Glitch

Yesterday, I attended the Marketing Science Event at Trinity Business School. Marketing is evolving rapidly, and staying ahead means challenging assumptions, questioning platform-reported metrics, and embracing AI strategically. At the event, industry leaders from Pinterest, Glitch, and Trinity College Dublin shared insights into the complexities of modern marketing. 🔹 1. The Measurement Dilemma Diminishing Returns: Scaling ad budgets often leads to plateaued performance as platforms exhaust the most engaged audiences. Over-Attribution: Platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok) over-credit themselves for conversions, distorting ROI. The Solution? Incrementality testing (e.g., geo holdouts, Conversion Lift Studies) reveals the true impact of marketing efforts. 🔹 2. The Illusion of Incrementality Many ads target users who would have converted anyway, making incremental value hard to prove. Privacy changes (Apple’s ATT) have further complicated attribution, forcing marketers to rely on modeled data. 🔹 3. Brand vs. Performance Marketing Short-term performance marketing can only scale so far before hitting a ceiling. Investing in brand building improves long-term efficiency and sustains lower-funnel conversions. Platforms prioritize short-term last-click attribution, leading to underinvestment in brand campaigns. 🔹 4. AI’s Expanding Role AI is streamlining campaign setup, optimization, and bidding—especially for SMBs. However, AI lacks human judgment, and hallucinations (erroneous recommendations) pose risks. By 2030, marketing roles will shift from execution to strategic oversight, with AI handling technical tasks. 🔹 5. Cross-Channel Chaos Platforms often claim 100% credit for the same conversion, inflating performance metrics. Proper incrementality testing remains resource-intensive but essential for accurate attribution. 🎯 Practical Takeaways ✅ Use Incrementality Testing: Validate platform-reported results with lift studies and geo holdouts. ✅ Balance Brand & Performance: Avoid over-reliance on short-term tactics—long-term brand equity pays off. ✅ Question Platform Metrics: Treat ROAS claims with skepticism and complement with third-party analytics. ✅ Prepare for AI: Upskill in strategic decision-making as AI takes over routine tasks. Final Thought "The platforms aren’t lying—they’re just telling you their side of the story. Your job is to find the whole truth." – Patrick Kennedy As marketing evolves, critical thinking, adaptability, and a balance between AI-driven efficiency and human judgment will define success. Look forward to the 3rd MKT Science Meetup! 🥳 #Marketing #AI #DigitalMarketing #MarketingScience #TCD #UCD

Google Ads has been the best way to acquire customers for AskGrant—but as a non-native English speaker, crafting high-performing ads isn’t exactly my strong suit. So, naturally, I turn to AI to help. But let me tell you, the process of copying, pasting, tweaking, and testing is painfully tedious. What should be a streamlined workflow ends up feeling like an endurance sport. Enter Glitch. My friends over at Glitch are automating the whole process, and the results? Let’s just say I am very happy. Less manual labor, more performance. They’re now opening up for more beta testers, so if you’re in B2B marketing and spending on Google Ads, get in while you can. Link to the sign-up form: https://lnkd.in/dGZg6THW

Join us for our second #Marketing_Science meetup on Wednesday, March 26th, 2025, at 6 PM! This time, we explore the power of #AI in marketing #measurement, and we couldn't be happier to have one of the most innovative businesses in Ireland in the sector with us. As our guest speaker, we have Kingsley Kelly, founder & CTO of Glitch. Kingsley spent almost 6 years at Google as a Engineering Lead and has now embarked on a journey to create the world's first AI CMO. Register at the link: https://lnkd.in/eRajFabM Patrick Kennedy, Ashish Kumar Jha

Some builders are destined to be founders, and Tianyi Wang, founder of Row5, is one of them! During his extensive career as an engineer, building for world-renowned tech companies like WebSummit, Flipdish, WayFlyer, and many more, Tianyi noticed a recurring challenge: businesses struggle to utilise large data scattered across different platforms properly. Welcome Tianyi to the NDRC Accelerator, the third startup in the 2025 intake! We’re proud to back you as Founder of Row5 - solving ‘scattered data’ with AI-powered, unified search capabilities. Enabling businesses to retrieve information more efficiently, eliminating data silos and boosting productivity & customer insights. Find out more about these tech startups: https://lnkd.in/eTJdfnmg Interested in the NDRC Accelerator? Rolling applications open through until March 31st. Apply Now: https://lnkd.in/e94waHnU

If you are attending InterTradeIreland's all-island #VentureCapitalConference2025 next week, 5th March, Croke Park, would you like to hear how Founders works? We wanted to learn from the Founders experience and invited the team running it and one of the accelerating startup founders from the first cohort to share insights on the model, and in particular, the real rate of momentum achieved from the process. The founder building the rocket ship, mid-flight - Aisling Browne from Glitch The dynamic team behind Founders - Jane Dillon and Jack Cantillon from Dogpatch Labs Investor (former tech CEO too) & moderating for us, the inimitable Andreea Wade of Delta Partners VC We have been so excited by Founders since seeing its output at demo day in 2024 - this is a rare programme on the island where startups are genuinely born (BioInnovate Ireland is the other). Until Founders there had not been a true tech startup incubator on the island (creating the startup from scratch) - almost all applications to programmes on the island led with the requirement to have idea/technology/product/traction etc etc. High quality incubation programmes are very important/attractive sources of dealflow for venture investors. They start with recruiting quality founders, who use a structured customer discovery process to actually truly validate the problem and design a solution from scratch. Other programmes’ discovery processes tend to result in reinforcing[bias] toward the original idea [that was in the application...] rather than allowing a full open minded approach. Founders launched in 2023 - sourcing top notch talent, a cohort which was half software development and half sales/marketing/biz-dev, many who had previously worked either at US multinational tech companies, or rapidly scaling startups - to see if aspirational founders could commit full-time, find a co-founder and launch brand new startups in a supporting structured environment - in 2-3 months - and then the programme invests in the best ones. And it works really, really well. Dogpatch Labs Ormeau Labs PorterShed Republic of Work HBAN RDI Hub HPSU Founders Forum Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers programme Furthr AxisBIC Propelor BIC WestBIC [Event is now closed for registration due to level of demand]

AI is going to transform marketing. It's the best time to build a marketing career. But only if you have these traits: 1. Curiosity: You're deeply curious. AI is rewriting how we do marketing. It's a golden time for those who are curious. 2. Practitioner. AI will be the era of the practitioners. Teams will be smaller. The best leaders can do the work. Informational updates get replaced with 'problem-solving workshops. The era of leaders who are glorified program managers is over. 3. Systems Thinker: More of the customer journey will live in marketing. AI allows the entire journey to be managed by a single team. It starts with marketers. Marketers are the automaters within companies. The best marketing teams (systems thinkers) will see their span of control increase. 4. Proactive: The marketing playbooks are being rewritten. The proactive marketers are rewriting them. The reactive marketers are waiting for others to tell them what to do. 5. Agent-first: In a recent interview, Satya Nadell (CEO of Microsoft) said in the future, people will be employed based on their ability to build and work with agents; this is how you'll succeed. You'll have a team of agents trained on single tasks, allowing you to do more and work on the highest value work. It's much more exciting to build a career when the rules are being rewritten. Enjoy it!

Marketer finally getting called out for doing a good job in the latest sales meeting