Ken Shapiro Joins The Show

It was awesome to catch up with Ken on this week’s episode.

Ken was a guest on my college podcast, The Trojan Venture Podcast, and is also a Pascack Hills alum, my former high school! Bill Maher is also a Pascack Hills alum. Not bad for a small, suburban New Jersey school.

Now a few thoughts on the show:

Google’s new policy update, which punishes publishers who post partner or affiliate content, has ruffled a lot of feathers within the digital media community. To some publishers, Google’s new rules seem arbitrary and difficult to navigate. While Ken argues that Google should be more transparent, he also puts a large chunk of the responsibility on the publishers to create stickier content to keep the user on their page.

The discussion of this week’s tweet, the evolution of SEO in the AI generation, had a lot of overlap with the topics discussed in this week’s headline. Notably, the fact that publishers need to rethink the way they drive engagement and build followings. Since AI has proven, at least so far, to not be completely trustworthy, publishers have a real opportunity to lean into brand trust and consistency. Also, Ken’s idea of “sponsored sourcing” was not something I’ve thought of before, but I like it!

Finally, the Omnicom - IPG merger is one of the biggest moves within advertising that we’ve seen in decades. Ken and I agree that 2025 is likely to bring greater M&A activity within AdTech, with this move serving as a catalyst. However, it should be noted, that while Omnicom has been doing well, IPG had been struggling pre-merger, recently having to sell off several digital agencies under its umbrella in order to improve its financial standing.