In this episode, host Kerry Curran sits down with Sammy Rubin, VP of Integrated Media at Wpromote, to explore the future of digital marketing and how brands can turn integrated media into a revenue growth engine.

Key Takeaways:

• From Silos to Synergy – Why breaking down internal marketing silos leads to stronger performance and efficiency.
• Winning the Customer, Not the Channel – How a customer-first approach drives better results than channel-specific targeting.
• Retail Media vs. Integrated Media – The shift in investment strategies and the role of data-driven decision-making.
• The Power of Advanced Measurement – How brands can track the true impact of media investments beyond last-click attribution.
• The Future of Media Strategy – Why creative engagement, cross-channel attribution, and first-party data are the new pillars of success.

This episode is packed with actionable insights for business leaders, CMOs, marketing strategists, and growth-focused executives looking to maximize ROI, align their teams, and stay ahead in the ever-changing digital marketing landscape.

Tune in now to discover how to optimize your media strategy for lasting revenue growth!

Podcast transcript

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.186)
So, welcome, Sammy. Please introduce yourself and share your background and expertise.

Sammy Rubin (00:07.025)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm Sammy Rubin, VP of Integrated Media at Wpromote, a leading independent marketing agency. I do everything from consumer insights and category intelligence to media planning and buying. Everything we do is underpinned by industry-leading intelligence, and we have an amazing creative team as well. So, we really support clients in achieving their business goals through all aspects of our work.

In my role as VP of Integrated Media, I oversee the teams developing integrated strategies for our clients—everything from CPG to retail to entertainment. I have the privilege of being part of these teams and helping to guide what we take to market.

Just a bit more background about me: I've been on the agency side my whole career and have had the privilege of working with some amazing brands. I’ve partnered with disruptor brands like SoulCycle and Yasso Frozen Greek Yogurt (which is always stocked in my freezer), as well as Fortune 500 companies like Nike and WarnerMedia. I started as a paid search manager, and it’s been an incredible journey evolving from a single-channel focus to an integrated media leadership role.

It’s been amazing to watch media evolve and see how having an integrated media lead on your business is a no-brainer. It provides a holistic view of how all marketing investments contribute to business results—which is what we’re all rallying around today.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:51.15)
Thanks, Sammy. I'm so excited to have you and hear about what you're seeing, hearing, and doing these days. We’re such kindred spirits—I also grew up in the performance media world. I actually started as an SEO manager because, at the time, paid search was still new. But you’re right—there has been so much evolution, and the channels are constantly changing and getting smarter.

To your point, you can’t just have a single-channel approach or strategy anymore. I love your integrated media role. You must get to see it all. What trends are you seeing these days?

Sammy Rubin (02:33.041)
Yes, my focus over the past 18 months or so has really been on commerce. There are many definitions of commerce in this space right now, but what I mean is partnering with brands that have direct-to-consumer objectives—whether through e-commerce, their own brick-and-mortar stores, or wholesale retail relationships, including Amazon.

When it comes to commerce, what we’re finding—back to the point of integration—is that it’s no longer about winning the channel; it’s about winning the customer. And when I say "channel," I mean both media and sales channels. Clients have sales objectives across different retailers and distribution points, but if we do our jobs right as marketers—effectively reaching the right audiences with the right message and high-impact creative—it lifts all ships.

We see this reflected in data and our own behaviors. You and I, like most consumers, search on social media, pre-validate in-store purchases on Amazon or Reddit, and then take the next step. So, it’s really important for brands to take a customer-first approach—understanding where they show up and ensuring their creative is more critical than ever before.

I think the latest eMarketer stats show that adults in the U.S. spend over 13 hours a day with media. That’s a lot. Like, what else do we do? Sleep? I know I get eight hours of sleep every night—at least, all my trackers tell me that. But if we’re spending that much time with media, exposure alone is no longer enough. We need to drive engagement.

That’s where creative is the new media targeting—it’s the new media strategy for many environments. In Meta’s algorithm, over 50% of what you pay is based on projected creative engagement and other creative-related factors. As brands, we must show up consistently across platforms because customers bounce from place to place.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:05.422)
That’s a lot—all our waking hours!

Sammy Rubin (04:24.349)
Exactly! And advanced measurement plays a big role here. Consumers will purchase wherever it’s convenient—whether that’s Amazon, TikTok, or in-store. We’re launching TikTok Shops for many clients, and having an integrated measurement approach helps avoid the blind spots created by siloed data.

For example, we often see a CTV campaign or a social program funded by a DTC marketing team drive sales at Walmart or Amazon stores. That’s because, to the customer, those distinctions are irrelevant—unless there’s a specific offer tied to the channel.

We build high-velocity media mix models for our clients through our proprietary tech platform, Polaris. This platform integrates foundational reporting, media mix modeling, and incrementality test design, helping us showcase the impact of different media activities on various business outcomes.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:25.41)
Yes, I love that. The holistic experience is key. Customers don’t care if an ad is on Meta or Google, and they likely won’t even remember where they first saw it.

I was just recording another episode on media mix modeling and attribution. The point made there was that we’re going back to measuring impressions and the importance of creative—because it provokes an emotional response and drives action. But we can’t control what action they take. We just have to ensure our brands are out there, engaging, and driving conversions.

Sammy Rubin (07:13.437)
Exactly! It’s about reframing high-intent actions. Are we seeing an increase in Instagram profile views? Organic social video views? These are proxies for site traffic. For many audiences, especially Gen Z, social media is the new website.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:41.198)
Right.

Sammy Rubin (07:43.121)
And that perspective needs to be incorporated into measurement strategies.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:49.486)
That’s such a great point. You also mentioned retail media—when you and I started, it wasn’t a thing. Now, it dominates strategy and investment dollars. How are you incorporating that shift into your clients’ strategies?

Sammy Rubin (08:15.781)
Retail media investment growth is astronomical. Retailers have turned into media conglomerates, and they want a bigger share of total marketing budgets—not just retail budgets. They now offer influencer marketing, off-site paid search via Google and TikTok, first-party retail data, and closed-loop measurement.

Retail media is just media. We know that brands have historically driven sales across all retail doors through broad awareness campaigns. That still holds true today. Clients now ask us whether they should invest directly with retailers or take a broader media mix approach.

We recently ran a matched-market test for a client, exposing certain markets to media activations while holding others out. We drove measurable 10-20% sales lift in those markets without retail media—proving that broader media strategies can also drive retail results.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:45.016)
Wow. Yeah.

Sammy Rubin (11:00.923)
We’re constantly testing to see what works for our clients. What works for one brand might not work for another. But with everything being retail media, the role of an integrated media strategist is to figure out the right places and spaces to activate and how to hold those dollars accountable for achieving objectives.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:21.432)
I love that example and the market testing approach because brands’ budgets are getting smaller, yet we’re all expected to do more with less. It’s about driving effectiveness and efficiency and figuring out how to do it. To your point, if you don’t have the budget, you can’t just dump everything into the retailer—you have to get smarter and more strategic.

So much of this revolves around consumer behavior and what they’re going to do. I know this shift—thinking more about consumer behavior versus channel targeting—is a big one for clients. How are you educating them and pushing for that integration?

Sammy Rubin (12:11.567)
Yes, it really depends on the brand. The internal organizational structure can vary drastically, even among brands within the same vertical or of the same size.

For example, we have CPG brands that have both a D2C marketing lead and a retail marketing lead. Others have a D2C marketing lead, a retail e-commerce lead, and a shopper lead.

Or, we might have a brand with a brand marketing lead, a performance and growth marketing lead, and a retail lead. There’s no standardization in terms of which teams drive which commerce objectives.

But in every case, what’s required is an integrated media mix to drive those different commerce objectives—whether direct-to-consumer, e-commerce, in-store, or retail. All of these teams start circling around the same media platforms and creative messaging but in service of different financial goals tied to different commerce channels.

When that happens, resources are duplicated, and creative production multiplies.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:31.138)
Yes, they start competing with each other.

Sammy Rubin (13:36.101)
Exactly. And I don’t know what the incentive structure looks like behind the scenes, but it likely plays a role in who wants control over what.

The bigger issue is the blind spots in measurement when there’s no unification or transparency across data, activation schedules, or even simple things like campaign calendars.

For instance, if the DTC team is running a massive CTV activation but the team managing Amazon retail media or brand search isn’t aware, they might not adjust their investments to capture that demand.

Having remarketing audiences set up properly and ensuring synergy between teams is crucial for marketing efficiency. And that requires unification.

I won’t sugarcoat it—it’s challenging work. Many brands have legacy structures and long-established ways of working. But the data doesn’t lie.

At the end of the day, all these different marketing stakeholders are laddering up to a single point of accountability—the CMO, the VP of Marketing, or another senior leader.

The CFO obviously cares too, right? They want to maximize the return on marketing investments and find efficiencies.

So, we’re building operating models to unify teams internally, especially across planning. What are the different goals, product priorities, budgets, and audiences? These will often be different for each team, but by coming together in an integrated planning session, we can align efforts.

That way, teams can draft off each other’s impact, shift certain responsibilities where needed, and ensure media dollars are deployed strategically. From a measurement perspective, we then report on both individual and collective goals.

We also do more integrated reporting and measurement. What’s the halo effect of different media tactics on different commerce channels?

For example, we’ve seen cases where a retail client scaled back social media, and the Amazon team later reported a bad sales week. When teams don’t communicate, they don’t realize the relationship between social media in the market and performance across different distribution channels.

Using data as a unifying factor is so important. It sounds obvious, but truly building that data foundation is critical.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:36.076)
Yes, I’ve seen exactly what you’re talking about—when internal teams don’t share their strategies, they either compete or lack alignment.

Your consultative approach—bringing an organizational and data framework to clients—must be invaluable for improving efficiency and effectiveness. I love that your clients are listening and working with you to optimize.

You also have a solution to unify this data. Can you share more about your data platform?

Sammy Rubin (17:38.973)
Yes, at Wpromote, our proprietary tech platform is called Polaris. It serves as the foundation for all our standard media reporting.

We have over 100 API connections with various media and data sources. We use this to build an integrated data taxonomy—not the most exciting topic, but extremely important—so we can see all our data in one place.

On top of that, we can layer in advanced analyses, including media mix modeling, incrementality test design, and scenario planning. For example, if we launch a new media channel, scale back an existing one, or receive additional budget, how can we best optimize our investments?

Sammy Rubin (18:38.141)
Once we have that data foundation, we can integrate additional factors like pricing data and promotional data to enhance modeling. This allows us to distinguish the impact of media versus price or distribution as key levers in achieving business goals.

It’s all about moving from crawl to walk to run, but it’s entirely attainable with the right data infrastructure.

When I joined Wpromote in 2020, one of my first priorities was building our media strategy department to help clients achieve holistic business results.

It’s one thing to have integrated measurement and insight presentations, but actually moving dollars and stewarding budgets across the entire media mix is critical.

Our media strategists lead this effort, ensuring innovation while leveraging the right mix of people, technology, and processes to drive success.

That’s how we help our clients.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:02.734)
It’s so valuable. As you were talking, I kept thinking about how not only the media channels have evolved but also how data has evolved.

Marketers are getting smarter, brands are targeting audiences more effectively, and investments are working harder.

This has been so helpful—thank you for sharing your expertise.

For listeners who want to get started, what’s the first step you’d recommend for brands looking to optimize and integrate their media strategies?

Sammy Rubin (20:42.545)
Step one: Have a conversation with all your internal counterparts who oversee different marketing investments and priorities.

Get a full picture of all media currently in-market—or planned—to identify synergies.

See where you might unlock value by integrating investments across teams. Often, the same media partner is being leveraged by multiple teams, but they’re working in silos.

Then, start building integrated media reporting.

You don’t need API connections or advanced modeling on day one. Just align on KPIs, how teams measure success, and how media investments are being attributed.

Once you identify trends—like, "Hey, two weeks ago, this team ran a large CTV activation, and we saw a lift"—you can start applying causal impact modeling to confirm relationships.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:30.85)
I love that. Sammy, thank you so much. This has been so valuable.

How can people find you?

Sammy Rubin (22:47.355)
Find me on LinkedIn—Sammy Frankel Rubin—or through Wpromote. If anything we discussed today sounds interesting, feel free to reach out.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:59.918)
Excellent! Thank you so much, Sammy. Looking forward to speaking again soon!

Sammy Rubin (23:05.51)
You too—thanks so much!