Podcast Interviews Archives

Ted Moon – Founder, Pathfinder Interactive

When Ted Moon founded Pathfinder Interactive, he brought with him brand building at a scale only a few have experienced.

Starting with a $100,000 ad budget, Ted built Sprint/Nextel into one of the largest marketing programs in the world.

Hear about private concerts with Dave Matthews to fireside chats with Bill Gates and why attribution is a necessity in today’s media environment.

About Ted:
Ted Moon has almost two decades of experience in digital marketing and has overseen multimillion dollar online media budgets for Nextel, Sprint Nextel, and Capital One.

He has leveraged this experience into successful and often record breaking campaigns for all Pathfinder Interactive clients, deploying cutting edge digital techniques while staying grounded in traditional marketing principles.

Ted gained his financial services experience with Capital One as director of online media, but it was the nine years of online marketing experience at Nextel as director of digital marketing. He started in 1999 with a $100,000 experiment.

That experiment and his focus on attribution and outcome measurement enabled Ted to build one of the nation’s largest digital marketing programs. And by 2008, his annual budget had grown to over $100 million a year.

Ted’s recognition includes being named a MediaPost Online Allstar. At Michigan, Ted was a co-captain of the men’s lacrosse team and he’s continued to give back by serving as a devoted mentor and lacrosse coach for the last decade.

Ted lives and breathes outcomes, both on and off the field, and that’s why I’m excited that he’s agreed to join me in the studio today.

Key takeaways:
[1:00] I introduce today’s guest, Ted Moon, and ask him about how he came to be where he is today.

[7:18] Ted touches on the innovations that occurred in the past decades and how social media and paid advertising drove huge change in the industry which might make it seem that marketers today are less inclined to do new things, or more risk-averse.

[9:38] The innovations of the past having become a part of the everyday playbook, Ted finds that his team’s expertise has shifted from a consulting perspective to more of a partnering relationship with clients on their day to day operations.

[12:45] “Game experience” for Ted was garnered both in his professional and personal life since he has been coaching Lacrosse for decades; he shares how that experience is brought over into the work he does with clients.

[18:18] Coach Moon shares some of his biggest marketing and measurement lessons, including the massively important role attribution plays in media plans and strategy: the goal is always a team goal, it’s not just the one player.

[24:36] If a marketer only ever looks at the one highest-scoring medium, they will be missing out on some critical KPI that will lead to poor decision making in terms of budget allocation.

[27:32] Having made the case for how important it is, Ted highlights the levels at which something can happen to prevent an advertiser from using attribution:

1. They don’t know it exists

2. They haven’t budgeted for it

3. Internal politics

[30:06] Ted places a minimal proportional budget structure in terms of attribution and discusses the importance of having the intel to know where to put your resources.

[34:57] Ted touches on who could benefit from its use; for the most part, attribution has been used by acquisition marketers who have more transactional KPIs, however, Ted sees brand marketers having a use for attribution as well.

[41:25] I ask what Ted knows that no one else knows!

[42:34] Ted shares the story of an exclusive partner summit at Microsoft.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

[email protected]

Ted Moon on LinkedIn
Pathfinder Interactive on Facebook

Mentioned in this episode:

C3 Metrics
Pathfinder Interactive

Quotes:

“I think there’s still a lot of change year-over-year in our business, but the rate of change has slowed from about 15 years ago when paid search and social were first coming on to the scene.” — Ted Moon

“Everything in life kind of cross-pollinates; there are some concepts I get from coaching that I use in the business world and vice versa.” — Ted Moon

“People around me — both clients and my team — say attribution is my favorite ‘A’ word!” — Ted Moon

“Without attribution, it’s like flying without a compass or trying to evaluate players with the wrong stat sheet.” — Ted Moon

“Attribution looks more and more like it’s going to become a way of life for marketers.”
— Ted Moon

“Attribution is the new mixed-media model, except it’s a mixed-media model on steroids because I can go back and look at the whole pathway.” — Ted Moon

Jim Spaeth – Partner at Sequent Partners

When Jim Spaeth co-founded Sequent Partners, he had no idea how much the business of measurement would change.

After serving as President of the ARF and decade developing new research tools he could not dream of doing anything else.

Hear how (and why) he’s embracing industry change.

About Jim:

Jim Spaeth, is co-founder of Sequent Partners, the foremost thought leadership consultancy for brand and media measurement, and ROI.

Prior to co-founding Sequent Partners, Jim served for seven years as president of the Advertising Research Foundation.

Under Jim’s leadership, the ARF expanded its scope to incorporate all aspects of market research practice on a global basis, including marketing and media, ROI, CRM, brand valuation, digital marketing, and the transformation of the research function to a discipline focused on the value creation.

Prior to his leadership role at the ARF, Jim spent over a decade developing new research tools to improve client’s business performance, and led media research and planning functions at General Foods, and Young & Rubicam, an inductee into the Market Research Council Hall of Fame in 2016, he was honored by the Advertising Research Foundation in 2017, when he received the Erwin Ephron Demystification Award.

He is the co-author of Market Research Matters and numerous articles, as well as a frequent conference speaker. Jim’s a true student of measurement and that’s why I’m excited he’s here with us today.

Key takeaways:

[2:00] I introduce today’s guest, Jim Spaeth, and asks him about how he came to be where he is today.

[7:06] Jim touches on why attribution came to surpass marketing mixed modeling and how it has evolved into the ability to read today and make a change tomorrow. This quick turnaround time and this agility are responsible for attribution’s current spike in popularity — and some of the mistakes and omissions newcomers tend to do!

[11:17] I highlight a point made by Jim that attribution is an offshoot of media mix and marketers need to be involved, not just data scientists who don’t have any knowledge of the previous 30-40 years of marketing data analysis.

[12:50] Jim shares an example of how he approaches building a mental model for their business with a client and which KPI he helps them pick out and why. Understanding how your business operates is the starting point to any kind of marketing strategy — including attribution.

[16:48] Ignoring history will lead to avoidable mistakes, I point out the Netflix problem: “too much is like not enough.”

[18:25] Jim uses an example to underscore one of the big issues with data gaps on the publisher side: the missing variable bias.

[24:34] Marketers used to be idea people, they would spend time building their customer avatar and fleshing out strategies, but there has been a shift towards the data-driven marketer, which is much more akin to finance. I ask Jim why there is no love for attribution in finance?

[26:31] Jim and I discuss the ideal organizational place of attribution.

[28:09] Is Insights a wizard?

[29:02] Jim and I dive into what we see as the future of attribution, despite the missing variable bias and a few caveats.

[37:09] Before closing out, Jim makes a special mention of the value of creative.

[39:07] I thank Jim for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of his experience.

Be sure to tune in for next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

Jim Spaeth at Sequent Partners

Jim Spaeth on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

C3 Metrics

Sequent Partners

Advertising Research Foundation

Book: Market Research Matters: Tools and Techniques for Aligning Your Business,
by Jim Spaeth

Quotes:

“Facebook has attribution, Amazon has attribution, marketers feel like they have to have it but they don’t really understand it!” — Jeff Greenfield

“Attribution is the manifestation of a dream we’ve had for a long time.” — Jim Spaeth

“Garbage in, garbage out; bad data is going to end up with bad results.” — Jeff Greenfield

“When somebody just approaches this with a lot of data and they throw machine learning at it, or any analytic technique thoughtlessly, God knows what you’ll come up with!”
— Jim Spaeth

“It’s science, and it starts with a hypothesis and then you bring in the data and you prove it or disprove it and in an iterative process you refine it until you have a model that’s validated in its ability to predict.” — Jim Spaeth

“The biggest issue is that there is no transparency into the data, or into the methods, there is a need for an industry laboratory.” — Jim Spaeth

“Attribution is measuring in-market performance for specific creative executions.”
— Jim Spaeth

Alice Sylvester – Partner at Sequent Partners

When Alice Sylvester exited the agency side of advertising, she witnessed both the emergence of market research and the explosion of digital advertising.

Now as marketers embrace multi-touch attribution for media, will we see a day where brand and media metrics meet in the middle?

Hear her thoughts on privacy changes leading to an attribution apocalypse – and what’s next.

About Alice:

Alice Sylvester has held a variety of research and planning positions at major advertising agencies including DraftFCB, Young & Rubicam, Leo Burnett, and J. Walter Thompson. She was Chairman of the Board for the Advertising Research Foundation, a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Advertising Research, and was recently inducted into the Marketing Research Council Hall of Fame.

She has chaired the David Ogilvy Awards for Research Excellence, as well as The Emotional Response to Advertising Initiative. Alice is a co-author of Advertising in the Mind of the Consumer.

She’s currently a partner at Sequent Partners where she is involved in industry ROI initiatives, new media metrics development, and cross media measurement.

She is also the content producer for Attribution Accelerator held in October in New York City.

Key takeaways:

[2:00] I introduce today’s guest, Alice Sylvester, and ask her about how she came to be where she is today.

[6:36] I mention the dual roles of advertising — brand preference and sales impact, both of which can negatively affect each other — and ask Alice if she sees any way or any value in resolving this divide.

[8:41] I mention a chat I had with a Capital One exec who has been doing brand lift studies and hopes to one day be able to pinpoint the KPIs responsible for brand love. Alice details why she thinks that we don’t have the data to answer these questions today.

[12:52] Alice outlines where she sees multi-touch applications fitting into the current landscape of customer journeys as well as the promises it makes.

[15:04] Has the industry gone too far with regards to attribution and privacy? Alice touches on privacy issues and coming regulations and what she calls the attribution apocalypse.

[16:15] Some unfulfilled promises of attribution.

[18:24] I’ve noticed that clients who don’t or won’t do attribution often have a lack of trust in where the data comes from and how it’s attributed. Alice and I discuss the possibility of breaking out of the confines of confidentiality and standardizing the process, or parts of it.

[24:05] Alice offers that even if we understand the limitations of the datasets, attribution is something people should definitely jump into. Don’t wait for perfection!

[26:02] In the past 10 years, even if it may seem that marketers have had reduced choices in terms of ad placement, Alice finds that digital out-of-home has offered a wealth of possibilities that were none existed before, however, there may less experimentation — everybody in the industry is stressed and overworked.

[27:44] A.I. as a tool to alleviate oversight and optimization workloads — and a scary prospect for Alice as a creative person.

[29:31] Is the agency of the future just a janitor, turning the lights on and making sure the machine works?

[30:54] On the worth of continued measurements, Alice offers the example of a 12-year-old: you don’t know how they feel about your brand, but in four years they may be making purchases. The customer base always replenishes itself and changes.

[33:45] Are we moving more towards a short term marketing environment? Alice offers that we’ve been in one for 20 years and touches on why and how attribution can help.

[36:48] How much of a marketing budget should be devoted to metrics? Alice has an interesting answer.

[38:40] Alice offers up some parting advice: get ready to face privacy restrictions on a mass scale and how it’s going to change the data landscape. I thank Alice for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of her experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

Alice K. Sylvester at Sequent Partners

Alice K. Sylvester on LinkedIn

Quotes:

“Media test was a very, very hard measure of performance: you either moved stuff off the shelf, or you didn’t.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“There are no people in media, it’s just big numbers. Account planning is the opposite.”
— Alice K. Sylvester

“Originally everything was market-mix modeling.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“We are not at the stage where we can measure brand growth through analytic review of KPIs and behavioral responses.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“We’re still in adolescence on all this stuff, but it will get better.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“You have to separate the ideal and the promise of attribution from today’s practice because we know that there are some enormous holes in the journey, with the walled gardens of Amazon and social.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“Everybody in the advertising industry is stressed and overworked.” — Alice K. Sylvester

“I hear people say long-term is one or two years and that’s crazy! Long-term on a brand build is 10 years, 20 years, 50 years.” — Alice K. Sylvester

Tony Pitts – Chief Marketing Officer

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45:54

Tony Pitts – Chief Marketing Officer

Apple Podcasts Spotify

When Anthony Pitts — the 400 million dollar marketer — joined DraftKings in 2012, no one expected such a massive growth curve: from 651 paying customers to over 2 million in four years!

Follow his story to hear what it takes to build a customized attribution framework and why committing to a process is more important than the outcome.

About Tony:

Anthony Pitts was the VP of acquisitions at DraftKings from 2012 to 2015. Under his leadership, the company scaled its customer base at a remarkable rate while decreasing the cost of customer acquisitions.

Before Draftkings tony spent over seven years in the digital ad tech world overseeing the successful completion of thousands of advertising campaigns that spanned multiple industries while finding actionable ways to use his theoretical understanding on how to increase company yield through advertising.

Tony’s slightly unconventional path began with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Carnegie Mellon which eventually led him to complete a Master’s in Political Science at the University of Rochester.

He is an empirical thinker who has a strong statistical background and a studied understanding of the qualitative drivers of the human decision-making process.

Key takeaways:

[2:00] I introduce today’s guest, Anthony Pitts, and ask him about how he came to be where he is today.

[11:34] Tony walks us through his first steps at DraftKings, shares the story of how Google and Facebook shut them off in the beginning! And he breaks down how the first campaign was built as well as the reasons underpinning the decisions they took around it.

[16:32] Tony shares what budget he built this first four-week campaign with and what that meant in terms of using logic and empirical thought processes — there was no roadmap for this kind of thing back then!

[19:30] How do you know what’s good? How do you know where to invest the money: TV, radio, Facebook or whatever digital channel? Where is your biggest ROI? Tony shares his tips.

1. Establish a process

Tony took estimates and did data analysis to determine which channels would get the most money (TV has a broader impact and so got more budget allocation.) This allowed for subsequent evaluation and performance reviews for the channels which in turns allows for adjustments for performance.

2. Track your data

For DraftKings, getting an email address was the first point of conversion considered, so identifying which channel permitted this was the first part. Each channel was assigned a promo code which allowed for tracking for the original conversion channel through the customer’s existence.

[26:52] Tony touches on the importance of timing. After setting up your process, when do you spend all that money? Each business has its own rhythm in terms of customer acquisitions: seasonal components that will increase the probability of customer acquisition.

[29:02] Tony touches on the reasons why he thinks some marketers aren’t doing attribution and what he would suggest for them to start with.

[33:36] I ask Tony about the seemingly decreasing popularity of testing among marketers as well as why — and what — they should be testing for.

[36:52] Measurement and attribution should not be thought of in the same spending class as media; Tony believes it’s more of an infrastructure functionality. But when it comes to media expenditures, he offers that all things being equal, you should always aim at spending as little as possible to achieve your desired goal! (Unless there is a learning curve, then you should invest in knowledge.)

[41:02] Tony answers my question as to where is attribution headed to, five or 10 years into the future.

[45:44] I highlight a point Tony made that nothing will give you absolute truth, but a mix of different sources will get you an increasingly more precise picture.

[48:26] Tony shares one thing he knows that no one else does. I thank him for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of his experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

Anthony Pitts on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

DraftKings

Game Theory

Voter behavior

Quotes:

“What you’re saying, and who you’re saying it to is WAY more important than where you’re saying it.” — Anthony Pitts

“We made allowances for how people interact with the media — and it turns out that it was an attribution methodology — but it was really born of a pragmatic understanding of how to scale with discipline: so we just don’t throw money away.” — Anthony Pitts

“Different media impacts the user targets differently so you need to allow for interplay between the different mediums.” — Anthony Pitts

“People interact with TV and digital video media very differently than they do SEM, so why are we measuring it the same way?” — Anthony Pitts

“Each business has its own rhythm in terms of customer acquisitions: seasonal components that will increase the probability of customer acquisition. When you’re in season, it’s investment time and off season is testing time.” — Anthony Pitts

“Discipline in media spend is one of the most important things you can do, but just because you can’t track it 100%, it doesn’t mean it didn’t do something.” — Anthony Pitts

“Everyone knows what to do when things are going well — you don’t even need to know why they’re going well — it’s when things are going wrong that you need to have a structure in place so you don’t become paralyzed by the unknown.” — Anthony Pitts

“People get too bogged down in the day-to-day tactics rather than looking at the big picture.” — Anthony Pitts

Vanessa Branco – Founder, Versa9

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37:31

Vanessa Branco – Founder, Versa9

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Vanessa Branco knows: When you buy digital media at scale, you need to have advertising attribution. She used Attribution to discover the ‘halo’ of digital advertising which filled the funnel for one public company and increased their ROI over 300%! Tune in for an insightful episode as Vanessa offers important advice on creative performance, what to budget for testing, and how long you should test for (it’s longer than you’d think!).

About Vanessa:

Vanessa Branco has been working with startups, Fortune 100’s and publicly traded companies for well over 15 years.

Her extensive experience includes digital branding and marketing, expertise in media and creative optimization, performance-based marketing, traffic growth, attribution, and customer retention.

She first started as Advertising Manager for a publicly-traded company which was advertising in-house and operating sites including screensavers.com.

She currently serves as Vice president of business development for a white label trading desk and through her digital consultancy, VersaNine, Vanessa provides brands who are looking to in-house their media buying a hands-on expert.

Key takeaways:

[1:33] I introduce today’s guest, Vanessa Branco, and ask her about how she came to be where she is today from a false start in finance in the early 2000s.

[4:42] Vanessa calls herself white-labeled which means that she works in-house but she is still an outsourced asset — a contracted CMO.

[6:17] Priorities are always the same: acquiring customers, driving revenue, increasing ROI; it’s the methods that have diversified. Vanessa talks us through her experience at screensavers.com.

[10:25] Without attribution, manual reporting, a three-month turnover customer rate and a constant need to acquire new people, Vanessa talks about her strategy to start slow. She also talks about the birth of the affiliate networks, pixels, and the secret sauce back then (the Halo effect).

[14:21] After her crazy experience at the very start of MySpace, Vanessa was already trying to prove that display worked. She recounts her experience with over-counting.

[21:09] After all this over-counting and inaccurate reporting, what happened when attribution came into this scenario? Vanessa shares a funny story about her big vs. small vendor.

[25:17] Vanessa details the results of using attribution: testing different creatives, changing affiliate programs and search terms and changing vendors, the way they’re viewed, and the parts they play, which in turn, changes budget attribution.

[27:05] Whatever happened to that small vendor?

[28:35] I highlight a great point Vanessa has made: it’s not only about the math, but you also have to move slowly and get the people on board — 3 to 6 months is usually what it takes, according to her.

[30:29] Can attribution tell you what creative is performing? Vanessa insists it absolutely can, granted you put in the work and tag it properly. Attribution, along with the CRM data, can also give you the ‘why’ of a customer’s decision, and this is important information for future campaigns.

[33:40] Vanessa explains how many sets of creatives you should be running simultaneously for an example budget of 250K a month. She also shares advice on how long to test your creative for!

[36:47] Vanessa shares one thing that she knows that no one else knows: if you’re not using attribution for everything — capturing the whole journey and it’s much, much longer than you think — you don’t have attribution. I thank her for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of her experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

Vanessa M. Branco on LinkedIn

Vanessa M. Branco on Twitter

Izzet Agoren – VP of Data Science

1x

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Izzet Agoren – VP of Data Science

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Izzet Agoren knows: Accurate attribution models cannot be built by data scientists alone…you need a team who understands how media operates in the real world.

An electrical engineer who launched his own ISP in 2002 in Cypress, Izzet search for the signal in the noise led him to AdTech.

As the VP of Data Science for Rauxa, hear how he’s overcome the barriers to better measurement.

About Izzet:

Izzet is a technically trained engineer who found his way to ad tech and data science. His vast contributions include the VAST 4.0 and VAST 4.1 standards with the IAB Tech Lab, he has served on the Mobile Marketing Associations Messaging and Programmatic Committees, IoT Council; and the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Programmatic and Data councils.

While at Penn State, he co-authored multiple, peer-reviewed publications in the area of real-time video communications for 4G wireless communications and his work at Motorola lead to focused development of efficiencies in IEFT standards that defined VOIP on packet networks for mobile carriers.

He founded Extended Broadband in 2002, a regional fixed wireless internet service provider that spanned four countries — all of which had strained diplomatic and political circumstances. In 2007 Izzet joined a team that won four media awards for a Semantic targeting technology in marketing technologies. Izzet’s further engagements with Integral Ad Science and TRUSTe exposed his technical background to the enabling capabilities that verification and privacy provide the digital marketing and advertising landscape.

He is currently serving as the VP of Data Intelligence at Rauxa, where he leads Artificial Intelligence and machine learning product development.

He is an elected Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, and is a Fulbright Scholar.

Key takeaways:

[2:00] I introduce today’s guest, Izzet Agoren, and ask him about how he came to be where he is today.

[5:24] Izzet remembers when he launched his own ISP in Cypress in 2002, climbing on roofs and boosting microwave signals with antennas and amplifiers.

[9:12] Moving into his position at Rauxa, Izzet was tasked with elevating the function of the department from being descriptive to prescriptive with data.

[12:17] Izzet and I unpack the concept of viewability and the issues surrounding it — a lot of ads aren’t seen but models don’t take it into account — most of the models are made by data scientists who have zero media experience and the model outputs don’t make sense.

[15:53] Izzet shares his steps to making a business, a department, or a team more proactive: it always begins as a philosophical concept. He also touches on the two ways data & better measurement can be proactivity presented to a client: (i) as a media product or (ii) as a data product.

[18:56] In some cases, clients know that they’re missing out by not using attribution. They are unable to pursue this ROI either because they’re not ready or because there’s a perception that it’s either too complex or too expensive to deploy or that there will be political barriers.

[20:02] Measurement is ‘table stakes’ to buying media. Izzet has been kicked out of meetings for saying so.

[21:37] Izzet hopes that embracing attribution won’t take a new generation of people as the alternative is that the walled gardens will take it on. In the end, this acceptance movement should begin with more marketers bringing this function in-house.

[26:56] In terms of the future, Izzet believes that attribution should get progressively easier as offline behaviors and channels become digitized. Data points will become deterministic and make the analysis more accurate, near real-time.

[29:52] Is having complete data possible?

[32:04] Izzet shares one thing he knows that no one else does — he doesn’t profess to know any more than anyone, but he does share a recent discovery of his. I thank him for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of his experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with Izzet:

Izzet Agoren on LinkedIn

Izzet Agoren on Twitter

Mentioned in this episode:

Book: Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference, by Judea Pearl

PegasusCRM

The Shapley Value

Markov Models

The Apache Foundation

Apache Atlas

Apache Delta (now retired)

Kevin Seaman – Higher Ed and Marketing Analytics Leader

Straight shooter Kevin Seaman shares his story of how he took a TV-centric organization and moved it into the digital space using cross-channel multi-touch attribution.

Tune in to find out what it takes to get attribution adopted, the challenges you may face and what you could expect to learn along the way.

About Kevin:

Kevin Seaman has made a career out of measurable marketing, spending the last 20 years maximizing outcomes for national consumer and B2B marketers including Scotts Miracle Grow, Valvoline, and Goodyear.

Kevin had his attribution conversion in 2013 while at Southern New-Hampshire University (SNHU), realizing that transforming from a TV-centric advertiser was going to require a new way to measure and optimize.

In his five years there, SNHU turned into a digital marketing powerhouse and tripled in size, becoming the largest non-profit online University in the U.S. Currently, as the Founder of Results Analytics, Kevin provides analytics, performance marketing, and strategy expertise to help companies maximize outcomes and make analytics part of their DNA.

Key takeaways:

[1:48] I introduce today’s guest, Kevin, and ask him about how he came to be where he is today — from agency-side direct marketing to client-side at SNHU.

[5:03] Kevin tells the story of when he came to SNHU, how they were structured, and the work he did to help pioneer the online studies.

[6:54] SNHU was looking to build a brand and drive growth in the online space on a national scale but was spending exclusively on TV. In order to convince decision-makers to fund a more diversified marketing mix, Kevin had to prove that digital was working, so he ran tons and tons of pilots in the digital space.

[10:05] Kevin touches on the view through measurement which he calls the “blimp measurement”; he explains how the blimp metaphor highlights the shortcomings and unreliability of this data point. It led to him doing large scale placebo testing to help identify a Goldilocks solution.

[13:10] Kevin shares the story of his 2014 New Year’s resolution and the apology he delivered to his marketing team before asking them to fund digital multi-channel, multi-touch attribution!

[14:34] Kevin speaks to his achievements throughout the attribution journey he led with SNHU. When you look at any technology, the hardest aspect is to get people to drink the Kool-Aid, so Kevin was constantly gathering proof.

[16:04] He shares the challenges he faced and gives his tips on getting the people in an organization to adopt a new technology and to move budget line items.

[20:20] Organizational challenges are often the thing holding us back from going all-in with a new solution. Does Kevin see a way to circumvent those challenges?

[22:52] Considering that attribution is one of the largest line items in an organization’s P&L, should there be a Chief Attribution Officer? Kevin weighs in with his thoughts on accountability within an organization.

[25:44] Kevin shares some measurement lessons he drew from his experience at SNHU: get the house plumbing in order, connect your front-end and your back-end, and make sure you’re optimizing for the right behaviors.

[31:23] Creative is a BIG contributor; don’t be just a math person, watch your soft skills and watch your language (opt for the good/better/best rather than the good/bad).

[36:34] Jeff highlights the truth in what Kevin is saying: in an organization, math will not sell attribution, you need a different set of skills for that. Kevin shares the example of Google in that sense.

[40:37] Kevin and Jeff discuss the importance of partnered relationships in the operationalization of attribution as well as how to recognize those relationships. Kevin opens up about a professional soul-crushing insight with one of his vendor relationships.

[43:30] Kevin shares his thoughts on the future of attribution, he touches on the non-measurable sides of attribution, the possible fragmentation of attribution and the impacts of growing privacy concerns and vendor relationships.

[48:07] Kevin shares one thing that he knows that no one else knows: the people part of attribution is much more difficult than the math. I thank him for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of his experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with Kevin:

[email protected]

Kevin Seaman on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

Southern New-Hampshire University

Leslie Laredo – President of Academy of Digital Media

Digital marketing trainer Leslies Laredo knows: The biggest challenge to multi-touch attribution is the refusal to challenge assumptions.

Knowing how to challenge ROI numbers only comes from training. And after training over a hundred thousand marketing professionals over the last two decades, Leslie knows you have to consistently train to stay ahead and win in today’s marketing world.

Hear her thoughts on companies increasing revenue by making training a priority.

About Leslie Laredo

An Internet advertising pioneer with more than 25 years of digital media industry, Leslie Laredo has been instrumental in changing the business face of media and dramatically improving the knowledge and skills of media professionals on how to buy and sell digital media.

Leslie has consulted with startups, Fortune 500 companies, small-to-large advertising agencies, and multi-brand media publishers.

Her consulting services have been used and valued by C-level executives, Vice-Presidents, sales and account managers, and media buyers and planners.

She has worked with CPG and B2B brand and marketing managers spanning many industries including automotive, travel, financial, pharmaceutical and many others to educate their teams on how to plan, buy, and sell digital media.

Her insights and training have allowed sales organizations to more effectively meet the needs of their advertisers while maximizing revenues.

She has also worked with agencies of all sizes to be more effective in delivering online media strategies as well as transitioning their business to provide the thought leadership and digital media and marketing skills increasingly required to keep and acquire clients.

Key takeaways:

[2:09] I introduce today’s guest, Leslie Laredo, and asks her about how she came to be where she is today.

[6:04] Leslie touches on the differences between executives and teams who believe in training and those who don’t: having a learning culture and being committed creates teams that excel and challenge assumptions about the business and the marketplace.

She shares an anecdote about proud members of the dead tree society from an NAA conference she once spoke at.

[9:50] Once you understand your business, you can begin to be creative in how you approach things. Leslie shares the three important aspects of training she touches on first:

1. WHY? Why is this happening, why is it important.

2. HOW? How does it happen, how do they create, sell and monetize their content and audience

3. WHAT? What tools do they have to do it with

[13:56] People get it now! There was a holy grail moment in 2016-17 where people started talking about attribution and its eventual ability to resolve part of the “which half of your advertising budget is wasted” question.

Leslie shares a story from the Advertising Club of New York session where she heard a Toyota rep talk about how their CTR metrics had become institutionalized.

[19:52] Institutionalized metrics create a grey area: whose job is it to flag them and enable better measurements to be put in place? Leslie touches on what she thinks is the solution.

She also discusses what attribution helps us get to: the why as well as the story; we’ve been very bad at telling a story of decision making out of data, and attribution helps us in this regard because it’s not just data points.

[25:48] For the future of attribution, Leslie hopes that it becomes a ubiquitous part of marketing decisions: a holy grail has to be used! The future is about changing the outcomes and getting better at what we do.

[28:21] Leslie and I share GPS analogies! Would you get on a plane whose GPS and compass are out?

[32:42] There is a fear of telling people they’ve been doing things wrong, and I believe it’s from a lack of certainty which also amounts to lack of training. Leslie shares some tips: learn to fail fast, and don’t wait until things go wrong to try to improve your processes. Changes are coming, the most important question has to be, “What’s next?”

[42:39] What should a training cadence look like in the digital world? Leslie points out that it isn’t so much about a schedule or budget as it is an upgrade in company or department culture.

She shares the example of Outbrain who has a one-hour training session a week where the conference rooms are dedicated, and the employees are encouraged to share their newfound knowledge.

She also touches on common mistakes she sees in budget allocations and where people should invest more.

[47:47] Adtech is in the technology field and is something of a scientific beast, but companies haven’t really been treating it as such and a lot of employees are in over their heads at an educational level. This needs to be addressed!

[52:29] How can you get in touch with Leslie? — I thank her for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of her experience.

Connect with Leslie:

Leslie’s email [email protected]

Leslie Laredo at Laredo Group

Leslie Laredo on Twitter

Leslie Laredo on Pinterest

Leslie Laredo on LinkedIn

Mentioned in this episode:

Laredo Group

Academy of Digital Media

Book: The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, by Clayton M. Christensen

NAA Conference

The Advertising Club of New York

Anthony Pitts

Outbrain

Adult Learning Theory

Book: The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation, by Matthew Dixon

Michael Kaushansky – President of Havas Helia

Michael Kaushansky is one of today’s brightest measurement leaders.

He comes on the show and shares the story of how he came to be in the digital marketing space and how he along with other mathematicians came to birth what is essentially known as attribution today, tune in to this episode to also hear what he foresees as its inevitable future!

About Michael:
Michael Kaushansky serves as Chief Data Officer and President of Havas Helia.

He has direct oversight and responsibility for the agency’s data, analytics, and marketing technology plus managing and advancing Helia which is Havas’s relationship marketing CRM agency.

Michael has been involved in the field of data analytics and business measurement for nearly two decades and has held roles of increasing responsibility at GE, Target, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Prior to Havas, Michael led all marketing analytics at Ogilvy where his work spanned leading global brand advertisers including UPS, IBM, Nestlé, CISCO, and SAP.

He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s in applied mathematics and operational research and is an advisor to Rutgers University’s big data graduate program.

Key takeaways:

[1:49] I introduce today’s guest, Michael Kaushansky, and ask him to walk us through his measurement career trajectory from data set days to today.

[3:42] Michael takes the time to break down three use cases from his time at Fingerhut, in the field of healthcare and in the financial services industry. He explains how he identified which data set points to work with for each, as well as what results these applications yielded, at the time.

[12:35] After the financial crisis, Michael found a way to translate his knowledge of working with data sets to tracking ads, searches, and behaviors and moved into digital advertising.

[15:25] Budgets were getting bigger and bigger for digital, but the way we were allocating our budgets was still based on a cost-per-thousand basis and CTR. Michael shares the work he began to do when he understood the value of the data set available to him with the World Wide Web.

[17:30] Michael touches on the information you can gather about consumers, the relative comparison aspect of marketing and how it ties into the debate on privacy.

[20:03] In 2009–10, nobody knew where to start in order to reach and engage the customer in the digital world. … Enter mathematicians! Michael shares the story of how they built what is now known as the path to purchase tracking.

[24:00] Michael shares his definition of attribution and this leads to an in-depth discussion on the importance of crediting your marketing activities with their success rates in getting consumers to move within your sales funnel. This, in turn, enables you to better allocate budgets and remain competitive in the marketplace.

[31:07] You can’t set it and forget it anymore; how targeting and real-time information gives attribution, data and analytics the ability to keep your decision-making process nimble and your costs under control.

[34:19] Michael speaks to the new frontier — because consumers are spending more and more time on their devices, doing attribution in the digital space for brick and mortar purchases becomes imperative.

[39:10] The failure to adopt advanced analytics and attribution is unfortunately complex; Michael shares what he sees as the three main barriers to adoption.

[42:25] I unpack the last barrier to adoption that Michael highlighted — a previous failure — and offer ways to circumvent those and ensure a successful integration. Michael offers that all advertisers and agencies will have to move towards attribution — it is where things are heading whether they like it or not and the faster they do it, the better off they will be.

[48:56] Despite attribution not being talked about as much in conference circles, there has been an increase in big players integrating the practice. I talk about the progression of adoption we usually see for new practices, and what big enterprises usually drive into a space after they go all in.

[53:01] Michael shares one thing that he knows that no one else knows: always ask for a sample data set. I thank him for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of her experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with Michael:

Michael Kaushansky on LinkedIn

Nathan Gorenflo – Director of Digital Strategy & Marketing Operations at Franklin University

Nathan Gorenflo is an expert in EDU lead generation.

He comes on the show and shares his experience with operationalizing attribution at Franklin University.

A case study in technology adoption and a lesson on why you should not attempt to swallow the entire attribution camel all at once.

About Nathan:

Nathan Gorenflo is the Director of Digital Strategy and Marketing Operations at Franklin University.

A computer scientist by training, Nathan became the digital expert at an agency during the birth of the digital era in 1999.

After three years on the agency side, Nathan moved to the brand side, spending time with Mountain Top Conferences, Wells Fargo, and Cardinal Health.

An experienced digital marketer, Nathan was initially attracted to attribution’s ability to provide a viewable conversion where credit was only provided to digital ads that were seen.

Key takeaways:

[1:34] I introduce today’s guest, Nathan Gorenflo, and ask him to walk us through his measurement career trajectory from being a programmer in an agency before the birth of digital marketing to today.

[3:32] Nathan recounts how he started at Franklin University and what the priorities were nine years ago, and how they have embraced digital as a whole.

[7:58] Before the advent of attribution, Nathan’s department was focused primarily on Google Analytics and though they still use it, it’s a fairly limited tool.

[11:23] Jeff and Nathan talk about the importance of filling your sales funnel, which touchpoints are responsible, and thoroughly understanding your customer journey in order to generate flow.

[13:37] Nathan shares his biggest attribution Aha!

[17:16] So you trust your vendor reporting? Nathan encourages you to have multiple independent resources if you want to have any kind of confidence in the picture you’re looking at.

[19:40] New tech can be a challenge to operationalize, Nathan speaks to how Franklin managed this new tech adoption.

[23:08] Five years in, Nathan talks about where he hopes attribution is heading in the coming years.

[25:20] Nathan shares one thing that he knows that no one else knows: understanding how branding and direct response fit together. I thank him for coming on the podcast and sharing so much of his experience.

Be sure to tune in for the next episode and thanks for listening!

Connect with our guest:

Nathan Gorenflo on Twitter