In our new column, from time to time we will host leading people in the digital industry and ask them to answer both professional and personal questions. The goal of this column is to give a stage and a spotlight to leaders in the digital community so they can share their knowledge and experience with others.
Last time we hosted Yan Yanko, click here to read his answers to the questions.
This time on the A-List – Etgar Shpivak!
How did you start your career?
My father had a website in the computing field, and after being discharged from the army in 2002, they happened to need a business development manager. I joined for two months just to help out, and ended up staying for two years in the role, learning the market and falling in love with the world of marketing.
After my post-army trip, I started working at the Tapuz website, which was the largest community site in Israel. The sales manager who hired me was Yaron Acher, currently the VP of Digital at HOT and the person who became my co-author for the book “Marketing in the Digital Era“.
With Yaron Acher, my first boss in the industry and co-author of the book “Marketing in the Digital Era”
Tell us about your current role
Currently, I manage operations at Fixel, a startup I co-founded, which was acquired by the American company Logiq. As part of my role, I have the privilege of leading an amazing team of development and product professionals working on optimization solutions for advertisers.
Recently, we launched our service applications for leading platforms like Shopify and WordPress, and upgraded our product to make life easier for clients. For example – we added automatic audience syncing inside Facebook and smoother integration with Google Ads.
What do you love most about what you do?
I have the privilege of working with a wide range of advertisers, from medium-sized clients to US giants like AutoTrader, the largest automotive site in the US, Purple, the largest mattress site in the US, and Globo, the largest media group in South America.
The very collaboration with decision-makers in these companies enriches both sides. It might sound a bit provincial, but knowing that here in Israel—where the perception used to be “they know how to make great products, but marketing has to be in the US”—we assist some of the world’s biggest companies with marketing brings me immense pride.
Even after transitioning to operate under an American company, the thought that a solution I built together with Hadar Shpivak (my brother) and Elad Levi creates real value even against the latest solutions from Google, Facebook, and others—excites and fulfills me on levels that are hard to describe.
What are your challenges in your current role?
I think we are in a crazy period with a huge amount of changes toward privacy—a combination of regulatory changes, changes in advertising platforms, in browsers, and in consumer perceptions of the subject.
The situation is that advertisers and tech companies (like Fixel) need to prepare for changes, understand what they mean for them, and how their technology will be affected, all while information about the changes themselves is partial and constantly shifting. This situation creates industry-wide challenges the likes of which I don’t think we’ve seen in the past twenty years.
The challenging part is how to turn lemons into lemonade: How do we help clients navigate a changing reality? How do we leverage the changes to build a reputation for Thought Leadership?
Which main platforms do you recommend using?
Mainly the platforms that work best for them at large scale. There will always be tools, media channels, or methods that can deliver amazing results, but their scope will be small. Advertisers need to find the channels that manage to give them the ability to scale exposure and sales, and invest the bulk of their resources in them.
Does that mean everyone must run to Facebook or Google? No. It means advertisers need to understand what solutions work best for them within their budget and invest the majority of their resources there.
What do you think is the next big thing in digital marketing?
The “next” thing is that people will stop using the term “digital marketing” and simply understand that first and foremost, you need to do marketing. The fact that advertisers use Facebook or Google doesn’t mean you can “skip” the “old-fashioned” marketing processes. What is the best strategy for us? What is the core insight? Who is the audience? What value do we provide to customers? Why should they choose us?
“Digital marketing” that doesn’t come with structured thinking behind it is simply bad marketing. It doesn’t matter whether the outcome of the marketing initiative is a print ad, a Facebook ad, a TikTok video, a TV commercial, or a YouTube video.
What marketing initiative have you done that caused you to lose sleep for a few nights?
I think almost every big campaign I launch costs me a few sleepless nights. If we take a specific client, when we went live at Fixel with AutoTrader—which was our first large US enterprise client—I used to get reports from their system on a daily basis. I would find myself anxiously waiting for the email with their daily report just to check that we were meeting the targets the client set for us, biting my nails non-stop.
Tell us about a marketing / advertising campaign you are proud of?
I think working with Ono Academic College, whose VP of Marketing, Yishai-Katz Sheinfeld, gave me the opportunity to work with him in 2011, is definitely a long-term move that succeeded in generating excellent results.
In a very undifferentiated market, Ono Academic College positioned itself with messaging around “the best lecturers in Israel,” which of course was backed up by truly excellent lecturers. This branding not only created differentiation in a tough market, but also made it possible to launch new degrees and tracks and leverage the reputation of the top lecturers. The actual result is that today Ono Academic College is the largest private college in Israel and one of the best in the country.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in the digital world?
A. Go learn. If this world interests you – figure out exactly what within it interests you, where your strengths can come to fruition, and what you think would be most interesting to do every day in the coming years.
Take short courses of 5 to 20 hours in a wide range of fields. Social media, paid advertising on Facebook, Google Ads, LinkedIn, analytics, SEO, UX, automation, Excel, how to craft a message, how a product works, and other various fields that are constantly changing. After you learn a number of topics, it will be easier to choose a specific field and then invest much more time in it and gain hands-on experience.
If you choose an academic degree in the field, you’ll likely get much more out of it after studying this because you’ll have a very solid foundation. As a lecturer, I saw students who arrived with a bit of experience, and their ability to learn and truly understand the things I taught was higher. I later saw those same students succeeding in their roles at higher rates than those who arrived with no experience at all.
B. Don’t be afraid of code. Learn the basics of websites (HTML and CSS), a bit of API, a bit of Javascript, how client-side works, and how server-side works. It won’t make you programmers, but in a digital world, those who want to work in fields like PPC, analytics, SEO, UX, and don’t even try to understand how internet infrastructure works (like the Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics implementation) – won’t get far.
C. Learn marketing. Learn how consumers think, what strategy is, what positioning is, and how historical “curses” like the 4 P’s relate to what you do today.
D. In your first job – salary isn’t everything. Your first job in the industry will probably make you fall in love with it, with the feeling of victory after a good campaign, with the continuous learning process.
A place where you can develop and learn, where you can take responsibility for additional topics and professionalize in them, will increase your market value much more than another few hundred shekels in your paycheck.
E. When you start – remember that you are the product. The market is full of jobs and everyone wants “someone with 1-2 years of experience.” Think of yourself as the product, market yourself, and show potential employers that you know how to reach the right audience with the right message on the right channel. They will snap you up.
F. Learn English and learn to self-teach. Today this is true for every field, and whoever isn’t there – won’t be able to advance.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
The reality built for us “courtesy of” social media frames everyone as successful and amazing. The truth is that even those with the biggest and most positive stories don’t always succeed. The inspiration I draw doesn’t necessarily come from “results” like an exit or a very successful campaign. The inspiration I draw comes from the process, from a way of thinking.
I try to look around me and know how to take a little from everyone. I draw inspiration from my wife and children, and I draw inspiration from colleagues.
Specifically, the mentors who worked with us when we were in the Techstars program in Atlanta were a huge source of inspiration. They were people who chose us and we chose them, each having built something enormous in their career—whether companies acquired by industry giants, one of the world’s largest ad agencies, or a company about to become a “unicorn.” Our focus was not just on the bottom line, but on talking directly about the journey, the challenges they faced, the difficulties, and how they dealt with them.
Hadar Shpivak, Etgar Shpivak, and Elad Levi as part of the Techstars program in Atlanta
How do you stay up-to-date with everything new in the world and in general?
Daily recap newsletters, Facebook groups, Zest, and a great deal of in-depth articles in the field.
What would you change in the industry?
If we look at the various agencies in the marketing field, I think it was conceived in sin, both on the client side and the agency side.
Digital advertising agencies affect their clients’ business results no less than other vendors, but many clients choose to see them as an “added media cost.” When clients learn to look at their marketing agencies the same way they look at their lawyers and accountants, who ultimately also provide a service, the advertising world will be able to work much better. Clients need to know how to pay a fair price for the service they receive, understanding that even if there’s no line item for “strategy services,” someone has to pay the planner.
On the agencies’ side, this means more transparency, more desire to connect to the client’s business results and not just focus on the client’s ad spend.
In an era of massive investment in audiences and customer journeys, in automation processes, and integration with complex enterprise systems – advertising agencies will have to focus their efforts on the client’s bottom line.
How would you summarize the past year?
A crazy roller coaster. Massive frustrations alongside moments of supreme happiness.
After a period of crisis - what should we take forward to maintain?
To understand that this crisis can hit anyone, at any point in time, and with no prior warning. To prepare at any given moment for extreme scenarios, build methodologies for rapid adjustments in the market and in workforce, and realize that ultimately there are things beyond our control.
Tell us something personal about yourself that most people in the industry don't know
A lot of things look effortless from the outside, but they come after a massive amount of behind-the-scenes hard work.
Before every interview, webinar, or lecture, I invest an enormous amount of prep time. Reality has taught me that whoever doesn’t come prepared messes up in the moment of truth.
I’m at the forefront most of the time, but I couldn’t have done it without a lot of good people around me.
That means I bug good friends in the industry before almost every interview or presentation I’m about to give.out to give, and that I memorize complex presentations almost by heart. (And yes—even for this interview, I got feedback from several good friends).
Joint webinar with Etgar Shpivak on advanced remarketing:
A bit about the interviewee
Etgar Shpivak, CEO & Co-founder at Fixel.
Has been active in digital marketing for over 18 years, working with Israel’s top brands and managing multi-million dollar campaigns. Lecturer at Ono Academic College and leading conferences.
Co-author of the bestseller “Marketing in the Digital Era”. Currently leads the startup Fixel, a solution that allows advertisers to easily identify which site visitors are truly interested in their products and services.
