Destaney Wishon is the CEO and co-founder of Better AMS, an agency based in Bentonville, Arkansas. Her team of Amazon advertising specialists provides in-depth, strategic recommendations on how to optimize Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and DSP campaigns for e-commerce businesses.

Kevin and Destaney discuss her agency's origin story, how Amazon is shifting vendor relationships to FBA, the challenges of working with Amazon, including pricing pressures and the general lack of transparency. Then they take a deep dive into some best practices for advertising on Amazon. They discuss common mistakes made by advertisers when approaching advertising on Amazon, the importance of video advertising, including the potential of well-crafted, well-placed video ads to achieve competitive conquest. They also discuss the potential SEO advantages for DTC brands when they create robust product listings on Amazon.

The discussion then pivots to the topic of Amazon PPC optimization and creative strategies, the emergence of new Amazon advertising tools (which may eventually include geo-targeting capabilities), and the importance of using appropriate software to optimize bids and listings.

If you represent a brand that has or will someday have a presence on Amazon, you'll get a lot out of this informative interview.

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Kevin Lee interviews Fei Wang, founder of Source Medium. Fei shares Source Medium's origin story, the role his company plays in helping omnichannel marketing make better data-driven decisions, and the typical pain points experienced by brands when they attempt to scale.

Kevin and Fei discuss GA4 and the difficulties that many marketers have experienced adapting to Google's decision to deprecate Universal Analytics. As Fei observes, "it took years for essentially most of the Internet to adapt to how GA Universal was set up and actually learn how those things work. Right now, very few people feel like they have a good grasp on how (GA4) actually works. So that obviously leads to a lot of misconfiguration, which leads to the data being even more inaccurate than before."

Fei and Kevin discuss GA4's use of sampling, which many ecommerce merchants may not be aware of, the fact that analytics platforms often produce data discrepancies, and the broader attribution issues that can crop up when merchants attempt to reconcile data from multiple sources or are simply overloaded by this data. Then they trade anecdotes about the bad things that can happen when merchants make strategic decisions based on bad data.

Kevin and Fei talk in depth about Amazon -- a marketplace that some DTC merchants have embraced while others continue to fear. As Fei notes, "I think it's important to have a presence on Amazon, because if someone sees you on YouTube or TikTok or even on TV or via streaming, there is a nontrivial chance that they're going to go either directly to the website, but more likely than not, they'll be going to do a Google brand search or Amazon search. Amazon is a starting destination in terms of discovery. So if you're not there, your competitor could be capturing that potential intent." At the same time, merchants may need to employ specific strategies to avoid sales cannibalization. As Fei notes, one technique might be to limit the number of SKUs available on Amazon or make the deal on Amazon slightly less attractive than what's available on one's site.

Fei believes that many brands are overlooking real opportunity by avoiding Amazon. He notes that "Amazon advertising is actually the fastest sort of marketing spend growth among our customer base. And within that, Amazon-branded advertising is the fastest growing sub vertical... people are using Amazon as a brand awareness channel already."

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Connected TV (CTV) use is exploding. 87 percent of Americans own at least one connected TV, with about 46 percent of these people watching CTV daily. Advertisers have taken notice and ad spend is growing: in 2023 CTV ad spend will likely exceed $26 billion. Unfortanately, the ad formats typically used on CTV -- those traditional 15/30/60 second spots -- aren't optimized for CTV; in fact, they're a relic of the single-screen, linear television era that began some 70 years ago.

Fortunately, there's a lot of advertising innovation going on in CTV that's intended to make better use of CTV's intelligent infrastructure and thereby improve the chances that advertisers have to gain viewers' attention. One of these innovators is Origin, a company whose suite of tools can be used to create customized, optimized ad units that run adjacent to the main ad unit, thus "priming" the viewer for the ad message to come.

Kevin Lee sat down with Fred Godfrey, Origin's Co-Founder and CEO, to chat at length about what how his company came to be, how Origin's technology works to amplify the impact of a brand's ad creative by serving relevant content adjacent to ad breaks, and to and to wax philosophical about the purpose of advertising itself (Fred has a masters degree in Moral Philosophy).

Fred and Kevin discuss CTV's targeting capabilities, the powerful role that context plays in successful CTV advertising, and the importance of emotional storytelling. They then talk about product placements, the use of AI for ad creation and real-time personalization, and address several cases where Origin's technology has been used to boost ad awareness and recall.

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Kevin Lee interviews Linda, CEO/Strategist at the Millennium Agency who also manages entities active in marketing in both the cannabis and beauty verticals. They discuss Linda's experience marketing in the cannabis industry, which until very recently was so tightly regulated that marketing within it was very difficult, and get her take on some pressing B2B marketing issues, including how B2B marketing has evolved pre- and post-pandemic. They chat about the pent-up demand for in-person marketing events, and talk about the continuing relevance of direct mail. They explore the question of why too many B2B firms fail to properly score their leads and also fail to consider that major corporate decisions are often made these days not by a single individual, but by committees.

They discuss the importance of context when crafting B2B messaging for multiple channels. As Linda observes, it's crucial to "change hats" when crafting creative so that one can put oneself in the intended audience's shoes. They chat about the difficulties that B2B marketing firms face when their prospects grow fearful of a recessionary macroenvironment, and then tackle the issue of why it's important for marketers to continue to devote at least some reasonable percentage of their budgets to experimental R&D projects.

Wearing her agency hat, Linda stresses the importance of maintaining good relationships with clients, even when economic storms are gathering. "If you don't hang on to and solidify those current relationships, it will become even more challenging because, if... the whole sales cycle is getting delayed because of one reason or another, and then the strategies are not quite on par, you have a challenge. And then on top of that, you're looking at potential economic uncertainties. So then you have to realize it's time to really think about who we have for clients. Ho do we keep them happy? And how do we retain them during the ups and downs of the economy?"

The interview closes with a brief discussion of the relevance of AI to marketing in general and B2B marketing in particular.

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Kevin Lee interviews Sheila Steinmark, CEO/CMO of MOGXP, a Plano, Texas-based agency that helps brands create memorable experiential marketing events.

Sheila and Kevin begin their conversation by addressing the concept of “brand purpose” and why it’s important for brands to make sure any events cause marketing events they organize are aligned with the particular promise represented by the brand.

They then move on to the topic of “greenwashing” and why it’s critical for brands engaged in corporate philanthropy to avoid it, and address the fact that when consumers become aware that a brand is engaged in charitable giving, this awareness can function as a “tie-breaker.”

Kevin and Sheila trade notes on mistakes often made when brands engage in these sponsorships. As Sheila notes, one critical mistake that’s often made is under-resourcing the social media teams responsible for conducting the events themselves.

Another mistake is to rely too much on “hybrid” (real + virtual) events. As Sheila observes, “consumers don't want hybrid. If you are there, it waters down the experience when you have to interact with people who are online, and the people online never get the experience that people who were there are getting. So I think there will be more segregation in those types of events where everybody's pushing for hybrid… I think it's okay to do a live event, and then do a virtual event that is similar to it so that you offer it to other people. But it really waters down the virtual event by having people live.”

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Kevin Lee interviews Adam Parry, Co-Founder and Editor at Event Industry News, a UK-based publication serving as the event industry's global online magazine. Adam has more than 10 years’ experience in the event industry and has a passion for event technology; in fact he’s co-created Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology.

Kevin and Adam discuss topics and issues relevant to the event industry, including:

- Unexpected challenges faced by event organizers, including unanticipated health and safety concerns.

- Strategies for pricing and access control at events, including offering a paid option for non-VIP attendees.

- The importance of providing value to attendees and exhibitors at events, with reference to examples of successful events that have leveraged this strategy.

- Attendees’ hunger not just for the event experience, but for meaningful experiences and opportunities for giving back to local communities.

- How successful event organizers and exhibitors create content before, during, and after events to maximize reach and engagement.

- Why higher production quality is crucial for engagement, given that audiences now expect professional-level content in the post-pandemic era.

- How lines are blurring between conferences, summits, and trade shows.

- Venue selection strategies for event organizers.

- Strategies to regain intimacy at larger events, such as segmenting attendees or creating opportunities for one-on-one connections.

- The need for alternative networking options beyond alcohol-related social activities.

- The importance of communication and collaboration between show organizers and exhibiting companies to avoid competing events.

- The importance of accessibility in the events industry, given that a significant share of attendees may suffer from physical disabilities.

- How the event industry is beginning to seriously focus on the issue of environmental sustainability.

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Kevin Lee interviews Batu Sat, Co-Founder and CEO at Mall IQ, a Santa Clara, California-based company whose suite of products allows the company’s partners to measure the purchase intent of customers in the physical world and make this information actionable. As the company’s website explains, “we offer the most scalable and privacy-first Location Intelligence & AI Platform for mobile apps that is store-level accurate, both indoor & outdoor without any hardware deployments.”

Mall IQ currently has many top-tier partners, including Starbucks, Samsung, several notable banks and advertising agency holding companies, and hopes to expand into other sectors.

Batu and Kevin dig into the details of how the Mall IQ technology works and touch on success stories of marketers using location data to increase conversions and engagement. Along the way, they discuss:

- How physical location can function as a purchase intent indication.

- How the Mall IQ app uses tokenization to share data without needing customer consent.

- How the technology can be used to entice new customers with rewards and offers, while also engaging high-value customers through personalized experiences.

- The importance of the concept of “nudgability” (favorably moving customers who might be “on the fence” with respect to choosing a particular product or service).

- Identifying peak moments for push notifications based on user behavior and preferences.

- How FinTech apps can use the Mall IQ technology to delight consumers with special offers, such as coffee or desserts, based on their purchase history and loyalty program status.

- How the anonymized token is used for longitudinal data analysis, providing insights on share of wallet and buying journey.

- The importance of measuring uplift in push notifications, using a control group to isolate the impact of notifications on behavior.

- The expansion of Mall IQ’s ideal customer profiles to include banks, Fintech companies, and retailers, while also receiving inbound inquiries from telcos, food delivery, and airlines.

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Kevin Lee interviews Dennis Kelly, CEO of Postalytics, a fast-growing, Massachusetts--based company whose software automates many of the tasks associated with postal mail, as well as providing analytics and connections to popular CRMs such as Hubspot and Salesforce.

Kevin and Dennis discuss Postalytics' origin story and the fact that technology investment in postal mail has lagged over the years, despite the fact that postal mail marketing remains a $40 billion business in the U.S. They dive into how Postalytics' software systematizes direct mail campaign creation and delivery, how it integrates with other platforms, how the pandemic changed consumer behavior with respect to direct mail, and how new technology is improving the channel.

As Dennis notes, "there's better technology that is being used in the printing and mailing process, the data on the back end is more accurate. It is being tied together with your purchase histories and interests that you've indicated across a variety of different spectrums. So you're getting more relevant stuff, you're not getting spray and pray kind of junk mail that you used to get it. So that has caused an increase in response rate. And then finally, very connected to the pandemic, the advent of QR codes, has made the ramp from offline to online so much more easy."

Kevin and Dennis discuss industry categories for which direct mail remains a strong channel, including the non-profit sector, as well as the importance of adapting an "ABT" (Always Be Testing) mindset when conducing postal mail campaigns. They conclude with a brief discussion about how the USPS is deploying advanced technology to remove friction from direct mail campaigns and what Dennis is excited about for 2023 and beyond.

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Kevin Lee interviews Ray Grieselhub, the Founder and CEO of, DemandSphere, which specializes in enterprise SERP monitoring for ecommerce SEO teams, both in-house and agency. Ray has spoken at numerous industry events, including Pubcon, ad:tech Tokyo, PR Summit, FOUND Conference SV, FOUND Conf NYC, DATA Conference, and many others, and he writes frequently and authoritatively on developments in the SEO landscape, which, as he notes on his blog, have been rapid and substantial in the past 12 months.

Kevin and Ray discuss topics germane to SEO professionals and anyone interested in improving search engine visibility for themselves or outside clients. These topics include:

- The definition of the term “programmatic SEO.”

- The challenges of accurately monitoring rankings on very large, database-driven sites.

- Why recent algorithmic changes tend to affect larger sites less than small sites, due to large sites tending to engage in SEO best practices.

- The challenges faced by large sites with respect to localization issues and limited crawl budgets.

- How “legacy SEO tech debt” often hampers the ability of SEO teams to correct issues which negatively impact search visibility.

- Why it's often difficult for SEO teams to get internal support and resources for remediation of on-site SEO issues.

- Why SEO teams are often overlooked for budget allocation, with digital PR, content, and social media receiving more attention and funding.

- Why SEO is not just about ranking on Google, but about informing search engines and chatbot crawlers about a brand's products and interactions with the broader universe.

- The importance of SEO teams understanding AI and its impact on search engine optimization.

- Steps that marketers can take to “future-proof” their SEO efforts.

- The importance of optimizing crawl budget for websites, especially those using frameworks like Next.js, to avoid taxing Google's finite resources and ensure proper indexing.

- How different teams within larger organizations often have preferences for different content types, such as video or PDFs, which can impact how SEO strategies are developed and implemented.

- Why creating internal infra-organizational alliances is often critical for SEO teams to survive and thrive.

- How specialized search engines and single-result interfaces may become the primary means of searching for information, potentially replacing traditional search engines like Google.

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Kevin Lee interviews Sally Lehrman, a distinguished journalist who is also the founder of The Trust Project, an organization whose mission is to "amplify journalism’s commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion and fairness so that the public can make informed news choices." This mission is important today as trust in media organizations has cratered, even as a tsunami of misinformation and disinformation threatens to mislead and misinform the public.

Kevin and Sally discuss how the news industry has evolved, why trust in the media is at historic lows, and how The Trust Project aims to make things better through various initiatives and partnerships. Topics addressed in this discussion include:

- How Sally was able to secure funding for user-centered design research to understand why people trust or distrust the news, leading to the development of trust indicators.

- The importance of trust in journalism and the need for transparency in the media.

- How too many news outlets have continued to prioritize clickbait headlines and sensational content, which has contributed to the decline of trust in the media.

- The blurring of lines between news and opinion and the importance of distinguishing them through labeling.

- The continuing importance of supporting local news sources, given that they cover important issues relevant to local constituencies.

- How technology platforms, intentionally or not, limit the diversity of news sources visible to users, leading to a narrow understanding of the world.

- The fact that advertisers are often fearful of supporting news content due to brand safety issues, adding an additional headwind to the publishing industry's ability to report on important stories.

- Why it would be more honest to label “sponsored content” as “paid content.”

- The four different types of news consumers (Avid, Engaged, Opportunistic, and Angry Disengaged).

- The importance of transparency in influencer marketing and the need for authenticity in labeling.

- The importance of transparency in sponsored content, urging brands to use accurate language and provide clear attribution.

- The changing dynamics of authorship in journalism, where individual journalists are gaining more power and influence outside of traditional media organizations.

- The critical role played by user education equipping users with tools to evaluate the credibility of online information.

- How brands and advertisers can help by incorporating fact-checking into their advertising and training employees on trust indicators.

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