speaker-0: Everybody has to figure out AI. It's not an option. have to decide, you should decide. Not doing anything is not a decision. Or I guess it is a decision. It's just not the right decision. So it's saying, what should you be doing? It could be as simple as like training your team so they could answer emails faster if that's all you want to do. I mean, that's very limiting. The other thing we see a lot of on the AI front is people want all these new shiny tools, but like a lot of the tools they already are using and pay for have an AI component and they have to really look at that. I think the key takeaway, it's not one size fits all.
speaker-1: Welcome to the Incremental Marketer, a content series where we meet with top marketing executives and leaders across industries to help you drive growth in your business. Welcome to the incremental marketer. Today's episode is a special one. Our guest, Robin Zucker was the very first voice on the incremental marketer and it feels only right to have her back as the marketing world enters its next major transformation. She's built and led world-class marketing teams at some of the most iconic and complex brands in media, tech, and entertainment. From launching the social media presence at Yahoo to reinventing Playboy for a new generation. to serving as CMO of Codecademy where she drove record revenue and helped the company through its exit. Today, Robin works at the intersection of marketing growth and business transformation. She's been named a Business Insider CMO to watch. She's a board member at UCLA Anderson and the founder of the CMO practice where she helps Fortune 500 and PE back companies drive growth as a fractional CMO. And now as the co-founder and CMO of Renovar AI. She's helping companies navigate the biggest shift we've seen in marketing since the rise of the internet. Some marketers manage campaigns, others show up to help drive needed change in the industry. Robin Zucker has built a career doing exactly that. Robin, welcome back to the incremental marketer.
speaker-0: Great to be here, Paul, and always great to see you.
speaker-1: Excited to have this conversation. Truly, you were the very first guest on the incremental marketer when we filmed it down in Culver city, know, eons ago it feels like, but it was a real life episode, but I I've been really glad to be able to stay in touch and reconnect. And we've had some great conversations ever since then. And when you think back to that moment, what was happening in marketing then and what feels fundamentally different today?
speaker-0: and then real life too. I mean, I think obviously AI has been front and center, so it's a little bit more mature. I think more individuals have experimented with it, more companies have experimented with it. So I think that the biggest change right now that I'm seeing compared to last year is really on the consumer front. So I think businesses were dabbling in it trying to figure it out, probably not with enough structure, but now the consumer. usage has changed so much. I mean, if you look at kind of SEO, those numbers are down dramatically. Businesses like Google put AI answers front and center. So the consumer is really discovering or engage the consumer with the B2B audience is really discovering your brand or your product in an environment that you don't control. So that's a big, big change just in terms of how you design your business. That's important. And I think there's a maturity. in companies because I think they're understanding the impact AI can have and it's not a magic bullet. know, lot of the work I've done with companies, they bring us in with Renovar and they're like, we need to AI-ify, it's going to solve all the problems and then we get in. And if that operation layer isn't there, if they don't have, you know, clean data, a way to predict their pipeline, you can't leverage that automation and so forth. And I think the other piece too is just individuals in general, whether they're doing it for themselves personally or for their business or using the tools more, but it still has so much further to go. mean, in different companies or different levels of maturity, but the reality is, you know, similar to the commercial internet, which I can date myself, I was there at the beginning, you know, it's definitely at this inflection point. It's not a when, it's, you know, it's like a, how do we get this going and get it going faster in a way that isn't just a buzzword.
speaker-1: You've spent more time since we last spoke advising boards and CEOs and their boards. So how have these board conversations around marketing shifted in the past few years? Are they more sophisticated? Are they more demanding?
speaker-0: I think it varies by the board, but when I've come in, it's always been, you know, I speak the language of marketing, but I speak the language of the CEO, the CFO, ⁓ and the board when I talk about the work that I do. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. So really looking at not did we show up? Is marketing getting exposure? It's like, what did we influence? And not just what do we influence? What's the incremental impact? of the money that is being spent by marketing, which generally tends to be the largest budget organizations. I think there's a bigger awareness because I advise many companies, I often do come in to talk to the board and there's again varying levels of sophistication. But I think in that framework, I think the concept of attribution or correlation is more and more understood. So sometimes depending upon the board, there's questions around that. But if not, you know, again, my DNA is really to showcase the value that I'm creating.
speaker-1: The word incrementality is coming up more. it a buzzword or is it an understood fundamental in terms of how you operate?
speaker-0: I think it's understood. So sometimes it's coming in and I'm explaining it. mean, there's still, you know, there's still a lot of fixation on return on ad spend lifetime value. But I think that if it's not understood where they're asking, you know, the marketer or the CEO of the company that I'm working with, then it's definitely something we showcase. And this is, you know, dating back to, I don't know, three or four years ago. When I was at Code Academy and we just finalized the rollout of our attribution model that we worked on together, you know, that's quite a while, that obviously today would be much quicker with, you know, not just machine learning, but the AI components. You know, a lot of the work we did was not just having me, the marketer, come in and represent it, really bringing the finance team and the CFO along. It was making sure that it was aligning to what they needed. And so we had just been acquired, you know, public company CFO, and we were able to go in and showcase what increment mentality meant. So, you know, when you get that magic question as a marketer, if I gave you a million dollars, what could you do? It wasn't just say, we could spend it. It was saying, if you give me a million, I could give you back three, you know, so give or take. So I think, you know, that has changed. And again, it really varies by sophistication of board. And a lot of what I see, especially going in as a fractional leader, fractional marketer, I sometimes go in, I recently worked on a project where It was somebody actually I had talked to earlier on and they wanted to bring someone fractional and they're like, we really want someone full time. So then they bring somebody full time. They don't understand what marketing can and can't do. It just didn't work. And so then I come back in as a fractional to kind of operationalize delivering results that speak to the CFO, CEO on board.
speaker-1: So it's the combination of your fractional expertise and do you always want a full-time hire in place to help you? is that the goal, I guess, in terms of your-
speaker-0: Ideally, there's people on the team that are full-time. Sometimes I'll go in and there might be a CMO there. This is a case where there was a CMO and then there wasn't a CMO because it wasn't the right CMO. Sometimes it's that. Especially just kind of dovetailing a bit to the concept of fractional, the benefit oftentimes is that sometimes companies don't really understand the marketing function because it can mean so many things. Because it really grew up as a communication role, it's sometimes either thought about brand or just demand and not really kind of being on the forefront of change. So, that's kind of even how I ended up going into Codecademy. I ended up, guess, essentially hiring myself in that case, but it was really like, how do we structure the team? What type of person do we need? And really working with the leadership team, which is what I always do when I go in as a fractional CMO, to translate to them so they understand what marketing can do and what that impact can be. And because there's such a wide range, it's not as standardized. You know, if you're a CFO, you're a CFO. If you're a product person, there's very structured things. So it's really, you know, a little bit of that education and working cross-functionally, which is kind of at the heart of what we do.
speaker-1: Right. And you've been a fractional CMO and now you've co-founded an AI advisory firm, Renovar. And so what's changed? I guess what made you realize that this wasn't just another technology wave, but more of a structural.
speaker-0: Well, I still do both. So it's kind of called poly work, I guess, but it's, it's in some ways it's the difference with Renovar is I still think of the team is fractional, but we're like a fractional cross-functional operating team. can go in and do digital transfer ratio with marketing and with AI within marketing, but really the thesis we had going into it, I mean, really started first with private equity. was just. Companies needed to better operationalize growth, especially in the private equity front. Our funds, there wasn't as much capital, exiting was harder. so companies either needed to show more growth, show certain metrics ⁓ or milestones to exit. And so we came in with the thesis that AI can help this and that it wasn't just a marketing thing, it was really cross-functional. So we have a CTO, Chief Revenue Officer, Operations. So really coming in at that cross-functional leadership level. For the most part, we really are riding shotgun with the other C-suite leaders, but coming in and assessing what the company needs, that's where you have to start is AI can do a lot, but what are we solving for? So where are you stuck? Are you a company that wants to exit in a year? Sometimes it's that. So do you have a predictable pipeline? Can you forecast? Is there opportunities for automation to get there faster? So where are you at in that journey? And what we've seen pretty consistently is especially with private equity and it's different with other companies, especially, know, sometimes private equity can be a little bit financially engineered. And so that operating function isn't necessarily as strong because they're able to get to their numbers. And so sometimes there's big bottlenecks like data. So, you know, if your Salesforce platform instance isn't set up right, you can't predict your pipeline. If you can't predict your pipeline, How are you going to consistent revenue over a period of time? Or how do you know that not everything is good? Here's an area that you need to fix. And while AI can help with that, really to get the scale of AI, both from getting insights from data and automation, need these pieces in place. So it's never one size fits all is what we've seen on this journey.
speaker-1: wonder what grade you give your typical initial audit when you look at those issues within these organizations. then, know, broadly speaking, is it, is it a passing grade?
speaker-0: C minus or I mean sometimes F. I mean one company definitely an F because it just needed heavy lifting. Because it just depends if you're trying to do it holistically or in one level, but it's C or you can maybe do a few little things on the side, but you can't really create it as an operating layer. I think I mentioned to you, I'm doing a discussion next week on how AI can help accelerate and exit, which we've had a lot of discussions with some of the clients we work with. And, you know, I think the group I'm coming in is going to expect some like cool bells and whistles with like all these AI tools, but, know, fundamentally there's like some principles of exiting, you know, predictable pipeline, you know, are you, are you able to grow the way you want? Where are the margin opportunities? And if you don't know those. or don't have a way to predict them, then AI isn't gonna help you. So you really need to make sure the operations are at a strong enough suit. So most companies are not, I think, in a great place, but I give them grade from a perspective of engagement because there's a lot of companies that aren't even thinking about it. There's companies we come in, they don't have policies, the different teams are doing different things. So when someone's coming together with that, so it's just varying degrees of know, sophistication and readiness. And sometimes it just sits in a department. Marketing always tends to be early, in part because, you know, there's always the consumers changing, but there's so much, whether it's, you know, leveraging things that already built into platforms like Google and others, or into the platform that you might already use. So we're always thinking about what's next and on the forefront, but, you know, I've always come at it, you know, back to my days at Yahoo, where I started the social media practice. It was driven from this marketing need, but as we dug in, we created a center of excellence across all functions. Everything from legal to customer service to product, just because it wasn't just a marketing thing and we really needed to think about it cross-functionally. AI is to another level. You have to understand your piece of the business, but ultimately, AI can make you more efficient. It could give you more insights. It depends what you're solving for. But ultimately, it's not just solving for the function, it should be solving for the business.
speaker-1: fascinating and you have gone through a whole year in this cycle where AI when you started and AI right now are almost completely different and The promise that you see right now. How different is it than when you started the firm?
speaker-0: I mean, the tools are better, right? I think that helps. And I think going into a leadership team that has more exposure to it, you know, at this point it's mainstream. You know, we've got Super Bowl ads for AI. You know, it's kind of, it's out there. It's not like you're an early adopter anymore if you're using it, even if it's as simple as like, I'm going to plan my trip using AI. I think for the most part, people are using it definitely when we, have like a primer that we use. We've spoken at a few different events. And some of it is like, if you're a leader, you just have to be using it for yourself just to understand the individual productivity. So it's definitely matured, but again, it varies by organization. Clearly tech firms, like, so talking to somebody that works at AWS, they are so many light years ahead, it's fundamental to what they do. So it's in varying stages and companies know they need to do it. And sometimes if they're too small, they don't have the people power to do it. The leadership. doesn't get it. So it's similar in some ways to back in the days when we were at Yahoo and we trying to create share shift to digital, but the pressure wasn't the same, right? I mean, there was a slow roll to that and now it's mainstream, but AI is a tool that's empowering individuals. It's empowering your audience, whether they're B2B or consumer. And there's definitely an efficiency layer that now boards and CEOs are saying, how do we get there? So there's a lot more complexity to it.
speaker-1: I've seen your ROI cases for what you've done broadly. Is it always an ROI positive investment and how have you seen it play out?
speaker-0: Yeah, it's funny. was just at an event doing a deep dive on this and I think it's hard to measure some of it because how do you define what you invest in it? I mean, there's a base layer of having to do it, right? You have to get policies placed and do these things. So I think it's right now, it's what are you measuring when you do the thing that you do? So definitely ROI positive in the sense that we went into one client. and a lot of pressure from the board. They had some business benefits from COVID because of some of these grants and things. And so their growth had slowed down. They were going after a new audience that they hadn't really operationalized around. So even doing things like getting them ready for AI and being able to go out there with a new structure that was like the blueprint for automation, we did this in a period of a few months and created a million dollar pipeline. So definitely ROI positive from the investment they had with our company. So it's really, it's like anything else. It's like when we worked on proving that we should spend more on YouTube, it's like, how do you translate that? It's not as clean as like return on ad spend necessarily. So it's really, it's really showcasing that value. And as a, as a company coming in, whether I'm coming in as Fractional CMO or coming in as Renovar, we always showcase that also just even in part of the ROI of doing. this kind of onboarding for AI and the cleanup, we saved this one company 600,000. In addition to building, you know, a seven figure, actually it was more than a million, seven figure pipeline and getting that muscle there to be able to go back to the board. We also saved around $600,000 in the marketing tech stack because there was quite a few tools they didn't need. And then eventually you can look at, we need less people answering the customer service calls. And we've seen that as well. So it really varies by which stage you're at. So you're always trying to showcase that value creation.
speaker-1: you mentioned from the start of the firm, what the your thesis was in terms of what PE companies needed till now. How is it different right now? And I also just curious, the state of the P market, given uncertainty, given interest rates, given where we are, can you talk about those two dynamics?
speaker-0: Yeah. I think in the P market front, I mentioned I'm doing an event speaking next week. think everyone's really thinking ahead of, okay, markets are a little bit better. How do we exit? So they're getting, and we've had a few clients like that where they're getting a year ahead. So it's the same thing going in and doing that audit and saying, where are your pain points? And can we fix those pain points and then layer on AI? So it could be predictive analytics. It could be automation. You know, lot of companies, there's a lot you could do within the sales kind of marketing front to be more efficient in terms of reaching audiences and follow up and follow through. But if you don't have the right data, you can't do it. So I think as companies are looking to exit or even one company that we're working with, they're onboarding several different companies and bringing them together. How do you layer on that AI layer to make you more efficient? And so as you do that, there's just the baseline of getting the operations set up, but then how are you measuring? that efficiency is important. I think non-PE, there's a lot of, you know, the word transformation is gonna be an ongoing word. There's a lot of digital transformation. At this point, every type of company is doing digital. They have a website, they have a social media presence, they might be spending money on paid media. Sometimes there's just a lack of integration. So while they're doing digital, they're not necessarily really thinking of it from an integrated perspective. a lot of times they get lost in the consumer journey or the customer journey, I should say, because it could be B2B. Especially now, I think that one big factor with AI that will impact all organizations is discoverability. As search engine optimization is an important attribute of the marketing landscape for B2B and consumer companies, and that's how you get discovered to some degree. ⁓ Now, with both Google going to... Google answers that just appear and you don't click on blue links, you don't go to a website, and with just all of the chat bots, it's like, how do you first of all show up? And how do you show up in a way that's still reflecting what you do? Because a lot of what we're seeing is happening is traffic is going down. I think there's still opportunities for SEO and optimization there. And all the work you put into that does help with AE or GE or whatever you call it. But what we're seeing is that when people do come to the website, one of my clients from June 2025 to January 2026, they have 3X engagement on their site, meaning people are spending more time on the site, more page views. Traffic is down a bit, but we're not necessarily getting a tremendous amount of like you click from OpenAI to this website, but people are doing their research. And so by the time they come to the site, they're more informed. They're further down the funnel, the funnel that is no longer linear. So being mindful of that is important because that's an area you need to stay ahead or you'll be behind.
speaker-1: Did you enable them in any tooling to help them with that? And especially the AEO, GEO front.
speaker-0: It's a work in progress. So, you when I come into an organization, I start with just like, okay, where are you guys at? How do you measure all these different things? So they use a few tools. mean, SEMrush has some tools that has, you know, some of the AI. You can see how many mentions, things like that, that you might get. And then we're also finalizing with kind of AEO, GEO first tools. Cause a lot of it is just getting it set up to start. so that you can understand, like there's not huge traffic from there yet, but especially, you you want to get cited and do all these things. There's a lot of work, this one company, this one client in particular, there's a lot of opportunity, but just SEO and cleaning that up and those will all come together. So it's really a big part of what we're doing is like a whole new website strategy, because website is no longer a channel. It's the, you know, it's your source of authority, right? Like, are you credible? What kind of content do you have? What kind of content do you need? so that you can show up and be discoverable. And that's really important because that's always been an important component. You don't want to just be paying to be out there. You want to show up where people, you don't want to fish where the fish are essentially.
speaker-1: That's a great framework, the source of authority. Have you used that in your, in your CMO practice?
speaker-0: Yeah, this client in particular, they're very fortunate because they've been around for a long time. They are a source of authority. ⁓ even in doing kind of our due diligence and analysis, ⁓ know, there's a lot of opportunity and the discoverability in the traditional phase where they're not showing up and they should. And then the next piece is like better understanding how do they show up as we make changes? Because there is a, ⁓ a bigger opportunity with AEO, GEO to have an impact quickly. SEO takes time to change how you show up there, but there's still that opportunity. But anything you do with an SEO or setting up schema so the website is readable, I mean, the difference is discoverability is not just a human thing, right? I think that's one of the big changes that people are starting to understand. The machines are finding it, right? So, know, it's different than SEO where clearly Google is finding your link and putting it out there, but the consumer's deciding to click. Now what's happening is Google's gonna synthesize what might be on your site or open AI, and that's gonna show up. And so I do think, and there's been a lot of things I've read when we think about the future, eventually it might be just like, How do you have ads to market to an agent? So it all becomes, yeah, mean, that's definitely the future, but you can't start where there, you wanna know where you wanna go, but you need to like, what's the foundational things. You need and you really need that muscle as an organization. So sometimes a lot of the work I do is just also around really basic, like what's the channel health? Like if we look at the website, like all of a sudden we have 3X engagement. Why? You know, not only do you want to check those numbers, but like, why are they happening? So you could better understand where do you invest your time and energy.
speaker-1: makes sense. your CMO role has always been under pressure. We've talked about that in the, in the last episode. We've shared notes on that throughout your career. What does a successful CMO in 2026 actually look like?
speaker-0: Well, I mean, I think there's two different frameworks. One is for fractional, but they overlap and one is for full-time. I think you have to be, to be successful today. think even when I started as my first CMO role, you know, there were CMOs that still didn't get into the weeds and understand how everything worked. Their team did it, or they were so up here that they didn't understand the fundamentals. And I really think you need to be well versed in it. So I've been fortunate. Kind growing up a digital first, professionally growing up at digital first companies, always being hands-on enough to understand it. The speed of change is something that not everyone is comfortable with. So you really need to have, you know, radical adaptability ⁓ and to able to your team through that. And not just your direct team, it's really like, how do you translate that to your cross-functional teams? I've talked about this before. It's really the chief. market officer, not the chief marketing officer. It's not just the act of marketing, it's understanding the market. So it's understanding the consumer, the customer, they're changing, right? We're the forefront of that. So understanding that and what their expectations are, understanding the tools, that's really important. How do I lead transformation? How to influence it? So, you know, oftentimes, and I was still at Code Academy when AI came out, you know, I was a person at the leadership table that's like, okay, let's start talking about this AI thing. It's new. You know, and obviously the first thing would be like the CFO saying, okay, do we need less people on the content team? Like, you know, how do we cut costs or whatever? But I'm always really me coming saying we need to start experimenting with this and doing this. So we've always tend to be at the forefront. And I think the other thing about being a CMO and you know, all of this really leads into the foundation of Fractional is pattern recognition because we're always seeing that change. We've been through many changes before. It's understanding when is it. you know, ⁓ this is so cool. We have this little bell and whistle versus this is really transformational.
speaker-1: And to your point on the skillset of a CMO, think we've seen this transformation. I'm wondering if you're seeing it as well, just the room at the board level and the operating level, the CMO has taken that operations role even more in the organization and is the right hand to the CEO even more than I've seen in the past. Does that translate into what you're seeing as well?
speaker-0: It is. mean, again, I think it depends on the CMO, right? But that is, it's that concept of chief market officer that you really have a handle on the customer. And because of pace of marketing and change, we're really at the forefront of what's next. So yeah, I do believe that, but I think it's always a place you have to kind of create. know, nobody is just sitting there saying, all right, marketing is going to do this. Yeah, they always think marketing is a magic bullet, right? So. There's just a lot of education. And that's why, you know, especially as a fractional CMO, often I come in and people think they need this thing. And then I'm doing this thing because they don't have a big enough perspective on it. Cause I don't understand sometimes what a, what a CMO could do.
speaker-1: You've also have this leverage point as a, as a CMO of internal as well as external parties. And now you have AI that can, that can help across all of it. We've talked about in the previous episode, the use of outside talent, not just in-house, but, but you know, outsourcing. So where are you at right now in terms of the balance between in-house, in-source teams and fractional or full-time external, either agency. or measurement or other tooling that you.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it varies by client. mean, one client by design, they're very agency heavy. They have kind of core people in house. That's what I'm working on really with digital transformation. Part of it is they need to bring some of the right people in house for it. It varies. I mean, look, a Fortune 500 company, know, or Fortune 100 is going to be different than a mid-market company. So especially kind of more in the mid-market arena. Even if they want to hire a CMO full-time, they just can't wait the six months cycle. need that start. So I might come in and build out that foundation. Look at the team, kind of similar to what I with Codecademy. Look at the team and how they should be structured and where that talent layer is needed. And depending upon the maturity of the organization, you sometimes they'll go in one company in particular, they're bringing four different companies together to create one. So there's like all the traditional like, what's the brand and so forth. But it's also What do you need, right? Who do you need to be full-time? Do you eventually need a full-time CMO? You might, you might not. Or, sometimes I'll get things set up and then they'll bring a VP of marketing in and I'll still be there to coach and provide oversight. What are the functions you need 100 %? What are the functions you might be? So for instance, sometimes I brought in like a CRM expert or a paid media expert because they don't need that role full-time. So it's really looking across what's needed. But there's also, when I think about the marketing team of the future, there are all these tools. So how do you set up the toolkit for that organization with AI so they don't need all of, you know, the same kind of overhead we needed previously. When I come in as a CMO, sometimes it's just the speed of change. So one of the clients I'm working with right now, it's digital transformation, but it's like, if AI wasn't here, they probably wouldn't be, feel it is as urgent and it's not all AI. So it's really how do you think about. the digital ecosystem layer. They do digital, but everything's kind of separate. And pattern recognition. I've done so many things before that even if I haven't done it, I could get in, I can assess an organization, kind of looking at where there are gaps and then understanding how we can close them in general, how AI can be layered on. Those are really important. And the way I operate as a fractional, I definitely do strategy work, but I have an operator mindset. So we'll often see it through to execution. Generally, I need to be working with internal people. I can't, you you definitely need the folks that are kind of in the trenches doing that. Usually the fractional piece, it could be like, you know, sometimes they're, they want a full time. They don't know what they need. They don't need, they don't need the full time. They need the full impact, right? They don't necessarily need that investment layer, but they need that setup or transformation. think a lot with AI, there's a lot of overlap with the CMO practice and run of our AI. just depends on the scope of the project, but. Everybody has to figure out AI. It's not an option. have to decide. You should decide. Not doing anything is not a decision. Or I guess it is a decision. It's just not the right decision. So it's saying, what should you be doing? It could be as simple as like training your team so they could answer emails faster if that's all you want to do. I that's very limiting. And there's so many tools out there. So many tools. The other thing we see a lot of on the AI front is You know, people want all these new shiny tools, but like a lot of the tools they already are using and pay for have an AI component. And they have to really look at that. So I think the key takeaway, it's not one size fits all.
speaker-1: Right. And you have so much more velocity of experience in the fractional role. I how many partners do you have in a given year as a CMO? Traditionally doesn't get that kind of velocity. It talks to me a little bit more about why our company's bringing in fractional CMOs more and more now, as opposed to a traditional.
speaker-0: I mean, sometimes it's a ⁓ bang for your buck. And by that, I mean, I don't like to talk it's value creation, right? Like you, need somebody to lead the team, but you might not need a CMO, but you need that experience and understanding and pattern recognition. And another big thing I do is just executive communication. So a lot of the times with some of these teams, they don't know how to translate it to a CEO or CFO speed to market. They just don't have the internal expertise and experience and they really need somebody to come in and help them figure that out. And then sometimes somebody leaves, they're trying to figure out what they need. And so it's really that speed to market. I've met some on in two weeks later, a week later, I've been working for them and doing things and within three months having an impact. So it's just a matter of understanding. Cause I think the concept of fractional. Not as new as when I was first starting talking about it like six or seven years ago, but it means a lot of things to a lot of people. So it still needs that definition for whoever's hiring you so they understand how they fully take advantage of you. But yeah, mean, it's a win-win because it's also, it's like if organizations are going through change, you get there faster and then you decide what's needed. What do you need if you do need a full-time hire? What is needed? Who's that right person? And having that. fractional CMO ride shotgun with the team and with the CEO provides, you know, really good head start, you know, that depth of expertise so that you bring the right person, the right type of people on board.
speaker-1: We go back a long ways in terms of our partnership on Codecademy and others. What was your experience with a foundational modeling effort in terms of building incrementality? And then now that we have the AI enablement on R and other models, what's important with that piece?
speaker-0: I think in general, the incrementality before we implemented it specifically at Codecademy, we were looking at the platforms, the Googles, the Metas data. And that gives you a very specific point of view. It's giving their attribution. might not be all last click, but it's not looking at the whole universe. So think that's an important piece. So having that foundational model is really important. The ability to layer on all the things you could do is... AI, especially once the data is in a good place, which shows me how the foundational model it is, it enables you guys with us to respond much more quickly. So it's been really important because you get those insights and so you don't have to wait as long to figure out how to keep optimizing and tweaking what's out in the market.
speaker-1: Right. And we've seen that go the opposite way where there's an assumption with AI that if you give it all of your data, it will understand incrementality and come to the right conclusions without a foundational model, which is your moat as a brand. You are not giving the AI technology, LLM layers, the right context. Robin, we've covered a ton from how marketing has evolved since you are our very first guest and AI transformation and board level dynamics and pressure and on the modern CMO role and opportunities. It's great to get your perspective. Thank you for the candor and for coming back to the incremental marketer. How can people get in touch with you?
speaker-0: LinkedIn is probably the number one. So Robin Zucker, I have a website, robinzucker.com, or you can check out renovar.ai. ⁓
speaker-1: And for all our listeners out there, thank you for joining us on today's episode of the incremental marketer. Stay tuned for more voices, more lessons and more proof points that incremental moves can drive big growth. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, and share, and join us for more episodes with the leaders shaping the future of marketing.
speaker-1: Welcome to the Incremental Marketer, a content series where we meet with top marketing executives and leaders across industries to help you drive growth in your business. Welcome to the incremental marketer. Today's episode is a special one. Our guest, Robin Zucker was the very first voice on the incremental marketer and it feels only right to have her back as the marketing world enters its next major transformation. She's built and led world-class marketing teams at some of the most iconic and complex brands in media, tech, and entertainment. From launching the social media presence at Yahoo to reinventing Playboy for a new generation. to serving as CMO of Codecademy where she drove record revenue and helped the company through its exit. Today, Robin works at the intersection of marketing growth and business transformation. She's been named a Business Insider CMO to watch. She's a board member at UCLA Anderson and the founder of the CMO practice where she helps Fortune 500 and PE back companies drive growth as a fractional CMO. And now as the co-founder and CMO of Renovar AI. She's helping companies navigate the biggest shift we've seen in marketing since the rise of the internet. Some marketers manage campaigns, others show up to help drive needed change in the industry. Robin Zucker has built a career doing exactly that. Robin, welcome back to the incremental marketer.
speaker-0: Great to be here, Paul, and always great to see you.
speaker-1: Excited to have this conversation. Truly, you were the very first guest on the incremental marketer when we filmed it down in Culver city, know, eons ago it feels like, but it was a real life episode, but I I've been really glad to be able to stay in touch and reconnect. And we've had some great conversations ever since then. And when you think back to that moment, what was happening in marketing then and what feels fundamentally different today?
speaker-0: and then real life too. I mean, I think obviously AI has been front and center, so it's a little bit more mature. I think more individuals have experimented with it, more companies have experimented with it. So I think that the biggest change right now that I'm seeing compared to last year is really on the consumer front. So I think businesses were dabbling in it trying to figure it out, probably not with enough structure, but now the consumer. usage has changed so much. I mean, if you look at kind of SEO, those numbers are down dramatically. Businesses like Google put AI answers front and center. So the consumer is really discovering or engage the consumer with the B2B audience is really discovering your brand or your product in an environment that you don't control. So that's a big, big change just in terms of how you design your business. That's important. And I think there's a maturity. in companies because I think they're understanding the impact AI can have and it's not a magic bullet. know, lot of the work I've done with companies, they bring us in with Renovar and they're like, we need to AI-ify, it's going to solve all the problems and then we get in. And if that operation layer isn't there, if they don't have, you know, clean data, a way to predict their pipeline, you can't leverage that automation and so forth. And I think the other piece too is just individuals in general, whether they're doing it for themselves personally or for their business or using the tools more, but it still has so much further to go. mean, in different companies or different levels of maturity, but the reality is, you know, similar to the commercial internet, which I can date myself, I was there at the beginning, you know, it's definitely at this inflection point. It's not a when, it's, you know, it's like a, how do we get this going and get it going faster in a way that isn't just a buzzword.
speaker-1: You've spent more time since we last spoke advising boards and CEOs and their boards. So how have these board conversations around marketing shifted in the past few years? Are they more sophisticated? Are they more demanding?
speaker-0: I think it varies by the board, but when I've come in, it's always been, you know, I speak the language of marketing, but I speak the language of the CEO, the CFO, ⁓ and the board when I talk about the work that I do. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. So really looking at not did we show up? Is marketing getting exposure? It's like, what did we influence? And not just what do we influence? What's the incremental impact? of the money that is being spent by marketing, which generally tends to be the largest budget organizations. I think there's a bigger awareness because I advise many companies, I often do come in to talk to the board and there's again varying levels of sophistication. But I think in that framework, I think the concept of attribution or correlation is more and more understood. So sometimes depending upon the board, there's questions around that. But if not, you know, again, my DNA is really to showcase the value that I'm creating.
speaker-1: The word incrementality is coming up more. it a buzzword or is it an understood fundamental in terms of how you operate?
speaker-0: I think it's understood. So sometimes it's coming in and I'm explaining it. mean, there's still, you know, there's still a lot of fixation on return on ad spend lifetime value. But I think that if it's not understood where they're asking, you know, the marketer or the CEO of the company that I'm working with, then it's definitely something we showcase. And this is, you know, dating back to, I don't know, three or four years ago. When I was at Code Academy and we just finalized the rollout of our attribution model that we worked on together, you know, that's quite a while, that obviously today would be much quicker with, you know, not just machine learning, but the AI components. You know, a lot of the work we did was not just having me, the marketer, come in and represent it, really bringing the finance team and the CFO along. It was making sure that it was aligning to what they needed. And so we had just been acquired, you know, public company CFO, and we were able to go in and showcase what increment mentality meant. So, you know, when you get that magic question as a marketer, if I gave you a million dollars, what could you do? It wasn't just say, we could spend it. It was saying, if you give me a million, I could give you back three, you know, so give or take. So I think, you know, that has changed. And again, it really varies by sophistication of board. And a lot of what I see, especially going in as a fractional leader, fractional marketer, I sometimes go in, I recently worked on a project where It was somebody actually I had talked to earlier on and they wanted to bring someone fractional and they're like, we really want someone full time. So then they bring somebody full time. They don't understand what marketing can and can't do. It just didn't work. And so then I come back in as a fractional to kind of operationalize delivering results that speak to the CFO, CEO on board.
speaker-1: So it's the combination of your fractional expertise and do you always want a full-time hire in place to help you? is that the goal, I guess, in terms of your-
speaker-0: Ideally, there's people on the team that are full-time. Sometimes I'll go in and there might be a CMO there. This is a case where there was a CMO and then there wasn't a CMO because it wasn't the right CMO. Sometimes it's that. Especially just kind of dovetailing a bit to the concept of fractional, the benefit oftentimes is that sometimes companies don't really understand the marketing function because it can mean so many things. Because it really grew up as a communication role, it's sometimes either thought about brand or just demand and not really kind of being on the forefront of change. So, that's kind of even how I ended up going into Codecademy. I ended up, guess, essentially hiring myself in that case, but it was really like, how do we structure the team? What type of person do we need? And really working with the leadership team, which is what I always do when I go in as a fractional CMO, to translate to them so they understand what marketing can do and what that impact can be. And because there's such a wide range, it's not as standardized. You know, if you're a CFO, you're a CFO. If you're a product person, there's very structured things. So it's really, you know, a little bit of that education and working cross-functionally, which is kind of at the heart of what we do.
speaker-1: Right. And you've been a fractional CMO and now you've co-founded an AI advisory firm, Renovar. And so what's changed? I guess what made you realize that this wasn't just another technology wave, but more of a structural.
speaker-0: Well, I still do both. So it's kind of called poly work, I guess, but it's, it's in some ways it's the difference with Renovar is I still think of the team is fractional, but we're like a fractional cross-functional operating team. can go in and do digital transfer ratio with marketing and with AI within marketing, but really the thesis we had going into it, I mean, really started first with private equity. was just. Companies needed to better operationalize growth, especially in the private equity front. Our funds, there wasn't as much capital, exiting was harder. so companies either needed to show more growth, show certain metrics ⁓ or milestones to exit. And so we came in with the thesis that AI can help this and that it wasn't just a marketing thing, it was really cross-functional. So we have a CTO, Chief Revenue Officer, Operations. So really coming in at that cross-functional leadership level. For the most part, we really are riding shotgun with the other C-suite leaders, but coming in and assessing what the company needs, that's where you have to start is AI can do a lot, but what are we solving for? So where are you stuck? Are you a company that wants to exit in a year? Sometimes it's that. So do you have a predictable pipeline? Can you forecast? Is there opportunities for automation to get there faster? So where are you at in that journey? And what we've seen pretty consistently is especially with private equity and it's different with other companies, especially, know, sometimes private equity can be a little bit financially engineered. And so that operating function isn't necessarily as strong because they're able to get to their numbers. And so sometimes there's big bottlenecks like data. So, you know, if your Salesforce platform instance isn't set up right, you can't predict your pipeline. If you can't predict your pipeline, How are you going to consistent revenue over a period of time? Or how do you know that not everything is good? Here's an area that you need to fix. And while AI can help with that, really to get the scale of AI, both from getting insights from data and automation, need these pieces in place. So it's never one size fits all is what we've seen on this journey.
speaker-1: wonder what grade you give your typical initial audit when you look at those issues within these organizations. then, know, broadly speaking, is it, is it a passing grade?
speaker-0: C minus or I mean sometimes F. I mean one company definitely an F because it just needed heavy lifting. Because it just depends if you're trying to do it holistically or in one level, but it's C or you can maybe do a few little things on the side, but you can't really create it as an operating layer. I think I mentioned to you, I'm doing a discussion next week on how AI can help accelerate and exit, which we've had a lot of discussions with some of the clients we work with. And, you know, I think the group I'm coming in is going to expect some like cool bells and whistles with like all these AI tools, but, know, fundamentally there's like some principles of exiting, you know, predictable pipeline, you know, are you, are you able to grow the way you want? Where are the margin opportunities? And if you don't know those. or don't have a way to predict them, then AI isn't gonna help you. So you really need to make sure the operations are at a strong enough suit. So most companies are not, I think, in a great place, but I give them grade from a perspective of engagement because there's a lot of companies that aren't even thinking about it. There's companies we come in, they don't have policies, the different teams are doing different things. So when someone's coming together with that, so it's just varying degrees of know, sophistication and readiness. And sometimes it just sits in a department. Marketing always tends to be early, in part because, you know, there's always the consumers changing, but there's so much, whether it's, you know, leveraging things that already built into platforms like Google and others, or into the platform that you might already use. So we're always thinking about what's next and on the forefront, but, you know, I've always come at it, you know, back to my days at Yahoo, where I started the social media practice. It was driven from this marketing need, but as we dug in, we created a center of excellence across all functions. Everything from legal to customer service to product, just because it wasn't just a marketing thing and we really needed to think about it cross-functionally. AI is to another level. You have to understand your piece of the business, but ultimately, AI can make you more efficient. It could give you more insights. It depends what you're solving for. But ultimately, it's not just solving for the function, it should be solving for the business.
speaker-1: fascinating and you have gone through a whole year in this cycle where AI when you started and AI right now are almost completely different and The promise that you see right now. How different is it than when you started the firm?
speaker-0: I mean, the tools are better, right? I think that helps. And I think going into a leadership team that has more exposure to it, you know, at this point it's mainstream. You know, we've got Super Bowl ads for AI. You know, it's kind of, it's out there. It's not like you're an early adopter anymore if you're using it, even if it's as simple as like, I'm going to plan my trip using AI. I think for the most part, people are using it definitely when we, have like a primer that we use. We've spoken at a few different events. And some of it is like, if you're a leader, you just have to be using it for yourself just to understand the individual productivity. So it's definitely matured, but again, it varies by organization. Clearly tech firms, like, so talking to somebody that works at AWS, they are so many light years ahead, it's fundamental to what they do. So it's in varying stages and companies know they need to do it. And sometimes if they're too small, they don't have the people power to do it. The leadership. doesn't get it. So it's similar in some ways to back in the days when we were at Yahoo and we trying to create share shift to digital, but the pressure wasn't the same, right? I mean, there was a slow roll to that and now it's mainstream, but AI is a tool that's empowering individuals. It's empowering your audience, whether they're B2B or consumer. And there's definitely an efficiency layer that now boards and CEOs are saying, how do we get there? So there's a lot more complexity to it.
speaker-1: I've seen your ROI cases for what you've done broadly. Is it always an ROI positive investment and how have you seen it play out?
speaker-0: Yeah, it's funny. was just at an event doing a deep dive on this and I think it's hard to measure some of it because how do you define what you invest in it? I mean, there's a base layer of having to do it, right? You have to get policies placed and do these things. So I think it's right now, it's what are you measuring when you do the thing that you do? So definitely ROI positive in the sense that we went into one client. and a lot of pressure from the board. They had some business benefits from COVID because of some of these grants and things. And so their growth had slowed down. They were going after a new audience that they hadn't really operationalized around. So even doing things like getting them ready for AI and being able to go out there with a new structure that was like the blueprint for automation, we did this in a period of a few months and created a million dollar pipeline. So definitely ROI positive from the investment they had with our company. So it's really, it's like anything else. It's like when we worked on proving that we should spend more on YouTube, it's like, how do you translate that? It's not as clean as like return on ad spend necessarily. So it's really, it's really showcasing that value. And as a, as a company coming in, whether I'm coming in as Fractional CMO or coming in as Renovar, we always showcase that also just even in part of the ROI of doing. this kind of onboarding for AI and the cleanup, we saved this one company 600,000. In addition to building, you know, a seven figure, actually it was more than a million, seven figure pipeline and getting that muscle there to be able to go back to the board. We also saved around $600,000 in the marketing tech stack because there was quite a few tools they didn't need. And then eventually you can look at, we need less people answering the customer service calls. And we've seen that as well. So it really varies by which stage you're at. So you're always trying to showcase that value creation.
speaker-1: you mentioned from the start of the firm, what the your thesis was in terms of what PE companies needed till now. How is it different right now? And I also just curious, the state of the P market, given uncertainty, given interest rates, given where we are, can you talk about those two dynamics?
speaker-0: Yeah. I think in the P market front, I mentioned I'm doing an event speaking next week. think everyone's really thinking ahead of, okay, markets are a little bit better. How do we exit? So they're getting, and we've had a few clients like that where they're getting a year ahead. So it's the same thing going in and doing that audit and saying, where are your pain points? And can we fix those pain points and then layer on AI? So it could be predictive analytics. It could be automation. You know, lot of companies, there's a lot you could do within the sales kind of marketing front to be more efficient in terms of reaching audiences and follow up and follow through. But if you don't have the right data, you can't do it. So I think as companies are looking to exit or even one company that we're working with, they're onboarding several different companies and bringing them together. How do you layer on that AI layer to make you more efficient? And so as you do that, there's just the baseline of getting the operations set up, but then how are you measuring? that efficiency is important. I think non-PE, there's a lot of, you know, the word transformation is gonna be an ongoing word. There's a lot of digital transformation. At this point, every type of company is doing digital. They have a website, they have a social media presence, they might be spending money on paid media. Sometimes there's just a lack of integration. So while they're doing digital, they're not necessarily really thinking of it from an integrated perspective. a lot of times they get lost in the consumer journey or the customer journey, I should say, because it could be B2B. Especially now, I think that one big factor with AI that will impact all organizations is discoverability. As search engine optimization is an important attribute of the marketing landscape for B2B and consumer companies, and that's how you get discovered to some degree. ⁓ Now, with both Google going to... Google answers that just appear and you don't click on blue links, you don't go to a website, and with just all of the chat bots, it's like, how do you first of all show up? And how do you show up in a way that's still reflecting what you do? Because a lot of what we're seeing is happening is traffic is going down. I think there's still opportunities for SEO and optimization there. And all the work you put into that does help with AE or GE or whatever you call it. But what we're seeing is that when people do come to the website, one of my clients from June 2025 to January 2026, they have 3X engagement on their site, meaning people are spending more time on the site, more page views. Traffic is down a bit, but we're not necessarily getting a tremendous amount of like you click from OpenAI to this website, but people are doing their research. And so by the time they come to the site, they're more informed. They're further down the funnel, the funnel that is no longer linear. So being mindful of that is important because that's an area you need to stay ahead or you'll be behind.
speaker-1: Did you enable them in any tooling to help them with that? And especially the AEO, GEO front.
speaker-0: It's a work in progress. So, you when I come into an organization, I start with just like, okay, where are you guys at? How do you measure all these different things? So they use a few tools. mean, SEMrush has some tools that has, you know, some of the AI. You can see how many mentions, things like that, that you might get. And then we're also finalizing with kind of AEO, GEO first tools. Cause a lot of it is just getting it set up to start. so that you can understand, like there's not huge traffic from there yet, but especially, you you want to get cited and do all these things. There's a lot of work, this one company, this one client in particular, there's a lot of opportunity, but just SEO and cleaning that up and those will all come together. So it's really a big part of what we're doing is like a whole new website strategy, because website is no longer a channel. It's the, you know, it's your source of authority, right? Like, are you credible? What kind of content do you have? What kind of content do you need? so that you can show up and be discoverable. And that's really important because that's always been an important component. You don't want to just be paying to be out there. You want to show up where people, you don't want to fish where the fish are essentially.
speaker-1: That's a great framework, the source of authority. Have you used that in your, in your CMO practice?
speaker-0: Yeah, this client in particular, they're very fortunate because they've been around for a long time. They are a source of authority. ⁓ even in doing kind of our due diligence and analysis, ⁓ know, there's a lot of opportunity and the discoverability in the traditional phase where they're not showing up and they should. And then the next piece is like better understanding how do they show up as we make changes? Because there is a, ⁓ a bigger opportunity with AEO, GEO to have an impact quickly. SEO takes time to change how you show up there, but there's still that opportunity. But anything you do with an SEO or setting up schema so the website is readable, I mean, the difference is discoverability is not just a human thing, right? I think that's one of the big changes that people are starting to understand. The machines are finding it, right? So, know, it's different than SEO where clearly Google is finding your link and putting it out there, but the consumer's deciding to click. Now what's happening is Google's gonna synthesize what might be on your site or open AI, and that's gonna show up. And so I do think, and there's been a lot of things I've read when we think about the future, eventually it might be just like, How do you have ads to market to an agent? So it all becomes, yeah, mean, that's definitely the future, but you can't start where there, you wanna know where you wanna go, but you need to like, what's the foundational things. You need and you really need that muscle as an organization. So sometimes a lot of the work I do is just also around really basic, like what's the channel health? Like if we look at the website, like all of a sudden we have 3X engagement. Why? You know, not only do you want to check those numbers, but like, why are they happening? So you could better understand where do you invest your time and energy.
speaker-1: makes sense. your CMO role has always been under pressure. We've talked about that in the, in the last episode. We've shared notes on that throughout your career. What does a successful CMO in 2026 actually look like?
speaker-0: Well, I mean, I think there's two different frameworks. One is for fractional, but they overlap and one is for full-time. I think you have to be, to be successful today. think even when I started as my first CMO role, you know, there were CMOs that still didn't get into the weeds and understand how everything worked. Their team did it, or they were so up here that they didn't understand the fundamentals. And I really think you need to be well versed in it. So I've been fortunate. Kind growing up a digital first, professionally growing up at digital first companies, always being hands-on enough to understand it. The speed of change is something that not everyone is comfortable with. So you really need to have, you know, radical adaptability ⁓ and to able to your team through that. And not just your direct team, it's really like, how do you translate that to your cross-functional teams? I've talked about this before. It's really the chief. market officer, not the chief marketing officer. It's not just the act of marketing, it's understanding the market. So it's understanding the consumer, the customer, they're changing, right? We're the forefront of that. So understanding that and what their expectations are, understanding the tools, that's really important. How do I lead transformation? How to influence it? So, you know, oftentimes, and I was still at Code Academy when AI came out, you know, I was a person at the leadership table that's like, okay, let's start talking about this AI thing. It's new. You know, and obviously the first thing would be like the CFO saying, okay, do we need less people on the content team? Like, you know, how do we cut costs or whatever? But I'm always really me coming saying we need to start experimenting with this and doing this. So we've always tend to be at the forefront. And I think the other thing about being a CMO and you know, all of this really leads into the foundation of Fractional is pattern recognition because we're always seeing that change. We've been through many changes before. It's understanding when is it. you know, ⁓ this is so cool. We have this little bell and whistle versus this is really transformational.
speaker-1: And to your point on the skillset of a CMO, think we've seen this transformation. I'm wondering if you're seeing it as well, just the room at the board level and the operating level, the CMO has taken that operations role even more in the organization and is the right hand to the CEO even more than I've seen in the past. Does that translate into what you're seeing as well?
speaker-0: It is. mean, again, I think it depends on the CMO, right? But that is, it's that concept of chief market officer that you really have a handle on the customer. And because of pace of marketing and change, we're really at the forefront of what's next. So yeah, I do believe that, but I think it's always a place you have to kind of create. know, nobody is just sitting there saying, all right, marketing is going to do this. Yeah, they always think marketing is a magic bullet, right? So. There's just a lot of education. And that's why, you know, especially as a fractional CMO, often I come in and people think they need this thing. And then I'm doing this thing because they don't have a big enough perspective on it. Cause I don't understand sometimes what a, what a CMO could do.
speaker-1: You've also have this leverage point as a, as a CMO of internal as well as external parties. And now you have AI that can, that can help across all of it. We've talked about in the previous episode, the use of outside talent, not just in-house, but, but you know, outsourcing. So where are you at right now in terms of the balance between in-house, in-source teams and fractional or full-time external, either agency. or measurement or other tooling that you.
speaker-0: Yeah, I think it varies by client. mean, one client by design, they're very agency heavy. They have kind of core people in house. That's what I'm working on really with digital transformation. Part of it is they need to bring some of the right people in house for it. It varies. I mean, look, a Fortune 500 company, know, or Fortune 100 is going to be different than a mid-market company. So especially kind of more in the mid-market arena. Even if they want to hire a CMO full-time, they just can't wait the six months cycle. need that start. So I might come in and build out that foundation. Look at the team, kind of similar to what I with Codecademy. Look at the team and how they should be structured and where that talent layer is needed. And depending upon the maturity of the organization, you sometimes they'll go in one company in particular, they're bringing four different companies together to create one. So there's like all the traditional like, what's the brand and so forth. But it's also What do you need, right? Who do you need to be full-time? Do you eventually need a full-time CMO? You might, you might not. Or, sometimes I'll get things set up and then they'll bring a VP of marketing in and I'll still be there to coach and provide oversight. What are the functions you need 100 %? What are the functions you might be? So for instance, sometimes I brought in like a CRM expert or a paid media expert because they don't need that role full-time. So it's really looking across what's needed. But there's also, when I think about the marketing team of the future, there are all these tools. So how do you set up the toolkit for that organization with AI so they don't need all of, you know, the same kind of overhead we needed previously. When I come in as a CMO, sometimes it's just the speed of change. So one of the clients I'm working with right now, it's digital transformation, but it's like, if AI wasn't here, they probably wouldn't be, feel it is as urgent and it's not all AI. So it's really how do you think about. the digital ecosystem layer. They do digital, but everything's kind of separate. And pattern recognition. I've done so many things before that even if I haven't done it, I could get in, I can assess an organization, kind of looking at where there are gaps and then understanding how we can close them in general, how AI can be layered on. Those are really important. And the way I operate as a fractional, I definitely do strategy work, but I have an operator mindset. So we'll often see it through to execution. Generally, I need to be working with internal people. I can't, you you definitely need the folks that are kind of in the trenches doing that. Usually the fractional piece, it could be like, you know, sometimes they're, they want a full time. They don't know what they need. They don't need, they don't need the full time. They need the full impact, right? They don't necessarily need that investment layer, but they need that setup or transformation. think a lot with AI, there's a lot of overlap with the CMO practice and run of our AI. just depends on the scope of the project, but. Everybody has to figure out AI. It's not an option. have to decide. You should decide. Not doing anything is not a decision. Or I guess it is a decision. It's just not the right decision. So it's saying, what should you be doing? It could be as simple as like training your team so they could answer emails faster if that's all you want to do. I that's very limiting. And there's so many tools out there. So many tools. The other thing we see a lot of on the AI front is You know, people want all these new shiny tools, but like a lot of the tools they already are using and pay for have an AI component. And they have to really look at that. So I think the key takeaway, it's not one size fits all.
speaker-1: Right. And you have so much more velocity of experience in the fractional role. I how many partners do you have in a given year as a CMO? Traditionally doesn't get that kind of velocity. It talks to me a little bit more about why our company's bringing in fractional CMOs more and more now, as opposed to a traditional.
speaker-0: I mean, sometimes it's a ⁓ bang for your buck. And by that, I mean, I don't like to talk it's value creation, right? Like you, need somebody to lead the team, but you might not need a CMO, but you need that experience and understanding and pattern recognition. And another big thing I do is just executive communication. So a lot of the times with some of these teams, they don't know how to translate it to a CEO or CFO speed to market. They just don't have the internal expertise and experience and they really need somebody to come in and help them figure that out. And then sometimes somebody leaves, they're trying to figure out what they need. And so it's really that speed to market. I've met some on in two weeks later, a week later, I've been working for them and doing things and within three months having an impact. So it's just a matter of understanding. Cause I think the concept of fractional. Not as new as when I was first starting talking about it like six or seven years ago, but it means a lot of things to a lot of people. So it still needs that definition for whoever's hiring you so they understand how they fully take advantage of you. But yeah, mean, it's a win-win because it's also, it's like if organizations are going through change, you get there faster and then you decide what's needed. What do you need if you do need a full-time hire? What is needed? Who's that right person? And having that. fractional CMO ride shotgun with the team and with the CEO provides, you know, really good head start, you know, that depth of expertise so that you bring the right person, the right type of people on board.
speaker-1: We go back a long ways in terms of our partnership on Codecademy and others. What was your experience with a foundational modeling effort in terms of building incrementality? And then now that we have the AI enablement on R and other models, what's important with that piece?
speaker-0: I think in general, the incrementality before we implemented it specifically at Codecademy, we were looking at the platforms, the Googles, the Metas data. And that gives you a very specific point of view. It's giving their attribution. might not be all last click, but it's not looking at the whole universe. So think that's an important piece. So having that foundational model is really important. The ability to layer on all the things you could do is... AI, especially once the data is in a good place, which shows me how the foundational model it is, it enables you guys with us to respond much more quickly. So it's been really important because you get those insights and so you don't have to wait as long to figure out how to keep optimizing and tweaking what's out in the market.
speaker-1: Right. And we've seen that go the opposite way where there's an assumption with AI that if you give it all of your data, it will understand incrementality and come to the right conclusions without a foundational model, which is your moat as a brand. You are not giving the AI technology, LLM layers, the right context. Robin, we've covered a ton from how marketing has evolved since you are our very first guest and AI transformation and board level dynamics and pressure and on the modern CMO role and opportunities. It's great to get your perspective. Thank you for the candor and for coming back to the incremental marketer. How can people get in touch with you?
speaker-0: LinkedIn is probably the number one. So Robin Zucker, I have a website, robinzucker.com, or you can check out renovar.ai. ⁓
speaker-1: And for all our listeners out there, thank you for joining us on today's episode of the incremental marketer. Stay tuned for more voices, more lessons and more proof points that incremental moves can drive big growth. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, and share, and join us for more episodes with the leaders shaping the future of marketing.
