Paid Ads Playoff: Proven B2B Plays That Turn Spend Into Pipeline

#376 | Eight marketers. Two minutes each. One live bracket to crown the best-performing paid ad play. We brought back the Blitz Exit Five Live session format - this time for the Paid Ads Playoff: a head-to-head paid ads showdown, where marketers pitch their single best ad from 2026 in real time to our live voting audience. The plays cover a lot of ground: scroll-stopping creative for an unfamiliar category, testing TV as a full-funnel channel, measuring out-of-home, a 9-minute LinkedIn video that beat every short clip, incentivized demo offers, ChatGPT ads, fighting Google's AI Overviews in paid search, and the most creative ad creative you've ever seen. Presenters include Alexander Goodwin (Fingerprint), Stefanie Wlotzki (SurveyMonkey), Jake Newby (Lendio), Anthony Blatner (Speedwork), Dylan Wingrove (Pacvue), Kenna  Rooney (EasyLlama), and Shlomo Genchin (Unbored.com), co-hosted by Jess Cook of Vector.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - - Welcome to the Paid Ads Playoff format
• (05:32) - - Making an unfamiliar B2B category scroll-stopping on paid social
• (08:04) - - Testing TV as an always-on demand channel
• (10:23) - - Measuring out-of-home ads with control markets
• (13:03) - - Why a 9-minute LinkedIn video beat every short clip
• (15:48) - - Q&A: targeting, TV attribution, and matching creative to the platform
• (25:49) - - Incentivized demos and gift-card offers that convert
• (28:32) - - Testing ChatGPT ads and shifting budget out of Google
• (32:40) - - Fighting back against Google's AI Overviews in paid search
• (34:50) - - The soap opera ad and turning boring software into a story
• (48:13) - - Tracking signals and structuring content for a long-form ad
• (55:05) - - The analogy framework behind the year's best-performing ad

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Brought to you by:

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Convertiv - A B2B marketing agency that helps enterprise teams build an AI-powered go-to-market strategy, specializing in AEO. Podcast listeners get a free AI search review showing how you stack up against competitors. Learn more at convertiv.com/exitfive.

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Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

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