Q&A with Rachel Conforti, VP of Marketing at LoopMe

Rachel Conforti, VP of Marketing at LoopMe is a media and marketing professional with over 15 years experience of proven success at driving effective programs delivering high results, spanning across corporate marketing, branding, PR strategy, thought leadership initiatives, lead generation, and strategic events.

Communicator extraordinaire, experienced storyteller and natural leader. She Runs It brand ambassador and mentor, active runner and media relations professional.

Media 7: What inspired you to get into Marketing? What is your favorite marketing word(s)? 
Rachel Conforti:
I’ve always had a passion for advertising, even reciting commercials as a kid over and over again (much to the demise of my parents)!  After graduating from Binghamton University in NY I briefly thought about journalism as a career, but as I didn’t know many people in this area and it was hard to break into, I pivoted to look for roles in advertising, eventually landing a job within the out-of-home industry, at what is now known as Outfront Media.

After making the transition from out-of-home advertising to ad technology in the late 2000s, I’ve held various roles within B2B Marketing. For the past 20 years, I’ve covered everything from product marketing, sales enablement and marketing communications, to public relations and content marketing. I was fortunate to work alongside some of the best AdTech leaders while I was at 24/7 Real Media. That is where I began my journey into digital AdTech, and got to see the industry mature and evolve.

Throughout my career, I’ve been at Tremor Video, DoubleVerify and Innovid, at various inflection points on their respective journeys, all leading up to my current role as global VP of marketing at LoopMe.


"LoopMe is at an exciting crossroads where AI meets advertising to drive towards business outcomes"

M7: Could you tell us something about your role at LoopMe?
RC:
As VP of Marketing, I run global marketing for LoopMe, an organization where technology and artificial intelligence are at the core of our business. The nearly nine year old UK-based company is experiencing a massive growth period fueled by its U.S. expansion, and the opportunity to join this growing business was very exciting for me. The team at LoopMe has done a tremendous job of building a great platform, with products that work for our clients, and I’m lucky to be able to share that story with the world. In the past year, we had to pivot our plans quickly due to the pandemic and I was lucky enough to work with smart marketing team members to help adapt quickly and swiftly. 

We launched a COVID-19 content hub with weekly snapshots on consumer behavior during the pandemic (March - June 2020) to help customers navigate the 'new normal' and better understand their advertising strategies to connect with consumers. We also switched all our event plans into virtual events, onboarded new software for our teams to collaborate around the globe and doubled down on our content efforts. I’m extremely pleased to be part of this organization and was able to promote nearly all the members of the team this year, despite the pandemic, as they have been so incredibly valuable to our success.

M7: What are the services by LoopMe which includes Artificial Intelligence in them?
RC:
LoopMe is at an exciting crossroads where AI meets advertising to drive towards business outcomes. LoopMe was the first in the industry to apply AI to marketing outcomes, from impacting how people feel about brands to what they do after they have been exposed to an ad. LoopMe measures and optimizes at every stage of the marketing funnel, from brand to performance.

We started out mainly working in upper funnel measurement, where we launched our own survey tool to identify in-market customers, as well as to measure behavioral and attitudinal indicators that will help our clients better understand how a campaign is resonating.
Our AI then creates a predictive model of consumers that are more likely to take an action, based on hundreds of attributes. We then serve ads to those consumers which are most likely to convert, a decision that’s made in real-time on each ad request.

Our AI optimizes for outcomes such as upper funnel measures, like awareness, purchase intent, and consideration, as well as lower funnel measures, including online conversions, store visits and actual sales. Marketers have leaned into these outcomes-based programs because they provide better results during the actual campaign (as opposed to measuring success after the campaign has ended) and this has powered our growth as we continue to innovate in applying AI across new areas, such as connected TV, data and analytics.
LoopMe’s DMP has over 2.6 billion devices, which covers 250M unique profiles in the U.S. We connect these using our HH graph to 90M households. Our DMP is enhanced with over 2 million opt-in survey respondents each year and robust data partnerships.

Through our flagship product PurchaseLoop, we’re able to help brands with any strategy that they may have within the funnel, which proved extremely important over the past year as many brands needed to quickly pivot from lower funnel to upper funnel campaigns.


"We like to involve our customers in our marketing efforts to highlight their success and provide valuable insights to their peer sets on how outcomes-based advertising can be done most effectively."

M7: What marketing channels do you use and which ones do you see as the most promising given your target customers?
RC:
As a B2B marketing team, we use a combination of ad trade PR, paid advertising, webinars, content marketing and demand generation programs across email, social media and our owned channels. We like to involve our customers in our marketing efforts to highlight their success and provide valuable insights to their peer sets on how outcomes-based advertising can be done most effectively.

Most recently, we’ve spoken at an AdAge webinar on outcomes for connected TV during the Ad Age Streaming Next event, and we’ve hosted an Adweek webinar on Optimizing your Advertising for Outcomes.

M7: Could you tell us about a recent unique campaign by LoopMe which was a huge success?
RC:
The Pennsylvania Lottery, iLotto, wanted to drive awareness of online accessibility for Powerball and MegaMillions and drive new account registrations for their online platform.

Through LoopMe’s PurchaseLoop Solution, we were able to drive an incremental lift in brand sentiment, while delivering conversions through account sign-ups. Our client wanted to differentiate from online metrics and real-world outcomes - and not rely on digital proxies to measure campaign effectiveness.  LoopMe’s solution used AI to target the key audiences using predictive modelling based on site visitors and by retargeting existing site visitors who had not registered for an account. By leveraging LoopMe’s award-winning PurchaseLoop technology, we ran a PurchaseLoop Brand Lift study to measure and optimize towards awareness.
LoopMe established a control and exposed group and surveyed users during the campaign. Our PurchaseLoop AI survey technology was used to analyze digital footprints and data characteristics of those who responded, and actively target a predictive audience based on positive respondents.

LoopMe’s in-house creative team built custom rich media and dynamic display ads for mobile, desktop and tablet devices. Our creative strategy proved to generate strong media results and user engagement in a brand safe environment.

As a result, the campaign saw double digit lift in brand awareness and thousands of new account registrations.


"LoopMe has a unique advantage in the market as our product suite includes a proprietary survey tool that can potentially reach 250M Americans."

M7: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work - what day to day processes have you had to re-tool to be able to pull them off remotely?
RC:
We’ve had to pivot plans quickly to adapt to the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we were able to reallocate budget and resources to best serve the needs of the company and achieve 40% growth in 1H '20 in part due to marketing efforts.

As I run a global team, we instituted daily sync calls with our team leads and are diligent about tracking our projects in Asana. We also have team happy hours, more frequent company wide calls and have launched better software tools to encourage collaboration.

Personally, it’s been a daily balance of time management, negotiations, patience and nontraditional working hours to raise my four year old son and work remotely with my husband.

M7: How do you anticipate what people will want?
RC:
LoopMe has a unique advantage in the market as our product suite includes a proprietary survey tool that can potentially reach 250M Americans. We deploy this on a regular basis to ask consumers how they feel about brands, or other activity as it relates to the pandemic, to identify attitudinal and behavioral shifts. We produce these on a regular basis on behalf of our customers and more broadly to better inform the market of seasonal trends and behaviors. You can read all of them here on our COVID-19 Insights Hub.

M7: What is your superpower?   
RC:
I’m a connector. Whatever it may be, I’ll find a way to make a connection -- between co-workers, between companies looking to do co-marketing campaigns or personally to help find people their significant other! I enjoy mentoring others and have been heavily involved in She Runs It over the past ten years, currently serving as a She Runs It Brand Ambassador that helps to connect new members with the benefits of the organization.

ABOUT LOOPME

LoopMe, the leading outcomes-based platform, closes the loop on digital advertising. By leveraging AI to optimize media delivery in real-time, we drive measurable uplift for business outcomes and more effective advertising across online and offline marketing goals, including brand lift, purchase intent, consideration, foot traffic and sales. LoopMe was founded in 2012 with the mission to create better consumer experiences through innovation, powered by data, in order to bring people and brands together. The company is headquartered in the UK, with 11 global offices across New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, Singapore, Dnipro (Ukraine) and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.loopme.com.

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From Connection to Collaboration: MyTradeZone.com Revolutionizes Business Networking with AI-Driven B2B Social Platform

MyTradeZone | January 10, 2024

Innovative platform bridges current gaps, combining robust business tools for enhanced B2B engagement and collaboration Las Vegas, Nev., Jan. 10, 2024– Shattering barriers in B2B communication, MyTradeZone.com recently revealed its unique social networking platform dedicated solely for businesses. MyTradeZone serves as a central hub for businesses to find, connect with, and engage potential clients, partners, and vendors worldwide – allowing companies to post products and services, request quotes, create and join networking groups, and much more. MyTradeZone was founded by CEO, Bachir Kassir, a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years’ experience in the software and B2B industry who has recently successfully sold his B2B Ecommerce platform venture, WebJaguar, to QAD – a Thoma Bravo portfolio company. “MyTradeZone offers a specialized platform designed to innovate B2B interactions,” said Kassir. “We know that 40% of B2B marketing budgets are spent on trade shows and that over 95% of marketers use social media content in their campaigns. So why is there no social network specifically dedicated to B2B trade? Well, now there is one.” MyTradeZone: Platform Highlights On MyTradeZone, each business can both market its products/services and source what it needs, all within the same platform. MyTradeZone facilitates the entire process, presenting a thriving ecosystem for businesses, professionals, organizations, groups, and creators who can now spend time networking, while also fostering the connections that increase their reach, influence, and overall profits. MyTradeZone is a perfect lead generation and highly targeted advertising venue since advertisers can pinpoint exact audiences, making highly specific advertisements that are cost efficient. Major platform features include: Tailored B2B Search Capabilities: Facilitates a seamless discovery of businesses, products, RFQs, groups, and more. Advanced Networking Tools: From permanent company profiles to real-time video chat, the platform caters to a variety of business needs. Peer-to-Peer Payment Options: Ensuring smooth transactions with payments powered by Stripe. Innovative Ad Space: Sponsored and displayed ads provide businesses with a medium to amplify their brand presence. Tradeshow and Networking Events: Organizers can amplify the benefits for attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors – providing a secure networking group to connect beyond the actual event. Expanding Horizons: MyTradeZone Powers Community and Monetization Beyond businesses, MyTradeZone extends its utility to trade associations, networking groups, and event organizers by allowing them to build, manage, and monetize their online communities. Professionals and creators can actively grow their networks and monetize their skills through peer-to-peer payments. “Our platform is more than just a supplementary tool. It revolutionizes the traditional event experience by enhancing networking, engagement, and business growth opportunities in both a broad and narrow sense. Instead of merely relying on physical connections, MyTradeZone transforms singular events into sustained, ever-evolving networking connections.” To celebrate the official launch, MyTradeZone seeks to partner with trade shows, event and networking groups organizers, and trade associations – offering their members exclusive offers to premium membership via the platform. MyTradeZone’s basic edition is always free and signing up is quick, taking only few minutes to join. Inquire further at: contact@mytradezone.com And for news on future platform updates and promotions, follow MyTradeZone on LinkedIn or on the B2B social network: https://mytradezone.com/profile/mytradezone About MyTradeZone.com MyTradeZone is led by a highly skilled and talented team of employees and advisors who are working on the next thing to disrupt business networking. MyTradeZone is a forward-thinking B2B technology company reshaping how businesses connect and engage online through its advanced social networking platform in an industry-specific ecosystem for business collaboration, knowledge sharing, and growth. Learn more at: www.MyTradeZone.com. Media Contact: Bachir Kassir, Founder 1-949-813-7791 contact@mytradezone.com

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Brand Marketing, Advertiser Platforms

Gupshup brings Vertex AI-powered AI chatbots into RCS conversations

PR Newswire | February 26, 2024

Gupshup, the world's leading Conversation Cloud platform today announced that brands on its platform can now offer AI chatbots for RCS conversations, opening up a whole new advanced and interactive experience for their users. Gupshup's Conversational AI product suite, spanning Auto Bot Builder and ACE LLM, are now using Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to bring the benefits of Google's large language models (LLMs) to Gupshup's customers globally. The integration will enable businesses to deliver more precise and human-like interactions with speed and scale and offer a more personalized and responsive experience. Further, AI assistants on RCS will be able to intelligently respond to unstructured queries, assisting customers across various stages–from product discovery, lead generation to troubleshooting and customer support. "Generative AI is transforming the RCS industry, and we're thrilled that Gupshup is utilizing our latest LLMs on Vertex AI to further personalize and enhance how businesses engage with customers through AI-driven conversations," said Warren Barkley, Senior Director of Product Management, Vertex AI at Google Cloud. "Vertex AI provides partners like Gupshup with a unified AI platform to leverage state-of-the-art foundational models, and we look forward to seeing the ways Gupshup continues to innovate with this technology." "We've always leveraged the latest cutting-edge AI technologies to offer a superior customer engagement platform to our brands. With our Auto Bot Builder and domain-specific ACE LLM now leveraging Google's LLMs, business messages on RCS are set to get a massive facelift, leading to better ROI for enterprises. We are excited to work with Google Cloud to help our brands bring intelligent conversations on RCS that will redefine customer engagement," said Beerud Sheth, Founder and CEO, Gupshup. Gupshup is a pioneer in leveraging domain-specific, fine-tuned large language models (LLMs) to automate the creation of enterprise-grade chatbots with appropriate guardrails. In January 2023, it launched Auto Bot Builder, a tool that leverages LLMs to automatically and effortlessly build advanced chatbots for enterprises. Gupshup's Conversational AI solutions are already live with several clients in India and abroad. The advanced chatbot for Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) - Dubai's largest utility, is powered by Gupshup. In India, several brands such as Tata Capital and Chaayos are using it for brand engagement, product discovery, employee training, and consultative selling.

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Ad Tech and Martech

SugarCRM Announces 2024 Customer Breakthrough Award Winners

Business Wire | January 24, 2024

SugarCRM, provider of the award-winning AI-driven sales automation platform, today announced the global winners of the 2024 SugarCRM Customer Breakthrough Awards. Winners are: Customer Experience Breakthrough Award – Empresas ADOC, a Central American retail company, is recognized for using SugarCRM to drive business growth and improve customer engagement. Using SugarCRM, the company significantly improved customer service quality and customer retention, reduced customer churn while establishing its “Puntos ADOC” loyalty program that attracted over 600,000 members, representing more than 20 percent of total sales. ADOC has a rich history of using high-quality materials and specialized techniques to produce outstanding products that meet the needs of its customers. ADOC is a customer-driven business supported by a culture dedicated to enhancing customer satisfaction and building strong, lasting customer relationships. In addition to its own branded footwear, ADOC also has partnered with international brands, including Hush Puppies, The North Face, CAT, and Steve Madden, to create a complete shopping experience for its customers. Industry Excellence Breakthrough Award – Reusable Transport Packaging, a leader in sustainable transport packaging solutions, is recognized for using SugarCRM to improve its bottom line, unify customer data, streamline processes, and increase sales efficiency, resulting in a 20 percent revenue growth year over year. A key strategy in its growth is the use of Sugar Market for regular email communications, which keeps customers, distributors, and leads informed about new products, pricing updates, and other relevant industry news. Marketing Excellence Breakthrough Award – The Swedish Institute (SI), a Swedish government agency, is recognized for its innovative approach to data management and customer engagement. The Sugar Sell and Sugar Market platform integration centralizes data, segments audiences, and automates responses, significantly enhancing marketing efficiency and improving engagement with international students and alumni. The Swedish Institute saw an increase of over 31 percent in lead volume since implementing SugarCRM and boasts a best-in-class 40-to-50 percent open rate on marketing emails. Sales Excellence Breakthrough Award – J&J Ventures Gaming, LLC, a leader in gaming and amusements and one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., is recognized for implementing Sugar Sell to consolidate customer accounts and interactions into a centralized communication hub across sales, marketing, and account management. Streamlined sales processes have established a new model for sales excellence for the J&J team and its growth in the gaming industry. Service Excellence Breakthrough Award – Super General Company of the Albatha Group in the UAE is recognized for revolutionizing its service operations with Sugar Serve. Working with Sugar partner Ambit Software, Super General successfully implemented a repair and maintenance service platform, including a field management application for efficient case handling and simplified technician dispatching. Due to increased efficiency and workload management, the number of cases per technician has surged by up to 26 percent, alongside a 10 percent increase in first-time fix rates. Other notable achievements include a significant increase in call closure rates and substantial improvements in customer satisfaction scores. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (Asia Pacific) – zazen Water, a provider of alkaline water solutions in Australia, is recognized for its use of SugarCRM to support business growth and customer satisfaction. Through strategic integrations, zazen Water automated its business and customer service operations to streamline high-order volume processing. Notably, during its Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2023 campaign, zazen Water managed a significant order peak, accomplishing its same-day dispatch promise, which, prior to automation and integration projects, would have required 16 employees. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (EMEA) – FAMO GmbH & Co. KG, a German wholesaler of electrical and plumbing products, is recognized for its collaboration with Sugar partner Insignio to deploy SugarCRM for advanced customer data management and opportunity nurturing, the Sugar mobile app with enterprise resource planning (ERP) data integration for field sales support, and Sugar Market for automated newsletters and targeted communications. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (Latin America) – Mac Construtora e Incorporadora (MAC), a leader in construction and development in São Paulo, is recognized for the creative use of SugarCRM in the dynamic real estate market. Technology adoption significantly improved lead management and customer engagement, enhancing marketing approaches and project sales, resulting in a substantial increase in sales, ranging from 50 to 94 percent of its real estate agency. This has led to MAC substantially reducing its dependence on partnering with other real estate agencies. Customer of the Year Breakthrough Award (North America) – Alto-Shaam, providing foodservice equipment solutions to more than 90 countries globally, is recognized for use of SugarCRM to significantly enhance opportunity close rates by 61 percent while achieving up to 600 hours of time savings in marketing and sales efforts to forecast customer needs. The integration of Sugar Sell with Sugar Market has streamlined key processes, improved lead management, and enhanced operational efficiency and global communication. ISV Technology Partnership Breakthrough Award – FSIoffice, a leading independent office supply company, together with sales-i, are recognized for transforming FSIoffice’s CRM strategy from data repository to sales powerhouse, with 40 percent improved sales efficiency. Supported by Sugar partner CRM International, FSIoffice is driving remarkable revenue growth and enhancing customer engagement with Sugar Sell Premier and sales-i for predictive business-to-business sales intelligence. Reseller Technology Partnership Breakthrough Award – The Joint Corp., the nation’s largest provider of chiropractic care through The Joint Chiropractic® network, in partnership with Sugar partner Faye, are recognized for driving significant improvements in healthcare operations after transitioning to SugarCRM and Amazon Web Services, with a 40 percent increase in web transaction speed. This transformation allowed The Joint to focus on integrating AI to elevate SugarCRM from a functional tool to a strategic platform for competitive differentiation in the chiropractic care sector. Judges’ Choice Award – RTCR, the public transit provider in La Rochelle, France, operating under the Yélo brand, is recognized for significantly enhancing customer service with Sugar Serve, with implementation support by Sugar partner Synolia. The deployment has led to a minimum three percent increase in customer satisfaction and streamlined complaint management, saving agents’ time by 50 percent through improved response structuring. “We’re pleased to announce the winners of the 2024 SugarCRM Customer Breakthrough Awards,” said Chris Pennington, Chief Customer Officer, SugarCRM. “These customers and partners are recognized for excellence and innovation in letting Sugar’s AI-driven CRM platform do the work to make the hard things easier for sales, marketing and service professionals, and for driving breakthrough success and exceptional customer experiences.” About SugarCRM SugarCRM is a CRM software that helps marketing, sales, and service teams reach peak efficiency through better automation, data, and intelligence so they can achieve a real-time, reliable view of each customer. Sugar’s platform provides leading technology in the sales automation, marketing automation, and customer service fields with one goal in mind: to make the hard things easier. Thousands of companies in over 120 countries rely on Sugar by letting the platform do the work. Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sugar is backed by Accel-KKR.

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LoopMe, the leading outcomes-based platform, closes the loop on digital advertising. By leveraging AI to optimize media delivery in real-time, we drive measurable uplift for business outcomes and more effective advertising across online and offline marketing goals, including brand lift, purchase int...

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