“AI enables much quicker iteration and testing of new concepts. It’s a flywheel of data insights, generations of creative and copy, and launching. You can personalize based on the data, and quickly go to market.”
Hi, Matt, could you tell us something about your professional background, how has your professional journey been so far?
When they say it’s a windy road to where you are going, it’s the truth. In the first 15 years of my career, I took on many different roles. Most of that time was spent at a Fortune 10 company, AT&T. I started out in business development where I was making more than 25K cold calls and meeting with thousands of customers in my early roles. I did technology consulting, led sales organizations, was a Chief of Staff to a multi-billion global business, got my MBA, and spent a couple of years in Corporate Strategy before joining Omneky.
Every single role you do, as long as you continue to push yourself to learn new things, will be relevant in the future. The challenging times teach you how to be a better person, and if you continue to push through those times and chip away daily at new skills, you will have this beautiful compounding momentum.
You use all of these skills as a leader at a start-up. I have loved every minute of joining Omneky.
Tell us about your role at Omneky. What does your typical day at work look like? And what sets Omneky apart from the competition?
I am the Chief Business Officer and a Co-Founder of Omneky. My role includes leading sales and revenue-generating activities, strategic planning, helping coach and develop our team, and much more.
Every day is different, and we utilize every second of it. Some days, I could have more than 8 – 10 sales calls. Our sales team has expanded now, fortunately, but in the early days, I was leading every sales call. Other times are spent doing strategy work such as sales content, pricing, partnership agreements, fundraising, and providing input on product based on customer feedback. Every day presents a new challenge, and you tackle it knowing that the world is there for the taking. Prioritization is a key skill and you have to figure out what will make the biggest impact that day, and do it!
Omneky’s differentiation is leveraging real-time performance data from each advertising channel (i.e. Meta, Google, LinkedIn, TikTok, Connected TV) and using computer vision to see what actual elements are leading to sales or leads. Omneky then uses the latest AI image and text tools to generate beautiful creative ad content that outperforms. Typically, from our competition, digital ad creative could take weeks or months to complete, and at Omneky we have it down to hours. We can typically deliver ads and launch within 72 to 168 hours (3-7 days!).
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How is AI automation reshaping and replacing the traditional sales and marketing funnels?
AI enables much quicker iteration and testing of new concepts. It’s a flywheel of data insights, generations of creative and copy, and launching. You can personalize based on the data, and quickly go to market. The campaigns become more meaningful and relevant, and it’s easier to move customers through the funnel with omnichannel orchestration of different platforms. You can retarget customers that are engaged with your social media platforms, and ones that visited your website.
It takes customers an average of 7x of seeing something before they buy. Omneky can help communicate a story in different formats that make an emotional connection with prospects or current customers.
What are 5 best ways AI is helping in boosting and redefining customer engagement?
- Data-driven messaging: AI pinpoints what messages or images/videos are resonating for actual sales through computer vision, enabling you to learn in real-time and double down.
- Micro-segmentation: Businesses have multiple ideal customer profiles. AI helps you create specific messaging/images for each profile and even find new ones from the analytics data.
- Test new concepts: AI helps you craft brand new concepts instantly and you can create images and text that go with it with AI image and text generation tools.
- Human productivity: AI empowers human creators to be more efficient and do better work. New tools are built daily, and the creators that utilize AI will excel. Jobs will not be eliminated; they will be changed for those that embrace it.
- Omnichannel engagement: All four of the top points enable customers to target their customers at different areas of the funnel and utilize each platform’s technology more effectively with more sales creative firepower.
What are the benefits that AI superlatively offers in advertising?
Time is the most important resource. AI decreases the time to value of any advertising campaign and as it continues to get better. You can now create personalized messaging, images, and videos in hours that used to take months. This allows you to move quickly while it is still meaningful and relevant.
According to you, how important are highly personalized ads to grow a business? And how does Omneky help in personalizing ads?
Personalized creative or micro-segmented advertising is the most important way to grow your business. There has been an evolution from broadcast, to narrowcast, to personalized/micro-segmentation. The old ways of creating one message that resonates with millions no longer work.
Omneky’s platform is a flywheel of real-time performance data from using computer vision insights, generating creative with the latest AI text and image tools, to launching strategically targeted campaigns in a very short time frame.
How is the use of Artificial Intelligence helping businesses sell more? And as AI allows businesses to sell more do you think it can or will replace salespeople in the future?
This is my favorite topic today. Sales has changed, and the old ways are no longer effective. Emails go to spam. Phone calls are intrusive on a cell phone. I lived by those tools in my early days. Many of the Fortune 1000 companies are behind on the sales models startups are using. There are still places to use them, except they have to be used complementary to digital advertising, which is now the lead.
Omneky uses our own product and has excelled with lead generation and sales with a very small and mighty team. You can spend the cost of one employee and reach millions of prospective customers with a tailored message from AI.
Machine learning allows you to multivariate test lots of messaging to find out what is resonating with prospects at scale and then use those learnings on other sales channels. We call this finding a needle in the haystack, and there are many needles when you are reaching millions.
Human sales activities become lower funnel motions. Leads come to you and then you figure out how to increase conversions down the funnel with better sales demos, marketing materials, and follow-ups. In the same way, designers’ lives are changing with AI image and text tools, and salespeople’s lives are changing.
Currently, what is the role of Machine Learning in sales? Do you think it enables the most impressive sales capabilities?
Yes, you can react in real-time to what is actually leading to sales and not just rely on instinct. You can tell what colors, messaging, the format of an ad, or length of a video that is telling the most compelling story and then expand those learnings to other sales channels.
Omneky can lower customer acquisition costs by 30% in month two of a partnership from these learnings for most customers.
As a strategic leader who is passionate about technology, what would be your advice to all the marketers wanting to grow their business powered by technology?
Test as many new tools as possible! Take key learnings from each. Fast-paced trial error is the only way. Humans are not capable of processing everything that technology can do.
The AI technologies we are using and building at Omneky are improving every day. We also leave it open to integrate with new technologies as they become available. Set yourself up to catch the wave and realize the next Big Tech companies of the future are being built right now, by leveraging these technologies in new ways as they become available.
Thanks, Matt!
Matt Swalley is the Chief Business Officer of Omneky, an AI platform that generates, analyzes, and optimizes personalized ad creatives at scale. Matt brings 13 years of strategic leadership experience from AT&T, where he specialized in business development and sales team growth. As a member of the Corporate Strategy Team for AT&T, Matt led various strategic initiatives, financial planning, and analysis. In his former role as Chief of Staff for AT&T’s Global Business segment, Matt directed teams in small business and mid-market enterprise accounts and delivered strategic consultation and operational support. Matt has an undergraduate degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, and an MBA from Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida.
Omneky utilizes state-of-the-art deep learning to personalize advertising creative across all digital channels. Our machine learning algorithms analyze what designs and messaging are resonating with prospective customers and use these insights to generate ads most likely to drive engagement.