Catalyst Employee Spotlight: Janice Lu

You can have the best data and most sophisticated tools, but it doesn’t mean anything without great people. Fortunately, at Catalyst, we have no shortage of great people. From Search Associates to Search Directors, and from Project Managers to Managing Partners, each member of the Catalyst team is committed to maximizing client business results and making Catalyst a world-class agency. Read our Employee Spotlight series to meet some of the team members responsible for making Catalyst an all-star agency partner and a great place to work.

Meet Janice

Name: Janice Lu

Title: Associate, Paid Search & Social

How long have you worked in search and what type of clients have you worked on?

I have been working in search for about 2 years. I have worked with real estate, technology consulting and start-up clients.

Why did you want to work in search and what do you like best about working in paid search? 

The reason why I wanted to work in search is that search is the core marketing strategy for any type of business who wants to reach to their target audience. Paid search offers more control to marketers in terms of how they want their ads to show to their customers, and to respond quickly to market changes. With the paid search management platforms, marketers can deep dive into the data and turn it into actionable insights. Seeing the impact of your work is very motivating. I have always been passionate about digital marketing and in my spare time, I studied AdWords, Google Analytics and other marketing platforms  and tactics via online courses. The master program in Marketing Analytics prepared me with marketing knowledge and data analytics skills to build my career in search marketing.

What do you like most about working at Catalyst?

What I like most about Catalyst is that there are opportunities to learn and grow quickly and I have smart and passionate coworkers.

In your opinion, what is the most important search trend or change for 2019?

I just came back from China, and I’d like to share some perspectives about noteworthy trends in China’s digital marketing environment:

1. Mobile-commerce: Currently, Asia has the highest mobile penetration in the world. There is an estimate that mobile-commerce will account for 74% of total e-commerce in China by 2020. Mobile-first advertising will continue to rise.
2. Social shopper: Instead of using search engines, Chinese consumers tend to use social platforms and ecommerce to discover and explore brands and products. They rarely visit brand websites. The integrated engagement and transaction path creates a seamless purchase journey for Chinese shoppers. Xiaohongshu, the Chinese version Pinterest, is a social site that allows people to buy straight from the platform. The lines between search and ecommerce are increasingly blurred. With this, the time from discovery to purchase will be much shorter.

If you had to give one recommendation to an advertiser who wants to use search to achieve business results, what would it be?

With all the new tech and platforms, consumers are adapting the way in which they search. To keep up with the shifts in customer behavior, my recommendation is that advertisers need to combine both sales and customer behavior data (engagements) to build deeper knowledge of consumers, and integrate them into a solid search strategy.  I think creating a customer-centric search strategy will be the key to success going forward.

Share a fun fact about yourself

I like different kinds of music, but never thought that I could be so enthusiastic with a genre. However, things changed recently after being a KPOP (Korean Pop) fan for 6 months. Now, I’d say keeping up with KPOP news is my new hobby.

Why Janice Makes Us Proud

“Janice’s proactive and always eager to learn and take on new challenges. Her data-driven approach to problem solving helps her learn quickly about the industry and make helpful insights that inform better decision making. We’re very lucky to have her on the team and look forward to all the amazing things that she will accomplish!” – Lena Shiota, Paid Search Manager, Catalyst