"Mommy, I want to be an explorer later!" 🔭
It is exactly these words that describe my childhood. A little boy full of ideas, dreams and special interests. For example, if people asked me what comics I read before bed; I would invariably answer, "none!" No, because I took my atlas that I had once received for my birthday to bed. And then I dreamed about all the places I would ever want to go to and studied closely all the flags and capitals. No place was yet unknown to me. My classmates would then look at me somewhat peculiarly, but it was my incredible curiosity towards the unknown that always guided me, like a true explorer.
For example, as a small boy I would often dive into my parents' inexhaustible music collection on a Sunday afternoon. CD after CD flew through my discman for hours. A true passion for music was born then. And it is on the basis of this first love that I made my first (unthinking) life choice. As a 13-year-old boy, I stumbled upon the study of Audiovisual Design. Yes, finally a field of study where I could use my creativity and love for music. Without thinking, I enrolled myself. But after the first weeks behind the school desk, I realized that this field of study had nothing to do with 'Audio'. Unfortunately haha. Nevertheless, this study choice was anything but a miss. I learned two valuable skills, namely creative and critical thinking.
On the other hand, this also laid the foundation for many adventures to follow. Spurred on by some friends and me, we started setting up music events. From a classic chiro party to intimate only-vinyl disco parties in dark basements. And we did everything ourselves. Because yes, we didn't have money as 18-year-olds. It was during this period that, thanks to my passion for music, I also discovered my passion for marketing. Although it was still on a very small scale. From completely working out a concept to putting down a complete content plan. The seed was planted.
"Data? My dada!"
After a brief detour within the Graphic Design major, I soon found myself behind school desks at Communication Management. Here I soon felt like the explorer of 15 years ago again. The greatest affinity I had was with online marketing. Creating inspiring campaigns that effectively made something happen. And that's how I soon found myself at Digitong. As an intern, I fell into a bath full of information. ROAS, POAS, Enhanced Conversions, Search Impression Share, the then abstract terms were flying around my ears. Initially it was drowning, but thanks to the expertise of Möbius and Cedric I quickly became proficient at this.
Today I am mainly taking care of everything with Tracking and Performance Marketing. I therefore highly value the data-driven approach we take at Digitong. Because measuring is knowing, and online marketing cannot be done entirely on gut feeling. We always start from this philosophy. First we look at the data we already have and then we determine where the crucial blind spots are. When all these puzzle pieces are on the table, we can use this data and translate it into our campaigns in order to optimize our campaigns and give extra fuel to Google's artificial intelligence.
"The goal is to turn data into information, information into insights and insights into results."
As a performance marketer, optimizing results, sales, profits is my day-to-day business. Most of my client portfolio is focused on e-commerce, where metrics such as return on ad spend, advertising cost of sale are the main drivers. But I can also help clients who are lead-based to optimize their profits. A great example of this is our case around 3D Trophy Factory where we can link offline sales to interactions with our ads, to map the real value of our marketing efforts. In this way, we can also make non-ecommerce businesses fully data-driven.
Do you also want to launch data-driven campaigns that achieve your kpi's? Then I would love to help you!
