How should marketing departments think to get maximum impact from the marketing budget, and what should marketers stop doing immediately? Working as a Growth Lead means a need to balance a lot of different disciplines, and if there is anyone who can wear many different marketing hats, it is Aimfor's own Erik Andersson.
With a solid interest in technology, it is an understatement to say that his "nerdiness" shaped his career choice. He built his first computer as early as 14 years old, and when his friends programmed calculators, he programmed his first computer game in Visual Basic.
After high school, he switched to the engineering program in computer technology at KTH. Still, he thought it was too theoretical, which led him to aim for a degree in communications. The combination of technology and marketing was a perfect platform, not least when marketing today is mainly about data and technical solutions.
Before fate brought him to Aimfor, he worked at Samsung as a social media manager and at Savelend as a marketing manager & product owner. In between, he also managed to work at an ad-tech company in programmatic advertising. With such broad competence, it is easy to think about what Erik is best at, or worst at, in his Growth Lead role at Aimfor:
– I am the best at saying yes and the worst at saying no. I am generally good at finding problems, why something doesn't work, and finding alternative solutions. You are just a buzzkill if you can see the issues without the answers. And much of my job is about creative problem-solving when our customers want to get as much bang for the buck as possible.
So, how do you ensure your customers get the most bang for the buck then?
– My rule of thumb is that at least 15% of the budget must be spent on experimentation. You always have your established channels, try them by all means - but in those channels, you can also experiment, raise your gaze and try the unconventional. In addition to potential conversions, testing will give you a better understanding of your target audience.
Erik continues:
– Another important aspect is consistency and uniformity in your marketing activities. Let's say you are going to market pet insurance. You do an a/b test and see that ad A performed best. Then, you must ensure that the web page reflects what worked in the ad. Develop a hypothesis, test and tweak along the way. If you have wrong messages, you burn the money, and then you might as well refrain from the marketing activity.
What should companies stop doing immediately?
– Don't stress at the start so that the quality suffers. Feel free to use AI, but think about how it will be good. Stop thinking only of Facebook or other purchased channels. Instead, think about your marketing budget more holistically; sometimes, hiring a salesperson and reducing the marketing budget might be better than allocating three million to an annual marketing budget. See where the money does the most good. If you're a digital marketer, it might not be so fun to recommend that you don't want to buy something, but sometimes it's also the right thing.
What will we see more of in digital marketing?
– I think more "black boxes" will be created. When I worked with Programmatic a few years ago, we test-ran the campaign for a week, analyzed which pages performed, which ads worked and optimized continuously. The primary marketing channels' algorithms will take on an increasingly prominent role, which means that the manual work from the marketers is reduced.
He concludes:
– The advantage of this is that more and more people will be able to work with marketing. The big disadvantage is that you lose control when you no longer have access to the same insights as when you manage everything yourself. And you could spend more than you needed.
