Built Different just landed on the masthead. What began as a newsletter title, ‘Perspectives of a Marketing CEO,’ quickly outgrew its old suit in twelve issues flat. So we gave it a new name, a bigger lens, and we’re off to the races.
When I launched this thing, the goal was to pull the curtain back on how decisions actually happen when the numbers swell and the clock refuses to blink.
Two large shifts have hit since. First, AI stopped being a shiny add-on and became the core infrastructure race. Second, every serious operator (from 10-person boutiques to global holding agencies) is now asking us the same blunt question. Do we own the pipes, or do we rent them? They’re asking that quest question because it drives everything today - valuation, margin, and even headcount strategy.
My inbox felt the change first. Every issue here sparks email chains that outrun the newsletter itself and roll across time zones. Founders, bankers, brand chiefs, policy architects — they volley questions sharper than some I have heard on Wall Street. My point is that this audience outgrew the wrapper, so the wrapper had to grow or step aside.
Introducing Built Different—a bimonthly field report that shows how decision-layer AI, creator intelligence, and smart M&A are rewriting the marketing playbook before the ink on last quarter’s plan is even dry.
Built Different keeps the cadence, keeps the zero-varnish tone, and widens the lens to match how quickly capital, talent, and tech now collide.
Digital marketing is no longer a channel game. We run full-stack decision engines where data, AI, and creator intelligence fire in a single loop. Brands that wire that loop first capture compounding margin. Agencies that miss the window watch head-count fees fade. Investors see the shift, which is why decision-layer tech keeps pulling bids even as discretionary ad spend plateaus.
Now the numbers. LUMA’s latest tracker shows meaningful marketing-tech deals rising more than twenty-five percent quarter on quarter. That is not froth. Buyers want control of the data-to-creative pathway because that is where outcomes lock. Wall Street is acting in concert. Late June, Barclays trimmed growth expectations for two legacy holding giants and wrote that revenue will remain flat until those firms rebuild their decision layer . Hourly billing cannot cover the spread when AI can crank out two hundred variants before the first coffee refill.
Inside C-suite calls the talk is sharper. Integration windows are shrinking. Boards no longer applaud signed term sheets; they ask how soon the new gear fires live. Ninety days is the line. Miss it and the win turns into burn. There is also the creator loop. Smart shops treat every post as streaming telemetry. Content goes live, the model ingests engagement vectors, the next brief lands inside forty-eight hours. That cycle was a gaming-studio move five years ago; it now runs in toys, beauty, home improvement, even insurance.
Those pressures set the price ladder. Loud logos do not command the highest multiples. Premium flows to platforms proving the jump from data arrival to creative decision clocks under thirty seconds.
We chose ownership early. RAD Intel maps micro-communities before media dollars move, routes every creator interaction back into the model the moment it happens, and pushes every saved dollar into second-wave momentum plays. Skechers cut paid-social waste by half on that loop and shoved the savings into a Super Bowl burst that returned three-and-a-half times spend. Private equity noticed. During diligence walk-throughs this spring, partners measured time to margin in weeks, not quarters. Their line, not mine — most performance assets bend EBITDA inside twelve months, RAD bends it in roughly half that time. Compression like that becomes its own moat.
Own first-party intent. The cookie clock is almost silent and legislators on both oceans are drafting tighter rules. Deterministic IDs inside your walls will cost less today than next month.
Run a latency sprint. Pick one live product line, start a timer when new data lands, stop when the first creative decision fires. If you see more than forty-eight hours, you found your next cap-ex request.
Audit the creator pipeline. Ask whether every influencer post lands in your model within a day. If not, someone else will weaponise that blind spot in their next pitch.
Acquisition cadence stays hot. Assets guaranteeing data sovereignty keep clearing double-digit EBITDA multiples because brand counsels refuse another privacy rerun. LLM-native performance shops will trade quickest because they drop margin into the ledger on day one. Integration playbooks become page one of every diligence deck. Time to value replaces logo counts as the deciding metric.
A quick twist on platform trust. LinkedIn video engagement climbed fifty percent year on year, and premium CTV metrics mirror that rise. Mid-tier creators aged forty-five and up now deliver the cheapest CPMs in 2025. Audiences reward authenticity over pyrotechnics, and CFOs see it.
Twelve issues later, and the inbox tells its own story. Every send sparks threads that sprint past the original post, rolling across time zones and igniting month-long exchanges in email and LinkedIn DMs—conversations sharper than some I have heard on Wall Street. That momentum demanded a bigger frame, so Built Different steps in to carry the weight.
We’ll continue to keep our energy focused. Expect more deal intel, first-mover consolidation snapshots, and brand-adoption wins in the next issue. For now, the only question that matters is clear. Are you ready to own the pipes, or will you keep renting them?
To RAD,
Jeremy Barnett, Co-founder & CEO, RAD Intel