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AdTechGod Pod
Ep. 90 Retail Rules Everything Around Me: Edina Kalamperovic from Epsilon Talks Shop
00:26:02
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- [00:00]
Ad Tech God
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- [01:32]
Ad Tech God
Tech God Pod, your window into the world of advertising technology and the people behind it. I'm your host, Ad Tech God. Welcome to the AdTech God Pod where we speak with the women who drive the strategy in digital advertising. Today I'm joined by Adina Kalimperovich, the SVP Retail Growth at Epsilon. Adina has worked at Publicis, Aquent Mindshare and Starcom, managing accounts like Kimberly Clark and Proctor and Gamble. Her background in strategy and media spans across retail travel and many, many other verticals. Adina came highly recommended from a mutual friend, so I really couldn't be happier to have her here. Adina, thank you again for for being on the podcast.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk today.
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Ad Tech God
Same here. And, and thank you for the chat the other day. I really, I really enjoyed just getting to know you overall. So thanks for taking some time out.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah, absolutely.
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Ad Tech God
So Idina, you come from a different background than most of my guests. I usually work with or chat with a lot of ad tech people, people working at various ad tech companies. A Few publishers. You really come from, you know, an agency background. And now working at Epsilon. Can you tell me how you got into the advertising industry, how you got into the space and what brought you to, you know, being an SVP of retail growth at Epsilon?
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Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah, absolutely. So let's start with, I think my impetus into, into advertising. So you know, I'm, I'm first generation American, raised in, in Chicago. My, my parents are from Eastern Europe. When they came here, they said, you know, we want to give you opportunity, but well, we don't, we don't really know how else to guide you. And so, you know, I was very creative and you know, loved writing. And in college I loved philosophy and I loved questions and I was very curious. In fact, you know, my philosophy teacher said I should major in philosophy, but my parents would have killed me if, if I did that. And so I knew that, I knew that I had to major in something that was business because I loved the idea of like helping, solving problems, asking questions. So medicine wasn't for me. Although I have the handwriting of a doctor, I don't have the brains of a doctor. Wasn't somebody who was like, you know, completely only numbers oriented like so finance and accounting. And so I landed on marketing and I thought that to me was, you know, the convergence of business which I was interested in in terms of like, you know, how do you grow something, how do you take something to market and then the creativity piece. And so I majored in marketing, you know, landed at, at Starcom. Really, really loved the opportunity from an advertising standpoint in terms of being able to touch and experience different clients. And I loved the idea of being able to think about, you know, again, the psychology of how do you influence and talk to people and create an experience for people on behalf of a brand and so doing that, you know, across different brands on P and G and then also being able to do that. I led the adult primary care business at Mindshare. That was just something that I loved from the advertising side. But what was missing for me was the outcome piece. I needed to know that I was making an impact. And so, you know, when you get started in your career and you realize what is important to you. And I realize that being able to have purpose, being able to understand the psychology, the human aspect of advertising, but also create impact, you know, the business part of it, that was important to me and I needed to take time to figure out how to do that, where that was. So I actually stepped away from advertising blasphemy. You, you need to I think step away. Like, you know, it's good for you though. Sometimes distance makes the heart grow fonder. Because here's the thing. Like, like I, I can't do, I mean you could, but I can't just do anything. I didn't want to just do anything. Like usually when you're in advertising you're either stay on the agency side or you go on the sales side. That's usually what happens. Right. Or you go on the client side.
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Ad Tech God
Right.
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Adina Kalimperovich
And you know, the client side, you know, I thought was interesting but again I loved the idea of diversity. The sales side. I can't just sell anything. I needed something that was important to me. I wasn't somebody who was like at that time programmatic was coming out and it was kind of this like black box. It was about trading. You know, the only outcome channel really was search. Search was the farthest thing from human aspect there was. And so I was like, I need to step away. And so what I actually did is I went to go help Fortune 500 companies build out other sides of their business, the UX UI content side of their business. And that was kind of the aquent part where I helped from a staffing standpoint and learned a whole new side of retail. And I did that for three years. And it was really, really beneficial to really round me out as like somebody who I think understood or could help and better understand clients from a holistic standpoint, not just from a media standpoint. But at that time I realized I really missed advertising, I missed marketing, I missed solving those problems. And so I came across a company at that time called Conversant. And Conversant, you know, was all about one to one personalization. And I was like, I got to figure out and understand what this is. And so I applied, I went in and they were like, yep, we are all about connecting brands with people and driving one to one personalization and also driving outcomes. And so they, you know, the platform was end to end. It was, you know, being able to, you know, have a vast network of individuals in a privacy safe manner. Being able to develop and create really beautiful creative on behalf of brands, being able to deliver relevant messaging at the right time, the right place and then being able to deliver results and then do all this really great analytics and insights that you could like, you know, create and understand business, create business questions and really help clients do all of these things. And I was like, I have to work here. And so that's how you know, I went from you know, the advertising side to the Ad tech side and then, you know, converse, it became Epsilon. Epsilon, you know, became Data Tech and Digital. Epsilon became acquired by Publicis. Publicis is where I used to work when I was at Starbucks.
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Ad Tech God
I noticed that. I'm like, wait, did she boomerang or was she just there during the. And then is Conversant still independent? Like meaning. Yeah, it's part of publicity or did it completely roll under Epsilon?
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Adina Kalimperovich
It's. It's so conversant. I mean the name changed, but it's Epsilon Digital now. So Conversant became Epsilon Digital and Epsilon is now owned by. So it's full circle for me in terms of going back to the agency side, but just now on the ad tech martech side. And now it's like the best of both worlds where I oversee the apparel vertical across all of our apparel clients. Really looking at helping them with data, our technology and our digital offerings, you know, all tied to really helping them get closer to their customer and driving those results.
- [09:32]
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Ad Tech God
It's funny, it's all those things that you just mentioned are all the things that, you know, other agencies are trying to lean into now. But like Publicis was definitely ahead of the curve a little in 2019. Agencies weren't getting into that. I think that has a lot to do with the success that the agency has seen in comparison to some others. How do you feel your clients have adapted to bringing this type of identity and data availability to them compared to where it was when maybe you first started? I think it was what, six years ago? I mean, it was probably a totally different conversation in 2015 compared to where it is today.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah, it's definitely a different conversation. I think now it's the anchor strategy for many, many of our clients. I think that that's the exciting part of what's new and what's a staple is that we have and are enabling our clients to have their customer truly be the center of their strategy. And that's something that they're excited about, that's something that they're leveraging and not having to sacrifice anything for it and being able to drive and really, you know, do that with business results. So I'd say that, you know, it's. It's. It's advanced, it's expanding, and it's something that. That is resonating and that they're seeing that there's a lot of value in, especially in, you know, I would say, a very. A very noisy market where it's like you have to separate, like, the signal from the noise because, you know, there's like, so much newness coming out and there's a lot of distraction. It's like back to basics of, like, there's so much technology and for so many things that you can do and there are so many things that you can buy, I think that it can be easy to forget what is the most important thing. And the most important thing is, is your customer. And so it's like, how many degrees separated are you from your customer? And so how do you get closer to them? And how do you make sure that you can do that across all of the paid, owned, and earned channels? And make sure that that's orchestrated in a way where you've got a really close, really relevant, really personalized relationship that benefits the customer and then also drives your business?
- [12:39]
Ad Tech God
Well, I mean, you. You touch up on something like the. The personalization is. Is huge. Everybody wants more personalized ads and better campaigns that resonate with your audience. But the loyalty piece is also really important. And understanding that loyalty and utilizing that loyalty, if you want to call it loyalty data, is really important because they're, you know, they're a completely different audience than someone new that you're trying to bring in and capture. And so being able to deliver the right type of ads to people who are already loyal, I'm sure is super valuable to the brands that you work with.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, knowing who you are talking to is the number one most critical thing. Right? And understanding that loyalty is not just a program that you run, that it's a mindset, and that it's an approach. It's a way of. Of thinking, and it's a way in which you engage with your existing customers, and it's a way in which you're going to treat and engage with your new customers that come in is critical. It's absolutely critical. Again, there's just, we have so much choice. I mean, we're all consumers of, of something, right? And we have so much choice and we have so many more options of where we want to buy and why we want to choose the brands that we ch. Choose. And it is going to be those that understand us the most, those that are the most relevant, those that show up for us in the right way, in the right time, are the ones that are gonna, you know, win not only our, our wallets, but our, you know, our, our hearts and our minds.
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Ad Tech God
It's also, I would think, very important to also measure against all that, which is why I, I like the idea of, you know, epsilon being a part of a greater agency. Like the, the measurement aspect across all of digital advertising is sometimes very complicated. So being able to measure the increase in sales or understanding what the difference is between their online or brick and mortar purchases and being able to loop that all back and understand that, you know, these are online shoppers, but within a store or they're in store primarily and sometimes they buy online. I'm assuming all of that is information that you can utilize to have a better experience for everybody.
- [15:07]
Adina Kalimperovich
That is absolutely a critical component. You know, I always say to clients that I talk to, you know, the, the two most important things are like the bookends. So it's like, it's the identity, it's understanding who, who you're talking to. And you know, of course, the, the, the pieces in the middle in terms of the personalization and all of those things. But then it's the measurement, it' to understand what is the outcome. And that has become very fragmented and very hard to do. And one of the things that I highly value in terms of what we can do on the epsilon side is closed loop measurement, which is very difficult because, as you know, the digital landscape to your point is very fragmented. And so being able to track and understand a whole individual across the open Internet message them. Right. Being able to deliver personalized messaging across a variety of devices and then being able to, once they can, you know, influence a conversion and then being able to track that not only if it's online, but if it's offline, is pretty impressive. And that is what, what we're able to do for clients, especially in the retail space, it's huge. So being able to show clients offline and online conversions that not only we can show them from a closed loop standpoint, but that they can validate is impressive and is, I think, invaluable. For clients in a day and age where measurement has, I'd say, become kind of like, it's become a challenge, and I'd say has become kind of like a good enough approach where it's like, some of it I can see, which is good. Like, maybe 40% of it I can see and I can say is real. And then maybe 60% of it is like, approximate. And you know, my, my big thing is like, again, when I talk about being somebody who wants to drive outcomes for clients and who wants to, you know, who, who looks at their money like my own money, you would never go to the bank and, and find it acceptable that, you know, somebody would tell you, your, you know, your financial advisor would tell you that, you know, 40% of what you've invested is real. But 60% of it sounds like crypto to me. Right. Like you're not going to accept that. And I don't. And I always tell clients, like, I don't think you should accept that from a measurement standpoint either, because it's your money and you should, you should know what happened to all, all of it.
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Ad Tech God
I mean, just on the crypto topic, not that I am in any way an expert on crypto, but I have no idea what's going on. And I've stayed so far from it because people are like, I bought 4,000. Now it's too, oh, my gosh, I double, tripled, quad. I'm like, I don't even understand how this works. Yeah. And I am not giving anyone my money if I, if I don't know what the heck's going on with it. Like, I don't know what this wallet thing is, but, like, the key. I'm going to lose and I'm going to lose my money.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Exactly.
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Ad Tech God
You know, elsewhere. It's easy to get from where you sit and from, from the clients that you deal with, from the internal teams that you, you, you know, have conversations with on a regular basis. Where do you think things are heading? Like, what is, you know, retail is obviously a core focus, considering it's in your title, but where do you think things are heading as it relates to retail media or even commerce media? What's your perspective on it all?
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Adina Kalimperovich
I mean, I think retail media is the new emerging opportunity. I think brands that can grow in that space. I think it's going to be fantastic as long as you've got the right partner in the right place. I think measurement is going to be, again, a big piece of that, of being able to make sure that, that you're Going to be able to again have the right scale and effective measurement and that there isn't waste because it can be a cluttered market. Right. I think that what I'm excited about and what I see at a lot of eagerness from clients is this lean into, back into their customer and wanting to do more customer based focus and wanting to figure out and lean into business outcomes and leaning away from what I'd say are traditional media KPIs and so wanting to get back to those basics and understanding what they can do and how they can maximize their first party data to do that and understanding that they're going to need to do that because it is so competitive. You know, when you think about, you know, the current economic state. Right. There's a lot of volatility, there is a lot going on as it relates to, you know, tariffs. Are they in, are they out? And I think that, you know, customers again have a lot of choice. And so retailers are realizing that in order to create that loyalty and to be that choice, you have to be relevant. And in order to be relevant, you have to know individuals and you have to approach it the right way. You can't spray and pray and you have to be intentional and you have to be personal about it.
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Ad Tech God
One of the biggest things that I think is always interesting is, you know, during, during an economic boom or during a recession or during times of challenge like whatever that scenario is, especially when it's in at an economic level and not a individual personal level. Like the consumer habits change so much, the purchasing habits change, the disposable income at times disappears, the necessities become a priority. They say chocolate and cigarettes go up in a recession because people are stressed out. So they're finding, you know, that vice of theirs and kind of leaning into that. I'm curious to see how things transpire and how things change with so much like economic things going on, whether it's wars, involvement in wars, not involved, oil prices, inflation. I would love to be able to see just how that impacts people's consumer habits and to see like how does that change an individual? That today may go by I don't know Lululemon, but tomorrow decides, I'm not buying Lululemon because I'm not paying $68 for a T shirt. I'm just going to go buy a Hanes cotton T shirt because it does the same thing. So I would love to see that type of data, especially over the last, you know, year or so that, that so much change has happened.
- [21:33]
Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah. And I think that those are the, those are the macro trends, right that retailers are going to have to weather because you're going to have individuals that are going to make those shifts but then you are going to have people who are brand loyalists no matter what. And that's where it's really important that when you, that you leverage individual level knowledge and that identity based targeting so that you can make sure that you are connected to them, so that you don't lose them, so that you retain that loyalty, you're going to have people that you know could make those changes. But that's where you know, you want to make sure you don't, you don't turn your back on those that, that do. Right. You don't stop advertising but you want to make sure that you stay relevant and that you can be agile in who you're, in who you're reaching and that's where being able to leverage you know, predictive AI you know, being able to understand real time signals again of like who are those individuals that you need to then shift to reach, you know, if certain folks are, are not interested and others are and how you kind of stay afloat.
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Ad Tech God
You know just general question for you Adina is you know we talked about loyalty and the importance of loyalty for the brands that you manage. Just curious, is there a brand that you are personally loyal to that you love that you're like I don't care if today I'm making a million and Tomorrow I'm making $1. I will always buy this brand. And I'm curious as to why you would be loyal to it and what about that brand as you going back for more?
- [23:08]
Adina Kalimperovich
I love this question. So number one, I am a shopaholic. My, I think I support our, my wife. Yeah I support the economy through thick and thin. So I'm definitely, I'm definitely one of those people. And you know my, my husband carrying the boxes up to our place is, he can attest to that. So definitely my number one brand that I love is Anthropologie. I love their in store experience. I love their, you know, got their app. You know, I'm, you know we're all very choiceful in terms of our, our mobile, our app space. Right. Why I love them, I love their assortment. I mean they just, they, they hit it spot on in terms of their, their merchandise. Like I'll even walk home from work and you know, if I'm having a bad day or not a great day, I'll just walk in because it smells great and it looks great. And it picks me up. And so, you know, the experience of walking in there picks me up. And so, yeah, I love anthropology. I love them so much. Fun fact, I, I worked from, in Covid. I worked from Montenegro, which is in Eastern Europe. It's right under Croatia. Some people don't know where it is. And my husband would go back and forth from Chicago to here. I would order anthropology habit delivered to our home in Chicago and he would bring it overseas.
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Ad Tech God
That is, that's commitment, that's loyalty.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Yeah, yeah. He also brought over a like 20 pound cheese board.
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Ad Tech God
It's funny because so I do like, I mean, I don't shop at anthropology, but I do like the way it looks. And there's a, there's one near my house where they have like a living room sitting area and usually that becomes where I sit. And I was sitting there looking at the furniture and like the decor and I'm like, God, this place is so relaxing. Like you can take your time looking at the clothes, but they've done a fantastic job with their in store experience. Like top notch for sure.
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Adina Kalimperovich
And that's hard now with the, you know, with the, you know, a lot of stores have kind of lost that appeal, especially with like the shift to Online and D2C. And so it's really, you know, I think they're unique in that space and being able to preserve that experience and for people to want to go in. So kudos to them.
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Ad Tech God
Idina, thank you so much for your time and thank you for taking this call at the time that you are in right now. So I appreciate it and, and thank you again for being my guest.
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Adina Kalimperovich
Thank you. This was wonderful. Thanks for having me.
- [25:41]
Ad Tech God
Of course. Anytime. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the AdTech Godpod, a podcast for the people about the people. Stay connected with me for more insights, trends and interviews in the realm of ad tech. Don't miss out on the latest updates. So follow me on X Instagram and connect with me on on LinkedIn. Don't forget ATG Slack community has insights, networking opportunities and jobs. Keep the conversation going and stay at the forefront of ad tech innovation.