MarTech Interview with Mattia Santin, Chief Marketing Officer at Hotjar

Mattia Santin, Chief Marketing Officer at Hotjar talks about some of the platform’s latest AI offerings while discussing more on the evolution of B2B tech marketing:

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Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Mattia, take us through your marketing journey and more about your role as CMO at Hotjar.

I’m Mattia Santin and am currently leading the marketing team at Hotjar since late 2022. My experience spans across a number of industries (in B2C, marketplaces and B2B) across ecommerce, retail, mobility, travel, healthcare and analytics. While my first passion for marketing started with growth and media I have enjoyed learning new disciplines over the years which prepared me for the CMO role I have today. I have worked for big brands like adidas, Tommy Hilfiger and Uber but also start ups/scale ups like Leavy and Atida.

As CMO at Hotjar, I am fortunate to lead a great team in an amazing company & brand. I am responsible for the company’s global marketing strategy and vision, scaling its growth and building long-lasting relationships with our customers. I also work closely with Hotjar’s product teams on defining Hotjar’s road maps and driving cross-functional projects.

As a three-time CMO: what learnings and thoughts do you have surrounding the role of today’s B2B CMO and evolving expectations from it?

All the experiences and the people I worked with over the years (before becoming and after CMO) helped shape the person I am today. Working across so many industries (and countries) was an amazing school and helped me be prepared for what I face now. What I thought could have been a big shift before joining Hotjar was moving from B2C/Marketplace brands to 100% B2B focus. In reality I found the “jump” much easier than expected since:

1. While the levers may have different weights, as CMOs we still have to worry about similar challenges (no matter the industry/vertical).
2. We still have to believe in our product and challenge our teams to build/develop the most amazing product for our customers to enjoy (and to make our life as marketers easier)
3. We still market to people (with their differences, biases, problems and emotions)
4. We still have to great leads for our teams (we need to inspire them, challenge them and guide them in the right direction)

While certain pillars are the same, it is true that the role of CMOs has evolved and will continue to evolve due to digital transformations. Marketers have new technologies (eg AI) they need to understand and find ways to incorporate in their work.

Especially in today’s macroeconomic conditions cross functional collaboration with sales and product teams is key to drive more and better qualified leads. The three functions, which I have seen siloed in other companies, are essential to one another in order to create seamless customer experiences.

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We’d love to hear a little about Hotjar and its recent product enhancements? How in your view is AI set to reshape the martech and marketing industry down the line?

One of our values is to put our customers at the heart of everything. We have done so since the company was launched in 2014 and will continue to do so in the future. This means always looking for ways to help our customers by improving our product offering. Our platform enables product and marketing teams to have empathy with their end-users and deliver value by making the right product improvements, fast.

When it comes to AI…

1. We recently announced Hotjar AI: an AI-powered research assistant that helps product and marketers analyze surveys, customer responses and provides actionable recommendations.
2. It is still early to say to what extent AI will fully transform the marketing industry (many companies are exploring ways to introduce AI lead features in their products or marketing strategies and lots still remain to be seen. We are surely seeing marketers start looking into AI as a way to be faster in their work but I feel the full set of applications will not stop there)
3. I am particularly excited to see how AI may impact the way users get to find their information and research/experience brands moving forward (this is something myself and the team are currently trying to be prepared for)

Can you talk about some of the most crucial benefits of AI powered martech tools that most martech users today don’t seem to be capitalizing on despite possibly having access to the systems?

The one area that I am particularly interested in is how AI can help brands better/faster understand their customers wishes and behavior.

Product and marketing teams are often bogged down with manual searches for feedback, which can slow down the research process. But recent advancements in AI have transformed marketing, product management, and user research, enabling businesses to analyze extensive data and understand consumer behavior. This has unlocked new possibilities and made it essential to leverage AI’s power for customer-centric innovation and business success.

Martech users have the opportunity to leverage new AI technology to reduce the amount of time they spend on administrative tasks and research. In turn, this allows them to instead use that time to empathize with their customers and audiences and provide more personalized experiences.

If you had to define the future of B2B marketing: what would you say?

I see the role of marketing to continue to vary based on the product or service (and thus message) it tries to promote. This role will also be impacted by what the company needs from its marketing team (being sales, product or price lead will impact how marketing fits into the system).

At a more general level I see successful marketing teams the ones who will continue to put their customers at the heart of what they do but also evolve along with changes in technology and how their users find/digest information.

Marketing leaders who want to succeed in the rapidly evolving tech and media world need to be prepared to adapt quickly and continue to develop their technical competencies. In my view, the acceleration of digital transformation pushed the industry to further embrace data and analytics. It was previously viewed as a separate skill set, but today’s and tomorrow’s CMOs need to be a jack of all trades (combine core marketing principles with good understanding of technology and their peers’ work – CRO, CTO, CPO etc).

As marketing leaders gain such knowledge, they’ll be able to craft better messaging for customers and find better strategic alignment across the organization. This will also result in products resonating well with key target audiences, higher engagement and positively affect the bottom line.

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Five thoughts about the future state of martech, let’s say in 2030,?

– Tools fragmentation: There will be a greater array of martech tools and solutions available. As data-driven marketing, design and customer insights drive the next wave of marketers, the differentiating factor for those who succeed will be how they pair their analytic knowledge with their soft skills and the right technology platforms.

– AI: We’ll continue to see widening applications and adoption of AI in the martech stack, but human inputs will remain necessary to form personalized and authentic connections.

– Role of Marketing: Marketing will continue to try better align with other departments (sales, product etc) but many companies will continue to struggle to do so successfully

– Adapt to change: Speed will continue to be a critical factors and teams who can adapt to change and pivot fast will be more successful than others

– The State of Data and Privacy: As marketers navigate shifting regulations while still trying to provide personalized experiences, data privacy needs to consistently remain at the forefront of our concerns when dealing with martech.