What “Self-Service” Really Means

Marketing promises: “No technical resources needed!” Marketing reality: “Let me Slack the data team again.” Every “self-service” CDP still routes through IT. The only question is how many tickets. The bottleneck isn’t the tool. It’s the org chart.

The 22% Problem

Only 22% of marketers actually use their CDP. Not “use it a little.” Use it at all. The other 78% have a very expensive database they occasionally log into. Technology doesn’t solve utilisation problems. Strategy does.

What “Real-Time” Actually Costs

Real-time sounds impressive in the demo. Then you see the invoice. Refreshing 100 segments hourly instead of daily: 25x the compute cost. Every 5 minutes? 50x. The math doesn’t lie. Neither does your budget. Most of what we call “urgent” can wait until tomorrow.

My take on data-driven marketing

We’re nearing the end of 2024, and since 2020 or 2021, it’s been fairly obvious where we’re headed. Let’s look at some facts. Firstly, privacy laws and the crackdown on big tech have gradually reduced the value of cookie-based tracking. Legislation like GDPR and changes such as Apple’s iOS 14 update have made it harder… Read More

The Orchestration Imperative: Mastering First-Party Data for a Transformative Future

In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, first-party data has emerged as both a challenge and an opportunity. The privacy tide is rising. Traditional tools like third-party cookies are fading. As a result, businesses are re-evaluating their approach to understanding and engaging with customers. Yet, midst this complexity, one principle stands out: orchestration. Orchestration isn’t just about… Read More

How deep work is relevant for your career

I originally posted this article to LinkedIn. Deep work! It’s been called the No 1 job skill that will never become obsolete. But it’s become even more difficult as email notifications have developed a COVID-driven twin in the form of Teams/Slack/Skype messages, doubling the number of distractions. Firstly, if you don’t know what deep work… Read More

Time management for digital marketers

Have you found yourself overwhelmed by your responsibilities? Are you stuck executing sub-optimal tasks and tactics because you haven’t had time to develop the strategy to the level you want it? Time management is a buzzword, but there is a good reason for that. Digital marketers are more and more busy. And if you have… Read More

The Role of Emotions and Influencing in Marketing

Marketing that makes people buy is almost always emotionally driven. There is research out there that concludes that people are more likely to make an emotional judgment over a rational judgment when making buying decisions. Cialdini’s six principles of persuasion are a masterpiece of research, and most of the important tricks we marketers use, or… Read More

Why I think programming and technical skills are important for SEOs moving forward

In my career as an SEO I’ve until recently have to rely on others for both interpreting but especially updating technical items, even simple HTML and CSS updates. Yeah, I know. A bit pathetic, and not optimal when you work in smaller and more hands-on organisations. You can safely say it’s been more of a… Read More

Has AI turned Google search into a black box?

In early 2016, Google changed search chief from Amit Singhal to John Giannandrea. This has implications for how Google search is moving forward. Giannandrea comes from the role of lead of Google’s AI efforts, which is a significant signal about the direction Google is taking. Rankbrain is Google’s machine learning system built into search, and… Read More