Funnel Reboot

Glenn Schmelzle
  • 0.0 (0)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

A show giving you better insight into your funnel, so your marketing can be even better. New content biweekly, geared for analytically-minded marketers.

  1. Pushing back on AI campaigns with humans in the loop, with Lyndsey Maddox

    MAR 16

    Pushing back on AI campaigns with humans in the loop, with Lyndsey Maddox

    Episode 229 We need to talk about what's been happening with the use of AI on Google and Meta's ad platforms.  A few years ago, we were surgeons. We had the scalpel. We chose the exact keywords, the specific bid modifiers, the precise placements. Now? Google and Meta are basically telling us, "Hey, don't worry your pretty little human head about it. Just give us your credit card, a few grainy images, and a vague 'goal,' and we'll take it from here." Performance Max (PMax) and Advantage+ are the ultimate "Trust Me, Bro" of the marketing world. They've turned "manual control" into a dirty word. They want us to believe that the algorithm knows our customer better than we do—even though that same algorithm once tried to sell me a pair of shoes I bought three weeks ago. The platforms are no longer just tools; they're aggressive backseat drivers. Google is constantly "recommending" that you switch to Broad Match (conveniently spending your budget faster). Meta is hiding the "Manual" button behind three layers of "Are you sure? This is less efficient!" warnings. The "Auto-apply" Trap: If you don't uncheck a box buried in a sub-menu, the platform will literally change your strategy while you're sleeping. They aren't optimizing for our ROI; they're optimizing for their inventory. It's getting a little ridiculous. It feels like we're being slowly evicted from our own accounts. AI is a great engine, but it's a terrible pilot. It has no "common sense." Media buyers aren't here to fight the machine; but they are there to keep the machine from driving a brand off a cliff.  After gaining her B.A. from Butler University and working in B2B, she had her first brush with digital channels like SEO and paid search and saw how they could drive business better than traditional methods. That came as a pleasant surprise, given how her sales role relied totally on making cold calls. Bringing that sales-focused grit to DTC, and honing her digital expertise over the last 14 years, she now serves as its CEO. When she's away from agency business, she is likely to be spending time with her husband & two sons, often at Wrigley Field catching a ball game. Let's go to Chicago, to meet Lyndsey Maddox Timestamp Chapters 00:00 Intro 02:05 Lyndsey on whether experts still matter 04:51 PMax Leads and Nuance 09:55 Honest Forecasting with Clients 15:41 Humans in the Loop 24:22 Agency Size and Fit 30:00 Connecting with Lyndsey Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    33 min
  2. You Might Also Like: Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson

    MAR 16 · BONUS

    You Might Also Like: Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson

    Introducing Side Dish: More with Dan Bucatinsky from Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Follow the show: Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson More of my interview with ‘The Comeback’ star Dan Bucatinsky. We get into Dan's longtime collaboration with Lisa Kudrow and he shares hilarious behind-the-scenes stories from their comedy series Web Therapy. This episode was recorded at Louise’s Trattoria in Larchmont Village in Los Angeles, CA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices DISCLAIMER: Please note, this is an independent podcast episode not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in conjunction with the host podcast feed or any of its media entities. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the creators and guests. For any concerns, please reach out to team@podroll.fm.

  3. Paid Traffic for Non-Profits, with Sean Moher

    FEB 16

    Paid Traffic for Non-Profits, with Sean Moher

    How do you amplify a message when you can't lean on traditional justifications like "because we'll make a profit out of this"?   In the for-profit world, the justification for marketing spend is straightforward: you put money in to get more money out. But how do you amplify a message when you can't lean on traditional bottom-line justifications? For non-profits, associations, and social enterprises, the "profit motive" is replaced by a mission, yet the fundamental challenge remains identical—you must find and keep your "customers," whether they are donors, members, or beneficiaries.   Marketing in the non-profit sector isn't just about "pulling heartstrings"; it is about solving a business problem using the same tools as the private sector. Whether you are a plumber looking for a lead or a foundation looking for a donor, revenue is the common denominator that keeps the lights on.   In this episode, we explore how organizations can move beyond "waiting to be found" by using paid traffic as an accelerant. We will dive into why Mission-Based organizations should look at paid Traffic. Specifically The Google Ad Grant program.    Whether you are a for-profit marketer looking to apply your skills to a "3-dimensional" cause or a non-profit leader ready to fill your funnel, it's time to stop treating marketing as an afterthought and start treating it as a vital utility.   Our guest is a marketing consultant who supports both for-profit and non-profit local service organizations. Through his agency, Harvest Demand, he blends smart digital strategies with practical storytelling to help these organizations grow. He also brings experience in search and AI optimization, as well as leveraging digital advertising, including managing ad grants for non-profits. In other words, Sean's all about making a real impact for a variety of organizations. Let's talk with Sean Moher. Timestamps/chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:41 Sean defines the Nonprofit Landscape 02:24 What Is Marketing Without Profit? "Finding and Keeping Customers" 03:13 The 3-Party Value Exchange: Mission-Based Value Beyond Transactions 07:06 Emotion vs. Action: Telling Stories That Still Drive Donations 08:02 Measurement Reality Check: Analytics, Funnels & the Awareness Gap 10:39 Why Paid Traffic Matters: Stop Waiting to Be Found 11:34 Google Ad Grant 101: $10K/Month in Search Ads (and Why It's Not Magic) 14:01 Rules, "Loopholes" & Eligibility: What You Can (and Can't) Advertise 15:54 Grant Limitations & Strategy: CPC Caps, Leftover Inventory & Testing in Parallel 18:20 AI as a Utility: Faster Research, Better Campaigns & Knowing Your Donor Avatar 23:34 Doing Pro Bono the Smart Way: Aligning with Interests, Boards & Real Impact 26:28 Where to Find Sean + Final Takeaways Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    27 min

  4. FEB 3

    Depositioning, with Todd Irwin

    Episode 226 Positioning is an element that's so foundational to  Marketing, it's taught in every introductory class alongside the "Four Ps" of marketing. Positioning is meant to describe the choices a brand makes to maximize how the market sees it. Positioning is very powerful because it can set perceptions that drive customer loyalty, strong demand, and the willingness to pay a premium price.   But if all this is true, then why is the landscape littered with examples of where brands have flopped—cases where brand positioning actually caused a product to fail?   Take Microsoft Zune: Because how people thought of MP3 players had already been set by Apple  Colgate Frozen Entrees: Sure, both food and toothpaste enter our mouths, but other TV dinner brands don't plant the taste of toothpaste in your head. Harley-Davidson's "Legendary" Cologne: People buy a fragrance for the impression they want to leave, not one whose name evokes burned rubber and gasoline. Cosmopolitan Yogurt: There are plenty of brands in the dairy aisle. People didn't think a fashion brand belonged there Frito-Lay Lemonade: Marketing a salty snack and chasing it with a  "Thirst-quenching drink" strikes people as a cynical cash grab   The reason these brands flopped is they tried positioning themselves on a competitor's turf. The correct way to position yourself is to start with customer needs and work outward from there. To do this right, we've got to flip the traditional concept on its head. Instead of positioning, the author we're talking with today says we must deposition our brands.    He is the founder and chief strategy officer of brand strategy firm Fazer. Over three decades, he has led strategy for Fortune 500 companies as well as venture-backed disruptors. His work has been featured in the New York times Forbes and MIT technology review.    Let's go now to New York City to speak with Todd Irwin.   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    28 min
  5. Tried and True Marketing Reads

    JAN 22

    Tried and True Marketing Reads

    Episode 225 At the time I'm recording this it's a new year. This is a typical time when people plan what they're going to achieve fitness-wise, financially and professionally. If you're working on that last one and wonder about what marketing reads you should try, I have some marketing books that could do just the thing. There are Five in all. - Let's dive right in. Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    33 min
  6. Mastering constraints of Healthcare Marketing, with Cindy Grabowski

    12/31/2025

    Mastering constraints of Healthcare Marketing, with Cindy Grabowski

    Thinking up a new product and commercializing it is not easy. All products face Financial, Technological and of course Competitive market barriers. But doing this in the field of Healthcare is not like any other industry.  In healthcare, there exist extra regulatory hurdles that make product innovation even more difficult.  Before every medical device is introduced, they must find academics who will research them and publish articles that are heavily scrutinized by peers. Then they have to endure clinical screening before receiving government approval, which applies tight restrictions on what you can say about the product and how it's used. After they enter most markets, the products must be coded so insurers will reimburse patients who use them.   So if you have a health or medical technology product, how can you market it when you face all these limits?" For the first time here, the mic will be in somebody else's hands. That person is Cindy Grabowski, founder of Mind Grove, a US-based training platform built specifically for MedTech professionals. Have to disclose that I have no affiliation with Mind Grove, other than giving them a  no-charge review of the marketing course on their platform.  Anyway, she turned the tables on me to hear me answer how you can market in the Healthcare space with so many constraints.  As I present my points on healthcare marketing, listen for tips on:  Building your digital assets throughout your product's lifecycle Setting up campaigns on digital channels without breeching privacy  Engaging your patient population to create your content for you Getting buy-in from decision-makers on upgrades to your marketing program.    So give this unique talk I have with Cindy a listen - I imagine even if you aren't in Healthcare Marketing, you'll come away with better ideas on how to overcome your own constraints.  Let's go hear how we can navigate around constraints. Timestamp Chapters: 00:00 Introducing Cindy Grabowsky 01:07 Glenn takes a turn as guest on the show 03:09 What we'll cover in Healthcare Marketing 04:33 The Big Question: Why is Healthcare so hard? 06:38 Leveraging Data in Healthcare Marketing 09:56 Case Study: EndoGastric Solutions 17:27 Optimizing Digital Presence and Compliance 33:57 Skills for measuring, managing Healthcare Marketing Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    38 min
  7. The Classical Marketing book, with Anthony "Tas" Tasgal

    12/20/2025

    The Classical Marketing book, with Anthony "Tas" Tasgal

    The world we inhabit today is, in countless ways, an extended echo of breakthroughs made by two extraordinary cultures that came from a compact corner of the mediterranean between the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century of the current era. I'm talking about Greece and Rome, whose influence on contemporary language, thought, and culture is so deeply woven into the modern world that we navigate it every day without noticing.  Taking just language, be it English, French, Spanish or Italian, they all use words with origins that tie back to ancient law, institutions, arts and sciences. The concepts they gave linguistic expression to are stitched into everything that comes out of our mouths.  You'll hear a passionate discussion today by two guys who both did an undergrad in classics. But you won't need to know anything about this to get great marketing lessons from today's talk. Believe it or not, the ancients can teach us a fair bit about marketing! Our guest's undergraduate courses taken at the University of Oxford in Classical Greek Language and Literature inspired him to write the book we're discussing today.  He is a trainer, author, strategist, and lecturer who applies Storytelling, Behavioural Economics, and insight-driven thinking to brands and communications. Serving as a Course Director for several professional institutes, he also delivers TEDx talks and has spoken on stages around the world. His clients span organizations such as the BBC, Panasonic, Nokia, The Royal Albert Hall, and the UK National Health Service. An accomplished writer, he has published several award-winning books, including The Storytelling Book, which has sold 40,000 copies. His seventh book, The Classical Marketing Book, is being released in North America at the start of 2026. Let's go to the UK to speak with Anthony 'Tas' Tasgal. Chapters Timestamps 0:00:00 Introducing Tas Tasgal 0:02:48 How Ancient Cultures Inform Modern Marketing Today 0:06:29 Uncovering Marketing Power in Word Origins 0:10:26 Using Ancient Myths for Market Segmentation 0:13:33 Connecting Behavioral Economics with Storytelling Power 0:17:21 Strategies to Avoid Marketing's 'Junk Folder' 0:21:52 Crafting Persuasive Frames with Historical Stories 0:26:43 The Power and Peril of Condensed Language 0:30:53 Mastering Persuasion with Ethos, Logos, and Pathos 0:34:48 Satire and Timeless Human Patterns in Marketing 0:37:57 Tapping into Ancient Wisdom for Modern Marketing   Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    40 min
  8. Keeping the Revenue Engine Running, with Karl Ortmanns

    12/12/2025

    Keeping the Revenue Engine Running, with Karl Ortmanns

    We often hear marketers talk about how vital their work is to sales. What we don't hear nearly as often is the reverse: how essential sales is to a well-functioning marketing team. If marketing creates the content, sales provides the context. And that context is what makes campaigns relevant, credible, and grounded in the real world. Sales teams feed marketing the on-the-ground truth—what prospects are actually saying, how they react to new pricing, and how they interpret a company's positioning in different segments. That's especially clear when a business serving the SMB market tries to move upmarket. Sales hears almost immediately how enterprise buyers perceive the brand, revealing the gaps marketing must close for the company to compete at that level. It's a live feedback loop marketers can't get anywhere else. Bridging those gaps requires real collaboration—sitting in on each other's meetings, sharing insights early, and recognizing that both functions are cogs in the same revenue engine. Their shared job is to keep that engine running smoothly. Our guest today understands that better than most. He's a fractional leader of revenue and go-to-market teams, and host of the Revenue Problem Solvers Podcast, where leaders drop the script and speak candidly about what it really takes to build growth teams. He's known for diagnosing the true cause of weak team performance - something he knows well from playing intervarsity sports. He gets frontline performing again too, using a coach's tone to get them back on track.  And he doesn't restrict this just to his day-job, this Southwestern Ontario native spends his weekends behind the bench as a minor hockey coach. Let's go talk with Karl Ortmanns. Links to everything mentioned in the show are on the Funnel Reboot site's page for this episode.

    42 min
See All (226)

About

A show giving you better insight into your funnel, so your marketing can be even better. New content biweekly, geared for analytically-minded marketers.

Information

  • Creator
    Glenn Schmelzle
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    226
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
  • Show Website
    Funnel Reboot