For Emre Acikel, connecting media and creative reporting is a no brainer to ensure data driven marketing success. All marketing campaigns are driven in almost 50/50 proportion by these two forces, but his experience in multiple organisations taught Emre that companies tend to keep media and creative separate. However, his Shiny New Object is joint reporting, which is already yielding great results at Bayer.

The Importance of Being Highly Skilled

One of the best investments Emre has made in his career is taking the time to study new skills consistently every year. That’s because in a differentiated domain, the more knowledge you have, the more indispensable you become to your business. But the key is to find those skills that not everyone is focusing on, in order to set yourself apart. That’s why he’s now studying philosophy.

“While everyone is learning how to use ChatGPT I’m studying philosophy because, in a world where all the answers are out there, asking the right questions will make all the difference.”

Staying in the Trenches

A good marketing leader doesn’t lose touch with hands-on keyboard experience. Emre’s top data driven marketing tip is to never find yourself “far from the trenches” and taking information only from others.

Instead, having a side project where you experience your work first-hand gives you unbeatable insights into what your consumers are going through themselves. Whether growing an Instagram account from scratch, improving traffic to a personal website, or any other digital marketing activity, they all benefit your overall skills set and performance.

Why Creative & Media Reporting Needs to be Joint

There is no point in reporting on creative and media separately when campaigns are driven almost 50/50 by both. Instead, Emre’s been experimenting with finding insights across data sets and understanding what creative works best in which channel, for different audiences, and in which permutations. This not only improves campaign ROI by c.15% (based on his findings at Bayer), but also unlocks efficiencies in internal processes and the creative supply chain.

Find out more by listening to the full podcast.

The host of the Shiny New Object podcast is Tom Ollerton, founder of Automated Creative.