Explore every episode of the podcast Marketing Dilemmas

A special episode to kick off the year, and to close a chapter.

In this wrap-up, Liam and Amy Collins (Demand Gen Content Manager at Cognism) look back across 17 episodes of Marketing Dilemmas and pull out the three themes that kept showing up again and again:

Demand gen is the strategy… but measurement and process are still stuck in lead gen thinking.

Zero-click is changing the buyer experience - people meet your brand long before they ever hit your site.

AI is a multiplier, and it’s exposing shaky foundations in data, ownership, and workflows.

You’ll leave with the patterns, the tensions, and a set of 2026 predictions you can use to pressure-test your marketing plan, without having to listen to every episode.

In this episode, Liam sits down with Lisa Vecchio, Senior Marketing Director at leading video platform, Veed, to unpack a growing tension: almost every marketer knows video is non-negotiable, but 1 in 3 still don’t feel confident creating it.

They dig into what’s really holding teams back (skills, workflows, brand fear, creativity pressure), how AI can lower the barrier from scripting to editing, and what marketing leaders can do to build video literacy and confidence across the whole organisation.

Check out VEED.IO's 'The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing' here: https://bit.ly/4ptgPSS

In this episode of Marketing Dilemmas, Liam talks to fractional VP Marketing Brandon Redlinger about one of the biggest pressures facing GTM teams right now: “go do AI”, with no extra time, budget, or clear strategy.

They dig into how to build a unified, AI-driven GTM motion when every team is at a different level of maturity, why foundations (data, ops, change management) matter more than shiny tools, and how to measure success with metrics like ARR per employee and containment rate. Brandon also shares where AI is actually working today, why you should listen to builders over hype-creators, and why most marketers should give themselves more grace for “feeling behind."

In this episode of Marketing Dilemmas, Liam sits down with Srikrishna Swaminathan, Co-founder & CEO of Factors.ai, to tackle a question most B2B teams are quietly wrestling with: are LinkedIn ads really working, or is Google doing all the heavy lifting?

They dig into why LinkedIn so often looks “bad” in spreadsheets, how to use buyer-journey visualisation, view-throughs and incrementality testing to prove its impact, and where organic content fits into the whole system.

Sri also breaks down who should own this problem (demand gen vs marketing ops), what good measurement actually looks like, and how emerging LLM/AI discovery will change the way we think about paid, organic and attribution altogether.

When reporting makes paid channels look like the clear winner and organic impact is harder to prove, how do you split your time, budget, and focus? 

In this episode, Fran Langham, Director of Demand Gen at Cog, joins Liam to tackle the paid vs organic dilemma, exploring why marketers over-index on what’s measurable, how to prove the value of long-term plays, and what it takes to rebalance your strategy without losing short-term wins.

Chat-based search and LLMs are blowing up the old keyword-first playbook. Zach Ali (GM, US at Finder) makes the case for “anti-SEO”: persona-led content, utility over templates, and measuring revenue and LLM visibility - not vanity traffic.

We dig into query fan-out (why many focused pages beat one pillar), how first-party data and calculators earn citations, and why today’s SEO must be a full-stack marketer across paid, video, and newsletters. Plus: a quick take on making CRO wins stick beyond the initial spike.

Liam sits down with Estelle, Cognism’s Website & Creative Services Lead, to unpack a common dilemma: why “winning” A/B tests sometimes fade after rollout. They dig into a post-launch performance framework (7/30/60/90-day checks), how to control for seasonality and site changes, the role of sales/MarOps in attribution, and turning test insights into durable pipeline impact.

In this episode, Liam sits down with Deivis, Founder of DERU Digital, to explore a dilemma every B2B marketer faces: how narrow should your targeting really be?

Deivis shares his experience of discovering a vendor before he worked at an ICP company - and how that shaped his belief that brand reach needs to extend beyond account lists.

They dive into the risks of over-segmentation, why reach is often undervalued in B2B, and how to balance short-term pipeline pressure with long-term influence.

Jonathan Bland, Co-Founder of Omni Lab, joins the Marketing Dilemmas podcast to tackle one of the toughest questions marketers face: “Why is performance down?” He shares how to avoid knee-jerk optimisations, build a systematic process for diagnosing issues across channels, and communicate findings in a way that earns trust, even when the answer isn’t simple.

In this episode of Marketing Dilemmas, Liam sits down with Sarah Breathnach, VP of Marketing at Hunters and Founder of the Demand Gen London community. Together they unpack one of the toughest challenges in B2B right now: how to stand out in a crowded, copycat market without falling into the trap of gimmicks or feature wars.

Sarah shares lessons from the cybersecurity industry, her “small teams, big impact” positioning, and why true differentiation comes from clarity, consistency, and customer experience - not monster trucks or marketing hype.

Too many marketing teams fall into the comfort trap - sticking with what’s “always worked” and avoiding change until results dip.

In this episode, Michael challenges that mindset head-on. He shares why waiting for a downturn before testing new channels or formats is a risky move, how to run small experiments alongside BAU, and the mindset shift needed to keep performance growing in a fast-changing market.

What happens when your SEO strategy stops delivering clicks? Tom Mansell, VP of Organic Performance at Croud, joins Marketing Dilemmas to unpack the radical shift in search behavior. From AI-powered search engines to plummeting click-through rates, Tom explains why traditional SEO metrics no longer tell the full story - and what forward-thinking marketers should do instead.

Adina, Global Director of Best Practice Programs at AVEVA, joins Marketing Dilemmas to unpack one of the hardest challenges in enterprise marketing: how do you effectively penetrate new markets when you’re juggling long sales cycles, complex portfolios, and competing internal priorities? From thought leadership to funnel strategy and outbound alignment - this episode breaks down the real blockers to driving growth in new segments.

What do you do when AI creates both your biggest opportunity and your biggest risk? In this episode, Maura Rivera, CMO at Qualified, shares how her team made the bold decision to pivot away from their successful flagship product and reposition entirely around an AI-powered SDR agent. It’s a story of product bets, internal resistance, and how to go all in - before the market catches up.

In this episode of Marketing Dilemmas, Liam is joined by Florian Frese, Marketing Director at Wire. Together, they unpack a challenge every marketer faces but few talk about: internal marketing. From building trust across teams to avoiding the dreaded “marketing in a silo” trap, Florian shares candid insights into what it really takes to get internal buy-in, show marketing’s value, and foster cross-functional alignment. Plus, how sharing updates on LinkedIn can double as your best internal comms hack.

In this episode of Marketing Dilemmas, Liam sits down with Ben Smith, Marketing Director at Reachdesk to tackle a growth challenge many scale-ups face: what to do when you’ve nailed your ICP but are starting to hit a ceiling.

They unpack how Reachdesk refined their targeting, improved win rates, and now face the next big question - how to expand without losing focus. Expect insights on ABM signals, scrappy tactics, first-party data, and the true power of gifting in B2B.

B2B marketing isn't just campaigns and channels - it's understanding your product like a PMM.

In this episode, Tas Bober (Founder at Scroll Lab) shares how realising her weakest link - product marketing - led her to build a lightweight, scalable framework every demand gen marketer can use to bridge the gap, run faster, and never rely on a last-minute slide again.

She breaks down:

• Why most campaigns fail from a lack of product context
• How she built a mini-PMM process from scratch
• Why this framework will save you (and your sales team) hours

Whether you’re in-house or agency-side, this is your blueprint for becoming a deeper generalist - and making better marketing decisions.

In this episode, Liam is joined by Steffen, CMO and co-founder of DreamData, to unpack one of B2B marketing’s trickiest challenges: how to bridge the gap between awareness and sales readiness without jumping the gun.

They dive into the dilemma of where marketing should focus its energy in the funnel - top, middle, or bottom - and explore what it really takes to turn passive awareness into high-intent engagement.

From AI-led outreach to benchmark reports and one-to-one dinners, it’s a conversation about timing, touchpoints, and finding the sweet spot before the demo.

In this episode of The Loop, Tim and Liam reunite six months after their first ABM deep dive to share how their program at Cognism has matured into a high-performing machine.

From refining their ICP and working hand-in-hand with sales to building an account prioritisation engine and embracing out-of-the-box 1:1 tactics, this conversation is packed with actionable insights for any team trying to scale ABM without overspending on tools.

In this episode of The Loop, Joe McLaughlin sits down with Liam Collins, VP of Paid Acquisition at Cognism, for an inside look at how the marketing team is driving Cognism’s shift into the mid-market and enterprise space.

From laying strong strategic foundations to aligning sales and marketing around a single North Star, Joe and Liam unpack the planning, data modeling, messaging evolution, and ABM initiatives behind the move. A must-listen for marketers looking to scale smart and go upmarket with impact.

Cognism’s Senior Demand Generation Manager, Joe Mclaughlin speaks to Dale Harrison, brand marketing and commercial strategy expert about the slow movement of market share, the importance of brand awareness, and why companies must balance brand and performance marketing for long-term success.

In this episode of The Loop, host Joe Mclaughlin sits down with Brendan Hufford, Founder of Growth Sprints, to discuss his unique approach to content strategy, naming problems instead of categories, and why "checkbox marketing" is holding companies back. Brendan shares insights on content IP, channel-agnostic marketing, and innovative tactics like the "immortal newsletter" and AI-powered audience analysis. Tune in for actionable strategies and fresh perspectives on how to create marketing that truly resonates.

In this episode of The Loop Podcast, host Amy sits down with Estelle, Cognism’s Web and Design Lead, to discuss all things website optimization. Estelle shares insights from her two and a half years at Cognism, diving into the various A/B tests, design tweaks, and SEO improvements that have driven measurable results.

Cognism's VP of Marketing, Liam Bartholomew is joined by Evan Nelson, VP of Customer Experience to share their joined experience redefining Cognism's ICP during the CHASM project. Listen to find out how we implemented the CHASM project, the difference between true best-fit ICP and the mystifying ICP and how we’re investing in the highest impact areas.

Cognism’s Demand Gen Content Manager, Amy Collins chats to SEO and Content Manager (France), Charlotte de Beaumont about Cognism’s demand generation content strategy across regions. When do you translate, localise or create net new?

Cognism’s VP of Marketing, Liam Bartholomew speaks to CMO at Usergems, Trinity Nguyen about the power of authenticity in brand storytelling, how data-driven creativity is the future of marketing and how community is the new currency for brands.

Cognism’s Manager, SEO Daisy Shevlin speaks to Growth Marketing Lead at Userled, Vincent Plassard about how both Cognism and Userled are implementing AI internally. And how to scale content creation using AI without losing the human element.

Cognism’s Senior SEO Manager, Joe Barron speaks to Dmitry Dragilev, Founder of Topic Ranker about the inner workings of optimising content for search. How to identify weak spots in an SEO strategy, how to make the most of generative AI and most importantly, what it means to create QUALITY SEO content.

Cognism's VP of Marketing, Liam Bartholomew speaks to EU expansion expert, Archita Fritz - spilling her insights on the importance of dedicated expansion plans. Playbooks from one region don't automatically work in another!

Cognism’s Senior Content Manager and SEO whizz, Joe Barron speaks to Sam Dunning, Founder of Breaking B2B about the similarities in our approaches to SEO. Cognism’s money keyword strategy and Sam’s revenue driven SEO strategy.

Cognism’s Senior DG Manager, Jamie Skeels speaks to Senior Paid Acquisition Manager, Lee Gannon about how their two teams - demand generation and paid - work together to drive business results.

Demand Generation Content Manager, Amy Collins speaks to VP of Marketing, Liam Bartholomew about Cognism's lessons expanding into EU countries. Specifically with regard to their experiences going sales-first, or marketing-first.

Cognism's Demand Generation Content Manager Amy Collins chats to VP of Product Marketing Josh Britton about how Cognism's product marketing function has evolved with him leading the charge. They discuss the extensive research Josh has carried out to understand the state of play and the early successes Josh has achieved in his short tenure since joining Cognism.

Cognism’s CMO Alice de Courcy speaks to Maura Rivera, former Marketing Manager at Salesforce, current CMO at Qualified about how this career path shaped how she leads her marketing team.

Cognism’s DG Content Manager, Amy Collins  speaks to Liam Collins who has been at Cognism for five months as the newly appointed VP of Paid Acquisition on how he has evolved paid strategy and team set up in his first 160 days.

Cognism's Demand Gen Lead, Tim Hughes speaks to VP of Paid Acquisition, Liam Collins about how we have built our own ABM playbook at Cognism - specifically selecting and targeting our 1:one accounts to drive demand.

Cognism’s Senior Demand Gen Manager, Jamie Skeels speaks to Demand Gen Content Manager, Amy Collins all about Cognism’s approach to what they term ‘big rock’ campaigns.

Cognism’s CMO Alice de Courcy speaks to Kyle Coleman, CMO at Copy.ai about how marketers can effectively use AI to stay relevant and ultimately drive demand.

Cognism and Kaspr Demand Gen Team Leads, Tim Hughes and Joe Mclaughlin get together to discuss the two very different approaches they have to take. Kaspr targeting SMBs and Cognism moving up market to target enterprises. How does this impact how they apply demand generation principles?

Cognism’s CMO Alice de Courcy, speaks to VP of Marketing at Chili Piper, Brandon Redlinger about how to create and implement a stand out LinkedIn strategy that helps to feed demand creation motions.

Cognism & Kaspr Manager for SEO, Daisy Shevlin speaks to SEO Content Manager, Monika Kisielewska about how we have evolved our content strategy over the years and how we have started to weave demand gen and SEO together.

Cognism's Global Head of Demand Den, Fran Langham speaks to Head of Marketing in DACH, Nicole Peters about Cognism's approach to expansion. Many companies draw the line at translating copy and campaigns - but Fran and Nicole explain how they've taken this a step further. Implementing demand gen principles in new regions.

Cognism’s CMO Alice de Courcy, speaks to CMO at CoLab, MJ Peters about the activities she's run at CoLab that have had the biggest impact. From tightening entry criteria, to optimising product overview pages.

If your team is struggling with lead quality, routing, funnel analysis, automation, grading models, lead qualification or just alignment between marketing and ops… then this is the episode for you. Liam and Simon explore the various optimisations and fixes they've made over the years to Cognism's funnel that has resulted in 70% year on year growth. If you want more information on how we achieved this, check out the Fix Your Funnel Resource Hub! https://www.cognism.com/fix-your-funnel

Cognism's Global Head of Demand Gen, Fran Langham speaks to marketing unicorn, Bill Macaitis on how he ran ABM at enterprises such as Slack, Salesforce and Zendesk.

Cognism’s VP of Marketing, Liam Bartholomew speaks to Palmer Houchins, VP and Head of Marketing at G2 about how important reviews and brand reputation are in the buyer process.

Cognism’s SEO Content Manager, Monika Kisielewska speaks to Lashay Lewis, Content Strategy Advisor and Founder of Authority Plug. They discuss how SEO marketers can utilise AI, how aggressively you can sell on landing pages and much more.

Ever wanted to know how Cognism runs their paid ads? We are going to reveal all! Cognism’s Senior Demand Gen Manager Jamie Skeels chats to Demand Gen Team Lead, Tim Hughes about our ad philosophy, where we've seen success and much more.

Cognism's CMO, Alice de Courcy makes her return to The Loop podcast after her maternity leave to speak to Georgiana Laudi, Co-founder and author of Forget the Funnel. They discuss Gia's customer-led approach and revisit the funnel concept to find out if it's still relevant to marketers today.

Cognism’s Global Head of Demand Gen, Fran Langham speaks to James de Feu, Sr. Director, Demand Generation & Lifecycle at Zapier. They discuss the importance of learning over any other marketing outcome, how to run data centric campaigns and much more.