Lecture at the American University in Bulgaria talking about the concept of the T-shaped marketer and the importance of data in making informed decisions.

1. Topics in Marketing Practice:
Digital Marketing Fundamentals
The Importance of Data
How marketing uses data for decision-making

2. Head of Data & Analytics
Talk to me about:
“data”
“gaming”
“skiing”
“whisky“
Yasen Lilov

4. Marketing usually revolves around two aspects that include
1Understanding
audiences’ needs
and preferences
2Creating a demand
for the products that
the target market
wants to purchase.

5. Creative-driven
marketing

6. Assumption-driven
marketing

7. Gut-driven
marketing

8. Today, however, marketing has a much wider scope

9. Many touchpoints, each leaving a trace - data.

10. Data-driven
marketing
is the use of data acquired through customer interactions to gain insight on
customer motivations, preferences and behaviors.
Data-driven insights enable organizations to enhance and personalize the customer
experience and make decisions backed by data.

11. The use of data allows for…
Improved performance
➔ Increasing the success of campaigns
➔ Driving purchases via personalized offers
➔ Ability to test and iterate quickly
1

12. Increased efficiency
➔ Measuring the success of your marketing
➔ Letting advanced algorithms do the job
➔ Making informed decisions when allocating
media budgets
The use of data allows for…
2

13. Reaching customers more
effectively
➔ Personalize customer communications
➔ Reach out to customers cross-channel
➔ Increase customer loyalty
The use of data allows for…
3

14. Data-driven
marketing sounds great, but
where do you start from?

15. Data-driven
Marketing sounds great, but
where do you start from?

16. Data challenges to do data-driven marketing
Getting the right
data in scalable,
privacy-first and
easy to
understand way
Interpreting the
data
Integrating
platforms to blend
and enrich the
data
Acting on the
data

17. COLLECT INTEGRATE ANALYZE
VISUALIZE
ACTIVATE
Addressing these challenges in four phases

18. COLLECT
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>

19. COLLECT
Web
App
Server
CRM
Behavior &
Conversions
<> code </>

20. COLLECT
Web
App
Server
CRM
Behavior &
Conversions
<> code </>
➔ Focus on building your 1st-party data
➔ Privacy-first approach
➔ Build trust > incentivize consent
➔ Test & deploy new platform features

21. INTEGRATE
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>
Behavior &
Conversions

22. INTEGRATE
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>
…
Behavior &
Conversions

23. ANALYZE
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>
…
Behavior &
Conversions

24. ANALYZE
Web
App
Server
CRM Direct
Integration
or
Measurement
Protocol
…
Behavior &
Conversions
Revenue Do they
spend?
Referral Do they tell others?
Retention Do they come back?
Are they active on the platform?
Activation
Do they sign up?
Do they convert?
Do they use the product?
Viral
Lift
Acquisition How do NEW people find my
business?
AARRR Framework

25. ANALYZE
VISUALIZE
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>
…
Behavior &
Conversions
➔ Storytelling with data
➔ Communication with data
➔ Drive decisions with data
➔ … use the data

26. ACTIVATE
Web
App
Server
CRM
<> code </>
…
Behavior &
Conversions
➔ Campaign Optimization
➔ Audiences
➔ Personalization
➔ Remarketing
➔ Leads Scoring
➔ and more..

27. Data-driven
Marketing sounds
great, but where do
start from?
Google Tag Manager
Google Looker Studio
Firebase for Apps
Google Analytics 4
Google Search Console
Google Ads
Facebook Ads
LinkedIn Ads

28. Requires a T-shaped marketer
The digital marketing landscape is
complex and becomes technical.

29. T-shaped marketer?
a metaphor for an individual's strengths,
with the vertical line representing expertise,
discipline and knowledge of a particular
field, and the horizontal line representing
cross-discipline competencies and the
ability to collaborate with professionals in
other fields or roles.

30. Paid
Media
Google
Ads
Meta
Ads
LinkedIn
Ads
…
D
E
P
T
H
O
F
K
N
O
W
L
E
D
G
E

31. Data
Analysis
Data
Collection
Data
Engineering
Creative UX Content
BROAD KNOWLEDGE
Paid
Media
Google
Ads
Meta
Ads
LinkedIn
Ads
…

32. Data
Analysis
Data
Collection
Creative UX Content
Paid
Media
Google
Ads
Meta
Ads
LinkedIn
Ads
…
Data
Engineering
Key takeaway: Broaden your expertise and be open to collaborate

33. Case Study

34. THE
CLIENT
Payhawk helps you manage and automate everything between your bank and accounting software in real-time.

35. THE
CLIENT
Payhawk helps you manage and automate everything between your bank and accounting software in real-time.

36. THE
CHALLENGE
Payhawk, a rapidly growing fintech company, was facing
challenges with their Meta Pixel conversion tracking.
Regulatory changes, the use of ad-blockers, and other
technical issues were resulting in underreporting of
conversions, leading to incomplete data and potential
inaccuracies in their marketing efforts.
An audit of the existing Meta Pixel setup revealed
configurational areas for improvement. Payhawk needed a
solution that would provide more accurate, reliable, and
comprehensive data on their ad conversions.

37. THE
APPROACH
That's where we came in.
As a digital agency specializing in these technologies, we
partnered with Payhawk to address the challenges. Starting
with stakeholder interviews to fully understand the issues
and followed it with an audit of the existing Meta Pixel setup.
Based on our findings, we provided consultation on
configuring Google Cloud Platform to host the GTM server-
side container. We then made necessary adjustments to the
Meta Pixel configuration on the client-side, ensuring
accurate data capture via Google Tag Manager.
Lastly, we configured the server-side GTM to send data to
Meta via the Conversions API, creating a direct link between
Payhawk's marketing data and Meta's systems.
The whole setup can be seen on the next slide:
Payhawk Website
Browser
Pixel
GTM
Google Cloud Platform
Conversion
API
ssGTM

38. THE
APPROACH
Consumer
Web Browser
Google Cloud Platform
Meta Servers
Privacy, Browser or 3rd party Ad-
blockers may prevent data collection.
Payhawk Website
Browser
Pixel
Conversion
API
ssGTM
GTM
Conversion API fills the gaps where data
collection is disrupted

39. THE
RESULTS
58%
more measured
events
Data based on Meta Pixel plus the Conversions API,
compared to Meta Pixel alone.
The result was a more robust, accurate, and reliable system
for tracking ad conversions. By overcoming the limitations
of client-side tracking and ensuring direct data transfer to
Meta's servers, Payhawk now has access to more
comprehensive and accurate data for their ad campaigns.
This has empowered them to make more data-driven
decisions, optimize their ad targeting, decrease cost per
action, and ultimately, improve their marketing ROI, based
on the increased levels of available data.
The partnership did not only solved Payhawk's immediate
problem of underreported conversions but also set them
up for long-term success by optimizing their use of
powerful marketing technologies.

40. Marketing sounds great, but
where do you start from?

41. Data-driven
Marketing sounds great, but
where do you start from?
Measurable, just-in-time and personalized.

42. Data-driven
Marketing sounds great, but
where do you start from?
!= No creativity

44. Q&A

45. Yasen Lilov
Data & Analytics Service Lead,
VertoDigital
/in/yasenlilov/
yasen.lilov@vertodigital.com
Scan to connect!

46. Resources

47. Resources
1. Google Analytics course
2.Google Analytics certification
3.Access the GA Demo account
4.AARRR Framework
5.Occam’s Razor - Analytics & Dataviz blog
6.Superweek Hungary - Best data & analytics conference
7.MeasureCamp - Best data & analytics un-conference (free)
8.The myth of the ‘non-technical’ marketer
9.The technical marketer blog - by Juliana Jackson