The OPTIZMO™ Blog

News and tips from the industry leaders in email compliance.

CAKE Partner Interview

In 2020, we’re planning to post a variety of video and blog content on OPTIZMO.com where we interact with many of our great clients and partners in the industry. Today, we’re excited to release our first Q&A partner inverview post with Garth Harris, Vice President of Product Innovation at CAKE!

Tell us a little about CAKE and your role with the company

CAKE is a performance marketing software with solutions for affiliate marketing, lead generation and multichannel marketing that enables some of the largest global advertisers and enterprise affiliate networks to manage, measure and optimize their marketing performance.

We recently just hit a very exciting milestone at CAKE and are celebrating our 10-year anniversary as a company. I joined CAKE in 2010 and since then I’ve held a variety of roles within CAKE’s Client Services department with my most recent role being the Vice President of Operations. As of January 2020, I have transitioned into a new role as Vice President of Product Innovation, which is an entirely new department for CAKE. The focus of this new department is largely on professional service opportunities and working closely with customers on platform feedback, product enhancements and feature development so that we can continue to innovate CAKE.

How long have you worked or partnered with OPTIZMO and what do you like most about the partnership?

OPTIZMO is CAKE’s longest-running partnership. It dates back to 2010. When I first started at CAKE, I was impressed with how well the integration worked and to know that it still works just as well 10 years later is a testimony to our two teams working closely together. Beyond the technology, though, I’ve built a relationship with Khris and Jake and I genuinely love working with the team at OPTIZMO. 

Why is Email compliance important to CAKE and your clients?

Email plays a major role in performance-based marketing and the majority of our customers either engage with email marketing directly or work with partners that do. Email is also a fairly sensitive method of marketing, so compliance has always been at the forefront to ensure campaign quality and longevity. Then, you add on all of the compliance changes we’re experiencing with GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation), CCPA (the California Consumer Privacy Act) and most likely additional compliance initiatives to come and this is why compliance is, in some ways, at the center of what we do. Compliance ensures quality and quality is the goal for any performance marketer. As a company, we take great care to ensure that our client’s data is safe and secure by achieving the highest levels of security and privacy compliance. 

What is the biggest challenge facing the Email marketing industry in 2020?

From my perspective on the measurement and analytics side of the fence, data privacy laws continue to tighten their grip on digital marketing in general. Since email deals with PII (Personally Identifiable Information) more than other forms of digital marketing, I can only imagine it’s going to be harder to tackle compliance efforts if you’re not partnering with technologies that are focused on solving this problem. We’re sensitive to the myriad of new and future browser tracking challenges and the changes to cookies.

How do you work with OPTIZMO?

CAKE has a direct integration with OPTIZMO that allows our customers to create and manage suppression lists with their affiliates. Beyond that, the integration provides compliance-based reports that ensure our customer’s partners are staying on top of their suppression list download requirements in order to stay compliant. Suppression list management is a must if you’re doing email marketing or even working with partners that do.

What value does OPTIZMO deliver for CAKE?

Tremendous value. Delivering robust performance marketing software for our customers has always been our main focus at CAKE. We understand the value that OPTIZMO provides our customers, as suppression list management and affiliate marketing go hand-in-hand and we are pleased to offer this seamless integration. Our clients have expressed to us that the tightly coupled integration between our two platforms gives them the advantage over other networks that have to manage this process in an entirely separate system. And frankly, our integration is a great selling point. 

What are you most excited about for the industry in 2020?

I’m extremely invested in the advancements of the performance marketing industry. We all know that this industry has a solid core of Advertisers, Affiliate Networks, and Publishers that have been operating their businesses with a focus on compliance and quality for many years, which explains why they’re still around and thriving. At CAKE, we’re looking to recognize these organizations and partner with them even more closely in 2020 and beyond. My personal goal is to impact the performance marketing industry in a positive way through knowledge sharing and continuing to enhance CAKE’s technology to grow and innovate with the shifting ecosystem. The bottom line is that digital marketing dollars grow year-over-year and the projected investments into affiliate marketing programs are expected to grow along with it. We want to empower the networks in our space to grow and establish themselves as thought leaders within digital marketing. 

What is on the horizon for CAKE in 2020?

CAKE has been in an exciting position since our acquisition by Constellation Software Inc., a $20-billion international provider of market-leading software and services. The acquisition investment furthers CAKE’s innovation in performance marketing software and reinforces the company’s commitment to superior customer support, providing performance marketers, advertisers and publishers with new opportunities to increase margin. I’m equally excited about my new role as Vice President of Product Innovation and how closely I get to align with our customers. I’m working with all of our customers to understand their unique business challenges and looking forward to providing them with solutions either in the form of managed services, custom tools or new features in our product. It’s going to be an exciting year!

Garth Harris Bio

Garth oversees CAKE’s Product Innovation team, which is focused on the delivery of custom products and services to its customer base.

He has held a variety of roles with CAKE’s client services and sales teams over the past eight years, most recently serving as the Vice President of Client Services, which handles onboarding, account management and technical support. The goal of client services is primarily focused on customer satisfaction and retention.

Additionally, he drove CAKE’s global expansion by establishing the London office, the company’s first international presence. There, he served as the Director of Client Services and was a major contributor to CAKE’s growth in the EMEA region.

Garth holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Vanguard University.

About Cake

CAKE Logo

CAKE, a global provider of performance marketing software, empowers more than 500 advertisers, networks and publishers to manage, measure and optimize their digital marketing campaigns, in real-time. Established in 2010, the company specializes in providing solutions for affiliate marketing, lead generation and multichannel marketing that create new revenue opportunities for CAKE customers worldwide. CAKE is headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif. with operations in London and New Delhi. For more information, visit www.getCAKE.com.

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