Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
My career started in digital marketing when I was still in school attending Arizona State University. Retail just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore, and courses I was taking during college led me to want to get started in marketing as soon as possible. Eventually I got a job with a local start up working as a support member, from there I got an internship in paid media at a local marketing agency and stayed there for the next 5(ish) years until I moved to my current role at Axle Eight.
Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
I’ve made a few laughable mistakes over the years, but some of my favorites all revolve around the comment section on my ads. One time in particular, I had just launched a Facebook Ad for a client involved in the construction industry and used a stock photo with a brand overlay as the creative for a basic ad approach. I saw that the ad was getting a high engagement rate, specifically comments and reactions so I went to look at what people were saying and quickly saw a theme — the people in the stock photo I chose were doing work that violated OSHA compliance and the users in the comments were eating me alive. Things like, “clearly nobody at this company actually works in construction” or quips about how the workers in the photo would probably be fired, and similar. I quickly learned the importance of research and leaning on experts to make sure we’re portraying the brand correctly since the internet will be very quick to tell you if something is wrong!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
My boyfriend Louise is actually a huge reason I started and stuck with my current career. We started dating our sophomore year of college and he’s the one that encouraged me to start applying to jobs in the marketing field. He also pushed me out of my comfort zone and continued to motivate me to apply for internships. Thanks to his support, I landed my first paid media internship at Ethology where we ended up working together for over 5 years. Early on in our careers, he constantly pushed me to be better and put myself out there, and he still does to this day. He’ll probably tell me I shouldn’t give him credit and say that it’s been all me this whole time, but I know I wouldn’t be half of who I am today without him by my side.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
The people at Axle Eight are top notch. Everyone is so genuine, humble, and yet crazy smart. There’s never any ego and we all love to learn from each other. Our clients benefit from this because they’re always getting the absolute best work possible, because we do demand excellence from each other. We care deeply about the success of our clients and never shy away from the transparency needed to help them achieve their goals — even if that means recommending that they cut a service line that’s no longer bringing them value.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
1. Be eager — I’ve always wanted to be involved in as much as possible, especially if it’s something I’ve never done before. This started when I was an intern and always jumping at opportunities to be in client meetings, even if it meant just listening in the corner.
2. Be unflappable– My coworkers can attest; I never get my feathers ruffled on client calls and never take anything they might say personally. I know that if a client is upset with the work, it’s because they have goals to hit and our job is to do what we can to help them hit those goals, it’s never personal. I could tell a few different stories about times a client has gotten upset on a call, but what I’ve learned from those experiences boils down to 2 main things: avoid matching their emotion with emotion because that only causes things to escalate and always be fully honest. Digital marketing can be a world of B.S.-ing and fluff, but in the end, radical honesty and transparency will get you further.
3. Be humble — It feels weird to talk about being humble, kind of like it defeats the point, but I actively aim to stay humble in what I do. I know that there is something to be learned from everyone I work with and I’ve aimed to carry that with me throughout my career. I never assume I’m the smartest in the room or have nothing to learn from those around me — no matter their age or experience level. Even as I’ve begun managing others who look to me for advice and help, I find myself learning from them just as much as they may be learning from me. We all have different perspectives and it’s important to be open to having those perspectives challenged.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
With the world starting to go back to normal we’re seeing a lot of companies ready to ramp up and ramp up fast which has been a lot of fun. We’re launching a new campaign or onboarding a new client almost every week right now and it’s a whirlwind but it’s always worth it to help a client hit their goals and be a part of their success. It’s pushed our business to rethink our processes and launch timelines, teaching us that we have capabilities we didn’t have last year, showing how much we’ve grown as a team.
Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. As we mentioned in the beginning, sometimes companies that just start exploring with digital marketing tools like PPC campaigns often see disappointing results. In your opinion, what are a few of the biggest mistakes companies make when they first start out with digital marketing? If you can, please share an example for each.
I think the biggest overall mistake we see with companies just starting out in digital marketing is not having defined goals before launching. We always start a new client engagement with a full business unpack and part of that is asking what success looks like for them and so often we hear, “we don’t know” or, “you tell us.” And while it can seem great from the agency side to have a client that is ready to try anything, it’s important to lay the groundwork for success at the beginning to make sure we can scale. If you’re a company just starting out in digital marketing, I recommend working backwards to create your goals — if you know your average customer lifetime value, you can work back to a target cost per acquisition. If you don’t know where to start, take a look at industry averages to give yourself some initial benchmarks, ask yourself if these feel reasonable to you as a starting point then re-evaluate after the campaigns have run for at least 2 weeks.
If you could break down a very successful digital marketing campaign into a “blueprint”, what would that blueprint look like? Please share some stories or examples of your ideas.
Let’s talk about Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC) for a bit. In your opinion which PPC platform produces the best results to increase sales?
Well first, let’s talk about what some people think of when they see “PPC” — I came up in digital marketing knowing PPC as paid search, but some people use PPC as an all-encompassing term for paid media (search, social, display, video, etc.) For the purposes of this question, we’ll assume PPC means all paid media since just looking at search platforms is limiting because Google Ads is the clear king of that realm.
When talking about which channel is best, this entirely depends on the type of company and the goals. If you’re a B2B company looking to capture sales from specific companies or specific job titles, LinkedIn would likely be highly successful for you but if you’re a new shoewear company looking to increase sales among Gen Z, LinkedIn is one of the last places you should be and TikTok or Instagram would likely be your best channel.
Paid Media can’t be viewed in a singular way and should always be tailored to your audience and your goals. And if you don’t know where your audience is, be ready to start testing multiple channels to find out.
Can you please share 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful PPC campaign?
First, you need a good ad. Your brand will be competing in a sea of competitors, find what makes you stand out and write about it beautifully and concisely so you can earn their click.
2. A Great Landing Page
Next, every good ad needs to lead to a great landing page. Once you earn the user’s interest, don’t lose it by sending them to a confusing, poor-functioning landing page. Create something that showcases your brand clearly, provides additional information that wasn’t covered in the ad, give them value props and use cases, and most importantly, make sure the action you want them to take is obvious.
3. Proper Tracking
Finally, every successful campaign has to have proper tracking. Getting users to convert is great, but you won’t know why they’re converting if you don’t have proper tracking in place. This includes pixel implementation as well as UTM parameters down to the ad and keyword level.
Let’s now talk about email marketing for a bit. In your opinion, what are the 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful email marketing campaign that increases sales?
1. Proper Audience Segmentation
Make sure to segment your audiences by how they’ve engaged with your brand so you can send them the most relevant next steps to push them through the conversion funnel. For example: you wouldn’t want to send the same email to someone who submitted their information to schedule a demo request as you would to someone who downloaded an eBook. Those people are at completely different stages at the funnel, so you want to be intentional with what comes next.
2. Provide Value and Be Engaging
Once your audiences are segmented, it’s time to focus on the meat of it, the email itself. It should look beautiful on all screens, it should provide information that helps answer questions the user might have (or if they submitted their info for a specific purpose, make sure to provide that to them first and foremost), and it should have a clear action for them to take. If the user is falling into an email sequence, make sure the sequence of emails makes sense and follows a logical flow.
3. Don’t be Annoying
An email opt in is a great thing to get from a user, don’t lose it by bombarding them with too many emails. Have a sequence that provides them with the information they need and if they still don’t buy, back off and consider revisiting them later or using their email to reach them in a different way such as through paid advertising.
What are the other digital marketing tools that you are passionate about? If you can, can you share with our readers what they are and how to best leverage them?
I love Zapier for its ability to simplify connections for clients who don’t have more robust CRM systems in place, however, there are even a ton of great uses for those that do. I love SpyFu, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner for research. Datastudio makes client reporting much less of a headache and gives them an interactive dashboard with (near) real-time data. Canva is a wannabe — graphic designer’s dream for creating professional and beautiful ad creative without the need for any design skill. The list goes on and I would be nothing without all of these tools.
Here is the main question of our series. Can you please tell us the 5 things you need to create a highly successful career as a digital marketer? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Digital marketing is ever-changing and you will fall behind quickly if you don’t stay up-to-date on the latest changes (iOS14 tracking, Google SERP updates, the cookie-less future, TikTok are just a few of the big things in the last year).
2. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Digital marketing can feel huge, but at the end of the day we’re not just advertising. Mistakes are going to happen, tests are going to fail, and goals are going to be missed, but you have to pick up, learn from what happened and apply that learning to the next thing without dwelling on what happened.
3. Be flexible.
I’ve met some people throughout my career who have firm beliefs in the “one true way” to set up an ad campaign and those people tend to find themselves struggling to achieve beyond industry-average results. In order to go beyond and drive results that will blow the client away, you have to be willing to try different approaches.
4. Be genuine.
I said it earlier, eventually the B.S. and fluff will catch up to you and you’ll wish you were genuine from the start. I’ve also found that the biggest strength in selling (whether that’s selling yourself in an interview or pitching a new client) is being genuine about who you are and how you can help them. Other people can feel when you’re being open and honest with them and it will make them want to work with you more than if you’re always trying to sell them or make them feel like you know more than them.
5. Find your passion.
Digital marketing is made up of so many different faucets, explore them early and often to find what truly excites you. It was by accident that I came across paid media in my career, but I took the opportunity I was given to explore all that paid media has to offer and found an early passion for Social Media Marketing which gave me the opportunity to help expand that service offering at the first agency I worked for. Overtime, my passion has shifted to be more general, falling in love with the constant change of paid media and the fact that I never feel like I’m stagnant in my day-to-day despite the fact that I’ve been doing “the same thing” for over 8 years.
What books, podcasts, videos or other resources do you use to sharpen your marketing skills?
As any proper millennial, I’m frequently on all of the social platforms and love discovering articles or new news sources from what my friends and colleagues share. I’m also a sucker for a properly-targeted ad promoting a whitepaper or ebook that speaks to digital marketing news and strategies.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I want to help lower the barrier of entry to digital marketing for brands. In our connected world it’s difficult for a company to reach its max potential without a digital marketing program but it can feel daunting (and expensive) to get started. I would love to start a movement of shared knowledge to bring the power of digital marketing to even the smallest local businesses so they can have the same opportunities that fully-funded businesses have.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Follow @AxleEight on Instagram to see what my agency is up to or connect with me on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachelmacadam
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
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