B2B marketers combat AI slop with human-centric, multi-channel campaigns

Mar 28, 2026 · Exit Five
🎧 PodShort 54 min squeezed to 3 AI SprinklerAS Marketing Automation
Episode artwork
Cindy Dubon
Head of Marketing at ColdCast
Kelly
Marketing at Vector
Jeremy Chung
Founder at Ads by Jeremy
Tess
Associate Director of Marketing at Airvet
Richard
Director of Go-to-Market Growth at Go Happy
Exit Five
54 min squeezed to 3
Full episode from Exit Five
Quotable Moments

AI slop is gonna kill deals, kill brand and kill trust.

Dave GerhardtFounder at Exit Five
00:06

This is the topic that everyone is being asked to get smarter about right now: AI search and SEO.

Dave GerhardtFounder at Exit Five
01:03

Today's topic is paid. We're gonna talk about a bunch of great B2B ad campaigns that we have... five marketers on here that are doing real stuff. They're not, they're not AI creators, they're not LinkedIn thought leaders who just host podcasts like me. They're actually doing the work in marketing right now.

Dave GerhardtFounder at Exit Five
02:35
Key Insights
  • AI-generated 'slop' in marketing raises the bar for quality content, compelling marketers to create more meaningful, educational, entertaining, and relevant material that truly matters to customers.
  • A successful product launch campaign using influencer marketing combined with paid distribution can generate significant pipeline, especially when focusing on influencers who genuinely use and love the product.
  • For B2B marketing, a 'surround sound' strategy involves hyper-targeting a precise contact-level audience across multiple channels (like Connected TV, YouTube, and LinkedIn) with high-quality, relevant creative to build pipeline.
  • When running B2B campaigns, creative is king. If you're going to show up everywhere, your content better be worth watching and provide real value to the audience.
  • A direct mail strategy that includes a personalized audit of a VC's portfolio company's martech stack can be highly effective for booking meetings with venture capital general partners.
  • For direct mail campaigns, especially to high-value targets like VCs, using personalized mail pieces like postcards with QR codes and detailed booklets showing an audit of their portfolio companies, helps establish value before pitching.
  • Creative, budget, and targeting lists are crucial. It's essential to invest in high-quality creative that stands out and avoids being overly salesy, target specific accounts, and re-target users who have already engaged with your brand.
  • When marketing a product without a physical booth at a conference, leveraging digital channels (ads, landing pages) with strong branding and unique swag (like dachshund pens) can generate significant interest, drive traffic, and create demand, surpassing the impact of a traditional booth.
Metrics Mentioned
  • $8,000 (Cost of a campaign that generated $700,000 in pipeline and $400,000 won revenue.)
  • $700,000 (Pipeline generated from an $8,000 campaign.)
  • $400,000 (Won revenue generated from an $8,000 campaign.)
  • 200% (ROI on an influencer campaign. For every dollar spent, they earned two dollars back.)
  • 34% (Net new traffic from a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 22% (Increased sales demo requests from a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 41% (Increased pipeline month-over-month from a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 500-1000 (Cost range for a text post ($500) vs. a video post ($1,000) for influencers.)
  • 120,000-180,000 (Target size for optimized audience in a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 30,000-60,000 (Target spend for Connected TV campaigns over a couple of months.)
  • 10,000 (Initial spend when seeing momentum for a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 15,000 (Total spend for a multi-channel campaign.)
  • 1,200 (Number of direct mail pieces sent for a campaign targeting VCs.)
  • 22 (Number of meetings booked with VCs from a direct mail campaign.)
  • 11,500 (Total spend for a direct mail campaign targeting VCs.)
  • $324,000 (Revenue from one closed deal in a direct mail campaign targeting VCs.)
  • $9,000 (Average monthly deal value from a direct mail campaign targeting VCs.)
  • $500 (Cost per meeting booked for a direct mail campaign targeting VCs.)
  • $1.50 (Cost per postcard for direct mail.)
  • $35 (Cost per booklet for direct mail.)
  • 3,000 (Spend on LinkedIn retargeting for a direct mail campaign targeting VCs.)
  • 65% (Percentage of conference attendees who visited the web page for a non-booth event strategy.)
  • 11 (On-site meetings from a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • 5 (Post-event meetings from a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • 3 (Open deals from a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • 2,000% (Total ROI for a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • 1,000 (Ad campaign spend for a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • $11,000 (Total spend (sponsorship + T&E + ad campaign) for a non-booth conference strategy.)
  • 90% (Percentage of ad spend on LinkedIn for a company relying heavily on one channel.)
  • 91% (Increase in CPMs from Q1 to Q4 for LinkedIn ads.)
  • 23% (Audience penetration percentage for LinkedIn ads, meaning only a fifth of the total audience is reached.)
  • 75% (Decrease in CPMs when diversifying ad spend beyond LinkedIn.)
  • 3.5x (Increase in average pipeline generated from diversifying ad spend beyond LinkedIn.)
  • 5.2x (Increase in pipeline directly from paid channels after diversifying ad spend.)

RevBots.ai View:

  • AI Sprinkler stage teams waste budget on generic AI content; ARM requires orchestrated human+AI workflows.
  • Tab Hoppers relying solely on LinkedIn see 91% CPM hikes; ARM leverages predictive channel mix modeling.
  • Surround sound tactics work for SaaS Hoarders but collapse without unified attribution like ARM provides.
  • Direct mail success hinges on CRM integration - a blind spot for AI Sprinklers but core to ARM workflows.
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