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Navigating the Fog: Making Sense of Attribution, Demand, and AI · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:16
  All right, we're back on the show floor here at Forrester B2B Summit,
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  live on the marketplace floor.
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  Day two, it's been buzzing, lots of great conversations, a lot of good energy.
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  We're here right next to the big boot.
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  Everyone's been talking about the boot.
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  The big boot.
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  We just got our picture with the big boot, which is exciting.
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  Look forward-
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  I've always wanted a picture with the big boot.
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  I've always bucket list checked off, picture with giant,
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  ridiculous 20-foot-tall boot.
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  Ed Grossman, co-founder of Activate, now co-founder of DemandArc joining us now.
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  Ed, how we doing?
• 0:46
  Pretty good, Matt.
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  Nice to be here.
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  Nice to see you, and, be here with all your guests.
• 0:49
  It's wonderful to be seen.
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  So let's get right into it.
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  It was, oftentimes when people ask me, "How did you get into what you're doing
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  today?" I, the first thing I think is, "Boy, this has been a giant mistake."
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  How does a music and philosophy major from Boston College end up a serial
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  entrepreneur in the B2B MarTech space?
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  It's really totally by accident, I think.
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  Yeah, unintended.
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  Exactly.
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  Yeah,
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  For sure.
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  I, had no idea what to do with some useless degrees.
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  So, I got a job as an editor, and, this happened to be at
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  the moment when Netscape… Sorry, not even Netscape, sorry.
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  I guess it was the early Netscape, first browser was coming out.
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  And, I happened to have a little, ability with technology, so I was all of a
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  sudden the editor who could build your website, or the editor you needed to
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  speak to about getting your stuff online.
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  And it just kinda spiraled out of control from there, I would say.
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  So I still think about those things, about how do we communicate and, how
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  do we do that efficiently online?
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  How does what we did in print as editors, change?
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  100 years ago, it was very difficult to get information.
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  You really needed the newspaper.
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  You were dying to hear what was happening elsewhere.
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  Now, we're the opposite.
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  We're like, too much information.
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  And so I still think about those things, and I think tech
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  buyers think about those things.
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  I think marketers think about those things.
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  So there's a through line, but it's mostly a big accident.
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  No, there's definitely a through line.
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  I think, I studied journalism and political science, it taught
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  me how to tell stories, and I think that's valuable in B2B.
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  I think, your approach to attribution, I could argue, reflects a version
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  of philosophical pragmatism.
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  Talk about how that concept helps you think about what is, what
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  attribution is and isn't today.
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  Yeah.
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  So I'm, I am a,
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  I'm a practical person.
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  I like to have simple thoughts, not complex thoughts.
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  And I always…I make jokes with them, like my business superpower
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  is laziness and simplicity.
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  So I like to think about what can I do to make my life easier or
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  better or not have to complete, mundane tasks over and over again.
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  How can I help marketers decide what to stop spending money on?
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  It's a very simple question, and I think that we lay- we have a
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  kind of a complex and fancy label of attribution, multi-touch,
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  W, curve- all this stuff.
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  But really what we're trying to help a marketer do with those types
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  of tools is make a decision about what things should I do more of?
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  What things should I…what are wastes of money?
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  I'd like to know what I'm wasting my money on.
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  And I can't tell today, those types of, those issues.
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  So I'm gonna quote you from… you joined us last year, at Forrester Summit.
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  And you…this is a direct quote from you, "Why don't we just stop doing the things
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  that are clearly not producing revenue?"
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  Yeah.
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  It sounds obvious.
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  It's obvious.
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  But why doesn't it happen?
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  What politically prevents organizations from just cutting that that doesn't work?
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  Because you would think, the data's very clear about what is and isn't
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  happening, and yet, inertia persists.
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  So like, how do we help organizations culturally, politically have a
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  more fact-based and pragmatic conversation that can move the needle?
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  It's a great question, and I do think we get caught organizationally, politically,
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  momentum, whatever it is, as we've, you know, talked before, this past year,
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  talking with people about attribution.
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  You'll get someone, a customer say, "Oh, I love that."
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  "Let me bring in three other people to talk about it."
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  And all of a sudden you've got a conversation which is, "I'm not really
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  sure who's in charge of this. who needs to approve it?" And so attribution, because
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  it's such a collaborative discussion, and you've- we've talked many times about
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  the game of credit- and the Whac-A-Mole.
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  You get very quickly sucked into that.
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  And as we have evolved and launched DemandArc, NavigateIQ
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  is still an ingredient there, still a product of DemandArc.
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  But one of the things we've decided to do a little bit differently is say,
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  "Can we help you answer some of those questions about what's working or where
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  should I optimize in a way that doesn't require you to get 15 people into a
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  meeting and get a bunch of additional approvals, and then tell your marketing
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  ops team that the project they've been working on for six years is now dead,
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  and you have to get rid of Bizible?" All those things- let's get rid of that.
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  So what we instead saying is, "Look, if we're doing demand gen for you,
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  and we've got 1,000 leads a quarter going in through multiple campaigns,
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  multiple geos, multiple assets, we can actually apply some of what we
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  learned through NavigateIQ right there."
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  Yeah.
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  "Even as we're giving it to you, as we're giving you demand, or as we're
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  looking at the demand that you're getting from partners, we can show you,
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  here are the leads that are populating at the accounts you care about.
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  Here are the accounts that are becoming qualified based on buying signals.
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  And we don't need to get a bunch of other people to do that for you." "We
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  don't need to get a bunch of approvals." And so why am I telling you that?
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  Because I think part of the answer is, if you can remove the political
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  obstacles of having to get permissions and opt-ins and buy-ins and just say,
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  "Look, I can make your life easier."
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  We expect that to be more, palatable, and I think that's one of the
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  reasons we see people loving ChatGPT.
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  You sign up-
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  Yeah
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  … You start asking questions.
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  No one approves that.
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  Yeah.
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  Maybe your IT department is upset and you're getting, you're getting
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  some pushback on security, but again, you're self-empowering yourself
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  when you're working with an AI tool.
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  You're not having to go out and get a bunch of people to agree.
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  That's gonna remain hard.
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  I think it's a brilliant pivot.
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  It's been such, it's been so difficult for companies to get traction
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  in the attribution space alone.
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  It's been a challenge.
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  I think everyone talks about attribution.
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  It has not been a big priority to spend money on, but demand will persist forever.
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  So, to be able to provide demand services and have the analytics built in to
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  help those, help your clients make more confident decisions I think is important.
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  We talked about your, our, backgrounds by mistake, but, after music and
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  philosophy, you spent time in B2B media, InformationWeek, UBM.
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  I'm curious, how do you believe that content and publishing side shaped
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  how you think about buyer, what buyers actually do with marketing content?
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  So the, great question, and, you've got your journalism background as well.
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  One of the things that when I started in content and in, as an editor was, I
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  would sit down with, as we're writing or, going out to, to, briefings, sit down with
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  CIOs or sit down with VPs of technology.
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  I used to tell a story about having a dinner with the CTO of FedEx and listening
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  to what his experience was of not only us, a publisher, but the billion people
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  trying to get ahold of him with one of the largest IT budgets in the world.
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  And so I think about that a lot.
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  I love technology.
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  I have bought a lot of technology.
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  I am a technology buyer.
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  I'm a technology user in many of my roles, and then I've also spent a lot
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  of time with other technology buyers.
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  And, the things that they tell us over and over again is first of all, they
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  really don't care about any vendors.
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  What they really care about is getting some problem solved, getting some
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  objective met, whether it's staying off the front page of a security breach, or
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  saving budget or whatever it might be.
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  And so we, talk about that all the time with our clients in, at
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  DemandArc and previously at Activate.
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  Help, a marketer needs to help a technology buyer understand not how
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  to use their technology- not what features are great- not how you're
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  different, but- how you're going to help them with the problem they have-
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  Yep
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  … With the issue that they're facing.
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  And that's gonna be typically save money, make money-
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  Yep
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  Change something, change management, detangle something you've got.
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  And so I, I bring that to, all of the programs that we run because I think, like
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  you're saying, some things will remain hard, and one thing that's gonna remain
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  true for technology buyers is they're gonna have needs that they're gonna
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  need to have met, whether the, again, be saving costs or making more money.
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  And those needs are gonna persist.
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  Whether those needs are met by a live SDR or an AI SDR, the needs
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  of the buyer are gonna persist.
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  On the show floor here at Forrester B2B Summit with Ed Grossman,
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  the co-founder and, it says chief data nerd, for NavigateIQ.
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  But are you still chief data nerd for DemandArc?
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  I am still the chief data nerd.
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  Wonderful.
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  Yeah.
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  All right.
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  Definitely.
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  So you talk about things that are hard.
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  You know what else is hard, Ed?
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  Starting a company.
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  And this is a, I think this is a fascinating and, it's always a fascinating
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  and terrifying time to start a company, and there's so many startups in the
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  marketing and rev ops space, a lot of companies trying to get the attention.
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  You look around this room and, you have a finite number of CMOs and what feels
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  like an infinite number of vendors.
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  You have, you and Martha both have credibility given the
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  work you did at Activate.
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  You've got a great network.
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  You've got a ton of advantages.
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  What are some of the keys to breaking through the clutter and getting noticed
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  and recognized in what will always be a crowded revenue ops, landscape?
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  Yeah.
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  It's, I think it's interesting being here at Forrester and seeing
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  all the posters up and all the things people are talking about.
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  I think we are in the singularity.
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  We've just entered, and it is a very hard time to see very far beyond, right?
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  It's like being in dense fog.
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  You can see maybe a few feet, but not very far beyond.
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  So it is an interesting time to start a company.
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  I think for us, the differentiator, the way to stand out, is to make sure we're
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  very clear on how we're trying to help.
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  That's one piece of it.
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  Yep.
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  What are your problems?
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  If I can't under… just like we think about tech buyers have problems and
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  marketers wanna help solve them, marketers have problems, and if I can't explain
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  to them how I'm going to help them with their problem or make something in their
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  lives easier, I'm gonna fail as a company.
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  And so we start there.
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  What problem are you facing, marketer?
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  Can we help you?
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  Second piece is we often think about- are we helping an area
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  that the marketer can act on?
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  And again, I think when we look at demand, that's an area that
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  marketers know how to act on.
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  They have motions, they have budgets, they have, ways to compare vendors, et cetera.
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  When we think about things like attribution, for many
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  marketers it's less clear-
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  Yeah
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  … how to move forward on that.
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  They like it.
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  Yeah.
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  They're frustrated with the credit game, but who owns the budget?
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  Yep.
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  How does it interface with the eight other systems we just bought?
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  Those are a little bit less clear, and I think it's one of the reasons you
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  see a lot of people in attribution, have very promising products but
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  have a little trouble capitalizing on the way that we might expect
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  the potential would allow them to.
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  Well, and I think, just talking to you and Martha yesterday and just hearing
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  the dramatic success you've had just in early days of ramping up DemandArc, it
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  speaks to your reputation, it speaks to I think how well the message resonates.
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  But I think it also reminds me that, as much as we want to automate
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  selling and automate things through AI, and look, plenty of buyers
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  are going to AI first, trust and relationships still matter, right?
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  Definitely.
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  And I think for the foreseeable future, where something comes from and whether
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  we know and trust that source gives you a significant competitive advantage.
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  Talk about what that, how you've been able to manifest and see that in the
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  early rapid growth for DemandArc.
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  Yeah.
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  I love to see, again, talking about posters up here at Dem- at Forrester,
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  or the other posters, the time for accountability or accountable demand.
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  Yeah.
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  Yep.
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  Accountable, accountability reset.
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  And I think that is important.
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  There are… You're in the singularity, it's foggy all around you, there's
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  people doing things that you've never heard of, there's all sorts of tools.
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  You have to remain accountable as a marketer to produce
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  whatever your mandate is.
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  Yep.
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  And I think, therefore providing tools that are trustworthy, that
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  are credible, that have a history of success, is something that
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  is we're seeing marketers crave.
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  "Oh, I know you guys can do a good job. You've got a track record of success.
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  I'm gonna feel confidence." It's the age-old, nobody got fired for buying IBM.
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  Yeah.
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  It's still important.
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  People care about their jobs.
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  They don't wanna get in trouble, they don't wanna lose them.
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  So… knowing they can work with trustworthy providers, trustworthy
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  partners, they can trust the data, they're not gonna get scammed, all
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  those things, they still matter.
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  When investors look to invest in a business, many of them say again and
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  again, "We're looking for good ideas, but we're mostly looking for good teams."
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  'Cause ideas come and go.
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  Ideas, especially right now, you could have an idea six months ago,
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  and all of a sudden the technology changes, ah, no longer a good idea.
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  Do you trust the team to pivot when necessary?
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  Do you trust the team to be able to coalesce and operate together?
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  And so I think about that a lot, just in terms of, the Ed and Martha machine,
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  pivoting to something new, your track record having done it, but also people
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  looking and saying, "DemandArc may look different in a year than it does now."
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  "But I trust the team building it because of the reputation and heritage they have
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  around that as well." I think you're right, that's a key part of the business.
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  And you must see this, I'm sure you see this in your own business, that
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  some of your best customers are the people you worked with six years ago-
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  who've got a new job, they're at a new place, and they bring you
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  in because they had that good, trusting experience, and that builds.
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  That's a virtuous circle that we all wanna build.
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  It does.
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  I think we track internally repeat customers as well as
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  repeat executive sponsors.
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  So we separate the contact from the account.
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  And we see far more repeat executive sponsors from people that move to
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  a different job and bring us in.
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  We also have sales cycles that I guess technically are six to eight years long.
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  Because, you talk to someone that, they just aren't in the right time and place.
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  They don't have the situation, but if you do this long enough, you build
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  a reputation, you build credibility.
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  They know who you are, they know what you do.
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  And even as our, go-to-market product strategy has evolved over
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  time, you believe in the team.
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  You believe in the people behind it.
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  You believe that they're gonna have your best interests and follow their values
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  and purpose and do the right thing.
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  I, 100%, and I, remember, many years ago, first, when we were first starting
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  Activate, we were meeting with some other, potential collaborators, investors,
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  and competitors, and I remember meeting somebody who said, "Look, we, we are able
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  to get on marketing buys all the time."
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  "But we never get renewals."
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  Yeah.
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  Because essentially, we're not delivering, we're not helping marketers be successful.
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  And just that warning flag for me of, don't be that company.
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  Don't be… I'd rather get on half the number of new buys, but,
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  renew all of them, than get lots and lots of tests and have a great
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  outreach and just get no renewals.
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  You'll burn through all the potential customers eventually.
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  Yep.
• 15:57
  Ed Grossman, DemandArc, check it out.
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  Love what you guys are doing.
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  Proud to see you guys continue to just, crush it out in the market.
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  So thanks again for joining us here.
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  Thanks, Matt.
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  Love to be with you.
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  All right, we'll be back.
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  More guests here on the floor of Forrester B2B Summit in a little bit.
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  See you next time.