MarTech Interview with Matt Swalley, Chief Business Officer, Omneky

Matt Swalley shares insights on tech-oriented advertising, the role of machine learning in business messaging, and the role of AI in advertising.

Creative is now the main lever for distribution, and the only way to continually improve performance and adapt to each ad platform’s algorithms is with technology.

1. Could you tell us a bit about your background and key responsibilities at Omneky, being the Chief Business Officer?
I joined Omneky after 13 years at AT&T. My background is unique going from a Fortune 10 company to a startup. I had the opportunity to lead sales organizations across all business units, spend time as a Chief of Staff to the Global Business Leader at AT&T, finish an MBA, and spend two years in Corporate Strategy. Corporate Strategy was a defining moment for me, due to having the opportunity to work with large data sets, financial modeling, and work on Board of Directors Materials. Data always tells a story. I learned how to put the pieces together and tell the story!

These skills are mission critical joining Omneky, which uses data and the power of artificial intelligence to generate beautiful ad creative for our customers that outperforms. My role at Omneky includes leading sales and revenue-generating activities, strategic planning, helping coach and develop our team, and even helping Hikari, Omneky’s Founder and CEO, with fundraising. I’ve absolutely loved the agility of Omneky, you find out where you can make the biggest impact every day and execute!

2. What can brands achieve with Omneky’s cross-platform creative orchestration?
Customers’ attention spans are getting shorter. Two massive platforms historically controlled 65% of the digital advertising market. New apps and websites are appearing daily and going viral. Companies today have to be quick and agile to navigate these channels as they emerge because today’s best ROI will not be the same as 60 days or 6 months from now.

Omneky’s platform ingests real-time data from each ad platform and uses computer vision to give insights like colors that drive interactions or the keywords that are resonating with each customer profile. From here, the platform then uses that data to generate higher performing, beautiful ad creative.

We seek out integrations with all the emerging platforms like Reddit, Quora, Connected TV, and in gaming ads. So much so, that our customers can be up on a new platform within a couple of days. Different platforms have customers with different intents, and Omneky optimizes for each platform and creative.

3. Do you think advertising is becoming an increasingly tech-oriented domain?
Yes! Targeting by demographic or personal information is becoming more restricted with all the information protection acts.

Creative is now the main lever for distribution, and the only way to continually improve performance and adapt to each ad platform’s algorithms is with technology.

The ad platforms recognize what is in an ad and it serves it to customers where it’s a good fit. Better sales creative that is directed at customer profiles, and using data insights, the better the performance.

4. How does machine learning help with creating messaging that resonates with the audience?
Ad platforms send back tons of anonymized performance data. Computer vision can instantly analyze digital images, messaging, video, and audio giving insights into how audiences react to advertising. Regression analysis is used to uncover the key phrases, words, images, or unique elements that should be included to improve performance in real time. Then you can use AI image and text tools to quickly generate beautiful ad creative that uses this insight.

5. What role does AI play in modern advertising?
Three major AI innovations are at the point of commercialization. This is the moment Omneky has been waiting for since it was launched by our Founder, Hikari Senju, who has a Harvard Computer Science background.

Firstly, computer vision allows you to quantify the design of ads and what features are leading to performance.

Secondly, AI text generation continues to improve. Initially there was GPT-2 then GPT-3. Users could see improvements monthly in the technology. This technology permits users to plug in customer profile information and data from computer vision and write copy that would take humans days to write.

Finally, the biggest advancement in AI is image generation. DALLE-2 was the first to launch with hype. Our team was using it from the beginning. You can now instantly go from concept, to test, to launch with a few words and clicks and generate images that would take a creative team days to design.

Using these technologies daily and integrating them into the Omneky Platform, it’s amazing to see how they can be used complementary to generate higher performing digital sales creative and better business outcomes for customers.

6. How can marketers get more value from their content using DAM?
Digital Asset Management (DAM) tools give the ability to quickly organize and sort through assets that can be used in advertising. Fonts, logos, videos, and images can be searched instantly. Organizations that do not have a DAM in place may have files loaded on separate share drives, not prioritized, and challenging to locate new versions.

With a DAM you can pin assets as priorities so they will be used in the next round of creative. Omneky’s DAM also gives the ability to search through all approved ads and all ads that are currently running across digital platforms.

7. Lately, Omneky coalesced Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion with its platform. What sparked this integration?
Stability AI released API integration and we immediately began testing it. The product generates amazing images with a simple interface. Our engineering team moved incredibly fast building out the integration over a weekend and we were ready to launch!

8. Can we leverage technology to decrease CPL?
Yes, cost per lead can be impacted just like any other conversion metric with technology. Omneky looks at ideal customer profiles for each customer and generates sales creative that addresses each target. Then Omneky analyzes the data for each lead and continues to iterate to improve performance. The other interesting thing to note is that traditional sales have changed where cold calls and emails do not work effectively, so there will be a huge shift in large enterprise organizations using digital ads as the main driver for awareness and leads. This is something Omneky is extremely excited about and a place we will be the leader.

9. How important is it to personalize ads as per customers’ preferences?
Personalization is extremely important because customers want to see things in a way that is tailored to their preferences. Technology and artificial intelligence are at a place today where we can do this!

10. What is the best bit about the culture at your organization?
Culture is defined by the first ten people that stick around a company. We care greatly about character and look for three main characteristics. We are hiring team members with high-energy, great core values, and the ability to learn quickly. We believe we can adapt and accomplish anything with a team that shares these characteristics and are deeply aligned with our mission.

Tune in to Martech Cube Podcast for visionary Martech Trends, Martech News, and quick updates by business experts and leaders!!!