Growth, Interrupted

Crealytics
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Growth isn't linear anymore, and the best thinking isn't always on the main stage. Growth, Interrupted is a conversation series for senior leaders in DTC, exploring what drives real business impact today in the new era of AI and human judgment. Host Amy Tran, Senior Director of Growth at Crealytics, brings 9+ years of paid media expertise across North America, EMEA and APAC. This podcast is sponsored by Crealytics, an award-winning global agency with 15+ years in retail and e-commerce, managing full-funnel paid media for brands and retailers across channels, markets, and verticals.

Episodes

  1. 4 days ago

    SS1 E03: AI, Ad Platforms & Partnerships: How Growth Marketing Is Being Rebuilt (ft. Stephanie Boedige from Microsoft AI)

    Why Your Ad Strategy Might Already Be Three Eras Behind There's a moment in this episode where Stephanie Boedige, a decade into Microsoft Advertising, now Global Agency Director for Independent Agencies, says something that quietly reframes the entire conversation: marketers today aren't optimizing for one internet, they're optimizing for three. The human web. The LLM web. The agentic web. Each with its own rules for what "getting found" even means. Amy and Stephanie dig into what happens to performance marketing when AI stops summarizing options and starts completing tasks on a shopper's behalf, and why some of Microsoft's own funnel data on Copilot-assisted journeys might make you rethink where your next quarter's budget actually belongs. Agentic Commerce, MCP, and the New Rules of Agency-Platform Trust This is also, at its core, an episode about partnership, the kind Stephanie has spent years building between Microsoft and independent agencies across Europe and beyond. What does an "AI maturity framework" actually look like in practice? What did Microsoft's MCP beta, announced fresh off Cannes Lions, unlock for agentic commerce? And when it comes to first-party data, data cleanrooming, and the caution many European advertisers still carry, where's the workaround that doesn't compromise the data? Stephanie doesn't stay vague. She names the skills, the tools, and the tensions agencies need to sit with right now. The Question Every Growth Leader Should Be Asking About Automation Every episode of Growth, Interrupted comes home to its own question, and this one lands somewhere worth sitting with: trust, authenticity, and differentiation don't automate, and Stephanie has strong opinions about what platforms owe agencies in return for that trust. A candid, insider's conversation about where digital advertising is actually going, from someone who's spent a decade inside the machinery watching it happen.Key terms mentioned in this episode: MCP (Model Context Protocol): The Microsoft Advertising Model Context Protocol (MCP) server connects Microsoft Advertising data and actions directly to AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and ChatGPT — enabling real-time performance insights, campaign management, and automated multi-account audits using natural language.DCR (Data Collection Rules): In Microsoft Advertising and the wider Microsoft cloud ecosystem, DCR typically refers to Data Collection Rules — cloud configuration files used in back-end tracking, infrastructure monitoring, and ad assessments, particularly relevant for advertisers managing Microsoft Advertising at an enterprise level or linking it with Azure. Growth, Interrupted is brought to you by Crealytics. Keywords: AI advertising, Microsoft Advertising, agentic commerce, the agentic web, AI search, Microsoft Copilot, MCP (Model Context Protocol), first-party data, data cleanrooming, performance marketing, independent agencies, digital marketing strategy, growth marketing

  2. 25 Jun

    SS1 E02: Preparing Product Data for AI-driven and “Agentic” Commerce (ft. Marcel Hollerbach from ProductsUp)

    What Is Agentic Commerce, and Is Your Product Data Ready for It? AI is changing how consumers discover, research, and buy. But while brands rush to understand agentic commerce, most are missing the part that actually matters: the product data sitting underneath every interaction. In this episode of Growth, Interrupted, host Amy Tran sits down with Marcel Hollabach, Co-Founder and CIO at Productsup, the enterprise feed management platform trusted by brands like PUMA, Thalia, and Thule across 170+ global markets, to unpack what agentic commerce really means, what's already happening versus what's still hype, and why your product catalog is fast becoming your most important sales asset. From Google Shopping to LLMs: Why Your Feed Is Your Sales Pitch Marcel and Amy dig into how product discovery is shifting from keyword search to goal-based shopping, and what that means for how brands structure their feeds. Marcel explains why winning Google still means winning the wider ecosystem (including ChatGPT, which pulls product results directly from Google Shopping), what OpenAI's new catalog spec is doing differently, and why richer product attributes, think themes, use cases, Q&A content, will define visibility in AI-led environments. They also get into the debate around agentic checkout: why Walmart launched it, why they quietly sunsetted it, and what that tells us about where the real commercial opportunity actually lies. The One Competitive Edge Left When AI Is Doing the Bidding When every brand is running Performance Max and the AI is optimising bids for everyone, what's left to differentiate? Marcel's answer: your catalog. In the closing segment, he shares why brands that treat product data like a performance channel, testing, iterating, improving, will pull ahead, while those running on status quo feeds will decline. They also cover the Universal Commerce Protocol versus OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol, why being too early can be as costly as being too late, and the one data investment Marcel says is always worth making — regardless of timing. Growth, Interrupted is brought to you by Crealytics. Keywords: agentic commerce, product feed optimisation, AI-driven discovery, Google Shopping, Performance Max, LLM commerce, product data strategy, e-commerce growth, retail media, feed management.

  3. 2 Jun

    SS1 E01: What Makes a Great Account Strategist in DTC? (ft. Ally Basner from Google)

    What does it actually take to be a great account strategist in paid media, not just a good one? In this episode of Growth, Interrupted, host Amy Tran sits down with Ally Basner, currently YouTube Product Lead at Google with eight years of experience partnering with some of the world's largest retail and DTC brands. Ally brings a rare inside-Google perspective on what separates strategists who execute from those who truly drive growth. They get into the mindset shift that most people miss early in their careers, and why platform expertise alone will only take you so far. Ally shares what it really means to think like a business owner, how to challenge a client's ROAS target without damaging the relationship, and why curiosity might be the most underrated skill in performance marketing today. On the DTC and retail side, Ally unpacks how to work with margin-sensitive businesses, what most brands get wrong in the lead-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and how to avoid the trap of running what she calls "a really optimised decline." The conversation also gets into client relationships, the difference between being liked and being trusted, why saying yes to everything is a fast track to burnout, and how to push back in a way that actually strengthens a partnership. Plus: the platform-agency dynamic, what Google really wants from agency partners, and how AI is changing the day-to-day of the strategist role. Ally closes with what she sees as the biggest career growth blockers, including the "expert trap" and an aversion to risk that quietly stalls careers before people even realise it. If you work in paid media, performance marketing, or account strategy, whether at an agency, brand, or platform, this one is worth your time. Topics covered: account strategy, DTC marketing, retail media, Google Ads, paid search, performance marketing, client relationships, ROAS, unit economics, Black Friday strategy, agency-platform collaboration, AI in marketing, career development in adtech. Growth, Interrupted is brought to you by Crealytics — an award-winning global digital marketing agency specialising in retail, e-commerce, and full-funnel paid media.

  4. 26 May

    Ep 0: Welcome to Growth, Interrupted

    This is the episode where it all starts. Growth, Interrupted is a podcast about what's actually driving growth in DTC and retail today, and what's getting in the way. ROAS has been the default answer for too long. Incrementality is finally being taken seriously. And in the AI era, where automation is doing more of the work, the attribution question has gotten even harder to answer with confidence. This show exists for the CMOs, performance leads, and growth operators who are done optimising for metrics that look good on paper but don't hold up in the boardroom. Your host: Amy Tran, Senior Director of Growth at Crealytics, with 9+ years in paid media across North America and EMEA. Growth, Interrupted is brought to you by Crealytics — an award-winning global digital marketing agency with over 15 years of deep expertise in retail, e-commerce, and full-funnel paid media.

  • 4 Episodes

About

Growth isn't linear anymore, and the best thinking isn't always on the main stage. Growth, Interrupted is a conversation series for senior leaders in DTC, exploring what drives real business impact today in the new era of AI and human judgment. Host Amy Tran, Senior Director of Growth at Crealytics, brings 9+ years of paid media expertise across North America, EMEA and APAC. This podcast is sponsored by Crealytics, an award-winning global agency with 15+ years in retail and e-commerce, managing full-funnel paid media for brands and retailers across channels, markets, and verticals.

Information

  • Creator
    Crealytics
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    4
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Crealytics
  • Show Website
    Growth, Interrupted