Throughout my life I’ve had multiple jobs spanning from retail to sales to marketing - and a heap of side-hustles in digital, affiliate, and dropshipping. I’ve also had a ton of ideas that never made it past the drawing board. So how did I become a marketing automation professional?
My career officially kicked off after I finished my undergrad in Philosophy. I had been building Shopify stores, tried my hand at dropshipping, and was working with my dad on an unpaid, part-time basis as a partner marketing manager for MarketingPlatform – a B2B SaaS Email Marketing, Marketing Automation & Customer Data Platform.
In 2017 I ultimately ended up selling my first Shopify store and embarked on a full-time journey as Manager of Customer Success for MarketingPlatform. My role was to help my customers take the relationship with their clients to the next level, and this included strategy, integration, contact management, email marketing, marketing automation, and analytics. We were in full startup mode, so I was also running the marketing blog, networking, doing trade shows, social media, and email marketing. Full-on marketing operations, and what a blast it was!
In 2019, I got an amazing opportunity to try my hand at agency work, and I joined AdFarm as their Marketing Automation Specialist. This role was client-facing with some of North America’s top agribusiness companies, so it combined my marketing automation chops and customer marketing skills to strategize, build, implement and execute marketing campaigns and programs to create the best possible path from farmers to consumers.
These areas included inbound and outbound lead generation, lead routing and scoring, data management and hygiene, segmentation, forms and landing pages, life-cycle nurturing, brand alignment, goal mapping, and so much more. If you’ve ever been inside a marketing agency, you’ll know that no two days are the same, but it was also during this time that I was able to hone my skills in email marketing and lifecycle automation. We scaled and built a small team of automation specialists, and I got certified in all major platforms. It was also during this time that I started building my personal brand that is now christianbaun.com.
Building my brand coupled with my agency experience led to a fantastic opportunity at Docebo as their Email Marketing Manager. I was in charge of planning, developing, implementing, and maintaining the overall email marketing strategy. I built some really exciting nurture programs, implemented software for our SDR teams, and worked closely with our revenue operations and customer teams. My other responsibilities included campaign management, demand generation, conversion copywriting, building email templates and campaigns, and so much more.
In 2021 I joined Boldcommerce as their Marketing Automation Manager where I’m now responsible for bridging the gap between marketing operations, revenue operations, email marketing, sales enablement, and merchant success. I work closely with the sales and revenue operations teams, and my days are spent in Hubspot cleaning and optimizing our content and leads. No two days are the same, and that’s exactly why I love marketing automation.
It’s amazing looking back at the memories made, the friendships created, the exciting work, and the turns my career have taken (so far!) I recognize and thank everyone who took a chance on me, mentored me, and taught me how to navigate in the business landscape. I’ve found my niche in email marketing and lifecycle automation for now, and I’m excited to see where it goes from here.
If you have any questions – or are interested in a career in marketing automation, send me a good ol' fashioned email or slide into my DMs on LinkedIn.
Christian Baun
Christian Baun is an email marketing specialist with a background in demand generation, content marketing and marketing automation.