Safe Doesn't Scale

Most B2B brands run a handful of creator posts, see lukewarm results, and conclude influencer marketing doesn't work for their category. The real issue is almost always the model: one-off campaigns, no continuity, no brand narrative building, no compounding effect.ㅤDavid Walsh, founder of Limelight, sits down with AJ Eckstein to get into what makes creator programs actually work, from the always-on cadence and quarterly splash model to IRL brand experiences, paid media integration, and how creator content is becoming an asset in AI-driven search.ㅤAJ has run some of the most recognized B2B creator campaigns in the world. This conversation draws on what he's learned building programs for Anthropic, HubSpot, Notion, and Zapier, including a few moments where things went wrong before they went right.ㅤGuest BioAJ Eckstein is Founder and CEO of Creator Match, a tech-enabled agency that builds and scales creator programs for B2B and SaaS brands. His client roster includes Anthropic, HubSpot, Notion, Zapier, Wix, beehiiv, BetterHelp, Airtable, and Gusto. Before Creator Match, AJ spent three years as a management consultant at Accenture advising Fortune 500 companies. He is a TEDx speaker, a Fast Company journalist, and has launched three LinkedIn Learning courses with more than 200,000 students enrolled. Outside work, he competes in marathons, ultramarathons, and triathlons, and logged 55 flights last year.ㅤWhat We CoverMarketplace vs. agency: two solutions to the same problem. AJ and David break down how Creator Match and Limelight serve very different customer needs within the same creator marketing space, and why AJ regularly refers brands to Limelight when they're not ready for an agency.IRL to URL: why in-person experiences are the new campaign strategy. AJ explains his philosophy of bridging real-life events to digital content, including how Creator Match brought 30 AI creators to Utah for a multi-day hackathon with Zapier's full C-suite, and why B2B has been slow to adopt what B2C brands have done at Coachella for years.Where creator marketing budgets actually live. AJ walks through how influencer programs are funded across brand budgets, awareness budgets, and paid media budgets, and why the ad budget is often the right source for boosting and usage rights spend.The most expensive mistake B2B brands make with creators. Running one-off campaigns instead of programs. AJ breaks down the cost, retention, and relationship consequences of buying creator content a la carte versus committing to an always-on model.Always-on plus the quarterly splash. AJ describes the two-layer program structure Creator Match builds: a monthly evergreen content cadence that maintains brand presence, and periodic high-impact moments like the Notion Faces campaign or a creator brand trip designed to take over a feed.Influencer marketing belongs under brand, not growth. A CMO AJ spoke with on the day of recording was moving their influencer program out of growth and demand and placing it under brand. AJ explains why this organizational shift reflects how the channel actually works.Saying no to revenue: how AJ qualifies out bad-fit clients. AJ shares how 90% of Creator Match's inbound calls don't convert, why that's intentional, and how he routes brands to talent agencies or marketplace partners like Limelight instead of forcing a fit that will churn.Defining success before the campaign brief. AJ explains the question he asks every brand before signing: what does success look like, quantitatively and qualitatively? He walks through the three goal types his team now works against: upper-funnel awareness, bottom-funnel performance, and AI search presence.How creator content is becoming an AI search asset. Creator-produced YouTube dedicated videos, LinkedIn Pulse articles, and Reddit posts are what LLMs surface when buyers search comparison queries. AJ explains the shift in playbook required to optimize for this channel, including different creator profiles, brief structures, and tracking approaches.Full-stack creator marketing and ecosystem marketing. AJ lays out Creator Match's big bet: moving from LinkedIn-focused campaigns to multi-channel creator programs across LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, with paid media, IRL brand trips, and influencer gifting woven in as a unified ecosystem strategy.ㅤResources MentionedCreator Match: AJ's agency, referenced throughout as the source of the campaigns, frameworks, and client examples discussed.Limelight: David's B2B influencer marketplace, discussed as a complementary partner to Creator Match for brands not ready for agency spend.Zapier: Creator Match client featured in the discussion of IRL brand experiences; hosted the Zapier Outpost creator trip in Utah.Notion: Early Creator Match client; the Notion Faces campaign is cited as an example of a high-impact quarterly splash that drove brand awareness without traditional attribution.Airtable: Used as an example throughout the AI search optimization discussion, illustrating how dedicated creator videos can help a brand rank in LLM-driven comparison queries.SaaStr: Conference David attended the week of recording; AJ spoke at SaaStr Austin the prior year.Perplexity: Cited alongside Claude and ChatGPT as an LLM platform where buyer decisions are increasingly being made.Claude: Referenced as one of the LLMs buyers now use to research and compare software products.ㅤSafe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.

B2B marketing has become a sea of automated noise and generic outreach. Buyers are doing their own research in hidden channels, yet sales teams are still relying on outdated playbooks and spray-and-pray tactics. The companies winning today aren't just sending more emails: they are building entirely new go-to-market systems built on genuine interaction and behavioral data.I am your host, David Walsh, and today we sit down with Bruno Basic, who recently helped steer a $90 million Series A launch out of stealth mode. We break down the exact strategies used to generate massive demand for a highly technical software product. You will walk away with a clear understanding of how to blend creator-led campaigns with hyper-targeted paid advertising.Bruno brings a systems-thinking approach to growth that bridges the gap between marketing and sales efficiency. He shares his real-world data on using niche social creators to build brand awareness in the finance sector. We also talk about his specific approach to avoiding automated slop, keeping copywriting human, and why ignoring your ad platform representatives is a costly mistake.Guest BioBruno Basic is the Go-to-Market Leader and Head of Growth at DualEntry, a New York-based AI-native ERP software company. Taking a hands-on approach to scaling revenue, Bruno operates across marketing, paid advertising, and customer success. He recently helped launch DualEntry out of stealth mode, supporting a massive $90 million Series A funding round co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures. A multi-faceted leader, he frequently engages directly with users to ensure a tight iteration loop between market signals and product development.What We CoverLaunching out of stealth mode: Bruno details the exact creator-led strategy DualEntry used to announce their Series A funding. The campaign drove thousands of likes, hundreds of comments, and booked their sales calendars out for three months straight.The death of legacy tech: The market is ripe for AI-native tools because legacy software suffers from clunky user interfaces and long implementation times. As Gen Z enters the workforce, they expect intuitive, fast software, making old enterprise tools obsolete.Niche creator marketing: B2B companies often assume there are no content creators in their specific industry. Bruno explains how finding highly specific sub-verticals, like Excel creators for finance professionals, moves the needle for brand awareness.Mastering revenue attribution: If you are spending heavily on multi-channel advertising in 2026, a basic dashboard is not enough. You need proper attribution software to map every touchpoint from organic social posts to booked demos.Avoiding automated slop: Many growth gurus recommend using AI to automate research and outreach messaging. Bruno strongly disagrees with this approach, arguing that genuine copywriting and highly segmented lists perform better than generic bot emails.Simple but effective automations: Instead of building complex AI chat threads, Bruno prefers basic operational alerts. His team uses simple Slack notifications to ping account executives the moment a prospect replies to an outreach email.In-person dinners for enterprise deals: To capture mid-market and enterprise buyers, DualEntry relies on curated offline events. These dinners provide a space to educate buyers on specific problems and regularly result in signed contracts.Listening to your ad reps: Many founders ignore calls from Meta or Google representatives out of fear of being sold to. Bruno shares how answering these calls gave his team early access to beta features like Reddit Max campaigns, drastically reducing their cost per click.Bridging sales and marketing: A growth leader must actively help the sales team save time. Whether it is eliminating spreadsheet work or automating lead handoffs, making reps faster directly impacts top-line revenue.Resources MentionedDualEntry - An AI-native ERP system built to replace legacy finance software with automated workflows and modern interfaces.Limelight - A B2B influencer marketplace used to organize and scale creator-led marketing campaigns.HockeyStack - A B2B marketing attribution platform used to track the complete buyer journey across organic and paid channels.Dreamdata - A B2B revenue attribution tool mentioned as a key player in understanding marketing touchpoints.Clay - A data provider and automation tool used for finding ideal customer profiles and tracking hiring signals.Safe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.

Traditional bottom-of-funnel paid ads are becoming unsustainably expensive, and standard SEO strategies are losing their impact. Marketing budgets are tightening, yet the pressure to deliver growth has never been higher. Brands are forced to find new ways to grab attention, but many are still wasting millions on inefficient channels rather than building their own distribution engines.ㅤHost David Walsh sits down with Casey Hill, Chief Marketing Officer at DoWhatWorks, to dissect what is actually working in B2B marketing right now. They discuss the critical shift toward optimizing websites for both human intent and machine indexing, moving beyond generic calls to action. Listeners will walk away with actionable frameworks for creating proprietary distribution channels and leveraging public data to make smarter growth decisions.ㅤCasey brings a wealth of knowledge from analyzing tens of thousands of real-world website experiments. He shares a personal misstep from his early days on LinkedIn, where posting highly valuable but dry test data completely flopped. By shifting his focus to novelty and replicability, Casey built an organic content engine that now drives forty percent of his company's closed business.ㅤGuest BioCasey Hill is a growth veteran and the Chief Marketing Officer at DoWhatWorks, a technology startup fundamentally changing how brands approach conversion rate optimization. He has over a decade of experience scaling software companies and providing institutional guidance to top global firms on pricing, market analysis, and inbound marketing. Throughout his career, Casey has garnered millions of views across social platforms by pioneering creative growth levers. He brings a deeply analytical yet human approach to B2B marketing, commanding an audience of over 26,000 followers on LinkedIn who tune in for his insights on what top brands are actually testing.ㅤWhat We CoverThe decline of traditional channels: Conventional paid ads and standard programmatic SEO are showing severe diminishing returns. Marketing leaders must adapt as the core line items for enterprise budgets shift toward new models of discovery.Flipping the testing script: Instead of guessing and failing internally, companies can observe public data from major brands. Analyzing thousands of verified tests allows teams to make data-backed decisions faster and cheaper.The power of novelty and replicability: Casey learned that highly valuable data alone does not win on social media. Content needs a unique angle and an easy way for the audience to replicate the success in order to gain real traction.Why Learn More kills conversions: Ambiguity is a massive barrier for website visitors trying to understand what happens next. Specific calls to action generate significantly higher click-through rates because they set a clear expectation for the user.The rising bar for social proof: Static logo bars are no longer enough to build credibility with buyers. The market demands higher trust signals, making contextualized video testimonials and verifiable quotes far more effective.Optimizing for humans and machines: Modern websites must balance creative design with rigid structural clarity. Clear subheaders and specific capability language help pages index properly in large language models while keeping users engaged.Building a distribution engine: Proprietary data and built-in distribution are the two most defensible moats in marketing today. Without a reliable way to distribute content organically, brands are forced to rely on highly inefficient paid channels.Owning the category through content: Instead of paying influencers for one-off promotions, brands should focus on associating themselves with a specific industry category. Creating assets that get widely cited by other publications creates a powerful long-tail effect.Bringing influencers in-house: A highly underutilized strategy involves hiring creators to run owned media assets like newsletters or podcasts. This gives the brand long-term ownership of the audience and lead flow while leveraging the creator's existing trust.Writing for a person of one: Creating content designed for a specific persona yields much better results than writing broad, generic copy. Speaking directly to one ideal buyer increases the chances of generating valuable shares and saves.ㅤResources MentionedDoWhatWorks - A platform that aggregates real-world A/B test data from major brands to help companies optimize their websites.DoWhatWorks Substack - Casey's weekly newsletter offering deep-dive analyses on proven website optimization strategies.WhisperFlow - A voice-to-text tool praised for balancing a highly creative website design with functional clarity.Sundial - A startup highlighted for its clean website layout and highly specific demo call to action.Glean - An enterprise SaaS company that doubled its homepage click-through rate by eliminating generic button text.Ramp - A financial company cited as a great example of clearly organizing multiple products in a website subheader.Brex - Another financial brand praised for its clear capability language and website structure.Claude - An AI tool David used to instantly audit and restructure his custom-built website.Supabase - Mentioned for a unique profile text strategy that resulted in long-tail content distribution.Gusto - Referenced for hiring economists to produce category-owning content rather than standard promotional material.SparkToro - Rand Fishkin's company, noted for building visual content specifically designed to be shared in private team channels.ㅤSafe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.

B2B marketing is stuck in a loop of diminishing returns, with companies continuing to blast tired email lists and buy contacts, ignoring the massive shift toward human-led growth. The "safe" bet of traditional outbound is actually the riskiest play in 2026 because buyers have tuned out the noise. Real scale now comes from borrowing the trust that creators have already earned.ㅤHost David Walsh sits down with Justin Levy to dismantle the myth that influencer marketing is just for brand awareness. They discuss how a properly architected creator program can outperform entire marketing departments in driving a qualified pipeline. Justin shares the exact playbook he used to scale ZoomInfo's influencer program from a pilot to a multi-million dollar revenue engine.ㅤHe breaks down the math behind replacing expensive ad spend with trusted voices and why "safe" metrics like impressions are useless without revenue attribution. Justin also details his "calculated risk" approach to budgeting: how he secured funding by guaranteeing registration numbers that traditional channels couldn't match.ㅤGuest BioJustin Levy is a veteran B2B marketing executive with over 20 years of experience leading social and influencer programs. He most recently served as the Director of Social Media & Influencer Marketing at ZoomInfo, where he built their creator program from the ground up to drive millions in pipeline. Previously, he held leadership roles at Demandbase, ServiceNow, and Citrix. Justin is also the author of Facebook Marketing and a sought-after speaker on the intersection of community and revenue.ㅤWhat We CoverThe failure of traditional B2B: Why companies revert to spamming email lists despite data showing the creator economy is exploding and outbound efficiency is plummeting.Front-loading budget: How Justin secured budget for a major virtual event by guaranteeing and delivering 50% of the registration goal using only a handful of creators.Revenue over reach: The importance of tracking full-funnel metrics like pipeline and ACV rather than vanity metrics like likes or impressions to prove value to the C-suite.The efficiency of creators: How a small group of 18-20 influencers generated 30% of all event leads, outperforming massive traditional marketing efforts.Niche vs. Macro: Why creators with 4,500 followers often deliver better ROI and engagement than those with 450,000 followers who have suffered from audience drift.Testing frameworks: Why 30-day "pay per post" tests fail and why a 3-month partnership minimum is necessary to get valid data and build a relationship.Qualitative metrics: Evaluating creators based on responsiveness, adherence to briefs, and "ease of work" rather than just the quantitative numbers.Diversifying platforms: Moving beyond LinkedIn to include YouTube, Newsletters, and TikTok to reach audiences where they actually consume content.Attribution modeling: Using tools to track engagement from executive and influencer posts all the way to closed-won revenue to justify budget increases.Segmenting for value: How ZoomInfo didn't just look at lead volume but analyzed how many influencer-generated leads were "upmarket" enterprise accounts.ㅤResources MentionedZoomInfo - The go-to-market platform where Justin built and scaled his revenue-first influencer program.Limelight - The B2B influencer marketplace and tracking platform used by ZoomInfo to attribute creator content to revenue.Goldman Sachs Creator Economy Report - Referenced statistics on the rapid acceleration and value of the creator economy.ㅤSafe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.

Everyone is chasing AI efficiency. Fewer people are talking to their customers. That gap is where brand moats are built right now - and the companies that figure it out before everyone else wakes up are going to win the next decade of B2B marketing.ㅤDavid Walsh sits down with Mark Jung, founder of Known, to break down what's actually broken in B2B content, how LinkedIn's algorithm has fundamentally changed, and why the brands that get emotionally close to their audience will be on every buyer's day one list when it matters. Mark has driven over 1 billion organic LinkedIn impressions across hundreds of B2B brands. He is, in David's words, the LinkedIn scientist - and this conversation earns the title.ㅤMark pulls from six years of LinkedIn data, hundreds of brands, and a near-obsessive study of LinkedIn's own engineering papers to explain what's changed, why it changed, and exactly what to do about it. He also gets specific about the mistakes most creators are making right now - and the mindset that separates the ones who compound from the ones who plateau.ㅤGuest BioMark Jung is the founder of Known, a full-service organic LinkedIn agency for ambitious B2B brands. Alongside business partner Daniel Murray of The Marketing Millennials, Mark has driven 1,016,918,065 organic impressions on LinkedIn across 2024 and 2025, grown a combined 2.19 million GTM followers across personal brands and company pages, and scaled to $1M+ ARR in 47 days after launch. Known operates as a stealth agency - they don't name clients - but their results speak for themselves: net-new pages grown from zero to 25,000 followers, brands taken from 2,000 to 50,000+ company page followers, and LinkedIn's Top Startup Award won on behalf of the brands they work with. Mark has spoken at HubSpot's INBOUND and advises a range of B2B startups. He currently lives in the Cayman Islands.ㅤWhat We CoverWhy boring is how you die: Mark's core philosophy from management consulting to SaaS - great marketing doesn't feel like marketing, and the moment it does, you've lost. He explains why brands chasing AI efficiency have traded proximity to their customer for productivity, and why that's a dangerous trade.The chicken dish at the wedding: Mark's framework for brand positioning. Chicken is safe. Nobody remembers it. Brands that refuse to take a stance, offend their non-ICP, and show up with real conviction are the only ones that build raving fans - and a moat.Three tips for more authentic LinkedIn content: Be capital-YOU (your lived experience is the one thing AI can't replicate), mine your winning comments using Toyota's Five Whys to find the emotion underneath, and apply the Rule of One - one audience, one key point, one emotion per post.How LinkedIn's algorithm actually works now: Mark breaks down LinkedIn's shift from separate compute-heavy systems to a unified LLM-based model built around a MoE (Mixture of Experts) architecture - and what that means for how your content gets ranked and distributed.Cohort seeding: LinkedIn is now gut-checking whether your profile promise and your actual engagement match. Mark explains how the algorithm tests your content in its first 60 minutes, what it's looking for, and why your LinkedIn title matters more than it ever has.The lost in distance problem: LinkedIn's own engineering research found 15.9% better performance when they scanned the beginning and end of content rather than analyzing everything. Your first 200 to 270 characters carry the majority of the algorithmic weight. Mark explains what that means for how you write.The right way to use links on LinkedIn: Stop putting links in the comments. Mark walks through three more effective approaches - including the 15-minute method he uses to capture organic engagement before adding a link, and why resource posts drive saves and sends at scale.The day one list and mindshare marketing: A Google and Bain study found that 8.9 out of 10 B2B buyers purchase from a day one list - a shortlist built over months or years, not at the moment of purchase. Only 3 to 5% of your market is buying at any given time. Mark explains why the other 95% is where the real game is played.Distribution is the moat: Mark's big bet for the next five years - owned audience, organic reach, and deep community relationships will outlast every other competitive advantage in B2B. Products converge. Features get copied. An audience that trusts you compounds.The Milli Vanilli effect: Mark Cuban's framework for why audiences will return to what feels hyper-authentic. Mark applies it to the future of LinkedIn and explains what that means for the brands building now.ㅤResources MentionedKnown - Mark's full-service organic LinkedIn agency for B2B brandsThe Marketing Millennials - Daniel Murray's marketing community, podcast, and newsletter; one of the largest marketing communities on LinkedInGoldcast - B2B video marketing platform; credited with coining the term "Mindshare Marketing"Shield Analytics - LinkedIn analytics platform; cited for data on link performance across 50,000 postsLinkedIn - Referenced throughout for algorithm research, engineering papers, and platform strategyUnbounce - Landing page platform; mentioned in the context of Mark's entry into SaaSChipotle - Referenced as an example of brand copy that an AI would never writeLiquid Death - Mentioned for their practice of turning one-star reviews into produced music albums as an example of authentic brand convictionLimelight - David Walsh's B2B influencer marketplaceㅤSafe Doesn't Scale is hosted by David Walsh, founder of Limelight. New episodes drop weekly.

Welcome to the very first episode of Safe Doesn't Scale. In a twist for the premiere, our producer Joseph Lewin takes the mic to interview host David Walsh. They dig into the founding thesis of the show: in a world where AI can replicate software features in seconds, playing it safe with your marketing is the riskiest thing you can do.ㅤDavid explains why brand personality is the only true differentiator left in B2B. They discuss why "creative" isn't just a buzzword for board meetings—it is a revenue engine. David breaks down how influencer marketing solves the trust gap, why "thought leadership ads" outperform traditional paid social by 11x, and how companies like Clay and 11x used creators to dominate their categories.ㅤIf you think influencer marketing is just for consumer brands, this episode will change your mind. It’s time to stop spamming the TAM and start building relationships at scale.ㅤKey TakeawaysThe Death of Feature Differentiation: David explains that software is easier to build than ever. Competitors can replicate your product overnight using AI agents. The only moat left is your brand's personality and how the market feels about you.Why Social is Suddenly a Board-Level Topic: Ten years ago, social media was an afterthought. Today, with paid acquisition costs skyrocketing and email open rates plummeting, executives are realizing that social presence is a critical asset.Case Study: Delve's "Doormat" Strategy: David shares how Delve, a compliance software company, breaks through the noise. Instead of boring white papers, they send custom doormats to prospects. It’s a prime example of high-effort, high-creativity marketing that stands out.The Knock-On Effects of Creator Campaigns: Working with influencers doesn't just generate leads. It teaches your internal team to write better copy, provides social proof for your employees to share, and feeds Large Language Models (LLMs), so your brand appears in AI search results.How 11x Generated 1,000 Demos in 24 Hours: A tactical breakdown of a viral product launch. By activating 25 creators simultaneously alongside a product release, 11x flooded the newsfeed and drove a massive immediate pipeline.The "Clay" Playbook: How Clay used an "always-on" creator strategy to educate the market. Instead of a single burst, they have creators consistently demonstrating how to use the tool, effectively outsourcing product education to trusted experts.The 11x Ad Strategy: David reveals a specific tactic: Take a high-performing influencer post and boost it as a "Thought Leadership Ad" on LinkedIn. The data shows these ads are 11 times more effective than traditional company-led creative.Attribution is Possible: David debunks the myth that influencer marketing is a "black box." He shares how one enterprise client tracked $8 million in pipeline and $1.8 million in closed-won revenue directly to their creator program within three months.ㅤMemorable Quotes"What's the differentiator is brand and its personality... features and product are not the differentiator." — David Walsh"Marketers have become lazy, and they're just using these tools to be always on, and they're just saying, let's just spam the TAM... That is not the right way to approach this." — David Walsh"People are gonna buy from the people who they know, like, and trust... People are able to build trust with individuals... way more than a company." — Joseph Lewin"If you do an influencer post and then retarget it and turn it into a thought leadership piece... the data supports that those ads are 11 times more effective than traditional paid ads on LinkedIn." — David WalshㅤLinks & ResourcesConnect with David Walsh on LinkedInConnect with Joseph Lewin on LinkedInCheck out Limelight to scale your B2B influencer programs