MatchCraft’s proprietary & battle-tested platform, adVantage, has been helping our reseller and agency clients sell and manage digital campaigns for their local advertisers since 1998!
But our platform would not be half as effective if it were not for the people maximizing the potential offered by it. We are of course talking about our Client Engagement Team.
This week we are featuring our US based Client Engagement members.
What Does The Client Engagement Team Do?
The team offers expert support to our clients by undertaking tasks such as campaign strategy and management as well as providing the support and training needed to maximize their use of the adVantage platform.
Getting To Know Them
This 16 member strong team is an eclectic bunch.
- Sally, who is an award-winning horse rider/show jumper (since age 4!) & a karaoke enthusiast, likes to de-stress by working in the garden and doing yard work. And if you were to listen to her husband, he would tell you that she’s not a Southerner, but she disagrees as she now knows the difference between “y’all” and “all y’all”.
- Jose is our resident hockey expert as he is a USA hockey official.
- Born in Australia, Richa loves sharks and is currently working towards doing a cage diving encounter with Great White Sharks in 2021. Also, she is obsessed with chocolate milk.
- Keeping the team safe is Adam, who is a black belt in Taekwondo.
- Lari loves cotton candy.
- Justin is known around the office for eating Chili for lunch every day of the week. He says it’s easy to prepare in bulk, is delicious and is a great source of protein!
- Alexis, who loves bad TV (secretly, don’t we all?), doesn’t have a middle name, has never broken a bone, and has 2 golden retrievers.
- Another animal lover is Sandy. She loves traveling, coffee and is a vegan. She is of British-Cuban heritage and was born in the Florida Keys, which is referred to as being a “Conch”.
- Leah considers meditation and fitness essentials in her life. She is in a choir and loves Halloween and costume design.
- Stephen has 2 awesome kids, Ryan & Camden, and a wonderful wife, Melissa. He is a big sci-fi fan, especially Star Trek. He lived in Hawaii for a year, stationed at Pearl Harbor as an Electronics Technician in the US Navy (aboard the USS Key West).
- Cory, whose hairstyles and color change often, has been a world-class level roller derby player for 11 years.
- Andrew loves trees, always has. As a kid he would often climb the large plum tree in his garden. In his final year of elementary school, he was chosen to represent the Johannesburg ‘Mini-City Council’ and planted a tree as part of an event celebrating Arbor Day.
- As a kid Jennifer loved bacon so much so that she thought that bacon, and not Megan, was her middle name. She loves cooking and gardening. Also, despite many attempts, she has been unsuccessful in breaking a bone.
What They Love About Their Roles
- The Team – Members of the Client Engagement team love having the opportunity to be a part of a truly awesome team and to work with intelligent, knowledgeable & hard-working people. The entire team is passionate about what they do and help each other out whenever they can – someone on the team always has the answer! And even though the team is spread geographically, they all make it a point to stay connected by communicating constantly. But above all, the team functions like a family.
- Campaign Strategy – The team enjoys strategizing ways to help our reseller and agency clients get the most out of their digital marketing campaigns by driving positive results for their local merchants. The constant goal is to help small businesses grow their customer base using cost-effective digital marketing avenues.
- Client Service – The Client Engagement team is responsible for on-boarding and client reporting, which helps them have an insider’s knowledge of the progress made by the advertisers’ campaigns. They aim to understand our clients and form a true partnership to help both them and their local advertisers succeed.
- Never Boring – There is never a dull moment in the life of a Client Engagement manager. Every day has a new set of challenges that require a range of skill sets, from critical thinking and data analysis to creative writing.
- Flexibility – Even pre-COVID, a large part of the team worked remotely – something the team members definitely consider a perk.
Top Challenges
- Client Satisfaction – A challenge the team welcomes with open arms, they strive to ensure that our clients are always satisfied with our products & services. The team makes it a point to continually identify new ways to help our reseller and agency clients outperform their peers.
- Time Management – Because of their expertise in all things adVantage and digital marketing in general, members of the Client Engagement team are highly sought after by both our clients and MatchCraft team members for their insights into everything from discussions about new platform features to resolution of campaign-related bugs.
- Keeping Up – Keeping up with the feature & policy changes implemented by our partners Google, Bing, and Facebook, can be a challenging but rewarding task.
If Not In Client Engagement Then What
- Bob says he would be relaxing somewhere on a beach. (Might we suggest Maui?)
- Richa who enjoys working on product design, might’ve pursued that as a career. Or she would’ve been working with big corporations as an environmental consultant, to help them decrease their impact on the environment.
- Andres says he would’ve been an operations manager.
- Sandy would’ve taken her interest in behavioral psychology to another level by becoming a criminal detective. Or she might’ve tried her hand at being an astronaut.
- Alexis would’ve done something creative, like designing or being an artist.
- Andrew may have been driving a forklift.
- Jose could’ve been an advertising executive.
- Stephen who has a hard time imagining being anywhere other than MatchCraft, would most likely have been in a similar role working for either a reseller or an agency.
- Cory who has been working in this field for 17 years now would’ve gone back to school to study programming or library science.
- Adam would’ve enjoyed being a part of our Product team.
- Lari is satisfied with her hybrid role that requires her to work in both client service and business development.
- MatchCraft’s ping pong champion, Justin, would’ve pursued a career as a professional ping pong player. Now that’s a surprise!
- Jennifer loves to cook, eat and talk about good food. So she would’ve been a personal chef or a food critic.
- Sally would either be running a small business or living on a large farm with horses. She might also have revisited her old technical skills.
- Leah would’ve enjoyed getting paid to travel and being able to spread positive change in the world.
Why Client Engagement?
Many team members began their journey with an interest in marketing while others explored their knack for effective communication and problem solving. But what truly keeps them all in this field is the opportunity to learn new technologies and being able to utilize a wide variety of skill sets in fairly even proportions.
Working at MatchCraft enables them to serve small and medium businesses through our reseller and agency clients. Helping smaller businesses achieve their goals is very rewarding – it’s refreshing and gratifying to focus on the businesses that local communities rely on directly.
Another plus of being a part of the Client Engagement team at MatchCraft is working with a diverse team and sharing the same mission and vision. And last but not the least, the ability to work with a global customer base without having to travel on a regular basis.
Evolution of Client Engagement
As the digital marketing landscape has evolved, so has the role of Client Engagement. The one thing that has remained constant is the ability of Client Engagement managers to adapt to the many changes in products and client needs.
Over the years, the role has become more hands-on, client focused, and consultative in nature. It is now a combination of campaign analyst and client relations expert, with the focus being on working in sync with clients to form cohesive campaign strategies and assessing overall performance. The team’s communication strategies have also evolved which has, in turn, has improved overall customer satisfaction and confidence in MatchCraft’s products and services.
The Client Engagement team at MatchCraft has evolved into a more organized and process oriented version of its former self. Given that in the past few years MatchCraft’s offerings have expanded to include not just Search but also Social, Display, Remarketing, Auto, & Shopping, the need for Client Engagement managers to take on a more proactive role in helping clients make the best and most efficient use of MatchCraft’s solutions, has increased manifold.