5 Questions for Natálie Kolářová

She has been with Marketup for over five years, witnessing firsthand how digital marketing has transformed into a precise, data-driven discipline. Today, Naty leads a six-member team of developers and analysts, with whom she is building the "Central Brain"—a web application for efficient business management. As Head of Product, she oversees the development of AI tools and advanced econometric models. In the next installment of our series, we discuss trends in data products, the client portal, and what she still enjoys most about the agency after all these years.

1. Why is Marketing Mix Modeling so crucial for clients, and why can they hardly do without it when evaluating performance?

Today, clients can no longer rely solely on simple performance attribution, which is short-term and increasingly inaccurate due to the demise of third-party cookies. In contrast, Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is a long-term strategic tool. It doesn't just show what the customer clicked on last; instead, it uses econometrics to reveal true incrementality—the real contribution of each channel across both digital and offline.

Furthermore, thanks to our own data warehouse and applied processes, we have total control over the cleanliness of the input data. We don't just give clients gut feelings, but hard data for key business decisions and more effective budget allocation.

2. The "Central Brain" is Marketup's in-house application. What do you see as its primary benefit?

The main benefit lies in unification. Our vision is to innovate and automate internal processes so that we can scale both our growth and our clients' growth without the need to constantly increase headcount.

The Central Brain is gradually building a unified data warehouse, covering everything from project management and invoicing to employee records, time tracking, and an internal wiki. We got rid of scattered spreadsheets and replaced them with unified, scalable processes that form the foundation for any automation and AI solutions.

Additionally, we are currently preparing a client self-service portal. Through it, clients will not only gain access to our data products in one place but will also have an overview of their projects, orders, and invoicing.

3. What other data and AI products are a "must-have" for companies today if they want to truly increase their performance?

It is definitely the ability to work with real-time data and connect it effectively. For this purpose, we developed the "Central Connector"—our in-house solution that pulls and unifies data across every imaginable platform.

Looking directly at client products, CRM and 1st-party data activation is an absolute baseline today. We no longer evaluate campaign performance based just on clicks or website conversions, but on real business figures instead. We then feed this data straight back into advertising systems, which demonstrably boosts their performance.

Another pillar is advanced online reporting. We have clear modules for every key area—from performance and brand to SEO, social media, and influencers. This gives a clear overview of actionable steps and saves everyone hours of time that would otherwise be spent manually copying numbers.

We also see great potential in our AI Ads Analyzer. It's an internally developed tool that uses AI to instantly and structurally analyze competitor communication, used ad formats, and their reach. For clients, it's a goldmine of inspiration backed by hard data. We are currently working intensively on it and will roll it out fully very soon.

4. Do you believe in fully autonomous, AI-driven campaigns, or is human oversight still a necessity?

Human oversight and strategic thinking remain an absolute necessity, but we are happy to leave the execution and routine to machines. For example, we are currently testing automation for deploying campaigns. Once fully scalable, this will save specialists time and help prevent the human errors that naturally occur during manual work.

However, we approach everything with a maximum focus on security. Our solutions therefore operate on the "human-in-the-loop" principle—the system prepares and suggests actions, but final authorization and approval always rest with the specialist.

Alongside this, we are developing AI Agents for interpreting campaign results. We want specialists to step away from "robotic" tasks so they have the space to dive deep, leverage their expertise, and deliver truly valuable strategic insights to clients.

5. You've been with Marketup for over five years. What fulfills you the most about leading a team and the agency world?

The agency world is incredibly fast-paced on its own, and now, with the massive shift in AI, that goes double. But what I enjoy most is that we can see the results of what we do.

In our Product team, we have one golden rule—we never develop things just to put them "in a drawer." We always chase a real need and validate ideas in practice as quickly as possible. Many of them come about completely naturally.

We essentially function as a kind of technological bridge. Every day, a huge amount of data flows through our hands, which we turn into simple and clever tools. When I see how much easier it makes daily work for my colleagues and improves business for our clients, I know it makes sense.