Our ‘Profile: A Day in the Life of’ feature takes a look at some of the global professionals working across performance marketing. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the flourishing industry.
Name:
Ricky Liversidge
Job title and company:
Chief Marketing Officer at Sizmek
In one sentence, how would you describe what the company does?
Open ad management for digital marketing
What are the company’s unique selling points?
Sizmek is a global ad management company that is open; open to creativity – enabling the most innovative ideas to get done, open to regional variations with a global perspective, and open to integrating third party technologies while remaining independent of media, channel, and audience buys. We are a flexible, committed and objective partner to advertisers and their agencies.
Within the last six months/year, what stands out as the company’s major milestones?
Wow this could be long. Most recently, as DG, we sold off our traditional TV business. This enabled us to spin-off our online business as Sizmek with a laser focus on digital. We also recently acquired Republic Project as a significant move into the social and mobile arena. Prior to that, we integrated three major ad serving and rich media platforms – MediaMind, Eyewonder and Unicast together with the acquisition and integration of Peer39, our programmatic data offering.
Duration in current role:
20 months
Where are you based?
I live in Los Gatos, California (Middle of the Silicon Valley). I spend lots of time at our operations centre in New York too.
Previous performance marketing-related companies you have worked at:
Adobe Systems
What are your main job responsibilities?
I have two really; product and marketing. For product it’s all about the strategy – what to build and when, as well as effective GTM. For the Marketing side of the position, it’s branding, lead generation, customer care and having a passion for what we do and what we can help our customers achieve.
Take us through what you get up to on a typical working Monday:
Monday I start early and hit the bike for one hour, then it’s straight on the phone with the Israeli teams to make the most out of the three hour window I have with them.
I check in to hear how our platform has performed over the weekend and the previous week, identifying and ensuring we are focused on the key areas. It is always interesting to see how business flows from the largest branded global campaign to the local regional supplier – looking at the channel mix, campaign attribution, campaign performance, etc.
At about 10am I switch to marketing and our New York based team. This is less about what our customers do, but more in-line with how our own marketing is performing. The afternoon is spent talking to partners, customers and driving our proactive plans. A good proactive Monday sets the weeks pace. Done at 6pm and off to the pool.
What top three websites can you be found browsing during your lunch hour?
As a Brit, I am obligated to check out the BBC for all my world news…it may not be edgy, but it is very familiar.
Outside of this it’s a quick check to see what my work buddies have been doing on LinkedIn or Twitter, then the industry news and the companies I like to follow.
Got to keep a close eye on those competitors.
What are your top three tips for someone looking to get their hands on a job like yours?
Do… It’s amazing. I get to do both product and marketing.
– Be the best at what you do and not overly focused on what you are going to do.
– Win industry supporters and people along the way
– Pay back, as you go along, to those that are just starting.
Career-wise, where do you see yourself in three years time?
Doing an even better job than I do today and inspiring others to try something new.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I worked on the Canberra and Oriana cruise ships as a radio officer for three years.
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