You’ve been leading AtData for 20+ years now; how would you narrate your journey and experiences?

In 2001, I founded TowerData, now AtData, two months after 9/11 and right as the dot com bubble was bursting—a rather chaotic and difficult time to be launching a tech company. The first few years were very lean and hard, always worrying if we would make payroll, and it was at least five years before I thought the company would actually survive.

Perhaps surprisingly, we managed to hit our stride after the 2008 financial crisis hit. Email is significantly cheaper and more effective than direct mail, and this was a boon for our business. At the same time, I felt like we were in a rut, and I had my own crisis, unsure I had the desire to keep going. I had actually negotiated the sale of the company but, at the last moment, changed my mind, instead taking a 6-month sabbatical in Europe to recharge and reset.

I haven’t looked back since. By prioritizing innovation and excellence; by expanding the suite of services we offer organically and by acquisition; and by working with people of high integrity who are knowledgeable and passionate about what they do; I continue to be stimulated, be challenged, and learn. The most recent adventure was TowerData’s 2021 merger with its longstanding partner, FreshAddress. We doubled in size and rebranded as AtData to emphasize that we are the leaders in email address intelligence solutions.

It amazes me how we’ve evolved from helping a local NYC gift shop to being the trusted partner of Fortune 500 companies such as Verizon and McDonald’s. Several times along the way, “the death of email” has been proclaimed, but email marketing remains a highly effective channel, fueling our growth.

How does AtData empower companies to make the most of their first-party email data and decode customer identities?

First off, why are we talking about first-party data? Customers are the lifeblood of a company, and unlike inflation or the walled gardens of Ad Tech, your customer data is something you can control and leverage to maximize the return of your marketing efforts. However, if you don’t know who your customers are, what they want, and how and when to best reach them, you won’t be able to execute your campaigns effectively. AtData’s Email Address Intelligence ensures you have accurate, complete, and safe first-party data.

We start at the very beginning, letting organizations know if an email address is valid and safe to send to. It’s not uncommon for us to block 15% of the emails entered on a website because they are typographical errors, fraudsters, bots, fake addresses, spam traps, etc. We can then go a step further than other solutions to tell you if an address is active and has been used to complete purchases. Knowing an email address is actionable is key and often overlooked in our increasingly digital-first economy.

Similarly, we are also able to update the email address associated with an individual to their most current and preferred or link an email to a postal address or vice versa. This allows companies to reach their customers who otherwise might have lapsed—simply because they forgot to update their email addresses in the company’s database. When the average consumer can have hundreds of profiles and subscriptions, it’s not a rare occurrence that data becomes outdated. AtData also enriches first-party email data with demographic information to improve personalized messaging.

We provide a wealth of information to evolve a company’s first-party email addresses into more robust, accurate, and up-to-date profiles so they can really get to know the person and have meaningful conversations. Our Email Address Intelligence solutions are really all about developing relationships with your customers by being able to reach them, utilizing messaging that resonates with them, and protecting their interests.

In your opinion, what works better during economic crises—sticking to the core business approach or trying something out of the box?

In general, I am a proponent of going with the core business as long as that core business was working prior to the crisis. Refocusing efforts on fundamentals can have a big impact on a business. Many companies are either resource-constrained or moving quickly, and it’s not uncommon for them to get too far ahead of themselves and forget about the quality of their messaging and datasets. For example, when was the last time the customer welcome series was reviewed? I think we have all seen statistics on earning a new customer versus keeping an existing one—so retention efforts can make or break a company through economic downturns.

With the help of partners like AtData, customer email addresses can be turned into a wealth of information so marketers can be sure they’re reaching their audience at their preferred addresses with better messaging for the offers that make the most sense. Along with that, we help prevent fraud, utilizing the largest global email address network. Unfortunately, economic uncertainty tends to correlate with malicious individuals trying to take advantage. Focusing on protecting the core business by preventing fraud and protecting customers can also go a long way in building loyalty.

In what advanced ways do AtData’s fraud prevention solutions ensure to keep companies a step ahead of cyberattacks?

False identities are one of the primary attack vectors of fraudsters, and AtData protects businesses by recognizing emails used in fraud. In fact, newly created email addresses are 300% more likely to be fraudulent, and emails are much more predictive of fraud than phones or postal addresses.

No one sees as many email activity events as AtData, literally billions of signals every month, which enables us to recognize when an address or domain first comes into use or presents anomalous behavior. An individual company is likely to only see activity across its systems and network, limiting the scope of information needed to identify malicious intent. Built from these signals, our historical email database, fraud feedback consortium, and machine-learning models detect fraud in real time. In this way, our Email Address Intelligence helps reduce the unknown, so companies can protect themselves and their customers without adding friction to the process.

Transactions, account creations, profiles—the list goes on—are all becoming digital. If email is central to your customer identities, email-based fraud prevention will help you minimize risk and reduce costs.

What fundamental strategies do you implement at AtData to ensure a working equilibrium among all BUs?

We start with business objectives, one of the best ways to get everyone on the same page. Our trajectory is determined by these primary goals, which each department then builds from to develop its team and individual goals. They really do keep us all moving in the same direction and, perhaps more importantly, keep us honest and on task. We also have our core values—data-driven, innovative, collaborative, agile, experts—that underly everything we do, from who we bring on board to how we operate. These form the framework for how we do business and make it easier for our various teams to work together.

Beyond that, our goal is to work transparently with all our employees. We strive to empower everyone to have an owner’s mentality, so they are accountable and always willing to help. Keeping everyone informed with regular staff meetings and ongoing communications helps drive collaboration, alleviating siloes and making sure everyone is aware of what we’re building together.

Should we be expecting any new product launch from AtData soon in the future?

Not necessarily a new product per se, but we are investing heavily in developing machine-learning models based on our unique datasets for a variety of use cases. We recently unveiled a new model that reduces the unknown rate of our email verification service, maximizing the number we can provide a status on. This equates to potentially 20% more actionable email addresses within a database.

Looking forward, we are developing an email quality score. Where our SafeToSend® service tells you if an address is safe to mail, the quality score will tell you if an address is active, responsive, and belongs to a buyer. This will be game-changing for email marketers as they look to have better insight into who is and isn’t engaging beyond their limited scope. It will help to better differentiate if an email address is not engaged or just not engaged with your campaigns. It really is something marketers have wanted for quite some time, and the technology has finally caught up such that we can’t wait to provide it for them.

What differentiating brand characteristics enable AtData to become one of the best in business?

AtData was brought about by the merger of two very strong email intelligence brands—TowerData and FreshAddress. The resulting organization has a depth of experience, robust dataset, and technology that is unmatched in the industry. Our proprietary network alone provides us with a scope of email activity not found anywhere else, ultimately making our Email Address Intelligence solutions the leader in accuracy and comprehensiveness.

We are constantly innovating, with recent advancements utilizing machine learning to further improve the insights we can provide on an email address. I would say we are one of the few companies that are treating email verification and hygiene as the evolving technology that it is, going well beyond a simple SMTP ping to truly understand activity and the individual behind an email address. There are many reasons why we can offer our 100% SafeToSend® guarantee—we are that confident in our results.

How influential a role, do you think, will AI play in both escalating and preventing digital fraud?

As an industry, we’re still just scratching the surface of AI. It will definitely play a role in the very near future, unfortunately, in both escalation and prevention. But I believe there are far more individuals working diligently on prevention, that the AI models used to identify malicious activity will advance at a much more rapid pace. Sadly, digital fraud is still too lucrative, but I trust that, as we work with AI and machine learning, we’ll be able to develop systems that make it harder and harder.

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.

Could you share the remarkable journey and valuable insights you have gained while leading SourceKnowledge for the past 13 years?

Co-founding SourceKnowledge in the fast-paced digital sector has shown the importance of being adaptable in the face of ever-changing technology. SourceKnowledge itself has pivoted since its video-focused inception in 2009 to become an advertising network dedicated to recognizing quality publishers and allowing retailers and DTC brands to spend based on their goals, all while showcasing the power of the open web.

What factors contribute to SourceKnowledge being recognized as the premier performance platform in the industry?

A key factor contributing to SourceKnowledge being recognized as the premier performance platform on the open web is our ability to adjust to the current digital landscape. With industry changes over the last decade and a half, SourceKnowledge has had several iterations. Being flexible and adaptive is vital to any successful business.

Can you outline the key strategic approaches you adhere to in order to achieve and scale revenue at SourceKnowledge?

• Define clear revenue goals and track that targets are being met
• Build strategic partnerships
• Address user feedback and continuously improve the tech/products and tools available to our advertisers
• Provide effective customer support and account management to strengthen relationships

How do you effectively align the efforts of the product, marketing, sales, and customer success teams to drive revenue growth within SourceKnowledge?

Our product, marketing, sales, and customer success teams remain in sync by connecting on a regular basis. Our developers, along with product and marketing teams, review the product roadmap regularly to prioritize critical and revenue-driving projects. Our sales and customer success teams closely monitor campaign performance to identify the potential for revenue optimization, as well as identify new revenue and business development opportunities. Having teams with open lines of communication keeps efforts aligned, which ultimately supports our top line. 

Are there any upcoming solutions or innovations that SourceKnowledge plans to introduce in the near future?

We are currently working on completely revamping our dashboard to provide a new framework, new skin, additional tools, and visual insights to our users.

When faced with revenue challenges during economic downturns, what strategies have you implemented to overcome them at SourceKnowledge?

During economic downturns, SourceKnowledge has continued building and strengthening publisher relationships. By partnering with non-traditional deal-centric publishers (such as coupon sites, comparison shopping engines, coupon influencers, or BNPL services) with a focus on helping shoppers save, advertising remains relevant. Retailers can increase traction, effectively get in front of shoppers looking to save, and make the most of their ad dollars.

From your perspective, what significant disruptions do you foresee shaping the adtech landscape in the next decade?

Some key factors that will continue to shape the adtech landscape are:

• Compliance/privacy laws and regulations: Increasingly strict regulations will affect ad targeting and tracking.
• The deprecation of the cookie: A cookieless future will require new solutions for targeting ads and tracking.

What advice would you offer aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to establish themselves in the competitive adtech niche?

In the digital space, things change so rapidly, so it’s important to be adaptive and reactive. Getting stuck on a specific idea or result for your business won’t be productive. If an idea or project is no longer feasible, be nimble and adjust. Keeping up with the industry is key and also sparks your creativity.

Surround yourself with good people. The team you hire, as well as the publishers you partner with, are big decisions that should be made with thoughtfulness. You want to be able to work with people for the next many years and have mutual trust. This is key to growing your business.

What were your inspirations and previous experiences that prompted the establishment of Influ2?

Advertising brings new products to life like no other medium. It can help brands to build relationships. It’s less intrusive than the traditional sales process. To me, the best advertising—think David Ogilvey’s work for VW or Leo Burnett’s work with Kellogg—can become a form of contemporary art.

That’s when it’s done well.

Enterprise B2B is sales-driven by nature, and to be honest, marketing makes minimal contributions to sales conversations. At least, that was my experience before starting Influ2. I wanted to change that, and I saw an opportunity to build something that makes advertising work for B2B enterprise sales.

As the first person-based marketing platform, how is Influ2 creating disruptions within the martech industry?

Our technology helps companies use advertising to build relationships with specific individuals. No other vendor in the space can build this kind of one-to-one connection through advertising, one that’s so closely integrated with the sales process. That’s been disruptive, as we see businesses coming to use to run ads that actually contribute to the sales conversation and become an integral part of the broader go-to-market strategy. They’re not finding this capability anywhere else.

In terms of ABM capabilities, intent capturing, and engagement tracking, how does Influ2 surpass its competitors?

What’s interesting is that, in many cases, we’re not surpassing competition, we’re complementing it. Many of our customers are already successfully using a competitor to understand intent when they come to us. They need us to build this relationship, influence their buyers, and connect this influence to the sales process. 

Because you cannot establish any meaningful alignment between marketing and sales if you don’t know who marketing is speaking to, as in, the actual names. And that’s the critical capability that we add and our differentiator. When salespeople ask, “Who do I talk to and what do I say?” we provide the answer.

What are your plans for incorporating AI into Influ2’s solutions in the future?

This reminds me of an old joke: 

Q: “What’s the difference between AI and machine learning?” 

A: “Machine learning is done in Python. AI is done in PowerPoint.” 

It’s silly, but the point is that we’ve been talking about AI for a decade now. Not just us—everyone in our space. It’s already part of what we do, in some form or another, so nothing has really changed. AI has been, still is, and will remain part of our unique targeting capabilities. We’ve embraced this tech since our inception in 2017, and I can tell you that we’d all rather talk about the value we create for customers than the technology we use under the hood.

To what extent do Influ2’s offerings assist brands in navigating the current challenging economic climate?

Contemporary marketers need to provide tangible, short-term gains as efficiently as possible. There’s not a lot of room for marketing ideas that sound good but can’t be measured. The current economic environment has a lot to do with that. The latest iteration of the Influ2 platform focuses on just that: it connects your marketing influence to impact on pipeline and revenue. It’s a very tangible look at what’s working and what’s not within an enterprise’s go-to-market strategy.

Can you elaborate on the marketing and business strategies employed by Influ2?

Walk the talk, if you will. Eat your own dog food. We started using our own products to acquire new customers and go to market in 2018, and, honestly, it was tough, which was disappointing because we built this amazing tech but had trouble deploying it for our own business. But we stuck with it and made it work—proved it worked—for our own objectives. That process taught us a lot about our strengths and weaknesses. Now this philosophy is part of our DNA: whatever we build for customers, we also use it for our own business. I think customers recognize and appreciate this commitment.

How do you envision scaling Influ2 over the next five years?

In the beginning, our approach was, okay, here’s an amazing technology that lets you target specific people and track how they engage with ads, but we have no idea how clients might use it. So we’ve spent a lot of time gathering information about how clients use Influ2 and have finally distilled a clear understanding of why customers choose Influ2 and what they need to be successful. The challenge now is to scale that success with 100% clarity about our place in the Martech ecosystem and the tech stacks of our customers.

If you could offer advice to your younger self who established Influ2 in 2017, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid. The uncertainty and unanswered questions, the fears about failing—just don’t be afraid. That would be my advice. And in a perfect world, I could go back and warn my 2017 self about what wastes time and which mistakes to avoid—just to speed up the decision-making, you know? But at some point, you have to let go, refuse to be afraid, and just carry on, come what will.

Tell us about your journey and how you landed your current role as the CRO at Fintel Connect.

My background is actually in finance and economics, but I was connected with our founder around 11 years ago and fell in love with what she was building. Those in affiliate marketing know that the channel is a perfect match between advertorial and PR, and what attracted me to this industry was the inherent foundation of partnership where everyone wins—brand, affiliate, and consumer. The opportunity to work at a technology company that really specialized and offered ways to scale and create efficiency with this type of marketing was exciting. Fintel Connect emerged from another business that we ran in a different industry. We recognized a huge opportunity in financial services and evaluated whether we could really make a difference and create value by bringing a new solution to the space. My background and career have focused on growth, which means leveraging scrappy marketing and creating meaningful partnerships and relationships. As a result, I took on the responsibility of driving the growth of the business forward.

What key strategies do you implement at Fintel Connect to drive revenue growth?

We strongly believe in creating value for our clients and our industry. Therefore, we strive to offer thought leadership, educational materials, and insightful content that is engaging. This approach establishes us as a destination for individuals seeking such insights, and we aspire to be known as the foremost provider of growth marketing solutions for financial brands. By fostering strategic partnerships and delving deep into this niche, we are working to solidify our credibility and expand our presence. However, we consider ourselves to be only at the beginning of our journey.

What works better for revenue generation during an economic downturn—sticking to the basics or doing something out of the box?

I believe it’s important to be realistic about what truly makes a tangible difference for your business. In our case, we understand the formula that works, so we focus on strategies that can have the greatest impact. For us, thought leadership revolves around creating valuable content, providing education, and sharing insightful perspectives. However, other businesses might achieve it through different direct channels or paid avenues for broader awareness. The key is to strive for predictability. While the basics are important, it is crucial to leave room for experimentation. You never want to fully commit your resources. But experimentation is valuable because you never know where an opportunity might arise. Of course, it should be well calculated. You need to set clear goals, measure the results, and adapt as you go along. The most important thing is not to put your business in a state of discomfort or at risk. So, striking the right balance between tried-and-true methods and calculated experimentation is the way to go.

Familiarize us with the technologies you leverage to accomplish Fintel Connect’s revenue objectives.

Well, as a B2B business operating in the financial services industry, our sales cycles tend to be quite lengthy. To manage our processes effectively, we rely on CRM tools like HubSpot. In fact, we recently implemented their marketing solution, which has been beneficial for our email marketing campaigns and overall workflow. To stay organized, we utilize tools like ClickUp, which helps us manage our time and development tasks. Speaking of development, we make use of platforms like GitHub and DevOps to streamline our development processes.

When it comes to channels for communication, LinkedIn takes the lead as the primary digital channel for engaging with our target audiences. We also leverage Twitter to establish ourselves as thought leaders in the industry. We also use SEMRush for web optimization purposes. However, in terms of importance, our email marketing campaigns and CRM system are key tools for us. So, with these tools in our arsenal, we are able to enhance our operations and effectively reach our goals.

How does Fintel Connect ensure the best experience for its customers?

It all boils down to understanding the pain points of our customers and creating products and solutions that effectively address those challenges. We firmly believe people are willing to invest money to eliminate pain or friction. With our specialized approach, we have diligently identified and defined these friction points in terms of growth and compliance. We have developed tools and features that are intuitive, user-friendly, and designed to alleviate those pain points.

We are not ones to shy away from feedback. In fact, we actively seek insights from our clients, end users, and publishers to gather direct feedback on how we can enhance our offerings. Their input is invaluable in making improvements that simplify their lives, empower them to excel in their roles, and have a more significant impact. This feedback constantly informs our development roadmap, ensuring that we are always evolving and delivering the best possible solutions. After all, our goal is to make a positive difference and enable their success.

How do you ensure alignment of sales, marketing, and customer success teams to keep revenue goals on point?

Communication plays a pivotal role in effective leadership. We make it a point to cascade specific targets, insights, and information about what is working and what is not, ensuring everyone is on the same page and understands their role in the organization.

In our company, we view marketing as an extension of the sales team, as their efforts directly contribute to sales performance. However, it is crucial to acknowledge that marketing’s success is also dependent on feedback and input from the sales team. It is a collaborative relationship where both teams work hand in hand. When we onboard new clients, our customer success team plays a vital role in gathering insights and understanding the unique motivations and priorities of our clients. This valuable information is then shared with the marketing and sales teams, ensuring we are all aligned and working towards the same objectives.

By maintaining this open line of communication and feedback loop, we create a cohesive environment where everyone understands the needs and goals of our clients. This approach allows us to provide the best possible solutions and ensures that all teams are working together harmoniously toward customer success.

How do you measure and optimize the effectiveness of your revenue growth initiatives?

We focus on aligning our efforts with revenue-related metrics and understanding the key factors influencing them. We analyze both activity-based and results-based metrics to assess the effectiveness of our efforts and the impact on our growth.

From an activity standpoint, we measure metrics related to volume and quality. We set targets for each business area that generates net new growth opportunities. It’s essential to evaluate whether we are reaching the right audiences and if our marketing efforts are generating the desired volume of opportunities. Moreover, we assess the conversion rate and quality of these opportunities from a sales perspective. We consider factors like messaging frequency, number of touchpoints, pipeline development, and conversion rate of the pipeline.

In addition, we also track metrics related to cross-selling and upselling to our existing clients. This allows us to maximize opportunities within our client base and further contribute to our revenue growth.

By consistently monitoring and analyzing these metrics, we can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of our strategies and make informed decisions to drive sustainable growth.

How are Fintel Connect’s solutions transforming the fintech landscape for the better?

Our overarching vision as a business is to become the digital backbone for financial brands. Right now, we specialize in customer acquisition and tools to provide transparent insights into their marketing efforts. We’ve since evolved our solutions to meet compliance and monitoring needs as fintechs and brands expand their marketing efforts. Our future vision is to allow finserv marketers to have all the data, transparency, and protection they need at all stages of the funnel—from acquisition to conversion to retention and beyond.  

Ultimately, our goal is to enhance people’s access to exceptional products and brands. We aspire to support these brands in their innovation journeys, enabling them to continually deliver outstanding solutions to the market.

You have been leading PostcardMania as its CMO for 14 years. Brief us on your journey.

I started working at PostcardMania in 2004, straight out of college. I was originally hired to run a project to partner with franchises and then was promoted to launch all new products as the Vice President of Business Development. Five years later, our VP of Marketing gave notice, and Founder & CEO Joy Gendusa asked me to fill his shoes (which I have to admit was a bit terrifying). At that point, we had a $4 million marketing budget, and I didn’t want to mess it up! It worked out, and I was able to outperform existing metrics and was eventually promoted from Vice President of Marketing to Chief Marketing Officer. It’s now been 19 years, and I feel very lucky to have been part of this company’s journey as we surpass $100 million in annual revenue. We continue to evolve our products around an unwavering commitment to helping small business owners grow their businesses and contribute to an expanding US economy. Currently, my team is made up of 10 marketing professionals who are all experts in their fields and generate more than 2000 B2B leads each week.

Please walk us through Everywhere Small Business, PostcardMania’s flagship marketing product, and the recently added features.

Everywhere Small Business is our multichannel marketing campaign package that gives small business owners the opportunity to target prospects with postcards and coordinated digital ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, Gmail, and YouTube. As the postcards are mailed out, digital ads are displayed to prospects on these platforms, and not only do they amplify the client’s reach and exposure and make it seem like their business is everywhere, but they also give prospects an easy way to get to clients’ websites to convert.

The recent features we added to Everywhere Small Business expand the reach of those coordinated digital ads by targeting prospects based on their online behavior and the physical locations they visit. So, for example, a vet could target people nearby doing research online on why their cat might be throwing up at night or people visiting a local dog park.

The best part about the new Browsed-Content Targeting and Visited-Locations Targeting is that small business owners have access to premier technology previously only available to large brands. And at prices that a small business can afford. By leveling the playing field with bigger brand names, small businesses can achieve success and grow bigger and better than before—and that’s PostcardMania’s driving mission.

What major alterations have you made in marketing strategies to sail through economic downturns like the current one?

PostcardMania was founded in 1998, so we’ve been through our fair share of tough economic times. We had our first major economic challenge in 2008, which ultimately gave us the experience we needed to be better prepared for any economic downturn.

In 2008, 46% of our revenue came from clients in the mortgage and real estate industries, and we lost thousands of clients almost instantly when the housing bubble burst. Against our gut instincts, we cut our marketing spend significantly based on advisors’ recommendations. By 2009, we were struggling to make payroll and were down 15%. It turned out that reducing our marketing budget had made everything worse. So we decided to restore the marketing budget back to pre-crash totals, and our numbers recovered quickly—2010 ended up being an all-time high revenue year for us at the time.

We learned the valuable lesson to never stop marketing regardless of economic conditions, and we applied this principle when the pandemic hit in 2020. We never cut our marketing or even laid off a single staff member despite our revenue crashing over 40% for several weeks in March and April 2020. But we recovered more quickly than most. July 2020 became the new highest-ever revenue month for us. In the final six months of 2020, we increased our leads by 9.24% without increasing our marketing spend. Our competitors all cut back, which ended up making our marketing efforts more effective than ever. Every year we get a little bit smarter and more efficient with our marketing efforts, but consistency is something we have kept in since day one. It’s honestly our biggest piece of advice to clients, and it doesn’t change even during an economic crisis.

What is PCM Integrations, and how does this technology work for marketers?

PCM Integrations is one of our newer divisions that has been expanding by leaps and bounds. It is a direct mail API which is basically a software connection between us and any other software to automate mail going out. It gives businesses the opportunity to automate mailings based on triggers like when a shopping cart is abandoned or if a new lead is entered into a customer relationship management system. Business owners can automatically target their hottest leads with mailers at a key time in the buying process, and it is a one-time set-it and forget-it process. It gives brands the opportunity to automatically increase credibility by 49% over just sending emails to prospects.

We have clients switching over to us from other direct mail APIs every day because of our vast knowledge of direct mail design for response, as well as our print quality. Other direct mail APIs outsource the production to many different printers, which means the quality control of the finished product is nonexistent. We also don’t charge tech fees which can save companies tens of thousands of dollars a year. It was a natural fit for us to build out a development team to offer this based on our existing capabilities and experience. I don’t know any other company with as much direct mail marketing experience as us. We have over 110,000 clients at this point.

Despite market conditions being on the downside, how did PostcardMania reach new revenue records?

I think it goes back to building so much momentum during the pandemic by never pausing our marketing. Since then, we’ve reached new revenue records in 2020, 2021, and 2022, growing total revenue an average of 20% per year after a decade averaging 5% revenue growth. And the momentum is still rolling—we just set a new quarterly record in revenue in our first quarter of 2023 at over $25 million and $1.8 million more than the same quarter last year. We also achieved the most revenue in a single month in March of 2023, right at the end of the quarter.

That success has come from our commitment to pushing forward with our marketing strategies, increasing our marketing spend despite economic challenges, and adding new direct mail marketing solutions in the past couple of years. We mail 190,000 postcards a week and spend more than $5 million a year on marketing. Since we switched from a print focus to a technology focus, growth has reached a new level. Everywhere Small Business, our retargeted direct mail solutions and PCM Integrations are sure to push us to new heights for the rest of the year and beyond.

Name 3 things you do to ensure marketing, sales, and customer success are on the same page.

Good leadership has a massive influence on the fluidity between departments. The C-level executives here are actually friends, and we’re all working towards the same goal. There is no finger-pointing; we’re working together to make improvements or fix issues. We’ve worked hard at developing this over the years, but this is still one of our top priorities. We all do a trip every year and several other team-building dinners and meetings throughout the year. Last year, we promoted a longtime PostcardMania staff member, Jackie Wirsing, as Chief Experience Officer. It’s her job to boost clients’ results by enhancing the quality of our operations throughout the business. She has helped us improve the internal performance of our staff and the customer experience for our clients. As a guiding hand, she figures out how to help each department and division work more effectively and efficiently toward the goal of improving client success. She’s been doing a phenomenal job, and we’ve witnessed a tremendous difference overall.

What advice would you like to give to budding marketing professionals?

Don’t underestimate the amount of promotion you need to do to get people’s attention. Between direct mail, online ads, social media ads, and email, we are sometimes hitting prospects 20-100 times before converting them to a sale, and we are reaching up to 250,000 businesses every week. Don’t get frustrated or discouraged if you don’t see results right away. Stay the course and market more than you think you need to. People can be super indecisive these days, and they are being hit with so many marketing messages that you need to be persistent and consistent.

How do you foresee direct mail technologies evolving in the upcoming years?

Like many other marketing tools, direct mail has evolved and become automated. This means the technology is intelligent enough to mail postcards, letters, or brochures to people based on their actions in real-time. Currently, we have a service called Website to Mailbox that can mail a postcard to an anonymous website visitor within 24 hours. The technology can capture a visitor’s location, match it to an address, and even select certain mailers based on their browsing behavior, like which pages they read, for how long, and more.

Our PCM Integrations division has also created new avenues that let businesses send fully responsive mailers any time of day without lifting a finger. A business can connect its CRM to our direct mail platform to enable triggered mail based on actions taken at any point during a customer’s lifecycle with the business. A salesperson calls and makes contact with a prospect—or doesn’t and leaves a voicemail—both prospects get a follow-up postcard. Someone purchases from you for the first time or hasn’t purchased for a year, they get a postcard. The options for nurturing leads and fostering relationships are endless.

In the future, I foresee even more specialized technology that can detect specific customer behaviors and react to them quickly. The targeting will get even more detailed and personalized so prospects can find the products and services they need lightning fast. I also see marketers returning to more traditional channels like direct mail as digital advertising becomes more and more saturated and digital response rates continue to dwindle.

Please tell us about your work journey.

My work journey technically began when I was about 7 years old—I would clean my mom’s friends’ homes for the whopping price of $1/room, hah. (Don’t worry; it wasn’t forced labor! I actually enjoyed it, and it was my first foray into entrepreneurship.) Throughout grade school and college, I’d started more than a dozen business ventures, mostly small. But the first one that really took off was in 2008 when I was a freshman at UMB. Through a series of fortunate events, I somehow found myself sitting on a goldmine of an idea—what if there was some way for brands to have real conversations with their customers? And that’s how the first iteration of ViralGains was born. We’re now powering some of the biggest brands in the world and making sure they’re not just talking at their customers but with them—listening and responding with thoughtful ad experiences in response to consumers’ preferences.

ViralGains recently partnered with LiveRamp; we’d love to hear more about how it is going to help marketers and advertisers to extend zero-party data.

Our partnership with LiveRamp is truly a game-changer for ViralGains and the industry. By integrating our AI-based zero-party data (ZPD) gathering & scaling capabilities with LiveRamp’s RampID technology, we’re able to match ZPD from our platform to their vast amount of first- & third- party data, providing a more comprehensive view of the consumer for advertisers on dimensions they could not find previously from leveraging existing solutions in the market. This integration enables brands to create even more personalized and effective advertising campaigns, reach a wider audience, and match audiences to over 250 million consumers in the U.S. Moreover, our partnership prioritizes ethical data management by delivering meaningful engagement through intentionally-shared data within advertising, thus enabling marketers to target a more accurate AND scaled audience in a “privacy-first, privacy-safe” way, all with the added benefit of helping them both optimize—and avoid wasting—ad budgets. Overall, this partnership greatly enhances our ability to help brands truly understand and reach their customers in a meaningful way.

How will this solution help in finding, understanding, and nurturing new and returning customers?

Fundamentally, we are bridging the gap between the power of ZPD and the human element of marketing. Instead of just bombarding potential consumers with generic ads, we’re able to turn data they willingly share into personalized campaigns that truly speak directly to them through their unique needs. All of this fosters a naturally deeper connection and trust with consumers, thus leading to more effective customer acquisition, nurturing, and ultimately better relationships with business outcomes. And the beauty of our approach is that brands are simultaneously gaining a comprehensive view of consumers, all the while doing so in a privacy-first way, a feat that most individuals in the industry would have believed to be two contradictory business outcomes, but now working synchronistically and synergistically.

What are some of the trends defining ad needs and adtech in 2023?

Two come to mind. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will start by saying that this year and in the years to come:

(1) privacy will continue to be a major, front-and-center, ever-evolving trend for consumers and an important factor for marketers to prioritize. With more and more regulations and societal concerns, ZPD will be crucial in providing an ethical and secure way for brands to gather data and create personalized advertising experiences. Additionally, (2) the integration of AI with technologies like voice and visual search will allow for a more seamless and efficient way for brands to reach their audience while also providing a more natural and intuitive experience for the consumer. 2023 will be a year of massive experimentation with AI in a way that we haven’t seen before to do everything from creative to automation of tasks like campaign optimization to ROI. Overall, the meta focus will be on providing personalized and secure advertising experiences that are easy, intuitive, and meaningful for the consumer.

What are some big challenges enterprises face with gathering and utilizing zero-party data, and what advice would you give them?

You’d be totally surprised by this—and it surprised me too initially—but the most typical challenge I’ve seen marketers face is not knowing what questions to ask their customers! The funny thing about ZPD is that the breadth of insights you can derive from them is limited only in scope to how creative the brand is in coming up with them—and marketers simply aren’t used to that. With first-party data, it’s always so predictable: it’s bland, boxed, and algorithmic. But with ZPD, you can get the sort of insights you’d get from talking to a friend in a human-like way, friend-to-friend, not marketer-to-marketer. And my advice is just that: stop thinking about your consumers as consumers. Who wants to be labeled “a consumer”? It’s yucky and transactional. Instead, I suggest sitting together in a room with the PEOPLE you are most interested in, and have them talk for an hour about themselves and what their core needs are, and THEN understand how your product or service fits into their lives and where the gaps are. The magic of the questions you then need to ask the millions of other PEOPLE who are similar to the initial people will come out of those earnest conversations. And finally, of course, I have to do a shameless plug here: when all else fails, they can, ya know, work with a company that specializes in ZPD for a living and specializes in understanding what the best sort of data to gather would be. I know such a company! :-)

How can enterprises build an ecosystem of partners to share data safely?

This one’s a bit straightforward and just takes good old-fashioned elbow grease. Assuming they’ve already discerned WHY they want to build such an ecosystem, in a nutshell, here are the steps:

• First, they need to internally develop a clear data-sharing policy that outlines the TYPES of data that should be shared, HOW it’s going to be shared (obviously, there’s the pragmatic “how”, but also deciding on levels of data anonymization to protect sensitive data), and WHAT level of security measures ought to be in place to protect that data.
• Next would be researching what data governance tools they want to use to manage and track data throughout its lifecycle while including the important step of regularly conducting risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential threats to data security. This includes identifying and evaluating risks from both internal and external sources. Depending on the sensitivity level of the data, they may want to look for partners that have certain standards for third-party certifications, such as SOC2, PCI-DSS, or ISO 27001, to ensure that partners have robust security and data protection standards in place.
• Finally, the actual data-sharing agreements must be drafted and put into place: having a clear data-sharing agreement that outlines the terms, responsibilities, and rights of each party involved in the data sharing, including the use of the data, retention period, and data destruction will help alleviate a TON of headaches down the road.

Customer behaviors have changed; how should brands change to keep up? Take, for example, do we need to evolve the way we measure purchase intent?

It’s really difficult to speak to any one particular change happening at any given time. The past few years have shown us just how quickly things can shift—from the pandemic to economic factors (like inflation) to revolutionary new technologies like ChatGPT. The meta advice I have to brands is to stay as close to both their loyal (current) customer base and potential (future) loyal customer base as possible through agile, rapid, and real-time feedback loops and to avoid long, drawn-out (and thus likely-to-be-obsolete) responses to changes in consumer behavior.

For example, on the subject of purchase intent, the traditional approach is to creepily follow consumers around and try to interpret their intent after the fact through metrics like site visits, clicks, etc. The “real-time” meta solution to this is to literally ASK THEM how they are thinking & feeling about and perceiving your brand at any given moment using tools like surveys, focus groups, and sentiment analysis. That’s the power of ZPD and is precisely why we focus on it as our core business. It’s the only way to stay up to date in an ever-changing world at the pace of the consumer. Otherwise, you are always one step behind.

What are the tech solutions a brand needs in place to react in real time and create moments for the consumer?

This is a great, pragmatic question. The first thing that comes to mind is that in order to “react”, a brand needs to know what it is reacting “to.” And what I mean by that is to ensure it is not OVER- or UNDER- reacting to what its perceived assumptions are about what its current and prospective customers are thinking or feeling. Obviously, this is where ZPD comes into play and the answer I gave to the prior question. So a ZPD gathering and scaling solution is the first one I would get in place. Beyond that, I would focus on:

(1) real-time web analytics,

(2) marketing automation platforms,

(3) (if the brand is B2B), a salesforce provided insights/intelligence platform,

(4) landing page optimization,

(5) customer data analytics platform (or just a CDP), and finally,

(6) a predictive analytics solution.

In current times, what are CMOs focusing on to adapt/implement in the MarTech & Social-Tech landscape?

In current times, CMOs are embracing the power of data by leveraging MarTech and Social-Tech solutions. By embracing these tools, CMOs can empower their teams to uncover the data and insights needed to adapt and thrive in the ever-evolving business landscape. These technologies are critical to quickly capturing market opportunities, staying ahead of consumer trends, and creating impactful marketing campaigns.

Dash Hudson has just announced the launch of its AI-powered Social Listening solution. How does it plan to disrupt the visually-dominant social landscape?

In today’s dynamic social landscape, communication has evolved beyond traditional text-based interactions, with consumers increasingly leveraging photos and videos to connect and share online. Dash Hudson’s AI-Powered Social Listening solution has disrupted this visually-driven space by providing marketers with the ability to listen beyond text-based conversations while breaking through the noise and bringing the most pertinent data to the forefront.

With nearly a decade of continuous learning, Dash Hudson’s AI technology, Vision, stands among the more advanced tools in the social marketing landscape. By leveraging the power of Vision, our innovative Social Listening solution analyzes and interprets conversations occurring in photo and video formats across social media platforms.

This revolutionary capability empowers marketers to stay ahead of the social curve by identifying emerging visual trends, tracking brand mentions, and closely monitoring real-time customer feedback. As a result, brands can now gain a comprehensive understanding of their target audience’s preferences and behaviors, enabling them to craft highly personalized and impactful marketing campaigns.

How does Dash Hudson’s proprietary Vision AI technology help social listening tools to go beyond traditional features?

As mentioned above, Dash Hudson’s Vision AI technology takes its Social Listening tool to new heights by analyzing conversations happening through visual content, such as images and videos. This advanced technology empowers social media managers to uncover patterns, identify trends and obtain profound insights into consumer behavior and preferences. In addition, the tool also has visual filtering functionalities, which enable marketers to filter out non-relevant visual content to zero in on specific content styles to help analyze performance.

How do you collaborate with different teams to drive business growth?

In today’s business landscape, success is achieved by setting the right strategy and assigning clear goals that foster engagement among employees to help make employees as happy and productive as possible. I believe it is crucial to not only help them develop a deep understanding of their role and place within the organization but also the significant impact they can have.

When collaborating with teams beyond the marketing department, it is important to remember that marketing’s role goes beyond supporting its own function. Marketing must also equip the sales and customer success teams with the tools they need to excel and make a lasting impression on customers. This requires consistent communication and a shared commitment to delivering an impactful customer journey, regardless of whether the intended audience is made up of new or existing clients. By providing essential tools and resources that enable sales and customer service teams to function seamlessly, marketing plays an important role in the overall success of the organization.

How are Dash Hudson’s solutions, like influencer marketing software, social commerce, and creative intelligence, enabling marketers?

The modern social media manager is responsible for many different facets of digital marketing. For example, today’s social media managers are often tasked with developing, executing, and measuring creator strategies and driving e-commerce sales, all while ensuring the content they produce is authentic to their brand while also being entertaining, educational, and aspirational. Dash Hudson’s solutions were developed to seamlessly work together to address their many tasks and workflows while helping them save time and drive consistent business results.

How is Dash Hudson setting itself apart from its competitors in the Social-Tech/MarTech arena?

Dash Hudson is proud to have been rated by the global social media marketing community as the number one platform for ease of use. Dash Hudson was designed to be user-friendly and accessible, making it easier for marketers to create and implement effective marketing campaigns. Further, Dash Hudson is setting itself apart from its competitors by leveraging its proprietary Vision AI technology to analyze and interpret visual content on social media platforms. As mentioned, this technology allows social listening to enter the modern marketing age by providing marketers with a more comprehensive and visually-driven understanding of their customers’ preferences and behaviors.

What’s your approach to planning for marketing budgets and strategies? What makes it easier and more goal-oriented?

My approach to planning marketing budgets and strategies revolves around simplicity, clarity, and alignment with business goals. I believe budgeting should not be a complex exercise but a straightforward process that is rooted in a well-defined strategy and with clear building blocks in place. This approach enables our team to allocate resources effectively toward achieving our objectives.

When planning our marketing budgets, we ensure the process is streamlined and goal-oriented. We start by clearly defining what we need to accomplish for each team and aligning our funding decisions with those goals. We maintain a rigorous analysis of our budget to ensure that we are allocating funds to the right initiatives that support our objectives.

Throughout the budgeting process, we keep a close eye on our goals, such as the cost per SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) and cost per MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead). It is essential to monitor these metrics and ensure they are in line with our forecasted expectations. This proactive approach helps us maintain control over our expenditures while staying committed to our targets.

In the ever-changing social influence domain, what’s your methodology for deciding what’s better for enhanced customer experience?

In today’s rapidly evolving digital world, it is imperative for businesses to prioritize user experience across multiple channels. In the social media landscape, creators play a crucial role in building communities and producing highly entertaining content. As such, these creators help brands promote their products and services to their target audiences in an authentic and engaging way.

When it comes to developing a strong creator strategy, it’s important for marketers to understand that larger audience sizes do not always equal larger results. According to data from Dash Hudson, nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers) demonstrate higher effectiveness in comparison to macro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers) and mega-influencers (100,000-500,000 followers). Nano-influencers exhibit an impressive Effectiveness Rate of 16.5%, which is 143% higher than that of macro-influencers and a whopping 279% higher than mega-influencers. Beyond Effectiveness, nano-influencers also achieve a notable Engagement Rate of 5.28%, surpassing macro-influencers by 171% and mega-influencers by 319%.

Beyond perfecting creator strategy, it is also critically important for marketers to leverage the power of social listening to gain an intimate understanding of the preferences, needs, and desires of customers. Through these insights, brands are better equipped to meet and exceed customer expectations. In doing so, brands will not only enhance the customer experience but also foster stronger customer relationships and ultimately drive business growth.