In brief, my name is Paul Collier. I'm the Chief Marketing Office for Funnel Fuel. I'm also a fractional CMO, working with other clients in various industries specifically in the B2B sector.
Funnel Fuel – the company, its technology and its people – was conceived and brought together solely to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of B2B marketing via digital advertising and programmatic methods. Long story short, that industry and that part of the marketing mix is long overdue for improvement and a better way of working for B2B-specific organisations, whether they're agencies, client vendors or publishers.
The digital advertising supply chain is predicated on a historical B2C model, as is the entire internet. Over time that supply chain, in programmatic advertising specifically, has become exceptionally complicated, convoluted with process, multiple transactions and in doing so created significant instances of complexity, inefficiencies and a high degree of opaqueness. In truth we all accepted that “it worked” after all this digitised process was far more efficient at a far higher speed than the traditional print based advertising it sought to replace. However the reality is the landscape and ecosystem is changing, maturing if you will, and in doing so it’s presenting significant issues but also the opportunity presents to activate in market more effectively in the future.
So, we've conceived and built a set of technology tools in addition to bringing the right expertise together to provide better outcomes – improved return on advertising spend for B2B digital marketing purposes. I believe we’re at the forefront of raising these issues, offering solutions, and working on evolving better methods in a rapidly evolving landscape. We're also providing opportunities for change and growth within the industry. There are few organisations addressing this currently, but what we’ve built is truly ground-up, specifically tailored for this purpose.
I’d say we want to be, no we are, a catalyst for change – to create something meaningful for the betterment of the organisations working in this industry. A lot of the leaders in this space are looking at us. If we leave a legacy, I’d believe it's going to be in terms of the effect and impact amidst constant change we’re having for our clients.
This is so timely. When I first became aware of my own ignorance regarding this area of the marketing mix, it really shook me. At the time, I was no longer in a client-vendor role; I’d transitioned to a fractional CMO. One of the co-founders, Dan, and I talked about the situation, and it really hit me hard – I didn’t know what was going on and had been ignorant of the details behind a significant portion of my discretionary spend as a client side marketing leader.
One of the key elements of my role is leveraging my network, in-market experience, and client-side insights to raise awareness about this issue and the opportunities it presents across the industry, vendors, agencies and publishers alike.
However, as a relatively new company, we’re tackling two simultaneous challenges: increasing brand awareness and visibility for FunnelFuel and its capabilities while also addressing the fundamental lack of awareness and understanding among marketers themselves. Many client-side marketers, agency partners, and people in the agency network don't fully comprehend the dynamics we’re talking about, not surprising as in all honesty until now they’ve not really had to.
My key focus areas over the past 10 months, and for the next several years, will be to raise awareness, build understanding, and provoke action within the industry. We’re helping people comprehend the changing landscape, mitigate risks and take advantage of new opportunities.
If client-side marketers don’t understand the potential severity of the challenges or equally the opportunities, I see it as part of my job to raise the flag and contribute to leading the charge. While also getting the company’s marketing machine up and running and ensuring our capabilities stand out, my broader mission is to help the industry evolve and improve, alongside peers and competitors alike.
The validation from key people within the industry has been really encouraging. But there’s still a pervasive attitude of “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” Meanwhile, inefficiencies are costing companies money, and they don’t realise it. As an industry we are guilty of spending so much time chasing shining stars: AI, ABM, and others, whilst I'm not discounting the value of those area’s, if we don’t fix the basics, we’re going to have some fundamental problems.
I can think of a few ideas right now, but I’ll start with one from early in my career. At the time, I was working in global sponsorships, managing brand assets for a corporate entity. The physical logo, the brand mark, just didn’t work for Formula 1 racing in particular, which was one of our sponsorship properties. It wasn’t designed for the environment, and it wasn’t effective.
We took a risk – one I wouldn’t necessarily recommend without due consideration – and adjusted the logo to better fit the physical environment. It was nerve-wracking because this was a corporate brand that hadn’t been altered in any significant way in decades, and such actions come with obvious risk. We tested it with a select set of key executive stakeholders within the business, got the right buy-in, and proceeded.
As it turned out, we didn’t know there was already a global rebranding project underway at headquarters (you may say that was symptomatic of the often dysfunctional relationship between a region and HQ of course!) The new branding was unveiled, it was remarkably similar to the adjustments we’d made. I’m not claiming credit for their work, but the coincidental alignment validated our decision, albeit retrospectively!. It was an early lesson in taking calculated risks and trusting your instincts when you know something needs to change - but you have to be willing to stand by that and suffer the potential consequences as well as the upside.
The second example comes from another large organisation over a decade back – a Fortune 50 company where as the regional marketing leader of a business unit in EMEA we had the classic sales versus marketing tension: “What are you doing for me? Why aren’t I getting more support?” One account leader even demanded, “If my account is worth 15% of the business, I should get 15% of the marketing budget.”
I decided to flip the script. I said, “Great, I’ll give you 15% of the marketing budget, but in return, you’ll sit down with my team, and together we’ll plan and execute a programme. We’ll monitor and adjust throughout the year. If your account doesn’t hit its targets despite jointly agreed marketing support, then the problem lies elsewhere, doesn’t it?”
This was essentially the genesis of the organisation's ABM methodology as we know it today, albeit without any form of software or framework to leverage, I termed it 'Enterprise Account Marketing' at the time. It was all about aligning marketing resources with specific account needs, measuring the impact and holding both sides jointly accountable.
The process fundamentally changed the sales and marketing relationship. It stopped being about pointing fingers and became a true collaboration. For me, it was a game-changer. I started tying my own compensation, and lately the wider marketing team, directly to sales outcomes, which created even greater alignment. If sales succeeded, we succeeded. If they failed, we shared the pain.
If sales succeeded, we succeeded. If they failed, we shared the pain.
This approach eventually catalysed broader opportunities within the organisation, and latterly in my career as a whole. Asked to take on leadership roles beyond marketing, including running the business when the president was away. It demonstrated that when you’re willing to share both the risks and the rewards, align your metrics to the P&L KPI’s you build greater credibility and trust across the business.
Certainly, and this is particularly relevant to my current work. While I wouldn’t say we’re on a crusade, I genuinely believe we’re driving meaningful change in this industry. This progress depends on creating awareness and subsequently the right opportunities whilst ensuring that I, along with my highly capable colleagues, execute effectively.
I often share two key stories to illustrate this. The first is a personal account of my journey, and the second highlights an industry-wide challenge that many find relatable.
Early in my career, while working with Dan, the CEO of Funnel Fuel, I encountered a significant issue in digital advertising. At the time, I managed a network of agencies, and a multi-million-pound budget and Dan was the CEO of one of those agencies. A key area of my marketing mix, digital outbound advertising, results had gone into freefall. For the first time as a marketing leader, I walked into my boardroom without a clear understanding of the problem or more importantly a solution. It was an uncomfortable experience.
Despite my efforts to investigate further after the board meeting, I couldn’t pinpoint a satisfactory answer and eventually shifted focus to other pressing priorities as is often the case in fast moving departments. However, the incident lingered in my mind as unresolved.
Wind forward to more recent times and Dan and I reconnected after exiting our respective leadership roles. Reflecting on that specific incident as part of a discussion around “What needs fixing in the B2B marketing industry”, Dan explained the underlying complexities of the digital advertising supply chain. It was a transformative moment for me, as I realised how little I truly understood despite my extensive experience in marketing. In truth I hadn’t needed to get into the details as “it just worked” and most of leadership is dealing with exception management. I also recognised that this lack of understanding was likely widespread across the industry, especially on the client side.
Dan assured me that he, we, could do something about this. And that started my personal and professional journey to FunnelFuel.
Now, when I engage with clients, I liken the situation to an “Advertising Anonymous” session: a shared acknowledgment of industry-wide gaps in knowledge. Together, we navigate these challenges, fostering learning and collaboration with a genuine and deep seated belief it’s for the betterment of all.
The second story I often tell revolves around attitudes toward change, using GDPR as a specific analogy. When GDPR was first introduced, a team member flagged its potential impact on our data quality and pipeline. Initially, I underestimated its significance, pushing it aside until closer to the planning cycle, after all the legislation timeline had been moved out and was still pretty ambiguous to even the trained legal eye.
As the “deadline” approached and the details became more clear, more of a reality in effect, the same team leader emphasised the critical nature of the regulation, warning that failure to act could severely impact her UK pipeline, which accounted for 40% of our business. To validate the theory, I consulted a colleague in Germany –where similar regulations had already been implemented – I then more fully grasped the stakes. He clearly outlined that they had discarded 95% of their database, taking two years to recover. This revelation was a turning point for me and my attitude to the impending challenge.
I escalated the issue to the global leadership, advocating strongly for immediate action. While some necessary decisions were made, not all were actioned in the time required as a result of our collective treatment of the situation. The experience underscored a vital lesson in my own approach to change in that environment: people often fail to act until they can visualise the specific consequences or outcomes, and by then, it’s often too late.
When I discuss programmatic advertising with CMOs today, I share this story to illustrate the importance of proactive investment. One notable CMO remarked unaided in our conversation: “This is just like GDPR. I need to get it sorted now – we’re not waiting to go through that again.”
That’s the power of storytelling. Especially in articulating something that’s not clear or completely understood. Being able to relate more clearly to a situation to ground it on their own terms assists them in moving to action before it’s too late.
I think we need to go back to basics. That might not sound particularly exciting, but it’s critical. A lot of what we’re doing in B2B marketing isn’t what I’d call “sexy,” but it is really important.
Right now, times are tough. Marketing, along with other op ex areas, is under scrutiny like never before especially in the post pandemic era. If you’re sitting in the boardroom and asking for budget approval for the next business cycle, you have to be able to show that you’re operating as efficiently and effectively as possible from brand to demand.
For me, this means looking at what you’re already doing and asking “how can I do this better?”. Before you invest in anything new or as yet unproven, you need to make sure the basics are solid.
The digital advertising supply chain is a fundamental part of the marketing mix, but it’s been taken for granted or overlooked for too long, especially on the part of the client. Predicated on a B2C model and retro-fitted for a B2B world, there are so many inefficiencies and opaqueness in the system. Until recently, this wasn’t a big problem – it worked well enough – but that’s no longer the case. The landscape is changing, evolving around us, and if we don’t address these foundational issues we’re going to see repeated issues in effectiveness and ultimately ROI.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying that the new and exciting stuff (AI, ABM, and so on) isn’t important. It is. But we need to be cautious. If, in today’s climate, you’re going into the boardroom and saying, “I want to spend 10% of my budget on this new initiative,” you’d better be sure from brand to demand you can measure and therefore manage it for maximum ROI. From where I’m sitting, I’d rather have a conversation about improving what you’re already doing by 10% before investing in something that’s currently unproven.
I think I’m very fortunate in that I embrace change in general. I see the potential for progress, growth, something new despite the risk of failure as an opportunity to learn and move forward. I don’t view it as a negative. I actually tend to actively seek it out nowadays. If you’re not open to change, if you don’t anticipate it within the organisational context, then your reaction to it will tend to be resistance or negative.
For example, I’ve been a part of multiple significant organisational restructures, be those organic or as a result of M&A, in my career. In those situations people will often fall into two broad groups. The first are the majority who will focus on the task in hand, get their head down and continue as is until otherwise instructed. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong in that attitude to change in the workplace and in fact you need a steady hand on the BAU aspects so that the situation at hand does not distract, however the second group will actively raise their hands, often get excited about the potential new task or challenge at hand and it’s being part of the second group that has had a demonstrable impact on my career at certain stages.
The same goes for the team I work with here at FunnelFuel. You’ve got to approach change as a learning opportunity, not a potential for setbacks. You communicate openly, you innovate, you test, you fail, and that’s okay. The important thing is to learn and adapt, that's where real growth happens.
You’ve got to approach change as a learning opportunity, not a potential for setbacks. You communicate openly, you innovate, you test, you fail, and that’s okay.
This mindset isn’t just for marketing. It’s something I discuss across the management team and with the leadership. What we’re doing here, in many ways, is uncharted territory for the B2B industry. Some parts of the industry, the technology landscape specifically, are moving so quickly that there are things we just don’t know yet. But we do it openly. We’re willing to test and invest, knowing that the outcome may or may not work. We accept that, but we do it in a way that ensures we both, FunnelFuel and our clients, benefit from its success. And if it doesn’t work, then we’ve all got 'skin in the game'.
Transparency and openness build immense trust within the organisation. That’s what makes the culture stronger and fosters better business performance. We’ve seen this with our high retention rates: one of the reasons we perform so well is because of how we operate. It’s not just about performance, it’s about the way we do things together as a team.
Bravery.
And I think that’s easy to say when you’ve had 25 or 30 years of experience, which has been a mix of failure as well as success. I’ve worked hard, and I’ve had my share of challenges, but I’ve been very fortunate too. I think I was, well, perhaps a bit arrogant or overconfident at times, but I was also exposed to high-level opportunities and individuals right from the start of my career.
Bravery, of course, also comes from experience and knowledge. It’s about having the right attitude and the ability to bring people with you on the journey. The point is, whether you fail or succeed, just be brave.
There are two things I’d emphasise. The first is based on how I started my career. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I began in a public relations role that was heavily geared towards external stakeholder inputs.
All marketing roles should be like that, but not all are. In PR, analyst relations, media relations, or corporate communications, you get a lot of external input and feedback, some useful and some not. The key is being able to process, to filter, all these inputs and apply them effectively, which is a skill that serves you well when dealing with multiple varying situations subsequently.
If you’re starting out, I’d recommend either taking a role like that or ensuring your work has exposure to it. It will help you in leadership and senior roles down the line.
The second piece of advice, for those in their later stages so to speak, is to embrace the success of others ahead of your own progress. I have for quite some time gotten far more satisfaction from helping others succeed than from my own progress. It’s incredibly rewarding to see people grow, especially when you can help them at a pivotal stage in their careers.
A lot of this mindset came from my time at HP, where leaders were measured by how well we developed others. The 'HP way' was about coaching people and accelerating their careers. That approach has had a huge impact on how I work with others and how they work with me.
As you advance in your career, you’ll realise it’s not just about your growth but helping others grow. If you approach every relationship with the aim of fostering someone else’s success, it will drive change for both of you: shared success!
To re-form your industry, we must re-form ours first. From our visceral point of view on creativity to our incisive approach to strategy, delve into our provocative thought-leadership on how we’re aiming to subvert B2B’s status quo.
