The Campaign | A Marketing Podcast by 97th Floor

97th Floor
  • 5.0 (9)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

The Campaign is a marketing podcast about better knowing your audience, innovating beyond best practice and converting visitors into customers. 97th Floor is the number one digital marketing agency built to create pipeline and revenue for clients by crafting and executing custom, audience-first channel strategies that deliver bottom-line results. Our core services include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AI Search Optimization, Advertising (PPC, SEM, Social Ads, Display), and Content Marketing. For over twenty years, 97th Floor has worked in the cybersecurity, finance, industrial and manufacturing, insurance, software, and health and wellness industries. 97th Floor proudly works with a diverse range of clients, from well-funded startups to Fortune 50 companies, including Oracle, McKinsey & Company, Google, and Crumbl. Learn more and schedule a discovery call at 97thfloor.com.

  1. How to Build a Personal Brand That Gets You Hired w/Brandon Smithwrick, Founder of Content to Commas

    Jun 9

    How to Build a Personal Brand That Gets You Hired w/Brandon Smithwrick, Founder of Content to Commas

    Most people know they should be building a personal brand, but they're stuck. Brandon Smithwrick, content strategist and founder of the newsletter Content to Commas, didn't study marketing, didn't have a roadmap, and didn't go viral overnight. What he did have was a fashion student's competitive instinct and a relentless obsession with figuring out what makes content actually work. In this conversation, Brandon breaks down the real mechanics of building a personal brand, from his early days gaming LinkedIn's algorithm to land recruiter attention, to how he now runs AI-powered workflows while protecting the creative instincts that make his voice distinctly his own. Key Takeaways: The association game: When people think of your topic, do they think of you? How to engineer that before you ever go viral Turn scrolling into research: How to build a systematic content library organized by hooks, copy, and inspiration Speak to yourself five years ago: Why every question someone asks you is a content opportunity Cognitive offloading danger: How outsourcing your writing to AI quietly erodes your voice and where it actually belongs Building a brand while employed: How to stay transparent with leadership and have the visibility conversation before it becomes a problem Resources:  Learn how to increase, scale, and grow your revenue through content: https://www.contenttocommas.co/  Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonsmithwrick  Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Brandon Smithwrick: Brandon is a trailblazer in content marketing and social media strategy. Renowned for his innovative approach and award-winning strategies, Brandon has transformed marketing campaigns for leading brands across Fashion, Tech, Music, and Beauty. As a motivational speaker, he offers exceptional insights into creating impactful content and driving brand success. Brandon’s expertise is evident from his tenure as Head of Content at Kickstarter, where he led groundbreaking crowdfunding campaigns, to his role at Squarespace, where he orchestrated record-breaking Super Bowl social media strategies. His work has garnered accolades and features in prestigious publications like Hypebeast, AdAge, and Complex. Timestamps:  00:00 - Why Brandon started building a personal brand at graduation  05:04 - Brandon's system for turning doom scrolling into content research  07:03 - How Brandon got hired without applying for jobs  09:13 - Brandon's advice for when you feel like you have nothing to say  16:41 - Where AI helps and where it hurts your personal brand, per Brandon  22:36 - Brandon: always start with your story

    33 min
  2. Search Just Changed Forever (Again): What Google I/O Means for Your Brand w/Mike Witham, Head of Search & Rachel Bascom, Head of Content

    Jun 5

    Search Just Changed Forever (Again): What Google I/O Means for Your Brand w/Mike Witham, Head of Search & Rachel Bascom, Head of Content

    Google I/O just dropped a wave of search announcements,  and the implications for marketers are massive. In this episode, Paxton Gray sits down with 97th Floor's Head of Search, Mike Witham and Head of Content, Rachel Bascom to break down what's actually changing. From AI-powered personalized results to agentic search that browses and buys on behalf of users, they cover what these shifts mean for your content strategy, your technical SEO, and your brand's discoverability. Plus: predictions on whether Google will dominate AI search or whether challengers like Claude and ChatGPT will hold their ground. Key takeaways:  Audience-first content matters more than ever: AI personalizes results based on user preferences, so generic content gets filtered out faster. Build topical authority, not just keyword pages: LLMs want depth and original perspective across an entire subject. Technical and content are equally critical: great content bots cannot find or read is invisible. Stay discoverable even as attribution gets harder: being cited by AI builds brand presence that feeds every other channel. Resources:  Google I/O 2026 Search Announcements: https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/  Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-o-witham/  Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbascom/   Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Rachel Bascom: Rachel Bascom is the Head of Content Marketing at 97th Floor, boasting over a decade of expertise in the realm of digital marketing and a fervent dedication to crafting audience-centric content strategies. In her tenure, Rachel has been a trailblazer in the development of the content marketing department, playing an integral role in the transformative journey that positioned 97th Floor as a comprehensive, award-winning, holistic marketing agency.  About Mike Witham: Mike Witham is the Head of Search at 97th Floor, where he has spent the past seven years leading SEO strategy and performance for enterprise and high-growth brands. Based in Lehi, Ut. he specializes in building data-driven search campaigns that achieve bottom line results for clients. With his ability to create wholistic, full funnel marketing campaigns, Mike helps teams turn organic search into a highly profitable, revenue driving channel. Timestamps:  00:47 - Google I/O breakdown: the two biggest search announcements 03:19 - How SEO strategy has to change with personalization and AI 05:03 - Why audience-first content matters more than ever 08:17 - How to structure content so bots can actually find and use it 20:00 - Why brands should keep investing in search even as attribution gets harder 31:16 - Predictions: will Google win the AI search race?

    40 min
  3. How the Most Trusted Page on the Internet is Tackling AI w/ Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

    May 26

    How the Most Trusted Page on the Internet is Tackling AI w/ Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

    Wikipedia became one of the most visited websites on earth without ads, VC money, or a top-down editorial team. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust, joins the show to share what actually built that, and why the lessons apply far beyond a nonprofit encyclopedia. Key takeaways: The accidental innovation advantage: The dot-com crash left Wikipedia with no money to hire moderators, forcing a community trust model that top-down platforms still can't replicate Why Wikipedia survived what Stack Overflow didn't: Depth and interconnectedness protect against AI disruption. Transactional Q&A loses its reason to exist; rabbit holes don't The trust-building power of the ask: Reader funding signals no conflict of interest, and donors become advocates Making AI companies pay their fair share: 88 billion AI bot page views became the case for an enterprise API that makes AI companies fund the resource they're exploiting Resources:  Get Jimmy’s new book The Seven Rules of Trust: A Blueprint for Building Things That Last: https://sites.prh.com/the-seven-rules-of-trust  Follow Jimmy on Twitter: https://x.com/jimmy_wales  Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Jimmy Wales: Jimmy Wales is an American-British Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Wikipedia.org in 2001, the Wikimedia Foundation in 2003, and Fandom in 2004. Today, Wikipedia and its sister projects are among the top-five most visited sites on the web. He holds finance degrees from Auburn University and the University of Alabama and was appointed a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in 2005. His debut book, "The Seven Rules of Trust," was published by Bloomsbury and Crown Currency in October 2025. Wales has been recognized with the Time 100 Award, the World Economic Forum's "Young Global Leaders" designation, and the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal. Timestamps: 00:46 - Why trust (not traffic) is Wikipedia's real foundation 07:47 - AI search and Wikipedia's 8% traffic drop 17:44 - How the dot-com crash accidentally built a better Wikipedia 30:19 - 88 billion AI bot views and making companies pay their fair share 35:34 - Why editing Wikipedia backfires (and what actually works) 48:47 - Where Wikipedia goes in the next 25 years

    1 hr
  4. Guiding Buyers Through Year-Long Decisions: The Continuum Strategy w/B2B Strategy Consultant Ardath Albee

    May 5

    Guiding Buyers Through Year-Long Decisions: The Continuum Strategy w/B2B Strategy Consultant Ardath Albee

    Personas have earned a bad reputation in B2B marketing—and for good reason. Most sit unused on hard drives, filled with irrelevant demographic data like "married with two kids, drives a Volvo." Ardath Albee, author of Digital Relevance and a pioneer in buyer persona development since 2000, explains why most personas fail and what actually makes them work. Key takeaways for marketing leaders: Why 12 personas is too many: How to consolidate by focusing on roles (not titles) to focus your efforts. The questions framework: Why the most valuable part of a persona is the list of questions buyers need answered—and how to sequence them so one answer naturally prompts the next question. Building the continuum: How to engage buyers across a year-long journey by mapping content from trigger event through implementation (including the challenges nobody wants to disclose). Personal vs. personalized: Why "Hi [First Name]" is creepy and useless, while understanding context, stage, and challenges is actually personal. AI for semantic connections: How Ardath uses AI for research and a new tool (VizX) to build the entity relationships that get you into AI knowledge graph. If your personas are gathering dust—or if you're starting from scratch in 2026—this episode is your roadmap to building buyer understanding that actually drives content strategy, engagement, and revenue. Resources: See Ardath’s work and writings here: https://marketinginteractions.com/ Find Ardath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ardathalbee/ Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/ Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/. About Ardath Albee: Ardath brings over 30 years of business management and marketing experience to help B2B companies with complex sales use digital marketing strategy and compelling content to turn prospects into buyers. She’s a strategist, storyteller, speaker, blogger, teacher, and content geek who is obsessed with helping companies become so damn relevant that buyers can’t help but choose to become customers and, once a customer, making sure they’d never think of leaving. Ardath has written two books about her obsession, Digital Relevance and eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale. Timestamps: 00:25 - How fiction writing skills translate to building buyer personas 02:24 - Why most personas fail (and how to spot a bad one) 10:44 - What actually belongs in a B2B persona 14:32 - The continuum framework: guiding year-long buying journeys 25:38 - Making personas useful instead of shelf-ware 38:29 - Personal vs. personalization: the difference that matters

    45 min
  5. Stop Chasing Efficiency: A Marketing Leader's Guide to Real Innovation w/Whitney Goldstein @ Gorilla Logic

    Apr 21

    Stop Chasing Efficiency: A Marketing Leader's Guide to Real Innovation w/Whitney Goldstein @ Gorilla Logic

    When Whitney joined Gorilla Logic a year ago, she inherited a team facing the same pressure every marketing organization feels right now: prove you're using AI or fall behind. But instead of chasing efficiency metrics, Whitney asked a harder question: "If we can't definitively say why it's making progress and showing up better and making incremental change that helps the bottom line, why are we doing it?" Her solution was to stop the daily AI scrambling. Give the team four dedicated hours every two weeks to explore, experiment, and learn—with zero pressure to show immediate ROI. In this episode, Whitney also shares hard-won lessons on leading teams through change, why "we're not saving lives" creates the psychological safety needed for innovation, and how to give team members space to bring their whole selves to work while still pushing for growth. If you're tired of AI adoption theater and want to build a marketing team that actually innovates (instead of just moving faster), this episode offers a refreshingly honest roadmap. Key takeaways for marketing leaders: The Swiss Army Marketer philosophy: Why the shift from specialist to generalist is essential for career growth, and how leaders can create opportunities for team members to expand beyond their comfort zones The contrarian positioning play: How Gorilla Logic differentiated itself by NOT jumping on the AI agent bandwagon, and why the market responded with relief instead of skepticism Getting marketing back to the C-suite: The two fundamental things holding marketers back from board-level conversations—and how to bridge the gap between marketing metrics and business goals Resources:  GorillaLogic.com  Connect with Whitney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneygoldsteinmba/  Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Whitney Goldstein: With nearly 10 years of marketing experience, Whitney’s strategic direction as a B2B Marketing leader encompasses mission, vision, and strategy. Currently, Whitney serves as Director of Marketing at Gorilla Logic.  Timestamps: 02:48 - Leading with truth and honesty when taking over a team 05:06 - The biggest mistakes marketing leaders make: moving too fast or too slow 13:38 - Why Gorilla Logic isn't "just another AI company" 18:46 - The dedicated exploration time approach: 4 hours every two weeks 35:20 - The Swiss Army Marketer: why specialists won't make it to the boardroom 43:50 - Creating space for teams: "This is PR, not ER"

    47 min
  6. AI Search: How to Measure Success in the Age of Zero-Clicks w/Mike Witham and Blake Nielson @ 97th Floor

    Apr 7

    AI Search: How to Measure Success in the Age of Zero-Clicks w/Mike Witham and Blake Nielson @ 97th Floor

    Organic traffic is down. Click-through rates are dropping. And every marketer is panicking about whether their SEO strategy is dead. Mike Witham and Blake Nielson from 97th Floor's AI Task Force are here to set the record straight: 80% of what worked in SEO still works for AI search—but that 20% difference is critical. In this tactical breakdown, Mike and Blake share what they're seeing across dozens of client accounts as they test, measure, and optimize for the new reality of AI-powered search. Spoiler: if you're still only measuring organic traffic, you're missing the entire story. Key takeaways for marketers: The new KPI framework: Why impression data, brand mentions, and citations matter more than organic traffic now—and how to track them in Google Search Console The follow-up search strategy: How to identify and measure the branded queries that happen after someone reads about you in an AI overview (and why this is your new conversion path) Topic clusters 2.0: Why the old hub-and-spoke model isn't enough—you need cohesive messaging across product pages, blog posts, comparison pages, AND social profiles for LLMs to validate your authority Resources:  - Request a free AI Search Audit: https://97thfloor.com/ai-audit/  - Connect with Mike Witham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-o-witham/  - Connect with Blake Nielson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakejnielson/  - Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  - Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Mike Witham: Mike Witham is the Head of Search at 97th Floor, where he has spent the past seven years leading SEO strategy and performance for enterprise and high-growth brands. Based in Lehi, UT, he specializes in building data-driven search campaigns that achieve bottom-line results for clients. With his ability to create holistic, full-funnel marketing campaigns, Mike helps teams turn organic search into a highly profitable, revenue-driving channel. About Blake Nielson: Blake Nielson is the Head of Accounts at 97th Floor, where he partners with enterprise and high-growth brands to turn organic search into a measurable revenue channel. With deep expertise in SEO and AI search, he helps clients translate complex shifts in the search landscape into clear business strategy. Blake specializes in building strong client relationships, aligning teams around growth goals, and making sure every campaign ties back to bottom-line results. Timestamps: 1:13 - AI search vs. SEO 5:22 - Measuring impact in the AI age 10:47 - Follow-up searches & Search Console 16:05 - Rethinking topic clusters 23:31 - Offsite strategy: Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn 30:18 - Hot takes & schema markup experiment

    38 min
  7. Spotting the Wave: How to Build Before the Market Knows It Needs You w/Daniel Nissan @ Structured.ai

    Mar 24

    Spotting the Wave: How to Build Before the Market Knows It Needs You w/Daniel Nissan @ Structured.ai

    What does it take to build groundbreaking companies across three decades of tech evolution? Daniel Nissan, founder of Structured (formerly Structured Web), made the first internet phone call in 1993, launched the first nationwide grocery delivery service before Amazon, and is now rebuilding his 26-year-old platform from for the AI era. In this episode, Daniel shares hard-won lessons from the frontlines of innovation—from cold-emailing the CEO of FedEx to secure a nationwide delivery partnership, to navigating two major market crashes, to recognizing when "bolting on" AI isn't enough. Key takeaways for marketing leaders: Why "AI-first" requires a complete rebuild: Learn the difference between bolting on AI features versus architecting for conversational interfaces from the ground up Timing the market: Daniel's framework for knowing when to jump on emerging technology (even when it feels too early) Building conviction in your team: How to rally skeptical teams around radical platform changes and get them to believe the impossible is possible Daniel also reveals his prediction for when AI will finally be able to generate human-approved marketing content at scale—and why the real transformation comes when AI moves from generative to agentic. If you're a marketing leader wondering how to think about AI beyond the hype, this conversation offers a rare perspective from someone who's successfully navigated multiple technology revolutions. Resources:  See what Daniel’s up to at https://structured.ai/.  Find Daniel Nissan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielnissan/  Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Daniel Nissan: Daniel founded Structured in 1999 and leads the company’s strategic vision across marketing, engineering, and product development efforts. From 1996 to 1999, Daniel was the President and CEO of NetGrocer, which he led to be a highly recognized and established leader in the field of eCommerce. He served as a Vice President of Marketing for VocalTec Communications, Ltd. (VOCL) from 1993 to 1996. Part of the original VocalTec group that created the Internet Phone, Daniel was responsible for its breakthrough product concept, marketing, and strategy development. Timestamps: 04:27 - Why join a "stupid idea" startup 05:03 - Making the first VoIP call 51:20 - Traditional platforms vs AI conversation 52:38 - Agentic AI timeline 55:10 - Getting teams to believe 57:50 - The lamplighter analogy

    1 hr
  8. Punch Above Your Weight: Enterprise Marketing on a Startup Budget w/Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist & Former CMO @ Gong

    Mar 10

    Punch Above Your Weight: Enterprise Marketing on a Startup Budget w/Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist & Former CMO @ Gong

    Most B2B marketers are stuck playing it safe, following "best practices" that guarantee mediocre results. Udi Ledergor, former CMO of Gong and author of Courageous Marketing, has spent his career doing the opposite—running Super Bowl ads for 5% of the expected cost, getting Times Square billboards for $500, and building a marketing machine that made Gong impossible to ignore. In this conversation, Udi breaks down the exact six-step formula he's used repeatedly to make companies appear years ahead of where they actually are—and why this matters more than ever for early-stage companies trying to cross the chasm to enterprise buyers. Key takeaways for B2B marketers: The six-step formula for punching above your weight: How to leverage iconic advertising mediums (Times Square, Wall Street Journal, Super Bowl) for a fraction of what you'd expect—then amplify that investment through your owned channels and employee networks Getting experimental budgets approved: Why every marketing budget should have a 10% line item for "marketing experiments" and the two arguments that get it past skeptical CFOs every time Attribution without obsession: How Udi used Gong's own platform to track that 452 sales conversations mentioned their Super Bowl ad—and why you shouldn't let attribution fears stop bold campaigns Sales as your secret creative weapon: Why Gong's best content marketers were former salespeople, not traditional marketers, and how to tap into your sales team's market knowledge AI for creativity (the right way): Kyle Lacy's framework for using ChatGPT in brainstorming—get 10 ideas, table them all, then create something original Udi also addresses when it's time to move on from a company that won't let you be courageous, how to vet product-market fit before joining a startup, and why the "medium is the message" principle is more powerful than ever in an era of digital dashboards. If you're tired of blending in with every other B2B company and want permission (plus a playbook) to do something bold, this episode is your rallying cry. Resources:  Get your copy of Courageous Marketing: The B2B Marketer’s Playbook for Career Success here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F22HWR3C  See what Gong can do for your business: https://www.gong.io/  Follow Udi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/udiledergor/  Connect with Paxton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paxtongray/  Looking for an agency that'll be worth the investment? 97th Floor creates custom, audience-first campaigns that drive pipeline and conversions. Get started here: https://97thfloor.com/lets-talk/.  About Udi Ledergor:  Udi Ledergor, a five-time B2B marketing leader, served as CMO during Gong’s rise from new SaaS startup to industry dominance. By building a playful, human-centric brand with a lighthearted tone, he captured buyers’ attention and dollars and turned them into raving fans. He later led the creation of the revenue intelligence category, which helped Gong go from zero to hundreds of millions in revenue, earning major industry awards and achieving a multi-billion-dollar valuation. Over his 20-year career, Udi has led marketing teams at successful companies, advised startups, served as a board member and angel investor, and mentored hundreds of marketers. His work reveals how courage and creativity can build iconic brands, connect with audiences, and drive measurable results. Timestamps...

    38 min
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5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

The Campaign is a marketing podcast about better knowing your audience, innovating beyond best practice and converting visitors into customers. 97th Floor is the number one digital marketing agency built to create pipeline and revenue for clients by crafting and executing custom, audience-first channel strategies that deliver bottom-line results. Our core services include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and AI Search Optimization, Advertising (PPC, SEM, Social Ads, Display), and Content Marketing. For over twenty years, 97th Floor has worked in the cybersecurity, finance, industrial and manufacturing, insurance, software, and health and wellness industries. 97th Floor proudly works with a diverse range of clients, from well-funded startups to Fortune 50 companies, including Oracle, McKinsey & Company, Google, and Crumbl. Learn more and schedule a discovery call at 97thfloor.com.

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