Marketing Minds: Tom Bukevicius - Principal @ SCUBE Marketing, Inc.

One of the best ways to evolve as a marketing professional is to generate, collaborate, and nurture ideas among like-minded peers. This post is part of a blog series called “Marketing Minds,” where I solicit thoughts and ideas from cutting-edge marketing leaders and post them on PuzzleMarketer.com. Below is an interview with a true marketing thought leader.


Tom Bukevicius

Principal @ SCUBE Marketing, Inc.

Tom is the founder and Principal of SCUBE Marketing, Inc., a digital marketing firm that specializes in PPC management and data analysis for mid-market companies. SCUBE is known for focus on results and knowledge in PPC. It creates predictable and profitable campaigns for clients in technology, software, education, franchise, industrial manufacturing, and legal industries.

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What brought you into the field of marketing (tell your story) and what makes you feel so passionately about it?:

My story as a marketer can be divided into three phrases: BIRTH It all started with a hobby project – I created an entertainment website. The project forced me to ask a question: “How do I promote the website?” One of the first things I learned was SEO. SEO helped me to grow the site to 15,000 monthly readers. After seeing the site’s success, my friends started asking for help with SEO, which led to the founding of an SEO agency. I had an extensive background in finance & strategy, the next natural step was to add Google AdWords and other pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to the mix of services. GROWTH After another partner joined the company, we were able to build a structure for more capacity, which led to growth. Then we landed opportunities to work on complex problems in competitive industries. SPECIALIZATION The last phase is the most interesting because we changed the direction of the company. We performed an 80/20 business analysis, and the insight led to a new agency name and focus on two things: PPC advertising (to drive qualified traffic through multi-channel Paid Search, Paid Social, and Display campaigns) and CRO (to improve the rate at which traffic converts into revenue). I love digital marketing because it’s changing fast, it’s focused on data, and requires constant problem-solving.

As marketers, we’re constantly seeking for the right tactics or channels to propel our organizations forward. Which tactics or channels have recently surprised you as a viable source of qualified leads?:

Facebook ads, especially using Facebook Custom Audiences, was great this year. What’s great about them is you can target a very specific audience by uploading an email list with key data points. This helps to craft very relevant messages and stand out from the competition.

We’ve all seen the influx of marketing technology that has been created over the last decade. Which technology has been most impactful to you as you plan, launch, or measure your marketing campaigns?:

I’ve been on the opposite side of the spectrum on this topic. Too many tools came out and too many marketers flocked to try out a new tool of the month. The big challenge I see with this approach is the learning curve. You learned one tool, then jump to another one. This wastes a lot of time and money. I have stuck with the same 3 major tools for years: 1. Basecamp – to plan, assign and organize marketing campaigns within our team. 2. Google Analytics – to centralize and analyze all website campaign data. 3. Microsoft Excel – to perform a deep analysis of the data. These tools are powerful, easy to use and have stable companies behind them. I know that they will be around in the next 10 years

Looking forward… What forces (social,economic, political, or cultural) do you see having the biggest effect on your marketing in 2017 and what are your plans to address them?:

Buyers are becoming more and more distracted with an overwhelming amount of information online. In addition, their attention is divided among multiple devices and channels. Research reveals that 95% of first-time visitors don’t convert and 46% of them need 3 or more visits to purchase. 2017 will be a big year for using retargeting campaigns to reach these buyers at every step of their sales cycle. The purpose of these campaigns is to be useful to buyers by giving them engaging content that helps move them to the next step, until they convert. I created a framework called Retargeting Matrix, which I covered a few times over the past couple years: [Podcast] The Remarketing Matrix: 10x Your Remarketing Campaigns With This Procedure

If you could give one piece of advice to a college graduate who just took their first job in marketing, what would you say to them?:

Take ownership of your career. Instead of waiting for your manager to tell you what to do, how to fix your mistakes or how to move ahead in the company, invest time in understanding yourself, your work, and your career objectives. I have written a lengthy article about this topic. Read more takeaways here.


Tom has a proven process and methodology for PPC marketing. I encourage you to follow him on LinkedIn and his company blog.