Latest / Marketing Automation with Fexingo: HubSpot, Marketo, and Automated Customer Journeys / Why Marketing Automation Misreads Your Job Title
Transcript
- Lucas: So Luna, quick question. You just got promoted — say from 'Marketing Manager' to 'Senior Marketing Manager'. What's the first thing that happens to your inbox? Luna: Oh, I'm guessing a flood of 'Congrats on the new role' emails from vendors I haven't talked to in years? Lucas: Exactly. And that's the phenomenon we're digging into today — how marketing automation reacts, or more often overreacts, to a change in your job title. It's a blind spot that's surprisingly common, and it can cost companies real money. Luna: I've definitely been on the receiving end. It's like the CRM suddenly thinks I have a different budget and different problems just because of two words. Lucas: Right. And marketers love to talk about 'life event' triggers — new baby, new house, new job. But the data that feeds those triggers is often messy. Job titles especially. They're free-text fields in a lot of systems, so you get 'Director of Chaos' or 'Chief Everything Officer' and the automation has no idea what to do. Luna: So what actually happens when the system does catch a title change? Does it just send a generic 'congrats' email? Lucas: Sometimes. But the bigger issue is the scoring model. Let's say you were a mid-level marketer, and your score was moderate. The moment you become a 'VP', the system might bump you up to a high-value lead. Suddenly you're in every enterprise nurture stream, getting invitations to webinars about 'scaling at scale'. Luna: And half of those are completely irrelevant because your company is still fifty people. Lucas: Precisely. I read about a case recently — a software company that lost a renewal because their automated journey kept sending 'upgrade to enterprise' campaigns to a customer who had been promoted from 'IT Manager' to 'IT Director'. The customer's company was still small, but the automation assumed more title meant more budget. The customer got annoyed and switched to a competitor. Luna: Ouch. So the title change actually hurt the relationship. It's like the system saw 'director' and thought 'Fortune 500'. Lucas: Yeah. And it's not just the title text itself. It's the lack of context. A title like 'Director' at a two-person startup versus a 'Director' at a bank — those are completely different buying profiles. But most automation treats them the same. Luna: So what's the fix? Do we just throw out job titles entirely? Lucas: Not throw out, but definitely take with a grain of salt. Smart teams are layering in firmographic data — company size, industry, revenue — to contextualize the title. And they're using intent signals too. If someone with a fancy title actually visits your pricing page, that's a stronger signal than the title alone. Luna: That makes sense. But isn't there also a human element? Like, a real sales rep would know that 'Director' at a startup is different. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the irony — automation is supposed to mimic human judgment, but it often ends up being dumber because it's relying on one data point. Some companies are now creating 'title hierarchies' where they assign a seniority level based on the title plus company size. So 'Director' at a company with less than fifty employees gets a different score than 'Director' at a company with ten thousand. Luna: That sounds like a step in the right direction. But what about the 'congrats on the promotion' email? Is that ever a good idea? Lucas: It can be, if it's done thoughtfully. A personalized note that acknowledges the new role and offers something relevant — like a case study from a similar company — that works. But a generic 'Congratulations on your new position' blast is worse than doing nothing. It just shows you don't actually know them. Luna: So the fix isn't more automation, it's smarter automation. Context over keywords. Lucas: Right. And that's a theme we keep coming back to on this show. The tools are powerful, but they're only as good as the data and the logic you feed them. Luna: Before we go further, I have to say — if you're enjoying these conversations and you've actually applied something you heard, maybe consider supporting the show. A couple of dollars a month on buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo genuinely keeps these episodes ad-free and coming out. It's a small thing that makes a real difference for us. Lucas: Yeah, honestly, it's the reason we can keep digging into these niche marketing problems. And we really do read every comment and message. Luna: Okay, back to the title creep issue. You mentioned intent signals — how do you actually track those without getting creepy? Lucas: Good question. It's about observing behavioral cues — like visiting specific product pages, downloading a whitepaper, or engaging with a particular email. Those are strong indicators of interest. But you have to be careful. You don't want to ping someone every time they open a newsletter. Luna: Right, that's the fine line between helpful and stalkerish. Lucas: Exactly. And the best teams are building 'life event' triggers that go beyond simple title changes. They track things like job postings from the company, or changes in company size, or even social media announcements. Then they tie that to a thoughtful campaign. Luna: So if I announce my promotion on LinkedIn, the system might trigger a tailored email sequence that actually makes sense for my new role. Lucas: That's the idea. It's about being timely and relevant, not just automated. The companies that get this right see higher engagement and, ultimately, better retention. Luna: What about the flip side? What if someone gets demoted or their title is just wrong in the database? How do you handle that? Lucas: That's a real challenge. Titles change, people leave, companies restructure. The data becomes stale fast. Some teams do regular data hygiene — they re-verify titles every quarter or so. Others use third-party data providers to enrich their records. But it's never perfect. Luna: So we're back to the fundamental issue: automation relies on data, and data is messy. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why the human-in-the-loop is still so important. A good marketer reviews the automated journeys, spot-checks the data, and tweaks the logic. It's not set-and-forget. Luna: So if I'm a marketer listening, what's one thing I can do this week to avoid the title trap? Lucas: Start by auditing your own CRM. Pull a list of your top hundred leads and look at their titles. See how many are vague, outdated, or just weird. That'll give you a sense of the problem. Then, for your key accounts, consider adding a manual note when someone important changes roles. Luna: That's practical. I like it. And it doesn't require a big tech overhaul. Lucas: Exactly. Sometimes the best fix is just paying attention to the people behind the data. Automation should enhance that, not replace it. Luna: Well, this has been a great reminder that even the smartest systems have blind spots. Thanks for breaking it down, Lucas. Lucas: Anytime. And if you have a title horror story, we'd love to hear it. Who knows, it might make it into a future episode.