MarTech Interview with Janaka Fernando, Optimizely Practice Director at Valtech

Janaka Fernado, Optimizely Practice Director at Valtech comments on the martech trends that will dominate the industry in this short chat with MarTechSeries:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Janaka, tell us about yourself and more about your role at Valtech…

Thank you for having me. I’m Janaka, currently serving as the Optimizely Practice Director at Valtech North America. With over 11 years of experience in Optimizely, I’ve had the privilege of working with various client teams to drive customer success and facilitate platform enablement.

In my role, I not only provide leadership but also chair the Global Valtech Optimizely Craft Circle, where I actively promote product education and encourage the adoption of industry best practices. It’s an honor to be recognized for my strategic acumen as a Strategy Optimizely Most Valuable Professional (OMVP).

We’d love to hear about Valtech’s recent launch of its first connector, how does this enable end users? 

Of course. Valtech’s new connector acts as a bridge between Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Optimizely. The connector allows businesses within B2C retail or B2B commerce to easily synchronize their products, catalogs, content, and other relevant information between the two platforms. By integrating the connector, businesses eliminate the need for lengthy, custom integrations between the platforms to ensure real-time data consistency, which leads to faster time-to-market.

What’s in it for end users? Well, the most significant impact for them is that businesses that implement this connector will be able to deliver personalized and relevant e-commerce experiences to customers. Plus, marketers can turn out impressive campaigns 40% faster than before. It’s a win-win situation!

What personalization trends are you seeing in the marketplace today, what should B2B marketers be focusing on more to drive impact?

According to Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report, 52% of customers expect offers to always be personalized — up from 49% in 2019. As a result, most retailers (56%) are prioritizing technology that enables customized experiences. That said, using experimentation technology such as Optimizely helps businesses make more intelligent and more data-driven decisions around personalization. With the help of the connector, businesses can leverage advanced CMS, experimentation, targeting, and personalization capabilities to optimize their websites or apps, create better customer experiences, and improve business outcomes.

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What best practices would you share with marketing and salespeople when it comes to data hygiene around customer data? How can these teams use their data more effectively to drive growth and better customer journeys?

Here are some best practices that I’d suggest for data hygiene:

Data Tracking: Ensure that you track all the steps of your customer’s journey from landing to conversion. Then layer in custom events, like a loyalty sign-up, to further complete the view of your customer.

Data Validation: Regularly validate and clean customer data. This involves removing duplicate records, correcting inaccuracies, and ensuring data consistency.

Segmentation: Categorize customer data into segments based on demographics, behavior, and preferences. This allows for more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. 

Some tips for using data effectively for growth and better customer journeys include:

Personalization: Leverage your segmented data to create highly personalized marketing messages and offers. This not only increases engagement but also fosters stronger customer relationships.

Customer Insights: Analyse your customer data to gain insights into their behaviors, preferences, and pain points. Use this information to tailor your products, services, and marketing strategies.

A/B Testing: Use A/B testing with tools like Optimizely to experiment with different strategies and identify what resonates best with your audience. Continually refine your tactics based on the results.

Applying data hygiene best practices and using customer data effectively allows marketing and sales teams to deliver more personalized, targeted, and efficient digital experiences.

Can you highlight more on some of the recent trends in martech that you feel are reshaping the industry? 

Three trends are of interest to me and that I’d like to highlight because of their main themes around data and personalization.

• Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): CDPs are becoming increasingly popular as they allow businesses to centralize customer data from various sources, helping to create a unified view of the customer. This results in highly targeted customer segments that can be activated through personalized marketing efforts.
• Content Personalization: With the growing demand for personalized experiences, MarTech tools are increasingly focused on content personalization. AI-driven recommendations, dynamic content, and real-time personalization are in high demand.
• CMPs and Content Lifecycle: There is a shift towards more robust content marketing platforms that offer advanced workflow capabilities and automation. Coupled with generative AI content and prompt assistance, these platforms can orchestrate an entire Fortune 500 organization’s planning and execution across all marketing initiatives.

It’s 2023, and having a CMS and Commerce platform are now the bare-bones expectations for marketers. These trends are proving to reshape the MarTech landscape, and businesses that adapt to these changes are more likely to stay competitive and deliver effective marketing campaigns.

Can you comment on the growing use of AI in digital marketing and how you see it impacting the future of marketing and Martech and marketing?  

AI is everywhere we turn, and the growing use of it in digital marketing is fundamentally transforming the industry and will continue to impact the future of marketing and MarTech in several ways. From enhanced personalization to content generation and predictive analytics, AI-driven automation streamlines marketing processes, saving companies time and resources. Businesses that embrace AI in their marketing efforts are likely to gain a competitive edge and make better data-driven decisions.

Before we wrap up, take us through five must-dos you feel every B2B marketer and B2B advertiser needs to follow on a daily basis

Sure. I’d say that the top five must-dos include:

1. Leverage data insights to identify trends and patterns of user engagement and product interest
2. Observe where and how customers are engaging with the brand to identify the proper channels to reach them
3. Look for customer segments who demonstrate high conversion/ interest in specific offerings to create campaigns that can attract new prospects of a similar “look-alike” audience
4. Find customers who have expressed interest but have not yet converted to develop personalized and/or retargeting campaigns that can nurture them along the path to purchase
5. Acknowledge customers who have a long customer lifetime value to continue to strengthen the customer-brand relationship.

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