GE 235: How Aaron Bird Turned Bizible into the Industry Leader in B2B Marketing Attribution (podcast)

Hey everyone! On today’s episode, I share the mic with Aaron Bird, co-founder and CEO of Bizible, a B2B marketing site that helps companies with their marketing plans and attributions.

Tune in to hear Aaron discuss why Bizible is dominating the industry, how they enable businesses to measure and plan for revenue, why solving the “right problem” is so important when founding a company, and what the only reason that startups fail is.

Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Aaron Bird Turned Bizible into the Industry Leader in B2B Marketing Attribution TRANSCRIPT

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

• [00:28] Before we begin, please leave a review and rating and subscribe to the Growth Everywhere Podcast
• [00:51] Aaron Bird, the co-founder and CEO of Bizible, introduces himself.
• [01:42] Before he started the company, he was working at Microsoft on their ad platform.
• [02:10] There were companies who weren’t selling online, but rather just advertising their business or wares.
  • [02:52] Aaron knew that the marketing issues theses types of companies faced were different and they weren’t getting what they needed. Someone needed to solve this problem.
• [05:18] Bizible pulls data from a lot of different systems (a unit of data is called a “touchpoint”).
  • [05:43] They want to get all the touchpoint data across all of the channels in which someone is marketing.
  • [05:54] They integrate with all the major ad platforms. They even track data through a scanned badge at a conference. Even dinners, phone calls, and other interpersonal events count as a touchpoint.
• [06:50] Bizible is a market leader because they are able to analyze an wide swathe of data.
• [07:23] Marketing attribution is the process of quantifying analysis of touchpoints into revenue.
• [08:20] Based on the money coming in, you can allocate a certain amount of money to each touchpoint (they use a complicated algorithm).
• [09:06] Bizible is a SaaS platform and they sell subscriptions in order to access their data (this is how they make money).
• [09:48] This year Bizible was on Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies in the U.S. list
  • They just about double their profits every year.
• [10:26] Targeting is different depending on whether you are targeting companies or individuals.
• [11:27] Direct marketing mailers are making a comeback; Bizible will ship a full package, not just a flyer.
• [11:50] PFL is a great direct marketing vendor. Because they are integrated, you can track your direct mail shipment through Salesforce.
• [12:57] Bizible has 60 people in sales out of a total 105 employees; 16 account execs; 43 people doing qualified leads.
• [13:45] If you benchmark it against the industry at large, they have a high outbound to AE ratio.
• [13:57] In the early days of Bizible, they set out to follow the lean startup methodology.
• [14:59] The only reason startups fail is because they run out of money.
• [15:29] Aaron’s biggest piece of advice is to really make sure you are setting out to solve the “right problem” when it comes to founding a startup.
• [16:11] Aaron makes sure to block off some time at the end of the day to get through his e-mails and other correspondence. Other than that, he doesn’t have a workflow cadence.
• [17:05] Bizible started using Slack recently, which they find very helpful.
• [17:24] Aaron recommends The Fifth Discipline, a book about organizational behavior.
• [18:19] Aaron also reads Geekwire, Techmeme, and the New York Times to stay abreast of industry and national news.

Resources From This Interview:

• Bizible
• Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies List
• Slack
• PFL
• Must-read book: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter Senge
• Aaron@Bizible.com

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