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Market like a Fintech is a podcast by Mint Studios and the Fintech Marketing Hub, on a mission to find out what marketing strategies and tactics the top fintech companies in the industry use to acquire real customers, build a brand and grow revenue.
Araminta: The Market Like
a Fintech Podcast is back!
We've taken a hiatus of three
years and yes, now we're back.
So much has happened and is still
happening in the FinTech and marketing
industry that we really felt we
needed to restart the podcast to
properly explore what's going on.
The plan with this podcast is to explore
topics like attribution, ABM, branding,
content, AI, social media, hiring,
managing agencies, and so much more.
We'll be publishing one episode per
month to make sure we keep it consistent.
And we've got some really
exciting interviews lined up
with some fantastic guests.
Starting off with our first one, who is
Katarina Nordin, Senior Vice President at
Adyen, and is currently operating as their
Head of Marketing and Revenue Operations.
Now, if you're in fintech,
Adyen likely knows you.
It's one of the original and best known
fintech companies and currently the
largest fintech in Europe by market cap.
It's currently a publicly listed
company on Euronext as well.
But if you don't know about Adyen,
they describe themselves as a
financial technology platform that
helps enterprise businesses accept
payments on a single platform.
In essence, it's a platform
that allows merchants to have
full control of the value chain.
Katarina has a ton of experience
in the marketing world, having
previously worked at Ogilvy, and
she's currently regularly on lists
such as Top 50 Payment Influencers
and Top 50 Marketing Executives.
She's also been at Adyen for over
six years, and as we'll see in this
episode, there's a lot to explore.
We talk about the difference between
marketing to SMBs versus enterprise
customers, what channels work best when
reaching enterprise companies, Adyen's
ABM set up the best practices that they're
actually trying to move away from and
their process for creating different
types of content for different personas
when targeting a buyer committee.
I'm really excited for this episode.
So without further ado,
let's hear from Katerina.
You're listening to the
market like a FinTech podcast.
My name is Araminta MD admin studios and
partner at the FinTech marketing hub.
And with this podcast, my aim is to
explore the strategies and tactics
that top marketers around the world
use to grow FinTech companies.
We have discussions about how to
navigate compliance, the intricacies
of marketing technical products and
targeting hard to reach ideal customers.
All of that while living the startup life.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
I'd love if you could tell us a bit
your journey when you were agency
side and also what is it that you
feel you learned a lot while at
agencies that now you apply, at Adyen.
Katarina: Yeah, for sure.
my journey actually started
with my own business.
I started in translations
Araminta: Mm-Hmm.
Katarina: through doing translations,
I started getting more and more
assignments that brought me
into the world of marketing.
these were like the early days of
trying to build a presence online.
So I did a lot of the early kind of social
stuff like, Hey, I'm an influencer, I
have a blog, it's popular in Sweden,
I'd love to have international readers.
How can I do that, that type of
work, as well as working with more
established, advertising agencies
on their pitches and whatnot.
And from there, that became a bit of
a springboard into being a copywriter
and later on, a planner strategist.
I think working in an agency
environment, I work predominantly
in advertising agencies.
So producing, either doing strategies
that were more like brand strategies.
we're really doing campaigns
with a heavy focus on TV.
and later on, I started branching
off more into social and PR.
The biggest learning that I take away
from that is the exposure that you
have to so many different industries,
to so many different brands.
You really get to be close, to
so many different ways of doing
marketing or, how many different
businesses look at marketing.
And I think if I look at.
What I've really taken with me is everyone
is out there trying to do the same thing.
They're trying to grab attention.
It's always going to be about relevance.
And what's difficult about
capturing that relevance is you
have to understand your audience.
Your audience isn't static.
They're in an environment
that's ever changing too.
Everything from the business priorities
for the company where they work if
you're B2B, like we are at Agen, but
also just media consumption habits.
Expectations of like, how do I research
to get the information that I need?
All those things are shaped and influenced
by the other things that we consume.
So now we're living in a tech talk age,
and I think we've seen with a little bit
of a delay, that's now coming through.
And, we have reels on Instagram,
we have reels on LinkedIn.
It shapes the way that we consume
media and therefore changes the rules
for how to engage and be relevant.
that's something I think agencies are
really good at picking up on early.
And at the same time, not being so
distracted by the things that change.
You also need to couple that with like
a core insight about your audience.
If you do those two things, you can be
extremely successful with your marketing.
Araminta: So is Adyen doing TikTok?
Mm-Hmm.
Katarina: We're not doing tech
talk now, and I don't necessarily
think it's being present on the
channel, but it changes something.
I think it changes.
We talk a lot about that.
Does it change the attention span?
Araminta: Mm.
Katarina: maybe it doesn't change the
attention span because we also see people
engage with really long form content.
So obviously there's room for that.
Will people engage with a
20 minute long video though?
Araminta: Yeah.
Katarina: With a five minute video, with
a three minute video, we're used to a
short and snappy way of taking information
, in that kind of like, motion format.
And that's certainly something where I
see, so many of the trends and habits
that are forming, maybe with younger
generations, eventually they bleed through
and they shape everyone's expectation.
Araminta: it with LinkedIn reels, right?
Now you can go in the app and you can
see videos in a similar style to TikTok,
which I thought was quite interesting.
And now all the apps, all the social
media platforms are adopting it.
So, um, I wonder , who's going
to be able to own kind of
these short reels on LinkedIn.
Do you know anyone who's doing really,
really well on LinkedIn videos or reels?
Would you say in the FinTech space?
Katarina: I see
individuals that are doing a good job on
reels.
And I think that's also an insight that
a lot of B2B brands need to tap into.
There's a brand called Cognizant that
you probably know they're based in
the UK, not in the FinTech space,
really excellent at demand generation.
I think they've successfully
profiled their own employees.
Like their marketing leader is
someone who really shows up and
shares a lot around her playbook.
So that tactic of having your own
people and have them show up in a way
that's attached to the brand, but still
really human seems to be resonating.
And whilst I haven't really seen a
brand yet, that's tapped into the reels,
that's probably my expectation of how
a brand could do that successfully.
I love getting their own people
as opposed to, just having like
short snappy branded content.
I don't know if that's what
people are looking for.
Araminta: Yeah, that's something
maybe we could come back to because
I think it's quite difficult to do,
leverage the people on your team
to then create content on LinkedIn.
but I want to go back to, let's talk
about Adyen's marketing because I
think what we want to focus on in
this episode is, how you market to
enterprise and you do that really well.
From the start, Adyen has been focused on
enterprise and so that's been like a very,
marketing has been mainly around that.
So before we get into it, I kind
of want to, hear your thoughts on
how would you say, is it different,
you know, marketing to enterprise
versus SMBs or smaller companies?
Katarina: One very real difference
that everyone will notice instantly
as they start to work on enterprise
marketing is your target audience is
more limited in terms of the number
of companies that you're going after.
So a lot of tactics that you might
successfully have employed for SMB
that build on reach Don't really apply,
in the world of enterprise marketing.
for a while when we were building up the
marketing team at Agin and we were hiring
a lot of folks that had good digital
skills, did good demand gen skills.
One of the things that many of them
would share is like, yeah, we're going
to do this push and then we'll retarget.
And we're just like, we might
not meet that retargeting
threshold for all of our segments.
What would you do that?
So I think that there's a bunch of nifty
things, particularly if you go back a
couple of years, that marketers had in
their playbooks that work definitely
for B2C marketing when it's at scale and
definitely for S& B marketing and then
for enterprise, it challenges some of
your core assumptions of, I have this
limited set of really valuable customers.
What's the best way to reach them?
What's the best way to engage them?
Araminta: Yeah.
You have to go really deep into
what they're thinking and feeling.
Uh, like just off the top of my head,
I'm thinking, for example, Google ads,
Google ads performs best when you've
got a high number of conversions, but
when you're enterprise, you're looking
for quality, not number of conversions.
it means your Google ads
can't be as effective because you're
working with smaller numbers, right?
So it's almost like qualitative
rather than quantitative, right?
Would you agree?
Katarina: Yeah.
And, there might be folks in my team
who listen to this when it comes out,
who could definitely do a better job
of going into like all the specific
channels and all the specific formats
more from how do we set up the
strategy and how do we think about
Araminta: hmm.
Mm
Katarina: that I urge teams to
consider is it's not really meaningful
how many leads we get in or not.
And it's not so important to have
the strongest lead to opportunity
conversion rate, if we take Google
ads or like search ads or even SEO
Araminta: hmm.
Katarina: with those tactics, we certainly
get like a broad base of interest.
That's not relevant that
we have to filter out,
Araminta: Yeah.
Katarina: where we get really
highly relevant leads through.
So it's about looking at.
Out of the, the tools that I have in
my toolkit, what are the ways that I
can really engage these accounts, that
we've identified that we know we're
going after, or, at a minimum where
we know this is a segment relevant
for our ICP, how can we make sure
that we're touching those accounts?
if you have to cast your net a
tiny bit broader and it's not too
costly, I wouldn't worry about that.
And it's also not about the cost per lead.
It's not about optimizing a few
euros or dollars up or down.
we have to take a much longer
term perspective on holistically.
Are the marketing programs driving
the outcomes that we're looking for?
And that's something that I
think enterprise marketing has
really taught me and it's been a
discovery together with the team.
We can't be in the business
of measuring everything.
there's so much data that we have,
but making sense of that data
and really being able to take
something from it is difficult.
we also have to prepare that we're not
going to be able to map out a journey
exactly of how every single buyer out
there, decided for us, but we have to
have a good enough understanding and
good enough assumptions and be able to
test kind of the core assumptions to
see if we're being successful or not.
So it's not measuring like, Hey,
this blog post gave us X or Y.
I don't think that's the game
in enterprise marketing as much
as looking maybe like over this.
Last like three month, six month period
where we've been doing these pushes.
And these are the themes we think will
really resonate with our audience.
And these are the demand capture
moments that we set up for ourselves.
What's successful, what's not
successful, what's, really translating
through the pipeline and how
it's that pipeline progressing.
Araminta: Yeah, it's tricky because
a lot of the marketing advice
and marketing books out there
are not for enterprise, right?
They're for SMBs and so you have to
kind of step away from all the advice
and everything that everyone tells you
to do and actually do it differently.
Because you're saying like,
you're not tracking everything
and you're looking more at themes.
That's kind of counter to what a
lot of people say in the SMB space.
So, have you found out
that was quite a challenge?
Like having to step away
from all the advice?
All the tons of advice and LinkedIn posts
that will tell you to do X, Y, Z, when
really it might not apply to enterprise.
Katarina: for me personally,
I don't necessarily think
that that has been difficult.
because as long as we have good
evidence that what we're doing
is generating a return, I think
we can be pretty confident.
I think the challenge when you're in
a niche space and, something when we
were preparing for this, we said, we
talk a little bit about best practices.
I think this takes us on to that track.
What is the best practice,
Araminta: Yeah.
Katarina: or it's basically the
accumulated wisdom of all of
those that have come before you.
Beautiful concept.
That's great.
But if they're operating in a wildly
different business context than you.
Does it really apply?
And that's where I think like,
it doesn't have to be binary.
We dismiss all the wisdom out
there or we follow it blindly.
I think you have to take
that test and learn mindset.
Like, Hey, first of all, there's
just like a, reasoning check.
would this work?
Can I see this working?
Like if I apply this advice, where would I
expect that there would be a conflict with
the way that I know, my market operates
the way that I know that our sales cycles
work, the way that our offering works.
If there are really obvious
conflicts, yeah, there should
probably be a little bit skeptical
about whether or not I'll apply it.
if it's something where it's like,
maybe that could be interesting.
Let's see, let's try.
that's how we discover
and that's how we learn.
but certainly like, I think for a lot
of people that are in their roles, one
of the tangible examples I can give.
Is that, in most companies, sales
reps will have a ton of metrics.
They might even have goals on like
how many calls they need to make,
how many meetings they need to make.
Like they really try to break
down, like the ultimate thing I
imagine they care about is revenue,
but they try and break that down
into a lot of smaller milestones.
And it often means that the marketing
teams are focused on how they can generate
something that hits those milestones.
And the positive thing in that
model is it's pretty obvious
what numbers you need to drive.
For the whole equation to work out.
And that's something a few years ago,
when we were setting up marketing at Agen
and kind of preparing it for the future,
we had a lot of discussions around,
how many goals should we have or not?
Cause Agen historically doesn't
work with a lot of, KPIs.
We're not like a KPI driven culture.
we're much more about, do we believe
strongly that we have the right strategy?
how can we be as intentional
and selective as possible about
the metrics we put out there?
Because every goal, this is really
something I've learned to add and
seeing it in practice, every goal you
put out there that, determines behavior
can have a negative counter effect.
Araminta: a good example of that?
Katarina: I'll start
with the sales side here.
Cause that's where it's really obvious.
So we operate on the
premise that we're here to.
really focus on our customers and help
with their growth and in payments, whilst
let's say you might have a customer based,
they could have a headquarter somewhere.
Maybe they're headquartered in London.
They might be really interested in
processing across multiple markets.
Most, don't necessarily have a
payment provider per geography.
So maybe they want to
process in Germany, right?
And they might even have an office there
and they might actually have a payments
team there there could be specific
payment methods or, nuances in the
market that makes that relevant for them.
At Agin, we've set ourselves up to
say that as a sales manager, you
obviously focus on the companies
that are actually Headquartered
where you are in your geography.
But when you work with that
customer, you sell globally.
And if you need expertise from a
different market, I gave Germany in the
example, but that could be Singapore.
That could be Japan.
It could be Mexico, more
complex markets, right?
we encourage sales,
managers to work together.
And we incentivize that behavior.
so we might say like, Hey, you
should both work on this deal.
Call up this person in
Mexico, work together.
And, that's been a huge recipe
of success for us because we
have immense knowledge sharing.
We're really able to help our customers.
We're able to be fast.
It's a good thing from the
customer's point of view.
What happens when you start to
install metrics though, could be
that if you say, Hey, how am I
going to measure your success, am I
only going to measure your success?
based on the customers
that have, country code UK.
What if that, company ultimately,
when you do the deal, they have a
partial presence, how are you going
to, are you going to divide the credit?
And I think some of these questions
come up when you start to have many more
metrics, especially metrics that gel
seamlessly between all teams, because
whilst we think, Hey, totally makes
sense to have these, Sales managers
work as one globally, when you market.
We actually market to a geography.
So we'll market to the UK market.
We'll market to the
German market in German.
So if you want it to have perfect
resonance between your marketing
goals and your sales goals, down
to like a meeting level, you
end up with a ton of complexity.
It doesn't work for us.
So that's one of the areas where, yeah,
there's a conventional model out there.
Some might call it best practice, but
there's always another side to that story.
I think something that we do quite well is
when we work with numbers and when we work
with goals, it's always data with context.
How, like what's the long term
effect going to be of this?
What's the implication on our strategy?
Is it smart?
Is it sound?
are we confident making
a hard rule around this?
it's still people running the
business and not just numbers.
And I think there are a ton
of folks out there who would,
argue me or argue us on that.
Araminta: No, that's really interesting.
And because ultimately what you've done
as a dentist, you've decided to move
away from, and that takes guts, right?
That's difficult.
Sometimes to move away from what
best practices are and what everyone
will tell you to do, perhaps even
what consultants have told you and
said, okay, we're going to actually.
do it for us, like, what actually
works best for us, and that takes a
lot of testing and time, probably.
I'd be curious to hear any other best
practices that you've found, maybe in
the marketing world, that you are, like,
have found have not worked for you,
or maybe just not worth even trying.
Katarina: I think we talked a
little bit about setting up a
very linear digital, funnel.
that's certainly something that doesn't
work and I think that's probably true
for a lot of enterprise brands out there.
I think this idea that you're able to
track all of your, buyer's behavior
and that you can, Always see their
intent, blah, blah, blah, blah.
you can obviously better in some
markets than in others, depending
on a number of factors, but there's
always going to be a dark funnel.
There's always going to be offline
behavior that you are not confidently
tracking that we know is important.
B2B especially is like a
people heavy business, right?
Where there's a lot of
human interaction that.
Has like an enormous impact on the
outcome, whether you win the deal or not.
And so like we were talking about
earlier, if best practice says that
like, Hey, you should have a, very
data driven approach at all times.
I think that there's a
lot of benefit in that.
The only thing that I would probably
challenge is don't be anxious
about the things you can't measure.
there will always be
Araminta: Mm.
Katarina: And what sets a good marketer
apart from an exceptional marketer
is how we handle that ambiguity.
Maybe there's something,
We haven't thought of that.
We can test.
Maybe there is actually a way
to, have a data driven small
experiment around something that's
traditionally harder to test.
to track or to understand.
Maybe it's really just seeing like, Hey,
these are the assumptions that we made.
If these assumptions are right,
whether or not we can follow every
step between points A and, provided
enough folks arrive at point D, we can
feel pretty confident that this worked
or we can do a correlation study.
I think that like ingenuity and, not being
scared by what we don't know, but being a
little bit excited and curious about it.
something I don't necessarily see a lot
written around on LinkedIn, but certainly
something in my own experience that
makes a huge difference for results.
if you look at results as, you
know, pipeline and revenue.
Araminta: Amazing.
Well, I'd like to now talk a bit about,
Adyen as a whole, like, what does
your marketing look like nowadays?
so, let's start, we'll talk
a bit about ABM, because I
know this is a big part of it.
and I kind of wanted to start with
channels, because this is an easier way
for listeners to, get an understanding
of what you're currently working on.
And then we can talk about
the strategy overall.
so yeah, what are some of the channels
that you have been, that you're working
on at ADEAN and what have you found
kind of works best with enterprise?
yeah, let's start with that.
Katarina: Yeah, I think maybe to
take a step back, if we're looking at
what's the objective, let's say the
objective is to bring new customers in.
Araminta: Mm hmm.
Katarina: that is Big long funnel.
And then the reality for us is
that, pipeline is still early stage.
Anything in payments, that's
also transactions based.
There is actually a long ramp up time or
like a long growth runway with customers.
So we're talking about
extremely long timelines.
pipeline is something that we
think is a good metric to work
towards to measure success.
Particularly of sort of demand gen,
demand capture, because there's, a
possibility of doing it within like
a calendar year, like you can still
see the impact come through there.
and it's relevant enough
as a business metric.
So.
If we look at how to, how would we
set up, a marketing program or we're
in planning now, how would a market
plan for what they're going to do?
There's a lot of focus around
making sure that we have the right
target account selected together
with, commercial leadership.
Spanning sales, SDR, partnerships,
that we bring it down to like the
teams that are actually executing,
that they're heavily involved in this
process and also own the planning.
and then I would say that the tactics
vary wildly and the channels vary
wildly depending on the segment that
you're going after in the market that
you're in, how granular you, are.
wannabe and how much you layer, let's say
one to many, one to few, and one to one.
If your segment is really small
there, there might not be a lot
of one to many opportunities.
So you have to be going
after that one to few.
We see a ton of success in our
outfounding efforts in direct mail.
we get a lot of traction.
in, overall, and I think this is
the other side outside of ABM, like,
a lot of traction through search.
So, on the one hand, you have these
direct response channels where
you're able to, capture demand.
On the other, I think going back
to what we've been discussing,
enterprise payments especially is a
subject that's heavily researched.
So having really solid SEO approaches,
getting sharper with your content,
making sure that you're educating
in the right way, tying those
themes and being resonating in the
earned activities that you're doing.
We see a lot of traction
coming through on inbound.
So if I would take a channel perspective,
we could, probably talk about a few
of these things that are working well.
If we go more from like,
what's the objective and what
are we looking to achieve?
are we really clear that like, Hey, this
is our outbounding motion and these are
the things that we need to do, then that's
probably where we see more variance.
I think I shared this actually when I
was on stage, I was in a panel on ABM.
in Germany with this campaign, which was,
gardening themed and, it was like a little
gardening kit that was sent out because
they had this insight that the majority
of the buyers they were going after.
we're in a demographic where they
really believe that, gardening would
hit home and it was a wild success.
I'm not certain that that's something
that we would necessarily be able
to replicate in all of our markets
or with all of our segments.
So sometimes we have those,
really niche, nice little moments.
Whereas on the other hand, this
behavior that it's something that
requires research, it's something
that is a considered purchase.
That I think we see ring true globally
across all the markets that we're in.
Araminta: Yeah, no, that's a really
cool like example of direct mail because
you said direct mail works very well.
And I know that's kind of like not
so many companies do direct mail.
So imagine the gardening kit.
so just to clarify the gardening kits, you
would send it to like what payment leaders
at merchants or who are you sending it to?
Katarina: Yeah.
So I think for that particular push,
it was, a home and garden segment.
So they are working in home and garden.
Um, they researched some
of these individuals.
They saw that the digital presence was
really low, like no LinkedIn profiles.
Um, probably not people that they
can necessarily reach through, um,
as easily through a digital campaign.
the push was, Hey, let's do this
nice kit, with, um, bit of a gift.
nothing too crazy.
I think it was a few seeds and maybe like
a gardening glove or something, a nice,
written piece about, what we can do.
And I think an invitation to an event,
Araminta: And it was really successful.
Katarina: it was really successful.
It was really helpful in
this hyper niche segment.
so that's where I feel like we can
get a lot of traction out of it.
I've also seen other, direct mail pushes.
And the trick almost always is how
well do you understand the audience
and make sure that you hit on something
with a call to action that resonates.
Araminta: The call to action
might not be jump on a sales call.
It might be come to an event.
It has to be maybe a
softer call to action.
Katarina: And even in this,
there's also a close collaboration
with an outbounding SDR motion.
They've probably been sending some emails.
They're probably calling to follow up.
so you're not going in completely
without, any context around who we
are or any other way of reaching us.
Araminta: yeah.
I want to go back to something you
mentioned earlier, which is, inbound
or SUM content and, I'll share in
the show notes, a case study that
we did on your content that was
really in depth and really good.
on that case study, you said yourself
that, and you just said now, um,
that people do a lot of research.
Prospects are enterprise
payments is an industry where
people do a lot of research.
And so that's why it's so important to be.
appearing online, not just in search,
but also LinkedIn and other places.
So, what else have you found has
worked there in terms of like, they're
trying to do a lot of research,
but for example, they don't want
just beginner content, they're
looking for something more in depth.
So what have you found has worked in
terms of catering to, prospects that
do so much research, such as, for
example, like appearing on Google.
And I love that.
Um, yeah.
Katarina: there is, buying behavior around
payments, it's something everyone has.
It's not like you're selling
something that no one's using today
and you have to convince them.
in a way, sometimes I say this, it's
a bit like selling toilet paper.
Right.
It is a necessity or like coffee.
I'm from Sweden.
Everyone has coffee at home always.
so it's a staple.
and then it's a question, I guess this is
where you can say it becomes different.
whilst everyone maybe has the basic
or foundational level, it's then a
question of what are the capabilities
that I really need to be successful?
And many journeys to switch providers,
start with a tangible trigger.
I'm entering into a geography.
I need specific payment methods.
That's tricky or expensive or
technically not a sound solution.
based on my current setup.
So, let me consider, what would
be a better way for me to do that?
I'm not going to go into the
exact examples of where we
see we have that traction.
That's probably something that,
uh, we'll keep to ourselves.
it might be very different depending
on what you're offering is.
but we can identify that there
are specific areas where we
know that there's more interest.
And also a need to bring a certain level
of granularity into what you're doing.
If the content doesn't let the reader
kind of finish their mission, complete
it, that leaves them at a point
where, they're probably not going
to reach out further or consider us.
So that's where we've seen that being
able to go deeper, especially as we are
a solution that is very comprehensive.
We are very good at meeting these needs.
That's where it's, been effective for
us to be able to connect the dots with
the audience that's doing the research.
Araminta: Nice.
So I want to talk a bit about ABM because
that's a big focus of, Adyen's marketing.
but I'll start with, you've done
a few LinkedIn posts about how
important it is to do more with less.
So I'll start with that kind of angle.
What have, ABM depends so much on
who you're targeting, there's so many
different components to it, what have
you found, has worked, or some ways
to do more with less with ABM, how
to make it more, optimized, I guess,
for whatever your objectives are.
Katarina: I think ABM in its most basic
form, is about a targeted motion And
in fact, I think all marketing at some
point is about figuring out how do I
define the audience that I'm going after?
Am I going to segment?
Am I not going to segment?
And what is the thing
they all have in common?
And with ABM, where you basically buy
into the premise that I'm going to
divide my market up into smaller sets.
Perhaps even at the account level or
at the persona level within an account.
And I'm really going to go for the message
that I think is most relevant to them.
I think with enterprise, we see that the,
opportunity to bundle at scale is less.
And it might force you to be
too general in your messaging.
Therefore you don't stand out
or it's actually not possible
for them to differentiate your
offering from someone else's.
So I think this is all about balancing
where can I group, in order to have scale
or reach or impact and where do I need
to be specific, in order to effectively
communicate value for that audience.
Be that a selection of accounts at a,
vertical level or geographical level or
use case level, or down to, individual
accounts or a small selection of accounts.
To me, that's the foundational premise.
And, there is a ton out there
about how you can do that in
extremely sophisticated ways.
But if that's just the premise of it,
then it's really thinking about what is
the smartest grouping of my accounts.
What are the things that I really
believe will move the needle for them?
What are my practical means of
reaching them and starting from there?
And that's where I think we've seen
like I mentioned here I find it
delightful that we can have a lot
of traction with direct mail and SDR
Isn't that wonderful?
Then of course that there are a
number of digital plays or ways that
we can Have reached through content
syndication or, do follow ups or, by
intent data, et cetera, et cetera.
But to me, those are all
complimentary, like additional lenses
to apply to the core foundation.
And I have evidence to believe that
you can be, extremely successful
by getting good at the basics.
those basics could be
advertising on LinkedIn.
Araminta: Yeah.
Katarina: When I look at doing more
with less, I think there's always going
to be, an excellent way to execute
with the means that you have, and
there's going to be an average way.
there's huge difference between
a, an insight fueled activity,
whether that is direct mail.
Or a bigger campaign for a B2C brand.
You see a lot of, bland
marketing out there, right?
There's a lot of outbounding emails that
go straight into the spam or trash folder.
There are a lot of sendouts that are trash
and they end up in the literal trash can.
Araminta: Yep.
Yep.
Katarina: and there's a bunch of ads
that you'll scroll past every day.
And I'm not going to say that we get
it right 99 percent of the time, but
I think it's in the quality of the
original thinking and the strategy.
That you can be more successful with
ABM or less successful with ABM, as
opposed to all the features, that
sometimes are even distracting.
Araminta: Yeah.
I think it's worth for, listeners
to know how you, like break down
your audiences, because I think
you have it in a very clear way,
instead of, by a specific vertical.
do you want to share?
So like digital businesses, omnichannel.
And then platform and businesses
that have their own merchant
relationships, is that right?
How you split your audience, yeah.
Katarina: Yeah, that's right.
that's also something that's also how
we report on our success as a business.
And, I think, building a bit on what
you just shared with these three
audience groups, what we see is that
the need, the use case is different.
If you are Spotify and
you have no stores, right?
Okay, you might have one pop up
somewhere, but like, you don't really
have a physical presence and then
it's all about digital transactions.
And whilst it might be the same
product, has a single platform.
We don't have, different
products for different segments.
Necessarily, the core product is the
same, the things that they need to be
successful would be really different.
then an H and M that's probably
interested in Omnichannel and
connecting channels and experience and
loyalty and all those other things.
and again, if you are a platform,
if you're, a SaaS company with
your own SMB relationships, you're
operating in a B2B model where you
are, probably facing a lot more
complexity, There's more to cover there.
whilst ultimately the value that you
can provide through payments might be
the same, there are additional products
that are needed, additional flows that
are needed, KYC is a different game.
we also really see the need to service
those businesses in a different way.
that's something that, needs to be,
and is reflected in our marketing.
for us.
Understanding these audiences and then,
of course, you have subsegments that
live beneath them and you can make
that extremely granular by matrixing,
what kind of use case are they?
What vertical are they in?
What market are they in?
and then, of course, there,
there's additional segmentations
that you can look at down to the
account level or the persona level.
So, there's always a possibility of
going, like, very, very granular.
I think what helps us of having these
3 groupings at the top, is more for
activities where, broader demand
generation, what are the themes that we
want to go out and really believe that
we can add value through educating.
that merchant segment
Araminta: Yeah, I really like how these
are split because A lot of payment
companies do it based on verticals, so
I don't know, SaaS or, travel, whereas
you've gone really specific on the pain
points that they'll have or the use
cases that they're trying to solve.
And although it might be a little
bit harder to target that as a
keyword, it allows you to have a
much better understanding of their
pain points and what they might
be searching as a result of that.
so I thought that's really an interesting
thing to highlight, like the approach
you've taken to segmenting, Your audience.
Katarina: Yeah.
I think if we go full circle to
where we started, relevance is a
huge, factor in everything that
marketing, aspires to drive.
Like if we're not relevant, your license
to engage someone kind of doesn't exist.
certainly it helps.
Pain points is one way to access it.
I mean, there are a lot of successful
payment companies out there.
so there's definitely a ton of different
ways to execute on it, but we have
found with the way that we deliver
value through our product and some
of the things that we believe in.
Really being a global company with
a global culture, always servicing
the customer in a way that,
takes, pain away from them, right?
Like our internal divisions,
definitions, or metrics should never
impact that customer experience.
If that's the starting point, then
we think doing it in this way.
It really helps us and also helps us, stay
focused on the things that are relevant
to them, and stay sharp in the messaging.
but there's certainly challenges
and maybe that's, we've talked about
things that we've seen that work.
We've talked about some of
the things that we're doing.
but I also want to, stress the fact
that there are a ton of unknowns.
I live in the camp of marketing.
There are elements of it
that make it a science.
There are probably elements of it that
make it an art, but a huge success factor
is how do you deal with that ambiguity?
How do you deal with the
things that you don't know?
How do you find a way to test?
when are you going to make a big bet?
If you're not comfortable with that, then
it's certainly a very challenging space.
To be in, because it is something
where you see returns after time.
I worked at Agen for nearly seven
years, been in marketing for that
entire time for the last nearly four
years as the global head of marketing.
There are some things where we planted
the seeds three years ago, two years ago.
And, we've remained consistent
in that direction and we're
seeing the benefits now.
Araminta: Yeah.
That's really cool.
So I wanna finish off on,
just on that kind of topic.
you said yourself, you know,
you're dealing with ambiguity.
What are some things that you're
going to call into question?
Anything that you're,
you can share of course.
in 2025, what are some things that
you're, might be testing or that you're
gonna start questioning or changing?
Anything that you can share there.
'cause I'm, I'm curious what you'll
be looking at for, for next year.
Katarina: Yeah.
I think for us, one of
the things that we're.
noodling on is where do we want to
have, the power of consistency and
where do we want to give the autonomy
to experiment and consistency is really
powerful because something that you do
consistently over a long period of time.
That tends to be where you
see, transformational change.
so that's certainly something that
we're debating a little bit when
it comes to demand generation.
How many different points of view
or themes should we be entertaining?
How much flex should there be,
based on market and segment?
and we're probably moving in the
direction of more consistency.
Over, more experimentation,
and we're curious to see
what that's going to lead to.
I think the thesis behind that is, that
there's only so much anyone can hold in
their mind and being consistent around a
small set of things gives us more power,
to really connect with our audiences.
So that's, one of the bigger
things that we're looking at.
And then, of course, there are, certain
adjustments that we're looking, but
we'll see how they play out and maybe
you'll have me back, in a year or two
and I can talk about how they played out.
Araminta: Yes.
That'd be awesome.
Amazing.
Well, thank you so much, Katerina,
for coming on, to our first
episode after our relaunch.
big fan of Adyen's marketing
and Adyen as a whole.
So it's really an honor to have you.
And, yeah, thanks again
for taking the time.
Katarina: Thank you so
much for inviting me.
This was really fun.
Araminta: Thank you for listening.
You can find show notes and information
about guests at fintechmarketinghub.
com forward slash podcast.
And finally, huge thanks to Orama.
tv for producing this podcast.
We look forward to having
you on our next episode.