The Smart Marketer Podcast

Episode Description What actually goes into building an ecommerce brand from zero? In this episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman takes you behind the scenes of Longer Together Pet Company , one of her favorite projects from 15 years in the industry. She shares why the Smart Marketer ownership team decided to build something new, the four things they wanted the business to have before they even...

Episode Description Where do you look when growth keeps stalling? Which AI tools are actually worth getting your team to use? When does retail make sense, and how do you know whether your business is truly growing or just getting bigger? For this episode, we pulled some of the best questions from an early-October Mentor Table session with Smart Marketer Founder Ezra Firestone, with Sam and Pep fro...

Episode Description What happens when your website starts acting less like a catalog and more like a salesperson? In this Mentor Table session, Molly Pittman sits down with Ankit Minocha and Ashish Khurana, co-founders of Atomz AI, to explore how AI is changing product discovery, search, and the way customers make buying decisions online. They look at what big platforms like Amazon and Walmart are...

Episode Description Automated email flows are easy to set up and easy to forget. That's exactly why they deserve a regular check-in. For this episode, we're pulling a conversation from Smart Ecommerce, a Smart Marketer course featuring Molly Pittman, John Grimshaw, and Laura Palladino. They break down where automation fits into the customer journey, which flows deserve your attention first, and ho...

Episode Description What does work-life balance actually look like when you're building businesses, leading teams, and trying to make room for the rest of your life? For this episode, we went back into the Smart Marketer archives and pulled three conversations from Balanced Being , a course Molly Pittman created around burnout, relationships, fulfillment, and building a healthier relationship with...

Episode Description Q4 can be one of the biggest revenue opportunities of the year, but only if you know when your customers are most likely to buy, how much you can afford to spend to acquire them, and which offers actually protect your profit. In this Mentor Table workshop, Smart Marketer CMO John Grimshaw walks through a practical Q4 planning framework built from real client data. He breaks dow...

Episode Description AI is moving beyond writing copy, generating images, and helping marketers complete isolated tasks. The bigger shift is what happens when AI becomes part of the operating system of the business itself. In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Devyn Merklin to talk about the evolution of Growth OS powered by Gary, the agentic system they're building and already using across...

Episode Description Why do some marketing experiences stick with us while others disappear almost immediately? In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Phill Agnew, host of Nudge, to explore the psychology behind how people judge value, remember experiences, and respond to marketing. Phill breaks down the peak-end effect, why the final moments of a customer experience can shape how the whole...

Episode 291: Building an Ecom Brand From Scratch: Inside Our First 60 Days Episode Description What does building a new ecommerce brand actually look like before you know whether it's going to work? In this episode, Smart Marketer Agency CEO Pep Hufen takes us inside the first 60 days of Longer Together, the pet supplement brand Smart Marketer launched with partners Michelle and Tyler from Living...

Episode Description What if increasing your average order value starts with something simpler than a new ad strategy or funnel? In this episode, we're giving you a look inside Mentor Table, Smart Marketer's private mastermind and coaching community for established ecommerce founders and their teams. Smart Marketer Founder Ezra Firestone uses Overtone and his other brands to show how expanding your...

Episode Description What actually matters when you're trying to scale a Meta ad account today, and what are media buyers still overcomplicating? In this behind-the-scenes episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman shares a real strategy call with the Cuddle Clones team and Marianne White from Smart Marketer's paid performance team. They work through an account that has recently undergone major offe...

Episode 288: The Case for Doing Hard Things Episode Description What happens when you remove social media from your phone for two weeks? And what can deliberately choosing the harder path teach you about what you're capable of? In this episode, we're giving you an inside peek at a real Smart Marketer team call. Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman shares two personal takeaways from a recent trip to Te...

Episode Description AI can help marketers create more ads faster, but volume means nothing if the creative lacks strategy. In this episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer Agency CEO Pep Hufen for a behind-the-scenes look at Thumbstop, the AI creative tool built to help direct-response marketers produce meaningful image and video ads without prompting every frame fro...

Episode Description Finding great creators is only half the battle. The real advantage comes from building a creative system that consistently turns creator content into high-performing ads. In this episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer's Creative Operations Manager, Melvin Cotton III, to unpack the behind-the-scenes processes that power hundreds of creative asset...

Episode Description The Meta ads landscape has changed, and trying to control every variable may now be doing more harm than good. In this episode, Smart Marketer CEO Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer Agency Senior Paid Performance Specialist Maryanne White, who manages some of the agency's largest Meta ad accounts. Maryanne shares what she's seeing inside those accounts, why performance...

Episode Description Could your ecommerce store face a website accessibility lawsuit without you realizing there's a problem? In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Carl and Brooke Wood of Antler Rings to discuss the web accessibility lawsuit their business is currently navigating. They share how the situation began with a settlement demand, what happened when they were formally served, and...

What happens when two childhood friends reconnect, build a life together, and end up creating businesses rooted in community, purpose, food, and rescue dogs? In this heartfelt episode, Molly sits down with her husband, Casey, to talk about their reconnection story, building Morley's Backyard in Danville, Kentucky, navigating entrepreneurship as a couple, honoring Molly's dad, and growing Fields of...

Episode Description Meta ads are still one of the most powerful growth channels for ecommerce brands, but 2026 has been anything but predictable. In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer Agency CEO Pep Hufen to unpack what they're seeing across client accounts right now, why Q1 felt strong for many brands, why Q2 has been more volatile, and what business owners should focus on...

Episode Description TikTok Shop is creating a totally different kind of opportunity for ecommerce brands, but it is not just another paid ads platform. In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer's Manager of Advertising, Dilyana Doychinova, for a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to lead paid performance teams, support media buyers, and stay ahead as Meta, TikTok Sho...

Episode Description Everybody can generate AI creative now. The real advantage is knowing what to make next. In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with Smart Marketer's Director of Creative, Ben Bennett, to unpack the AI-powered creative strategy workflow he's building inside the Smart Marketer creative department. Instead of using AI only to pump out more ads, Ben explains how to use it to ana...

Episode 279: Smart Marketer's 2026 Growth Playbook: What We're Building, Testing & Doubling Down On Episode Description What does growth look like when AI is changing every week, paid traffic is evolving, and your business has to keep adapting in real time? In this behind-the-scenes episode, Molly Pittman and John Grimshaw pull back the curtain on what Smart Marketer has been building, testing, an...

Episode Description AI tools are changing how people research, compare, and make buying decisions, and the brands that show up in those answers are going to have a massive advantage. In this episode, Molly Pittman sits down with entrepreneur and AEO expert Kasim Aslam to unpack what Answer Engine Optimization really is, how it differs from traditional SEO, and why founder-led content, real experti...

Episode Description AI can help your team move faster, work smarter, and free up hours of repetitive work… but only if you build the habits, systems, and ownership to actually use it. In this live session from Mentor Table Nashville, Rytis Lauris, co-founder and CEO of Omnisend, shares the six practical lessons his company learned while transforming a 200+ person organization into a more AI-native...

  Episode Description AI is changing how customers discover, research, and choose brands. If your business isn't showing up in AI-generated answers, you may be missing the next major wave of organic visibility. In this live session from Mentor Table Nashville, Julian Lopez from the Smart Marketer team breaks down AEO, Answer Engine Optimization, and what brands need to do now to become the recomme...

Episode 275: The Paid Ads Machine: Creative Systems That Scale in the Age of AI Episode Description What if your ad creative system could think more like Meta's algorithm? In this live session from Mentor Table Nashville, Smart Marketer's Director of Creative Ben Bennett and Creative Operations Manager Melvin Cotton III break down the exact system they use to plan, produce, analyze, and scale paid...