Bill Roehl of Collective Measures: 5 Ways to Use Marketing Automation to Improve Team Efficiencies
In the current era of rapid technological advancements, marketing automation has become a fundamental asset to any business. It has the potential to not only streamline operations but also to significantly boost team efficiencies. As we explore its various applications, we would like to highlight how it can transform day-to-day tasks, foster innovation, and ultimately enhance performance. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Roehl.
Bill Roehl is the Senior Director of Data Engineering at Collective Measures (CM). With over 15 years of experience in the marketing analytics field, he leads the in-house data engineering team at CM, a high-performing team with extensive experience in data ingestion, advanced analytical modeling, and automated reporting. Whether it’s crafting predictive models to forecast customer behavior or leveraging machine-learning algorithms to finetune marketing strategies across various media platforms, his skills enable him to harness data effectively for enhanced marketing outcomes.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your personal backstory with us?
I’m a father of two with a very non-traditional education and experience background, something somewhat common for those who have been in the technical side of the marketing analytics and automation space for the last 20+ years. I began by building homegrown solutions (that would, today, be considered marketing automation platforms) to ingest, leverage, track, and report on related data to drive better marketing outcomes. Along the way, I learned to write code in SAS to ingest, clean, model, and report data, which led to a data management role for a renowned media mix modeling company primarily based out of Santa Monica, CA. Now over a decade later, I have built marketing analytics and automation platforms for two Minneapolis-based digital marketing firms, including Collective Measures’ own Practix.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I could go on forever about those who have mentored me and/or worked with me over the years with whom I credit my successes to date. One of those folks works for me here at Collective Measures, four companies and 15 years later. However, a singular person was instrumental in my growth, particularly around putting in context the challenges I face daily and ways to work to move those challenges to opportunity. The CEO of a consulting firm I was working at about 15 years ago, Kevin, who previously worked as the CIO for a Fortune 10, would spend an inordinate amount of time listening to me and offering kind-hearted and useful advice that continues to be a key motivator in my day to day.
At the time, my team and I were working 80-to-90-hour weeks, solving marketing analytics problems for the world’s leading companies. We were incredibly stressed but enjoying the hell out of our work. Kevin spoke about the ups and downs of work and personal life as the tides in the ocean. Sometimes they’re up, and sometimes they’re down, but when you’re in rough seas, you always know that the lull is on the horizon; “never get lost at sea during the storm, instead, always look to the peace you will have when the eventual calm comes,” I remember him saying.
Wise words from a wise and experienced man who’d seen it all over the course of his career.
Can you share with us three strengths, skills, or characteristics that helped you to reach this place in your career? How can others actively build these areas within themselves?
Experience, empathy, and exemplary communication.
- Experience is the hardest one; you simply need time and exposure to learn this. No one comes into any business function out of school with an inherent knowledge of all the systems, processes, and pathways to “done” that are required to be successful. Folks need to attempt, experience, and reflect on outcomes to know what is likely to work or not work.
- Empathy is HUGELY important. People come from a wide range of experiences across their lives; it is important to put yourself in their shoes, colored by your own experiences, to truly understand where they’re coming from. It’s a two-way trust street that is built over time through direct communication. Always remember that you, too, were in the same role/position/shoes as those in your organization were; leverage this experience to help build empathetic responses and communication strategies that will drive toward success.
- Exemplary communication is related to both of the elements above. To share your knowledge most effectively, you need to communicate it directly and well, all the while listening to the input provided by others to build a well-rounded plan of attack to move forward in the best and most cohesive manner.
