A Deep Dive into HockeyStack's GTM Playbook - Emir Atli
I follow the attribution software category pretty closely, and sometime in the last 6-12 months it felt like I started seeing HockeyStack everywhere in my LinkedIn feed.
They have multiple team members and executives posting regularly, producing unique and engaging content, and they are building in public, sharing tons of juicy details about their GTM strategy.
How did a relatively young startup come to appear so dominant so quickly? I invited HockeyStock's CRO to chat and unpack all the details.
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About Today's Guest
Emir Atli is the co-founder and CRO of HockeyStack, the a B2B GTM Analytics platform.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emircatli/
Key Topics
- [00:00] - Introduction
- [01:27] - Origins of HockeyStack.
- [02:42] - What they saw that could be disrupted in the attribution space: a platform that didn't depend on Salesforce data and that was faster to implement. People buy these tools for two reasons: proving contribution and optimizing. There is most room to innovate around optimization.
- [04:56] - HockeyStack's go-to-market strategy. Starting with a goal to dominate LinkedIn, with co-founders posting daily. All GTM team members are expected to post. They focus not just on brand awareness but on making marketers smarter. Each team member has their own personality which shapes the content strategy. Finding the balance between entertainment and education.
- [09:53] - The Flow, HockeyStack's content platform.
- [10:39] - Sales strategy and process. Importance of the interactive demo. Use of a virtual sales room. Taking a consultative approach to selling. Working with the buyer's pace.
- [15:41] - Implementation and onboarding process (typically takes two weeks).
- [17:10] - How to be differentiated in showing value from the product once people buy it. Emphasis on flexibility - no-code dashboard builder, not locking people into templates.
- [18:59] - Data cleansing and data structure.
- [20:10] - Using data to tell better stories. Demonstrating what's actually working.
- [24:51] - Definition of incrementality reporting.
- [26:26] - How HockeyStack positions itself against competitors.
- [27:55] - Flexibility of the data model and dashboarding platform. Bringing in Snowflake data.
- [29:18] - Incorporating self-reported attribution. How many "dark social" touchpoints actually can be tracked.
- [33:12] - How HockeyStack innovates rapidly on the product. Impact of being in Y-Combinator.
- [35:49] - Marketing Mix Modelling - what it is and how to use it.
Resource Links
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Transcript
B2B SaaS is a very formulaic industry if
2
:you really think about it.
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:Almost every company sounds the same.
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:They look the same.
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:They have the same website.
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:And the same go to market playbook, but
every now and then a company decides
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:to do things a little bit differently.
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:They don't just follow the steps
that everyone else runs and
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:that VCs expect, they innovate.
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:And I'm fascinated by these
examples because sometimes it's
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:in these moments of originality.
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:And creative thinking that we see
the playbooks of tomorrow emerging.
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:So HockeyStack is one of
these companies for me.
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:They make a software for B2B attribution,
which is a category I follow pretty
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:closely and perhaps 10 months ago,
maybe more, they just sort of burst
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:into my LinkedIn feed with content
that is original and interesting
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:and generating a lot of attention.
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:And they're also quite transparent
about their effort to build a
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:different type of go-to-market strategy.
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:So it's been really cool to watch
that unfold I wanted to go deeper
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:behind the scenes on HockeyStack,
the company and the product.
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:And so I reached out to Emir
Atli, who is Chief Revenue Officer
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:and Co-founder HockeyStack.
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:And he was good enough to agree
to spend some time with me.
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:So Amir, welcome to the show.
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:Emir Atli: you so much for
the kind words, Justin.
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:Really appreciate it.
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:Excited to chat more.
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:Justin Norris: Awesome.
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:So like I said, you know, HockeyStack
just kind of like appeared.
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:I felt really surrounded by it,
which is a, a really good thing.
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:But I don't know a lot about how you
founded the company, where it comes from.
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:Maybe you can just walk us through that.
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:Emir Atli: Yeah, the name
comes from Hockey Stick Growth.
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:hockey stick.com was taken by a stick
company, so we went with HockeyStack.
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:this was a problem that we Had
before HockeyStack, kind of like
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:understanding the custom journey
and we were experiencing it more.
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:we had a mobile app and we were
experiencing it in our mobile
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:app, kind of like post signup.
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:we developed a product analytics
software and through time by pivoting
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:and by talking to more people.
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:after two three pivots, we landed on
revenue attribution for B2B companies.
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:in about a year, hundreds of marketers
started using this tool our kind of
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:plan was shaking up the attribution
category a little bit because it's not
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:been innovating, for a very long time.
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:Ever since
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:Justin Norris: Bizible,
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:Emir Atli: They landed few big
customers, a new round couple months ago.
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:And then we went with the GTM analytics
category because our main goal is to
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:bring sales team into the product as well.
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:recently we chose a new feature set,
which I think you saw, marketing mix
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:Justin Norris: modelling
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:Emir Atli: forecasting, budget
optimization, with throughing
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:into GTM analytics category.
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:Justin Norris: you mentioned
very accurately that the
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:category, hasn't evolved a ton.
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:I mean, I started using
Bizible maybe back in:
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:It was the only tool at the time
that kind of did from soup to nuts in
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:terms of collecting the data, first
party data on the front end, doing
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:the modeling, presenting it to you.
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:But then of course, like all companies
seem to do when they get acquired,
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:it sort of stopped and stagnated.
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:What did you see, that you could
disrupt within that category
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:Emir Atli: the first thing
was, say if we take a few steps
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:back, it was like before biz.
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:There was just like first session and
last touch, and then Bizible came up.
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:They choose multi touch attribution
models, but the problem is Bizible
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:depends on Salesforce campaigns, and
Salesforce is set up and most companies
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:don't have the best setup for Salesforce.
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:And then Bizible depends
on Salesforce and Bizible.
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:The only reason that you get Bizible is to
clean the data so that you can understand
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:what's working, what's not working.
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:And it depends on Salesforce.
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:So it's massive data.
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:So the first thing was not depending
on Salesforce, so that we can get the
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:Salesforce campaigns, but we can also
actually revenue towards everything.
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:The second thing was
set up process Bizible.
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:Takes months to implement and often
after, that's still hard to use.
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:Justin Norris: Hockeystack
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:Emir Atli: takes.
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:A few minutes to integrate with
all of your tools and then two
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:weeks to onboard completely.
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:and the third thing was additional
touch points, like impressions
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:from ad platforms so that we can
complete the customer journey.
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:I take a look at the reason why
people buy tools like HockeyStack.
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:It's mainly two reasons.
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:One proving contribution And
the second thing is optimizing.
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:so for the first thing, even if you
innovate, it's not the place where
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:you can innovate the most, but the
optimization part is my opinion, where
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:we could innovate a little bit more.
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:so we innovated in that, in the way
that people can optimize their campaigns
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:usingHockeyStack, time to value.
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:In those areas, we
innovated in about a year.
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:we had success in shaking things
up in this category, reached a lot
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:of customers, and then just pivoted
because the problem is attribution.
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:it has a bad reputation,
it's harder to sell.
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:Uh, I know that from the start.
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:So yeah, the feature for HockeyStack is
gonna be Turning data into revenue with
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:automation starting in January, so that
we can actually put that data into work.
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:Justin Norris: maybe Let's
just talk a little bit about
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:your Go-to market strategy.
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:One of the things I've really
enjoyed following you on LinkedIn
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:is you're very open and transparent
about intentional in designing your
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:go-to market, how your funnel works.
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:you seem to be really punching kind
of above your weight class in terms of
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:the size of the team you have and the
results that you're able to achieve.
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:Can you walk us through what you're
doing and, and maybe how it differs a
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:bit from the traditional SaaS playbook.
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:Emir Atli: so from the start, LinkedIn
has been super important for us.
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:We focused on LinkedIn heavily.
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:Our goal was to dominate LinkedIn and
then move to other platforms, diversify
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:our marketing strategy a little bit more.
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:So from the start, me and my co-founder,
started posting every single day,
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:sometimes twice a day, and started
gaining momentum that way, started
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:getting followers, and then we started
adding more people like Obed, our head of
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:content to our head of product marketing,
sales engineering, and for our GTM team.
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:especially on marketing and sales teams.
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:My first interview question is, are you
open to posting on LinkedIn regularly
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:If you have the resources, available.
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:And it's critical for me because I
think every single GTM member, should
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:bring in revenue, not just a sales team.
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:So our kind of approach was, the best
quality content at the highest quantity
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:and We started posting regularly.
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:the way that we do it is every
single person on our team
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:has different personalities.
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:So for example, I'm more on the
executive side, I'm managing
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:our marketing and sales.
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:And ED is more on the creative marketing
side too, is more head of product
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:marketing and more like measurement side.
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:and I think what we do differently
is when people say brand awareness,
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:they mean that every single person
in our industry should know about us.
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:And then you see companies like
Apollo with incredible budgets.
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:There's like a social team of 10
people, everyone knows about Apollo,
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:but not everyone knows what Apollo does.
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:Even if people know what Apollo does,
they don't know what's diff what's the
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:difference between Apollo and ZoomInfo?
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:No one, no one knows.
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:So my approach was we
need to be efficient.
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:if most people know about us, that's
good, but I, I would prefer less people.
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:Know about us, but they would know
what we are doing and what's the
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:difference between HockeyStack
and Bizible and other platforms.
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:we took a look at our previous content
and I saw that brand awareness actually
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:means making marketers smarter.
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:Our educational content outperforms
any other type of content because
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:people log into LinkedIn to learn.
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:we kind of decided that we
need to make market smarter
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:in marketing and measurement.
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:So.
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:I am kind of posting about how we are
doing marketing and what are the business
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:results and how can you communicate those
results to your CEO and CMO or with your
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:board, because I'm more on the executive
side, people expect me to talk about that.
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:And then Ed is head of content.
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:He's talking about how
can you be more creative?
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:How can you do better marketing?
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:And Drew is talking about how
can you be better at measurement?
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:So we have this personalities,
people expect to see.
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:And if we have a content calendar
shared with everyone on the team.
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:And then we have the flow, where
we host all of our content,
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:which I think we'll talk more.
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:It's our media company.
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:It's like a Netflix for PB marketers.
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:And then we have
HockeyHockeyStack Academy.
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:So basically we create content at the
high quantity, con, then we store
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:these content pieces in different
places like Cusack and Flow, and then be
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:distributed across our social channels.
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:And then we engage with the audience.
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:Justin Norris: And this approach
reminds me a lot of the kind of
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:demand creation methodology that Chris
Walker from Refine Labs has really
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:popularized over the past few years.
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:Were you guys influenced by
him or is this just an approach
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:that you came to independently?
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:Emir Atli: I'm a big fan of Chris.
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:Um, A lot of times we had
dinner in San Francisco.
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:Chris is amazing, but I think we have
some differences in our approach.
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:I'm sure we got influenced like
any other PE person in our,
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:Justin Norris: I think every, everybody
on LinkedIn has been influenced
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:by Chris in the last few years.
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:Emir Atli: Yeah, yeah, of course.
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:I think we got inspired probably,
and then we like changed a few
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:pieces and built our own playbook.
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:Justin Norris: talking a bit
about, your content, and you
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:mentioned Ohad a few times.
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:He's somebody else on your team that
I just see all the time on LinkedIn.
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:He, it has almost a, I don't know if he
would think of it this way or if you think
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:of it this way, but I think of it kind of
like a, like a Gen Z approach to content.
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:Like it's got a lot of memes, it's got
a lot of like video game references.
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:It's fun.
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:It has music.
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:Is that a, is that just him and
his personality, or is that a
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:deliberate strategy that you pursue?
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:Emir Atli: It's his personality,
but, uh, our head of content is
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:an exceptional talent that I'm
really proud to have on our team.
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:It's his personality.
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:yeah, I think like our approach has
been blending in our personalities
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:and then finding the balance
between entertainment and education.
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:We have different series on the flow
that we collaborate with other marketers.
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:So if we collaborate with other marketers,
we don't talk about HockeyStack at all.
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:But then if we do five series that doesn't
talk about HockeyStack, but still educate
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:the marketers, then we do one series
about HockeyStack that we can distribute.
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:we struggle to find this balance,
honestly, but usually we're pretty
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:good at finding the balance and letting
people know what we do in creative ways.
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:Justin Norris: and you mentioned the
flow a few times and I looked at it and
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:I think your description and Netflix
for marketers is pretty accurate.
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:really nice experience.
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:It's got all sorts of shows and content.
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:Which like I think is amazing.
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:What, what's the incentive for
these other creators to work
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:with you on this platform?
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:Emir Atli: I think it's mostly
being part of something new.
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:There's also we paid them per
episode, but it's not nothing huge.
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:but I think they wanna
be part of something new.
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:They want to create content
with other marketers and they
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:also get good brand awareness.
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:We get a couple consultants like
agency owners and people like that who
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:said they got a really good business.
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:After they started a series.
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:So it's a bunch of things, but
what I hear from most of them is
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:they wanna be a part of the flow.
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:Justin Norris: shifting gears a little
bit into the sales side of things I
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:was just looking as I was preparing
for this at some of your LinkedIn posts
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:and some of the things that you shared,
which I thought were really interesting.
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:one of them was you have your interactive
demo and that interactive demo is kind
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:of like this anchor of sales funnel.
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:and then another one, . Was that
you've really worked hard on
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:fine tuning your sales process.
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:quote, you here, wanted to
make it a differentiator.
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:You worked on it for dozens of hours,
perfected each follow up email every
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:inch of your digital sales room,
every second of your demo calls.
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:You really were intentional about getting
that process tight, which is awesome.
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:Tell me like, about what that looks like.
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:Emir Atli: so our interactive
demo, we built it.
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:when we first launched,
we built it ourselves.
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:We still maintain, it's our own code.
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:We built it every single
part of it ourselves.
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:We don't, we don't rely on any other tool,
and I have strong opinions about this.
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:so the sales process, we are
Almost a hundred percent in bond.
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:got some, a bond too, but it's
mostly, from like people who
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:engage with our live demo.
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:We send emails, we demos that way.
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:But, have a significant spend on ad
platforms, LinkedIn ads, Google ads.
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:we are spending a lot on those
platforms and we have social going on.
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:So if people enter the website, they
usually look at our live demo and then
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:from live demo they contact sales.
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:And then it gets to our sales team.
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:Sometimes it gets to me and the
first call is usually 45 minutes.
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:We do like a discovery, not
the boring type for the of it.
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:And then we do product demo, and
then we have a digital sales room.
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:We are using doc dot, us.
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:and then we usually Take
a consultative approach.
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:So our goal last quarter for the last two
quarters has been to make our sales team
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:a consultant rather than a salesperson.
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:so our goal is to sell before the sales
call so that our sales team, Don't need
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:to force people to book the second call.
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:Don't need to kind of
like force people to buy.
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:They just need to answer.
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:A few questions, specifics, how
does it work with our setup?
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:How does it work with
our Salesforce instance?
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:So that integrated with this
platform, of like a Consultant really.
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:then we send that digital sales
room where they can find every
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:single information they need.
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:From customer case studies to recap the
demo call according to book another call.
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:You can just do it there.
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:So if you're kind of like minimizing
the time you spend with us, I know from
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:my own experience I got a lot of tools.
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:I need to do it at my own pace.
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:I don't need to adopt to a sales
persons or sales team space.
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:I don't need to adopt my pace
to your quarterly pipeline goals
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:or like your pricing changes,
whatever you want to force me to do.
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:So.
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:I know that and buyer kind
of controls the sales cycle.
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:course there are areas that we can
control the sales cycle and we do them
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:too, but like perfecting our digital
sales room has been a massive advantage.
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:And then the other thing was
perfecting our live demo.
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:We did a lot of tests on platforms like
Winter and on our demo calls and we know
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:what's driving revenue on our live demo.
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:and about . 75 to 80% of demo
requests, first checkout, live
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:demo, and then contact sales.
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:So they have a pretty, of like a
rough idea of what we do and what
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:they're gonna see in the demo.
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:then after that it's usually
they sometimes book a second
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:call, sometimes more technical
call then go through with that.
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:so how we approach differentiating our
sales call, quite honestly, Two or three
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:hires that I made, I made them a list.
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:I didn't share this anywhere publicly,
but I made them a list of competitors.
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:I said, you are gonna join in two weeks.
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:schedule a call with all
of these competitors.
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:Send me the recordings and tell me what
you about the demos, and ask how are
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:they different from HockeyStack and
a bunch of other questions like that.
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:And they all did that.
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:And then.
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:When I watch them, it's like, if
we can make our sales process a
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:little bit different, that's a huge
advantage for us because honestly,
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:in analytics products, attribution
platforms, demos really are boring.
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:so else that we do is we are showing
the customer's journey on the demo.
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:So we just like log into our own instance
of HockeyStack and show you what you
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:have been doing on our website and the
Other people on your team's journeys.
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:So we do stuff like this to
differentiate our sales process
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:a little bit more to win deals.
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:Justin Norris: And are you collecting
like a hundred percent of people that
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:I would call hand raisers, like people
that have requested a demo or are you
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:collecting lower intent leads as well?
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:In various ways
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:Emir Atli: No.
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:we intentionally, I think I did
a post about this two weeks ago.
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:We intentionally reduced our pipeline
by 50% over the last two months.
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:we have a strict ICP,
kinda like checklist.
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:We look at the employee size, we
look at marketing team size, we look
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:at operations team sales because
it's supreme important for us.
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:then we look at spend and total
number of leads per month on average.
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:And then we accept, the request that way.
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:So we reject about half of
our, demo requests per month.
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:Justin Norris: And if people are
. Watching on the flow, let's say,
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:do they become known to you in some
way or is all of that top of the
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:funnel activity remain anonymous and
you're okay with that until such time
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:as they decide to request a demo?
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:Emir Atli: they subscribe or if they.
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:So we have a couple of gated content.
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:If they enter the email addresses in
anywhere, they're identified for flow.
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:We are also planning on launching
LinkedIn login, so that people can
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:log in and then comment on episodes.
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:Justin Norris: Got it.
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:moving kind of linearly through
your funnel into post-sales part,
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:what does that implementation
process look like for you?
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:backstory here, I mean, I
was a Bizible consultant.
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:For a long time, so I kind of
know what that, you mentioned
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:the process implementing Bizible.
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:I know what that looks like.
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:I'm curious what it looks
like for HockeyStack.
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:Emir Atli: Yeah.
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:Right now, you create an account
you integrate with your platforms.
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:All integrations, sorry, one
click native integrations.
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:So you need an admin to log into
Salesforce, log into market, give
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:us permission in about a day.
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:We pull in the last two years of data.
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:and then we match all the lifecycle stages
to your lifecycle stages, your campaigns.
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:That's totally on us.
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:And then we have a call with your
operations people, to review lifecycle
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:stages, and then to ask if there's
anything else we need to be careful about.
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:Sometimes people store
financial aid on Snowflake.
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:All updated points on the HCRM, if there
are anything like that, and there's any
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:other funnels that we need to be aware of.
342
:And then after that, in about a
week to 10 days, we prepare all
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:the initial dashboards we do a to
show them how they can find their
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:properties, how they can build a report
themselves, becauseHockeyStack also
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:have a no-code dashboard builder.
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:Most of our customers are getting onboard
in two weeks, sometimes shorter, but
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:in about two weeks, we expect you to
be completely onboarded with initial 10
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:or so dashboards and user training, and
you have a Slack channel, your current
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:customer success goals if you want.
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:Justin Norris: And so you have a CS team.
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:Like let's say I signed up,
would my company be assigned
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:a individual CSS person?
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:Emir Atli: Yeah.
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:Justin Norris: and you thought that
through as well in a, in a similar
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:way of trying to be differentiated?
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:Kind of a backstory to that question.
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:Is, in doing these sorts of
implementations, you can do a lot of work.
358
:You know, prepping the data, getting
the data clean, building taxonomy,
359
:building out a system, trying to
make it as bulletproof as possible.
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:And then you often, I found at least
show dashboards to execs or people
361
:on the team and they're kinda like,
ah, yeah, actually, they think they,
362
:what they think they want is not
always . What they actually want
363
:or what they think they want is not
always actually that useful to them.
364
:Once they get it, they're
not sure what to do with it.
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:Is this something that you've seen how do
you circumvent that problem if you have?
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:Emir Atli: Yeah, if I take a couple steps
back, I think right now we are winning
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:about 95, 90 6% of our competitive deals,
Bizible and a few other competitors.
368
:Mainly with our dashboard builder
because people, as I see, don't
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:wanna be trapped into templates
they wanna build it themselves.
370
:They wanna change models, change
columns, report themselves change.
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:I know time range conversion
with knows everything.
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:They wanna be able to do that.
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:So we built a NOCO dashboard builder
where anyone can build a report
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:without any technical knowledge
and everything is customizable.
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:So that was one part.
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:And then the other part was, what
I see from our customer interviews
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:and post-sales interviews.
378
:Most people say that they see us as a
strategic partner, not just a vendor.
379
:They will be With them throughout
their journey because as companies
380
:grow, their marketing gets diversified.
381
:As their marketing gets diversified,
their measurement needs grow as well.
382
:So they need a partner that they're
not gonna outgrow, and they will be
383
:with them throughout that journey.
384
:it can be a customer success
team, it can be a technical team.
385
:So totally we see customer success as
a differentiator and we see these core
386
:features as differentiators as well.
387
:Justin Norris: drilling in in a
little bit, and I hope you don't
388
:mind if I just go into the weeds
here 'cause I like to do that.
389
:But on the data side, this is
often where these projects live
390
:or die from my point of view.
391
:you're sucking in data, you know, it
has a certain structure to it, but
392
:there's lots of problems, stitching
identities together across platforms.
393
:Campaigns that may not be
normalized, opportunities
394
:that don't have contact roles.
395
:I mean, there's a million things
I'm sure that you've run into.
396
:you have some kind of engine under
the hood that is taking all that
397
:together and stitching it into a hole?
398
:Or how have you looked
at solving that problem?
399
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
400
:it's our, one of the unique value
propositions is we clean all of the data
401
:and we stitch the data on our backend, our
secret sauce, so we have a data structure.
402
:That's, associating leads to
accounts, accounts to account
403
:activity, leads to lead activity, and
together an account based journey.
404
:And then all of the reports
depend on that account structure.
405
:so even if, for example, a person
is not associated with an account
406
:or with an opportunity, but they,
with the website and we are able to
407
:identify them with reverse IP or with
an email, we still associate that lead
408
:that opportunity on HockeyStack so.
409
:It's like getting the data, cleaning
the data, and normalizing it so
410
:that we can make sense of the data.
411
:Justin Norris: And talking
about customer journey.
412
:It's interesting that you can take
an individual customer journey
413
:and everybody really likes it.
414
:You say, oh look, here's Acme, and they
bought our stuff and there was these five
415
:people involved and here's the eBooks that
they downloaded, and here's the events
416
:that they intended, and then they won.
417
:And everyone's just like,
that is fascinating.
418
:They really eat that up.
419
:And the challenge becomes when you
start layering those journeys on
420
:top of each other, after like two,
you really can't draw very many
421
:meaningful conclusions anymore.
422
:Like it starts to just become . a soup.
423
:how do you think about that problem?
424
:Like where do you guide people to say,
here's how we should actually interpret
425
:this data to make better decisions?
426
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
427
:This is one of our key priorities in Q1
with architect academy's measurement side.
428
:I think there's a big gap in the market
in the way that people need to know
429
:and learn better how to optimize how
to look at the data to tell stories.
430
:The number one thing that I hear on
demo calls is I'm looking to get a
431
:tool so that I can tell better stories.
432
:I would look at organic acquisition, paid
acquisition as two separate, and then an
433
:overview report that will get everything.
434
:what we do is we are looking at these
reports with multi attribution models.
435
:And then we kind of can see
the common touch points.
436
:But then the problem with attribution
models is they just get the entire credit
437
:divided into total number of touch points.
438
:So some touch point might
not be really valuable.
439
:And then we look at incrementality
reports that we have on HockeyStack to
440
:see kind of like the incremental revenue
influence of different touch points.
441
:and then a combination
of those two things.
442
:Gimme the understanding of
what's really is working.
443
:so I think that's challenging,
but also it comes from kinda like
444
:the incentives that people get.
445
:So to people want to tell stories
so that team can get incentivized or
446
:they can just like prove contribution.
447
:So if you can ignore that part
for a little bit and then take a
448
:look at what actually is working.
449
:I think you can optimize and you can
get better results so that you don't
450
:need to tell those stories that often.,
451
:Justin Norris: Like, yeah, it's great
to, . try to justify that you were
452
:doing something or that it worked.
453
:But ultimately what people want to
do is make decisions that actually
454
:make the business more money.
455
:I don't know if it's an, there's an
easy way to do it in the format of this
456
:discussion, but is there a way to just
make that like a bit more crystallized
457
:or more concrete for listeners on like
what that would actually look like?
458
:Like
459
:what's like an example of looking at
this data and then something that you
460
:can actually do differently to drive
more revenue, more impact, whatever
461
:it is that marketer's trying to do.
462
:Emir Atli: so you can see how much you're
spending on different channels and what
463
:percentage of your budget goes to these
channels versus How many deals or like the
464
:total number of total deal value that's
being influenced by these channels, you
465
:can look at, for example, brand keywords
and their incremental revenue influence.
466
:So we compare in cohorts, if people click
on those links and then create deals
467
:or if they don't click on those links
and I still create deals so that you
468
:can see incrementality ports that way.
469
:On the organic acquisition site.
470
:We are looking at pages, individual
pages, time spent on those pages
471
:and how they bring in revenue.
472
:And the number one thing that we
are using is, have a funnel that's
473
:showing us baseline conversion rate.
474
:So if people go from the website landing
page to, pricing paste and contact
475
:sales page, what's the Conversion
rate , of that funnel baseline.
476
:And if we look at the people
enter the live demo, what's the
477
:baseline conversion rate influence?
478
:If they enter the flow, if they engage
with a couple of series, if they spend
479
:more than a minute on the flow, what's
the baseline conversion rate influence.
480
:make decisions that way.
481
:And something that we noticed is Pricing
page on contact sales page on most
482
:SaaS companies, sizing are included.
483
:They're pretty, pretty much very similar.
484
:Contact sales page.
485
:Also have pricing.
486
:There's a form pricing page
that's pricing, but you can
487
:also click on a button and then
directed to contact sales page.
488
:We found out that our pricing
page isn't really converting.
489
:There is like a five x difference
between our contact sales page
490
:and pricing page, but I would
assume that pricing page is also.
491
:A high intent page, right?
492
:So most people retarget
pricing page views.
493
:So when I thought about it, most
people probably see the pricing
494
:page as another type of content.
495
:they're just interested.
496
:So we are redesigning our pricing page
to give more value rather than just like
497
:saying, these are our prices, this is
the baseline prices, the end price plan.
498
:so this kind of Different reporting.
499
:I'm talking about our own like analytics.
500
:but to summarize, most of our customers
use one dashboard for paid acquisition,
501
:one dashboard for organic acquisition,
one dashboard for marketing overview,
502
:and they're doing a BM, there's like
a sales versus marketing penetration
503
:rate based on accounts, how different
accounts are engaging with the brand.
504
:those are the main reports
that I see from our customers.
505
:And also channel based reports,
like how much we're spending
506
:on Google versus LinkedIn.
507
:that's standard sales
cycle from this platform.
508
:Justin Norris: And you mentioned
incrementality a few times.
509
:Could you define that?
510
:Like what does that mean in this context?
511
:Emir Atli: Yeah, incrementality is, so
attribution models gives you a direction.
512
:So you can see if you close a million
dollar deal and there are like a
513
:hundred different touch points, it
divides million dollars by a hundred
514
:and then gives you, these are the credit
that these touch points should get.
515
:Incremental testing is more,
showing this in cohorts.
516
:So analyzes the entire customer
journey for a goal like deal
517
:created and it shows you, for the
cohort that didn't do deal created.
518
:These are the touchpoint, the
core that did deal created.
519
:These are the touch points.
520
:And if a user does this touch point,
this is the conversion rate influence.
521
:So if a user enters the flow, the
conversion rate influence, they're
522
:like 10 times more likely to convert.
523
:Justin Norris: I am glad you
explained that to me 'cause that was
524
:something that I was trying to build.
525
:I didn't have the word in my vocabulary
and but that, that makes a lot more sense.
526
:It feels more, scientific than
just, you know, taking the pie,
527
:dividing it up and saying like, well
here's the things that happened.
528
:And it was there, you know,
because it was sunny that day, then
529
:we're gonna give sunniness some
credit to take a silly example.
530
:Uh,
531
:actually comparing with and without,
it feels more scientific that way.
532
:Emir Atli: yeah, exactly.
533
:And you can also take approaches.
534
:So for example, instead of just
looking at SDR emails sent, you can
535
:look at SDR emails being replied to.
536
:And how they influence revenue so that
even if teams get credit, they can get
537
:credit for more meaningful activities.
538
:Justin Norris: And those replies, are
you pulling those in through Salesforce?
539
:Do you integrate with some of the
outreach tools like SalesLoft or Outreach?
540
:Emir Atli: We get it from
541
:Justin Norris: Got it from Salesforce.
542
:Okay.
543
:Super interesting.
544
:we've alluded a few times to Bizible,
they're kind of the legacy player.
545
:There is another sort of group, I
guess, of more modern tools out there.
546
:You know, there's your dream data,
your caliber mind, your rent metrics.
547
:I'm throwing out a few.
548
:I'm assuming you compete
with all of them in deals.
549
:How do you, I have never actually
been a customer of any of of those,
550
:by the way, besides, besides biz.
551
:So I'm familiar with them in a general
sense, but not necessarily, uh, deepen.
552
:As a user, how do you position
yourself against those other players
553
:are a bit more modern than biz?
554
:is it really just Bizible, you
know, nine times outta 10 that
555
:you're running off against?
556
:Emir Atli: CaliberMind, we
don't really run into it.
557
:Data, we run into dream data.
558
:Data is an amazing company,
amazing founders, good
559
:sales team based in Denmark.
560
:data is cheapest solution in our category.
561
:usually it's x cheaper.
562
:Than HockeyStack.
563
:it's based on templates.
564
:It's more you have a customer that
switched from Dream data recently,
565
:I'm using their ver it's most,
it's more like a data connector
566
:a true like reporting platform.
567
:So you have templates.
568
:You have clean data, but then you
can't define your own properties.
569
:You can't change things on the reports.
570
:You need a BI tool to export all the
data into a BI platform and then a BI
571
:team to change it while HockeyStack.
572
:We are kind approaches the full circle
cleaning to measuring, to sending
573
:the data back to the platforms like
ad platforms as offline conversions.
574
:From to forecasting to
budget recommendations.
575
:we are a core infrastructure for the
marketing team and operations team.
576
:Justin Norris: I was watching one of your,
uh, can You Dashboard videos, which is
577
:a really cool content series by the way.
578
:But it did appear to me like a very
flexible, almost bi like interface.
579
:I.
580
:That you've created.
581
:are there any limitations or can
people really just, you know, metrics,
582
:dimensions, filters, mishmash,
whatever they want that's in the
583
:data store, in that interface.
584
:Emir Atli: there's really no limitations.
585
:The only limitation would be
like changing something on
586
:Salesforce, through HockeyStack.
587
:So changing a report, overriding
a report, overriding a metric,
588
:but you can build your own metrics
using combination of Salesforce
589
:marketer and website on HockeyStack,
so you can build your own goals.
590
:There's no limitation.
591
:As I said, the only limitation
would be overriding.
592
:Data from coming from the platforms.
593
:Justin Norris: And you mentioned
bringing in snowflake data, like do
594
:I need looker if I have HockeyStack,
like could I actually put you on
595
:top of finance data or other sorts
of data and and blend, ad hoc ways?
596
:Emir Atli: So for all marketing and and
sales reporting, you can use HockeyStack,
597
:but looker companies use it for hr.
598
:For like more, I know
for other departments.
599
:So we don't really get into that, but
we send data back to Snowflake, send
600
:data back to BI tools and get data
from Snowflake for financial, data.
601
:Justin Norris: Okay.
602
:in other words, I guess what I'm,
driving at, let's say restricting it to
603
:the marketing and sales use case, can
I pull in any ad hoc snowflake tables
604
:that I want, or there's like specific
tables that you're tuned up to accept
605
:Emir Atli: In a
606
:Justin Norris: any table.
607
:You're also one of the first, I
think the first, the first vendor.
608
:And as far as I know, the only
vendor that I've seen, incorporated
609
:self-reported attribution.
610
:And this was another kind of big,
I mean, self-reported attribution
611
:is not necessarily anything new.
612
:we were doing it at a company I was
at, you know, 10 plus years ago,
613
:but Chris Walker, I think, really
made it very popular and attractive
614
:for people as an alternative to
615
:only using digitally tracked
attribution and as a way to access
616
:all the things that are unknowable,
you know, the dark social, the
617
:communities, the podcasts in some cases.
618
:So talk to me about the
self-reported attribution aspect.
619
:How does that get brought in
and how do you connect that
620
:to the digitally tracked data?
621
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
622
:Before I answer this, I wanna take a few
steps back because this is a question that
623
:we get often, companies, sometimes we,
we are getting less and less because I
624
:think we are doing a good job at educating
the market, but sometimes, especially
625
:a couple months ago, we were getting
a lot more, stuff like this is pretty
626
:cool, but What, what about dark social?
627
:And the company is a true enterprise
company with no dark social touchpoints.
628
:No LinkedIn, no podcasts, nothing.
629
:But they still ask about that because,
I believe because your front labs, and
630
:they did a good job at this, but like
these touchpoints is like the dark
631
:social touchpoints as we call them.
632
:You can still check most of it and we can
talk more about it, but the problem is
633
:the way people think is they're comparing
dark social with the web activity that
634
:we are collecting and with the web
activity we can see who did it when they
635
:it, and how that influenced revenue.
636
:The key part, key
differentiator is when they it.
637
:So you cannot know they listen
to a podcast, I guarantee you if
638
:they came from a podcast, they
would tell you on that sales call.
639
:If you can get it from Gong, I
guarantee you, if they attend an event.
640
:That you cannot track with Salesforce.
641
:You probably can track if, if
it's an offline event or whatever,
642
:but for some reason you didn't.
643
:You didn't collect that.
644
:I'm guarantee you that they will
mention that event on a sales call
645
:or in your software attribution form,
and we will be able to collect it.
646
:The only thing that we can do
is mandated that podcast listen.
647
:And it doesn't really matter when they
listen to a podcast because in the end,
648
:if they listen to a podcast matters.
649
:So I think Dark social narrative is
incredible for the marketing community,
650
:but for a measurement site, it cannot
be an excuse to not measure your
651
:marketing, like it's dangerous for you
as a marketer because in the end, if
652
:you cannot prove your contribution to
revenue, it's your job on the line.
653
:You cannot just say, we
are doing dark social.
654
:So it's measurements.
655
:We can't measure anything.
656
:It's not gonna work with your
board, with your CMO, with your CFO.
657
:So dark social is incredible for
driving demand, but I think we
658
:should still, about measurement.
659
:I'm not just saying this because we
are a vendor in this space, because
660
:I'm genuinely caring about marketing.
661
:In marketers, because I'm a marketer at
heart, I've built all of our strategy
662
:myself and then with and Drew, for
dark social, we are getting software
663
:attribution form submissions and
categorizing them from the forms with
664
:our script on the website and with Gong,
we can do, if you're tracking certain,
665
:mentions, we are getting those from Gong.
666
:And adding them to the journey and
then adding them to the reports.
667
:For example, someone mentions recently
sponsored Exit five committee.
668
:we got a couple deals that day and if
they mention Exit five on a gong, owners
669
:like Sales Call Gong send to Cusack.
670
:And then on Cusack you can see this
companies, their software attribution
671
:form or they mentioned Exit five and
these are all the other touch points.
672
:Justin Norris: Do you bring them together?
673
:Like one of the things we've tried to do
internally with our own kinda homegrown
674
:solutions is take the self-reported that
we're collecting and then compare it to
675
:the digitally tracked for the same users.
676
:So we can kind of see like, all right,
they looks like they're coming from
677
:Google, but actually they're saying
LinkedIn or podcasts or whatever.
678
:It's, they're saying, are you
able to mash it up in that way?
679
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
680
:Because we get the user's email from Gong
and then we have the previous activity.
681
:Um, we can match them
together with email and with
682
:Justin Norris: let me ask you this, and
this is maybe coming out of left field,
683
:but you seem to be innovating from a
product perspective at a very rapid rate.
684
:This is a common thing
for smaller companies.
685
:I You gong integration.
686
:I don't thinkBiziblewill ever.
687
:Be able to deliver that.
688
:if they did, it would be like
a five-year project problem.
689
:So I don't mean to, to hit
on, on theBiziblething.
690
:It was a great company, but just a fact
of existing inside this huge gorilla of
691
:Adobe, even though they have probably
500 times the resources that you do, are
692
:the, what are the dynamics that enable
you to deliver those, features quickly
693
:and why, why can those big companies
not compete if you have a perspective?
694
:Emir Atli: I think it's the
695
:DNA,
696
:DNA of the company.
697
:the very beginning, we are engineering
heavy r and d focused is our key focus.
698
:More than marketing, more than sales.
699
:We are spending more time and
more money on our product.
700
:We are spending the most amount of money
on our engineers and engineering team
701
:and r and d and testing, experimenting.
702
:And I think it's because
of our funding team.
703
:Me and my co-founders are focused on
engineering and our Investors too.
704
:we're y Combinator backed company.
705
:we have ycs, DNA and YC has been the
first semester of Airbnb, Stripe.
706
:There's like engineering heavy, innovative
companies, Twitch, DoorDash, Instacart,
707
:all of these companies have been funded by
Y Combinator and it's a pretty hands-on.
708
:Experience for three months
that we recently went through.
709
:so I think that has an effect too.
710
:but I think, I believe that even if you
have the best marketing and best sales
711
:teams, the product doesn't deliver,
you'll be successful, but you'll end
712
:up with ma massive amount of churn.
713
:So that's kind of the biggest
reason that we innovate as much.
714
:Justin Norris: I've seen that happen.
715
:And so challenge is like Bizible was
an innovative company in the beginning,
716
:and I worked with them and it was Aaron
and Dave and all those, people, they,
717
:Were successful and as a result of
being successful, they were acquired.
718
:And now the product formerly known
as Bizible it's not Bizible anymore,
719
:Marketo measure, whatever they
call it, stays mostly the same.
720
:Do you fear that that will happen to you?
721
:Or like, do you have a plan to prevent
that or do you think, like, you know, if
722
:that happens after an exit, like you've
done your work, you can't control that.
723
:How do you think about that as a founder?
724
:Emir Atli: Uh, as long as we are not
fired, I think would be a problem as
725
:long as our board doesn't fire us.
726
:I'm not really scared of that because I
think that's always gonna stay in our DNA.
727
:The only thing that can slow us down,
might be like fine tuning those features.
728
:we have some big features like marketing
modeling, lift reports, incrementality
729
:reports is dashboard builder.
730
:While we are fine tuning them
while we are working on them,
731
:we might be slower than usual.
732
:but it's gonna be our focus all the time,
733
:Justin Norris: we talked a bit about
incrementality, but then there's
734
:also marketing mix modeling, which
is a concept I've been learning about
735
:maybe just over the past few months.
736
:I think it's more common in B2C.
737
:It's pretty foreign for B2B
at least until recently.
738
:So maybe introduce listeners to
this topic and how you're planning
739
:to integrate it and how it'll sit
alongside your existing feature set.
740
:Emir Atli: Yeah, as you said,
marketing smiling has been used
741
:in B2C for a very long time.
742
:It's not being very popular in
743
:B2B.
744
:So marketing mix modelling doesn't depend
on web activity, depends on platform
745
:activity and different metrics like
spend impressions and other key metrics
746
:that we pull from different platforms.
747
:allows you to See historic data and
create correlations between the platform
748
:data and your spending, like offline
channels, like billboards events,
749
:and add platforms and then create
correlations between those key metrics
750
:to revenue and then model data that way
instead of relying on website activity.
751
:being used by B2C because
B two Cs have more data.
752
:for marketing, smiling to work,
you need a lot of data points so
753
:that you can create correlations.
754
:we're, choosing that to our
enterprise segment to start with,
755
:and we are experimenting with a
couple of mid-market companies.
756
:I think we'll be able to make
it work for mid-market too.
757
:gonna support other features.
758
:In a sense that it's gonna look at the
more broader historic data and we'll be
759
:able to incorporate more offline data.
760
:Justin Norris: So to make a real
example of this, we'll take, we'll
761
:take a silly example and then maybe
a real B2B example, but silly example
762
:might be, trying to sell breakfast
cereal, you're selling Cheerios, and you
763
:put, go out with a big TV buy
and you're showing commercials.
764
:And so you, you plot that.
765
:Tell me if I'm understanding
this correctly.
766
:You plot that chart of here's how much I'm
spending on commercials in these markets.
767
:And then you look at sales in those
markets and see if there's like a trend
768
:line that correlates, that moves together.
769
:Is that how it works?
770
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
771
:So, imagine and attribution report.
772
:You'll look at website visits.
773
:You'll look at where they clicked
on what they did on the website,
774
:and did they turn into revenue.
775
:With marketing modeling, you'll
look at, this is how much we spent,
776
:this is how many clicks did we get?
777
:The C-T-R-C-P-C impressions, and
then you basically choose three
778
:or four different metrics and your
main goal can be contact sales.
779
:And it says basically last
quarter we saw an increase in
780
:impressions in this platform.
781
:So an increase in spend, so an increase
in engagement, and this resulted in
782
:this, change in revenue and change in
core metrics in the same time period.
783
:it's more correlations.
784
:Between the data.
785
:so this works in massive amounts of
data, massive amounts of spent because,
786
:for example, B two Cs, as you also know,
they're not really into optimizing.
787
:They're spending more so, like a
Shopify store would more to get
788
:more leads because it's cheap.
789
:optimize most of the time.
790
:So if they spend like a hundred
million dollars in a year.
791
:They can just do like an attribution
report with linear model and then divide
792
:create into all of the touch points.
793
:They're more looking into correlations.
794
:Justin Norris: And so let's take a common
B2B tactic, retargeting or display ads,
795
:something that, I might receive, you
know, a dozen impressions from those ads.
796
:I might not click on them, but
could be having an impact on me.
797
:And then this is very difficult to
measure because if I show up organic
798
:search on your website and buy something.
799
:And you say, did those
display ads do anything?
800
:We don't know.
801
:They were just impressions
in the mind of the user.
802
:This would be a way of getting at that
problem because we can say, well, look,
803
:we're seeing more people come in and it
seems to be correlated with this spend.
804
:Emir Atli: exactly, because it
looks at the same time periods.
805
:And also, I mean, we're
still experimenting with it.
806
:It's still new, but I think We are
gonna see success more in engagement
807
:metrics, in platform engagement,
in platform content consumption,
808
:and how that, relates to revenue.
809
:most of these platforms like LinkedIn
content consumption is huge because
810
:people don't log into LinkedIn to
book a demo, but they consume content.
811
:And I think marketing smiling is gonna
give marketers a new way to measure that's
812
:influence and an exciting project that we
are running as Tying social activity back
813
:to revenue with marketing, smiling, which
is something that I'm super excited about.
814
:' cause we can actually tie, like
follower engagement, follower increase,
815
:company page increase, and individual
team members, follower increase and
816
:engagement increase to back to revenue.
817
:Justin Norris: That's very cool.
818
:Yeah.
819
:What one of your competitors did
something similar, but it was, it
820
:was only for company profile pages.
821
:And, you know, the vast majority
of engagement happens with like,
822
:I don't follow your company page,
but I follow you, you know, bad.
823
:So if you figured out a way to,
824
:uh, dream data, they release
something where they can
825
:They bring in the company page
interactions into their system,
826
:Emir Atli: yeah.
827
:You can get company page
actions with the LinkedIn's
828
:Justin Norris: with the API.
829
:Yeah, but, so there's no API for the
individual pages, so if you can solve
830
:for that, that would be super cool.
831
:Emir Atli: Yeah.
832
:I think we still have time until,
More and more companies understand
833
:this influence of social.
834
:I saw bad news about Cisco educating
tens of s of people and Cisco's
835
:team about linked to social.
836
:As we see more and more companies
like this, towards engaging their team
837
:members in LinkedIn, social, then we'll
be there to measure its influence.
838
:Justin Norris: Hey, I am super
excited about what you guys are doing.
839
:It's a lot of fun.
840
:I hope you're having as much fun as
it looks like on the outside 'cause
841
:it looks like you're having a blast,
uh, and building a cool company.
842
:I
843
:And a cool product.
844
:I will continue to watch it closely
and I'm really appreciative of
845
:you spending time with me today.