Our marketing associate Maggie is the sixth in a series of “who we are” interviews with the people who work at Abine. A company is only as good as the people behind it, and we don’t mean to brag, but we have some pretty great people here. We also tend to enjoy puppies and pancakes, perhaps more than the average group of people does.
Maggie started at Abine as a DeleteMe adviser, removing our customers’ personal info from data sites that publicly display and sell it. She then moved onto the marketing team, where she helps get the word out about our company in a privacy-friendly way (contrary to what many marketers today are doing). Her dog Rosie is also a frequent office visitor.
Thanks for getting to know us at Abine!
Sarah: What do you do at Abine?
Maggie: I’m on the marketing team at Abine. I have a broad role but work a lot on customer acquisition and engagement.
Sarah: What are some examples of things you do on a given day?
Maggie: Keep the copy and creative up to date in our primary acquisition channels, perform competitor analyses, maintain our email marketing, and brainstorm better ways to engage our free user base. For example, today I’m brainstorming concepts for promotional images for our newest, coolest privacy product yet! It’s thrilling stuff.
Sarah: Why does privacy matter to you?
Rosie, Maggie, and Rocko.
Maggie: Because there are some scary implications if we sacrifice our privacy, especially on the web. If you know what you’re doing on the web is being monitored and stored away, to forever be associated with you and who you are, you’ll act differently. In other words, you’ll start censoring yourself when you’re online. Self-censorship on the web? No thank you.
Sarah: If you were on Survivor, what one thing would you take with you?
Maggie: Well my answer has the caveat of being totally unrealistic but I’d take my bed. I love sleep.
Sarah: Let’s say you’re on death row. What would your last meal be?
Maggie: Thanksgiving dinner with a ridiculous portion of cranberry sauce–the canned stuff, no homemade nonsense. DONE.
Sarah: Name your top 3 movies in no particular order.
Maggie: The Sandlot, Man on Fire, and The Departed.
Sarah: Favorite book?
Maggie: Oh man. That’s an impossible question, but let’s just say I recently dedicated a year of my reading life to the Game of Thrones series, so they’re up there.
Rosie when she wants food. Which is always.
Sarah: This is a tough question, but how can marketing and privacy co-exist? What are you doing at Abine to balance these two things?
Maggie: While it’s not the approach taken by most Internet companies, marketing and privacy certainly can coexist. We truly are 100% committed to web users’ privacy and that stays true for how we market to our users. For example, we don’t use tracking tools on our websites, we only email our users if they explicitly requested more information from us, and all we know about our DoNotTrackMe users is whether they’ve installed. Not using ordinary marketing tools that track users simply means we have to be a bit more innovative with how we understand our users.
Sarah: Are you a dog person or a cat person?
Maggie: Unquestionably a dog person.
Sarah: Last question. As a member of the Abine Varsity Flip Cup Team, tell us your favorite kind of beer.
Maggie: I may sound like a middle-aged man here, but I love my Amstel light.