MarTech Edge Interview with Garrett MacDonald, Chief Commercial Officer, AUDIENCEX

How has your journey led to the CCO’s role at AUDIENCEX? Please share some key takeaways from your journey.

The path to becoming a CCO can vary depending on your circumstances and experiences. My journey to the CCO role has been a result of effectively driving revenue growth within a company through a combination of strong leadership skills, continuous learning, relevant experience, and a strategic mindset. Focusing on these key areas has propelled me on my path to becoming a CCO.

To achieve this, I have developed expertise in product, sales, and marketing through hands-on leadership experiences. Creating a culture of excellence has been the force multiplier throughout my career, and it starts with empathy, resourcefulness, and accountability. This includes learning how to develop effective sales strategies, manage teams, leverage technology solutions to make teams more efficient, and, most importantly, a deep understanding of customer needs.

In addition, I have sought opportunities to gain exposure to different business functions within an organization. By exploring the science behind cross-functional collaboration, I have gained a deeper understanding of the broader aspects of the business and how they interconnect.

To further support my journey, I have demonstrated strong leadership skills and the ability to think strategically. These qualities have allowed me to drive results, effectively manage teams, and make critical business decisions.

Overall, my path to the CCO role has been shaped by a combination of practical experience, continuous learning, and the ability to navigate and excel in various aspects of the business. By focusing on these areas, I have been able to progress and succeed in my journey toward becoming a CCO.

How does client segmentation play an important role in an ad-marketing campaign & how do your targeting strategies revolve around it?

Client segmentation plays a crucial role in an advertising marketing campaign by allowing businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to specific target audiences. Effective segmentation enables businesses to create targeted, relevant, and personalized messages, allocate resources efficiently, enhance customer experiences, improve conversion rates, and gain a competitive edge in the market. Some common targeting strategies that businesses often employ based on client segmentation include demographic targeting, psychographic targeting, behavioral targeting, geographic targeting, technographic targeting, firmographic targeting, and customer lifecycle targeting. We employ a combination of these targeting strategies to optimize our advertising campaigns to improve our overall campaign effectiveness.

AUDIENCEX recently announced a strategic partnership with Geenee AR. How will it enable advertisers to deliver better campaign experiences using WebAR-enabled ads?

Through our strategic partnership with Geenee AR, we are excited to offer our clients cutting-edge access to Web-based Augmented Reality (WebAR) ads. This collaboration enables us to provide comprehensive AR advertising solutions, incorporating specialized formats that seamlessly integrate immersive virtual try-on technology into ad placements. This creates an engaging and immersive user experience, allowing consumers to interact with products before making a purchase. The utilization of this technology enables brands to establish meaningful connections with customers by delivering personalized experiences.

By combining this innovative technology with AUDIENCEX’s omnichannel media access, strategic expertise, and AI-powered predictive analytics, WebAR can be seamlessly integrated into targeted ads across various platforms, channels, and devices. Our clients will benefit from fully managed and continuously optimized campaigns that leverage AR across display, social media, native ads, digital out-of-home (DOOH), connected TV (CTV), and other digital channels.

How do you collaborate with different teams to drive client success?

Collaboration is the bedrock of effective teamwork. Successful collaboration relies on a culture of mutual respect and a shared commitment to deliver exceptional results for our clients.

Clear and open communication between teams is essential to effective collaboration. To help facilitate this and ensure that everyone is aligned on goals, timelines, and client expectations, we leverage all the modern communication and project management tools.

Our collaborative teams have a shared understanding of the client’s goals and objectives and how their contributions fit into the bigger picture. By aligning their efforts towards common outcomes and KPIs, our teams work together more cohesively and effectively.

Knowledge sharing and best practice training are crucial for enhancing the overall expertise and capabilities of our team. We organize a cadence of training sessions and workshops to exchange best practices, industry insights, and lessons learned. This fosters continuous learning and enables teams to provide better support and solutions to clients.

What sales-enabling strategies have you used till now that were the most successful?

Some of my most successful sales-enabling strategies have been sales and marketing alignment, sales training and development, and leveraging sales enablement technology. It is critical to promote collaboration and alignment between the sales and marketing teams to ensure consistent messaging, lead handoff, and a unified customer experience. Having clear communication, regular meetings, and shared goals helps bridge the gap between these departments and improve overall sales effectiveness.

Providing comprehensive training and development programs to sales teams equips them with the necessary skills, product knowledge, and sales techniques to effectively engage with prospects and close deals. Ongoing training helps sales professionals stay current with industry trends, refine their selling skills, and adapt to changing customer needs. Utilizing sales enablement tools and technology helps to streamline sales processes, enhance productivity, and improve collaboration within sales teams. These tools include CRM, sales automation software, email tracking tools, and CMS, among others.

How AUDIENCEX is setting itself apart from its competitors with capabilities like programmatic advertising, media platforms, analytics, DSP, etc.?

AUDIENCEX enables challenger brands to compete with their category leaders. We develop innovative solutions to solve common problems in marketing and advertising. Our platform is purpose-built to support brands and agencies in navigating the ever-evolving digital landscape, harnessing the power of emerging technologies, and implementing innovative, creative strategies to produce better outcomes for our clients. Our cutting-edge technology and strategic partnerships are complemented by seamless media access, AI-powered predictive data, expert strategies, and award-winning creative services. This empowers us to execute impactful and engaging campaigns that drive performance at every stage of the marketing funnel across all channels and screens.

We also understand the numerous challenges faced by brands and agencies today. To address these challenges, we have developed AUDIENCEX Intelligence (AXi). AXi ensures that our clients stay ahead of the curve, not only in terms of performance but also in privacy compliance, scalability, and cost efficiency. In an increasingly fragmented and fiercely competitive digital landscape, AXi leverages sophisticated data science tools to understand and predict consumer behavior, delivering enhanced performance throughout the entire customer journey. As marketers grapple with uncertainty and economic pressures to optimize their budgets, our solutions instill confidence that every advertising dollar is utilized effectively, modeling and reaching audiences that are more likely to convert.

What’s your process for assessing new or emerging technologies that can help streamline sales processes?

When evaluating new or emerging technology to streamline sales processes, my approach involves several key steps. First, we identify the specific pain points and inefficiencies in our current sales processes. This helps us understand the areas that require improvement and sets the foundation for evaluating potential solutions.

Next, I conduct thorough research to identify new or emerging technologies that have the potential to address our needs. Once I have a list of potential technologies, we define evaluation criteria based on our specific requirements and goals. Defining these criteria helps us assess the technologies consistently and objectively.

I then reach out to the technology providers and request product demos or trials. I involve my sales team in the evaluation process and gather their feedback on how the technology would impact their day-to-day activities.

If feasible, we conduct a proof of concept (PoC) to test the technology within our sales environment. As part of the evaluation, we also assess the reputation, reliability, and track record of the technology provider.

Based on the evaluation, feedback, and analysis, we make an informed decision on whether to adopt the technology. If we decide to proceed, we then create an implementation plan that includes training programs, change management strategies, and a timeline for rolling out the technology to our sales team.

Overall, the process involves a systematic and thorough evaluation, ensuring we select solutions that align with our specific needs and provide the greatest value in streamlining our sales processes.

How does AUDIENCEX leverage machine learning technology to analyze enterprise-level platforms across programmatic, search, and social to determine what works best for each campaign?

AUDIENCEX Intelligence (AXi) is our comprehensive collection of advanced data science tools powered by artificial intelligence. These tools are strategically utilized across the digital landscape to efficiently identify, model, and target the most relevant audiences. By doing so, AXi drives performance and optimizes spending to achieve a greater ROAS at a large scale. Our AXi solution allows us to determine what strategies work best for each campaign.

Machine learning algorithms within AXi analyze vast amounts of data from various platforms, including programmatic advertising, search engines, and social media. By processing this data, the algorithms can identify patterns, trends, and correlations that provide valuable insights into campaign performance.

Through the use of machine learning, AUDIENCEX can optimize campaign strategies by identifying the most effective targeting parameters, ad formats, and messaging for different audiences. The algorithms can also analyze customer behavior and engagement data to understand what resonates with the target audience, allowing for the creation of highly personalized and relevant campaigns.

AXi’s machine learning capabilities enable AUDIENCEX to continually refine and improve campaign performance. The algorithms learn from previous campaigns, adapting and optimizing strategies based on real-time data to deliver the best results.

By leveraging machine learning technology and AXi, AUDIENCEX provides our clients with data-driven insights and recommendations to enhance campaign effectiveness. This approach allows us to constantly iterate and improve strategies, ensuring that each campaign is tailored to the specific needs and preferences of the target audience.