How do you build a marketing strategy for one of the fastest-moving markets in tech? And what can AI startups learn from the growth strategies behind OpenRouter and Notion?

In this episode of Brandformance, Pranav Piyush sits down with Andrew Silard, former growth marketing leader at Notion and fractional marketing advisor to OpenRouter, to explore how AI is changing developer marketing, brand building, and growth.

Andrew shares his experience helping OpenRouter expand its marketing efforts, from developer communities and organic adoption to paid media, SEO, YouTube, influencer partnerships, and events.

They discuss why developers still respond to strong brands, how AI agents are changing the structure of marketing teams, and why distribution matters in an increasingly competitive AI market.

In this episode:

• How OpenRouter approaches developer marketing and brand building
• Lessons from Andrew's experience at Notion and OpenRouter
• Why even developer-first companies need strong brands
• Building lean, AI-enabled marketing teams
• Finding new distribution channels in competitive markets
• Measuring marketing impact during hypergrowth
• What marketers should know about AI search visibility and AEO

Chapters:
00:00 – Developers Hate Marketing?
00:40 – Meet Andrew Silard: Notion to OpenRouter
02:01 – What Makes a Brand Stand Out?
03:42 – OpenRouter's Developer Marketing Strategy
09:44 – Do Developers Really Hate Marketing?
12:36 – Building an AI-Powered Marketing Team
17:12 – How AI Is Changing Growth Marketing
23:55 – Marketing in Competitive AI Markets
30:45 – SEO, AEO, and AI Search Visibility
34:09 – Measuring Marketing Impact at OpenRouter
36:15 – The Future of Community and Events

What do you think matters most for AI startups today: product, brand, or distribution? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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#OpenRouter #AIMarketing #DeveloperMarketing #GrowthMarketing #Brandformance

Scaling an omnichannel consumer brand challenges traditional marketing measurement when customer purchase journeys split across digital DTC funnels and retail shelves. In this episode of Brandformance, Jessica Duncan, who leads data science and analytics at AG1, joins Pranav Piyush to explain why relying on a single metric fails and how growth marketing teams can evaluate overall marketing effectiveness across multi-product portfolios.

Drawing from years of hands-on econometric modeling and her background teaching AI and data storytelling at the University of Maryland Global Campus, Jessica breaks down what breaks in your data infrastructure when transitioning from one flagship product to omnichannel retail distribution. She details how to approach marketing attribution without channel bias, align cross-functional teams around shared definitions, and build credible cases for brand spend when finance leaders demand short-term proof.

In this episode, we cover:

• Multi-Product Analytics Shifts: What breaks in customer acquisition and LTV models when moving into retail environments where individual shoppers cannot be tracked.
• Customer Journey Attribution: Explaining multi-touch customer journeys using Markov chains without oversimplifying buyer behavior.
• Marketing and Finance Alignment: How to build scenario models with real data so stakeholders can stress-test assumptions collaboratively before budgets shift.
• Metric Integrity and the Semantic Layer: Why standardized metric definitions and a shared semantic layer keep analysts honest and prevent cherry-picked reporting.
• The Brand vs Performance Challenge: Why top-of-funnel brand marketing remains difficult to prove to finance, and the incrementality test Jessica would run with an unlimited budget.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:38 Teaching AI and Data Storytelling
02:48 Stop the Scroll: Landing Dashboard Insights
04:29 From Model Builder to Analytics Leader
06:53 Markov Chains, Twins, and Baby Shoes
09:10 What Broke When AG1 Went Multi-Product
12:00 Measuring DTC and Retail Together
13:30 LTV When You Can't Track Retail Customers
15:35 Getting Finance and Marketing Aligned
18:08 New Leaders and Measuring With Grace
20:44 Why There Is No One Number
24:59 Keeping Analysts Honest and Managing Bias
27:51 Building a Semantic Layer
29:44 The Brand Measurement Problem
32:10 The Test She'd Run With Unlimited Budget

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Sundar, a former Uber marketer and consultant helping CMOs defend marketing ROI, joins this week's episode of Brandformance with Pranav Piyush to break down why even teams with great measurement still struggle to win over their CFO, and how to close the gap between evidence and narrative.

With a degree in finance, a CFA, and years leading marketing, Sundar sits on both sides of the table. His take: CFOs aren't afraid of risk. They're afraid of surprises.

In this episode, we cover:

• Evidence vs. Narrative: Why an incrementality test is the evidence, not the story, and why marketers need to tell the story finance wants to hear.
• The Four Risks of Reallocating Budget: Leaving a channel you thought was working, betting on unproven channels, the time horizon, and the one marketers forget: keeping the CFO in the loop.
• Test and Learn Without Getting Burned: Setting incremental hurdles and leading indicators so finance sees progress before revenue shows up.
• From Channel to P&L: Translating channel-level results from MMM and incrementality tests into what the CFO actually sees across the business.
• Lag, Payback, and Cash: Why marketing impact takes quarters to show up, and why contribution margin and cash timing matter to finance.
• Swing Bigger: Why you should test on your biggest channel, not your smallest.
• The Trouble With Benchmarks: Why marketing benchmarks like a 3:1 LTV to CAC can replace critical thinking, and when finance benchmarks do make sense.
• Who Owns the Story: Why translating marketing impact for finance belongs to the CMO.

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:20 Why Great Measurement Still Fails With the CFO

01:50 Evidence vs. Narrative

03:07 The Four Risks of Reallocating Budget

08:55 Causal Evidence vs. Hypotheses

10:26 Test and Learn Without Getting Burned

13:40 Turning Leading Indicators Into P&L Impact

16:55 From Channel Results to the Full P&L

20:04 Lag, Payback, and Cash Timing

23:09 Swing Bigger: Test Your Biggest Channel

25:09 The Trouble With Benchmarks

29:11 Who Should Own the Story

31:22 What CMOs Are Asking Sundar Today

David Fallarme, VP of Marketing at Owner.com, joins this week's episode of Brandformance with Pranav Piyush to break down how Owner.com built a brand and organic media machine to diversify away from paid social, and why it all started with a decision, not an attribution model.

David joined Owner.com as a fractional advisor when the company was around 60 people. Today it has 700+ employees and just announced its Series D.

In this episode, we cover:

• Marketing to Restaurant Owners: Why blue-collar, non-tech buyers decide on vibes and what their local community says, not white papers and webinars, and why their phone number is right on their Google Business Profile.
• Sweating the Details: How high-quality case study videos, with the restaurant owner as the star, helped convince one of Owner.com's investors.
• AI for Small Businesses: Why restaurant owners embrace AI despite the broader anti-AI sentiment: thin margins mean they'll take every advantage they can get.
• Organic as a Testing Ground for Paid: How a business breakdown of In-N-Out's growth hit 200,000 views, and why organic hits can become top performers on paid.
• The Content Engine: Why video editors are the scarcest resource in marketing, and what it took to recruit media talent from the MrBeast and Hormozi world.
• Brand Is a Decision: Why leadership has to treat brand as an imperative, why a cold start takes at least two quarters, and how 20–30% of early deals traced back to organic channels.
• Hiring for Taste: David's interview method, from a 30-minute "vibes" chat to a design-crit review of a candidate's five best pieces of work.
• AI Without Losing Quality: Hiring people with strong editorial taste, and building a shared context layer of positioning, voice and tone underneath everyone's AI work.

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• Website: https://owner.com/

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Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:11 Why David Joined Owner.com

02:40 How Owner.com's Marketing Team Is Structured

04:30 Marketing to Restaurant Owners

06:26 Sweating the Details: Case Study Videos

07:25 AI for Small Businesses

08:38 The Vision Beyond Restaurants

10:28 Organic as a Testing Ground for Paid

13:07 The Content Engine

15:46 Hiring From MrBeast's World

16:54 Brand Is a Decision

19:47 Hiring for Taste

22:03 Being Terminally Online

24:22 AI Without Losing Quality

25:39 Campaigns David Admires

27:20 Fire Round: Marketing Myths & Dream Campaigns

Arthur Leopold, CEO and Co-founder of Agentio, joins this week’s episode of Brandformance with Pranav Piyush to break down why the world’s largest advertisers are moving away from traditional digital ads and going all-in on creator media.

With half of all digital attention now focused on creator content, legacy marketing plans are becoming increasingly difficult to defend in the boardroom.

In this episode, we cover:
• The Trust Deficit: Why consumers trust creators 70% more than traditional brands, and how industry giants like Unilever are aiming to shift 50% of their marketing spend directly to creators.
• Creators vs. Influencers: The fundamental difference between legacy, one-off #ad campaigns and partnering with niche authorities who act as effective micro-creative agencies.
• Partnership Ad Efficiency: A look at Meta’s internal data showing that dual-handle partnership ads deliver 19% better efficiency compared to business-as-usual brand ads.
• YouTube Integrations: Why 90-second, host-read YouTube integrations remain the most effective and underpriced ad inventory on the market, driving 85% to 87% view-through rates.
• 0-to-1 Strategy for Brands: The importance of setting up strict measurement infrastructure, automating the buying process to achieve scale, and targeting mid-tier creators rather than nano-influencers or mega-stars like MrBeast.
• Unexpected Niches: How algorithmic platforms help brands discover highly converting audiences outside their core demographic, such as a men's grooming brand finding top-tier performance by sponsoring a Maine lobster fisherman.

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• Website: https://www.agentio.com/

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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction & The Power of Creator Trust
01:40 - Agentio’s Growth & Unilever’s 50% Shift to Creators
04:14 - Why Legacy Advertising is Losing to Creator Media
09:39 - AI-Generated Content vs. Authentic Creator Trust
13:18 - The Evolution from "Influencer" to "Creator"
16:24 - Why Meta Partnership Ads Outperform Standard Ads
19:32 - Step-by-Step: Taking a Brand from 0 to 1 in Creator Marketing
25:08 - Solving Data Friction & Building Trust with Creators
28:03 - The Arbitrage Opportunity in YouTube Integrations
31:36 - How to Price Creator Media: CPMs vs. Ad Spend
35:17 - The Future of the Creator Tech Ecosystem
38:42 - Closing Thoughts & Where to Find Agentio

Why do most A/B tests fail to produce any meaningful improvement—and what separates a useful experiment from another inconclusive result?

In this episode of Brandformance, Pranav Piyush speaks with Casey Hill, CMO at Do What Works, about what thousands of real-world website experiments reveal about conversion rate optimization.

They explore:

Why most A/B test variants fail to move the needle
The three checks to make before launching an experiment
Why specific messaging consistently beats generic benefits
How reassurance copy can remove conversion barriers
What marketers misunderstand about benchmarks and confidence
Why customer logos alone may no longer build trust
How to position AI products without relying on empty language
Whether websites still matter in a world of AI agents and LLMs

For CMOs, growth leaders and B2B marketers looking to make smarter website and experimentation decisions, this conversation offers practical lessons grounded in actual testing data.

How do you change what people think about an established brand—without throwing away everything that made it valuable?

In this episode, Pranay Piyush sits down with Meiling Tan to unpack lessons from two very different brand challenges: helping Care.com evolve beyond childcare and building the Waymo brand when self-driving cars still sounded like science fiction.

Meiling shares why the best brand transformations go far beyond a new logo or campaign. They require alignment across product, customer experience, communications, leadership, and marketing.

They discuss how Care.com repositioned itself from a childcare utility to a broader caregiving brand—and went on to deliver its first quarter of new membership growth in nearly four years. Meiling also takes us inside the early days of Waymo, explaining how the team built trust in self-driving technology by focusing on the human problem it could solve.

Plus, they explore why brand and product are inseparable in the customer's mind, how to get CEOs and CFOs to invest in brand, why leading indicators still matter, and the marketing experiment Meiling would run with an unlimited budget.

For CMOs, brand leaders, and marketers trying to connect brand building to real business growth, this episode is packed with practical lessons.

Has performance marketing reached its limits?

In this episode, Pranay Piyush sits down with Peter Sengenberger, who has spent more than 25 years in direct response, infomercials, consumer marketing, and B2B demand generation.

Together they explore why today's best marketers are looking beyond digital channels to build long-term brand growth.