Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 572 | How to scale high-quality B2B campaigns with AI

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Ep. 572 | How to scale high-quality B2B campaigns with AI · The Prompt

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This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
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pressing B2B go to market challenges.
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Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
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marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
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strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Home Based Podcast.
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I'm your host, Chris Moody, and today we're very excited to have
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Chelsea Wells with us to talk about scaling success with AI
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attribution and demand Gen. strategies.
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Chelsea, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the show.
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Yeah. Thank you for having me.
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I appreciate it. Awesome.
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Well we're very glad to have you.
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I will have to chat before we even started and hit record.
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So now we're in the real recording, the first question we
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like to talk about and start with is what led you to what
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you're doing today? So a little bit about the
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journey and you can take that anywhere you want to go.
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So I got my BBA with a focus in marketing at the University of
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Texas at Austin, where I also got a certificate in Global
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Management. And during my time there, I
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actually ended up joining a Business Association where they
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pair you with a local company in Austin to help them solve real
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life business problems. And that company actually ended
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up being my first real full time job after college and also the
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place where I met my mentor who's helped shape my career.
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So a really rewarding experience for the first six years of my
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career too, I worked in SAS cybersecurity, really wearing
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all of the hats you can imagine across the demand generation
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function. So getting involved in things
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like events, webinars, digital ads, even some marketing
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operations. But I've always been, you know,
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challenging myself and pushing myself to do better in my
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career. I definitely have a pretty large
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drive for wanting to set goals and accomplish them as soon as
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possible. So about two years ago, I got my
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MBA at SMU and during that time I also started looking for a
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career path that would really challenge me and get me to that
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next level of marketing that I knew I could achieve.
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And that ultimately led me to my position here at Master Control.
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It's actually my first position that I've been in that is solely
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ABM focused, so I have been doing ABM within each role since
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I've really started my career within demand generation.
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It also allowed me to step into a people manager role as well
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for the first time, which is really fun and extremely
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rewarding. Awesome, I love the background.
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I especially love that the project you were on turned into
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your first full time job. I have a very similar story from
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grad school. So when I did my MBA, that led
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to the first several years of my career.
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So that's really cool to see. Lots of cool conversations
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around ABM to have here as well. The fact that you were doing it
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now, it's in your title. We've seen research over the
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years that said that's one of the top indicators of success to
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have someone dedicated to account based.
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I love hearing all of these things.
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Let's start off with the challenges.
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What is the biggest roadblock in operationalizing AI to make sure
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that we have scalable high quality campaign creation.
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And the key here is high quality.
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And without even looking at what we were going to talk about
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today or us having this conversation, I had just said
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we're trying to scale high quality things when when we were
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talking before you hit record. So I'd love to hear the biggest
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challenge to getting us to the scalable, high quality
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campaigns. Absolutely.
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And I think there's like 3 key challenges that I've really
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noticed, but the biggest of those 3 is really data quality
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as well as accessibility. I think we've all seen that, you
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know, AI models or AI platforms are only as good as the
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information that you feed them. So whenever your data is not
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clean, it comes to your accounts, contacts,
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opportunities. AI might not be able to really
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help you develop the best fit campaign for your audience or
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for the goals that your company is trying to achieve.
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So you really want to make sure that all of your data is
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accurate and clean wherever you're hosting it.
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In addition to that for accessibility, if you're really
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wanting AI to get into the nitty gritty of you know, how well are
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your LinkedIn awareness ads or your demand based display ads
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performing and wanting to rely on it to help you optimize or
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even recommend like increasing budget or switching up
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messaging. You have to make sure that AI
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has access to that level of data as wells, which can be difficult
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if you have like 5 different platforms and you're wanting to
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get to that level of impressions or click through rates or
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clicks. But that's really what it is
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going to take for it to inform you the appropriate accurate
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strategy to reach your audience and make those tweaks as you're
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going past the data quality and accessibility.
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The next barrier that I see is really compliance and data
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privacy. You know, we're feeding it all
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of this data again, for your contacts, your accounts, your
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opportunities, the pain points your customers might be facing
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so that it can develop messaging that's the most relevant for
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that audience for that specific campaign.
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So you want to make sure that the AI tool that you choose, it
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does have compliance that your company needs to make sure that
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you're not, you know, violating any data privacy laws or
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anything of that sort. And you really need to trust
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that tool that you're using. The last one, which I feel like
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is probably more relevant for those that are very hands on for
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campaigns right now is human oversight as well as creativity.
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I think as more teams turn to using AI for campaign ideation
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and creation, you know, AI tools again are working off of the
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information that you feed them or that other companies might be
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training them on as well. So it might be more likely to
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feed or I guess use that information and suggest more
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traditional demand generation strategies to you rather than
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recommending more unique strategies that other companies
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may not have thought of. So you really want to maintain a
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human in the loop that ensures that that AI output is really
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applied thoughtfully and then also just enhanced with unique
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insights that really help your campaign stand out from your
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competitors. Great answer there.
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I am a big fan of the kind of creativity that you were just
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hitting on too, because I do think the more we all search for
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efficiency and scale, the more repeatable a lot of the plays
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become. And then we might be doing the
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exact same campaign. So making sure that we find the
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ways to breakthrough and the uniqueness, that's a huge
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element, the personalization. They're really knowing you,
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Chelsea versus, hey, here's a person at this account.
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Let's run this play that we run four people at that account.
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So that that is a great conversation that we can
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certainly dive into more. I know that we want to hit on
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attribution too, and this is always a trap.
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There is no perfect attribution model in my opinion, but it's a
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challenge every single time. How does the attribution model
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that you pick help you determine how channels are influenced in
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campaign strategy should be measured?
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Absolutely. And I agree there's not really a
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perfect attribution model, but you know, hopefully that's
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something AI can help us with as we start to operationalize it
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and use it. But I think that the best thing
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to keep in mind is that each channel that you're using really
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plays a function within certain phases of the funnel there.
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There may be some channels that do play a function within each
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area of that funnel. But just going back to that
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example of like LinkedIn or demand based awareness ads,
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those are really going to help with the top of funnel metrics.
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But if you're measuring based off of last touch attribution,
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you may see that, oh, those don't perform at all.
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We're going to take budget away from that.
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But then you might end up hurting filling your top of
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funnel to then generate those last touch that contribute to
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opportunities. So I think it's important to,
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you know, make sure that you are using an attribution model that
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will measure channels according to the intended outcome from
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them. So if you're using any channels
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that are supposed to drive top of funnel metrics, make sure
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that you're measuring those accordingly.
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Maybe those should be based off of a first touch attribution.
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But then if you're doing more mid to bottom funnel tactics
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like events or even webinars, things of that sort, make sure
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that you're measuring them with mid funnel or bottom funnel
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metrics or attribution. I personally really like to use
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equal touch attribution or multi touch attribution, but I think
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there's something to be said about even using channel
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specific attribution. Just so you know you're
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measuring them effectively and fairly and allowing that to
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inform how you should be actually spending your budget in
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an effective way. That's not hurting other areas
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of the funnel because if you're not measuring them in the
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appropriate way, you may end up allocating budget in a way that
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is not the most effective or not the most aligned with your
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goals. So then you might be driving a
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lot of top of funnel, but you're not converting them down funnel
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or vice versa. You're driving more bottom
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funnel, but you're not filling the top of your funnel.
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So next quarter you might end up being a bit short.
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Great stuff there. I love that conversation.
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I'm a huge dork for measuring things side by side.
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I just did 3 videos about this on LinkedIn.
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You'll have to watch them when we're done with this, but I
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think that's one of the most important points that you hit on
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to. While no single model may be
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perfect, measure all the things and find the insights and figure
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out what works where, which stage of the funnel, and then
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have the conversations. I think that's a very important
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piece. So I I love that answer there.
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I'm curious. We've all seen the Scott Brinker
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charts with the tech landscape and how it's grown at some
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ridiculous multiple over the years.
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Every single industry has tons and tons of competitors.
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Now I'm curious, as we think about the potential saturation
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of competitors who may be running similar strategies, how
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do ABM and go to market strategies evolve?
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When we start to think about the very competitive landscape we're
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in and we all have access to AI, we're all trying to figure out
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attribution, How do you think our strategies are going to
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change? Yeah.
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I think that's a great question. So IA lot of, I think the
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digital landscape is just over saturated at this point as well.
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So whatever it comes to that, you really want to make sure
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that your ads and messaging directly resonate with the
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audience that you're going after.
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So again, needing to hone in on those unique go to market
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strategies, making sure that your message resonates but also
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stands out. You also want to make sure that
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you have a good mix of strategies as well.
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So physical touches versus digital touches and approaching
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your audience in a way that is just much different than what
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they might anticipate and just testing new strategies
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constantly. And I also think that going back
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to like AI, that the, I guess, role that the human plays in
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campaign creation is going to truly evolve.
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We're going to see humans start to play more of that creative
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role and we're going to be accepting, you know, some maybe
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foundational work from AI for the audiences that we're wanting
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to go after or some base messaging that we want to use
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within our campaigns. But then our role is going to be
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doing research as to like what has not been used yet in the
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market? What is a unique way to get this
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message across to that audience that other companies might not
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yet have tried? That's a really important one.
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I was going to ask a similar question and I, I think you
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answered it. I'm going to ask you just in
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case you have anything else you want to add on it.
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But I, I think that's such an important distinction of what we
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all should be doing personally, not just with the tools that we
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use and with AI as our assistant.
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And the question which you just hit on, but if there's anything
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else you want to add, it's what balance do you think needs to be
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struck between the technology driven strategies and the
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traditional marketing fundamentals to stay
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competitive? Yeah.
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I think that that's really dependent on the audience that
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you're targeting. So I think that there's still
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some audiences that the digital advertising plays still really
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resonate with, and then there's some audiences that might
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resonate a bit better with more of those physical or in person
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touches. And it's up to you to really do
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like surveys or polls to understand what they may care
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about or what might grab their attention a bit better.
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But I also wouldn't just solely rely on surveys or polls either.
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I would also make sure that you're constantly testing those
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strategies. I feel like a good marketing
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campaign is going to have a decent mix of both physical as
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well as digital, but which one you should be relying on most
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just depends completely on the audience that you're going after
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and whether those touches, you know, that are digital would
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work better top of funnel or bottom funnel versus physical
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touches. I think they all kind of play
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their own part within the funnel stage according to those
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personas that you're going after.
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Let's take that into some steps which I everyone loves.
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Key takeaways or steps to follow?
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What are some practical steps that we should all take to
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incorporate AI into our campaign creation without sacrificing
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quality? Yeah, absolutely.
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I, I think it's important to before you even like start
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diving into all of the AI tools, really map out like what does
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your campaign workflow look like in current state?
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Then identify what areas do you think the AI could help you
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either scale those campaigns or incorporate more personalization
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or customization, depending on the type of campaign you're
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wanting to go to market with. And once you have that
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completely mapped out, you can just, you know, start to
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identify, okay, these are the AI tools that we need and these are
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the areas that we should plug them into.
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And then just make sure that you're comparing a bunch of
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different AI tools against each other.
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There are so many in the market now that do so many different
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things, it's kind of hard to get a handle on sometimes.
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But just making sure you're testing them and also using the
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same inputs in each of those platforms so that you can
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compare the outputs a bit more accurately to understand which
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AI tools really going to have the most impact in your campaign
14:39
workflows that you're wanting to make a bit more efficient or
14:43
effective. Once you've decided on those AI
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tools, I think it's important to kind of go back to the drawing
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board. What do our campaign workflows
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look like now that we have these AI tools?
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Map out what that looks like. Where is there a need for human
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review? You really want to make sure
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that you're training your team that's going to be involved in
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those AI tools on, you know, how to draft the perfect prompt for
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the outcome that you're expecting.
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Also, just how to use the tools in general.
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And then also, I think I've hit on a couple Times Now, but
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making sure that you know you always have a human in the loop
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whenever you are using AI workflows, just to make sure
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you're always putting that creative or unique spin on
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things and not just taking what it's giving you and putting it
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directly in the market. You still want to make sure that
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you know you have the right brand feel, but you're also
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being unique compared to everyone else that might also be
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using these AI tools. Perfect.
15:38
And Chelsea, we talked a little bit about celebrating wins and
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marketing our own marketing before we hit record.
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I would love to put you on the spot and have you share an
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example of a successful initiative that you've worked on
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at Master Control that we can all learn from.
15:56
Yeah, absolutely. So one campaign that I've been
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working on is A1 to few ABM campaign that is targeting an
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industry sub segment, which has been really fun.
16:07
We've seen some really quick wins and quick funnel movement
16:11
as well as opportunity creation. And I think a key driver of
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success for this campaign was because we used an equal touch
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attribution model. It really gave me a full view
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into every single channel that any opportunity was touching
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before it became an opportunity so that I could then go back and
16:30
see what that full journey looked like.
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And not every account took that same journey.
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But what I noticed kind of across the board was that each
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opportunity used a very good mix of channels, which I haven't
16:44
always seen in the past. And I thought that that was
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really cool that we're, you know, leveraging every channel
16:49
possible to create success here. In addition to that, I also use
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that mix of digital as well as physical touches.
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And something that I found interesting was that I really
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needed to incorporate more of those physical traditional
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touches that we used like maybe 6 to 10 years ago before the
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whole digital boom. So that's something that, again,
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I don't think I found like the perfect mix of channels and the
17:17
exact appropriate order to be using them in.
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But but it's just cool to see that we're starting to really
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nail down the mix of channels that contributes to
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opportunities as well as incorporating new strategies
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that we might not have done had we not been constantly testing
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and trying to uncover new ways that we can improve our
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performance. Awesome.
17:39
That's a big one. I'm huge on.
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Well, I call it swag. Someone on my team said merch.
17:44
It's merch. It's not just swag, but you
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know, something you can put your hands on, something that's
17:49
thoughtful and you'll actually use, not just throw away in the
17:54
hotel lobby. So I love that.
17:56
And then we've seen a ton over the years that getting people to
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hosted events is one of the strongest closing motions.
18:03
So we might track all the digital signals, but how do we
18:06
get those people 2 events? I love talking about that and
18:09
geeking out on that. It's awesome that you're doing
18:11
that at Master Control. I love that you mentioned too,
18:14
like incorporating swag that they'll actually use and not
18:18
throw away. I feel like that's something
18:20
that sometimes is missed. And one thing I really
18:23
incorporated into this campaign was actually the swag item that
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they would not only use, but they would hopefully use in
18:29
their everyday work life to hopefully make their lives a bit
18:33
easier, but then also keep that brand recognition inside the
18:37
company. So hopefully someone will ask
18:39
who's master control. Yeah, I love it.
18:42
I mean I have looked 2 items that I'm testing right here.
18:45
We talked about messy desk, but literally I have to put my hands
18:48
on things sometimes and make sure, hey, would I be excited to
18:52
get this and hopefully everyone else is.
18:54
So yeah, I little LCD there. It's OK.
18:58
We're going to make sure it's really good.
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I would love to to look ahead a bit and understand in the spaces
19:05
of account based marketing, go to market strategies, what are
19:08
the innovations or trends that you think are going to define
19:11
the next era? I think that's a really good
19:13
question as well. One that we touched on at the
19:16
very beginning of the interview and I kind of made a joke about
19:19
was AI driven attribution. We're going to see a huge
19:23
increase in the use of AI tools for building those, the
19:27
foundation of campaigns, but not only building the foundation of
19:30
those campaigns, also increasing the AI analysis of how campaigns
19:35
are working on a more granular level.
19:37
So they should be telling us how to optimize campaigns within
19:41
real time as it's ingesting that data.
19:44
And I think attribution models as we know it will probably go
19:48
out the door and AI is going to start taking over the
19:51
attribution model. And it's going to be a bit more
19:54
related to channel and what we expect from each of those
19:58
channels based on how AI has seen those channels function for
20:02
us in each stage of the cycle or of the funnel.
20:05
So that'll be really interesting.
20:07
I also think we're going to continue to see this increase of
20:09
hyper personalized touches since we're going to be able to scale
20:13
our campaigns a lot more efficiently.
20:15
Using AI, I think AI is also going to help us make everything
20:19
very specific to the person that we're sending it to, including,
20:23
you know, digital ads, marketing emails, sales outreach, and even
20:27
direct mailers, I think are going to get a lot more
20:29
personalized than than we've currently seen.
20:32
And again, just the evolving role of the campaign manager as
20:36
we know it today, We're really building everything from the
20:39
ground up. And I think it's going to evolve
20:41
to we're going to be responsible for making those campaigns
20:44
unique and personalized and standing out from competitors
20:49
versus having to, you know, do all of the nitty gritty work
20:52
that builds the foundation of the campaign for figuring out
20:56
who is the most effective audience to be targeting.
20:58
What is that, you know, basic messaging that we should go to
21:01
market with? Everything you said resonates
21:03
with me because what would we pay attention to?
21:07
And it is something that's personal and something that
21:09
stands out. And it made me think of a
21:11
different episode too. Samantha McKenna, She has a a
21:14
phrase show me, you know me. And that's the whole point she's
21:17
trying to make. It's that personalization.
21:20
And hey, if if I know that Chelsea lives in well, I won't
21:25
say exactly where you live around Austin ish Dallas,
21:28
somewhere in there, but I know where you live.
21:31
So how do I use that personalized information when we
21:34
know where you went to school for undergrad and grad school
21:38
and how important UT Austin was for your career journey?
21:42
Right? Like what would I do if I'm
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trying to reach you with that information versus put in
21:48
campaign #26 Right. It's just a totally different
21:52
feel. So I, I think that is something
21:54
I'm personally excited about. Hopefully we can all raise to
21:57
meet that bar that you're setting.
22:00
Yeah, I completely agree. And that's something I love
22:02
about ABM 2 is that it really helps, you know, cut through the
22:06
noise because you get to get to that personal level with each
22:10
contact that you're wanting to get in touch with.
22:12
Perfect. All right, we are in the
22:15
Lightning round. This means we have a little bit
22:17
of time left so you can be quicker with these answers here.
22:20
Think Family Feud without the pressure.
22:22
I don't have a buzzer sound. I've done that on stage before.
22:24
It's actually a lot of fun to be in control of the buzzer and
22:27
just do that for people. But sellers love it.
22:30
It was a big hit with our sales team.
22:32
What is the biggest challenge in B2B sales?
22:37
Can only pick one thing. I would say probably the
22:40
inadequate or inaccurate insight that we might be getting from
22:45
contacts or accounts in terms of intent.
22:49
Perfect. All right, Yeah, Everybody loves
22:51
a good data integrity issue. What about text?
22:55
So your favorite tools or technology that you're using
22:57
today? I really do love using Demand
23:00
Base. It's definitely made my life a
23:01
bit easier in terms of orchestration and figuring out
23:04
that account intent that you know, is serving the earlier
23:07
issue. I also love Domo for just being
23:10
able to see all of our data in one place.
23:13
And again, that's helping with those attribution models and
23:16
being able to switch between attribution views.
23:19
And then I actually haven't personally gotten to use
23:22
Converter for too long, but I do like the tool converter because
23:26
it does help you get leads put into your system much faster
23:30
than having to do the typical weight on the batch of leads.
23:33
Go through the whole process of importing them so you get them
23:36
in as close to real time as you can.
23:38
Awesome. What about good reads?
23:40
We're generous with the reads too, Chelsea.
23:42
So it could be book, blog, newsletter, podcast, video, any
23:45
form of content. But what are some of your
23:48
favorites? I would say I do like the on
23:50
base sessions and it sounds like there's a few I need to go back
23:53
and catch up on after the conversation.
23:55
I also really like the ABM answered webinars as well.
23:59
And then one that I haven't gotten to start yet but I've
24:02
heard good things about is B to B Bytes podcast.
24:05
Awesome, great choices there. What about the same question for
24:09
people who inspires you, especially in the B to B space?
24:13
That's a tough one. I'd say a lot of the people that
24:16
I currently work with are honestly extremely inspiring to
24:19
me. So I would say our CMO, Kelly
24:22
Starman is a rock star, as well as our VP of Demand generation,
24:27
Cassidy Milder. They're just absolutely
24:29
phenomenal at their jobs and extremely inspiring to me.
24:33
And it's always great to hear everything they've done in their
24:35
past, everything that helped them get to where they are
24:38
today. So yeah, those are probably my
24:40
top two at the moment. Outstanding.
24:43
And the most important question of all, Chelsea, very last one,
24:46
how can everyone get in touch with you after this podcast?
24:49
I'd say LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach out to me.
24:52
As we all know, inboxes are pretty cluttered these days, so
24:55
LinkedIn is a bit easier for me to go in and see everyone that's
24:59
trying to reach out. Awesome.
25:00
Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
25:02
You did a great job. Thank you.
25:05
Thank you for having me. I really had a lot of fun.
25:08
Thanks for joining us for On Base.
25:10
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