Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | Paid Media for B2B SaaS brands

Over the last 15+ years, I've worked for 4 VC backed SaaS companies, consulted with more than 100+, helped 1 get acquired, 1 reach unicorn status, and many more generate millions in net new revenue.

I've also seen a handful of those startups go out of business...including my own SaaS business so I know many of the mistakes. 

Over that time I've noticed that the buyer's journey has evolved. 

Today buyers have the power.

Yet, many SaaS businesses still continue to run the same programs that worked a decade ago. 

They continue to over-rely on lead gen and create friction in the buying process. 

This is pushing customer acquisition costs sky high and causing many to miss their targets. 

The way forward is to take a buyer-centric approach to creating and capturing demand. 

Buyer-centric demand gen is when your funnel aligns with how the buyer wants to learn about your company. 

It means you write in the language your buyer understands, you consider how they consume information, and when and how they want to buy. 

When you take a buyer-centric approach you generate more pipeline and revenue and an enduring brand. 

This is why we started Omni Lab.

------------------------------------------------------------

What we do for Series A to Series C SaaS startups:

→ Manage and optimize paid media across any digital channel
→ Distribute content/messaging via paid to grow pipeline and revenue
→ Build out engaging ad creative
→ Focus on optimizing the funnel based on pipeline and revenue. 

Results from SaaS companies we have worked with: 

→ Unicorn Status in 10 months
→ Grew pipeline 372% and lead > opp rate 266%
→ 1,300% increase in revenue Q3 > Q4
→ 20% increase in revenue Q over Q

If you are looking to create and capture demand via paid media, let's chat :) 

email: jonathan@omnilabconsulting.com or DM me

Jonathan Bland

🦄 A customer of ours, Upwind Security, just raised $250M at a $1.5B valuation!! 

Can you say uunnniiiicccoooorrrnnnnn. :) 

Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, bringing total funding up to $430 million! 

Wild for a company that was founded in 2022. 

Its core focus is helping organizations prioritize real risks over irrelevant alerts and streamline cloud security operations in complex environments.

Rinki Sethi, the CSO at Upwind, argues that cloud security has fundamentally changed: modern cloud, data, and AI environments are too dynamic and complex for traditional, static security tools to work effectively.

I just had to give a huge shoutout to the whole team and especially Chas Larios and Jeanette Stepanchuk, whom I've now had the pleasure of knowing at two different companies. 

Anyone looking for a great marketing leader to work for, they are it. 

It's going to be a fun year, ya'll! :)

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Omni Lab 

Snapdata, in the business of waste and recycling analytics, was selected to participate in NUMA's Smart City Program in Paris to connect with corporate leaders like Cisco, Suez, and City of Paris Government to discuss innovative solutions for cities. Out of 200 startups, we were one of 4 selected to participate. 

Google Exchange Program Finalist - NUMA; Paris

Ogilvy partnered with IE Business School to invite IE based startups to pitch their ideas to Ogilvy to compete in getting the chance to have Ogilvy support their branding & marketing needs as well as partnering with some of their clients to bring about new innovation. 

Ogilvy Competition, Top 3 Startups

Achieving outstanding performance during the IE Business School Startup Lab. Voted best Startup to invest in. 

Investors' Award

Small team of marketing professionals at IE Business School were tasked to develop a new marketing strategy for a SMB company called DriveGum. DriveGum distributes and manufactures CPG goods like gum, granola bars, and others in Europe. We:

•	Repositioned the key value proposition.
•	Created three new strategies to grow brand recognition and improve sales.
•	Made improvements and updates to current marketing material. 




IE Business School - Marketing Case Competition, Finalists

James Madison University Austin Alumni Chapter

Managing Director

Snapdata designs and develops a range of sensors and data analytics platforms for the Internet of Things.

Primarily responsible for European operations developing a go to market strategy and doing business development in the waste and recycling sector.

Confirmed 3 letter of intents with governments and corporate size clients to test our product. 

Developed pricing matrixes for products and services, ROI for our clients, and detailed process for proof of concepts. 

Managed Google AdWords campaigns and analyzed Google Analytics to improve our messaging and positioning. 

Won four separate competitions for leading innovative technology and startup in Spain:

Venture Day Finalist, IE Business School
Investors Award, IE Business School
Google Exchange Program Finalist, NUMA 
Top 3 Startups, Ogilvy


Snapdata

Learn how Omni Lab helps 100+ B2B SaaS brands create and capture demand with paid ads.

Book a Call

Upwind Security

CISO & CSO at Upwind Security | Founding Partner at Lockstep | |Board Member at StrongDM and Vaultree | Former Board Member at ForgeRock | Former VP & CISO at Twitter, Rubrik, BILL | Speaker

VP Marketing at Upwind | Cybersecurity CMO Advisor

Head of Demand Gen @ Upwind 🏄‍♀️

Co-Founder @ Omni Lab | Paid Media for B2B SaaS brands (HIRING)

The future of agencies will move away from pure execution.

And agencies built solely to produce deliverables will struggle as AI takes over their creation.

Everything from ad copy and creative to campaign planning, budget recommendations, and even audits can be done with AI. 

That doesn’t kill agencies. It changes where the value lives.

The future role of agencies is not just make things; it’s to decide what matters, interpret outputs, and give brands direction.

I recently read an article from Marketing Week called "Why AI-powered agencies will be at the forefront of marketing’s next digital revolution."

The biggest takeaway is that the value exchange will start to shift to buyers looking for things like: 

- Diagnose the market and the buyer
- Segment and choose a target properly
- Position a brand in a way that is actually distinctive
- Decide the right balance between brand, activation, and channels.

Funnel found that 72% of agency marketers believe generative AI will replace some of the services they provide to clients.

And In-house marketers agree even more strongly at 88%.

At Omni Lab, we have invested significant resources in AI-based workflows over the last two years to streamline our services, improve consistency, increase quality, and ultimately enable our team to focus more on strategy and interpretation.

And very soon, we will be releasing Omni OS, which will power Omni Lab with budget pacing, bid management, audience creation, campaign planning, and more. 

That means more time to focus on deciding what matters, interpreting outputs, and giving brands direction.

It's already starting to happen, but if you're a CMO or VP of marketing, you should be asking how your agency is leveraging AI.

You don't only want to pay for deliverables and repetitive work. 

Check out this guide from Funnel below. 

#funnelpartner

Funnel

Omni Lab

We just wrapped 2026 planning, and we’re hiring two new roles at Omni Lab!

And it’s not because we want to do more of the same.

It’s because the way B2B paid media has been run for the last decade is broken.

Categories have become significantly more crowded and complex. 

And many SaaS brands are competing using the same channels, the same intent data, and increasingly similar messaging and tactics, making meaningful differentiation harder to achieve. 

In less competitive markets, it was rational to rely heavily on short-term demand capture.

Buyers were more responsive as there was less available information on the web, media was cheaper, and intent signals were scarce enough to provide a real advantage.

The core problem is not a lack of tools, data, or optimization sophistication. 

It is a mismatch between how paid media programs are designed and how modern B2B buyers behave. Buyers spend long periods out of the market, are highly risk-averse, and actively avoid friction. 

By the time intent is expressed, preferences are often already formed, leaving programs focused solely on in-market demand competing too late and on increasingly unfavorable terms. 

You don't need an "execution factory."

You need someone who can: 
- Build category presence before demand exists
- Earn attention in zero-click environments
- Allocate budget to make capture channels more efficient

Behind this approach is an AI platform we internally call "Omni OS" to automate repetitive work, so we can focus more on strategy, interpretation, developing creative campaigns, and making better optimization decisions. 

 If any of that sounds interesting and up your alley, we are hiring for two new roles: 

- Performance Marketing Manager ($70-90K base + variable comp) ; U.S. Based 
- Sr. Demand Gen Manager ($90-$120k base + variable comp); U.S. Based 

Please tag someone who's looking! Thank you. :) 

Go to https://buff.ly/FGtIIFp to find the recs.

If your AI output feels ‘generic,’ that’s not an AI problem. That’s a brand problem.

Models trained on undifferentiated inputs produce undifferentiated outputs.

Many don’t like the results they get because they go to an LLM and, in broken English, ask it to write a blog post about "the difference between demand gen and lead gen."

When it has: 
- No context
- No idea your core POV
- No idea about your messaging
- No idea about your brand
- No idea about your tone
- No idea about your audience
- No idea what format you want the output in

Funnel released a report that showed 39% of agency marketers and 23% of brand marketers
say AI tools create repetitive, generic campaigns.

I honestly think there are even more people who think this. 

The reason they sound repetitive, generic, or use words that you’d never say to a friend is that you haven’t built AI workflows that pull from a store of data to provide guardrails and direction on exactly what you want. 

That store of data can hold your:
- POV
- Tone
- Messaging pillars
- Positioning
- Audience
- And more

Just like talking with a human, AI needs context. 

And the more input you give it (e.g. draft, transcript, sample blog post, etc.) the better it's going to be.

Check out the report from Funnel below. 👇

P.S. You can even program in grammatical mistakes.

#FunnelPartner

Short-termism is killing good marketing. 

But it doesn't change the reality of what execs want: 

- Fast results
- Predictable returns
- Easy to measure channels

It then forces all product category competitors to optimize for:

- The same in-market keywords
- The same intent/signal audiences
- The same platforms
- At the same moment

That means: 

- Higher CPCs & CPMs
- Rising CAC
- Declining marginal returns

Even with “best-in-class” execution, you'll see prices increase and volume decline as you narrow down audiences. 

Meanwhile, 71% of buyers reported purchasing their first-choice product according to TrustRadius. 

And 9 out of 10 consumers name trust as a primary purchasing criterion, driving buyers to rely on familiar, trusted brands.

Keyword = "famiilar"

If you aren't a familiar, and have established brand preference BEFORE someone comes in-market, it will make it even harder to compete. 

And let's not forget how competitive product categories have become. Here's what the call recording space looks like: 

1.) Fireflies.ai
2.) Otter.ai
3.) Grain
4.) Avoma
5.) MeetGeek
6.) Read.ai
7.) Fathom
8.) Krisp
9.) Sembly AI
10.) Jamie
11.) Tactiq
12.) Supernormal
13.) Notta
14.) Fellow
15.) Nyota
16.) Airgram
17.) Gong
18.) Chorus
19.) Clari Wingman
20.) ExecVision
21.) Jiminny
22.) Modjo
23.) Observe.AI
24.) Dialpad
25.) RingCentral
26.) Aircall

Now let's go after the most obvious target, high-intent keyword "call recording software" = 880 monthly searches at $51/click (top bid)

The top three vendors will likely capture most of the demand, leaving the rest to fight over the scraps. 

And that's just one category. 

- This isn’t a tooling problem.
- It’s not a tactic problem.

It’s a misunderstanding of how B2B buyers actually make decisions.

Short-term optimization is necessary, but insufficient on its own.

Real leverage comes from shaping preferences before buyers ever show in-market signals. 

That means adjusting channel mix, objectives, budget allocation, and CTAs to focus on your narrative, what you do, your POV, proof of work, etc. before they come in-market. 

That will make your capture channels more efficient.

The other day, a marketer I talked to said, "This year, we are going to ungate all of our content."

Here's what I said...

You don't have to ungate all of your content. 

You have to convert more of your gated content into short-form ungated content. 

That means: 

- Carousels
- Clips
- Text posts
- Templates
- Highlight reels
- Checklists

Remember, the brain evolved to sample information cheaply, prioritize novelty, and minimize cognitive and energetic cost before committing attention. 

The brain defaults to low-commitment information sampling to decide whether deeper processing (aka long-form content) is worth the energy. 

That's why it's so hard to get people to consume long-form content, especially if they don't know your brand. 

Prove to them that you are worth the attention. 

A distribution system could look like: 
- Create long-form content 
- Gate it on your website 
- Create 10x the number of short-form assets
- Get your employees to all reshare/post
- Direct traffic back to the asset if they want to learn more

This works organically or via paid. 

Gong did this for a while and still does this…

I did this for a LinkedIn Guide we created; gated on website, but I’ve dripped out 30-40 posts ungated about the guide. 

Stop making this a "do we ungate ALL our content" or "do we keep our content gated" decision. 

Do BOTH.

Increase reach and consumption.

I couldn’t agree more with Justina Perro's post late last week. 

In her words, "one of the hardest marketing pills to swallow is that not everything is measurable."
 
What I said...

"On most ad platforms, CTR is sub-1%. Organic engagement is often 2–5%. 

That means 95%+ of people might be watching, reading, skimming, and absorbing without a single click, like, or comment.
 
And that’s normal behavior; we all do it. 
 
People don’t need to engage publicly to be influenced. How many times have you:

- Forwarded a video to someone
- Visited a brand later after seeing an ad
- Taken value from content without ever clicking a link
 
None of that shows up cleanly in UTMs.
 
This is where attribution can be dangerous if it’s treated as a rulebook rather than a guide. 

Buyers don’t follow the neat, linear funnel we design for them.
 
Instead:

- Use proxy metrics like brand traffic, share of search, brand mentions, and engagement to understand if you are headed in the right direction.
- Leverage quantitative data (in your CRM) with qualitative signals to go beyond last-touch reporting and understand what's resonating and what channels are being mentioned (sales calls, comments online, reactions on webinars, etc.) 
- And then compare harder to measure marketing programs to bottom of the funnel efficiency metrics like cost per SQL and cost per opportunity; over time, we want to see increased efficiency so we aren't just sharing vanity metrics. 
 
Attribution should inform judgment, not replace it.

Fractional Head Of Content.

LinkedIn is not a high-intent channel.

People don’t open LinkedIn thinking, “What software should I buy today?”

They open it to connect with colleagues, learn something new, share opinions, or simply waste time between meetings. 

Compare that to Google or even an LLM.

When someone searches “best cybersecurity training software,” they are explicitly signaling intent. They’re evaluating. They’re buying. Search captures demand that already exists.

Social doesn’t work that way (with the exception of TikTok)

You don’t go to the LinkedIn search bar asking, “What are the best cybersecurity training companies?”

That’s not the job the channel is doing.

Your strategy on any social channel should really accomplish one of three things: 

- Teach someone something
- Entertain them with something
- Or some combination of both

While scrolling, people get exposed to ideas, brands, and messages. If something resonates, they may engage. 

There are in-market buyers on LinkedIn, and you should have some campaigns/content focused on offers or hard CTAs, but they represent a small percentage at any given moment. 

Adjust your strategy accordingly.

For those who haven't heard, LinkedIn launched a new feature last year called Partnerships. 👇  

What is it?

Any time someone posts and mentions your brand, you will see it in the partnership section, allowing you to get approval to promote that post via thought leader ads. 

Discoverable posts in Partnerships include: 

- Employee posts from your organization
- LinkedIn articles authored by members
- Newsletter articles published by members
- Posts from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree+ connections
- Video content from vetted publishers available for in‑stream ad placement for select accounts 

For those not already using a brand monitoring tool, this is pretty cool. 

It's pretty straightforward: 

- Go to campaign manager
- Go to the partnerships section
- Click on the post that mentioned your brand
- Request to promote
- Promote

The biggest use case we've seen for Omni and other SaaS brands is creating dedicated influencer campaigns featuring customers, prospects, or people who give positive brand mentions. 

Instead of relying on organic reach, you pay for more reach, plus control who actually sees the post. 

Trust and authentic real stories are a top priority for many brands and this is one way to bring those stories to light.

For all marketers, what newsletters do you "actually" read?

And for those you read, why do you like them? 

Tag a company/person below that's creating awesome content. 

I want to subscribe.

Please be careful when interpreting these emails from Google. 

While the intentions behind this email, I'm sure, mean well. 

These can have serious consequences without additional thought. 

For example: 

1.) Does lower CPA mean better quality down-funnel to SQL/pipeline?
2.) Does this mean I'll have better coverage on key high-intent terms?
3.) As I scale, what control do I have over keywords I'm spending money on?

No doubt, you, me, your mom, and your 2nd-cousin-removed all want greater efficiency. 

But not at the cost of quality. 

Stay safe out there.

Seeing what your competitors are bidding on is mostly a waste of time.

Yes, it’s “directionally interesting.”

But, at the end of the day: 

1.) You have no clue how that keyword is performing. 
2.) They may not even be intentionally bidding on those keywords. 
3.) They likely have a different strategy and ICP definition than you

Instead, you should focus more on your own customers to understand:

- The words your customers use to describe your product on sales calls.
- The problems and jobs they repeat in demos. 
- Then see what keyword themes have keyword volume and which ones have historical performance.

TL;DR Sure, you might get some keyword ideas from Ahrefs, Spyfu, Semrush, and others, but take anything you see with a grain of salt. 

Focus more on your customers and your own performance. 

It was awesome to finally meet Valerie Riley! Appreciate you having me on the Unbounce show. 

Want to watch the rest, just go to YouTube and type in: Paid media strategy 2026: Surviving rising CPCs and budget shifts in SaaS

VP of Marketing & Strategy @ Unbounce & Insightly CRM

Unbounce

Here's what I said to a Head of Demand Gen who wanted to 2x SQL volume on Google Ads. 

"Sure, but here's what we need to do first. 

- Analyze what keywords have the highest conversion rate + lowest cost per SQL
- Determine if there is enough in-market volume to capture
- Understand if we have enough budget based on established baselines (e.g., cost per SQL)."

After analyzing a mix of offline conversion data in Google, paired with Salesforce data, we identified ~10 keywords driving the majority of SQLs over the last 6 months. 

Then we reviewed the available impression share and whether we were losing impressions due to the budget. 

And then we reviewed baseline data from the last 6 months, which showed that: 

The ~600k in spend over the last 6 months resulted in a cost per SQL of around $3,500.

For context...SQL = demo request that meets ICP criteria

However, across all keywords, the baseline is closer to $4,700. 

The primary reason?

- Some keywords have a lower conversion rate
- Some have much higher costs due to competition

So then we had to make a decision...

1.) Stay live on all keywords, accepting a higher cost per SQL
2.) Narrow down on the 10 keywords with a more efficient cost per SQL

No surprises here... we are narrowing down for now, as we have more efficiency with these 10 keywords + available in-market impression share, since all keywords are high-intent. 

So to 2x the number of SQLs, here's the quick math: 

- $100k spend at $4,700 = 21 SQLs / month

Compared to the 10 keywords at a lower cost per SQL

- $100k spend at $3,500 = 28 SQLs /month

We're still a bit short on the same spend, so we'd have to increase the budget or find another lever to pull (e.g., improve the conversion rate or invest further in out-of-market buyers on social channels to increase awareness). 

I'll let you know in the next month or two once we get more data, but this is the high-level process to think through. 

A few caveats to be aware of:
- Avoid dramatic swings in budget
- As you scale budgets, be prepared for efficiency to fall
- We didn't analyze ACV/pipeline value for this (due to some data accuracy issues with sales), but is important as some keywords could be more valuable than others. 

P.S. While this is a performance marketing approach to scaling budgets, channels like Google Ads don't operate in isolation. 

Google Ads heavily favors last-touch models where CRMs single-source conversion points. 

It's important to understand the other trackable touchpoints across the buyer's journey to make capture channels like Google even more efficient. 

The efficiency of your capture channels is strongly correlated with your investments in out-of-market buyers, where brand preference is established.

Buildkite

Sr. Performance Marketing Manager

Gravitee

Sr. Integrated Campaigns Manager

Sr. Manager, Demand Generation

Demand Generation Lead (US)

Selligence

VP of Marketing

Navigate360

Director, Digital Marketing & Operations

Sr. Digital Marketing & Operations Manager

Digital Marketing Manager

Cactus Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing & Operations Consultant

SafePlans LLC

Director of Marketing & Sales Operations

Socius Marketing

Digital Strategist / Online Reputation Management

Grus Construction Personnel

Digital Marketing Lead / Sr. Account Manager

Habitat for Humanity of Omaha

Americorps National Member

Your LinkedIn ads pro | who also does CRO | haikus and backflips

👋 Hi, I'm Zach, a:

- Full-time demand gen marketer (who loves ads) 
- Part-time barista to my wife 
- Lifetime dad / husband-in-training (100% on the job)

When I'm not generating demand, making pour overs, or rushing children out the door...

I do breakdowns of the best ads I see in my feed & write a haiku every Friday (just for fun)

Hope you enjoy visiting my profile & that this info helps you:

- Sell me something
- Recruit me for something
- Become a friend

Have a great day! ✌️

P.S. Only call me Zachary if you're my grandmother

Zachary Short

B2B companies doing retargeting like:

🥶 want a demo?
😎 want a demo?
🥸 want a demo now?
👨🏻 what about now?

Performing in top 1% of marketers who can also do backflips

Been thinking a lot about progression over the last few months

Progress used to feel like something big: 

- better job
- going back to school
- owning a house

But lately, progress feels smaller:

- needing less context to make important decisions
- finding time to focus on quality vs. pure output
- not obsessing over work

It's this kind of progress that's helped me find more balance in the work I get to do & has helped me get more joy from it 

Here's to compounding progress in 2026

P.S. To any tricking / parkour folks who scroll by this, I know, my dive roll needs some work & I'm not standing as tall as I need to on my fronts, but we'll get there. Progress takes time

taplio

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