Mike and Hannah discuss the latest developments in marketing automation, starting with Google’s reversal of its cookie policy changes and what this could mean for advertisers and data privacy. They discuss the recent drop in HubSpot’s shares following reports that Alphabet may be backing away from a potential acquisition. They also review key takeaways from a Marketo webinar on lead nurturing strategies and explore how marketers can use marketing automation tools for A/B testing to optimize campaigns and drive better results.
Listen to the podcast now via the links below:
- The Marketing Automation Moment on Apple Podcasts
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- The Marketing Automation Moment on napierb2b.com
About Napier
Napier is a PR-lead, full service marketing agency that specialises in the B2B technology sector. We work closely with our clients to build campaigns, focusing on achieving results that have a significant positive impact on their businesses and which, above all, ensure maximum return on their investment.
About Mike Maynard
Mike is the Managing Director/CEO of Napier, a PR and marketing agency for B2B technology companies. A self-confessed geek who loves talking about technology, he believes that combining the measurement, accountability and innovation that he learnt as an engineer with a passion for communicating ensures Napier delivers great campaigns and tangible return on investment.
About Hannah Wehrly
Hannah is the Head of Business Development and Marketing at Napier and leads on pitching, proposal writing, lead nurturing, email marketing, social media and content creation. Hannah joined the Napier team back in 2017 as a Marketing Specialist after completing her degree in Marketing and Communications, and her role focuses on developing new relationships with potential clients.
Time Stamps
[00:54.2] – Mike and Hannah discuss Google’s recent U-turn on cookie updates.
[04:38.9] – Alphabet backs out of HubSpot acquisition. What does this mean for the company?
[07:56.2] – Mike and Hannah talk about a recent Marketo webinar on lead generation strategies.
[13:13.1] – Insightful tip of the week: using marketing automation tools for A/B testing
Follow Mike and Hannah:
Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/
Hannah Wehrly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-wehrly-b0706a107/
Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/
Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/
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Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – Marketing B2B Technology: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-b2b-technology/id1485417724
Transcript: Marketing Automation Moment Episode 18 – Google’s U-Turn, HubSpot’s Dip, and Smart Marketing Tactics
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Hannah Wherly
Hannah: Welcome to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I’m Hannah Kelly and
Mike: I’m Mike Maynard. This is an Napier’s podcast to tell you about the latest news from the world of marketing automation.
Hannah: Welcome to Marketing Automation Moment podcast, I’m Hannah wherly and I’m Mike Maynard. Today we talk about Google backtracking on cookie changes.
Mike: HubSpot shares falling as alphabet loses interest in acquiring them.
Hannah: A webinar from Marketo on lead nurturing strategies,
Mike: and Hannah explains to me how marketing automation tools can be used to do AB testing. Hi
Hannah: Mike, welcome back to another episode of our Marketing Automation Podcast. How you doing?
Mike: It’s great to be back. Hannah, I’ve been away for a couple of weeks in the States, as you know, and it’s nice to be back in the UK.
Hannah: Well, it’s nice to have you back. So there has been a bit of news while you’ve been away, so I think you’re going to find this one really interesting. But Google has actually just announced that they’re going to backtrack on their proposed cookie changes. So they were actually proposing, you know, this has been going on for months and months, that they were going to stop cookies on the Chrome browser. Ultimately, it looks like this is not going to go ahead. There doesn’t seem to be a clear path of what they’re gonna do instead. But, I mean, it’s a really interesting move and quite unexpected, don’t you think,
Mike: well, actually, I’m gonna disagree with you. Hannah, I think it’s probably not unexpected. So this whole third party cookie depreciation, as people call it, so trying to get rid of third party cookies. I mean, it’s been going on for years, you know, and it started off with the EU demanding we get those really, really annoying cookie pop ups on everybody’s web page. And then Google started looking at different approaches, and, you know, they famously created flock as a way to target similar audiences. And then got told by the EU that actually that was also against GDPR. So I think, you know, this is something where we’ve been wandering around trying to find a solution. I mean, interestingly, when the EU first actually demanded these annoying cookie pop ups, they actually said that the intention was to remove them at some point in the future, with future legislation and have all the control in the browser, so people choosing the browser, whether they want the cookies or not. I guess that’s ultimately what Google’s doing, despite the fact that, you know, privacy regulators are all throwing their toys out the pram. Actually, probably, I think that’s where we are with cookies. Is Google’s giving all the control to, you know, within Chrome, and maybe that’s what everybody wanted at the start. It’s just that nobody really could admit it.
Hannah: Thanks, Mike, that’s a really interesting perspective. So what do you think is going to happen then?
Mike: Well, I mean, I suspect Google will be allowed to do this. I’m sure this is going to happen, and probably the other browsers will follow suit in a similar way. I mean, Google is trying to control tracking, so they have something called privacy sandbox, which is quite controversial, which is an API to allow storing of data about users without using cookies. And I think if people honestly thought about this, actually the best solution is a bit of education, so that everyone understands how to turn off third party cookies in their browser, and also removal of these really annoying cookie pop ups, which are wasting everybody’s time. And I think that really is the best solution, that pretty much is what was intended at the start, I think, with people being concerned about privacy, that will result in a lot of people rejecting third party cookies, and that will eventually depreciate them. And I think, you know, we are seeing, albeit a very, very slow death. I think we’ll see the eventual death of third party cookies. People will move away from that because, in general, it’s just not a great way to target audiences.
Hannah: Yeah, I fully agree, Mike. And I mean, I’m one of those people that now just says no to all cookies that come up on websites, because they just annoy the hell out of me. So it’s definitely something that we will see, and I think it’ll be interesting. You know, marketers have already been looking at different ways to gather the data that third party cookies provide. So first party intent data, second intent data. So I think there’s already solutions out there, so it’d be definitely something to watch.
Mike: Definitely. I mean, I think a lot of people have freaked out about cookies. Actually, they’re not necessarily that bad a thing. If you get sent adverts about things that interest you, surely that’s better than things you really don’t care about.
Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s move on, Mike, because another bit of interesting news that’s been released is that HubSpot shares have actually plunged, and this is due because we spoke about it maybe a couple of months ago in our podcast that alphabet, which is owned by Google, was looking to acquire and. By HubSpot. And I remember at the time Mike, we discussed it, and we were like, This is a bit of a strange deal, but it looks like they have actually pulled out of their investment. And I mean, it’s interesting to see. You know, we know how the world works, HubSpot shares have dropped. But does this really matter? Like, this deal, to me, personally, didn’t make sense in the first place? Yeah.
Mike: I mean, I think it doesn’t matter. I think you’re absolutely right there. I mean, if you actually looked at what happened back in, I think, October, November time the rumor started, the stock price went up. Everyone was speculating on an acquisition. Now that it appears that that’s not going to go ahead, whether or not it was super serious, I don’t know, but it certainly seems that, you know, Google is not going to buy HubSpot. The stock’s basically gone back to where it was. And the only people who’ve lost out, I guess, are the people who tried to speculate on an acquisition and make some, you know, make a quick buck. So I don’t think it’s a problem. I think HubSpot obviously has a very good future. That’s clearly something, you know, a company that’s going to be successful in the CRM and marketing automation sector. They don’t need Google. It may have, you know, resulted in a higher valuation, but at the end of the day, they don’t need Google, and they shouldn’t worry. I mean, what do you think?
Hannah: Yeah, I fully agree. I mean, I actually read that it looks like HubSpot is growing faster than Google at the moment, and you’re completely right. And to me, that just says everything that we need to know. They don’t need Google to grow. You know, they’ve been independent. And I actually read up the Boston locals are relieved. You know, the investors don’t actually want someone to buy HubSpot just because of the financial, you know, benefits that it brings to the Boston area,
Mike: yeah, and there’s clearly a risk, you know, with company headquarters potentially being moved closer to Google, that might have impacted that Boston technology sector. I mean, I don’t know what you think. You know, maybe some people might have cut their losses, left to HubSpot and started new companies. I mean, it could have sparked some innovation. But I think at the moment, you know, HubSpot is an important tech company in that Boston ecosystem, so I definitely agree with you that’s an important factor, absolutely.
Hannah: And we spend, you know, our time talking about market automation here and the world and the different things and the news. But this really drives home for me how important this sector, in this industry is, because you look at Google, you view them as this giant tech company, but actually, HubSpot is in the same league.
Mike: Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, HubSpot, obviously, practically, is much, much smaller, and Google is driving a lot of profit. But I think, you know, HubSpot, there is an important player in the market, and I think that’s what you mean, is really, it’s not just a few big guys now driving marketing technology. There’s a lot of technology from companies like HubSpot. And those companies, as you said earlier, very insightful, are growing quicker than the big guys, so they will come and challenge them.
Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. Now let’s move away from HubSpot, because I actually want to talk about Marketo now, Marketo is really interesting because it has a lot of resources available to its users. And I was actually going through their site recently. And I mean, there’s webinars, there’s a community, there’s forums, it’s really great. But one that I came across that really caught my eye was a webinar they’ve held recently on lead nurturing strategies. And I mean, it’s clear as day that it’s a plug for their engagement program type, and I’ve personally never used it. Mike, so if you have any views on that, we’ll come back to that in a minute. That’d be great to hear. But it was interesting because they spoke about five different nurture strategy flows, but it seems to be very top of the funnel, and it’s very simplistic look. I mean, you saw the same webinar, Mike, what did you think
Mike: I agree with you? I mean, firstly, you know, Marketo is, is a great product. I mean, I’m a bit of a fan of Marketo, and their engagement programs are really neat because they let you split nurturing between different segments really easily. So it’s kind of a neat way to build programs when you’ve got new leads coming in, and you can segment them simply on, say, job function or something like that. So I can understand why they’ve done a campaign around this. I think in a way, it’s a bit disappointing, because hopefully most people, particularly people who spent the money on Marketo, they’re doing lead nurturing anyway. And I really felt that like you, you know, it was rather simplistic. I mean, you know, they talk about a welcome nurture flow, so if you get a new prospect or new customer, you nurture them. Sounds a bit obvious. And then talked about splitting by interest, by placing the life cycle by persona and by vertical markets. And all of them are valid. But actually, I think most marketers that they’re thinking to a deeper level, they’re really thinking about how they can make these things work. And I don’t think you know necessarily, there anyone listening to it, going, Oh, wow, I could send different personas, different information for you.
Hannah: Well, see, I have to disagree, Mike, because I think. Sometimes US marketers need to just be reminded of the most simple things. I fully agree that there is more complex workflows and complex nurturing strategies. So it was very you know, it’s a new customer. What about Lux customers? You know? What about existing customers and sending them discounts? But I think sometimes you know, you have to be reminded that you have this big system. How do you use it? Well, this is how you can get started. And I think really, it was a webinar aimed to perhaps those marketers that haven’t thought everything through. You know, we’ve come across clients before where we’re like, Well, you could just be doing this. You could just be running two workflows so you separate the personas and it’s different messaging, and they’re like, oh my god, that makes so much sense. So although I do agree, I think sometimes you just need to be reminded of those simple instructions, those simple tips to be most effective.
Mike: Yeah, as always, Hannah, you’re right. You know, I think we can overestimate how much is actually being done in the field by marketers, and sometimes as an agency, maybe we’re, you know, looking at quite thoughtful, quite comprehensive campaigns. And perhaps there’s a lot of companies that are doing things in house. They’re not building such effective campaigns. And maybe, and I hate to say this, but maybe I was a little skewed, because we watched the replay, and on the replay, there’s a summary that I’ve got to be honest, it feels like it was written by AI, because it’s so superficial, it almost put me off the webinar, rather than encouraged me to watch it. I don’t know what you think about the summary and the key points and whether actually, perhaps using AI. And I don’t know if they did or not, but you know, if they did, whether that was a good move,
Hannah: I think I am actually gonna have to agree with you on this one. Mike, it does scream, very simple. I think they’ve done themselves a disservice, because you look at it and you think, Okay, this is really obvious. This is everything I know they’ve not actually shown the value of what they actually talk about in the webinar. So I do fully agree. And I think, you know, it’s a prime example of, you know, AI isn’t the answer to everything. You still need to put in that human effort. Because, as you said, you know, if we weren’t such big fans of Marketo, we could have looked at that summary and been like, Okay, I know everything that you’re talking about here, but actually, in the webinar, they talk about some really good points.
Mike: Yeah, I sometimes think with with AI, and I know we’re getting off the topic of it, but sometimes, because AI is fundamentally predicting the most likely next word. That’s pretty much how AI works. On a very crude level, everyone’s going to write in now and tell me I shouldn’t claim to have been an engineer, because I’m simplifying it, but fundamentally, it’s a statistical process. It makes content sometimes, you know, read as though it’s been well written, but actually what it’s saying is is a little lightweight. You know, I’m going to, you know, coin a new word here. I think it’s the blandification of content by using AI. I mean, everything comes out quite bland and quite boring. We’re impressed at the quality of the writing, but actually, the quality of the thought behind the writing sometimes isn’t there.
Hannah: Yeah, I think you’ve summed that up perfectly, mate. Now just looking at time, let’s move on to our insightful Tip of the Week. Now this week, I want to talk about AB testing. So this is something people use a lot on digital campaigns, you know, within their ads, but I think marketers can forget that it can actually be used within Mark automation platforms as well. So you know, one of the things that we do at Napier is we AB test different subject lines. We AB test different call to actions, things like images, and the difference it makes, I think, is so underestimated. I mean, recently, you know, we do webinars quite frequently. We do them back once a month, and I’ve been sending out these webinars. And you know, our our attendees have been declining slightly. I’ve changed up the subject lines. I’ve done a couple of AB testing. And what do you know? We’ve increased the registrations for our next webinar that’s happening on the 21st of August. So I think it’s something that’s really simple, but something that’s really overlooked, and it actually doesn’t take that much time at all. Well,
Mike: I love the way you’ve taken the credit for all the new registrations and not given me anything for the content we’re presenting. I’ve got to agree with you. I mean, you’re absolutely right. I think it, it’s very easy, particularly in B to B, where you tend to have a lot of, you know, fairly evergreen things, and then a few one off campaigns, it’s easy to forget that actually you should always be testing. We were running webinars. The webinars were frankly, going quite well. You know, we had good attendance, lots of engagement, that people who attended stayed. So, you know, clearly we were selling the webinars in an honest way. But you’re right, you know, there was a very slight drift. In the number of attendees across time. And I think the fact that you were able to pick that up and start AB testing to improve things, it’s a really sensible thing to do. I mean, you don’t have to AB test everything. You know that that is definitely not the right approach, because you’ll end up spending a lot of time doing things that are going to generate minimal benefit. But I think where you identify opportunities to improve, absolutely, I think, you know, marketing automation is often underrated in terms of AB testing. I mean, some companies, I subscribe to emails, and you’ll see them AB testing headlines, particularly if you’ve got a couple of email addresses, subscribe to the same newsletter. But other companies, you know, clearly, everybody gets the same thing. So I absolutely agree. I mean, from your point of view, you know, what do you find most useful? Is it landing pages? Is it testing subject lines? Where do you find marketing automation tools giving you the biggest benefit?
Hannah: I would say, personally, I think it makes the most difference of subject lines. I think landing pages can be harder to tell, especially if you’re targeted like we are. You don’t necessarily get the data to really confirm which landing page works best. So I think for me, it’s more in those, not smaller things, but not, you know, the large projects. It is the subject lines. It’s perhaps changing up the call to actions. It’s, you know, inputting images into some emails, not putting images into other emails, is really where I see the difference. I think if you’re working with large sums of data, you know, and you’re doing a broad outreach, then AB testing things like landing pages can be really, really helpful. But I do think it’s dependent on what your goal is.
Mike: It’s fascinating. I think you’ve made a just a fantastic point over the fact that in a lot of you know, very targeted B to B communications, we’re dealing with small audiences, so getting statistically significant results is really hard. I mean, absolutely right. I’m interested though. Do you think one of the reasons that subject lines work so well is because as marketers, we’re more prepared to do something very different on a subject line, rather than do something completely different on a landing page.
Hannah: Oh, that is a fantastic question, Mike. And the answer is absolutely yes. I think especially in our sector, in the B to B technology sector, we are limited with, perhaps we go too conservative. So when we build land in pages, we’re not as daring, we’re maybe not as fun, but with subject lines, you can do things that are a bit more fun, that maybe make people smile a little bit, pay attention a bit more. So absolutely, I think we perhaps have more freedom, whether that’s right or wrong with things like emails and subject lines than we do of landing pages.
Mike: Yeah. And I guess also, you have the issue that changing a subject line takes a lot less time than completely redesigning a landing page, absolutely.
Hannah: I mean, it’s one thing versus how many things do you change on a landing page? Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time again today, Mike. It’s been a fantastic conversation.
Mike: It’s been great. Thanks very much, Hannah, and I look forward to talking to you on the next episode of The Marketing Automation Moment
Hannah: Thanks for listening to the Marketing Automation Moment podcast.
Mike: Don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast application, and we’ll see you next time you.
