Interview with Shira Abel, CEO and Lead Strategist, Hunter & Bard

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October 5, 2017

[mnky_team name=”Shira Abel” position=” CEO, Hunter & Bard”][/mnky_team]

[easy-profiles profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiraabel/”]

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Every significant piece of content should be repurposed in multiple ways to get the most bang for your buck. A good way of thinking about any large asset piece is to create a content waterfall.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here. (What inspired you to be part of a technology innovation company?)
I’m the Advising CMO at Folloze and also CEO of Hunter&Bard. I spend my time strategizing on the best ways to promote and grow awareness for Folloze in enterprise Account Based Marketing. I love how Folloze helps companies scale ABM by enabling the delivery of content that is truly curated for each intended audience in a way that was never previously possible. The real-time analytics is hyper-critical to sales teams who are looking for the perfect time to call. I especially admire the customers who come back with their stories on how Folloze has proven its ROI again and again.

I ended up in tech because I was always a geek. During my undergraduate degree at ASU, I spent my nights in the Computer Lab on IRC chatting with people around the world (for those who might have been on in those days – my nick was Dharmabum). IRC gave me an intuitive understanding of social media before it was even a thing. In 1998, I taught myself HTML and created a website for the company I was working in. After that, I got my first tech job in a startup in 1999 and it felt like home, the industry I belonged in. I’ve been in love with tech ever since. Nothing is better than working with cutting-edge companies to bring their vision to fruition.

MTS: Given the changing dynamic of B2B content, how do you see the marketing automation and analytics market evolving by 2020?
Companies can’t just provide a great platform satisfying a necessary service – they need to give analytics and reports so that companies can understand the value given and the effect it has on their bottom-line. Currently, the market has way too many niche players for all of them to survive. The latest MarTech landscape I saw had over 4,000 companies in it. I expect a lot of consolidation by the big players and deaths of the smaller ones. The survivors will be the companies who provide the most value, have the best reputation in the market, and continue to innovate and adapt.

By 2020, the Martech market will be smaller in terms of players than it is today, and by 2030 there will be a few big players, and the rest will be tiny and niche.

MTS: How should CMOs leverage content management and marketing tools to drive their Account-based Marketing strategies with greater authority?
Every significant piece of content should be repurposed in multiple ways to get the most bang for your buck. A good way of thinking about any large asset piece is to create a content waterfall. For example – the information from a webinar can be turned into an e-book that can then be shrunken into bits for blog posts; information from within could be turned into an infographic; the writer can take snippets and create short videos to post onto YouTube (the second largest search engine after Google); videos could feed more blog posts, tweets, and social posts. The blog posts should be cross-promoted on Medium and LinkedIn to build up awareness, and everything should funnel to landing pages on the site. Ads can increase the coverage of your content, as can SEO. That covers a lot of your online use. Now the question lies with how to get this content funneled outbound to your prospects.

This is where Folloze comes in. All of the content: blog posts, ebooks, case studies, white papers, videos, infographics, and what have you – can be added to Folloze boards. These boards can be segmented by your marketing team according to title, geography, company, and industry – before being sent out in an email cadence by your sales team. Your sales team can monitor in real-time which content your prospects open and learn where to take the conversation moving forward.

MTS: How should CMOs plan their MarTech stack integrations to maximize the benefits from sales automation and predictive analytics platforms?
First off, everything has to work together and scale. There’s no point in having Zoho for Sales CRM if you have HubSpot for Marketing and they can’t be fully integrated together. You have to be able to see where your funnel is going, where things are dropping off and what methods of engagement are converting the best.

Grad Conn, the GM and CMO of Microsoft US, talks about the Systems of Nurture. I like this concept. Think about your stack as the psychological state of the buyer and where they are in the journey. Plan accordingly, making sure everything works together and scales together.

MTS: What startups in the MarTech ecosystem are you watching/keen on right now?
The Account Based Marketing (ABM) space has me very excited as I’m obsessed with B2B enterprise sales. Folloze, Outreach.io, Engagio, Demandbase, Terminus – the space is heating up. The most interesting piece of ABM automation is the emphasis on scaling ABM. Some would argue that scaling ABM is a contradiction in terms – true ABM is only about your top 20 customers. I think of modern ABM as a way to make your top 300 customers feel like they are your top 20.

Predictive is another area of the market that I find very interesting and I like what I’ve been seeing from Radius and 6Sense.

Mattermark, Digify, and Woopra are other interesting startups that are favorites.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
We use a Business Intelligence tool where we can research companies, people inside those companies, and industry information. We drink our own champagne at Folloze by using our ABM outreach tool, sending targeted drip sales campaigns with curated content especially chosen for the interests of the recipients. Folloze boards can include video, PDFs, blog posts, etc. so it’s a great way to see what content performs best and has the strongest reaction. Folloze is also our Sales Engagement Software, as it tracks when things have been opened and how long the recipient has been engaging with said content.

MTS: Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success)
Instead of talking about one of mine I’m going to talk about one of our [Folloze’s] clients.

Michelle Davis, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft US Enterprise Services, was looking to sell more of Microsoft’s Premier Services offering in order to increase Azure data consumption. She used the Folloze platform to assemble a board of Success Stories and program overview information. With one single board, each of her 230 sellers was enabled to build awareness in his or her prospects. Each board was automatically customized for the recipient using Folloze auto-personalization. The result? Over 19% engagement and 8% conversion.

According to Ms. Davis, “We operate at Microsoft by the numbers, and the engagement we saw with Folloze in the first week was great. I expect to see a 7X increase in consumption for the customers we sell Premier Services to with this offering.”

MTS: How do you prepare for an Artificial Intelligence-centric world as a marketing leader?
AI is a marketing game-changer. Much of the early stage of a sale, where you’re reaching out to prospects, is repetitive. It can take 6 – 8 attempts at outreach before a customer responds, and even then, much of the responses can be followed up with a template. With AI we can better personalize our correspondence so that timeline from reach out to conversation is truncated. Using AI to manage the conversation also shortens the timeline to likability, a critical component to every enterprise sale.

In a world of voice AI, SEO is now your most important objective. With voice AI, ads cannot be listed on the side of organic results. There is no side. Instead, search results will be provided to you via Google Home or Amazon’s Alexa. As top results are read aloud, most people will only want to hear the first few then move on. If you aren’t in the top three results for whatever keywords your prospects are looking for, you will not exist.

This is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Laughter. I find I laugh a lot with the people I work with. It’s easy to be passionate about what you do when you love who you work with.

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Google Apps + MixMax + The Great Suspender + my Moleskin notebook without lines.

MixMax has extra functionality that I need inside Gmail. I love being able to send a calendar invite inside an email. It’s smoother and painless on the side of the recipient. You can suggest several times, place the invite inside of the email and the recipient can pick which time works for him or her. Simple, easy, painless, fast.

I’m one of those people with a million tabs open (I currently have over 50 tabs open in 3 different browser windows) and I use Chrome. Anyone who has a Mac on Chrome knows that means my computer will be in overdrive in no time flat. The Great Suspender is an app that suspends the tabs you’re not using until you’re ready to use them, so I can keep my million tabs without killing my machine.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
I have a few. First off – I’ve turned off notifications on my phone for everything except WhatsApp (because that’s where my kids message me.) And I always have my phone set to silent. Second, I write lists. Third, when I need to get into a flow state for writing or research and I am having a hard time concentrating, I turn the twenty-minute hourglass on my desk. The noise distracts just enough for me to concentrate on one thing and yet it’s quiet enough for me to not notice when it’s done. I used to use a timer and by the time the 20 minutes was up I would be in flow and then the alarm would bring me out of it. The hourglass is a more elegant and better solution overall.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I read books and I listen to books. I’m obsessed with behavior and read or listen to everything I can about it. I typically read and listen to several books at once.

I’m currently reading Getting More by Stuart Diamond. I swear I’ve highlighted half the book, it’s that good. It’s changed how I think about every interaction I have with people at work and for work. It’s changed how I think about messaging. This is one of the few books I’ll read more than once.

I’m listening to Presence by Amy Cuddy. I know that her hands-on-hips power pose has been proven false but I still maintain that keeping your arms in the air for 2 minutes cuts off cortisol. My reason for this belief is that having your arms in the air for 2 minutes brings in a burn, for those who aren’t in top shape, and as such induces endorphins which cuts off cortisol (like all exercise). I feel so strongly about Presence I’ve written about it in my personal blog.

I’m also listening to The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. I can’t listen to this straight through though. It has too many examples of human behavior that make me cringe. It’s also long. But it’s a good book, with learnings that are important for everyone in business and marketing, so I keep listening to it. In small snippets.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever — your secret sauce?
Treat everyone well, try to end everything nicely. Be the first to admit when you’ve screwed up, apologize and take ownership for it before being brought to task.

Write things down. If it’s a large task (like writing a book), break it down into tiny steps and write those down. Check things off as you get each bit done.

MTS: Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
I’ve seen Sydney Sloan, the CMO of Alfresco, speak at B2BMX – and she was incredible. I’d love to know how she would answer these questions.

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Shira” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e409f-f04c”]

Shira Abel is the CEO of Hunter & Bard (H&B), a marketing and branding agency that works with fast growing, revenue generating SaaS companies on building their brand, awareness, lead generation and thought leadership.

Shira is also a sought after Corporate Speaker – and has spoken at AdRoll, Axa Tech, Allianz, eToro and more. A thought leader in the startup marketing space, Shira works with companies to build and implement smart marketing strategies and build online communities that grow companies. Shira has experience speaking worldwide at conferences on marketing for startups, judging competitions, teaching marketing for startups, and mentoring at several startup accelerators. She also works with companies to build the marketing into the product. MBA from Kellogg School of Management.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Hunter & Bard” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e409f-f04c”]

Hunter & Bard is a PR and design agency that works with fast growing, revenue generating tech companies on building awareness and thought leadership, and design and branding.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

Marketsmith Buys Back i.Predictus

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October 5, 2017

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Sole Female Ownership of Patented Marketing Tech Benefits All Clients

Marketsmith Inc., the nation’s fastest-growing, women-owned, data-driven integrated marketing agency, has repurchased all the remaining i.Predictus stock from its original investment team, bringing its ownership of the marketing software company to 100 percent.

“For a woman-owned software company to buy the majority of its stock back from investors in under three years is virtually unheard of,” notes MSI CEO Monica C. Smith. “Not only did we repay their initial stake, our backers received a return on their investment.”

Full ownership represents the culmination of incorporating the i.Predictus data service platform into Marketsmith’s unique I.P.Q. Approach, an acronym for Intelligent Predictive Quantifiable, for each of its clients.

“I.P.Q. is a never-ending loop of data ingestion and insights that combines the best of data science with human ingenuity,” notes Jill Draper, president, MSI. “It is where science meets soul.”

I.P.Q., powered by the embedded i.Predictus tech stack, can predict future sales with 93 percent accuracy and has successfully run through more than $1Bn of MSI’s client media spend.

Draper notes that Marketsmith’s proprietary tools and technology stack give the agency the data and analytics to inform every decision, from strategy to media to creative.

“Smart marketing no longer exists without the right technology. That’s why our I.P.Q. Approach will be part of every client’s omnichannel strategy,” Draper says. “We believe it provides our clients with an edge they can’t get at a traditional media or creative shop.

I.P.Q. allows Marketsmith to have a competitive advantage no other media marketing agency has. The quality of data analysis, combined with predictive outcomes is available to every client the day they sign with the agency.

“Marketsmith is the front-runner for all emerging brands that want to challenge and win in their respective markets,” emphasizes Draper. “We are fast becoming the market leader in real-time data visualizations, attribution and transformative media buying.“

comScore Appoints Gregory A. Fink as Executive Vice President, Finance

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October 5, 2017

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Former Chief Accounting Officer of Fannie Mae to Lead Company’s Finance Team

comScore announced that Gregory A. Fink has joined comScore as Executive Vice President, Finance, effective, October 3, 2017. He will report to David Kay, who was appointed Interim CFO & Treasurer in September 2017.

Mr. Fink is an accomplished senior finance executive with more than 25 years of experience in accounting, financial reporting, business analytics, budgeting, internal controls, and talent development. He most recently served as Senior Vice President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer at Fannie Mae where he led a team of 600 professionals and oversaw a multi-billion dollar annual expense budget. With extensive experience in SEC reporting, Mr. Fink had responsibility for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and Audit Committee reporting. Prior to joining Fannie Mae in 2006, he served as Vice President of Financial Reporting and Policy at MCI, Inc. and was a Senior Manager at Deloitte. Mr. Fink holds a B.S. in Business Administration with an accounting emphasis from San Diego State University and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Virginia.

“I’m delighted to welcome Greg to comScore,” said Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s Chief Executive Officer. “He’s a proven leader with an outstanding track record of managing large finance teams, and comes to us with a wealth of experience in overseeing complex financial operations that will help move comScore forward.”

As Executive Vice President, Finance, Mr. Fink will be responsible for all aspects of the on-going finance function activities, which would include general accounting, accounting policy, taxes, treasury, financial planning and analysis and financial reporting.

Digital Agency Lumentus Expands; Recruits New Director and Promotes Four

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October 5, 2017

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A corporate communications expert who brings a range of creative and managerial skills, Marisa Lichtenstein, has joined digital communications agency Lumentus as Senior Director, Client Relationships, the company announced.

The New York-based firm also announced the promotions of four staff members in its search engine marketing, digital and creative strategy units.

Marisa Lichtenstein, Lumentus Senior Director, Client Relationships

Lumentus, a full-service integrated digital communications agency that helps clients build and manage brands and protect and improve perceptions, represents a roster of corporations, financial services firms and their executives as well as public policy organizations.

A veteran project manager with more than 12 years of experience, Lichtenstein will help direct digital strategy for clients as well as manage accounts and help conduct live events.

Previously, Lichtenstein was vice president at Image Media, a brand experience and communications firm, managed accounts at GO! Experience Design and began her career at Broadstreet, a corporate and marketing communications firm. In an example of art and science coalescing, Marisa received her Bachelor of Science degree in Communications from Boston University and her Masters in Fine Art, Design and Technology at Parsons School of Design.

“Marisa developed core competencies in messaging and content creation, information architecture and creative strategy,” said Christina Bertinelli, Lumentus Senior Partner. “Marisa’s experience spans website creation, large-scale corporate events with digital integration, video, presentation collateral, employee engagement campaigns and brand launch campaigns.”

At the same time, Bryan Bridges, a seasoned communications professional and key member of the Lumentus digital reputation management (DRM) team, has been promoted to Senior Director, Digital Strategy. With more than 15 years of experience providing clients with strategic counsel, social strategy and content development, Bridges leverages digital media and technology to drive marketing and communications efforts.

Prior to joining Lumentus, Bryan was Senior Director at Burson-Marsteller, Vice President, Marketing and Communications at KKR and Director, Firmwide Marketing at Morgan Stanley. Bryan was also previously U.S. Digital Strategy Lead at Brunswick Group in New York.

Hameem Kader, a search engine marketing expert, has been promoted to Director of Search Marketing. Kader is now responsible for creating and executing digital marketing solutions, from SEO to SEM campaigns, to achieve client goals. Kader joined Lumentus in 2015.

Prior to Lumentus, Kader led search engine optimization efforts for publishing companies and high-profile law firms.

Phil McMahon, now Account Director, joined Lumentus in 2011 as an Assistant Account Executive. Leveraging the skills he acquired as a screenwriter and videographer, McMahon helps clients develop their digital assets and successfully deploy them through online and social media channels.

In his new role, McMahon works with clients directly and oversees all phases of project development, from conception to execution, provides strategic support, and creates dynamic and compelling original print, social and video content.

Jesse Jacobs, formerly Creative Manager, has been promoted to Director of Creative Strategy. Jacobs provides support across the creative chain from preliminary research, data analysis, writing, strategy development to design and production. Jacobs began his career at Lumentus as a summer intern in 2010 while studying at Elon University.

Yext Announces Appointment of Tamar Yehoshua to its Board of Directors

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October 5, 2017

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Yext, the leader in Digital Knowledge Management, announced the appointment of Tamar Yehoshua, Google’s Vice President of Product Management for Search, to its Board of Directors. The appointment was effective as of October 2, 2017.

“We are thrilled to welcome Tamar to our board,” said Howard Lerman, Yext Founder & CEO. “Tamar is an amazing product executive with unique experience in scaling search, structured knowledge, and AI products on the world’s biggest consumer platforms. I look forward to her counsel and support as Yext pioneers Digital Knowledge Management.”

Tamar Yehoshua, Vice President of Product Management for Search at Google, and Director, Yext Board of Directors

“Yext is a visionary company founding an entirely new SaaS category, and I’m proud to be joining its Board of Directors,” said Tamar Yehoshua. “I look forward to helping Yext realize the vast potential of Digital Knowledge Management.”

With this appointment, the Yext Board of Directors now consists of Howard Lerman, Yext Founder and CEO; Brian Distelburger, Yext Co-Founder and President; Michael Walrath, Yext Chairman and Founder and former CEO of Right Media; Phillip Fernandez, Co-Founder and former President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Marketo; Jesse Lipson, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Cloud Services at Citrix; Julie Richardson, former Senior Adviser to Providence Equity Partners LLC, and former Partner and Managing Director at Providence Equity; Andrew Sheehan, Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures, and Managing Director of Tippet Venture Partners, L.P.; and Tamar Yehoshua, Vice President of Product Management for Search at Google.

In August, Smartling, a translation technology and service innovator, has deepened the integration of its Translation Management Platform with the Yext Knowledge Engine through a Smartling app in the Yext App Directory, enabling businesses to translate and localize their online listings seamlessly, from basic business information to deep content like promotions and product information across the web.Smartling’s Translation Management Platform combines business process automation with professional translators and integrates seamlessly with leading technology platforms, streamlining the language translation management process.

Meet the App That Just Made Augmented Reality Accessible to Everyone

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October 5, 2017

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Social media is being taken to the skies – quite literally – with an augmented reality app called Skrite. Skrite asserts that it is now possible to unleash the imagination on the celestial canvas through the phone’s lens by leaving virtual messages, pictures, selfies and doodles in the sky for friends and fellow Skyers to see in real-time. The app is the first of its kind in bringing user-generated augmented reality to a mobile device.

Skrite’s application focuses on the future of social and how folks engage with each other – from creating romantic proposals, new gestures of wishing loved ones or simply finding unique ways of expression. Users tilt their phone upwards to explore the sky and read the content or ‘Skrites’ that others have left in the sky. Privacy is still priority, for the content can also be hidden in the sky or sent as a private message.

It often seemed like the realm of augmented reality was dominated by tech wizards and therefore complex to understand, but Rishab Jain, CEO and Founder of Skrite claims to have simplified this mystery. “Our goal is to make augmented reality accessible to people,” he explains. “Casual users shouldn’t feel augmented reality is off-limits because it seems complicated or unattainable. With the right interface, it is simple to use and is a fantastic way to explore the space around you.”

Commoditization of the sky is inevitable and the first person to upload a Skrite in an area gets to virtually mark one’s territory and even treat the sky as real estate. It’ll be curious to see how brands connect with consumers in the very near future. Skrite’s applications range from creating quirky Skrites over a user’s home to advertising above a business, or any location that brings value to larger companies. The future of mobile advertising is only braced to get smarter, more versatile and more unique.

“Skrite lets you travel without leaving your home through AR ‘teleportation,'” adds Dr. Arshia Siddique, COO and co-founder of Skrite. “It transports you into a realm you did not know existed, filled with curious creations emerging right from your phone camera. Visualize an augmented city or a tangible environment around you that becomes a portal to the digital. Basically, imagine the ability to browse life, like you browse the web.”

ScribbleLive Announces Two New Members to its Board of Directors

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October 5, 2017

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Two New Additions Brings The Total To Eight Active Advisors On Its Current Board

ScribbleLive announced two new appointments to its board of directors: Adam Howatson, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of OpenText; and Janis Lindenbergs, Senior Vice President (SVP) and Client Service Director at Cossette.

Janis Lindenbergs (CNW Group/ScribbleLive)

“We’re thrilled to bring Adam and Janis to our team. As experts in their respective fields, they bring tremendous value to our board of directors,” said Vince Mifsud, CEO, ScribbleLive. “As ScribbleLive embarks on our next phase of growth, we will benefit greatly from Adam and Janis’ experience and guidance.”

As a specialist in information and communication technology, Howatson brings a wealth of experience to the table. He first joined OpenText in October 2001. OpenText™, the information company, is a global leader in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) to create a better way for organizations to work with information, on premises or in a cloud. Howatson has served the organization in various departments, notably including: Product Management, Marketing, Engineering, Information Technology, the Office of the President, and Mergers and Acquisitions. As the company’s current CMO, Howatson oversees OpenText’s Global Marketing Strategy and its Global Partner and Alliance Operations.

Throughout his career, Howatson has lectured at Western University, Ryerson University, and the University of Waterloo, speaking to a variety of topics pertaining to information and communication technology. He has also previously served on the national board of directors for the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) and currently sits on the board of directors for Logisense Corporation.

Lindenbergs, on the other hand, is best known for his work with ground-breaking advertising campaigns and leading-edge communications strategies. Having worked in the advertising industry for over twenty years, Lindenbergs is currently the SVP and Client Service Director at Cossette — one of Canada’s leading communications agencies — where he is responsible for the integration of all disciplines between clients. Cossette’s strong performance as an integrated agency was acknowledged earlier this year when Cossette was named “Agency of the Year” by Strategy magazine, which is widely recognized as one of the highest honours in the Canadian advertising industry.

Allianz AGCS Wins Prestigious Customer Experience Impact Award with the Qualtrics Experience Management Platform™

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October 5, 2017

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Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) Award Recognizes Global CX Leaders Who Have Made A Profound Impact On Their Organization And Its Customers

Qualtrics^®, the leader in experience management, announced that Allison Windon, Director of Customer Experience at Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty (AGCS), has been confirmed as a winner of the CXPA’s 2017 Impact Award.

The award, which recognizes global CX leaders who have made a profound impact on their organization and its customers, was presented to Windon for the success of AGCS’ global CX program, powered by Qualtrics’ Experience Management Platform.

The award is recognition for Windon’s role in shaping and managing AGCS’ True Customer Centricity (TCC) program – Allianz’s customer experience program which covers 22 countries, 16 languages and represents some $7.6 billion in premiums.

Run on the Qualtrics Experience Management Platform, the program allows AGCS to monitor and respond to customer feedback in real-time, using their +12,000-strong client and broker database to gather insights and drive actions to improve the experience for their customers.

“It has been a phenomenal opportunity to build and shape a global program from the ground up, in an industry that is rapidly recognizing the importance of customer experience,” said Allison Windon, Director of Customer Experience at Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty. “I am proud to work for an organization that puts the customer at the heart of everything we do. And I am committed to working with my peers to advance the body of knowledge in the B2B space. Many thanks to the AGCS team for bringing this program to life, to Qualtrics for their partnership, and to the CXPA for this honor.”

The TCC program has transformed how AGCS thinks about its customers and is driving real change. The program has seen year-on-year increases in NPS and the launch of new products and processes across the group in response to the insights gathered. The AGCS CX program puts customer experience at the center of every employee’s thinking, whatever their role in AGCS.

“I can’t think of a more deserving winner of this award. Allison has shown real leadership and commitment to driving change at AGCS through this program. She’s been instrumental in creating a program for success – from program design to integrating Qualtrics with AGCS’ CRM to help them close the loop with their customers,” said Luke Williams, Head of CX at Qualtrics. “Allianz’s TCC program is a great example of how, with the right technology in place and passionate people driving it, organizations can translate customer insights into new initiatives and new products that not only put the customers at the heart of what they do but also drive value back to the bottom line.”

Marketo Announces Leadership Changes to Global Revenue Team

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October 5, 2017

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Marketo Announces Leadership Changes to Global Revenue Team

Kate Fitzgerald And Jamie Anderson Join Marketo In The Americas And EMEA, With Yasutaka Fukuda Expanding Leadership In The Asia Pacific

Marketo, Inc, the leading provider of engagement marketing software and solutions, announced that it has appointed three executives to head its revenue teams in the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific. Kate FitzGerald joins Marketo as president of sales, Americas; Jamie Anderson has been appointed president of EMEA; and Yasutaka Fukuda has been promoted to president of Asia Pacific–Japan. All three will report into Marketo Chief Sales Officer Eric Johnson.

“With the appointments of Kate, Jamie, and Yasutaka, I am confident that Marketo has the best revenue team in the entire enterprise software industry,” said Johnson. “These three executives have stellar track records of building and inspiring revenue teams at leading technology brands around the world. Kate, Jamie, and Yasutaka will take the success of Marketo’s field and customers to new heights in the Engagement Economy.”

FitzGerald joins Marketo from Oracle Marketing Cloud, where she was most recently group vice president of sales for North America. At Marketo, FitzGerald will oversee the Americas sales team. Over the course of her more than 30-year career in enterprise software, she has led top-performing sales organizations for both mature and early-stage companies with aggressive growth goals. Prior to Oracle, FitzGerald served as vice president, Worldwide Sales, for Salesforce.com’s Service Cloud, building a team from the ground up and pioneering a new selling model for the company’s customer service and contact center applications. FitzGerald also held multiple senior leadership roles during her 11-year tenure at Siebel Systems, Inc.

“I am thrilled to lead Marketo’s Americas salesforce as it champions the superior benefits of the Marketo Engagement Platform,” said FitzGerald. “Marketo has been aggressively innovating to deliver the best engagement marketing solutions available for today’s enterprise, and I look forward to being part of an executive team committed to capitalizing on Marketo’s incredible market potential.”

Anderson will be responsible for overall business operations across EMEA, including the region’s recent expansions in France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. He brings more than 20 years of experience in marketing and business development, including 11 years at SAP. His most recent role was senior vice president and chief marketing officer at SAP Hybris. Anderson has worked with numerous brands to redefine customer experience throughout his career, drawing upon his experience as a product developer, solution architect, marketer, and business developer. A recognized thought leader in the customer engagement and CRM space and noted for his track record in building winning teams, Anderson has also held leadership roles at Adobe and Siebel.

“Meaningful customer engagement transforms not just the way customers think about a brand, but how they feel about it,” said Anderson. “Marketo and its customers sit at the very heart of the Engagement Economy. I’m excited to be able to work closely with the global leadership team, as well as our regional partners and customers, to drive Marketo’s leadership in EMEA.”

Fukuda has been promoted to president, Asia Pacific–Japan, from his current position as representative director and president of Marketo K.K., Marketo’s joint venture with Dentsu Digital Inc., and SunBridge Corporation. In his new role, Fukuda will continue to oversee operations in Japan, as well as Marketo’s presence in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Fukuda joined Marketo in 2014 from Salesforce.com, where he served as senior vice president of commercial sales in Japan. He has been instrumental in Marketo’s successful entry into the Japanese market, which has included triple-digit revenue growth, numerous strategic partnerships, and unparalleled customer success.

SOCi Adds Instagram Publishing, Updated Analytics to Continue to Streamline Social Media for Multi Location Businesses

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PRNewswire

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October 5, 2017

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SOCi, a leading SaaS enterprise solution for large-scale social media and reputation management, announced the release of new and improved features to the SOCi platform. The brands, franchises, agencies, and property management firms that leverage SOCi’s technology platform to manage their local social media and reviews pages can now benefit from the following new functionalities:

Instagram Publishing & the New SOCi Mobile App

Adding to the suite of tools business can use to publish content across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, SOCi has now made it easier than ever to create and publish content on Instagram. Features of the new integration on the SOCi platform include a user-friendly Instagram scheduler, image editor, and approval gateways. Additionally, the new SOCi mobile Instagram app gives users the ability to manage and publish posts, all at their fingertips.

SOCi Conversations

SOCi’s Conversations tool allows organizations to keep a better eye on social conversations happening across all channels and locations. This feature discovers the most important conversations that brands and businesses are a part of and directly sends them to the individual(s) in charge of responding. SOCi Conversations makes monitoring customer feedback and dialogue on social media easy; guaranteeing that businesses won’t miss essential comments or messages that have the power to influence brand image and reputation.

Advocacy (Review) Solicitor

SOCi’s Advocacy (Review) Solicitor tool allows businesses to collect more high-rated reviews from their biggest fans. Complementing existing robust review tracking and responding tools, SOCi now lets businesses deliver a survey that will discern customers’ happiness in real-time, solicit a review from those that are at the height of their satisfaction, and collect feedback from those less satisfied. This feature will increase reviews from the right people and give companies a chance to privately address customer issues before they surface.

SOCinsights Dashboard

The new SOCi dashboard, SOCinsights, elevates the most important information, metrics, and tools that will help users deliver the biggest impact. This allows users to quickly view fan demographics, peak posting times, top performing content, and reviews by network directly upon log in. SOCinsights also provided easy-to-digest insights and allows managers to quickly refine their social campaigns, increasing brand awareness and engagement levels.

“SOCi continues to obsess over the problems our multi-location customers face in trying to manage social media and reputation at scale. These new features will help our customers efficiently manage their hundreds or thousands of pages, delivering new leads to their businesses and better care to their customers,”Alo Sarv, CTO, SoCi said.

“At SOCi we apply innovation and engineering to solve very real problems. These new tools are in response to a growing social media ecosystem that is becoming not only a premier channel for attracting new customers, but the new frontier for customer care,” Afif Khoury, CEO SoCi said.

Identity Proofing Award Given to LexisNexis® Risk Solutions for Identity Proofing Solution

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PRNewswire

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October 5, 2017

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Lexisnexis Risk Defense Platform Recognized By Javelin For Providing ‘A Deeply Functional Solution’

Javelin Strategy & Research, a research-based advisory firm, announced LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, a unit of RELX Group, as a “Leader in the Functional Category” and an “Innovation Contender” on the prestigious Javelin Identity Proofing Platform Scorecard. The global data and analytics company was recognized as a top provider for its LexisNexis® Risk Defense Platform, which monitors consumer behavior, and can discern between a real user and a fraudster. Javelin also acknowledged the firm as innovative.

"The LexisNexis Risk Defense Platform simplifies the deployment of multi-layered fraud prevention." — “The LexisNexis Risk Defense Platform simplifies the deployment of multi-layered fraud prevention.”

“We are honored to be recognized by Javelin for our work in managing complex fraud efficiently, while ensuring a positive customer experience with onboarding, login, authentication and/or account management,” says Paul Bjerke, vice president, fraud and identity management strategy, LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

The Identity Proofing Platform Scorecard uses Javelin’s Functional, Innovative, Tailored (FIT) model to evaluate the identity proofing vendor landscape, and “aims to provide a holistic evaluation of a vendor’s capabilities for financial services companies within the context of the problem being addressed, leveraging new and innovative technological processes, and in providing flexible integration with customer systems.”

The LexisNexis Risk Defense Platform links a client’s business to a robust set of fraud and identity capabilities and intelligent reporting metrics that help to improve the ability to achieve secure authentication and attain the workflow agility to keep a client’s fraud deflection strategy ahead of the next big threat, while servicing good customers with less friction.

“Implementing a multi-layered approach to tackle the evolving fraud landscape can be challenging for commercial and government organizations,” says Kim Sutherland, senior director of fraud & identity management strategy at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “By having just one platform to serve as the fraud decisioning engine for consumer workflows, LexisNexis Risk Defense Platform simplifies the deployment of multi-layered fraud prevention, and enables banks, merchants, and a vast array of commercial and government organizations to address their current fraud and identity risks and evolve with future digital and physical identity threats.”

BrightWave Receives Top Client Satisfaction Score in 2017 Email Agency Buyer’s Guide, Ranked As Leader For Third Consecutive Year

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PRNewswire

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October 5, 2017

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Leading Email Agency Praised for Platform Expertise, Partnerships, Innovation and Robust Services

For the third year in a row, BrightWave has been named a leader among email marketing agencies by The Relevancy Group in its 2017 Email Agency Buyer’s Guide. Using client input, a mock pitch assignment and over 400 independent data points, this annual guide scores email agencies according to client satisfaction, services expertise, overall value and more. This year, BrightWave received the highest marks in Customer Satisfaction and Platform Expertise among other accolades, including top rankings for its Account Management, Education Resources, Analytics and Technical Services.

The Relevancy Group, the firm founded by ex-Forrester Vice President/Principal Analyst and digital marketing expert David Daniels, commended BrightWave, stating, “BrightWave is an excellent choice for organizations with complex data requirements that seek a partner with strong strategic, creative and analytical capabilities.”

“We are honored to be ranked as a Leader once again by The Relevancy Group and specifically to receive the highest Customer Satisfaction rankings of any agency,” said Simms Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer of BrightWave. He added, “This is fundamental to our success and track record of leading the industry for fifteen years. Our number one business goal is for our clients to view us as a critical business partner, so this is very humbling and important to our entire team.”

BrightWave Gets Highest Overall Client Satisfaction and Platform Expertise Ranking

BrightWave outperformed its peers in the Client Satisfaction portion of the report, scoring a near perfect score. In this category, the report was clear: “Clients adore BrightWave.”

The report affirms the agency’s reputation for delivering sophisticated, technology-forward campaigns. The customers they interviewed also stated that BrightWave “works hard to ensure they’re continuously driving value” and “pushes towards more sophisticated programs.”

Platform Expertise, Experience and Partnerships Drive Depth and Breath of Value

The Relevancy Group praised BrightWave’s large partner ecosystem and impressive range of platform experience: “Although it is tech-agnostic, the email-focused agency boasts more official partnerships than any other in the report as well as the longest relationships with leading vendors. They stand alone as the only top agency with long-term experience in Adobe, IBM Silverpop, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Oracle Responsys and Eloqua.” The report also found, “BrightWave offered useful proprietary tools that relied on deep data integration with various ESP platforms.”

Account Management, Educational Resources, Analytical and Technical Services Take Home the Gold

The agency took home the top prizes in Account Management, Analytical Services and Technical Services but The Relevancy Group was most impressed with BrightWave’s performance in the Educational Resources category. They cited BrightWave’s inaugural EiQ event as a major educational asset. In fact, BrightWave “blew the doors off their competition in the area of Educational Resources, due likely in large part to the very well received inaugural EiQ Intelligent Email conference.” BrightWave also received one of the highest scores for its Strategy Services.

Email Marketers Seek Innovation, More Strategic Partners; BrightWave Delivers

According to the report, “Email marketing continues to be the most widely utilized marketing channel because of the significant ROI of email marketing that has been established for decades… growing on average from 17 percent to 21 percent. As the value of email marketing and the complexity of the channel continues to increase, the need for email marketing agency expertise to enhance marketer capabilities is further underscored.”

BrightWave is better positioned for this wave of new demand than any other agency. With its track record of award-winning services for nearly fifteen years, the report highlighted BrightWave’s predictive marketing capabilities, custom reporting dashboards and “progressive relevance” mantra, calling out that “BrightWave has earned its reputation by working on complex data-driven marketing campaigns for their blue chip client base.”

Oracle Partners Continue to Accelerate Success in the Cloud

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PRNewswire

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October 5, 2017

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New Oracle PartnerNetwork Program and Enablement Resources Provide Easier Access to Oracle’s State-Of-The-Art Cloud Platform

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), announced that the company continues to see strong cloud leadership and momentum across its 25,000-member strong partner program. Companies are increasingly looking to the cloud to stay competitive and enable business transformation. Since its launch in February 2016, more than 2,600 unique partners have joined the Oracle PartnerNetwork Cloud Program. Additionally, cloud resell revenue from partners increased 105 percent year over year.

Further helping customers and partners succeed in the cloud, OPN also announced the Oracle Cloud Excellence Implementer Program.

“Oracle continues to deliver the programs and enablement resources that help our partners to grow and thrive in the cloud,” said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president, Cloud Business Group, Oracle. “Through Oracle PartnerNetwork, we work in tandem with partners to provide customers with the solutions and services needed to take advantage of Oracle’s state-of-the-art cloud platform.”

With Oracle’s complete and integrated cloud, customers can choose their own personalized path for how they want to move to cloud and partners are a critical part of that journey. Nearly half of all partners in the OPN program today implement, develop and sell in the cloud with Oracle.

NetLine Corporation Releases New Predictive Lead Generation Form Technology

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MTS Staff Writer

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October 5, 2017

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Reporting a Strong Increase in Content Request Rates, NetLine Continues the Advancement of the Largest B2B Content Syndication Lead Generation Network.

Following their new predictive lead generation form update in September, NetLine Corporation is reporting a strong increase in content request rates across their B2B content syndication network. The update focused on streamlining the data capture experience of the forms to decrease abandonment rates and accelerate the leads generated on behalf of NetLine’s clients without affecting overall lead data quality. This proprietary lead generation form technology update further advances NetLine’s position in the B2B marketing technology industry as the leading B2B content syndication lead generation platform for organizations to acquire qualified leads and meet demand generation goals.

The latest version of NetLine’s proprietary lead generation form significantly reduces the number of fields exposed to the user for completion while still capturing a comprehensive 18-point professional profile of each lead generated. The streamlined predictive form begins with email capture followed by a series of five core fields for a user to complete. Most users will only need to complete 5-7 fields using the new technology, a 60% reduction in required data entry. Marketing Charts, a leading marketing industry data site, cited growth in their content request rates led by a 14% decrease in bounce rate. “NetLine’s latest lead generation form release has already increased our content request rate by more than thirty percent—improving the experience for Marketing Charts’ audience and ultimately capturing more leads with the smart predictive technology,” cited JC Lupis, Editor-in-Chief of Marketing Charts.

Just this year, NetLine began an expansion of their platform by offering publishers free access to the lead generation form technology with white labeling, analytics, and self-service campaign portal to run more efficient lead generation programs. “Now publishers can use our lead generation forms to enhance their own unique lead gen solutions for their own clients, with the option of amplification across NetLine’s network. It’s a no brainer when you compare NetLine’s form technology, data verification and cleansing, campaign management portal, and cost—which is free—over others in the space,” explained Robert Alvin, CEO and Founder of NetLine Corporation.

As the largest B2B-specific content syndication lead generation network available on the web today, NetLine is dedicated to offering the most sophisticated lead generation forms and campaign capabilities to clients and their publisher network. “We want marketers, publishers and agencies from companies of all sizes to know that NetLine offers the most comprehensive content-based lead generation solutions in the business-to-business marketplace. Our self-service portal, proprietary technology, industry experts, and entire content marketing and lead generation platform is designed to offer robust solutions for every player in the game.”

Trish Lemley Joins Fosina Marketing Group As Senior Vice President Of Client Services

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PRNewswire

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October 5, 2017

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Lemley Will Work To Identify Attractive Growth Opportunities For The Leading Marketing Firm

Fosina Marketing Group (Fosina), a leading digital marketing services agency with a focus on optimizing direct-to-consumer acquisition and customer retention for highly recognized brand clients, announced today that Trish Lemley joined the company on September 25^th as Senior Vice President of Client Services. Lemley will be responsible for managing all aspects of current and potential client relationships.

Lemley brings more than 15 years of experience in advertising sales operations and client services, with a focus on linear and digital. Prior to joining Fosina, she was the Senior Vice President of Sales Operations and Client Services at Turner. During her tenure at Turner, she was instrumental in radically restructuring the entire sales support team from roles and responsibilities through new systems, policies and procedures that established best practices not just for Turner but for the entire cable industry.

“It is a pleasure to join the Fosina team and I look forward to executing the company’s growth strategy through client relationships and services,” says Trish Lemley. “Fosina’s strong focus on optimizing client acquisition and retention has made the company a leader in the direct to consumer marketing industry. I am looking forward to working with the executive team to position the company for continued growth and success.”

“We are delighted to welcome Trish to our executive team,” said Jim Fosina, CEO of Fosina Marketing Group. “We are confident her experience in advertising sales operations and client services will be instrumental in taking Fosina to the next level.”

Fosina provides a wide array of services to leading brand clients, including the following: Consulting, Creative Design, Website Development/Hosting, Order Transaction, Subscription CRM, Merchant Processing Options, Media Planning/Procurement, Customer Service Management and Warehouse/Shipping execution.

Four Key Takeaways from AdWeek New York

By

Jeff Meglio

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October 4, 2017

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NYC’s Advertising Week 2017 wrapped up on Friday after more than 100,000 leaders from the advertising, marketing, media and creative worlds spent five days debating, discussing and predicting the current and future state of the industry.

From topical daytime panel discussions and evening networking events, to late-night parties where the more “direct” conversations took place, Advertising Week was a full-on celebration of the economic and social impact of the evolving industry. Topics such as the importance of diversity, data-driven advertising, the future of adtech, and the influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR), give a taste of the broad spectrum of subjects covered throughout the event.

Here are a few of the key messages for digital advertising that emerged from last week’s event:

Quality content can combat ad blocking

Keith Weed, Chief Marketing Officer at Unilever, shared his thoughts on the contentious topic of ad blocking, stating “600 million people have installed ad blockers because a rubbish experience will indeed move people away from your advertising.” He offered a simple alternative, suggesting the industry can earn trust and attention by developing quality content that audiences seek out, and by giving users a great experience.

Programmatic is entering a powerful phase

Programmatic – or automation – was front and center of many presentations and conversations throughout the week, whether they involved well-established creative agencies and holding companies, or young start-ups and digital agencies. Despite current challenges of transparency, attribution, and brand safety, programmatic was firmly in the spotlight and earned more than its fair share of air time.

The sports analogies used to describe the current phase of programmatic included the third inning of a nine-inning baseball game or the start of the second half of a soccer match, but whatever your preferred sport it’s clear programmatic still has plenty of growing room.

In the session, ‘The Next Era of Programmatic’, Keith Eadie, VP at Adobe stated, “the way people consume media today is dramatically different than it was five years ago and it will be dramatically different five years from today.” He suggested advertisers already compete using programmatic and believes the technology gives them an edge to connect with consumers. Without it, they’re stuck advertising in Times Square or on TV. Programmatic still has a long way to go, but even in its current form it avoids upsetting users with a poor experience.

Trust and transparency are more than just talk

Trust and transparency were the two most widely discussed AdWeek topics, each forming the subject of six different sessions, not to mention countless conversations at the bar. Buyers increasingly want to understand what is happening with each transaction. They want to know where their dollars go, what the tech taxes amount to, and whether they can trust programmatic.

Some tech providers have been committed to supply chain integrity from the outset, but since the very public position rightly taken this year by a handful of the world’s largest advertisers – including P&G, Unilever and AT&T – the entire industry is motivated to restore trust in programmatic. Brands, agencies and publishers are beginning to see the clear and quantifiable economic benefits a transparent digital supply chain can drive for all parties. Brands are looking for guidance from their DSPs, agencies and tech providers, while agencies and publishers are committing to work with technology partners who care about transparency. Everyone involved in the transaction must play their part in addressing trust and transparency concerns.

AI has arrived and will only get smarter

Several AdWeek sessions and experiential set ups discussed the promise of AI, along with the ability to do real-time analysis and drive personalization in a way that continually learns. AI-powered voice-enabled search will change the way we shop, search, and engage because ads will be far more tailored to consumers and therefore more effective. The overarching sentiment was AI is here now, will only get smarter, and will undoubtedly shape the future of programmatic.

Despite the variety of topics covered during the week, one thread remained strong. We should never lose sight of the user experience, and all industry developments should strive to enhance that experience. Every aspect of consumer lives is becoming connected, and the future of programmatic is to join up these different pieces with a push toward cross channel execution and measurement. As we look ahead I believe programmatic will be the only way brands do advertising.

Also Read: Why Video Makes Sense for B2B Marketers

Pain Relief: Delivering on the Promise of Premium

By

Paul Josephsen

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October 4, 2017

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Adslot — Pain Relief: Delivering on the Promise of Premium

About a year or so ago, a study circulated that calculated consumers’ average attention span at eight seconds, a second shorter than that of a goldfish. In today’s “right now” economy where brands are vying for even a portion of these eight seconds, creating media experiences that excite people is more important than ever. For marketers to capture our attention we need to be, intrigued, excited and emotionally connected. The content creators that own the hearts and minds of audiences are best positioned to help brands and marketers create these experiences and interactions that cut through the clutter, stop our thumbs from scrolling and drive us to interact. The need for truly premium relationships and meaningful context appears to be more important than ever.

Premium, direct advertising allows marketers to better emotionally connect with audiences and to align their brands in the appropriate context to stoke an emotional response from people. So it should be simple, right? Let’s buy more publisher direct.

Unfortunately, to date, this hasn’t been a scalable endeavor. Navigating the waters of purchasing premium media is largely inefficient for agencies and clients alike. The struggle is real and the consequences of a misstep in this fight for attention can be tremendous.

While programmatic has rightfully won its place in the sea of advertising options due to its ability to leverage algorithms and deliver scale, premium publishers and the media they provide undeniably provide the high-quality environments that brands desire when communicating their value to audiences.

Working publisher-direct and focusing on the strong relationships between the content creators (publishers) and brands helps brands immediately control transparency, brand safety, and ad fraud. A study conducted by comScore last year provided evidence indicating that premium publishers deliver substantially higher brand effectiveness for display ads. The study also showed that premium ads’ effectiveness is likely the result of the contextual environment in which the ads were viewed.

Outdated at Best

So, if premium ads and their associated environments are more effective, then why hasn’t the purchasing process been improved? More than 20 years ago the world was introduced to the display ad. Since then, the science of advertising has skyrocketed with the introduction of technology players all layering in elements of sophistication, data, and omnichannel offerings. With all this complexity and sophistication, however, the premium media purchasing process has remained stagnant and the Insertion Order (IO) process is archaic at best.

Up until recently, there hasn’t been a technology offering introduced that preserves the relationship between marketers and publishers while offering a platform that could eliminate the hassles and outdated administrative hurdles of the IO.

It Doesn’t Have to be This Way

The workflow required to buy direct, premium media is riddled with operational and administrative headaches. There’s jockeying for inventory, there’s back and forth, there are needless clerical tasks and manual work that’s all part of the direct order process that publishers, agencies, and clients all deal with.

If we hone in on what’s actually important, the relationship between the brand and the publisher, we can identify immediate opportunities to scale the human connection associated with publisher direct buying. We can create a scalable media solution designed to build relationships with audiences rather than a soulless transaction.

Tear Up the Playbook. Start Fresh

Connecting emotionally with target audiences through advertising will never be easy, but premium media has proven to work. And when it works, quality undoubtedly trumps quantity in winning the hearts and minds of consumers and driving ad performance. It’s time for the industry to demand change and embrace a new, modern approach to premium buys with new publisher-direct technology platforms that offer scale across premium media while underwriting the emotional connections that make advertising work.

Paul Josephsen is global chief marketing officer at Adslot, a pioneer for the next generation of premium media buying focused on empowering collaboration and scaling publisher-direct buying.

DMEXCO 2017 Roundup for Marketers: Marc Pritchard, Data Science, AI and “The Art of Narrative Disruption”

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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October 4, 2017

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A Quick Roundup Of Dmexco 2017, For Advertisers And Marketers, Who Are Looking At New Ways To Create Brand-Specific Campaigns That Resonate In Today’s Digital Economy

Forty-eight hours at the 2017 Digital Marketing Exposition and Conference (DMEXCO) exposed the shifting sands in the martech, adtech, AI sectors and the digital economy. With over 40,000 visitors and nearly 1200 exhibitors at the event, DMEXCO 2017 revealed the visible trends and the underlying forces that would redefine the way marketers and advertisers see and work with data, technology and people. Raising the creative bar for digital media, attendees thronged to join groups that discussed ad fraud, brand safety, GDPR, user engagement, gender bias and of course, ad performance for growth.

There were mixed feelings regarding the new legislations, and for some, data regulation was not mentioned enough – especially given this was the last DMEXCO before the GDPR norms come into force. In an industry renowned for being creative and daring, many felt this ‘wait and watch,’ policy was something new.

Brand safety and ad fraud were also high on the agenda, underlining the importance that brands and advertisers have placed on transparency..

Read More: Vorsprung Durch Dmexco

So, what did industry experts think of the event?

Powerful Dream of Mass “1:1 Marketing” is Close to Reality, Sans Bots

Brands that use digital economy are the torchbearers of giving their brands a voice for collective good. Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G, explained how the digital economy needs a transparent advertising action for raising the bar in the industry “for good and for growth.”

Now we know, how 2017 proved to be the year when the ‘bloom came off the rose for digital media.”

#dmexco 2017: Digital Leaders Reveal 5 Tips To Power CX Strategy https://t.co/fe3QdDZ37T via @cmo_com

— dmexco (@dmexco) September 27, 2017

Patrik Fagerlund, CEO and founder of Widespace, who spoke to us from DMEXCO 2017, concurred with Pritchard’s stance on transparency, bot fraud, and optimized adtech budgets. Patrik said, “P&G is right to have a zero tolerance attitude to brand safety as there is no reason why adtech providers cannot offer total transparency, improved viewability and zero per cent fraud. If an ad hasn’t been seen, was delivered to a fraudulent bot, or to an unsavoury site, the advertiser should never pay for it. The whole industry needs to step up when it comes to these issues by putting an onus on quality, therefore ensuring digital advertising continues to deliver back to brands and isn’t tarnished by a few bad actors.”

Get Real with Two-second Native Video Marketing

Almost every viewer has the opportunity to see a video ad, but is that relevant? Flooding digital media with 30-second ads is not going to work. Data shows that average ad-viewing time is less than two seconds. Is it smart to still invest in 30-second ads? Are these ads still relevant? Social media proves that 30-second ads are annoying.

Patrik explained, “It was also promising to hear Marc Pritchard speak about creating a suite of video ads that can engage a consumer in less than 2 seconds. Creating relevant and interesting video ads that people want to interact with is far more effective than forcing a user to watch a 30-second ad in the middle of content. It simply comes down to putting the consumer at the heart of everything we do and, as a result, developing advertising that captivates the audience rather than annoying them. Everyone wins.”

Read More: Why Video Makes Sense for B2B Marketers

AI is Yet to Mature

AI is accelerating how brands connect with consumers. In 2017, digital advertising had a higher ROI than traditional media, which became the top priority for brands. AI—the buzzword in the industry made its presence felt at DMEXCO 2017, with attendees discussing at length how it holds the key to drive value for brands and customers alike. To get a real sense of this phenomenon, we spoke to Rami Alanko, Founder & CEO at beemray.

Made announcement @ #DMEXCO w/ @JoeZawadzki @mediamath We’re taking mrktg to the next level w/ #AI. More here: https://t.co/cDZkCdfchV

— Bob Lord (@rwlord) September 14, 2017

Rami said, “To me it boils down to automation; what is the level of automation for the advertiser? It won’t work if an advertiser needs to turn into a data scientist, or become the next Ray Kurzweil, to get ROI. But if AI is mature enough to propose and guide based on the available data sources, then things look good.”

Taking a different view on AI, Chad Wollen, CMO, Smartpipe, mentioned, “Perhaps the biggest surprise about DMEXCO this year was the lack of discussion around much lauded new technologies. Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain companies did not cut through on the floor, as was expected following their extensive coverage in the trade press and social media before the event. Maybe their time will come next year?”

So, who’s set to earn more ROI from their media investments if they were to include AI?

For Rami, it’s online media.

“Online has undoubtedly better infrastructure to get it right in terms of scoring higher ROI but traditional media will also benefit from AI. There are numerous ways to improve and fine-tune traditional media, and there is no question that AI will help a lot with this,” said Rami.

Icing on cake—

“Digital and traditional media are destined to get married in terms of analysis and insights. Only the formats will be different,” Rami said.

GDPR and the Impact on Consumption Experience

Like all contemporary events, regulations on data privacy and transparency remained the central focus of all discussions at DMEXCO this year. Ben Barokas, CEO and Co-Founder, Sourcepoint, spoke to us about the enormous opportunities that exist for advertisers and publishers.

Read Also: Brand Transparency for GDPR

Ben said, “For the publishing industry in particular, the discussion focused on understanding where, when, and how to engage users and build clear and transparent communication around the value exchange. The modern publisher must gather data across all possible revenue streams to compile a holistic understanding of its users’ preferences with regards to compensation. Whether through direct payments, advertising or subscription models – multiple compensation options should then be presented in a flexible manner, providing choice and creating a clear value exchange. Ensuring this process is frictionless is essential to enhance every user’s consumption experience.”

Why Brand Transformation Can Only Happen With the Demise of Silos https://t.co/jCbcouIqGH via @adweek #dmexco

— dmexco (@dmexco) September 15, 2017

Connecting the world of the Internet of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, while maintaining content privacy, would be the biggest challenge for marketers in creating a truly transparent single customer view. Adam Corey, VP Marketing, Tealium, said, “With rapid developments in futuristic technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, marketers were keen to understand how these tools can help them improve the customer experience and target audiences more effectively. And as the number of data sources continues to increase – from wearables to connected cars – marketers wanted to understand how to pull all this data into a single customer view.”

Adam, who like most other marketers believes this to be a wake-up call, added, “With just nine months until it comes into force, the GDPR was a hot topic. The global regulation will affect all companies dealing with EU citizens’ data, so marketers from across the world sought advice on successful preparation. It was refreshing to see marketers embracing GDPR as an opportunity to improve consumer data privacy and security.”

The EU’s GDPR and ePrivacy Directive is legislation that has implications across all business functions and stacks and the martech and adtech sectors are going to be significantly impacted. An audience vote at the GDPR panel session revealed 51% of those attending had yet to prepare their business for the changes and a further 27% were unsure of any preparations in their businesses.

Chad Wollen, added, “If this (lack of GDPR discussions) is an accurate reflection of the state of the industry then it is time to shake off any ignorance or complacency in what could be seen as the calm before the GDPR storm. As Stephen Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers said, we would look back on these times as the good times – when things were free and easy. As time runs out and the penny drops, the industry needs to develop an understanding that the GDPR calls for real transformation of processes, technology and commercial relationships.”

Mobile and Video: The Next-Gen Digital World

When Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook revealed how 3.5 billion people access internet and more than half of them do it using their mobile, the writing was clear on the wall. ‘Mobile is bigger than

Giovanni Strocchi, CEO, ADmantX, identified why brands were integrating mobile and video, focusing on the overall media mix. Giovanni said, “Linked to this (mobile and video integration) is the need for identity management – allowing marketers to understand when an individual moves from one device to another – which is the key to avoid excessive communication to a single consumer and ensure relevant advertising.”

Creativity and Data Science Need to Come Together for Customer Engagement

Ben Alpren, Head of Vendor Partnerships, The Exchange Lab, spoke to us from DMEXCO 2017 about customer engagement being a key topic of discussion at the event. Ben said, “In Sir John Hegarty’s keynote on the main stage, he talked about how creativity is the lynchpin to engaging consumers and therefore vital to any business operation. Up until recently, advertising has not been able to keep up with consumer engagement. The industry has often favored data at the expense of creativity – not because it wasn’t important, but due to a focus on performance and scale.”

@DMEXCO talking with John Hegarty about importance of influencers on building brands in the future pic.twitter.com/IYtU4xNyCV

— Aline Santos (@alinecsantos) September 14, 2017

Ben said, “What is interesting is that advancements in the collection of data, through, for example, the Internet of Things, is enabling advertisers to create more bespoke, personalized and attractive ads. The creative versus data debate is one that has been discussed many times before, but as the industry evolves, it’s a debate that’s never been as relevant.”

Success of Digital Movement Lies in Bettering Performance Metric and Improving User Engagement

Andy Evans, CMO, Sovrn, said the single most important discussion of dmexco 2017 was around the idea that the digital ecosystem is in the middle of a revolution, “The general consensus was that if we don’t fix problems such as transparency, ad fraud, ad blocking and fake news, scepticism around the efficiency of digital advertising will increase, and then dmexco may be no more in years to come. The advertising supply chain needs to improve quickly, and think about new approaches. During a presentation to close dmexco, Terence Kawaja of LUMA Partners rightly questioned the obsession with existing measurements saying: Why are we talking about views in 2017? – Shouldn’t we be migrating along a performance curve to get away from these long-distance proxys? Shouldn’t we move to a time or engagement metric?” I believe that the next step forward is to truly understand the value of user engagement and start thinking about ways to deliver this, and when we do the ecosystem will be in a much better shape.”

Why The Best Marketers Are Adding Online Experiences to IRL Events

By

Mark Bornstein

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October 4, 2017

0

The Best Marketers Are Adding Online Experiences to IRL Events

Fall in the marketing world means more than just pumpkin-spiced lattes, it’s a hectic time full of industry conferences. All you road warriors know what I’m talking about… there are too many B2B marketing events, conferences, summits, and forums to keep straight.

In the whirlwind of flights, happy hours and card-swapping, all those valuable in-person conversations can feel like they happened ages ago once you get back to the office.

So how do the best marketers leverage the valuable connection of an in-person conversation at digital scale? Forrester analyst Laura Ramos recently examined this dilemma and found that leading B2B marketers add a virtual event component. At ON24, we’re seeing this trend heat up with many of our customers and partners making their in-person conferences available on-demand.

Here are four reasons why the industry’s best are integrating the digital world with their in-person event strategies:

Create a better content experience for attendees.

I like to think we are at the post-hardcopy phase of physical events. When you travel to a trade-show or conference today, very few booths, if any, hand out paper content. The days of lugging around tote bags full of data sheets are over. People want digital content. Unfortunately, there is no way to effectively deliver that digital content when you are in-person at an event.

In contrast, a virtual event offers more flexibility in terms of the content organizers can share with audiences. For example during a virtual presentation, a presenter can choose to share slides, videos, white papers, case studies, and more, all alongside one another and in relation to the ongoing discussion. Viewers then have the choice to self-select a content experience that fits their needs.

The same is true with call to actions (CTA). Instead of telling attendees to sign up for a promotion or product when they return to the office, in a virtual space they can choose a CTA that suites their interest, whether that be further follow up or an immediate free trial. By empowering audiences to create their own experience, marketers provide their audiences with a personally tailored event at scale.

Deliver unprecedented scale and presence.

When it comes to scale and reach, digital rules. With a virtual component supporting the physical event, event organizers reach audiences well beyond those who physically attended. Recorded keynote presentations can be viewed by prospects unable to attend or those who missed the opportunity. And later, that same recorded content can be viewed on-demand at leisure.

By virtualizing the event any conference, sales kick-off, or seminar becomes an instant “persistent environment” – a constant stream of on-demand digital content such as keynotes, whitepapers, videos, and more. All the content created throughout the event exists in perpetuity, outside of the actual moment of the event. No event should become irrelevant because it happened a month ago. A virtual event can preserve experiences for use well beyond the conference dates.

Change the way you qualify prospects.

Virtual events can also redefine the way marketers qualify leads. Unlike in-person events, no data lost. Organizers capture every data point an attendee creates, whether it’s an instant message or a survey question answer. Every action is logged and associated with that individual for later reference.

By capturing the minute details that happened during an event, marketers can identify and qualify leads faster and more efficiently. All of the useful context surrounding a customer’s experience is captured. What questions did they have? Which pieces of content where they most interested in? How long did they attend a session? With the right data, answers to these questions come naturally.

Later, marketers can call upon insight gathered during the event further down the funnel, selecting those prospects that are most promising, and those not to be bothered with.

Faster and more efficient sales follow up.

This, I believe, is the primary reason marketers must have a digital presence coinciding with any live event today. A recent study found that 27% of marketers follow-up with event leads 7 to 13 days after the actual event – 12% wait two to four weeks! During that time valuable context and momentum is lost. In contrast, leads generated by virtual events are sales-ready from the time of capture and follow-up can occur almost immediately.

Instead of waiting for badge scans to load and classify, a virtual event provides marketers with instant integration. The data collected is instantly integrated with existing CRM systems and can be acted upon immediately after, making the handoffs event marketing teams share with sales teams richer and more insightful.

Moreover, sales teams get the exact context a customer had during the event. A sales rep can pick up the customer conversation exactly where it ended post-event. There’s nothing lost in the transfer and, for the customer, it feels natural, like the conversation just continues from one rep to another. This is extremely important – no customer enjoys repeating themselves.

Expanding your audience.

The primary fear that most marketers have with adding virtual to their physical events is that the virtual will somehow cannibalize the physical. And while certainly a justified concern, the counter argument is even more compelling. A majority of the prospects that you invite to your events will not attend, though many probably wish they could. Perhaps they don’t have travel budget or maybe their schedules are simply too busy. Why not provide those who can’t attend with an option to participate in your event? Even if they don’t have the full conference experience, they can still take in the content they are most interested in and you still create moments to engage with them.

These virtual experiences can be large scale environments that replicate an in-person conference or simply webinars that broadcast key presentations, either live or on demand, to extend the value of your content.

There is a time where I can see digital and live events merging seamlessly in the near future. We’re not there yet, but the capabilities available today are poised to dramatically change the event experience, surfacing more detail and actionable insight than ever before. If you’re a marketer planning your next live event, don’t forget about your digital audience! Your sales teams and CMO will thank you.

New AdRoll Research Finds 81 Percent of Organizations Use Marketing Attribution

By

Sudipto Ghosh

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October 4, 2017

1

AdRoll Marketing Attribution Report 2017

Global Adoption Of Marketing Attribution Has Increased Even As A Majority Of Businesses Still Struggle To Act On Insights, According To A Survey By Econsultancy

AdRoll, the performance marketing platform, has published its 2017 State of Marketing Attribution report in partnership with Econsultancy. Based on a survey of nearly 1,000 brand marketers and agencies across North America, Europe, Japan and Asia-Pacific, the report provides detailed insight into a marketer’s perspective on the changing dynamics of attribution.

Now in its second installment, this year’s report provides a global comparison, expanded from the European report released in 2016.

Econsultancy’s Head of Commercial Research Services, Monica Savut said, “There’s increased recognition of the role marketing attribution can play in helping companies to maximise their business outcomes, but knowledge and confidence surrounding the use of various methods could prove to be a stumbling block. This year’s research shows that companies need to take a more holistic and nuanced approach to attribution, constantly adjusting and refining until the correct balance is achieved.”

The customer journey is becoming increasingly complex and fast-paced with multiple devices and touchpoints. It is essential that marketers understand the effectiveness of their campaigns and how each channel contributes to bringing customers to their businesses in order to effectively spend their budgets.

To do this, attribution continues to be a top priority for marketers. AdRoll’s 2017 report shows almost four out of five organizations are using marketing attribution, and 51 per cent of responding companies in North America are carrying out attribution on all or most of their marketing activities, compared to 39 per cent globally.

Shane Murphy, VP, Marketing, AdRoll, said, “Attribution continues to be one of the hottest topics in the industry for a reason: it has huge consequences, such as lost revenue and wasted ad budget, if not done properly. The State of Marketing Attribution report gives a sense of how marketers are dealing with this challenging topic. Marketers are being held to higher standards of measurement and accountability than ever before, and attribution models have the ability to show the true impact our discipline has on the bottom line of a business.”

When asked about primary motivations of attribution, 70 per cent of company respondents say better allocation of budget across channels was the No. 1 benefit; followed by 64 per cent citing a better understanding of how digital channels work together. With the added visibility into where marketing dollars are performing across specific channels, 32 per cent have increased their spending on digital marketing channels. Many marketers are seeing the benefits of attribution; however, 70 per cent of respondents still struggle to act on insights, citing defining the online customer journey as the most significant barrier to more effective usage.

Key global findings from the report include –

Single-click attribution models are still the most commonly used: 44 per cent last-click and 39 per cent first-click for brand marketers, and 58 per cent last-click and 33 per cent first-click for agency clients
Of the 25 per cent of marketers using a custom attribution model, 48 per cent deem it to be very effective
59 per cent of marketers that have not yet implemented an attribution model say that a lack of knowledge is the main obstacle
Joining online and offline attribution is increasing: the report shows 60 per cent of marketers today are using multi-channel attribution, compared to 45 per cent in 2016
Marketers are split in how they execute marketing attribution: 43 per cent rely on spreadsheets while an equal 43 per cent have turned to vendor technologies.
71 per cent of marketers describe their attribution model as very flexible (can easily apply multiple models to data), or somewhat flexible (multiple models exist but it is time consuming to change them)

Currently, AdRoll provides its performance marketing platform consisting of high-performance tools works across devices, helping businesses attract, convert and grow their customer base. The company is home to the world’s largest opt-in advertiser data co-op, the IntentMap™, with over 1.2 billion digital profiles. AdRoll’s goal is to build the most powerful marketing platform through performance, usability and openness.

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