In this episode of The Brick Wall Podcast, Chris and Bauer sit down with Jay Weintraub, Manager and Director at Resonate, for a deep dive into how data is reshaping the competitive landscape for independent agencies. Jay walks through his path into the industry - from an early connection at Vertical Search Works through stops at AdRoll, BrightEdge, and Rubicon Project - before landing at Resonate, where he's spent over a decade helping the company grow into a platform serving 400+ agency partners.

The conversation covers why holding companies like Omnicom, WPP, and Dentsu have built out their own proprietary data systems, and how that consolidation is forcing independent agencies to find new ways to compete. Jay breaks down what makes Resonate's data approach different - from its farm-to-table data collection process to its refreshed-nightly consumer profiles - and shares real examples of how precise, validated audiences can outperform walled-garden platforms like Meta.

Chris and Bauer press Jay on the practical side of things too: how agencies actually activate Resonate data in pitches and media plans, where teams commonly go wrong when their research and media functions stay siloed, and why speed and agility matter more than ever in today's market. It's a candid, insight-packed conversation for anyone thinking about how to build a real data advantage - without needing a holding company's budget to do it.

In this episode:

• Jay's career path into the media and data space, and how he landed at Resonate

• Why holding companies have built their own proprietary data systems - and what that means for independent agencies

• How Resonate's "farm-to-table" data model differs from legacy providers like Experian, Epsilon, and Acxiom

• The scale behind Resonate: 250 million consumer profiles, 30 billion deterministic events, refreshed nightly

• Why Resonate's audiences have outperformed Meta's optimized targeting in real campaign results

• A real-world example of precision targeting driving 4X category growth for a beverage brand

• How agencies use Resonate data across the full funnel - from pitch to planning to creative to activation

• The biggest mistake Jay sees agencies and brands make with data today

• Why up-to-date, activation-ready data matters more than historical research reports

More from Jay Weintraub:

Resonate.com 

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Chris sits down with Rory Leadbeater, a Performance Creative Manager at Media Thesis who bridges the gap between account management and design. Rory walks through her path from a COVID-era high school graduate navigating college, to landing at Media Thesis after a cold email from Chris - and building a two-year run turning creative briefs into performance-driving campaigns.

They get into what performance creative actually looks like in practice:

• How a brief becomes a fully fleshed-out, multi-channel campaign in as little as three days

• Why a strong, flexible headline is the backbone of any cross-channel narrative

• How creative automation tools are changing the resize-and-approve grind into a system built for constant A/B testing

• How Rory's team uses automation not to limit creativity, but to free up capacity for more of it

• Running creative test after creative test until fatigue is designed out of the equation entirely

The two also get into AI's growing role in the creative process, why the person "feeding the machine" still matters more than the tool itself, and Rory's take on where Adobe's AI-forward tools (and Canva) fit into a modern creative workflow.

For agency owners, media directors, and creative teams looking to reduce creative fatigue and build a faster, smarter production pipeline, this episode is a real-world look at what that actually takes.

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⁠MediaThesis.com ⁠

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Chris is joined by Andrew Altersohn, Co-Founder and President of SWYM.ai, the leading innovator in AI-driven media supply shaping and decisioning. With over 25 years of experience in media, data, and adtech, he has built and led organizations that drive innovation and results. Previously, Andrew served as GM at Feedvisor, CEO of AD/FIN, and President of Havas Digital, as well as holding leadership roles at Publicis, Ogilvy, Digitas, and Oliver Wyman.

The two dig into why the industry has been solving ad waste from the wrong side of the equation - and how shifting focus to the supply side is changing the game for agencies and their clients.

In this episode:

• Andrew's path through Digitas, Ogilvy, Modem Media, Publicis, and Havas Media North America

• What SWYM (Stop Wasting Your Money) means and the industry blind spot it's built to fix

• The "cherries and lemons" analogy for how programmatic ad waste actually happens

• Why SWYM's model costs agencies nothing out-of-pocket

• How agency teams can get up and running with SWYM in just four steps

More from Andrew Altersohn:

SWYM.ai 

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaltersohn/ 

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⁠MediaThesis.com ⁠

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In this episode of The Brick Wall Podcast, Chris and Bauer sit down with Cameron DeGroat, Media Thesis' Director of Client Services, for a conversation that starts with horses and ends with a masterclass in hard-to-reach audience targeting.

Cameron opens up about her philosophy on client relationships - treating everyone involved, from client to creative team, like the real, full-lives-outside-of-work people they are. It's a simple idea that pays off: when both sides extend a little grace, the work gets done well without anyone burning out. 

From there, the conversation shifts into what Cameron loves most about media: winning for clients. She shares a story about outperforming an agency ten times Media Thesis' size within 30 days of taking over an account - proof that bigger isn't always better when it comes to actually moving the needle.

Cameron breaks down how her team builds audience personas, partners with data platforms like Resonate, and works with hyperlocal outlets and subject-matter partners like Sharecare to reach people where they already are, all while navigating the added complexity of HIPAA regulations.

It's a conversation that goes well beyond "know your audience" - it's a real look at what audience-based marketing looks like when the audience is genuinely hard to reach, and why that work matters both professionally and personally to the people doing it.

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⁠MediaThesis.com ⁠

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In this episode, Chris and Bauer welcome their very first podcast guest - Mark Mansfield, SVP of Sales & Growth at NexNet and a 20+ year veteran of revenue strategy and partnerships across MarTech, AdTech, and AI-driven solutions. This conversation gets into the topic that’s reshaping the entire marketing landscape: agentic search, or AEO (Agentic Engine Optimization). 

Mark breaks down why AI agents are fundamentally changing how consumers find information and make decisions - and why that shift matters far more than most businesses realize. Mark walks through what this means in practical terms: websites built for human browsing are giving way to a web built for AI consumption, funnels are collapsing as agents complete entire transactions on a consumer's behalf, and businesses need to get sharply specific about what they want to be found for rather than trying to rank for everything. 

For agency owners and operators, Mark sees real opportunity: independent agencies that pick a lane, build genuine expertise, and get vocal about it are well-positioned to outmaneuver larger companies. His advice is consistent throughout - stop optimizing for outdated funnel logic, get specific about what you want to be known for, and start building trust with AI systems now, because getting ahead on this now, matters.

More from Mark Mansfield:

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn

NextNet.ai 

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⁠MediaThesis.com ⁠

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Chris and Bauer dig into the single most important principle in media strategy: knowing your audience.

They walk through how Media Thesis approaches audience discovery with clients, starting with understanding a brand's business problems and current customer base before running a complex data ingestion engine. Once that current audience is understood, the team can find more people who look like them and determine exactly where they consume media.

The lesson: it doesn't matter how good the product, service, or performance is - if it's in front of the wrong audience, it's going to fail.

In this episode:

• Why "great talent, wrong audience" is a recipe for failure

• How Media Thesis builds an audience discovery process from the ground up

• What a complex data ingestion engine actually does

• Unique IDs, identity graphs, and privacy-safe targeting

• Why your partner stack matters as much as your data stack 

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⁠MediaThesis.com⁠

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Chris and Bauer continue their sports-meets-business series, breaking down what it really takes to win - in RFPs and on the field. This year alone, their agency partners have competed in 20+ RFPs across seven agencies, helping win over $20 million in media under management.

Chris shares what separates winning RFP responses from average ones: answering the brief thoroughly, then adding the "extra" that makes a response stand out - bending the structure just enough without breaking it. Bauer breaks down the other half: skill built through reps, paired with the hard work behind the podcast's name. Chris also opens up on who mentors the founder - crediting trusted peer circles of fellow agency owners as one of his most valuable investments, and encourages agency owners to find their own.

In this episode:

• Why "who wants it more" often decides close competitions

• What makes an RFP response stand out beyond the brief

• Balancing skill (reps) and hustle in winning new business

• Being a "player-coach" as a founder - and why founders need mentors too

Subscribe to follow along as Chris, Bauer, and the Media Thesis team pull back the curtain on media strategy and agency life.

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⁠MediaThesis.com⁠

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Welcome to the very first episode of The Brick Wall Podcast!

Hosts Chris Sullivan and Bauer Fichter kick things off completely unrehearsed, flipping the mic on each other to share their origin stories. Then they get into the real story: why Chris built Media Thesis after years of watching agencies get outsourced to "black box" managed service providers, and how it's grown from a couple of agency partners to supporting 11 today. Bauer shares what drew him back to agency life after a corporate detour, and why performance media - with its clear data and competitive edge - is exactly where he belongs.

As Chris puts it: media is business sport, and winning for clients is the whole point.

In this episode:

• Rapid-fire personal Q&A with Chris & Bauer

• The origin story behind Media Thesis

• Growing to support 11 agencies as an "agency for agencies"

• Why performance and transparency drive everything they do

Subscribe to follow along as Chris, Bauer, and the Media Thesis team pull back the curtain on media strategy and agency life.

More from The Brick Wall:

⁠MediaThesis.com⁠

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Welcome to The Brick Wall - the completely unscripted, poorly rehearsed, and barely produced podcast from the team at Media Thesis. We're pound for pound the best performance media boutique agency in the industry, specifically built for other agencies chasing excellence, and somehow we decided the best way to prove that was to start a podcast. Classic.

Hosted by Chris Sullivan and Bauer Fichter, The Brick Wall is where we break down what's actually happening in marketing, media, AI, and business growth - in 15 minutes or less, with real conversations, zero fluff, and probably more sports and music references than your average marketing podcast. Every episode we'll be talking to the operators, founders, and industry leaders who are out here doing the work - the wins, the pivots, the strategies that actually moved the needle, and the walls they had to break through to get there. Because growth doesn't happen by accident. You break through it. 🧱

More from The Brick Wall:

MediaThesis.com

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