Ernesto Cullari Podcast Transcript
Ernesto Cullari joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guests are Barbara Wardell and Ernesto Cullari. Barbara Wardell is a seasoned marketing and advertising professional who transitioned from a successful career in the specialty medicine industry to become a disruptor supporting small businesses.
Ernesto Cullari is a trailblazing ad man in the data intense field of geofencing advertising. Where he and Barbara have turned complete industries upside down each month, they drive over 5,000 satellite verified in store visits to small businesses all across the U.S., Canada and Australia.
Well, good afternoon, Barbara and Ernesto. Welcome to the show!
Barbara Wardell: Thank you for having us, Brian. We’re so excited to talk to you and have your audience hear about our geofencing.
Ernesto Cullari: Thanks for the invite, Brian. Now we’re looking forward to having a good, quick conversation.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. I appreciate you both. And I know sometimes it’s hard to make the time zones and the time and everything else and the technology work, but with three of us on a call today, it makes it just a little more challenging, but I always love the challenge, but today I’m blessed with meeting two amazing people. And I get to hear a little bit about both of you.
So, Barbara, I’m going to jump into the first question here. What inspired your transition from the specialty medicine industry to founding a geofencing ad agency? How has your background in medicine influenced your approach to marketing?
Barbara Wardell: Well, my background in medicine, I’ve been marketing forever because of the fact that, you know specialty medicines, I talk to doctors all the time about what they can do to help their patients on the pharmaceutical side.
It’s basically, I would say, you know, compounding and making specialty medicines for people that the normal on the shelf medicine does not work. So, marketing has been a part of my life for a very long time, so the transition from doing the medical industry to geofencing actually kind of went hand in hand in the sense of trying to help people succeed in their endeavors, whether it’s getting better with medicine, or you know, getting your foot traffic in the door
Brian Thomas: understood totally and medicine. I’ve got a background in health care on the tech side as well. And that’s probably the most fun in my career and the most challenging at the same time. And I love that space. So, I appreciate you sharing that, but your marketing side obviously brings a lot to the table as you shipped into the geofencing ad agency.
So. We’re going to switch gears in Ernesto. I’m going to ask you, you and Barbara have driven over 5, 000 satellite verified in store visits monthly across multiple countries. What is your secret to achieving such high engagement and how do you maintain this level of success?
Ernesto Cullari: Well, the most important part about geofencing and geofencing is the use of satellites to draw virtual offenses around areas of interest and enables us to capture devices, anonymize those devices.
So, we’re not invading people’s privacy that gives us the opportunity to send ads to those devices. And then when someone walks into one of our client’s locations. The satellite will ping us, alerting us that a new GPS verified visit has taken place. But what makes it effective and what makes our results so consistent is that we’re targeting people who have an interest in what we’re talking about.
So, if we’re, you know, if I Google on my computer, you know, Mercedes dealership or Mercedes, a certain kind of car, it doesn’t mean I’m going to buy one or, or that I’m going to have my Mercedes serviced. However, If we’re capturing a device, someone who’s already at a Mercedes accredited dealership or service center, it’s highly likely that if we’re local to them and send them an ad to come to our service center or our dealership, that they’re more likely if we offer them a proposition that is wonderful, it’s more likely that they’ll come to our location.
And the great benefit to what we do is that when they do eventually show up, the satellite pings us, alerting us that, hey. You have a new customer. So, it comes down to specificity and sending people an ad that they’re interested in only not clickbait or wasting impressions by sending ads to people who have no interest in what we’re talking about.
Brian Thomas: I really like that. I’ve been spammed my entire life with things that don’t even make sense, right? I like that you can target people that are possibly in the market or have some sort of a service to obtain. Maybe that they’re interested in, or just one of those things that again, with the targeting ads, because the cold emails and the spam and all that stuff has really gotten annoying over the years.
So, I’m glad someone’s in this space, making sense of this and connecting the right people with the right service. So, thank you Ernesto. And Barbara, what metrics do you consider most important when measuring the success of a geofencing campaign? And how do you ensure those metrics translate into tangible business results?
Barbara Wardell: Well, I have to say the success of our campaign is amazing. Thank you. Who walks into your door, and I can prove that with the satellite, its satellite verified, which is so exciting because if they did see an ad and we track them during their day or wherever they go for 90 days and they walk into your store, that’s success for us.
Because they saw the campaign and they actually walk through that door and the only way it’s verified is by satellites. So, our reporting system is directly from there and it actually tells us what ad they saw where they came from and how they walked into the door. That’s the most important metrics. We have so many, but that’s the most important.
And how do we ensure these metrics translate into tangible business results? It’s by our reporting system to show you the actual data. Because we have lots of data. And the data shows you what ad they saw, where they saw it, and when they came in. And I think that is the most tangible business results.
Brian Thomas: I really love it. The tracking mechanism. Obviously, I like the fact that you can scrub the data so that it’s, we’re not invading people’s privacy, but the fact that you can track somebody when they saw an ad where they were and where they visited all together, just makes this such a more robust business model. And people are obviously more in tune with something that they’re interested in versus some spam as we talked about.
So, thank you. And Ernesto, last question of the day, as an early adopter of automation and gaming technologies in advertising, what trends do you see shaping the future of geofencing in digital marketing?
Ernesto Cullari: Well, geofencing has always been a bit ahead of the curve. So, for example, geofencing is always cookie less.
And I think with the fact that economies fluctuate, and brands are more and more, especially when I, you know, they have to be accountable to shareholders or a small business. Like, we all run a small business. We have to be accountable to each other. Our clients. And I think location-based advertising, if you really look at the numbers, you know, what the projections are, most advertising is moving towards a more data driven, and in our case, a more location driven and location intelligence-based campaigns.
Because it wastes less money. It’s highly specific and it offers tangible measurable return on investment.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I really do like that part of it. The ROI speaks for itself, and they tell you to show me the data and it tells the story. So, I really do appreciate you both diving into some of that geofencing technology and how you’re doing all that tracking in your marketing.
So most appreciated. And Barbara and Ernesto, it’s been such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon. Thanks Brian.
Barbara Wardell: Thank you, Brian. We had a great time.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Ernesto Cullari Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
