Why Cribl’s Ryan Mattison Thinks Marketers Need an Experimenter’s Mindset

Ryan Mattison treats every campaign like an experiment. As Head of Corporate Marketing at Cribl, the data engine for IT and Security, he’s leading with speed, curiosity, and a deep belief that marketing should inspire and move people, not just chase metrics.

We caught up with Ryan to talk about what it means to build and scale marketing in today’s AI-driven, attention-scarce world, and why having an experimenter’s mindset might just be the most powerful marketing tool of all.

Q: How do you decide which channels to test when you can’t afford to try everything?

Ryan Mattison 

When the budget's tight, I look for low-cost, high-visibility testing grounds. Social and web are obvious, but one of the most powerful and underrated is PR. If you can get a journalist to pick up your story, you’re validating your message with a real audience, through a trusted voice, at no cost. The key is to find places where you can test at scale without burning the budget.

At my last company, we tried this with a bold message: “Dashboards are dead.” It started as a quip in a press interview, but the reaction was instant—Fortune 500 Chief Data Officers were reaching out unprompted. That told us it was worth scaling. We turned it into a full campaign: our user conference theme, billboard ads, content across channels, even product branding. That’s how you scale at a low cost without losing the magic.

Q: How do you track ROI when you’re moving fast?

Ryan Mattison

I tell my team all the time, you have to operate with an experimenter’s mindset. That doesn’t mean winging it, it means working with purpose. You see a gap, a challenge, or an opportunity, and you frame a hypothesis—something you want to test. Then you ask, “What does success actually look like, and how long will it take to know if we’re on the right track?”

You don’t need a giant spreadsheet with 37 metrics to justify every move. You need two or three directional indicators that show whether you’re moving the needle. That’s how you keep marketing fast, smart, and focused.

The real trap is perfection. I see teams spend three months building the perfect plan when they could have launched in a week and spent the next 11 weeks learning. Even if the first version isn’t flawless, you’ve gained real insight. You’ve iterated. You’ve moved. That’s how you get results in a scaling company.

And honestly, less is often more. If you try to over-engineer ROI, you end up missing the forest for the trees. Stay focused on the big picture, not the noise. 

Q: What’s your advice to other mid-market marketers working with limited resources?

Ryan Mattison

Don’t be afraid to try something weird just because you haven’t done it before. Real marketing, the kind that grabs people and makes them feel something, has gotten buried under layers of metrics and dashboards. But creativity is still the whole point. If you're waiting to prove every tactic before acting, you’ll miss the moment.

I also tell every marketer to use AI, every single day. There’s no part of marketing it can’t touch. We’re using AI to prototype faster, streamline research, test messaging, and eliminate manual work. I’ve tasked my team with running one AI-driven experiment per quarter—no exceptions. If you’re not actively looking for ways AI can amplify your work, you’re already behind.

Q: What are you experimenting with right now?

Ryan Mattison

Trade show optimization is a big one. We’re using AI tools to analyze attendee lists, match them against target accounts, and even run “propensity to attend” models. It’s helping us evaluate which shows to invest in without all the manual lift. The tools can even look at multi-year attendance and identify which accounts are likely to show up again. It’s a smarter way to prioritize.

We’re also evolving our brand positioning. Cribl started with a flagship routing product, but now we’ve got a broader portfolio. So we’re building a new long-term campaign around manageable telemetry, composable Cribl—making sure we’re telling a story that grows with us.

Final Thought:

Ryan’s take is clear. Move fast, test often, and don’t wait for permission to try something new. With AI, bold ideas, and a sharp sense of what matters, he’s building a marketing function that scales without losing its soul.

Want to brainstorm new ways to rev up your marketing and PR? Just reach out to chat with our team.