10 Minute Martech

Progress, Sara Faatz

Martech is evolving faster than ever, and staying informed has never been more critical. That’s where we come in. Welcome to 10 Minute Martech. Your go-to resource for insights from the Martech Mavericks shaping the future. We cover everything from DX to AI, tech stacks to data tracks, and deliver actionable advice so you, too, can become a Martech Maverick. Fast? Absolutely. Essential? Without a doubt. It’s everything you need to know, without the noise. Your shortcut to staying ahead. Made with love by the team at Progress.

  1. 8h ago

    Jess Graham: Own More Channels

    Bots now outnumber humans online, and account for more than half of web page requests. Jess Graham thinks that ratio should change what the website is for, what marketers measure, and where budget goes next.  As CEO and founder of Banquet, and someone who helped establish the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI, Jess has spent enough time with AI safety researchers to doubt that marketers can reliably game LLMs for growth. She makes the case for trading SEO, AEO, and GEO for positioning, messaging, and owned channels like email, apps, loyalty programs, and direct mail.  Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more conversations with marketing leaders, in ten minutes or less. 3 Takeaways: If unique website visitors are still a headline metric, your dashboard is built for the past. Email, apps, loyalty programs, unboxing and install experiences, and direct mail are where brands still control the customer relationship.GS1 Sunrise 2027 turns every product package into a channel for provenance, safety, allergens, and first-party data, giving brands a path out of dependence on retailers and ad platforms.Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(02:08) Back to Marketing Basics(02:52) Is the Internet Dying?(03:53) Rethinking Metrics & Owned Channels(05:06) The Case for Bringing Back Direct Mail(06:56) The Pay-to-Play Platform Future(07:17) Curiosity as a Core Marketing Skill(08:31) The GS1 Sunrise 2027 Opportunity(09:39) Lightning Round & Hot Takes About the Guest:Jess Graham is the founder of Banquet, a commercial advisory for consumer brands. Technology is changing how people find brands, buy from them, and build relationships with them, and Jess advises companies on new paths to brand and revenue growth as those behaviors shift. Her career spans two systems that shaped modern buying: nine years at Visa, studying how people actually pay and buy, from paper checks to Apple Pay, and Meta, where she led product marketing for Instagram and launched Reels helping build the plumbing for the attention economy. Jess writes The Feast, an essay series on discovery, brands, and taste in the age of algorithms. She lives in the US and UK. Connect:Jess Graham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/discoveryinagenticcommerce/ Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213Progress: www.progress.com  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  2. Sep 29

    Ana Mourão: Don't Leave Your Marketing Tech to IT

    Marketers who leave technology decisions to IT, a vendor, or a consultant end up running systems someone else designed. Ana Mourão, brand-side marketer and author of Strategic Marketing Skills, argues marketers should lean in and start those conversations themselves.  She tells Sara Faatz how a technology project becomes the opening to sit down with legal, IT, and e-commerce and say "let's address it together." That same instinct shapes how she runs experiments. She gets the CFO, CTO, and legal to agree upfront on what a test can and can't measure, then reports results in terms finance can put a value on. She also explains why knowing what not to automate is becoming a core skill.  Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more conversations with marketing leaders, in ten minutes or less. 3 Takeaways: Marketers who start technology projects themselves become the architects of their marketing systems. The ones who hand those projects to IT, a vendor, or a consultant stay operators of campaigns and platforms.Before a test runs, agree with finance, IT, and legal on what it can prove and what it can't. Skipping that step is how teams end up treating correlation as causation, or treating walled-garden incrementality as the whole picture.Knowing what not to automate is becoming a core skill. Hand AI the boring, repetitive tasks and protect the parts of marketing people actually enjoy.Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(00:41) Skills Matter More Than Tools(01:50) How Marketers Need to Evolve(02:56) Experimentation That Proves Causality(05:10) The Most Overlooked E in Marketing(06:12) Reporting Metrics Stakeholders Actually Understand(06:58) What You Should Never Automate(08:26) The Biggest Aha Moment While Writing the Book(09:24) Who Ana Follows Right Now About the Guest:Ana Mourão is a brand-side marketer and the author of Strategic Marketing Skills. After earning her degree in economics in Brazil, she moved to the US and spent 15 years at Fortune 500 companies, including 3M, Charles Schwab, and Marriott. There she worked on digital transformation projects that changed how those marketing organizations operated and used technology. That hands-on experience became The Experimental Marketer Framework, the foundation of her book. Today she helps senior marketers build the customer data strategy that makes AI, personalization, and cross-channel marketing deliver results, and helps them win back a voice in the technology decisions that shape their work. She volunteers on the Association of National Advertisers' Martech & AI Committee, contributes to MarTech's publication and conferences, and writes two marketing technology newsletters, one in English and one in Brazilian Portuguese. Connect:Ana Mourão: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anamourao Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213Progress: www.progress.com Ana’s Book: https://strategicmarketingskillsbook.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  3. Sep 15

    Harley Helmer: The Four-Quadrant Method to Track AI Search

    Backlinks were supposed to matter less once AI started answering search questions directly. Harley Helmer says something closer to the opposite is happening: brand mentions that never earned a link at all are becoming one of the strongest signals a company can send to ChatGPT, Gemini, and AI Mode. Harley leads SEO at Americaneagle.com, where his team is building AI-search tracking from scratch, since no platform currently reports how often a given prompt gets asked. In this episode, Harley details a four-quadrant framework for tracking branded and non-branded AI prompts, explains why repeating the same brand message across social, Wikipedia, and third-party sites now outweighs saying it once on your own site, and covers Google's new crackdown on exact-match anchor text backlinks. He also makes a call: Gemini and AI Mode will out-use ChatGPT by year's end. Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more conversations with marketing leaders, in ten minutes or less. 3 Takeaways: Track AI visibility the way you'd design a research study: split every question into branded vs. non-branded and aware vs. unaware, then watch the trend line over months, not weeks.An unlinked brand mention used to be worthless for SEO. For AI search, getting your brand named in the same context across multiple sites is now one of the strongest signals you can send.Google is cracking down on exact-match anchor text backlinks. A link that reads "Americaneagle.com did great SEO work" now carries more weight than one that just says "SEO services."Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(01:16) Why Prompt Tracking Matters Now(03:06) A Framework for Tracking Prompts(05:17) Offsite Signals for LLMs(06:43) How to Make Your Site Agent-Friendly(08:10) Backlinks Still Win(09:14) Google's Crackdown on Link Spam(10:42) Gemini vs. ChatGPT: Who's Winning?(11:35) Who to Follow in MarTech Right Now About the Guest:Harley Helmer's path into SEO wasn't a straight line — he trained as a pastry chef and ran the pastry program at a well-known Chicago-suburb restaurant before deciding kitchen life wasn't the long-term fit. He moved into internet marketing and built a career on the same standard: prove real value for the people he's working for, not just theory. Today he works as a SEO Team Lead, AmericanEagle.com, where he helps clients define what their marketing strategy should actually look like and backs it up with hands-on execution experience. Connect:Harley Helmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harley-helmer/ Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213Progress: www.progress.com Americaneagle.com: http://www.americaneagle.com    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  4. Sep 1

    John Pehler: AI Transformation Is a Culture Problem, Not a Tech Problem

    Same AI tool, same prompt, completely different answer. John Pehler, founder and principal of E3 Omni, says that gap comes down to context — and most organizations aren't managing it. John led the Digital Momentum research project with Flywheel, surveying companies across industries on how they're actually operationalizing AI, and found that while 84% are investing in AI tools, only 14% are investing in the people using them.  In this episode, he explains why AI transformation is a cultural shift before it's a technology shift, why the real MarTech bottleneck isn't your stack but the handoffs between systems and teams, and why judgment — knowing when to trust the AI's output and when not to — is becoming the most important skill marketers can build. Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more conversations with marketing leaders, in ten minutes or less. 3 Takeaways: Only 1 in 7 companies investing in AI are also investing in the humans operating it. Two people can enter the identical prompt into the identical AI tool and get different answers, because the tool doesn't carry the context of who's asking and why. The real constraint on MarTech performance isn't the stack — it's the handoffs between systems and teams. Subscribe to 10 Minute Martech for fast, practical insights from senior B2B marketing leaders on what’s working right now. Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (00:42) Humans + AI: Why Context Still Wins (02:12) The Operating Model Is Shifting (04:34) What Digital Momentum Research Found (06:15) Where to Start With AI Upskilling (07:57) Rethinking the Buyer Journey (09:51) Why Expert Content Has the Edge (11:09) Judgment Is the New Core Skill (12:06) Hot Take: The MarTech Handoff Problem About the Guest:John Pehler is the founder and principal of E3 Omni, with more than 30 years leading digital and cultural transformation inside Fortune 500 distribution, industrial, and manufacturing companies. He's scaled digital revenue from the hundreds of millions into the billions, built and run high-performing technology organizations, and guided executive teams through complex platform, data, and go-to-market decisions. He also advises and sits on boards for companies working through B2B eCommerce modernization and omni-channel strategy, and invests in early-stage B2B technology and lifestyle-aligned companies. Connect: John Pehler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpehler/  Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213 Progress: www.progress.com  E3 Omni: https://e3omni.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  5. Aug 18

    Neil Tewari: Marketing Can't Be the Company's AI Bottleneck

    When an AI tool "doesn't one-shot it correctly," a lot of marketing teams assume the tool failed. Neil Tewari, Co-founder & CEO of Conversion, says the failure is almost always upstream — in the plumbing that feeds AI agents context, not the prompt itself. Tewari has a front-row seat to hundreds of marketing teams modernizing their stacks, and he's seeing a clear split between the ones scaling output 5–10x and the ones stuck blaming the model.  In this conversation, he explains why CMOs now need to understand their own Salesforce objects, why legacy platforms like Marketo actively restrict data portability, and why he expects token spend to outpace advertising spend within five years.  3 Takeaways: The teams getting 5–10x output from AI aren't better at prompting — they've built infrastructure that gives agents full context (deal signals, call transcripts, account history) before a single draft gets written. Marketo's limited APIs restrict how much data can leave the platform, which Tewari argues is prohibitive for marketing teams trying to build composable, AI-ready systems. Tewari predicts token spend will overtake advertising and marketing spend within five years, following the same adoption curve engineering and sales teams already went through with AI tooling. Subscribe to 10 Minute Martech for fast, practical insights from senior B2B marketing leaders on what’s working right now. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:40) What Winning Marketing Teams Do (02:47) Context and Agentic Campaigns (04:09) Where to Start With Infrastructure (06:18) Modernizing Legacy Stacks (08:05) Composable Data and Open APIs (09:51) Token Spend and Pricing Shift (11:29) Future Agentic Team Structure About the Guest:Neil Tewari is the cofounder and CEO of Conversion and sets the vision and strategy for the company. He and James started Conversion after living the broken MOps workflow firsthand, fighting legacy tools just to reach their own users. Before Conversion, Neil was a partner at Gryphon Ventures, investing in early-stage startups. He studied electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley, where he met James during the first week of orientation. Connect: Neil Tewari: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neiltewari/  Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213 Progress: www.progress.com  Conversion: https://conversion.ai/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  6. Aug 4

    Scott Snowden: The Real AI Unlock Is Speed

    Everyone's racing to keep up with the latest LLM update. Scott Snowden thinks that's the wrong game entirely — the real opportunity is using AI to move at a pace that was never possible before. Scott Snowden is a Partner & Co-founder at Flywheel Strategic, where he leads the Digital Momentum Project, an ongoing study of how digital leaders are actually adopting AI. In this episode, he explains why he told a client not to worry about optimizing for LLMs and to focus on storytelling instead, how his team took an insurance financing platform from a blank page to a deployed prototype in two weeks using AI-assisted development, and why he thinks communication — not tooling — is now the most valuable skill a marketer can have. Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more conversations with the marketers building what's next. 3 Takeaways: Don't try to keep up with every new LLM release — the real opportunity is using AI to unlock your own creativity at a pace that's never been available before. His team took an insurance financing platform from a blank sheet of paper to a deployed working prototype in two weeks, using AI-assisted "vibe coding" to compress a process that would normally take months. Marketers don't need to reverse-engineer how to get content into an LLM — tell your story well, know your audience, and build a genuine network, and visibility follows on its own. Subscribe to 10 Minute Martech for fast, practical insights from senior B2B marketing leaders on what’s working right now. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:46) Scott’s Digital Momentum Project (01:57) Tools vs. Workforce Spend (03:00) Token Economy and Budgets (05:31) Coaching AI in MarTech (07:08) Must-Have Marketer Skill (08:00) SEO, AEO, GEO Basics (09:49) Rapid Prototyping with AI (10:54) Trust and Agile Iteration (12:39) Scott’s MarTech Hot Take About the Guest:Scott Snowden is a Partner & Co-founder at Flywheel Strategic, where he helps brands grow through modern digital marketing, web strategy, and sales and marketing automation. He approaches business challenges with curiosity, prioritizing a deep understanding of each client's market position before proposing solutions. Scott leads Flywheel's Digital Momentum Project, an ongoing study of how digital experience leaders are adopting AI, and has guided clients through AI-driven work ranging from customer service automation to rapid, AI-assisted prototyping. Connect: Scott Snowden: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottsnowden/  Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213 Progress: www.progress.com  Flywheel Strategic: https://www.flywheelstrategic.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  7. Jul 21

    Bob Regular: The AI Ad Fads That Won't Survive

    The digital ad industry loves a fad, and Bob Regular has watched enough of them come and go to know which AI trends won't survive contact with practicality. The Infolinks Media CEO has been in digital media since the era when measurement itself was the revolution, and he brings that skepticism to today's hype.  Bob joins Sara to explain why dynamic creative optimization collapses under its own math, why the coming flood of AI-made video will disappoint performance marketers who forget consumers don't click video, and why agent-to-agent buying faces the same trust problem credit cards did online 20 years ago. Then he shares what's actually working: small, testable ad experiments in animation, color, and 3D that get attention without interrupting.  3 Takeaways: Dynamic creative optimization has a math problem: you don't need one unique creative per person, and testing all those permutations is statistically impossible anyway. AI makes video cheap to produce, but consumers are programmed to watch video, not click it, so the coming video flood will work for branding and hit a wall on performance. The experiments breaking through are small and testable: a banner that shakes once to pull the eye, a 300x250 rebuilt as a rotating 3D unit with a slider the consumer controls. Subscribe to 10 Minute Martech for fast, practical insights from senior B2B marketing leaders on what’s working right now. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (00:40) AI as a Tectonic Shift in MarTech (02:53) Keeping Humans in the Loop (04:38) AI Fads vs. What Actually Works (08:12) Ad Experiments That Get Results (09:37) Who to Follow in MarTech Right Now (10:50) Hot Take: The Future of MarTech About the Guest:Bob Regular is a long-established pioneer in the digital media industry with over 25 years of advertising experience. As CEO of Infolinks Media, he drives the company’s mission to provide innovative contextual and native advertising solutions to web publishers and advertisers worldwide. Bob has founded and scaled multiple digital businesses, generating over $1 billion in revenue, and he is the founder and managing partner of Delivering Yield, an investment and advisory firm focused on advancing digital media through strategic investments. With extensive experience in capital raising, he has successfully secured over $250 million in funding and excels in operating ad platforms, developing products, training teams, and implementing efficient processes to meet the industry's evolving needs. Known for his entrepreneurial spirit and visionary leadership, Bob continues to influence the future of digital advertising, significantly contributing to Infolinks' success and the broader digital media ecosystem, with a mission to transform the landscape by leveraging data, technology, and creativity to enhance advertising effectiveness. Connect: Bob Regular: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rregular/ Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213 Progress: www.progress.com Infolinks Media: https://www.infolinks.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  8. Jul 7

    Greg Joseph: AI’s Future in Personalizing Streaming Ads

    The World Cup has US audiences from South America, the Caribbean, and Europe watching the same matches and caring about completely different things. Greg Joseph says brands finally have the tools to show up for each of those communities individually.  As VP of Inventory Development at StackAdapt, he works where CTV inventory meets the AI tools rewriting creative production. He explains how buyers now run 20–30 tailored video assets per campaign instead of three, how an ad can change in real time during a blowout game, and why most AI hallucinations trace back to sloppy inputs rather than bad models. He also names the martech skill he values most: the willingness to break processes with millions of dollars attached. Subscribe to 10 Minute MarTech for more sharp marketing conversations in under 20 minutes. 3 Takeaways: Most AI hallucinations in ad platforms come from what the AI is asked to read, not the model itself. Be intentional with inputs, and keep a human QA layer between automation and the live ad. The output deserves as much scrutiny as the prompt. Skipping the final double-check is the most common mistake people make when adopting AI tools. The most valuable skill in martech right now is willingness — the readiness to break legacy processes even when millions of dollars are tied to keeping them. Subscribe to 10 Minute Martech for fast, practical insights from senior B2B marketing leaders on what’s working right now. Chapters: [00:40] CTV meets AI [02:39] AI video at scale [03:45] How to prevent hallucinations [06:39] The personalization playbook [08:42] Top marketing skill: willingness [12:36] Greg’s MarTech hot take About the Guest:Greg Joseph is VP of Inventory Development at StackAdapt, where he leads the expansion of premium supply and strategic partnerships across channels including CTV, DOOH, audio, and digital. He focuses on building high-quality, context-driven inventory that enables advertisers to reach audiences in moments of peak attention and drive measurable performance. Connect: Greg Joseph: www.linkedin.com/in/allanmalcolm Sara Faatz: www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213 Progress: www.progress.com  Voxel: http://voxelai.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Martech is evolving faster than ever, and staying informed has never been more critical. That’s where we come in. Welcome to 10 Minute Martech. Your go-to resource for insights from the Martech Mavericks shaping the future. We cover everything from DX to AI, tech stacks to data tracks, and deliver actionable advice so you, too, can become a Martech Maverick. Fast? Absolutely. Essential? Without a doubt. It’s everything you need to know, without the noise. Your shortcut to staying ahead. Made with love by the team at Progress.

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