Customer Success: Flashtalking

Business Challenges and Situation

Anthony Yam, the SVP of Product (CPO role) and an executive team member at Flashtalking, is responsible for finding future growth products for the company. Flashtalking is a profitable (300+ people) SaaS company with a market leadership position in the ad-tech/mar-tech industry with several Fortune 500 brands as its customers. 

Key product and GTM strategy questions were:

• How to develop a new product vision and strategy, and which product ideas to prioritize?
• Given the complexity of the ad-tech market: walled gardens, third-party data providers, first-party data, and fast-evolving ad API ecosystem, how can we ensure new product success?
• How do we launch a new product while reducing risk and go-to-market costs?
• What will be the GTM strategy, and how do we scale new products?

Our Solution

We partnered with the product, marketing, strategy, and finance functions at Flashtalking to provide executive-level product support with an integrated approach to product and growth strategy. 

Phase 1

We refined the product strategy based on the customer value hypothesis (agencies and brands) of improving campaign performance, optimization, and efficiency. We evaluated current data assets and other Flashtalking product capabilities to generate new product ideas and define the vision and strategy for the new product based on two of our core principles:

• Make users' lives as simple as possible: Ad automation (e.g., automatically transform best performing video ads data from one channel to the other channels) at scale with the least manual effort.
• Results -- Deliver results that customers care about (e.g., campaign optimization and performance 

The StatsLateral team evaluated and leveraged Flashtalking's core capabilities, including the ad server for the advertisers and dynamic content optimization data, and the Flashtalking team's product marketing skills. We focused on video (due to the large TAM and expansion of channels like CTV, TikTok, etc.), which was a more challenging process for the campaign teams.

We delivered a fully functional and scalable product in just over three months. We successfully created hundreds of personalized video ads on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram by leveraging Flashtalking's data on context, location, weather, and client's first-party data (CDP).

Phase 2

Through our integrated process, we started speaking with target clients (agency and brand teams) during phase 1 to conduct research, validate our hypotheses, and develop initial value propositions for the new product.

These client interviews and demos further helped refine the product and help create a product launch plan. We developed a detailed business case for the Flashtalking CEO and the board's buy-in. This business case included product vision and strategy, launch plan, detailed go-to-market plan including sales and marketing collateral, product pricing/packaging, financial projections, and potential ROI. 

Phase 3

We launched the product with some key brands that leveraged personalized video ads at scale. Among many clients, a few well-known brands were Hyundai, Princess Cruises, Toyota, Prudential, Visa, and P&G.

Some of the critical launch components were:

• Product Storytelling: For who, why, what, and how it impacts the future.
• Key value props & core differentiators
• Pricing and packaging options
• Marketing collateral: Target buyer and client-sponsor personas, product messaging, call to action, content (social media, web, etc.)
• Sales collateral: Product descriptions, Sales deck, Competitive Insights, Buyer FAQs, Product demos, Implementation options & plans
• Measurement & dashboard: Launch a dashboard with key metrics.

Results

Our collaborative and iterative approach generated client feedback, brought cross-functional stakeholders on board, and provided meaningful learning for the subsequent product scale activities. We created the following value for the business:

• Developed a new live SaaS product within 14 weeks instead of an internal team's original estimate of 6 months. Saved 50% in product research and development costs.
• Created new revenue opportunity of over $10M.
• Delivered an ROI of 80% on the business case of comparing product launch options with an in-house team. 
• Generated an overall investment of $2M after the successful launch based on clients' feedback and launch metrics.
• Improved client retention goal by 20%.

By partnering with us and embracing our integrated product strategy, Flashtalking created a new wave of excitement in its clients through the new differentiated product, accelerated the product's time-to-market with a higher confidence level, and established a competitive edge in the ad-tech industry.