About CARFAX
John Fitzsimmons has a diverse career specializing in email marketing and audience engagement. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies and one of the nation’s largest foundations on both the vendor and client sides. Currently, he leads the Lifecycle Marketing team at CARFAX, managing all consumer email, SMS, and app communications.
John's Bio
CARFAX is part of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), the world’s foremost provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics, and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity, and automotive markets.
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Featured Quote
Iterable has been instrumental in our efforts over the last few years to improve the personalization and effectiveness of our notifications as we work to build as one-to-one an experience as possible.
Interview
When and how did you get your start in marketing?
I just kind of fell into marketing. I graduated with a BA in Economics and Political Science but ended up getting a job in marketing after a family friend recommended an email marketing company that was growing rapidly and hiring even during the 2007/2008 crisis. After 17 years I was pretty lucky to wind up doing something I enjoy so much.
What brings you joy in your role?Â
My favorite part of my role is getting to solve problems. The work that my team gets to do is constantly evolving and changing and no two days are ever the same.
What led you to choose Iterable over others in the market?
The Iterable team was a major deciding factor for us. We went through a very lengthy RFP process and of the vendors we talked to, Iterable seemed to want to be our partner the most and not just sell us a product.
What does customer experience mean to you, and how does Iterable play a role?
At CARFAX one of our core business ideals is to keep the consumer as our north star. All decisions we make are intended to better serve the people that use our products. To this end we put a ton of effort into testing and optimizing our consumer experience across all mediums. Iterable has been instrumental in our efforts over the last few years to improve the personalization and effectiveness of our notifications as we work to build as one-to-one an experience as possible.
What do you think will be the next big thing in the marketing industry?
I think that AI content generation and automation will start to work closer together. At scale unique user experiences really will require machines to start generating content for users and deciding what to show and when to show it.
What would you like to see brands doing more of? Or less of?
No one has ever really lost money sending an email. The issue this brings up is that it sometimes forces marketers to meet business demands by sending more messages than they would like. As the messaging landscape continues to evolve and the time to grab attention grows shorter it can be easy to fallback to grabbing land in the inbox rather than providing beneficial experiences to users. Less noise and more substance.
What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?
A good cup of coffee.
