Podcast
Marketing Dilemmas
Hosted by Cognism · EN
It’s like therapy—for B2B marketers. On Marketing Dilemmas, host Liam Bartholomew unpacks one big marketing headache at a time—with help from leaders who’ve been there, failed, and figured out what works.
18episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Wrap Up Dilemma: Predictions for 2026 with Amy Collins, Demand Generation Content Manager at Cognism
Jan 2000:47:57Tap to summarizeA 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.
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The video confidence dilemma: Getting your team creating in the age of AI with Lisa Vecchio, Senior Director of Marketing at Veed
Jan 600:42:47Tap to summarizeIn 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
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The Unified AI GTM Dilemma with Brandon Redlinger, Fractional VP of Marketing
Dec 1600:42:43Tap to summarizeIn 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."
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The LinkedIn vs Google ads dilemma: Proving what actually drives B2B pipeline with Srikrishna Swaminathan, with Co-Founder and CEO of Factor.ai
Dec 200:42:29Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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The Paid vs Organic Reporting Dilemma, with Fran Langham, Director of Demand Generation at Cognism
Nov 1800:38:16Tap to summarizeWhen 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.
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The chat-based search dilemma: Is Keyword Research Obsolete? With Zak Ali, Finder
Nov 400:44:05Tap to summarizeChat-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.
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The Post-Test Drop-Off Dilemma: Why Wins Fade with Estelle Marasigan, Website and Creative Services Lead at Cognism
Oct 2100:40:05Tap to summarizeLiam 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.
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Beyond the ICP: Rethinking Reach in B2B Marketing with Deivis Rupslaukis
Oct 700:49:29Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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When Performance Drops: A Marketer’s Playbook for Diagnosing Problems with Jonathan Bland, Co-founder of Omni Lab
Sep 2300:49:47Tap to summarizeJonathan 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.
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The differentiation dilemma: How do you really stand out? With Sarah Breathnach, VP of Marketing at Hunters
Sep 900:48:50Tap to summarizeIn 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.
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