#88 The Future of Influencer Marketing: Authenticity in the Age of AI | Vinod Varma, Co-Founder & CEO of Creator.co
This podcast episode features Vinod Varma, founder and CEO of Creator Co., discussing the evolving landscape of social commerce. Varma defines social commerce as the next wave of influencer marketing, enabled by expired Amazon patents, and highlights TikTok Shop's leading role due to its seamless user experience. Creator Co. helps brands navigate this space by providing technical setup and access to a vast influencer network. The conversation touches upon the potential of other platforms like YouTube, YouTube Shorts, and the surprisingly underutilized Pinterest, emphasizing the platform's aspirational and positive nature. A key theme is the importance of authenticity in influencer marketing, particularly in the age of AI, and the need for improved attribution models and transparency in influencer compensation to address concerns arising from browser extensions like Honey.
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23:35
#87 AI and SEO: A Partnership, Not a Threat | Jordan Koene, CEO & Founder of Previsible.io
Jordan Koene, CEO & Founder of Previsible.io, breaks down how AI is reshaping the SEO landscape. As tools like ChatGPT provide direct answers, many websites are seeing noticeable drops in organic traffic—ranging from 10% to as much as 90%, depending on the industry and keyword.This shift is happening quickly and requires a thoughtful response. Jordan explains why it's important for brands to focus on becoming trustworthy sources within AI ecosystems, addressing inaccuracies in AI-generated content, and leaning into unique brand assets. He also emphasizes the need to shift from broad outreach to more targeted strategies on platforms where the audience is most active.AI isn’t replacing jobs, but it’s changing them—making skill development and retraining a priority. The future of SEO will center around helpful, relevant content, deeper personalization, and multimedia formats like video that build trust and engage users.The key is to move from reactive to prescriptive marketing by focusing on serving specific audience needs within the evolving limitations of AI.
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34:37
#86 Beyond Best Practices: First-Principle Thinking in Performance Marketing | Svet Kazanjiev, Principal, Blue Services
This podcast features a conversation between two performance marketing experts with 20+ years of experience, discussing the evolving landscape of digital marketing. Svet, with a background at Stanford, McKinsey, and Nextag, shares his insights on leveraging first-principle thinking and algorithmic understanding to optimize marketing campaigns across B2B, e-commerce, and local service businesses. Key themes include the importance of rigorous testing, overcoming common data measurement mistakes (like under-tagging and misaligned attribution), and adapting to the increasing influence of AI and automation in paid search. The discussion highlights the ongoing relevance of keywords despite Google's shift towards AI-driven contextual search, the untapped potential of Bing Ads for B2B marketers, and the crucial need for marketers to develop a "hacker mentality" and deep technical skills to thrive in this rapidly changing environment. Svet also recommends utilizing AI tools effectively, studying AI models, and understanding the underlying algorithms to gain a competitive edge.
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38:22
#85 Scaling B2B SaaS Growth: Insights from a Smartsheet Expert | Brendan Regan, Senior Director, Lifecycle Marketing at Smartsheet
In this episode, Brendan Regan, Senior Director of Lifestyle/Lifecycle Marketing at Smartsheet, shares his strategic, multi-channel approach to engaging both enterprise and SaaS customers. He explains how Smartsheet blends digital programs with human touchpoints—such as customer success reps and account executives—to optimize acquisition, retention, and monetization. Brendan discusses key growth levers they’ve tested, including freemium conversion, upgrades, seat expansion, and cross-sell/upsell tactics, all rooted in a data-driven, experimental mindset. He also explores the benefits and challenges of Product-Led Growth (PLG) and Product-Led Sales (PLS), highlighting how A/B testing and propensity modeling support smarter decision-making. Among his most surprising learnings: onboarding plays a larger role in expansion than expected, and simple, sales-driven heuristics can be remarkably effective in cross-selling. Brendan wraps up with valuable advice for B2B SaaS companies—avoid silos, don’t fall into copycat marketing, and never underinvest in technology. Mastering your martech stack and integrating it properly, he emphasizes, is essential for impactful customer communication.
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37:19
#84 From SMB to Enterprise: Scaling Partner Programs with Data-Driven Strategies | Kayla Hamilton, Affiliate Marketing Manager at Sage
This podcast features Kayla Hamilton, who is the affiliate marketing manager of Sage. The discussion centers on Sage's B2B SaaS affiliate marketing strategy within the FinTech vertical. Key topics include the challenges and successes of building a year-old affiliate program, targeting high-value executives, the importance of internal collaboration between marketing, sales, and PR teams, leveraging AI for forecasting, content creation, and data analysis, and the crucial role of data-driven decision-making in optimizing partner performance and achieving scalable growth. Hamilton emphasizes the need for a holistic approach, aligning product offerings with partner audiences, hyper-targeting growing SMBs, and focusing on quality leads over volume. She also highlights the importance of understanding the nuances of medium-sized business (M) marketing and the value of non-traditional sub-affiliates and industry-focused partners. The conversation concludes with Hamilton's recommendations for further learning and personal insights.
Your guided tour of the world of growth, performance marketing, customer acquisition, paid media, and affiliate marketing.
We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings in growth, marketing, and life.
Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door, and have some fun talking about data-driven growth and lessons learned!
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