Global Architect of the Digital Marketing World
Megha Kapoor entered the digital marketing space when it was still in its infancy. And today, she has been recognised among the ‘Top 10 Indian Women Leaders in UAE, 2022’ by Women Entrepreneur India. In the interim decade, Megha has become a pioneer in data and performance marketing through digital channels.
Chic and savvy, Megha began her professional journey over a decade ago. After completing her Masters in Marketing from the prestigious International Management Institute (IMI) Delhi in 2009, she started her digital marketing career with boutique agencies in India.
“What I liked most about working in boutique agencies was the opportunity to learn performance marketing with experts sitting next to you and then deploy the same across full-funnel marketing for clients such as Nestle, Adidas and Philips in the highly competitive Indian market. This fueled my confidence and ignited the spark to take up challenges through solutions backed by data,” recalls Megha.
This path led her to various roles and opportunities across industries with big companies like Isobar, Middle East Communication Network, The Entertainer, Careem – acquired by Uber, Danube – the very first grocery shopping mobile application in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Unilever. With a rich experience on both the agency and client side,
she has successfully launched innovative ideas and campaigns for global brands across the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Megha’s journey reached a pinnacle when she joined ODLA in the UAE as the Chief Growth Marketing Officer. ODLA offers a full-suite digital marketing solution with omnichannel solutions and full-funnel strategies. Their data-driven approach across the customer’s digital footprint ensures consistent and cohesive messaging that simplifies acquisition, conversion, and retention for long-term growth and performance. “The one-size-fits-all approach never works. Take the guesswork out of your strategy and establish a foundation of performance benchmarks to build your digital blueprint with data-validated insights,” opines Megha.
Discussing the advancement in the digital marketing space, she adds, “We have barely scratched the surface of digital and performance marketing evolution. As new channels emerge and technology evolves, performance metrics will keep changing. Ultimately, it will always be about creating a synergistic consumer experience and keeping pace with the dynamic customer journey. I have always kept an open mind regarding trends and trying new things. One must keep sharpening their skill-sets and never rely on chances to take them forward.”
Megha’s biggest strength is her ability to listen and delegate – skills that are imperative to succeed, especially with remote teams. It affects productivity positively, and achieving goals as a team increases employee motivation to pay attention to others and work better together.
As talk turns to the pandemic, she tells us how amid slowing economic activity, COVID-19 led to a surge in e-commerce and accelerated digital transformation, thereby increasing business opportunities for the solutions they offer.
It also gave Megha a chance to direct her professional contribution towards the economy. “There are two parts here – I feel the first is the value that I add to our clients’ revenue through maximizing the returns on spending in technology and advertising, which trickles down to all the partners, platforms, and associates we work with.
The second is the internal factor – through hiring talents from India for many international projects, where Indian professionals access international markets and clients – this work challenges and grows my team members. When paid monthly, their salaries stay in India, and they spend locally. This keeps excellent talent in the country and counteracts Brain Drain,” she explains.
An e-commerce expert, Megha’s passion is seeing the success and results of her initial plans and strategies. It brings her great joy to watch an idea turn into execution and thereby growth. But how does she overcome the challenges? “With remote working, one is more likely to ‘overwork’. When your work zone and your personal space are both under the same roof, it’s harder to switch off. The solution is to balance – Go out regularly for coffee breaks, and hit the gym for 1 hour every day,” she says.
We also ask Megha for advice to flourish in the modern digital world, to which she suggests, “With the world embracing hybrid working, here are the things one needs to possess to scale their business in the long run – Be a good listener, give credit to others, delegate authority to right people showing interest in the project, and be empathetic to your team so alternative perspectives can be explored.”
