Iryna Newman
Director of Mobile Marketing, OpenTable
Winning ways: A self-professed data junkie, Newman says it’s her passion for numbers and information that fuels her excitement for all things mobile. Newman heads mobile marketing at OpenTable, a popular app that allows users to make restaurant reservations in real time. She insists that it’s the right information that feeds the continual growth of the direct mobile marketing community. With a background in finance, Newman says her ability to talk numbers enables her to speak the language of CFOs and make clear the importance for marketers to increase spend on mobile initiatives. Newman increased accretive monthly mobile spend at OpenTable by more than 16X within the first two quarters of her tenure as director. Her efforts have driven a more than 30% quarter-over-quarter increase in app installs and downloads; under Neman’s direction, OpenTable launched an international mobile marketing campaign in Germany, Japan, and the UK that’s contributed to more than 80% of total app installs.
Defining moment: “Growing up, even as a child, I really liked working with numbers. So my first job out of college was in finance, but I didn’t like the rigid, stringent environment. So I moved away from that but learned that I can channel the same passions through performance and direct response marketing.”
Words to live by: “Whatever you are, be a good one.”—Abraham Lincoln
Head swivel: “A recent trend that I’ve noticed is that marketing is increasingly becoming a profit center. Before, companies would invest with no certainty or expectations about outcomes. Today we can track most of our campaigns online and through mobile. So we can invest and then know what the ROI will be.”
Good advice: “Young or novice marketers shouldn’t expect the strategies, direction, or knowledge that they need to succeed necessarily to come from the past. The reality today is that marketing and technology is developing so fast that you’ll have to pioneer to meet new, unforeseen needs. While the fundamentals of profitability, ROI, and efficiency will remain the same, young marketers can’t expect older marketers to teach them everything about an increasingly digital world. Often, it’s the younger marketers who’ll be defining social, mobile, and digital campaigns.”
First job: “A waitress at a small bistro. It pushed me to find what I was good at. I was awful, and after that job, I was determined to land a position that I was gifted at.”
On your nightstand: Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Favorite mobile app: “OpenTable, of course.”
Click or tap here to read the stories behind the successes of the other Direct Marketing News 2014 40 Under 40 winners.
