In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Frank Vertolli, a partner at NetConversion, a 19‑year‑old full‑stack media and measurement agency. Vertolli explains the agency’s evolution from a self‑serve branch to a partner‑focused firm that handles everything from billboards to keyword ads, emphasizing measurement of media spend through the entire customer journey to lifetime value. He clarifies the differences between connected television, over‑the‑top (OTT) and traditional broadcast, noting that connected TV offers digital‑style targeting and measurement but at a premium cost for hyper‑targeted audiences. The conversation moves to advertising strategy, where Vertolli stresses building from the bottom of the funnel up—balancing direct‑response tactics with branding, reach, and frequency to move prospects through awareness, consideration, and conversion stages. He discusses the challenges of attribution across multiple devices, the use of micro‑conversions, surveys, and remarketing to create a more complete picture of media effectiveness. The interview also touches on the emerging role of AI in search and advertising, with Vertolli noting the agency’s experimentation with Google Gemini and the broader industry’s uncertainty about integrating AI models like ChatGPT into ad platforms. Finally, Vertolli provides contact information (frank@netconversion.com) and outlines the types of partners NetConversion works with, including healthcare, travel, private‑equity‑backed home‑service roll‑ups, and quick‑service restaurants, inviting interested parties to reach out for partnership development.
Chapters
Hi, it's Michael Falato again. Um, we have our Full Throttle Leaders podcast today. Frank Fertalli from NetConversions, a good friend of mine from the last 5 years in, in Orlando here. Frank, how you doing?
Doing great today, Michael. Thanks for having me.
So what's, uh, what's been going on, man? I, I heard you, uh, been growing like crazy. You started off kind of a self-serve, um, branch of your company, and then you're also, uh, gaining new clients like crazy. I mean, that's what the talk here is in Orlando. What's, what's going on with you guys?
Uh, things are going well at the— there's the main agency, Net Conversion. We just celebrated 19 years, you know, entered our 20th year in business, so it's good. It's never-ending in terms of changing, more advances in media and ways to measure it. So that keeps it interesting. We work with a lot of great partners, everything from private equity funded roll-ups to local Orlando advertisers and everything in between. More important than the media is the measurement and helping our clients understand how those investments in media turn into new customers, repeat customers, lifetime value.
And what's your, what's your, like, your bread and butter? Like, what's, what's your perfect company that you want to work with? Your, the ICP, the, the industry?
Yeah, it's not really industry vertical as much as it's the composition of the, the, we call them partners, not clients, call them partners, um, their approach to media. We wanna be a full-stack partner. That's everything from a billboard to a keyword. Connected television is a big new growth channel because it's less broadcast and it's more targeted and measurable advertising delivery. And you can measure who's visiting the website, who shops, who buys, lifetime value data ties into their CRM system. So really, we want to be an extension of the team, helping everything from the strategy all the way through to media and advertising, through the website or app or store, and into, you know, lifetime value. We want to measure that whole chain with our partners.
And what's the difference between like OTT and connected television and all these things?
There's a lot of, there's a lot of different terminology and hybrids. Most of the time, these channels You think of old broadcast over-the-airwaves signal, still exists, it's out there, but not, not as many people watching it. Everything's connected now through a device, through an IP address in your home. So really over-the-top television or internet-connected cable devices, that's all part of what we call connected television.
Mm-hmm.
So there are differences in how you buy it, but at the end of the day, what we're doing is getting targeted and measurable, just like digital was for a long time. YouTube, those others, more and more it's like that. You're buying inventory based on not just the show someone's watching, but who they are as an individual, where they live, what kind of behaviors, household income, rent versus own. All of those are targeting— targeted metrics, just like in digital ads, but now it's through television.
I would think, uh, connected radio and connected TV is way better to buy because you can track who it is and target better than terrestrial.
You, you can, but you pay for it in a premium. The, the more hyper-targeted you want, the smaller the audience becomes and the more of a premium you'll pay. But if you're doing a great job with a great partner on the targeting and measurement, it does— I don't want to say pay for itself, but it does come out to be more beneficial for your media investment. You know, there still is a place for things like the Super Bowl where if you're going over broadcast to a global audience or the World Cup, it makes sense. You're Coca-Cola, you want to reach everyone because everyone's a potential customer. We deal with much more refined and targeted where you want to reach a certain demographic about a certain product interested in a certain time period. You try to hone it in so you get the right message to the right person at the right time, and you can measure their response through their behaviors.
Are you doing more branding with your clients or more, hey, I wanna activate them to do A, B, and C?
We, we always say we build from the bottom of the funnel up. So clients all want conversions, but it's in the name, NetConversion. We build from the bottom up. So there are some channels, direct response, you know, last thing a person does before they buy. Google search is a great example. We buy that. But at the end of the day, you can't just hang out at the bottom of the funnel. You have to work your way up as a, as an advertiser, as a brand trying to sell or promote something. You have to make people aware of you before you can try to convert them. So I always say you can't just show up when the wallet comes out. Unless it's a really low, low barrier, impulsive, reactive, inexpensive thing. When it comes to selling cars or vacations or season tickets to a professional sporting event, you have to get on their radar early. You have to build brand and awareness. Those metrics are different. It's reach frequency, which are more traditional metrics, but it's also coming to the website. It's, it's about taking that unknown audience, moving them a little further down from unknown to known to engaged to consideration and all the transaction stages. So yeah, everyone just wants the conversions, but you have to do a lot of work to get to those. You can— the cheapest ones are at the bottom of the funnel, but in all our clients that we've ever partnered with, it's never just enough to hang out at the bottom of the funnel. You have to at some point work your way up. And it's not— you don't have to blanket the world, but you do have to move up, reach higher on that tree, you know. For once all the low-hanging fruit's down, you have to do branding and awareness and activation to get people more interested, to move them along.
And how do you track if someone came because of your placement, right? And then 6 months later, 4 months later, 2 months later, they actually did A, B, and C, or actually purchased, or actually converted. Is it— is there a really good way of tracking that nowadays or not?
It's better than it's ever been, and it's still not just, uh, A plus B equals C. Users use multiple devices. We all have this device in our pocket that's one trackable, and we've got a computer or a laptop or a tablet. We get distracted in the shopping, researching, and dreaming and shopping process. in travel or for other things. So there, anyone who tells you that they have perfect data doesn't know what they have because there is no such thing. Could users just— we're individuals, there are privacy rights, there's only so many things you can track. So we break it up in chunks. When you run a connected TV ad, we want conversion, but if that's your end-all be-all metric, you're not gonna measure enough conversions to justify the investment. So what you have to do is come up with micro conversions or things you want to happen as a result of that media. So if, if you buy a branding ad and you get them to the website, you should value the number of impressions you showed, how many people took a deeper action and went to the website. You can, and if you do measure a sale, you should do that too. But if you're only looking at the sales to justify it, you're missing a lot of the other value that, that media or advertising influenced a consumer. You could do surveys, you can value the website visit, they're now in a remarketing audience that you can reach, and then remarketing becomes an amazingly low-cost channel. Well, yeah, because you had to get that person to your site or app sometime in the first place, and so you have to do a better job of measurement, modeling, and attribution to get a more complete picture. It's not perfect, but it's better than it's ever been.
How about the AI situation where I bypass Google and I go to ChatGPT? So what are the best restaurants to go to for A, B, and C? Yeah, it's in that space at all, or is it?
We are, we are. There's a lot of ways to do SEO or agentic, uh, a optimal agentic optimization. Yeah, um, it's a constantly evolving space.
Yeah.
There is no clear winner yet and none of us trust them. Just, you know, I'm just gonna ask and whatever GPT tells me, I'm gonna buy that or give it my credit card. Like we've got a ways to go. Google Gemini, we use personally within the agency.
Right.
We're on the Google stack. So Gmail and chat and phone voice and also Gemini is built in there. So, Google's working on their own version. Everyone's thinking, you know, GPT, OpenAI's or Anthropic, anyone you want to use, they're going to have to figure out a way to integrate ads. And Google meanwhile has ads and audiences and they're figuring out how to integrate the AI and everyone's working on this problem. So it will be new, but I've literally seen over 20 years of new And the ads, the consumers, the advertisers all find a way to connect in a marketplace. So ton of, ton of growth in that space, keeps growing, um, and it changes every day, but that's what makes it exciting.
And what's the, what's the best place to, or what's, who's, who should be they reaching out to at your company? Like, who is the guy that you say, I, I want to talk to someone here and I want to learn about this and I want to Possibly be a partner of yours?
Oh, I'll personally take the call. We do have a team that I can put people in touch with. We've got some folks working on, you know, partnership development. They're versed in having these conversations. It's different for every partner what they're looking to do. Some people are just getting started and they want to be at the bottom of the funnel. We can help with that. Some people are deploying a complete campaign but don't have a good understanding of what's working or not.
Mm-hmm.
We can have that conversation too, but they can reach out to me directly. It's just frank@netconversion.com.
Mm-hmm.
And I'll get 'em connected. I'll have the conversation myself and connect 'em with the right member of the team to understand their specific business. We have partners in healthcare, travel and tourism, private equity-funded home service roll-ups, restaurant QSR space. diverse experience of doing media and analytics, uh, just at the highest levels.
Well, thanks for making time, Frank. We had a great time talking again, and I look forward to seeing you around Orlando. And, um, congrats on, on all the business, man. It's, it's great to see you, uh, succeed in what you're doing.
Thanks, Michael. Great being here today. Look forward to talking again soon.
