SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Hey everyone, I'm your host, Ava Hines, and today we're getting radically candid with our account management team here at Cognition. In this episode, we're breaking down account management from what it actually is, what the client journey looks like from start to finish, and what it really takes to build the kind of trust that keeps clients coming back. We're also diving into the world of activation deals across life sports, TV, and the streaming landscape. Whether you're curious about a career in account management or just want to understand how this side of the business works, this is an episode you're not going to want to miss. Enjoy. Well, have you introduced yourself, AJ? You'll start us off. Tell us about what's your background, how long you've been at Cognition for, short name, position.

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Sure. Yeah, my name's AJ Gardner. I am an enterprise account uh manager at Cognition. I've been here about six months now. I'm coming up fast. That's crazy. Um time flies when you're having fun and learning a lot. My background started in television advertising and discovery channel in Manhattan. I worked at a programmatic shop and sales and account management for a couple of years after that. And then software sales and data licensing and uh consumer packaged goods before coming here. So that's a broad range of television, programmatic and data strategy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:27

What made you interested in the position or account management?

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

Account management is a really cool kind of hybrid role where you uh you wear a lot of hats. It's it's client relationship, it's client relationship management, it's sales, support both internal and external. You know, you are essentially uh a consultant and an extension of your partners to ensure that their business is running smoothly to understand like where they're winning, where they're coming up short, and what it takes to get them where they need to be.

SPEAKER_03: 1:59

And Annie just joined. Annie, do you want to talk about how long you've been at cognition? Introduce yourself. Of course, I'd love to.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07

Hi everyone, my name's Annie. I'm an enterprise account manager. I've been at Cognition for almost a year now. And as AJ said, time really does fly when you're having fun. My background is in media. I started my media career at AE Networks where I was a sales assistant and then went to MBC. Where I was a sales planner and then an account manager. So kind of been in this world my entire career and love it and love just being an advocate for the client and just being able to build those relationships. I was a D1 soccer player, so I think I still have that competitive component within me. And I'm always just rooting for my clients and want them to win and watch them succeed.

SPEAKER_03: 2:50

And then we guys kind of talked about it too, but we'll go more in depth. But from someone who's never worked in account management, AD did a great explanation. But how would you describe what the day-to-day is like or just your experience in the role?

SPEAKER_02: 3:02

I would say as an account manager, you're kind of like an advocate for for your client. And you just need to understand their business, their needs, their KPIs, and what they're looking to do. And how can we bring that back internally and explain that to our different internal partners, whether it's operations, finance, product, and just ensuring that their business is doing well?

SPEAKER_00: 3:30

I think you really hit that on the head. It it really comes down to day-to-day understanding of where your clients are at in terms of key projects, priorities, uh, you know, media performance, creative uh impact. There's there's really a lot that we offer as services for our partners, and we have we have partners that leverage us for everything whole service, media buying, strategy, execution, data insights, uh, creative studio, and dynamic creatives. We have some partners that only use us for one or two of those solutions. And so every day the needs for our partners will vary. Um, sometimes we'll be working on uh programmatic media optimizations or creating new templates for dynamic creative. Sometimes we'll be doing it all. It's always in flux and it's always changing. But the consistent factor is like your clients' needs are always are always developing, and you really need to keep on that pulse on a daily basis to make sure that their business is running smoothly.

SPEAKER_03: 4:41

Right. And do you want to walk us through the life cycle of a client relationship from your side, kind of how that journey starts and looks like throughout?

SPEAKER_02: 4:50

Yeah, I would say just kicking off the uh is onboarding. And I think that's an essential role in and part of just understanding the client coming in and their business and what their goals and priorities are, and making sure you communicate that internally as well. So the whole team is on board and aware of what success looks like for this client and how can they succeed, and what can we do to ensure that they get there. So I think onboarding is a huge part of the initial kickoff with a client.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

I mean, getting them set up in the driver's seat and understanding, you know, how the platform works, where to look for X versus Y, and how to use Y for Z is so important to ensure that our partners feel like they're in control of all of the access to the platform and the solutions that that we offer. Obviously, we're here to support them if they need external hands or or additional input. But I think that a really important, a really important piece of uh starting the relationship is is communication and it's it's education. It's understanding your uh clients and your partner's business, what their value proposition is, what their differentiator is, where they win in the market versus where they come up short. And and once you understand that, then you can better understand like how can we frame these solutions for you to go share with your clients before ever giving a recommendation, understand like how their business operates, where do they win, where can we help?

SPEAKER_03: 6:30

Yeah, it's a great explanation. And along with that and managing client relationships, what are great skills that account managers have that make them great account managers?

SPEAKER_02: 6:41

As in communication, 100%, and also just being able to listen and understand and interpret as well.

SPEAKER_00: 6:48

Yeah, that's funny. I was gonna say uh a good listener is number one for sure. A thousand percent. Before you start giving anyone a recommendation or a solution, if you're not actively listening to understand truly what they're looking to accomplish, then then you're really not doing them the service uh being a an active partner that's that's invested in in their growth. Good listening, I think critical thinking and problem solving are really.

SPEAKER_02: 7:16

Yeah, problem solving, 100%. Yeah, being able to listen and then interpret and understand and then problem solve and act quickly.

SPEAKER_00: 7:23

I I think so. And I think I think proactiveness is important. Yes, having a pulse on your what's going on and and looking out to I guess say stay top of mind for your clients. Have them know that that you that their interests are in in your heart, you know, that that you're always looking out for their business. Hey, here's something that I saw that that could be helpful in these conversations. We had one or two dealerships um that had recently raised uh a request to one of our agencies for inventory within sports media and and streaming TV. We took those two or three requests, and as more came in, we packaged up a whole bundle of streaming TV, um, live sports bundles at various tiers and investment levels that make it super cost effective for really any budget to be uh active and live within within these categories. We packaged it up and and shared it proactively with our agency um and said, hey, you know, here's you know a topic or or a category of inventory that some of you know your dealership partners have been interested in. We thought it might be helpful if you just take this and uh you know see if there's any interest in it. And there's been tremendous uh feedback and demand from that.

SPEAKER_02: 8:41

I was just going to add on to the proactive part. So I think just like listening, understanding their business, and then like when you are a proactive person or like partner, I think that goes a long way and helps build the relationship.

SPEAKER_03: 8:54

How does account management work with the other departments on our team, like operations or a product?

SPEAKER_02: 9:01

I would say like as an account manager, you're kind of like the connective tissue for the client and internal part teams. So just being able to translate to the different teams internally what the client's needs and goals are are really important. So just comes back to being a good account manager and being able to listen and interpret and then communicate that internally. So we're able to execute on whatever the goals are or requests.

SPEAKER_03: 9:32

Well, I'll have a question that all four of you guys can answer, and then we'll transition into Kirsten and Kelly. Uh, if you were applying for this role today, what's one thing you wish you could know about? We'll have each person an order.

SPEAKER_00: 9:44

One thing that I would want to know is we have a very smart and a very fast-moving team. We have some of the brightest people that I've ever worked with. And sometimes in the early stages of my time here, those conversations were a little intimidating. Um, where if I'm talking to someone on product, there may be, you know, we have a hundred acronyms within programmatic. They have their own acronyms that I'm sitting here and listening uh to, oh, well, the FTP is misaligned with the PDF and this. And you know, you're not going to know everything, but if if you're really committed and take the time to be a good active listener, you're going to learn a lot. And the great part about being in account management and being a supporting member of this team is the ability to work with all of these teams that are so smart and so thoughtful that I really feel like you will learn so much in this position compared to other organizations that want to keep each team in their own little silo and sandbox. We've had so much exposure to product and our data um strategy and development team, our operations team, everybody touches uh a piece of of all of the teams, and in doing so, you really you really learn a lot and you become uh you become an expert in in fields that you know you previously were not uh did not have too much exposure to.

SPEAKER_04: 11:17

Eva, you could do an entire LinkedIn live on just the acronyms that get thrown around on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03: 11:23

We could.

SPEAKER_00: 11:25

Jeopardy.

SPEAKER_03: 11:25

Yeah, Jeopardy is a good one. Well, those are question from the chat. How can partners best support your needs and what questions or preparation can we do on execution side? Let's take that one.

SPEAKER_04: 11:38

I was gonna say, I think I would want to reframe that question because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, we're supporting our partners, not the other way around. So I think getting to know your client outside of work is where you'd want to start because what matters to them, what gets them going on their daily, why do they show up for work? And then you need to understand what are their main driving goals from a day-to-day basis on an individual level, and then ladder that up to what are their org-wide goals? Are you talking to the end client user or do they also have clients themselves? And what are they trying to get out of the situation? And then you can kind of navigate how to best support and put together a strategic plan from there.

SPEAKER_01: 12:22

I think maybe to add to that, I think um I love when partners are very transparent too about their goals or where they're trying to go, or or you know, sometimes I think partners can hold things close because I don't know, for whatever reasons. They don't want to tell us their full budget or you know, they want us to come to the table with recommendations. But the more transparent they can be, I feel like that just helps us give them the best um information.

SPEAKER_03: 12:50

I would love to talk to Kirsten, Kelly Moore. I'll have AJ and Annie leave. You guys are so much greater to talk to. Thank you so much for answering those questions.

SPEAKER_02: 12:58

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03: 13:01

Kirsten and Kelly. And then I'll have you guys introduce yourselves. You already uh answered two great questions, but just talk about your background, um, how long you've been here for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

Well, we both started on the same day, which is amazing. But Kirsten, I'll let you introduce yourself first.

SPEAKER_04: 13:17

We did both start on the same day, and our very first day was a business trip. So you got right on the flight and we got right into it. But I'm New York, born and raised, and I just moved down to Jacksonville, Florida in October. So I'm new to the Florida residency, and I've been at Cognition for about seven months now, which feels both crazy fast. And it's been a lot of learning and a lot of ramping up, and it's been an awesome ride with the entire organization. And um, I'm an enterprise account manager at Cognition.

SPEAKER_01: 13:52

Same. I'm also an enterprise account manager. Um, I've been with Cognition for seven to eight months. And yeah, I've been in account management for about 15 years now, which like makes me feel very old. But um, I love it. I love being an account manager.

SPEAKER_03: 14:10

And then you you were an account manager originally, Kirsten, then moved up to enterprise. Do you want to talk about the difference between the two?

SPEAKER_04: 14:17

Yeah, I do feel like I was overlapping for such a long time that I almost forget what the what the main difference is. But the difference is the volume of the account that you're covering off on. Um, so our enterprise account managers compared to our account account managers, the account managers themselves might be covering those growth agencies. So smaller in size, anywhere from like 10 to 30, 10 to 50, just getting their feet in the in the water and getting to know the industry itself. And then our enterprise are larger, more established, um, have more programs and larger initiatives at hand.

SPEAKER_03: 14:57

And then for someone who's curious about moving into an account management role, what should they expect?

SPEAKER_01: 15:02

Yeah, I think um just expect to, you know, roll with the punches, um, ask a lot of questions, listen to understand, try to, you know, understand not only what your clients are asking of you and how you can support them, but also your teammates. Like, how do you how do you need to relay the information to the internal team and what information do they need and kind of being that middle person to um relay the comms?

SPEAKER_04: 15:30

First two words that come to mind proactivity and agility. And then Eva, I loved your question before when we were first joining. Like, what can they expect when they come onto this role? You get so much autonomy at cognition, especially in the roles that we play, which is awesome because you get to attack and be proactive and get after your own personal and your client goals and kind of approach it from a lens that you want to approach it to, and you get a lot of creativity in that process. That being said, we also have an extensive support system, um, especially with Matt and Carson at the helm of the org.

SPEAKER_03: 16:05

And then I know in this live, we're gonna talk about some activation fields that we have been talking about recently on our socials with Tubi and everything. So, why do you think someone should advertise on fast?

SPEAKER_04: 16:17

I love fast. I love Tubi. Like, why not? You know, it's a great way to get out there. And at the end of the day, we're putting on the targeting and audience parameters that we need to be. And who knows who's watching on Tubi? Kelly might be the direct, the exact person that you want to target and sell to. And she might be tuning into all those TB and fast channels, or they might have her daughter's favorite show on there. So I think eliminating yourself just because it's fast and it's to be is not necessarily the right move. I think it it, if anything, it gives you more opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 16:52

The average household is subscribed to four to five different streaming platforms. And it's just it gets to be so expensive that in 2026, I think we'll see a lot more usage of some of these, you know, more fast channels. So it's just a good way to maximize your reach and get lower CPMs. Looks like we have a few questions in the chat.

SPEAKER_03: 17:15

So I'll let one of you guys take it. But what's one key thing you do to ensure client retention? And why do you believe it's effective?

SPEAKER_04: 17:22

I think I mentioned it briefly before, but getting to know your client as a person, developing those really deep connections, making sure that you're going to visit them in person. Because while remote and video conferencing is incredible and it makes uh work much more efficient, um it's important to get those in-person touch points and then understanding their goals. Because if you're not helping them meet their goals, then you're not going to be a value to them and be able to offer creative ways of thinking.

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

When you get to know your clients as humans, um you're building trust. And when your clients can trust you, they can be transparent with you. They can say, like, hey, you really missed the mark on X, Y, Z. And I think in any relationship, when something goes wrong, it's how you make up for it and how you, you know, kind of go the extra mile to make it right or to solve the problem. Like, we're not perfect, we're gonna make mistakes, things are gonna happen. But I think that shows like when you can make up for something or kind of gain their trust back or or fix a problem, um, that just shows that you're there to support them. And I think that's why clients stay because there's gonna be mistakes wherever you go.

SPEAKER_03: 18:33

Being a listener, feeling heard.

SPEAKER_04: 18:36

The real answer is because our headquarters are in Jacksonville, Florida, and everyone wants a break from the cold.

SPEAKER_03: 18:41

Yeah. Well, going along with the platform and client relationships, how do you match the right client to the right platform? What goes into that recommendation when you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01: 18:52

I think um understanding what's the intended outcome. You know, are they trying to build brand awareness? Are they trying to drive to a specific sale or a specific event that's going on? Um, so understanding that and then understanding what they're trying to get out of it.

SPEAKER_04: 19:11

Yeah, that marketing funnel is important. Ava, I know you've done an entire podcast streaming on the marketing funnel.

SPEAKER_03: 19:20

The account doesn't typically manage at one time. What is the cadence of communication between your accounts typically, daily, weekly, et cetera?

SPEAKER_04: 19:28

It depends on the size of your accounts. We cover enough volume that we can cover each account with intent and thoughtfulness. So your one account might be much larger than someone else's eight accounts that they cover. So you might have four compared to someone else's might be 10. Everyone needs to be meeting with their clients, if not weekly, at least once a month or bi-weekly to keep those touch points up.

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

Yeah, I mean, some of my some of my clients we slack like on a daily basis. So I think it just depends on um, you know, AJ was alluding to this earlier that some of our accounts were full service and we're doing a lot of different things for them. So there's a lot of moving pieces and we need to have constant communication. Other accounts, you know, we might just be serving one small piece of the pie. So there's not as much um day-to-day involvement that's needed. But yeah, we're definitely speaking on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and making sure things are smooth and going well.

SPEAKER_04: 20:27

Or you might be speaking on the phone as you're driving home from work. It just depends, depends what's uh what's needed.

SPEAKER_03: 20:34

Yeah, having open communication, just talking regularly for sure. I think it's be a great question for both of you to answer, but how have you viewed the shift to streaming? I know that's a really big topic in our industry, especially. So love to hear you guys' take.

SPEAKER_04: 20:47

I love it. Talk about convenience. And I think that pretty much sums it up.

SPEAKER_01: 20:52

It's awesome. I love the shift to streaming because of all the data that we can capture. So, you know, not only can we just hyper focus who we're targeting and who we're serving an ad to, but we're um, we're also able to collect that data and understand the consumer journey a bit better, um, which is then going to, you know, just cultivate more ideas and and help their marketing.

SPEAKER_04: 21:18

Yeah. We can we can provide real-time insights to every single advertiser that we serve and the technology that we employ on those streamings, such as our headless analytics tag and um the sales data that we can collect. I mean, it's invaluable and you are more hard-pressed to find that on traditional TV. So you're also your go-to-market time is cut in half, essentially. I mean, you can get clients in and turn them around in the nick of time and get their reporting set up and those measurement pieces uh going in real time and delivered to them.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

We've all had that moment where we've been like, I was just talking about this and then I was served an ad. And Like so many people get frustrated on that. But like when you think about it, that's awesome. Like I love if I'm in the market, you know, like you may have just heard my puppy bark, but if I'm looking for a new vet, I would love to have ads that are relevant to me of vets in the area that I can then, you know, do some research and see if it's a good fit. But I just I think it's it's so cool to shift to streaming. Traditional TV, all you could measure were impressions, basically. And now you can measure just a little bit more insights as to what they're doing after they're served that ad.

SPEAKER_03: 22:33

Does the AM start during pre-sales through implementation to post-launch support or primarily post-launch?

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

All of the above. Um, I mean, we're helping to pull recommendations for campaign budgets and um understating CPMs and how many impressions and what that reach could look like. And then we're helping to get those campaigns launched and then reporting back on those metrics.

SPEAKER_04: 22:59

Yeah. We we highly encourage all of our clients to lean on us as much as they can throughout the entire cycle of the sales process.

SPEAKER_03: 23:07

And also, you guys talked a little bit about data from streaming TV and everything, but what role does data and reporting play in keeping clients engaged and proving value?

SPEAKER_01: 23:15

I feel like, you know, they all want to know the return on their investment. And um, TV is such an awareness play that traditionally it was hard to track that return. And now with streaming TV and with our technologies that we have at Cognition, you can, you know, literally connect the dots to they were served an ad and they made this action, or we can attribute the sale to to the ad that we served. So I think it's I think it's what everybody wants to see, basically.

SPEAKER_04: 23:46

Yeah, our measurement service offerings are exciting. Like there is so much there, and there's so many insights that you can pull to be agile in the market and beat your competitors or pull from your competitors to get what you need out of your ads. We offer a lot of visibility and insights that most people can't capture. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_03: 24:08

Kelly, what's the piece of advice you'd give someone who's brand new to account management or wanting to be part of the team?

SPEAKER_01: 24:13

I think don't be afraid to make mistakes, ask questions. Um, I mean, I I think like there's no there's no ego in account management. You know, you're constantly learning. And AJ was alluding to this. There's just so many acronyms, and you're not you're not supposed to be an expert on everything, but if you continuously ask why, then you're going to get more exposure and get more, get more knowledge. And it's just gonna allow you to, you know, grow and be better.

SPEAKER_03: 24:41

Are you using AI to automate or improve any processes, tasks related to client retention, client satisfaction? Wonder if you use AI to keep clients happy and stay ahead of the churn.

SPEAKER_04: 24:52

Our company focus has shifted to an AI-centric view. Cognition has been investing a lot of time and energy into the AI automation process. And that is something that our dev team is continually focusing on, and our CTO is um staying trying to stay at the forefront and is staying at the forefront and continually evolving so that we can better um influence and support our clients on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_03: 25:22

Something else you guys want to leave off on it. That's all the time we have today. So those good time we answered questions. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_01: 25:30

I was just gonna say, I think there's a couple positions posted to join our team. So if anybody is interested, feel free to reach out to any of us or um go on to our company site. A little plug there to join our team. Come hang out with us.

SPEAKER_03: 25:47

Great. Reach out to Alex, Alex Mills. Yeah, we have account manager and account coordinator on our job page. Um thank you guys so much. We had a great time answering questions, and we'll see everyone on the next live. Thank you, Ava.