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

[00:00:00] Pierce 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.Don, welcome to the Unsubscribed podcast. Thank you, thank you for having me. We're doing this special edition here at, at, in Vegas at the 2023 Adobe Summit. So great to have you. Don Lee is the marketing automation lead at Meta. And, uh, I have so many questions for you today, Don. It's amazing to be in this atmosphere here in Vegas, reconnecting with all of our amazing marketing operations in real life.IRL. Um, so yeah, I mean, we just went to the keynote today while we're on day two here. How are things going for you so far? What are you most excited about from the show?

[00:01:09] Don Le

Yeah, one is just what I said earlier in real life, right? Meeting a lot of the thought leaders and speakers. I've been the recipient of just incredible, um, innovators within this conference.So it's just sit down and talk about, um, what's new. What's trending, what's, what's out there, what we should be looking forward to, um, is something I'm looking forward to and just connecting at the, uh, at the personal level too. So I've been fortunate to have a lot of invitations to roundtables and speak with like minded individuals within the same cohort.So just, um, if anything, I'm innovation, but solidarity, right? Like in terms of like, Oh, we deal with the same thing. So that's kind of my, uh, that I'm looking forward to.

[00:01:50] Pierce Ujjainwalla

It's always very therapeutic when you get together with your peers and you realize. They have the same problems I do.

[00:01:59] Don Le

Yeah, yeah, and you don't, you don't realize that, at least earlier in my career, I was like, Am I alone here?Am I the only one that's dealing with this? And so, when you have these conversations, it emboldens you towards innovation because you don't, if you don't agree on the problem statements, And it's hard to move forward towards innovation and solving for those.

[00:02:20] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Can you share some of the problems that you're, you're hearing from other marketing ops leaders out there today?

[00:02:28] Don Le

Oh boy. Yeah. Um, gosh. The themes, the themes that I'm hearing, and I resonate it wholeheartedly is this whole omni channel experience responding in real time, talking about milliseconds, right, in terms of, and then marketing to a new generation of digital natives, Xennials of the world, right? And so those are the problems that we're thinking about, and how do we deal with that in, in the trenches, right?And so that's kind of where the pain points are, and just the different channels, the omni channels, right? So many different places to consume content, the web, your phone, your iPads, and what have you, right? And so how do we create this digital experience that is orchestrated, that is concerted in such a way to provide a seamless experience towards the user versus a fragmented one?

[00:03:17] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Amazing. Yeah. When I, when I think about marketing to millennials, I can't think of any company that has a better perspective on that than Meta. Right. With social media and how this new generation are consuming, how they're communicating, really the company that, that started all of this. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:39] Don Le

Yeah. And I want to be very clear, right? I mean, yes, we do great marketing. I want to be very clear in terms of my purview as well. Right. It's really, It's really enabling the people who use Facebook, right, as advertisers, as developers, as creators and the practitioners to build that awareness. Right, so building, using the platforms and the properties of Facebook, like Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, to, to build awareness, to create this ecosystem of support, and then monetizing it, uh, across small to medium sized businesses, like your local ice cream shop, all the way to your big brands like Procter Gamble, or L'Oreal, or what have you.

[00:04:14] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Right. Yep. And so you're, you're really within the, the B2B. organization within Meta. Okay. And who, who are you? So you mentioned your marketing to the people who advertise on your platforms. Yes. Correct. Correct. Nice. When I think of Meta and, and all of the innovation that has happened at Meta. Yeah. I, when we build our culture at Knak, I really want to have a culture of innovation.I would love to hear from your perspective. How do, how do you do that at Meta? Innovate, yeah.

[00:04:50] Don Le

Well, one, um, it's part of the, the onboarding experience with Meta, right? As people go through the, the Meta balls here, uh, something that we're taught is, there's a, there's a company a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.Uh, there's a company called Sun Microsystems. Are you familiar with that one? Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, you've heard of them, right? And so our campus actually lives, uh, we took over their campus. And as part of that experience, um, there's signage at the very front, and behind the meta signage is the Sun Microsystems logo, right?And so, uh, When we, when we do our onboarding, part of the story and the narrative is innovate or die, right? Because we can become irrelevant in a heartbeat, right? Because there was a school of thought like we can rest on our laurels. We're a multi billion dollar company, right? We have four billion users on our platforms, right?And we can rest on that. But there's competitors. You've heard of TikTok, right? You've heard of these different things coming in. And so when you don't innovate, you fade into non existence very quickly.

[00:05:56] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I love that so much, and I was fortunate to visit you on the Meta Campus, and I saw that sign! Yeah! And it's such, it's such a powerful thing, it's, it's, uh, in real life, physical thing that you can see there.I, uh, when we built our new office. There is actually a sign from the old company that was there and I said, make sure we keep that. Have you still got it? No. And they were like, why would we do that? I said, Oh, I explained that story and I just love that. Right. So let's, let's talk a little bit about how you got to where you are today, because I love to hear the stories of the marketing operations professionals and how they got there.It's like, it's usually. a bit of a curvy journey. Yeah. Um, tell us a little bit about your story.

[00:06:54] Don Le

In terms of how I got into marketing ops. Well, the genesis of the origin story was I, uh, I lucked or stumbled into an agency. And I think a lot of my compatriots and the peers start with the agency, right? So you get this whole broad view of a lot of clients, but inch deep.Right. Um, but how I started, with the agency, and I'm a little bit embarrassed to say so, but I started in telemarketing. No way. That was, that was my first job as well. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like one of those experiences where, now you have to have thick skin. Do you not, Pierce?

[00:07:28] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Uh, you, you learn about how to handle rejection. For days. Very well. Rejection for days.

[00:07:34] Don Le

Right. And, um, Not a glamorous one, not a glamorous, uh, origin story, but one that taught me invaluable lessons, right? Invaluable lessons of that thick skin, but also how to communicate, or the first three or four or five seconds within a conversation, whether you can turn a person on or off, right?And so there's a lot of that that happens within the dynamics.

[00:07:56] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I found it was, it was incredibly hard, but incredibly rewarding as well.

[00:08:02] Don Le

In retrospect, in the time I wanted to like, stab myself with a fork, right?

[00:08:05] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I would watch the hour, the clock, just how can I go home yet? And I remember actually, it was, this was a long time ago, but they were very sophisticated with the technology they had at the agency I worked at.So as soon as The call would end. The next one was already, Yeah. Ended. Queued up. Yeah, it's already auto dialing. Yeah. And so I remember, I just wanted a break sometimes so I just wouldn't hang up the other call.So, and I, when you say that it taught you a lot, I mean, I feel it must help a lot, a lot of us work with BDR organizations to be able to, to empathize with your colleagues who are doing that.

[00:08:59] Don Le

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there was, there's this, That's why I find myself to be very unique, right? A very unique background in terms of I've been in those trenches.I understand what it feels like firsthand, how to navigate the sales force, logging the activities, building out these account profiles, right? So as a marketer, it's not a divorced experience, right? It's really with them in mind. And so that's really a very advantageous as it informs a lot of the build and the, the thoughtfulness.

[00:09:31] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Totally. So you're, you're at this agency, you're doing telemarketing, you're learning about rejection and cold calling. Where did you first hear about this? Get into marketing out automation.

[00:09:45] Don Le

Yeah, so as I mentioned I kind of graduated through the ranks at the agency So I became more of an account manager So the agency their specialty was data and a lot of the creativity around that right?And so really b2b marketing right focus on the data build that account profile and hit them with a lot of marketing Right? And so I graduated, I knew what I was saying from a salesperson, like, Hey, I'm selling up. We were like the specialized ops team for like the Knak. Like if you didn't have an ops team, you're like, come in and say, can we become your ops team?So I sold it. I knew the scripting behind it, but I actually didn't know how it worked. Right. You know, it's kind of a weird feeling. Right. And so that was the journey from agency and going into the client side. Right. And so it was a series of, uh, normative journeys, the startups of the world, messing up your own Marketo implementation, learning what programs are, and then evolving from there.

[00:10:42] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember when I first got into email marketing and I, before that I was handwriting invitations to events. Yeah. Like I would sit there with like 800 envelopes and write. The people's names and the addresses. A little pen to paper. Oh yeah. Okay. So I remember the first time I ever sent an email, seeing the stats come, the reporting come back.Oh, I can see who opened, who clicked. And it was a mind blowing moment for me. Did you ever experience something like that when you got into marketing automation where you just felt like, wow, this is, this is something game changing. This is something. Yeah. Very different than before.

[00:11:34] Don Le

Oh, interesting. Yes.Yes. So, as I mentioned, the origin story was very one to one. Right? You pick up, you know, The phone you dial one person, right? So it's a very one to one relationship, right? And it's the methodical, the minute by minute, right? And then there's this new form of communication. You're telling me that I can go to one to many, right?And scale this across an entire, that was a game changing moment, right? The magnitude at which we can operate at, right? Sales again, very important people. It's one of the most important touches within an organization, right? But the marketing. Right? When you combine that with beautiful and brilliant marketing to evoke a response, that was a game changing scenario for me.Right? And I'll, we'll fast forward to the automation of those, the sequencing of those communications in such a way where it's relevant. Right?

[00:12:34] Pierce Ujjainwalla

So, you own the Marketo tech stack at Meta. Yes. Marketing automation has evolved a lot over the years. We all have seen Scott Brinker's Martech, whatever it is now, 20, 000, 40, 000.Yeah, yeah. How do you think about automation? What technology to put in that stack and what are some of the main things that you're looking to do with your stack and your team at Meta?

[00:13:08] Don Le

Yeah, that's a, that's a very profound question. So how I think about it, and this was in my sales days as well, when, when I sold a person on, on a product, right?And said, this is a great product, right? And you know how he responded? He said, a fool with a tool is still a fool. And I was like, what does that mean? And I was like, well, Don, yeah, I love the product on, uh, you sold me on the product, but how do we provide the adoption of this product? Because if they're, if you're not driving adoption, regardless of how good of a tool it is, it's a failed project.And I walked out of that call like, oh, how demoralizing, but what a lesson fast forward in terms of your question, how do I evaluate technologies? You know, I say my superpowers, low comprehension peers. It's just like, I'm, I'm a dumb person, right? And it's okay. I don't need to be smart, right? But when I evaluate tools, right, does it, I, I always say, you can monkey proof something but you can't Don proof it, right?And so when I evaluate tools, does it make sense to me, because I feel like I'm the lowest common denominator, right? Because if it doesn't make sense, right, to me, that it, I would be hard pressed to teach this or apply this to a greater organization. Right and and then using those principles full with the tool.I've asked for too much success out of that Mm hmm.

[00:14:36] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I would have to imagine that you get approached by martech vendors All the time. Sure. Who want to work with Meta? Yeah. I, out of curiosity. Yeah. I, I'm curious as a Martech vendor, what works, you know, what, how marketing to marketers is very difficult.Yeah. Because we know all the tricks. What if, what have you seen working well as someone on the other side receiving marketing? What? Are there any examples that you could share?

[00:15:15] Don Le

I'm going to ask for a point of clarification, the person receiving marketing.

[00:15:18] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah, so maybe if you could share as, yeah, as the person receiving marketing.Got it. Is there anything you've seen lately that has broken through?

[00:15:30] Don Le

I'm going to attempt to answer that, I think it's the answer, but you have to of course correct me, okay Pierce? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're in this together. Thank you for that. Okay, so in terms of people marketing to me and seeing what works is, there's that cliche of pain, right?You have to understand the pain and the problem statements. There has to be something very tangible to hook into in order to, to really look for that solution. Because I always say, if the questions are unclear, so will the answers. If the vision is unclear, so will the execution. Right? But if there's a very specific thing that we are trying to tackle, then it makes the cell that much better.Right? Right. Um, so that, that I think is what works. Uh, but in terms of, yeah, I'll pause there.

[00:16:18] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah, no, I think so. Messaging, positioning. Timing. Yes. As well, right? Yeah. Being able to know when you have that prop. Yeah. Reaching you at the right time. Yeah. With the right message and the right positioning is, is key.

[00:16:34] Don Le

I'm gonna, I'm gonna contradict myself though. Can I, can I fast forward to the natural origin story? Is that okay? Yeah, let's do that. There wasn't a problem statement. Right. That was interesting. I'm contradicting myself because there wasn't a problem statement. Things worked. Right. Things worked well. And, and so the, the genesis of our story was, well, it can be better.Right. Right. And so it opened up a new world of possibilities for us that I had no idea was possible. I was just kind of like, like, this is how the world works. We're just going to do it like this. And then all of a sudden a thought leader comes into the fray and goes, Hey, we get it. It works. But it can be better, right?And so my phrase around that is, turning this, maybe small, supposed problem statement into incredible opportunities has been the journey between our partnership. Right.

[00:17:27] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah. We see that all the time in the market today. The status quo. Yes. Marketers think, Hey, we're building emails. We're already building landing pages.We got this. What did you learn about your creation process that wasn't obvious to you?

[00:17:51] Don Le

What did I learn in my own creation process? In the, in the email and landing page creation process that wasn't obvious. No, yeah, um, a lot of things. So from the user perspective, right? It wasn't obvious to me how painful of an exercise that was.Right? Because again, it was the status quo. It's just how the world works. You just got to do it, right? And what were some of the pins? Yeah. So, You're going to laugh here, Pierce, but really at Meta, you presume a lot of great technologies that drive a lot of the processes, but we're still stuck in a lot of old ways like Excel and Outlook, right?And so we're tasked, we're asking our stakeholders, the people who put pen to paper, who are brilliant writers, who are brilliant creators, right? To use the medium of an Excel sheet to express, right? Their creativity. This is the medium, right? And it's like, we're here to create these experiences for people to do their best work, but we're not giving them paintbrushes.We're giving them, I don't know, spoons. I don't know how else to say it. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. The medium's off.

[00:19:06] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah, I'd love to share a story. When I was in college, I wasn't the best student, um, I was in business, but I remember when my first marketing class, the creativity component of it, I was so drawn to that.It was like the first time I paid attention. And I think a lot of marketers get into marketing to be creative. And then we give them these spreadsheets, to your point. Yeah. Why do you think that happens?

[00:19:39] Don Le

Because it's simple. Everyone knows a spreadsheet. It's easy. It's like that common denominator across the industry, right?It's like, it's the onboarding. It's familiar. Familiarity. And people are afraid of things that go outside of familiarity, right? So how do we, how do we hold their hand or like excite them towards a new medium?

[00:19:59] Pierce Ujjainwalla

What does that new medium with Knak look like?

[00:20:03] Don Le

It's a visual overlay. And it's, you're going to hear this in my talk tomorrow, right?But these things, they need to be simple, like in Excel, right? Which is fine, which is good, right? But they also have to be delightful. And Excel is not a delightful experience. You don't wake up in the morning and go, Oh my gosh, spreadsheets. Accountants might disagree. Fair enough. Fair enough. I agree with you.I said that for our accounting team or finance. As a marketer, right, you want to use your, your, your, your, the left side, the analytical side, but also the creative side. of your brain as well. When you, when you've combined that, the intersection of that is what creates such delightful experiences. So to answer your question, Knak provides that visual, like they see what they're building.Whereas in Excel, you don't know what you're building. You see like nuts and bolts, but you don't see the entire car. Does that make sense? You see wheels zoomed in, but you don't see the entire.

[00:21:16] Pierce Ujjainwalla

And what did that cause? When you're zoomed in like that, when you're giving, uh, the Excel sheet over and you're doing it in that process.Yeah. What does that cause down the line? So a marketer makes the Excel sheet, then what happens?

[00:21:35] Don Le

The Excel sheet and then what happens down the line is they go to a specialized resource like me or someone on our team and to do that production, the building, right? So you give me this Excel, we build it, and then we hand it back to the author and says, Hey, is this good enough?And how many times is it good enough, Pierce? Zero. Right? And they always want to change something, because whatever happens in Excel doesn't translate well in this little, little, little Marketo situation, right? And so there's always this back and forth. Painful.

[00:22:10] Pierce Ujjainwalla

You know, our first product was a template builder.Okay. And I want to share that. We built, our customers built over 50, 000 Marketo templates using our initial product. Incredible. And we were trying to make templates that would adapt to their needs. We thought, hey, we're going to build the best template ever. Okay. And after building more than 50, 000 templates, We finally realized, marketers, we just love changing things.We're never going to build the template that solves every situation. And, uh, yeah, just hearing you there, I, I, I really feel like that's what we, we learned. That was our biggest learning from that first product is that marketers are tinkers. We, we, it's such a visual field that we're in. Yeah. And that you have to make it flexible, but in the enterprise, you have strict brand guidelines.Yeah. So how do, how do you look at balancing the flexibility and empowering the marketers to be creative, but still keeping them on brand, which I'm sure Meta has very strict brand guidelines.

[00:23:35] Don Le

Very, I mean, we have in a lot of brands. Right. We're going to talk about Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and things that you don't know about like blueprint and developer and gaming.Right. And so there's so many brands, so many sub brands, fonts and spacing. And so yes, there needs to be a balance of yes. Become creative, but within the guardrails of protecting you and protecting the brand, right? And so, when those two don't intersect, you've seen a lot of crazy things, I'm sure, in your past, right?Where people put logos wherever they want to put logos, or the incorrect ones, right? So, it's not stifling creativity, right? It's really, here, here's the best creative available to you. Use it within this framework in order to deliver a unified message to your audiences. Thank you

[00:24:25] Pierce Ujjainwalla

One thing that we hear a lot from our customers is that, you know, they are in marketing ops have been the ones who are brand guideline enforcers.Yes. They have somehow, that has happened because a lot of times marketing ops is that last mile. Yes. You have really transformed how you do your creation process at Meta. Yeah. Where you've empowered your marketers. Marketing Ops is no longer doing that. What would you say to the marketers out there who might be scared to do that?Because they've experienced some, the wild west that we always hear about. Yeah. When they've tried that before.

[00:25:14] Don Le

Yeah, the guidance. I want to be very clear. I want to be very clear that just because you, you implement a thing within your organization, magic doesn't appear right away. There needs to be so much thought and intentionality that is, that is part of that journey.Right. And so when they're scared and I get it right, they should be moving from a known to an unknown. It's a scary thing. Um, I think I'm wired in such a way where I can help create some excitement in terms of a lot of my constituents, my stakeholders. So one is, Hey, I'm in here with you. So there's a lot of pillars or foundation laying that happens.For instance, right. We have a community. We have the documentation. We have the videos. We have people on your team that is on standby because I know that first 30, those first 30 seconds or those first whatever minutes that you have to make an impression are so important. So we want to make sure that all that preparation is, is thought about because I, again, delightful experiences, because if they're scared on the first go around, Right.You're in trouble, but once they see it, they enter it and they do something and have, have claimed victory over it. Right. They have a success story around it, create that momentum and then to the moon we go.

[00:26:35] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I love it. We've got a rapid fire section. Okay. We ask every guest. All right. Uh, the first question is, is email dead?

[00:26:46] Don Le

No. Done.

[00:26:49] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Let me ask you this. What's one marketing trend? That you would unsubscribe from.

[00:26:55] Don Le

Gone are the days of shoving content down people's throats. Right? Meaning, I'm just going to send you this piece of content whether you like it or not. Right? I think it's important. Me as a marketer, I think it's important.But if it's not, if it's not relevant to where they are in their journey, in their context. Right? You're going to create very thrashy experiences with your customers.

[00:27:25] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Love it. What is one, you know, we've talked a lot about business, a lot about marketing ops. What do you do for fun?

[00:27:34] Don Le

Oh man, my, so, um, well, one, I'm a newly minted father.Um, so, uh, I have a 15 month old and a lot of my life revolves around that. But prior to that is a lot of DIY. And so a lot of my DIY projects these days are just revolved around, how do I make his playroom and I, and he's only 15 months, but I got a climbing wall for him. Oh nice. So I'm just like, I'm always just trying to like, uh, and then, um, this is going to be a funny one.Automating the house. So, um, Google, Google fying the entire house to make sure that, you know, everything is controlled. So.

[00:28:09] Pierce Ujjainwalla

I love that as well. I've got my nest cams, the thermostat, the smoke detectors. Um, who is one person in the business community that you admire and why?

[00:28:24] Don Le

Yeah. Oh, good, good, good, good. Um, Ariana Huffington.Oh my gosh, I saw her at a keynote here, um, around, I don't, I don't, many years ago at Yeah. I was that though. Yeah. And I used to wear busyness as a badge of honor, like, Oh, I'm busy, I'm important. Right. And then she injected this whole notion of rest and, and, and sleep and making sure, right. And so, cause I hate perpetuating a culture of like being busy.Busyness and importance, right? And so it's not healthy. So that's, that's how I shifted my whole thinking and my framework when it comes to working life.

[00:29:03] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yeah. That was a powerful keynote where she talked about her burnout and how she actually, I think she said she passed out one day at work or something.Yeah. I remember. It was so profound for me. It was game changing. Really good. Who's one other person that you think we should have on the unsubscribe podcast?

[00:29:24] Don Le

We already had Paul Wilson. I had a man. Okay. Uh, stole my answer. Um, gosh, Jessica Chou. I'm going to plug you, Jessica, wherever you are. Have you had her yet?Not yet. My hero, my hero. So, um, if you need an introduction, awesome firecracker of a lady.

[00:29:42] Pierce Ujjainwalla

Yep. I'm going to, I'm going to follow up on that right after this. Very good. Well, I really look forward to our presentation tomorrow with Paul from OneTrust. It's going to be excellent. Uh, I've loved this conversation, Don.It's always inspiring to speak with you, hearing more about your story, starting from telemarketing, getting into marketing automation. Yeah, yeah. And how you've now unlocked and empowered your marketers at Meta to be creative. So thank you for everything that you do. Thanks for coming on and, and, uh, We'll see you around Vegas.Right on . 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.