Kate O’Neill: Founder & CEO

Kate O'Neill

Kate’s passion for data-driven business began in earnest during her days managing content at Netflix during the company’s early years, where key metrics across the organization helped drive innovation and transparency without risking short-term success. Several successive leadership roles within both startups and large companies (such as HCA) refined her expertise in the interplay of content, experience, strategy, and profit.

But Kate’s interest in experience optimization and profit maximization came to a head while leading customer experience and product development for Magazines.com. Using a combination of strategic intelligence, data modeling, multi-variate testing, behavioral targeting, and common sense, Kate and her team drove conversion rates up 40% year-over-year and delivered substantial value directly to the bottom line.

In early 2009, Kate launched [meta]marketer, a marketing optimization agency that focuses on helping its clients use web marketing more effectively, primarily by focusing on strategy, analytics, and usability to achieve long-term profitability. [meta]marketer provides direct services in searcher acquisition, analytics, and conversion optimization, and has worked with clients such as Ingram Book Company, Symantec, the Grand Ole Opry, and Emma, as well as many smaller companies, with outstanding results.

A long-time Omniture evangelist (beginning well prior to the company’s acquisition by Adobe), Kate twice served on the Customer Advisory Board for the Omniture Test&Target marketing optimization product and has been brought in to speak at Omniture’s internal world-wide sales meeting about her experiences as both a Test&Target customer and reseller. She has also spoken about analytics and optimization at numerous national conferences (such as PubCon, Marketing Sherpa’s Selling Online Subscriptions Summit, Online Marketing Summit, and the Circulation Management Show), and many smaller local and regional events.

Locally, Kate is an avid supporter of the development of Nashville as a technology and marketing center. She is chair of the Analytics Committee for the Nashville Technology Council, serves on the Small Business Advisory Council for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, on the Business Information Systems Technology Advisory Council for Tennessee State University, on an advisory board for The Tennessean, and as a mentor for Jumpstart Foundry, a local tech-oriented seed-stage microfund and business incubation program. She is the immediate past chair of the Online Marketing SIG for the Nashville chapter of the American Marketing Association. Kate has also spearheaded marketing and outreach efforts for local tech-oriented educational events such as BarCamp Nashville and PodCamp Nashville, as well as grassroots marketing campaigns related to relief and community outreach efforts during the Nashville flood in May 2010.

In August 2011, Kate was named a “Power Leader in Technology” by the Nashville Business Journal, and has been nominated for numerous other awards:

• nominated for Entrepreneur of the Year 2011, The City Paper and Entrepreneurs Organization
• nominated for Nashville Emerging Leader Awards 2010-2011, YP Nashville and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce
• nominated for Women of Influence 2010, Nashville Business Journal
• nominated for Social Media/Blogger of the Year 2009, Nashville Technology Council Awards

Follow Kate on Twitter: @kateo
Contact her: kate@metamarketer.com
Connect with her on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kateoneill
Friend her on Facebook: facebook.com/kateoneill
Her blogs elsewhere:
kateoneill.me
kateo.livejournal.com (not often updated)
honeybowtie.com/blog (no longer updated)
corporateidealist.com (no longer updated)