Most companies use a flawed set of decision criteria to select a marketing agency. The search starts with a scope built around channels: Finalists get judged on their tactical polish and platform-reported ROAS numbers in their case studies, and the team with the most confident answer to “how will you manage our accounts” usually wins.… Continue reading Stop Hiring Agencies to Run Channels. Hire Them to Answer One Question.
Author: Allyson Cochran
Allyson Cochran is the Chief Revenue Officer at Silverback Strategies, where she leads revenue, partnerships, and growth strategy for one of the most respected performance agencies in the U.S. She started her career selling radio advertising—long before dashboards and attribution—learning how to connect intangible campaigns to real business outcomes. That mindset still drives her work today.
With 15+ years in media and marketing, Allyson is known for helping brands navigate platform shifts, AI-driven optimization, and modern measurement with clarity and confidence. She’s been a featured partner at the American Marketing Association, MarComm, Digital Summit, and executive marketing forums within Pavilion and PartnerStack, where she explains complex changes in performance marketing in practical, no-fluff terms.
Google Is Killing Display. That’s Good News for Your Budget.
Google is retiring the standalone Display campaign. Announced in June 2026, a migration tool moves existing Display campaigns into Demand Gen, and by 2027 the standalone campaign type is gone for good. The Google Display Network itself stays intact, all two million-plus sites, apps, and videos of it, but it stops being its own campaign… Continue reading Google Is Killing Display. That’s Good News for Your Budget.
Higher Ad Costs, Slower Growth, Wrong Leads: What Happens When You Let Paid Media AI Run Without Guardrails
For most of Jordan Crawford’s career in paid media, the job was control. Every targeting parameter, every audience segment, every bid adjustment. Value came from how precisely you could operate all of it. That’s changed. “The job of paid media managers really changed from trying to control all of the levers to more focusing on… Continue reading Higher Ad Costs, Slower Growth, Wrong Leads: What Happens When You Let Paid Media AI Run Without Guardrails
Your Marketing Looks Profitable. Your Revenue Disagrees. Here’s Why.
There’s a particular kind of confusion Jordan Crawford recognizes immediately, because she’s seen it from both sides of the table. Two sets of numbers that should tell the same story, but they don’t. On one side: the marketing reports. Cost per lead, flat or improving. ROAS, climbing. By every metric the marketing team’s been trained… Continue reading Your Marketing Looks Profitable. Your Revenue Disagrees. Here’s Why.
What Separates Winning Paid Social Accounts From Stalled Ones: A Creative System
There’s a phrase that’s been running through paid social conversations for the last couple of years: creative is the new targeting. It’s true. It’s also been repeated enough that most marketers nod along without doing anything different. The reason it matters is structural. When data privacy legislation cut off the flow of browsing and app… Continue reading What Separates Winning Paid Social Accounts From Stalled Ones: A Creative System
Meta Andromeda Broke Your Paid Social Playbook
When Meta rolled out its Andromeda update globally in July 2025, most advertisers didn’t notice anything at first. Campaigns kept running; dashboards looked fine. Then, quietly, things started to break. CPAs crept up. CTRs dipped. Learning phases dragged on. Accounts that had performed consistently for years began to look like strangers to their own data.… Continue reading Meta Andromeda Broke Your Paid Social Playbook
How AI Optimization Mistakes Fuel Ad Fraud and Waste Paid Media Budgets
AI is supposed to make paid media smarter. So why is it sometimes helping bots drain the budget? AI-powered campaigns promise efficiency and scale. But when the algorithm is optimizing toward the wrong signal, it spends real budget finding more of whatever’s cheapest to fake. The fraud problem behind this isn’t small, and it isn’t… Continue reading How AI Optimization Mistakes Fuel Ad Fraud and Waste Paid Media Budgets
Brand vs. Performance Marketing: Why the Best CMOs Stopped Picking Sides
Most marketing orgs still treat brand and performance as rival budget lines, fighting over the same dollars and the same credit. That’s the wrong fight. Here’s the part that changes the math. Brand and performance don’t add together. They multiply. A stronger brand doesn’t just sit next to your performance program contributing its own slice… Continue reading Brand vs. Performance Marketing: Why the Best CMOs Stopped Picking Sides
Measuring Marketing ROI for Mid-Market Consumer Businesses
You’re a marketing leader. Maybe you’re juggling teams of specialists focused on semi-siloed marketing programs. Or perhaps you’re the bandwidth-strapped ‘jack of all trades’ marketer operating as a department of one. Either way, you work hard to bring revenue to your business and help your company grow. But communicating the impact of those efforts is… Continue reading Measuring Marketing ROI for Mid-Market Consumer Businesses