This episode features Alison, a math graduate with a data-driven mindset, a creative spirit, and a passion for psychology. With her diverse skill set, she is a dynamic and multifaceted professional who brings a fresh perspective to the world of marketing and believes that great marketing goes beyond averages, diving into ranges and segments, crafting individual customer stories to tailor strategies for better results.

Introduction

00:46 I graduated in maths and have always had a bias towards data. However, I also have a passion for creativity and psychology, so marketing felt like the perfect career for me. I started my marketing journey at British Airways, where I was exposed to the integration of data and creativity in marketing, as the company embraced data and data science in various functions. This experience laid the foundation for my passion in combining the art and science of marketing through data. I later worked in strategy consulting, joined American Express and PayPal, and eventually joined Snappy as an early employee, where I continue to apply my expertise in leveraging data and creativity for business growth.

First interaction with data  

4:00 I think, honestly, my first experience with data was in the airline industry. Revenue management and pricing are very data-driven in that industry. However, when I reflect on more recent examples of using data in marketing campaigns at PayPal and Snappy, there are a few key things to note. First, understanding what we use data for and at what step of the campaign development process is crucial. To give a big picture perspective, marketing is ultimately about delivering relevant and engaging messages that persuade customers to choose and try your product, and hopefully love it and recommend it to others. In my experience, I follow a four-step process and consider the information and insights needed at each step to bring a campaign to life. Step one is targeting, which is essential in today’s data-driven world. I focus on targeting individuals rather than broad segmentation. It’s important to have a good grasp of market analytics, such as the number of gift senders in the US, their spending habits, and personas.

Understanding the media channels they consume, such as Google search, Bing search, trade publications, etc., and the associated costs is also crucial in setting the strategy of who to target and which channels to use. Step two is understanding what customers already know. Many marketers overlook this step and simply broadcast messages without considering whether customers are aware of their brand, have considered their product, or have any existing relationship with their company. It’s important to be clear on where the customer is in their journey at the moment of communication, whether it’s awareness, consideration, conversion, activation, or retention. Syndicated customer research and brand surveys are great sources of data to understand customer awareness and consideration levels, which in turn shape the type of campaign to deliver. Overall, data plays a critical role in guiding marketing campaigns and ensuring that messages are relevant, engaging, and persuasive to drive customer actions. By leveraging data at different steps of the campaign development process, we can create more effective marketing strategies and achieve better results.

Favourite campaign

11:54 So back in 2013, I was working on a campaign for PayPal called “Want It Get It”. At that time, PayPal was mostly known as the payment option for eBay. But we wanted to establish PayPal as a standalone brand that powered digital commerce beyond eBay. So we did a lot of market research to understand how consumers perceived PayPal and found that there was a perception that PayPal wasn’t widely accepted outside of eBay. Our strategy was threefold: reframe PayPal as a fun, dynamic, and relevant brand; associate PayPal with mobile technologies and mobile payments specifically; and build a flywheel of consumer acquisition outside of eBay. To achieve this, we had to convince the organization to invest in more than just digital media. We used brand data to tell a different story about the importance of awareness and consideration, not just conversion, in changing consumer perceptions.

We also formed brand partnerships with major retailers in the UK, such as Spotify and John Lewis, to associate PayPal with innovation and digital orientation. Additionally, we ran a complex geo test called TV, which is harder to do in the UK compared to the US, to prove the impact of broadcast media on customer acquisition and usage in specific geographic areas. The campaign was a success, and I’m proud of it because it changed the company’s global marketing philosophy and paved the way for integrated campaigns in other regions. It was a great example of how we used data to define the campaign strategy and demonstrate the ROI, which are critical aspects of marketing.

PR as a part of marketing mix  

17:46 So I have a philosophy of integrated marketing and PR, and partnerships are always a crucial part of that mix. I believe that partnerships are often underrepresented in campaign development for marketing, but I am a big believer in their effectiveness. What’s great is that we worked with 20 brands, so we actually went out with partnership statements with a lot of those brands, and also a lot of social activity to support that. So, again, we got a lot of extra reach and mileage by doing it not just on our own, but also with other brands as well. It is harder to measure, but I can. In my company, we use metrics such as the number of top-tier publications that publish an article about us. We also rank that against our competitors. We look at unique monthly visitors for the publications. But we also look at what I call ‘momentum,’ which is the frequency that we’re getting coverage because a lot of PR is about momentum. It’s about having a drumbeat of news, consistently giving journalists a reason to talk to us, and then they start reaching out to us as well. I think you can measure the success of PR based on both how much coverage you’re actually getting and how often journalists are reaching out to you for things like bylines and contributing to stories. It takes time, but I believe that it really drives results in terms of being able to measure impact and get access to relatively low-cost media.  

Metric to measure  

19:49 As a marketer, my main focus is on two key metrics: cost to acquire (CTA) or cost to acquire (CAC) versus customer lifetime value (CLV), and driving engagement and growth from existing customers. I believe marketing’s role is to acquire customers as cost-effectively as possible while also maximizing customer lifetime value. This involves closely monitoring CAC or CTA and CLV, which can be challenging to calculate and require consideration of contributing metrics and leading indicators. Additionally, I prioritize measuring the number of active customers using our product regularly and their satisfaction, as well as indicators of customer likelihood to churn, such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) and inactivity on our platform. Ultimately, my goal as a marketer is to not just drive revenue, but to do so in a cost-effective manner, making marketing a profit driver rather than just a cost driver.

A metric that I closely track is “net new actives,” which measures the number of customers acquired or reactivated minus the number that churned, while also considering product usage. This metric gives insight into how effectively marketing is driving customer usage and enjoyment of the product, which aligns with our overall goal of growing revenue.

My two cents  

23:05 As a marketer, I have three top tips: Don’t use averages if you want to be better than average. It’s tempting to look at the average value or profile of a customer because it’s simple, but customers are not average. To do great marketing, you need to go deeper and look at the ranges and segments, and have a story for each individual customer, not just the average. Understanding individual customer behavior and preferences can help tailor marketing strategies for better results.

Remember that marketing is an art and a science, not just a science or just an art. It’s the balance of creativity and data, the yin and yang, that makes marketing truly effective. While data is powerful and provides insights, emotions play a significant role in driving customer behavior. Even in B2B marketing, where decisions may seem more rational, emotions still influence decision-making. So, never underestimate the power of emotion in your marketing efforts.

Data is generally backward looking, while marketing is forward looking. While data is important for understanding past performance and trends, it’s not always reliable for predicting the future. Innovation and the desire to break patterns can disrupt past data patterns. As marketers, we need to learn from the past but also be open to new possibilities and opportunities in the future. To be a standout marketer, you need to take risks and do something that stands out from the crowd.