MarTech Interview with Yaniv Navot, CMO of Dynamic Yield

With so many online options available, consumers have come to expect a seamless and personalized shopping experience. This has put pressure on companies to leverage their data effectively and deliver relevant content, recommendations, and promotions at every touchpoint.

One company that specializes in this area is Dynamic Yield, a personalization technology provider that helps brands tailor their digital experiences based on real-time data and machine learning. As Chief Marketing Officer of Dynamic Yield, Yaniv Navot is at the forefront of this fast-evolving field, working closely with clients to understand their needs and drive their success.

In the following interview, we will delve into Yaniv’s insights on the latest trends and challenges in digital marketing, as well as his perspective on how personalization technology can help companies achieve their goals.

Scroll through to unveil insights from the industry expert!

Yaniv, kindly brief us about yourself and your journey as the CMO of Dynamic Yield.
I’m Yaniv Navot, CMO of Dynamic Yield. A Gartner Leader for five years running, Dynamic Yield is redefining personalization technology with our Experience OS, which delivers personalized, optimized, and synchronized digital customer experiences faster and easier than ever before.

As the first marketing hire at Dynamic Yield, I was tasked with building a brand from the ground up. That not only includes establishing a market presence, but also building our own marketing technology stack – and of course, using our own technology to run experiments and personalize experiences for visitors to our site.

From performance marketing to web analytics to branding and content strategy and beyond, my work across the full stack has allowed me a greater appreciation of what it takes to remain competitive in a global marketplace. Ultimately, I believe that the key to unlocking meaningful and sustainable growth is a balance of technology, creativity, and strategy.

Can you share with us your source of inspiration for venturing into the marketing and product development niche?
I am both creative and analytical, and as such, I like to build and experiment, which is why I got into conversion rate optimization and performance marketing, to begin with – it’s in my nature. I saw so much room for improvement in conventional B2B marketing; it was impersonal, unhelpful, and, frankly, boring. The way I see it, marketers are there to provoke thought and push limits. At Dynamic Yield, our product and marketing teams work together to do just that: push the limits of how we innovate, operate, and engage.

Brief us about Dynamic Yield and tell us how the organization is delivering a personalized and optimized digital customer experience.
Though delivering on the promise of personalization is easier said than done, Dynamic Yield turns that vision into reality. We help businesses across industries deliver personalized, optimized, and synchronized digital customer experiences.

2022 was a big year for Dynamic Yield. Not only were we acquired by Mastercard, but we also launched Experience OS, a new operating system that allows companies to build and manage their own mix of personalization capabilities all from one place. With this flexible architecture, teams can more effectively manage data accrued from different sources and implement personalization across touchpoints, even as their business needs and tech stack evolve. Not only does it make for a more effective structure, but it also brings work together into one cohesive flow, allowing greater collaboration and alignment across teams.

Experience OS will revolutionize the personalization industry. And we’re working hard to integrate other solutions from Mastercard’s growing suite of services that will enable our customers to power even deeper personalization.

Bottom line: consumers expect personalization. Whether it’s a movie recommendation or a customized playlist, tailored experiences are the standard, not the exception, across industries – from banks to airlines to retailers and more. And beyond the expectations game, it’s just good business: delivering relevant, tailored customer experiences drives long-term loyalty and generates higher revenue for businesses.

Tell us about your experience in building Dynamic Yield’s marketing and technology.
I joined Dynamic Yield because of two reasons: the product and the people. And I’ve stuck around for the same reasons.

It’s such a positive sign that our product is even more exciting to me now than it was when I first joined, which says a lot for a category that has undergone a massive transformation over the last decade. Personalization went from being a “nice to have” to table stakes, and Dynamic Yield has been at the center of it all.

As we built a diverse marketing team, we looked for contributors who would be proactive, bold, and creative. And once we identified talent, it was on us to create a collaborative environment that also encouraged innovation; our informal creed was to experiment, fail fast, and do better. I’m proud to work every day with one of the most exceptional B2B marketing teams around.

Being a strategic thinker, how do you plan to further Dynamic Yield’s mission and vision?
Dynamic Yield’s mission has always been simple: build the best personalization technology in the market. And we’ve done it – since the very inception of Gartner’s Personalization Magic Quadrant, we’ve been named a Leader each year and topped the list in 2022.

But as the demand for personalization intensifies across industries and geographies, we’re laser-focused on achieving greater scale as we accelerate into new segments like financial services, QSR, grocery, and beyond. Mastercard is an invaluable asset to these efforts – together, we can bring more personalization to more customers and provide benefits they will not get with any other vendor in the market.

What is your opinion on integrating technological advancements like AI and ML with marketing? And how has this change brought about digital disruption in the industry?
More businesses are realizing the only way to scale true 1:1 personalization is with AI. AI and machine learning are crucial tools in a marketer’s toolbox that will usher in a new era of hyper-personalization.

AI and machine learning should augment decision-making and improve efficiency by automating the collection, interpretation, and execution of customer insights. This technology can power product matching and recommendation engines, render dynamic content, segment audiences, and more, all of which complement and elevate the work marketers do daily. Together, the combination of human and machine intelligence has helped build trust and encouraged significantly greater AI adoption across the industry because it satisfies the need for engagement that is smart, efficient, and most importantly, respectful of the consumer’s privacy.

Kindly elaborate on the emerging trends of the new generation, and how you plan to fulfill the ever-evolving needs of the digital age.
There are a couple of key trends I think will come more into focus over the coming year and beyond.

First, shoppable content and live commerce, especially for the younger, digitally native generations. Consumers don’t just want their experience to be personalized – they also want it to be frictionless. Through live commerce, more brands will ensure that when shoppers are exposed to a product or look, they can easily click through and make a purchase right within the experience (i.e., social media, short-form video, etc.) without having to hunt it down on the site. But we also see a new twist here as brands further maximize immersive shoppable experiences with personalization – they can increase exposure to other relevant items based on affinity data, purchase history, and more.

On the back end, we’ll see a greater investment in headless-based architectures. By separating frontend interfaces and backend systems, companies will move to a “headless” architecture. This setup will simplify development, allowing for one backend to power several frontends (website, mobile app, digital kiosk, POS system, etc.). When integrating with other systems is easier and more flexible, teams have more room to experiment with new features and solutions (like personalization) that can further differentiate and improve the overall digital experience.

And finally, deeper exploration into the possibilities of generative AI. Although generative models have been around us for decades, 2022 was a breakthrough year for generative AI – there are better models, more data, and more computing power to make this accessible to everyone at scale. I believe generative AI is poised to play a central role in our lives and will transform some of the paradigms we’re used to.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your 16+ years of experience and what were the key lessons you learned from it?
I think the biggest challenge is an ongoing one: maintaining a critical, but inquisitive, mindset. Asking the right questions, operating in dynamic environments, embracing change, and continuously pushing the envelope are something I live and breathe every day. And as a marketing leader, it’s my responsibility to encourage my team to do the same.

And of course, as the world is moving at the speed of light, it’s a challenge to stay ahead of the curve. Investing in innovation, trying new things, not being afraid to do things differently, and embracing an overall mindset of experimentation are imperative.

How do you envision scaling not just Dynamic Yield but your growth curve as well in 2023?
Dynamic Yield has been around for a decade now, and while I’ve been in this company ever since the beginning, I know that we won’t be able to scale effectively by continuing to do the exact same things that we’ve done in the past. Scaling is about finding small but meaningful pockets of opportunities where we can exponentially influence growth through clarity, progress, and innovation. On a personal level, I intend to invest a lot of time learning and experimenting with new emerging technologies, like metaverse applications, generative AI, and marketing technologies.

Being an established leader, what would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs and leaders aspiring to venture into the digital marketing niche?
Many start-ups make the mistake of going too broad. Find a strong market fit and invest resources in building the best offer for your target market. But in today’s market, building a great product is not enough. You also need clarity in messaging, differentiation, and a clear business value proposition to motivate your buyers to act.

Stay Ahead of the Game with MTC Podcast, Your Go-To Source for Cutting-Edge Martech Insights, the Latest Martech News, and Expert Updates from Top Business Leaders!