#51 From Startups to Google – Marketing Ops with Meghan Mayday

Pierce Ujjainwalla in

Co-founder & CEO

Oct 16, 2023

Listen to this episode

83 lines · Pierce Ujjainwalla and Meghan Mayday

00:00:00Pierce Ujjainwalla
I’m Pierce Ujjainwalla and you’re listening to Unsubscribed. Every episode, I sit down with business leaders to help you question everything you thought you knew about marketing. If you enjoy this show, please do subscribe and leave a review on YouTube for your favorite podcast player. Now, on to this episode. My guest today is Megan Mayday. Megan is the head of marketing infrastructure and automation at Google Cloud, where she’s responsible for managing the MarTech stack and campaign production. She’s got over 15 years experience in marketing operations and says her leadership formula is people Plus passion, plus process. So welcome to the Unsubscribed Podcast, Megan.
00:00:51Meghan Mayday
Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Thanks.
00:00:52Pierce Ujjainwalla
Oh, thank you. Thank you for joining us. I’m really excited for this conversation. One thing I always like to start off with is, can you tell us a little bit about your journey into marketing and marketing operations?
00:01:09Meghan Mayday
Yeah, definitely. , my journey into marketing. So it, it started, you know, back in college. I, I’m a Michigan native. So I went to Western Michigan University and I knew I wanted to be in tech and I didn’t quite know what that meant, you know, being a new graduate, but I thought, let’s give it a go. And so in 2000, I moved to San Francisco, no network, no anything, and, figured out how to be in tech. And what it meant, early on in my career was, I started off in event management. I knew I was organized and , detail oriented. And so I thought to myself, you know, I think I can do well in the event management space. And then as the years progressed, my first boss asked, Hey, have you heard of this thing called Pardot and will you implement it? And, I said, sure. She’s like, you know, you’re good at technical things. And I said, sure. And that was kind of my, like, step one. um, into the marketing automation space. It started with, you know, audience segmentation for events and, it’s evolved from
00:02:29Pierce Ujjainwalla
there. That’s so cool. And what was it about tech that like got you interested? How, how did you know that that’s what you wanted to do?
00:02:39Meghan Mayday
I liked the, entrepreneurial spirit of it all, the, you know, I first started out in startups, and so, you know, kind of the startups are known to, like, you know, fail fast, or, you know, do creative things to problem solve, and so, I felt I’d be good in that, space, and it was in 2008, so, you know, tech was, taking off, and Yeah, it was a, I thought, you know, I wanted to be a part of that excitement.
00:03:13Pierce Ujjainwalla
That’s awesome. And so you decided, Hey, let’s move to the epicenter of tech and go to San Francisco. Yep,
00:03:22Meghan Mayday
exactly.
00:03:23Pierce Ujjainwalla
And so did you know anyone there? Like how, how did you do that?
00:03:27Meghan Mayday
Yeah, I, I had, I did. I did not know anybody there at the time. So I’m an introvert. So, you know, I kind of knew I had to like throw myself in it. And so what I did is I had a plan, like, as soon as I got in, landed in San Francisco, my one way ticket, um, I knew I needed to, Network and start, you know, applying for jobs. And so I spent at least six hours a day Customizing my cover letter. I did cover letters back then. I don’t know if cover letters are still But cover letter my resume and getting out and going to like meetups and and really You know, giving it my best go.
00:04:15Pierce Ujjainwalla
That’s awesome. And how long did it take you to like land that first job?
00:04:20Meghan Mayday
It took about three months, to land my first job. Wow. And the person who hired me, she’s great. um, her name is Angela and she hired me again at another company, later in my career. So we had a really good, collaborative working style together and, she’s helped me a lot in my career. That’s awesome. Yeah. She was the one to first say, like, you know, based on these skills, I think you’d be good in operations and, and gave me that opportunity. So um, yeah, shout out to
00:04:55Pierce Ujjainwalla
Angela. Thank you. Nice, Angela. Major shout outs. Yeah. We need those people that, you know, see potential and people and, and give them that opportunity to show and prove themselves.
00:05:10Meghan Mayday
A hundred percent. Yeah, I could not agree more.
00:05:13Pierce Ujjainwalla
So, I mean, take me through those first three months. It must have been stressful to be in a new city, to be spending six hours a day applying for jobs. And, you know, how did you, how did you, you know, stay motivated and keep going?
00:05:31Meghan Mayday
Yeah, definitely. Great question. So, you know, it’s all about, how, always having like a positive mental attitude about it. And every no, you know, you’re closer to a yes. And so, what I did is, I made sure to also, like, have social time and meet people. um, but I was like highly hyper focused on, okay, I gotta find a job and then I can, I can go from there. um, yeah, it was quite an experience. Like looking back. You know, like you said, like moving to a new city, not knowing anybody within three months, finding a great job that I was at for a few years, like and a great mentor. um, I feel like I really like hit the jackpot and everything was aligned for that to happen.
00:06:20Pierce Ujjainwalla
Definitely. Yeah, having that first manager or mentor is so huge in your career to help you grow and, and progress. And so you had this opportunity it sounded like with Pardot that got presented with to you. And, and sounded like it could use some of your skill sets if you were a technical person, but I’m sure there was probably a bit of doubt as well. You know, like, can I do this or, or were you just like, Oh no, this is, this is a great opportunity. Let’s go for it.
00:06:58Meghan Mayday
I thought I, like at the time I was like a little nervous, but having someone have the confidence in me could definitely helped. And so I was like, okay, we will just give this a go. I did work with an agency who was definitely, like, helpful in coaching and, you know, working on, like, setting up all those, like, nurture flows and, like, those first, you know, emails with tokens. It’s come so far, but, yeah, it was, you know, that’s how I, that’s how I got started. Mistakes have definitely been made along the way, but. I think when you, like, make a mistake or if something doesn’t go right, it’s just an opportunity to re evaluate, like, your process or your method and figure out what, what can I do differently next time. um, asking for feedback, I think, has been critical in my career growth, even going back to, you know, my first, getting my first job in the Bay Area, I asked, I was like, what did I say to, like, get the role? And she basically said it came down to saying, you know, I was highly organized and that’s exactly the skill she was looking for. And so I think, you know, it’s important to get feedback. Positive and constructive, like even, you know, celebrate wins 100% for sure, but what high, what does top learnings can I take away to make sure my next project or initiative is also, you know, a success.
00:08:28Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, that’s some great advice. um, definitely. And, and so when you look back, like, what, what do you think, what do you attribute your success to in your career? You know, is it taking those risks? What were your biggest risks, like trying something new for the first time? Was it having the great mentor? Was it always looking for that feedback? What, what do you think helped you now to, to get this role that you’re in now at Google?
00:08:59Meghan Mayday
Yeah, definitely. I would say I have like a mantra around kind of staying, stay focused, but also be flexible. So you can stay focused to a goal of, Launching a new mark, you know, marketing program, how you get there. You might need to be a little flexible. You might need to be inflexible in time in, you know, your approach, um, in, in different aspects of that. So I think that, like, with that mantra I have for myself, I apply it to tactical things like day to day, um, Programs and, uh, what I’m doing, what my checklist looks like for the day, but I’m also doing it on my, you know, career path. So I started out in event marketing because I was highly organized, detail oriented. Now, you know, 15 years later, I’m in marketing, you know, operations and automation because of those skills, um, or strengths, but also because I’ve developed different skills along the way. And so, you know, when you think about how you want your career to evolve, you know, maybe. So if you have a goal of, you know, being like a director or a C level someday, what steps do you need to take to get there? And remember to like, you know, be as, be flexible, stay focused on your goal, but flexible in how you get there, um, is, has helped me, you know, through good times and through wavy times.
00:10:38Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah. Yeah. What I really like about what you said there is that you’re very self aware of your strengths. And, and figuring out how can I use, you know, what, how can I put myself in a position to use my strengths to be successful, but at the same time learning new skills along the way that, that help you progress your
00:11:02Meghan Mayday
career. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I, I think I, you know, I know my strengths well, as well as, you know, my growth opportunities. um, I haven’t always like, for example, I hadn’t always been a confident public speaker. So I knew in order to improve that skill and strengthen it, I would need to put myself in situations where I could develop that and, and learn how to, um, you know, get more comfortable with it. in, in those areas as well.
00:11:33Pierce Ujjainwalla
For sure. Yep. Yeah, um, public speaking I think is one of those ones that a lot of people out there, you know, want to practice and improve on and, and I think that’s all it is. It’s like anything, the more you practice it, the more comfortable you get, the better you get at it. And, and yeah, I, I love too that It’s not just about your strengths, but your weaknesses too, so that you’re always, you can always improve.
00:12:04Meghan Mayday
Exactly. And like with public speaking, one of the things you can do now is you can practice in VR. So you can go, you know, on a platform and, and practice presenting, um, there, which can be helpful. And yeah, just finding. You know, opportunities to strengthen that muscle. Yeah.
00:12:24Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah. I never thought of that. That’s a great idea. I got to get my Oculus out and try that out. um, So I wanna talk a little bit about your current role as, as head of marketing infrastructure and automation at Google Cloud. Can, can you explain exactly like what does that
00:12:45Meghan Mayday
entail, , what does that mean? So currently, my current role at Google, I am responsible for. Infrastructure and automation. So infrastructure, you can think about like all the tools and operations and processes that we have in place to get, you know, to launch, like emails and landing pages. um, and automation is the aspect of evolving what we do. How do we automate? How do we, you know, do things on repeat at scale? And how do we think about, giving a You know opt, you know, just improving how how people are operating From a Efficiency perspective, you know, we want people we want to empower people with you know, the right tools and systems to do their jobs. Well What are those and how do we get them implemented and launched across the company?
00:13:41Pierce Ujjainwalla
Right on. That’s amazing. Emails and landing pages very near and dear to my heart. And, and, process as well. Can you, can you maybe just share a little bit just So that other people listening can understand like the scale of marketing at Google cloud and the marketing ops team. Like how big is the team? How many ops people are we talking about? How many Marketo programs or programs are you launching, you know, every week or month?
00:14:18Meghan Mayday
Yeah. Oh my gosh. So I think we are definitely operating at scale. I would say within a year. We’re launching thousands of programs. So hundreds of programs a month for sure. Yeah, so it’s, it’s always exciting. It’s always, it’s fun. Every time there’s a new program, program concept or idea, you know, we get to collaborate with the marketers to figure out how to best, you know, apply. Marketo and automation to their program. It’s fun, it’s always changing and you know, there’s, there’s definitely never a boring day.
00:15:00Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, I can imagine. Wow. That, that is a ton of programs and, and Megan, you talked about going from like tech startups and now you’re at, you know, one of the largest technology companies in the world, what would you say? What would you say are, are some of the benefits and what gets easier as you go on the enterprise and what gets harder when you get to be at a bigger company?
00:15:30Meghan Mayday
Great question. I think what gets easier is like the structure in, in, in, in how we operate. There’s a lot of intent, focus, roadmaps on, on how we plan to go out and execute. At a enterprise company, startups are a little more in my experience, just a little more scrappy. So, for example, my husband is currently at a startup and he’s like, I put together a nurture campaign today. I’m like, end to end the entire thing, and he’s like,
00:16:05Pierce Ujjainwalla
yeah, I’m like, oh my
00:16:06Meghan Mayday
God, you know, like. So something like that at an enterprise, it takes, you know, lots of feedback, eyes, you know, that type of thing. So although it’s just like a different way, um, of, of executing, but yeah, I thought that was, that just cracked me up when he was like, I put together an email
00:16:27Pierce Ujjainwalla
and purchased it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, well I definitely, so I used to work at IBM were I think almost 400, 000 people. And yeah, there were definitely days where I was just like, I wish I could just do this myself and get something out the door. But then, then I went to a startup and I’m like, oh, I really miss all of the people that I had. Two were like, amazing at. All the pieces that they do.
00:17:00Meghan Mayday
Yeah, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve found in my career, especially at Google, I’ve become like much more specialized, um, which is, you know, there’s, it’s, it’s, there’s pros and cons, but, um, if you’re becoming specialized in an area you’re very passionate about and where you want to be, that’s a good thing. And so. Yeah, over the last, you know, few years, my role has changed and evolved, but I’m really, I really enjoy where I am in terms of being at the forefront of automation and, and how we operate. It’s rewarding. You know, we get to. I’ve always been someone who’s like sat in the background, like, even in high school, like, I was like putting the assembling the play. I wasn’t the star. So, you know, like I was, you know, in the back, you know, doing the paintings of the background and stuff like that. So I’ve always enjoyed kind of like being in the back and like being in service. And that’s definitely how I think of my operations role is I’m in service of the organization and how do I help people do the best they can do.
00:18:09Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, yeah, that’s, uh, as you’re telling me that story, I was actually just talking about this on the weekend, was when I was in high school, my, like, homeroom teacher ran the drama club, and so she basically voluntold me that I was gonna be, like, a stagehand. And as you were saying that, I’m like, wow, I am, I am a marketing ops person for sure. So I’d love to talk a little bit about emails and landing pages. You mentioned that that’s a big part of, of what you do at Google. What, just for way of background, like what is your background with email and landing pages? Like, do you code? Are you Fluent with HTML and CSS there. And how did you get into that?
00:19:00Meghan Mayday
Yeah. So I got into it out of, you know, necessity, you know, when you’re at a startup, another, you know, one of the good things about being in a startup is you get to learn a lot of skills quickly and figure out where you, what you like and what you don’t like. And so, um, I was responsible, uh, for launching, you know, landing pages and emails, whether it be out of. Pardot, Marketo, Acton, I’ve used a lot of different tools. HubSpot, did I mention HubSpot? Anyway, so yeah, I have, I, I would say, Like coding isn’t my strength. I know enough to be dangerous, but I know enough to know to, get the right people on the team who do have that expertise. And so, I approach landing page and email and development, like the same. How do we templatize? How do we scale? Um. You know, things like having a standard brand template and, you know, voice and tone, are important and it helps to connect your company’s story across the, across the web and digitally. So I think it’s really important that you have landing pages and emails, template and copy that reflect Who the organization is, it helps from a messaging standpoint, but also the digital footprint.
00:20:31Pierce Ujjainwalla
And, and when you, when you think of those other platforms, you know, the Marketo’s, the Pardots, the Eloquils, or whatever of the world, how do you think they are in terms of email and landing page creation out of the box?
00:20:48Meghan Mayday
Out of the box, it’s… You know, I love my platforms. However, in the, in the, in the spirit of feedback, it hasn’t always, you know, you have to have that coding skill. So it’s not as easy to, you know, hop in as a non technical marketer and, you know, go in and create your, your landing pages and your emails. There is a technical element to it. You have to be able to QA. Code and, you know, make sure that, pages and emails are rendering properly across different platforms. So… The concept of building a landing page or email, it sounds so simple and then the details of it all, there’s all these technical elements that you need to be thinking about in order to make sure that you have like the best experience possible for your audience.
00:21:42Pierce Ujjainwalla
And I mean, you’re, you’re, I would imagine you’re hiring. Quite a few marketers said Google Cloud, what do you see with them in terms of like coding skills now? And, and what do you think that will look like in the future?
00:22:02Meghan Mayday
That’s such a good question. Cause we have so many other things, like there’s like. The industry and space is changing a lot with AI and different tools. So when I think of what a marketer needs to do in order to launch their program, email and landing page is a piece of that pie, but they also have to do a ton of other things, sales enablement. Finding venues, content, speakers, food and beverage, like all of these other things that I’m sure I’m also missing, um, they have to think about. So I think about how can we make landing page and email the easiest process for them so they can focus on these other areas of, uh, the program for them. And so I think marketers, there’s a need to know. How to best target for your emails, um, how to best, you know, create an engaging landing page. I think those are important skills to have. But I don’t ever expect like a marketer in like the field to have a deep understanding of like all the backend stuff, which is where we come in. And, and that’s our skill set.
00:23:22Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah. And when you look at, at marketing operations as a function within, you know, enterprise companies, where do you see. The creation of emails and landing pages. Is that something that marketing operations should be doing? Is that something that marketers should be doing? How do you view that piece of it now? And, and where do you think that is going as well?
00:23:55Meghan Mayday
Yeah. So I think we should be empowering, like kind of going back to like the ethos of my role, like we want to empower the marketers. With the right tools to do to do their to do their role and landing page and emails as a part of that So enabling them with like a tool that will allow them to go in and easily edit and modify copy That’s you know I think that’s a positive thing and we want marketers to do that like they own the copy of their program and are responsible for the messaging and the strategy around messaging to different Personas for a program, so we need to enable them with those tools. What we, where we focus is we can help them, we can consult and help them optimize. how their, what their landing page or email like layout looks like. How we can, you know, amplify their landing page across different platforms. How we can optimize how their email performs with email best practices. So on the operations side, I think of operations as and that’s being a consultant and experts in our, tech, in our domain of, of, uh, operations, and balancing that, you know, with like getting, you know, we’re an engine and we need to get programs out the door and help them. So it’s kind of like a balance of the two. How do we consult and empower the marketer to, you know, uh, Get their landing page and email copy as perfect as they would like it. And then how do we help them, you know, get the message to the right people.
00:25:43Pierce Ujjainwalla
Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely share a lot of that vision for the future here as well. You know, I think what we see a lot of right now, there’s so few really good. great marketing operations people out there, and they have so much on their plates. And, uh, unfortunately we still see a lot of them getting bogged down and like building out emails and landing pages. And I love how you, you talk about empowering the marketers, right? The, the other marketers on the team. with the right technology and, and empowering them with those best practices. I think that that’s amazing. You talked a little bit there earlier about AI. You can’t do a podcast today without talking about AI. So I’d love to get your take on. um, you know, maybe, are you using any AI right now in your, in your marketing ops function? And where do you think the future of, of AI is going to go as it pertains to marketing ops?
00:26:58Meghan Mayday
Yeah, there’s, I mean, there’s so much that can be done within, um, marketing ops and AI for sure. I’ve been using it. So much personally, like, so for example, writing is not my strong suit. And so if you need a copy editor just for your emails in general, I mean, it’s, it, it can write an email beautifully with a few tweaks. So, uh, yeah, we definitely have plans and we have like AI on, on the roadmap and how it can be integrated. I think I can’t wait to dig into the data around. You know, AI being able to optimize, email, you know, copy sends engagement and just really like bubbling that up. That’s, you know, basically we’re on that journey, but, um, you know, how do we like improve that and, and make it. You know, like how do we empower the marketer to, to, uh, leverage AI in that way? um, yeah, it’s, yeah, it’s a, it’s an exciting time to be in tech, you know, again, every, you know, they kind of say like. History doesn’t crawl, it leaps, and I think this is like a leap, um, moment in technology and, I think we’re all kind of on the journey together, figuring out the best way.
00:28:24Pierce Ujjainwalla
It’s reassuring the way that you say it, like that we’re all on this journey together. And, um, yeah, I’m very excited for it to be in, like, Google Drive and G Suite and just have Bird everywhere helping me in the applications that I use every day. um, I know that you were at Adobe Summit a couple months ago. Curious on your key takeaways from this year’s Adobe Summit and maybe one or two things that you’re, you were excited about or, or. That you learned, uh, in Vegas.
00:29:06Meghan Mayday
Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway, I really liked how there was a lot of, um, There were a lot of sessions on how teams are structured and, and how you should best structure your operations team. I thought that was really interesting, and I’m glad we’re, we’re talking about it, and There’s ideas around, you know, the best models to help, you know, to for supporting functions. Yeah, there was a good one where I think it was IBM and they discussed their their team structure and operating model, and how they kind of break things out into. And, um, with different expertise. And so that was like, that was a really big, big takeaway. And so, kind of going back to my ethos of, you know, people and process, um, it’s how we. You know, organize people in the best, you know, people in teams to be, you know, in the best roles and be able to deliver what needs to be delivered for the organization. um, I really liked, I like that. And then I liked, there were a few sessions on, um. Kind of like just digging into the details of the process like like you like I was we were laughing about earlier It’s not sending an email and a landing page seems so simple, but when you have global teams involved How do you organize all of the tactical items of what needs to get done? How do you optimize that so I thought those were? Those are some good sessions and learnings I had at the summit
00:30:59Pierce Ujjainwalla
Amazing, yeah. Uh, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t see that IBM session, but I’m going to have to dig that up now. Going into your, your formula there, people, passion, and process, I had a few questions for that. Uh, like, and maybe you can take these one at a time, but how do you find the right people? How do you know if they’re passionate? And then what are your thoughts on You know, process is important. It’s critical at an enterprise, but how do you still foster an environment where people can be creative? So kind of a, a three part question.
00:31:46Meghan Mayday
Yeah, definitely. So you’re, I should have had
00:31:48Pierce Ujjainwalla
a notebook. Yeah. So the first one was just, how do you find the right people? What, you know, do you, yeah, I’d love to hear how you do that.
00:31:59Meghan Mayday
Yeah, in terms of, you know, finding the right people, I think, you know, when you, you want people with a foundational knowledge of the, you know, skills, but also like a create, like, I, I always look for team members who are, you know, creative and, and creative and problem solving. So kind of going back to the idea of being focused, but flexible, like. There’s as a leader. I don’t want to give the I’m not top down, you know So I want people to think come up with creative problem resolutions themselves and so I think like looking for people that have Creative problem solving skills is is really critical And you can apply that to different areas and different like levels of career, so I like to see people who are interested in Problem solving and feeling comfortable, like not having all the answers, not knowing all the answers, but, you know, still getting, um, to the end goal.
00:33:13Pierce Ujjainwalla
Nice. Yeah, that’s, uh, I did interview at Google at like a really long time ago. And, uh, it was like a full day, um, interview with like seven different people. And I remember some of the questions they asked me, I still remember them like 20 years later because they were just super different. And, uh, I’m, I didn’t get the job. but I
00:33:47Meghan Mayday
maybe for the best, but .
00:33:49Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah. Yeah. um, but yeah. Do you, I’m curious. In the interview process, like, are there a lot of questions that Google gives you that they recommend, or do you still have a lot of freedom to kind of ask your own questions to assess someone’s problem solving skills?
00:34:12Meghan Mayday
It’s a, you know, I think there’s like a balance of both. So, you know, asking, you know, Questions related to the role and and how they think about, you know, different operations, tactics and practices, you know, is important in the process. um, but yeah, I think it’s a healthy mix of both
00:34:33Pierce Ujjainwalla
cool. And then, yeah, my next one on leadership is just. How, how do you assess someone’s passion level and like how passionate they are?
00:34:47Meghan Mayday
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think, you know, when people in my experience, when people come into roles or are interested in a specific topic, they have some like level of passion around that. And so I think it’s my job as a manager to. Find the best role that will allow them to excel in their in their passions and learn, you know new skills so if you’re passionate about data, there’s plenty of Opportunity to have projects in email marketing around, you know data and how to leverage, you know Data in email and how to surface findings to stakeholders and you know You know, help them get the message, their, their message out that way. So, I just, I work to find, you know, what What they’re passionate about and how I can apply it within the operation setting. And I think that’s what builds a team, right? um, not everybody in the same, in one team should have or can have like the same exact passions and skills. You need a, you know, a variety. um, so people can learn from each other, but also, you have the right strengths across the team.
00:36:19Pierce Ujjainwalla
Nice. So it’s really, you know, ask, talking to people, understanding what their passion is, and then making sure they’re in the role where they can really use that effectively. And then the last one on the process piece, and I recognize that, you know, process is critical in the enterprise setting. How do you, how do you implement process? While still empowering people to be creative.
00:36:57Meghan Mayday
Yeah, I love that, because there’s definitely a balance there. So, when I think of process, I think of what process can I implement to allow more creative space. So, um, for example, when we’re doing things, When we’re, for example, building landing pages, if we had to build a brand new landing page every time the request came across our desk, we would just be inundated and only building out landing pages. And so how, when I think about process, I want process to be effective as well. I don’t want process for like the sake of process. um, So, you know, in the example of the landing page, okay, so we are an organization that runs thousands of programs a year. What are our top programs? What types, what do, what does the organization need? Maybe we need five or six templates to choose from. Okay. Now that we have five or six templates to choose from, how can we module? Why module make pages modular, to allow for, you know, some flexibility, but still be able to scale. And then what that does is when we think about, you know, process helping and giving time back. Now, team members have more time to think creatively about building copy, maybe on landing page enhancement, like maybe there’s a new way we could be doing something. um, and thinking about things like that. So, that’s how I think when I think about process. I love process. I have process, like, in my personal life, everywhere. um, but, you know, how do we implement meaningful process and process that gives people the time back to be creative and think creatively.
00:39:01Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, be creative in the right areas. um, as well, like, yeah, if you already have a template or layouts, it’s like, okay, well, where can you really focus that creativity to make the biggest
00:39:19Meghan Mayday
impact? Yeah. And ideas can come from everywhere. Like So for someone, you know, working in the region who maybe is building off of that template set, maybe they have, like, a better way. I love asking teams, what are your workarounds? Because if there’s a workaround to a process, that means your process isn’t as good as it could be. And so we do, we ask, like, Okay. Like, you know, what do you, do you have any workarounds to this process? um, and ask that because I bet you someone has found a better way and they just haven’t had the opportunity to
00:40:01Pierce Ujjainwalla
surface it. Yeah. That’s a great tip. I like that one. Uh, all right. Let’s, let’s get into, uh, our rapid fire questions here. We ask these to everybody. um, what is one marketing trend you would unsubscribe from?
00:40:19Meghan Mayday
I’m gonna pre apologize to all of my product marketing friends, but I would unsubscribe from white papers Yeah, they’re long and it might be my adhd talking, but I don’t know who With all the grace, I don’t know who has time to read pages long, um, especially we’re in the Twitter generation and yeah, we like
00:40:46Pierce Ujjainwalla
short, 140 characters. Truth to that. um, is email dead?
00:40:54Meghan Mayday
Definitely, definitely not. You know, email has been around for decades and that’s for a reason. Things like social platforms and different platforms, those can come and go, but email is pretty consistent because, it’s a great effective way to communicate with your audience. You own that domain and that communication channel. And so I don’t think email is, is dead at all. Um. But, you know, email can be fun, and it should continue to be fun. Uh, what I see marketers kind of, like, get wrong is, like, marketing should be fun, and it’s a two way communication. So, if… People, if you’re sending emails and people aren’t responding, that’s communication back that your message might be wrong, your audience might be wrong, and like to cut through the noise, like you can be fun and creative in emails, you know, don’t be, uh, afraid. There was one, uh, But in a past life, we had just gotten back from a, big conference and we had to send our follow up email. And I’m like, how many follow up emails do you get from conferences? And so I suggested that we just have an email with three buttons. One was. Yes. I want to talk to sales. The other was like, sign me up for your newsletter. And the third one was like, I was just there for the swag. And so, so, you know, people could say like, look, I just scanned my badge because I wanted to get the cupcake and, uh, please don’t email me, you know? So it can be fun and creative for
00:42:42Pierce Ujjainwalla
sure. The analytical side of me has to know how that performed.
00:42:47Meghan Mayday
It did well. So, um, I even, I think, it even got a call out on Twitter, like,
00:42:54Pierce Ujjainwalla
someone was like, Oh, wow, there, yeah. Nice. I’ve also
00:42:58Meghan Mayday
been called out on Twitter for not great email things, so I’ll keep that positive one for now.
00:43:04Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, yeah. Feedback, though, right? Good and bad. Gotta hug your haters sometimes. Exactly, yeah. um, what do you do for fun, Megan?
00:43:16Meghan Mayday
For fun, well, I moved to Texas about four years ago now. So I’m really enjoying the weather here. It is, like, sunny and… It’s 76 degrees outside right now. um, I really enjoy hiking. I’m getting into gardening. I have two very active dogs that just keep me busy and they keep me, balanced as well. Like, for some reason, they know exactly when 5. 30 comes and if I’m not closing down, they’re like,
00:43:50Pierce Ujjainwalla
let’s go already. Scare with time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:54Meghan Mayday
Yeah. Yeah. Even. Even during the pandemic, they, um, they got, they could tell my voice changed when I said, okay, bye everybody. And on a meeting and my dog would get up and be like, okay, now can we go outside?
00:44:07Pierce Ujjainwalla
Nice built in work life balance. Who, who is, uh, one person you admire in the business community and why?
00:44:20Meghan Mayday
Yeah. I admire, uh. I admire Seth Godin a lot, um, he’s, you know, been in the industry for so long. I think he has a lot of great advice and I’m always impressed by his consistency. He has a daily email he sends out, so I really admire him for making his, the practice in his work, is what I take away most, from, from him. Um. It’s really admirable to like set that intention and, and deliver on that consistently and daily for years. Yeah.
00:44:58Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah, that’s awesome. I saw him speak at the Martech conference in Boston like a few years ago. Really good.
00:45:07Meghan Mayday
Yeah. He’s a great public speaker.
00:45:09Pierce Ujjainwalla
Yeah. um, what’s one piece of career advice that you’ve picked up over the years that you think might help others?
00:45:19Meghan Mayday
That’s a good one. I think the, be focused, but flexible, I think is definitely something you can apply to your career and your day to day. I’d also say, It’s a marathon, not a sprint. So, you know, be sure to pace yourself and take care of yourself. And think about, you know, where you want to be and what you might want to do to get there. I remember, like, earlier in my career, I was like, I want to be a director by 30. I’m like, someone’s like, great. Well, what does that mean? And why long story short, I did not get to that goal. However, I had other goals, that I’ve met along the way. So just kind of thinking about, the why behind your goal, like if you want to be a director. Why do you just want the title? Like, do you want to be in service and help people and coach people? Those are very, those are very different things. And then the last thing I would say is like, ask for help early. Um. Mentors help so much. Uh, you can learn from, you know, different people and get really good advice. And, having mentors has really helped me get out of my head and think about things from a different perspective. Which is always good.
00:46:44Pierce Ujjainwalla
Amazing. And then last one. Who else should we have on the unsubscribe podcast?
00:46:51Meghan Mayday
Oh, good one. Well, I think I have this other friend, Megan. She is amazing. She’s really funny. She’s very creative marketer, and if you want to talk creative marketing, I think she could definitely be a really good fit.
00:47:05Pierce Ujjainwalla
Awesome. Yeah, that would be great. We want, we want all of the Megan. Yeah, I was going to say, I’m not biased on the name. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Megan, thank you so much. This is, it’s been an incredible conversation hearing about your journey through marketing operations from startups to one of the biggest technology companies in the world at Google. We talked about emails and landing pages, some of the challenges and the enterprise, your leadership philosophy and how to find and, uh, really get people focused on their passions. That in turn helped the whole team. You shared a ton of great career advice, I think, for marketing operations, people out there. And, uh, I know I learned a lot. So thank you so much for coming on.
00:48:01Meghan Mayday
Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
00:48:05Pierce Ujjainwalla
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Unsubscribed, a podcast created by Knak. If you enjoyed this episode of Unsubscribe, be sure to subscribe to my podcast and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. If you have any feedback or wanna chat, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter at Marketing 1 0 1. Cheers.

Meghan Mayday is the head of Marketing Infrastructure and Automation at Google Cloud where she manages the production of thousands of global Marketing programs a year.

Listen to her story of moving to San Francisco to find a job in technology, and how she moved up the corporate ladder to be a leader at one of the largest marketing operations teams in the world.

In this episode, Meghan shares her secrets on creating emails and landing pages in the enterprise, tips on how to be a great leader and how she is using AI.

You can also follow Meghan on LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening to Unsubscribed! – a podcast created by Knak. If you enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast player. If you have any feedback, or want to chat, feel free to reach out to Pierce on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @marketing_101.

#51 From Startups to Google – Marketing Ops with Meghan Mayday

More from Unsubscribed

#53 Evaluating Martech, Empowering Creativity, and Rolling-out New Tools at An Enterprise Scale

#52 How he started and sold his first company for $225M… and what he’s doing differently on round #2 with AJ Bruno

#50 Professional Soccer Player Turned Entrepreneur: How Cody Ruberto created a ride-sharing company with $3,000 that competes against the giants

#49 How to build a Customer-Centric Company with Rod Cherkas

News, launches and ideas from across Knak