Marketers of Technology
00:13:39 · Andres Figuera
[00:13:39] S1: Okay. Okay. And Travis, whenever you're trying out a new strategy or a campaign or trying to just build more, what's it called, like more information regarding the company so that customers understand, what are the metrics that you value the most? And especially since you're into the data and analytics side of marketing? What do you look for when you want to know if something was successful or if it's failing and you prefer to just try something else? Like when do you decide that?
00:14:05 · Travis Cameron
[00:14:05] S0: Yeah. So we try and reserve like 10% of our budget, 10% of our time for testing. Right. How do we figure out if it works or not? One of the first things I've been here for about a year. And so one of the things I did was say, we need a really robust prospect database so that we can move to predominantly first party targeting. We were trying to do platform targeting. It really wasn't working for us. So we moved to say, let's build out this entirely first party prospect database that covers about 60% to 70% of our TAM. That allows us to give a little bit more time for testing because we know we're targeting the right people. Then like when to cut it, when to not, and what are the data points that we looked at first? It's like, how do we get in front of these people? And what are the channels by with that, by with that will work? And so we start with always audience ideation. Who's the person that we want to go at? How big is that audience? Next step is where can we find them and are we getting a match rate? If we can't find that audience through match rates with Google, with Meta, with anybody else, that almost kills it at that point, because you don't want to create a campaign that only might have, you know, 500 people that you're able to get after in it. And as I said, we're a lower price point product, so we're not doing kind of mass expensive ABM type campaigns. Then once you're getting it live, are we getting kind of the viewership? Say it's a video. Are we getting the extended length view of that video or are people cutting it after three seconds? Are we able to get clicks through to the website or is that just coming through as 100% fat finger click bounce rates? Right. So what's that type of engagement? And are we able to get that click to purchase? That's not really my objective, but it's great if it happens. It's more so are we getting some of that view through that we've been exposed to that ad? We know they haven't been a buyer before and now they're making purchase. That's where I really start to say that campaign has legs and that's really starting to work. Let's start to put more money behind it.
00:15:58 · Andres Figuera, Travis Cameron
[00:15:58] S1: So it's understanding then that what you're doing isn't just having somebody who was already interested finalizing the process, but rather just making sure that somebody who doesn't even know you guys gets really interested and therefore proceeds within the marketing funnel and then to the sales funnel and everything like that. [00:16:14] S0: A 100%. I mean, that's ultimately like my job as, as running marketing demand here is how do I find that incremental new user? It's great to get the people that are already buying from us, buying more and expanding, but really it's how do I fill that top of the funnel with more users or with newer users that haven't purchased from us in the past. Right. That's really what's going to drive incrementality in the business. [00:16:36] S1: And do you have any specific examples of a campaign you ran that went really well or a campaign that showed a problem that you had to solve or any, or any example that you can give us in that regard?
00:16:47 · Travis Cameron
[00:16:47] S0: Yeah. So we actually just, wrapped up one. We called it the I Use ACD campaign. And so this brought in a few new elements for us. One, it was a heavily social proof campaign. So we actually spent time at the AIA Conference in June and before that filming about 20 different testimonial videos from our customers. We then used that to actually feature in this IUse ACD campaign with different quotes, different results, different ROI statements from these individuals. We then targeted that by our ICP, so architect, general contractor, subcontractor, owner, landing pages, and different purchase funnels all the way through. We also almost doubled the number of channels that we ran this across. So as I said, we were traditionally working predominantly in the Google, LinkedIn meta ecosystem. For this one, we actually expanded it into Spotify with audio ads, into CTV, where we used Vibe, into TikTok to expand. And so it actually delivered far and above our best months, or two months span, since we've been running that campaign. So that was really exciting to see drove about, of the new users that we signed up over those period, about 80% of them were part of the audiences that we had just gone out and like purchased and created with this. And so that was really the proof point back to us of they might not have clicked, like done a direct click through from the ad to purchase, but they hadn't bought from us before and they were part of this prospect database and first party targeting plan. That's really where I say, Hey, that's where I connected up. That's what success looks like. We're we're driving a lot of incremental new users who had not bought from us before through this campaign, both on the targeting and then the creative aspect of it.
00:18:38 · Andres Figuera, Travis Cameron
[00:18:38] S1: Okay. No. And those are some channels I wasn't expecting to work so well for you guys because Spotify ads and that stuff, I wasn't aware that there might be a lot of people who really are listening to Spotify every day, but specifically the target audience that you're looking for. That is amazing, man. So congratulations for that. [00:18:53] S0: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I think it... That's where it starts for me, though, is like you start with your audience. And so by us spending the time and the money to build out that prospect database of first party users that sit inside of our target addressable market, our TAM, that then says, Hey, I will go out to any platform. If you can give me a good match rate and a good serve rate, that means the person I'm trying to target is on your platform. And so it almost becomes like irregardless of the platform itself, it's more so where you can get those match rates to find the people and then making sure that you're the ad that you have or the copy that you have, or now the audio that you have matches what they would be expecting to come through. Right. And so that's my philosophy of it doesn't necessarily need to be, I only work, I'm SaaS, so I can only sell through these, like through LinkedIn. It becomes, let's find where that user is and try and capture them in the right moment or get them to be more aware of us and thinking and driving that curiosity that's going to get them to purchase.
00:19:55 · Andres Figuera, Travis Cameron
[00:19:55] S1: Of course. No. And being more strategic with where you're aiming at instead of just randomly throwing the ads everywhere is a lot better for budget, for conversion rates, and for just making sure that you're targeting the proper audience. So totally understand that as well. And Travis, moving on to a different perspective more into the future. So you as senior vice president of marketing at AIA Contract Documents, what is your goal or what would you like to say you were able to accomplish by the end of this year? [00:20:23] S0: Oh, that's a great question, Andres. I think, you know, we talked about one or two of the uses of AI. You know, what I've encouraged my team to think of is, you know, how do you replace like one thing a month that you're doing with an AI tool? Right. What's the one thing you hate? And so as I think of like by the end of the year, I've helped to erase at least 16 things for my team that they hate doing with some type of AI tool, AI skill to make their life easier. Right. Because that that makes them more efficient and be able to focus on, again, the things that are going to drive incrementality.