Ralph Burns and Lauren Petrulo pick apart attribution, Meta's Andromeda update, and agency accountability.
Perpetual Traffic treats paid media like an operating problem, not a motivational slogan. Its recent episodes move through Meta, Amazon, Shopify, CAC, ROAS, forecasting, and sales calls with a practitioner’s impatience for numbers that look good but do not explain growth.
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Perpetual Traffic is an interview-driven marketing podcast co-hosted by Ralph Burns, CEO of the paid-media agency Tier 11, and Lauren Petrulo, founder of Mongoose Media. Episodes typically run 25 to 55 minutes and pair the hosts with a guest — an agency operator, attribution-tool founder, or in-house marketing lead — to walk through a specific campaign or case study. A recurring theme is skepticism toward platform-reported metrics: episodes repeatedly argue that Meta, Google, and Amazon in-platform ROAS, along with last-click and view-through attribution, can overstate real business performance, and push listeners toward source-of-truth systems like Shopify, CRM platforms, and third-party attribution tools such as Wicked Reports. Specific recurring subjects include Meta's Andromeda algorithm update, the media efficiency ratio as a blended cross-channel measurement, and Amazon advertising tactics such as listing tests and product-page changes. Guests appearing in the sample include Scott DeGrossier of Wicked Reports, sales trainer Oren Klaff (author of Pitch Anything and Flip the Script), Tier 11 legal-vertical lead Oli Liboy, and media buyer John Moran. Beyond channel tactics, episodes also cover agency-client accountability — what questions a VP of marketing should ask an underperforming agency — sales-call negotiation and status dynamics, and internal agency operations such as EOS core-values reviews and employee development policy. The tone is practical and case-study-driven, with before-and-after numbers on CAC, NCAC, and ROAS cited in most episodes rather than abstract theory. The show suits marketing directors, CMOs, and agency or e-commerce owners who manage paid budgets and need to evaluate attribution claims or agency reporting. Production is a single-guest conversation format in most episodes, with occasional multi-person panel installments.
Made for: Marketing directors, CMOs, and agency or e-commerce owners who manage paid ad budgets and need to evaluate attribution and agency reporting claims.
What sets it apart: Each episode is built around a specific, numbered case study from Ralph Burns's own Tier 11 agency clients rather than general paid-media theory.
Perpetual Traffic is a weekly podcast for CMOs, marketing directors, and business owners who want to master paid advertising, scale their businesses profitably and stay one step ahead of the shifting paid advertising landscape of today. Hosted by Ralph Burns (CEO of Tier 11, managing $200M+ in ad spend), the show covers digital marketing strategy, paid traffic optimization, and performance marketing, featuring expert interviews, case studies, and actionable campaign breakdowns. If you’re tired of wasting ad spend on campaigns that don’t convert, struggling to prove marketing ROI to executives, or overwhelmed by constantly changing platform algorithms and marketing tactics that...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Perpetual Traffic connects advertising metrics to customer growth, product economics, and the decisions behind a marketing budget.
Perpetual Traffic follows advertising decisions past the platform dashboard and into the business they are supposed to serve. Ralph Burns uses campaign reviews, case studies, and conversations with practitioners to test whether reported performance reflects new customers,…
A 10X dashboard gets cross-examined until your actual customer growth takes the stand.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical case study on why strong channel ROAS can still mask missed forecasts and weak new customer growth.
Perpetual Traffic uses a client with five missed forecasts to make a practical point about marketing spend: a channel can report attractive ROAS while the business still misses its revenue or new customer goals.
A blunt sales-call reset for sellers who give away status before the real conversation starts.
Perpetual Traffic frames sales language as a status problem, especially for sellers who enter calls already trying to be agreeable. The episode zeroes in on habits that can weaken a deal before substance enters the conversation: saying sorry too often, leaning on please and…
A practical case for managing Amazon, ads, pricing, and brand growth as one connected operating system.
Perpetual Traffic treats growth less as a funnel problem than an operating problem across ads, Amazon, pricing, and brand demand. The strongest stretch is the Amazon discussion, where Lauren Petrullo and Ralph Burns get into the practical mess: product economics, SKU selection,…
A practical Meta ads account check on segments, spend, new customers, and campaign structure.
Perpetual Traffic turns this Meta ads episode into a practical account check for teams still leaning on old funnel logic. The discussion centers on audience segments, new customer distribution, purchase conversion value, and the difference between a true lead and someone who…
A practical agency-management episode for marketers who need performance signals beyond dashboard confidence.
Perpetual Traffic frames agency management as a performance discipline, not a reporting exercise. The useful distinction is simple: a marketing leader should not stop at a clean Meta dashboard or a confident weekly recap, but should ask whether the numbers are real and whether…
A practical paid-media case study on personal injury law, expensive search intent, Meta reach, and the uneven math behind big-case returns.
Perpetual Traffic treats personal injury advertising as a market where intent can get brutally expensive. Oli Liboy's clearest point is that the economics do not work like ordinary lead generation: some cases may barely cover acquisition costs, staffing, and overhead, while one…
A marketing-operator conversation on building a moat through people, communication, and long-horizon bets, with Meta as the main case study.
Perpetual Traffic treats a business moat less as a defensible ad trick and more as an internal operating advantage. The clearest idea comes early: companies worry about training people who might leave, but the bigger risk may be never developing the people who stay.
A sharp case for judging Meta ads by business outcomes, not its attribution dashboard.
Perpetual Traffic makes a practical case for leaving strong Meta ads alone after the Andromeda update, even when the platform's own reporting makes that uncomfortable.
Stephen Dubner tests bourbon economics, Alzheimer's research, and money advice against hard data.
Daily business news with Kai Ryssdal, tracking Fed policy, oil shocks, and private credit.
Galloway rotates Office Hours Q&A, Raging Moderates politics, and China Decode geopolitics weekly.
Joel and Matt answer listener money questions weekly in the show's Ask HTM segments.
Brené Brown's long-form conversations linking grief, caregiving, politics, and nonviolence to her vulnerability research.
Five missed forecasts set the table.
Stop saying sorry.
This episode discusses why pausing Meta ads based solely on CPA metrics is a mistake, exploring optimization strategies and recent changes in advertising platforms.
Ralph Burns and Lauren Petrulo argue that the classic funnel is dead and that Meta, Google, Amazon, SEO, email, and affiliates have to be measured together through media efficiency ratio.
This episode discusses how the traditional marketing funnel is evolving, emphasizing the importance of brand building and differentiation in performance marketing.
This episode introduces a free business audit offer and sponsorship opportunities for marketers, focusing on leveraging comments sections for sales.
Audience segments become the warning light.
The episode discusses how to verify customer acquisition numbers from platforms like Meta against actual CRM data to ensure accurate CAC.
The host promotes a free deep dive audit giveaway and introduces the show's focus on paid traffic strategies.
Reporting is not performance.
This episode discusses the importance of measuring performance in paid advertising and features a sponsor segment about business insurance.
This episode discusses the importance of business insurance for small businesses and diversification in advertising.
Google gets treated as an intent machine, not a bargain traffic pipe.
A digital marketing case study on generating car accident leads that turned into signed cases worth $30k-$90k each, with a sponsored segment on business insurance.
This episode discusses the high cost of customer acquisition for a personal injury law firm and the importance of business insurance for marketers.
This episode presents a premium e-commerce case study where a business grew from $5M to $32M in revenue over two years, while also discussing the importance of business insurance for protecting against unexpected financial hits.
This episode discusses Meta's shift away from sales optimization towards leading indicators like hook rates for ad performance, while also emphasizing the importance of business insurance for risk management.
This episode discusses outdated Meta ad strategies and the importance of business insurance for marketers and business owners.
The moat starts with people.
This episode discusses the importance of accurate customer data for ad spend decisions and introduces business insurance as a critical protection for small businesses.
New customers are said to be up 80%.
This episode discusses the importance of business insurance and introduces a new approach to managing ad campaigns by not pausing underperformers.
This episode discusses the importance of business insurance for marketers and business owners, featuring a sponsor segment from Next Insurance.
This episode discusses the importance of business insurance for marketers and business owners, featuring a sponsor segment from Next Insurance.
This episode discusses paid advertising strategies and includes a case study on gaining prescription customers, with a sponsor segment about business insurance.
This episode discusses the importance of non-call-to-action ads on Meta and the need for business insurance, featuring a sponsor segment for Next Insurance.
This episode discusses connected TV as a full-funnel performance channel and the importance of business insurance for marketers.
This episode discusses the importance of niche targeting in Meta ads and the need for business insurance, featuring a sponsor segment.
This episode discusses a new Meta ad tool called Gem and how advertisers can train it for better performance.
Ralph Burns discusses fixing a tracking error in a Meta ad account that had been measuring the wrong metric for over two years, leading to improved CPA.
This episode discusses the importance of accurately calculating NCAC (Net Customer Acquisition Cost) to ensure profitable scaling in paid advertising campaigns.
This episode discusses membership models making a comeback and shares a client meeting case study on connecting cold ads to high-ticket sales.
This episode discusses strategies for offering free trials with conditions and features an ad for ActiveCampaign's autonomous marketing platform.
Ralph Burns discusses the ad flow funnel for scaling paid traffic from $37k to $100k monthly spend while lowering customer acquisition cost.