Podcasts about marketing operations

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Aditi Uppal, Vice President, Digital Marketing and Demand Generation at Teradata.(00:00) - Intro (01:15) - In this Episode (04:03) - How to Use Customer Conversations to Validate Marketing Data (10:49) - Balancing Quantitative Data with Customer Conversations (16:14) - Gathering Customer Insights From Underrated Feedback Channels (22:00) - Activating Voice of Customer with AI Agents (29:09) - Voice of Customer Martech Examples (34:48) - How to Use Rapid Response Teams in Marketing Ops (39:07) - Building Customer Obsession Into Marketing Culture (43:44) - Why Voice of Customer Works Differently in B2B and B2C (48:26) - Why Life Integration Works Better Than Work Life Balance Summary: Aditi shows how five honest conversations can reshape how you read data, because customer language carries context that numbers miss. She points to overlooked signals like product usage trails, community chatter, sales recordings, and event conversations, then explains how to turn them into action through a simple pipeline of capture, tag, route, track, and activate. Tools like BrightEdge and UserEvidence prove their worth by removing grunt work and delivering usable outputs. The system only works when culture supports it, with rapid response channels, proposals that start with customer problems, and councils that align leaders around real needs. Blend the speed of B2C listening with the discipline of B2B execution, and you build strategies grounded in reality.About AditiAditi Uppal is a data-driven growth leader with over a decade of experience driving digital transformation, product marketing, and go-to-market strategy across India, Canada, and the U.S. She currently serves as Vice President of Digital Marketing and Demand Generation at Teradata, where she leads global strategies that fuel pipeline growth and customer engagement. Throughout her career, Aditi has built scalable marketing systems, launched partner programs delivering double-digit revenue gains, and led multi-million-dollar campaign operations across more than 50 technologies. Recognized as a B2B Revenue Marketing Game Changer, she is known for blending strategy, operations, and technology to create high-performing teams and measurable business impact.How to Use Customer Conversations to Validate Marketing DataDashboards create scale, but they do not always create confidence. Aditi explains that marketers often stop at what the model tells them, without checking whether real people would ever phrase things the same way. Early in her career she spent time talking directly to retailers, truck drivers, and mechanics. Those interactions were messy and slow, filled with handwritten notes, but they gave her words and patterns that no software could generate. That language still shapes how she thinks about campaigns today.She argues that even a small number of conversations can sharpen a marketer's decisions. Five well-chosen interviews can give more clarity than months of chasing analytics dashboards. Once you hear a customer describe a problem in their own terms, the charts you already have feel more trustworthy. As Aditi put it:“If you get an insight that says this is their pain point, it helps so much to hear a customer saying it. The words they use resonate with them in ways marketers' words often do not.”She points out that B2C teams benefit from built-in feedback loops since their channels naturally keep them closer to customers. B2B teams, on the other hand, often hide behind personas and assumptions. Aditi suggests widening the pool by talking to students and early-career professionals who already use enterprise software. They may not be buyers today, but they become decision makers tomorrow. Those conversations cost almost nothing and create raw material more valuable than agency-produced content.She frames the real task as choosing the right method for the right question. If you want to refine messaging, talk to your most active customers. If you want to understand adoption patterns, run reports. If you want to pressure test a product roadmap, combine both and compare the results. Decide upfront what you need and when you need it. Then continue adjusting, because customer understanding is not a one-time project, it is an ongoing discipline.Key takeaway: Use customer conversations as a validation layer for your data. Pair five direct interviews with your dashboards, and you gain language, context, and trust that numbers alone cannot provide. Always define why you need an insight, then pick the method that gets you there fastest. That way you can build messaging, campaigns, and roadmaps grounded in reality rather than in assumptions.Balancing Quantitative Data with Customer ConversationsMarketers keep adding dashboards, yet confidence in the numbers rarely grows. Aditi argues that a few customer conversations often do more to build certainty than a warehouse of metrics. Early in her career she spent long days interviewing retailers, truck drivers, and mechanics. She filled notebooks with their words, then worked through the mess to find common threads. The process was slow, but it created clarity that still guides her perspective today.“You do not need hundreds of those conversations. You just need five, and you will come out so much more confident in the data you are looking at.”That perspective challenges a common assumption in B2B marketing. Models can predict buying intent, but they cannot capture the urgency or tone that customers bring to their own words. Dashboards may flag data scientists as target buyers, yet when you sit with an aspiring data scientist, you hear frustrations and motivations that algorithms miss. Real language often carries sharper meaning than the polished words marketers invent for campaigns.Aditi warns that relying only on quantitative signals pushes teams into a self-referential loop. Marketers build strategies based on metrics, then describe those strategies in their own buzzwords. Direct conversations break that loop. Even five interviews can ground your messaging, highlight gaps in the data, and validate where models are directionally right. B2C teams often benefit from tighter feedback loops through customer-facing channels. B2B teams need to create their own versions of those loops by talking to users directly, including students and early-career practitioners who represent the next generation of decision makers.Every stage of marketing benefits from this practice. Roadmaps become sharper, content becomes more resonant, and campaign ideas carry more weight when tested against real voices. Customer interviews cost little compared to polished content campaigns, yet they create a foundation of confidence that technology alone cannot replicate.Key takeaway: Five direct customer conversations can build more confidence than a room full of dashboards. Capture the exact words your buyers use, compare them with your data models, and use both inputs together. That way you can validate your metrics, sharpen your messaging, and trust that your strategy connects with the people who matter most.Gathering Customer Insights From Underrated Feedback ChannelsMarketers love surveys. They love sending out NPS links, post-purchase forms, and satisfaction checkboxes that make dashboards look busy. Aditi is blunt about the limits of this ritual. A buying committee has users, influencers, and decision makers. Each group has different needs, and you cannot lump them into a single “customer voice.” If you want useful signals, you have to decide who you are li...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we're joined by Jon Russo, founder of B2B Fusion and former CMO of high-tech companies across Silicon Valley, New York City, and Luxembourg. Jon shares his insights on why Marketing Operations professionals often struggle to communicate their impact to the C-suite and how AI, cleaner data, and strategic thinking are changing the game.Jon dives into the importance of translating complex marketing data into business language, earning trust with senior leadership, and the evolving role of MOPs in driving revenue and AI-enabled pipeline initiatives. He also offers guidance on career growth, helping MOps professionals expand influence and demonstrate measurable impact.In this episode, you'll learnWhy first-party data and clean systems are critical for AI and pipeline successHow MOPs can effectively “translate” marketing operations insights for executivesWhat builds trust between junior MOps professionals and seasoned leadershipCareer strategies for expanding influence and taking a more strategic roleThis episode is perfect for marketing operations, demand generation, and RevOps professionals seeking practical advice to increase visibility, build trust, and position themselves as strategic leaders in the organization.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Join us at MOps-Apalooza: https://mopsapalooza.com/Save 10% with code opscast10Support the show

What's up folks, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Rebecca Corliss, VP Marketing at GrowthLoop. (00:00) - Intro (01:20) - In This Episode (03:46) - The Future Agentic Marketing Org (07:59) - The Rise of the Marketing Dispatch Layer (14:47) - Lifecycle Marketers Belong at the Center of Every Agentic Org (21:19) - Why Channel Specialists Must Shift to Journey Orchestration (25:06) - How To Actually Become More Strategic (29:28) - This Team Promoted ChatGPT to Director of Product Marketing (32:55) - What it Means to Be a Specialist in the Moment Works (37:12) - How Systems Thinking Helps Lifecycle Marketers Shine in Agentic AI (40:10) - How AI Expands the Role of Marketing Ops (43:37) - The Speculative Future of Marketing With Compute Allocation and Machine Customers (46:35) - Mesh of Agents Coordinating Across Departments (50:07) - The Rise of Machine Customers (53:55) - How to Stay Energized as a Marketing Leader Summary: Rebecca imagines a future marketing org built on three layers: leadership fluent in data and AI, a dispatch control tower staffed by engineers and privacy experts, and pods that design customer journeys while agents handle scale. Lifecycle marketers are essential to this dispatch layer and provide the “heart,” keeping campaigns authentic. Her own path as a “specialist in the moment” shows the power of adaptability, diving deep where it counts and moving on with impact. The marketers who thrive will be those who pair technical fluency with empathy and judgment.About RebeccaRebecca is a veteran marketing executive known for building engines that drive outsized growth. She is currently VP of Marketing at GrowthLoop, shaping the go-to-market for its Compound Marketing Engine. Previously, she scaled VergeSense from Series A through Series C with over 8X ARR growth, and at Owl Labs she took the company from launch to 35,000 customers worldwide while establishing it as a future-of-work leader. She also spent eight years at HubSpot, where she grew demand generation to 60K leads per month, doubled blog-driven leads, and built leadership programs that developed the next generation of marketers. Across every role, Rebecca has consistently turned early-stage momentum into durable, scalable growth.The Future Agentic Marketing Org and the Rise of the Marketing Dispatch LayerRebecca lays out a future where marketing org charts gain an entirely new layer. She predicts three core structures: leadership, dispatch, and pods. Leadership continues to steer strategy, but the demands on CMOs change. They will need fluency in data systems, architecture, and AI operations. Rebecca explains that “CMOs have to flex their technical chops and their data systems and architecture chops,” a shift for leaders who have historically leaned on brand or budget narratives.The dispatch layer functions as the operational hub for campaigns. This group manages data flows, AI orchestration, and channel activations. It operates like a control room for all outbound communication. Dispatch is staffed with people who rarely sat in marketing orgs before. Data engineers move in from IT, privacy specialists join the table, and Rebecca even describes “traffic cops” who arbitrate which campaigns reach a customer when multiple business units compete for the same audience.“Imagine this new dispatch layer, the group that is thinking about the systems, the data, the AI, the architecture, and campaign activation for the entire marketing org holistically.”Pods sit at the edge of this system, each one tasked with a specific objective. A retail pod might obsess over repeat purchases and next best product recommendations. Pods shape customer journeys, creative work, and product presentation. They do not execute campaigns directly. Instead, they work with dispatch to push scaled, AI-driven activations that tie back to their mission. This structure gives pods focus while ensuring campaign execution remains coordinated and efficient.Rebecca stresses that humans remain responsible for organizing this system. Agents will handle execution, but people set goals, decide structures, and elevate the skills required to manage AI effectively. The companies that thrive will be the ones that invest in human fluency now, especially in data architecture and cross-functional collaboration. Marketing leaders cannot wait for agents to make the org smarter. They have to build teams ready to use agents well.Key takeaway: Treat dispatch as a new operational hub inside marketing. Staff it with cross-functional talent such as data engineers, privacy experts, and campaign traffic managers. Align pods around clear business outcomes, and let them focus on customer journeys and creative execution. Give dispatch responsibility for scaling campaigns through AI agents. Start by training CMOs and their leadership peers to speak the language of data and AI strategy. That way you can prepare your organization to actually run an agentic structure instead of scrambling when competitors already have it in place.Lifecycle Marketers Belong at the Center of Every Agentic OrgLifecycle marketers thrive in environments where customer signals drive execution. Rebecca describes them as the people who study every stage of the journey, then translate that understanding into activation rules that actually serve the customer. Agents may handle the heavy lifting, but lifecycle marketers decide what matters and when it matters. They are the human layer that keeps the entire system from drifting into mechanical noise.“If it supports the customer, it supports the business objectives. That is the way everyone wins.”Rebecca explains that lifecycle marketers split into two groups. Some will lean technical and operate directly in the dispatch layer. They will define activation strategies, ensure campaigns run with precision, and use data to protect customer-first thinking. Others will integrate into pods and shape the full journey, using systems thinking to design one-to-one experiences at scale. Both groups carry the same DNA: empathy paired with curiosity about how AI can extend their reach.This structure becomes even more important in content. Generative AI can produce endless material, but personalization collapses if the output feels artificial. Lifecycle marketers bring the judgment required to keep content aligned with customer needs. They will be the people asking hard questions about tone, timing, and authenticity while still leveraging AI to handle scale. The combination of empathy and technical curiosity will keep campaigns human, even as agents flood the stack.Rebecca calls this quality “heart,” and she sees it as the non-negotiable element that AI cannot replicate. Lifecycle marketers carry responsibility for maintaining authenticity while still driving one-to-one marketing. Their role is not to fight against automation but to guide it toward outcomes that respect the customer experience.Key takeaway: Lifecycle marketers should sit at the center of every agentic org. Place technical lifecycle marketers in the dispatch layer to design activation rules that protect the customer. Embed strategic lifecycle marketers inside pods to architect journeys that scale with authenticity. Treat empathy as the operational safeguard, and give lifecycle marketers the authority to enforce it. That way you can use AI to expand capacity without sacrificing trust.Why Marketing Channel Specialists are FadingChannel specialists are facing a turning point. Rebecca explains that AI agents now handle many of the mechanical tasks that ...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we're joined by Ellie Cary, Senior Demand Generation Manager at StarTree. Ellie shares her experience navigating marketing performance challenges, including what happens when teams hit MQL goals but still face cuts, and why ROI visibility has become critical for MOps leaders.Ellie discusses the limitations of attribution and reporting, how over-engineered models can create complexity, and what it takes to simplify processes while improving impact. She also shares insights on customer marketing, retention, and how MOps professionals can make their work more visible and strategic across the organization.In this episode, you'll learn:How to connect marketing performance to business outcomesThe risks of overcomplicated attribution and how to simplify itThe importance of foundational marketing processes for measurable ROIStrategies for MOps teams to communicate effectively with non-technical stakeholdersThis episode is ideal for marketing operations, demand generation, and growth professionals looking to strengthen their impact and visibility in the organization. Tune in for Ellie's actionable guidance on making MOps work matter.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals 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 John Saunders, VP of Product at Nova / Power Digital Marketing. Power Digital is a San Diego-based growth marketing firm. Nova is their proprietary marketing technology. (00:00) - Intro (01:15) - In This Episode (03:26) - How an Agency Operating System Reduces Silos (05:47) - Why Context Driven Analytics Replaces Dashboards (09:15) - Building a Single Source of Truth in Marketing Data (16:00) - Building an AI Cockpit Before AI Copilots (18:26) - Why Data Accuracy and Transparency Build AI Trust (28:28) - Building Internal Data Products for Agencies (34:09) - Reducing Complexity in Martech Product Development (39:16) - How To Tell If An AI Tool Is More Than A Wrapper (46:49) - How to Build Client Portals That Clients Actually Use (49:50) - Finding Happiness in Building and Experimentation Summary: Agencies are drowning in tools, dashboards, and AI gimmicks, but John Saunders has spent years building something that actually works. Nova started as an internal fix and grew into an operating system that strips away noise, delivers context with every number, and gives AI a cockpit filled with real operational data. Along the way John learned that trust comes from accuracy, speed, and transparency, and that adoption only happens when products remove steps instead of adding them. From client portals to analytics to AI, his story shows how clarity beats complexity and why agencies that chase it finally get technology that feels like leverage instead of liability.About JohnJohn Saunders is the Vice President of Product at Power Digital Marketing. He leads strategy, UX, operations, and AI for nova, the agency's enterprise marketing technology platform that connects with more than 2,000 integrations. Since 2021, he has grown the technology team from 2 to 40 members, delivered more than 20 production-ready applications, and developed intelligence tools that improve client retention and increase lifetime value. He has also built partnerships with Google, Meta, TikTok, and Amazon that resulted in multi-million-dollar funding and new product capabilities.Prior to his current role, John served as Vice President of Technology. He built the first applications that became the foundation of nova and improved scalable systems, API integrations, cloud performance, and automation for the firm. He previously worked as Software Development Project Manager at Internet Marketing Inc. (now REQ), and Co-Founder of Brightside Network Media, a platform that combined technical design with storytelling to highlight culture and music.John has also mentored students at the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center at San Diego State University. He guided undergraduates in UX, product strategy, and agile workflows while encouraging leadership and collaboration in a hands-on environment.How an Agency Operating System Reduces SilosAgencies are drowning in tools. CRMs handle sales, project boards track tasks, invoicing software manages billing, and analytics dashboards measure performance. Each tool may solve a specific problem, but together they create a scattered system where every team works in isolation. John Saunders has seen this problem repeat across agencies, and his solution is direct. Build a single operating system that reflects how the agency actually works rather than relying on disconnected platforms that never sync.John described Nova as that system. Instead of forcing teams to reinvent contracts or pricing every time, Nova uses a service library with set rates and guidelines. Automation handles the repetitive work, so teams spend less time drafting proposals and more time serving clients. Nova acts as a hub for the agency's real workflows. It connects sales, operations, and delivery into one shared environment where everyone can see the same information."With an agency OS, we are trying to fix this problem where there are so many tools and platforms that people work on, and that inherently creates silos. With one system focused on operations, it provides a central spot for everybody to work from, which creates efficiency and alignment."The need for this kind of system is obvious once you look closely at agency life. Account managers keep their own spreadsheets, sales leaders adjust pricing rules on the fly, and creative teams use tools that never connect with operations. The result is misalignment, duplicated effort, and wasted hours. An operating system forces the agency to define its rules and then codify them into the platform. That way you can cut the daily noise and create repeatable workflows that scale.Agencies often assume the next SaaS subscription will solve their problems. The reality is that the core problems are internal. Building an operating system like Nova does not replace tools, it makes them work together. It creates one place where every team operates from the same playbook. That way you can reduce inefficiency, strengthen alignment, and free people to focus on client work instead of wrestling with tool silos.Key takeaway: An agency operating system reduces silos by centralizing contracts, pricing, and service guidelines inside one platform. Standardized rules and automation save time, while a shared hub keeps every team aligned. Instead of adding another tool to an already bloated stack, define your workflows, codify them into an operating system, and create an environment where teams work together with speed and clarity.Why Context Driven Analytics Replaces DashboardsDashboards impress people for about five minutes. They get pasted into a slide deck, admired in a meeting, and then forgotten. They look sleek but rarely change how teams actually work. John Saunders describes them as “dead weight,” and he is right. Most dashboards are static trophies, not decision-making tools.John insists that analytics must carry a point of view. Agencies do their best work when they stop presenting raw numbers and start tying those numbers to judgment. Nova, the product his team builds at Power Digital, bakes that opinion into everything it produces. Every measurement is run through a filter: does this reflect the right way to evaluate performance? If the answer is no, it never makes it to the client. That rule sounds simple, yet it separates meaningful analytics from the noise of charts that show data without direction.He also points out that numbers without context fail to tell the full story. Performance depends on more than what a database records. It depends on client conversations, launch dates, migrations, and campaign decisions that live outside structured tables. Nova integrates those details directly into the analytics layer. The result is data that reads like a story, not a sterile snapshot.“Performance isn't just the data itself. It's everything around it.”John sees analytics moving toward systems that feel conversational. Static dashboards freeze data in time, while teams need a living engine that blends numbers with the narrative behind them. Instead of flipping between charts and email threads, the analysis itself should surface both at once. That way analytics become a dialogue with context, not a set of disconnected metrics.Key takeaway: Treat dashboards as disposable and focus on analytics that combine three things: a strong opinion about what matters, context from the real world, and delivery in a format that feels like a conversation. When you give your team numbers plus narrative, you give them clarity that drives decisions. Replace static charts with context driven analytics so people act faster, waste less energy, and actually understand what the data is te...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we're joined by Pradeep Manivannan, Martech Consultant at Academy Sports & Outdoors. Pradeep brings extensive experience from roles at eBay, Salesforce, and Nordstrom, offering a unique perspective on connecting data, building journey-based experiences, and aligning marketing operations across channels.Pradeep explains how to map customer journeys effectively, leverage segmentation, and implement omnichannel strategies that work in both B2C and B2B environments. He shares lessons learned from consumer-focused marketing and how B2B teams can apply them to drive better engagement and measurable results.In this episode, you'll learnHow to design seamless customer journeys from scratchThe role of data integration across channels in marketing successSegmentation strategies that improve targeting and personalizationWhat B2B teams can learn from consumer-focused marketing approachesThis episode is perfect for marketing, RevOps, and growth professionals looking to improve customer experience and operational efficiency. Tune in to hear Pradeep's actionable insights on building journey-based marketing strategies.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 Olga Andrienko, Former VP of Marketing Ops at Semrush. (00:00) - Intro (01:24) - In This Episode (03:55) - How AI Agents Reshape Marketing Ops Roles (08:53) - How To Beat AI Imposter Syndrome And Start Using Custom GPTs (13:28) - How AI Content Agents Generate Drafts Using Internal Context (24:29) - How to Use a Risk and Reward Grid to Prioritize AI Projects (33:19) - How To Use Google Workspace To Skip AI Vendor Approvals (40:00) - How To Decide Which AI Agent to Use (46:44) - How To Build an AI-First Reflex in Marketing Ops (51:59) - AI's Endgame: Play-to-Earn and Mandatory Human Quotas (01:03:58) - What Happens When You Optimize Your Body Like a Martech Stack Summary: Olga thought she was ahead of the AI curve, but a weekend course on autonomous systems showed her she was thinking too small. She pitched a shared internal AI stack at Semrush, built systems off APIs, skipped procurement by using already-approved tools, and tracked hours saved instead of promising vague ROI. She started with the work she already knew, made it faster, and used that time to build better systems. Now she's looking ahead, watching work blur into participation, prepping for human quotas, and making sure ops teams aren't caught off guard while the rest of the company is still testing prompts.About OlgaOlga Andrienko spent nearly 12 years at Semrush, where she helped build one of the strongest B2B marketing brands in tech. She started by leading social media, then expanded into global marketing, eventually becoming VP of Brand and later VP of Marketing Operations. She helped guide the company through its IPO, launched brand campaigns that drove massive reach, and scaled AI systems that saved her teams hundreds of hours. Most recently, she built out a marketing and AI ops function from scratch, automating reporting, content feedback, and influencer analytics across the org. Recently, Olga announced she was leaving Semrush to go out on her own. She's now building a marketing SaaS product while advising companies on how to use AI agents to rethink marketing operations from the inside out.How AI Agents Reshape Marketing Ops RolesOlga had already logged countless hours with Claude and ChatGPT. She was building chatbots, fine-tuning prompts, and staying sharp on every update. Then she joined a weekend course on agent-based AI. At first, it felt like overkill. By the end of day two, she had completely changed direction. That course forced her to realize she had been spending time in the shallow end. Agent AI wasn't just a smarter assistant. It was a structural overhaul. It changed what could be automated and who was needed to do it.Agent AI builds systems instead of just responding to inputs. Olga described a clean divide between tools that help you finish tasks faster and agents that actually run the tasks for you. How agent AI differs from task-level tools:Traditional tools require manual input for each useAgent systems operate autonomously and initiate actionsTools accelerate individual workAgents orchestrate end-to-end processesTools help you move fasterAgents help you step away entirelyShe saw use cases stacking up that didn't fit inside marketing's current playbook. Systems could now operate without manual checkpoints. Processes that once relied on operators could be built into fully autonomous loops.“I went into panic mode. Even with our tech stack at Semrush, I realized we were behind. Every company is behind.”The realization came with a cost model. Internal adoption of Claude and ChatGPT was rising fast. Olga noticed growing subscription bills across teams, with everyone spinning up individual accounts. She ran the numbers and saw the future expense curve. Giving each person their own sandbox didn't scale. What made sense was building shared tools through APIs, designed to solve repeatable tasks. That way you can maintain quality, cut costs, and still give everyone access to powerful AI systems.Timing mattered. Olga was coming off a quarter where she had high visibility, internal trust, and a direct line to leadership. Instead of waiting for AI priorities to come down from the top, she used that leverage to move. She pitched a new team and made the case for shifting from brand to ops. She had technical interest, political capital, and an urgent belief that velocity mattered more than perfection.Key takeaway: Marketing ops leaders are uniquely positioned to build agent-level systems that scale across teams. Instead of waiting for strategy teams to greenlight AI plans, use cost data to make the case for shared infrastructure. Build with APIs, not individual tool access. Push for automation at the system level, not just task-level assistance. If you understand the workflows, know the tools, and already have trust inside the org, you are the one who should be building what comes next.How To Beat AI Imposter Syndrome And Start Using Custom GPTsAI imposter syndrome shows up fast. It tells you the developers will handle it, the data team will figure it out, and you should stick to writing copy or launching campaigns. Olga ignored that voice. She opened up ChatGPT, looked at the most repetitive task on her plate, and started testing. No credentials. No roadmap. Just frustration, curiosity, and a weekend.“Anybody who says they have figured AI out or that they're on top of this, they're lying to you.”She did not wait for a manager to assign her an AI project. She looked for work she already understood. Rewriting vague marketing text. Fixing formatting issues. Translating copy into other languages without sounding robotic. These were not moonshot experiments. They were annoyances. She built a custom GPT for each one.That work gave her traction. It also gave her time back. She found herself reclaiming an hour a day just by handing off the small, repeatable parts of her job. That time opened up new space to build more. The learning came naturally because it was grounded in daily tasks she already owned.“If we look at this like a Maslow pyramid, the repetitive tasks are the base layer. That's where you start.”Confidence grows when the work starts to feel useful. That shift does not come from reading whitepapers or watching LinkedIn demos. It comes from applying the tool to one thing you do every week and watching it cut your time in half. That is how you build fluency. Not all at once. One custom GPT at a time.Key takeaway: Choose a task you already know well and automate it with a custom GPT. Keep the instructions specific and tied to your current workflow. Run it repeatedly until it saves you real time. Then build another. Confidence in AI tools comes from using them to solve work you already understand, not from waiting until you feel qualified.AI Use Cases in Marketing: AI Agents Creating Drafts from Context That Humans PerfectAI content agents are getting better, but they are not off the leash. Olga built two systems to test how far automation can go without turning content into generic filler. One starts with human writers. The other starts with a structured form. Both rely on real performance data, brand knowledge, and experienced editors.The first system runs inside Google Docs. Writers draft copy. The AI overlay scores it using past campaign performance, conversion data, and hand-labeled examples of strong and weak copy. It flags weak headlines, vague CTAs, bloated structure. Then it explains why. Olga's team noticed that when the starting draft is weak, AI only sm...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of OpsCast, hosted by Michael Hartmann and powered by MarketingOps.com, we are joined by Evan Kubicek, founder of Grow Rogue. Evan brings 15 years of experience in marketing operations and shares insights on what he calls the foundational operations gap, a critical area that many early-stage companies overlook as they scale.Evan explains why addressing foundational processes and systems early on is essential to avoid building a house of cards. He discusses how tech debt, process inefficiencies, and the lack of clear documentation can derail growth and why speed should never come at the cost of solid infrastructure.In this episode, you will learnWhat the foundational operations gap really means and why it is often neglectedHow to avoid creating "automated chaos" and scale marketing operations effectivelyThe importance of establishing foundational processes, like segmentation and tech integrationsWhy getting the basics right is critical before layering on complex tech solutionsThis episode is perfect for professionals in marketing, RevOps, and growth teams looking to build a sustainable ops foundation. Tune in to hear Evan's advice on how to build strong marketing infrastructure before things break.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!In this episode of Opscast, Michael Hartmann and Naomi Liu are joined by Karen Kranack, Director of Applied AI Strategy and Experience, to explore the intersection of AI, brand strategy, and trust. Karen shares her insights on how AI is transforming marketing and operations, while emphasizing the importance of building and maintaining trust in this rapidly evolving field.We dive into key considerations for marketing professionals as they navigate the challenges of implementing AI, from transparency in AI usage to addressing data privacy concerns and ensuring ethical AI practices. Tune in to hear real-world examples, including how AI-generated content impacts brand perception and how organizations can foster a culture of trust internally while driving AI adoption.Key Takeaways:The importance of transparency and honesty when integrating AIHow AI is reshaping consumer experiences and internal workflowsThe role of ethical considerations and privacy concerns in AI adoptionReal-world examples of successful AI use cases in marketingJoin us for a discussion on how to leverage AI to enhance brand strategy while maintaining trust with your customers and employees.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

In this special episode of Sales Pipeline Radio from the Innovation Pavilion at Cvent CONNECT 2025, Matt spoke with Monika Martin, Manager, Marketing Operations at Baker Tilly. 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!

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Jonathan Kazarian, Founder & CEO of Accelevents.(00:00) - Intro (01:35) - In This Episode (03:41) - Are Point Solutions Actually a Distraction for Marketing Teams? (09:32) - Data Models Can Decide Platforms or Point Solutions (14:20) - Contact Based Pricing Skews Platform Versus Point Solution Costs (19:44) - Integration Depth Can Decide Platforms Versus Point Solutions (31:32) - Point Solutions Provide Faster and Smarter Support Than Platforms (37:28) - Documentation Shapes Point Solution Stacks (42:01) - How to Manage Shiny Object Syndrome in Marketing Ops (49:35) - A Founder's Admiration for Marketing Operators (54:42) - Why Continuous Growth Keeps Founders Balanced Summary: Jonathan framed point solutions as late-night distractions that add baggage, while Phil argued they solve real constraints platforms can't touch, like global routing or multilingual campaigns. Darrell pulled the lens to data models, showing how shared schemas keep stacks clean but warehouse-native teams lean on composability for speed and control. Money made the tradeoffs clear when Phil cut HubSpot costs from $150k to $70k with Ghost, ConvertFlow, and Zapier, and Jonathan countered that the problem was platform fit, not price alone. Support stories added texture, with Phil praising startups that fix issues in Slack within hours and Jonathan noting how urgency and empathy thrive in smaller teams. The thread ran through every topic: platforms provide coherence and stability, point solutions unlock lift when constraints demand it, and the operator's job is knowing which moment they are in.About JonathanJonathan Kazarian is the Founder & CEO of Accelevents, an all-in-one event management platform trusted by over 12,500 organizations worldwide. Since launching in 2015, he has led the company's growth into a leader in powering in-person, virtual, and hybrid events with enterprise-grade features and 24/7 customer support. Before Accelevents, Jonathan worked in investment management and business development at Windham Labs and Windham Capital, where he supported strategy and client relationships across $1.5B in global assets. Based in Miami, he's passionate about building technology that makes life easier for event organizers.Are Point Solutions Actually a Distraction for Marketing Teams?We all know the cycle of startups and enterprise. Point tools surge to fix sharp pains, a small group wins, platforms acquire them, founders spin out, and the next crop floods your feed. Jonathan thinks that those shiny tools pull teams off the work that actually moves numbers. He describes a scene every operator recognizes, the glow of a laptop at 3 a.m. and a to-do list that did not get shorter by sunrise.“I will see something, get excited about it, and then I am up until 3 a.m. playing with it. It distracts me from the things that actually matter.”Jonathan sets a firm bar for focus. Ship on a platform first, then layer selectively when a real constraint shows up. He treats events as a pillar beside CRM and marketing automation, so his platform must deliver value on day one without a four-tool puzzle. He stays explicit about the work that pays the bills:Tighten positioning so buyers understand you in one scroll.Communicate with customers in their language, not vendor speak.Make the core stack usable for sales, finance, and ops, not only for marketing.That way you can add niche tools later without freezing adoption while integrations sprawl.Phil takes the other corner and argues for composability with lived examples. He respects HubSpot and has shipped plenty on it, but real constraints demand specialists. Example: territory routing across pooled rep availability needs a product built for that job, which is why RevenueHero exists. Example: global email collaboration with dozens of languages and brand guardrails needs serious template control, which is why Knak clears roadblocks. Phil speaks to the operator who needs real lift:Match routing logic to the sales org rather than bending the org to the tool.Scale content production with permissions, templates, and translation workflows that teams actually follow.“I have built stacks that blended platform basics with pointed upgrades for specific constraints, and those upgrades paid off when growth demanded it.”Jonathan agrees on the destination, then anchors the sequence. Buy, go live, and prove value within weeks. Add point tools only when a named constraint blocks revenue or customer experience. Keep the stack boring where it should be boring. Run a simple playbook that your team can execute:Stand up your platform baseline and drive daily use from sales and marketing.Write down the first constraint that limits revenue or adoption.Choose one specialist that removes that constraint end to end.Set a 14-day integration target with one success metric tied to pipeline or retention.Move to the next constraint when the metric shows lift.Key takeaway: Point solutions can give shiny object syndrome to the undisciplined, but for the trained ops folks, they are upgrades on a platform backbone that are used to remove constraints that block revenue or adoption. Ship a platform baseline, then add specialists when the job requires things like territory routing, multilingual content control, or workflow depth that platforms rarely specialize in. Treat this as an operating rule, decide by trigger rather than trend, and tie every addition to a single metric that moves pipeline or retention.Why Data Models Decide Platforms or Point SolutionsDarrell sets the table with a consumer gut check, iOS versus Android, and he leans into reliability as the buying trigger. He points to the calm moment when AirPods pair and everything just works, which mirrors the promise of packaged platforms that share a core operating system. He still sees sharp edges, like deduplication, that call for extra tooling and he asks for a push off the fence."I love it when you buy a new Apple device and it just connects."Jonathan makes the platform case with a concrete pattern, two full platforms that cooperate. He points to Gmail on iOS as normal behavior rather than a bolt-on oddity, and he maps that to how customers pair Accelevents with HubSpot or Salesforce across the event-to-CRM vertical. He calls out a hard truth that veterans recognize, some big-suite acquisitions integrate worse than third parties. He zeroes in on the backbone that actually saves time, a consistent data model.A shared schema speeds onboarding and shortens the time from login to first useful outcome.Common structures reduce UTM and conversion mapping that steals cycles from the team.Clear seams across products limit the need for specialist tool owners."When you connect Gmail on iOS, you are bolting two platforms together."Phil answers with the warehouse-first pattern that many modern teams now run. A team with a data engineer, quality checks, and a lakehouse or warehouse prefers composable tools and custom models. That team treats the suite as a source, not the system of record, and wires APIs or bypasses based on need. He warns that a single vendor model can force the business into shapes that never fit.A staffed data function supports attribution and identity stitching in code you control.A warehouse-centered stack concentrates transforms, lineage, and governance where you already work.Custom metrics move faster when they live in versioned models, not tucked inside a vendor UI.API-first wiring keeps you from waiting on a roa...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of Ops Cast by MarketingOps.com, powered by The MO Pros, hosts Michael Hartmann, Mike Rizzo, and Naomi Liu speak with Dean de la Peña, VP of Identity, Data Strategy, and SaaS at Resonate.Dean discusses the role of predictive intelligence in marketing and explains how brands can utilize more comprehensive data signals to enhance audience targeting and personalization. He also outlines the importance of identity resolution and data structure in building effective campaigns.Topics covered include • How to apply predictive consumer intelligence to marketing workflows • The value of identity resolution in campaign planning • Practical approaches to scaling personalization based on real dataThis episode is intended for marketing operations professionals looking to improve their use of data in audience engagement.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 Nadia Davis, VP Marketing at CaliberMind. (00:00) - Intro (01:12) - In This Episode (02:53) - Understanding the Attribution Periodic Table Framework (07:49) - Why Marketing Teams Face Higher ROI Pressure Than Other Departments (20:15) - Why Attribution Fails Without Data Stewardship (33:02) - Treating Multi-Touch Attribution as an Analytical Tool (39:05) - Exploring Chain Based Attribution Models for B2B Marketers (46:31) - Why Customizing Markov Chain Attribution Improves Accuracy (50:56) - How to Decide When Attribution Data Is Good Enough to Guide Strategy (01:00:00) - Why Marketing Operations Defines Multi Touch Attribution Success (01:04:50) - Why Time Management Drives Career Fulfillment Summary: Nadia learned early that attribution keeps you in business, proving to executives why the budget, the team, and the work matter. Seeing “attribution is dead” posts, she built her Attribution Periodic Table to show data modeling, measurement rules, and cross-team alignment as one connected system. In B2B, where budgets are treated like investment portfolios, she uses multi-touch attribution to connect brand and demand to revenue in CFO terms. For her, it's an analytics tool, not a scoreboard, shaped by sequences like her govtech playbook where event conversations plus on-demand webinars moved deals forward. Chain-based and Markov models help her cut noise, drop vanity metrics, and ground decisions in logged, meaningful touches, all anchored in strong marketing operations that make multi-touch attribution something teams actually trust.About NadiaNadia Davis is the VP of Marketing at CaliberMind, where she leads demand generation, ABM, and marketing operations. She is known for building teams from scratch, overhauling martech stacks, and creating data-driven programs that sales teams can act on immediately. With over 15 years in B2B marketing, she has worked across SaaS, IT automation, healthcare tech, and data platforms, consistently delivering measurable growth by aligning marketing execution with revenue goals.Her career includes senior roles at PayIt, Stonebranch, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Informa, and ND Medica Inc., as well as nearly a decade as an ABM and digital strategy consultant. She has led global campaigns, designed persona-driven targeting, run high-profile industry events, and built marketing programs that continue to deliver pipeline well beyond launch. A former Girls in Tech board member, Nadia combines hands-on technical expertise with the leadership skills to grow both teams and results.The Periodic Table of Marketing Attribution ElementsNadia has worked in revenue marketing long enough to know attribution is a survival tool. In every demand generation and performance role, she carried it like part of her standard kit. It was how she justified headcount, protected budgets, and kept the lights on in her department. Attribution helped her prove progress in a language executives understood.When she took over marketing at CaliberMind, she noticed the volume of “attribution is dead” posts climbing in her feed. The pattern felt familiar. Marketing tactics often get declared obsolete the moment they fail for someone, then replaced with whatever is trending. From her perspective, most of those posts came from SMB marketers moving on after a bad run. Meanwhile, enterprise teams were applying attribution with discipline, pairing it with strong data modeling, and getting measurable results. They simply were not talking about it publicly.That split in sentiment drove her to dig deeper. She wanted to measure the gap between what people were saying and what they were actually doing. The outcome was the State of 2025 Attribution report, anchored by her Revenue Marketing Periodic Table. Nadia built it to show attribution as part of an integrated framework, not a lone tactic. She broke it down into interconnected components:Data modeling that improves accuracy and removes noiseMeasurement frameworks that define terms and keep reporting consistentCross-functional alignment that ensures teams interpret the data the same way"So many things may seem completely disconnected, yet they all come together within a bigger ecosystem."The iceberg metaphor stuck with her. Most marketers focus on the visible metrics, but the real forces driving success are below the surface. Choosing the periodic table format brought this idea into focus. It showed each element as part of a larger system, each with its own role and complexity. Nadia even remembered struggling with chemistry in school, to the point where she once cheated on a test because she could not memorize the valency of certain elements. That frustration helped her appreciate the value of a clear visual framework when dealing with something complicated. The periodic table worked because it grouped related elements, revealed their relationships, and made the whole system easier to navigate.Key takeaway: Build attribution like a connected ecosystem. Pair it with precise data modeling, clear measurement frameworks, and strong cross-team alignment so every metric connects to a broader strategy. Map your system like a periodic table, where each element has a defined purpose and a place in the structure, that way you can spot gaps, diagnose problems faster, and prove impact without relying on surface-level numbers.Why Marketing Teams Face Higher ROI Pressure Than Other DepartmentsMarketing leaders manage one of the most lopsided jobs in business. One half of the work runs on instinct, creativity, and the psychology of memory. The other half is rooted in measurement, analytics, and financial accountability. Nadia points out that most marketers do not come from a statistics-heavy background, yet they are expected to operate as if they did. The pressure is not just to build campaigns that inspire but to show how those campaigns directly affect the bottom line.In B2B, the stakes climb even higher. Sales cycles can drag for months or even years, and the money behind your budget often comes from venture capital or private equity. Those investors see marketing spend as growth capital, not operational overhead. That means they expect a return. Nadia compares it to giving a retirement manager your savings. You would not leave them unchecked. You would want to see exactly how those dollars are working and why certain investments are made.Other departments do not face the same revenue-tied scrutiny. Finance manages operating budgets. Sales has smaller discretionary pools for travel and entertainment. HR spends what it takes to keep the team functioning. None of those groups is routinely asked to tie their activities to closed-won revenue. Marketing is, because its budget is treated as a bet on future growth, not a cost of maintaining the business.The challenge is translating marketing results into terms that matter to the C-suite. Nadia frames it clearly:“You are here because you got money to spend that we invested with you, and we want to have the responsible output from how this money is performing.”But that translation is rarely straightforward. Engagement, recall, and psychological impact are powerful, yet they do not speak the same language as pipeline targets and closed deals. In SaaS and tech, that disconnect is shrinking fast as investor pressure mounts. Marketing leaders who can quantify the financial impact of creative work are the ones who keep their budgets, and their seat at the table.Some people struggle with making decisions without near-perfect certainty, relying on data ...

“Marketing Operations is the practice of taking people, understanding what it is that the business is trying to do from a go-to-market perspective, and working to align those people to a process that enables that go-to-market through technology. And it's always in that order. People, process, and technology.” -Mike Rizzo   Mike Rizzo is the Founder and CEO of MarketingOps, MO Pros, and MartechGuru—platforms dedicated to empowering Marketing Operations professionals and advancing the Revenue Operations field. With a background spanning ad tech, growth hacking, and beyond, Mike has built his career around aligning people, processes, and technology to drive effective go-to-market strategies. He also co-hosts Ops Cast, a leading podcast that explores industry insights and emerging trends. Through his community-driven approach, Mike has created innovative resources and a collaborative environment where Marketing Operations practitioners can grow, share knowledge, and thrive. In this episode, Mike dives into his perspective on branding and what it means both strategically and personally.   Website: https://marketingops.com/ LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mikedrizzo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketingopscom

“Marketing Operations is the practice of taking people, understanding what it is that the business is trying to do from a go-to-market perspective, and working to align those people to a process that enables that go-to-market through technology. And it's always in that order. People, process, and technology.” -Mike Rizzo   Mike Rizzo is the Founder and CEO of MarketingOps, MO Pros, and MartechGuru—platforms dedicated to empowering Marketing Operations professionals and advancing the Revenue Operations field. With a background spanning ad tech, growth hacking, and beyond, Mike has built his career around aligning people, processes, and technology to drive effective go-to-market strategies. He also co-hosts Ops Cast, a leading podcast that explores industry insights and emerging trends. Through his community-driven approach, Mike has created innovative resources and a collaborative environment where Marketing Operations practitioners can grow, share knowledge, and thrive. In this episode, Mike dives into his perspective on branding and what it means both strategically and personally.   Website: https://marketingops.com/ LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mikedrizzo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketingopscom

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kevin White, Head of GTM Strategy at Common Room. (00:00) - Intro (01:00) - In This Episode (02:59) - How to Design a Super IC Role for Senior Marketers (09:11) - How to Get Comfortable With Public Visibility as an Introverted Leader (10:39) - sing Empathy and Product Demos to Build Authentic GTM Strategies (16:52) - How to Use Pain Points to Make Personalization Work (19:21) - How to Use Buyer Behavior Signals to Improve Outreach Timing (21:36) - Leveraging GitHub Signals to Drive High-Conversion Micro Campaigns (24:57) - Smarter Account Prioritization With Buyer Signals (29:02) - Why Messaging Drives GTM More Than Signals and Plays (31:16) - Why Overengineered Tech Stacks Fail GTM Teams (35:05) - Why AI SDR Agents Need Structured Coaching to Work (41:43) - Why The Last Mile Of AI Marketing Still Belongs To Humans (43:57) - AI Sharpens the Divide Between Experts and Amateurs (45:46) - Why Declaring Human-Written Outreach Gets Better Responses (48:00) - Futureproofing Operations Skills Through Challenge Driven Learning (51:46) - Why Data Warehouses Are Taking Over Customer Data Platforms (55:32) - Finding Career Balance Through Self Reflection Summary: Kevin rebuilt his career around the work that fuels him. After years leading teams at Segment, Retool and Common Room, he walked away from politics and board decks to create a “super IC” role focused on experiments, product evangelism, and hands‑on growth. He applies that same mindset to go‑to‑market: strip out the bloat, ditch templated outreach, and use real buyer behavior to build small, personal campaigns. He treats AI as an amplifier for skilled marketers, using it to speed research and sharpen ideas, while relying on human judgment to make the output work. Even visibility, once draining for him, became a muscle he trained through repetition. Kevin's story is a guide for marketers who want less political fluff, more impact, and roles built around the work they actually love to do.About KevinKevin White is a seasoned go-to-market leader with over 20 years of experience driving growth for high-growth SaaS companies. He's held senior roles at Gigya, SingleStore, HackerOne, and Twilio Segment, where he built demand generation engines and scaled marketing operations during critical growth stages.Most recently, Kevin led marketing at Retool and advanced through multiple leadership roles at Common Room, from Head of Demand Generation to Head of Marketing, and now Head of GTM Strategy. He has also advised innovative startups like Ashby, Gretel.ai, and Deepnote, helping them refine their go-to-market strategies and accelerate adoption.How to Design a Super IC Role for Senior MarketersClimbing the marketing ladder feels like progress until you realize the work at the top is entirely different. Kevin spent years running teams at Retool and Common Room. He managed a dozen people, dealt with SDR team politics, prepared board updates, and handled internal marketing. Those tasks ate up his time and dulled his energy for the work that made him great in the first place. “My day-to-day was full of things I didn't enjoy. One-on-ones, internal marketing, SDR team drama, board updates. None of it felt like what I wanted to be doing,” he said.Kevin thrived in the early-stage chaos. He loved being the first marketer, building programs from scratch, experimenting with growth channels, and connecting directly with customers. Those environments let him create instead of coordinate. He could see the direct impact of his work and feel close to the product. As companies grew, that hands-on work disappeared. He became a coach, a manager, and a political operator. For someone who values doing over directing, that was a poor fit.He worked with Common Room's CEO to design a role that put him back in his zone. Now, as Head of GTM Strategy, Kevin functions as a “super IC.” He runs high-leverage growth experiments, drives product evangelism, and collaborates with a few freelancers instead of managing a team. That way he can focus on the work that delivers impact while avoiding the politics and administrative load that drained him. It is a custom role built around his strengths, and it brought back his enthusiasm for the job.Kevin's thinking extends beyond his role. He shared how Common Room rethought sales development. They hired an excellent manager who knows how to attract and retain elite talent. Then they paid those top performers well above the market rate. “Harry is one of our SDRs,” Kevin explained. “We pay him a good amount because he produces outsized results. That playbook works.” In Kevin's view, companies should build alternative tracks for individual contributors and reward them based on their production, not their willingness to manage people.Key takeaway: Create roles that match strengths instead of forcing people up a management ladder. Build paths for senior individual contributors who can deliver massive value without leading teams. Pay top performers according to their impact, not their title. If you manage teams, audit which roles could benefit from this model and where high-performers need more autonomy. If you are an individual contributor, consider what a custom role would look like that keeps you close to the work you do best.Building Confidence With Public Visibility as an Introverted LeaderPublic visibility exhausts many introverted leaders. Kevin describes finishing a full day at a conference feeling drained, running only on caffeine to get through the next one. Sharing his voice on LinkedIn or recording videos once felt unbearable. Even now, he admits to taking multiple tries before posting anything. Despite that discomfort, he continues to do it because the repetition has transformed the work from a chore into a habit.“I was mortified at myself when I first started recording things,” Kevin said. “But I kept hearing people say how helpful it was, and that positive reinforcement made it easier.”Kevin builds on small steps instead of waiting for confidence to appear. He creates a cycle where he pushes himself into uncomfortable situations, collects positive feedback, and uses that reinforcement to do it again. Over time, the acts that once caused him anxiety, like posting thought pieces or speaking publicly, have become regular parts of his work.He views visibility as a skill that can be practiced. Instead of thinking in terms of strengths or weaknesses, he treats every new action as training. This perspective removes the pressure to “perform” and reframes the process as building a muscle. That makes posting online, speaking at events, and showing up in public spaces a set of learnable behaviors rather than personal traits.You can use his approach:Start with small, low-stakes actions like sharing short ideas on LinkedIn.Progress to more challenging mediums such as podcasts or short recorded demos.Save positive responses to use as reminders when your motivation dips.Treat every effort as practice, which builds resilience and lowers fear over time.Key takeaway: Confidence grows through repetition. Build it by starting with small visibility actions, collecting reinforcement, and gradually increasing the difficulty of your public presence. That way you can turn something that drains you into a manageable, even natural, part of your role.Using Empathy and Demos to Build Authentic GTM StrategiesKevin remembers the grind of stitching together spreadsheets, Zaps, and Salesforce automat...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of Ops Cast by MarketingOps.com, powered by The MO Pros, host Michael Hartmann is joined by co-hosts Mike Rizzo and Naomi Liu to explore the role of community within the Marketing Operations profession.What does community look like for Marketing Ops professionals? Why is it more than just networking? And how do different experiences transform what people need from a professional community?To answer these questions, four inspiring guests share their perspectives on how participation turns into meaningful connection, and why building community matters now more than ever.In this episode, you'll learn:What does community mean in the context of Marketing OpsHow local engagement supports growth and confidenceThe impact of community during moments of professional changeHow leaders foster connection, learning, and trustFeatured guests:Leslie Greenwood, community strategist and founder of Chief Evangelist Consulting. She helped launch the MarketingOps.com chapter leader program and focuses on turning participation into belonging.Alysha Khan, Director of Client Services at Intrisphere, founder of Alpaca Consulting, and Chicago chapter lead. She brings experience building momentum through local engagement.Penny Hill, a seasoned marketing executive who joined the community during a career transition. She brings insight into how the community supports reinvention.Ellie Cary, Senior Demand Gen Manager at StarTree and Dallas chapter leader. She offers insight from both learning and leadership roles within the community.Listen in to hear how these women are shaping what community can look like across the Marketing Ops space.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations ProfessionalsVisit 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 showEpisode 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 Simon Lejeune, VP of Growth at Wealthsimple. (00:00) - Intro (01:16) - In This Episode (03:55) - How to Escape Local Maximum Traps in Growth Marketing (08:59) - Productive Laziness Mindsets (12:03) - The Psychological Trap of A/B Testing (15:55) - Balancing Clean Experiments with Bold Bets (18:43) - How to Use Incrementality to Measure Real Campaign Impact (22:32) - How to Approach Incrementality Without Large Data Sets (25:13) - The Best Use Cases for Incrementality Tests (29:58) - How to Handle ROI Conversations Without Slowing Down Growth (38:02) - Why Most A/B Testing Is a Waste of Time (47:17) - When Natural Language Becomes the Interface, Channel Expertise Stops Being a Moat (01:03:31) - How to Use Game Thinking to Stay Energized in Growth Roles Summary: Simon Lejeune learned early that chasing small wins keeps growth teams stuck, a lesson that landed hard when Hopper's CEO dismissed his price‑point test as a “local maximum” and pushed him toward ideas bold enough to reshape the business. That experience drives how he leads at Wealthsimple, where he tells teams to stop polishing the same hill and start climbing new mountains by deleting work that doesn't matter, cutting projects when the lift is negligible, and measuring true incrementality with one simple question: “What would have happened if we didn't do this?” He believes AI is accelerating this shift, turning deep channel expertise into a commodity and making curiosity, speed, and ruthless prioritization the real competitive advantages. Growth, in his view, belongs to teams who can abandon the comfort of optimization and pursue experiments big enough to change the trajectory.About SimonSimon Lejeune is a seasoned growth leader with over a decade of experience scaling some of North America's most recognized tech brands. Currently VP of Growth at Wealthsimple, he drives client and asset growth across products like Trade, Crypto, Cash, Invest, and Tax. Before that, Simon founded Mile End Growth, a boutique agency delivering strategy, creative, and media buying for startups, and led user acquisition at Hopper, where he managed multimillion‑dollar budgets and built one of the most sophisticated in‑house ad automation engines in travel tech. His career began at Busbud and Nomad Logic, where he directed growth marketing and developed new revenue‑generating spin‑offs.Local Maximum vs Global MaximumHow to Escape Local Maximum Traps in Growth MarketingA local maximum trap happens when teams keep optimizing small features that look like wins but cap long-term growth. Simon uses the metaphor of being blindfolded on uneven terrain. You walk in every direction until each step feels lower, then assume you have reached the peak. When you take off the blindfold, you see you are standing on a hill while a much larger mountain waits in the distance. Many growth teams spend months, sometimes years, stuck on those hills.Simon experienced this lesson in an uncomfortable way. During his final interview at Hopper, CEO Fred Lalonde asked him what he would change first to grow revenue in the app. Simon answered with what felt like a logical idea. He suggested testing different price points for the $5 tip option, maybe $4 or $6, to find the best revenue point.“He looked at me and said, ‘That's literally a local maximum, and I do not want you doing that,'” Simon recalled.That feedback forced Simon to change his perspective. He proposed a more radical idea: building a separate app that would use Hopper's flight data to surface ultra-cheap Ryanair-style deals under five euros. It sounded risky and unconventional, but Lalonde loved it. Simon left that meeting understanding that real growth often comes from bigger, more disruptive ideas that challenge the current model instead of refining it.Growth teams can apply this lesson by actively questioning whether their experiments drive material change or simply polish what already exists. Regularly evaluate whether you are optimizing features, pricing, or flows when the real opportunity may be entirely new product lines, bold pricing experiments, or acquisition channels that look nothing like what you use today.Key takeaway: Incremental optimizations create comfort but rarely drive exponential growth. Audit your current priorities and identify one experiment that pushes far beyond incremental gains. Focus on ideas that reimagine your product, acquisition model, or customer experience. That way you can escape local maximum traps and open paths to growth that small experiments will never reach.Productive Laziness MindsetsSimon challenges his team to delete more work than they refine. “The fastest way to do something is not to do it,” he said. He encourages what he calls “productive laziness,” which means questioning why a task exists before sinking hours into improving it. Many growth teams fill their calendars with recurring meetings and busywork that provide comfort but little actual impact. Simon wants his team to hunt down and remove the 80 percent of work that clogs up progress.“You could probably not do 80 percent of what you're doing, and you need to take the time to find it.”He distinguishes between local and global maxima. Local maxima are small, incremental wins that stack up over time. They create efficiency, but they rarely transform outcomes on their own. Simon shared a story from Wealthsimple where his team used a simple AI-driven prompt to quickly generate FAQs for new promotions. It only improved one process by a few percentage points. Combined with other similar fixes, it meaningfully reduced the time from campaign idea to launch. These small process wins compound into real operational speed.Simon points out the trap many teams fall into when these tweaks become the entire focus. He calls out A/B testing as the classic example. The industry celebrates small lifts in conversion rates, yet the promised gains rarely translate into significant growth. “If you've had that many wins,” he said, “your conversion rate should be 300 percent by now.” Experienced operators know that most of these improvements exist only in reports, not in the top-line numbers.He pushes for a balance between incrementalism and bold redesigns. Teams need to ask hard questions: Does this process deserve to exist? Does this experiment meaningfully impact the business? Would rebuilding this system create more value than optimizing it? Those are global maximum questions, and they require a willingness to break away from the comfort of small wins to pursue something transformative.Key takeaway: Use incremental process improvements to accelerate execution, but regularly pause to audit whether the work itself creates meaningful business impact. Remove tasks, experiments, or processes that do not clearly connect to growth. That way you can free up the capacity to pursue global maximum opportunities that drive measurable, lasting results.The Psychological Trap of A/B TestingLocal maximum thinking happens when teams equate motion with progress. Simon describes this as the pattern of chasing a string of small A/B test wins while nothing meaningful shifts in the business. Every tweak produces a minor lift, enough to justify the next experiment, yet the bigger picture remains stagnant. The illusion of progress feels convincing in the moment, which is why so many teams stay stuck in it.He experienced this firsthand at Wealthsimple. The team wanted to answer a straightforward question: should they push new users toward onboarding ...

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!On today's episode, we talk with Kyle Priest (former CMO, CRO, COO, and President at multiple SaaS firms and agencies) and returning guest Eric Hollebone (President & COO at Demand Lab) to discuss what it really takes for marketing to have a voice at the leadership table. Together, they explore how alignment between marketing, sales, and RevOps creates not only better stories but better business results—and how marketers can shift their mindset to lead strategic growth conversations at the board level.Whether you're in marketing ops, RevOps, or a revenue leader looking to elevate your impact, this conversation is packed with insight on how to connect tactical execution with executive influence.Tune in to hear:Marketing's Role in the Boardroom: Why marketing must go beyond tactics and brand to speak the language of revenue, margin, and predictable growth.Revenue-First Mindset: How aligning on goals, terminology, and KPIs across departments builds organizational momentum and earns trust at the top.The Power of Storytelling: Tips for telling clear, concise growth stories that resonate with CFOs, CEOs, and investors—starting with closed-won revenue and working backwards.Quality of Revenue Explained: Understanding why not all revenue is equal and how marketers can influence strategic customer acquisition that builds long-term value.Practical Advice for RevOps & Marketing Ops: From measuring contribution (not just attribution) to carving out time for strategic insights, learn what actions to take today to elevate your role tomorrow.

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

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:

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

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.

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.

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

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.  

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

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

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

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