I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Marketing is undergoing a revolutionary transformation, and Qualified's CMO Maura Rivera is leading the charge with their groundbreaking AI SDR agent named Piper. This fascinating conversation reveals how Qualified has completely reimagined the traditional marketing funnel, replacing the conventional lead generation approach with autonomous pipeline generation at scale.

What makes Qualified's story particularly compelling is their methodical implementation of this technology within their own organization. They've fully redeployed their human inbound SDRs to higher-value outbound roles while Piper handles all inbound inquiries—a transition Maura admits initially made her nervous. "I was accountable for the pipeline number to our company, to the board," she shares. Yet the results have been undeniable, with over 500 companies now "hiring" Piper and seeing significant pipeline increases.

The conversation dives deep into the practical application of AI agents, introducing the "crawl, walk, run" approach that companies follow when deploying this technology. Starting with handling after-hours inquiries, progressing to working alongside humans, and ultimately managing the entire inbound function, this gradual implementation builds confidence and delivers measurable results. As Maura explains, "Piper can run circles around human SDRs, not because humans aren't great, but they can't work 24/7."

Beyond the operational aspects, Maura shares fascinating insights about their approach to anthropomorphizing AI, their content production strategies, and her vision for how websites will evolve into conversational interfaces that mirror the ChatGPT experience. She also addresses the future of marketing teams, emphasizing that while AI will transform roles, subject matter experts will remain essential—they'll just need to become adept at leveraging AI tools.

Whether you're a marketing leader curious about implementing AI agents, a technology professional interested in the evolution of customer experiences, or simply fascinated by how AI is reshaping business operations, this conversation offers invaluable perspectives on navigating the agentic revolution that's just beginning to unfold.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Chris O'Neill, CEO of GrowthLoop and former leader at Google and Evernote, reveals how AI is creating an entirely new marketing paradigm through what he calls "compound marketing."

This fascinating conversation explores how marketing is shifting from slow, manual processes to a world where AI agents function as team members, handling the routine while humans focus on creativity. O'Neill explains the concept of compounding in marketing – where small, consistent improvements create exponential growth. Just as compound interest generates wealth through small percentages over time, compound marketing leverages AI to increase the velocity of marketing experiments and improvements.

The most revolutionary aspect of this approach is how it removes the pain points of cross-channel marketing. GrowthLoop's technology abstracts away the tedious work of activating campaigns across multiple platforms and analyzing siloed data. The result? Marketers can move from idea to impact dramatically faster, with AI agents working as "glue" teammates that stitch everything together behind the scenes.

O'Neill offers a compelling vision for how marketing roles will evolve – not by being replaced, but by being elevated. He suggests individual contributors will need managerial skills to effectively guide these AI teammates: setting clear goals, providing feedback, and knowing when to delegate versus remain involved. The transformation extends to business models as well, with O'Neill predicting a shift from software-as-a-service to results-as-a-service, where companies pay for outcomes rather than seats.

Interested in learning how AI agents could transform your marketing team's capabilities and results?

Listen now to understand the fundamental shift happening in marketing operations and how to position yourself at the forefront of this revolution.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Ever find yourself staring at a mountain of marketing data and still wondering, "Where did this deal actually come from?" You're not alone. Dennis Bierman, CMO at Agility Recovery, brings a refreshingly honest perspective to one of marketing's biggest headaches: attribution.

Dennis pulls back the curtain on what many CMOs think but few admit – that despite our sophisticated tools and tracking systems, figuring out which marketing efforts truly drive results often feels more like educated guesswork than precise science. "We have all this data, tons of records and events, and yet we still had to have a discussion about where we thought this deal came from," he shares, capturing the frustration many marketers experience.

What makes this conversation particularly valuable is Dennis's contrarian approach to solving the problem. Rather than getting lost in the complexity of multi-touch attribution models, he advocates for simplicity, suggesting that the last activity before conversion often tells you what actually worked. "It's really that simple," he explains. This perspective challenges the industry's obsession with tracking every touchpoint throughout lengthy B2B buyer journeys, much of which Dennis suspects might be noise rather than signal.

Beyond attribution, we explore Dennis's innovative approach to AI in marketing. Instead of just using AI for content creation, his team at Agility Recovery is building interconnected GPT agents that identify potential leads based on real-world disasters and outages. One agent tracks weather events, another matches these events with businesses in affected areas, while a third crafts personalized outreach. It's a fascinating glimpse into how AI can transform lead generation by connecting real-time data with targeted marketing.

Ready to rethink your attribution strategy and explore AI beyond content creation? Listen now and discover why sometimes the simplest approach to measurement might be the most effective.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Want to know the real secret behind high-growth SaaS companies? It's not what most marketers think.

When Omar Akhtar, founder of Benchmarker, surveyed 250+ B2B SaaS companies about their marketing spending patterns, he discovered something counterintuitive: the highest-performing companies split their marketing budgets almost equally between brand and demand generation activities (48% brand, 52% demand). Meanwhile, underperforming organizations were dramatically overinvesting in demand gen (65-70%) while neglecting brand (30-35%).

This revelation challenges the prevailing wisdom in tech marketing, where demand generation frequently dominates budget conversations and brand activities are often seen as "nice to have" luxuries. As Omar explains in our conversation, "Brand is the foundation upon which demand generation succeeds... it might be difficult to measure what it's doing when it's there, but look at what happens when it's not there."

Our discussion dives deep into how company size, funding structure (VC vs PE), and target market (enterprise vs SMB) affect marketing budget allocation. We explore why private-equity-backed companies tend to slash brand spending first, how enterprise-selling organizations allocate resources differently, and the surprising volatility of product-led growth models compared to sales-led approaches.

Perhaps most provocatively, Omar suggests that marketing attribution systems—the dashboards and software many CMOs rely on to justify their existence—might be among the least valuable tools in the marketing arsenal. Instead, focusing on straightforward activity metrics and competitive benchmarks could provide more actionable intelligence with less overhead.

Whether you're a tech CMO trying to justify brand investments to your CFO, a startup founder balancing growth priorities, or a marketer wondering if your budget allocations are aligned with market leaders, this conversation will fundamentally change how you think about marketing investment strategies.

Follow Omar on LinkedIn to contribute questions to his upcoming research on channel performance metrics, or visit benchmarkerdata.com to explore his latest research.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube.

Katie Penner, Head of Sender Relations at Sendoso, takes us deep into how gifting is transforming B2B marketing by delivering remarkable results where digital channels fall short. With 64% of marketers struggling to hit revenue targets with current budgets, the renewed interest in thoughtful, human-first marketing approaches couldn't be more timely.

What makes modern gifting so powerful? Katie reveals how strategic gifting delivers a 4x return on investment and accelerates sales cycles by 29% when integrated properly. The key distinction she emphasizes is moving beyond transactional gifting to relationship-building approaches that connect with prospects as actual humans. Today's buyers crave this personalization—71% expect personalized interactions and 76% get frustrated without them.

Katie walks us through exactly how Sendoso integrates with marketing technology ecosystems including Salesforce, HubSpot, Clay, and Gong to create automated yet deeply personalized gifting moments throughout the buyer journey. From pre-demo coffee gift cards to help break through inbox clutter, to thoughtfully selected items based on a prospect's personal interests, these touchpoints create meaningful connections in an increasingly digital world.

Looking toward the future, Katie shares how AI is revolutionizing gifting by enabling true personalization at scale. Imagine AI agents that can identify when an account has gone cold, suggest the perfect gift based on a prospect's interests scraped from social media, and deliver it at exactly the right moment—all without adding to your team's workload. The possibilities for creating genuine human connections while maintaining efficiency are tremendously exciting.

Want to implement effective gifting strategies today? Visit sendoso.com/playbooks for free, ungated resources with proven playbooks you can adapt for your business.

Connect with Katie on LinkedIn or email her at katiepenner@sendoso.com to learn more about transforming your marketing approach with the power of human connection.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

View the video version of the podcast here

The term "account-based marketing" gets thrown around so casually these days that its meaning has become diluted. Is ABM just targeted advertising to a list of accounts, or is it something deeper? According to Bolton Graham, Head of Marketing at JRNI, we've moved past the golden age of ABM into what he calls a "dark age" where everything is labeled ABM without the personalization that made it special.

Bolton brings a wealth of perspective from his time building ABM programs from scratch, scaling them across organizations, and now applying these principles at Journey. What makes his insights particularly valuable is his candid assessment of what works and what doesn't when taking the one-to-one approach with high-value accounts.

He argues that the best ABM practitioners occupy a unique space between sales and marketing—they need the analytical mind of a marketer with the relationship-building hunger of a salesperson. In fact, Bolton makes the provocative suggestion that perhaps ABM roles should include commission structures similar to sales positions.

Beyond the philosophical discussion, Bolton shares tactical advice on launching successful ABM initiatives, from managing the relationship with sales teams to defending your program from the inevitable pressure to scale beyond what's effective. He highlights the potential of "pattern interrupts" like direct mail, billboards, and in-person events as increasingly valuable tools as digital channels become saturated with AI-generated content.

As Bolton puts it, "The personal connection angle is going to be one of the last things we're left with."

Whether you're just starting your ABM journey or looking to refocus your existing program, this conversation offers fresh perspectives on an approach that, when done right, still delivers exceptional results for B2B marketers targeting high-value accounts. Connect with Bolton on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about the future of marketing in an increasingly noisy digital landscape.

Connect with Bolton on LinkedIn or check out his company, JRNI

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

Jacob Bank is transforming how marketers work with AI agents – and the results are extraordinary. As founder and CEO of Relay, Jacob brings a unique perspective shaped by his background as an AI researcher, founder of Timeful (acquired by Google), and former product lead for Gmail and Google Calendar.

In our conversation, Jacob cuts through the confusion surrounding AI terminology to explain what truly matters: AI agents are tools that work behind the scenes with human-level intelligence on tasks that previously required people. The technological leap enabling this revolution isn't just incremental improvement but a fundamental shift in how AI reasons and plans multi-step processes.

What makes Jacob's insights particularly valuable is that he's applying these technologies directly in his own marketing. At Relay, he operates as essentially a one-person marketing team, leveraging AI agents for competitor research, content creation, customer insight synthesis, community management, and lifecycle communications. From automatically analyzing customer calls to generating personalized outreach and tracking performance metrics, these agents handle the "busy work" while Jacob focuses on strategy and relationships.

Perhaps most compelling is Jacob's candid story about his content marketing journey. After nine months of consistent posting on LinkedIn and YouTube with minimal traction, his persistence finally paid off – exploding from 1,000 to 5,000 YouTube subscribers in a month and generating 4.7 million LinkedIn impressions in 90 days. This transformation didn't come from changing posting frequency but from refining his approach and persevering until breakthrough.

Looking ahead, Jacob believes marketers who build authentic connections and communities will thrive even as AI-generated content proliferates. The successful marketer of tomorrow will be a curious, adaptable generalist who embraces new tools while focusing on the human elements that technology can't replicate.

Ready to transform your marketing with AI agents?

Follow Jacob on LinkedIn or YouTube for detailed tutorials

Visit RelayApp.com to start building your own AI-powered workflows.

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

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I am always looking for ways to improve. Send me a text and let me know your thoughts! - Kevin

The search landscape has dramatically transformed. With traffic plummeting by 50-90% for many brands, SEO professionals are scrambling to understand how AI is reshaping organic strategy. In this eye-opening conversation, Jason White, head of SEO at PolicyGenius, shares cutting-edge insights about navigating this new reality.

White reveals that server logs have become an unexpected superpower in measuring AI visibility. While no analytics platforms exist for tools like ChatGPT, examining server logs shows which AI bots visit your site, what content they access, and how frequently they return. This data forms the foundation of understanding your "share of AI voice" – a metric that's rapidly replacing traditional ranking factors.

The conversation takes a startling turn when White points out that "ChatGPT has already consumed all of your website. They consumed it before you started worrying about it." This sobering reality means brands are already behind in the AI optimization race, but understanding how and when AI platforms refresh their knowledge can help marketers regain ground.

Despite the challenges, there's a silver lining: while traffic volume has decreased dramatically, the quality of remaining traffic tends to be higher, with improved conversion rates. White encourages marketers to approach AI with curiosity rather than fear, comparing the current moment to the early days of social media when no established playbooks existed and experimentation reigned supreme.

Whether you're witnessing alarming traffic drops or simply preparing for the inevitable shifts in search behavior, this conversation provides practical strategies for maintaining visibility in an increasingly AI-mediated digital landscape. The rules of search have fundamentally changed – are you ready to adapt your approach?

You can connect with Jason at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaylwhite/

🎧 Tech Marketing Rewired is hosted by Kevin Kerner, founder of Mighty & True.

New episodes drop regularly with unfiltered conversations from the frontlines of B2B and tech marketing.

Catch the video version of the podcast on our YouTube channel.

👉 Subscribe, share, and connect with us at www.mightyandtrue.com

📩 Got a guest idea or question? Email us at kevin@mightyandtrue.com

🔗 Follow Kevin on LinkedIn for more insights and behind-the-scenes takes.

📰 Subscribe to Kevin's Substack at: Subscribe to Kevin's Substack at: https://kevinkerner.substack.com/

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