The Aperiam Podcast

James Avery, founder and CEO of Kevel, joins Corey and Joe to explore how commerce media has matured from a retailers-only conversation into a category that spans travel, fintech, and beyond. James breaks down Kevel's API-first infrastructure approach, the four Ps of building a world-class retail media network, and why offline attribution is quietly one of the biggest unlocks in the space. He also reflects on his experience testifying in the DOJ's antitrust case against Google — and why he found the whole thing fun.

What does it take to build a performance marketing platform for enterprise brands — and why would you choose that path when everyone else is running the other direction? Corey and Joe sit down with Marco Matos, Founder & CEO of Adora and winner of the Aperiam and Growth by Science sponsored Brand Challenge at POSSIBLE 2026, to find out. Marco shares how his time at Pinterest, Microsoft, Google, and Thunder shaped his conviction that large brands have the most low-hanging fruit — and why complexity is a feature, not a bug. The conversation covers full-funnel content scaling, the "Iron Man suit" philosophy for AI in marketing, creative-to-media execution in one platform, and where personalization is headed as the give-and-take between brands and consumers evolves.

Andrew Casale, founder and CEO of Index Exchange, joins Corey and Joe to discuss the launch of Index Cloud — a new infrastructure paradigm that allows DSPs and ad tech companies to run bidders, custom algorithms, and data models directly on Index's edge infrastructure. Andrew explains how containerized bidding eliminates the massive cost of internet egress (up to 80% of a DSP's cloud bill), dramatically compresses latency, and opens up time for smarter, feature-rich AI models that could finally let the open internet compete with the walled garden giants. The conversation covers the implications for CTV and live sports advertising, the early partnership with Bedrock Platform and Chalice, the vision for GPU inference at the edge enabling real-time contextual creative, and why Andrew believes the open internet — if it can collaborate as one — is on the verge of a dramatic competitive rebound.

Matt Spiegel, Head of TrueAudience Growth Strategy at TransUnion, joins Corey and Joe to discuss what nearly nine years at the intersection of credit data and marketing technology has taught him about identity, measurement, and the limits of AI. Matt traces TransUnion's evolution from a credit bureau into a full-stack marketing data platform — covering the Neustar acquisition, the build-out of identity resolution, audience discovery, and marketing performance analytics — and explains why having all three capabilities sitting on a common dataset is what makes the offering different. The conversation tackles the cookie deprecation reality check, the ongoing challenge marketers face in demonstrating C-suite credibility through measurement, and why AI will transform the speed and economics of mixed media modeling long before it removes humans from the loop. Matt also offers a frank read on AI adoption.

Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki sit down to cover five major trends based on what they are seeing cross their desks: the declining health of the open web and what publishers can do to survive, the rapid maturation of influencer marketing and why its infrastructure still lags its ambitions, the early-innings race to monetize through generative engine optimization (GEO/AEO), a surprising surge in out-of-home advertising driven by cheaper screens and easier programmatic delivery, and the growing wave of contextual targeting innovation in CTV. Corey and Joe don't just diagnose the trends — they debate what's noise, what's durable, and where the real opportunity lies.

Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki sit down with Terry Kawaja, founder of LUMA Partners and one of ad tech's most respected dealmakers and prognosticators, and discuss where the market stands in early 2026. They break down the M&A landscape — from the post-tariff chill to why late 2025 started to show signs of life — and explains why valuations are split sharply between high-growth capability plays and legacy open web businesses. They hit on what European ad tech companies get wrong about entering the US market, why the SaaS obsession in ad tech was largely misguided, and how the agentic era could either save the open web or consolidate it into a handful of massive platforms. Terence also shares his long-held CTV predictions, why FAST adoption genuinely surprised him, and why 2026 is the year the industry needs to stop talking about AI and start showing results.

In this episode, Corey and Joe sit down with Jake Vachal, Managing Director at Raine — a leading banker with a practice focused on Adtech. Jake discusses what's really driving M&A activity right now: a more deal-friendly regulatory environment, PE firms pushing hard for liquidity, and boards grappling with existential questions about their equity story in a world being rapidly reshaped by agentic AI. He shares what he actually looks for when deciding to represent a company, why profitable growth now trumps revenue multiples, why private markets currently offer better outcomes than an IPO, and how AI compressed a typical two-to-three-year market cycle into just three months in 2025.

Corey and Joe sit down with Raghu Kodige, CEO and co-founder of Anoki, to explore how AI is transforming the way brands advertise on connected TV. Raghu breaks down why CTV has historically been bought with the same blunt tools as traditional linear TV — and how Anoki is changing that. Drawing on his background building Alfonso (now LG Ads), Raghu shares how the "seeing is believing" philosophy drives Anoki's approach to AI transparency, why news inventory is massively undervalued, and how generative AI is collapsing the product development timeline in ways that give startups a serious edge.

On this episode of the Aperiam Podcast, Corey Ferengul and Joe Zawadzki sit down with Michael Richardson, VP of Product at Index Exchange to break down ARTF — the Agentic Real-Time Framework.Michael walks through what ARTF actually is, why ad tech needed a new interoperability standard beyond OpenRTB, and how containerization is enabling companies to run custom logic directly inside publisher infrastructure at scale. Also, how ARTF fits alongside emerging standards like AdCP, why agencies should be paying attention right now.If you're building in ad tech, running a curation business, or just trying to understand where the open web goes from here — this one is essential listening.

Ravi Patel, founder of SWYM, joins the pod to discuss why programmatic wastes money, how supply control fixes broken auctions, and what disciplined, capital-efficient ad tech building really looks like.

Fresh from the show floor, Joe Z and Erica Chriss join Corey Ferengul to break down CES 2026. This year felt different—less hype, more real momentum behind AI transformation. From seamless home habitats to ad tech innovations with actual case studies, the team explores why this CES marked a turning point. They discuss the collapse of the "tale of two shows," agencies finally leaning forward on transformation, and why human connection matters more than ever as we navigate historic change. Plus: Why is there so much smoke at CES? And who's still booking bands for 50-year-olds?

Joe and Corey speak with Heather Macaulay, co-founder of MADConnect and Audience Choice winner at the Marketecture Startup Challenge.There is a problem that doesn’t get nearly enough attention: integration debt. Every audience sync, conversion pull, and cross-platform workflow depends on APIs that are expensive to build, harder to maintain, and constantly breaking. That hidden “connectivity tax” is quietly draining engineering time across AdTech and MarTech.When the plumbing underneath isn’t solid, everything above it stalls. Learn more about what is needed from the underlying infrastructure to enable data to really work for a company.

Joe and Corey sit down with Jenna Griffith for a conversation about what leadership really looks like when a company is going through change. The consistent theme: clarity wins. If you don’t communicate clearly and often, people fill in the gaps on their own—and usually incorrectly.They discuss how to handle internal agendas, why you start with customers when you’re trying to understand what's actually happening, and how AI is forcing every organization to rethink roles, expectations, and pace. The next generation is already adapting; the question is whether leaders are listening closely enough to keep up.Whether you're leading a team or a large organization there is something to get from this episode of the Aperiam podcast.