Jobs

AO Jobs
  • News

How AO tackles Acquisition with automation

Back to articles

Julie worked in AO’s Acquisition team for 8 years and now heads up our Marketing Effectiveness department.

We spoke to her about some of her highlights during her time at AO and where she plans on taking her team.

 

How long have you been at AO?

I’ve been with AO for just over 8 years and it’s gone surprising quickly. I started as a PPC Exec after 7 years in various client and agency-side roles, followed by a career break to do a bit of travelling.

 

So how did you get into the world of PPC?

I actually studied Design at Uni, so I thought I’d end up in a more creative role, but, sad as it sounds, I quickly became hooked on the data that PPC offered and loved that you could back everything up with figures. Spreadsheets and data took over and my role evolved across other channels including Affiliates, Display and Social. I’m really lucky to have worked with some very talented people over the years and the current team is now the strongest it’s ever been, with some huge exciting projects on the horizon.

 

Looking back then, what have been some of your personal highlights at AO?

When I look back, there have been many memorable moments throughout my time here. Like building out the original AO.de search accounts, managing the change from Appliances Online to AO.com, building our own bespoke bidding and optimisation tool and more recently integrating and seeing positive early results from a fully automated and ML driven bidding platform. While Acquisition was a busy and demanding team to manage, it was certainly never boring!

 

You’ve moved into a new role with a new team, what can you tell us about that?

Over the last 6 months my role has evolved into Marketing Effectiveness Manager, part of a new team dedicated to making sense of the wealth of data we have available and helping turn it into valuable and actionable insight. Our goal is to ensure that data-driven decisions are at the centre of all we do and that there is a test and learn culture embedded across the team. We’re also looking at automation and how we can be more efficient as a team and use new tech to make even smarter decisions.

 

What kind of projects has your team been taking on?

One example is that we’re working on is making the move to a data driven attribution model. It’s been in development for some time, so we’re excited to start getting value from a smarter and more reactive model. We’ll have econometrics modelling to help evaluate the success of our overall marketing spend, so the team can reliably measure the impact of each piece of activity and adjust the mix to drive the best return. Audience segmentation and targeting is another area of focus, particularly how we can use it to drive more new customers in the most efficient way.

 

Anything exciting coming up in the future?

There’s lots to do and although we’re only a small team of three, I can see it expanding over the year ahead as there will be so much value to add to all areas. And, as typical with AO, there will be other exciting initiatives coming up to keep things interesting and challenging. What I love most about working here is the variety of work and the pace. We’re not afraid to try things and to learn quickly from them and it’s really inspiring to be surrounded by people who all want to find smarter ways of working.