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Get To Know: Tealium CMO Tracy Hansen
As the CMO for Tealium, an enterprise tag management provider, Tracy Hansen says her team of savvy marketers are redefining how digital marketers can interact with their data.
Hansen is responsible for building a world-class brand for Tealium, while also delivering strong bottom-line results through rich marketing programs and a laser-focused alignment with sales.
Before joining the Tealium team, Hansen served as SVP of marketing at CA Technologies, where she launched a global advertising campaign, overhauled CA’s digital strategy, and re-launched the 30-year-old company as a modern IT SaaS vendor.
Prior to CA Technologies, Hansen spent 15 years at NetApp in Silicon Valley, managing integrated marketing, interactive marketing, and marketing operations. While in these various roles, she grew demand generation programs by more than 200 percent per year.
Hansen graduated from Mills College with a Bachelor of Communications and Northeastern University with a Masters in Technical Writing. She has received several Telly Awards, two Eloqua Marketing awards, and is a regular speaker at industry events on the topic of integrated marketing and digital marketing.
Hansen recently relocated from New York City to San Diego with her husband and two dogs.
Tracy Hansen
CMO @ Tealium
- Age: 44
- HQ: San Diego
- Apple or Android? Apple
- First Job: Marketing Assistant
- Hobby: Interior design
- First Car: Honda Civic
What mobile device can you not live without?
My iPhone.
Can we take a peek at your iPhone’s home screen?
Which apps do you use most often for work?
Email – it allows me connect with my team and business partners quickly and efficiently.
What social media network or website do you frequent most when you’re not working?
Pinterest. I love the way people are sharing information, ideas and building on each other’s ideas. Everything from design, cooking, books, etc. – it’s wonderful.
What’s the first thing you check on your phone in the morning?
Email.
Take me through your typical workday.
On any given Tuesday, my day starts with a team brainstorm or ideation session. We do some business housekeeping then jump into a discussion on ways to help our customers and drive Tealium forward. Last week we brainstormed on a new demand gen campaign that I cannot wait to bring to life.
After the ideation session, I’m usually in a series of meetings with our sales leadership team, our engineering teams or with the business development team. It’s likely that I will also talk with press or analysts during the day, and frequently with our agency partners to drive joint programs.
Some of my favorite meetings during a typical day are 1:1s with my employees where we discuss their particular programs and their development plans. I love watching and helping talented people grow into their dreams.
What has been the most exciting work development during the past year?
Joining Tealium! I joined the company in January, and knew immediately what is happening at Tealium is amazing. When I saw the product demo I was floored.
For years, I had dreamed of being able to stitch together customer data across all of the touch points (i.e., web, mobile, apps, kiosk) that I had been using in my digital programs because it was always too complicated. With Tealium iQ and Tealium AudienceStream, I saw it come to life before my eyes.
Now, for the first time, marketers can easily unify their marketing programs and drive more relevant and profitable customer interactions. I had to join this place so I can get everyone to see how amazing and visionary this company is. Two weeks after starting, Tealium was named one of Forbes’ Most Promising Companies in America, so things started off with a bang!
How many miles have you traveled in the past year?
Hardly any! With all the technology available today, I can be face to face with people around the world from my home or office. I am in New York City right now to meet with several CMOs and some press to share more about Tealium.
What work challenge keeps you up at night?
How to deliver more value to my sales partners more quickly and efficiently.
Can you tell us about a campaign or work project you’d like to do over, or wish you would have executed differently?
We are just about to release the first campaign at Tealium, so I don’t have the data yet to know if it is a huge success or not. However, in my career there are lots of things that I would love to do over. Most notably, I would have launched my last two digital overhauls using a tag management system as the foundational layer to allow me to deliver better, more personalized experiences for my customers and gather better insights on what programs I need to adjust in real-time.
Tell me about the people who have been most influential in your career.
Christine Heckart, currently the CMO at Brocade, was massively influential to me. She gave me the confidence to be a leader.
Glenn Hansen, my husband, is a designer who is my own personal cheerleader. When I am down or questioning things, he always gives me the extra boost I need.
Paul Albright, the CEO at Captora pushed me to think different and be stronger in everything I do. Paul was (and still is) ahead of his time. He had a vision of sales and marketing alignment, data-driven marketing and demand generation well before these things were mainstream.
What traits does a person need to succeed in your position?
Patience, Focus, Vision.
Can you tell us something about yourself that your team would be surprised to know?
I was a nanny while in grad school. Most people just laugh when I tell them that!
Why did you go into marketing?
I was in IT, working for a CIO, working on digital design when the company got a new CMO. I saw that this new CMO didn’t have any business intelligence to base his decisions on. I made a pitch to him, and the CIO said I should work in marketing to help change that. I never looked back!
What other career would you like to try and why?
Travel guide, I would LOVE to travel around the world and help people see all the amazing things that are out there.
What does your desk look like?
Right this minute, it is the cleanest it has ever been. I knew I was traveling this week and wanted to let my team use my office while I was out. Usually, it’s a chaotic mess with papers everywhere – but I know where everything is, which even amazes me.
What is the last business book you read?
Audience by Jeffery Rohrs. Jeffery is with ExactTarget, a partner of Tealium’s. The book was a gift and I just love it. It speaks directly to what I am thinking about right now – how to create an interest in my company and its products, while building value for customers. Good stuff.
Outside of your company’s efforts, what campaign caught your eye recently?
I love the Liquid Plumr campaign. It’s irreverent, unexpected and made me laugh out loud at their audacity and risk taking.
Any campaign that is willing to take a risk, pull at heart strings, and make a connection to the audience is brilliant.
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