Successful Frameworks for Data-Driven Marketing with Ali Jawin
Ali Jawan shares her strategies for ensuring marketing initiatives are data-driven and aligned with C-suite expectations.
Thanks for tuning in to this exclusive edition of GTM News Desk, presented by
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This show is hosted by me, Nick Bennett, and my co-host Mark Killens.
Now let's get to the goods, on with the show.
Welcome back everyone, we are here for the exclusive. This is the secret sauce
you don't want to
miss it. We've got Allie and if you didn't catch the first part of Allie's
conversation,
you're going to be blown away. One of the best conversations that I've
personally ever had,
but now we're going to be diving into some framework. So Allie, appreciate you
doing this with us.
What's proven framework? Something that has set you up for success that has
translated marketing
data into actionable insights that you would like to share with everyone. You
can't do it by yourself.
This is nothing that brain power alone can do. It is a team sport if there ever
was one.
First of all, I'm not going to say your data needs to be clean because we all
know that there's
no such thing as a perfectly clean data set, but you at least want to know
where things are.
You want to know what's feeding into what, because so much of being able to get
data insights
is because your systems know what data to pull. So again, you can have duplic
ates, you can have all
of those things. Everyone does, everyone tries their best, but if you don't
have a campaign structure
in Salesforce, there is going to be no way your insights team, any of the
attribution systems,
are going to be able to pull them out. So the way I've done it at a few
companies has been one. You
work super, super closely with your Rev-Up sales ops team and get them on board
from the beginning.
Not just in terms of we need to clean up our data because they're hearing that
from everyone eight
times a day, but here's what I'm trying to do and here's the first step of it.
Also, you do need a
platform. I've never been at a company where a BI team alone was able to get
everything. Because
marketing, we just do so many things. We have so many channels, I said
challenges, but we've got
both of those and you need something that's going to be able to ingest all of
them. You're going to
have your Google ads, you're going to have your Reddit, you're going to have
your LinkedIn,
you're going to have your display, you're going to have your retargeting. They
're even more digital
channels. You know, your G2, your trust radius, all of those. It needs like
feed into that plus you
need to be able to put into your offline events. You need to be able to look at
your content,
all of these things. There are a lot of solutions out there. I've used Calibre
Mind, I've used full
circle, I've used hockey stack. They all have different strengths. They all
have different weaknesses.
I think depending on what type of org you are, there will be some that are
better fits for you.
But I'd say every single time I've come to a company and they're like, let's
try and build this
ourselves, it's just not possible. Or maybe it is if you're at a huge public
company and you've got
five analysts on your own and a BI engineer, or you could just get the
technology that's going to
maintain itself. And they all have pretty similar frameworks. You're going to
be able to see what
channels are contributing by campaign, by persona, by industry. And you can
filter and dice whichever way.
If you can't compare all of your data holistically, you're not going to be
making apples to apples,
decisions. And that's what you really need to be able to do, especially when it
comes from where
you're going to spend your money and where you're going to spend your time.
Because I mean, if money is
limited investment time, we cannot defy the laws of physics. So that's a really
important one.
Yeah, I wish we could. Yeah. And I think we all do. We all have kids. So it's
like, be nice to kind of,
yeah, bedtime. Hey, AI can do that. I'm in. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Sound me up.
Another company that we've
been working with that is doing some interesting things in the space is rev
sure, r e v s u r e dot AI.
I'm trying to actually get them to change their kind of positioning to be more
like we are the
ROI company. Like they're talking about like we're the next iteration evolution
of attribution. Like no
one gives a shit about attribution. They care about ROI. Change your messaging
to position to be like,
we solve your problem. We tell you ROI. Like that's that's what we do. You know
, so anyway,
yeah, actually, I would almost love like if they want to do like a viral
marketing moment or,
you know, as viral as you get in B to B, like they should get like a bunch of
like marketers have
like blood pressure like on their arm and say they were attribution and like
see what happens.
I might pivot the next question based off this answer. So something that we've
done in the past,
definitely at HubSpot and AirMetes, we kind of had this adrift. No, we we did
have it. Was we built
a go to market manifesto or Bible, which meant here's all of the things from
systems, data sources,
definitions, language that runs the revenue machine. Like do you have one of
those? Have you built
those? And if you have and do what are some really best practices, you
recommend people follow when
they build one of these. So I don't think we have a written manifesto. We that
's a great idea.
But what we did at outreach is that the way revops has been structured is
phenomenal. So I am a
little biased here are head of revops and overly. I actually hired her to run
marketing ops.
However, she was just so outrageously talented. I put her up for promotion to
run all of revops,
which she has. So she's the head of revops. But what she does is that she has a
team that is
focused on marketing ops. She has a team that is focused on sales ops. And
within then there's a
team that is focused on our commercial on our mid market on our enterprise. And
then there's CX
ops. So in that sense, every single unit and go to market is getting the op
support that they need.
Because what CX ops needs and what marketing ops needs, it's different. I mean,
yes, we all want to
know what's working or not. But the technologies are different. The termin
ologies are different and
to be a really good business partner. I need someone that speaks marketing. If
they don't speak
more, I mean, you can learn it. But if you want to move fast, it's just a lot
easier to have someone
who's been in the weeds of these things before. But because they all report
under the central function,
it is all aligned. The right hand always knows what the left hand is doing. And
it's just been
really fantastic. I haven't really seen it executed this way before, but going
forward,
and this is what I would always advocate that way. I guess I will add that you
really need to have
the right personalities. You really have to hire well because for these people,
Steven Young and
Stephanie Barry, who are my marketing ops people, the Stefan is in my
leadership teams. He and
Stephanie come to our weekly town halls, but they're also on breadbops. You
really need to have
business partners that can wear both hats. And also the soft skills because
people get
really tense or fussy over the numbers and what are the right numbers or
whatnot. But in this way
or in this model, we have the support and probably the emotional therapy that
we need from our
business partners. But because they're all under revops, what they say goes and
everyone has to
accept it. I'm smiling and then Nick, you can take us home. I'm smiling because
there's just
emotions that get kind of, I mean, yeah, they can keep it heated, but you just
kind of get overtaken
by conviction almost as they wait a minute. We're all just trying to do the
same thing, like
calm down. And that's where I think having like a chief operating officer or it
could be a
chief customer officer, maybe chief strategy officer, or it's the person who
runs all of
revops in your case. There has to be someone who's kind of like the neutral
ground that can
like defuse some of these situations with people who get really passionate,
have strong conviction,
but their emotions kind of take over. I really like to point around like the
personality. And like,
I've always said you hire for character, train for skill. And yes, that's great
. You can't do that,
of course, you can't hire someone to do revops if they have, you know, very
minimal revops experience.
But, you know, I still think the character piece is something you really got to
look for out of
the holding of your process, more than even skills, I'd say, could not agree
more.
Cool. Let's let's bring it home right here. So a lot of great advice, a lot of
great, you know,
proven stuff that has worked for you. But there's one thing that I want to
learn. And this is a question
that that Mark and I get a lot and something that we talk about is what's that
one piece of advice
that you'd give to a leadership who's looking to up their game around data
driven marketing
decisions. Like, I'm sure you have obviously a lot. But if you had to pick one
and like, be like,
I'm going all in on this, what would it be? So I'm going to give you, so I'm so
sorry,
I'm going to give you two answers because I would say for most people, the
answer is going to be the
first thing I say, which is just because you weren't good at math in high
school, doesn't mean you're not
going to be good at data. And I say this S.M.L.A.N. who is still traumatized by
high school math and
calculus. And one of the reasons I went into marketing and not in sales at
first was I was like,
ooh, sales so much data. I was bad with numbers. And it took me a little while
to realize that, wait,
data means they did the math for me. I don't have to do the math. I just need
to know which numbers
bigger than the other one. And, you know, I was also very intimidated at first
by people who were
phenomenal with Excel and could, you know, spin up pivot tables in a minute
with their eyes closed.
But that's their superpower. It doesn't need to be mine. As long as I can
understand what the pivot
table is saying, that's a great start. So the first thing is for those
marketers who are afraid to get
into data because they don't think they're good at math, you know, leave that
anxiety behind. This
is a totally different ball game. And guess what? They're people in your
finance team and your
rev-ups team and your BI team that went into it because they love to do the
math. So lean on them.
By say, where to get started? Get started on your digital channels. It is
absolutely the easiest.
You can track it. It's clear. They have APIs. There are a bunch of lightweight
systems. There's one that
we used called a data box, which we just needed some website metrics. And we
just want to spin it up
quickly. We didn't want to go through sprints with our rev-tet. Like, you know,
so start small with
something digital and just get started. I'd say, you know, one, you know, there
's no time like the
present, but don't try and boil the ocean. Don't try and get complete attrib
ution everywhere. You know,
pick one channel, you know, find a lightweight user and intuitive tool. Then
you know, show your
CMO, show your CEO what you got, get them bought in, get them excited. And sort
of say, okay, well,
to do another channel, this is what it would take. That's fantastic advice.
Because I was also terrible
at math and still kind of amps. I remember, you know, if Miss Alumsby is out
there watching this,
I do remember that Y equals MX plus B. I don't remember what it means, but she
drilled it into us.
So yeah, it's still in there. Love it. Amazing. Well, thank you, Ali. So much.
This was fantastic.
For everyone that's listening, hope you enjoyed it. Please reach out to Ali. I
'm sure she'd be more
than happy. You'll connect with her on LinkedIn, send a note, tell how much you
love this episode,
because I thought there was a ton in there. And for everyone that's listening,
we'll catch you next time
on the GTM newsdesk. Have a great rest of your day, everyone.
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