In the latest episode of The Shades of Entrepreneurship podcast, we sat down with Jeff Greenfield, a marketing innovator and the mind behind Provalytics®, to unpack the ever-changing marketing landscape.
The Evolution of Marketing and Advertising

Listen, the marketing game has changed folks. Gone are the days when TV and print
dominated advertising strategies.
As Jeff explains, the rise of digital and social media channels has shifted the way brands connect with their audiences, and adapting to the new age marketing is crucial to success.
Today, entrepreneurs must identify where their target customers consume content and tailor their messaging accordingly.
A one-size-fits-all approach no longer works—personalization and platform-specific strategies are key.
It is important to focus on where your audience spends their time. Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram, or niche forums, understanding their habits allows you to craft messages that resonate. This is called market segmentation.
For instance, a nonprofit's target market segments for a newsletter might look like this:
MARKET SEGMENT | PURPOSE | BEST PRACTICES |
Donors | Build trust, demonstrate impact, and encourage continued or increased support. | • Use emotional storytelling • Include visuals (before/after photos, charts) • Personalize with their name |
Sponsors | Showcase partnership ROI, increase engagement, and encourage ongoing sponsorships. | • Highlight measurable outcomes • Include logos and public acknowledgments • Use business-friendly tone |
Volunteers | Recognize efforts, retain engagement, and recruit new volunteers. | • Use inclusive language • Emphasize their contributions • Highlight variety of roles/opportunities |
General Audience | Keep community members informed and engaged while inspiring deeper involvement. | • Use simple, inclusive language • Offer a mix of content to appeal broadly • Include clear CTAs |
It is important to create consistency with communications, constantly being the value-add to the targeted market-segment with a clear call-to-action (CTA) at the end: visit our website, explore articles, share your story, follow social channels.
Marketing isn’t just about crafting a compelling story that highlights the value proposition; it’s equally essential for entrepreneurs to foster engagement with their target market segments to build and enhance loyalty.
Measuring Marketing Effectiveness Beyond Clicks
Clicks and cost-per-click have long been the benchmarks for marketing success. However, Jeff argues that this traditional focus is flawed. While clicks are easy to measure, they don’t tell the whole story. Building brand awareness through impressions—the number of times your ad is seen—is just as important.
“Impressions create awareness,” Jeff notes, emphasizing that understanding the relationship between impressions, clicks, and conversions provides a more holistic view of your marketing performance.
Don’t obsess over clicks. Instead, analyze impression data alongside clicks and conversions to gauge the true effectiveness of your campaigns.Take Amazon as an example to highlight the importance of tracking impressions.
If someone sees a brand on Amazon, clicks on a product, and then goes directly to the brand's website to make a purchase instead of buying through Amazon, the initial "impression" occurred on Amazon. This underscores Jeff's point: entrepreneurs who focus only on direct sales from Amazon may overlook the hidden value of impressions and how they directly influence sales.
Understanding where your target market engages is critical. For instance, an entrepreneur may not sell directly on Facebook Marketplace, but tracking impressions from marketing efforts on Facebook and other social media platforms can reveal how they drive direct sales, and possibly leading to better return-on-investment on future marketing campaigns.
Adapting to Privacy Changes and the Omni-Channel Consumer
Privacy changes, like Apple’s iOS updates, have disrupted marketers’ ability to track user-level data. These shifts demand a new approach.
Jeff shares how Provalytics® uses aggregated, probabilistic data to measure marketing effectiveness in a privacy-conscious world.
He also highlights a common challenge: today’s consumers interact with brands across multiple channels, making it harder to pinpoint what’s driving engagement.
Embrace tools and strategies that work with aggregated data while ensuring you’re creating a cohesive experience across all channels—online and offline, such as customer data planforms (CDPs), marketing automation like HubSpot, analytics and attribution tools like Google Analytics, CRM systems like Salesforce, and other tools to support customer marketing.
Providing a Single Source of Truth for Marketing Data
For entrepreneurs juggling multiple marketing tools and platforms, like some listed above, consolidating data can be a nightmare (trust me, I know first hand).
Jeff explains how Provalytics® helps enterprises unify their marketing data into a single, comprehensive view. This holistic approach not only streamlines decision-making but also helps justify marketing budgets.
A unified view will save time, reduce errors, and improve ability to make data-driven decisions, ultimately making the business more efficient and saving time. In the world of entrepreneurship: time is money.
Final Thoughts
Jeff’s recommendations for marketers and entrepreneurs are clear:
Stop focusing solely on clicks
Start paying attention to impression data and how it influences your audience
Analyze the interplay between impressions, clicks, and sales to fine-tune your strategy
As an entrepreneur, understanding the evolution of marketing and adapting to new challenges—from privacy changes to omni-channel behaviors—is critical. By shifting focus beyond clicks, leveraging impression data, and consolidating marketing insights, an entrepreneur can position the business for success.
Ready to level up your marketing game? Tune into the full episode with Jeff Greenfield and discover how you can thrive in today’s digital-first world.
👉🏽 LISTEN HERE
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