The Marketing Umbrella Podcast

Joining us on the Marketing Umbrella Podcast is Bill Crawley, the Founder and CEO of Advark AI. A seasoned leader with a lifelong drive for growth, Bill has dedicated his latest venture to helping business owners navigate the murky waters of digital marketing. Through Advark AI, he provides a data-driven solution that simplifies complex advertising algorithms, ensuring marketing spend translates into measurable success rather than vanished capital.

Bill’s journey defines the entrepreneurial spirit, starting with a bicycle repair shop at just nine years old. Over the decades, he has built and exited four companies across diverse industries. Rather than retiring at age 60, he chose to tackle his decade-long frustration with the lack of transparency in digital ads. This led him to develop a white-label AI solution that removes guesswork and allows founders to regain control over their business growth.

In this episode, we dive into Bill’s fascinating origin story and his framework that prioritizes cash flow over vanity metrics. Listeners will learn the difference between brand building and "cash burn," the upcoming shifts in AI over the next 18 to 36 months, and why a growth-focused mindset is essential for any startup.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: “If you're not growing, you're dying. There is no such thing as standing still in business. You’re either moving forward or the world is moving past you.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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To learn more about Umbrella and to connect with CEO Itamar Shafir, go to ⁠https://umbrellaus.com

Sometimes search results aren't enough; answers are the new currency of discovery.

Ivan Slobodin is the Product Manager at Searcheable, where he is pioneering Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). A seasoned expert in AI SaaS, Ivan helps brands maintain visibility as traditional search evolves into AI-driven discovery. His work focuses on building the measurement tools necessary for companies to thrive in a world where AI agents, not just humans, are the primary audience.

Ivan’s path is a unique blend of creative marketing and tech. After being told he took "too many marketing courses" in university, he spent years in product analytics and management consulting within the banking and telecom sectors. This data-heavy background became his competitive edge when he returned to marketing, allowing him to build a framework specifically for optimizing content for large language models.

In this episode, we explore why traditional search rules are changing and how to adapt to the AI "arms race." Ivan breaks down the shift from SEO to AEO and explains how to measure success in a world without traditional clicks. Listeners will learn how to turn search data into actionable solutions and what it takes to launch a market-leading AI product in record time.

Key Takeaways:

Listen to the full conversation here:

Closing thought: In the world of AI, every delay is like you becoming obsolete. You have to move as quickly as possible to stay current in this brand-new world.

To learn more about our sponsor, please contact CEO Itamar Sharir at umbrellaus.com

MUP  - Nemanja Milic Show notes

What if your most successful product was born from the manual tasks you hated doing yourself?

Nemanja Milic, known as "Nemo," is a seasoned Ad-Tech founder and product owner currently specializing in AI-driven B2B lead generation. As an "AI tool building wizard," he helps companies scale their growth through "vibe coding" lead magnets and advanced automation. His work focuses on transforming traditional, cold outreach into predictable, warm pipelines by leveraging sophisticated technology.

Nemo’s career began a decade ago as a copywriter at Leo Burnett, but a pivotal shift occurred in 2017 when he moved into building live-stream platforms. The real turning point came from the frustration of drowning in manual tasks, such as hand-typing emails and hitting LinkedIn outreach limits. This struggle led him to pivot from manual execution to developing automation tools that allow founders to reclaim their time and focus on high-level growth.

Today, Nemo advocates for a "strategy-first" methodology that distinguishes intelligent AI systems from basic marketing technology. By integrating AI natively into the user experience, his framework ensures that outreach feels like a value-added interaction rather than an intrusive sales pitch. In this episode, he shares how modern founders can transition from "founder-led" manual sales to automated systems that maintain a human touch while delivering consistent results.

Key Takeaways:

Listen to the full conversation here: (if Marketing Umbrella)

Connect with Nemanja Milic:

Closing thought: You know, you gotta test, you gotta try it out... because you can't do everything manually as a founder. You really need to focus on your strategy and the little details that actually make something work.

To learn more about our sponsor, connect with CEO Itamar Shafir at umbrellaus.com

What if your toughest sales calls turned into the stories that fill your pipeline?

Omar Majthoub didn’t begin his career in a boardroom. He started on the phones, making cold calls and learning what people actually care about and what makes them disengage. That hands-on experience still shapes how he leads marketing today: clear, simple messages rooted in real conversations.

On this episode of The Marketing Umbrella Podcast, Omar talks about the shift from dialing strangers to building campaigns that feel more like guidance than a pitch. He explains how paying attention to the questions people ask can reveal patterns that shape better content and keep marketing and sales on the same page. Whether you're a solo marketer or leading a team, he keeps coming back to one idea: good strategy starts with understanding people, not chasing trends.

This conversation gets into the practical side of how his team at Bith works: defining the right customer, making clean handoffs between sales and marketing, and tracking simple metrics that show whether something’s working or not. Omar also shares how he’s learned to cut out busywork, focus on the right channels, and stay close to customers, not just dashboards.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: "You have to market yourself before you market the product."

Listen to the full conversation here:

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What if AI could turn ad creative from art to science?

Ad creative is the black box of advertising. It drives 49% of sales, more than brand or distribution, yet it's the least understood part of any campaign. Hikari Senju, founder and CEO of Omneky, is changing that. With a Harvard computer science degree and a childhood spent between his painter father's art studio and his grandfather's tech career at IBM, Hikari saw something in 2015 that most people missed: generative AI could revolutionize advertising at scale.

In this episode of The Marketing Umbrella Podcast, Hikari shares how he built Omneky years before the market was ready. He talks about selling his first startup, the shift from agencies to in-house marketing teams, and why timing in tech means everything. Whether you're wondering how AI fits into your workflow or trying to stay ahead without getting left behind, this conversation will change how you think about creative production.

Whether you're running an in-house marketing team, trying to figure out if your agency model still works, or just wondering how to keep up with AI without getting left behind, this conversation will challenge how you think about creative production, data-driven optimization, and what it really takes to build something that lasts.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: "You come for the creative and you stick around for the workflow.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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Most people think AI is here to replace creatives, automating the magic out of advertising and turning strategists into button-pushers. Pip Bingemann thinks differently.  As co-founder and CEO of Springboards, he's built an AI platform that does something completely different: it accelerates human creativity instead of replacing it.

In this episode of The Marketing Umbrella Podcast, Pip shares the wild origin story of Springboards. How he and his wife, Amy Tucker, got laid off during the tech downturn, moved to a tiny beach town in Australia, and accidentally built a SaaS platform now used by over 250 agencies worldwide, including two of the ten biggest companies on the planet. What started as a freelance experiment teaching themselves to code became a full-blown mission to fight the biggest enemy of great work: mediocrity.

Pip breaks down why the "click button, get ad" approach to AI is fundamentally broken, why he genuinely hates the term "marketing science," and what it's really like to balance a high-growth startup with two young kids and a dog. Whether you're a strategist wondering if your job is safe, an agency leader trying to figure out where AI fits, or just someone who still believes great ideas matter, this conversation will change how you think about the future of creativity.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: "Let's just inject it into a current process to help people explore more ideas. If you can help them explore more ideas, you're going to get better work."

Listen to the full conversation here:

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What if the future of advertising isn’t about who you are, but what you’re thinking about right now?

Brendan Norman has always been drawn to systems: how they work, where they break, and what others overlook. From being the first salesperson at Facebook Audience Network (where he helped scale the business to $3 billion) to leading Unity’s ad business through its IPO, Brendan’s career has been about asking better questions.

Now, he’s tackling a different kind of challenge: building Classify, a privacy-first ad tech platform that doesn’t rely on personal data. Instead, it uses AI to understand the meaning behind content—and matches ads accordingly.

In this episode of the Marketing Umbrella Podcast, Brendan explains how Classify emerged from his own frustration with traditional ad targeting. While trying to promote a niche ski guide service, he realized that existing tools couldn’t deliver ads with enough context. So he built something better.

He also draws a surprising parallel between startup life and his namesake, St. Brendan, both navigating uncharted territory with curiosity and a strong sense of direction.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: “Our vision is to organize content and make it searchable and monetizable in a privacy-safe way. We want to be the accurate library of the world’s content.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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What if 80% of your marketing budget is actually being wasted right now?

Jeff Greenfield is an entrepreneur, advisor, and disruptor with three decades of marketing leadership under his belt. Today, he's the co-founder and CEO of Provalytics, a cookieless attribution solution that helps marketers prove the impact from upper funnel channels like CTV. Jeff didn't plan to get into measurement, but stumbled into it when he discovered a weight loss company was paying out five times for every new customer because all their partners claimed credit for the same sale.

Jeff gets that measurement isn't just about crunching numbers, it's about solving real business headaches and getting finance teams to trust marketing investments. He built and scaled C3 Metrics, one of the first multi-touch attribution companies, and exited just before COVID hit. What makes Jeff different is his experience living through both the wild west days of early digital and today's privacy-focused world.

This conversation digs into how the attribution landscape has shifted and why tools like Google Analytics are leaving marketers hanging. Jeff pushes back on the idea that digital marketing should be all about hyper-targeting and bottom-funnel optimization. Instead, he believes marketers have forgotten the basics: we're supposed to buy attention that builds awareness, not just chase clicks.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

Closing thought: "We invest dollars to buy attention, and that attention leads to awareness. When awareness is built up enough, people will walk into your store, and that eventually leads to clicks and sales."

Listen to the full conversation here:

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How AI search engines are becoming your company's most popular and least trained sales reps!

Michael Buckbee has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of marketing and technology, building solutions for everyone from the U.S. Navy and Fortune 100 companies to YC startups, presidential candidates, and even rock bands. Today, he's the co-founder of Knowatoa, a service that tracks brand visibility, rankings, and sentiment within AI search platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini.

Mike sees things differently, shaped by his background in both cybersecurity and software development. Rather than chasing high-traffic, low-intent content that worked in traditional SEO, Mikel advocates for focusing on mid and bottom-funnel content that actually converts. He explains how search is evolving from a destination into a feature, something baked into every application we use, just like spell check.

This conversation goes beyond just tracking AI search results. Mike challenges marketers to rethink their entire approach in a world where search journeys happen largely "below the surface" and traditional SEO metrics don't tell the whole story. His work with Knowatoa helps agencies and businesses understand not just where they rank, but whether AI systems can even access their content in the first place.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation:

As a closing thought, “AI search is already shaping how people talk about your company. You just can’t see it yet. But once you do, you can start shaping it back.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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What if 90% of what businesses call "strategy" is actually just expensive to-do lists?

Alex M.H. Smith didn't set out to become a strategist, and definitely didn't take the traditional path to get there. In fact, he started his strategy consultancy before ever reading a single book on the subject. What he did have was curiosity, a knack for pattern-spotting, and a frustration with how often businesses skip over real thinking in favor of surface-level tactics.

In this episode of the Marketing Umbrella Podcast, Alex shares how his outsider perspective led him to discover the universal patterns that drive the world's most successful companies, without ever reading a strategy book. He breaks down why businesses like Tesla, Lush, and Monster thrived without traditional advertising, and how any company can build something so compelling that customers can't help but notice.

Alex also talked about the difference between doing strategy and just calling things strategy. He shares how small agencies, founder-led companies, and even big brands often run on autopilot, making choices without realizing they even had options. He also gets into what makes a company truly compelling, why bravery is underrated, and how being interesting at the core beats clever marketing any day.

Here are the key takeaways from the conversation: 

As a closing thought, "Strategy means creating something so wildly different that your competition becomes completely irrelevant.”

Listen to the full conversation here:

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