The Aperiam Podcast

In this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Corey and Joe are joined by Todd Sawicki, founder and CEO of Gumshoe.ai, to explore one of the most consequential and least understood shifts in marketing today: how AI search is changing the way brands are discovered, recommended, and perceived. Todd breaks down why the concept of "ranking" is obsolete in an LLM world, what it actually means for an AI to ha...

Corey and Joe sit down with Raghu Kodige, CEO and co-founder of Anoki, to explore how AI is transforming the way brands advertise on connected TV. Raghu breaks down why CTV has historically been bought with the same blunt tools as traditional linear TV — and how Anoki is changing that.  Drawing on his background building Alfonso (now LG Ads), Raghu shares how the "seeing is believing" philosophy d...

In this episode of The Aperiam Podcast, Corey and Joe sit down with Andrew Covato, founder of Growth by Science, to tackle one of marketing's most persistent challenges: measurement. With over 15 years of experience at Google, Meta, Netflix, and Snap, Andrew breaks down why so many brands are still wasting ad dollars on outdated attribution methods, why simply "throwing AI at it" won't fix broken...

On this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki sit down with Michael Richardson, VP of Product at Index Exchange to break down ARTF — the Agentic Real-Time Framework. Michael walks through what ARTF actually is, why ad tech needed a new interoperability standard beyond OpenRTB, and how containerization is enabling companies to run custom logic directly inside publisher inf...

Hosts Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki are joined by Joe Hirsch, founder and CEO of Swivel, to explore AdCP—the Ad Context Protocol.  AdCP represents a new standard for agentic ad buying in the advertising industry, drawing inspiration from the Model Context Protocol (MCP). As AI agents become more prevalent in advertising operations, the need for standardized protocols has never been more critical...

Ravi Patel, founder of SWYM, joins the pod to discuss why programmatic wastes money, how supply control fixes broken auctions, and what disciplined, capital-efficient ad tech building really looks like. 

Gareth Glaser, CEO and founder of Gamera, joins Corey and Joe fresh off announcing his fundraise. Gareth—former chair of Prebid.js and founder of RTK—explains Gamera's mission: creating a shared inventory identifier so buyers actually know what placements their ads run on. They discuss why the sell side has been "the Wild West," how the MFA crackdown proved transparency works, and why his "Gareth...

Fresh from the show floor, Joe Z and Erica Chriss join Corey Ferengul to break down CES 2026. This year felt different—less hype, more real momentum behind AI transformation. From seamless home habitats to ad tech innovations with actual case studies, the team explores why this CES marked a turning point. They discuss the collapse of the "tale of two shows," agencies finally leaning forward on tra...

 Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki wrap up the year by breaking down the biggest shifts in advertising and marketing technology—and what they signal for 2026. They discuss the TVScientific–Pinterest acquisition, trends in ad-tech investing, the rise of AI and agents across the ad stack, growing bot traffic, and mounting pressure on legacy platforms. The episode closes with predictions on LLM ad mode...

Joe and Corey speak with Heather Macaulay, co-founder of MADConnect and Audience Choice winner at the Marketecture Startup Challenge. There is a problem that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: integration debt. Every audience sync, conversion pull, and cross-platform workflow depends on APIs that are expensive to build, harder to maintain, and constantly breaking. That hidden “connectivity tax”...

AI is reshaping every corner of the advertising ecosystem—faster than most organizations can absorb. Joe  and Corey dig into what they're seeing on the ground: agencies rethinking their operating models, brands finally experimenting with AI in planning and measurement, and programmatic moving toward a more automated, decision-driven future. The through-line: this isn’t about replacing people overn...

Joe and Corey sit down with Jenna Griffith for a conversation about what leadership really looks like when a company is going through change. The consistent theme: clarity wins. If you don’t communicate clearly and often, people fill in the gaps on their own—and usually incorrectly. They discuss how to handle internal agendas, why you start with customers when you’re trying to understand what's ac...

A conversation with Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch, to talk about something a lot of brands and agencies are wrestling with right now: the widening gap between media and creative — and how AI is rapidly changing what’s possible in that space. Clinch has been focused for years on the connective layer between creative and media. The idea is simple to say, but hard to execute: unify the creative strategy...

Joe and Corey are joined by Erica Chriss and we dug into a question that’s coming up everywhere: what happens to the open web as more consumer activity moves into AI-driven interfaces? There’s no doubt the landscape is shifting — from checkout happening inside chat to new tools that shape how brands appear in LLM environments. But that doesn’t mean the open web is disappearing. It means publishers...

In this episode of the Aperiam Podcast , Joe Zawadzki and Corey Ferengul talked about the hardest step — turning a great idea into a repeatable business. You can’t outsource that early work. The founder (and early team) have to be with customers, hearing what works, what doesn’t, and adjusting without losing sight of the bigger vision. The mistake we see most often? Hiring a senior “head of sales”...

On this episode, we spoke with Max Snow and Frank Portman, the founders of Yobi . Yobi started in 2019 as a research lab with roots in Princeton’s behavioral science program. From day one, they focused on predicting consumer behavior ethically and with privacy at the forefront—being “born post-GDPR” gave them an early framework to build responsibly. What stood out in our conversation is how they’v...

In our latest Aperiam Podcast, Joe and Corey dug into the ongoing tug-of-war every CMO faces: what to keep in-house and what to outsource. This isn’t a new debate. Marketing has always lived on a continuum—search once started outsourced, then became core. Social was brought in-house, then pushed out again. Creative has cycled between internal teams and outside agencies. And now AI is adding a new...

On this week’s Aperiam Podcast, Joe and I were joined by Ari Paparo to talk about his new book. For years, Ari’s been both a builder and a commentator in our industry. From helping shape the foundations of programmatic to calling it like it is on his blog, he’s influenced how many of us understand ad tech. His book takes that further—capturing the history of programmatic, the personalities behind...

Audience fragmentation isn’t just about where people spend time—it’s about who they trust. In this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Joe Zawadzki and Corey dive into how the splintering of media channels has reshaped trust itself. We discuss: Why traditional anchors of credibility—publishers, institutions, even brands—no longer carry the same weight. How trust is migrating to influencers, niche comm...

In this episode of The Aperiam Podcast, Joe, Erica, and Corey dig nto a topic that has come back in force: ad networks . For years, “ad network” was a dirty word in our industry. They were seen as opaque, arbitrage-driven, and destined to disappear as programmatic brought transparency. But here we are—everywhere we look, the network model is back. A few themes from our discussion: - Everything loo...

On the latest episode of The Aperiam Podcast , Joe and I sat down with Victoria Milo from Monks to talk about how AI is reshaping the way brands, agencies, and platforms work together. One of the most striking takeaways: the real shift isn’t just AI itself—it’s the ways of working . Media and creative teams can no longer operate in silos. Platforms are building their own creative studios. CFOs are...

Consumer behavior is shifting fast—and marketers need to catch up. In this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Joe and Corey cover two trends reshaping digital advertising: Audience fragmentation : consumers live across Roblox, Twitch, TikTok, Discord, podcasts, and more. The challenge is stitching a story across all of them. Live stream shopping : TikTok alone drove $26B in GMV in the first half of 2...

If You’re Not Using AI in Dev, You’re Already Behind AI is now a standard part of software development—at least for Aperiam’s portfolio. Every single company we surveyed is already using it. But only 9% have formal policies in place. In our latest Aperiam Podcast, Joe Zawadzki and Corey Ferengul dive into what that tells us—and what it doesn’t. They cover: The real impact of AI on developer produc...

On the latest episode of the Aperiam Podcast , Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki are joined by Erica Chriss to unpack why “attention” is more than a buzzword—it's continuing to become the new currency of advertising. They cover:  What attention metrics really mean Why omni-channel chaos demands a normalized metric How attention bridges brand, performance, and publisher value Where AI helps (and wher...

What do agencies, AI, and Domino’s pizza have in common? In our latest episode of the Aperiam Podcast, we sit down with Jay Friedman—former CEO of Goodway Group—for a wide-ranging, unfiltered conversation about the future of marketing, agency reinvention, and what bold leadership really looks like. From offshoring and AI-driven disruption to the broken brand/agency model and why most boards ignore...