The Marketing Millennials

What if the most underrated Marketing channel isn't a new platform, but the independent creators your audience already trusts?

Dan Robbins, Head of Brand Sponsorships at Substack, has spent his career building ad businesses from scratch. He started in measurement at Nielsen, then launched ads at Roku in the early days of streaming, and later did the same at PayPal and Venmo. He even taught a course on the economics of advertising at Cornell. Now he's bringing brands like Balenciaga, Uber, T-Mobile, and Rare Beauty onto Substack.

And, Dan breaks down Substack's three new sponsorship formats. Unlocks let a brand open up a paywalled post. Upgrades give readers a free month of a paid subscription, like Rare Beauty did for World Mental Health Day. The Masthead gives brands a curated destination on the Substack homepage and app without having to launch their own publication.

Plus, Dan explains why launching your own brand newsletter is quietly one of the biggest mistakes brands make on the platform. His advice is to join the party where it already is instead of throwing your own. He also explains why creators should keep full creative control, and how Substack is using brand lift studies with Kantar to prove these sponsorships actually move awareness, consideration, and intent.

If you're a Marketer who wants to reach audiences where trust is moving from institutions to individuals, this is the episode for you.

Breakthrough 2026 is the Agentic GTM Conference, happening November 2-5 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Join 1,300 revenue leaders for three days of real research, hands-on skill-building, and a certification to prove you can apply it. Learn more at https://6sense.com/breakthrough/

Follow Dan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drobbins2/

Follow Daniel:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing

Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter:
www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials

Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts.

To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Kelli Hurley, VP, Head of Content and Podcast Partnership Sales at SiriusXM, sits between brands and podcast creators on every deal. She calls the job a combo of diplomacy and psychological warfare.

Before SiriusXM, Kelli helped build the Westwood One Podcast Network, so she’s watched creator Marketing grow from simple host reads into video, social, and live events.
She tells us where a brand should put its 1st podcast dollars when it has SOME budget (but not TV budget), why some creator briefs can kill a deal before it starts, and the 1 measurement problem the whole industry STILL hasn’t cracked. Plus, the Marketing hill she’d die on, and why it changes how you should think about brand safety.

If you’re a Marketer who wants to make creator partnerships actually pay off, this episode is for YOU.

If you got something out of this one, hit follow and leave a rating. It helps more Marketers find the show.

Own every listening moment with SiriusXM Media. As the access point to the most valuable audiences, we make it easy for advertisers to reach people across premium audio, creators, video, and live experiences—all through one connected ecosystem that’s built for scale, quality, and measurable results. Learn more about the largest addressable audio ecosystem at siriusxmmedia.com/daniel

Follow Kelli:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kellihurley
Follow Daniel:
YouTube: youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured
Twitter: twitter.com/Dmurr68
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing
Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter:www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials
Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit:www.workweek.com

Check out the new Bathroom Break podcast with Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray on Apple and Spotify.

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Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and check out The Marketing Millennials podcast for sharp, no-fluff marketing insights. Subscribe to Ari Murray’s newsletter at gotomillions.co for sharp, actionable marketing insights.

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LinkedIn posts that look almost identical are getting 8,000 impressions one day and 80,000 the next. Instagram has dropped its years of resistance to long-form video. And more inboxes now let AI decide what people actually read. Jay Schwedelson and Daniel Murray work out which of these shifts should change how you market, and they settle once and for all whether bottle service makes you a tool.

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Best Moments:

(02:58) Jay stopped liking his own posts from company pages, and reach went up

(06:09) Why Instagram may be a much easier growth play than YouTube

(06:49) How brands can tease a launch and keep viewers on Instagram for the full reveal

(07:49) The first 200 characters of live text are email’s new North Star

(08:50) Image-heavy emails are invisible to AI summaries

(09:32) Why AI agents could make email matter more than ever

B2B social isn’t broken…most brands are just playing it wrong.

Daniel sits down with Chris Cunningham, founding member of ClickUp and the brain behind one of the most recognizable B2B social strategies today.

Chris breaks down how ClickUp went from a scrappy pivot to a content powerhouse by betting early on creators, comedy, and consistency, even when everyone said B2B social wouldn’t work. From building an internal creator team to launching multiple niche media pages, Chris shares the exact operating system ClickUp uses to generate millions of organic impressions every month.

You’ll also learn:

Why B2B brands should copy B2C trends before they’re “acceptable”

How ClickUp runs its weekly content machine from ideation to publishing

Why creator-led pages and employee-generated content are the future of B2B marketing

If you’re trying to build a brand people actually talk about (not just ads people scroll past), this episode is for you.

Breakthrough 2026 is the Agentic GTM Conference, happening November 2-5 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Join 1,300 revenue leaders for three days of real research, hands-on skill-building, and a certification to prove you can apply it. Learn more at https://6sense.com/breakthrough/

Follow Chris:

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisclickup/⁠

Follow Daniel:

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing/⁠

Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: ⁠https://themarketingmillennials.com/⁠

Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts.

To find out more, visit: ⁠https://workweek.com/

Why does every brand suddenly look the same? Anthony Reeves, author of Eat the Donkey and former brand and creative leader at Amazon, Kohler, LVMH, and WPP, has a theory, and it starts with "optimization."

If using the same AI tools and the same data as your competitors leads to the same results, how do you stand out? Anthony breaks down why friction might be the key.

Plus, the one data point that makes or breaks a creative brief, how to tell productive friction from plain old bureaucracy, and the McLaren rebrand that has Daniel fired up.

If you’re a Marketer who wants to build a brand that stands out instead of blending in, this episode is for YOU.

Breakthrough 2026 is the Agentic GTM Conference, happening November 2-5 at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Join 1,300 revenue leaders for three days of real research, hands-on skill-building, and a certification to prove you can apply it. Learn more at https://6sense.com/breakthrough/

Enjoying the show? Hit follow and leave us a rating. It helps more Marketers find the pod.

Follow Anthony:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyreeves/Website: https://www.anthonyreeves.co

Follow Daniel:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featuredTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing

Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter:www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials

Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts.

To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com