Natalia Shahmetova, CMO at Woofz: “AI has helped Marketers take a qualitative step forward”

We interview a LOT of people at TechFinitive, as we like to see what makes people tick. And succeed. And there’s one thing we can say for sure: Natalia Shahmetova, CEO/CMO of Woofz, is the very first writer we’ve featured. And whilst we’re delighted that Natalia could join us for our new Dust or Magic series, which focuses on marketing thought leaders, she could just as easily have been one of our entrepreneurial TakeOff interviewees.

To be precise, Natalia started as a branding copywriter in late 2012. She then worked with global fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands, successfully launching more than ten mobile lifestyle, utilities and music mobile apps from scratch.

But ultimately it was a personal interest that drove the creation of Woofz, with Natalia describing herself as a “dog lover” (and a trail runner, so we’ll look out for that launch next). Here, in her own words, is Natalia’s story.

Why Dust or Magic? That stems from a quote by legendary American advertising creative director, William Bernbach: “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.” (And if you’re wondering where you’ve heard the name, Bernbach was the inspiration behind Don Draper of Mad Men fame.)

Could you please introduce yourself to our audience? What motivated you to pursue a career in marketing, and how did you embark on your journey in this field?

My name is Natasha Shahmetova and I’m Co-Founder and CEO/CMO at Woofz.

Founded in 2020, I established Woofz as a pet tech sub-brand under Gismart. My career trajectory is noteworthy, moving from a role as a branding copywriter to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of the product within a mere ten years. Throughout my professional journey, I collaborated with major global FMCG brands, playing a crucial role in successfully launching over ten mobile apps in the domains of lifestyle, utilities and music from the ground up.

Related reading: How to increase your chances of getting a new job in 2024

What are your thoughts on the escalating integration of AI in digital marketing and its potential influence on the future of marketing, Martech, and social media?

I think AI in general has helped marketers take a qualitative step forward. AI has bumped up the level of marketing because a huge number of routine tasks can now be delegated. AI can now be more creative, and analyse data in large volumes and all these trends have launched a boom in app marketing in particular. For example, if before you had to spend a lot of money to shoot content in different locations, now AI can do it all. Same with texts — now their writing can be delegated. These are pluses that we are successfully using, on the one hand.

On the other hand, with the boom and bust of AI development, more and more analytical platforms started to appear that use this solution in their work. And while most of these startup platforms are still in the early stages, we can feel the powerful impact of this. But they are still far from perfect. It’s like ChatGPT, which still uses a limited number of adjectives, for example. And I think that as long as it works imperfectly, it won’t be 100% possible to replace humans. 

In my opinion, this mass hysteria that we’ll all be out of work soon and AI will do all the work for us isn’t really true. The main job of a human is to make decisions, and fortunately, AI can’t make decisions for us, but only gives us the ground for thinking. There may be a complete replacement of humans by AI at some point, but there is still a large part of the world that is not digitised enough and even if in our circle we think that AI will replace everything — but there is still a huge layer of areas where there is a lot of work to be done.

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How do you ready yourself for an AI-driven landscape as a marketing leader? What new skills do you need?

The most important thing is to keep abreast of the main innovations, not to be afraid to try new tools, to diversify your risks, and not to put all in on any one solution. Nowadays, running a startup company is like investing — you can’t put your eggs in one basket, you need to diversify. Divide and conquer.

Looking ahead to 2024, what AdTech trends do you expect to dominate?

I think the biggest trend will be in the area of advertising content creation. There will be more automation in creating videos and collages for use on social networks, creating text headlines, and analytics for performance content. I think the content niche is set to hit its stride as a whole.

On top of that, in mobile marketing — we are going to see maximum simplification and maximum automation, and there will be even more website builds, and onboarding.

And the third trend that is very dangerous (I think) is the trend to automate purchases and traffic procurement. There are several key players on the market, such as Google or Meta, which in some ways can be said to put sticks in the wheels and it is difficult to predict what will happen in the field of traffic procurement. After all, there are government regulations, and there is a monopoly like Google that does what it wants, but it is not clear where it will lead.

Smaller players who are involved in traffic procurement are in a more disadvantaged situation.

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Do you anticipate any significant disruptions in marketing and sales technology for 2024? If so, what?

I don’t think there will be any big changes. The biggest risk is new restrictions on tracking users, and new rules in terms of privacy and security that limit the ability to find the right users. But I think we will find a way out.

How do you perceive programmatic advertising in today’s marketing landscape?

Programmatic may now find a second life due to the fact that traffic purchasing and the niche of mobile applications is fading away, it is more and more difficult to find the right users there and big companies are returning to the good old web. And if programmatic can work with new web users, there is every chance to reopen this direction for mobile applications.

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Could you share some of your most noteworthy accomplishments that you take particular pride in?

I am very proud of Woofz. We are pioneers in the pet-tech market and such a niche as training applications. We drilled it hard, became pioneers, and showed that working in the pet-tech niche has a place and that it is a promising direction. And it has something to surprise this market.

I am proud that we launched a new niche in times of an oversaturated market and found something new to make a business out of. We’re still a startup, so we expect to face challenges and take opportunities to make Woofz the #1 product for pet owners. We believe in our product which means that all we need is to further increase the brand awareness — allowing as many people to experience the app as possible. Over the next year or two, we would like to reach a figure of 10 million users.

What core values have played a pivotal role in shaping your approach to marketing and communication?

It’s a culture of AB testing, and testing different concepts at the copywriting level and at the level of every step of the marketing funnel. And we’ve moved the global growth into marketing and have adopted the rule that the more tests, the better the result.

What major hurdles have you encountered as a marketing leader, and how did you surmount them?

The biggest challenges and obstacles are what the regulators and big companies throw at us. For me and for the whole industry, it was the IDFA release and it made us rethink the whole strategy and look at the web with different eyes.

How do you ensure you’re up to date with the latest marketing trends and technologies, and how do you integrate them into your strategies?

Since our domain was originally a mobile app niche, Apple and Google presentations are important to us. And we follow that. You follow the trends and try to find some middle ground between what is asked for and what you need. You try to build your marketing strategy on that middle ground. Use the maximum number of advertising hooks, but at the same time remain white and fluffy.

What piece of advice would you offer to fellow Marketing leaders that has been particularly beneficial to you personally?

Don’t be afraid of updates and new regulations, as we are all in the same boat and we will get somewhere. Don’t be afraid to be flexible and change things.

Are there any startups in the Martech industry that have piqued your interest lately?

One of the startups I really liked is Asapty. It helps to optimise traffic acquisition in Apple Search Ads.

And another cool startup Motion is a cool startup that helps user acquisition managers and creative producers test more concepts. These are two tools that have been helping me lately.