The path of success: from intern to agency CEO — an interview with Oleksii Mamontov - blog Cases, Traffic, Sales

Hello!

My name is Serhii Soloviov. I am the CEO of Solve Marketing agency. Today I’m going to talk to Oleksii Mamontov, CEO of the digital marketing agency Inweb.

What we will discuss:

focus services of Inweb;
what the future holds for Ukraine in the coming year and how it will affect the field of online marketing;
tips for a new entrepreneur who wants to open a new online store;
and other interesting topics.

— Oleksii, I’m happy to invite you to our interview. Today we are going to talk about you, the Inweb agency, and other things.

Imagine that you have just met a potential client. What would you tell them and what would you emphasize?

— I’m used to being judged by my actions, not my words. But I would have answered anyway: “We are a team of real digital experts and if you start working with us, you will understand everything!”

We are not set up to sell quickly. We really get high when we fulfill the KPIs for projects and see a positive result of our work.

In general, our goal is to make the agency’s clients leaders in their markets. Our team has been doing this for 11 years. If you start working with us, you will get a reliable partner who invests all his expertise to maximize the growth of your company’s performance.

— Cool! This is the right position: fewer words — more action.

— Yes, this is my credo. Everyone knows that I’m the kind of person who doesn’t say too much.

— Could you please tell us how your journey in online marketing began? How did it all start?

— This is an unusual story:)

For many years I was engaged in exporting raw materials from Ukraine to China. After 6 years, I realized that I was burnt out both professionally and emotionally. I felt that I no longer enjoyed my job and quit.

It took months of self-search and then I tried to do analytics and creative work for the first time. I realized that everything was moving towards digital marketing, so I chose this field. Then I started looking for some courses. I was going to pay for them, but I found an internship at Inweb and started studying from scratch. My journey began with a job as a PPC specialist, i.e. setting up contextual advertising.

Then I worked for other companies, but later I returned to Inweb as the head of the contextual advertising department, and only then I became the company’s CEO.

— This is a cool success story — from virtually zero experience to CEO within the same company. How long did it take you to do it?

— I joined Inweb, I think, in March 2017. That’s 5 years ago.

— What is Inweb’s current focus service or what does the company do best?

— We are very good at SEO and PPC promotion, that is, everything related to organic promotion and paid traffic. However, the cases on our website, the clients we work with, and their feedback will tell you about this better than my words.

The path of success: from intern to agency CEO — an interview with Oleksii Mamontov

Inweb employs about 50 specialists, has 160 projects in progress, and has a lot of expertise: 50% SEO and 50% PPC. We work with different niches: e-commerce, B2B, and B2C. Each of our employees is a specialist in a particular area. In general, we try to form a team for a specific project and approach each client individually.

— And if the client has just come, he is interested in everything, but he wants to start with one thing. Can you offer them both SEO and contextual advertising?

— First, we look at the website, because SEO can be either a one-time service or an ongoing process. If a client wants to get results as soon as possible and their website is okay, we can start with contextual advertising. And then they will get the result in a few weeks. After that, we will be able to collect statistics and draw some specific conclusions. And if there is profitability, then we can add new services.

But if the website is not ready and we see that some optimization is needed first, we will sell a one-time SEO website preparation service and only then connect contextual advertising.

In general, it is better to do both. Of course, when a client comes to us, they have a limited budget and cannot allocate funds for two services at once. But we warn that in our experience, everything works better in combination. Contextual advertising will work better if the site has cool content. Therefore, users who get there through paid traffic will stay because they will find useful information on the site.

— When I worked at Netpeak, they had the same general idea and strategy, and I actually support it. By the way, Inweb is part of a group of companies that also includes Netpeak. How do you think the two companies differ?

— I haven’t worked for the company since its inception, but I know that historically, Inweb was built like a mini-Netpeak, as the latter was growing rapidly: there were more clients, especially large and medium-sized businesses. Then the question arose who would work with small and medium-sized projects. This was one of the main goals of creating Inweb.

Now there is no such thing, and I am very happy about that, because I would not be able to work in a company with such a positioning. We currently work with both medium and large businesses. There are many market leaders among our clients. Sometimes we even compete with Netpeak in a friendly format.

What is the difference then? Netpeak is still a large-scale brand. Inweb, on the other hand, is a more flexible family-type company. But this flexibility allows us to easily adapt to any changes in the market. Because the larger the company, the more employees — 300-500 people — the harder it is to make drastic changes. In particular, because all the processes are clearly set up and regulated.

We currently employ about 70 people. This gives us the ability to quickly abandon, change or improve something.

— Please tell us what has changed in the company’s operations since the start of the full-scale war?

— We stopped working with Russian clients and services. Our approach to planning has also changed. We used to plan for 1-3 years ahead, now we plan for 1-3 months at most. Since we are now living in a situation where there is no certainty and chaos reigns, with many external factors affecting each of us, our work processes have also changed. Someone went abroad, someone misses their family, someone lives with sirens all the time, each of us has friends and relatives who are now at the front — all these are things we worry about every day. That’s why the focus has shifted from work processes to the personal. I believe that company executives should take this influence into account.

— You’ve touched on the topic of general motivation. In your case, what does the company’s CEO do besides motivation and psychological support?

— I’m a young CEO who doesn’t claim to have any super fundamental truths. I once liked the definition that a CEO is a person who is responsible for everything. For me, a leader is not some authoritative figure who tells everyone what to do. A CEO is an integrator of the team, because everything the company achieves is the merit of the team and the top manager.

The CEO’s task is to look for resources and create the conditions for specialists and managers to move forward, to feel comfortable working and not to be hindered by anything. The CEO should also quickly notice opportunities and be sure to use them.

— How do you balance problem-solving and performance improvement tasks?

— Of course, I would like to say that it is 50/50, but it is not a linear process. It happens that, for example, you have to solve some problems for a week because of the current circumstances. And sometimes you spend more than 50% of your working time optimizing the company’s processes. In this case, it’s up to the managers to solve the problems, and I, as the CEO, can provide advisory support.

— You give the impression of an attentive and caring CEO who monitors the comfort of employees and helps them. Are these general signs of corporate culture? Please describe them.

— First, it is such simple human qualities as honesty, transparency and respect for each other. These are the things we love, cultivate and can only work with such people. These values apply to both employees and clients. Systematic and structured approach is also important to us, as it helps us save time and work efficiently.

— What questions do you ask during interviews? Do you participate in them at all?

— Yes, of course, I did and still do.

Actually, I like to talk, to ask about the results that a person has achieved. I’m especially not a fan of water, so I always ask again until I hear specifics about whether the person has really achieved something.

I also like to analyze the facts with a person, so it gives me an understanding of how they distribute responsibility for a particular anti-case and what conclusions they draw. Of course, everyone makes mistakes, and in general, I believe that an expert is a person who has faced all possible fuckups that can be listed. The key is to draw the right conclusions from each situation. This demonstrates the essence of a person in a cool way.

In addition, I ask to see some examples of work: tables, terms of reference, or presentations. This also shows well how a person can structure and present information. In the future, this saves time for both me and the top manager, because we immediately understand what the employee wanted and what result he or she expected.

— So, if I were to give a piece of advice to people who come to you, it would be to prepare a well-formed document, write out your facts and prepare a case with a clear definition of your own contribution and the results achieved. Right?

— Yes, but be prepared for me to dig into the details. It will not work to draw results — it will be worse than doing nothing.

— Tell me, please, what would you like to learn yourself?

— Learning is very cool. I’ve been learning all my life, and I perceive the slightest stop as degradation. I support the same idea in the team of both top management and specialists.

Speaking about something global, I would like to learn how to relax, because I love my job and the company, I don’t spend much time on vacation. I would like to travel more, but this is after the war.

— I would also like to learn how to relax. If you find any courses, please share your contact information and I will sign up too.

— Agreed:)

— Could you please tell us what the future holds for Ukraine in the coming year and how it will affect the Internet marketing industry?

— A good and difficult question. I have already said that we do not plan for such a long term in the company at the moment. We plan for about 1-3 months. It is important to understand that the year will be difficult and the Internet marketing sphere will also feel it.

It will be difficult, but it is important not to stop, to develop, to notice opportunities and to make the most of them. This is our general position.

In general, if there is a certain recession in the economy, it will affect all areas, including the budgets that businesses can allocate for marketing. But this doesn’t mean that we should give up and do nothing. Of course, new opportunities will arise. They need to be noticed and developed. It may be some kind of service transformation. For example, if there was one big service with a big check, you can spin it off into another one with a lower cost. Or create more niche services for businesses that are stabilizing and growing during the war.

— Each agency has its own type of favorite client. That is, they are not only liked by the team, but also have personal qualities for the manager that give them more opportunities to achieve results. How would you describe such a client based on your own experience?

— I have a great experience of working with a company that we have been cooperating with for 4 years and is a market leader. We got along well with the client because he is a systematic person who clearly understands his goals and works with us on the same wavelength.

He clearly understood what he wanted and how marketing tools could solve it and give the expected result. At the beginning of our cooperation, we had frequent calls with the client, but with each passing week and month, there were fewer and fewer of them. Because we demonstrated the result in the language of numbers, it made the cooperation transparent and understandable.

This is probably our ideal client. Because most often, difficulties arise when a client does not understand what they want, what should be point A and point B. Let’s say they claim: “I want sales”. And here a lot of questions arise:

what kind of sales should be;
how many sales there are now;
what traffic sources are currently being used;
what specific results should be achieved.

Often, the answers to these questions become abstract, because the manager has no experience in digital marketing to clearly define KPIs, or he employs unqualified marketers.

The last problem is the pain in the labor market. A person may have an education or experience in marketing, but they have little or no understanding of digital. Yes, this employee may know how to rent billboards or how to order TV ads, but he or she does not know how algorithms work.

Changes in digital marketing occur almost every month, so you need to be constantly in this information flow, especially if you run an agency. Because when an unqualified person tries to manage without understanding the specifics and principles of online marketing, it’s a big problem.

— So, to summarize, it turns out that an ideal client is a rather demanding person?

— Not that they are demanding. Our ideal client is a person who clearly understands what they need and what result they want to get from the agency’s work or a certain service, i.e. they have clearly defined goals.

I would even say that there are two portraits. The first is the one you are talking about. The second is a person who can entrust the work of a digital agency and perceives it as a business partner, to whom they fully delegate the sphere and we work there as we feel comfortable. That is, an ideal client is convinced of our expertise and trusts us. This is possible even after only one, two or three months.

— For example, yesterday I had negotiations with a client about guarantees in the contract. He did not demand clear results, because he understands that they are difficult to determine, but he wanted to prescribe responsibility for certain violations, cost overruns, or other cases that lead to unexpected consequences. How do you deal with this? How do you handle such situations in negotiations?

— The problem here is that there are many factors that we can and cannot influence. For example, if we take on the function of SEO or contextual advertising, it means that we take responsibility for how the website works or how the client’s managers work.

If we can clearly divide this with the client, we are ready to fix these risks in the contract. In general, this rarely happens, and this situation occurs because clients simply want to insure themselves without understanding all the details, and there are many risks for the agency.

We may not specify anything in the contract, but if it is really our fault, we are ready to compensate without any guarantees. Because it is a reputation. And this is much more important than any wording in the contract.

To be honest, I don’t like such questions because it seems that they don’t trust you in advance and want to pin something on you.

— I fully support you here and can sign every word. In general, people have invented contracts to resolve conflicts, not just for the sake of formality.

But if we go back to the positive, please remember a situation when a client sincerely thanked the company. Maybe even you personally for something they didn’t expect, some result they managed to achieve.

— I get very excited when I am asked to suspend advertising because employees do not have time to process orders, they need to hire new employees or rent another warehouse to deliver products. At such moments, you realize that your joint work with the client scales their business. This way, both you and the client feel good — you are developing together and this is exactly what brings pleasure.

— In this case, it is a kind of product niche. Are there any areas where Inweb feels best, where it has the most expertise and experience?

— Actually, about 70% of our clients are online stores, i.e. e-commerce. It’s easier for us to work with them because they have a clearer economy and a shorter path to purchase. Because if it is a service or B2B segment, the client does not make a decision right away. It is not the fact that we attracted a lead that matters, but how we closed it. And this is another area that we cannot influence.

In e-commerce, everything is immediately clear: when a product is added to the cart, when you see the income that the business receives every day, which products sell better, it is an opportunity to optimize every day. E-commerce is probably the most comfortable area we work with when it comes to paid traffic.

We also have extensive expertise in the service sector. For example, we have worked a lot with medicine, as there are experienced professionals working there, including content specialists.

— What three pieces of advice would you give to a new entrepreneur who wants to open a new online store?

— This is a very cool question, because I have had such cases where, after talking to me, they didn’t want to open an online store. This is because such questions usually came from people who thought it was very simple. They reasoned as follows: “I’ll make a website, run ads, buy a product for 10 UAH and sell it for 15 UAH, and everything will be great”.

Then I say that it is important to work out a business plan and margin economics, analyze competitors, form a unique selling proposition, create a competitive website that will have high-quality images, reviews, work quickly, etc.

And when we talk like this for 30-40 minutes, they leave to think and don’t come back.

— And if they already have a store, and it’s a pretty good one, filled with assortment and product cards. And then the client launched advertising, but nothing happened. What 3 basic tips would you recommend?

— First, you need to do an audit, because a lot of things can affect it. When I was both a contextual advertising specialist and a department head, I did hundreds of audits and there were no such universal tips.

But I can still recommend setting up analytics properly, because in more than 50% of cases, it was set up incorrectly, so the data was incorrect, and it was impossible to do high-quality analysis and optimization.

Therefore, you need to check the analytics settings, whether everything is tracked, monitor what the client is doing on the site, and see at what stage the bounce occurs. Because it is possible that the shopping cart does not work well on mobile devices and then we can see that a person could not place an order.

You need to check the entire path that the user goes through, from the moment they have a need to purchase. During these stages, the customer will also open competitors’ websites and compare them, including how easy it is to navigate. Therefore, it is important to check this from both a desktop and a mobile device.

— For more than 10 years, there has been a trend of increasing mobile traffic relative to desktop traffic. Do you feel it now and what exactly do you offer your clients to take it into account?

— It seems to me that everyone is using mobile devices now. We used to give advice on how to optimize a website for mobile devices so that everything would work quickly and have a convenient UI/UX. Now we put less emphasis on it because everyone understands it anyway. In general, it seems to me that a few years ago, the moment came when everyone realized that it was impossible to be competitive without mobile devices and without optimizing for them.

— You gave advice to check how the analytics are set up. Does Inweb have such a service for auditing web analytics and customization? How does it work for a client?

— Yes, there is such a service. On the website, we have information about the work plan, the analytics department, the head and specialists, as well as information about our expertise. According to the plan, we either check everything or set it up from scratch.

— What general advice would you give to businesses in Ukraine?

— I would advise them not to stop and not to give up. In these difficult times, some people have left the market altogether, but you should understand that it will be even harder to come back. Therefore, be sure to find some other options, do not lose opportunities and hope for the best.