Note: This post was created and published in April 2023. Tommy is now Head of Performance at Funnel.

Performance marketing is an ever-evolving landscape, and staying ahead of the curve is essential to succeed in today's digital world. We sat down with Tommy, a senior member of Funnel's performance marketing team, to discuss the company's evolution, our unique approach to performance marketing, and what the future holds for the industry. Get ready for a deep dive into the world of performance marketing

You have been working at Funnel for about 6 years. How have the marketing team and Funnel changed since you joined?

I was the second hire in the marketing team. I was taking care of all things performance, but since it was just the 2 of us back then I also did a lot of other marketing-related things. It has been interesting to see the trajectory of the company. Growing from 60 to 400 people, and the marketing team went from 2 people to now over 40. The company’s growth and having a bigger marketing team with more specialists have allowed me to focus more on what I like to do, which is performance. I’ve been lucky to work at a place where performance marketing has been a core part of the business since day one. 

When I started I had very little experience in performance. I have been working for about a year before that. Funnel paid a consultant to come in and work with me, and teach me as we go. From day one it has all been about learning: what do I need to learn in order to do my job better? How can Funnel support that? Along the way, I learned more about performance, statistics, and programming, and I’ve also been taking Swedish lessons. 

Interesting that you mentioned statistics, how did you decide to learn more about the subject?

As I started looking more into performance itself I realized how much mathematics you need to know to be good at it. So I decided to learn R and statistics. It helps me to do my job better. My manager and Funnel encouraged that. When there is something that we believe is important we like to give time to people so they can really do it right.

What do you enjoy about working with performance at Funnel?

Where Funnel is different is that the whole company believes in performance. We have always been the engine of the company’s growth. Talking to performance marketers from other companies, we often hear they need to fight for every dollar. We are in a good situation where the company trusts what we do. We can focus on doing it better, instead of trying to prove its value. People here understand the value. Performance marketing is changing quite a lot. 

So where do you think the field is going?

I think this is a really interesting topic. Internally we have been discussing all these things such as automation and data loss. And we believe Performance is going to get closer and closer to business science or marketing science. Rather than just pushing buttons on platforms,  performance marketers will need to find patterns and relationships in the data, and connect data points from several sources. To do that, performance marketers need to be more than media buyers, but a mix of strategists and mathematicians to make company strategy come true. I think that's the key. 

Can we ask you to share a bit of a sneak peek into what you’ve been working on when it comes to the ‘’Future of Performance’’ at Funnel?

We have internally been rethinking the whole performance team. The way we like to think about it is that performance should be three-fold. Where one part is performance, focusing on accounts, their structure, and strategy. The second part is about data science. And again, finding relationships, doing experiments, having a really clear data focus. The third part is about creatives. How you can create better creatives that really drive business. The direction in which we see performance going is the interaction and synergy between these three pillars. Going away from just platforms and being a one-platform person, to being someone that can be strategic across several.

What kind of performance team do you want to build at Funnel?

In the performance team we are building we will have these three pillars: platforms performance, data strategy, and creativity. On top of that, we want people that have similar core values to ours. Those are: being humble, eager to learn, curious, respecting others, and being a kind person. The last one should go without saying. We want to be a kind team that is ambitious and wants to grow together. 

What is your favorite thing about working at Funnel?

It’s definitely the culture. I feel you can really be yourself. I loved it when we had the team building in Barcelona. At one of the parties, we had one person dressed in a unicorn costume and another person in a tuxedo, and both of them were comfortable and having a great time. You really come as you are and you find your people and your crowd. There are a bunch of different activities that people connect over. We have people that love playing table tennis and they organize tournaments at the office. Others love doing CrossFit or running together. Some bond over dogs, cheese, you name it!