Podcasts about marketing operations

What's up folks, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Alison Albeck Lindland, CMO at Movable Ink.(00:00) - Intro (01:14) - In This Episode (03:10) - 1. Movable Ink's Platform Evolution (04:19) - 2. Alison's 3 Stage Journey at Movable Ink (05:08) - 3. Using Customer Relationships to Future Proof a Marketing Career (09:50) - 4. Building AI Literacy in Marketing Teams (16:17) - 5. How to Spot AI Literacy in Marketing Hires (21:35) - 6. Fostering AI Experimentation Across Your Team (25:43) - 7. AI Point Solutions vs Platforms (30:37) - 8. Align CMOs and Boards on Long Term Marketing Goals (33:37) - 9. How to Measure and Maximize the ROI of Video Podcasts (40:23) - 10. Building a Customer Strategy Team That Drives Enterprise Growth (49:36) - 11. How To Build Lasting Influence With B2B Buyers (55:49) - 12. Creating Energy and Balance as a CMO Summary: Alison believes marketing careers thrive when you stay close to the people who buy from you, and at Movable Ink she has built that into the culture with a customer strategy team, advisory boards, and events that create real connections customers carry into new roles. She applies the same thinking to AI, starting with shared tools and boundaries, then layering in structured experimentation and custom apps that live inside daily workflows. Alison hires people who tinker on their own time, keeps experimentation alive with weekly check‑ins and show‑and‑shares, and cuts projects that do not deliver, like ending a podcast to focus on high‑impact testimonial and “hero” videos. Through it all, she builds influence by aligning teams on one scorecard, sharing loyalty stories that prove long‑term value, and helping buyers see her platform as part of their personal playbook for success.About AlisonAlison is the Chief Marketing Officer at Movable Ink, leading global marketing, brand, strategy, and communications for the AI-powered personalization platform used by the world's top brands. In her 12+ years at Movable Ink, she's had three distinct phases: rising through customer success, founding the company's now-influential strategy team, and stepping into the CMO role nearly three years ago. That journey (across constant evolution and new challenges) has kept the work “never the same company for more than six months at a time,” and helped shape Movable Ink's role as a leader in enterprise personalization.Customer Relationships Can Future Proof a Marketing CareerAlison argues that the best way to future proof a marketing career is by knowing your customers as actual people rather than abstract data points. Marketers who thrive over time make it their job to understand what customers want, how they think, and why they buy. "You have to know them personally and pretty intimately," she says. "You've got to be constantly advocating for their perspective around the table." That kind of understanding does not happen in a spreadsheet. It happens in conversations, often unplanned ones, that give you unfiltered context about their challenges and priorities.She has turned this belief into a repeatable practice at Movable Ink. Her team builds ongoing contact with customers through multiple channels, including:Quarterly fireside chats with CMOs who share their challenges and ideas.A hybrid customer advisory board that rotates in staff members to observe and participate.Strategic placement of marketers at in-person events where they can form real connections.These interactions do more than collect feedback. They create a loop where customer input shapes campaigns, product positioning, and content. Alison credits these relationships with Movable Ink's staying power. Marketers who use their platform often bring it with them when they change roles or companies, expanding the brand's reach through personal advocacy."We spend a lot of time now trying to bring our team members in close contact with our customers in more than just a servicing capacity," Alison explains. "They need to develop personal relationships that inform the work they are doing, whether it is content marketing, events, or ABM."Alison also leans on product marketing as a partner in capturing deeper customer knowledge. She highlights win-loss interviews as especially valuable. Unlike survey data, these conversations expose what is working and where gaps exist with enough specificity to guide real change. Her team uses these discussions to refine strategy and make decisions with authority. Marketers who adopt this mindset do more than execute tactics. They become trusted voices in shaping what their company brings to market.Key takeaway: Build constant, meaningful contact with your customers. Use advisory boards, interviews, and live events to hear their unfiltered perspectives. Treat these conversations as fuel for your campaigns and strategies. When you consistently advocate for customers with authority, you position yourself as someone whose work will stay relevant no matter how the tools, titles, or industry trends shift.AI Literacy in Marketing: How to Build AI Literacy in Marketing TeamsAI literacy in marketing takes shape when organizations stop treating AI like a playground and start building a framework for real, coordinated adoption. Alison Albeck Lindland pushes for a model where alignment and enablement come before experimentation. “You need to make sure you're all singing from the same songbook,” she says. When teams skip that step, they end up with scattered projects, compliance headaches, and wasted time. A clear, shared framework turns AI from a set of personal experiments into an enterprise capability.This is why the updated Pyramid of AI Literacy begins with organizational alignment and standardized tooling at its base. These steps give teams a shared understanding of the company's AI strategy, ethical guidelines, and compliance boundaries, along with enterprise-grade tools that build institutional knowledge instead of one-off fiefdoms. Alison's point is direct: enterprise AI can only scale when everyone is using the same platforms and working from the same rulebook.“OpenAI is great, but we're using a tool that lets us build institutional muscle and share learnings across teams.”The middle of the pyramid focuses on practical proficiency, experimentation, and model literacy. Teams develop real competency with structured prompts and multi-model workflows. They also learn how large language models work and how AI connects to data, workflows, and machine learning systems. Experience does not come from a training course. It comes from giving teams space to test ideas, share lessons learned, and build the muscle memory to use AI effectively.At the top sits strategic leadership. This is where marketing leaders guide the organization with clear purpose, challenge hype, and embed AI into the company's growth strategy. At Movable Ink, this looks like dedicated business analysts building custom AI apps that plug into daily work, from a brand voice checker to a natural language search bot for surfacing industry-specific content. These tools live inside workflows, making AI part of the operating rhythm instead of a side project.Key takeaway: Use the pyramid as your blueprint for building AI literacy. Start by aligning the organization on strategy, ethics, and enterprise tools. Then train teams to get real value from AI through structured prompts, model literacy, and cross-functional experimentation. Finally, put strong leadership at the top to guide adoption with purpose. That way you can move AI from scattered experiments to a unified, scalable capability that drives ...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we talk with seasoned B2B marketing leader Pratibha Jain, who has spent nearly two decades driving demand, growth, and operational excellence across multiple industries. From cloud computing to HR tech, she's seen—and measured—it all. Together, they unpack how to bridge gaps between marketing, sales, and operations to deliver measurable business impact.Tune in to hear: Why alignment between Marketing Ops, RevOps, and Sales is critical—and how to actually achieve it.Which metrics matter for executives versus your internal marketing team (and why “vanity metrics” still have a place).How to build a unified data and reporting framework to eliminate finger-pointing and drive decision-making.Lessons in event marketing: from planning and execution to post-event follow-up that truly delivers ROI.Practical ways marketing teams can partner with ops to make account-based strategies more effective.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Visit UTM.io and tell them the Ops Cast team sent you. Join us at MOps-Apalooza: https://mopsapalooza.com/Save 10% with code opscast10Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we talk with Carissa McCall, Director of Revenue Operations at Liquibase, to tackle one of the most common challenges in marketing and revenue operations: how to balance strategic projects with the unrelenting pull of daily fires and ad hoc requests.Carissa shares a candid and insightful look into her approach to building a sustainable capacity model, prioritization frameworks, and time management practices that empower her lean RevOps team to stay focused, deliver impact, and avoid burnout.Tune in to learn:

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with István Mészáros, Founder and CEO of Mitzu.io. (00:00) - Intro (01:00) - In This Episode (03:39) - How Warehouse Native Analytics Works (06:54) - BI vs Analytics vs Measurement vs Attribution (09:26) - Merging Web and Product Analytics With a Zero-Copy Architecture (14:53) - Feature or New Category? What Warehouse Native Really Means For Marketers (23:23) - How Decoupling Storage and Compute Lowers Analytics Costs (29:11) - How Composable CDPs Work with Lean Data Teams (34:32) - How Seat-Based Pricing Works in Warehouse Native Analytics (40:00) - What a Data Warehouse Does That Your CRM Never Will (42:12) - How AI-Assisted SQL Generation Works Without Breaking Trust (50:55) - How Warehouse Native Analytics Works (52:58) - How To Navigate Founder Burnout While Raising Kids Summary: István built a warehouse-native analytics layer that lets teams define metrics once, query them directly, and skip the messy syncs across five tools trying to guess what “active user” means. Instead of fighting over numbers, teams walk through SQL together, clean up logic, and move faster. One customer dropped their bill from $500K to $1K just by switching to seat-based pricing. István shares how AI helps, but only if you still understand the data underneath. This conversation shows what happens when marketing, product, and data finally work off the same source without second-guessing every report.About IstvánIstvan is the Founder and CEO of Mitzu.io, a warehouse-native product analytics platform built for modern data stacks like Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Redshift, Athena, Postgres, Clickhouse, and Trino. Before launching Mitzu.io in 2023, he spent over a decade leading high-scale data engineering efforts at companies like Shapr3D and Skyscanner. At Shapr3D, he defined the long-term data strategy and built self-serve analytics infrastructure. At Skyscanner, he progressed from building backend systems serving millions of users to leading data engineering and analytics teams. Earlier in his career, he developed real-time diagnostic and control systems for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. How Warehouse Native Analytics WorksMarketing tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, and GA4 create their own versions of your customer. Each one captures data slightly differently, labels users in its own format, and forces you to guess how their identity stitching works. The warehouse-native model removes this overhead by putting all customer data into a central location before anything else happens. That means your data warehouse becomes the only source of truth, not just another system to reconcile.István explained the difference in blunt terms. “The data you're using is owned by you,” he said. That includes behavioral events, transactional logs, support tickets, email interactions, and product usage data. When everything lands in one place first (BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks) you get to define the logic. No more retrofitting vendor tools to work with messy exports or waiting for their UI to catch up with your question.In smaller teams, especially B2C startups, the benefits hit early. Without a shared warehouse, you get five tools trying to guess what an active user means. With a warehouse-native setup, you define that metric once and reuse it everywhere. You can query it in SQL, schedule your campaigns off it, and sync it with downstream tools like Customer.io or Braze. That way you can work faster, align across functions, and stop arguing about whose numbers are right.“You do most of the work in the warehouse for all the things you want to do in marketing,” István said. “That includes measurement, attribution, segmentation, everything starts from that central point.”Centralizing your stack also changes how your data team operates. Instead of reacting to reporting issues or chasing down inconsistent UTM strings, they build shared models the whole org can trust. Marketing ops gets reliable metrics, product teams get context, and leadership gets reports that actually match what customers are doing. Nobody wins when your attribution logic lives in a fragile dashboard that breaks every other week.Key takeaway: Warehouse native analytics gives you full control over customer data by letting you define core metrics once in your warehouse and reuse them everywhere else. That way you can avoid double-counting, reduce tool drift, and build a stable foundation that aligns marketing, product, and data teams. Store first, define once, activate wherever you want.BI vs Analytics vs Measurement vs AttributionBusiness intelligence means static dashboards. Not flexible. Not exploratory. Just there, like laminated truth. István described it as the place where the data expert's word becomes law. The dashboards are already built, the metrics are already defined, and any changes require a help ticket. BI exists to make sure everyone sees the same numbers, even if nobody knows exactly how they were calculated.Analytics lives one level below that, and it behaves very differently. It is messy, curious, and closer to the raw data. Analytics splits into two tracks: the version done by data professionals who build robust models with SQL and dbt, and the version done by non-technical teams poking around in self-serve tools. Those non-technical users rarely want to define warehouse logic from scratch. They want fast answers from big datasets without calling in reinforcements.“We used to call what we did self-service BI, because the word analytics didn't resonate,” István said. “But everyone was using it for product and marketing analytics. So we changed the copy.”The difference between analytics and BI has nothing to do with what the tool looks like. It has everything to do with who gets to use it and how. If only one person controls the dashboard, that is BI. If your whole team can dig into campaign performance, break down cohorts, and explore feature usage trends without waiting for data engineering, that is analytics. Attribution, ML, and forecasting live on top of both layers. They depend on the raw data underneath, and they are only useful if the definitions below them hold up.Language often lags behind how tools are actually used. István saw this firsthand. The product stayed the same, but the positioning changed. People used Mitzu for product analytics and marketing performance, so that became the headline. Not because it was a trend, but because that is what users were doing anyway.Key takeaway: BI centralizes truth through fixed dashboards, while analytics creates motion by giving more people access to raw data. When teams treat BI as the source of agreement and analytics as the source of discovery, they stop fighting over metrics and start asking better questions. That way you can maintain trusted dashboards for executive reporting and still empower teams to explore data without filing tickets or waiting days for answers.Merging Web and Product Analytics With a Zero-Copy ArchitectureMost teams trying to replace GA4 end up layering more tools onto the same mess. They drop in Amplitude or Mixpanel for product analytics, keep something else for marketing attribution, and sync everything into a CDP that now needs babysitting. Eventually, they start building one-off pipelines just to feed the same events into six different systems, all chasing slightly different answers to the same question.István sees this fragmentation as a byproduct of treating product and marketing analytics as separate functions. In categorie...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On todays episode, we down with Andy Caron, President of Revenue Pulse, to explore the unexpected intersections of curiosity, attribution, psychology, and the marketing operations profession. Andy shares her non-linear journey from costume design and publishing to marketing ops leadership, revealing how seemingly unrelated experiences laid the foundation for a successful career in MarTech and consulting.We unpack the role of curiosity and "hand-raisers" in MOPS success, debate the nuances and pitfalls of attribution modeling (with a detour through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and dive deep into how understanding human psychology enhances leadership and system architecture. They also explore the evolving influence of AI in marketing operations and what the future might hold for the AI-augmented MOPS professional.Tune in to hear: From Costumes to Campaigns: Andy's unique journey from theater and publishing to MOPS shows how creative roots and adaptability foster systems thinking and leadership in tech.Curiosity as a Superpower: Why the best MOPS professionals are tinkerers, willing to break things and raise their hands to figure it out.42 and Attribution: A humorous yet profound analogy between Douglas Adams' "42" and the complexities—and misinterpretations—of marketing attribution models.The Psychology of Ops: How studying human behavior helps bridge stakeholder needs, build better systems, and influence organizational dynamics.AI in MOPS: Insights into how AI is reshaping the profession, from task automation to agent orchestration—plus why being AI-activated (not replaced) is key to the future.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Visit UTM.io and tell them the Ops Cast team sent you. Join us at MOps-Apalooza: https://mopsapalooza.com/Save 10% with code opscast10Support the show

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Tiankai Feng, Data & AI Strategy Director at Thoughtworks and Author of Humanizing Data Strategy. (00:00) - Intro (01:06) - In This Episode (03:18) - How Data and Marketing Create a Symbiotic Relationship (06:00) - If Data Governance Is the Jedi Council, Marketing Ops Is the Rebel Alliance (08:26) - How to Organize Data Teams and Improve Marketing Collaboration (14:49) - Handling Healthy Data Conflicts Without Crushing Creativity (25:23) - How to Use Shadowing to Fix Broken Marketing Alignment (36:44) - The Comeback of Data Quality (43:20) - How Natural Language BI Tools Change Data Analyst Work (46:50) - How Composable Data Management Works in Marketing (53:30) - How to Use Authentic Communication to Build Influence in Marketing Ops (56:40) - Happiness Summary: Data governance feels like the Jedi Council, steady with its rules, while marketing ops moves like the Rebel Alliance, quick to adapt when perfect data never arrives. Tiankai believes progress comes from blending discipline with curiosity, bringing data in early as a partner, not a critic. He's seen teams thrive when they pick trade-offs upfront, document how everyone fits together, and take ownership of clean, reliable inputs instead of trusting AI to fix sloppy work later. Even the best tools still need humans to design the logic behind the scenes. When teams care about context and build real relationships, data becomes the backbone that keeps marketing strong under pressure.About TiankaiTiankai Feng is Director of Data & AI Strategy at Thoughtworks, where he leads global service offerings spanning data governance, AI strategy, and modernization initiatives. He is the author of Humanizing Data Strategy – Leading Data with the Head and the Heart, and serves on the Education Advisory Board at DataQG. Previously, Tiankai spent over six years at Adidas as Senior Director of Product Data Governance, shaping data practices across global teams. He is also Head of Marketing at DAMA Germany, helping grow the country's leading data management community. Earlier in his career, Tiankai worked as a senior consultant with TD Reply, advising major brands on digital strategy and performance. Recognized as a top data product thought leader, he is passionate about bridging the gap between technical excellence and human-centered data cultures.How Data and Marketing Create a Symbiotic RelationshipIt is interesting to consider how many data professionals started their careers by obsessing over why advertising can make people feel something. Tiankai shared that he studied campaigns as a kid and felt driven to decode the hidden mechanics behind each message. He called it the science behind the feeling. He wanted to understand why a phrase could trigger a decision and what evidence proved it actually worked.When he chose his degree, he blended marketing with database systems because he believed data could ground creative work in reality. He wanted a way to measure the effectiveness of ideas instead of relying on gut reactions. That decision led him into marketing analytics, where he learned to balance instinct with structured evidence. He described this period as the moment he first saw every click, conversion, and impression as a trail of signals pointing to what people valued most.Tiankai shared that many companies separate marketing from data in ways that weaken both. He believes that every creative idea grows stronger when it gets tested by proof. He said, “You have a lot of thoughts and gut feelings, but what if you could actually rely on proof to make better decisions?” He still asks this question whenever he evaluates a strategy or decides how to communicate the value of a data project.He also applies marketing principles inside his own teams. He treats internal projects like product launches and focuses on storytelling as much as reporting. He learned that evidence alone rarely convinces stakeholders. People respond when data feels relevant and easy to act on. He credits this mindset to his early work in brand campaigns, which taught him that information becomes meaningful when it connects to someone's goals and emotions.“By heart, I'm still a marketer,” he said. “Even now, I'm applying what I learned in marketing to convince stakeholders to work with me.”This blend of skills helps teams create strategies that people believe in and understand. When marketing and data share the same goals, campaigns feel both credible and inspiring.Key takeaway: Blending marketing analytics with creative thinking lets you challenge assumptions and build strategies that people trust. When you share data work, present it like a product launch. Frame the message in relatable stories, make the numbers clear, and show how the information supports better decisions. That way you can help teams act with confidence and prove the impact of their ideas.If Data Governance Is the Jedi Council, Marketing Ops Is the Rebel AllianceIt is interesting to consider how marketing teams keep borrowing Star Wars metaphors to make sense of the work. Tiankai described clean, governed data as the Jedi Council, the calm authority that brings order and discipline. He shared that marketing operations always felt more like the Rebel Alliance, a team of underdogs improvising bold plans and building strategies out of whatever they could find in the hangar.In those early years, nobody had a clear guidebook. Teams cobbled together workflows, tested ideas with half-finished data, and celebrated any dashboard that did not explode during a quarterly review. Tiankai remembered feeling like every small win was a victory against the Empire of bad processes. This scrappy environment fueled creativity, but it also came with plenty of late nights and occasional panic.Today, marketing ops feels more settled. > “There's more experience and more best practices to be shared,” he said. Teams now have detailed frameworks, polished documentation, and tools that mostly work the way they promise. That way you can spend less time guessing and more time refining campaigns that drive results. You can treat the Jedi Council as a helpful ally rather than an unreachable ideal.Tiankai still believes good operators keep a bit of rebel spirit. Even the best-governed data will sometimes contradict reality on the ground. When those moments happen, it helps to trust your instincts and build something that makes sense for your business, not just the standard playbook. The Jedi Council can provide discipline, but someone still has to step into the hangar and fly the mission.Marketing operations has grown up, but it never lost the urge to experiment. The work feels rewarding when you blend clear frameworks with your own curiosity and a willingness to bend the rules when the stakes demand it.Key takeaway: Data governance acts like a steady Jedi Council, giving your marketing operations clarity, trust, and a strong backbone. To get the most from it, combine those proven systems with the resourcefulness of a rebel team. Stay ready to challenge assumptions, tweak the plan, and follow your judgment when data alone does not tell the full story. That way you can build workflows that are disciplined enough to scale and flexible enough to handle reality without falling apart.How to Organize Data Teams and Improve Marketing CollaborationIt is interesting to consider how data ownership used to feel like an afterthought in early SaaS companies. Tiankai remembered scraping together metrics by hand, jumping between marketing dashboards and...

Mike Braund is the Senior  Director of Marketing Operations and Digital Marketing at Iterable, an AI-powered, multi-channel communications platform. He leads cross-channel orchestration efforts, overseeing Martech, account management, email, web, and analytics to drive pipeline growth and operational efficiency.  In this episode… Standing out in B2B SaaS marketing requires mastering more than just performance metrics and automation tools. With budgets tightening and the buyer's journey growing longer, how do leading marketers balance long-term brand building and short-term revenue generation? According to Mike Braund, a seasoned marketing leader with a deep background in operations and analytics, achieving that balance starts by connecting data with gut instincts. He highlights the importance of testing hypotheses quickly through iterative campaigns, using data to validate direction without stalling creative momentum. This blend ensures marketing efforts perform and resonate. Creative constraints can unlock innovation, especially when teams are empowered to move fast with limited resources. In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz sits down with Mike Braund, Senior Director of Marketing Operations and Digital Marketing at Iterable, to discuss how to align brand and performance marketing in B2B SaaS. They dive into the role of data-informed creativity, how team structure can enable efficiency, and the importance of full-funnel thinking. Mike also shares lessons from leading paid media and operations under one unified strategy.

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Guta Tolmasquim, CEO at Purple Metrics. Summary: Brand measurement often feels like a polite performance nobody fully believes, and Guta learned this firsthand moving from performance marketing spreadsheets to startup rebrands that showed clear sales bumps everyone could feel. She kept seeing blind spots, like a bank's soccer sponsorship that quietly cut churn or old LinkedIn pages driving conversions no one tracked. When she built Purple Metrics, she refused to pretend algorithms could explain everything, designing tools that encourage gradual shifts over sudden upheaval. She watched CMOs massage attribution settings to fit their instincts and knew real progress demanded something braver: smaller experiments, simpler language, and the courage to say, “We tried, we learned,” even when results stung. Her TikTok videos in Portuguese became proof that brand work can pay off fast if you track it honestly. If you're tired of clean stories masking messy reality, her perspective feels like a breath of fresh air.How Brand Measurement Connects to RevenueBrand measurement drifted away from commercial reality when marketers decided to chase every click and impression. Guta traced this pattern back to the 1970s when companies decided to separate branding and sales into distinct functions. Before that split, teams treated branding as a sales lever that directly supported revenue. The division created two camps that rarely spoke the same language. One camp focused on lavish creative campaigns, and the other became fixated on dashboards filled with shallow metrics.Guta started her career in performance marketing because she valued seeing every dollar accounted for. She described those years as productive but ultimately unsatisfying. She moved to big enterprises and spent nearly a decade trying to make brand lift reports feel credible in boardrooms. She eventually turned her focus to startups and noticed a clearer path. Startups often have budgets that force prioritization. They pick one initiative, implement it, and measure its direct impact on revenue without dozens of overlapping campaigns.“When you only have money to do one thing, it becomes obvious what's working,” Guta explained. “You almost get this A/B test without even planning for it.”That clarity shaped her view of brand measurement. She learned that disciplined isolation of variables makes results easier to trust. When a startup rebranded, sales moved in a way that confirmed the decision. The data was hard to ignore. Guta saw purchase volumes increase after brand updates, and she knew these signals were stronger than any generic awareness metric. The companies she worked with never relied on sentiment scores alone because they tracked actual transactions.Guta later built her own product to modernize brand research with a sharper focus on financial outcomes. She designed the system to map brand activities to revenue signals so marketing could prove its impact without resorting to vague reports. The product found traction because it respected the mindset of finance leaders and offered direct evidence that branding drives growth. Guta believed this connection was essential for any team that wants to secure resources and build trust across departments.Key takeaway: Brand measurement works best when you focus on one clear change at a time and track its impact on revenue without distractions. You can earn credibility with your finance partners by showing how brand decisions move purchase behavior in measurable ways. When you build discipline into measurement and align it with actual sales, you transform branding from a creative exercise into a proven growth lever.Examples Where Brand Investments Shifted Real Business OutcomesBrand investments often get treated as trophies that decorate a budget presentation. Guta shared a story that showed how sponsorships can drive specific business results when you track them properly. A Brazilian bank decided to sponsor a soccer championship. On the surface, the campaign looked like a glossy PR move. When Guta's team measured what they called “mindset metrics,” they found that soccer fans reported higher loyalty toward the bank. The data set off a chain reaction that forced everyone involved to reconsider how they viewed sponsorships.The bank pulled internal reports and discovered a clear pattern. Fans who followed the soccer sponsorship churned at much lower rates than other customers. Guta said the marketing team realized they were sitting on a revenue engine they never fully understood. They began to see sponsorship as a serious retention tool rather than a vanity spend. That shift did not happen automatically. Someone had to ask whether the big brand push was connected to any measurable outcomes, and then look carefully for the link between sentiment and behavior.Guta described another client who rebranded their product suite under one name. They planned to delete the old LinkedIn pages that showed the previous brand identities. The team assumed nobody cared about those pages because LinkedIn conversions looked low in standard reports. Guta's data proved otherwise. Those profiles accounted for more than 10% of conversions. Even though LinkedIn often buries links and limits reach, buyers visited those profiles before searching on Google and converting later.“Organic is a myth. It's just conversions you forgot to measure.”Guta said this with the calm certainty of someone who has studied enough attribution to see where the gaps live. She explained that once you recognize how long it takes for a sponsorship impression to spark a branded search or a sale, you change how you plan. You stop guessing about campaign timing. You start working backward from the conversion window. If you expect a surge in July, you begin your campaigns in May so your budget has time to mature into real conversions instead of wasted impressions.Key takeaway: Map the path between your brand investments and your conversions with concrete data instead of assumptions. Use mindset metrics to identify early loyalty signals, then confirm whether those signals correlate with retention and branded search. When you see exactly how long each channel takes to drive revenue, you can plan campaigns months in advance and protect your budget with evidence that proves your strategy is working.The Tangible Outcomes of Brand: Purchase Intent and Memory StructuresBranding often carries a reputation as a soft layer of sentiment layered on top of performance campaigns, but Guta shares that it operates through a more rigorous mechanism than most teams realize. Branding creates memory structures that store signals in a person's mind. When customers enter the market ready to buy, they retrieve those signals almost instantly. Their brains pull up familiar visuals, a sense of trust, or a specific promise that speeds up the choice. Guta has seen this happen repeatedly when people move straight from awareness to purchase without even visiting the company's website again.Guta describes the reality that many marketing teams get stuck in a single-track mindset. They keep trying to hammer home immediate behaviors without any effort to create longer-term recall. She shares that brands can think about their work in two tracks running side by side:One track plants attributes in memory so customers can recall the brand later.The other track activates specific behaviors like trying, subscribing, or purchasing.When companies only focus on activation, they may end up with viral content that does not translate into any buying behavior. Guta has watched teams measure short-term engagement while ignoring whether the campaign ...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we sit down with lead scoring consultant Lucas Winter to explore a refreshing, data-first perspective on building lead scoring models—one that challenges the conventional wisdom and AI hype alike. With storytelling flair and practical insights, Lucas discusses how marketers can uncover true buying intent and dramatically improve sales efficiency.Tune in to hear: "Moneyball" Meets Marketing Ops: Lucas applies the Moneyball philosophy to lead scoring—focusing on what actually drives conversions versus what sales or execs think looks good. It's about looking for patterns in customer behavior, not just traditional job titles or industries.AI's Limitations in Lead Scoring: While AI has promise, Lucas outlines how AI-driven models often misinterpret causation (e.g., recommending “retired” contacts) and require human oversight to avoid absurd conclusions.Gold, Silver, Bronze > Arbitrary Scores: Ditch complex scoring ranges like “0-100” and opt for intuitive models like “gold, silver, bronze, junk”—making it easier for sales teams to understand and adopt.Why Gmail Isn't Garbage: Contrary to common assumptions, personal email addresses like Gmail can indicate serious buyers—especially in early-stage startups. But to gain sales trust, these leads must “work harder” to earn high scores.Start Simple, Stay Iterative: Don't wait for perfect data or fall into “overreactive” model changes. Build a solid draft, validate with real outcomes, and evolve based on performance—not opinions.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Visit UTM.io and tell them the Ops Cast team sent you. Join us at MOps-Apalooza: https://mopsapalooza.com/Save 10% with code opscast10Support the show

Harmony Anderson didn't wait 90 days to make an impact at Superhuman — she launched a major campaign in her first five weeks. Harmony Anderson, Head of Marketing and Growth Product at Superhuman, breaks down why moving fast (and strategically) matters more than playing it safe, especially in high-growth startups. We dig into what it really takes to scale from $20M to $200M ARR, how to enter the enterprise market without abandoning your early adopters, and why traditional attribution models are falling behind in the age of AI and influencers. If you're navigating go-to-market pivots, building modern marketing infrastructure, or just trying to avoid another forgettable brand campaign — this episode is packed with insights. And congratulations to the Superhuman team for being acquired by Grammarly! Key Moments: 00:00 Harmony Anderson on Moving Upmarket and Scaling 01:35 Welcome to Marketing Trends 02:05 Harmony Anderson's Career Journey 08:33 Fast-Paced Marketing Strategies 13:20 Navigating the Dark Funnel 15:59 Balancing Brand and Attribution 16:47 The Role of Influencers in Modern Marketing 19:27 Positioning in the AI Market 24:41 Moving Up Market: Challenges and Strategies 35:06 Vision Setting and Company Evolution 36:11 Superhuman's Ambitious Roadmap 37:02 Unified Productivity and AI Integration 44:18 Scaling Operations for Rapid Growth 48:09 Innovative Tools and Harmony's Tech Stack 51:13 AI in Content Creation and Marketing 56:02 The Resurgence of Webinars 01:02:14 Superhuman for Startups Program Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org.

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Chris O'Neill, CEO at GrowthLoop. Summary: Chris explains how leading marketing teams are deploying swarms of AI agents to automate campaign workflows with speed and precision. By assigning agents to tasks like segmentation, testing, and feedback collection, marketers build fast-moving loops that adapt in real time. Chris also breaks down how reinforcement learning helps avoid a sea of sameness by letting campaigns evolve mid-flight based on live data. To support velocity without sacrificing control, top teams are running red team drills, assigning clear data ownership, and introducing internal AI regulation roles that manage risk while unlocking scale.The 2025 AI and Marketing Performance IndexThe 2025 AI and Marketing Performance Index that GrowthLoop put together is excellent, we're honored to have gotten our hands on it before it went live and getting to unpack that with Chris in this episode. The report answers timely questions a lot of teams are are wrestling with:Are top performers ahead of the AI curve or just focused on solid foundations? Are top performers focused on speed and quantity or does quality still win in a sea of sameness?We've chatted with plenty of folks that are betting on patience and polish. But GrowthLoop's data shows the opposite.

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we are joined by Janelle Amos, founder and chief strategist at Elevate Growth, to explore how demand generation and marketing/revenue operations teams can thrive through better collaboration, mutual understanding, and strategic alignment. With a rich background in revenue marketing, advising, and podcasting, Janelle brings powerful perspective and practical tips on fostering cross-functional trust, communication, and shared success.Tune in to hear:How top marketing ops teams stand out by aligning tactical work with broader business goals and communicating their value effectively.The power of curiosity and shadowing—why simply asking questions and observing other teams can drastically improve cross-functional rapport.Why trust is essential and how "disagree and commit" can move collaboration forward even when there's tension or differing opinions.Tips for building productive relationships, including when to use an internal advocate and how to handle difficult conversations with empathy and clarity.How leadership perception and initiative shape success, especially for newer hires aiming to establish credibility and connection.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Shoot us a Text.Episode #1086: Today we unpack Q2's early sales surge and late slip, celebrate CARFAX's workplace wins, and wonder about Chuck E. Cheese's nostalgic new venture for grown-ups.Show Notes with links:U.S. new-vehicle sales in Q2 were front-loaded, with consumers acting early to capitalize on incentives and avoid potential tariffs. The momentum faded by June, signaling possible headwinds ahead.Roughly 173,000 additional vehicles were sold in March and April, pushing the sales pace above 17 million SAAR.June sales fell 4.3% to 1.26 million units, with SAAR dipping to 15.65 million.GM posted a 7% gain in Q2, with trucks, crossovers, and EVs all showing growth, with EV sales more than doubling YoY.Tesla deliveries declined 13%, amid an aging product lineup and reputational challenges.Ford reported a 14% increase, supported by employee pricing programs and strong hybrid performance.“We blew the doors off the overall industry,” said Andrew Frick, Ford Blue and Model e President.CARFAX has once again earned recognition as one of the best places to work in the U.S., sweeping multiple national and regional Top Workplace awards for 2025.They were named a USA Today Top Workplace for the fourth year in a row and also honored by the Washington Post (11th time) and St. Louis Post-Dispatch (4th year).The awards are based on anonymous employee feedback regarding culture and practices.Carfax received additional recognition for leadership, benefits, flexibility, innovation, and values.“Being part of a team… committed to the same playbook, has made my experience… rewarding,” said Angela Coyle, Director of Marketing Operations.Also a special shoutout to our friends at the Rohrman Auto Group, who placed on the USA Today list for the first time ever.Chuck E. Cheese is growing up — literally. The company has launched "Chuck's Arcade," a new concept aimed at adult fans of retro gaming and childhood nostalgia.Chuck's Arcade features classics like Donkey Kong and Mortal Kombat alongside modern games like Halo.Locations include St. Louis, Tulsa, El Paso, and St. Petersburg, with 10 now open across U.S. malls.Each arcade features unique artwork and iconic animatronic mascots from the original brand.Some locations include pizzerias and limited beer/wine service.CEO David McKillips calls it a “natural evolution” to attract lifelong fans and a new generation.Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/ JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, hosts Michael Hartmann, Naomi Liu, and Mike Rizzo come together for a candid midyear conversation about everything happening in the MO Pros community and the broader Marketing Ops landscape. From membership model updates and upcoming events to fresh research and evolving roles, this chat covers a ton of ground. Whether you're a longtime member or just tuning in, this is your go-to catch-up on where things stand in 2025 and where we're headed.Tune in to hear: Membership Model Shift: Slack access is now a Pro-member benefit—hear the reasoning behind the change and how it's designed to foster trust, safety, and meaningful engagement.MOps Events Update: MOps-Apalooza 2025 is coming in hot—get the dates, location (hello, Anaheim!), and behind-the-scenes insights into the planning chaos (including a $350K food & beverage minimum?!).New Research Drops: The team discusses the new State of Data-Driven Decision Making report, covering data quality, analytics gaps, and organizational maturity.Expanding Roles in MOps: Naomi shares how her role has grown to include BDR teams and sales enablement, highlighting the real-world impact of cross-functional ops leadership.Coming Soon: Cohorts & Community Building: A sneak peek at new initiatives to match members based on roles and responsibilities—connecting peers in meaningful ways.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Rajeev Nair, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Lifesight. Summary: Rajeev believes measurement only works when it's unified or multi-modal, a stack that blends multi-touch attribution, incrementality, media mix modeling and causal AI, each used for the decision it fits. At Lifesight, that means using causal machine learning to surface hidden experiments in messy historical data and designing geo tests that reveal what actually drives lift. Attribution alone can't tell you what changed outcomes. Rajeev's team moved past dashboards and built a system that focuses on clarity, not correlation. Attribution handles daily tweaks. MMM guides long-term planning. Experiments validate what's real. Each tool plays a role, but none can stand alone.About RajeevRajeev Nair is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Lifesight, where he's spent the last several years shaping how modern marketers measure impact. Before that, he led product at Moda and served as a business intelligence analyst at Ebizu. He began his career as a technical business analyst at Infosys, building a foundation in data and systems thinking that still drives his work today.Digital Astrology and the Attribution IllusionLifesight started by building traditional attribution tools focused on tracking user journeys and distributing credit across touchpoints using ID graphs. The goal was to help brands understand which interactions influenced conversions. But Rajeev and his team quickly realized that attribution alone didn't answer the core question their customers kept asking: what actually drove incremental revenue? In response, they shifted gears around 2019, moving toward incrementality testing. They began with exposed versus synthetic control groups, then evolved to more scalable, identity-agnostic methods like geo testing. This pivot marked a fundamental change in their product philosophy; from mapping behavior to measuring causal impact.Rajeeve shares his thoughts on multi-touch attribution and the evolution of the space.The Dilution of The Term AttributionAttribution has been hijacked by tracking. Rajeev points straight at the rot. What used to be a way to understand which actions actually led to a customer buying something has become little more than a digital breadcrumb trail. Marketers keep calling it attribution, but what they're really doing is surveillance. They're collecting events and assigning credit based on who touched what ad and when, even if none of it actually changed the buyer's mind.The biggest failure here is causality. Rajeev is clear about this. Attribution is supposed to tell you what caused an outcome. Not what appeared next to it. Not what someone happened to click on right before. Actual cause and effect. Instead, we get dashboards full of correlation dressed up as insight. You might see a spike in conversions and assume it was the retargeting campaign, but you're building castles on sand if you can't prove causality.Then comes the complexity problem. Today's marketing stack is a jungle. You have:Paid ads across five different platformsOrganic contentDiscountsSeasonal shiftsPricing changesProduct updatesAll these things impact results, but most attribution models treat them like isolated variables. They don't ask, “What moved the needle more than it would've moved otherwise?” They ask, “Who touched the user last before they bought?” That's not measurement. That's astrology for marketers.“Attribution, in today's marketing context, has just come to mean tracking. The word itself has been diluted.”Multi-touch attribution doesn't save you either. It distributes credit differently, but it's still built on flawed data and weak assumptions. If you're measuring everything and understanding nothing, you're just spending more money to stay confused. Real marketing optimization requires incrementality analysis, not just a prettier funnel chart.To Measure What Caused a Sale, You Need ExperimentsEven with perfect data, attribution keeps lying. Rajeev learned that the hard way. His team chased the attribution grail by building identity graphs so detailed they could probably tell you what toothpaste a customer used. They stitched together first-party and third-party data, mapped the full user journey, and connected every touchpoint from TikTok to in-store checkout. Then they ran the numbers. What came back wasn't insight. It was statistical noise.Every marketing team that has sunk months into journey mapping has hit the same wall. At the bottom of the funnel, conversion paths light up like a Christmas tree. Retargeting ads, last-clicked emails, discount codes, they all scream high correlation with purchase. The logic feels airtight until you realize it's just recency bias with a data export. These touchpoints show up because they're close to conversion. That doesn't mean they caused it.“Causality is essentially correlation plus bias. Can we somehow manage the bias so that we could interpret the observed correlation as causality?”What Rajeev means is that while correlation on its own proves nothing, it's still the starting point. You need correlation to even guess at a causal link, but then you have to strip out all the bias (timing, selection, confounding variables) before you can claim anything actually drove the outcome. It's a messy process, and attribution data alone doesn't get you there.That's the puzzle. You can't infer real marketing effectiveness just from journey data. You can't say the billboard drove walk-ins if everyone had to walk past it to enter the store. You can't say coupons created conversions if they were handed out after someone had already walked in. Attribution doesn't answer those questions. It only tells you what happened. It doesn't explain why it happened.To measure causality, you need experiments. Rajeev gives it straight: run controlled tests. Put a billboard at one store, skip it at another. Offer discounts to some, hold them back from others. Then compare outcomes. Only when you hold a variable constant and see lift can you say something worked. Attribution on its own is just a correlation engine. And correlation, without real-world intervention, tells you absolutely nothing useful.Key takeaway: Attribution data without controlled testing isn't useful. If you want to know what drives results, design experiments. Stop treating customer journeys like gospel. Use journey data as a starting point, then isolate variables and measure actual lift. That way you can make real decisions instead of retroactively rationalizing whatever got funded last quarter.The Limitations of Incrementality Tests and How Quasi-Experiments Can HelpMost teams think they're being scientific when they run an incrementality test. But the truth is, these tests are fragile. Geo tests are high-effort and easy to mess up. Quasi experiments are directional at best and misleading at worst. If you're not careful with design, timing, and interpretation, you'll end up with results that look rigorous… but aren't.Why Most Teams Get Geo Testing Completely WrongGeo testing gets romanticized as this high-integrity measurement method, but most teams treat it like a side quest. They run it once, complain it was expensive, then go back to attribution dashboards because they're easier to screenshot in a slide deck. The truth is, geo testing takes guts. It means pulling spend from regions that bring in real revenue. That's not a simulation. It's a real-world test with real-world consequences.Rajeev breaks it down with...

Running a B2B webinar can feel like walking a tightrope. It's a balancing act between providing valuable content with handling tech issues with keeping your audience engaged. Plus, you have to promote it, get people to sign up in the first place, and repurpose it.In part five of our B2B webinar miniseries, Amy Woods, CEO & Founder, and Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, tackle the FAQs that we get asked related to webinars.This episode is packed with useful advice to help you tackle your next B2B webinar with confidence and help you navigate common challenges.Find out:What to do when the tech fails mid-webinar, and why those moments can actually help build connectionHow to troubleshoot low registration numbersProven strategies to keep your audience actively engaged throughout your webinarThe best ways to convert webinar attendees into leads or customers after the session endsWhen to gate your webinar content vs. make it freely accessible for maximum reachImportant links & mentions:Download the B2B Webinar Planning Playbook: https://www.content10x.com/webinar-guide/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Hayley on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayleyevans888/Content 10x: https://www.content10x.com/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations.She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Join Dr. Huntley as she sits down with Katy Keene, founder of Keene Lane Co. and one of the first Canva Agency Partners in the U.S., to explore the true meaning of marketing operations and how tools like Canva can empower entrepreneurs and organizations in public health. Katy shares insights on aligning people, processes, and technology for effective marketing, and offers practical tips for leveraging accessible tech to streamline workflows, boost creativity, and scale your impact—proving that marketing is much more than just creating pretty visuals.   Resources ▶️ Website https://PublicHealthEntrepreneurs.com ▶️ Grab your copy of: Top 10 Tips For Finding Clients ▶️ Grab your copy of: Top 10 Tips For Getting Started ▶️ Submit a question you'd like us to answer on this podcast here. ▶️ Learn more about the Public Health Entrepreneurs Mastermind group program here.  

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Hope Barrett, Sr Director of Product Management, Martech at SoundCloud. Summary: In twelve weeks, Hope led a full messaging stack rebuild with just three people. They cut 200 legacy campaigns down to what mattered, partnered with MoEngage for execution, and shifted messaging into the product org. Now, SoundCloud ships notifications like features that are part of a core product. Governance is clean, data runs through BigQuery, and audiences sync everywhere. The migration was wild and fast, but incredibly meticulous and the ultimate gain was making the whole system make sense again.About HopeHope Barrett has spent the last two decades building the machinery that makes modern marketing work, long before most companies even had names for the roles she was defining. As Senior Director of Product Management for Martech at SoundCloud, she leads the overhaul of their martech stack, making every tool in the chain pull its weight toward growth. She directs both the performance marketing and marketing analytics teams, ensuring the data is not just collected but used with precision to attract fans and artists at the right cost.Before SoundCloud, she spent over six years at CNN scaling their newsletter program into a real asset, not just a vanity list. She laid the groundwork for data governance, built SEO strategies that actually stuck, and made sure editorial, ad sales, and business development all had the same map of who their readers were. Her career also includes time in consulting, digital analytics agencies, and leadership roles at companies like AT&T, Patch, and McMaster-Carr. Across all of them, she has combined technical fluency with sharp business instincts.SoundCloud's Big Messaging Platform Migration and What it Taught Them About Future-Proofing Martech: Diagnosing Broken Martech Starts With Asking Better QuestionsHope stepped into SoundCloud expecting to answer a tactical question: what could replace Nielsen's multi-touch attribution? That was the assignment. Attribution was being deprecated. Pick something better. What she found was a tangle of infrastructure issues that had very little to do with attribution and everything to do with operational blind spots. Messages were going out, campaigns were triggering, but no one could say how many or to whom with any confidence. The data looked complete until you tried to use it for decision-making.The core problem wasn't a single tool. It was a decade of deferred maintenance. The customer engagement platform dated back to 2016. It had been implemented when the vendor's roadmap was still theoretical, so SoundCloud had built their own infrastructure around it. That included external frequency caps, one-off delivery logic, and measurement layers that sat outside the platform. The platform said it sent X messages, but downstream systems had other opinions. Hope quickly saw the pattern: legacy tooling buried under compensatory systems no one wanted to admit existed.That initial audit kicked off a full system teardown. The MMP wasn't viable anymore. Google Analytics was still on Universal. Even the question that brought her in—how to replace MTA—had no great answer. Every path forward required removing layers of guesswork that had been quietly accepted as normal. It was less about choosing new tools and more about restoring the ability to ask direct questions and get direct answers. How many users received a message? What triggered it? Did we actually measure impact or just guess at attribution?“I came in to answer one question and left rebuilding half the stack. You start with attribution and suddenly you're gut-checking everything else.”Hope had done this before. At CNN, she had run full vendor evaluations, owned platform migrations, and managed post-rollout adoption. She knew what bloated systems looked like. She also knew they never fix themselves. Every extra workaround comes with a quiet cost: more dependencies, more tribal knowledge, more reasons to avoid change. Once the platforms can't deliver reliable numbers and every fix depends on asking someone who left last year, you're past the point of iteration. You're in rebuild territory.Key takeaway: If your team can't trace where a number comes from, the stack isn't helping you operate. It's hiding decisions behind legacy duct tape. Fixing that starts with hard questions. Ask what systems your data passes through, which rules live outside the platform, and how long it's been since anyone challenged the architecture. Clarity doesn't come from adding more tools. It comes from stripping complexity until the answers make sense again.Why Legacy Messaging Platforms Quietly Break Your Customer ExperienceHope realized SoundCloud's customer messaging setup was broken the moment she couldn't get a straight answer to a basic question: how many messages had been sent? The platform could produce a number, but it was useless. Too many things happened after delivery. Support infrastructure kicked in. Frequency caps filtered volume. Campaign logic lived outside the actual platform. There was no single system of record. The tools looked functional, but trust had already eroded.The core problem came from decisions made years earlier. The customer engagement platform had been implemented in 2016 when the vendor was still early in its lifecycle. At the time, core features didn't exist, so SoundCloud built their own solutions around it. Frequency management, segmentation logic, even delivery throttling ran outside the tool. These weren't integrations. They were crutches. And they turned what should have been a centralized system into a loosely coupled set of scripts, API calls, and legacy logic that no one wanted to touch.Hope had seen this pattern before. At CNN, she dealt with similar issues and recognized the symptoms immediately. Legacy platforms tend to create debt you don't notice until you start asking precise questions. Things work, but only because internal teams built workarounds that silently age out of relevance. Tech stacks like that don't fail loudly. They fail in fragments. One missing field, one skipped frequency cap, one number that doesn't reconcile across tools. By the time it's clear something's wrong, the actual root cause is buried under six years of operational shortcuts.“The platform gave me a number, but it wasn't the real number. Everything important was happening outside of it.”Hope's philosophy around messaging is shaped by how she defines partnership. She prefers vendors who act like partners, not ticket responders. Partners should care about long-term success, not just contract renewals. But partnership also means using the tool as intended. When the platform is bent around missing features, the relationship becomes strained. Every workaround is a vote of no confidence in the roadmap. Eventually, you're not just managing campaigns. You're managing risk.Key takeaway: If your customer messaging platform can't report true delivery volume because critical logic happens outside of it, you're already in rebuild territory. Don't wait for a total failure. Audit where key rules live. Centralize what matters. And only invest in tools where out-of-the-box features can support your real-world use cases. That way you can grow without outsourcing half your stack to workaround scripts and tribal knowledge.Why Custom Martech Builds Quietly Punish You LaterThe worst part of SoundCloud's legacy stack wasn't the duct-taped infrastructure. It was how long it took to admit it had become a problem. The platform had been in place since 2016, back when the vendor was still figuring out core features. Instead of switching, SoundCloud stayed locked in ...

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Joshua Kanter, Co-Founder & Chief Data & Analytics Officer at ConvertML. Summary: Joshua spent the earliest parts of his career buried in SQL, only to watch companies hand out dashboards and call it strategy. Teams skim charts to confirm hunches while ignoring what the data actually says. He believes access means nothing without translation. You need people who can turn vague business prompts into clear, interpretable answers. He built ConvertML to guide those decisions. GenAI only raises the stakes. Without structure and fluency, it becomes easier to sound confident and still be completely wrong. That risk scales fast.About JoshuaJoshua started in data analytics at First Manhattan Consulting, then co-founded two ventures; Mindswift, focused on marketing experimentation, and Novantas, a consulting firm for financial services. From there, he rose to Associate Principal at McKinsey, where he helped companies make real decisions with messy data and imperfect information. Then he crossed into operating roles, leading marketing at Caesars Entertainment as SVP of Marketing, where budgets were wild.After Caesars, he became a 3-time CMO (basically 4-time); at PetSmart, International Cruise & Excursions, and Encora. Each time walking into a different industry with new problems. He now co-leads ConvertML, where he's focused on making machine learning and measurement actually usable for the people in the trenches.Data Democratization Is Breaking More Than It's FixingData democratization has become one of those phrases people repeat without thinking. It shows up in mission statements and vendor decks, pitched like some moral imperative. Give everyone access to data, the story goes, and decision-making will become magically enlightened. But Joshua has seen what actually happens when this ideal collides with reality: chaos, confusion, and a lot of people confidently misreading the same spreadsheet in five different ways.Joshua isn't your typical out of the weeds CMO, he's lived in the guts of enterprise data for 25 years. His first job out of college was grinding SQL for 16 hours a day. He's been inside consulting rooms, behind marketing dashboards, and at the head of data science teams. Over and over, he's seen the same pattern: leaders throwing raw dashboards at people who have no training in how to interpret them, then wondering why decisions keep going sideways.There are several unspoken assumptions built into the data democratization pitch. People assume the data is clean. That it's structured in a meaningful way. That it answers the right questions. Most importantly, they assume people can actually read it. Not just glance at a chart and nod along, but dig into the nuance, understand the context, question what's missing, and resist the temptation to cherry-pick for whatever narrative they already had in mind.“People bring their own hypotheses and they're just looking for the data to confirm what they already believe.”Joshua has watched this play out inside Fortune 500 boardrooms and small startup teams alike. People interpret the same report with totally different takeaways. Sometimes they miss what's obvious. Other times they read too far into something that doesn't mean anything. They rarely stop to ask what data is not present or whether it even makes sense to draw a conclusion at all.Giving everyone access to data is great and all… but only works when people have the skills to use it responsibly. That means more than teaching Excel shortcut keys. It requires real investment in data literacy, mentorship from technical leads, and repeated, structured practice. Otherwise, what you end up with is a very expensive system that quietly fuels bias and bad decisions and just work for the sake of work.Key takeaway: Widespread access to dashboards does not make your company data-informed. People need to know how to interpret what they see, challenge their assumptions, and recognize when data is incomplete or misleading. Before scaling access, invest in skills. Make data literacy a requirement. That way you can prevent costly misreads and costly data-driven decision-making.How Confirmation Bias Corrupts Marketing Decisions at ScaleExecutives love to say they are “data-driven.” What they usually mean is “data-selective.” Joshua has seen the same story on repeat. Someone asks for a report. They already have an answer in mind. They skim the results, cherry-pick what supports their view, and ignore everything else. It is not just sloppy thinking. It's organizational malpractice that scales fast when left unchecked.To prevent that, someone needs to sit between business questions and raw data. Joshua calls for trained data translators; people who know how to turn vague executive prompts into structured queries. These translators understand the data architecture, the metrics that matter, and the business logic beneath the request. They return with a real answer, not just a number in bold font, but a sentence that says: “Here's what we found. Here's what the data does not cover. Here's the confidence range. Here's the nuance.”“You want someone who can say, ‘The data supports this conclusion, but only under these conditions.' That's what makes the difference.”Joshua has dealt with both extremes. There are instinct-heavy leaders who just want validation. There are also data purists who cannot move until the spreadsheet glows with statistical significance. At a $7 billion retailer, he once saw a merchandising exec demand 9,000 survey responses; just so he could slice and dice every subgroup imaginable later. That was not rigor. It was decision paralysis wearing a lab coat.The answer is to build maturity around data use. That means investing in operators who can navigate ambiguity, reason through incomplete information, and explain caveats clearly. Data has power, but only when paired with skill. You need fluency, not dashboards. You need interpretation and above all, you need to train teams to ask better questions before they start fishing for answers.Key takeaway: Every marketing org needs a data translation layer; real humans who understand the business problem, the structure of the data, and how to bridge the two with integrity. That way you can protect against confirmation bias, bring discipline to decision-making, and stop wasting time on reports that just echo someone's hunch. Build that capability into your operations. It is the only way to scale sound judgment.You're Thinking About Statistical Significance Completely WrongToo many marketers treat statistical significance like a ritual. Hit the 95 percent confidence threshold and it's seen as divine truth. Miss it, and the whole test gets tossed in the trash. Joshua has zero patience for that kind of checkbox math. It turns experimentation into a binary trap, where nuance gets crushed under false certainty and anything under 0.05 is labeled a failure. That mindset is lazy, expensive, and wildly limiting.95% statistical significance does not mean your result matters. It just means your result is probably not random, assuming your test is designed well and your assumptions hold up. Even then, you can be wrong 1 out of every 20 times, which no one seems to talk about in those Monday growth meetings. Joshua's real concern is how this thinking cuts off all the good stuff that lives in the grey zone; tests that come in at 90 percent confidence, show a consistent directional lift, and still get ignored because someone only trusts green checkmarks.“People believe that if it doesn't hit statistical significance, the result isn't meaningful. That's false. And danger...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we talk with Ahmad Moore, founder of Pressure Marketing, to unpack his unconventional but deeply inspiring journey into marketing operations. From IT help desk roots to sales leadership and now running his own MOps-focused agency, Ahad shares how leaning into empathy, technical curiosity, and a hunger for alignment helped shape his path.✨ Tune in to hear:Why marketing ops is “IT with better branding” — and why that mattersThe underrated power of listening deeply and building an “empathy engine”How cross-functional experience in sales, strategy, and support creates a sharper MOps perspectiveLessons learned from building systems under pressure (literally and figuratively)How Ahad is using AI and HubSpot to scale smarter, not harderEpisode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

A well-planned webinar is just the beginning — what you do with that content afterwards can make all the difference.In this episode, Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, joins host Amy Woods in the fourth installment of our webinar miniseries. They explore how to repurpose webinar content into new formats that work across the marketing funnel – from quick-win video clips and blogs to longer-term strategies that help you get more from every minute of your webinar.Find out:Why repurposing starts with how you plan and run the webinarThe best types of content to create from a webinar recordingHow to match repurposed content with different stages of the funnelTips for making your repurposing process more efficientWhy repurposed content can extend your reach and resultsImportant links & mentions:The B2B Webinar Planning Playbook https://www.content10x.com/webinar-guide/Marketing Webinars: The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Promoting & Repurposing B2B Webinars to Drive Growth https://www.content10x.com/webinars-ultimate-guide/B2B Content Strategist Podcast https://www.content10x.com/b2b-content-strategist/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, Mike Rizzo talks with Martin Pietrzak, founder and president of Pinch Marketing, to unpack what Google and others have called “the messy middle” of today's buyer's journey.Gone are the days of the simple, linear sales funnel. Instead, buyers loop through endless cycles of exploration, evaluation, and self-education before they ever talk to sales — if they do at all. Martin shares how marketing ops pros can embrace this new reality by becoming strategic partners who help build flexible data-driven systems that enable real-time insights, better attribution, and scalable growth.You'll hear:Why the messy middle exists — and how buyers' behavior has changed forever.How technology, data, and AI are reshaping go-to-market architecture.The critical role marketing ops plays as the “marketing scientist” in modern organizations.Practical steps to capture buyer signals and turn them into actionable insights.Why marketing ops leaders must think like product managers to architect the GTM stack.Whether you're building your ops career or leading teams through complex martech stacks, this episode is packed with insights you can apply right away.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In today's episode,  we talk with Irwin Hipsman, founder of Repititos, to explore the often-overlooked world of customer marketing and the critical role of customer contact data. Irwin shares findings from his recent research report on the state of customer contact databases, revealing why so many organizations struggle with poor data quality and how it impacts customer communications, renewals, and crisis response.Together, they dive into:The definition of customer contact databases and why focusing on individuals—not accounts—is crucial.Key findings from Irwin's research, including an industry-average database health score of just 47%.The importance of cross-functional teams in maintaining healthy customer data.Actionable steps ops professionals can take to assess, clean, and maintain customer data health.Why better customer data translates directly into stronger customer relationships, higher retention, and better crisis management.Whether you're in marketing ops, customer marketing, or revenue operations, this conversation offers practical insights that can help transform your organization's approach to customer data management.Access the customer health score assessment here.Access Irwin's report here.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Promotion doesn't stop once the webinar begins, and follow-up is just as important.In part three of our miniseries all about B2B webinars, Amy Woods and Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, run through the full promotion cycle: before, during, and after. They share practical advice on how to get your webinar in front of the right people, keep them engaged, and follow up in a way that adds value and keeps the conversation going.It's a full-funnel approach to getting more from every webinar you run.Find out:What goes into a solid webinar promotion plan across channelsWhy your title and messaging matter more than you might thinkHow to work with guests, partners, and your own team to widen reachWhat to include in your follow-up for attendees and no-showsHow to use feedback and post-event engagement to inform future webinarsImportant links & mentions:The B2B Webinar Planning Playbook https://www.content10x.com/webinar-guide/Marketing Webinars: The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Promoting & Repurposing B2B Webinars to Drive Growth https://www.content10x.com/webinars-ultimate-guide/B2B Content Strategist Podcast https://www.content10x.com/b2b-content-strategist/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On todays episode, we talk with Rick Collins, Vice President of Demand Generation at ConnectWise, to explore his unconventional yet inspiring journey from IT to marketing operations and ultimately into executive marketing leadership. Rick shares how he transitioned from managing systems to driving demand, the pivotal career moments that shaped his path, and the leadership lessons he's learned along the way. Whether you're early in your marketing ops career or looking to break into leadership, this conversation is packed with valuable takeaways on navigating transitions, building trust, and expanding your influence.Tune in to hear:Rick's unique career path from IT and QA into marketing operations and eventually to a VP role in demand generation.How to leverage technical and relational skills to create career mobility within marketing.The importance of curiosity, relationship-building, and challenging assumptions—internally and externally—for leadership growth.Insights into managing through organizational change, including private equity acquisitions and team restructuring.Tips on transitioning from managing ICs to managing other managers, including the importance of communication, presentation skills, and executive alignment.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Brain Hurt Scale = 3/10. Explore all the pros, cons of in-housing your marketing team vs outsourcing to an agency. Packed with real life examples this discussion is suitable for anyone and everyone in the industry. Including senior non-marketing executives who approve/fund the function through to the most green, juniors. We talk with in-housing consultant Chris Maxwell from Lution. Going deep into the topic - pulling countless examples from both his and John's personal experience across hundreds of firms and thousands of campaigns. You'll learn lots including:The advantages of agenciesAdvantages of in-housingWhy hybrid is increasingly becoming the norm and what that looks likeWhich parts are best kept internal vs outsourcedWhat trends are important to heed so we can all make better career decisionsAnd all the pitfalls we need to be aware ofFull episode 15 season 5 of the Champagne Strategy podcast.So you could continue shifting everything to an external agency....or.....Wake up and embrace the future of AI-disrupted marketing operations. Future-proofing your skill set and approach. The choice is yours.

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!The rise of AI tools has dramatically changed the landscape of email marketing and sales outreach, creating both exciting opportunities and significant risks. As Mustafa Saeed, co-founder and CEO of Luella, explains in this eye-opening conversation, many revenue teams are now "scared shitless" about how their reps might abuse these powerful new technologies.When AI-powered automation tools are implemented without proper guardrails, organizations face serious threats to their brand reputation, domain health, and even compliance standing. The problem isn't AI itself, but rather "AI coupled with reckless automation" that floods inboxes with content that lacks genuine value. As email service providers like Google and Microsoft respond with increasingly aggressive spam filters, even legitimate messages from trusted senders are getting caught in the crossfire.The solution isn't abandoning AI but reimagining how we use it. While many AI tools promise to remove humans from the loop, Saeed argues for bringing them back in through thoughtful collaboration between humans and AI agents. This approach combines the best of both worlds—AI's ability to analyze vast datasets and humans' talent for building authentic relationships.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

A successful webinar starts with a smart plan.In part two of our webinars miniseries, Amy Woods is joined again by Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, to share how B2B marketers can plan webinars that deliver real value – and set the stage for repurposing afterwards. They cover everything from choosing a topic and format, to picking the right platform and setting goals that align with your wider content strategy. It's all about being clear on what your audience wants, and building from there.Find out:How to set clear goals and pick a strong topic your audience will care aboutWhat to think about when choosing a format and platformWhy good structure and flow matters just as much as the contentHow to keep your audience engaged during the webinarWhat to plan ahead of time to make things easier on the dayImportant links & mentions:The B2B Webinar Planning Playbook https://www.content10x.com/webinar-guide/Marketing Webinars: The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Promoting & Repurposing B2B Webinars to Drive Growth https://www.content10x.com/webinars-ultimate-guide/B2B Content Strategist Podcast https://www.content10x.com/b2b-content-strategist/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Ever wondered why your marketing data isn't delivering the insights you need? The answer lies in what Nicole Alvarez calls "the ugly work" – those essential but unglamorous tasks that create the foundation for beautiful marketing results.In today's episode, Nicole, a Solutions Architect at ClearPivot with a fascinating background in psychology and cognitive science, explains why field audits, permission sets, and process documentation deserve more attention. Drawing from her experience across multiple industries, she reveals how these behind-the-scenes elements enable the exciting, visible outcomes that marketing teams celebrate.We explore a powerful technique for demonstrating the value of data cleanup – building reports with bad data to show stakeholders why investment in data quality matters. When executives see inaccurate reports that don't reflect business reality, they better understand why dedicating resources to "boring" operational work is essential. Whether you're struggling to maintain clean data, communicate the value of operations work to executives, or simply looking to improve your marketing systems, this episode offers practical wisdom from seasoned professionals. Subscribe to OpsCast for more insights on the critical work that happens behind the scenes in successful marketing operations.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Webinars have been a favorite format in B2B content marketing for years – but why do they work so well?In the first episode of our webinars miniseries, host Amy Woods is joined by Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, to explore the benefits of webinars from both a strategic and practical point of view. Together, they break down seven clear reasons why webinars are still such an effective format for lead generation, relationship building, and content creation.Find out:Why webinars are great for lead generation and audience engagementHow they build trust and support thought leadershipWhy they're perfect for repurposing into lots of other contentThe benefits of webinars compared to in-person eventsWhat kind of data and insights they offer to help improve future contentImportant links & mentions:The B2B Webinar Planning Playbook https://www.content10x.com/webinar-guide/The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Promoting & Repurposing Webinars to Fuel Your Entire Content Strategy https://www.content10x.com/webinars-ultimate-guide/Expert Interviews Miniseries https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVwaHzx-z4d5RjYsCkPsQb2CrmIRTauIL&feature=shared/The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Recording & Repurposing Expert Interviews to Fuel Your Entire Content Strategy https://www.content10x.com/expert-interviews-ultimate-guide/The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/interview-guide/B2B Content Strategist Podcast https://www.content10x.com/b2b-content-strategist/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Forrester B2B Summit 2025 marketplace floor, Matt spoke with Lauren Daley, Director, Marketing Operations, and Jeremy Schwartz, Sr. Manager, Global Lead Management & Strategy at Palo Alto Networks. Don't miss an episode! Subscribe to Sales Pipeline Radio or tune in live Thursdays at 11:30 PT | 12:30 MT | 1:30 CT | 2:30 ET on LinkedIn (also available on demand). In just 20 fast-paced minutes, host Matt interviews the brightest minds in sales and marketing, delivering actionable advice, best practices, and insights for B2B sales and marketing professionals. Sales Pipeline Radio was recently recognized as one of the 25 Best Sales Management Podcasts and Top 60 Sales Podcasts—don't miss out! You can subscribe right at Sales Pipeline Radio and/or listen to full recordings of past shows everywhere you listen to podcasts! You can even ask Siri, Alexa and Google or search on Audible!

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Join us as we welcome back Garrath Robinson and first-time guest Sebastian Hidalgo from RevXcel for a deep dive into what it really takes to execute a go-to-market (GTM) strategy effectively today. Spoiler: it's not just about tactics or tools—it's about speed, trust, and team unity.Garrath and Sebastian challenge the old playbook of siloed teams and rigid strategies, and instead offer practical insights into how GTM execution needs to evolve to match buyer behavior and internal team dynamics. From sales being the true face of the brand to using frameworks like STRIKE and SWAT to stay agile, this conversation is packed with hard-earned lessons and bold takes.

This week, Ian and Jeff finalize their discussion about a CMO's first 90 days, coming to the last of the 5 F'in' Marketing Fundamentals - The Campaign. The Machine, roughly equates to Marketing Operations a role that Jeff knows well, having created several marketing operations teams before going on to advise enterprises through his work at Sirius Decisions and Forrester.  In this episode, Ian and Jeff step through the five cylinders of the machine and what the new CMO needs to pay attention to in those first few months: Data Technology Analytics Processs People As always, we welcome your feedback. If you have a suggestion for a topic that's hot for you that we should discuss, please get in touch using the links below.   Enjoy! — The Links The people: Ian Truscott on LinkedIn and Bluesky Jeff Clark on LinkedIn Mentioned this week: Rockstar CMO Presents: The 5 F'in' Marketing Fundamentals Get Your Buyers AMPED with our Customer Journey - Rockstar CMO Rockstar CMO: The Beat Newsletter that we send every Monday Rockstar CMO on the web, Twitter, and LinkedIn Previous episodes and all the show notes: Rockstar CMO FM. Track List: Stienski & Mass Media - We'll be right back Man Machine - Robbie Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Feeling swamped by marketing operations busy work?AI-powered automation can help you reclaim your time — but knowing what's real versus hype isn't easy.In this episode, Tarun Arora, a marketing tech veteran and founder of RevCrew, explains how AI goes beyond traditional rule-based automation by handling tasks that require human judgment. He shares how "agentic AI" systems act like virtual team members — making decisions, managing your tools, and only checking in when needed.You'll hear real-world examples, from inbox management and campaign optimization to audience selection, showing how AI can eliminate busy work and free you up for more strategic projects.Tarun also offers practical advice on where to start: focus on your biggest needs first, test real use cases, and remember — this is just mile one.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

In this episode of the RevOps Hero Podcast, host Chris Strom sits down with Jacqueline Freedman of Monarch Advisory Partners and former Marketing Ops leader at Grammarly and WeWork, to dive deep into the strategy, planning, and execution of in-person events as part of your marketing operations.Together, they unpack:✅ Why in-person events are regaining importance in today's remote-first world✅ How to align sales and marketing before, during, and after your event✅ What types of events (from CABs to fireside chats) work best and why✅ Tools and tech stacks for tracking attendance and engagement✅ How to define success through metrics like pipeline generation and incremental impact✅ Pro tips on campaign setup, reporting, and segmentation in systems like Salesforce and HubSpot✅ What not to do in post-event follow-up (hint: don't blast your attendee list to sales)Whether you're planning your first executive dinner or scaling a multi-city roadshow, this episode is packed with practical guidance to help your team turn in-person events into measurable marketing wins.

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!When your marketing team needs to produce thousands of content pieces each month, the operational challenges can become overwhelming. In this eye-opening conversation with Satej Sirur, founder and CEO of Rocketium, we explore the emerging field of Creative Operations and how it's transforming how enterprise brands manage their content production.Satej shares how his "pet project" evolved into a platform that now helps performance marketers and creative teams work more efficiently together. We unpack the fundamental tension between creative expression and performance optimization - a struggle familiar to anyone who's tried balancing brand guidelines with marketing results.The most fascinating insights come when we discuss what makes creative content perform well. While marketers claim to be data-driven, few have systematically analyzed which creative elements drive results. Should your logo be larger in awareness campaigns? Does showing a product outside its packaging perform better than inside? Most decisions rely on gut feelings rather than data. Rocketium changes this by extracting creative attributes and correlating them with performance metrics to identify winning patterns.For organizations producing high volumes of content (2,000+ pieces monthly) with substantial teams (10+ members) and significant ad spend ($5-10M minimum), Creative Ops solutions offer a way to eliminate repetitive tasks and focus on strategic decisions. Satej emphasizes that technology alone isn't enough - implementing these solutions requires a cultural shift toward data-informed decision-making while still respecting creative expertise.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Bethany Prettyman is the Senior Director of Marketing Operations at Huntress, a cybersecurity company specializing in managed detection and response solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. With a robust background in strategic operations, she leads initiatives that enhance marketing efficiency and drive growth. Bethany's leadership ensures that Huntress's marketing strategies effectively communicate the company's mission to protect underserved organizations from cyber threats. In this episode… The traditional B2B marketing funnel might be doing more harm than good. In an era of complex buyer journeys and intent-driven decisions, is it still realistic, or even useful, to imagine prospects moving through neat, linear stages? What if the funnel model we've relied on for decades is actually leading marketing ops teams astray? According to Bethany Prettyman, a seasoned expert in marketing operations and data-driven strategy, the funnel is no longer linear, it's a loop. She highlights how today's B2B buyers bounce between channels, revisit research, and often re-enter the journey post-purchase, making linear tracking obsolete. The result? Misaligned attribution models and missed opportunities to optimize real engagement. Bethany explains that the obsession with MQLs is outdated and that teams should instead prioritize intent and velocity, focusing on signals that indicate purchase readiness rather than arbitrary lead scores. This mindset shift not only improves conversion but also strengthens alignment with sales. In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz speaks with Bethany Prettyman, Senior Director of Marketing Operations at Huntress, to discuss why the traditional B2B funnel is broken. They explore why loop-based models better reflect today's buyer behavior, how attribution should evolve, and the dangers of tech bloat in marketing stacks. Bethany also shares her agile approach to reporting and how to bridge gaps between sales, marketing, and finance.

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!What does it take to elevate marketing operations from a technical support function to a strategic business driver? AJ Driscoll reveals how understanding product marketing fundamentals transformed his career trajectory from system administrator to co-leader of an entire marketing department.The journey begins with a data-driven approach to validating and refining ideal customer profiles (ICPs). Rather than accepting conventional wisdom about target markets, AJ demonstrates how combining quantitative analysis with qualitative research creates powerful insights that sales teams can actually use. He walks us through his methodology for evaluating historical win rates, customer demographics, and industry trends to identify where businesses should focus their efforts.Most remarkably, AJ shares his unique philosophy on cross-functional collaboration. "My job is to help other people be better at their jobs," he explains, detailing how this service-oriented mindset helped him build relationships throughout his organizations. From creating automated alerts for sales teams to designing ROI tracking systems with finance, these collaborative efforts eventually earned him company-wide recognition typically reserved for top salespeople.For marketing operations professionals looking to expand their impact, AJ offers practical advice on developing business intelligence skills and becoming industry experts. He shares how new AI tools have accelerated the research process, allowing ops professionals to quickly gain domain knowledge that enhances their strategic contributions. The combination of technical expertise, product marketing understanding, and collaborative spirit creates the foundation for a marketing operations professional who can truly drive business success.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Marketing leaders face a painful dilemma: they need to prove their impact through data, but marketing data is notoriously messy compared to the cleaner, more discrete data available to sales and finance teams. This gap creates what Eric Westerkamp, CEO of CaliberMind, calls a "data dumpster fire" that marketing operations professionals must somehow transform into credible reporting.Drawing from 20 years of executive leadership experience spanning sales and entrepreneurship, Eric offers a refreshingly practical perspective on how marketing teams can build trust in their data and storytelling. Rather than attempting to fix all data quality issues before beginning reporting initiatives, he advocates starting small with specific reports that deliver meaningful insights. This approach allows teams to identify which data elements need fixing while simultaneously delivering value.The conversation explores how marketing operations teams can effectively normalize data across systems, enabling consistent reporting even as organizations migrate between platforms or evolve their naming conventions. Eric shares a striking example where analysis of 1,800 job titles revealed that 80% were unique variations of essentially the same titles—a common challenge that undermines segmentation and reporting efforts.The episode also examines how AI is revolutionizing marketing operations. While AI tools may struggle with complex calculations, they excel at transforming buyer journey data with thousands of touchpoints into credible stories. Organizations embracing these capabilities are gaining significant efficiency advantages, with SDRs able to cover 20% more accounts and marketing teams generating insights faster than competitors.Whether you're a marketing operations professional struggling to build reporting credibility or a CMO needing to better demonstrate your team's impact, this conversation provides actionable guidance for taming your data dumpster fire and transforming it into powerful, trusted insights that drive business decisions. Connect with Eric Westerkamp on LinkedIn or visit calibermind.com to learn more about building marketing data you can trust.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!What happens when all your digital breadcrumbs—personal emails, professional accounts, device IDs, and physical addresses—get connected into a single identity? Jeremy Katz, SVP of Product Solutions, Identity and Data at Merkle, takes us deep into the fascinating world of identity resolution and first-party data.Starting with his unconventional path from English major to data analytics leader, Jeremy shares the pivotal moments that shaped his understanding of how organizations can build comprehensive customer views. He breaks down complex concepts like identity graphs, customer data platforms, and the technical challenges of defining seemingly simple terms like "customer." Through real-world examples from his experience implementing enterprise-wide customer data hubs, Jeremy illustrates how companies struggle with and ultimately solve the puzzle of connecting fragmented customer information.Looking toward the future, Jeremy identifies emerging trends that will reshape how organizations manage and leverage identity—from AI-driven audiences and synthetic data to retail media networks and data collaboration through clean rooms. Whether you're a marketing operations professional trying to implement a CDP or a business leader trying to understand the strategic value of your first-party data, this episode offers crucial insights into one of marketing's most foundational yet complex challenges.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!The modern job hunt is broken—but Ryan Murphy, Managing Partner at UpfrontOps, has cracked the code. After being forced to resign from his position during a cross-country move, Ryan found himself frantically applying to hundreds of jobs with zero responses. Through experimentation and insight from HR professionals, he developed a revolutionary approach that transformed his results from 0% to a 50% interview rate.He reveals why most job seekers fail before they begin. Your resume likely scores terribly with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), the digital gatekeepers rejecting your applications before human eyes ever see them. The solution isn't just tweaking your resume—it's understanding the psychology of hiring managers and the hidden mechanics of job platforms like LinkedIn. Ryan shares the exact strategy for optimizing your resume for ATS using JobScan.co, how to craft personalized connection messages that bypass premium LinkedIn requirements, and the precise phrase to use in interviews to discover a position's true salary range before revealing your expectations.Ready to transform your job search? Whether you're currently looking or preparing for future opportunities in marketing operations, these battle-tested techniques will give you a significant advantage in a competitive market. Connect with Ryan at UpfrontOps.com to learn more and access templates that have helped professionals secure immediate salary increases and land roles they love.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsSupport the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Ever feel like your marketing data is giving you half-truths? You're not alone. In this eye-opening conversation with Dan McGaw, founder and CEO of UTM.io, we dive deep into the critical but often overlooked foundation of all marketing attribution: UTM parameters and proper data governance.We explore the real challenges marketing ops professionals face in implementing consistent UTM parameters across global organizations. Dan shares practical insights on how to transform your approach from the ubiquitous "UTM spreadsheet" to more robust systems that enforce taxonomies and ensure data quality. His advice comes with empathy for the marketing ops professionals caught between demanding VPs and busy campaign managers who "just want to get their job done."Whether you're struggling with attribution models, considering a CDP, or simply trying to bring order to chaotic UTM parameters, this episode offers practical wisdom from someone who's seen it all. Dan's parting advice? Start with a spreadsheet to solve 85% of the problem, then iterate until you're ready for specialized tools. It's a refreshing reminder that sometimes the simplest solutions lay the groundwork for sophisticated attribution strategies.Ready to bring order to your marketing attribution? Listen now and discover the power of proper data governance.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Connect Scattered Data with AI AgentsExplore how easy AI can be with Forwrd.ai for Marketing OpsBuild AI agents that can predict, forecast, segment, and automate the entire data processing workflow -- integrating, prepping, cleaning, normalizing, analyzing, and even building and operating your models. With Forward, you can get it done 100 times faster. Support the show

In the final episode of our five-part series, host Amy Woods is joined once again by Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, to answer the most frequently asked questions about expert interviews.From how long they should be to how to keep conversations on track, Amy and Hayley share practical advice to help you get the most from your expert interviews – so you can turn in-house expertise into high-value, impactful content.Find out:The ideal interview length (and why anything over an hour is a risk)How often to run expert interviews and how to fit them into your content workflowThe biggest mistakes marketing teams make when interviewing experts – and how to avoid themWhy a relaxed, conversational approach leads to better expert interviews than a rigid Q&AHow expert interviews fit into your wider content strategyImportant links & mentions:The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/interview-guide/The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Recording & Repurposing Expert Interviews to Fuel Your Entire Content Strategy https://www.content10x.com/expert-interviews-ultimate-guide/How to Build a Winning Blog Content Strategy with Andy Crestodina https://www.content10x.com/322/How to Create Content that AI Can't Create https://www.content10x.com/323/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!The landscape of video production has undergone a seismic shift over the past decade. What was once a straightforward process of creating a single, polished piece of content has evolved into a complex ecosystem where every production must function across multiple platforms while maintaining its emotional impact.In our conversation with Christian Schu and David Siciliano, two veteran video producers working with major brands across continents, we explore how the fundamentals of video marketing have transformed. Christian, who creates content for high-end audio brands like Focal, Naim, and Bang & Olufsen, and David, who manages production for everything from performance marketing to major brand campaigns, share their perspectives on what makes modern video content effective.The most surprising revelation? Today's successful video producers think of themselves primarily as marketers rather than filmmakers. Both guests describe at length how understanding marketing strategy, target audiences, and desired outcomes has become essential to their work. As David puts it, "Your marketing budget is your video budget" – highlighting how completely these disciplines have merged. Christian adds that while technical aspects matter, ultimately "the product doesn't matter – it must be good, but anything besides that is only emotion."Whether you're a marketing professional collaborating with video teams or simply curious about how modern video content comes together, this episode offers valuable insights into the evolving relationship between storytelling, marketing strategy, and technical production. Listen now to discover why emotion trumps features and how your marketing content can benefit from a filmmaker's perspective.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Connect Scattered Data with AI AgentsExplore how easy AI can be with Forwrd.ai for Marketing OpsBuild AI agents that can predict, forecast, segment, and automate the entire data processing workflow -- integrating, prepping, cleaning, normalizing, analyzing, and even building and operating your models. With Forward, you can get it done 100 times faster. Support the show

In the fourth episode of our five-part miniseries, host Amy Woods and Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, discuss ways you can repurpose expert interviews effectively. They discuss how to reuse and reshape interviews for podcasts, blog posts, social media, and more, covering how to pick out key moments and keep things engaging across different formats.Whether it's short clips, written content, or a whole series, they talk through how to plan ahead and make repurposing simple, so you're always getting the best return from your expert conversations that fuels your strategy for months. Find out:How to turn expert interviews into multiple content formatsWhy they recommend short-form videoHow to make the most of platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube ShortsHow distribution plays a role in maximizing reach and engagementThe importance of engagement – and why posting isn't enoughImportant links & mentions:The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/interview-guide/The Ultimate Guide to Planning, Recording & Repurposing Expert Interviews to Fuel Your Entire Content Strategy https://www.content10x.com/expert-interviews-ultimate-guide/How to Build a Winning Blog Content Strategy with Andy Crestodina https://www.content10x.com/322/How to Create Content that AI Can't Create https://www.content10x.com/323/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In a dynamic exploration of the intersection between sales and marketing operations, we dive deep into the journey of Kanwal Ibrahim, a seasoned Marketing Operations Manager at OffSec. Her background in sales armed her with unique insights that many marketing professionals may overlook. Kanwal shares pivotal lessons she learned as she transitioned into operations, emphasizing the importance of understanding the sales funnel and the customer journey.Listeners will discover how data transparency informs better strategic decisions, highlighting the vital connection between sales and marketing. With her experience, Kanwal illustrates the necessity of fostering collaborative relationships across teams, ensuring effective communication that leads to aligned objectives. By unpacking her approach to process optimization and structure, Kanwal offers a roadmap for those aiming to enhance their marketing efforts.Moreover, she illustrates the significance of being open to feedback, a lesson that transcends the boundaries of sales and marketing. Whether navigating through CRM systems or understanding metrics, her perspective serves as a guide to help listeners refine their operations strategy. This episode is a must-listen for professionals at all levels looking to bridge the gap between sales and marketing operations. Share your thoughts with us on social media or subscribe for more insider insights!Connect with Kanwal Ibrahim on LinkedIn hereEpisode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Connect Scattered Data with AI AgentsExplore how easy AI can be with Forwrd.ai for Marketing OpsBuild AI agents that can predict, forecast, segment, and automate the entire data processing workflow -- integrating, prepping, cleaning, normalizing, analyzing, and even building and operating your models. With Forward, you can get it done 100 times faster. Support the show

You've done the prep, set the strategy, and picked the experts. Now it's time to hit record!But a great interview isn't just about asking the right questions – it's about creating the right environment for insightful conversations to happen. In part three of this five-part series, host Amy Woods and Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, walk through what it takes to run a smooth, engaging expert interview. They cover the key steps to help everyone involved feel at ease, manage the technical side of recording, and ensure you walk away with content you can actually use. Find out:Why pre-interview warm-ups make a big differenceThe best way to handle tech checks (and why you shouldn't skip them)How to keep the conversation flowing while making sure you capture the right contentThe key to getting content that doesn't feel scriptedThe role of a facilitator – and when to consider having oneHow to wrap up effectively and get feedback that makes future interviews even betterImportant links & mentions:The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/video10x-exec/How to Build a Winning Blog Content Strategy with Andy Crestodina https://www.content10x.com/322/How to Create Content that AI Can't Create https://www.content10x.com/323/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Join us for an enlightening conversation with Anna Tumanova, the Events Marketing Lead at Gorgias, as we unravel the complexities of managing large-scale events. With her impressive track record of orchestrating over a thousand events, Anna offers a unique perspective on how to elevate brand presence through strategic event marketing. From the grandeur of Gorgias Connect to small-scale dinners designed to test new markets, Anna reveals the secrets behind Gorgias's diverse event portfolio and their pivotal role in market expansion.Explore the meticulous details that go into making each event a success, from choosing the perfect venue in an unfamiliar city to the surprising impact of comfortable flooring on booth foot traffic. Anna shares her insights on how the goals of these events—be it lead generation, customer engagement, or brand enhancement—have evolved over time. Discover the financial wizardry behind budget allocations and how Gorgias tailors events to cater to various stakeholders, ensuring not just customer acquisition but also solidifying existing relationships.Peek behind the curtain to see how Anna and her team keep their event operations seamless and efficient. Learn about their process of using dedicated Slack channels for event requests, Asana for logistical management, and how tools like HubSpot and lemlist optimize marketing operations. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for marketing and MarTech professionals eager to automate and personalize event communications, drive engagement, and precisely measure success. Anna's expertise is sure to inspire and equip you with strategies to take your event marketing to the next level.RSVP for Anna's upcoming webinar series hereFind Anna on LinkedIn hereEpisode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Connect Scattered Data with AI AgentsExplore how easy AI can be with Forwrd.ai for Marketing OpsBuild AI agents that can predict, forecast, segment, and automate the entire data processing workflow -- integrating, prepping, cleaning, normalizing, analyzing, and even building and operating your models. With Forward, you can get it done 100 times faster. Support the show

The key to great expert interviews? It all starts with the right preparation.In part two of our five-part series, host Amy Woods and Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, break down how to plan, structure, and set-up expert interviews. From selecting the right experts (and interviewers) to asking open-ended questions that lead to real insights, they share what it takes to set your interviews up for success – before you even hit record. Amy and Hayley also explore how expert interviews fit into your content strategy and how upfront planning makes the whole process run smoother. Find out:How to align expert interviews with your content pillars and business goalsThe two key ‘whos' – who to interview and who should run the interviewWhy choosing the right questions is just as important as choosing the right expertHow to help your interviewee feel prepared and confident with pre-interview prepThe must-do technical checklist: lighting, audio, internet speed, and moreImportant links & mentions:The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/video10x-exec/How to Build a Winning Blog Content Strategy with Andy Crestodina https://www.content10x.com/322/How to Create Content that AI Can't Create https://www.content10x.com/323/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter

What if your best content is already within your team, waiting to be uncovered?In this first episode of our five-part series, host Amy Woods is joined by Hayley Evans, Head of Marketing Operations and Client Account Management at Content 10x, to discuss the power of expert interviews and how they unlock high-value content that AI can't replicate.Amy and Hayley break down what expert interviews are, why they work, and how they help B2B companies create truly authentic, people-focused content straight from the voices of their in-house experts. Find out:What expert interviews are and how they add depth to your contentWho is considered an ‘expert' in an organization – and why it goes beyond the C-suiteHow they bring authentic, people-focused stories to lifeThe many content opportunities expert interviews create (beyond just the interview itself)Important links & mentions:The Ultimate Guide to Impactful Video Interviews https://www.content10x.com/video10x-exec/How to Build a Winning Blog Content Strategy with Andy Crestodina https://www.content10x.com/322/How to Create Content that AI Can't Create https://www.content10x.com/323/Hayley on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayley-evans-56421826/Amy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/Amy's book: www.content10x.com/book (Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results)Amy Woods is the CEO and founder of Content 10x, a creative agency that provides specialist content strategy, creation and repurposing support to B2B organizations. She's also a best-selling author, hosts two content marketing podcasts (The Content 10x Podcast and B2B Content Strategist), and speaks on stages all over the world about the power of content marketing.Join hundreds of business owners, content creators and marketers and get the latest content marketing tips and advice delivered straight to your inbox every week https://www.content10x.com/newsletter