In this episode of The Paid Media Playbook, hosts Laura and Lisa sit down with Katie Vesbach, the Media Director at Green Rubino, a leading Seattle-based agency. Katie shares her journey from a specialist to a director-level role and offers insights into the ever-evolving world of digital media. From leveraging first-party data and CRMs to optimizing advertising strategies in the age of AI, Katie provides practical tips and wisdom for navigating the complex media landscape. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or new to the field, this episode is packed with actionable advice and industry knowledge.

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Chapters:

• 00:00 - Introduction
  Laura and Lisa introduce the episode and guest Katie Vesbach, Media Director at Green Rubino.
• 02:15 - Katie’s Career Journey
  Katie discusses her path from starting in media to becoming a director at Green Rubino.
• 05:30 - The Evolution of Digital Media
  A look at how digital media has changed over the years and the impact on advertising strategies.
• 7:45 - Leveraging First-Party Data and CRMs
  Katie explains the importance of first-party data and CRMs in creating effective advertising campaigns.
• 10:30 - Tips for Aspiring Media Professionals

Advice from Katie on how to succeed in the media industry and grow into leadership roles.

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Links and Resources:

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• Subscribe to our newsletter here
• Lisa Wekellis on LinkedIn
• Laura Szczes on LinkedIn
• Double Z Media Website
• Double Z Media on LinkedIn

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Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Paid Media Playbook? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and Spotify and leave us a review!

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Transcription:

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​​Laura: We're here with Katie Vesbach. And she is the media director at GreenRubino. Uh, very well respected and well loved agency here in Seattle. Katie, how did you get started in the media and what got you to this point?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. [00:01:00] First of all, this is so fun. but so I started over a decade ago at chair 10 marketing, which was a digital agency out of Magnolia in Seattle. and started there as a specialist and moved up to a director level role, kind of just grew with the company, which was really great.

And then I joined smart book media, through an acquisition. And so that was a full service digital agency that is fully remote, but also much larger than chair 10 was. And so, much bigger, bigger agency life. but then a couple months ago, I was fortunate enough to find the job listing for a media director with Green Rubino and crux media, which is.

They're kind of a digital arm, and joined this team. And , so now I'm here, and I'm leading our digital team. you know, we run social, we run programmatic, we run SEM, all of those things. We also can do traditional media as well. So lots of, lots of media, but Green Rubino, You know, really like them, [00:02:00] they have a lot of PR and creative services and are really well known in the Seattle area.

And so, I was really, really excited to join this team. It's a really experienced team, but also like we have this kind of posture towards innovation and embracing change. And that's, that's a really exciting place to be just because as you guys know, so much is changing right now. And so you want to be somewhere that's kind of along for the ride with it and embracing it.

So. Yeah,

Laura: You know, having a background in media, like even , the people you work with, with traditional media, how that translates into digital, is that helpful? 

Katie: definitely. I mean, all media really kind of, you know, you have the same kind of foundational principles that you're using just to help a client achieve their goals. And so there's still a place for traditional media, you know, in the mix, but of course things on the digital side have just been growing and banding.

And so that's, you know, where most of my time is focused now. 

Laura: [00:03:00] Likewise here. We put so much of our focus on digital, especially as TV's changing and becoming more digital every day. Right? 

Katie: Yes. Yeah. The rise of CTV is real.

Laura: Yes, 

Katie: yes,

yes, absolutely. I know. I remember when I would meet with my Google premier partner team, there would be so many things changing. I would tell them, like, tell me the 2 or 3 things that are the most important, like, tell me the big things because I can't, I can't do it all. We have just, you know, these, these 8 hours of working today, but what's the biggest one for me to know about?

So that was a helpful, helpful framework for that.

Laura: Yeah. I love, , when we have clients like that.

were big enough to have that premier Team. It was quite nice, . 

[00:04:00] 

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think reporting is super important, right? Because. How we're reporting on what we're doing and getting those, that data shared with the client is really important. And I think there's lots of tools out there you can use to provide a dashboard for the client to pull everything together in one place.

But I always like to start that conversation with clients. What do they already have and what's their source of truth? Like, are they in GA4 every day? 

Are they using, you know, their CRM is HubSpot or Salesforce, where they really 

look at what we're measuring and if it's working or not, because I want to get in line and kind of just join whatever system they have and make sure we're not trying to like push in a dashboard that they don't really want, you know, because, you know, 

we want to just get them the data that they need.

but I do like, I like it when clients can. You [00:05:00] know, download things themselves and just answer questions like, which ad is performing the best, you know, like that shouldn't have to be an email exchange every single time. There should be that transparency. Nobody wants your emails. Right. 

Laura: We agree with that.

They want real time information. They 

Katie: Everything's changing so fast. And so, yeah, you can't just have like, you know, one snapshot once a month or something. You gotta kind of give them more data.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So this is something where I feel like a marketing director, if I was in house somewhere, there's so much changing right now. There's so much going on. You have a lot on your plate, but see, like getting your CRM organized and maximizing it is something you can do. That's like You know, going to help everything else.

Right. And so, you know, with cookies going away, first party data is just becoming more and more important. And so, if you have invested in a CRM, most places have, you know, either Salesforce HubSpot or, or something homegrown, no matter what it is, there's usually a way for us to, you [00:06:00] know, map out our marketing funnel and then leverage, you know, lists of people at different stages.

Or maybe we're actually creating conversion events and feeding those back in directly to an advertising platform. Because with AI and smart bidding, you know, we want to feed and set up a campaign in the best way possible. And one of the key things is by giving it the most precise conversion action to optimize towards.

And so instead of just, you know, a click on something or a page view or internet form, I'm like, What happened with that form afterwards? You know, which ones turned into great forms. I want to optimize towards getting you those qualified, really high quality ones, if there's enough data to do so. So, leveraging your, your CRM for audience building, you know, lookalikes have been around forever, but they're becoming more and more important, you know, there's audience predictors that we can use in like the trade desk, which is a similar tactic.

And so There's lots of ways to just learn from your [00:07:00] current customers. And I think that just kind of goes back to like basic marketing principles of thinking about your customer. And, you know, what do we know about them? How can we find, you know, more people similar to these people who are already enjoying our service or product.

And so that first party data, but really the source of it usually is from the CRM. And so, you know, Sometimes I find organizations have just, you know, they, they have a CRM, you know, sometimes it's like kind of a pain to pull stuff from it or like, you know, I think there'll be a lot more kind of time investment in like, let's streamline a process so that we can get this uploaded and, and leverage this to power our 

advertising. 

\ I'm surprised at how, you know, over the years I've been pushing this for a long time too, with clients. And I feel like,, it's surprising how few of them are , not getting. The data, 

Laura: like, well, , we only collect, name and phone number and , 

Katie: Right. 

Laura: and marketing are sometimes still tough to talk to each other. And, 

 That's definitely a must to get that going.

And, [00:08:00] over time and consistently. I heard you mentioned the trade desk. We also use a trade desk. And, I love that audience predictor. That was the reason I switched to it because I was like, Oh, my gosh, I can see how many people are in this in a fairly small area. I'm going to potentially be able to reach, which wasn't something that I. Was able to do, 

Katie: Right.

That's funny. That's a very timely question. We've been in like forecast mode here for a bunch of different things this week. And so I've been digging into that a lot. And it's. It is, you know, especially if you don't know a prospect's budget, you know, it's like, well, you could spend, you know, a million or 3 million on CTP, but you probably don't have that.

So, like, where's our point of diminishing returns? I am always forecasting and estimating. I'm just like. Really what they need to know is what's the baseline budget that I need for this channel to be viable, [00:09:00] to be in my mix, and then if we have more budget to put towards it, great. But like, what I don't want to ever have happen is like, get them excited about all these channels, learn they have a smaller budget.

And then they're like, great, chop it up and do it all. 

Laura: Haven't we all done that? We did that in the beginning. 'cause we could, we could do it. And they're like, okay, I've got two, $2 and 50 cents to put on streaming television. I mean, 

obviously that's a stretch, but I'm just saying like, you end up. Massacring and you're like just because we can doesn't mean we should 

Katie: Right, then we're doing nothing well if we're doing 

everything at too little of a budget, right? 

Laura: So much because, you know, when you're proposing to a current client, like, no, for this particular campaign, I would definitely recommend this and this and this and you want to, you know, 

digital out of home here and the CTT TV here and here.

These are some things that can add up and, Yeah, 

Katie: Yeah. 

Laura: I don't know if you don't know the budget yet, but I do like, like I said, the audience predictor. 'cause for so long we were able, you know, we could do [00:10:00] that with paid search 

and we could do that with Facebook. and, you know, programming in the beginning wasn't that easy.

And it was like the whole United States and not helpful. 

Katie: Right. I mean, the trade desk is so powerful. And I think one of the things that sets it apart from like other programmatic platforms is just the predictive tools, but also just all the audience targeting and the reporting that you can pull, because right when you're running CTV, you want to be able to show them like this is influencing conversion actions.

Even though most people are not going to click through on a CTV ad, it's kind of hard to do. but you know, if, if We can still show them that data story and map it for them. And that's just something that a lot of the other kind of smaller programmatic platforms can still get you out there, but you want to be able to kind of prove the value there.

Laura: Well, one last question I want to go into, about that is I mean, we've all had the client that's like, you know, this awareness campaign, but then how many clicks did I [00:11:00] get? 

Katie: Is that something that you've had 

Yeah. I like to have KPIs and like a measurement plan mapped out by channel. So we understand overall. We're trying to get you more leads or prospects or whatever. But the way that this channel, CTV, for example, contributes to that overall goal is not necessarily going to be click through conversions, right?

It's going to be this great placement for your ad where they can, you can tell a story with video, it's a great spot to be, you're going to reach a lot of people, but then, you know, it's part of your other kind of multi 

channel strategy 

you know, we just have to set and kind of talk them through each channel and what it does and doesn't do. Right.

Laura: Exactly.

Katie: Yes. [00:12:00] Right.

Laura: Yeah. The more cookies goes away. I feel like we're going to have to do that. We're going to have to rely on paid search in some ways, because, a lot of times that and retargeting might be the places that you see true conversion, 

Katie: Yeah. Definitely. And search is kind of a nice barometer to have there down at the bottom of the funnel, because then, you know, if they really are like, what is this media type, turn it off. Or do we really need, like, let's add in CTV and see what it does. You know, if you have branded search running, you can see like.

More people know your brand, look at our branded search campaign and what's happening or organic traffic through GA4. There are ways to like, to get at the measurement even if it's not that perfect like GA4 flowchart that shows you that level of granularity.

[00:13:00] 

Katie: Ooh, that's a good question. I like that question. I love talking to, to pass Katie. What would I tell her? gosh, I think honestly, this is not a marketing tactic question or answer anything. But like, I think one of the key things is not being afraid to have really honest, direct conversations with your clients.

Because I think early on in your career, or at least I was kind of like, I've got to make sure this client is happy all the time. And I've got to, you know, deliver on these things they're asking me to do. And you're kind of like, oh, he's trying to make it sound positive. And I think , when you stop doing that, cause I did stop doing that.

And you just are like, hey. You know, these are your goals where we're facing, you know, what's going on in your industry. What's going on in the economy? We're all facing that together. But like, [00:14:00] I'm an extension of your team and we're going to put our heads together and have that kind of relationship with your client.

We're like, don't be afraid if something's not working, just be like, yeah, this is not working. We're not going to do it anymore. that, 

that 

like, 

Laura: me to agree with you. 

Katie: Exactly. Yeah. And I think that that, Yeah. You know, having a strong client relationship where you just, you know, you dig in and you go shoulder to shoulder with them and you, they feel like you're helping them and, , not just trying to be a vendor or something, it's like a different 

relationship, 

Laura: It is a different it's a partnership. It's a, you know, part of the team collaboration. It is not. I'm trying to sell you whatever my corporation is using 

and that's my limit. And that's what I'm going to. we get it 

Katie: Yeah. 

Laura: and all clients should get it. 

Katie: Right. They should want that too. I hope. Yeah.

Laura: well, thank you so much. Katie has been great talking to you. 

Katie: Yeah, thank you very much for having me.

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