Summary: Sara offers practical advice for martech pros: emphasizing data literacy for informed marketing decisions, advocating simple attribution models in B2B contexts, and highlighting the balanced integration of engineering expertise in martech strategies. She underscores the significance of AI in automating tasks while stressing the importance of human-centric skills like communication in an AI-enhanced marketing world.What’s up everyone, on today’s celebratory 100th episode of the podcast, we’re incredibly pumped to chat with the legendary Sara McNamara, Senior Manager, Marketing Operations at Salesforce.About Sara
Sara got her start at Cloud on Tap as a Salesforce Pardot Marketing Automation Consultant where she completed 30+ Pardot implementations in under 2 years
She took her Ops talents to Cheshire Impact, a Select Pardot and Salesforce Partner before moving to an in-house Automation Manager role administrating 3 instances of Pardot
Her journey led her to a pivotal role at Cloudera, an open-source data platform for enterprise where she was quickly promoted to Senior Marketing Operations Manager after leading 2 enterprise MAP migrations in 6 months
She’s advised marketing leaders at companies like Google and PayPal on how to find and attract the best MOPs talent
She’s also a Member of 3 key communities; RevGenius, Women in Revenue and Pavilion
She holds over 30+ licenses and certifications across popular martech and her work has been recognized by Pardot, Salesforce, Drift, and others
When Cloudera was on the exit ramp, Sara made a mega-move to Slack. As Senior Manager of Marketing Transformation & Innovation, she had a big job shaping things up at a massive scale 
But after a year of making waves, Salesforce swept in and bought Slack. That meant Sara's SFDC/Pardot hot takes and spicy industry insights came to an end 
But let's be clear: Sara's brilliance hasn't dimmed one bit. If you're navigating the murky waters of MOPs or crafting your own career path, she's your north star. She's not just a source of marketing knowledge—she's arguably the finest guidepost out there for career insights
Sara thanks so much for making our 100th episode extra special and taking the time to chat with us ???The Importance of Acquiring Practical Data Skills for MarketersData literacy is essential for modern marketing. Sara discusses how marketers can improve these skills and foster a data-informed culture. She emphasized the importance of understanding data beyond the hype of AI, suggesting that while AI may eventually play a significant role in analytics, marketers must first clearly define their objectives and strategies.Sara's perspective is that marketing should be run like a business, with a focus on practical data skills tailored to the specific tools and needs of the business. She advises against getting bogged down in learning specific languages or tools unless they are directly relevant to one’s business environment. For example, learning Tableau is beneficial, but only if it aligns with the tools used in one's specific business context.The key, according to Sara, is for marketers to be sufficiently skilled in data to not rely entirely on analytics teams for basic questions like campaign effectiveness or budget allocations. This approach doesn't mean replacing data scientists but rather complementing their work by being able to independently handle high-level data interpretations. This self-sufficiency in data handling can significantly streamline processes and reduce dependency on centralized analytics teams.Sara also touched on the ability to scrutinize and trust the outputs of AI-driven analytics. In an era where AI is increasingly creating dashboards and reports, the ability to critically assess these outputs is crucial. Marketers need to develop the skill to not just accept these data presentations at face value but to evaluate their accuracy and relevance.Key takeaway: For marketers in the martech era, developing data lite