The Aperiam Podcast

Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch, leads a breakthrough orchestration platform that connects creative and media for targeted ad delivery. He discusses the urgent need for brands to unify their creative strategies with real-time media planning, especially amidst the rise of AI. Major shifts are reshaping the landscape, with dynamic, personalized content becoming essential. Oz emphasizes automation's role in enhancing efficiency, boosting sales through personalization, and reshaping creative roles while forecasting an increasingly automated future in advertising.

The conversation dives into the changing landscape of the open web as AI influences consumer interactions. Experts discuss the balance between technology and evolving business models. Flexibility and a willingness to experiment become crucial for publishers and brands. They explore how customer feedback can shape product direction while emphasizing that the open web is far from dead—it's adapting. Founders and businesses are encouraged to rethink strategies, harness partnerships, and navigate new market dynamics to seize opportunities.

Turning a great idea into a successful business requires founders to stay closely connected to their early customers. The pitfalls of hiring a senior sales leader too soon can derail progress, so a player-coach is often the better alternative. Effective storytelling and customer feedback are crucial for iterating on products. As companies scale, understanding when to transition from founder-led sales is essential. International expansion and channel partnerships present significant challenges that need careful planning and execution.

Max Snow and Frank Portman, co-founders of Yobi, share their journey from a behavioral science research lab to building a powerful privacy-forward data estate. They discuss their commitment to ethical consumer behavior prediction sparked by their Princeton roots. The duo reveals how they've innovated in programmatic advertising and CTV, leveraging partnerships with Microsoft Azure to enhance privacy while scaling. They also touch on modeling consumer behavior dynamically and navigating the current AI landscape amidst the hype, while maintaining transparency and trust.

In our latest Aperiam Podcast, Joe and Corey dug into the ongoing tug-of-war every CMO faces: what to keep in-house and what to outsource.This isn’t a new debate. Marketing has always lived on a continuum—search once started outsourced, then became core. Social was brought in-house, then pushed out again. Creative has cycled between internal teams and outside agencies. And now AI is adding a new twist, with vendors pitching both sides of the argument: “AI makes it simple enough to run internally” vs. “AI lets us scale your marketing more cost-effectively.”See where we think the pendulum will go next.

Ari Paparo, a 20-year ad tech veteran and the founder of Beeswax, joins to discuss his new book, Yield. He shares insights from his extensive career with companies like DoubleClick and AppNexus. Ari explains how he captured the history of programmatic advertising, including the intricacies of Google's dominance. He highlights surprising findings from his research, such as Google's dual bidding practices, and offers a candid take on industry challenges. Tune in for an insider's perspective on the evolving landscape of digital advertising!

Explore how audience fragmentation impacts trust in today's digital landscape. Traditional sources of credibility are losing relevance, shifting trust to influencers and niche communities. Advertisers face new challenges in building strong connections with audiences. The necessity to earn trust alongside attention is highlighted, making it more crucial than ever. The conversation also touches on the role of AI in enhancing creative strategy and measurement, emphasizing the need for adaptive marketing approaches.

Join Erica Criss, an ad tech and marketing expert, as she dives into the surprising resurgence of ad networks. The conversation reveals how today’s ad landscape is again resembling network characteristics—from retail media to mobile gaming. Erica discusses the evolution of managed services, enhanced by AI and offering newfound transparency. The podcast illuminates the role of the middleman, now adding value through better data and automation, proving that ad networks are far from obsolete—they're essential once more!

On the latest episode of The Aperiam Podcast, Joe and I sat down with Victoria Milo from Monks to talk about how AI is reshaping the way brands, agencies, and platforms work together.One of the most striking takeaways: the real shift isn’t just AI itself—it’s the ways of working. Media and creative teams can no longer operate in silos. Platforms are building their own creative studios. CFOs are getting as involved in measurement as CMOs. And AI is the driver behind this convergence.AI is forcing collaboration, breaking down walls between creative, media, and finance, and rewarding the companies that move fast.  We discuss!

Consumer behavior is shifting fast—and marketers need to catch up.In this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Joe and Corey cover two trends reshaping digital advertising:Audience fragmentation: consumers live across Roblox, Twitch, TikTok, Discord, podcasts, and more. The challenge is stitching a story across all of them.Live stream shopping: TikTok alone drove $26B in GMV in the first half of 2025. For many brands, the ad is now the storefront.These shifts dramatically impact how you reach your audience and not giving them attention means missing your consumer.