Today’s ‘Day in the Life’ features Raphael Rodier, who is the Global Chief Revenue Officer at mobile brand advertising company Ogury.

We chat with Raphael about his career journey so far, what motivates him most, and how brands can continue to create stand-out experiences in a cookieless world.

Raphael Rodier

Please describe your job… what do you do?

I am the Global Chief Revenue Officer at Ogury, a global technology leader in mobile brand advertising, and I’m responsible for the company’s revenue streams in the 11 countries we operate in. I report directly to Ogury’s CEO and co-founder, Thomas Pasquet, and help lead the company’s growth.

Can you describe your career journey and what led you to join Ogury as the Chief Revenue Officer?

I have worked in digital marketing for the past 15 years, but I started my career journey as a Sales Manager at an architectural firm in France in 2005, before moving to HiMedia group, then known as AdUX and acquired by Azerion. I started as a Sales Manager before moving up the ranks to become Managing Director of France.

In 2014, I joined Ogury as one of the business’ first employees in the year of its foundation. In my first role at Ogury, I spent my days pitching our solution to major media agencies who quickly became our clients. I then hired my own team, starting in France, and since then I have held several key positions at Ogury, from Managing Director in France and now as Global Chief Revenue Officer.

How would you describe your work/life balance?

I would describe my work/life balance as nearly perfect. My work is very important to me and I enjoy working at Ogury’s HQ, leading the global business of our office in London. This has only been possible with the support of my family who moved with me to live in the UK in 2018. Family means everything to me and I try to spend my time outside of work with them as often as I can. Due to working from home more often, I’m thankfully able to spend more time with my family than I did pre-pandemic, which has helped with maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

How do you measure success within your role?

I know I’ve been successful when the company I’m working with truly becomes the leader in their market. Since working at Ogury in 2014, we’ve had success, from beginning as a small European start-up in 2014 when I joined, to a now global scale-up with more than 350 people across 11 countries.

While success is often associated with growth, performance and earnings, these metrics don’t guarantee happiness, and so they aren’t my main motivations. What motivates me is having a healthy and happy family and work team – maintaining both these groups of people in my life is how I measure my success and I think so far, I have achieved this.

The advertising industry is accelerating to a cookieless and ID-less world – how is the adtech space handling these major market changes?

Targeting based on audience interests is still king. But today, many marketers rely on digital marketing technologies that have a limited view and understanding of the audience’s mobile journey across their apps and websites.  And while some claim to have audience interest data, they only know about an audience’s activities within their app and site network. This is also true for publishers and brands, as they lose sight of the user’s journey once they leave their ecosystem. Meanwhile, other partners rely on context and semantic data. These solutions are incomplete and fall short of advertisers expectations.

And, with consumers becoming more protective over their data and regulations tightening, the pool of available data for ID-based personalisation is only going to shrink further. This will ultimately impact advertising performance.

What advice would you give to marketers on creating amazing brand experiences while navigating heightened consumer privacy?

My advice for marketers is twofold: make sure your brand is being seen and recognized, and ensure you’re meeting consumers’ needs.

Today’s viewability standards are deplorable. The fundamental purpose of brand advertising is brand awareness. But how can you drive awareness if no one can see your ad? Too often, advertisers pay for ads that are only partially visible to the consumer, which limits memorability and wastes ad budget. To create amazing brand experiences, your brand must be fully visible.

Additionally, consumers are pushing back on data collection. They don’t want to be followed by online ads that are irrelevant. To avoid this, marketers must focus on technologies that have the most complete knowledge of audience interests to help them achieve future-proof results in total respect of consumer privacy.