Are you actually marketing to your customers… or the customers you wish you had? 👀

In this episode of Blame It On Marketing, Emma and Ruta are joined by Janis Thomas to talk about one of marketing’s favourite delusions: thinking we know exactly who our customers are.

Because apparently our customers are always younger, richer, more sophisticated and far more interested in our product than they actually are. Funny that.

We get into:
🔥 Why businesses become delusional about their ideal customer
📊 How customer research can expose some uncomfortable truths
💸 What happens when you chase the sexy customer instead of the profitable one
🎯 Why your actual customers might want something completely different from your product roadmap
🧠 How our own biases completely screw with customer understanding
🔬 The simple research questions that can transform your marketing
👀 Why “Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?” might be the most useful question you ask
🪄 Where personalisation goes wrong when your customer insight is rubbish
🚩 And why sometimes proving an idea DOESN'T work is incredibly valuable

Plus, we discover why the number one cancellation reason for one publication was literally death, learn far more than expected about fabric conditioner, and get extremely invested in chickpeas.
It's educational. Promise.

If you've ever sat in a meeting while someone confidently announces “our ideal customer is enterprise” based on one massive deal they closed three years ago, this episode is for you.

👇 Tell us in the comments: what's the biggest assumption you've seen a business make about its customers?

And if you enjoy the episode, subscribe to Blame It On Marketing for more marketing confessions, questionable opinions and conversations about the stuff marketers are actually dealing with.

We’re Ruta and Emma, the marketing consultants behind Blame it on Marketing.

If you’re in B2B SaaS or professional services and looking to do marketing that actually drives revenue and profit, we’re here for it.

Visit blameitonmarketing.com and let’s get this show on the road.

What if spending more on marketing is actually making your marketing worse? 😅
In this episode of Blame It On Marketing, Emma and Ruta are joined by Steve Armenti, lifelong marketer and founder of twelth agency, to talk about the big B2B trap: more budget, more leads, more outbound, more tools… but somehow worse results.

Steve has worked across agency, Google, DigitalOcean and now ABM, so he’s seen the demand gen machine from multiple sides — including the part where everyone realises the MQL spreadsheet looked great, but the leads were absolute rubbish.

Marketing confession of the episode:
Steve used to fully believe in the volume-based demand gen model: more leads, more MQLs, more scoring, more sales complaints. Then he manually reviewed around 1,000 MQLs and realised most of them were not leads sales should ever call. Career-changing. Ego-humbling.

We get into:
✅ Why B2B has become addicted to “more”
✅ The demand gen trap: volume, MQLs and rigged scoring models
✅ Why more leads are not better leads
✅ How AI and outbound automation are making everyone noisier
✅ Why inbound funnels are earned, not simply “built”
✅ The difference between third-party, first-party and manufactured intent data
✅ Why third-party intent platforms might not be the silver bullet marketers were sold
✅ The weird economics of paying to create data… then buying it back
✅ How to think about real intent using your own channels and smarter signals
✅ Why G2 is both unavoidable and deeply annoying
✅ Experiential ABM: what it is, when it works, and why it beats lazy spam
✅ How real-life, personalised experiences can create stronger relationships and better meeting rates
✅ Why the future of marketing is asking better questions, scrutinising more, and refusing to take vendor claims at face value

If you’re being pushed to buy more leads, pump more outbound, or “just add intent data” to fix pipeline — this episode is your permission slip to pause, ask better questions, and stop feeding the machine.

Like, subscribe, and comment with the worst “more leads will fix it” moment you’ve lived through.

#B2BMarketing #DemandGen #ABM #MarketingStrategy #IntentData #MarketingOps #RevenueMarketing #AIinMarketing

We’re Ruta and Emma, the marketing consultants behind Blame it on Marketing.

If you’re in B2B SaaS or professional services and looking to do marketing that actually drives revenue and profit, we’re here for it.

Visit blameitonmarketing.com and let’s get this show on the road.

Is creativity really about coming up with beautiful campaigns—or is it simply finding clever ways to solve difficult problems?

In this special in-person episode, Emma and Ruta are joined by the team behind Technology for Marketing and eCommerce Expo to explore this year’s theme: Creative Intelligence in Action.

We talk about what creativity actually looks like inside a modern marketing team, particularly when budgets are tight, workloads are growing and AI can produce almost anything at the click of a button.

Marketing confessions include telling a senior stakeholder that a budget cut felt like “a slap in the face” and repeatedly cloning email campaigns without checking the subject line, sender details or reply-to address. Cue 30,000 emails—and one very unhappy inbox owner.

We get into:

✅ Why creativity is much broader than design, copy and campaign concepts
✅ How problem-solving, communication and data storytelling are creative skills
✅ Using AI to brainstorm, sense-check ideas and adapt campaigns across channels
✅ The risk of outsourcing your critical thinking and personal judgement to ChatGPT
✅ Why audiences are pushing back against AI influencers, artwork and synthetic content
✅ How marketers can use AI for learning, admin and the work they genuinely struggle with
✅ Efficiency versus effectiveness—and why giving people more tools often just creates more work
✅ Why growth requires experimentation, waste and the occasional failed campaign
✅ How to test properly instead of changing everything and declaring that marketing “didn’t work”
✅ Burnout, boundaries and the importance of having colleagues you can have a proper moan with

Plus, we discuss parasocial relationships with creators, senior salespeople misusing the term “demand generation,” and why nobody should leave their dinner getting cold after being told it’s ready.

Technology for Marketing and eCommerce Expo take place on 23–24 September 2026. Emma and Ruta will also be there with the Blame It On Marketing confession wall, ready to hear your marketing sins—and validate how much you hate your boss.

#MarketingPodcast #CreativeMarketing #AIinMarketing #MarketingLeadership #MarketingBurnout #TechnologyForMarketing

We’re Ruta and Emma, the marketing consultants behind Blame it on Marketing.

If you’re in B2B SaaS or professional services and looking to do marketing that actually drives revenue and profit, we’re here for it.

Visit blameitonmarketing.com and let’s get this show on the road.