Interview

MarTech Edge Q&A with Adam Rossow, Group RFZ

marketing 6 Sep 2024

Can you explain how brand lift studies work and what metrics are typically measured?

Brand lift studies are a form of market research that involves measuring how a campaign impacts how an audience thinks, feels and intends to act as it relates to a product or brand. To measure brand lift, we gather online survey feedback from two groups – an exposed group and a control group.

When it comes to influencer marketing, the exposed group is comprised of people who have seen the campaign content – whether it was a TikTok video, reel, YouTube short or another kind of creative – either naturally or through a custom-designed digital feed. The control group is a lookalike audience that did not see the content and is as similar as possible to the exposed group in terms of their demographics, specific attitudes, category use, awareness levels and other traits.

Both groups are asked to take the exact same online survey, which is designed according to the objectives of the influencer program’s objectives. The results, which are typically expressed as a percentage lift, are derived by comparing the differences in the survey responses between the two groups. Since the exposure to the influencer content is the only meaningful dissimilarity between the two groups, any lift between the groups can be attributed to the influencer campaign or program. For instance, if the survey finds that 20% of the control group is likely to purchase the product in question in the next month and 40% of the exposed group said they’re likely to purchase it, the campaign resulted in a 20-point increase in purchase intent.

When it comes to metrics, we evaluate the top of the funnel down to the mid-funnel, including purchase intent, likelihood to consider, favorability, brand love, recall, awareness and brand attributes.

In what areas does AI most effectively enhance influencer marketing, and where might it fall short?

AI is transforming businesses in all different ways, and influencer marketing is no exception. That said, it’s not necessarily being used by influencers as much as one might guess. That’s because leaning on AI tools such as ChatGPT minimizes an influencer’s pride in their creative content and it also detracts from the one quality that makes them successful: authenticity. Relationships between influencers and their followers is built almost solely on authenticity and the vast majority won’t risk sounding remotely synthetic just to save a little time and creative energy.

Brands have many more opportunities to tap into the power of AI. For example, AI is making it exceedingly more efficient to find the exact right influencers to collaborate with. It used to be that marketers would have to scour databases using only basic filters such as industry, follower count and location. Now, with AI at play, it’s possible to search with much greater precision and pinpoint influencers that perfectly align with your values, audience and campaign goals. AI can also help brands analyze their campaigns at a much deeper level and glean more insights to inform future campaigns, as well as help brainstorming on their creative briefs that they supply to influencers.

AI is bound to make influencer marketing more streamlined, approachable and measurable, but it won’t be an easy button.

How could a potential TikTok ban disrupt the current digital marketing landscape?

TikTok could be banned in the US as soon as January because of the social media company’s ties to China, and that has the world stirring. A ban could have implications for influencer marketing, particularly for brands selling to Gen Z and other audiences that are hard to find through traditional channels.

That said, I don’t anticipate the ban – if it is implemented – to turn influencer marketing on its head. The repercussions will really be dependent on where you sit in the influencer ecosystem. Influencers who have hitched themselves just to TikTok will have the biggest hurdles to overcome because it’ll mean essentially starting from the ground up, and building follower relationships and developing new content that’s tailored for other social channels.

For influencer agencies and brands, I see it as more of a bump in the road. Influencer marketing was a proven strategy before TikTok appeared and became the “it” platform, and I don’t believe a ban will slow it down because it simply works too well. It will, however, force brands and agencies to ensure they’re not too dependent on a single channel or outlet. The good news there is that there are plenty of strong channels such as YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, as well as emerging alternatives such as Clapper and Triller that can fill the gap.

In the near term, marketers should be preparing by executing more broadly and on multiple platforms, as well as doing a lot of testing on other platforms. Our take is that perpetual testing is always a good idea anyway.

Once the burning question of “Where will 150 million U.S. TikTok users go?” is answered, marketers will shift back to more focused plans rather than being quite as broad.

What are the risks of AI influencers compromising authenticity in brand campaigns?

The risk in my opinion is significant. Authenticity, believability and trust are cornerstones of influencer marketing and, in large part, the reason it’s so impactful. There are always outliers, but most of influencer marketing revolves around creators who aren’t household names. They have grown their following organically, post what’s meaningful or interesting, and partner with brands they know, use and often align with on values. They are their authentic selves, complete with all the flaws, issues and idiosyncrasies that make them relatable. That is why people follow them and listen to their recommendations.

AI is artificial, both in name and reality. And while AI influencers present certain distinct advantages in terms of cost, message control and scalability, they can torpedo the good will and trust that so many influencers have worked tirelessly to build and maintain.

The main issue stems from the fact that they are, of course, not real. This means their backstories are carefully manufactured, their messaging points scripted, and their likeness often shaped to adhere to some expectation or stereotype. They haven’t had any life experiences to draw from, nor any real interactions or connections that have made an impact. Does any of that sound authentic to you?

All that said, not being real is only part of the problem. The bigger issue is that too many people think they are real. Most people don’t know about all the latest tech and goings-on in the social and influencer space. They are unaware that virtual influencers even exist. The tech has gotten to a point where, if the creator of a virtual influencer wants them to be unrecognizable as AI to most, they can be. It’s one thing to know something is inauthentic because it’s AI and fake. You can take that at face value and make your own decision. However, not knowing makes it more than just inauthentic, it makes it duplicitous.

How do brand lift studies help companies like Amazon, Verizon and Kraft optimize their marketing strategies?

Brand lift studies in the influencer space have come a long way. If they are designed and implemented correctly, they can tell you not just if a campaign succeeded, but exactly what aspects moved the needle and where to focus and invest going forward. Just understanding awareness, favorability and intent is table stakes. These days, it’s possible to get deeper and understand the drivers and perceptions that frame everything. From how the campaign impacted brand trust, to relevance, to value, to other key attributes – brand lift can unearth all of these.

Moreover, brand lift studies can get very granular and break out results by almost any campaign ingredient. For example, a brand lift study can reveal if certain messages were stickier on TikTok or Instagram, if micro-influencers increased purchase intent more than a celebrity influencer or if humorous content was more impactful than educational content. If designed correctly upfront, brand lift studies can provide invaluable information around audiences, creative, channels and the influencers themselves. And, all that information is mapped back to a program or series of programs, so the attribution for any movement is clear, not an amalgamation of other marketing activities and factors.

In all, brand lift studies are more than just a way for brands to prove success against their goals. They are a way to test and learn, correct course and invest in the right ingredients to maximize impact and ROI. In influencer marketing there is always a new channel, a new trend to hop on and an internal dialogue about which influencers will have the most impact. The question of what’s next can be a daunting one, but brand lift brings real insight and clarity to that decision-making process.

Interview with Dan Anderson, Managing Director of Technology at VShift

marketing 21 Aug 2024

1. Can you share some of the key strategies you have implemented to grow world-class technology organizations over your 25+ year career?

A few key principles critical to highly successful technology organizations include:

• An unwavering focus on technology as a means for solving real-world business problems.
• Understanding that people and processes matter more than technology. Technology solutions must work for people and make their experience better, easier, and more efficient; allowing them to focus on their work rather than the technology. A technically brilliant solution will otherwise fail.
• Ensuring flexibility with the ability to constantly evolve and bring new and different technologies into the fold – paired with a constant eye on and a measured, thoughtful approach to emerging technology.
• Constant, ongoing development of technology assets and capabilities that can be leveraged to make future efforts faster and more efficient ¬– modular, capabilities, components and systems that can be reused and recombined.
• Speed to market is critical. Get something into market that solves a core problem or provides a key benefit quickly, then iterate and refine.

Two core strategies that VShift employs to help clients break through their go-to-market issues, which arise directly from these principles, are:

a. Decoupling: Clients typically struggle to get digital experiences launched quickly – or at all. Companies are commonly organized in diverse functional groups, while their legacy technology is monolithic, often provided by a single third-party vendor that is aligned to the needs of only one of those groups – typically the IT team. Decoupling the user experience layer from “as-a-service” platform components has been effective at providing product, marketing, and customer-facing digital team members with autonomy over the creating and managing the experience. These experiences can be launched and updated with minimal dependencies on shared services groups while still adhering to the needs and guidelines of IT and compliance groups, all without the vendor “lock-in” that is typical of monolithic technologies.

b. Accelerator Kits: Composable, modular solutions can be difficult to understand, can seem complex or unapproachable, and are difficult for non-technical, often skeptical, stakeholders to envision. VShift has leveraged our extensive experience to develop and utilize pre-built digital experience accelerators comprised of fully implemented frameworks, technologies, and components. These accelerators provide a means for aligning all the diverse team members and allow full feature digital products to be delivered in a third or less of the time and effort of a more traditional, “legacy” approach.

2. How does the VShift AEM Digital Experience Accelerator expedite website project timelines compared to traditional methods?

Teams looking to utilize AEM headless capabilities to realize the advantages of a decoupled, composable architecture are often overwhelmed by their expectation of the required effort and investment. They assume that the adoption of a headless AEM digital experience will take the same amount of time (or more) than it took to originally implement the Adobe stack.
The Accelerator shifts control to the business stakeholder and away from the vendor or systems integrator allowing the business to progressively adopt the new model without having to wait for upgrades, new software purchases or lengthy engagements. Once the scope is set, the Accelerator allows projects to progress far more quickly via a ready-to-deploy composable solution stack with prebuilt components, workflow, and integrations, ready at kick-off. The Accelerator gives teams a massive “head start” placing them far closer to the finish line by the time they complete the first or second sprint.

3. Can you explain the historical development of the AEM Digital Experience Accelerator and its integration with Adobe’s Universal Editor?

AEM has historically been called out by “MACH-native,” composable technology providers as a prime example of a monolithic, rigid technology stack that requires a significant, ongoing investment in specialized vendor certified consultants. This situation, in our view, is changing as Adobe continues to focus on expanding and enhancing headless capabilities. The AEM Digital Experience Accelerator was born out of our experience leveraging these growing capabilities in a way that maximizes the benefits while reducing vendor “lock-in” and bringing best of breed technologies, frameworks, and solution components into the mix.
The AEM Universal Editor is a good example Adobe’s focus on headless and the growing suite of supporting capabilities. The Universal Editor provides an efficient, intuitive interface for managing content while at the same time allowing for reduced vendor “lock-in” via flexible content integration capabilities. VShift is continually evolving and enhancing the Accelerator to take advantage of these capabilities as they become available.

4. Why might organizations choose to use a visual content editor interface, and what benefits does it offer?

Organizations tend to choose a visual content editor “add-on” to a composable content management system based on the experiences and preferences of their product owners and content management teams. If they have historically used an advanced WYSIWYG CMS interface, they will want to retain comparable features that a visual editor can provide including drag and drop content creation and live editing and previewing. A visual editor paired with a well-structured content model offers the best of both worlds – users focused on layout and page construction will typically prefer the visual editor whereas those focused on content creation and management, especially for multi-platform, multi-channel use, will often prefer the more structured, streamlined content editing interface.

5. How does the AEM Digital Experience Accelerator ensure compliance and security in highly regulated environments such as financial services and healthcare?

Companies in financial services, healthcare and other regulated industry sectors have historically purchased and implemented Adobe technologies. We have developed the Accelerator with an understanding and focus on the type of security and compliance requirements common in these sectors. The Accelerator, implemented with connectivity to legacy content sources, allows for enhanced capabilities for content versioning, workflow, and business rules. As part of any engagement, we work closely with clients to ensure a thorough understanding of their compliance and security needs.

6. What advice would you give to organizations looking to adopt emerging technologies to stay competitive in their industry?

My advice is to start and end with a business sponsor and the organization’s business goals. Far too often, emerging technology programs are relegated to a lab or to an IT team not well aligned to what the market is looking for. It is critical to focus initially on projects that can be delivered to market quickly with meaningful impact to demonstrate viability and real-world benefits, and to build support and consensus. Having a program sponsor, a budget, and the right type of project with measurable objectives, in our experience, is the best ways of ensuring success.

The future of SaaS in the media industry: Interview with Anders Lithner, CEO, Brand Metrics

marketing 16 Aug 2024

1. Welcome, Anders. What factors do you consider most critical when developing business models for tech and SaaS solutions in the media industry?

First and foremost, the unit you’re being paid for (e.g. CPM), and weighing it up against the risks involved. The alternative model would be an unlimited licence for a defined period that does not shift with volume.

The former model - i.e. paying for ads or cloud services based on CPM - has vast potential to deliver in terms of revenue but represents arguably greater risk, because it is susceptible to varying usage and seasonality.

The latter option, which we tend to favour, is the more typical SaaS licence model. It is a far lower-risk approach but revenue growth depends on being able to attract new customers. There is a trade-off to be made and this will always require striking the right balance specific to your company or brand.

2. What are the main challenges you face in product development for SaaS solutions in the media industry?

If only it were possible to distil this into a few - there are just so many.

However, to be successful in our industry, the principle we come back to at every turn is to remain focused on solving for one part of the client project at a time. If we try to address all the issues at once, we will end up not fixing any of them - our efforts and intentions would just get diluted to a point where there is no meaningful progress.

In terms of product development, first we need to ask ourselves what one problem we are attempting to solve, and second, whether our product represents a valid solution. Brand Metrics has been around since 2018, and we are proud to be continually iterating, and successfully fixing one really significant problem.

3. Do you sell your services differently to large media companies and entrepreneurial ventures?

Most of the time there does not need to be a significant shift in approach from our side. We value working with both types of client, and fundamentally we know that we can help either to make money by leveraging the brand uplift data we provide. Smaller ventures usually have less budget available, but equally, they tend to require less time input to implement our solutions.

4. How do you approach building and managing international sales teams?

The complexity of the product we are offering means successful teams need in-depth industry knowledge, advanced sales skills and a strong existing network. Our clients and prospects are innovative and progressive, and we are able to offer nuanced data solutions that deliver actionable insights to a wide variety of businesses.

Our sales team needs to be fully equipped with the experience to build these partnerships. We also need to build teams based on the geographical spread and evolution of our business, so while we're operational globally, we have regional sales representation in a number of markets and rising.

5. How do you foster collaboration between sales and product development teams?

It’s inevitable to see some friction between these teams. After all, while the product team wants the sales team to sell what has been built, the sales team wants the product team to build what has been sold.

To overcome this, the sales team needs to have a degree of flexibility in their prospecting conversations, and the product team needs to be agile enough to deliver against the long-term road map. Therefore, it is important to make sure there's mutual understanding of one another’s perspectives - and a recognition that the different perspectives that come with these different roles is what makes a top-class tech solution possible.

Regular meeting time and interactions are key to building this rapport and harnessing these collaborations.

6. What trends do you see shaping the future of tech and SaaS solutions in the media industry?

There is always some trend or other that we fixate on, that gradually becomes embedded in our working lives, or not, before the furore dies down. So we need to be conscious not to overcommit our efforts or resources, but adapt to them as we go.

If there is one long-term trend, I would say it is improved quality. While we are not yet at the point where every ad dollar spent is maximised in terms of what it can do for the advertiser, we are getting there. Advertising is becoming more and more effective.

In contrast, one trend which fails to materialise in many ways is the effective use of data, especially when it comes to targeting. There are too many instances of working with the wrong data or optimisation strategies, and ending up with the wrong outcomes, which therefore are not delivering brand uplift. An example of this is using data to optimise for clicks, which, without meaningful evaluation of the brand uplift, or lack thereof, results time and again in wasted impressions and ad spend.

Our product is predicated on the belief that you need to employ this type of evaluation - that brand uplift is a key metric to ensure data is being used to inform advertising practice and deliver ROI. And the more you use it, the more you learn what is working - and what is not.

Interview with Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner.

marketing 9 Aug 2024

1. As a Distinguished Vice President and Analyst at Gartner, what strategic advice do you provide to drive technology innovation within their organizations?

I advice clients on how to create a robust strategy for AI and execute on it.

2. How does the Llama 3.1 405B model compare to closed-source AI models in terms of performance and flexibility?

With this model launch, Meta has released a very powerful model that compares with the state-of-art closed source models that are out there. The accuracy gap between state-of-art closed source and open models has been narrowing for the past few months. Open models are flexible to customize, if needed, because engineers have access to the model parameters and source code. This enables organizations to have better control over costs, output and alignment with their use cases.

3. How has Meta optimized the training process for the Llama 3.1 405B model to handle large-scale data?

Llama 3.1 model is based on transformer architecture. Meta has adopted an iterative post-training procedure, where each round uses supervised fine-tuning and direct preference optimization. This enabled them to create quality synthetic data for each round and improve each capability’s performance.

4. How does the Llama ecosystem support developers in customizing and deploying AI models?

With open models, developers have access to model weights. The access to weights combined with the ownership of the open model-based products provides enterprises with an opportunity to continuously evolve them based on internal and customer demands, and it also makes their applications harder for competition to imitate. Also, the models are available from many different enterprise AI platform providers such as AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, IBM, Snowflake and others, making it easier for enterprise developers to access them.

5. What are the main applications and use cases for the Llama 3.1 405B model?

The most popular use cases are in NLP domain such as text generation, summarization, sentiment analysis, language translation etc.

Interview with Jozlyn Miller, Senior Education Manager at Boulevard

marketing 1 Aug 2024

1. What does your role as Senior Education Manager at Boulevard involve?

As a senior education manager, my role involves either working directly with our customers or building easy-to-consume educational resources those customers can use to ensure that they get the absolute most out of their investment in Boulevard. That often involves drawing on my own experience in the self-care industry to help them come up with new and innovative ways to save time, increase revenue, and create memorable experiences for their clients. So, my job is really to do everything I can to help our customers thrive.

2. How does Boulevard's new text marketing feature benefit self-care businesses?

Countless benefits come with reaching clients instantly and directly with relevant campaigns and messages, but ultimately, text marketing is about boosting bookings, driving revenue, and maximizing client engagement. Compared to more traditional marketing tactics, text marketing has dramatically higher open and click-through rates and much faster client response times. It’s a fast, efficient, and, importantly, modern way to connect with clients and engage them in conversation.

3. What inspired Boulevard to launch text marketing?

As with everything we do, it is and was about our customers. Their clients’ communication habits and preferences are evolving to the point that text marketing is a must-have for these self-care businesses. That’s the inspiration — making sure we are empowering our customers with every possible tool they need to connect with and deliver incredible experiences to their clients.

4. How does text marketing address clients' changing communication preferences?

Your clients are always on their phones and they’re always texting. That’s reality, so if you want to connect with them with any degree of speed and efficiency, that’s where you have to do it. When you meet clients where they are, and do so with a campaign that’s super relevant to them, it becomes so much easier to engage them in conversation and get that next appointment scheduled.

5. What feedback have you received from businesses using text marketing?

We launched in early June and the feedback has been incredible. What’s been most surprising to our customers is how simple and easy it is — and how quickly they see results. You hear about something like text marketing and it’s natural to think it’s going to be too complicated and too complex and I’m not going to be able to keep up with it. But we’ve built the feature in a way that it really is incredibly easy to use and the results come almost immediately.

6. How does text marketing integrate with other Boulevard features to enhance client experience?

We made it a priority to ensure that our text marketing campaigns are two-way enabled and integrate seamlessly with Boulevard Messages. For clients, being two-way enabled means you can respond to marketing texts as you would any other direct message. For our customers, integration with Boulevard messages means that staff can continue the conversation and answer questions directly from the same Boulevard platform they use to book appointments, process payments, download reports, and do everything else they need to run their business. That seamless experience on both ends is essential to turning a marketing message into a casual conversation and eventually a booked appointment.

7. What makes Boulevard's text marketing unique compared to other services?

Unlike many competing offerings, Boulevard’s text marketing capabilities leverage a dedicated phone number unique to each business location. All text communications from Boulevard, marketing or otherwise, are sent from the same dedicated business number, which ensures client recognition and greatly improved marketing response rates. We consider this the single most important part of any text marketing campaign — and yet it’s often so overlooked.

8. How does Boulevard maintain a personal touch with automated client communications?

One of the things that makes our industry so special is that every self-care brand is unique. We’ve developed an easy-to-use campaign builder that enables our customers to create customized campaigns that are tightly aligned to their brand with just a few clicks.

9. Can you give an example of how businesses can use Boulevard’s campaign builder?

It’s a very simple and intuitive process. You start by tailoring your target audience. This is super important — not every message is relevant to every client, so don’t send everything to everyone. Boulevard makes it easy for customers to create highly targeted, segmented campaign lists. That’s step one. From there, we allow you to create your campaign with custom verbiage and custom links so that your texts look and sound like they came from you. And lastly, we give you access to a variety of reports and metrics so that you can refine and optimize as you go.

10. What future innovations can we expect from Boulevard for self-care businesses?

I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say you can continue to expect Boulevard to do whatever it takes to help our customers deliver memorable experiences to their clients. Whether that’s through platform capabilities like text marketing or programs like Boulevard Capital that are designed to elevate both our customers’ businesses and the industry at large, we’re constantly looking for ways to raise the bar.

MarTech Edge Interview with Barry Padgett, CEO, Amperity

artificial intelligence 29 May 2024

Please tell us about your professional journey that led you to becoming the CEO of Amperity.

My journey began with a passion for innovative technology and data-driven decision-making. Before joining Amperity, I held leadership roles in various tech companies like Concur and Stripe, focusing on enhancing product capabilities and expanding global reach. In these positions, I gained a deep appreciation for the importance of data in making informed decisions, reducing risk, identifying trends, improving efficiencies and developing customer-centric strategies, among other things. These experiences paved the way for my role at Amperity, where we set new standards in customer data management.

It all started with my love for solving complex data challenges. Before joining the team at Amperity, I had the privilege of working with some amazing companies like Concur and Stripe. In those roles, I focused on making our products even better and helping the companies grow globally.

Through those experiences, I really came to understand just how critical data is in making smart decisions. I mean, when you have the right data, you can spot trends, reduce risks, boost efficiency, and create strategies that truly put the customer first. But it is only a game-changer if you are making decisions on a solid data foundation.

So, when the opportunity at Amperity came knocking, I knew it was the perfect fit. Here, we're not just unifying, managing and helping activate customer data; we're revolutionizing the way it's done for over 400 brands. It's an exciting time to be part of this team, and I can't wait to see how we continue to set new standards in the industry.

How do you think Customer Experience is changing the game in marketing? What role does data play in it?

Customer experience is transforming marketing by prioritizing personalized engagement at scale. In today’s digital landscape, the quality and accessibility of data are key to achieving this. Amperity ensures marketers have a solid data foundation, enabling them with high-quality data for precise personalization.

Amperity’s platform empowers brands to tailor experiences uniquely to each consumer by using advanced data capabilities and Generative AI. This approach allows for enhanced personalization, adapting to consumer behaviors and preferences in real time. The result is not just personalized marketing but personalization at the enterprise level, ensuring every customer interaction is impactful and relevant. By improving data quality and accessibility, Amperity helps marketers exceed the evolving expectations of their customers.

What trends will stand out in the retail industry? What role do AI and LLM play in the industry?

In the retail industry, trends like hyper-personalization, real-time customer engagement, and paid media activation are becoming increasingly prevalent due to consumers’ growing demand for customized shopping experiences that align closely with individual preferences and behaviors.

AI and large language models (LLM) are crucial for analyzing vast amounts of data and generating insights to predict consumer behavior. For instance, Amperity recently introduced AmpAi, a suite of generative AI capabilities, to add a critical intelligence layer to enable all technical and business users to get the most out of their customer data. The first two capabilities, AmpGPT and AI Assistant set a new benchmark in marketing and advertising technology. AmpGPT empowers marketers to interact with their data using natural language. Ai Assistant removes the barriers to creating SQL queries and fixing potential errors within those queries.

Can you share your perspective on how automation tools revolutionize the industry?

Automation tools are dramatically transforming industries by simplifying complex processes and delivering actionable insights within seconds. At Amperity, our automation capabilities streamline the unification and activation of customer data, freeing up marketing teams to concentrate on strategy and customer engagement rather than tedious data management tasks.

Amperity facilitates a seamless flow of insights across various platforms, such as CRMs and customer service tools. Consequently, these insights can be utilized to deliver precisely targeted messages at the right time, enhancing the effectiveness of communication strategies and improving overall customer experiences. This capability optimizes marketing efforts and scales personalized customer interactions across multiple touchpoints.

What advice would you like to impart regarding building customer relationships?

Building strong customer relationships starts with truly understanding your customers’ needs and preferences. Leveraging data effectively is critical. Ensure your data management tools, like our Lakehouse CDP, can share live data sets between a CDP and a lakehouse without maintaining ETLs or copying data in multiple places. This enables IT teams to optimize how data is stored and processed with any platform that uses a lakehouse’s open table formats to save time and lower costs. This composable, more secure flow of data ensures brands can fuel the data-intensive demands of Generative AI and 1:1 personalization with high-quality data.

MarTech Edge Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Cholawsky, Chief Executive Officer, HG Insights

insights 25 Apr 2024

Firstly, congratulations on being presented with the ‘Executive of the Year 2023’ award. What does it take to reach this exclusive spot?

In my career, ambition and perseverance were the main drivers. My first career goal was to be the president of the US, but I was told that girls weren’t allowed to be president. So, I decided to be president of a company. My interests quickly led me to analyzing data, specifically using quantitative measures to assess social phenomena. That led me to a career in computer modeling and statistics — a skill set that did lead me to work for the government, though not how I pictured it. I was hired by the CIA as a “quantitative methodologist,” one of the only titles I’ve had I like as much as CEO. The rest is classified. But throughout my career, I have faced many challenges and setbacks. No matter what industry I was working in, what title I held, or the company I was working for, the way I got to where I am today is by pushing myself.

Winston Churchill has some of the best quotes for perseverance — for example: “Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

HG Insights has been hailed as the authority in Technology Intelligence; what role does TI play in helping sales and marketing teams improve overall performance?

When you know your market, you can grow your market, finding the opportunities that competitors miss.

HG is the authority because we developed this space. We pioneered Technology Intelligence to give businesses a competitive advantage by telling them the technology applications their prospects are using, how much they are paying competitors for it, whether they are buying more of the application or winding down their investment, and when the licensing period is up for renewal. These insights come together to deliver Technology Intelligence and are the keys to state-of-the-art sales, marketing, and planning. However, there are still many companies yet to discover the power of Technology Intelligence. Several are still making do with technographic, but this is not enough on their own. You need Technology Intelligence to go to market with precision and confidence.

Having all this rich, granular data under the umbrella of Technology Intelligence from HG Insights enables you to make better decisions about which markets and accounts to prioritize, which products to consider developing, where to allocate your limited resources, who to partner with, how to plan your sales territories, all the way down to what messages to send to whom and when.

How do you envision generative AI revolutionizing the way businesses leverage data insights and drive innovation in their respective industries?

Generative AI will have some of the biggest effects of any emerging technology on how we use data-driven insights to be more efficient with fewer resources, something that has benefits in all industries. Here are some of the ways I envision generative AI changing the way businesses leverage data insights that I’m most excited about:

Personalization - Generative AI can be used to create personalized campaigns and experiences for customers, marketing & sales, and recommending relevant products/solutions. This can help businesses to improve customer satisfaction and retention.
Product development - Generative AI can be used to develop new products and services, such as by generating ideas for new products or by testing new product concepts with customers. This can help businesses to stay ahead of the competition and meet the needs of their customers.
Operational efficiency - Generative AI can be used to improve operational efficiency, such as by automating tasks or by optimizing supply chains. This can help businesses to save money and improve their bottom line.

Increasingly our customers are requesting early detection of the introduction of AI in their individual markets — who are adopting AI products, which companies are researching AI solutions, their industries, and their geographies. This is a perfect use case for Technology Intelligence, which speaks directly to these customer inquiries by providing actionable insights to answer these timely questions.

These are use cases that HG already provides solutions for, so in some ways, generative AI will help push forward the innovations HG already brings to customers!

How does HG Insights’ Technology Intelligence assist marketers in identifying their target audience and personalizing their messaging effectively?

With the Technology Intelligence that comes from accurate, quality data, marketers can anticipate the future to predict customer needs and movements in the market and deliver personalized messaging that speaks to the customer’s needs. The fastest-growing global businesses are increasingly turning to Technology Intelligence to plan their GTM strategy, allocate resources, and maximize revenue by cross-referencing insights on technology install, IT spend, cloud consumption, contract, functional area intelligence, and intent signals. All these data points come together to deliver true Technology Intelligence, the most accurate and actionable insights available in today’s market. And with these insights, companies can make the best business decisions. To answer your question, Technology Intelligence helps marketers speak to many, many accounts and prospects by creating relevant campaigns to reach target audiences (TAM, SAM, SOM) and optimize ROI on marketing dollars spent. A great example of this is the HG LinkedIn Connector, which seamlessly integrates Technology Intelligence on your ideal accounts’ with LinkedIn, so you can build audience lists based on their tech install and IT spend, identify and target decision-makers, and get better campaign results every time. Whether it’s competitive displacement campaigns, complementary opportunities, or just reaching the right audience at the right time, Technology Intelligence assists contemporary marketers every day.

Can you share a success story or case study where HG Insights’ Technology Intelligence helped marketers achieve significant results in terms of lead generation or customer acquisition?

We let our customers do the talking for us! A global technology vendor recently told G2, “HG is not just a data provider, but with their high-quality staff, they added a level of service that is unparalleled. They helped us ideate and execute on our data-driven insights. They understand our business and our challenges, and the speed of delivery is excellent.” Another significant operator in the information technology space said, “The customer success team at HG are truly great partners helping to drive feature requests, be it more data or more functionality. I don’t find any downsides to using the HG solution.”

We’ve also delivered tremendous upside to Five9, a major Call & Contact Center As A Service (CCaaS) provider. Our Technology Intelligence drove a 25% increase in target accounts added and a 16% increase in existing opportunities’ engagement. We also gave our valued customer, commercetools, over 150% boost in best-fit accounts Identified in the Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM).

With the rapid pace of technological advancements, how do you stay updated and ensure that your Technology Intelligence is accurate and reliable?

The pace of technological progress is getting faster and faster, leaving leaders with more decisions than ever. That’s why HG’s Technology Intelligence is so important. Whether change comes in the form of new products, the pandemic, or shifts in the market or economy, leaders need to find a way to process all of this newly available information and data. Data-driven insights are how leaders navigate the rapidly changing market.

I am committed to the HG mission: to relentlessly discover and deliver Technology Intelligence innovations to improve business outcomes. Because market and economic changes come quickly, we constantly update, refresh, and refine our Technology Intelligence to address market and industry needs and ensure it’s both accurate and reliable.

What are some upcoming trends or developments in the martech industry that HG Insights is particularly excited about, and how do you envision Technology Intelligence playing a role in those trends?

I’m eager to see how the MarTech industry will evolve over the next few years, and I’m confident that Technology Intelligence will play a bigger role than ever before.

The movement toward ABM — toward creating personalized content and optimized campaigns, and enhanced account scoring and segmentation — is only possible with Technology Intelligence. In short, Technology Intelligence will become even more integral for business innovators to make the right decisions, and I’m dedicated to HG’s vision of being the definitive authority in Technology Intelligence.

With the growing emphasis on account-based marketing (ABM), how can HG Insights’ Technology Intelligence assist marketers in identifying and targeting high-value accounts effectively?

As the market moves toward embracing all aspects of ABM, account scoring, segmentation, and prioritization become ever more important. Technology Intelligence assists marketers in putting best-in-class account segmentation strategies into practice, using data-driven insights to inform segmentation decisions, and properly aligning sales resources to your highest-value accounts. Not to mention, it’s future-focused by optimizing the account segmentation strategy to scale into the next year.

I’ll take this opportunity to share how we use Technology Intelligence here in HG’s marketing motions! The combination of four data points — Firmographic, IT install, Contextual Intent, and Technology Intelligence (FIIT) — improves resource allocation, uncovers cross-selling and upselling opportunities, and increases conversions. We use FIIT scoring to better prioritize accounts, enhance productivity, and circumvent some of the shortcomings of conventional targeting, which requires marketers to continually adjust their targeting strategies to stay relevant and effective in an evolving marketplace. In contrast to conventional ABM, FIIT targeting identifies a prospect’s likelihood to buy based on a combination of data-driven factors. FIIT also helps with sales and marketing alignment by developing a unified account scoring and targeting strategy. We have seen extremely positive results when using Firmographic-Intent-Install-Technology Intelligence (FIIT) scoring model in our in-house marketing campaigns.

What challenges do you anticipate marketing professionals will face in the coming years, and how is HG Insights preparing to address those challenges with its Technology Intelligence solutions?

In today’s market, most of us are facing a similar challenge — the need to deliver the same results with fewer available resources. At the end of the day, the best marketers will still be those who are able to understand their customers and communicate their unique value propositions effectively. And it goes without saying to do so as efficiently as possible. Technology Intelligence empowers companies and business innovators with actionable insights to ensure success, and it is the most effective solution to the upcoming challenges most marketers will face in the coming years.

Martech Edge Interview with Noel Hamill, Global Chief Marketing Officer, parcelLab

customer experience management 25 Apr 2024

How have you utilized your professional experience in operating major consumer brands to drive growth in rapidly changing industries?

To drive growth in rapidly changing industries, it is important to understand that marketing doesn’t exist in a silo. To be successful, you need to work closely with sales, product development, partner teams, etc. to ensure that your marketing messages are aligned and that you are working towards the same goals.

Additionally, when I enter a new role, I assess what has and hasn’t worked in the past. From there, we figure out what priorities are important for growth, and I share my experience of what has worked well in my previous roles. For example, one idea I have suggested is for my team to reach out to industry influencers and partners to participate in podcasts or webinars. This is an effort that can expand your reach and get your organization’s name out to a wider audience.

Lastly, it is important to encourage your team to experiment with new ideas and approaches that haven’t been tried before. Don’t be afraid to take risks and try new things. After all, you never know what may catch your audience’s attention.

Can you explain the correlation between personalization and post-purchase experience? What advantages does this partnership have?

It is easier and cheaper to convert repeat customers than to bring in new customers. To ensure each customer has a positive post-purchase experience, retailers need to personalize their customer journeys based on the information the customer has given them. Understanding customer’s previous shopping behavior or preferences will allow brands to craft a tailored shopping experience.

For unique customer journeys, retailers should insert things like personalized product recommendations, marketing promotions, how-to videos, and loyalty program banners into tracking pages and email communications. By providing this personalized experience, retailers can decrease customer inquiries by keeping customers proactively informed and improve conversion rates since the communications are tailored to their preferences.

At parcelLab, retailers are empowered to deliver personalized communications, order status pages, and returns experiences. One example is our campaign manager product which allows retailers to easily build customer segments and create personalized, visual campaigns for any audience. It includes the ability to insert content into email notifications and order status pages, enabling retailers to boost customer lifetime value, increase conversions, and reduce “Where is my order” (WISMO) inquiries.

In what ways do you believe aligning advertising efforts with shopper intent helps CX? How do you measure the effectiveness of such alignment in driving sales and fostering long-term customer loyalty?

When organizations align advertising efforts with shopper intent, the customer experience is improved due to the ability to:

Display ads for the products and services they are most interested in.
Promote information customers need to progress their journey down the purchasing funnel.
Personalize ads, messages, and recommendations that cater to individual customer needs and preferences.

There are a few ways organizations can measure the effectiveness. For driving sales, organizations can view click-through rates, conversion rates, return on ad spend, time spent on your site, and page views per session. For long term loyalty metrics, organizations should look at repeat purchase rates and customer lifetime value. By tracking these metrics, you can determine whether your advertising methods are working well or if there is room for improvement.

How do you see the evolving landscape of AI tools impacting various industries, particularly in relation to MarTech?

MarTech is being quickly transformed by AI and these tools are essential for marketers to stay on top of their game and ahead of the curve. More and more organizations are adopting AI to provide deeper customer insights, automate tasks, and improve marketing performance. In the future, these tools will continue to evolve and drive wider impact on the growth of organizations in various different industries.

What lessons would you impart for a growing retailer? Additionally, what future do you see for the e-commerce industry?

For growing retailers, there are three lessons I would keep in mind are:

Always prioritize the customer experience: Build a seamless shopping experience across all points of the customer journey, from browsing to post-purchase to returns. Consider implementing a post-purchase provider that allows you to embed your tracking page on your own website so you can provide a consistent experience from end-to-end and ensure the provider has segmentation capabilities that allow you to personalize each customer journey.
Embrace data-driven decisions: Leverage analytics to understand your customer base, identify trends, and optimize your marketing efforts. Make sure to track key performance indicators to measure success and make informed decisions about your product offerings, marketing strategies, and resource allocation.
Think beyond borders: Consider what expanding your business looks like. International fulfillment has a lot of complexities, and your business will need to factor in communicating in different languages. From the post-purchase side, make sure you are partnering with a provider that can help you navigate these challenges and ensure a smooth delivery experience for global customers.

As for the future of e-commerce, it is constantly evolving with exciting trends shaping the future:

Personalization at Scale: Consumers crave personalized experiences. E-commerce will see a rise in AI-powered personalization, offering tailored product recommendations, targeted marketing messages, and dynamic content that caters to individual customer preferences.
The Rise of Social Commerce: Social media platforms are becoming increasingly shoppable. Expect to see even deeper integration between social media and e-commerce, allowing customers to discover products, make purchases, and receive customer service – all within their favorite social media apps.
Sustainability Takes Center Stage: Today's consumers are environmentally conscious. E-commerce will prioritize sustainable practices like eco-friendly packaging, carbon-neutral shipping options, and transparent supply chains.
Emerging Technologies Take Hold: Technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will transform the online shopping experience. Imagine virtually trying on clothes or viewing furniture in your own living room before making a purchase!

By staying informed about these trends and adapting your strategy accordingly, e-commerce businesses will be positioned for long-term success. Remember, the focus on exceptional customer experience and leveraging data-driven insights remain constant, regardless of the future innovations to come.

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