Interview with Salar Salashoor, Only Sky

Titans: What do you think has changed in the world of growth marketing in the past few years?

Salahshoor: The obvious thing is the shift from TV advertising to online video. As TV becomes more streaming centric, we’ll see a convergence, but it’s interesting to see that the model for advertising hasn’t changed all that much actually. Instead of commercials on TV, we have commercials on our computers and phones. We’ve just shifted where we spend most of our time, and the advertisers just follow suit.

Titans: What do you think is going to sneak up on the market that no-one sees?

Salahshoor: AI driven advertising that is reliable and affordable-

Titans: What companies and technologies are you excited about?

Salahshoor: RTB is one of the most innovative reporting suites out there, so I’m excited to see how the product evolves. I’m also excited about the emerging VR market, which is a new untapped ad space.

Titans: What types of things do you care about when running hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend?

Salahshoor: The main thing I care about is results. At that level, I care a lot about accurate tracking and good metrics. The most important thing is being clear on the strategy and expectations for results. When there is a lot at stake, good communication and alignment on expectations are the most important things to me.

Titans: How many advertising platforms are you currently using?

Salahshoor: 6

Titans: Which advertising platform has provided you with the “best” performance?

Salahshoor: AdWords and Facebook (depending on need)

Titans: What are some data analysis tools you’re currently using?

Salahshoor: Google Analytics, RTB-Media, Marin, Tableau Software, Mixpanel, Intercom

Titans: Do you believe video works well for performance marketing campaigns?

Salahshoor: No. Not directly. It’s clear that well run video campaigns have great potential, but as part of a much larger coordinated marketing strategy.

Titans: What type of attribution window do you usually use? What are your general thoughts on attribution?

Salahshoor: 30 days for conversions, and 1 day for view-through conversions. I typically like to attribute success to the last click, but it’s helpful to know all the touch points along the way to the final conversion.

Titans: How do you and your team analyze data?

Salahshoor: Mainly by pulling raw data from our analytics tools into Excel or Tableau and performing pivots and visualizing data in ways that help us spot trends.

Titans: What’s the most challenging part of the reporting process for you and your team?

Salahshoor: Producing the final, polished PDF or presentation that the client received is still time consuming. We don’t want to sacrifice quality presentation, and non of the automated tools out there provide us the ability to deliver high quality custom tailored reports.

Titans: What would your dream analytics tool look like?

Salahshoor: It would be AI driven. It would understand the goals, the complexities of the industry and the market, and perform optimizations automatically. It would generate new campaign recommendations and deliver well written reports that are indistinguishable from human producers. We would need one account manager per dozen clients. That would be the ideal tool.

Titans: How many hours a month do you and your team spend on reporting?

Salahshoor: Around 3 to 4 hours per client.