Postback 2018 Day 2 Recap: Quotable Speakers and Sessions

As usual, #Postback18 welcomed attendees from across the globe as they gathered in Seattle to hear from leaders in mobile marketing, performance marketing, advertising technology, and more. Here are just a few of the highlights from Day 2. (If you missed it, you can find our Day 1 recap here.)

Day 2 Opening Keynote: James Veitch

At a glance:

We don’t even know what to say about this one — except that you had to see it to believe it.

Key Quotes

“$#*!”

 

Session: Destination Next: All Aboard

Speakers:

• Benjamin Von Wong, Photographer, Influencer & Founder, Von Wong
• Adam Lieb, Founder & CEO, Innervate
• Taylor Nolan, Influencer & Mental Health Counselor

At a glance:

The influencer economy is alive and well, and can provide an unrivaled level of personal context to brands. As the primary channel for influencer engagement, mobile offers a range of ongoing storylines where influencers (and the savvy marketers working with them) engage with target audiences. Yet this ever-growing list of personalities and channels make effective influencer marketing a fine line to walk. Marketers need to know how to build, understand, and leverage these influencer audiences, plus how to measure influencer impact for true ROI insights.  

Key Quotes

“Within the industry, I would qualify an influencer as someone with a consistent vertical.” – Benjamin Von Wong

“Biggest mistake [of influencer marketing]: running a brand campaign and judging as if it were a performance campaign.” – Adam Lieb

“It’s easy for the people that follow you to tell if something is unauthentic. … Make sure you’re working with brands that allow you to be authentic to your followers.” – Taylor Nolan

“If [he or she] can influence even 19 people, they’re an influencer … What is more important is what and who they’re influencing.” – Adam Lieb

“Dealing with a bunch of suits in an office, you aren’t connected to the real world, which can be detrimental to the creative world. If you’re looking for conversions, maybe, but if you want to create conversations, that starts at a more grassroots level.” – Benjamin Von Wong

 

Session: Ads to Outcomes

Speakers:

• Eric Lau, VP of Partner Management & Audience Development, Viacom
• John Gibbons, Principal Product Manager, Atom Tickets
• Sherry Lin, Growth Marketing / Operations, Lyft

At a glance:

Marketing and advertising systems are complex to use, let alone build. Instrumented properly, however, the infrastructure becomes a crucial strategic asset that differentiates brands. Performance marketing depends on trustworthy, accurate, and connected systems. Performance marketing centers on driving targeted outcomes across mobile platforms and channels: How does the system need to be built to properly tie the marketing investments to the desired outcomes? Which data handling and storage fundamentals need to be part of it? What are the biggest pitfalls in building measurement and management platforms? When does it pay to partner?

Key Quotes

“Half of every marketing budget is wasted. Problem is that no one knows what half.” – Dan Koch (moderator, CTO of TUNE)

“Sometimes I feel like a scuba diver. I don’t know which way is up or down, and it can be dark outside, so we need help finding the way. This is where partners come in.” – John Gibbons

“Mobile [attribution] has a lot of vendors. TV is a bit of a Wild, Wild West … it’s not quite there yet.” – Eric Lau

“In an ideal world, we can view all touchpoints … everything that the person sees, online and offline.” – Sherry Lin

“Only thing you cannot automate is creativity — the one protection humanity has against technology.” – John Gibbons

 

Session: Managing Your Ad Partnerships Directly

Speakers:

• Matt Wool, Co-Founder, Acceleration Partners
• Jonathan Claydon, CEO, Streamline Marketing
• Marie Langhout-Franklin, Head of Partner Marketing, eBay
• Lindsey Vreeland, Global Online Partnership Marketing, Microsoft

At a glance:

The Pareto principle is hard at work in performance marketing circles today. Take a look at your top traffic-driving relationships: What don’t you know about this cohort? What tools and data do your marketing partners need to drive incremental growth? In days past, it was the job of your affiliate networks to supply you with these answers. Today, you might be shocked to learn that many modern brands are managing their top partners directly and evaluating them — on a level playing field — using modern marketing tech platforms. These brands are requiring their partners to become more accountable to driving results. In short: the traditional business development relationship is experiencing an extreme makeover in the world of performance marketing.  

Key Quotes

“We see partnerships as more than an affiliate to a partner. It’s more of a relationship between people. Some things make sense to be automated, but others make more sense to be people-run.” – Marie Langhout-Franklin

“Affiliate is not a channel that can be run programmatically.” – Jonathan Claydon

“A lot of brands don’t pay enough attention to trying new stuff. A lot of brands look at existing data in order to make decisions, but there’s so much opportunity to come up with new campaigns.” – Matt Wool

“It’s a balance of when do you dive deep into something and really understand the value, and when did we hit a KPI. Was it about brand awareness, or exposure? Is it about who bought, or who we reached?” – Lindsey Vreeland  

“[You] never know how effective it will be until you test it. But now we have the directional data to tell us if it’s working or not. Testing frequently with new options and new partners can have a huge new effect. [Brands are] leaving a lot of money on the table by not exploring new initiatives.” – Jonathan Claydon

“We have to break the mindset that partnerships aren’t a part of the funnel.” – Marie Langhout-Franklin

 

Session: Welcome to Agencyland

Speakers:

• Michael Kahn, Global Brand President, Digitas
• Mick Rigby, Founder & CEO, Yodel Mobile
• Eric Mugnier, SVP North America, M&C Saatchi Mobile
• Al Harnisch, VP of Growth, Prolific Interactive

At a glance:

Navigating the world of advertising is like touring an amusement park. In the eyes of many brands, new technology and media loom on the horizon like roller coasters: enticing unknowns full of twists and turns, with entry points that are difficult to locate and strict requirements for participation. Enter the agency — your experienced, connected guide to this adult playground. Today’s top creative and media agencies are blazing new trails in mobile, performance, and digital marketing. By helping brands align channels, content, and audience interests across new screens and contexts, they’re identifying new paths to deeper customer bonds.

Key Quotes

“CMOs now have to be chief data officers as well.” – Michael Kahn

“Working in very close partnerships is critical. The best results we can achieve is being an extension of their team.This is critical for locking in their performance.” – Eric Mugnier

“We’re all about trying to do the best thing for our clients. … [but] sometimes it’s not achievable to give them what they want. When you get a brief that is all about getting and engaging an audience over time, that sometimes can’t be achievable based on the client.” – Mick Rigby

“If you really want a long-term customer, you need to access them in a way that’s modernized. How can we reinvent that [access] in a mobile-first way?” – Al Harnisch

“Consulting companies can do a lot from the strategic perspective, but there’s a lack of connectivity between strategy and execution. If you can’t understand what’s actually possible as an outcome, then it is difficult to succeed.” – Eric Mugnier

 

More #Postback18 Content to Come

We may have wrapped the sixth annual Postback last week, but there’s still much more to come. Check back here on the TUNE blog for highlight posts, photo roundups, video recordings, and more in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, you can head over to our Day 1 Recap, or read about enhancements we’ve made to our Attribution Analytics and HasOffers products in the first half of 2018.