Marketing Moves

The world of digital marketing moves at a dizzying speed. How can we even begin to distinguish the signal from the noise? The good moves from the bad? Take it from the agency team that’s tripped as much as we’ve triumphed. We’re putting our best moves in the spotlight and proving step-by-step instructions to digitally scale your business.

Marketing Moves is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 124 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Marketing Moves, a business show with 124 episodes published.

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  Episode #124

  Is Your Marketing Making You Money?

  Sep 17, 202652 min

  Could you tell your CFO right now why marketing deserves next year's budget? Most people in the room couldn't. That gap, between marketing that looks good and marketing that provably makes money, is exactly what this episode is about. This is a special episode of Marketing Moves. Instead of our usual studio conversation, we're bringing you audio from our recent live event, "Is Your Marketing Making You Money?" Host Ashtyn Morris opens the night, and VividFront's President Madison Riddell moderates a conversation between Mike Linton, one of the most respected CMOs in the country with stops at Best Buy, eBay, Ancestry, and Progressive, and host of the CMO Confidential podcast, and Gerald Hetrick, a nearly 30 year veteran of the Cleveland startup scene and founder of CentSight, an AI financial analyst platform built for founders. In this episode, you'll learn: → Why Mike Linton built a "marketing CFO" role into every organization he led, and what that person is actually responsible for → How Gerald splits growth budgets into "investment" and "experiment" buckets so marketing spend survives the first sign of pressure → Why Mike never called it "marketing money" in the boardroom, and the language shift that changed how investors saw the function → Why AI produces average content by definition, and what that means for any brand trying to stand out right now → How to structure compensation so marketing teams and agencies get paid on sales and retention, not traffic or awareness → Why early stage startups should chase acquisition before brand, and the moment that priority should flip → The real story behind a costly global rebrand that outran the business it was meant to support → Two career defining failures from Mike Linton, including a campaign killed in the room before it ever ran → Why misalignment between sales and marketing is the single biggest predictor of a stalled B2B business → What it actually takes to walk into a board meeting and get approved for more budget next time Whether you're a founder without a CFO or CMO in house, a marketing leader trying to defend your budget, or an agency partner sitting across the table from finance, this conversation gives you a real framework for talking about marketing in the language finance already trusts.

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  Episode #123

  Gift Guides Are Making a Comeback: How to Optimize for AI Search This Holiday Season

  Sep 3, 20268 min

  Over 64% of holiday shoppers — and 84% of consumers aged 18 to 24 — now rely on AI tools to research purchases, turning standard ecommerce gift guides into prime real estate for generative search. In this episode, Jocelyn shares key takeaways from a VividFront War Room session on structuring product roundups so engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite and recommend your brand first. Discover the exact copywriting tweaks, schema fixes, and catalog positioning needed to maximize your holiday 2026 revenue. What You'll Learn: • The AI Search Shift: Why LLMs prioritize modular, "bucketed" gift guide structures over standard category pages • Conversion-First Copywriting: How to write self-contained product blurbs with immediate, recommendation-led first sentences • Query-Targeted Architecture: Why replacing generic categories with question-based headers increases search engine citation rates • Data & Inventory Signals: How to maintain real-time structured data (pricing, availability, reviews) and why volatile inventory hurts rankings • Small Catalog Solutions: Practical ways to reposition existing bundles under holiday persona themes without adding new SKUs • The #1 Audit Finding: Why missing review and rating data remains the most common gap in ecommerce gift guides — and how to fix it fast

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  Episode #121

  CGI + AI: The New Playbook for Brand Creative

  Aug 20, 202621 min

  AI has made it easier than ever to create content. But when everyone can create more, simply producing more isn't enough. In this Mini Moves episode, host Ashtyn Morris sits down with VividFront Lead Motion Designer Connor Wells to break down how CGI, motion design, and AI-assisted production are changing the way brands create content at scale without sacrificing quality or brand identity. From building accurate 3D product models to using AI to generate entirely new environments, Connor explains how brands can combine traditional creative expertise with emerging technology to produce more high-quality variations, move faster, and stand out in an increasingly crowded digital landscape. In this episode, you'll learn: → Why today's algorithms demand both creative diversity and quality → How CGI and AI work together to create scalable content without sacrificing product accuracy → The difference between CGI, 3D animation, and motion design → Why great animation starts with narrative, not movement → How brands can transform existing photography and creative into entirely new assets → How VividFront uses CGI and AI to test different environments and audiences without relying on expensive photoshoots → Why AI versus CGI is the wrong conversation and how the two can work together → How motion can become an extension of a brand's identity, just like its colors, typography, and voice → Why having a consistent creative vision matters even more as content production gets faster Whether you're a marketer trying to keep up with the demand for new creative, a brand leader looking for smarter ways to scale content, or simply curious about where AI fits into the creative process, this episode offers a look at how technology can expand what's possible without replacing the strategy and storytelling behind great creative.

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  Episode #120

  From Zero Revenue to the Inc. 5000: Inside Chagrinovations' Growth

  Aug 11, 202648 min

  Building a successful consumer brand takes more than a great product. Behind every item that makes it onto a retail shelf is an operation balancing product development, manufacturing, inventory, marketing, retail relationships, e-commerce, cash flow, and countless decisions consumers never see. In this episode of Marketing Moves, VividFront's President Madison Riddell sits down with Derek Naim, Chief Operating Officer of Chagrinovations, to pull back the curtain on what it really takes to build and scale consumer brands. Derek joined Chagrinovations in February 2020, leaving an established career to join a company with virtually no revenue just before a global pandemic. What started as a small operation focused on bringing innovative products to market has grown into a portfolio of consumer brands spanning household goods, pet products, sporting goods, supplements, and more. In this episode, you'll learn: → How Chagrinovations identifies gaps in the market and turns them into new consumer brands → Why solving problems for retailers became the foundation of the company's growth strategy → How retail and e-commerce work together to validate products and accelerate growth → What it takes to manage resources, priorities, and P&Ls across seven different brands → How TRGT went from an idea to a fully launched consumer brand in a matter of months → Why speed matters when the window of opportunity for a new category is small → How Chagrinovations and VividFront structured a revenue-share partnership to launch TRGT → What a viral moment taught both teams about inventory, agility, and moving quickly → Why marketing and operations have to work in lockstep to successfully scale a brand → How Derek approaches leadership, hiring great people, and giving his team room to make mistakes and grow Plus, Derek and Madison reveal a major milestone: Chagrinovations has officially been named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for the second consecutive year. Whether you're building a consumer brand, working to break into retail, scaling an e-commerce business, or leading a growing team, this episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the people, partnerships, and operational decisions that turn great ideas into scalable businesses.

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  Episode #119

  Inside the Launch of an AI Startup Built for Founders

  Jul 31, 202639 min

  Starting a company is exciting. It's also lonely, stressful, and filled with financial decisions that most founders were never trained to make. In this episode of Marketing Moves, host Ashtyn Morris welcomes back Gerald Hetrick, Founder & CEO of CentSight, for his second appearance on the show. After leading multiple startups over the past three decades, Gerald shares why he stepped back into the founder seat, how he's building an AI-native company from the ground up, and why he believes financial clarity is one of the biggest competitive advantages any growing business can have. In this episode, you'll learn: → Why Gerald chose to leave an established startup and build CentSight from scratch → How AI can help founders make faster, more confident financial decisions → Why financial fluency is one of the biggest challenges facing growing businesses → How CentSight combines AI with trusted financial data to eliminate guesswork → What it's really like launching an AI startup in today's rapidly evolving market → Gerald's go-to-market strategy, from founder-led sales to AI-powered marketing → Why authenticity and vulnerability have become his biggest growth levers on LinkedIn → The lessons 30 years of startup wins and failures have taught him about building companies that last Whether you're launching your first startup, leading a growing business, or exploring how AI is changing the way companies operate, this conversation offers an honest look at what it takes to build in today's market and why better financial decisions lead to better businesses.

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