Hillary Read brings over 10 years of experience to the world of marketing and communications. She’s worked extensively in e-Commerce and B2B, spending most of her time on the agency side. We spoke with Hillary about her background, her experience working with Jmac, and her take on ever-changing trends in the MarTech space.

Talk a bit about yourself and your background

I started in sports journalism for a couple years, and then moved to e-commerce when I moved out west to San Francisco. In 2011, I went to work at 3Q Digital, which is a digital marketing agency, and I was there for about 10 years. I’ve been in the agency world ever since. So I’ve seen a lot since then. When I started, Facebook was just barely on the scene as an advertising platform. There was no Snapchat, no Twitter Ads, no Tiktok or anything like that.

How have you worked with Jmac?

So the first time I worked with Jmac was at 3Q. John was working as one of the PR leads for Wise PR in New York City. He’s got great relationships, and he’s really good at plugging in and getting placements as he goes. Everybody’s always impressed by how scrappy he is, how quickly he picks up on things, and the breadth of coverage that he can get people.

What career accomplishment are you most proud of?

For me, it’s about continuity and progress over time. I started at 3Q with about 30 people, and over the course of my time there we recruited 300 people, got acquired a couple times, acquired another company, and just really grew. I also founded the marketing department—there wasn’t one in-house when I started. So it was really cool to be part of the trajectory of 3Q’s growth. And I was learning on the job. The industry changes quickly–every day is something new.

What are some of the most notable trends you’re seeing in performance marketing?

On the agency side, we’re seeing a swing back toward execution. Strategy is always going to be important, but right now, because the economy is what it is, any mistakes are magnified. So everyone wants to know that if they’re spending money, the execution is there. So on the agency side it’s become even more under a microscope.

I think the other thing that’s become magnified is measuring the actual value of each touchpoint, and how those platforms are providing value. With Apple, for example, cookies are deprecating and measurement is really changing. There’s a real focus on getting it if not right (because it’s hard to pinpoint a customer journey down to the penny of each engagement), then at least having directional data. Should we be investing in Facebook, for instance, even though we’ve lost all the signal data from iOS 14? Where does Tiktok fit into the customer journey? How are these channels playing together, and are we spending where it’s going to add value? Because people are tight with budgets right now, it’s become more important to have a picture of how the platforms are working together.

Looking ahead, do you have any predictions for the performance marketing industry in 2023?

MarTech is a huge ecosystem, but I still think there are opportunities for solutions to emerge. For companies looking at the mobile space and multi-channel attribution, there’s an opportunity to be differentiated in 2023. As far as channels go, I think Apple will continue to try to box out competitors, and Facebook’s gonna have to come up with ways to counter that. Tiktok is the darling right now, but those costs are going up. It’s really hard to put all your eggs in one basket these days, and Tiktok  is not immune from potential data issues. So I do think there’s going to be even more of an emphasis on seeing the whole picture than there is right now. A lot of tech companies are going to try to get a more holistic view of things.