MarTech Interview with Jessica Box, Head of Growth at Linktree

Jessica Box, Head of Growth at Linktree talks about a few B2B marketing practices and tips while sharing some thoughts on the impact of new technologies on day-to-day marketing processes:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat Jess, tell us more about yourself and what your current role at Linktree is all about – take us through a day at work?

I’ve arrived at my current role as Linktree’s Head of Growth, in a really roundabout way, having transitioned from PR into tech, building out e-commerce platforms for global brands, then into fintech and eventually landed at Linktree. What stood out to me about Linktree was the vision – the opportunity to be a part of creating a better internet. When I started we had 3.5 million users and we now have over 18 million – it’s been incredible to be a part of that rocketship, but to also have the opportunity to build a team and nurture the career paths of others, globally. That’s something I’m deeply passionate about outside of work too, as the Managing Director of Girls in Tech Australia.  

At Linktree, we define growth as the full funnel, from the first interaction to retaining our users. My team and I handle a wide range of sectors for Linktree including product marketing, performance, paid media, region growth, strategic partnerships, and conversion rate optimization. We work on the flywheel model, so we take a very holistic approach to our users’ lifecycles – after all, they are our biggest referral engine. More than half of our new users are referred from existing Linktree accounts, which means the more channels Linktree is placed on, the more sign-ups we get and the faster the flywheel moves. My team gets to work on anything and everything that speeds up that flywheel!

As a remote-first company, my coworkers are spread around the globe. Being based in Melbourne, Australia means that typically my days start early, with meetings through the morning. Although no two days look the same, I carve out strategy and deep work time in afternoons and always make sure there’s a moment to reflect on the week’s wins with the wider team on a Friday afternoon.

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We’d love to hear about the Linktree platform and the core problems it helps solve for marketers?

Linktree is the market-leading linking platform that was the first of its kind — creating an entirely new category in tech. As the identity layer of the internet, Linktree enables users to curate a focused online presence that easily directs visitors to the online destinations that are most important to them. Simply put, if you’re a musician, Linktree is what helps you to direct your audience and fans to your new single or album, your tour tickets, merchandise you might sell and causes you’re passionate about – all with one link!

When Linktree began, our founders were driven by the fragmentation of the digital ecosystem and created a tool that aims to solve this. Today, with a user base of 18M+, Linktree helps brands, influencers, small businesses, activists and everyday creators carve out their place and reach their full potential. The world’s biggest influencers and creators from Selena Gomez to Pharrell Williams, as well as big brands like HBO and Facebook, are using Linktree to connect their followers to their entire online ecosystem.

About 6 months ago, we launched Commerce Links, powered by Square and PayPal. It enables Linktree users globally to engage in frictionless transactions, quicker paths to purchase for their customers, more opportunities for monetization, and an ability to connect their online ecosystem to their products or services. I’m super proud of the work we’re doing in that space, and I love to see the daily impact it has on creators’ lives.

We also recently acquired Songling/Odesli, an automated music integration platform. With this acquisition, Linktree takes a significant step towards becoming the one-stop-shop for the three key pillars of music monetization: touring, merchandise, and streaming. 

The opportunity we have to empower all users, from those who are new to marketing and growing their brand-building skills, to amplifying the work of the world’s best marketers and brands is really what drives the Linktree team. We are committed to launching tools and services to support a wide variety of use cases from various verticals; and on the other hand, we’re also diving deeper into each and every vertical, in an effort to recognize what unique solutions they’re after. 

Seeing how today’s trends in B2B marketing are creating a complete shift in how marketing plans are structured: what are some top trends and processes that drive your efforts in today’s marketing climate?

A key shift that has inspired Linktree’s product development is the decentralization in social media presence for our users and the wider online community — the number of accounts per person is up from 4.8 accounts in 2014 to 8.9 accounts in 2020. Linktree prides itself on being  platform agnostic, which enables users to connect all of their accounts to one, easy to use landing page. By not focusing on any one platform – but working with all, we are therefore able to better serve our creators. We think this is extremely important, as in today’s creator economy, many creators cannot generate an income off of only one platform – it’s about diversification and utilizing the platforms that makes the most sense at any given moment; we’re there to ensure creators are able to expand their presence without giving up on any assets that are critical to their growth.  

Additionally, we have noticed very region-specific growth in Brazil, Indonesia and India, all with unique trends, communication channels, and user needs. To better understand these idiosyncrasies and market our product closely within these areas, we have regional managers who are focused on understanding relevant trends. There’s a balance to keep between providing similar tools to all users and identifying any local trends or needs raised by your audience – it’s something we strive to give more and more focus to as our growth momentum keeps accelerating.

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As a marketer, what are your thoughts on the traditional versus new age marketing concepts and how brands should drive the latter with newer/better marketing technologies and experiences?

As far as specific tools and services go, I’ve always been a firm believer that it’s your audience and your needs that should be driving you. So we’re always assessing new tools and technologies as soon as they become available, but our decision is based on whether they solve a need for our audience rather than what other companies are doing right now.

A few thoughts on the future of B2B martech and what’s in store for the global martech industry? Some insights into how martech in Australia currently looks like?

I am extremely excited about developments to the tracking ecosystem and the growth potential in this space. Today’s marketing is a lot more than tracking clicks and conversions, to be successful you have to think about the entire customer journey. At Linktree, we have our own tracking service that prioritizes privacy but is able to aggregate user data and understand relevant trends. 

It’s been intriguing to observe the rise of data savviness amongst marketers. At Linktree, analyzing user data is a key feature of our growth model and understanding how and when to make strategic decisions. This is still quite new in the Australian market, however, it’s a really well developed concept overseas, particularly for SaaS business models. 

Some last thoughts and marketing / martech takeaways before we wrap up?

Marketing today should focus on building better communities – I know it may sound obvious, but for too long, marketing has been about “winning” and manipulating. As we’re all growing more aware and engaged, I believe our only option is to market our products and services hand-in-hand with our users. It’s a two-way street, and by allowing our community of users to take an active part in how products are designed, and how offerings look, we have a far greater chance at ensuring customer loyalty and most importantly, trust.

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