Revel Blog

Marketing Operations Expert: Revel Employee Spotlight

Revel Systems | March 25, 2022 |

People POS Spotlight
Marketing Operations Expert: Revel Employee Spotlight

Revel’s “People POS” blog series returns with a fresh format and more great stories featuring colleagues from across our organization. 

We had the pleasure of featuring Vilija recently, an operations manager who, alongside her team, is a huge driving force for client success at Revel. 

In order to communicate effectively with our current client base, and help get timely information about our platform to prospective clients who have expressed interest, our marketing operations team works diligently behind the scenes to reach these audiences. 

David Gamber, our marketing operations lead, recently sat down with us to share more about his time at Revel and what led him to a career in marketing operations in a Q&A-style chat. 

Meet David, Revel’s Marketing Operations Lead

Q: First things first. What is your role at Revel? 

A: I’m the marketing operations lead here at Revel. Basically, I manage all of our marketing technology and support the strategy and measurement behind our outreach. 

Q: You’ve been at Revel for just over two years. What do you enjoy most about working here? 

A: At Revel, there’s a lot of room for everyone to share ideas and grow. And in my opinion, there’s really no thought hierarchy. I’ve found that every person in every meeting has a valuable voice and people will listen to you. Even if your idea doesn’t play out, everyone is treated with respect. I’ve had previous jobs where that certainly wasn’t the case. 

I also really like the transparency across the organization about where Revel is headed. In our monthly company-wide All Hands meetings, I’ve noticed that leadership avoids ambiguous statements and opts to share clear goals for the company. 

There’s no talking around things and we leave feeling empowered to put our heads together and accomplish our goals. The best part is that we’re incentivized to reach those numbers. 

Last but not least, the company offers great work-life balance. I started at Revel during the onset of the pandemic and I feel like the company has done such a nice job of still making us feel like a team. Each person on our team has their own style of working and ultimately we’re trusted to get our work done—I really appreciate that level of trust. 

Q: What led you to your role at Revel?

A: I went to school at Washington University in St. Louis, MO because they have a great business program. I double majored in marketing and finance and after a few internships, I realized how much I enjoyed marketing. 

I think I was first drawn to the strategy behind a good campaign, and being able to plan different ways to attract attention to a product and catch people’s eyes. And the measurement part of things. I liked diving into what worked, what didn’t, and digging into why. 

Learn more about building a marketing campagin for success in this blog post.

After graduating, I interned at a company that produced shows on Broadway in New York City. Looking back, this first job out of college was very interesting. I was living in New York City, getting paid an intern salary and doing every type of marketing job there was, including owning their social channels, writing content, and even handing out paychecks to actors in dressing rooms.

I then really got started in marketing operations—and also dabbled in some product marketing—when I started working at a marketing technology company. I got dropped into a whole new world where I really had to figure it out. I was sending out emails, learning to code in HTML, and measuring campaigns. 

My boss at the time picked up that I was good with the operational side, so she let me peek behind the curtain on the data side of things and I started measuring and segmenting audiences. That’s where I really got my start. 

My fiancée and I later relocated to Atlanta where she started her residency. After a brief stint in marketing operations at a local technology company, I made the switch to Revel.

Q: As the marketing operations lead, what does your role consist of here at Revel? 

A: My role is really interesting and dynamic. On a day-to-day basis a big focus is getting all of our emails out on time, but measurement is also critical. On the backend, I’m making sure that the pieces are in place for us to be able to measure and track email campaigns. 

For example, some of our campaigns need to have the right rules and infrastructure in place so that the sales team will be informed when someone engages with our content. Our marketing technology platform helps us manage all of this. 

I also focus on maintaining all of our other marketing technology, which includes sources like the chat tool on our website. We want to make sure that every client and prospective client visiting our website or engaging with our content has a positive, on-brand experience with us.

Q: You recently moved into people management here at Revel. What has transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager looked like for you? 

A: I did recently start managing a new teammate and it’s been great to have her on the team. She’s a planning and design powerhouse, and with her here, we’re able to focus even more on our visual design, A/B testing to determine what content is resonating, and generally creating the most engaging content we can. 

I also get to focus a bit more time on the measurement side of the house, which I enjoy. As we continue to measure the success of our campaigns, I’m able to pull different levers on the backend to adjust our strategies. 

As a manager, I think you inherently recognize that your new hire has a ton of skills and is going to be an asset to the company. So I believe it’s my job to make sure that this person has room to grow and put their best foot forward. 

It’s a big responsibility to hold up your end of the bargain as a manager and I take that seriously. You have to give them room to use their talents and build that inherent trust. 

Q: What’s a project you’ve worked on in the past that you’re proud of, and what projects are coming up for the marketing operations team?

A: One of the first big projects that I was tasked with upon joining Revel was to transition from our previous marketing technology platform to the one we utilize today. It was essentially two major projects in one: we needed to switch all of our email sends and automation from system to system, and we also needed to build out a new system of multi-touch attribution. 

It was a lot of manual labor to build all the new email templates, build logic to support lead scoring and the data passing to Salesforce, and cross check systems to ensure that our new fields wouldn’t overwrite something in another system. We had to make sure you didn’t cut the red wire at every step, so to speak. 

It was a major project, but thanks in large part to the collaboration of so many people and teams, we successfully made the switch. And I’m happy to report that the data we have access to today is stronger and more organized than ever. 

Next up, I’m excited about onboarding a new marketing tool to add to our tech stack. I don’t want to give too much away, but this tool will help us deliver an even better, more engaging outreach experience to our clients and prospective clients. 

Q: Outside of being a marketing technology guru at Revel, what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? 

A: I recently got engaged to my wonderful fiancée, so that continues to be really exciting. I also love to cook, and since I work from home and my fiancée works in the hospital, I try to make nice homemade meals for us. I spend a lot of time experimenting in the kitchen to make it fun. 

We are also two months into rescuing our second dog. Bingley is a deaf, albino purebred pitbull. It’s both tough and rewarding to help rehabilitate a dog that’s been in a tough situation and we absolutely love him. 

What’s Next 

The work that David and the rest of the marketing team do continues to be a critical connection point between Revel and those interested in our cloud-native point of sale platform. 

And the marketing team is always generating fresh, timely content for your enjoyment! Check out Revel’s blog for the latest and greatest in industry trends, product updates, and more employee spotlights just like this.