Matt Asay, mobile horror stories, and what’s next for Twitter – VB Engage

This week, Travis and Stewart are celebrating their sixth month of being partners in crime on VB Engage. That means this is episode 26, for the mathematicians out there.

In this episode, we interview Matt Asay, VP of mobile at Adobe Marketing Cloud. Asay (pronounced Ace-E), tells us a few horror stories about how some mobile app and game developers have complicated their marketing stacks beyond belief, and how hard it is for web-focused businesses to make the move to mobile. We like horror stories, especially during Halloween week!

We also discuss Twitter’s latest news, including its earnings and user growth, and what this means for social advertising. Finally, we find out — thanks to Adobe’s annual online sales predictions report, which is always spookily accurate — exactly what this holiday season holds for retail marketers.

Also this week, our “hero image” features our second guest illustrator (her Fiverr name is MakeMeBark.)

Listen to the 26th episode of the VB Engage podcast to hear:

• Introducing VB Engage Episode 26 [0:00]
• Celebrating VB Engage’s 6-month anniversary [0:20]
• Working as partners in crime on VBE: Mostly ups [0:40]
• Interesting News: Twitter massive earnings [1:25]
• Twitter is one of the places people live online [1:44]
• Recap on Stewart Rogers’ research on social media marketing [2:08]
• Majority of people do not use third-party social media clients [2:20]
• Not everyone is in the social media management game [2:35]
• Twitter earnings up, data released at 4 a.m. PST [3:25]
• Travis Wright’s paid search tools demos discussion with QuanticMind and Kenshoo [3:50]
• Twitter’s Advertising API should be in order [4:15]
• 2 years ago, Twitter wasn’t good enough to recommend for user acquisition [4:35]
• Twitter has been investing heavily in the ad platform and now ranks second-best for UA [5:00]
• Twitter revenue is up [5:15]
• $545 million dollars in advertising revenue! [5:20]
• OMG. Twitter user growth of 3% this quarter! Just like Line’s flat-lined growth [5:52]
• Travis goes on a rant about how Twitter video capacity is only 30 seconds long [6:43]
• Travis creates a new Twitter account every 3 months or so to check onboarding [7:27]
• Stewart corrects Travis and lets him know that you can record up 140 seconds now [7:49]
• Stewart didn’t even gloat [8:00]
• Twitter is not dying [8:47]
• Travis gives Twitter credit for his success in building relationships outside of Kansas City [8:55]
• Adobe predictions show only 5% of shoppers will drive 35% of online sales [9:30]
• Adobe is using machine learning and predictive analytics [9:52]
• At large online retailers, $7.5 of every $10 spent goes through Adobe Marketing Cloud [10:20]
• Mobile is overtaking desktop devices for the first time for online sales [10:38]
• A message for everyone doing mobile sales [11:06]
• Customer satisfaction ratings for retail shopping apps are terrible [11:15]
• Amazon has a great experience with swipe to buy [11:30]
• Apps and mobile websites must fix their conversions [12:12]
• Tips for buying something on mobile: Be dedicated and focused [12:50]
• Welcome Matt Asay from Adobe Marketing Cloud to VB Engage! [13:25]
• Travis needs to work on his CRO [13:50]
• 24,000 word of research/study/analysis on marketing clouds: Adobe is killing it. 99.4% [14:!7]
• How Adobe does management insight [14:45]
• How much of a role does mobile play in marketing cloud solutions? [15:10]
• Mobile is fundamentally different in terms of immediacy and location. [15:40]
• How does Adobe think about engaging users and turning them into customers? [16:50]
• Creating a product with a mobile-only context [17:25]
• Travis is huge in China and buys all his clothes at Mega Retail X [18:02]
• First Marketing Technology Conference in Boston: Build one or buy one? [18:45]
• What about the mobile marketing stack? [19:27]
• Travis asks a “fantastic question” [20:02]
• Matt describes a mega home improvement build and buy mobile marketing stack [20:20)
• Data matters above all else [21:15]
• How do we solve the problem of the data mess most companies have [23:20]
• DMP: Audience Manager product through acquisition [23:35]
• Adobe open for third-parties’ data [25:22]
• Trying to solve the “data is crap” problem [25:26]
• Test and target: Content changes based on the context of the visitor [26:00]
• Travis gives Matt a random plug for his book: “Digital Sense” [26:46]
• Customers aren’t loyal anymore: Solutions to their problem [27:02]
• Pull point-of-sale data, geo-fencing, interests, plus location graph data in real life [27:35]
• A large sports entertainment business case study [28:35]
• There is still a physical person helping provide great customer experience [29:50]
• Wrapping up with Matt Asay, and Travis brings up the creative + marketing skills [30:15]
• Recap of last week’s episode VB025 with Ray Beharry [31:01]
• Tune in next week for Episode VB027: Alexis Fogel, CEO of Dashlane [31:25]
• Thanks for supporting us for 6 months, so far! [31:35]
• Subscribe. Rate. Review. [31:40]
• End of segment [31:57]

Thanks for tuning in this week. We always appreciate your excellence.

Stay tuned, subscribe, rate, and review VB Engage using any of the big buttons below. See you next week with Episode 27!

And if you missed last week’s episode with Ray Beharry, worry ye not. You can listen to it right here.