Interview with Andre Yee, CEO, Triblio

Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to start an ABM platform? 

I’m the founder and CEO of Triblio. Prior to Triblio, I was SVP Product Development for Eloqua where I helped grow a $20M company to IPO and subsequently a $1B exit to Oracle. I was inspired to start an ABM company because I believe existing marketing automation systems are fundamentally flawed in addressing current demand generation needs. First generation marketing automation platforms like Eloqua, Marketo, and Hubspot shaped the landscape for B2B marketing over the past decade but those platforms are fundamentally flawed on two fronts. The first is that they primarily focus on qualifying individual leads instead influencing buying centers within accounts. The second is that buyer behavior has changed over the past decade such that buyers are delaying contact form registrations. This marginalizes the effectiveness of first-generation marketing automation systems because those campaign in those systems are triggered by contact form registrations. It’s time for a new approach

How is Triblio different from other contemporaries in the ABM ecosystem? 

Triblio is different because we’ve proven that we can identify and score anonymous account activity better than anyone else. We also offer an end-to-end platform for ABM campaign execution so that you don’t need to piece together an ABM solution from multiple point solutions.

What are your predictions for ABM industry in 2018 even as CMOs look to include predictive intelligence for sales into their technology stack? 

In 2018, ABM practitioners will look to extend and integrate ABM campaigns into sales processes. In the past 18 months, most ABM campaigns have been focused on reaching the right buyers with the right marketing message but it’s been mostly disconnected from the sales process. That’s going to change in 2018 as marketers implement ABM campaigns to activate and orchestrate the sales process. This means adding value to sales by providing better intelligence on high potential accounts and what triggers their propensity to purchase. I also see the emergence of AI-driven solutions to do this better.

How can ABM companies leverage programmatic technologies to achieve better refined sales pipelines? 

We use our own account-based advertising combined with onsite personalization to accelerate deal flow. We target messaging to key decision makers in specific roles that speak to their interest or concerns. This helps build brand recognition and credibility within the account with the broader buying committee especially with the economic buyer or C-suite.

With the maturity of B2B selling, how do you see multi-channel marketing and sales automation integrations evolving by 2020? 

I think the lines between multi-channel marketing programs and sales automation will blur by 2020. This means tighter and smarter integrations between sales and marketing. Today we have marketing executing multi-channel campaigns, scoring responses and handing over qualified leads to sales – it’s more like a relay race where the baton is handed over. In 2020, we’ll see the emergence of coordinated multi-channel campaigns that sales and marketing will co-execute through an integrated solution.  The idea of multi-channel campaigns will span both marketing and sales. Instead of a relay race – it’ll be more like an orchestra – where everyone is co-executing to deliver a great revenue result.

What startups in the martech/ sales intelligence industries are you watching/keen on right now? 

Putting ourselves aside, here are a couple of interesting companies in the martech/sales tech arena. SalesLoft has a great sales automation product that’s becoming integral to our sales team but I also appreciate their positive work culture. While I’m not 100% sold on them yet but I find sales relationship management tools like Cloze or Nudge interesting.

What tools does your marketing and advertising stack consist of?

We take an account-based approach to demand generation so to do that we use Salesforce -Pardot for email marketing and our own Triblio platform to execute account-based advertising and web personalization. We also use SalesLoft for our outbound sales email.

Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign at Triblio? 

At Triblio, we’ve been running display ads that read “Triblio ads reach influencers like you. Ready to get started?” accompanied by a familiar face from the Triblio team. For prospects, it’s a fun way to keep Triblio top-of-mind and show that our ads work. For Triblio clients, it’s a great way to start conversations about Triblio’s full set of features. Since running this campaign, it has influenced 77% of our pipeline opportunities leading to 2.4X increase in new ACV bookings.

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a marketing leader? How do you leverage AI capabilities at Triblio? 

As marketers, we prepare for an AI-centric world by embracing AI and applying that in limited scope alongside existing methodologies. Today, many of the core components of our marketing campaigns are constructed by trial and error. Take lead scoring for instance – most lead scoring systems are based on an arbitrary point system and “proven” to work by trial and error.  It’s no surprise that most lead scoring systems don’t work – it’s because they are not fundamentally data-driven. I’d recommend marketers do what we do at Triblio – run existing lead/account scoring methods together with AI-driven scoring so that AI can inform and improve your analysis.

One word that best describes how you work. 

Focused

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without? 

LinkedIn, Salesforce

What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack? 

I keep a list of projects/issues that I specifically tackle when I’m traveling on longer flights. Some of these can be strategic – the kind of thing that gets squeezed out in the daily grind. For instance, on a cross-country flight, I recently worked up initiatives to improve our corporate culture.

What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?) 

Competing Against Luck by Clay Christensen.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? 

My mother was an executive assistant for a multi-national company. When I started my career, she offered this advice – “fulfill your commitments – if you say you’re going to do something, make sure you deliver. If you do that consistently, you’ll advance no matter what job you’re in” It’s something I’ve never forgotten.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

Joe Chernov, CMO, Insight Squared

Thank you Andre! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.