Episodios

  • 190: Henk-jan ter Brugge: The Head of Martech at Philips thinks martech has outgrown marketing and it’s time we lead like pirates

    190: Henk-jan ter Brugge: The Head of Martech at Philips thinks martech has outgrown marketing and it’s time we lead like pirates
    Oct 7 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Henk-jan ter Brugge, Head of global digital programs and Martech at Philips.(00:00) - Intro (01:17) - In This Episode (05:11) - Embracing the Digital Pirate Mindset in Martech (16:18) - Why Clean Data Is the Real Treasure Map for AI in Marketing Ops (19:20) - Why Composable Martech Stacks Work in High Seas Regulated Enterprises (24:35) - Rethinking Martech as People Tech (32:51) - Elevating Martech Teams Beyond Button Pushing (37:16) - Where Martech Should Report in the Organization (42:58) - Unlocking Innovation Through the Long Tail of Martech (47:42) - The Limits of Vendor Isolation in Martech (52:12) - Philips Digital Marketing & e-Commerce Stack (55:10) - How to Use Weekly Prioritization to Protect EnergySummary: Henk-jan works like a pirate inside the navy, exposing inefficiency with data, redesigning roles around real capabilities, and breaking AI promises into measurable wins backed by clean data and clear standards. He treats composability as an operating model with budgets tied to usage, gives local teams autonomy within guardrails, and measures martech by how it serves people and drives revenue. Ops leaders earn influence by pulling in allies and securing executive sponsorship, while reporting debates matter less than accountability and outcomes. Real innovation comes from embracing the long tail of smaller tools, working with vendors who integrate into the ecosystem, building adoption models with champions, and protecting energy through ruthless prioritization.About Henk-janHenk-jan ter Brugge is Head of Digital Programs and Martech at Philips, where he leads the global digital marketing and ecommerce technology team. With over a decade at Philips, he has driven transformation across CRM, ecommerce, sales enablement, web experience, ad tech, analytics, and AI innovation. Henk-jan is a lean and agile certified leader who believes technology is an enabler, but it’s people who create the real impact. His career spans international experience in Seoul, Paris, and Shanghai, and he is a frequent keynote speaker on martech, salestech, and digital transformation. Passionate about improving health and wellbeing through meaningful innovation, he connects strategy, technology, and change management to deliver customer value at scale.Embracing the Digital Pirate Mindset in MartechPirates were early system hackers. They rewrote rules on their ships, experimented with shared decision-making, and introduced ideas like equal pay centuries before they reached land. That spirit of rewriting norms has carried into Henk-jan’s work in martech. He frames the pirate as someone inside the navy, pushing the big ship to move differently, rather than a rogue causing chaos on the outside.Corporate inertia creates its own myths. Vendor onboarding still takes 12 to 18 months in some organizations. Translation cycles hold content hostage for weeks. Colleagues accept these delays as culture, with a shrug and a “that’s just how we do things.” Henk-jan refuses to let tradition dictate output. He arms himself with data and turns it into proof. If a team claims a translation cycle takes three months, he presents the real number: 10, 15, maybe 20 days.“Everything we say can be data driven. If someone tells me translation takes three months, I can show with data that it takes 10, 15, maybe 20 days. The data talks there.”The pirate mindset works only when it builds coalitions. Lone rebels fade out in corporate structures. Movements form when people across teams share the same impatience for inefficiency and the same hunger for progress. That is why Henk-jan focuses on allies who welcome change. With them, he introduces controlled experiments that rewire expectations step by step until the new way becomes the default.One of his boldest moves came in team design. He rebranded product owners as platform managers. They stopped acting like ticket clerks and became capability builders, consultants, and business partners. They handled strategy, education, and enablement, while still owning the backlog. A time study revealed that 70 percent of team energy had been going into internal operations. After the shift, 60 percent went directly into business-facing work. The lesson was clear: titles shape behavior, and behavior shapes impact.Key takeaway: The digital pirate mindset thrives when you expose inefficiency with data, recruit allies who share your appetite for change, and redesign roles so teams build capabilities instead of servicing tickets. Work inside the system, use transparency to gain trust, and experiment in controlled steps. That way you can redirect energy from internal bureaucracy toward direct customer value, creating momentum that compounds over time.Why Clean Data Is the Real Treasure Map for AI in Marketing OpsSpeaking of chasing treasures… AI has forced leadership teams to finally pay attention to the quality of their data. Henk-jan...
    Más Menos
    1 h
  • 189: Aditi Uppal: How to capture, activate and measure voice of customer across go to market efforts

    189: Aditi Uppal: How to capture, activate and measure voice of customer across go to market efforts
    Sep 30 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Aditi Uppal, Vice President, Digital Marketing and Demand Generation at Teradata.(00:00) - Intro (01:15) - In this Episode (04:03) - How to Use Customer Conversations to Validate Marketing Data (10:49) - Balancing Quantitative Data with Customer Conversations (16:14) - Gathering Customer Insights From Underrated Feedback Channels (22:00) - Activating Voice of Customer with AI Agents (29:09) - Voice of Customer Martech Examples (34:48) - How to Use Rapid Response Teams in Marketing Ops (39:07) - Building Customer Obsession Into Marketing Culture (43:44) - Why Voice of Customer Works Differently in B2B and B2C (48:26) - Why Life Integration Works Better Than Work Life BalanceSummary: Aditi shows how five honest conversations can reshape how you read data, because customer language carries context that numbers miss. She points to overlooked signals like product usage trails, community chatter, sales recordings, and event conversations, then explains how to turn them into action through a simple pipeline of capture, tag, route, track, and activate. Tools like BrightEdge and UserEvidence prove their worth by removing grunt work and delivering usable outputs. The system only works when culture supports it, with rapid response channels, proposals that start with customer problems, and councils that align leaders around real needs. Blend the speed of B2C listening with the discipline of B2B execution, and you build strategies grounded in reality.About AditiAditi Uppal is a data-driven growth leader with over a decade of experience driving digital transformation, product marketing, and go-to-market strategy across India, Canada, and the U.S. She currently serves as Vice President of Digital Marketing and Demand Generation at Teradata, where she leads global strategies that fuel pipeline growth and customer engagement. Throughout her career, Aditi has built scalable marketing systems, launched partner programs delivering double-digit revenue gains, and led multi-million-dollar campaign operations across more than 50 technologies. Recognized as a B2B Revenue Marketing Game Changer, she is known for blending strategy, operations, and technology to create high-performing teams and measurable business impact.How to Use Customer Conversations to Validate Marketing DataDashboards create scale, but they do not always create confidence. Aditi explains that marketers often stop at what the model tells them, without checking whether real people would ever phrase things the same way. Early in her career she spent time talking directly to retailers, truck drivers, and mechanics. Those interactions were messy and slow, filled with handwritten notes, but they gave her words and patterns that no software could generate. That language still shapes how she thinks about campaigns today.She argues that even a small number of conversations can sharpen a marketer’s decisions. Five well-chosen interviews can give more clarity than months of chasing analytics dashboards. Once you hear a customer describe a problem in their own terms, the charts you already have feel more trustworthy. As Aditi put it:“If you get an insight that says this is their pain point, it helps so much to hear a customer saying it. The words they use resonate with them in ways marketers’ words often do not.”She points out that B2C teams benefit from built-in feedback loops since their channels naturally keep them closer to customers. B2B teams, on the other hand, often hide behind personas and assumptions. Aditi suggests widening the pool by talking to students and early-career professionals who already use enterprise software. They may not be buyers today, but they become decision makers tomorrow. Those conversations cost almost nothing and create raw material more valuable than agency-produced content.She frames the real task as choosing the right method for the right question. If you want to refine messaging, talk to your most active customers. If you want to understand adoption patterns, run reports. If you want to pressure test a product roadmap, combine both and compare the results. Decide upfront what you need and when you need it. Then continue adjusting, because customer understanding is not a one-time project, it is an ongoing discipline.Key takeaway: Use customer conversations as a validation layer for your data. Pair five direct interviews with your dashboards, and you gain language, context, and trust that numbers alone cannot provide. Always define why you need an insight, then pick the method that gets you there fastest. That way you can build messaging, campaigns, and roadmaps grounded in reality rather than in assumptions.Balancing Quantitative Data with Customer ConversationsMarketers keep adding dashboards, yet confidence in the numbers rarely grows. Aditi argues that a few customer conversations often do more to build certainty than a warehouse of metrics. Early in ...
    Más Menos
    53 m
  • 188: Rebecca Corliss: Why lifecycle marketers will thrive in the agentic marketing org

    188: Rebecca Corliss: Why lifecycle marketers will thrive in the agentic marketing org
    Sep 23 2025
    What’s up folks, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Rebecca Corliss, VP Marketing at GrowthLoop. (00:00) - Intro (01:20) - In This Episode (03:46) - The Future Agentic Marketing Org (07:59) - The Rise of the Marketing Dispatch Layer (14:47) - Lifecycle Marketers Belong at the Center of Every Agentic Org (21:19) - Why Channel Specialists Must Shift to Journey Orchestration (25:06) - How To Actually Become More Strategic (29:28) - This Team Promoted ChatGPT to Director of Product Marketing (32:55) - What it Means to Be a Specialist in the Moment Works (37:12) - How Systems Thinking Helps Lifecycle Marketers Shine in Agentic AI (40:10) - How AI Expands the Role of Marketing Ops (43:37) - The Speculative Future of Marketing With Compute Allocation and Machine Customers (46:35) - Mesh of Agents Coordinating Across Departments (50:07) - The Rise of Machine Customers (53:55) - How to Stay Energized as a Marketing LeaderSummary: Rebecca imagines a future marketing org built on three layers: leadership fluent in data and AI, a dispatch control tower staffed by engineers and privacy experts, and pods that design customer journeys while agents handle scale. Lifecycle marketers are essential to this dispatch layer and provide the “heart,” keeping campaigns authentic. Her own path as a “specialist in the moment” shows the power of adaptability, diving deep where it counts and moving on with impact. The marketers who thrive will be those who pair technical fluency with empathy and judgment.About RebeccaRebecca is a veteran marketing executive known for building engines that drive outsized growth. She is currently VP of Marketing at GrowthLoop, shaping the go-to-market for its Compound Marketing Engine. Previously, she scaled VergeSense from Series A through Series C with over 8X ARR growth, and at Owl Labs she took the company from launch to 35,000 customers worldwide while establishing it as a future-of-work leader. She also spent eight years at HubSpot, where she grew demand generation to 60K leads per month, doubled blog-driven leads, and built leadership programs that developed the next generation of marketers. Across every role, Rebecca has consistently turned early-stage momentum into durable, scalable growth.The Future Agentic Marketing Org and the Rise of the Marketing Dispatch LayerRebecca lays out a future where marketing org charts gain an entirely new layer. She predicts three core structures: leadership, dispatch, and pods. Leadership continues to steer strategy, but the demands on CMOs change. They will need fluency in data systems, architecture, and AI operations. Rebecca explains that “CMOs have to flex their technical chops and their data systems and architecture chops,” a shift for leaders who have historically leaned on brand or budget narratives.The dispatch layer functions as the operational hub for campaigns. This group manages data flows, AI orchestration, and channel activations. It operates like a control room for all outbound communication. Dispatch is staffed with people who rarely sat in marketing orgs before. Data engineers move in from IT, privacy specialists join the table, and Rebecca even describes “traffic cops” who arbitrate which campaigns reach a customer when multiple business units compete for the same audience.“Imagine this new dispatch layer, the group that is thinking about the systems, the data, the AI, the architecture, and campaign activation for the entire marketing org holistically.”Pods sit at the edge of this system, each one tasked with a specific objective. A retail pod might obsess over repeat purchases and next best product recommendations. Pods shape customer journeys, creative work, and product presentation. They do not execute campaigns directly. Instead, they work with dispatch to push scaled, AI-driven activations that tie back to their mission. This structure gives pods focus while ensuring campaign execution remains coordinated and efficient.Rebecca stresses that humans remain responsible for organizing this system. Agents will handle execution, but people set goals, decide structures, and elevate the skills required to manage AI effectively. The companies that thrive will be the ones that invest in human fluency now, especially in data architecture and cross-functional collaboration. Marketing leaders cannot wait for agents to make the org smarter. They have to build teams ready to use agents well.Key takeaway: Treat dispatch as a new operational hub inside marketing. Staff it with cross-functional talent such as data engineers, privacy experts, and campaign traffic managers. Align pods around clear business outcomes, and let them focus on customer journeys and creative execution. Give dispatch responsibility for scaling campaigns through AI agents. Start by training CMOs and their leadership peers to speak the language of data and AI strategy. That way you can prepare your organization to actually run an agentic ...
    Más Menos
    57 m
  • 187: John Saunders: Building the ultimate operating engine for a modern agency

    187: John Saunders: Building the ultimate operating engine for a modern agency
    Sep 16 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with John Saunders, VP of Product at Nova / Power Digital Marketing. Power Digital is a San Diego-based growth marketing firm. Nova is their proprietary marketing technology. (00:00) - Intro (01:15) - In This Episode (03:26) - How an Agency Operating System Reduces Silos (05:47) - Why Context Driven Analytics Replaces Dashboards (09:15) - Building a Single Source of Truth in Marketing Data (16:00) - Building an AI Cockpit Before AI Copilots (18:26) - Why Data Accuracy and Transparency Build AI Trust (28:28) - Building Internal Data Products for Agencies (34:09) - Reducing Complexity in Martech Product Development (39:16) - How To Tell If An AI Tool Is More Than A Wrapper (46:49) - How to Build Client Portals That Clients Actually Use (49:50) - Finding Happiness in Building and ExperimentationSummary: Agencies are drowning in tools, dashboards, and AI gimmicks, but John Saunders has spent years building something that actually works. Nova started as an internal fix and grew into an operating system that strips away noise, delivers context with every number, and gives AI a cockpit filled with real operational data. Along the way John learned that trust comes from accuracy, speed, and transparency, and that adoption only happens when products remove steps instead of adding them. From client portals to analytics to AI, his story shows how clarity beats complexity and why agencies that chase it finally get technology that feels like leverage instead of liability.About JohnJohn Saunders is the Vice President of Product at Power Digital Marketing. He leads strategy, UX, operations, and AI for nova, the agency’s enterprise marketing technology platform that connects with more than 2,000 integrations. Since 2021, he has grown the technology team from 2 to 40 members, delivered more than 20 production-ready applications, and developed intelligence tools that improve client retention and increase lifetime value. He has also built partnerships with Google, Meta, TikTok, and Amazon that resulted in multi-million-dollar funding and new product capabilities.Prior to his current role, John served as Vice President of Technology. He built the first applications that became the foundation of nova and improved scalable systems, API integrations, cloud performance, and automation for the firm. He previously worked as Software Development Project Manager at Internet Marketing Inc. (now REQ), and Co-Founder of Brightside Network Media, a platform that combined technical design with storytelling to highlight culture and music.John has also mentored students at the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center at San Diego State University. He guided undergraduates in UX, product strategy, and agile workflows while encouraging leadership and collaboration in a hands-on environment.How an Agency Operating System Reduces SilosAgencies are drowning in tools. CRMs handle sales, project boards track tasks, invoicing software manages billing, and analytics dashboards measure performance. Each tool may solve a specific problem, but together they create a scattered system where every team works in isolation. John Saunders has seen this problem repeat across agencies, and his solution is direct. Build a single operating system that reflects how the agency actually works rather than relying on disconnected platforms that never sync.John described Nova as that system. Instead of forcing teams to reinvent contracts or pricing every time, Nova uses a service library with set rates and guidelines. Automation handles the repetitive work, so teams spend less time drafting proposals and more time serving clients. Nova acts as a hub for the agency’s real workflows. It connects sales, operations, and delivery into one shared environment where everyone can see the same information."With an agency OS, we are trying to fix this problem where there are so many tools and platforms that people work on, and that inherently creates silos. With one system focused on operations, it provides a central spot for everybody to work from, which creates efficiency and alignment."The need for this kind of system is obvious once you look closely at agency life. Account managers keep their own spreadsheets, sales leaders adjust pricing rules on the fly, and creative teams use tools that never connect with operations. The result is misalignment, duplicated effort, and wasted hours. An operating system forces the agency to define its rules and then codify them into the platform. That way you can cut the daily noise and create repeatable workflows that scale.Agencies often assume the next SaaS subscription will solve their problems. The reality is that the core problems are internal. Building an operating system like Nova does not replace tools, it makes them work together. It creates one place where every team operates from the same playbook. That way you can reduce inefficiency, strengthen alignment, and free ...
    Más Menos
    54 m
  • 186: Olga Andrienko: Ex-VP at Semrush left her 35-person brand team to build AI for marketing ops

    186: Olga Andrienko: Ex-VP at Semrush left her 35-person brand team to build AI for marketing ops
    Sep 9 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Olga Andrienko, Former VP of Marketing Ops at Semrush. (00:00) - Intro (01:24) - In This Episode (03:55) - How AI Agents Reshape Marketing Ops Roles (08:53) - How To Beat AI Imposter Syndrome And Start Using Custom GPTs (13:28) - How AI Content Agents Generate Drafts Using Internal Context (24:29) - How to Use a Risk and Reward Grid to Prioritize AI Projects (33:19) - How To Use Google Workspace To Skip AI Vendor Approvals (40:00) - How To Decide Which AI Agent to Use (46:44) - How To Build an AI-First Reflex in Marketing Ops (51:59) - AI’s Endgame: Play-to-Earn and Mandatory Human Quotas (01:03:58) - What Happens When You Optimize Your Body Like a Martech StackSummary: Olga thought she was ahead of the AI curve, but a weekend course on autonomous systems showed her she was thinking too small. She pitched a shared internal AI stack at Semrush, built systems off APIs, skipped procurement by using already-approved tools, and tracked hours saved instead of promising vague ROI. She started with the work she already knew, made it faster, and used that time to build better systems. Now she’s looking ahead, watching work blur into participation, prepping for human quotas, and making sure ops teams aren’t caught off guard while the rest of the company is still testing prompts.About OlgaOlga Andrienko spent nearly 12 years at Semrush, where she helped build one of the strongest B2B marketing brands in tech. She started by leading social media, then expanded into global marketing, eventually becoming VP of Brand and later VP of Marketing Operations. She helped guide the company through its IPO, launched brand campaigns that drove massive reach, and scaled AI systems that saved her teams hundreds of hours. Most recently, she built out a marketing and AI ops function from scratch, automating reporting, content feedback, and influencer analytics across the org. Recently, Olga announced she was leaving Semrush to go out on her own. She’s now building a marketing SaaS product while advising companies on how to use AI agents to rethink marketing operations from the inside out.How AI Agents Reshape Marketing Ops RolesOlga had already logged countless hours with Claude and ChatGPT. She was building chatbots, fine-tuning prompts, and staying sharp on every update. Then she joined a weekend course on agent-based AI. At first, it felt like overkill. By the end of day two, she had completely changed direction. That course forced her to realize she had been spending time in the shallow end. Agent AI wasn’t just a smarter assistant. It was a structural overhaul. It changed what could be automated and who was needed to do it.Agent AI builds systems instead of just responding to inputs. Olga described a clean divide between tools that help you finish tasks faster and agents that actually run the tasks for you. How agent AI differs from task-level tools:Traditional tools require manual input for each useAgent systems operate autonomously and initiate actionsTools accelerate individual workAgents orchestrate end-to-end processesTools help you move fasterAgents help you step away entirelyShe saw use cases stacking up that didn’t fit inside marketing’s current playbook. Systems could now operate without manual checkpoints. Processes that once relied on operators could be built into fully autonomous loops.“I went into panic mode. Even with our tech stack at Semrush, I realized we were behind. Every company is behind.”The realization came with a cost model. Internal adoption of Claude and ChatGPT was rising fast. Olga noticed growing subscription bills across teams, with everyone spinning up individual accounts. She ran the numbers and saw the future expense curve. Giving each person their own sandbox didn’t scale. What made sense was building shared tools through APIs, designed to solve repeatable tasks. That way you can maintain quality, cut costs, and still give everyone access to powerful AI systems.Timing mattered. Olga was coming off a quarter where she had high visibility, internal trust, and a direct line to leadership. Instead of waiting for AI priorities to come down from the top, she used that leverage to move. She pitched a new team and made the case for shifting from brand to ops. She had technical interest, political capital, and an urgent belief that velocity mattered more than perfection.Key takeaway: Marketing ops leaders are uniquely positioned to build agent-level systems that scale across teams. Instead of waiting for strategy teams to greenlight AI plans, use cost data to make the case for shared infrastructure. Build with APIs, not individual tool access. Push for automation at the system level, not just task-level assistance. If you understand the workflows, know the tools, and already have trust inside the org, you are the one who should be building what comes next.How To Beat AI Imposter Syndrome And Start Using Custom ...
    Más Menos
    1 h y 8 m
  • 185: Jonathan Kazarian: Platforms vs point solutions and the marketing operator’s dilemma

    185: Jonathan Kazarian: Platforms vs point solutions and the marketing operator’s dilemma
    Sep 2 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Jonathan Kazarian, Founder & CEO of Accelevents.(00:00) - Intro (01:35) - In This Episode (03:41) - Are Point Solutions Actually a Distraction for Marketing Teams? (09:32) - Data Models Can Decide Platforms or Point Solutions (14:20) - Contact Based Pricing Skews Platform Versus Point Solution Costs (19:44) - Integration Depth Can Decide Platforms Versus Point Solutions (31:32) - Point Solutions Provide Faster and Smarter Support Than Platforms (37:28) - Documentation Shapes Point Solution Stacks (42:01) - How to Manage Shiny Object Syndrome in Marketing Ops (49:35) - A Founder's Admiration for Marketing Operators (54:42) - Why Continuous Growth Keeps Founders BalancedSummary: Jonathan framed point solutions as late-night distractions that add baggage, while Phil argued they solve real constraints platforms can’t touch, like global routing or multilingual campaigns. Darrell pulled the lens to data models, showing how shared schemas keep stacks clean but warehouse-native teams lean on composability for speed and control. Money made the tradeoffs clear when Phil cut HubSpot costs from $150k to $70k with Ghost, ConvertFlow, and Zapier, and Jonathan countered that the problem was platform fit, not price alone. Support stories added texture, with Phil praising startups that fix issues in Slack within hours and Jonathan noting how urgency and empathy thrive in smaller teams. The thread ran through every topic: platforms provide coherence and stability, point solutions unlock lift when constraints demand it, and the operator’s job is knowing which moment they are in.About JonathanJonathan Kazarian is the Founder & CEO of Accelevents, an all-in-one event management platform trusted by over 12,500 organizations worldwide. Since launching in 2015, he has led the company’s growth into a leader in powering in-person, virtual, and hybrid events with enterprise-grade features and 24/7 customer support. Before Accelevents, Jonathan worked in investment management and business development at Windham Labs and Windham Capital, where he supported strategy and client relationships across $1.5B in global assets. Based in Miami, he’s passionate about building technology that makes life easier for event organizers.Are Point Solutions Actually a Distraction for Marketing Teams?We all know the cycle of startups and enterprise. Point tools surge to fix sharp pains, a small group wins, platforms acquire them, founders spin out, and the next crop floods your feed. Jonathan thinks that those shiny tools pull teams off the work that actually moves numbers. He describes a scene every operator recognizes, the glow of a laptop at 3 a.m. and a to-do list that did not get shorter by sunrise.“I will see something, get excited about it, and then I am up until 3 a.m. playing with it. It distracts me from the things that actually matter.”Jonathan sets a firm bar for focus. Ship on a platform first, then layer selectively when a real constraint shows up. He treats events as a pillar beside CRM and marketing automation, so his platform must deliver value on day one without a four-tool puzzle. He stays explicit about the work that pays the bills:Tighten positioning so buyers understand you in one scroll.Communicate with customers in their language, not vendor speak.Make the core stack usable for sales, finance, and ops, not only for marketing.That way you can add niche tools later without freezing adoption while integrations sprawl.Phil takes the other corner and argues for composability with lived examples. He respects HubSpot and has shipped plenty on it, but real constraints demand specialists. Example: territory routing across pooled rep availability needs a product built for that job, which is why RevenueHero exists. Example: global email collaboration with dozens of languages and brand guardrails needs serious template control, which is why Knak clears roadblocks. Phil speaks to the operator who needs real lift:Match routing logic to the sales org rather than bending the org to the tool.Scale content production with permissions, templates, and translation workflows that teams actually follow.“I have built stacks that blended platform basics with pointed upgrades for specific constraints, and those upgrades paid off when growth demanded it.”Jonathan agrees on the destination, then anchors the sequence. Buy, go live, and prove value within weeks. Add point tools only when a named constraint blocks revenue or customer experience. Keep the stack boring where it should be boring. Run a simple playbook that your team can execute:Stand up your platform baseline and drive daily use from sales and marketing.Write down the first constraint that limits revenue or adoption.Choose one specialist that removes that constraint end to end.Set a 14-day integration target with one success metric tied to pipeline or retention.Move to the next constraint when the metric ...
    Más Menos
    58 m
  • 184: Nadia Davis: How to decide if attribution data is good enough to guide strategy

    184: Nadia Davis: How to decide if attribution data is good enough to guide strategy
    Aug 26 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Nadia Davis, VP Marketing at CaliberMind. (00:00) - Intro (01:12) - In This Episode (02:53) - Understanding the Attribution Periodic Table Framework (07:49) - Why Marketing Teams Face Higher ROI Pressure Than Other Departments (20:15) - Why Attribution Fails Without Data Stewardship (33:02) - Treating Multi-Touch Attribution as an Analytical Tool (39:05) - Exploring Chain Based Attribution Models for B2B Marketers (46:31) - Why Customizing Markov Chain Attribution Improves Accuracy (50:56) - How to Decide When Attribution Data Is Good Enough to Guide Strategy (01:00:00) - Why Marketing Operations Defines Multi Touch Attribution Success (01:04:50) - Why Time Management Drives Career FulfillmentSummary: Nadia learned early that attribution keeps you in business, proving to executives why the budget, the team, and the work matter. Seeing “attribution is dead” posts, she built her Attribution Periodic Table to show data modeling, measurement rules, and cross-team alignment as one connected system. In B2B, where budgets are treated like investment portfolios, she uses multi-touch attribution to connect brand and demand to revenue in CFO terms. For her, it’s an analytics tool, not a scoreboard, shaped by sequences like her govtech playbook where event conversations plus on-demand webinars moved deals forward. Chain-based and Markov models help her cut noise, drop vanity metrics, and ground decisions in logged, meaningful touches, all anchored in strong marketing operations that make multi-touch attribution something teams actually trust.About NadiaNadia Davis is the VP of Marketing at CaliberMind, where she leads demand generation, ABM, and marketing operations. She is known for building teams from scratch, overhauling martech stacks, and creating data-driven programs that sales teams can act on immediately. With over 15 years in B2B marketing, she has worked across SaaS, IT automation, healthcare tech, and data platforms, consistently delivering measurable growth by aligning marketing execution with revenue goals.Her career includes senior roles at PayIt, Stonebranch, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Informa, and ND Medica Inc., as well as nearly a decade as an ABM and digital strategy consultant. She has led global campaigns, designed persona-driven targeting, run high-profile industry events, and built marketing programs that continue to deliver pipeline well beyond launch. A former Girls in Tech board member, Nadia combines hands-on technical expertise with the leadership skills to grow both teams and results.The Periodic Table of Marketing Attribution ElementsNadia has worked in revenue marketing long enough to know attribution is a survival tool. In every demand generation and performance role, she carried it like part of her standard kit. It was how she justified headcount, protected budgets, and kept the lights on in her department. Attribution helped her prove progress in a language executives understood.When she took over marketing at CaliberMind, she noticed the volume of “attribution is dead” posts climbing in her feed. The pattern felt familiar. Marketing tactics often get declared obsolete the moment they fail for someone, then replaced with whatever is trending. From her perspective, most of those posts came from SMB marketers moving on after a bad run. Meanwhile, enterprise teams were applying attribution with discipline, pairing it with strong data modeling, and getting measurable results. They simply were not talking about it publicly.That split in sentiment drove her to dig deeper. She wanted to measure the gap between what people were saying and what they were actually doing. The outcome was the State of 2025 Attribution report, anchored by her Revenue Marketing Periodic Table. Nadia built it to show attribution as part of an integrated framework, not a lone tactic. She broke it down into interconnected components:Data modeling that improves accuracy and removes noiseMeasurement frameworks that define terms and keep reporting consistentCross-functional alignment that ensures teams interpret the data the same way"So many things may seem completely disconnected, yet they all come together within a bigger ecosystem."The iceberg metaphor stuck with her. Most marketers focus on the visible metrics, but the real forces driving success are below the surface. Choosing the periodic table format brought this idea into focus. It showed each element as part of a larger system, each with its own role and complexity. Nadia even remembered struggling with chemistry in school, to the point where she once cheated on a test because she could not memorize the valency of certain elements. That frustration helped her appreciate the value of a clear visual framework when dealing with something complicated. The periodic table worked because it grouped related elements, revealed their relationships, and made the whole system easier to ...
    Más Menos
    1 h y 9 m
  • 183: Kevin White: Building a super IC role to escape management burnout and fixing the broken promise of AI SDRs

    183: Kevin White: Building a super IC role to escape management burnout and fixing the broken promise of AI SDRs
    Aug 19 2025
    What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kevin White, Head of GTM Strategy at Common Room. (00:00) - Intro (01:00) - In This Episode (02:59) - How to Design a Super IC Role for Senior Marketers (09:11) - How to Get Comfortable With Public Visibility as an Introverted Leader (10:39) - sing Empathy and Product Demos to Build Authentic GTM Strategies (16:52) - How to Use Pain Points to Make Personalization Work (19:21) - How to Use Buyer Behavior Signals to Improve Outreach Timing (21:36) - Leveraging GitHub Signals to Drive High-Conversion Micro Campaigns (24:57) - Smarter Account Prioritization With Buyer Signals (29:02) - Why Messaging Drives GTM More Than Signals and Plays (31:16) - Why Overengineered Tech Stacks Fail GTM Teams (35:05) - Why AI SDR Agents Need Structured Coaching to Work (41:43) - Why The Last Mile Of AI Marketing Still Belongs To Humans (43:57) - AI Sharpens the Divide Between Experts and Amateurs (45:46) - Why Declaring Human-Written Outreach Gets Better Responses (48:00) - Futureproofing Operations Skills Through Challenge Driven Learning (51:46) - Why Data Warehouses Are Taking Over Customer Data Platforms (55:32) - Finding Career Balance Through Self ReflectionSummary: Kevin rebuilt his career around the work that fuels him. After years leading teams at Segment, Retool and Common Room, he walked away from politics and board decks to create a “super IC” role focused on experiments, product evangelism, and hands‑on growth. He applies that same mindset to go‑to‑market: strip out the bloat, ditch templated outreach, and use real buyer behavior to build small, personal campaigns. He treats AI as an amplifier for skilled marketers, using it to speed research and sharpen ideas, while relying on human judgment to make the output work. Even visibility, once draining for him, became a muscle he trained through repetition. Kevin’s story is a guide for marketers who want less political fluff, more impact, and roles built around the work they actually love to do.About KevinKevin White is a seasoned go-to-market leader with over 20 years of experience driving growth for high-growth SaaS companies. He’s held senior roles at Gigya, SingleStore, HackerOne, and Twilio Segment, where he built demand generation engines and scaled marketing operations during critical growth stages.Most recently, Kevin led marketing at Retool and advanced through multiple leadership roles at Common Room, from Head of Demand Generation to Head of Marketing, and now Head of GTM Strategy. He has also advised innovative startups like Ashby, Gretel.ai, and Deepnote, helping them refine their go-to-market strategies and accelerate adoption.How to Design a Super IC Role for Senior MarketersClimbing the marketing ladder feels like progress until you realize the work at the top is entirely different. Kevin spent years running teams at Retool and Common Room. He managed a dozen people, dealt with SDR team politics, prepared board updates, and handled internal marketing. Those tasks ate up his time and dulled his energy for the work that made him great in the first place. “My day-to-day was full of things I didn’t enjoy. One-on-ones, internal marketing, SDR team drama, board updates. None of it felt like what I wanted to be doing,” he said.Kevin thrived in the early-stage chaos. He loved being the first marketer, building programs from scratch, experimenting with growth channels, and connecting directly with customers. Those environments let him create instead of coordinate. He could see the direct impact of his work and feel close to the product. As companies grew, that hands-on work disappeared. He became a coach, a manager, and a political operator. For someone who values doing over directing, that was a poor fit.He worked with Common Room’s CEO to design a role that put him back in his zone. Now, as Head of GTM Strategy, Kevin functions as a “super IC.” He runs high-leverage growth experiments, drives product evangelism, and collaborates with a few freelancers instead of managing a team. That way he can focus on the work that delivers impact while avoiding the politics and administrative load that drained him. It is a custom role built around his strengths, and it brought back his enthusiasm for the job.Kevin’s thinking extends beyond his role. He shared how Common Room rethought sales development. They hired an excellent manager who knows how to attract and retain elite talent. Then they paid those top performers well above the market rate. “Harry is one of our SDRs,” Kevin explained. “We pay him a good amount because he produces outsized results. That playbook works.” In Kevin’s view, companies should build alternative tracks for individual contributors and reward them based on their production, not their willingness to manage people.Key takeaway: Create roles that match strengths instead of forcing people up a management ladder. Build paths for senior ...
    Más Menos
    1 h