A global leader in retail performance advertising, Crealytics helps e-commerce retailers and brands improve their financial performance. In 2017, the company generated over $3 billion in business revenue for clients, including worldwide IR500 brands like Footlocker, ASOS and Urban Outfitters.
On July 2, Crealytics’ Berlin office held a special event with Microsoft Advertising to celebrate its newly established Elite Partner status. The day was a celebration of Crealytics’ achievement–as well as a further strengthening of both parties’ relationship. We chatted to Head of Digital Marketing, Irene Kögl, about the agency, the people behind it and what the collaboration with Microsoft Advertising means to her.
What is your personal morning energiser during breakfast?
My team knows I have a strong coffee addiction, but I start with green tea so as not to drink too much throughout the day. I usually drink a large pot of this in the morning–and afterwards it’s a lot of coffee! I normally stop drinking after working hours, depending on how long the day goes. It’s funny though: my team knows not to convey bad news to me in the morning before I’ve had my first coffee. If they show up and bring me the first cup of coffee when I arrive in the morning, then I know that something very important will happen!
Please describe briefly what Crealytics does.
We’re a multinational retail advertising technology and services company. Included within this are components that I think are important to understand our offering. Firstly, we’re a retail expert: that’s our core vertical. We focus a lot on working with fashion companies, that’s our absolute area of expertise. We’re a technology and services provider because technology has always been in our DNA. Leveraging technology and automation helped us develop our own tools and add a very professional layer of services on top of that. And lastly, we’re a multinational company. Although we were founded in Passau, we have a large presence in Germany. We’ve also expanded into other markets, with offices in London and New York. Most of our gross profits, unsurprisingly, come from these markets. The bulk of our recruitment focus is in the UK and in the US. We mostly work with fashion clients–ASOS and Footlocker are a couple of the larger ones.
What do you like most about your current role as the Head of Digital Marketing at Crealytics?
I am the head of the digital marketing department globally, which means across our four office locations. I lead our agency department within the company. As I mentioned before, we have tech components; we have a development department and we have a digital marketing team who provide services for our clients–either at an account management level (if our customers use our software as a service), or as a managed service, which is more agency-focused.
What are you particularly looking forward to this year?
I am always very excited when we go into peak season, which is kind of unusual because it’s also the busiest time of the year. It’s stressful–clients get nervous and have very high expectations. But for probably very strange reasons, it’s also what I’m most excited about! I like it when the budgets are high, when it’s challenging and when we really must deliver our A-game. This is what excites me and it’s what I’m really looking forward to.
Crealytics has attended meaningful Microsoft Advertising events in the past, like the Partner Forum in Paris. What is usually at the top of your mind–for you and Crealytics–after such an event?
I ensure that we always attend these events for various reasons. Primarily, we want to be on top of the game. We want to constantly push the boundaries for our clients, which requires us to understand what is coming into the market, how the ecosystem is changing, and any new features involved.
If you had a magic ball in your hands which showed you the future with Microsoft Advertising, what would you see?
We observe many retailers and, by extension, see that some players like Google have developed into platforms. They want to monetise their traffic and expand what they do from the traffic acquisition product to the platform monetisation game. I always understood that Microsoft Advertising existed to empower retailers to go that extra step, which is why you offer a comprehensive marketplace solution.
You have been a Microsoft Advertising Elite Partner for a couple of months now. What does this friendship and collaboration mean to you?
For me, it means a lot. Because I am a relationship-driven person and I prefer working with partners within reliable and sustainable partnerships. Things like the Bing and Microsoft Advertising Day we have organised today–they are a testimony of that. It gives my team an in-depth view of the solutions and features that Microsoft Advertising provides. It also means they can better leverage them in a smarter way. Without access to that knowledge, they wouldn’t be able to work in such a sustainable partnership.
What is your greatest achievement since you started collaborating with Microsoft Advertising?
I’d say it is today. We managed to organise an event that’s not only focused on the product road map, but also the upcoming features. It’s not only looking at the day-to-day, business-as-usual stuff, but really engaging in a conversation about the market trends and understanding where the market is heading and having the action and exchange with your experts. I think this is a huge achievement and I’m very, very happy that we made this happen.
If Microsoft Advertising and Crealytics were a superhero team, which superhero would Microsoft Advertising be, and which one would be Crealytics?
I’m very old school when it comes to superheroes because I haven’t had a TV for many years. And I’m not great when it comes to Marvel movies–I haven’t seen a single one. I’d probably come up with a very retro choice: He-Man and She-Ra. For some reason, I can relate to the latter personally, she was my childhood idol and I always wanted to ride on a flying unicorn like her. I also think that Microsoft Advertising could probably relate a lot to the ideas and objectives of He-Man. I’d go with that duo.
Learn more about The Microsoft Advertising Partner Program here