I loved my Time at Google, but here is why I joined Adestra

5 minute read

Team Adestra

What an exciting time to be a marketer.

Let’s face it, email is not sexy. Most think email is old. We have been there right? Done that. Really?? I disagree. Email is the Holy Grail in marketing. It is the unique identifier in all best-in-class CRMs. It’s the linchpin that allows marketers to build attribution models in a multi-channel world. It is the preferred channel to communicate with millennials (yes Millennials!).

Email is now, more than ever, central for marketers as they look to communicate with and identify customers in a mobile first measurable multi-channel world where the cookie has been depreciated. We have seen the end of the days of email taking the back-seat. It is now the center of the digital universe in addressability and the gateway to realizing big data strategies.

In an email to me upon hearing the news that I was joining Adestra, Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director at the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council wrote:

“Automated personalized email and secure, live interactive messaging is of strong interest to us [and our network]. We want to deploy this ourselves.”

Adestra is most definitely one of the few companies that can help marketers take the appropriate steps to mature their CRM and instill the continuing value of marketing automation paired with a contextual and data driven communication plan. But that is not why I joined the company.

When it comes to showing up at work each and every day it takes more than an outstanding platform, exceptional year-on-year growth and glowing client reviews. It takes a fantastic team. Steve, Henry, Carl, HS2 (ask me about this when we see each other next… no this is not a droid), Dan, Alex, Jennifer, Skip, Ryan, Matt, Martin, Liz, Anna, Rob, Jim, Chip and the 100+ global team are all exceptional people, and they are the reason I have accepted Adestra’s offer. Most don’t fully appreciate that I was an Adestra customer a few years back when I was Managing Director at Incisive Media. Adestra, at the time a young company, went head to head with established publicly traded enterprise IT companies and won our entire business. Before I joined Google as the Chief of Staff and Head of Strategy and Operations of the America’s Agency business, I accepted an offer to join Adestra as a Global Advisor, allowing me to continue to work with and be inspired by these fantastic people while working at Google. Later, as a Board Member, and now as President of the business as well, it is these very people and their accomplishments to date that get me out of bed each and every day.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is that in order for any company to succeed, they need to anticipate customer needs and stay nimble in the face of change while remembering what made them special in the first place. This is true especially with our Enterprise and Mid-Market clients who pivot quickly and value a ‘strategy first’ mentality. Instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach, the best tech companies design products that are built to fit their customers’ needs and predict where they and the marketplace are going. Most importantly, they always remain dedicated to providing experience, insight, and service (not just software) in order to help their customers succeed. Why? Because the digital ecosystem is complicated and ever-changing. What works today may or may not work tomorrow.

With the highest customer retention rate in the industry, Adestra shares all these attributes. It’s not Software As A Service, but Software AND A Service.

While competitors have been acquired and innovation has slowed, Adestra has decided to stay its course and continue to blaze ahead bringing new usable products to market that directly address marketing inefficiencies and needs. The past few years have seen acquisition after acquisition, as enterprise cloud platforms sought to bolster their stacks with strong marketing technology. In reality, however, those acquired companies have begun to shed clients because their parent companies focus on squeezing profits and inhibiting innovation. Moreover, marketing is often years ahead of the product and promises are made that are never delivered. Let’s not even begin with the bait and switch!  Adestra, on the other hand, has remained independent all the while, allowing them to forge ahead with powerful, innovative, and customer-driven solutions for marketers.

Businesses increasingly prefer the ‘master of one’ to the ‘jack of all trades’. Technology today has evolved and standardized to the point where business leaders know they don’t have to go to a hub to solve all their sales and marketing needs. While it might sound convenient to just write one check, more and more businesses have realized that they’re better off looking for best-of-breed point solutions. That’s why one of the biggest trends in marketing technology right now is a shift from full stacks that do a lot of things just okay to best of breed point solutions like Adestra that play well with others.

Again, it’s an exciting time to be in MarTech, and I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

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