Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to be a part of Cloud IQ?

I joined Cloud IQ as Chief Marketing Officer in April 2017, having previously worked as Vice President of Marketing, EMEA at Zendesk during its time of rapid global growth through to its $1bn IPO and subsequent market cap as a $2.2bn company.

I’d been tracking Cloud IQ for some time having first met James and the team in 2012. The timing was right and I am pleased to be part of helping to fuel the rapid growth of the business, raising awareness, driving demand, and celebrating customer success.

How does Cloud IQ boost online sales revenues?

The Cloud IQ platform looks at customer data and behavior to provide an individual experience which then results in more loyal customers – all with no additional development work on the merchant’s site. Today, we work with global brands such as TUI, Samsung and EE enabling them to optimise their customer journeys resulting in increased conversions and ultimately revenues. These individual experiences include the use of count-down timers for both sales and product launches through to dynamic stock availability to ensure consumers do not miss out on the offers they have seen.

Additionally, we are Paypal’s exclusive conversion partner, meaning that we can optimise the customer journey where PayPal is the consumer’s preferred method of payment. We are partnered with PayPal – meaning that e-commerce businesses using PayPal are able to track their transactions with Cloud IQ, and offering the chance to really dissect the consumer journey to convert more customers.

How should CMOs formulate their content automation and personalization strategies, based on AI-driven conversion rate optimization platforms?

When it comes to making the shift towards individualization, it is important to consider how consumers define being treated as an individual. My advice on this is to let the machine do the heavy lifting, looking for patterns and understanding the data. Then once you have this data it’s possible to use humans to bring in the personal touch, checking campaign successes and failures on a one-to-one basis and refine the messages according to these insights.

Our latest research found that 69% of consumers actually want an individualized experience from a brand yet only 40% offer one. This, and the fact that 75% of consumers will give a brand just one chance before going elsewhere if that trust is broken, should be the major catalysts to CMO’s approaches.

Tell us about how Cloud IQ brings together various online engagement platforms to boost customer conversion rates?

Cloud IQ uses software to create a 360-degree profile of the individual, we look at who they are, what they are doing and have done to trigger the next step of the journey. We can then overlay context including the current weather conditions, what time of day it is and location – and factor this into how that individual experience is delivered. The goal is to avoid basket abandonment and make people feel that a brand remembers them, providing a seamless experience when they return to their website.

What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

For me, the one to watch at the moment is Klipfolio – I like their onboard and trial extension process.

What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017? 

The main contenders for this have to be WordPress, Marketo, and Uberflip.

Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign?

Our most recent campaign is a little *old school* with the starting point being a direct major piece – where we measured first touch engagement at over 25% – when the digital follow up and social engagement was included, this reached over 35%.

Given our senior target audience of senior e-commerce and marketing professionals, these results were exceptional. As with any awareness or top of funnel campaigns, the measures for success are always engagement and the increase in share of mind.

By having an analog to digital bridge, the act of engagement requires real input from the person being targeted and not just a snap decision click on a link. In this fast-moving digital-first world I think this represents a great way to get the conversation going.

How do you see the conversational platforms evolving with the maturity of AI/ML technologies?

Obviously, these platforms are going to get better and better all the time with AI. However, using AI in the right way – to spot the patterns and make the outbound targeted marketing more relevant – will allow us the time to focus on the way we engage with our prospects as individuals. Bringing the human touch and a sense of the unexpected into the conversation will always result in benefits.

One word that best describes how you work.

Agile.

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

Google chrome & my iPhone – then Salesforce, Zendesk & Bime for analytics.

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

Collaborate in real time.

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

The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World by Pedro Domingos.

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

Not given to me personally but I read it on a plaque on the desk of Ted Turn at CNN… “You can lead, you can follow just don’t get in the way.”

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

Rory Sutherland, Executive Creative Director of OgilvyOne.

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