Good Demand Gen Wins: Jessica Fewless on ABM, Buying Groups, and Measurement

Good Demand Gen Wins: Jessica Fewless on ABM, Buying Groups, and Measurement

Jessica Fewless was in the room when ABM went from niche idea to mainstream playbook, and her take in 2026 might surprise you: one-to-many ABM should just be demand gen. In this episode, Jessica and Drew unpack what ABM fixed (bad habits, lead-chasing, misalignment) and where teams still go wrong today, especially when they hand sales an "MQA" and expect reps to magically find the buying committee. You'll hear how she thinks about buying groups, leading indicators like intent + website engagement, and the red/yellow/green model for account readiness that helps teams balance short-term pipeline needs with long-term account development. Then they switch to the topic most marketers avoid: partner marketing measurement. Jessica lays out why partners aren't just a referral channel, why influenced impact matters as much as sourced impact, and how partner programs break down when built around entitlements, sponsorship fees, and misaligned incentives.

Brand Is a Business Asset: Cat Holt on Proving What Brand Really Does

Drew Smith hosts Cat Holt, Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Coologee, Inc., for a conversation on what brand actually does for a business and why most teams measure it wrong. Cat breaks down the biggest misconception leaders have about brand: that performance marketing can replace long-term reputation building and deliver instant ROI on demand. They dig into the 95/5 rule (why only 5% of your market is in-market at any given time) and why staying top of mind with the other 95% is the real growth lever. Cat shares practical frameworks for making brand impact measurable, from known-audience testing to matched-market lift, plus the critical details that make or break experiments, like properly constructed control groups. Tune in if you're trying to connect brand investment to lower-funnel performance, build an executive-friendly measurement plan, or escape the quarter-to-quarter trap that keeps brand underfunded.

Post-Acquisition Drift: How to Spot a SaaS Growth Stall Early

Most post-acquisition playbooks work…until they don't. In this episode, Drew Smith is joined by EJ Schmidt, CMO and Principal at Orange Marketing Consulting, to discuss a pattern EJ has seen repeatedly in PE-backed B2B SaaS: the 24–36 month stall. They explore why early momentum fades after acquisitions, how data debt and go-to-market drift quietly accumulate, and the warning signs that growth is no longer tracking to the original thesis. The conversation covers how to diagnose whether you're facing a market trust problem or a product-market fit problem, why hypothesis-driven measurement matters more than static reporting, and what leaders can do to stabilize, rebuild, and re-accelerate growth before finger-pointing takes over. You'll walk away with a clearer framework for spotting the stall early and knowing what to fix first.

From Door Knocks to Digital: How System Pavers Measures What Works

When your best channels don't click, how do you measure what's working? Drew Smith sits down with J.P. Carter, VP of Marketing at System Pavers, to break down attribution across a buyer journey that blends digital ads with door-to-door canvassing, events, and in-home sales. J.P. shares the mechanics of turning offline activity into trackable signals, dedicated phone numbers, QR codes, CRM capture, and channel-level ROI, plus why pairing attribution with "how did you hear about us" adds critical context instead of conflict. They also dig into loss analysis, ROAS as the north star, and a crawl–walk–run testing approach that uses geography-based lift to scale winners without gambling the budget.

Brand Is Inconvenient (and That's the Point): Measuring What Actually Drives Growth

In this episode, Drew Smith welcomes Liam Moroney, Founder of Storybook Marketing, to tackle one of the most persistent tensions CMOs face: how to measure brand in a demand-obsessed world. Drawing on his background in B2B startups and brand analytics, Liam explains why brand marketing feels "inconvenient" to measure, and why that inconvenience is exactly what makes it essential. Together, they discuss why brand doesn't fail measurement so much as measurement fails brand, how risk reduction and mental availability drive B2B buying decisions, and why optimizing only for what's easy to track puts a hard ceiling on growth. Liam shares a pragmatic framework for defining brand success, pressure-testing metrics against reality, and using accessible signals like branded search and competitive context to understand market momentum, not just internal performance. Tune in if you're stuck in the brand-versus-demand debate, frustrated by vanity metrics, or looking for a clearer, more credible way to connect brand investment to real business outcomes.