Q&A with Lynn Tornabene, CMO, Anteriad

Thanks for stopping by! This mini-interview series features various industry thought leaders that share their perspectives, opinions and predictions. Today’s interview is with Lynn Tornabene, CMO, Anteriad. 

Q: What do you believe are the biggest challenges facing the marketing and advertising industry in 2024?

A: We B2B marketers have weathered several challenging years that have tested our creativity, grit, and stamina, and 2024 will undoubtedly bring more hurdles and transformations. Luckily, marketers are a resilient group!

Whether their budgets are shrinking or growing, many marketers’ resources have not kept pace with evolving buyer behavior and expectations and rising costs. This is especially true with elongated buying cycles and heightened demands from the board and C-suite for marketing-driven growth in a challenging global economic landscape. And in today’s world, that growth must be accomplished in a way that respects privacy.

At an industry level, shifts in buyer dynamics and platform changes may pose data challenges for those caught unprepared. B2B buyers now prioritize digital-first interactions and expect personalized experiences across channels. Marketers must establish the right data foundation and omni-channel strategy to deliver personalized, privacy-centered, and relevant communications. The impending (we think!) platform change of the phase-out of third-party cookies on Google Chrome also presents a significant data challenge for companies reliant on these cookies for targeting and measurement. Hopefully, most marketers have prepared for this shift by implementing cookieless solutions and forming strategic vendor partnerships.

The increasing utilization of AI, particularly Generative AI, in marketing and advertising raises additional data and operational challenges for marketers. Access to privacy-compliant, recent, and accurate customer and business data is imperative to harness the power of AI for high-impact marketing use cases. This will ensure that AI-driven Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) analysis, nurture sequences, persona-focused copy, and other applications perform optimally.

Q: Anteriad is “data driven, tech enabled, and growth obsessed” – can you tell us more about that and how your marketing team embodies that? How does data privacy and data quality fit into that?

A: Sure! Everything we do, whether for our customers or within our own marketing endeavors, is centered around fostering growth — so you could say we are obsessed with it. That growth is driven by data; enabling marketers to reach future buyers with privacy-compliant, accurate, and timely data has been our mission since our founding in 2000 and is still the foundation of our business. We “dogfood” our own data and solutions, utilizing them to power our marketing efforts just as we do for our clients. Whether it’s intent signals, firmographics, email engagement data, or numerous other data points, we leverage them to identify, reach, engage, and convert potential buyers.

“The quality of our data is key to driving a high ROI for client engagements and our own investments. One example of this is our case study with Causal IQ, an agency that ran client campaigns using Anteriad data and that from providers that were not Neutronian-certified; the Anteriad data significantly outperformed non-certified segments across click-through rate (CTR), video completion rates, and cost per acquisition metrics, showing that high quality and privacy safe data can make a dramatic difference in campaign performance.”

Of course, you need a robust technology platform to access and measure the impact of all of this data, so we have developed the Anteriad Marketing Cloud, a bespoke platform used by our customer success and marketing teams, as well as our customers, to manage data-driven demand generation and programmatic advertising programs.

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to a young marketer – what would it be and why?

A: If I could offer one piece of advice to a young marketer, it would be to understand how your company generates revenue and profits and how its structure and ownership influence its revenue and profit strategy — and to understand this for your competitors as well.

Different funding sources (Private Equity, Venture, private, or public markets) affect how your executives and board view marketing investment and impact; for example, an early-stage venture-backed company may invest significantly in marketing (even more than their revenues), while a public company may have more pressure from investors to be very efficient in their spending and even reduce spending if revenues are not growing. Read the earnings reports published by your company and competitors (if public); you can use ChatGPT or another GenAI tool to help summarize the key points and call out the marketing-related information. Familiarize yourself with your company’s financial statements, and chat with your CFO to understand how they view the world (if they are open to a conversation). The deeper your comprehension of the larger financial context of your company and the market, the better you can align your daily efforts with board and C-level concerns, thereby setting yourself apart from your peers. Plus, it just makes the work more fun when you understand the bigger picture!

We hope you enjoyed this post and we look forward to sharing more perspectives, opinions, and discussions with other industry thought leaders.