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Next in MediaAuthor: Mike Shields
Everything we know about the media, marketing and advertising business is being completely upended thanks to technology and data. We're talking with some of the top industry leaders as they steer their companies through constant change. Language: en Genres: Business, Marketing, News, Tech News Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Why Independent Agencies Are Having a Renaissance – with CMO Kristina Canada
Episode 76
Tuesday, 5 May, 2026
Episode description In this episode of Next in Media, Mike Shields sits down with Kristina Canada, CMO at Net Conversion, a 19-year-old independent marketing and analytics agency based in Orlando that's in the middle of a serious growth push — with a new Chicago office, a recent acquisition of CTV specialists Elevate the Outcome, and a philosophy rooted in measurable business outcomes over vanity metrics. Kristina and Mike dig into why independent agencies are experiencing a renaissance right now as clients seek out agility and transparency. They unpack Net Conversion's approach to making CTV a true performance channel without losing the brand-building benefits, and get into the agency's pragmatic but skeptical stance on AI — from arguing with Google reps about Performance Max to building their own internal chatbot and copilot tools for analysts. Key Highlights 🏢 The Independent Agency Renaissance: Clients are gravitating toward independents for agility, transparency, and freedom from holdco conflicts of interest. 📺 CTV as a Performance Channel: Net Conversion splits CTV into demand capture and demand creation, applying measurement rigor without forcing direct-response KPIs on brand-building. 🤖 AI as Co-Pilot, Not Pilot: The agency's internal mantra is "everyone gets an intern" — they've built their own chatbot but remain vocal skeptics of handing everything to PMAX. 🔍 AI Search Is Merging Paid and Organic: Kristina advises shifting from keyword matching to intent matching, and shares early learnings from piloting ads inside ChatGPT. 🤝 Against Principal-Based Buying: When agencies pre-buy media, incentives shift away from the client — Net Conversion keeps its model firmly aligned with client outcomes. 📈 Undervalued Platforms: Reddit and YouTube are two channels Kristina says deserve more attention from performance-minded advertisers. Resources & Next Steps 🔗 Kristina Canada on LinkedIn 🌐 Net Conversion 🎧 Subscribe to Next in Media on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Chapter Timestamps 00:00 Cold open 01:51 Introducing Kristina Canada and Net Conversion 04:23 The Elevate the Outcome acquisition and CTV/OTT push 06:03 Why independent agencies are having a "renaissance" 08:00 Making CTV a performance channel without losing brand value 10:23 Sponsor break: Reaching the right audiences on streaming TV 11:21 Being a healthy skeptic of PMAX and Advantage+ 13:19 AI adoption in staff workflows and training 16:00 OpenAI's advertising push and AI-powered search 18:18 The problem with principal-based media buying 19:37 Why YouTube and Reddit are still undervalued 21:02 Wrap up
