If you’ve ever felt like your marketing stack is more of a marketing pile, like siloed channels, disconnected metrics, and a different agency for every platform, this conversation with Zack Dugow is for you.

At the fourth annual POSSIBLE Conference in Miami I built a mini-series of four Insider Interviews episodes I’m calling “POV: Possible,” kicking off with Zack , the founder and CEO of The Cool Company. (Yes, that’s the actual name. BUT, COOL is actually an acronym — more on that in the episode.)

What is truly cool is that this company is based on four acquired ad tech companies, integrated into a single AI-powered platform: They build your ad creative, buy your media across every channel, and continuously optimize for business goals or outcomes. No siloes. One system, one goal, one cool company. And, Zack illustrates the how and why in my segment called, “Pitch Me. Pinch Me.”

Spoiler alert (unless you were at Possible and saw it from SalientMG’s Innovation Stage!): Zack sharesa a compelling case study from National Veterinary Associates where his team ran a head-to-head test against a human media trading team.  Same budget, same time period. The result?

289% more phone calls and appointments. The reason? While a skilled human team might make 70 campaign changes in a week, theri CoolAI made over 8,600 in two weeks.

As Zack put it:

“What human is gonna log in, take 20 minutes to make a change that improves something one one-thousandth of a percent? But micro-gains compound fast.”

More human side? You’ll learn about his dog, Barry (listen why he’s named that!), and Zack’s appreciation for Padel (pah-DEL?!)

But, we also got into the measurement mess that’s plaguing the human industry right now. Zack’s universal advice? Always ask how your attribution is actually being calculated, and sanity-check it against your own internal numbers. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, you should be looking at your own internal business metrics. If you’re a restaurant, it’s like, how many entrees did I sell?”

And when it comes to AI being overhyped? Zack, of course, doesn’t think so. But he does think we’re just now crossing from “faster and cheaper” into “actually better.” Proof point? He makes the case that the beauty of automation is its range: the same platform that optimizes campaigns for a national airline can do the same for a local car wash, with no ad expertise required.

The playing field is leveling, and the implications for marketers at every scale are hard to ignore.

Key Moments

0:01:25 — What the Cool Company actually does under one AI platform 

0:03:49 — What COOL stands for: More than a name; a philosophy.

0:06:08 — The Proof Point: A case study that pit AI-driven campaign management against a human trading team

0:07:04 — Why micro-optimizations at AI scale compounds gains humans can’t replicate 

0:09:00 — Attribution truth talk  

0:10:19 — The Channel Budget Trap: Why siloing budgets by platform (TikTok, search, display) limits performance vs unified goal-setting

0:11:13— The Human Side: Meet Barry, Zack’s co-pilot, and the most Game of Thrones-named dog in ad tech

0:12:49 — Is AI Overhyped? Zack’s take on where AI is in its evolution 

0:15:06 — AI and Jobs…and what roles will matter most.

Connect with:

The Cool Company

Zack Dugow

SalientMG

Connect with E.B. Moss and Insider Interviews: With Media & Marketing Experts           

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