B2B Marketers on a Mission
Ep. 202: How Performance-First B2B Marketing Drives Better Results
How Performance-First B2B Marketing Drives Better Results
Traditional B2B marketing and advertising are undergoing a major transformation in the age of AI and rapid technological advancement. With shifting market dynamics and budget cuts across B2B organizations, marketing teams are under pressure to do more with less and prove their impact on business performance and revenue growth. How can B2B marketers quickly adapt, demonstrate ROI, and establish a strategic role within their organizations?
That’s why we’re talking to Keith Turco (CEO, Madison Logic), who shares insights and proven strategies on how performance-first B2B marketing drives better results. During our conversation, Keith explored the evolving B2B marketing landscape and explained why performance-first strategies are crucial in times of market changes and budget cuts. He emphasized the importance of data-driven insights to measure ROI, optimize media plans, and tailor messages to specific target audiences. Keith also highlighted the need for a full-funnel approach that leverages AI-powered personalization at scale, and integrating new channels like audio and video. Additionally, he elaborated on why understanding both personal and professional interests of buyers to shorten sales cycles and build brand affinity are essential. Keith stressed the value of creativity in performance marketing to maintain loyalty and differentiate top marketers. Tune in as he also shared some key findings of research conducted by Madison Logic and The Harris Poll on the future of advertising and the impact of AI on B2B marketing.
https://youtu.be/DAYcJf7AlIs
Topics discussed in episode:[2:09] How macroeconomic shifts and budget cuts are creating a “performance-first” approach.
[6:12] Embracing AI: Moving from a reactive to a proactive stance in advertising.
[9:50] The consumerization of B2B: Why your next lead might come from a podcast or TikTok.
[13:15] The full-funnel advantage: Moving beyond fragmented tactics to a more unified data strategy.
[17:34] Communicating with the C-Suite vs. managers: Tailoring content for different “states of mind”.
[22:27] Research insights: Why 73% of leaders see AI as the future of creative production.
[32:12] Why abandoning brand for “just the facts” performance marketing is a mistake.
Companies and links mentioned: TranscriptKeith Turco, Christian Klepp
Christian Klepp 00:01
In the age of rapid technological developments in AI, traditional B2B, marketing and advertising are witnessing monumental changes with shifting market dynamics and budget cuts across B2B organizations, marketing teams will have to do more with less. So how can they achieve this and still be instrumental to organizational success? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today I’ll be talking to Keith Turco, who will be answering this question. He’s the CEO of Madison Logic, which leads global account based marketing initiatives to help revenue driven marketers accelerate buying journeys with targeted, measurable strategies. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B marketer’s mission is. Okay, and here we are. Mr. Keith Turco, welcome to the show.
Keith Turco 00:50
Thank you, Christian. Good to see you.
Christian Klepp 00:53
Likewise, likewise. We had a great pre-interview conversation, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. We got to buckle up a little bit, because there’s a lot to cover. There’s a lot to cover, but I think it’s going to be really interesting, relevant and pertinent to all those B2B marketers out there. So let’s, let’s dive right in.
Keith Turco 01:11
Great. Excited to be here.
Christian Klepp 01:12
All right, so Keith, you’re on a mission to help B2B companies succeed by delivering performance-first strategies across the full marketing funnel and performance-first, I think, is going to be a word or a term that we’re going to hear throughout this conversation, but for this conversation, let’s focus on a topic and unpack it from there, so it’s how B2B marketing teams can rapidly adapt to market changes and contribute to organizational success. So let me set this up a little bit, because that sounds like. that sounds a little bit generic. But you know, after after the description, I think people will understand what I’m talking about. So your company, Madison Logic, helps clients own the buying journey by creating lasting impact at every interaction with high value buying groups through data driven ABM. So let’s start off with this question, how have shifting macroeconomic conditions and budget cuts forced B2B marketing teams to do more with less?
Keith Turco 02:09
Well inherent in the conversation, or the question is you’ve got less budget. You’ve seen lots of cuts come through either from a staff cutting perspective, you’ve got less people to help you execute against things, as well as less budget to spend on marketing. So what does that mean, and what are the implications? And how does our technology and our approach to market help. Everything from a performance first perspective allows things to be measured, and because you can measure, you can quickly calculate ROI, you can quickly optimize your your media plans, and you can also take a look at what your creative is and isn’t working and what’s working through from a content based perspective. So when you take a performance-first approach to your marketing initiatives, you have all the data at your fingertips to give you the insights and intelligence you need in order to hit the right targets and the right buying groups with the right message at the right time, and give you what you need to actually, really measure the impact and optimize on a regular basis to to prove the ROI that you’re trying to prove for the organization and support sales.
Christian Klepp 03:19
Yeah, no, absolutely. And you touched on a lot of things there, which I think are going to be a to be things that are going to come up throughout this conversation. So things like calculating ROI, being able to measure. I mean, who doesn’t want to do that in the world of B2B, right? But how do you see a performance based approach? And I suppose that’s the next question. How does a performance based approach help companies to adapt to, well, a lot of these market changes, and I know that’s a bit of an understatement, because market changes, it’s so broad and multifaceted, but how does it help to address these changes?
Keith Turco 03:51
First and foremost, I think access to data allows you to test and learn, what’s working, what’s not, against what buying groups. I kind of mentioned it a couple of minutes ago. But if you’re looking at what’s working against which target segment, what messages make the most sense, what content are they looking for? And then on top of that, you have a buying group. Each of those groups contain multiple levels of executives and employees. So are they all consuming the same message. Can you sub segment that buying group into different categories that consume different content, that allow them to actually understand the full picture that you’re trying to communicate? And then obviously prove out ROI? I think the other thing prove out ROI is a big statement. What does that mean? What are the KPIs? They’re different for each customer that’s out there, right? So what does ROI mean to one organization versus the other? And by allowing yourself to test and learn and gain the insights that you you’re looking for, you can prove out ROI in different ways. Ultimately, the ultimate ROI is reflected in sales, right? But. Some clients will work with us on visits to website. Other clients will work with us on appointment setting. Other clients will look at, you know, number of interactions. And then lastly, of course, looking at ROI from a sale based perspective and what they’re selling,
Christian Klepp 05:18
Absolutely, absolutely. And we’re certainly going to talk about the buying committee a little bit later on in this conversation. The time of this recording is at the end of 2025 and you know, I have to ask you the question about AI, and I know you your company has done some research about that, and we will look into that a little bit further on. But because you’re talking about accessing data and analyzing and aggregating data, and how does, how has technological advancements, also in the form of artificial intelligence, perhaps help that process, but also threatened B2B marketing in a way?
Keith Turco 05:56
I don’t think I ever view it as threatening. I’ll always look at AI as a form of enhancement and allowance to optimize and go to market. I think probably a future question you’re going to ask, I might actually jump to it as well from an AI perspective.
Keith Turco 06:12
But the impact of AI on advertising and marketing, and how is it playing a role in performance marketing? AI allows itself and lends itself to really impact performance marketing, having been and being been at, and being a fan of and student of advertising. To me, I think that AI allows us to lean in a bit more. I think we should continue to ask ourselves those questions. But the core approach from the creative side of things will still be there. What AI will allow us to do in the performance marketing world is lean into what I was referring to earlier, which is test and learn. What messages based on which audience. How do I sub segment, buying groups? How do I sub segment, even some of those additional segments, and in an effort to not spend so much time adapting creative to those sub segments or geographies or different business units inside an organization, right so each of those things allows, or would benefit from having a much more tailored approach to communications and AI should be leveraged from that perspective to lean into those kinds of things, helping you with testing and learning, helping you with sub segmenting, helping you with geographical segmentation, business unit segmentation, those kinds of things, you know, there’s multiple BU’s that are buying groups inside of a large technology organization, right? So to message them all the same would kind of be silly.
Christian Klepp 06:12
Please, please.
Christian Klepp 07:48
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, perhaps the better. But the better term, as opposed to saying threatening, is, how is it impacted B2B marketing might be a might be a better way of looking at it.
Keith Turco 07:57
Yeah, I think, I think exactly that point, right? It’s impacting everything. But what I challenge everybody, when they say, oh, AI is going to threaten or kill or do, is like, Well, how do you embrace it, and how do you give it a hug, and how do you leverage it to evolve your approach from a marketing perspective, versus to get nervous about it and be more proactive instead of reactive in your approach to AI?
Christian Klepp 08:23
Absolutely, absolutely so based on what you’ve said, like, what would you say are some of the key pitfalls that B2B marketing teams should avoid, and what should they be doing instead?
Keith Turco 08:32
Really understanding what their ROI is, who the buying groups are? I know we keep coming back to that, right? But I think B2B marketers are also really focused on what their BDRs are up to and what kind of lead generation they can they can provide to their sales organizations. And I’d say go a bit further than that, right? It’s not just lead generation from a content syndication perspective, it’s a full funnel multimedia approach. We talk about this also, I think, in upcoming questions Christian because we prepped for the meeting, but the buying group is 7 to 10 people, and are you hitting the right people at the right time with the right message? So I think it’s important to take a look back at certain aspects of how you’re approaching your your marketing initiatives as you really unpack the strategy and look at things I don’t know if I answered the question though.
Christian Klepp 09:38
Yeah. I mean, it’s basically about like, you know, these are the things that B2B marketers should be paying attention to. These are some of the things that they should be avoiding, right? And keeping the conversation constructive, as it were.
Keith Turco 09:50
Yeah, and I think it’s important to set the KPIs for campaigns, optimize your media plans, and then multimedia, when I talk about that, specifically, multi-format. We’ve talked about what channels in the B2B space that might not have been tapped in the past, should be tapped, right? Some of the research we’ve done with with Harris poll also talked about the consumerization of the B2B space. So what mediums working in the B2C space that we can move over to the B2B space, which is why you’ll see that we launched audio earlier this year in our platform. But video is obviously a big play as well. So the B2B space is leaning into the TikToks and YouTubes of the world as well as audio. So video and audio are also mediums. I think it’s important for the B2B landscape to take a look at. I guess we’ve dubbed it B2B2C. Right at the end of the day, we’re all people that are consuming media, making business decision.
Christian Klepp 10:54
Absolutely, absolutely. And I’m sure you’ve come across this camp, because I certainly have that basically, really want to draw that line in the sand and say, No, you know, that’s not transferable. You can’t use those same tactics in B2C, I tend to disagree, because it, like you said, like, it really, it really depends. It really depends also on the vertical you’re talking about. And going back again to who are we targeting with this, right? And that might be also you brought it up, one of the pitfalls is, like, you know, the lack of understanding of who you’re targeting. Because in B2B, it tends to be people in that buying group, right?
Keith Turco 11:30
I think it’s important to recognize, you talked about tactics. Which tactics are people consuming and in a previous life, in a previous world, we called it the at work state of mind. And I think in the post covid era, you don’t work nine to five anymore, right? So when we talk about tactics and understanding your target and bringing those two things together, I might be on the treadmill in the morning listening to a podcast, still thinking about work, right? It’s not because I’m not at a desk or in the office anymore. Where should I hit them and why? And I think it’s important as we look at firmographics, we should also look at personal demographics of the buyers and the business decision makers. And, you know, marrying both demographics and firmographics will help figure out what the optimal media mix is. So on the drive to work, on the treadmill or the elliptical right, watching a video, listening to a podcast, you know, multi screen. So obviously, I’m sitting here with you with my phone in one hand, a big screen to the right on the other, and looking at my laptop. So, you know, people that multitask and/or consume different ways on different screens at different day parts. So it’s a combination of consumer and B2B, and the melding of the two come together, understanding that it’s not just a tactic B2B tactic play, but it’s a it’s a personal demographic in that decision maker and where they are.
Christian Klepp 13:01
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. In our previous conversation, Keith, you talked about how the full funnel approach is critical in the B2B space. So please share with us what you would like more people to understand about this approach.
Keith Turco 13:15
Yeah, I think I’ll talk about it from a Madison Logic perspective in particular. So from an activity based perspective, full funnel activity allows us to measure holistically and easier. You can absolutely measure it in a… there could be full funnel, but fragmented full funnel versus one system full funnel, which is Madison Logic’s full funnel, we partner with agencies and clients alike, to do some tactics in our funnel and some tactics outside of our funnel. Either way, full funnel is critical, because you need to hit 7 to 10 times to 7 to 10 buyers. So that’s a minimum of 50 communications that go out there, whether it’s inside a single platform, like Madison Logic or in combination with other platforms outside. So we can do both, and we work with both. The reason why we like full funnel in in our platform is that, again, it comes down to insights, intelligence and data. We’re not saying that your entire media spend should be spent in our funnel, but showing a full funnel activity of audio, display, CTV, content syndication allows us to gather the insights that you’re looking for, the data that you’re looking for, that then allows you to optimize your media mix, either inside of our funnel or next to our funnel in conjunction with it. Some of our clients will, you know, leverage our content syndication only. Others will do content syndication and display, but still by audio and video outside of it, and then others will do all for what we’re being leveraged for specifically is inside of a smaller subset, which is a test and learn, we can show which media mix works optimally against which segments and which targets by client, and then our agency partners, or our clients in particular, will take that media mix and then apply it to their entire media spend. So that’s what when we talk about full funnel, it’s also guaranteeing overlap at the account level and the individual level inside of our funnel. So it’s important that data is collected and then leveraged in a larger way.
Christian Klepp 15:31
I hope I’m not trying to oversimplify what you just explained. But the way that I understand also like full funnel approach, the reason why you recommend that approach is also because of the way that people consume content differently and meeting them where they’re at, and also because we know that the buying committee, and we’ve all seen the diagrams, right? Like the diagrams of how the B2B sales envision, the target audience to assume to consume the content and the way they really do. And it’s really a haphazard diagram, isn’t it?
Keith Turco 16:00
It’s no longer linear, right?
Christian Klepp 16:04
No.
Keith Turco 16:04
I think we approached it that way, but we’re finally admitting that it’s not. And I think your point’s really great in so much as you know, full funnel and buying groups, and again, there are groups, but each each group consists of 7 to 10 people that have different media consumption habits, so it’s important to hit them where where they are, and understanding that, and allowing, if you do a multi channel approach with us and we collect the data, we can say these sub segments of your buying group are consuming media on video, display and email. This sub segment is consuming on display video and content syndication, right? So it allows us to really provide the insights and intelligence needed to optimize the reduced spend that you have to better garner the ROI that you’re looking for.
Christian Klepp 17:02
Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. You’ve talked about it a little bit already, but like we know that in B2B, we’re mostly dealing with, as you said, a buying committee consisting of anywhere between 7 to 10 people. They all have different roles and responsibilities, different motivations for either using or not using said service provider or said approach. So how can teams implement, I would say B2B marketing initiatives that strategically address the buying committee’s concerns and questions.
Keith Turco 17:34
It’s really gaining… I keep on going back to the same two words, and I apologize if I sound repetitive, right? But the insights and intelligence are critical to understand the buying groups, what they’re looking for. Let’s dissect it a little bit, right? So if you were to look at the top of the buying group chain, you’ve got C suite executives. Those C suite executives consume media in very different ways because they have very different schedules and are on the road quite a lot, so they’ll be listening to podcasts more than they’ll be watching a CTV kind of application that most will probably want to watch on a bigger screen versus a smaller screen, right? So it’s understanding which businesses decision makers are interested in what categories, right? So you’ve got C suite that sit across multiple views. You’ve got manager levels that are really focused on one specific business unit that will play very differently than, and the messaging to them will play very differently than a C suite person that is across multiple and then they tend to consume media in very different ways, both as individual people as well as from a professional standpoint. The more busy road runner type consumes media and snippets. And you know, we also talk about thumb stopping creative and thumb stopping messaging, because we know that they’re on their phones more than they are on an iPad or a laptop. So the insights that you get from that and the intelligence that you get from that data collection will help you be that much more effective when targeting different individuals inside of a buying group.
Christian Klepp 19:16
And it’s also, I would say, about trying to close that trust cap, right? Because there is especially B2B, there’s this whole notion of like, people tend to trust slower, for lack of a better description. So there’s that effort, through that approach, to try to like, build that trust, build that credibility. Because it does take time. This isn’t something where you know they have to make a decision in 48 hours, right? It takes, it takes much longer.
Keith Turco 19:42
And I think important, when you close the trust gap, you shorten the sales cycle. So when you shorten the sales cycle, it’s much quicker route, quicker route to ROI, that’s proven by both the marketing and sales team. So the quicker the trust gap is closed, the quicker the cycle happens.
Christian Klepp 19:59
Exactly, exactly so. And based on that, like, what role does a performance based approach play in winning over the different members of the buying committee? And you’ve touched on some of these aspects already.
Keith Turco 20:13
Again, that the knowledge that you gain from performance based approaches. Everything is measurable, right? Let’s pause for half a second there when we talk about performance marketing, which is obviously next gen of… it started as database marketing and then went into one to one marketing, and then it went into digital marketing, and now it’s performance marketing, because everything is measurable, the insights you collect from that absolutely make a difference, whereas traditional old school advertising of the 70s, 80s and even somewhat 90s was, let’s just hit them with a big message, right? I think it’s important to talk about performance marketing being branded response. Everything you do should both build a brand and elicit a response. So we’re not saying performance marketing at the risk of neglecting branding. We’re saying performance marketing inclusive of branding in the marketplace, so the loyalty and familiarity come to play.
Christian Klepp 21:17
Yes, yes, exactly. I was going to say, if you were going to throw a brand out the window like Don Draper would come back and say, Hey, man…
Keith Turco 21:25
Absolutely not. Brand is critical, because you are obviously to your point play on the loyalty side, right? And you know, affinity plays a big role in previous experience with existing brands, and people are loyal to certain brands, so we’re not throwing all of the traditional advertising metrics out the window either, but everything that, everything that we put in the marketplace, should play a dual role of building a brand and eliciting a measurable response.
Christian Klepp 21:54
Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. So for this next question, not trying to scare anybody, but you guys did conduct a lot of research together with Harris Poll, and you came back with some really interesting figures, right? So one of them that you did together with Harris poll was shows that nearly 73% of marketing decision makers believe AI generated creative will define the future of advertising. So how will that fact alone replace traditional advertising as we know it?
Keith Turco 22:27
I don’t think it replaces. I’ll go back to the same answer that we started at. I think it enhances, right? So 73% of the respondents absolutely see AI playing a role in their marketing and advertising, and it allows them to learn from the data that they collect, adapt and make changes quickly. It allows them to take into consideration geographical differences and business unit focused differences. It also allows you to take on the demographic insights, not just the firmographic insights, right? So if I know that Christian is living in Europe and is focused on certain business functions, but in his personal life, also likes to ski or golf, I’m oversimplifying it, right? But AI allows you to say, Oh, well, this visual will appeal to Christian. This cultural nuance and difference will appeal to Christian, and it allows you to hyper target in a much different way. That is we’ve advanced to that, had advanced to that pre AI, but it was a bit more manually intensive than it will be and is today from an AI based perspective.
Christian Klepp 23:40
Now that you’ve explained it that way, that hopefully puts some of these doubts or fears a little bit to rest, because it’s an it’s an enhancement, or it should be viewed and treated as an enhancement mechanism, rather than a complete like disruption.
Keith Turco 23:53
Absolutely, and that’s where, when I started, there is still a world where creativity is paramount, and that’s at the original conceptual stages, right? But what would take us months to make international adaptations and/or having three or four different pivot tables come together to say this creative with this copy block against this target audience with this message, so it’s the confluence of data that allows for easier output, from an AI perspective, to make it much more tailored to the desired consumer of that content.
Christian Klepp 24:34
This same report that I mentioned previously, it also mentions that about 90% of companies are exploring new ways to reach audiences, and you did talk about that so but again, what are some of these channels and how will they impact the B2B marketing moving forward?
Keith Turco 24:48
Yeah, first and foremost, you’re looking at social as a new avenue beyond the B2B LinkedIn social perspective, which plays a significant role in the B2B campaigns, but it’s also figuring out where Christian or Keith are consuming in their personal lives. So it’s not shocking that if you’re on Tiktok or Instagram or on our YouTube channel, that you’ll see some B2B messages that are out there. Early on, we knew from an event based perspective, that lots of business decision makers were watching golf, watching tennis. So sports has always and will continue to play a role, even in the B2B space. But it’s a good example of finding your consumer interests and where they overlap with your business interests. And it’s the same kind of thing from from that perspective, as well as understanding. I keep going back to the same message of Right place, right time, right audience, right segment. But so when you look at the new mediums, or the consumer based mediums, you know it’s understanding that where the personal interests come together with professional interests, and are they on Facebook? Are they on Instagram? Are they on YouTube? Are they on X and where are they playing, and how are they playing in those spaces, and where can I get the overlap? And, you know, from a business and personal perspective, also going back to day parts, right? Are they exercising on the treadmill at 5am, 6am, seven, 7am? Are they doing it in the PM? Are you catching them on their drive to and from the office? Maybe not five days a week anymore, but three days a week, right? Understanding, it’s funny, but you know, even dissecting the day of the week and how you you you buy media and how you serve it, right? So we know that if people are hybrid, they’re most of the time, they’re in the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and not necessarily in the office on Mondays and Fridays. So you might catch them in different aspects of different parts of the week as well, day parts days of the week.
Christian Klepp 26:56
It’s really interesting that you bring that up, because I had a gentleman on a little bit earlier this year that spoke about what he called Time of Day Marketing, and what he meant by that is like, is Keith the same person, or does he consume the same content, as an example, right at lunchtime, in the afternoon or or in the evening, before it goes to bed? And knowing that, and it’s going back to your ability to analyze and aggregate that data and spot these trends, right? That will help people to determine, Okay, so based on this time of the day when this person is consuming that content, what would be the best and most effective channel to use to reach out to said person? Because it could be a different channel.
Keith Turco 27:35
Yeah, definitely. And I think looking at, we called it day parts, right? It’s what day part makes the most sense against which target audience. And it’s it is especially now, because we can gather that information and see when they’re consuming so going back to your earlier questions around performance marketing. Used to be, let’s just run it and see. You know that you would, we would always buy media in day part, and you could even buy it, obviously, from a program based perspective, so you’re but really dissecting and understanding which day parts individuals from the buying group consume media to your point, am I during lunchtime? Am I toggling off of my business channels and onto my personal channels. And that’s where I think to the point you made, and the point I made, that’s where it comes together, is personal demographics associated with firmographics and business decision makers, and where we can find them in their personal lives, not just their professional lives. You don’t just work between the hours of nine and five anymore, and you don’t just think about work between the hours of nine and five.
Christian Klepp 28:44
That’s it. That’s it. Yeah, Keith, I had one follow up question for you, and I know that this isn’t really social media, per se, but what’s your take on Reddit, and how significant Do you think that is to B2B?
Keith Turco 28:52
I think it’s it’s making, it’s making a play in the B2B space, absolutely. And I think we’d be remiss not to understand the impact it has on the B2B space. Finally, I have just asked the team to double click on Reddit, literally in the last couple of business days, to see what you know, what the impact of Reddit can be, and can it be measured in the B2B space. So I definitely think. Man, I don’t know if I would classify it as a social channel, but it’s kind of a publishing social. It’s kind of a little bit both.
Christian Klepp 29:29
It straddles that those worlds, as I like to call it, right, like, it’s a little bit. Yeah, it’s hybrid. There you go. There you go. Absolutely. Okay. So again, in our previous conversation, you mentioned that the most effective B2B campaigns will be ones that combine AI driven insights with creativity and multi channel orchestration to deliver personalization at scale. So that’s a slightly different take to what you said earlier. So could you. Please elaborate on that a bit.
Keith Turco 30:01
The personalization at scale, I don’t know that I view it as different. I kind of view it same, right?
Christian Klepp 30:08
Same, okay.
Keith Turco 30:09
Because it allows you to personalize based on the different data points that you collect and information that you collect from performance marketing, right? So personalization at scale allows me to say, okay, Christian is different than Keith, who’s different than Joe, who all work in the same organization might make might overlap with 80% of their business decisions, and 20% will be standalone. So performance marketing is, if done properly, is personalization at scale. It allows you to scale on a much bigger level, to ensure that you can have the sub segments be personalized, and have the information that you serve up to them resonate based on their personal interests and business interests.
Christian Klepp 30:56
Yeah, absolutely, I guess the trick. And you’ve probably seen this happen to this, there’s companies out there that are using the personalization at scale, or they’re approaching it the wrong way. I would say they try to go in under the guise of personalization, but what actually is a bit more of a veiled sales pitch.
Keith Turco 31:13
I agree, and I think that if you, if you can really tap into where the world comes together, of personal and professional interests and apply that to the individual customer or consumer. You can truly personalize on what makes it tick, and I think personalization at scale isn’t just a creative comment, it’s a media comment, right? It’s I can personalize the media journey based on how I know Christian is consuming media throughout the day, so it’s where content and creativity match media consumption.
Christian Klepp 31:49
Absolutely, absolutely okay. I’m going to ask you a soapbox question, if that’s okay with you. So let’s zero in on the topic of performance marketing, because that is your area. What is the status quo in performance marketing that you passionately disagree with, and why?
Keith Turco 32:12
From a B2B performance marketing perspective, I think we talk about right place, right time, right message. And I think the status quo is that creative doesn’t matter, because if you serve the right message to the right person at the right time, creative won’t make an impact. And I’ll go back to branded response. I think the status quo is creative doesn’t play as big of role as it used to, and I would disagree, I talked about thumb stopping. You have to get people to stop, right? Because people are constantly scrolling and they’re being barraged with message after message after message. So what will resonate? And I do think that, you know, building a brand that has integrity, that creates loyalty. So to me, it’s the proper balance of brand and demand, or branded response that should be looked at again. I think we’ve probably taken a 10 year hiatus from that, and it was just about right message, right time. And it worked because it was thumb stopping at the time. But given the overload of messages, and exactly what we’re talking about, Christian of hitting people in their personal lives with professional messages, there’s an overload of messages that happen. So it’s kind of bringing all of your the soapbox questions, bringing all of your questions together, right? Which is what it’s intended to do. So it’s funny, because you you know you can absolutely understand that you can shorten the sales cycle by creating brand affinity. You talked about, is AI a threat to advertising. Actually, it’s an enhancement, because brand, to me, in my mind, still plays a significant role. And it’s bringing the two worlds together that will differentiate the top notch marketers of tomorrow.
Christian Klepp 34:08
Absolutely, absolutely. And it goes back to something that you said earlier. I mean, this whole ecosystem is in a constant state of evolution, so marketers better learn to quote what you said, to embrace it, rather than to push back at it, right, or to push back on it, right?
Keith Turco 34:24
I think the key is evolution. It’s not abandonment, right? And net new activities, right? So email was an evolution of direct mail. This display was an evolution of, you know, the 15 second video kind of thing, right? It’s how do we evolve, leverage what we’ve, what we know and what worked, and evolve it to make it better? It’s not necessarily, in my mind, a replacement of, sure, will it take the place of certain aspects of things, absolutely, but how can you use it to enhance and add versus feel threatened by it?
Christian Klepp 35:03
Absolutely, absolutely. Keith, this conversation was dynamite. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. Quick introduction to yourself and how folks out there can get in touch with you.
Keith Turco 35:15
Sure. Keith Turco, CEO of Madison Logic, you can find me on LinkedIn. Would love to talk to you about your business needs and how we can help you from ABM perspective.
Christian Klepp 35:27
Fantastic, fantastic. Once again, Keith, thanks so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure.
Keith Turco 35:33
Thank you, Christian. You have a great day.
Christian Klepp 35:34
Thanks. Bye bye.





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