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Jared Belsky

CEO of Acadia, Author, and Influential Marketing Executive

Jared Belsky is the CEO and Co-Founder of Acadia, a digital marketing and analytics agency.1 He has an extensive background in the advertising and marketing industry, with notable achievements and leadership roles:

Career Highlights

  • CEO and Co-Founder of Acadia (July 2021 - Present): Belsky leads this agency, which focuses on retail media, marketplaces, paid media, analytics, CRO, SEO, and social media.4

  • Former CEO of 360i (April 2018 - August 2021): Under his leadership, 360i was named Adweek's Breakthrough Media Agency of the Year and featured in AdAge's A-List for eight consecutive years.14

Achievements and Recognition

  • Named to AdAge's "40 Under 40" in 2017.12
  • Honored as "Executive of the Year" at the 2016 Bing Awards.12
  • Featured on Adweek's Media All-Star list in 2014.12

Author and Thought Leader

Belsky has authored two books:

  1. "The Great Client Partner": Focused on soft skills and improving client relationships.25
  2. "You Get the Agency You Deserve": Aimed at helping clients maximize their agency relationships.25

He is also a frequent contributor to industry publications such as AdAge, Adweek, and AdExchanger.12

Education and Background

  • MBA in Marketing & Management from Emory University.12
  • BA with Honors from the University of Pennsylvania.12

Additional Roles

  • Board Member for 2ULaundry, a DTC laundry startup.14
  • Operating Partner for Overline, a seed-stage venture capital firm.13
  • Advisor to various companies including Off Beat Media Group, On-Site Dental, and Grubbly Farms.13

Jared Belsky's career spans over two decades in digital marketing, including experience in brand management at Coca-Cola and as one of the first employees at Avenue A (now Sapient Razorfish).12

Highlights

May 21 · linkedin

Its not that CMOs are under-attack, its just an overall lack of patience in the US business community.

This morning, in my inbox, e-marketer was kind of enough to send me this scary chart about how average tenure of CMOs has bottomed out at 37 months (personally, I see it being way worse than that).

My supposition was that this is not just a "CMO thing" so I researched around and found the other graph below that shows patience with CEO's is also thin, being at the lowest point in a decade at 4.8 years (medium). I guess I found it a bit interesting that on average, CEO's are lasting 55% longer than CMO's, but upon further inspection, that is not the real story.

What is really interesting is the relative decline. If you adjust months to years, what you see is that the CMO dropped about a year as did the CEO duration, over the past same 10 years. Given how much we all cover the "fall of the CMO" you would have thought the speed of decline for CMO's would have been worse especially because they get the blame for bad product, bad sales, bad legal, bad distribution and bad everything even when they are not bad themselves.

So, what is my takeaway? Three things.

  1. Being a C-anything in corporate America is not for the faint of heart. As my old boss said, they call it compensation for a reason.
  2. CMO's indeed are under stress with less time than ever to prove themselves, but so are CEOs.
  3. If we took a step back, we might say that none of this is shocking perhaps. We are in a society where everything happens faster. Athletes are groomed earlier. Kids are on phones earlier. Screens on the go replaced most long-form reading for most. And so on. So, why are we so shocked that patience with the top continues to decline.

I love a good chart on a Tuesday AM.

May 1 · linkedin

I respect the Amazon Advertising Juggernaut. There, I said it. 

Why does our culture need to hate a winner?

Amazon had a great Q1. It was actually, amazing. In particular, what I found amazing was that Advertising revenue grew 24% in the first quarter, outpacing retail and cloud computing. This was $11B in revenue just for advertising, just for the quarter. Holy, moly.

Yes, advertising growth outpaced cloud and retail. That is wild, but in a way not shocking. 

So, why dont I love to hate on Amazon like so many others? For me, its a bit like sports. I love to root for Jordan, Jeter, Clark, Ohtani, Biles, Phelps, Woods, Mahomes. I am good to root for those winning as long as they are building the game and changing the game.

Amazon continues to innovate its ad-product, has brought to the market AMC (something we wanted in our industry for 20+ years and never got outside of Retail Media), has recently brought video mainstream in a retail media giant, and continues to provide new innovation around UGC/Influencer and more. Retail Media seemed for a minute destined to be locked into a sponsored search / PPC dynamic, but Amazon is helping us ALL bust out of that with their focus on Video (which they hinted at is going very well on the earnings call) and AMC which lets us prove mid/upper-funnel video does drive value.

Amazon advertising is some ways can and should be thanked for bringing Advertising to the mainstream as a utility, whereas Advertising was/is usually something that interrupts. 

No, they are not perfect. The list of wants I have for them to improve is too long to include here.  But for sure, I am okay with tipping my hat and saying that was one hell of a quarter.

Okay, go ahead and rip.  

Related Questions

What inspired Jared Belsky to start Acadia?
How did Jared Belsky's leadership at 360i impact the company's success?
What are some key takeaways from Jared Belsky's book "The Great Client Partner"?
What makes Acadia different from other digital marketing agencies?
How did Jared Belsky's experience at Avenue A influence his career?
Jared Belsky
Jared Belsky, photo 1
Jared Belsky, photo 2
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Experience

CEO and Co-Founder at Acadia since July 2021
CEO at 360i from April 2018 to August 2021

Education

M.B.A. in Marketing & Management from Emory University, B.A. with Honors in Political Science and Government from the University of Pennsylvania

Location

Atlanta Metropolitan Area