We recently sat down with Gunnar Habitz, Senior Partner Manager at ActiveCampaign for the APAC region, whose unique blend of technical marketing expertise and prolific writing career makes him a fascinating voice in the email automation space.
Gunnar has almost 30 years of professional experience, including managing partnerships at companies like Hootsuite and ActiveCampaign. Now he helps marketing agencies figure out advanced email automation strategies.
In addition to his business accomplishments, he has written 28 books on business and travel, the most recent of which is “Happy Habits,” which is about personal growth.
We talked about how email marketing is changing in the APAC region, how AI is changing the way customers interact with businesses, and how his varied background as an author, speaker, and partnership leader affects how he helps agencies build better relationships with clients through strategic automation.
Q&A Session
Q1. How long have you been involved in email marketing and agency partnerships, and what path led you to your role as Senior Partner Manager at ActiveCampaign in the APAC region?
Ans: Before joining ActiveCampaign in Sydney in April 2024, I worked as Senior Partner Manager in the social media space at Hootsuite. During that time, I helped professionals with their LinkedIn profiles and recognised early on that nurturing with email marketing is the way to go.
Q2. In your role, what key trends are you seeing among marketing agencies in APAC when it comes to advanced email automation?
Ans: The main driver here is surely AI turning from multiple generative AI tools used by marketers into building Agentic AI successfully in platforms like ActiveCampaign. Agencies will be well equipped to share the advantages towards their clients.
Q3. From your experience, what qualities make a marketing agency stand out as a strong partner for ActiveCampaign?
Ans: In my experience, the most successful marketing agencies in this space are clear who they serve and productise their services and offerings. Examples are those serving 2-3 key target audiences where they add their own expertise (e.g. accounting, e-commerce, legal, or finance).
Q4. What common challenges or misconceptions do agencies face with advanced email automation, and how do you suggest they overcome them?
Ans: SMB clients often miss seeing the need to communicate by email as they’ve never experienced best practice email marketing, being understaffed and lacking dedicated marketers. That’s where clever marketing agencies come in. Besides using the right tools, they can create customer journeys, including email as a core tool to nurture and advance prospects to clients.
Q5. You’ve published 28 books across business and travel in the past two decades. What drives your passion for writing so consistently, and can you tell us more about your latest book Happy Habits?
Ans: Actually, that started from a bad result in German literature during my high school certificate, to which my teacher responded with “I’m sure you have a book in you… or more”.
Later at university, I helped my professor write his books, so I learned about the process. As a side business tour guide in the late 1990’s I recognised that many travel books were not updated, so I became a corrector and later author of 20+ books about European countries and locations. And now I write business books about LinkedIn and personal development, like my most recent book, Happy Habits.
Q6. As a public speaker, MC, and author, how do you adapt your communication style when addressing technical topics like email automation versus personal development themes, such as habit formation?
Ans: Absolutely – I’m a massive fan of talking to the audience before speaking. As an MC, I have a good chance and reason for participants to learn about their reasons for attending.
Then I learned how to read the room beforehand and address active participants accordingly. For a technical topic, I make sure to adjust to the audience, which includes being mindful of the time when such a topic is the last speech of the day.
Q7. What daily or weekly habits help you balance your roles—from writing and speaking to managing partnerships and navigating the fast-paced APAC marketing landscape?
Ans: Consistency and journaling are the most important habits. I make sure that I plan the week and then check what I achieved and keep the learning for deviations. I also developed the habit of blogging about the same topic once per week (Social Selling), just posted episode 356 today. Guess I can teach about consistency habits!
Q8. How do you see AI transforming the future of email automation, and what is your vision for its role in improving customer experiences?
Ans: I see the move from different generative AI tools like ChatGPT for content and Canva for graphics into fully embedded agents within platforms such as ActiveCampaign. The interfaces in the near future will be more fluid to support intelligent workflows. Even analytics will be a collaboration of technology, giving us data and a conversational approach helps to draw conclusions.
Q9. With nearly three decades of professional experience, how has your journey shaped the way you approach partnerships and marketing leadership today?
Ans: Quite a lot. What used to be a sales channel – from vendor through partners to customers – became more of a mutual partnership in both sides. The more I can learn about a partner and why they decide towards a collaboration, the more I can also contribute to their success, even beyond referring or reselling my own product.
My experience helps me to have conversations with agency founders and senior professionals at partner – besides the solutions they sell about how they can grow their business from P&L point of view.
Q10. What’s next for you, another book, new initiatives at ActiveCampaign, or expanding your role as a thought leader across the region?
Ans: On the ActiveCampaign side more speaking possibilities in our Evolving Agency Series in Australia and Asia Pacific – as we’re keen to help marketing agencies and consultancies to be the right partner for their clients and also learn to improve their agency business.
Personally, I’m working on my third Social Selling book, “LinkedIn for Startups”, and I also started my second fairytale, “The Smile That Sailed Away” – a fun project on the horizon!
Wrapping Up
Gunnar’s ideas show how modern marketing success depends on both technical know-how and building relationships with people. As he works to grow ActiveCampaign’s agency partnerships in the APAC region, it is clear that he is still dedicated to making content and building relationships.
To learn more about Gunnar’s work on LinkedIn strategy, habit formation, and business growth, visit his website at gunnarhabitz.com.au.
