Making Sense of Martech
By Juan Mendoza
Making Sense of Martech Sep 12, 2023
#57 | Bobby Tichy & Michael Burton on hyper specializing in the stack
In this episode, we’re joined by Bobby Tichy and Michael Burton, co-founders at Stitch. Both Bobby and Michael are well-respected within the martech industry, bringing a unique perspective to customer engagement, CX, tech stacks, and the martech industry overall.
Bobby Tichy is a veteran of two of the most well-respected brands in martech, Marketo and Salesforce, where he led and supported implementations for many big brands. After his time with those two companies, Bobby moved onto Lev, a Salesforce consultancy, before the company was acquired in 2022 by Cognizant. At that point, Bobby teamed up with Michael to co-found Stitch, a martech consultancy that focuses on Braze and MarTech architecture. Now in his role as Chief Solutions Officer, Bobby leads the company’s solutions team, and loves to talk about martech architecture, customer engagement platforms, the customer journey, and more.
Michael Burton is also a veteran of Salesforce who has worked at several other companies, including ExactTarget, which went on to be acquired by Salesforce. After leaving Salesforce, he also made his way over to Lev, where he rose up the ranks from Senior Director to SVP to CEO, the position he held when the company was acquired. Now serving as the CEO of Stitch, Michael is continuing to focus on building and scaling professional services for marketing technology. His areas of expertise include meaningful metrics, customer engagement, CX, and the martech industry as a whole.
In this conversation, we dive into going through the process of a company acquisition, implementing the right martech stack, CX strategy, Stitch’s partnership with Braze, and a look to the future of martech.
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#56 | Michaela Aguilar on the Martech buying problem and the role of education
In this episode we have Michaela Aguilar. Michaela is the head of business partnerships and ecosystems at Acoustic, a customer engagement platform company. Most recently Michaela has been leading a new Martech course with ADMA here in Australia called the Marketing Technology Certificate. Michaela also works as a Mentor at not for profit group Women in Data, and has a long and storied career in customer experience optimisation and analytics.
In this episode, we talk about the connection between education and Martech utilization, solving some of the education problems in the Martech industry in Australia, and how marketers should be thinking about and buying tech.
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#55 | Josh Manion on Data Assurance and privacy-positive tech in Martech & Adtech
A conversation with Josh Manion.
In this episode we have Josh Manion joining us. Josh is the CEO of Vault JS, and previously worked as the founder of Ensighten, and the CEO Stratigent, both successful companies in the analytics, Adtech and data management space. Vault JS offers an advanced AI solution that continually scans data collection technologies in brands and alerts teams to suspicious activity, data leaks or accidental sharing with third parties. something they call “data assurance”.
In this episode we talk aboutVaultJS’ approach to building privacy-positive tech in the Martech and Adtech space, what data assurance is, data leakage horror stories, and the current state of data monitoring in the Martech industry.
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#54 | Adam Furness on the resurgence of affiliate marketing, and doing content partnerships at scale
A conversation with Adam Furness.
In this episode I have Adam Furness joining me. Adam is the Asia Pacific managing director for Impact.com, a platform for managing partnerships, content collaborations, and affiliate marketing. Impact is one of the few platforms solely focused on Partnership Automation Technology, by helping businesses grow through creating better media buying decisions and managing partner lifecycles.
Adam is also the co-chair of UnLtd, a social purpose organization connecting the media, marketing, and creative industries with charities and helping children and young people at risk.
In this episode, we talk about the return of the affiliate, and how privacy pressures on the digital marketing industry are bringing about a renewed interest in partnerships, affiliate marketing, and new ways to scale up content marketing efforts with influencers, bloggers, content creators, and publishers.
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#53 | Alexandra Theriault on intersection of martech & adtech and the role of first-party data in a post third-party-cookie world
A conversation with Alexandra Theriault.
In this episode, we have Alexandra Theriault, the chief growth officer at Adtech company Lotame. Alexandra has been working with Lotame for more than 15 years, playing several key roles in the company as it has grown into an international Adtech player.
Lotame plays a key role in advertising and increasingly in the Martech industry through its widely used cookieless Panorama ID , data marketplace and recently announced Spherical platform, a CDP accelerator. Complementary to the CDP and accelerating that into Adtech use cases.
In this episode, we talk about why Lotame has decided to step into the Martech world with the Spherical platform, the role of first-party data in a post third-party-cookie world, how identity is changing in Adtech and if we’ll start to see a divergence or paid and owned focused CDPs.
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#52 | Rajan Kumar on why companies fail to get the most out of Martech
A conversation with Rajan Kumar.
In this episode, we have Rajan Kumar, CEO and cofounder of The Lumery. He’s an unusual guest because not too long ago Raj was my boss! It’s a pleasure to have Raj on to talk about their latest research entitled Stacks on Stacks on Stacks - The Voices of Martech. Raj has pioneered a unique approach to MarTech consulting, combining the optimization of tech stacks with the development of clients’ internal capabilities, processes, and data-driven cultures, ensuring lasting outcomes can be achieved. Rajan is passionate about building high-performance teams through supportive culture and loves collaborating with forward thinkers.
In this episode we talk about the “Ferrari in the garage” problem in Martech, how leaders in enterprise brands thinking about investing into Martech, coordination problems in Martech, the path to progress, and the influence of personal ambition when buying and using Martech.
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#51 | Shoshana Wodinsky on the perils of privacy in a world of ad networks
A conversation with Shoshana Wodinsky.
In this episode, I’m joined by Shoshana Wodinsky, a technology researcher and former investigative reporter doing some of the best investigative journalism in the space of Adtech, privacy and online surveillance.
Shoshana is the investigative director for consulting firm Web X Ray. Shoshana has had her work cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. She is a prolific writer, penning articles like, How Google Ruined the Internet (According to Texas), Here's How California's Prop 24 Could Better—or Break—Our Privacy for Good, Opportunism, Thy Name Is Zuckerberg to name a few.
In this episode, we talk about the problems plaguing Adtech, the challenge of consumer privacy in a world of tech giants, why Shoshana is dedicating her career to investigating tech companies from a privacy lens, and how to balance enabling free online content and services while preventing the surveillance of consumers, among many other topics.
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You can find Shoshana on LinkedIn .
#50 | Roger Dunn on the rise of retail media and navigating the trade-offs between ads and experience with online commerce
A conversation with Roger Dunn.
In this episode, we are joined by Roger Dunn. Roger is a consultant in retail media space and recently worked as Head of Retail Media for Australia & New Zealand at Criteo, where he helped retailers setup & scale their own retail media networks, as well as forming partnerships and broader up-skilling of agencies.
Roger previously spent the majority of his career agency side specialising in retail and e-commerce and played a crucial role as founder of GroupM Commerce in ANZ, he was also the e-commerce lead for WPP AUNZ and more. On the Agency side, Roger has also help created the Amazon Academy & Amazon Unboxed event at GroupM, building strong relationships with key partners like Amazon, eBay & Woolworth's Cartology.
In this episode, we talk about the rise of retail media and where it sits in the broader media landscape, how it compares to other type of media, the current silos and inefficiencies, navigating the trade-offs between ads and experiences as well as channels and opportunities.
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You can find Roger on LinkedIn .
#49 | Jay Sanderson on Composable CDP and DXP, AI and new interfaces for building CX, and leading edge personalisation
A conversation with Jay Sanderson.
In this episode I’m joined by Jay Sanderson. He’s the senior manager of product marketing for Progress digital experience. Progress enables customers to develop the applications and experiences they need, deploy where and how they want and manage it all safely and securely. Hundreds of thousands of enterprises, including 1,700 software companies and 3.5 million developers, depend on Progress everyday to deploy customer experiences.
Jay has worked across companies such as Sitecore, AT&T and Thomson Reuters. After moving from development and technical roles into the world of digital marketing, he quickly realised the need for data-driven decision-making and new ways to leverage mar-tech platform features to achieve growth and becoming an advocate.
In this episode we talk about the changing category of digital experience platforms, how Jay approaches and defines composability in the CDP and DXP space, Generative AI and the new interfaces for building CX, and what the leading edge of personalisation looks like for the enterprise.
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#48 | Michelle Songy on the problem with PR, building a media marketplace and getting publicity
A conversation with Michelle Songy.
In this episode, I’m joined by Michelle Songy. Michelle is a startup founder, company executive and innovator in the space of media and technology. Michelle is the founder and CEO of Press Hook one of the first media relations platforms that connects media to brands and publicists at scale. Prior to founding Press Hook, Michelle founded Cake, a mobile payments platform for restaurants that was acquired by American Express. Michelle has also worked in finance at Coca-Cola and is an investor with a variety of funds.
In this episode, we talk about the problem of public relations, why companies want media attention, building a two-sided marketplace in media, what journalists really want and the impact of generative AI tools on the media industry.
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#47 | Jana Marle-Zizkova on women in Martech, product vs movement building, skills shortages and technical leadership
A conversation with Jana Marle-Zizkova.
In this episode, I’m joined by Jana Marle-Zizkova, an avid data and diversity advocate, CEO of Customer Data Platform Meiro and the co-founder of She loves Data, a global non-for-profit. Since 2016 over 15,000 women have attended 200+ free data & tech workshops, certification programs, and webinars. She Loves Data has chapters in 17 countries on 5 continents. In 2019, She Loves Data received the “Diversity Initiative Award in Asia” by Women in IT.
Jana is also a volunteering mentor of a non-commercial projects for future female leaders My Odyssey & Women in Business (National University of Singapore) and she collaborates with the European Women on Boards on the C-level program. As someone with passion for uncharted territories Jana circumnavigated the world on a 38ft sailboat between 2003-2005.
In this episode, we talk about women in Martech, Jana’s journey with building SLD, intimidation and skills building, helping women find economic opportunity, technical leadership and aspiration, movement market fit and how NFP organizations play a role in the wider Martech landscape.
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#46 | Tom Goodwin on progress and pessimism in marketing and technology
A conversation with Tom Goodwin.
In this episode we have Tom Goodwin joining us. If you work in marketing, advertising or tech he probably needs no introduction. Tom is an international keynote speaker, the author of Digital Darwinism, the co-founder of consultancy ALL WE HAVE IS NOW, a TV presenter, and a regular contributor for The Guardian, TechCrunch, and Forbes, GQ, Ad Age, Wired, Ad Week, Inc, MediaPost and Digiday.
In this episode we talk about progress and pessimism, how we should critique new technologies, hype exhaustion, what limits progress, working with change, and how our history should inform our present and future.
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#45| Myles Younger on the convergence of Adtech and Martech
A conversation with Myles Younger.
In this episode, we have Myles Younger. Myles is the Head of Innovation & Insights at U of Digital, an AdTech focused education firm. Prior to joining U of Digital. Myles’ nearly 20 year career in advertising has spanned every facet of the business, from his time in client-side marketing, to his experience as an ad tech founder and product leader, to his experience inside the world of agencies and consulting. Most recently Myles was VP Go-to-Market, Data at Media.Monks and prior to that he founded the Canned Banners dynamic ads platform which was acquired by Thunder in 2017. Writing and speaking frequently on digital media & advertising topics, Myles is a regular contributor to industry publications such as Adweek, AdExchanger, and AdMonsters.
In this episode Myles and I speak about… convergence of advertising and marketing tools, how third-party cookies are radically changing the industry, educational challenges in the industry and how AdTech can shake off its increasingly negative perception.
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#44| Ross Candido on the social stack and the evolution of social listening
A conversation with Ross Candido.
Today I’m joined by Ross Candido. Ross is the VP of ANZ and SEA at Meltwater a leading media monitoring & social analytics platform. Meltwater offers a suite of solutions that spans media, social, consumer, and sales intelligence. By analysing ~1 billion pieces of content each day and transforming them into vital insights, Meltwater provides competitive intelligence and consumer insights for over 27,000 global customers across six continents. Ross has been instrumental in growing one of the longest-standing and influential media intelligence and social analytics platforms, and bringing Meltwater to new markets including South East Asia, China, UAE and South Africa, before landing his current role based out of Australia.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the social stack - all the tools that make up social marketing, public relations, and media monitoring. We talk about how social listening has evolved over time, the wide varieties of data available to companies from social channels, how insights are gained from media data, and how the way we socialise has changed.
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#43| Bryan Williams on partnership strategy, platform ecosystems and the problem of monopolies
A conversation with Bryan Williams.
In this episode, I’m joined by Bryan Williams. Bryan is the founder of the newly formed firm Hockey Stick Advisory. An experienced operator in the platform ecosystem space, Bryan played a key role in building out Xero’s partnerships and application ecosystems as the former director of Ecosystem and Apps. Bryan has also served as a mentor and advisor through startup accelerator programs such as Blackbird Giants program and StartUp Vic office hours programs.
In this episode, we talk about the growing role of platform ecosystems in the marketing technology landscape and how companies are building new channels of growth, customer engagement, and partnerships. We touch on the incentives of ecosystems and their role in the broader marketing and tech industry, how ecosystems form within companies, identifying how other companies serve your customer, and the different kinds of ecosystems in the market.
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#42 | Juan Baron on data clean rooms, the privacy paradox, data and trust, and cryptography in advertising
In this episode, I am joined by another Juan…. Juan Baron! Juan is the Director of Business Development and Strategy for media and advertising at Decentriq. Decentriq calls itself The “Switzerland” of data that is coincidentally also headquartered in Switzerland.....
Founded in 2018, the company is inventing novel technology to enable publishers, brands, researchers, platforms, and advertisers to collaborate data in a way that ensures privacy and security. Decentriq works with companies such as Roche, Microsoft and Intel to enable more privacy-focused data collaboration and audience matching.
In a world where privacy is becoming an increasing focus across marketing and advertising, data clean rooms play an interesting role in the growth of first-party data sharing as third-party tracking is slowly becoming a thing of the past.
In this episode, we have a fascinating discussion about the privacy paradox: balancing privacy and utility, the role of trust in data collaboration & sharing, how inventions in cryptography and ML are changing the Adtech ecosystem, and the scalability of data clean rooms in an increasingly saturated market.
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#041 | Josh Alvernia on conversion APIs, climate change, and building for privacy
A conversation with Josh Alvernia.In this episode, I am joined by Joshua Alvernia, the CEO, and co-founder of Clue.
Clue is a leading data and media partner for search, social, and programmatic advertising. They help marketers interpret and transform their data into growth. Clue is a digital-native company with empowered, remote staff located around the world. Recently they did a collaborative research piece with Digiday that analyses the emergence of something called conversion APIs, a solution that fits into the evolving jigsaw puzzle of what happens to tracking and targeting once third-party cookies go away.
In this episode, Josh and I work through what Conversion APIs are, their role in online advertising, dealing with change in the advertising industry from a hands-on perspective, and how the movement toward online privacy seems very similar to climate change.
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#040 | Amanda Natividad on the power of audience research, zero-click content, and finding yourself in content creation
In this episode I am joined by Amanda Natividad, VP of marketing for SparkToro, a SaaS marketing company that helps people do audience research, or find out what content their audience is consuming and where they spend time online.
Amanda has a long and storied career in marketing recently heading up B2B content marketing at Fitbit along with a number of senior tech marketing roles and recently launching a course - Content Marketing 201 (https://maven.com/amandanat/content-marketing), that helps marketers take their content to the next level. Amanda also used to work in tech journalism and was a test kitchen cook!
In this episode we talked about Amanda's journey into content marketing and becoming the VP of marketing at SparkToro, how SparkToro works like a team of 10 with just 3 employees, and as well as their approach to Big Tech. We also discuss building a Twitter audience, using zero-click content as a part of content strategy, and whether it is good or not that some tech companies punish the use of links.
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#039 | Martech throughout culture
A conversation with AJ Rollsy.
In this episode, I’m joined by AJ Rollsy. AJ is the founder of CORE marketing method and the founder of Healthpoint Research. AJ is an entrepreneur who over the last two decades has helped multinational corporations launch and grow brands, driving multiple billions of dollars in sales across 50+ national markets. AJ recently supported TMW research for a paper on Martech in India providing valuable insights into how the technology community works in one of the largest markets in the world.
In this episode, we dive into how Martech companies are started and grown across various regions globally, particularly Asia. We talk about cultural nuances that change the course of technology development, how entrepreneurship evolves across the generations and if the world of marketing technology is shifting out of Silicon Valley from west to east.
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#038 | Understanding Performance Marketing
A conversation with Sabri Suby.
In this episode I am joined by Sabri Suby who calls himself the “Lord of the Internet.” He’s the founder of King Kong an Australian based digital advertising agency and the author of “Sell Like Crazy.” King Kong has generated more than $1.3 billion in reported revenue for their clients and is one of the fastest growing agencies in Australia. I have never met anyone that hustles quite as hard as Sabri.
In this episode we talk about the grind of digital advertising, building a growth mindset, “hustle culture”, Sabri’s views on performance marketing, the impact that privacy changes has on the how brands grow, building a business model around big tech platforms, why Sabri has golden records in his office and his ubiquitous online presence in the digital marketing industry.
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#037 | Debating Reverse ETL
A conversation with Tejas Manohar & Michael Katz.
In this episode I am joined by Tejas Manohar, the CEO of Hightouch Data and Michael Katz the CEO of mParticle. Over the past few years, a new category of customer data platforms has emerged called reverse ETL - data activation, enrichment, and analytics that runs on data on top of the data warehouse. Championed by Hightouch data and numerous other startups, there has been a growing shift in how tech leaders are thinking about the role of the CDP in their business in conjunction with existing data warehouses like Snowflake, GCP, and AWS.
We have two of the leading voices in this discussion to talk about the changing role of the CDP category, if reverse ETL makes sense as a category of tech, the modern data stack, the unbundling of CDPs, the value of data in a company, the problem of data waste, and many other topics.
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#036 | Building Competitive Intelligence
A conversation with Andy McCotter-Bicknell.
In this episode I am joined by Andy McCotter-Bicknell, the head of competitive intelligence at Click-Up, content creator and founder of the competitive playbook - an online course that helps companies to build competitor intelligence programs from scratch.
We talk about the emerging field of competitive research and strategy in B2B SaaS companies, Andy’s journey building the competitive playbook, the differentiation of Clickup, competing beyond product and features, the state of competitive intel in the tech industry, building a competitive intelligence programs in companies, how competitive intel influences company strategy, and many other topics.
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#035 | Why you don't need Martech
A conversation with John James.
In this episode I’m joined by John James. John is the host of the Champagne Strategy podcast, marketing, and technology consultant, and startup entrepreneur. John started working for global ad agencies then went client side, to government (B2G), B2B, B2C. Worked at digital agencies in Melbourne for half a decade in account manager roles and sales, he then started his own agency and ran that for 7 years. Then moved to live in San Francisco working as a growth manager for a startup before returning to AU to channel his energy into architecting a growth marketing platform. John also sits on a number of advisory boards and helps a modest list of privately owned businesses with their growth, sales and marketing strategy.
We talk about why you don't always need MarTech and explore John's very unique perspective on why strategy is absolutely critical when it comes to buying tech. We delve deeper into how in most cases, and from what he's seen in his experience, you don't actually need a lot of technology to get the job done.
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#034 | Building the CDP category
A conversation with Kazuki Ohta & Mike Anderson.
In this episode I am joined by Kazuki Ohta (co-founder and CEO of Treasure Data) and Mike Anderson (the CTO and founder of Tealium) for a round table discussion to discuss the perspectives on the outlook of the CDP industry, how they're building it and the growing challenges around data, privacy, regulation, and consumer attitudes in the CDP space.
We talk about the changing role of the category in the enterprise. Why people are still mystified by the technology. The increasing privacy pressure put onto the industry and the role of the CDP when building digital capability. And we also touch on how big tech is increasingly encroaching into the market and what it means for people building CDP solutions from the ground up.
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#033 | Martech in Asia
A conversation with Neil Halliday
Neil Halliday is the event director for APAC at Big Data and AI World, focusing on Data, AI, and Martech. During Neil’s time, he has built the most successful data-focused event and conference series in APAC and an entire ecosystem around data, Martech, CX, digital transformation, AI/ML, diversity & inclusion, to drive business generation opportunities in the Asia Pacific region. Neil has also worked in a number of technology companies and is one of the best people who know the trends, innovation, and change in the marketing technology space in Asia.
In this episode, we dive into the technology industry across South East Asia and sketch out a picture of the innovation, challenges, and opportunities in the region.
You can find Neil on LinkedIn
Grab a ticket to Big Data and AI World
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#032 | B2B media empires
A conversation with Michael Adams & Melissa McCready.
In this episode I’m joined by Michael Adams and Melissa McCready. Michael is the General Manager and Melissa is the content chair at OpsStars - an online community, media and events company servicing revenue and marketing operations practitioners. Previous to OpsStars, Michael has worked across a number of roles in communications, thought leadership and media for software companies like Cisco. Melissa is the principal at The Growth Ops community and works in the growth operations industry as an advisor and consultant.
In this episode we talk about B2B Media Empires, the growing trend of software companies building media brands to service their specific market. How OpsStars was launched by Lean Data, a revenue orchestration platform company and into the journey of building valuable media properties in niches across the marketing technology ecosystem.
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#031 | The privacy winter
A conversation with Chris Brinkworth & Vishal Repaka.
In this episode, I’m joined by Chris Brinkworth and Vishal Repaka from Civic Data. In Australia, Civic Data is helping leading brands to collect, organize, analyze and activate data for Privacy First Marketing and Communications initiatives, in line with current and future Australian Privacy Principles. Chris has spent years working in the bowels of the AdTech industry in the US, which over time saw an increasing need to address the privacy concerns these technology companies have introduced to the economy and so went on to found Civic Data with his business partner Jason Fonseca. Vishal is a Principal at Civic Data who has specialized in working with ASX 100 brands and high-growth product businesses.
We talk about the privacy winter and all the things that make up an ever-emerging private web.
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#030 | The technology of attribution
A conversation with Praveen Das.
In this episode, I’m joined by Praveen Das. Praveen is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Factors.ai, a B2B marketing attribution and analytics software company. Praveen has a long history in the analytics space, previously leading product at InMobi, a mobile advertising company. In this discussion, we unpack the technology of marketing attribution including the increasing importance of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the marketing analytics stack, how technology companies are addressing the changing tracking and privacy landscape and the value of attribution software.
In this episode we talk about the hard problem of marketing attribution from the increasing importance of machine learning and artificial intelligence in the marketing analytics stack. How technology companies are addressing the changing context of tracking privacy and data collection, and also the value of attribution software. We further dive deeper into the highly complex topic, that is attribution.
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#029 | Evolving automated marketing
A conversation with Anu Shukla.
In this episode, I’m joined by Anu Shukla. Anu is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of high-tech industry experience having created a billion dollars of enterprise value from Martech startups. She is the Founder and CEO of RewardsPay Inc. and the Co-founder and Executive Chair of Botco.ai. Formerly, she was the Founder and CEO of Offerpal Media (aka Tapjoy, Inc. which was sold for $400 mm cash in Jan 2022), and she was the Founder and former CEO and Director of MyBuys Inc. (formerly Rubiconsoft) a venture-backed company acquired in 2011 for $200mm she started in 2002. Anu was the founder of Rubric, Inc one of the pioneers in Enterprise Marketing Automation 19 years ago, before the category existed. She is also a Venture Partner at Elevate.vc supporting and mentoring under-represented black, women, LatinX and other minority founders.
Ms. Shukla served on the Board of Directors of Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, International Museum of Women (IMOW.org) and the Advisory Board for the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.
In this episode we talk about the wonderful world of marketing automation. Anu has seen the development of the marketing automation space for more than 20 years, building solutions and innovating right back in the 90’s. We talk about the history of automated marketing, why Anu’s all in on conversational AI, and where it’s all heading.
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#028 | Podcasting about podcasting
A conversation with Benjamin Shapiro and Phil Gamache.
Benjamin is the founder of I Hear Everything and a prolific podcast host who oversees three big tent podcasts; The Martech Podcast, Voices of Search, and the Revenue Generator Podcast along with a number of bespoke audio projects. Benjamin is a media entrepreneur who started his journey with The Martech Podcast and has scaled to more than 2,000 published episodes achieving more than 2 million downloads.
Phil is the co-founder of the Humans of Martech Podcast, a show that helps early-stage marketers to level up by discovering the constantly evolving world of marketing technology. It’s a side project that Phil and his co-founder Jonathan Taylor manage alongside Phil’s full-time work in lifecycle and growth marketing.
Today we’re talking about what it looks like to run a podcast in the Martech industry. Between Benjamin, Phil, and myself our approaches to content creation are as diverse as they are interesting. We discuss what it takes to break into podcasting, how it’s done well and how it’s shaped our perspective on the industry.
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You can find Benjamin on LinkedIn and I Hear Everything
You can find Phil on LinkedIn, Twitter, and the Humans of Martech Podcast.
#027 | The revenue bubble
A conversation with Darrell Alfonso.
Darrell is an award-winning marketer and Martech professional. He has consulted for several Fortune 500 companies including General Electric and Abbott Laboratories and currently leads marketing operations at Amazon Web Services where he helps empower thousands of marketers to build world-class customer experiences.
He was named one of the top Martech Marketers to Follow in 2020, won the Fearless Marketer award in 2018, is a 2X Marketo Champion, and is a certified Salesforce Administrator. Darrell is a frequent speaker at Martech events, and regularly posts thought leadership content on LinkedIn and Twitter. Darrell is also the author of a newly announced book - The Martech Handbook: Build a Technology Stack to Attract and Retain Customers. We talk about the state of marketing operations, the role of revenue operations in the marketing discipline, and Darrell's experience leading large-scale marketing operations for some of the most important companies in the world.
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You can find Darrel on LinkedIn and Twitter
Pre-order Darrell's new book here
#026 | The creativity crisis
A conversation with Cydney Sinclair.
Today I’m joined by Cydney Sinclair. Cydney is the creative director at HBO max where she has built and led diverse teams of storytellers and designers to launch the streaming service. Cydney previously served as the Art director for Apple as one of the founding members of the Apple Music Brand and Marketing Design team where she lead global content and marketing initiatives across Apple TV, Apple Books, Podcasts, and Gift Cards including a relaunch of the Apple app store.
Cydney also serves as an Associate Board Member for the +ME Project and as a Mentor for the T. Howard Foundation and ADP list. If there’s anyone in the marketing technology industry who knows how to inspire creativity in some of the world’s leading brands it’s Cydney. Today we’re talking about just that, the crisis of creativity in the world of marketing technology - why and how marketers in brands lack the ability to bring novel ideas to market, the great “blanding” and how Cydney thinks about the creative process in the enterprise.
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You can find Cydney on LinkedIn
#025 | The state of SEO
A conversation with Vahe Arabian and Grant Shankster.
In this episode, I’m joined by Vahe Arabian and Grant Shankster. Both SEO (search engine optimisation) experts in their own right. Vahe is the founder of the state of digital publishing which is a membership platform and consultancy which helps publishers grow digital media properties. Grant is an SEO and PPC expert at The Various Artists working in a regionally focused agency based in Queensland Australia.
Grant has worked across a number of industries including tourism but in recent years has focused his work on supporting local businesses with digital publishing and SEO capabilities. In this episode, we talk about the state of SEO in the industry, how experts approach the discipline, and its role in the digital economy
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You can find Vahe Arabian at State of Digital Publishing
You can find Grant Shankster at We Are Eva
#024 | Martech Day
A conversation with Frans Riemersma.
In this episode, I’m joined by Frans Riemersma. He’s the founder of Martech Tribe a Europe-based advisory and research firm that tracks the developments of the marketing technology industry and builds tools for senior leaders to better evaluate and manage their investments. Frans has also contributed to digital transformation training as a lecturer at Nyenrode Business University and spent close to a decade working with BrandMaker, a global marketing operations platform across R&D, innovation, and customer success.
We talk about the upcoming Martech Day event, the first event of its kind that both Frans and Scott Brinker have announced where they are will be unveiling the much anticipated 2022 global Martech landscape, the latest research into the category, and presenting the annual “Stackies” awards which showcase how companies of all shapes and sizes visually present their marketing technology stacks in their business.
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You can find Frans Riemersma on LinkedIn and Martech Tribe.
#023 | The history of media disruption
In this episode, I’m joined by Tim Burrowes. He’s the former founder of Mumbrella, one of the most significant media organizations servicing the marketing and media industries in Australia. Tim’s also the founder of the recently launched Unmade, a popular newsletter that explores topics centered on technology and media. It’s based on his first book of the same title, Media Unmade surveying more than a decade of technology disruption in media, publishing and advertising. Tim has a unique perspective on how technology has changed the landscape of media as he’s been in the room seeing the decisions play out as leaders adapt to a changing environment of content consumption and consumer change.
In this episode, we talk about just that, what exactly did the last decade look like throughout this change, why Tim has pivoted to newsletters and what is driving media innovation today.
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You can find Tim Burrowes on LinkedIn and at https://www.unmade.media/
#022 | The state of Martech education
In this episode, I’m joined by Carlos Doughty. Carlos is the CEO and founder of the Martech Alliance, a global Martech education firm based in the UK. He’s was the 2020 Marketing Technology Business Leader of the Year in the United Kingdom and is an international speaker in the marketing technology industry. The Martech Alliance has trained companies like TikTok, McKinsey, and Facebook in the various disciplines of Martech through their online courses, training events, book clubs, and their online community. When I first met Carlos we talked about his vision for education in marketing technology, as multivariate, continuous, and community-centric. Carlos’ perspective on education challenges some of the norms around how the marketing technology industry approaches education in the industry and is one of the most holistic providers in the space.
In this episode, we talk about how and why Carlos founded The Martech Alliance, his philosophy on Martech education, and where he sees the future of training happening in this space.
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You can find Carlos Doughty on LinkedIn and at https://www.martechalliance.com/
#021 | Understanding open data
In this episode, I’m joined by Kevin Tate. Kevin is the Chief Revenue Officer of Clearbit, a B2B data enrichment, activation, and intelligence company. Clearbit is an interesting player in the data space in how they collect business data from over 200 sources to create over 350 million business profiles which then sales and marketers can tap into to enrich their existing segmentation and do things like prospecting and lead generation. Clearbit is a data collection company that is evolving into a data activation company with the recent announcement of their data activation platform that works as an integration layer between Clearbit’s data profiles and marketing and sales tools like CRMs, MAPs, and CDPs. Kevin has worked across the B2B SaaS space serving in multiple revenue and marketing executive roles.
In this episode, we’re talking about where Clearbit fits into the data privacy ecosystem, the evolution to data activation, and how brands leverage open data sources to drive marketing and sales.
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You can find Kevin Tate on LinkedIn and at clearbit.com
#20 | The three horizons of Martech
In this episode, I’m joined by Scott Brinker. If you’ve been working in Martech for some time, Scott needs no introduction. Affectionately called “the godfather of Martech” Scott has been a pioneer in the Martech industry. Scott currently serves as the VP of platform ecosystem at HubSpot, editor at large at Chiefmartec, holds degrees in computer science at Harvard, and is a Fellow at MIT Sloan. Scott’s also behind the now-famous Martech Landscape supergraphic, a tool that maps and categorizes more than 8,000 marketing technologies in the industry.
In this episode, we’re talking about Scott’s perspective on Martech in 2022 as he’s recently written an article talking about three big innovation horizons in the industry: Commerce, Big Ops, and No Code.
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You can find Scott Brinker on LinkedIn, Twitter, and on Chiefmartech.com
#019 | Leading Martech teams from the inside
In this episode of MSoM, I’m joined by Jon Goh. Jon is a leading Martech practitioner in the APAC region, currently serving as the automation and audience lead for Medibank Australia. Jon’s career as a marketing technology team builder has spanned roles such as leading the Martech function for a number of bluechip companies across the region and guiding the establishment of marketing technology platforms for one of Australia’s largest IT companies.
He’s passionate about enabling diverse teams to deliver big projects for big brands. Today we’re talking about just that - How to establish marketing technology in an enterprise environment, what it takes to acquire and implement Martech from a practitioner’s perspective and what can we learn about building high-performing teams in an industry which is rapidly changing.
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Subscribe to The Martech Weekly here.
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You can find Jon Goh on LinkedIn.
#018 | Immersive experience and the future of the internet
In this episode, I’m joined by Preston So, he’s the senior director of product strategy at Oracle, the editor in chief of Tag1 Consulting, the Editor of A List Apart, a regular columnist at CMSWire, and the founder of Decoupled Days. Preston is also an author with two newly released books; Voice Content and Usability and Gatsby: The Definitive Guide. Preston has had a long and storied career working on the bleeding edge of digital and has in recent times been focusing his attention on the opportunities of voice in customer experiences.
We talk about the need to rethink how we understand what customer experience is online, preparing brands for the emergence of new technologies that will usher in new ways for people to interact with products and services, and how content strategy is transforming as the way we use the internet is becoming more diversified.
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You can find Preston So on LinkedIn and Twitter and on preston.so.
#017 | The role of marketing communities
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I’m joined by Mike Rizzo. He's the founder of the online community dedicated to marketing operations - Mo Pros. Mike has a long and interesting career across marketing technology and growth marketing management. Mike recently left his role with Mavenlink overseeing community and loyalty programs to dive into Mo Pros full time as the community has grown significantly over the past four years. We talk about the need for independent online communities that support professionals, why Mike founded Mo Pros to support the marketing technology industry, the role of mentorship and peer learning in a marketing technologist's career, and how education is changing in the industry.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
You can find Mike Rizzo on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can find the Mo Pros community here.
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#016 | Experimentation and the ROI myth
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I’m joined by two guests, both in their own right leaders in experimentation. First, we have David Mannheim. He's the Global VP of Conversion Rate Optimisation with Brainlabs UK, and the former founder of a leading optimization firm, User Conversion. Second, we have Oliver Palmer, he’s a senior optimisation consultant and prolific author who’s worked on a number of high-profile brands in the APAC region.
Across the digital experimentation industry, the past year has seen a major shift in how people think about the place of optimization in their businesses, questioning the validity of associating testing with revenue outcomes, and the scientific promise of experimentation. Several articles featured in TMW have been authored by our guests discussing and exploring this topic. From David, a series of articles exploring the connection between experimentation and financial gain and from Oliver, tracing the crisis of optimization and its detachment from its scientific methodologies. In our conversation, we talk about the changing perspectives on the purpose and practice of optimisation.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, and everywhere else.
You can find Oliver Palmer on LinkedIn and Twitter and you can read his articles here.
You can find David Mannheim on LinkedIn and Twitter
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#015 | The next era of digital advertising
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I'm joined by David Finkelstein, the Co-Founder, and CEO of BDEX. David is an internet pioneer, tech entrepreneur, and founder of numerous internet companies dating back to the earliest days of the internet in 1994. He currently serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of BDEX, an Inc 5000 company, the first and the largest consumer data exchange platform in the U.S.
David shares his views from a recent report published where BDEX found more than 250 million false identifiers in ad networks. We discuss the rapid changes in the digital advertising industry in 2021, from the demise of third-party cookies to Apple's shut down of app, email, and browser tracking, to the exponential proliferation of ad fraud and what these changes mean for the future of advertising technology in this new world of consumer privacy.
You can find David on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You can find BDEX here.
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#014 | The role of marketing media
In this episode, I’m joined by Brittany Jezouit, the former editor-in-chief of Better Marketing, an international community publication that features content by and for marketers. Brittany has been working in media for marketers for more than a decade, working in an editorial capacity for SaaS, NFPs, and academia.
She’s been supporting marketers around the world with rich and helpful content and giving plenty of feedback and advice to marketers who are publishing daily. Today we discuss the state of the marketing media landscape, what has changed over the last few years, and the philosophy behind community-led media companies.
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You can find Brittany on LinkedIn and Twitter.
You can find Better Marketing here.
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Follow Juan on LinkedIn and Twitter.
#013 | Creativity and process in marketing
In this episode, I’m joined by Tessa Court, the CEO of IntelligenceBank, a business process software company servicing marketers across more than 55 countries. Intelligence bank was recently featured in TMW for a research piece on the state of content regulation and the concept of Design and Distribution Obligations.
Intelligence Bank is an interesting software company in that it offers a way for marketers to manage all of the complexities of marketing, across digital asset management, aligning teams on brand, organizing resources, and streamlining business processes. Not many companies share this unique space - building technologies that address the acute needs of marketers in enterprise companies. We talk about the rise of technology companies in the marketing operations arena, why they are needed, and how they significantly change the way marketing teams come up with and execute ideas.
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You can find Tessa on LinkedIn
You can find IntelligenceBank here
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#012 | Participation and belonging in the creator economy
In this episode of MSoM I’m joined by Jessica Box, the head of growth at Linktree and the managing director at Girls in Tech Australia. Jess has had a long and storied career in the tech and startup space here in Australia, leading to her most recent role managing growth for one of Australia’s fastest-growing tech companies, with over 15 million users. Today we talk about the role of companies like Linktree in the emerging creator economy, how content and media are becoming more diversified across the internet, and what new companies are building to meet new challenges in this economy.
Our conversation covers the importance of creating an online identity, the idea of “everything as a service” and the tools needed to help people enter into the creator economy. We also discuss big tech’s role in creative industries, the death of the website, and how the pandemic has changed the digital talent market.
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#011 | The Enterprise problem
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I'm joined by Anita Brearton and Sheryl Schultz, the founders of cabinetM, a marketing technology management platform that companies use to manage and report on their technology and technology strategy and LibraryM, a fantastic resource to find the latest research, events and content on Martech. CabinetM is based in the United States, and services more than 800 companies with their platform technology from some of the world’s largest brands to startups.
We talk about how marketers manage technology in their companies, and how enterprise businesses are different from smaller companies in how marketing technology is adopted and used across the industry.
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#010 | Adland is an island
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I'm joined by Alex Murrell. He's the strategy director at Epoch in the UK. Epoch is a brand agency and he's worked with seven of the 10 top largest FMCG companies and has a unique voice when it comes to understanding the role in which advertising and marketing agencies play in their client's growth, culture and society at large.
Alex recently published a paper that was featured in TMW number #30, titled Adland is an Island. And in it, he unpacks some of the research into the dissonance between the demographics, culture and the interests of agency people, those who do the work for brands and the general population of people who actually receive the works featuring those marketing and advertising efforts. In this episode, we're going to have a very interesting conversation unpacking Adland's demographics, nature of agency work and the, the lives of people who actually do it.
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#009 | Nobody cares about your framework
In this episode of Making Sense of Martech, I’m joined by Ben Mosior, who goes by the moniker of “hired thought." Ben is a writer, podcaster, and strategy consultant who is focused on the principles behind Wardley Mapping, a novel way to work out how to connect your strategies to your customers and their needs.
Ben has been featured numerous times in The Martech Weekly Newsletters, including Ben’s article - Nobody Cares About Your Precious Framework. We talk about the dysfunctions of product and digital teams in enterprise organizations, how Wardley Mapping works, and creating situational awareness to help teams understand their customers and the competitive landscape better. We also talk about the complex nature of language in emerging industries such as technology, the various stages of company evolution within commercial systems, and connecting purpose to work across organizational structures.
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Go here for show notes, links, and resources.
#008 | The optimisation step change
Today I’m joined by Juliana Jackson and Valentin Radu. Valentin is the founder and CEO and Juliana, Chief Evangelist of Omniconvert. Omniconvert is a global optimization and personalization platform used by eCommerce businesses around the world, including Samsung, Avon, and WWF.
Omniconvert has been working to redefine the category of optimization with a focus on what’s called CVO “Customer Value Optimization” which looks at optimizing the entire customer journey, not just your website. We talk about why Omniconvert has this focus on CVO, how they see the optimisation industry changing and what’s on the horizon.
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Go here for show notes, links, and resources.