Welcome to WeMarketers podcast episode featuring Albert Mercade, Marketing Manager at TalentUp.io. Join host Andrew as Albert shares his inspiring story of joining TalentUp.io as an intern and eventually shaping its marketing strategy from scratch. Discover how he tackled early marketing challenges, the effective strategies that led to TalentUp.io’s growth, and the critical role of content creation, particularly blogging and salary benchmarking reports.
Albert also offers valuable advice for new marketers, discusses the impact of AI on marketing, and emphasizes the importance of patience, teamwork, and learning from failures. Don’t miss this insightful conversation!
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Connect with Albert Mercade: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertmercad%C3%A9laborda/
Connect with Andrew Demianenko: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-demian
Check marketing salaries: TalentUp.io
[00:00:55] Andrew: Hello and welcome to the WeMarketers Podcast. I’m Andrew, and my guest today is Albert Mercadé, Marketing Manager at TalentUp.io, a salary and talent data benchmarking platform. Albert, happy to have you with us. To kick off, tell me a little bit about how it all started with TalentUp.io, and how you became part of the team.
[00:01:22] Albert: Thank you, Andrew, for having me. It all started four years ago. I began as an intern at TalentUp. I had just completed an amazing internship at Welcome to the Jungle, a company from France. Our CEO, Jordi, was looking for someone with a bit of experience in marketing and content to develop the marketing strategy for TalentUp. At that time, the team was really small—just three people, and I made the fourth. It was a great fit. I really liked the mission of the company: providing valuable information to companies in need. That’s how I started here.
[00:01:58] Andrew: Since you’ve been with TalentUp from the very beginning, how did you prioritize all the marketing tasks you had to handle? I assume there were many, ranging from content marketing to paid advertising.
[00:02:17] Albert: Yes, of course. Keep in mind, at that time, there was no proper marketing structure, which made it both challenging and fascinating. Usually, when marketers join a company, there’s some kind of structure already in place. You have colleagues working with you, and there’s a guide on what to do and how to do it. But when I started, as I mentioned, there was no marketing structure—no actions or movements happening yet.
[00:02:46] Albert: My first task was to understand deeply what the company was doing. From there, I could communicate that to our target audience. It was essential to understand who our audience was and how we could meet their needs. My mission at the beginning was to get things moving—posting on LinkedIn, developing content, starting a WordPress blog, and doing interviews with people to promote TalentUp. These were the initial steps. Eventually, we began producing reports to generate leads. I wasn’t thinking about paid ads at the time; I wanted to work with what we had at no cost and see what worked.
[00:04:13] Andrew: Over the years, what strategies have proven to be the most effective in promoting your platform?
[00:04:19] Albert: First and foremost, the website and the blog have been true lead magnets for the platform. The blog, in particular, has performed well, though it has always been a challenge to get people to read our content. Continuous improvement is key—whether it’s blog posts or web content, it’s important to analyze data, revise, and see how to make improvements.
[00:05:05] Albert: For example, on our website, we have pages like “Free Salaries” and “Free Companies,” offering salary information for different roles and locations. These have been major lead magnets. People searching for salaries in specific regions often land on TalentUp, bringing a lot of traffic. It’s been a long journey, but now the website and blog are our main sources of leads.
[00:05:50] Andrew: That’s a smart strategy. How do you decide which pages to create?
[00:05:56] Albert: That’s a really good question. It’s crucial to thoroughly understand your audience and your tool. Once you have that understanding, you can start projecting what kind of content to create. But that’s only the first step. Once the content is out there, you need to analyze what’s working and what’s not—how people interact with the pages and how they arrive. The analysis part is the most difficult but also the most important.
[00:06:41] Andrew: For me, the blog is one of my favorite content marketing tools. So, what advice would you give on creating an effective blog?
[00:07:04] Albert: First of all, I agree with you. A blog is one of the best strategies you can pursue as a marketer. But it’s essential to have either a manager, a CEO, or yourself who believes in it because maintaining a blog is hard work. You need to think long-term. It’s not likely that you’ll have thousands of visits in the first month or generate a lot of leads. Some people struggle with this because they expect immediate results.
[00:07:43] Albert: So my advice is consistency. Publish regularly—at least once a week, or more if you can. Always analyze your content, see what’s working, and build on that. Over time, you’ll create pieces that attract more and more visitors.
[00:08:36] Andrew: What tools do you use to analyze the efficiency of your blog? Is Google Analytics and Search Console enough for you, or do you use additional tools?
[00:08:47] Albert: I’m a big fan of Google Analytics. I know there are plenty of other tools out there, like Semrush or HubSpot, but Google Analytics has worked well for me. I also use Hotjar and, at some point, I used Clarity. These tools help analyze how people interact with the website. But yes, Google Analytics is my main tool for analyzing content.
[00:09:17] Andrew: Aside from blogging, could you share a marketing campaign that you’re particularly proud of?
[00:09:29] Albert: Apart from the blog, I’m most proud of our salary benchmarking reports. As a salary benchmarking tool, we have a lot of data about salaries across different sectors and cities. We created a comprehensive salary benchmarking report for both the Americas and Europe, which we update annually. It’s free and has become a significant lead magnet for us. People download it every day, and it’s something we’re really proud of.
[00:10:50] Albert: We’re currently preparing the next report for Europe, which should launch in October.
[00:10:58] Andrew: That’s really exciting! I actually heard about your company through one of your reports. Now, I’m curious: given that data is your product, how does giving away so much data for free pay off?
[00:11:30] Albert: It might seem strange, but yes, it pays off. We believe in transparency, and giving away free reports reflects that. These reports are a sample of the kind of data we have on our platform. If someone needs more specific data, they can purchase our solution. It’s similar to how platforms like Spotify or YouTube offer free content but have a subscription option for heavy users.
[00:12:30] Andrew: It’s a brilliant strategy. Now, comparing downloadable content like reports and blog content, which do you find more effective for lead generation?
[00:13:53] Albert: In terms of direct leads, the website itself brings the most. However, the reports serve another purpose—they build brand awareness and continue to generate downloads over time. The reports also bring people back to the blog and website through newsletters. So, in a way, the reports and blog content are interconnected, supporting one another.
[00:15:12] Andrew: What about challenges? Can you share a particularly difficult moment you’ve faced?
[00:15:23] Albert: One of the most exciting challenges for me has been turning the activity on our website—like blog interactions and report downloads—into measurable data. When I started four years ago, there were a lot of activities but no real way to measure them. Now, through tools like Google Analytics and SQL commands, we can analyze this data and see how we’re performing, which has been incredibly valuable.
[00:16:34] Andrew: Do you use any specific tools for managing your marketing data?
[00:16:38] Albert: Yes, we use several tools. For managing leads, we use Apollo and our own internal database. We also use Kibana, MySQL, and CloudBeaver to analyze data from the platform and website.
[00:17:08] Andrew: As you work with salary benchmarking, could you share some trends in marketing industry salaries?
[00:17:20] Albert: The marketing industry is very diverse. Some companies are willing to pay top salaries for professionals who can deliver data-driven marketing results. But there are also companies that don’t quite understand the role of marketing. You still see job ads asking junior marketers to do everything, which is a bit concerning. However, I think things are improving, and marketing professionals are becoming more recognized.
[00:18:26] Andrew: Can marketers use your platform for free to check salary data?
[00:18:35] Albert: Yes, absolutely. Any marketer can visit our platform and get one free search. You can look up your job title, such as “content marketing junior” in Amsterdam, and see salary data for that specific location.
[00:19:02] Andrew: That’s fantastic! To wrap things up, what’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self who just started working at TalentUp?
[00:19:13] Albert: I would tell myself to be patient. Growth doesn’t happen overnight. I would also remind myself to trust my team and my abilities. And, of course, don’t be afraid to fail. In marketing, you’re constantly testing and trying new things. Failure is part of the process, and it leads to eventual success.
[00:20:12] Andrew: Great advice. Now for some quick-fire questions. What’s your favorite marketing tool and why?
[00:20:23] Albert: I’d say the SQL-powered databases we use. They allow us to analyze visitor behavior on our platform in great detail, which is invaluable.
[00:20:55] Andrew: If you had a marketing superpower, which one would you choose?
[00:21:09] Albert: I’d love to know every detail about each visitor—what brought them to our site, what they thought, and how we could improve their experience. That level of insight would be amazing.
[00:21:41] Andrew: What are your go-to sources for marketing inspiration?
[00:21:44] Albert: Besides the usual online resources, I look at what successful companies are doing. Companies like yours, Matchr, are a great inspiration. I also follow content from MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute.
[00:23:03] Andrew: What question should I ask my next guest?
[00:23:08] Albert: Ask them how they see the role of AI evolving in marketing over the next two years and what strategies they would recommend to stay ahead of the curve.
[00:23:29] Andrew: I’ll definitely ask that. Thank you, Albert, for an insightful conversation. Your energy and knowledge are truly inspiring.
[00:23:38] Albert: Thank you, Andrew. It’s been a pleasure. Goodbye!
[00:23:38] Andrew: Goodbye!