Media Matters: Art and Science with Felicia Delvecchio

Felicia Delvecchio is a media leader with a passion for helping brands grow and thrive in the ever-evolving world of full funnel marketing. In 2019, she was named Search Marketer of the Year by Search Engine Land, a prestigious recognition of her expertise and achievements in the field.

With more than a decade of leadership experience under her belt at DAC, Felicia has a proven track record of delivering results for some of DAC’s largest enterprise to local clients & brands. She has spearheaded digital transformation initiatives to help brands win and maintain market share through innovative and effective full funnel strategies.

Felicia's expertise lies in media planning, strategy, and execution with a focus on mentoring and developing her team at DAC. She is committed to fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence.

Overall, Felicia Delvecchio is a dynamic and passionate marketing leader continually focusing on new and innovative ways to drive success for clients at DAC.

LBB> What was it about the world of advertising media that pulled you in? What did you do before you got into media? 

Felicia> The prospect of learning something new that felt “up and coming” was the main draw for getting into media. Because I’m clearly ancient at this point, there were no courses for digital marketing when I was going through school, and I had never given much thought into how those “ads on Google” got there in the first place. It was exciting, fast paced and I was eager to drink from the fire house when first approached about this opportunity to explore.

Prior to getting into media, I had studied psychology with intention of working towards a career in therapy/counselling. In many ways, understanding human behaviour and mindsets/motivators has been extremely important to my career in media both in everyday team and client management as well as media strategy and activation.

LBB> Over the course of your career, what have been the most significant changes you’ve seen in the media side of the industry? 

Felicia> The most significant changes that I’ve seen in media since I’ve started in this industry is less focus on paid search as a driver of performance. While most clients and advertisers are still VERY reliant on low funnel tactics, the growth of video, display, audio, CTV and of course social has been tremendous, especially as we think about the balance between traditional and digital mediums.

… And measurement is also a big one – both in client focus and capabilities. Many moons ago, you could run an upper funnel awareness campaign and report out on “impressions” as a KPI and that would be enough to keep it running or believe in its power. With a plethora of measurement tools and capabilities in the industry to date, it’s expected that you can tie every aspect of your campaigns to a business impact. While measurement is extremely important and exciting to validate media investment, there are lots of tools out there that are flawed in doing so effectively and can trigger “source of truth” debates when those methodologies or technologies are different.

Additionally, getting alignment and understanding as a client and agency team to recall the true purpose of a channel itself as it relates to “short term” and “long term” business objectives is becoming increasingly more difficult with more aggressive revenue/profit goals in tow – awareness media was never meant to be a directly attributable media channel.

LBB> What was your first job in the media industry and give us a taste of the path that your career has been on? 

Felicia> My first job in media was a bit of a “feeler” role to get a taste of what a career path like this might look like before jumping in headfirst. I had the opportunity to support a family member's financial firm and shadow/learn about media. I actually started out in SEO, with focus on the technical side of improving website authority and ranking. From there, I started on some small paid search campaigns to help drive leads for the business.

I continued from there working at smaller agencies for small businesses and diving deeper into the world of paid search, gradually working my way into larger hold co agencies with opportunity to work on some Fortune 500 brands with tremendous scale.

With expertise in paid search, I spent most of my time on SEM but continued to push the limits to find out how our programs could be better if we were to think about other channels and tactics in the mix. This led me to DAC, now a decade ago, focused on a passion to drive full funnel strategies across enterprise clients and brands with the goal of truly tying media to business objectives and outcomes.

LBB> In more recent years, which projects or clients have proven to be the most stimulating and satisfying to work on and why? 

Felicia> The most stimulating and satisfying projects/clients, and maybe unpopular opinion here are the clients and business that are the most challenged. Whether it be a struggling business or misalignment on goals (or not knowing their goals), needing validation or proof to back media support, these are typically the most rewarding to work on.

Having the ability to come in and make a difference in our client’s business and ultimately better their programs and support while also lifting them up professionally has been the most gratifying part of working in this industry. 

LBB> In media, an understanding of human behaviour is so important - what are some of the most interesting changes you’re seeing in terms of how we behave with and interact with media? 

Felicia> There are so many things that have shifted in terms of human behaviour and interaction with media, for one, humans have grown more and more impatient while expecting instant gratification. It’s made it more important than ever for websites, experiences, paid and organic ads, in-store experiences, to be optimised for success.

A potential customer user EXPECTS that everything they are looking for (and even what they aren’t look for yet) will be at their fingertips with all the answers to help them reach their destination. Whether it’s to fix their squeaky brakes or get rid of that mouse problem in their attic, if you aren’t providing the user with the relevant message (with incentive/value/proposition) at the right time in the right place and quickly, you’re already losing.

Humans are also using in-platform vs websites aligning to major SERP and platform changes that we’ve seen over the last few years. The likes of Google, TikTok, Meta, etc are creating environments that match human behaviour and the “at your fingertip” experiences that we crave so gone are the days of website traffic as your lone source of success.

LBB> Brand safety is more important than ever and consumers and campaign groups are increasingly holding brands to account for the media they choose to spend on - what are your thoughts on this phenomenon and how are you and your teams navigating it? 

Felicia> Brand safety is extremely important and really just common sense to be thought through as best practice. As marketers and agencies, it’s our due diligence to ensure we are safeguarding our client’s brands and activating responsibly.

From ensuring we have brand safety target/exclusions applied in our campaigns, to monitoring for MFA sites, managing quality over quantity as it relates to placement types (including political/govt sites), age-appropriate targets, and content and creative inclusivity – it’s foundational for us to be stewards of success for our clients’ programs.

LBB> What do you think are the most pertinent debates happening in the media field right now? 

Felicia> I’d go back to measurement on this one as well, given the economic state and general consumer behaviour shifts, brands and businesses are under extraordinary pressures and scrutiny to deliver against aggressive targets.

With that, media investments are under scrutiny just the same with the goal of understanding for every dollar put in what can be expected out of it. While a completely fair and valid question there are so many varying ways to showcase this value however it’s not always as simple as it seems. Clean data, consideration of macro and micro economic factors, seasonality, business operations, lead and lagging indicators, and general measurement frameworks are all crucial components to help attempt to answer this question.

Because there is no standard way to land on this answer as well as gaps in data availability due to privacy consideration, black box products and the everchanging SERP landscape this will continue to be a much harder question to answer than ever.

The true debate on this is that each and every marketer, client and vendor have their own opinion on what is right, wrong, real or fake when it comes to measurement.

LBB> Decoupling, recoupling, creative agencies trying to build media functions, media agencies creating content studios… what’s your take on the relationship between creative and media and where do you think it’s going? 

Felicia> The relationship between creative and media is an interesting one because I’ve seen many clients approach it in different ways.

I think the biggest mistake many clients and advertisers make is not recognising the power of creative as it relates to media efficacy. It’s just as if not more important than the investment you put behind media and where you put it. Clients and brands need to consider the relationship and integration of media and creative for optimal success.

With the power of AI, there’s significant opportunity to quickly version creatives to reach your varying audiences and aligning to platform/channel requirements and needs. Most, if not all video channels do not behave like traditional media and do not expect 4k quality video production to make an impact. In fact, most platforms and users on these platforms prefer a more native feel, so shooting on an iPhone on a low budget could get you to the same, if not better outcome.

Using on agency that is proficient in content/media is the way to go for both efficiency and productive results. If that doesn’t suit you – it’s imperative to create an environment between agency partners managing creative and media where there are clear goals, roadmaps, measurement and reporting cadences to keep everyone aligned and collaborative.

LBB> The wider industry has become really obsessed with artificial intelligence, but media has been using variations of AI and algorithmic automation for some time - what’s your take on the longer term influence of AI on media? Are there any aspects of media planning that you think AI could still have a big impact on? 

Felicia> It’s true, media has been using AI and automation for quite some time now and it’s made us smarter and faster. However, there is still an element of “art” to go with the “science” and we should continue to lean into AI to help improve productivity and efficiency to allow for marketers to use more of their minds daily to support strategy.

There is so much monotonous work that can be required to maintain media programs – if we use AI wisely, we can effectively cut down on that, and stretch our brains to think beyond the numbers.

There are other opportunities to consider AI for as it relates to media planning, for instance taking complex data sources and inputs to understand audience and media consumption behaviours and how that aligns to media program opportunities.

Creating one holistic approach for media planning at the audience level with clear outputs will allow marketers to spend more time focusing on the strategic activation details to push against those plans and allow for more time learning about a clients business and putting those learnings into practice proactively vs reactively.

LBB> More attention is being paid to the environmental impact of various media types, particularly in digital - where do you think the industry is in terms of tracking that impact and minimising it? 

Felicia> The industry is becoming more mindful of environmental impact on whole and finding ways to impact it, whether it’s reducing streaming time, consideration of data usage on whole via programmatic platforms, or lowering file sizes – it’s a hot topic in the media world right now and lots of companies are looking for ways to prioritise renewable energy sources and more sustainable practices.

All that being said, streaming trends are rising and continuing to grow, and digital media usage is more prolific than ever so becoming more mindful and actually taking action to support change are not one in the same.

It goes back to consumer mindset and behaviours – we are challenged with striking a balance between providing instant gratification to consumers while also being mindful of carbon emissions? Reducing the carbon footprint will come at a cost of somewhat delayed gratification to consumer and are we willing to put the health of our planet above all else? Only time will tell.  

LBB> As an industry, we’re obsessed with the new - and for good reason, it’s often where the money lies! But are there any more traditional forms of media that you think we’re sleeping on a bit or that you think still make a big impact when it comes to connecting with consumers? 

Felicia> I wouldn’t necessarily say we are “sleeping” on traditional forms of media as we still use many of them effectively today whether it be TV, local radio, print, or out of home – but there should be further consideration of channels like out of home advertising as well as direct mail.

There are a lot of capabilities to deliver out of home digitally/programmatically as well which are options to find a happy balance between the two mediums with better audience targeting and tracking capabilities.

Remember, the channels chosen should be highly dependent on your target audience and where you can find them and the type of media they consume. Audience driven against your brand or client’s goals will determine a more traditional or digital approach – it’s never a one size fits all. As a media agency, it’s our responsibility to help guide our clients towards the media that will deliver against THEIR goals, not ours.

LBB> Who are your media heroes and why? And what sort of media do you enjoy? 

Felicia> Honestly, any person working in media is a true hero in my eyes. It’s a huge responsibility and it takes a lot of patience, smarts and empathy to succeed in this role and getting harder everyday. With a fast paced, ever-changing environment, significant pressures to meet client aggressive targets, AI expectations to drive efficiency, and measurement and privacy considerations marketers have a very significant responsibility to deliver results strategically daily.

I enjoy all media! My roots and first love will always and forever be search, but as I’ve grown as a marketer, I’ve found that I enjoy the planning process of upper funnel (and full funnel media) the most. Aligning media plans to audience behaviour and intents and placing media based on interests, demographics, competitive signals, first-party data has been the most challenging and rewarding part of my job as a marketer to achieve our client’s short- and long-term goals.