MarTech Interview with Merav Katz, Head of Corporate Marketing at yellowHEAD

While marketers focus on diversying their marketing channels to drive more impact, it is also crucial to adopt channel-specific strategies to ensure optimum results! Merav Katz, Head of Corporate Marketing at yellowHEAD shares some more tips in this QnA:

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Tell us more about yellowHEAD and its journey over the last few years and especially new (latest) innovations!

Sure! It’s been an exciting time at yellowHEAD, and we’ve grown a lot in the last few years. One of our biggest initiatives has been developing and refining our proprietary creative platform, Alison, which uses machine learning technology to analyze the creative elements of ad campaigns to determine what’s working and what’s not. Alison collects data on just about any creative aspect you could imagine — colors, characters, CTA placement, performance across platforms and regions, and so much more. We even published a comprehensive report about Alison’s findings in the social casino space, which VentureBeat covered in late 2020.

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We’d love to hear your thoughts on the current top trends you’re observing in marketing in the tech marketplace and a few top trends that you imbibe at yellowHEAD?

AI and machine learning are driving the biggest trends in marketing tech right now, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. As a result, quantitative analytics and marketing automation tools are growing more sophisticated. Emphasizing data is a net positive for martech and adtech, but at yellowHEAD we also feel really passionately about human-level analysis. The fact that our creative tech platform includes a qualitative, human layer in addition to the ML algos is its biggest differentiator. In a post-IDFA world, creative optimization and automation tools will play an even more prominent role in how we service our mobile advertising clients. 

We’re also seeing a lot of creative new ways to increase organic SEO. SEO is one of those things that’s constantly evolving, so marketers really need to stay up to date on the latest algorithm changes and best practices. That’s definitely something we feel strongly about at yellowHEAD! In general, as search engine mechanics improve, content that wins rankings will be that which best serves the end-user. And that is a very positive shift. 

What are some best practices that you feel marketing teams need to follow to optimize ROI from their digital experiences that they serve customers across channels (mobile, social etc)?

Diversifying marketing channels is necessary for optimizing ROI, but many marketers make the mistake of reusing the same assets and strategy for every platform. In 2021, there are so many nuances in each platform — marketing on Facebook is different from Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and so on. This is why it’s so important to analyze performance on a per-platform basis and optimize accordingly. What works on one won’t necessarily work on another — users consume content differently on each platform and you may need to shift tactics. In our corporate marketing efforts and in the campaigns we run on behalf of our clients, we’re always thinking about how to adapt ads and creative to fit each platform as natively as possible. 

Tell us your thoughts on the evolving and growing use of AI in marketing and martech?

We’re obviously big fans of AI at yellowHEAD since it’s the backbone of our brand growth strategy! Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly necessary to keep up with the ever-changing marketing industry. It allows companies like ours to go beyond traditional A/B tests and perform more comprehensive multivariate tests while analyzing tons of data points at once. At the same time, AI alone isn’t enough to drive a successful marketing strategy; we still need human expertise to put the data in the proper context.

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What are some of the core marketing technologies that you feel marketing teams should not be doing without?

Marketers should be using data-driven optimization wherever possible. That applies not only to creative strategy, but also to paid acquisition and even organic efforts like App Store Optimization and SEO. The first step to get this right is to track salient data and eliminate silos across your organization. Like a lot of companies, we have a patchwork of systems — a CRM, a CMS, a marketing automation platform, and our own homegrown tools. For us, HubSpot acts as the glue, keeping our data clean and consistent. We track the performance of our WordPress blog through HubSpot, we deploy emails through HubSpot, and track contact lifecycles with an integration between HubSpot and Zoho. 

A few predictions on the future of martech?

The roles of analytics, AI, and machine learning are only going to continue to grow. Every facet of marketing campaigns, right down to the font you use in ads, could benefit from analysis and optimization. I also think the industry is becoming more consolidated, and we’ll see more one-stop-shop type platforms emerge that can do it all, report on the data, optimize and repeat. 

A few takeaways for marketing leaders and CMOs in 2021: top factors they should keep in mind as they plan for the rest of the year, innovate and expand their teams?

Keep analyzing, keep evaluating. Don’t fall back on established best practices without hard data about how well they actually work. Be flexible and ready to adapt, because technology is not going to wait for you to catch your breath.

When it comes to expanding your team, the most critical consideration for CMOs is diversity. You will always be striving to connect with audiences from diverse backgrounds — including ethnicity, age, gender, etc.. So hiring talented people who represent the full spectrum of the human experience is essential.

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