What is marketing optimization?
TLDR: Marketing optimization is the science behind using basic psychology and data analysis to improve your marketing initiatives one step at a time.
Why am I writing this?
Since starting to work in Marketing Optimization in 2021, I’ve been asked by coworkers, friends, and family what exactly do marketing optimization people do every day. It’s hard to come across a role in marketing optimization that’s exactly like another because of the messy nature of the role. Today though, I will do my best to explain once and for all exactly what my version of working in marketing optimization is.
Why haven’t you heard about Marketing Optimization?
We don’t know exactly what to call ourselves. There’s no perfect way to call someone who works in Marketing Optimization. It’s a growing field, and just like “DevOps” or “DataOps”, we’re in a weird cross-field area where what we do is like an add-on to the original job’s domain.
But what my heart tells me is that here are some wrong ways to call us:
Marketer in Optimization
Marketing Optimizationer
MarkOps
Marketer (keep reading to learn about how it’s not the same thing)
What I think are some right ways to call us:
Marketing Optimization + position (e.g.: Intern/Analyst/Manager/Director)
Marketing Optimization Specialist
And my favorite: Avoiding naming the specific role and just say that I “work in Marketing Optimization”
If you can think of another way to call ourselves that makes sense, please share!
What do people working in Marketing Optimization do day-to-day?
Dashboards, reports, analysis, meetings, brainstorming, and testing. We act somewhat as technical consultants for the Marketing team. So some examples of projects I’ve worked on include:
Creating dashboards to monitor how marketing campaigns are doing
Analyzing webpage performance and testing out web optimizations
Conducting A/B tests on newsletters, webpages, in-app
Convincing upper management that a localization initiative is worth it
Holding user testing sessions to figure out what picture to use for an ad
The main goal of marketing optimization projects is to make sure that marketing efforts are being spent in the best way possible. We also handle a fair share of the grunt work of analyzing the rich data that marketing initiatives produce.
How is Marketing Optimization different from Marketing?
I like to think of Marketing Optimization as a +1 to Marketing. Marketing Optimization cannot exist in a vacuum without pure Marketing. When thinking about Optimization, it requires to take a step back and think whether marketing initiatives are performing in the best way possible or whether they should even exist to begin with. In optimization, we worry about “missed areas of opportunity” whereas in marketing, we worry about creating opportunities. A marketing expert could benefit greatly from implementing marketing optimization principles, but once the marketing team has too much on their plate, marketing optimization specialists need to be called in.
So is Marketing Optimization the same thing as Marketing Operations?
Not exactly. Although I have seen quite a few roles on LinkedIn call the Marketing Optimization work as Marketing Operations and vice-versa - so…I guess it’s subjective? In my opinion, Marketing Optimization shares with Marketing Operations a deep love for data-based decision making.
Here’s a Venn Diagram explaining the relationship between Marketing Optimization, Marketing Operations, and Marketing in the best way that I can:
Can experts in Marketing Optimization do the work of Marketers too?
Technically yes , optimally no. To know how to properly optimize Marketing campaigns and initiatives, Marketing Optimization specialists end up knowing basic theory behind Marketing. But would you want your auditors to be the same people people performing your accounting? Please answer no (please).
Unless you’re really tight on resources and have huge wiggle-room to make your presence known, it’s not the wisest to have the person who’s obsessed with data be in charge of the creative work.
As a founder, I did act as both a Marketer and a Marketing Optimization specialist, among many more other roles. It’s definitely possible, and I will be writing more about my experience doing so, but to stay brief, just keep in mind that the demands for Marketing Optimization are very different when it comes to startup campaigns vs global campaigns. It’s more useful the bigger the company is.
Why does Marketing Optimization involve basic psychology?
Marketing already uses basic psychology techniques to get you interested in a product. Black Friday deals urge you to purchase things on a whim, and Duolingo’s approachable mascot makes you forget that the company is for-profit. Marketing at its core is abusing basic human tendencies to work in a company’s favor (it’s often not that serious but still).
Marketing Optimization uses the same concepts, but optimizes it after looking at data.
Why is Marketing Optimization relevant/why does it matter?
With the sudden boom in ways to collect data and just data being more easily available nowadays, Marketing Optimization is the best way to make use of all of that data in marketing. By using marketing optimization principles, marketers/CMOs/operations/company execs are more confident that they’re not wasting their budgets on ads and emails that make no difference in improving their revenue.