A New Email Metric to Track in 2026 | Bathroom Break #83

What really scales a modern brand: product or performance? From Marketingland 2025, Ari Murray sits down with growth powerhouse Stefani O’Sullivan (STAUD, Savage X Fenty, Moda Operandi, Chanel) for a deep dive into how today’s most resilient brands actually grow. Stefani breaks down the truth behind two very different paths: Product-led growth (STAUD, RHODE, category disruptors) and Marketing-led growth (DTC engines powered by paid media). They unpack: > The real tradeoffs between product-first and performance-first models > How product intuition, merchandising, and customer feedback shape long-term equity > When to expand into CTV, OOH, retail media, and how to know it’s actually working > Why consistency matters, but context matters more Whether you’re leading a growth team, scaling your first brand, or rethinking how product and performance should truly work together, this conversation will challenge your assumptions…and reveal why the smartest path to scale might not be the one you expect. CallRail is the lead engagement platform built for marketers who need clean attribution, smarter insights, and zero missed leads. From AI-powered call tracking and conversation intelligence to a 24/7 AI voice agent, CallRail helps teams maximize every inbound touchpoint and convert more leads into customers. Visit https://www.callrail.com/proveit?utm_campaign=q4_2025_marketing_millennials_podcast&utm_medium=thirdparty_advertising&utm_source=marketingmillennials to check it out.  Follow Ari: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arimurray/ Follow Stefani: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefaniosullivan/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: https://workweek.com/

Want more replies, but all you hear are crickets? Daniel and Jay unpack one of the most slept-on tactics in email and social right now: getting your audience to reply to your campaigns. It’s simple, it’s human, and it’s about to blow up as AI makes responding at scale easier than ever. They explain why reply-based engagement is becoming a cheat code for deliverability, how “just reply with a word” outperforms any form fill, and why adding Easter eggs or lightweight personal questions can instantly tell you who’s actually reading your emails. They break down: > The reply-rate signal that keeps you out of spam and in the inbox > The Easter-egg trick that proves people read to the middle of your emails > Why “reply with GUIDE” beats every landing page for conversions If you’re a Marketer looking for an easy win to boost engagement, deliverability, and conversions before 2026, this one’s for you. 🚽 Follow Jay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwedelson/ Podcast: Do This, Not That Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: https://workweek.com/

Your analytics might be lying to you. Snap’s EVP Sid Malhotra joins Daniel to unpack what marketers still get wrong about measurement, why last-click thinking is failing modern buyers, and how to build smarter growth systems in a world where customers don’t follow clean conversion paths anymore.Sid shares why Snapchat’s nearly one-billion-person audience behaves differently than other platforms, why so many of your future customers aren’t on Meta or Google, and how marketers can finally fix the hidden gaps in attribution…including the “Hot Wheels Problem” that explains why your analytics are lying to you. You’ll learn: > Why your next best customer is probably not where you think > How impressions, long-form content, and non-click behavior actually drive purchases > The exact 3-step playbook for testing a new channel like Snapchat If you're planning holiday spend, testing new channels for 2025, or trying to make sense of modern attribution, this episode is for you.  Optimizely helps thousands of brands create, personalize, and optimize exceptional digital experiences. See how Optimizely Opal, our AI agent orchestration platform, automates real marketing work and helps teams scale their impact at optimizely.com Follow Sid: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malhotrasidharth/ Follow Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: https://workweek.com/

What happens when you treat brand like a growth channel and not a guessing game? You get Chubbies, one of the most iconic DTC brands of the last decade, built on humor, short shorts, and measurable creativity. As co-founder of Chubbies and now the brain behind Marathon Data Co, Preston Rutherford has spent the last decade proving that brand and performance are the same thing. He and Daniel break down how to make brand measurable, how to grow through community and content, and why the best marketing always starts with being interesting. You’ll learn: > How to measure brand like a performance marketer (and make it pay off) > Why community and creativity drive long-term profitability > How to escape the discount trap and grow sustainably If you’re tired of the “brand vs performance” debate and want a practical blueprint for building something people love (and that actually makes money), this episode is for you. CallRail is the lead engagement platform built for marketers who need clean attribution, smarter insights, and zero missed leads. From AI-powered call tracking and conversation intelligence to a 24/7 AI voice agent, CallRail helps teams maximize every inbound touchpoint and convert more leads into customers. Visit callrail.com Follow Preston: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonr/ Follow Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: https://workweek.com/

Tired of writing emails no one reads…or worse, emails no one clicks? Daniel and Jay break down an email tactic that’s stupid simple but wildly underrated: how using animated GIFs can instantly lift your click-through rates and make any email impossible to ignore. They explain why GIFs still outperform video in email, how to theme them for maximum relevance (especially during November–December), and how AI + free tools like Canva make creating them a three-minute job, even if you “don’t know what you’re doing.” They break down: > Why animated GIFs consistently boost click-throughs by 20% > The seasonal window where GIF performance skyrockets > How AI can create, crop, and embed GIFs for you instantly If you’re a Marketer looking for an easy way to boost email performance this quarter, this one’s for you. 🚽 Follow Jay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwedelson/ Podcast: Do This, Not That Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: https://workweek.com/

What happens when an engineer falls in love with marketing? You get Sorin Patilinet, the data-driven marketer reshaping how the world’s biggest brands think about creativity, effectiveness, and growth. After 20 years working in marketing science at Mars and PepsiCo, Sorin has one mission: to help marketers stop chasing vanity metrics and start measuring what actually drives results. He’s out to prove that great marketing is about more than just ROI. It’s about understanding human behavior. Sorin and Daniel dive into what it really takes to make marketing effective in 2025: from breaking silos between pricing, distribution, and brand strategy, to using neuroscience to craft ads people actually remember. If you’ve ever had to prove your marketing budget, defend your creative, or show the true impact of brand building, this episode will change the way you think about measuring success. Customer.io is an AI-powered customer engagement platform that helps teams turn first-party data into personalized messages at scale. It enables teams to easily create and send communications across email, SMS, push, in-app, and webhooks to drive engagement and growth. Today, over 7,800 brands trust Customer.io to power their messaging. Follow Sorin: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patilinet/ Follow Daniel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

What makes launches actually successful? Ramli John, Founder of Delight Path and B2B author, joins Tamara to break down how marketers can apply his approach to any big launch - from content to products to thought leadership - by focusing on transformation, not promotion. Instead of hitting publish and hoping for sales, Ramli built a paid Readers Club months before launch, tested his ideas like beta features, hosted a live virtual summit, and sold 77% of his books direct-to-reader…all while creating a loyal fan base that keeps growing long after release day. You’ll also learn: > How to use community and early feedback to build better launches > Why direct distribution beats every algorithm > The secret to making your content feel more human in an AI-driven world If you’ve ever wondered how to create demand before you launch or how to make your audience feel invested in your success, this episode is for you. Follow Ramli: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramlijohn/ Follow Tamara: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaragrominsky/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: https://themarketingmillennials.com/

What if you could increase your engagement before the year ends…without creating anything new? Daniel and Jay drop a content hack that’s stupid simple but insanely effective: how to use your “most” moments to crush year-end marketing. They reveal how to turn your existing data into scroll-stopping roundups (your most downloaded, most viewed, most shared) and why this psychology-driven approach works every single time. Plus, you can use AI to do all the heavy lifting in minutes. They break down: > Why “most” is the most powerful word in marketing > How to repurpose your top-performing content with AI > The end-of-year mindset every audience falls for If you’re a marketer, creator, or brand looking for a no-cost, high-impact way to finish strong in 2025, this one’s for you. 🚽 Follow Jay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwedelson/ Podcast: Do This, Not That Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

What if the “perfect” marketing career path doesn’t exist? Tamara sits down with Harvey Lee, a marketer who’s done it all (from launching the first Xbox to touring with rock stars) to unpack how curiosity, reinvention, and trying new things shaped his wildly nontraditional career. Harvey shares how to make sense of a “messy” resume and why most marketers are climbing the wrong ladder. And, what does it mean to define success?   He breaks down the difference between acquisition and alignment, how to find your transferable niche without boxing yourself in, and why the smartest marketers stop waiting for permission and start leading with action. If you’ve ever felt behind, burned out, or boxed in by your job title, this episode is a must-listen. Harvey’s advice will help you build a career that fits you…not the other way around. Customer.io is an AI-powered customer engagement platform that helps teams turn first-party data into personalized messages at scale. It enables teams to easily create and send communications across email, SMS, push, in-app, and webhooks to drive engagement and growth. Today, over 7,800 brands trust Customer.io to power their messaging. Follow Harvey: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mr-harvey-lee/ Follow Tamara: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaragrominsky/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

B2B content doesn’t have to be boring.  Just ask Adam McQueen, the mind behind Klue’s Compete Network, one of the first true B2B media arms built inside a SaaS brand. In this episode, Tamara flips the script on her former producer to unpack how Klue turned a traditional marketing team into a content powerhouse. Adam shares the early vision behind working with creators before “B2B influencer” was even a thing, how to design shows that are both entertaining and tied to business outcomes, and why the best marketing teams think like media companies. They also break down the behind-the-scenes of Ready for Launch, from concept to distribution strategy, and reveal the systems that make creative marketing sustainable for small teams. If you’ve ever wondered how to build content your audience actually wants (or how to prove the ROI of creativity) this conversation is your playbook. Follow Adam: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-mcqueen-%F0%9F%94%8E-032a5b10b/ Follow Tamara: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaragrominsky/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com