Targeting: the future of marketing?

But those are largely exceptions right now and our entire industry needs to be able to answer these questions, collect those answers in a single place and take action based on those answers—all in the moment.

We're talking about a convergence of data, and, at least until recently, that's been really hard for marketers to realise. But that's changing, and I think that means the future of advertising is going to be more focused on context than it ever has been before.

TRP: What's Monetate's greatest achievement?

MH: I don't mean to sound glib when I say this, but our greatest achievement happens whenever an individual visits one of our customers' sites and has a winning experience.

That could be receiving an email that was tailored specifically for them or finding a product with a little more ease. It could be receiving a special offer because of their loyalty to a brand or experiencing a checkout process that is more streamlined today than it was yesterday.

We literally help our customers do this millions of times a day, and that's our greatest achievement.

If we can keep doing that, and keep doing that in a way that makes a marketer's job easier… well, that's Monetate's goal. Every day, we hope to do that better and more often than we did the day before.

TRP: What's Monetate's long term strategy?

MH: Like I mentioned earlier, our long-term strategy is to fundamentally change marketing for the better. No small task! More specifically, our long-term strategy is pretty similar to our day-to-day customer-facing work: help marketers do things they never thought they'd be able to do and, in turn, help deliver to individuals an experience with a brand that they actually enjoy.

The difference is that we want to do this for more customers and we want to do it in more channels.

Earlier this year, we rolled out our email product, Monetate Engage, and that's generated a tremendous about of energy within our walls. It's really our first full step into achieving that long-term goal, and you'll see us continue down that road.

Our CEO, David Brussin, co-founded this company because he believed that marketing was broken. We've done a good amount to improve marketing in the last five years, but we haven't fixed it.

So, we're going to keep doing what we're doing: improving our products in two-week sprints, delivering the tools marketers need to do their jobs and working with them to push the realities of what personalised, relevant and valuable marketing can look like and how that can happen at the very moment a customer is at his or her most inspired.

That's the ultimate goal, and I'm really excited about the path we're taking to get there.