Commentary

MediaMath's Joanna O'Connell: You Can Have Lots of Data & Still Suck At Marketing

Joanna O’Connell joined ad tech company MediaMath as Chief Marketing Officer after a stint as Lead Analyst at AdExchanger. RTBlog recently had the pleasure of discussing her take on the industry and developments to come in 2016.  Following are her unique insights:

 1. The rise of programmatic marketing vs. programmatic advertising.

“There’s a difference. We need to understand that the worlds of paid, owned and earned media have been siloed and function differently. Those walls are starting to come down as organizations are recognizing that competitive advantage comes from having a seamless, relevant set of experiences. Knowing a lot about a consumer isn’t enough -- what you do with the data is the important thing.

“What I mean by programmatic marketing is an automation of process and decisions driven by machines and enhanced by data. You start to see how real-time, connected technologies bring programmatic communications beyond advertising.

“For example, say three different people are served a dynamic ad — one for a vacation in Hawaii,  Denver and the Caribbean. They interact differently with the ads. It’s customizing the experience in one channel based on what happened in another channel. One channel is paid [display] and one is owned [email], and those two systems are talking to one another. That’s ideal.

"However, the reality is that on the ground, this is held back by challenges inside marketing organizations."

2. There’s a false dichotomy between privacy and relevance.

“This is very pressing to me. I’ve noticed that the discussion about privacy and relevancy is an either/or proposition. It’s an unnecessary battle between those two things. You can be respectful and privacy-friendly without sacrificing delivering relevant advertising.

"How do you involve consumers in the conversation? I’m asking brands. Maybe it’s a matter of showing how you use data in your privacy policy. Maybe consumers could participate in the kinds of segments they fall into. I’m interested in these kinds of things and consumers who are self-selecting.

"For marketers, are you willing to be more bold in the way you communicate with consumers about what you’re doing? Does that give you a competitive advantage? And if consumers are more involved in the decision-making, do they have warmer feelings about some advertisers vs. others?”

3. Is 2016 the year of the agency?

“Agencies have had a rough few years! It’s become the norm to stomp on agencies. I believe the pendulum will swing back  to agencies. Marketers recognize the value in having good partners. “

4. Women in technology.

“From my own personal experience, there is enormous value in shaking up the way people think and act in this world. I see the way I think, operate and collaborate and think about idea generation and the humanity of advertising. I’m unafraid to be a part of this world.

“I get to talk about a lot of things in this job. Data-driven marketing at scale is the future. Technology can be the marketer’s friend.”

5. Organizations will move to a more customer-centric model.

“It’s related to thinking about how a core of user data can drive decisions in real time. These aren’t one-offs. Real-time, always-on, data-driven, machine-driven -- these all requires organizational change. Teams must be aligned (search, CRM, acquisition teams). Real-time data–driven advertising is shaking up the way organizations think about advertising and marketing.

“One-to-one vs. one-to-many: There’s a more personalized relationship with the consumer. So how do I organize around that? If we’re talking about data-driven marketing, we have to pursue it.”

6. The value of humans in an era of big data.

“We’ve gone too far in the nerdy direction. We’re trying to connect with people! If a person has a bad ad experience, that person will remember it. We must remind each other that we’re operating in the world of human beings!

“You can have lots of data and still be terrible at marketing, it’s about how you understand the data. Marketers are looking for the most help in making sense of the data, and that requires a mix of  humans and machines.”

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