“Open exchange programmatic creates the most immediate challenge for brands. Without any protections on the audience and websites being purchased, there is a real risk of jeopardizing brand safety. “

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to start an ad sales intelligence company?
I am the CEO and co-founder of MediaRadar. In 2003, I started working for Gruner + Jahr, a German publisher with hundreds of titles worldwide. I loved the company, but was frustrated by the lack of timely industry insights in the media market and believed that almost all media formats would be disintermediated by the internet. With no signs of innovation from existing vendors servicing the market segment, my business partner and I started MediaRadar to meet this growing need. MediaRadar sold to its first client in September 2007.

MTS: How does MediaRadar enable customers to build a strong Brand-Company-Agency relationship?
MediaRadar helps ad sales personnel identify the brands most likely to buy advertising, but also prepares them with specific talking points for the sales rep, so they know exactly how to give the most compelling sales pitch. This makes the sales rep more knowledgeable, and the best possible partner. The tool allows for the strongest bond between the publisher and the brand/agency.

MTS: What are the impending challenges for brands leveraging programmatic capabilities?
Open exchange programmatic creates the most immediate challenge for brands. Without any protections on the audience and websites being purchased, there is a real risk of jeopardizing brand safety. This was a big problem for programmatic ad buys on YouTube this spring!

MTS: What would it take the business leaders to fully leverage sales intelligence tools for better ROI?
To improve ROI, we strongly recommend training. This way clients extract the maximum amount of benefit from the tool.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
I like the team at Data Fox, a start-up out of San Francisco that raised their second round just last week.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
MediaRadar’s marketing efforts are focused on two things – lead generation and client retention. Our marketing team works closely with our Client Services and Sales teams to educate our clients and prospects about the ever-changing marketplace. In order to be successful, we use 26 different tools….Ranging from Google analytics and Moz for transparency. …Hubspot, and Toutapp for marketing automation. We also use Adroll, Adwords, Optinmonster, email, and social channels for lead generation. Trello for project management and numerous design tools…just to name a few. One new addition we like very much is Bizible, which allows us to track marketing attribution, across media formats.

MTS: Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign?
Our most successful campaigns are targeted to the individual decision makers, at each account. Customization of content is key and worth the extra effort when trying to start a conversation. Our stand out digital campaigns go beyond just digital channels to really come at our prospects through many channels – email, retargeting, social, phone, and especially direct mail. We take many steps to customized and personalize the content to “win” the opportunity to have a serious conversation with our prospect.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I’m not preparing for it today.  More than any other factor, we listen to clients and use this to inform our business decisions.   

This is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Tenacious

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
On a daily basis I use Excel, Microsoft Mail Merge, Snagit!, PowerPoint, and our internal dashboard of client use metrics.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
I keep a running to-do list that I update all through the day. I like to have visibility into my short and long-term projects, internal and external.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I read my industry news each morning, a collection of a dozen sources of endemic media.  I especially like reading Lucia Moses in Digiday, Bo Sacks, and Bob Garfield.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“Keep pushing, well beyond what is considered normal or appropriate.”

MTS: Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
There are two that come to mind—both Bob Hoffman (The Ad Contrarian) and Bob Garfield, for sure.

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