticket and close that ticket? Hell, how many actual people needed to open that ticket? So, we can actually automatically capture all of that and say, oh, hey, listen, for your billing questions, you have your people going into four different applications when they should probably only be going into one, maybe two. And now you're being able to see where these workflows are breaking down and be able to create best practices and training. So, I would say that's one of many use cases that I have found here.
Mike: I absolutely love that example because it's completely turning around the company spying on the employee’s kind of story. And effectively, it's the company finding the mistakes the company has made, which I think is brilliant.
Alex: Yeah, and I would say that we are one of the very few that we have an employee dashboard. You see what you're doing. You see all of your work. We obviously use it here. I would say I love going into it. I love seeing, again, how work happens, what's going on, what are all the different applications that are being used? What applications are we paying for that aren't being used and save money there? So yeah, it's definitely, it's not what people think it is.
Mike: That's awesome. And I'm sure people will be really interested in the product. But I'd like to move on to talk about your marketing approach. And the first thing I'd like to start with is demand gen. People mean a lot of different things when they talk about demand generation. So, do you want to tell me what you think it means and particularly what it means in your current role?
Alex: Yes, that's such a good question and I agree with you. The name of this has changed so much over the last 15 years of what it is that I do. I would go back to the beginning of what I said. I think that demand generation is very much analytical and its operations focused and it's understanding how everything connects to itself. So I take content, and I take product marketing, and I take information from sales, and I put that together in a way to try to reach our target customers at the right place at the right time with the right messaging. But the real core that I feel it is, is how do I track that? How do I make sure that I know who I am reaching, when I am reaching them, what timestamps I am capturing? What timestamps am I maybe by mistake, you know, overwriting versus just showing a history of why does that make a difference? I think the demand generation is also understanding the differences in your audiences. You know, if you're marketing to SMB versus mid-market versus enterprise, the data that you're capturing and what you're looking at and what's going to be important is going to most likely be different. Sales cycles, they're obviously shorter on the SMB side, they're longer on the enterprise side. For enterprise, do you really need to track every marketing touch and every sales touch in the same way that you would for SMB? Some may disagree with me, but I feel that demand gen, it's really about the data, the analytics, and how it all connects.
Mike: That's fascinating. I mean, starting from what some people view as the end game, which is the data, it's a really interesting way to do it. I think one of the things that always people struggle with the demand chain is who's the right person to reach, who's a good lead, who's a bad lead, if you want to make it really simple. So how did you decide on the personas that you target and really focus on reaching them and not other people?
Alex: That's a great question and it's very topical for what we're doing at Insightful right now. So, when I first joined about a year ago, we had an idea. We had an idea that we were targeting operations, IT, HR leaders at certain size companies. We believed that we knew what their pain points were and what their jobs to be done were and how we fit into it. We started testing that with messaging and trying to hit people up through paid advertising, LinkedIn, Google, nurturing the email. Our database is huge. Let's see if we can engage them. it wasn't really hitting the mark. And I would say that what really became interesting is once we finally filled our product marketing area, we were able to get more research into what these people were doing every day and how the differences were not actually by job title in the way that we had thought. It's more of a behavioral persona. which is very difficult to target. So now it's like, how do we figure out what those behaviors are? So what we're working on right now, and it's not as though it's some trade secret, but what we're working on right now is a maturity ladder of how to speak to different people depending on the behavior. that they are exhibiting. And so, we're going to start very just right in the middle and we're going to bring them through a questionnaire. Who are you? What are you looking to achieve? What is this? And obviously we have to do that with giving them some sort of either thought leadership piece or just something that they'll feel good about and we have some ideas on what it is that we want to do there. But I really think that what's interesting about here and this is different than some of the other places I've been to that had their personas built out and they were very clear. that this has shown me that what you think your software does, who you think your persona is, very well may change. And that's OK. And I think that there are some really interesting ways to be able to see that you do have to relook at it and see that maybe the market is going in a different way.
Mike: And that's really interesting, presumably because you've got behavioral personas. there's a customer journey or a set of customer journeys you see that maybe are less dependent upon what role the individual has and much more dependent upon the situation of the company, is that right?
Alex: Yes, that is definitely right. It's the situation of the company; it is what that person is looking to solve for. Some people, specifically for our software, some people are looking just to solve actual tracking, let's see, what tech is being used, what tech isn't being used. That's all we care about. And then you have other personas who care about how to optimize their workforce. What's that workload distribution look like? You know, You have a gigantic support center of 500 people, all different teams. One is doing much better than the other. Why is that? Is that because of certain ticket types that are going to them, the amount of tickets that are going to them? So, with that, all of those different things, you cannot put the same messaging to those two people.
Mike: And if we're talking about messaging, I mean, let's make this a bit broader. Demand gen people are sometimes painted as just focusing on leads and just like it's contacts, that's it. But how do you think the company needs to balance, you know, building the brand and building reputation versus some of the more bottom of the funnel activities?
Alex: That's a really great question. I think that sometimes people talk about brand too quickly. That's usually a problem that I have seen. Also, I would say that not every company needs to have a recognized brand. I'm sure there's a lot of brand marketers that I've worked with that are probably cursing my name right now because I am not sure that brand plays as big of a factor depending on the company. What I would say, though, is that with demand gen and just the way of thinking about it, you have to be very open to it being different everywhere you are, what demand gen means. And what I mean by that is you can walk into a company that has a very strong top of funnel. They're already doing very well. So, some people would say demand gen is all top of funnel. Like you said, it's all leads. Well, maybe it's not. Maybe now your issue is you're getting a ton of leads, but you don't know what to do with them. That too is demand gen. How are we going to nurture them? How are we going to weed out the ones that we don't want? I would also say that one of the biggest issues that I find is that a lot of demand gen marketers get pigeonholed for just that pre, not even pre-sale, but pre-opportunity creation. While we really have to look at the full funnel, I need to understand what I call suspect, which is, let's say, an email address with no name attached, no anything. I need to understand suspect to demo requested, to opportunity opened, to opportunity closed, and beyond. Let's talk now really going into retention. adoption, renewal, all of this stuff. And I do think that a lot of places are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're marketing, you're demand gen. You only think about leads. I'm like, well, if I'm only thinking about leads, then it's going to skew everything. Because then I won't know the quality of the leads. I won't know how they're working down the funnel. I won't be able to tell you a sales cycle that we would be able to predict from different channels, whether that be events or inbound or webinars, whatever it may be. And then from there, how am I supposed to forecast anything? And again, maybe people are thinking, oh, demand gen doesn't forecast, demand gen doesn't, you know, marketing doesn't do that. In the B2B SaaS space, yes, we do. We wear many hats. And I would say that we are very close to Rev Ops because the majority of these companies, we don't have Rev Ops. And so, marketing thinks about it. So yeah, I think that we have to think about the entire funnel, not just leads.
Mike: But that comes back to data. And I think one of the things that a lot of people find is getting that data and pulling it all together is incredibly difficult. I mean, how do you manage to pull data from presumably disparate systems and get it all into one sensible location?
Alex: Well, first, you have to be okay with knowing that it will never be perfect. It will never, ever be perfect. And every single company I've started at, I've been warned, the data here is terrible. The data here is dirty." I'm like, okay, it can't be any worse than any other place. And it's not. It's really not. It's funny that everyone has this idea that their data is the worst. I would say that what you need to first start with is specifically alignment with the sales team. Let's make sure that we're having the same conversation and we're using the same terminology. What is a lead? what is an MQL, an SQL? What is the funnel that we want to discuss? Once you have those definitions, then it makes things much easier. Our definition of a lead is most people's definition of an MQL. That is someone who has filled out the demo form or our free trial form. And so that makes things fairly easy. And then it starts to go into, okay, let's start talking about personas and segmentation and different Do we have our sales teams? Do we have our SMB team and our mid-market and enterprise team?" And I think that, again, it all starts with that alignment. And I know that for years it's always been sales versus marketing, sales versus marketing. Marketing coming in and saying, we're bringing all the great leads and sales saying, no, they're garbage. Yeah, that certainly has happened. But if you started off with a conversation of like, all right, what do we consider a lead? Let's talk it through. it starts to help that data cleanse work. And then, I mean, obviously whatever system you're using, whether it's HubSpot or it's Salesforce, I would say especially to the marketers, learn the backend. You have to learn, and this comes back again, you have to know the operations behind it. You have to understand that if you turn off this workflow, what's gonna happen? or if you turn on that workflow, what's going to happen? It is the most important thing, and it is really about thinking about every potential little angle.
Mike: And when you're thinking about that, do you think it's actually easier to do that in a SaaS environment than maybe in, say, an engineering company? I mean, SaaS companies have a reputation of really having been able to tie in the whole customer journey, whereas when you're selling complex engineering parts, sometimes it's a lot more difficult.
Alex: I've spent my whole career in B2B SaaS, so this is kind of all I know. I would say that what I find to be difficult is having all of the people necessary agreeing. And then not having people understand that just because we agreed on this definition today, that doesn't mean that this is gonna be the definition forever. It can change, that's okay. I spent four years at a company named Ease, it was Ease Central when I first joined, and we had decided that our North Star metric, not just for the marketing team, but for the company, was marketing influence. We thought that that was a pretty good term. Now it was, what is marketing influence? And how do we get buy-in from everyone? And we were like, okay, marketing influence, we can speak to the board of investors and say, it is an opportunity that had a marketing touch within 90 days of it opening. Cool, great, easy. Then we could talk to our VP of sales and say, okay, listen, here are the actual rules. And we built it out in Salesforce. If the marketing touch happened within 90 days of the opportunity opening and a sales touch didn't happen before then, it's marketing influenced. And then again, that definition, once we started doing the reporting against it, that definition changed. every quarter for almost four quarters until we got it perfect because first we were like, okay, marketing influence contacts, that's great and then we realized the numbers were skewed because you've got 10 contacts influenced but only one opportunity because those 10 contacts were at one company. Okay, let's now change it. We've got to go back. We've got to redo everything, and we've got to make it unique accounts. Okay, how are we going to watch unique accounts happen? Okay, let's redo and that was literally going back and reworking every single Salesforce report, which I will say my number one If anyone takes anything away from this conversation, when you create a report, whether it is in Salesforce or HubSpot or anywhere that you are doing it, use the description. Write out the description because you may think that you will remember what it is that you did and how your brain was working. You won't. So, I had 15, 20, 25 different reports that all had a similar name and I had to try to figure out which one it was. That was horrible. And then from there we realized that it wasn't just unique account that we had to do. We had to do a cool down period because now we were double counting accounts within a quarter and we needed to make sure that we were only counting it once, and that's where that 90-day cool-down period came. Iterations, be okay with it. Be open to it. Yes, it's going to be a lot of work. Yes, you're going to have to get a lot of people on board but also remember that there's really only a small group of people that you'll be working with to really figure this out. I'm not going to go over to my head of sales and talk to him and say, okay, I rethought this, I redid all of these reports, because he doesn't care. And that's okay. It's once I get to the end that I'm like, all right, here's the report. That's what he cares about.
Mike: I love that. It's fascinating hearing about some of the challenges you face. But also, what we want to talk about some of the successes. So, do you want to tell us about, you know, some of the campaigns you've seen that, you know, for whatever reason have been really super successful?
Alex: Yeah, so actually, again, at ease, I did this incredible project with our product marketing manager, where she was trying to rework our personas, and we were both working on life cycle stages. So, trying to understand the entry and exit criteria of each life cycle stage by our persona. So, I did all of the data part of it, right? I was pulling every sales and marketing touchpoint and her and I were kind of going through it to figure out Where are those intersections? What are we looking at? And after, let's see, that data, again, I want everyone to understand none of this happened overnight. This, just going through the data analysis took like two months. So that's okay. But after getting that data, then we were able to start to pinpoint the different pre-opportunity opening places by persona that we could actually start playing with. And what that looked like was depending on, and this was for them because of what our personas were broken out as, depending on your job title and the page that you first entered our funnel into, we put you into a choose your own adventure nurture program. based off of what we knew people who started in that journey went to. And we got you to places faster than you would on your own. We ended up actually being able to bring the sales cycle down by about 52%. And again, that took three quarters to get there, but we did it.
Mike: I think a lot of people, if they brought the sales cycle down by 5% would be pretty impressed. So, 52% is amazing. And that really, I think, shows the value of what you're saying about not only get the data, but use it as well.
Alex: Use it, test it, iterate on it. I will never forget as well, that first nurture program, we realized that we, by mistake, put the same people into three different programs because we missed something, because we were building it all out ourselves in Marketo. It is okay to mess up. The whole point is that those little mess ups, you're going to start to think about all of those little things as you move forward, the more mess ups that you see. And then you will have fewer and fewer and you will get to that end faster and faster. And you'll be able to see that progress faster.
Mike: Yeah, I think there's very few overnight successes that didn't take a long time.
Alex: Exactly. Even a rebrand, you know, think about a rebrand. I still get a twitch thinking about it. It's not as though one day you flip that switch and you're like, hey, our new name is Ease and every single piece of content now says Ease. No, I bet you anything that years later you can still find stuff that says Ease Central out there because we missed something.
Mike: Absolutely. Alex, it's been fascinating talking to you about this. Before you go, there's a couple of quick questions we like to ask everybody. So, the first one is, What's the best piece of marketing advice that's ever been given to you?
Alex: Don't be afraid to fail. That is definitely it. Don't be afraid to fail.
Mike: Awesome. Simple and very true. Love it. The next thing, and I'm kind of thinking you might repeat the advice now, is if you're talking to a young person who was just embarking on a career in marketing, what would your advice to them be?
Alex: Test everything. Click on everything. You're not going to break anything. Don't be afraid. That was always my fear early in my career, that if I touch something or if I ask something that I'd be afraid of what the answer was or maybe I shouldn't be asking that. Don't be afraid. Just do it. What's the worst that's going to happen?
Mike: I love it. I love it. What a positive way to end. I'm sure a lot of people have really enjoyed this interview. If people would like to contact you and maybe ask you some questions or follow up what you've said, what's the best way of getting in touch with you?
Alex: Yeah, I would say find me on LinkedIn, send me a connection request. It's Alexandra Lexin and I'd love to get in touch with anybody.
Mike: Alex, it's been great. I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Alex: Thank you so much for having me.
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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Why B2B Needs to Embrace Experimentation - Convert.com
Eddie Casado, Affiliate and Technology Partnerships Manager at Convert.com, an A/B testing tool, joins the podcast to explore the world of B2B marketing and conversion rate optimization.
Eddie highlights how Convert.com is carving out a distinct space in the A/B testing world, emphasizes the challenges B2B marketers face, particularly around internal bureaucracy and slower adoption of testing strategies, and why agility remains a key differentiator.
Mike and Eddie discuss the critical role of curiosity in navigating today’s marketing landscape and how Eddie’s diverse background informs his approach.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
- Marketing B2B Technology on Spotify
- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Convert.com
Convert is a privacy-first A/B testing and web experimentation platform built for fast-growing businesses and agencies. Known for its robust integrations, flexible experimentation framework, and ethical data practices, Convert helps teams optimize digital experiences without compromising user trust.
About Eddie Casado
Eduardo “Eddie” Casado is a systems thinker, builder, and connector who thrives at the intersection of growth, product, and partnerships. With an MBA and years of cross-functional experience, he’s known for turning ambiguity into traction and having a strong bias for action.
Curious by default and strategic by design, Eddie shares his wins, experiments, and lessons in public, helping other operators’ level up. He’s drawn to honest conversations about what works (and what doesn’t), and brings a deep respect for data, people, and long games.
Currently leading Affiliate & Technology Partnerships at Convert.com, Eddie is most energized when creating repeatable systems, learning from peers, and unlocking compounding results through aligned collaboration.
Time Stamps
00:00:17 - Guest Introduction: Eddie Casado
00:00:43 - Eddie's Career Background
00:03:40 - What Makes Convert.com Unique
00:06:59 - Maturity in MarTech and the Role of AI
00:09:23 - Challenges in B2B vs. B2C Marketing
00:10:35 - The Need for Improved Conversion Rates in B2B
00:14:04 - The Shift in B2B Customer Behavior
00:18:04 - Convert's Marketing Strategy
00:22:32 - The Role of AI in Marketing
00:24:26 - Best Marketing Advice and Career Tips
Quotes
"B2B needs to realize that people are not on LinkedIn to be sold on." Eddie Casado, Affiliate and Technology Partnerships Manager at Convert.com
"The more value you can provide, the more top of mind you are. At the end of the day, the more consideration you'll have." Eddie Casado, Affiliate and Technology Partnerships Manager at Convert.com
"I think we're just tired in B2B. We're tired of getting pitch slapped. We're tired of getting AI slapped with a generic message." Eddie Casado, Affiliate and Technology Partnerships Manager at Convert.com
Follow Eddie:
Eddie Casado on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-casado/
Convert.com website: https://www.convert.com/
Radiate B2B on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/convert-com/
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/
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to our podcast for more discussions about the latest in Marketing B2B Tech and connect with us on social media to stay updated on upcoming episodes. We'd also appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform.
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 Eddie Casado at Convert.com
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Eddie Casado
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 Eddie Casado. Eddie is the Affiliate and Technology Partnerships Manager at Convert.com. Welcome to the podcast, Eddie.
Eddie: Thank you for having me.
Mike: Well, it's great to have you on. I'm really excited. Before we get into talking about Convert.com and what you do there, maybe you can give us a little bit of background about your career and what's actually led up to your current position.
Eddie: Of course, happy to do that. So I started my career, I would say very early in my life. I was just mentioning that I had a background in music and audio. So I started in radio as a radio host and producer in my hometown in Venezuela. And, you know, there I discovered advertising as well and doing jingles and cutting up music, et cetera, et cetera. So that's where my passion kind of ignited. Soon thereafter, you know, I was already a musician, so I had a strong background in music and everything that needed to do with creative and just that I'm very creative by nature. So I, you know, I started my career thinking that I could be, you know, an engineer and live off of having a studio. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Although I did have some success in that arena, I got nominated for a Latin Grammy back in 2013, and I won a Latin Grammy for assisting an album for Alejandro Sanz back when I was living in Miami. But I soon realized that what I wanted to do wasn't just that. And, you know, I started going to school in communications, then learned and reignited that love for advertising and then went all in and got my bachelor's in advertising and sociology. started my career doing account executive at an agency in Miami called Hispanic Group. And yeah, and then just another agency tapped me in and I started doing social media. Well, this is 2014. I got to live tweet the World Cup for ESPN Deportes. And yeah, but, you know, I started doing social media, doing digital. And little by little, I started dipping my toes into more things. And I started doing paid when, you know, you wanted to do just page likes campaigns. and evolved from there on to do product, to do product marketing, analytics, more advertising, Google, PPC, et cetera, et cetera. I can't sit still. I'm very curious. So anything you put in front of me, I want to learn and I want to master. And yeah, and then little by little, I then landed at Mouselo, which was my previous role. I was the head of growth marketing there. led the company. I was the second marketing hire, 12th marketing hire in the company, left when we were more than 50, double digits in growth, and then came on the opportunity of joining Convert, which is an A-B testing platform that helps experimentation professionals in the conversion rate optimization space to improve conversion rate across their journey on websites.
Mike: Well, that's amazing and a really interesting career. Very varied. I love that. You've mentioned a little bit about what Convert.com does. So I've got to say, there's a lot of A-B testing tools, a lot of optimization tools. So why is Convert special? What do you do that's unique?
Eddie: So what I have to say is that with the sunset of Google Optimize, which was the go-to tool, which was free, you know, belonged to Google. And with that sunset, Convert has actually taken center stage as one of the go-to platforms, if not the go-to platform. for experimentation professionals. And what we do really well is that we came about as an A-B testing tool. Our founder, Dennis, started this as a personalization tool and then little by little hashed out a lot of features and ended up creating a product that focused on empowering experimentation on web services. So we have been here since the beginning. which is a lot to say considering that as fast as they come, they also go when it comes to new platforms, as you're mentioning. So I think that what we do really well is that we have a superb support team and a very stable product that has been battle tested through the years to provide the best experience not only for marketers and CRO professionals, but also For customers that are unknowingly being part of experiments that lead to better experiences, right? Most of the tools, I mean, now with technology you see it less and less, but a lot of the tools often don't realize the impact experimentation has on the user experience. And that's something that Dennis and the team have been focusing a lot on, having anti-flickering technology, not affecting loading speeds, making sure that there are these things in place so that whenever you're joining a page, you know, you don't experience anything. You know, that flickering of like, oh, there was one page, and now there's another page. That doesn't happen with Convert. So that's what I can say on the surface, strong team, strong culture, bootstrap, been around for ages, super stable, which are things that customers don't realize how much it impacts when they establish a relationship with a platform like Convert.
Mike: I love that. I think it's an indication now we're getting more and more guests from MarTech companies talking about the importance of quality, reliability, good support, rather than just throwing lots of new features. I think it's a real positive reflection that Martek is becoming mature. Do you agree? I agree.
Eddie: I think that maturity is also one of those things that it's hard to pinpoint when you're ready for a tool or to experiment. Most of the time, this maturity comes at a huge loss, which is not having time. And sometimes you're stumbling into a new technology because of the needs of a company, etc, etc. So that's I think that yes, we're maturing in more tech. The problem is that technology is advancing so fast that our maturity levels are not catching up as fast as technology. For example, in my day-to-day work, I am embracing AI as much as I can. You know, it's great, but the moment I learn one LLM, there is a new one out there, or there is a new thing that I have to learn. There's a genetic AI and tomorrow is going to be a new thing. So I literally don't have enough time in the day to mature through the things that I am learning, which, you know, I think it's the rule of the game. especially for when I'm a generalist, even though I know things really well, like paid and strategy and those things, I'm a generalist at the end of the day. So I try to know as much as I can about something so that I can speak about it. That's kind of my threshold. So when I can speak about it comfortably, I feel like, OK, I know this enough to move on. So at least that's how I keep up.
Mike: I love it. I think it's a great approach of dealing with all the change we're facing in marketing. I'm just interested. I mean, you mentioned ConvertNow is one of the go-to tools. I mean, who would be your customers?
Eddie: So our customers are companies, small business, mid-market, and enterprises, although our sweet spot is in small business and mid-market. experimentation professionals, that is CRO professionals, conversion rate optimization professionals, people that are dealing with optimizing experiences, right? When you get to the bottom of it, our customer is just looking out to improve their conversion rate. That is our customer, which is very, very broad if you think about it. Because at the end of the day, what I found, at least in my experience, is that growing right now, unless you have a huge pocket, it's really, really hard because it's so competitive out there. And the things that will make you succeed are things that are often overlooked, like having a strong brand, having strong positioning, knowing how to talk to your customers. having the right product market fit and targeting the right personas and companies. Those things are unfortunately so for a lot of companies, not the first thing that they look at. So they rely on paid and they rely on this other, let's call it synthetic methods for growth. that at the end of the day, come back and bite you because you are shackled. You are essentially a slave to paid. You're essentially a slave to other activations that are not necessarily feeding your organic growth. So when that stops, everything comes to a standstill. So having that challenge of not growing as fast because you need big pockets or deep pockets and not having the patience or the, well, not maybe the patience, but the, how do you call it? The runway to effectively invest in these things that are slow burning. Then you look at, okay, so I'm getting this traffic, which is how this all started, by the way. This is how Dennis started out. He had his own business and moved to Mexico and the 2008 crisis hit in. And all of a sudden he lost 50% of the traffic for his business. And with that, his revenue, And he needed to figure out a way to convert two times more than what he was doing before he lost all that traffic. That's how it started. So that's kind of the crux of the issue. Companies that are essentially looking out to improve their conversion rate because of some of these challenges that they're facing. Now, there are other companies that are more mature and most likely bigger that have or are looking into promoting an experimentation culture within the company. And that's when a big company will actually reach out to convert experts or specialists or CRO people, heads of digital, and set up a program in-house. And that's when we would come in.
Mike: I mean, that's really interesting. I think, you know, your story about Dennis outlines the real benefit of maximizing that conversion rate on the website. I think, you know, the perception is, and maybe this is true, maybe not, that perhaps B2B lags behind B2C, particularly B2C e-commerce, in terms of, you know, running A-B testing and really using CRA. Do you think that's fair?
Eddie: I would say it is. I would say it is. And I have a few ideas as to why this happens. B2C is known to be faster, less red tape, smaller operations, more agile. The bigger the company gets, the more red tape it adds. It's inevitable, just because you have to keep status quo. That's just the way the cookie crumbles. You can't shy away from it. As much as you want to be agile, as much as you want to run agile, The reality of it is that at the end of the day, a bigger operation requires more guardrails. Whereas in B2C, which are often smaller, I'm not saying that all B2Cs are the same way. There are B2Cs that are huge, thousands of employees. But it's just a matter of how B2B and B2C starts when they are starting the business. And unfortunately for B2B, they lag because it just requires more muscle to put together something like this in motion. If you're B2C, and maybe I'm wrong, but at least in my experience. It's different on how you come across experimentation and do experimentation. But I fail at putting together an experimentation program for a company that wasn't growing. The traffic wasn't there. SEO was taking a long time to cook. We weren't able to grow our traffic for the past year. And I just said like, hey, listen, if we can't grow the traffic, we need to grow our conversion. So let's set up a conversion. I called it, what was it? A conversion hub inside the company. And I just need this tool so that I can run this experiments and get this out of the way. And I wasn't able to achieve that. And I had been spending a lot of time in that company. Like I had already built the credibility and the capital to say, like, this is the bet that is going to take us to that next level. And unfortunately, it wasn't a huge company, but it didn't take off because stakeholders didn't believe in that. Stakeholders weren't looking for something like that. Because it meant that somebody in the team had to now take care of another vertical within the team. So it's just, that's just, you know, the, how do you call it? The share game. You know, you pull one share and somebody falls and then somebody else takes it and it's just like, you're dancing around and it's hard. Whereas in B2C it's more normal to have this kind of environment in which everybody's wearing the same hat and everybody's trying to sell and everybody's trying to do the same thing. So I think, and also the fact that e-commerce is inherently set up to do experimentation and A-B testing, it's just one of those industries that you can't go wrong with it. Whereas when you go to SaaS, It's not the same without adding the extra challenge of having enough people visiting the site and running enough experiments with enough time to get to something that is statistically significant. And now I'm getting a lot into the details, but that's just my thinking is that it's just easier because operations are smaller, maybe easier to adopt new technologies. easier to find out what is the next thing to do in order to improve. Whereas in B2B, everything needs to go through the channels. And in B2C, you can make the argument that they also need to go through channels. But in my experience, having done freelancing, having been involved in operations that are smaller, it's just easier. They hire you to do something and they trust you to do it. In B2B, it's slightly different depending on the type of culture that you're in.
Mike: Yeah, I mean, I think the bureaucracy in B2B marketing teams is always a challenge. There's always more of a fear of losing what you've got rather than a hope of gaining more. I mean, do you think that actually B2B is going to change? I mean, we're seeing a lot of research saying now that B2B customers are spending less time with sales, more time, you know, doing what's called self directed research. So do you think B2B companies are going to realize they have to improve these conversion rates now, because that matters even more than it did before? They have to improve marketing, in essence.
Eddie: Yeah, no, I mean, it's the truth. It's the hard truth. We've neglected, and I consider myself part of that bunch, we've neglected the fact that people are not consuming content to buy something. They are looking for value. What I found on social, what I found in my strategies is that the more value you can provide, the more top of mind you are. And at the end of the day, the more consideration you'll have. It's just a simple funnel. A lot of the B2B companies nowadays are just trying to sell you from the awareness layer. They're just trying to sell, sell, sell, because they need, again, back to that bureaucracy that you were talking about, they need to justify the person. They need to justify the channel. They need to justify the numbers. But there are some things, like there are some things so hard to justify that you can only do it if you turn everything off. And I'm known to take risks, and I'm known to be bold, and I'm known to be the one that says, what happens if we just decide to shut everything off? And thankfully, I've had people around me that have been like, yeah, let's just do it, see what happens. And I can tell you, two out of three times that I've done that experiment, I've found that my marketing is not just affecting the channel, but the overall marketing strategy and impact. That means organic searches, direct traffic, referral traffic, social traffic, etc, etc. It's just not attributed properly, which is, you know, the issue of our for this decade and the decades to come. But it is having an impact. So back to back to your question. B2B needs to realize that people are not on LinkedIn to be sold on. Also technology, again, technology comes back and it's a great help, but it's also a detriment to our ability to actually sell. I cannot tell you how many times I get pitch slapped on LinkedIn by just accepting a connection request. Cold email stopped working. Apparently now cold calling is taking off again. And I don't know if it's a fad or I don't know if it's somebody trying to, you know, fuel that stream. But I think it's just they're tired. We're bombarded every single day with useless content for my moment, for my persona, really bad targeting. Again, there are so many bad examples out there of targeting that I'm getting ads from not a clinical trial, but a pill for something. And I go in because I get really frustrated when I see these things. And I go in and I try. So what is it targeting for this? And it's just like anybody in Latin America. I was like, OK, so whoever's running this account, man, it's don't really know what they're doing. You know, so I think we're just tired in B2B. We're tired. That's my feeling, at least. I'm tired of getting pitch slapped. I'm tired of getting A.I. slapped with a generic message. I'm tired of the calling. Hi, dear. You know, like that's not the way you do business. You know, I'm tired of that. So whenever I accept somebody, if I get pitch slapped, I just call it out and say, OK, I'm not interested. But that takes time. So. That's what I would say. We are tired of getting sold on and we just want value. That's why we spend time elsewhere. That's why we spend time on Instagram, on TikTok and these things. And we level up outside of the normal channels.
Mike: I mean, that's really interesting. I think, you know, anyone in marketing who's on LinkedIn has, you know, had these endless pitches. I think I get about three a day from lead gen agencies. It's unbelievable. I'm interested to know then, given all this, what's your strategy at Convert for growing the business and attracting new customers?
Eddie: So what I can tell, I've only been at Convert for a month now, this is May 29th. And what I can tell you is that before I joined Convert, I knew what they were doing and I knew the people in the company. I knew Dennis, I knew Trina, at least I knew some names. So the strategy for us is to build value. And it goes along with our company ethos and our culture. If you go onto our website, you're going to read about Holacracy. You're going to read about our culture. We're doing conscious business. You know, we don't want every business. We want the business that's right for us and for our customers as well. So being that selective, I think allows you to be, branding-wise and positioning-wise, a little bit smarter and competitive. We can't compete with Optimizely. You know, they're an enterprise-level tool, which we're not, and we are not pretending to be. We don't want to be an enterprise-level tool. We don't even have enterprise account executives. If an enterprise wants to sign with Convert, they just can go into the website and buy it. No red tape, no book a demo, no nothing like that. There is a demo available if you want it. And I think that speaks a lot about how we're doing marketing as well. We're still high performance. We still want to hit the numbers, but we're doing it consciously. And we want to track their right type of businesses to us. So the marketing strategy over the past, I would say five to 10 years have been all about positioning. And I can't tell you how many times it's so easy right now to talk to people now that I'm in partnerships. I thought it was going to be harder because when I was in growth at Mousel, it was really hard to get people to engage. It's so easy to do it now with Convert just because they have built that recognition on the market. They have built that authority, that legitimacy in the market. So the strategy is positioning a lot of content and value above all. that could encompass the whole strategy. Value above all. Trina, who's the CMO, it's all about value. Like there's nothing we do for a sale. It's all about value. And again, improving that consideration stage. In fact, we're actually, part of my joining the company was also because of the prospect of contributing to the bottom of the funnel as well, which is what I've been doing over the past five years, because they've been focusing a lot on building the tofu and mouth. Right. So there is so much consideration. So everything has been about positioning a lot of partnerships, strong technology partnerships, strong community as well, understanding what they need, just being there for them, being human. You know, at the end of the day, it sounds cliche, but that's what I'm finding that their success right now, outside of having a strong product and a strong positioning in the market, yada yada. It's just the power of value, just providing value. Right now, we're about to release a new agency report with Craig Sullivan. We interviewed more than 30, 33 agencies, 250 people actually contributed to the report, and we're just going to be releasing out. No, you know, no gating, no nothing. It's just value. The current state of CRO agencies for 2025 and the next years. So it's all about providing value. At the end of the day, whenever agencies, which is another big part of our ICP, or conversion rate optimization professionals choose a tool, They want to know who they're getting in bed with. They want to know whether they can rely on them, if they have somebody to talk to. And that's how the marketing strategy has been unfolding over the past few years.
Mike: I mean, that's really inspiring. I guess one of the questions is, we touched on marketing technology earlier, and clearly it's still advancing very, very quickly. Do you think with the advances in MarTech and particularly in AI, actually focusing more on the human side and the value is actually going to be a differentiator? Or do you think the power of AI and mass customization is really going to move it much more to automation?
Eddie: I was having a conversation earlier about, you know, the role of AI. And in 2016, I was working for a company called Vertigo Music, part of Tiny Horse, which was an agency spearheading influencer marketing when it started, you know, when it was just, I don't think they were even called influencers at that point. And I remember working on this project and there was nobody working in analytics or attribution. And being the curious guy that I am myself, I said, I'm just gonna leak this, right? And I became quickly ingrained into the team and development team, learned how to write user stories and acceptance criteria and all these technical things in order to get this platform set up. And I was really good at it, it was second nature to me. But I was really bad at asking the questions. I was bad. I was really bad. I didn't know how to put a report together. I knew what I wanted to measure, but I didn't know what questions to ask myself. And I feel like that's the same way that it's the same thing that's happening with AI. You know, it's great at digesting information, but the prompt is everything. That's why you see so many prompt engineers and this type of titles and people like talking about prompting. because it's all about what you feed it and how you steer the conversation one way or another. Tools have always been there and they're going to continue to improve. But I think it's going to take, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's going to take a lot of time before they can achieve the same level of critical thinking that we have, considering the sum of our experiences. So for me, it's going to be a mixture of the two, obviously. Being at the front of technology and innovation, especially when it comes to AI or otherwise, is going to set you apart. But the way you do business and the way you actually manage your relationships, at the end of the day, is what's going to make the biggest difference of all, if you ask me. At least that's my thinking today. That's my opinion today.
Mike: That's fascinating, a really thoughtful approach, I think, to the changes in technology. I mean, Edius has been amazing. It's been really interesting. Before we go, there's just a couple of quick questions we like to ask everyone. So the first one is, what's the best piece of marketing advice you've ever been given?
Eddie: You know, I've I've had great colleagues and I had I've had great leads, but I haven't had a lot of mentors, you know, that has stuck with me. I mean, I've moved around so much in terms of my life that it's been hard, but I keep my relationships around. But there are two things I can I can say is actually one in growth, do things that don't scale. It's always like that, that mantra you come back to. And it's just like, hey, I did this thing and man, it's hard to do. It takes time, but God, it works. So I think that's the best piece of advice. I don't even think it's advice. Nobody gave it to me. I read it somewhere. And it's just, do things that don't scale seems to be true, even today.
Mike: I love it. That's very different to what a lot of people say. And I think it's very true. Sometimes the things that don't scale really are the things that move the needle. The second question we love to ask is about careers in marketing. So what would your advice be to a young person just starting out in a marketing career? Be patient.
Eddie: Be patient because things take time. You can easily get a lot of imposter syndrome by just scrolling through Reddit or LinkedIn or anything because of everybody's achievements. But for one achievement they're sharing, I guarantee there are 20 failures. So be patient with yourself, pace yourself, and also have a plan. Know where you wanna go, know what tools you need and what skills you need to get there, and just keep trucking along. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. So be patient, be humble, be gentle with yourself, and yeah, there are a lot of advices in there, but the main one is be patient. That encompasses it all. And especially if you're launching a campaign, be patient. Some things take time. If you're running ABM, be patient. If you're running paid, be patient. So be patient.
Mike: I love it. Eddie, thank you so much for your time. I'm sure you're incredibly busy, having just started only a month ago at Convert. But thank you for giving your time and those amazing insights. I really appreciate it. Of course. Thank you for having me again, and I look forward to being on call again and sharing some more insights. Fantastic. Thanks for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology. 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 napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
Get Your Targeting Right: Why It Matters in B2B Marketing
In B2B marketing, who you target matters just as much as how you market. That’s why more companies are turning to Account-Based Marketing (ABM). Instead of spreading your message to anyone who might listen, ABM helps you focus on the accounts that are most likely to buy. It help saves time, money, and effort. But only if you do it right.
A big mistake marketers make with ABM is trying to go after too many companies without knowing who’s actually in the market. Only about 5% of businesses are actively looking to buy at any given moment. That means if you’re not targeting that 5%, most of your effort could be wasted. Knowing who’s ready to buy, and when, is the first key to making ABM work.
Accurate data is essential. If your data is off, you might end up pitching the wrong company altogether. (Think trying to reach Coca-Cola and ending up with a small independent bottler instead.) Bad data wastes your time and damages your credibility. So, it’s important to keep your contact lists clean and your information up-to-date.
Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) goes beyond just industry or company size. The most effective marketers dig into the specific problems their product solves. If you understand the pain points of your audience, you can create messages that actually connect and, hopefully, convert.
Intent data helps, too. It shows you which companies are researching solutions like yours, so you can reach out when they’re most interested. Timing matters, and intent data gives you a better shot at catching buyers at the right stage in their decision-making process.
But while having the right data and a strong ICP is important, what sets successful ABM campaigns apart is context. Riaz Kanani, CEO of Radiate B2B, emphasizes that intent data alone isn’t a silver bullet. It’s a signal—not a guarantee—that a company is interested. Without brand awareness or relevance, even the best-timed outreach can fall flat. That’s why building awareness before engagement matters. The results? Companies using intent-driven campaigns have seen up to 3x faster engagement and higher click-through rates compared to static ABM lists.
To sum it up: successful ABM isn’t about casting a wide net. It’s about using accurate data, smart segmentation, and relevant brand-building to focus on the right companies, at the right time, with the right message. When done well, ABM campaigns drive not just awareness, but real conversions.
Want to learn more about ABM and how intent data drives better B2B campaigns?
Check out our episode of the Marketing B2B Technology podcast, where Riaz Kanani, Founder and CEO of Radiate B2B, breaks it all down.
Looking to find out how we can support your ABM efforts? Visit our ABM services page or get in touch.
The Power of Brand Marketing: Transforming B2B Marketing Strategies – Sean Adams – Brand Metrics
Sean Adams, CMO of Brand Metrics, discusses brand measurement and its impact on how B2B marketers approach their advertising strategies.
He highlights the importance of understanding consumer perception through metrics such as awareness, consideration, preference, and action intent, while advocating for a holistic approach that goes beyond last-click attribution.
He also shares his thoughts on the challenges B2B marketers face in measuring brand effectiveness and emphasizes the need for consistent messaging.
- Marketing B2B Technology on Apple Podcasts
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- Marketing B2B Technology on napierb2b.com
About Brand Metrics
Brand Metrics’ is a technology company measuring brand lift at scale. Brand Metric’s unique SaaS solution measures campaigns as small as 50k impressions across display, video, branded content, and now CTV, delivering four key metrics – awareness, consideration, preference and intent - that are benchmarked against 50k+ campaigns across 122 industry categories. Brand Metrics is trusted by 60+ publishers, including NYT, The Guardian, and Bloomberg. More info at www.brandmetrics.com
About Sean Adams
Sean is Chief Marketing Officer at Brand Metrics, where he helps raise the profile and relevance of the company and its unique ad effectiveness solution to the advertising and media industry.
He has previously held a variety of strategic roles in advertising and media agencies across the UK and Australia. He later ran his own research company in Sydney for 10 years, before returning to the UK to lead the commercial insight team at News UK. He then joined Brand Metrics.
Time Stamps
00:00:17 - Guest Introduction: Sean Adams, CMO of Brandmetrics
00:02:46 - Overview of Brandmetrics
00:03:56 - Understanding Brand Lift
00:05:30 - Challenges of Last-Click Attribution
00:11:22 - B2C vs. B2B Brand Measurement
00:12:45 - Importance of Brand in B2B Marketing
00:14:02 - Advice for B2B Marketers on Branding
00:16:16 - Examples of Brand Lift Success
00:20:43 - Brandmetrics Marketing Strategy
00:24:36 - Quickfire Questions: Marketing Advice
00:27:02 - Contact Information and Closing Remarks
Quotes
"Brand lift is a way to try and measure the changes to consumers' perception towards a brand as a result of exposure to an advertising campaign." Sean Adams, CMO at Brand Metrics.
“One of the problems with digital marketing is there can be a desire to measure it, but a lot of things come down to the click." Sean Adams, CMO at Brand Metrics.
“If you continually do short term tactical activity, what that will do in the long term is it will damage your brand. I think that's true for B2B as well as big consumer companies." Sean Adams, CMO at Brand Metrics.
Follow Sean:
Sean Adams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanadams13/
Brand Metrics website: https://www.brandmetrics.com/
Radiate B2B on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brand-metrics-sweden/
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 Sean Adams at Brand Metrics
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Sean Adams
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 Sean Adams. Sean is the CMO of Brand Metrics. Welcome to the podcast, Sean.
Sean: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Mike: It's great to have you on. So, we always like to start by learning a little bit about you. So, if you could tell us a little bit about your career and why you've chosen Brand Metrics as your current company.
Sean: Yeah, of course, of course. It's an interesting question because it makes you quite reflective on, you know, kind of how you've ended up where you've ended up. And I have to say, it wasn't carefully planned. It's more of an unplanned accident, I think. I didn't have a 10-year vision. But what I've kind of done over my career is I've always done things that interest me and I've always been open to new opportunities. So along the way I've become, I guess, a bit of a magpie in terms of picking up skills and experience as we go. So I started out working in advertising in London. I was an account manager at an advertising agency. I worked there for a little bit, I then moved to Australia, still in the advertising game, and there I shifted from account management into account planning, so I took on a more kind of strategic research-focused role. I then moved from a creative agency into a media agency, and again I had a strategic role there looking at the kind of relationship between people and brands and advertising and media, and trying to find out the right context for advertising. Also in Australia, I set up a research company. So I did a lot of work in the area of kind of media and advertising and brands in Australia. I then returned back to the UK and I moved into the publishing world where I worked at News UK for four years and I ran their commercial insight team. So I was responsible for a range of things, part of which was proving the effectiveness of advertising on News UK sites. And more recently, I've sort of been kind of gamekeeper turned poacher. I've moved from the publishing world into the ad tech world. And I'm now kind of working for a company that helps publishers like News UK measure the effectiveness of advertising on their sites. So I've covered a fair bit of ground, not all planned, some of it more opportunity driven, but I guess at the heart of it all has always been advertising and effectiveness. I've seen it through different lenses, if you like.
Mike: Perfect. So let's dig into Brand Metrics. Do you want to give us a bit of a background on what Brand Metrics does? Sure, sure.
Sean: We're best described as an ad tech company, and we help measure brand lift at scale. So that's our proposition. And what we've done, the company was set up in 2018, and what it tried to do was to take technology in order to address an area that's traditionally been addressed by research companies and panel companies. So it's using technology, it's using algorithms to try to automate the process, so to make Brand Lift more available at greater scale to more people. We supply four metrics every campaign we measure. So those metrics being awareness, consideration, preference, and action intent. And we're a SaaS platform as well. So it's designed to be really easy for our customers to work with us. And it means they can measure campaigns quickly, efficiently, and at an effectively low cost. And our ambition, I suppose, is to turn brand lift measurement, which I'm sure we'll talk about a bit more, from a more ad hoc piece of research into something that's more like a metric. So it's something you kind of expect to get on pretty much every campaign.
Mike: So let's talk about brand lift. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people listening, they're B2B marketers, they understand brand, but maybe they haven't done a lot of research around, you know, their own brands and how people see them. So what exactly do you mean by brand lift? You mentioned, I think, four parameters you measure.
Sean: Yeah, yeah. So I guess brand lift is, it's a way to try and measure the changes to consumers' perception towards a brand as a result of exposure to an advertising campaign. So you run your campaign, you hope it has an effect on the brand, on your brand, but it's a way of trying to measure the effect that it does have. And there are various metrics that can be measured. We measure those four metrics, awareness, consideration, preference, and intent. And we measure them against a baseline. So the aim of a brand lit study is to try and understand the impact that the campaign has had on brand perceptions. So it's typically those mid-funnel metrics prior to any kind of click. Because I think one of the problems with digital marketing is There can be a desire to measure it, but a lot of things come down to the click, you know, last click attribution and things like that, which is a bit of a blunt tool, to be honest. You know, advertising can work in lots of different ways that don't necessarily lead to a click. And we're about trying to provide a more holistic way of measuring what actually goes on prior to that point.
Mike: Yeah, I always think last-click attribution is the same to those playground games of you touched it last. Yeah, absolutely.
Sean: I read an article about this a couple of weeks ago, a particularly good site actually called Adatat, if any of your listeners are interested. And they were talking about if you were sitting in a restaurant and a chef had produced the most beautiful meal and then the waiter delivered it to your table, you wouldn't give all the credit to the waiter. So it's quite a nice kind of analogy of saying there's an awful lot that goes on behind the scenes and just because someone delivers the last click doesn't mean they're responsible for the effect.
Mike: Absolutely, totally agree with you. So how do you measure brand? If you're trying to get into the heads of the audience that the brand is trying to reach, so are you doing that through surveys?
Sean: We are, yes. I mean, we do it perhaps a little bit differently. I mean, there are various companies that measure brand lift and they're all about trying to measure the effect of advertising activity on perceptions. The traditional methodology is kind of typically using research panels, dividing people into two groups, an exposed group and an unexposed group. asking them some questions about the brand and then comparing the results. And the hope or the expectation is that those who are exposed to the campaign now have a better perception towards the brand on one or more metric. We do things a little bit different. We were set up in 2018 around the time of GDPR. And as I said before, we try to use technology to automate the process, to make it as simple and streamlined as possible. So we don't use panels. We integrate directly with publisher sites. So we have a script that sits on the publisher site. What it does is it collects two bits of information. It collects exposure information because we think how much you're exposed to a campaign is actually quite important. You know, how many times have you seen it? How long have you seen it for? We collect exposure information and then we retarget a question on the publisher's site to people who we know have been exposed. So we're capturing two bits of information, exposure information and the answer to a survey. And that survey, it's a single question. We don't get them to answer a long report. We just want them to answer one question and that one question we're able to calculate four metrics. So I guess what we're doing is we're doing it all within the publisher's site, we're making it a single question and we're then using algorithms to use all that exposure information to calculate the lift. So all of that goes on underneath the bonnet but our aim is to use this technology to measure as simply as possible without having to go out and find samples of people in panels.
Mike: And that sounds like it's potentially a much more cost-effective way of doing it. I know that, you know, brands we've worked with that have tried to do some sort of assessment of how people perceive their brand. I mean, putting together panels in B2B is incredibly difficult and incredibly expensive.
Sean: It is, yeah. And the more specific your audience is, the harder it is to find people. Because if you want to speak to a senior hedge fund manager or something, the odds are they're not really going to be sitting on a research panel. They've got better things to do with their lives, to be honest. But there's a chance they might answer a single survey question on the site that they regularly visit. So we figure we've got a better chance of getting to people, as you say, more effectively, more cost-efficiently.
Mike: So that sounds really positive. I know that anyone who's tried to put together a panel will immediately be thinking this is a great idea. You mentioned that you run on the publisher's site. So who exactly are your customers? Are you selling to the publishers and then the publishers selling the value of the information to their advertisers? Or do the advertisers buy data from you as well?
Sean: So our core product has been on the publisher side. So most of our current customers are publishers or networks and they come to us and they integrate our technology onto their site. So yes, from their point of view, the benefit of doing this is they're able to prove the effectiveness of advertising on their sites. So without this information, someone might advertise on their sites and at the end of the campaign be none the wiser as to whether or not it worked. So it's their way of building accountability into how they deal with their advertisers.
Mike: So that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I know I've seen campaigns where people have run digital branding campaigns and they've measured them on clicks because there's really nothing else to measure on, but it's such a crazy thing to measure on because you're not actually trying to generate the click. So I think that's really good. So, I mean, I guess the question is a lot of B2B marketers will be thinking, yeah, okay, so I understand big consumer sites, you know, clearly this is gonna make sense. But what about some of the smaller publishers? Is brand metrics a tool that a smaller publisher could potentially use and implement?
Sean: Yeah, yeah. I mean, when we first launched, a lot of our early customers were big, big publishers. So a lot of news publishers. Our first couple of publishers in the UK, for instance, were Financial Times and The Guardian. So working with those kind of publishers, you know, we work around the world with the likes of New York Times and Washington Post, publishers like that. But we also work with much smaller publishers. So, you know, a UK example is we work with National World, who is a company that has lots of local newspapers, so newspapers all around the country. I think they've got about 170, 180 different very, very localised sites. And for them, they're not advertising to the, you know, the Kochs and the British Airways. They're advertising to the local kind of SMBs that operate in their area. So they use our technology as well. And the interesting thing with them is that they're almost kind of re-educating some of the local businesses. Look, don't just think about this as a click. Think about the effect your campaign is having on your brand. And that's really important. So it's been quite a re-education exercise. And for National World, it's been an additional metric that they can add to all the other metrics they capture that talks more about brand, less about performance, if you like.
Mike: And it's interesting, I mean, do you think that a lot of those big consumer brands, you mentioned Coke, they obviously care a lot about their brand, they've got a lot of budget, but do you think those B2C brands are actually much more active in terms of measuring how effective their brand advertising is than perhaps some of the B2B brands?
Sean: I think traditionally, yes, I think that's the case. I mean, you know, as for why I'm sweeping generalization time, I guess, but consumer companies tend to have bigger brands, they tend to have bigger budgets, and maybe kind of marketing and brand is more at the kind of center of what they do, you know, so it's part of their DNA, if you like. Whereas B2B companies often might have shorter term objectives, they might be a bit more sales focused, and perhaps they're looking for a shorter term ROI, so therefore more performance metrics are perhaps more relevant to them, and the idea of brand feels a bit kind of unnecessary in a way, you know, in the short term. But that said, I mean, there's a lot of industry studies that, I mean, Field and Binette's long and short of it. It's a kind of classic case of talking about the importance of brand building to ensure long term brand health. So if you continually do short term tactical activity, what that will do in the long term is it will damage your brand. I think that's true for B2B as well as big consumer companies.
Mike: Yeah. And I think also perhaps sometimes B2B marketers tend to undervalue the importance of brand because they assume, well, we're selling something technical, for example. It's going to be built on a technical decision. But actually, I don't know what you think, but I see in a lot of situations that customers using brand as a way to reduce perceptions of risk and feel more comfortable. I mean, do you agree with that? Do you see that with your work?
Sean: Yeah, totally. Totally. I mean, there's another interesting study known as the 95-5 rule, which applies very much to B2B. And that is that only about 5% of your target audience is likely to be in market at any given moment in time. So 95% of your potential customers are out of market. And I mean, if you think about that, then when they come into the market, they're probably going to move towards brands they're perhaps familiar with or have a level of trust about. And really your challenge is to, you don't know when they're going to come into the market. So your, your challenge really is to make sure that you're one of those more trusted brands at the moment when they come into the market. And if you don't support your brand, the danger is you're just giving competitive advantage to your, to your competitors. So in that, in that respect, if you're most of the time, you're part of the 95%, make sure that you're at least a familiar part of that group.
Mike: That sounds like really good advice. You know, when people come into market, they've got to be familiar and have some preference for your brand. I mean, do you have any other advice for B2B marketers about what they should be doing with their brand and maybe what they should be doing around measurement?
Sean: I mean, in terms of what to be doing around their brand, I think it's having a sort of a clear view on what your brand stands for. And I think there's a few bits to that. I mean, I think the first thing is having a clear understanding of your customer. You know, what's important to your customer? What are their motivations? What are they looking for in your category? And that's what they think, not what you think they think. And sometimes there's a difference there. So I think having a clear perception of what your customers want is the first thing. I think the second part of that is having a view on who your competitors are. You know, what are their positionings? What are they offering that you're also offering? What are they offering that you're not offering? And how does that relate to what's important to the customer? So having a bit of a map of the marketplace of where you sit. So I think if you've sort of, if you've managed to scope that out, then I think the other two things to do, the first thing is to have a clear proposition. You know, what do you stand for? What is your What is your point of difference? How would you differentiate yourself against competitors? And then having done that, then I think it's about making sure that all your communications is consistent, is distinctive, you know, and that can be anything from, you know, your logo, to your colour, to your typeface, to your slogan, to your visuals, whatever else it is. So, whenever someone sees what you're doing, they know it's from you and it has a consistent tone of voice because you're not going to be able to necessarily outspend your competitors but at least make sure that you're not confusing your message with their message. So I think those are sort of background thoughts. And then in terms of measurement, yeah, look, I just think measurement is important, you know, and you should be the same way you track other aspects of your business. You should be tracking how your brand sits in your customers' minds over time. You should be tracking that. You don't have to track a lot of information, but I think certain key bits of information are important. It helps you track where you sit currently, and it probably gives you a direction on where you should be focusing in the future.
Mike: I think all of that's great advice. So many good things in there. I mean, maybe the best thing to do is talk about some examples. I mean, do you have some examples of where you've seen brands that have used brand metrics to track that they've actually generated brand lift and achieved something through their advertising?
Sean: Well, I guess I don't have any specific examples because of sort of confidentiality reasons. But the thing is, because we're measuring with you know, many publishers, we're measuring, you know, hundreds, thousands of campaigns every month, and we've got a database of over 50,000 campaigns. So there's a massive amount of knowledge within there. And within there, we also, we can then break that down into different categories, so we can understand what's going on in different categories. But I think if you come down to a very micro level, each campaign has its own story. you know, it will have its own message that went out, it will have happened at a particular moment in time, reached a particular audience, and had a particular set of results. And every time we measure a campaign that provides fresh data that enables a conversation to take place. And That's not always a conversation that, I mean, your question was about examples of high brand lift. In my view, low brand lift is actually equally kind of insightful because, I mean, we find probably between 5% and 10% of campaigns actually don't really have much of an effect from a brand lift point of view. Some of them have zero effect. which, you know, if you're the advertiser who spent the money, that might sound a bit alarming, but if you're a consumer and you think about how many ads you've seen that probably just pass you by and it doesn't have any effect on you at all, it's probably not that surprising. But I think the important thing about consistent measurement is if you measure everything and you understand what works and what doesn't work, then you're in a better position to be able to decide what to do next time. So we see measurement not just as backward-looking, but as forward-looking as well. So if you've learnt what worked and what didn't work this time, you can decide what you maybe need to tweak and optimise next time.
Mike: I think that's a great point. I actually found it quite reassuring that 90% to 95% of advertising campaigns do deliver measurable brand lift. I mean that, you know, for a lot of B2B companies that perhaps are a little negative about advertising and they say, well, advertising doesn't work. Quite clearly, brand metrics can actually demonstrate the benefit of advertising very, very clearly. And do you find people actually quite pleasantly surprised at the positive impact that their advertising campaigns make?
Sean: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the thing about that, I'm saying about it can open up a conversation because, you know, at the end of the day, we provide just a few numbers at the end of each campaign. We provide, how does your campaign affect those four metrics? And then we typically compare that to the benchmark for that category. So there's kind of eight core numbers, if you like, the four metrics and how they compare. And on one level, that's just a bunch of numbers. And if you just look at that, you go, oh, that's not as much as I would have thought, then you're kind of not really understanding what the numbers represent. And I think what the numbers represent is how you've been able to deliver news to a particular group of people in a particular category. Because brand lift typically involves a shift in perception. So if you think about those four metrics that we measure, if you want to get a lift in, let's say, consideration, What that essentially means is you're talking to people who know your brand name, but they wouldn't put you on the shopping list. That's the group of people. So if you're able to get more people putting you on their kind of mental shopping list, then you've raised your consideration. So then the question is, well, how are you going to get people to put you on their shopping list? You know, in whatever your category might be, how are you going to actually drive consideration? So I think there's a story behind the number. And in some categories, a very small increase in consideration might be a huge step forward. If it's a big value item, a 1% increase in consideration might represent a lot of potential business. Whereas in a much smaller, lower value category, you might want to be driving bigger increases in consideration. So there's a real story behind it. I think the numbers are important, but to me, what's more important is what you do with the numbers and how you kind of interpret them and how you turn them into a story.
Mike: I think that's fascinating. I think it's a really good point. And also, you know, the value of even small movements in some of these metrics, I think, is something people could underestimate. I mean, this has been really interesting talking about how people use brand metrics. One of the things we'd like to ask Sean is, you know, how MarTech companies promote themselves. And I'd be really interested to understand how brand metrics goes about promoting itself and what your marketing strategy is for the company.
Sean: I guess we have sort of three broad audiences. So we're kind of trying to do slightly different things for each of those audiences. Those audience would be kind of internal customers and kind of wider, I suppose. So from an internal point of view, it's about making sure that everyone in the organization understands where we sit, that there's consistent messaging that goes across anything from communications to product messaging. And so we kind of seem like one organization, which might sound obvious, but as companies grow and if they're in different areas around the world, there's a challenge there to try and make sure that you're speaking with one voice. So I think there's a kind of internal role to marketing. The second group's our customers. So we work with a lot of publishers measuring lots of campaigns. So for them, it's about, I guess, trying to help champion our relationship. So it might be via, you know, press releases, content, case studies, white papers, anything that can champion the insights that they're getting from our data. So that helps them perhaps differentiate themselves against their competitors. And I guess the kind of subplot there is that the more who are doing that, the more who are using brand metrics as their proof of effectiveness, the more that moves us into the marketplace. And then more widely, I guess you're talking a group there of potential future customers. You're talking about companies we might want to partner with. We're talking about future employees. We're talking about maybe investors in the company in the future. And for them, it's more about raising our brand profile. What can we do to position ourselves as sort of thought, I don't like the term thought leaders, but people who have a point of view in the world of advertising effectiveness. You know, that we have a lot of data, we have a point of view on what works and what doesn't work, and we're forward-looking. So it's keeping us a bit like the earlier example of the 95-5. We want to make sure that for the 95, they've heard of Brand Metrics and they think positive things about us and have a continual message. little bit different for those three groups of people, but I guess it's all about just getting our name out there and promoting a consistent message.
Mike: I love the way that, you know, you start with the internal audience. I mean, that's really interesting to me, and I think it shows how important you view building a brand that is consistent as being the key thing, rather than trying to race off and, you know, use the latest MarTech tools that, you know, may or may not help. I think that's very interesting. Is that a deliberate approach? Yeah, I think so.
Sean: I think so, because, I mean, there's different people in the company who are sort of having conversations with different people every day of the week. If you just rely on people to kind of just wing it and sort of, this is what I think the company stands for, you're going to end up with a kind of a bit of a blurred view in the marketplace. So I think you've got to have a clear idea of what you stand for. So I think if you start from that, it also makes it clearer when you're producing external content as well. There should be a kind of a line between what you say about yourself internally and what you say externally. There shouldn't be two separate stories.
Mike: I mean, that's just a great approach to building a brand. I just love that. We'd like to finish with a couple of really quick questions. So the first one is, what's the best marketing advice that someone has ever given to you?
Sean: Yeah, I think there's two bits. The first thing is to remember that you're not your customer. And I think often people can assume they know what's important to a customer, but you kind of need to get out there. You need to talk to them. You need to ask some questions. You need to be opinion neutral and be prepared to move on from your preconceptions. So I think the first thing is being really open-minded and recognizing that you're not your customer. Your customer is your customer. And the second thing is about, I guess, making the complicated simple. We all have enough complexity in our lives, and I don't think that marketers should be adding to that complexity. I think you should be trying to boil down what your message is into simple terms. Use everyday language. Don't hide behind jargon. Just try and make things as simple as possible.
Mike: That's brilliant. That's two great pieces of advice. Our second quickfire question is, if you were talking to someone who was just starting a career in marketing, What advice would you give them?
Sean: I think on that one, I mean, there's some sort of practical kind of stuff around, you know, find a mentor and practice your presentation skills and so on. But I've got kind of three words I would sort of put forward as things to think about. Word number one is curiosity. I think you should develop a lifelong curiosity about the world that you're in. The job you're doing now may not exist in five years, so you need to be open, you need to take on different experiences, not just go to conferences around your business, but to broaden your mind. So I think the first one will be all around curiosity. The second one ties into my last point around clarity. Particularly if you're going into something like ad tech, you can hide behind the jargon, but think about what does it actually mean? What's the end benefit? And how can you talk and communicate more simply? So I think concentrating on simple communication skills will be the second one. And the third one would be kindness. I think it's a kind of quite an important leadership value. If you want to move on in your career and start to manage people and so on, I think you should always be listening to other people's views, being flexible and look to try and support people as well, you know, without fanfare, without humble bragging and so on. And kind of make sure that you set an example by what you do. So, I think those would be my three bits of advice. Be curious, you know, be clear and be kind.
Mike: Brilliant. That's a great way to end this interview. I'm sure people will have listened to this and they'll want to know more. I mean, what's the best place for them to go to or to contact you if they'd like to learn more about brand metrics or indeed measuring brands?
Sean: Well, you can contact me. I'm allowed to give an email address. I'm not sure. Sure.
Mike: Yeah.
Sean: Sean at Brand Metrics.com. That's S-E-A-N. Or look us up on LinkedIn. We have a fair bit of, if you look at the Brand Metrics site on LinkedIn, we have a fair bit of content there as well. So have a nose around there and see if there's anything that interests you.
Mike: Amazing. Sean, thank you so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology. 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 favorite podcast application. If you'd like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
A Napier Webinar: Attribution: The Biggest Marketing Fairytale
Register for Napier's webinar and learn why attribution might not truly reflect a campaign's success. We will cover:
- Attribution models and the customer journey
- Why attribution is a childish measurement
- How B2B customers buy
- Business metrics
- Why you should measure incremental improvement
Register to view our webinar on demand by clicking here, and why not get in touch to let us know if our insights helped you.
Napier Webinar: ‘How to Integrate AI Into Your Marketing Campaigns’ Transcript
Speakers: Mike Maynard
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the latest Napier webinar. It's good to have you all joining. I hope it's all going well, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about attribution.
So attribution isn't always seen as the greatest, most interesting topic, but I think it's really important. So a lot of what we do in digital is all about measurement, and it's all about, you know, understanding what we do and making sure that we can actually measure what we achieve, and that's obviously very important, but the way we measure it is really, really key to making sure we actually get the right numbers. And the problem is, is that, basically, quite often, we think up numbers that have no real basis. In fact, they're total fairy tales, and we present them with three digits after the decimal point. And because it looks precise, we believe that it's all precise. The reality is, is that those numbers can often be fake. And what we want to do is really try and dig in today about how we understand what is a really good metric for measuring the performance of our campaigns, and make sure that when we measure we're actually measuring based upon business goals and not upon vanity metrics.
So let's have a quick look at the agenda. Now, obviously, if anyone has any questions, I'd really encourage those. Please feel free to put the questions into either the chat or the Q&A. We'll dig into both afterwards. Obviously Q&A is easier to find, and then I will answer the questions at the end, so type them in as you go along, and I'd love to answer some questions at the end. So we'll talk a little bit about what attribution is. We'll discuss some attribution models and how they relate to the customer journey. We're then going to, you know, look at attribution and, you know, explain why it's a childish fairy tale measurement. So we're going to explain why attribution is poor. We're going to look at how B to B customers buy, which is obviously very important. Understanding how they buy is key to making sure that we understand that our measurements match the actual behavior of the customers. And then we're going to talk about measuring incrementality or incremental improvement. So all about actually looking at the best way to measure which, ironically, is a technique that very few systems will incorporate automatically. And we'll talk about maybe why they don't incorporate it. And then lastly, we'll have a quick summary with a few tips on how to measure marketing campaigns.
So why do we care about attribution and measuring? Well, you know, what we're trying to do, really, is answer the question that John Wanamaker posed many, many years ago when he said, half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half Well, the idea is, is that attribution actually tags the people who come through, who see your advertising, and you can understand which half of the people are actually seeing your ad and doing something, and which half of the people are ignoring the ad. So it's hugely important to be able to understand whether or not the ad is working, and hopefully, if we do use some way of measuring and attribution, is a technique we use, although, as I'll show, it doesn't necessarily give you the right answer. You can actually eliminate the half of the advertising that doesn't work, so you can halve your advertising costs with no impact. So that's the theory.
So what exactly is attribution? I think we all kind of know what it is. We all feel it's, you know, linking your advertising to some results. But actually, you know, here's the definition from Wikipedia, which is a bit clearer. So what attribution does is it identifies user actions, or they could be called events or touch points, and they try and understand which of those contribute to your desired outcome, and then assign a value to each of these events. So as an example, you know very, very simply, if you run an email campaign to somebody, they then pick up the phone and talk to a salesperson and then buy something for $10 you know, maybe you'd advertise, you know, allocate an amount to be related to the email and an amount to the person who answer the phone, because obviously you need. Both of those to work, so you'd allocate some money or some credit from the sale to each of those. So it's really nice, because what it basically does is it gives you a monetary number associated with every marketing activity. So in theory, what it's doing is telling you how much return you get from each marketing activity, and that is perfect, provided the allocation number is right. So attribution uses, you know, data in some mathematical way to allocate value to something you do, and there's four key ways of doing it.
The first is called Single Source attribution. This is the very simplest. It's typically first touch or last touch. And it's very, very simple. So what it says is, is, if a customer makes a purchase, the very last marketing activity that touched them is responsible entirely for that purchase. Sales, people tend to love last touch attribution. They maybe don't talk about it in that way. But I'm sure you've all seen the situation where you've run marketing campaigns into a prospect, you've worked really hard, you've got engagement, you've got PDF downloads, you've seen the progress. They phone in, they talk to a salesman. The salesman claims, yeah, they were never going to buy. They never saw any marketing. It's just down to my call. That's classic last touch attribution. It's very simplistic and generally very wrong.
Fractional attribution tries to address the simplicity of single source attribution, and it allocates the value across a number of different activities, and that could be across all sorts of things. So the simplest way to do it is either to say everything you did all had the same impact, or the more recent it is, the more value you'll give to it. Now clearly, we all know that some activities are more powerful than others. We all know that equal weights or time to decay are really poor ways to allocate value, probably better than first touch and last touch, but really limited. Now people try and get multi touch and curve models and things like that, so more complex models, but it's still very arbitrary.
So the next thing that was developed was algorithmic, or probably probabilistic attribution. And basically what happens is, is a computer builds up a statistical model, and what it does is it tries to allocate the value based upon what it thinks has made the impact. So look at lots of different customer journeys. So very often we see this for digital ad platforms. For example, Google ads, they there. The default is using Google's AI based algorithmic attribution. And so it's creating a model. And this can actually be quite effective, although there are two key points. The first is, is typically the algorithm can only track activities within one platform. So with Google, it's basically going to allocate all the value across anything you do on the Google platform, even if you're running you know anything from PR through to attending trade shows, it's going to allocate everything to the Google platform, because it doesn't know what else is going on. So that's a hugely important problem. And the second thing is, is you don't actually have access, in general, to these algorithms, and say, not on Google, so you don't know how accurate they are. And in particular, if you're running a campaign that has relatively few conversions. And obviously, the closer you get to measuring your business metric, so that be a sale or a new customer win, the fewer conversions you're going to get, the more difficult it's going to be to build that model. It's going to take time to build it. And if you don't have enough conversions, the model won't be built. So the attribution will, frankly, be making stuff up. It won't have enough data to build the model.
So then lastly, there's customer driven attribution models. And this is basically trying to understand what customers want and what they respond to. And quite often, this is done with things like, you know, literally, customer interviews and asking them and then allocating the weighting based upon what the customer says. And as we all know, as marketers, the customer would like to think they're always right, but quite often they're not. So again, all of these, these different approaches, have real issues. And fundamentally, the issue we're seeing is that all these attribution techniques assume that any kind of marketing that interacts with the customer is going to have a positive impact. So let's have a little bit of a look at this so you know if we look at what's going to happen, here's your classic sales funnel. And if we've got someone flowing through the sales funnel, they might have numerous touch points, you know, they might see some PR articles at the start, maybe some display ads or social posts. You know, towards the middle of the funnel, you know, perhaps you're driving people with paid social to your website, or seeing them at a trade show. Maybe they're downloading an e book, and towards the end, you know, maybe it's a phone call or a salesperson meeting, or even a retargeting ad. So they're seeing lots and lots of different items, and it's assumed that all of these items are all going to positively contribute when we come to attribution, if the customer buys, and it's assumed that none of them work if the customer fails to buy. So it's a very simplistic model, and we can look at how these different models work very quickly.
So just graphically, this is first touch attribution as soon as they enter the funnel. We've still got a lot of work to bring them through the funnel, but we're just going to assume that that work has no value. Last touch attribution right at the bottom. We're going to assume all the work, bringing them through until they're just about ready to buy, had no value, and then whatever touched it last is the most important. So not very good fractional attribution. I mean, basically we're allocating, you know, different values to each stage based upon some arbitrary set of numbers. It could be either everybody gets the same so anything that touched the customer worked, or it could be some other time decay or something else.
And then we look at algorithmic, and we've talked about this again, and algorithmic, what we're going to do is we're going to allocate value throughout the funnel, which is great, but it's some sort of, you know, magic black box algorithm that we don't necessarily have access to, and frankly, may not have sufficient data to be able to make a Good decision if we're talking about relatively low volumes.
And then lastly, we've got the algorithmic sorry, we've got the customer attribution, sorry, the title is wrong here, and then that's based upon the feedback from talking to the customer. And so again, it requires the customer to give the correct answer. But ultimately, all of these are pretty childish. They're all contributing to a bit of a fairy tale. You know, we've all had this discussion. You touched it last.
Not a great way to discuss anything overly simplistic for advertising, you know, or alternatively, we can implement the waiter that brings our food on the way he farmed and cooked it clearly he didn't his last touch. But also, it's important to note that it doesn't matter how well the waiter does, if the farmer and the chef aren't involved, there is no great result for the waiter. So attribution can ignore the interaction that's required between different activities to generate the conversion. And generally speaking, attribution is pretty terrible at looking at where you need multiple touches, and it just assumes that each touch is somewhat independent. The next thing can be the issue around focusing on what's measurable. So typically, if you're running, say, a media relations campaign, you're getting some great coverage in the press. People are getting excited. It's really hard to link that through to sales. You don't know who's read your articles in the media, and so therefore you can't really attribute anything to PR because there's no way of tracking it.
However, if you're running email marketing or Google ads, it's really easy to track. The tracking is all there. So what happens is, is that attribution is a bit like the drunk person looking for their keys, and the drunk person looking for their keys will look under the lamppost because it's light and they can see. However, we all know they drop their keys in the dark, and so do they, and it's very similar when we look at attribution, attribution is looking at where things are illuminated through trackability, which is typical, typically digital, and quite often missing the things that are more difficult to see just because it's going for the convenience of measuring, of focusing on what's measurable.
And then lastly, and you know this, I think, is really quite important. I mean, attribution often doesn't show you the money. It doesn't always measure the impact on organization sales. And the reason for that is you're allocating value for a sale to every marketing activity. Now it could be, particularly if this is a kind of, you know, a repeat purchase. So purchase through procurement for some. Think it's in production that procurement person was going to buy anyway. And you know, if you keep hitting the procurement person around the time that they need to place the next order for their production requirements, you're going to get some fantastic attribution. You're going to make zero impact on the sales, but you're going to get lots and lots of value attributed, and the same thing is also shown. You know, for example, on Google ads, when people advertise around, you know, different brand keywords.
A great example would be, you know, one of our clients, microchip, they have a platform called microchip Direct, which is their e commerce platform. So if you want to order a product from Microchip, you go to microchip direct. I can tell you that the best keyword in terms of attribution, if you're running ads for microchip, will be microchip direct. Because you know, everybody searching for Microsoft direct has the intention of making a purchase. I can also tell you, because everyone already has the intention to purchase that the actual impact on the business is probably the lowest for microchip directs the keyword than anything else, and so attribution gives you completely the wrong picture. And actually, what this means is, ultimately, when we're using attribution, a lot of people get frustrated because they're trying to track attribution across a number of different channels, and what they find is one plus one equals 24 they add up all the value across their different channels that have been attributed to sales, and they find out that the total number is significantly more than the sales they've achieved. And so because of this, it's really, really important to understand that, you know, the different attributions across different platforms. Don't understand what's going on on other platforms, so you won't necessarily get the right value. So again, assigning a monetary value.
It sounds, you know, very convincing. But if you're running, for example, a campaign on LinkedIn and then retargeting people on Google after they visit the landing page, both those campaigns will decide that they're all responsible for the sales, and they'll both want to claim all the value. And that's not right. Actually, they both contribute, but they don't share it because they're different platforms.
Now, if there's any engineers here, I can hear everybody shouting, we all know this correlation is not causation, and this is really important. So what attribution does is it measures correlation. It says people who saw this ad tended to buy, therefore the ad was fantastic. It doesn't actually mean that because they match, there's necessarily a direct link. There's lots of famous examples of correlation not being causation. My favorite example probably is the direct link between violent crime and ice cream sales, as you can see here, the two curves follow each other very, very closely. Arguably, ice cream sales are lagging behind. It kind of suggests that, you know, maybe people go out and buy ice cream after committing violent crime, we should just arrest everybody buying ice cream. Quite clearly, that's not true, you know. And equally, you know, it's really clear that, basically, more violent crime happens when the weather is warm. People are more likely to be outside, meet more people, and potentially as well, there's more alcohol consumed as well. But ice cream is not the cause of violent crime, and violent crime is not the cause of ice cream sales. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to do the same thing when we attribute. So we need something different. I mean, hopefully you've seen that attribution really is this fairy tale. It's a bit of correlation, it's a lot of approximation.
It's platforms trying to grab as much credit as they can for their platform, and it's not a very effective way of measuring the how well your marketing works. And the reason for this is that B to B customers don't buy in a simple way. So firstly, different customers will have different approaches to buying so you can't run one model that applies to everybody. The buying process is also complex with many people involved, and you've got to reach lots and lots of people, and those people want different information at different times, and frankly, you know, targeting one group of the decision making unit or the buying committee with content that's really suitable for another I mean, that's not going to actually help sell the product in most cases. And in fact, can even put the buyers off because you're not supplying the information that they really care about personally, you supply it to the wrong person in B to B as.
Quite often the decision is made pretty early. And a great example of that is if you look at, for example, choosing semiconductors. So if you're choosing to use a semiconductor, what will happen is you've got to buy a sample at semiconductor, put it into a board, build the board up, then write the software test the board, and then, only then can you start moving into production. So you're actually choosing to the product well before you even buy that first sample or get that first sample to test. And so it's very difficult to correlate the sale, which happens, you know, and in electronics and semiconductors, easily can happen a year after the decision has been made with the actual decision. So typically, what you'll want to do is, you'll want to tie sales through to marketing activities. But the reality is, is that's quite hard to do. And also, in that particular case, once you move into volume, it's almost certainly procurement that is purchasing the parts in volume, so they seem like the important buyer. But actually, if you're talking about a 32 bit microcontroller, people in procurement are not swapping those microcontrollers out for different vendors. It's the engineer at the start, who never spends any money, perhaps, who actually is responsible. So tracking is really, really hard.
Some of the buying is emotional, and that can lead to a very different level of importance for different touch points. And so that can be, for example, that a particular customer reference or maybe a white paper, or even a meeting at a trade show can have a huge impact, whereas perhaps display ads, whilst they slightly increase the likelihood of purchase, they're not necessarily huge. Of course, display ads can also be one where actually, if you have sufficient display ads, then there's very much a level of diminishing returns. Once you've got an awareness that means the potential customer is prepared to consider you as a vendor, then maybe those display ads running awareness perhaps aren't going to add any more value if you keep putting more on and generally speaking, attribution has no concept of non linear effects. It always assumes some sort of linear effect. The more you do something, the more effective it's going to be, B to B.
Customers are risk adverse. That means that obviously a lot of what you might need to do is give them reasons why they shouldn't reject you, rather than reasons why they should buy. So that, again, can make it quite difficult. And you know, it's very, very slow, as I mentioned. So what's the solution? Well, the solution is easy for some markets and incredibly different for others. So the solution is to measure incrementality or incremental sales, and this is somewhat like AB testing, but what you're AB testing is you're AB testing the impact of running a campaign versus not running a campaign, as opposed to classic AB testing, which is, you know, for example, testing email a against email B. And in that situation, you know you can find that email B, for example, might perform better than email a, but you actually don't know how much better email B performs than running no marketing. You know, it could almost be that email a is such a terrible email it puts people off, and so it results in actually a fall in sales, and email B makes very little difference to the likelihood of someone to buy. So AB testing can lead you down a route where you're comparing two different activities, but you're not necessarily really understanding whether you're growing sales. So generally speaking, people talk about having control and test groups, and the test group gets exposed to a campaign, and the control group doesn't. And then, ideally, you want to measure to sales, and not to just PDF download, although you can measure to that and see if you incrementally increase PDF downloads, again, incrementally increasing PDF downloads is better than one email winning an AB test against another. You know how much impact you've made. But of course, it's very, very hard to do.
And so unfortunately, just like in all fairy tales, we have to have a wicked witch, and the Wicked Witch of incrementality comes in. It's really hard in B to B to measure incrementality. It's very difficult, for example, to get a proper control and test group. For example, if you're running PR, it's really hard to know who's not seen your coverage online in publications versus who has. It's very difficult to separate them in consumer markets, quite often, companies will choose different cities in the US or maybe regions in Europe. Uh, but that, of course, is fraught with difficulties, because people in different cities might behave differently. There might be different impacts. Of course, you're measuring, you know, whether you increase the sales in each city.
But you know, in one city, for example, there could be, if you're talking about selling luxury goods, there could be, you know, a large number of redundancies that causes luxury goods to fall, that has a bigger impact than your marketing. So it's really hard to get these control groups. The buying journey is a long period of time. I mean, we've worked with clients who had multi year buying journeys. You really don't want to know whether your marketing three years ago had a positive impact, and wait three years to find that out. So the time scale can be very difficult. The complexity also impacts things.
So the different members of the DMU, particularly, can interact very differently, and that can mask sometimes the benefits of some marketing. There's often a huge number of touch points, you know, across a multi year buying cycle. Hopefully your marketing is reaching those prospects many, many times. So it's almost impossible to isolate a single touch point, and within those long, complex buying journeys, each touch point has relatively little value. And also activities may interact. And it may be as simple as you just need to keep touching the customer at a certain frequency to make sure that they're still engaged. Or it could be that, you know, if you don't send an email, you know that's around your certifications, then the following email about how high, how fast your processor is has no impact. So lots and lots of challenges from our wicked witch.
Fortunately, however, we do, as in all fairy tales, have a fairy godmother. And so really, our recommendation is you've got to do your best. I mean, measure campaigns where you can for incrementality, not for attribution. Obviously, sometime you're not going to be able to measure incrementality. And very, very rarely are you going to actually be able to measure like full journey incrementality. You're going to have to measure journey across intermediate metrics. So we would strongly recommend you know, firstly, always trying to identify, you know, whether you've increased sales or not. It sounds obvious, but it's not something that a lot of people do. I think also consider, you know, testing incrementality across at a campaign level rather than a tactical level. So rather than testing a particular ad test a campaign, it's much more effective to do that because of the length of the buying cycle.
Definitely, I'd recommend using intermediate metrics. So if you've mapped your customer journey, and hopefully you will have then look at moving people from one stage to the next of the customer journey, and use that as your measurement, because measuring across the full journey for most of the people on the call will be impractical, due to the time that people take to travel through it, and finally, don't forget to measure non measurable marketing. And the example I've given multiple times, it's the easy example, is getting media coverage. It's something that's virtually impossible to track digitally. It's actually something you can measure really effectively using incrementality. So you know, it might be that actually what you say is we're going to run some really powerful media campaigns around product A. We're not going to, you know, run anything around product B, and we're going to see whether product A's sales increase and whether that therefore shows we've generated revenue. So incrementality is a great way to measure things that are non digital and traditionally hard to measure. So I hope you've enjoyed this. If you do all of these things, you will live happily ever after, and also your marketing will produce much better and much stronger results.
If you've got any questions, please feel free to put them into the Q and A or the chat. But before we go there, we're going to talk about making chat GPT your best sales person for the next webinar, which will be on the 24th of June, 2025 so this is something I think a lot of people are really interested in. It's about, how do you get your brand to show up in generative AI results? So if I type a query into chat GPT, and maybe that asks about, you know, the best DCDC converter, how do I get my brand to show up in those generative AI results? We're going to talk a little bit about measuring how well you do, and the tools to that are only just emerging. And then we'll also talk about what you can do to improve your visibility.
Perfect. So thank you very much for listening. If anyone does. Have a question. Here we go. We've got a couple of questions here.
So I'm being asked about software to assist with measuring an attribution. So the problem is is most software today typically focuses on attribution, and so most software today is looking to say there's correlation. That's not necessarily causation, and it's a real issue for me, as you know someone that who's quite passionate about marketing and measuring marketing, is that it really is. Did you touch that? That prospect on the way? Therefore it must have been positive. So very few systems have a great way of, you know, actually looking at what had a positive uplift on sales and how much that positive uplift was. So, I mean, we've asked about Marketo measure and Adobe mix modeler. I don't want to talk about specific, you know, tools, but those tools are basically trying to match what you did against different prospects and see which ones touch the customers or touch the people that became customers. And as I said, you know, it is an indication, you know, attribution is not useless, useless, but it is kind of assuming, you know, in this fairy tale, that everything has a positive impact, and it's also applying, you know, some sort of statistical analysis to say there's a formula for it. So I would say that today it's really hard to use software to measure incremental sales, because actually, most software is not designed to do that. And if I'm being cynical, a lot of software is designed to claim as much credit for the tactics you're running with that particular platform. And Google and LinkedIn are great example of this as it possibly can so, it's looking to allocate as much value to its own tactics. Some of the other tools that mentioned here in the question, they do look across more than one platform, but they are still limited, and they are still doing this really simple attribution, rather than measuring incrementality in most cases.
I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it was interesting. It's always difficult presenting a webinar that's about a topic like attribution, which isn't on the face of it, the most exciting topic.
Hopefully you can tell I'm super passionate about measuring marketing activities well, so I'd really love to talk to you. If any of you have questions afterwards, please feel free to email me. My email address is there, mike@napierb.com and I'd be happy to have a chat. And I really hope I see you all in the next webinar where we can talk about appearing in generative AI search results. Thank you very much.