The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)

#360 | Dave sits down with Ishveen Jolly, founder and CEO of Open Sponsorship, to talk about what influencer and athlete marketing actually looks like for B2B brands — and why it's more accessible than most marketers think. Ishveen breaks down how a $5K March Madness campaign outperformed traditional ads, why your first influencer deal will almost certainly miss on the offer, and how to think about sports sponsorships without a Tommy Fleetwood budget. They get into audience-fit versus story-fit sponsorships, why the goal should never be a landing page click, and why most B2B teams are applying the wrong success metrics from the start. If you've ever wondered how to get into influencer or sports sponsorship marketing without a Fortune 500 budget, this is the episode.

Timestamps

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. 

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#359 | Dave sits down with Casey Patterson, Director of ABM at Snowflake, to talk about what ABM actually looks like inside one of the biggest companies in enterprise software. Casey breaks down how she cold LinkedIn messaged her now-boss Hillary to get her ABM decks reviewed before ever working together, why ABM works best when marketing stops thinking about credit and just focuses on helping sales get into accounts, and how she's thinking about the shift from traditional ABM plays to agent-driven ABM. They also get into geo-fenced out-of-home advertising, one-to-one field marketing plays, and why the future of ABM looks more like Netflix than a campaign calendar. Plus a surprisingly good tangent on finding mentors and how to actually get one.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - How Casey cold LinkedIn messaged her way into a mentorship

(08:52) - - What a mentor actually is and how to find one

(15:51) - - Why delusional confidence is underrated in marketing

(20:22) - - The crux of ABM: sales alignment or nothing

(23:29) - - ABM is not running digital ads to a list of accounts

(28:54) - - How Casey thinks about running a team of 23 ABM marketers

(31:49) - - A real ABM play: field event, OOH, gifting, and email at once

(39:30) - - How to figure out the right number of accounts to target

(44:31) - - Agent ABM: the three phases Casey is building toward

(47:47) - - The future of ABM: reaching people in their preferred channels

(49:49) - - How Dave uses AI to write his newsletter

(56:32) - - The bull case for marketers in the age of AI

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. 

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#358 | Ben Wallis (Customer Lifecycle Manager, Quo), Jaina Mistry (Director of Brand and Content Marketing, Knak), Kremi Mestanova (B2B Content and Growth Strategist, Kremi Marketing), and Tyler Cook (Head of Email Marketing, Hypermedia Marketing) join Dave for an Exit Five live session on what's actually working in email right now. Ben shows how Quo built a Spotify Wrapped-style year-in-review campaign with fully personalized GIFs and real usage data for every customer. Jaina makes the case for why B2B newsletters are one of the most slept-on trust-building channels in marketing, and breaks down the operating model that makes it sustainable. Tyler Cook shares his five-step AI-powered newsjacking system that goes from trend to sent email in under an hour, including a real example that got a 67% open rate. And Kremi walks through how she restructured email programs for two very different B2B brands and cut unsubscribe rates by 20% while lifting click-through rates by 40%.

Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro

(07:03) - - Ben Wallis: personalized year-in-review email campaign for every customer

(17:32) - - Jaina Mistry: why B2B newsletters are the most slept-on trust channel

(29:03) - - The operating model that makes publishing 52 newsletters a year sustainable

(29:23) - - Tyler Cook: the AI-powered newsjacking system that goes from trend to sent in under an hour

(41:05) - - Kremi Mestanova: restructuring email programs for two very different B2B brands

(50:23) - - Live Q&A

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. 

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#357 | Dave sits down with George Bonaci, VP of Growth at Ramp, to talk about what growth actually looks like at one of the most talked-about brands in B2B. George breaks down why Ramp has no CMO and why he thinks that's a feature, not a bug. He makes the case for attention as the new moat when execution gets commoditized, and shares how he went from hardcore attribution obsessive to betting on stunts with no direct attribution. They also get into Project Glass, Ramp's internal AI tool that reads every Slack channel, preps his meetings, and diagnosed a reporting issue in 15 minutes that would have taken two weeks to investigate. And George shares why he thinks marketers now have two jobs: marketing to humans and marketing to machines.

Timestamps

(00:00) - - George's background: from biochemist to accidental marketer

(07:34) - - How marketing is structured at Ramp (no CMO)

(09:49) - - Why brand is the growth lever

(14:04) - - AI and the death of functional marketing roles

(15:19) - - Ramp's hub and spoke model for AI

(16:39) - - Building autonomous go-to-market workflows

(17:49) - - How the team responded to going agent-first

(21:29) - - The J curve of productivity

(22:49) - - Are marketing jobs safe?

(24:34) - - Marketing to machines: Ramp's two jobs

(25:49) - - Offering $3,000 bonuses to AI agents

(29:23) - - Project Glass: Ramp's internal AI tool

(35:03) - - Attention as the new moat

(36:53) - - How to measure attention without direct attribution

(42:03) - - Why taste matters more than ever in direct mail and events

(43:03) - - How George went from "measure everything" to betting on stunts

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Learn how to deploy agents on your marketing team at Agents in the Mix. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive. 

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#356 | Dave sits down with Brett Domeny, product lead at Webflow focused on AEO, to talk about what it actually takes to show up in AI search. Brett breaks down Webflow's AEO maturity model — four core areas that actually matter: content, technical structure, authority, and measurement — and why most of AEO is just good SEO done right. They get into how LLM crawlers work and what your site needs to do to be discoverable, why Reddit and community platforms have outsized influence on AI citations, and how to measure whether any of it is working.

Check out Webflow's free AEO assessment here.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro and Brett's background

(02:00) - - The state of search and why CMOs are worried

(04:00) - - Webflow's AEO maturity model

(05:30) - - Why AEO is an evolution of SEO, not a replacement

(06:30) - - Technical: how LLM crawlers work

(16:00) - - Content: optimize for questions, not keywords

(19:00) - - Does authentic content still win in an AI world?

(26:00) - - Measurement: the three-bucket framework

(30:00) - - How accurate are the prompt visibility tools?

(37:00) - - How to show your boss AEO is working

(40:00) - - Authority: why Reddit has outsized influence on AI citations

(43:00) - - Why Brett has stayed at Webflow for six years