MarTech Interview With Mark McKenna, Chief Executive Officer at Postclick

Looking for some ways to optimize your ad spend? Mark McKenna, Chief Executive Officer at Postclick has you covered:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat Mark, tell us more about your time in the B2B market and more about being CEO at Postclick?

I have been in the B2B market for over 25 years. I got started in the industry building digital experiences for B2B companies like EMC, Microsoft, Intel and HPE. Looking back on the state of the market when I first started out, it has been fascinating to see how the space has evolved and how digital has become increasingly critical to enterprises’ success.

Being CEO at Postclick has been a rewarding experience. I transitioned out of the agency world into SaaS in January 2020, starting out as Postclick’s COO. In my current role as CEO, my mission is to ensure the Postclick team has the resources needed to thrive, make new connections, and continue to deliver the most innovative platform to marketers everywhere. As a team, we focus on maximizing productivity partnered with high levels of fun. While it has been challenging, it has also been enjoyable along the way.

How are you seeing digital advertising evolve in today’s market and what kind of adtech are you seeing coming to the forefront in today’s market?

A lot has changed in digital advertising in the past few decades, specifically with the emergence of audience targeting, video ads, and personalization. Advertisers have kept pace with each development in the industry and adapted strategies to meet these changes. They’ve pivoted to video, harnessed data and experimentation, and perfected their targeting parameters – ultimately delivering more relevant and personalized experiences.

Given these advancements over recent years, I believe the current level of data insights will continue to be tablestakes for advertisers looking to create meaningful interactions with consumers. As efforts to phase out the third-party cookie persist, advertisers and marketers will need to adapt to deliver meaningful interactions that meet consumers’ evolved expectations while also continuing to bring value to the organization. Looking ahead, I anticipate seeing a significant boom in new technologies around 1st party data as well as some new ways to get at 3rd party data.

There is still a great volume of automation coming to fruition within the space. For example, take the creation and optimization of ads and landing pages. Today, some of the industry is still using ad management and CMS platforms to manually build ads and landing pages. The best way to stay competitive in this industry is for marketers to search for sustainable solutions to improve their return on ad spend. Google and Facebook reward relevant ad messaging with higher placement and lower costs, so improving campaigns’ ad-to-page relevance can be a reliable way to earn a higher ROAS.

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For advertisers at the juncture of exploring new adtech to drive conversions and results, what top thoughts would you share with them?

 A few notable insights include:

• Ad-to-page relevancy: This refers to a complete state of harmony between your pre- and post-click experiences. It goes beyond connecting relevant ads with post-click landing pages that tell the same story. In short, ad-to-page relevancy is all about context.
• Conversion storytelling: Conversion storytelling is primarily about developing and delivering persuasive, unique micro-stories designed to engage, delight, and convert prospective customers.
• Managing ads and landing pages on one platform: Being able to manage ads, landing pages, and results all on one platform is integral to organizational success and visibility.
• Quality over quantity: After creating over 2 million post-click experiences for clients, ditching the “get more clicks” mindset is critical to success.

How can advertisers use better processes and strategies to enhance the digital ad experience for their target viewers, given the dynamics of ads today and the constant digital noise that they need to break through?

The shift to a digital-first world has heightened the need for personalization in advertising. But with a larger and more engaged consumer base flocking to the digital landscape, marketers have struggled to scale their personalization efforts.

Enter artificial intelligence (AI). AI negates the human bias that typically impedes our ability to make calculated content decisions. It also frees up time for bigger-picture products and strategies. Instead of spending hours manually tweaking CTAs and headlines, copywriters can spend their energy on new campaigns, ideas, and strategies. This more effectively allows your teams to do what they do best while still gaining these critical data insights in which to help deliver results.

Cut the fluff and be direct. Try a few variations of “direct” messaging coupled with pages intended to bring customers down the funnel. However, creating multiple pages is challenging and time consuming so as strategic partners, this is where Postclick can help. Advertisers must strike the right balance between leveraging the insights from AI and ML while bringing a human touch to the interaction.

What five best practices come to mind when it comes to maximizing revenue from digital ad spends?

The five best practices for maximizing revenue from digital ad spends include:

1. Apply ad-to-page relevancy
2. Implement conversion storytelling
3. Don’t rely just on 1st party data—3rd party data still has value as lots of people accept cookies
4. Stay current with how each ad network works so you can spend less (and waste less) on ads
5. Personalize your landing pages for each campaign, audience segment, and conversion goal

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We’d love to hear a few predictions you have in mind for the future of martech/adtech and B2B advertising!

In 2022, we will see increased regulation and data privacy protection which will continue to force advertisers to adapt strategies and new technologies to maintain a competitive advantage. As the trend continues towards a cookieless environment and tighter data privacy laws, I anticipate seeing a flip on who has the knowledge to segment their traffic. While relying on Facebook and Google Ads was the norm in the past, there will be a loss on “quality” coming in where marketers will have to compete (or collaborate) with in-house knowledge and partners that can augment and bridge this gap.

There will be more experimentation with alternative channels as brands look to expand beyond Facebook and Google and seek to find lower CPAs through influencers/affiliates and emerging channels like TikTok/Snapchat/Quora, etc.

With mobile traffic continuing to grow, tracking gets increasingly more challenging. Marketers and advertisers can combat this by developing 10’s to 100’s of landing page variations specifically designed to send potential customers down the funnel. This will assist industry experts on deriving critical customer insights based on what you have available.