Lightning Round Questions with Damien Voita from AdRoll

Agency or in-house: which builds better marketers? Damien Voita is Principal Campaign Manager at AdRoll, with nine years of agency and in-house experience across B2B and B2C brands. He picks agency work as the better teacher because it forces you to ask what the right approach is for each company, again and again. He also warns that in-house marketers can tie their identity to the brand instead of the craft, and says the best work comes from people who see themselves as marketers first. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and joining me today is Damian Voita, Principal Campaign Manager at AdRoll, a multi-channel advertising platform that helps mid-sized brands run full funnel campaigns across the open web. And today Damian is going to explain how to optimize your media strategy for the holidays. Okay, last question for you. Which taught you more, agency or in-house?

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  I'm gonna have to give this one to agency. It's not a place I would want to spend an entire career, but it is such a good trial by fire for getting into advertising because it pops you into environments you've never imagined, customers and industries that you've never thought of in your whole life. And it does, going back again to talk about fundamentals, it kind of gets you to start thinking about, okay, what if I was going to look at this not as just a digital marketer and ad buyer? What's the right approach for this company? What might I need to change? It forces you to do that exercise so many times over and over. I do think that there's a little bit of a trap as an in-house marketer is you start to identify a little bit more with the brand you work on and your attachment to them as your identity versus your identity as a marketer.

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  And my humble opinion, I think the best marketing work comes from people who really view themselves first and foremost as marketers. And then they approach the brand and think about, how can I apply this whole toolkit that I have and do the best thing for this brand?

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  Maybe this isn't answering the question, but when I worked in-house at eBay, I walked around like my shit didn't stink. And like, because I had this big fancy logo on my chest, on my polo and the nice eBay, you know, like card, it meant that I had money to spend and I knew everything. And that didn't carry over when I left the big enterprise, you know, brand and then had to actually figure out how to be a marketer and didn't get to work off of the brand cachet that was given to me. Sometimes it's easy to operate with, you know, it's easy to win football games when you have a big lead in the first quarter. And you become a better practitioner and a better marketer by seeing different companies and getting more reps.

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  I learned a ton in consulting, agency, whatever not being in-house is. I probably learned much more, just like you said you did, being out-house as opposed to in-house.

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  That's a great way to put it.

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  Yeah. All right, Damian, I appreciate you coming on the podcast. It was great to have you as my guest. I learned a lot and congratulations on finishing your first podcast.

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  I very much appreciate it. It was great to do it. Would love to come back again sometime.

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  All right, and that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Damian Voita, the Principal Campaign Manager at AdRoll. If you'd like to get in touch with Damian, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or in his company's website, which is AdRoll.com, a sponsor of the Martech Podcast. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a weekly stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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