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Conversations with MarTech

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As publishers turn to low-value and AI-generated content, they’re missing out on authenticity and original points of view.

Conversations with MarTech is a new series highlighting interesting points of view and interesting roles in the marketing and marketing operations space.

Season 1 of Conversations with MarTech debuts in January 2025. The premier season has already recorded five episodes, including:

Kara Heater, Director of Marketing for the Savannah Bananas baseball club (What can marketers learn from the Savannah Bananas?)
Mark Stouse, CEO of ProofAnalytics (What do C-level executives think of their GTM strategies?)
Len Devanna, VP of Customer Experience of Cortico-X. (Voice agents will change how you think about your brand and website)
Natalie Silverstein, Chief Innovation Officer, Collectively. (How influencer marketing became an essential channel)
Mike Rizzo, founder, MarketingOps.com (Want to understand marketing ops? Talk to this guy)

Subscribe to keep up-to-date on all things Conversations with MarTech!

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20 episodes
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Avg 18 min
English

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S4 · E9
Wednesday · 18 min
What data and AI hide about your customers
Malinda Sandman, global VP of Marketing at Typeform, discusses how AI is reshaping the landscape for B2B and B2C marketers. Malinda dives into why AI might actually be making marketing harder in the short term due to the shift toward a "clickless" environment, how marketing teams can avoid the "garbage in, garbage out" trap of AI tools, and why having more data doesn't necessarily mean you know your customer. She also shares how Typeform uses AI to conduct scalable customer interviews and bridge the gap between B2B and B2C insights. Key topics covered: Is AI in paid ad platforms net positive or net negative? Human-centric creative vs. AI scaling: Avoiding homogeneous outputs Why 97% of marketers use AI, but lead follow-up is still lagging Does your marketing team actually have "enough" data? "Always On" research: Gathering customer feedback in 24 hours Bridging B2B & B2C marketing mindsets using video feedback The Biggest Lie in Marketing: Why more data ≠ knowing your customer Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:40 Meet Malinda Sandman 01:27 Has the explosion of AI tools been a positive or negative for marketing? 05:03 Where should marketers be using their energy in the AI era? 07:11 “Marketers don't necessarily have a data problem, they have an action problem.” 08:34 The “million dollar next thing to solve.” 09:37 Fundamental marketing problems AI hasn’t addressed. 13:25 What’s working for the marketing team at Typeform? 16:59 What’s the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself? Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E8
October 21 · 21 min
It’s time to re-think voice of the customer programs
Are customer surveys officially dead? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, host Mike Pastore sits down with Mark Treschl, general manager, voice of customer at Quantum Metric and co-founder of OpinionLab. They dive deep into why traditional long-form surveys, endless feedback requests, and Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are failing both consumers and brands — and what modern companies must do instead to truly understand customer behavior. 📌 Episode highlights The Death of Traditional Surveys: Why more than 50% of consumers stop responding to direct surveys and silently walk away from brands that ignore them. Behavior vs. Sentiment: How pairing session-based user behavior with attitudinal data creates predictive feedback, rather than retrospective scores. The "NPS Lie": Why treating Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a business strategy or compensation plan leads companies to manage numbers instead of helping customers. Unlocking the "Silent Majority": Leveraging AI and lookalike modeling to quantify the silent middle curve of customers who never fill out a survey. The Thermometer vs. Thermostat Analogy: Moving from programs that merely report the news to real-time systems that trigger actions while the customer is still engaged. Closing the CX Loop: Shifting focus from collecting a higher volume of feedback to capturing targeted, higher-quality insights to improve retention and lifetime value. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:36 Meet Mark Treschl 01:14 What were the traditional voice of the customer tactics? 04:02 The consumer has changed. Has voice of the customer? 09:44 “Brands have created silos.” 11:00 What does the future of voice of the customer look like? 15:35 What are the outcomes possible with a modern voice of the customer strategy? 18:54 How much does organizational culture impact how feedback is acted on? 20:46 What’s the biggest lie marketers tell themselves? Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E7
October 14 · 20 min
The CMO role is evolving before our very eyes
Is the CMO role truly dying, or are modern marketers just setting themselves up for failure? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, host Mike Pastore sits down with Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo, to break down the real reasons major brands are eliminating executive marketing positions. Kyle exposes the biggest traps holding modern marketers back — from over-indexing on pipeline numbers to letting AI replace human connection — and outlines what it actually takes to build a brand that is impossible to ignore. Key Takeaways The Production House Trap: Why viewing marketing strictly as a content assembly line makes your role easily replaceable by AI tools. The Risk of Short-Term Thinking: What really happens to pipeline 12 months after a company absorbs marketing under sales. Human-Centric Storytelling: Why brand story is your only true competitive edge in an AI-driven market. The Flaw of Attribution: Why using attribution models as "absolute truth" kills creative team innovation. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:31 Meet Kyle Lacy 01:47 A high-level take on what’s happened to the CMO role 03:18 Are B2B or tech companies more likely to eliminate the CMO role? 04:52 “We did this to ourselves.” 07:27 What is the risk you face when you eliminate the CMO? 10:26 Are more technical-minded CMOs better prepared for the future? 14:17 What’s the difference between product and brand for today’s B2B orgs? 16:20 What’s the biggest lie marketing tells itself? 18:30 “If you want to kill creatives, tell them they have a pipeline goal to hit.” Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E6
October 7 · 25 min
Classic Marketing Automation is Dead: What’s Next?
Are the days of classic marketing automation officially over? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we dive deep into the massive paradigm shift happening across the marketing industry as basic, rule-based automation gives way to truly autonomous marketing. We explore why a superficial "thin layer" of AI is no longer enough for modern marketers and look at how the next generation of tools must leverage deep customer context to remain relevant. If you've ever wondered whether AI content creation is actually saving you time — or just creating more clutter to clean up — this discussion tackles the reality of human-in-the-loop design and driving true business outcomes. Among the key topics we cover: The Evolution of the MarTech Stack: Where does marketing automation sit today? We discuss the shifting center of gravity between CRMs, CDPs, data warehouses, and autonomous execution platforms. The Context Challenge: Why LLMs can’t just be pointed at billions of data points, and the technical hurdles of solving "context rot" to ensure data quality and relevance. Proactive Intelligence: How future marketing platforms will move beyond internal data to monitor external signals, competitor shifts, and website changes to recommend real-time strategies. The Personalization Paradox: Why integrating AI doesn't automatically mean you’ve achieved true personalization, and what the "holy grail" of seamless, magical customer experiences actually looks like at scale. What do you think is the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself about AI? Let us know in the comments below! #MarTech #MarketingAutomation #ArtificialIntelligence #AIinMarketing #DigitalMarketing #PredictiveAI #MarketingStrategy Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:23 Meet Chai Atreya 02:06 What’s happened since the days of classic marketing automation ended 05:37 Where does marketing automation sit in the martech stack today? 09:38 Data quality and context in AI-powered marketing automation 11:54 How do marketers feel about the AI capabilities added to their martech tools? 19:44 Are we in an AI Arms Race? How can vendors differentiate their tools? 21:24 What’s the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself? 22:56 What’s the Holy Grail of personalization? Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E5
September 30 · 19 min
B2B marketing attribution is messy. Can it be fixed?
In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re joined by Mehul Nagrani, CEO of Integrate, to break down the complexities of modern B2B marketing, the reality of attribution, and where demand generation is heading over the next five years. Mehul shares his perspective on why B2B marketing will always be a mix of art and science, how humans naturally complicate technology and measurement, and why Integrate recently acquired multi-touch attraibution platform CaliberMind. He also touches on why chasing a single "silver bullet" metric can ruin your strategy, how marketers can balance intent creation versus intent capture, and why the future of marketing relies on human connection and systems-level thinking. Episode highlights The Philosophy of B2B Marketing: Why B2B marketing is equal parts science and art. Integrate Acquires CaliberMind: Addressing the missing links in the B2B marketing-to-revenue loop. B2B vs. B2C Attribution: Why tracking enterprise buying committees isn't as simple as buying a pair of shoes online. Why M&A Visions Fail: How Integrate plans to unify top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel data without falling into common acquisition traps. The "Human Factor" in Data: Unmeasurable touchpoints, dark social, and the street light effect in marketing metrics. Manufacturing vs. Capturing Intent: Why marketers need to focus on creating demand rather than just chasing existing intent signals. The Long Time-Horizon Dilemma: Navigating directional measurements when long sales cycles make direct ROI hard to prove immediately. Shifting Market Categories: How AI is disrupting traditional consideration sets and brand awareness. Goodhart's Law & Single Metrics: Why optimizing for a single metric like MQLs or pipeline leads to bad outcomes. Where B2B Demand Gen Is Headed in Five Years: The return of the pendulum toward systems thinking, creative strategy, and human-to-human connection. The Biggest Lie Marketers Tell Themselves: Why "more is not always more" when it comes to tools, channels, and leads. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:20 Meet Mehul Nagrani 02:50 “The math behind attribution is hard.” 05:48 Acquisitions don’t fail because of lack of vision.” 07:41 “Half the job of marketing is to manufacture intent.” 09:48 The challenge of measurement in B2B marketing 12:13 AI is creating upheaval for B2B consideration sets 13:29 What’s the most important metric in B2B marketing today? 14:37 What does B2B marketing look like in five years? 17:31 What’s the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself? Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E4
September 23 · 23 min
AI search is changing e-commerce forever
The way consumers search for products is fundamentally changing. Instead of the traditional, rigid six-word queries used on standard search engines, shoppers are now inputting detailed, 24-word "rambling" questions packed with context and use cases. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Lucas Tieleman, co-founder of Opiversal, to explore the profound impact of AI search engines and large language models (LLMs) on online shopping. This conversation dives deep into how AI-native technology bridges the gap between natural language search and traditional retail catalogs, and what it means for the future of ecommerce.We discuss the rise of "agentic" technology, explaining why bots — not humans — are behind a massive surge in web traffic, how retailers can adapt their product feeds, and why the ultimate lie in marketing is the obsession with finding just "one right answer." Episode highlights The Widening Search Gap: Consumers no longer feel the need to "dumb down" their search queries. They expect search platforms to inherently understand their context, personal brand preferences, and specific family dynamics. The Evolution of the Query: Traditional Google searches averaged about six words, whereas the average LLM-driven query has expanded to roughly 24 words, complete with conversational adjectives and specific use cases. Websites as Living Organisms: With AI dropping the incremental cost of content creation, retailers can now build and manage custom landing pages at scale to match shifting social trends and natural language queries. The Reality of Agentic Shopping: While autonomous AI agents aren't doing the actual buying for consumers just yet, they are heavily driving research traffic. "Bot traffic" is soaring as LLMs crawl retail sites to answer user prompts, changing how marketers look at impressions versus sales. The Feeds Matter More Than Ever: To remain discoverable, retailers must prioritize feeding highly structured data, conversational attributes, and detailed FAQs directly into AI and advertising platforms. The Biggest Lie in Marketing: Lucas shares his belief that the industry falsely obsesses over finding a single right answer. In reality, modern technology allows marketers to test multiple paths and fail efficiently to find what works best. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:33 Meet Lucas Tieleman 03:20 What’s different about how consumers shop online today? 05:49 “The same product can be different things to different people.” 08:10 How do changes in shopping behavior affect retailers and marketers? 10:13 What were the limitations of the “old way” of building catalog and product pages? 14:32 Will we finally see people using AI agents to do their shopping? 21:05 What’s the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself? 21:45 “With the technology that you have now, you can be wrong a lot more efficiently.” 22:35 “Apple is the proof that UX and design are important; Amazon is the proof that it isn’t” Connect with Us: 🔔 Subscribe to the MarTech Channel: Don't miss an episode of Season 4! Hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications to stay ahead of the latest trends, tools, and strategies shaping the marketing technology landscape. For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E3
September 15 · 15 min
Does Anyone Understand the CDP Market Anymore?
The customer data platform (CDP) market has completely reinvented itself over the past 18 months, evolving rapidly in response to a landscape filled with fractured data silos and failed implementations. Historically, many organizations were left scarred by traditional CDP rollouts — enduring multi-million dollar, multi-year projects that focused too heavily on features rather than actual customer outcomes. Today, the integration of AI is reshaping how businesses manage customer experiences, flipping the old-school implementation model on its head to focus entirely on growth and tangible outcomes. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Melissa Murray Bailey, CEO of Blueconic. Drawing on over two decades of enterprise software and marketing experience from roles at LinkedIn and Hootsuite, Melissa outlines how a strong first-party data foundation coupled with AI can finally deliver on the decades-long promise of true personalization. Key topics discussed in this episode: The Rise of Agentic CDPs: Is "agent-washing" the new corporate tagline trend driven by executive AI mandates, or is there real transformative power in AI agents built from the ground up? The Holy Grail of Personalization: How AI allows B2C marketers to move past static automated email campaigns and manage infinite customer segments with real-time adjustments. Creepy vs. Helpful Marketing: Where is the line for consumers when it comes to hyper-personalized experiences, and why being helpful is the ultimate test? Blueconic's Strategic Growth: The vision behind Blueconic’s recent acquisitions of Jebbit and Blueshift to build an end-to-end powerhouse for first-party data capture and customer engagement. The Industry's "Biggest Lie”" Melissa pulls no punches when answering what the biggest lie the marketing industry tells itself today regarding customer experience. Whether you are navigating fractured data silos or looking to deploy real, AI-driven customer journeys, this conversation provides a blueprint for modern marketing success. 🔔 Subscribe & Stay Connected: Don't miss an episode — hit the subscribe button to follow Conversations with MarTech right here on YouTube! For more expert insights, articles, and marketing technology resources, visit our website at www.martech.org. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:44 Meet Melissa Murray Bailey 01:40 Melissa takes us on a tour of the CDP market 03:41 CDPs as the ERP of the martech stack 04:15 Are people agent-washing the CDP market? 06:11 The good, the bad, and the ugly of AI agents 08:12 Are consumers ready for AI-level personalization? 10:32 BlueConic's acquisition strategy in an M&A-fuled CDP space 14:30 What's the biggest lie marketers tell themselves? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E2
September 9 · 17 min
Your next CMO will come from marketing operations
Is the traditional, purely creative CMO becoming extinct? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Valeria Balaro, CMO at the AI-native technology consulting firm Star, to discuss the big shift redefining marketing leadership. Driven by the rise of AU, increasing revenue accountability, and the absolute demand for clear ROI, the CMO role is rapidly transitioning from a creative focus to a critical technology leadership position. Because marketing leaders can no longer delegate technical data and infrastructure decisions, the path to the top is changing. Valeria shares insights from recent research conducted with Forrester, revealing why a formalized martech background is becoming mandatory and why the next generation of CMOs will inevitably rise from marketing operations. In this episode, we discuss: The shift to technical leadership: Why modern CMOs must personally master technical workflows and data architecture to survive. The CMO-CIO "power duo”: Exploring the shared ownership of technology investments, and navigating the friction between marketing's desire for speed and IT's focus on governance, security, and risk. The reality of data integration: Why only 8% of organizations have achieved seamless data integration with agency platforms. Automating vs. safeguarding: How Star uses AI agents to build a "go-to-market brain" for process automation, while fiercely safeguarding authentic human insight and thought leadership. The biggest lie in marketing: Why viewing AI as just a campaign tool — rather than a fundamental structural shift to the entire marketing function — is a critical mistake. If you are a marketing professional looking to future-proof your career or a leader navigating the intersection of data, AI, and corporate strategy, this conversation is a must-watch. About our guest Valeria Balaro is the CMO at Star, an AI-native technology consulting firm. Bringing a unique background in innovation and a highly technical mindset, she leads a team of 20 marketers across brand, demand generation, and content from London. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for more insights from season 4 of Conversations with MarTech! This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S4 · E1
September 3 · 19 min
What’s Next in Content Operations? Agents (What Else?)
The sheer volume of content modern marketing teams are expected to produce is reaching a breaking point. Between shifting global regulatory landscapes like the EU AI Act, constant updates to copyright laws, and the pressure to maintain an authentic brand voice, marketers are caught in a permanent state of triage. In the season four premiere of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Misti Vogt, SVP of Engagement at Orange Logic, to discuss why the traditional ways of managing digital assets are failing, and why the future of content operations belongs to "agentic" systems. The shift back to IT and the need for ‘self-aware’ content For years, digital asset management (DAM) platforms were viewed merely as repositories for finished creative assets. However, Vogt points out a massive blind spot: the buyers for these platforms are shifting back to IT departments. Why? Because in an AI-driven ecosystem, information architecture and data context are everything.To thrive in an agentic future, every fragment of content needs to be "self-aware." It must contain structured data detailing: Why and when it was created. Who the target audience is. Its full lineage (parent assets, derivatives, and child assets). How it is performing in the market. Enter the ‘brand agent’ While the industry has used basic AI capabilities like autotagging and facial recognition for years, Vogt explains that the true operational revolution lies in back-end orchestration — specifically, brand agents. Instead of forcing creative teams to sift through massive brand portals or Figma documents for correct logos and font files, organizations can deploy an AI agent that implicitly knows the brand guidelines inside and out. Creatives can query the agent directly or submit finished files to it for automated compliance checks before entering formal review cycles, drastically reducing time to market. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:31 Meet Misti Vogt 02:04 The content explosion and evolving regulations 03:07: The shift of DAM ownership back to IT 05:38 Making content "self-aware" for an agentic future 08:37 Deploying “brand agents” in content operations 11:09 B2B marketing strategy and building authentic relationships 14:47 The biggest lie marketers tell themselves 15:23 Consumer-led personalization 16:30 Episode debrief: The upcoming martech "reckoning" This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E24
July 1 · 14 min
Practical advice for scaling start-up marketing
Start-up marketing isn’t for the faint of heart, and if you want to learn how it’s done well, you can check out the highlight reels on LinkedIn, or you can spend time with someone who’s scaled marketing start up and discuss what they’ve learned. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Abby Strong, chief market officer and chief customer officer at Cribl, joins us to share her insights on the realities of scaling marketing for early-stage startups. Abby discusses the critical importance of clarity, earning founder trust, and building a technical foundation for sustainable growth. Key takeaways from this episode include: The importance of clarity; if you can’t describe the problem your company solves in one sentence, you are simply "scaling confusion." Earning the trust of founders by demonstrating a deep technical understanding of the product before translating it into value-based outcomes for customers. Why success in a growing company requires employees to embrace the current stage of the business and pivot quickly rather than dwelling on how things "used to be." Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:35 Meet Abby Strong 01:00 What’s missing from the common advice for start-up marketers on social media? 02:01 What do founders get wrong about start-up marketing? 03:13 Advice for talking to founders about marketing their start up 04:53 What are the most common mistakes made by start-up marketers? 07:08 What are the signs it’s time to scale marketing? 08:50 Where and when do you start building your start-up marketing team? 11:10 Advice for building out other revenue roles, like sales and customer success 12:53 What is the make up of a person who excels in start-up culture? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E23
June 24 · 19 min
How Publicis Sapient transformed its marketing organization
Is your marketing organization still viewing AI as a simple cost-cutting tool? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Teresa Barreira, CMO of Publicis Sapient, explains how her organization uses AI to reinvent work itself. Teresa and her team shifted the focus from roles to tasks and redesigning workflows with an "AI-first" approach. This approach dramatically increased speed and capacity — reducing campaign go-to-market times from 20 days down to just three. Among the topics discussed in this episode: Why deploying technology to fix broken systems doesn't work and how to rethink workflows from the ground up. Understanding the task as the "atomic unit of transformation" to automate 80% of marketing activities without eliminating human roles. How Teresa’s team empowers every marketer to become a "builder" by creating more than 100 custom AI assistants. Why human domain experts are essential for training AI to achieve 100% quality through feedback and evaluations. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:31 Meet Teresa Barreira 01:32 The four steps Teresa used to transform her marketing organization 06:54 The key learnings Teresa took away from marketing’s transformation 10:00 What separates a successful AI workflow from one that fails? 13:11 What are the cultural and leadership shifts needed to transform with AI? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E22
June 17 · 18 min
Managing marketing content in the age of AI
As brands face an explosion of content across global channels, AI is being used not just to generate the content, but to solve the increasingly difficult challenges of organization, findability, and workflow acceleration. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Erica Gunn, CMO at Canto, discusses the evolving landscape of digital asset management (DAM) and the significant impact of artificial intelligence on marketing operations. Among the topics we cover: Managing the proliferation of digital assets and the necessity of human judgment in an AI-driven era Moving beyond translation to localization to ensure brand authenticity across diverse cultural and regional markets. Practical applications of AI in tagging, natural language search, and automating repetitive tasks to reduce friction. How AI-powered research and LLMs are changing how customers discover and interact with brands before they ever reach a website. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:28 Meet Erica Gunn 01:32 How marketers create and manage the proliferation of content 04:40 The DAM challenges of agencies and regulated industries 06:49 How does AI help solve the digital asset management challenge? 10:51 Leveraging AI for content workflows 12:01 What’s working for Canto’s marketing? 15:07 How prospects researching with AI change the way B2Bs market This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E21
June 10 · 18 min
How events are helping marketers cut through the noise
Marketers have more channels at their disposal than ever before, but somehow we’ve managed to fill each and every one of them with an awful lot of noise. For some marketers, the return of in person events after the pandemic provided an opportunity to build community, create connections, and escape from the noise. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Tara Corey, SVP of marketing at Optimizely, to explore how brands are cutting through modern content bombardment by prioritizing human connection and immersive storytelling by leaning on the value of in-person experiences. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:45 Meet Tara Corey 01:22 What makes content overload seem worse today than ever before? 02:23 Is there an advantage to being the brand that doesn’t try to “out-screan” the others? 03:15 Why are in-person events thriving? What types of events are performing well? 06:22 What’s the future of events? Is it event personalization? 07:51 What types of events are Tara’s team creating? 08:39 The sweetest-smelling booth giveaway 09:07 How to create events that deliver value with less of a sales pitch 11:02 Events are a word-of-mouth experience 12:15 How do you build an event on an online community? 14:18 How does a re-brand impact the types of events you hold? 17:23 What can a theme park teach you about your brand and events? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E20
May 27 · 20 min
AI won't save a broken organization
Many marketers missed the initial opportunity to reimagine their organizational models before implementing AI technology. Now, they find themselves at the evolving intersection of AI, data, and modern marketing strategy. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, Ryan Warren, Chief CRM Officer at Razorfish Warren discusses why many organizations struggle to realize the full potential of their martech stacks and how to pivot for an AI-driven future. Among the topics we discuss: • Navigating the complexity of legacy applications and point solutions by focusing on eight essential technology domains. • Viewing the flow of data from big data clouds and CDPs to the final customer experience as a unified assembly line. • The importance of establishing a common lexicon between marketers and data engineers to manage modern data foundations effectively. • How AI may lead to the disappearance of traditional "buttons" in favor of more intuitive, integrated workflows. • Using AI not just for scale, but to combat customer saturation and declining performance in direct messaging and email. • Why teaching teams to use AI effectively is a leadership responsibility that requires embedding prompts and orchestration into daily work. Episode guide 00:00 Introduction 00:38 Meet Ryan Warren, chief CRM officer at Razorfish 02:07 How did marketers blow the AI opportunity? 04:13 What does a martech stack look like in an AI world? 08:56 Have marketers failed to capitalize on using AI to help their data? 10:47 What would a conversation about data and AI in marketing look like one year from now? 12:52 Can AI help marketers avoid cognitive overload for consumers? 17:33 Do we fail at training our teams for AI? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E19
May 20 · 16 min
What's the future of AI and RCS in mobile messaging?
Are consumers at a breaking point with email and text message marketing? In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Eric Miao, chief strategy officer at Attentive, to discuss the evolving landscape of mobile communications. Eric and I dive into how brands can move past the "quantity over quality" era of spam and leverage AI-driven personalization to build genuine customer loyalty. Discover why RCS (rich communication services) is becoming a game-changer for branded, engaging, and trusted messaging, and learn about the technical "tightrope" brands must walk with Apple and Google's new "unknown sender" filters. Episode guide 00:00: Introduction 01:09: Meet Eric Miao 01:28: Are there too many messages for consumers? 04:04: What is the current state of RCS? 09:30: What is the ultimate messaging experience for users? 14:13: What to expect for messaging in the year ahead? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E18
May 13 · 19 min
A challenger brand takes on the stacks
As vibe coding, AI, and data play a bigger role inside revenue teams, a shift from fragmented best-of-breed stacks toward unified, AI-native operating systems is taking shape. Naman Khan worked for legacy giants like Salesforce and Dropbox and now serves as CMO at Reevo, a challenger brand in the revenue platform space. In this episode of Conversation with MarTech, we discuss the evolution of marketing technology and the "integration tax" companies pay when managing complex, brittle tech stacks that can lead to data loss and inefficient sales processes. Khan also shares how Reevo is marketing in a crowded field, his philosophy of marketing as a "craft" rather than just a data-driven exercise, and explains why he thinks the future belongs to brands that can humanize their identity and connect with audiences. Episode guide Meet Naman Khan Is vibe coding putting stacks in danger? How does a Reevo approach marketing as a challenger brand? What is working for Reevo’s marketing? What is an AI-native platform in the eyes of Reevo’s customers? What was Naman’s mindset when he took over marketing at Reevo? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E16
April 29 · 18 min
How to focus marketing on high-impact work
Are your team's high performers disengaged? It could be burnout. But it could also be bore-out. Unlike burnout, which happens when people are over-worked, bore-out is caused by the boring repetitive tasks that sap purpose and meaning from the work people do. AI could actually help with both of these issues, for teams that play their cards right. And if they do, people will be freed up to work on the strategic and creative tasks that challenge them and turn out to be fun. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Christine Royston, CMO of Wrike, about how we motivate marketing teams in the AI era. Episode guide 1:12: Meet Christine Royston 2:04: What is bore-out? 7:39: Are marketing teams caught between efficiency and speed vs. authenticity and creativity? 9:40: Will we ever regain the time and space needed for creativity, or has that opportunity passed? 13:03: What are the signs of bore-out? And how should leaders address it? 15:24: How to talk to senior leaders about creating the space for creativity and authenticity? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E15
April 22 · 14 min
A whole new way to think about TV advertising
Television has dominated the advertising market for the better part of 75 years, despite an explosion in channels and an entire makeover of the media landscape. Despite advances in targeting through CTV, we know consumers will skip ads when it’s possible. As a result, TV advertisers are seeing ROAS go down and fewer opportunities to insert more ads into content. Advances in AI now allow advertisers to insert their products and brands into TV content in a programmatic-like way, on short notice, with targeting, adding a whole new wrinkle to a medium that’s ruled the ad market for three quarters of a century. Episode guide 1:18: Meet Cory Treffiletti 2:00: What does the longevity of TV advertising say about the medium and its results? 4:17: Why has TV advertising focused on interruption, which degrades the viewer experience? 6:07: What does the TV advertising playbook for 2026 and beyond look like? And does it satisfy both advertisers and viewers? 7:50: Product placement in TV is evolving 10:45: How does a new TV advertising model look to the finance people? How does it improve ROAS? Does it ask for significantly more budget? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E14
April 15 · 16 min
Lessons from a first-time CMO
It’s an interesting time to be a CMO. Marketing spend is under scrutiny, as it so often is, buying habits are changing and AI is threatening to upend a number of aspects of sales and marketing we thought we knew. All of that adds more complexity to a leadership role that already requires people skills, an analytical mind and a healthy dose of creativity. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Steven Quach, CMO at Pipedrive, about his first few months as a CMO. Episode guide 1:11: Meet Steven Quach 2:20: What did Steven learn in his first two quarters as a CMO? 4:56: What was surprising about the CMO role? 7:09: How is Steven approaching the role of AI in the marketing organization? 13:20: How do Steven and his team use being a challenger brand to their advantage? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
S3 · E13
April 8 · 15 min
What to expect from the next phase of retail media
There are more ways to reach consumers than ever before, and the retail media space is a great example. What started as ads on ecommerce sites to put brands in front of consumers at the point of purchase now includes financial services and even delivery services. Today, the retail media space has a fragmentation problem, because marketers who want to buy media across the different channels and sites often find themselves working with each individual platform. Retail media will also face a challenge from AI, as LLMs and AI agents begin to flatten the traditional purchase funnel. In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we’re talking to Tom Richards, SVP of global product at MiQ, about the current state of the future of retail media. Episode guide 1:15: Meet Tom Richards 2:46: Where is the retail space right now, in terms of maturity and continued growth? 5:53: How does fragmentation impact marketers’ ability to actually understand performance? 8:23: What will the retail media landscape look like over the next 12 months and beyond? 11:35: What impact will retail media see as AI helps flatten the purchase funnel? This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.

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