MediaAlpha Promotes Amy Yeh to CTO as Co-Founder Shifts to Chief Architect Role

In a calculated leadership transition aimed at future-proofing its technology roadmap, MediaAlpha (NYSE: MAX), a leading real-time customer acquisition platform for the insurance sector, has named Amy Yeh as its new Chief Technology Officer, effective immediately. Yeh succeeds co-founder Eugene Nonko, who will now serve as the company’s Chief Architect.

This move is more than a title swap—it reflects a strategic pivot for a company that has become a crucial behind-the-scenes player in the insurance marketing ecosystem.

“Amy has been a force multiplier across every dimension of our engineering team,” said Steve Yi, MediaAlpha’s Co-Founder and CEO.

Yeh, who joined MediaAlpha in 2015 and most recently served as SVP of Technology, has led key initiatives that scaled the company’s engineering operations and infrastructure, enabling MediaAlpha to stay ahead in a hyper-competitive, data-driven marketplace. Her fingerprints are on everything from platform reliability and data architecture to product innovation and engineering culture.

From Builder to Visionary

The transition comes as MediaAlpha sharpens its focus on long-term architectural strategy and platform evolution. Nonko, who co-founded the company in 2011 and served as CTO since its inception, is stepping into the newly created role of Chief Architect, where he’ll oversee technical vision, architecture design, and innovation initiatives.

“In my next chapter at MediaAlpha, I’m excited to focus on long-term architecture and innovation,” said Nonko. “Amy is the right leader to drive the next era of platform growth.”

It’s a passing of the torch that doubles as a scaling strategy—dividing tactical execution and long-horizon thinking between two seasoned leaders.

Why This Matters in the Insurance Martech Arena

For those unfamiliar, MediaAlpha operates at the intersection of martech and insurtech, helping major insurance carriers and agents acquire high-intent customers in real time. In an industry where milliseconds matter and algorithmic matching is mission-critical, platform efficiency and data intelligence are not just advantages—they're requirements.

Amy Yeh’s elevation signals a continued investment in platform velocity, data scalability, and engineering excellence at a time when insurers are under pressure to optimize marketing spend, reduce acquisition friction, and respond faster to customer needs.

And with customer acquisition increasingly influenced by AI, data interoperability, and automation, Yeh’s role as CTO positions MediaAlpha to compete not just with traditional lead-gen platforms, but with a new wave of performance marketing engines and embedded insurance ecosystems.

What’s Next for MediaAlpha?

MediaAlpha has kept a relatively low public profile compared to more consumer-facing insurtechs, but its behind-the-scenes influence is significant. This leadership change could sharpen its competitive edge as the market matures.

For investors and industry watchers, the split between operational leadership (Yeh) and architectural vision (Nonko) could be a sign that MediaAlpha is laying groundwork for faster iteration, deeper partner integrations, and scalable growth—without losing technical depth.

“My priority is to carry forward our culture of openness, technical excellence, and continuous learning,” Yeh said in a statement.

IAS Partners with Snap and Lumen to Launch Industry-First Attention Metric for Snapchat Ads

In a bold move to redefine how advertisers measure engagement, Integral Ad Science (Nasdaq: IAS) has announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Snap Inc. and Lumen Research, bringing custom attention measurement to Snapchat ads via the IAS Signal platform.

This new tool goes well beyond traditional viewability metrics, combining Lumen’s eye-tracking data with IAS’s AI-powered media quality signals to deliver a Snapchat-specific “Attention Score”—giving advertisers unprecedented insight into how users actually engage with content on one of the world’s most visually immersive social platforms.

Why It Matters

The digital ad world is rapidly shifting from click-through rates and impressions to attention metrics, the new gold standard for campaign performance. Why? Because in a saturated media landscape, eyeballs don’t equal engagement. What advertisers really want to know is: Did the user actually pay attention—and did it influence behavior?

This partnership makes Snapchat the first social platform to offer third-party attention measurement, giving advertisers tools to:

• Move beyond viewability and access predictive attention scores based on real eye-tracking data.

• Compare performance across platforms, thanks to integrated reporting in IAS Signal.

• Get third-party verification, bringing transparency and credibility to campaign metrics in a notoriously opaque social media environment.

The Tech Behind the Score

Lumen’s contribution is no small feat. The company boasts the world’s largest opt-in eye-tracking dataset, which powers its predictive attention model. By layering that on top of IAS’s existing media quality insights—like brand safety, fraud detection, and ad placement—the Snap Attention Score offers a holistic, actionable view of how ads are consumed.

“It’s what people pay attention to that truly shapes behavior,” said Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research. “This partnership gives advertisers on Snap the clarity and confidence to measure how attention drives action.”

Context: The Rise of the Attention Economy

This launch isn’t happening in a vacuum. Marketers are increasingly focused on attention as a KPI, especially as cookies crumble and measurement transparency becomes a competitive advantage. Snapchat, with its full-screen, vertical video format, is ripe for attention-based analysis—especially among Gen Z, who are more ad-skeptical and swipe-happy than ever.

IAS is capitalizing on this trend. In late 2024, the company rolled out its Quality Attention™ Optimization product in beta—using the same Lumen eye-tracking model now applied to Snap—to help advertisers activate attention insights in programmatic campaigns.

Snap’s inclusion means advertisers can now evaluate social, open web, and programmatic channels side by side in IAS Signal. It's a notable leap for a platform that’s traditionally guarded about third-party metrics.

Locafy Partners with Top U.S. Review Platform to Deliver AI-Search-Ready Local Listings for Real Estate and Professional Services

Locafy Limited, a global leader in location-based digital marketing, today announced a major strategic partnership with one of the U.S.'s top online reputation and review management platforms. This collaboration will give premium clients—including real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and other professional services—a powerful way to boost their digital visibility in both traditional and AI-powered search environments.

Under the new agreement, Locafy will syndicate business listings across directories, maps, search engines, apps, and voice assistants, while also generating proprietary “AI Search Ready” landing pages designed to rank in the local map pack and be surfaced by AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

• Initial U.S. Rollout: Focuses on a premium segment of the partner's client base, with the potential to scale across additional industries.

• AI-Search Optimization: Landing pages are tested and frequently cited by AI platforms, enhancing search presence.

• Local Pack Ranking Boost: Uses proprietary tech to elevate rankings for high-value local keywords in organic search.

• Scalable Distribution: Integration-ready with a network of citation management partners for seamless expansion.

The AI Advantage for Local Listings

Locafy’s CEO Gavin Burnett emphasized the platform’s end-to-end automation and AI-readiness:

“We don’t just syndicate listings. We create AI-search-optimized landing pages that consistently perform across major platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. That gives small business owners a real edge in a fast-changing search landscape.”

The company’s technology is designed to maximize discoverability, helping businesses appear not just in local map packs, but also as credible sources in AI-generated responses—where more and more consumers are turning for answers.

A Win-Win for Locafy and Reputation Management

The partner, described as “a category leader in review and reputation management,” gains a competitive edge by offering clients a modern, AI-ready local marketing solution. In return, Locafy strengthens its footprint in the U.S. and unlocks potential for upselling its broader AI search and engagement suite.

“This is more than a listings deal—it’s a long-term growth opportunity,” said Burnett.

“We’re enabling our partner to offer clients a turnkey solution that meets evolving consumer behavior, particularly the shift toward conversational and AI-driven search. It’s affordable, scalable, and fast to implement.”

Bria Unveils Industry-First Open-Source Text-to-Image AI Trained Only on Licensed Data

Bria, the responsible AI platform for generative visuals, today announced the release of its third-generation text-to-image model, marking a first in the industry: a fully open-source model trained exclusively on licensed data. This milestone underscores Bria’s ethical commitment to creator rights while achieving state-of-the-art performance and efficiency.

Smaller, Smarter, and Ethically Trained

Bria’s new model delivers performance on par with other leading open-source alternatives—with 66% fewer parameters. Internal benchmarks show it requires half the compute and training data to achieve comparable results, making it highly fine-tuneable and efficient for real-world applications.

“We’re proving that ethical AI can be just as powerful—if not more efficient—than models trained on scraped data,” said Yair Adato, CEO of Bria. “Our approach shows that building smaller, responsible models doesn't mean compromising on quality.”

Head-to-Head with Industry Leaders

Bria evaluated its model alongside top open-source and licensed models using:

• Blind preference testing with thousands of design professionals

• Metrics for aesthetic quality, prompt adherence, and text rendering accuracy

• Fine-tuning efficiency and compute performance

The outcome: Bria’s model matched or exceeded competitors across key creative and technical criteria—and did so with a dramatically more sustainable and transparent training approach.

Open-Source + Full Developer Stack

The third-gen model is available now via Hugging Face, complete with:

• ControlNets

• IP Adaptors

• Auxiliary models

• Enterprise-ready platform integrations

Bria’s ecosystem is tailored for fast developer adoption, with built-in content moderation, enterprise-grade security, and seamless access through:

• MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers

• Figma and Adobe Creative Suite plugins

Solving the Creator Compensation Gap

Unlike competitors who rely on web-scraped data, Bria’s model is built entirely on licensed content, sourced through direct partnerships with artists, photographers, and content creators. This not only eliminates copyright and trademark risks but also ensures fair compensation for contributors.

“Every Bria-generated image is a vote for a sustainable creative ecosystem,” said Vered Horesh, CSO at Bria. “We’re proving that AI doesn’t have to exploit creators—it can empower them.”

Fandom, Experian, and Audigent Join Forces to Deliver Precision Marketing at the Intersection of Pop Culture and AI

In a bold move to arm marketers with sharper tools for reaching Gen Z and pop culture superfans, Fandom has expanded its partnership with Experian and Audigent, bringing over 2,400 pre-built Experian audience segments directly into its FanDNA Helix platform—Fandom’s proprietary, AI-powered ad solution.

The pitch? Smarter, faster, and more contextually relevant audience targeting—right at the moment fans are most engaged.

What’s New (and Why It Matters)

At its core, this collaboration brings Experian’s rich syndicated audience data—demographics, lifestyle, behavioral, and purchase intent—into FanDNA Helix, enabling real-time targeting across programmatic, social, CTV, mobile, and more. It’s also privacy-safe and plug-and-play for marketers looking to activate campaigns at speed and scale.

The integration promises three major benefits:

• AI-Driven Precision: Combining Experian’s deterministic data with Fandom’s massive first-party fan insights gives brands a leg up in pinpointing hard-to-reach audiences—especially Gen Z.

• Contextual Relevance: Helix uses AI to detect fan “moments” and align campaigns with trending entertainment and gaming content across Fandom’s vast network.

• Proven Performance: Fandom claims brands using Helix have seen 50% lifts in brand awareness and up to a 72% boost in purchase intent.

That’s not just vanity metrics. In a fragmented digital ad market where third-party cookies are crumbling and consumer attention is elusive, these kinds of returns are hard to ignore.

The Bigger Picture

With over 350 million monthly unique users, Fandom is the undisputed king of fan platforms—housing content for everything from Call of Duty to Stranger Things. But as audiences become more ad-averse and privacy regulations tighten, targeting users in meaningful, compliant ways is increasingly complex.

That's where this trio’s combined strength comes in.

• Fandom brings real-time context and cultural insight.

• Experian delivers scalable audience segments built from verified consumer data.

• Audigent, acting as the data tech backbone, ensures the entire system is privacy-first and interoperable across platforms.

“FanDNA Helix is the largest AI-powered ad platform in entertainment,” said Jeremy Steinberg, Fandom’s CRO. “Teaming up with Experian creates a powerhouse combo for brands looking to meet fans in the moment.”

Competitors, Take Note

This move raises the stakes for rival platforms like Reddit, TikTok, or even Spotify, which are also eyeing Gen Z with laser focus. But unlike walled gardens that require brands to play by platform-specific rules, Helix aims to offer more flexibility and cross-channel reach—all while rooted in fandom behavior.

While TikTok leverages short-form video and Reddit leans on community discourse, Fandom’s strength lies in long-tail fan engagement. A fan reading lore for Elden Ring or theories on House of the Dragon isn’t just browsing—they’re invested. That’s the sweet spot marketers want.

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B2B Gets Its Social Spotlight as Oktopost Unveils 'Rising 30' Power Players on LinkedIn

It’s official: B2B social is no longer the sleepy side of marketing. Oktopost, the social media management and intelligence platform built for B2B, just dropped its inaugural list of the “B2B Social’s Rising 30”—a group of in-house marketers shaking up LinkedIn with punchy content, strategic storytelling, and actual community building.

The winners aren’t just pushing buttons on a corporate account. They’re brand architects, shaping how B2B companies show up online—often with more flair than their B2C counterparts.

From Behind-the-Scenes to Center Stage

Historically, B2B social has been the underdog of marketing: underfunded, understaffed, and often underappreciated. But the Rising 30 award aims to change that narrative, recognizing the people who are quietly rewriting the rules of how professional brands connect with real people online.

“We launched the Rising 30 to give credit to the social pros who work behind the scenes—those who grow their company’s voice and community while delivering tangible results,” said Adi Krysler, VP of Marketing at Oktopost. “The sheer volume of nominations we received shows just how much talent and impact exists in B2B social right now.”

Out of hundreds of submissions, a panel of B2B social media experts selected 30 marketers whose influence is hard to ignore.

These winners didn’t just show up—they stood out by:

• Building vibrant LinkedIn communities

• Balancing content strategy with originality

• Sparking industry-shaping conversations

• Using personal branding as a tool for career growth

Personality Meets Professionalism

Among the honorees are social media leads who inject humor, trend-savviness, and human storytelling into otherwise technical, buttoned-up industries.

Ryan Quindlen from Zapier, for instance, brings an almost sketch-comedy edge to his brand’s LinkedIn presence—proving you can be fun and professional. Meanwhile, Carmen Vicente at Gorgias keeps B2B content culturally relevant, translating complex product messaging into trend-driven posts that resonate far beyond SaaS circles.

This is where the line between personal and corporate branding gets beautifully blurred. These marketers aren’t just amplifying company content—they’re the content. Their voices, style, and consistency are turning LinkedIn feeds into spaces of conversation, not just conversion.

Why This Matters (Now More Than Ever)

As B2B buying journeys grow longer and more complex, trust and connection are the new conversion metrics—and social media is often the first (and last) touchpoint. The marketers honored by Oktopost aren’t just boosting vanity metrics. They’re making brand relevance a full-time job, often without a blueprint.

They’re also helping rewrite the rules for what B2B social can be: not boring, not invisible, and definitely not optional.

“B2B social often lives in the background, overlooked and undervalued,” said Chloe Maguire, Brand and Social Media Lead at Leapsome and one of this year’s Rising 30. “Being named a Rising 30 is more than a personal win. It’s a win for everyone trying to make B2B social seen.”

The B2B Social Era Is Here

If there's a takeaway for brands, it’s this: invest in your social team—especially the ones who understand the difference between posting and building. The industry is moving beyond clicks and impressions to relationships, relevance, and reach—and that shift is being led by people like the Rising 30.

Whether through video, storytelling, or culture-first campaigns, these marketers are proving that B2B doesn’t have to be boring. It just has to be human.

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Mew.Design Gives Small Businesses a Fast, Affordable Way to Create On-Brand Visuals with AI

If you’ve ever struggled to make a flyer that doesn’t look like it was built in PowerPoint 2003, you’re not alone—and a new AI startup wants to help. Mew.Design, an AI-powered design platform, officially launched this week with a clear mission: make quality graphic design accessible to small businesses, startups, and solo entrepreneurs who don’t have the time, tools, or talent to do it themselves.

The hook? Users can generate polished, brand-aligned visuals just by typing what they need. Think: “a modern Instagram post for a July sale” or “a clean business card for a yoga instructor.” Mew.Design takes care of the layout, branding, and polish—no Canva templates or awkward editing software required.

Meet the “Meow Designers”

At the heart of the platform are AI-driven creative agents called Meow Designers. Each one is trained with input from professional designers and specializes in distinct visual styles—think minimalist, bold, vintage, or corporate.

But unlike generic design tools that serve up one-size-fits-all templates, Meow Designers can be customized to reflect your brand’s identity. Businesses can “train” their Meow Designer with specific fonts, logos, colors, and tone preferences, allowing for consistent, personalized output across marketing materials.

Mew.Design’s workflow is intentionally frictionless. Type your request in plain English. Want to tweak the design? Type instructions like “make the background teal” or “move the logo to the top-right.” The platform’s text-to-design editing interprets and executes those changes instantly—like a design intern who actually listens.

Breaking the Template Trap

While tools like Canva and Adobe Express offer accessible design for non-creatives, they’re still largely template-driven, which often leaves brands with visuals that look cookie-cutter—or worse, off-brand.

Mew.Design challenges that approach with five core innovations:

1. Text-to-Design Creation: Generate editable designs from a simple prompt.

2. Instruction-Based Editing: Make changes by typing commands.

3. Custom Brand Agents: Your Meow Designer learns and applies your brand style.

4. Hybrid Inputs: Add images or documents to guide layout and tone.

5. Community Hub: Browse, share, and collaborate on designs with other users.

The result is a tool that’s more flexible than templates, less expensive than freelance design work, and significantly faster than doing it manually.

Built for Real-World Hustle

Already, small businesses are using Mew.Design to generate flyers, menus, pitch decks, social posts, brochures, and more—without hiring a designer or slogging through Photoshop tutorials.

Current users include:

• Cafés and boutiques creating quick-turn posters and menus

• E-commerce sellers building product highlight graphics for marketplaces and Instagram

• Freelancers and coaches designing slick invites and promo materials

• Small marketing teams producing on-brand assets across campaigns

In short, Mew.Design is targeting the huge swath of the business world that doesn’t have an in-house design team—but still needs good design, fast.

The Democratization of Design

“We created Mew.Design to give small business owners more creative control without the learning curve of traditional design tools,” the company said in a statement. “Our AI designers help turn your ideas into ready-to-use graphics—fast, flexible, and on-brand.”

The launch taps into a larger trend: AI is rapidly closing the gap between idea and execution, especially for resource-strapped teams. Platforms like Mew.Design are part of a growing ecosystem of tools reshaping creative work for SMBs—alongside others like Looka (branding), Copy.ai (content), and Runway (video).

Where Mew.Design sets itself apart is in marrying creativity and control—something most template-based tools struggle to balance.

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Popl Taps into HubSpot to Turn Handshakes into CRM Gold

Popl, the company best known for bringing digital business cards into the modern sales stack, has officially joined the HubSpot App Partner Program, marking a major step forward in making in-person marketing measurable—and scalable.

Its certified integration is now live on the HubSpot App Marketplace, positioning Popl as a serious tool for teams looking to bridge the increasingly narrow gap between physical meetings and digital pipelines.

From Conversation to Conversion

HubSpot users often face the same challenge: you’ve set up your CRM, you’re ready to grow… now what?

Enter Popl. The platform is designed for exactly this moment—when marketing automation meets the real world. With features like event badge scanning, AI-powered contact enrichment, and customizable digital business cards, Popl turns casual chats at conferences into qualified CRM leads.

And with its new HubSpot integration, that process is nearly instant.

“Their certified integration helps customers streamline in-person lead capture and automate sales readiness,” said Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot. “It makes it easier to turn conversations into conversions.”

In short, Popl solves the "last mile" problem of lead generation—ensuring that no contact made in person gets lost in the post-event shuffle.

The Numbers Behind the Integration

Popl’s early traction with HubSpot speaks for itself:

• 2,000+ HubSpot app installs

• 1M+ contacts exported from Popl to HubSpot

• 130M+ digital business card interactions

• #1 ranking on HubSpot for both “Digital Business Card” and “Lead Capture”

That makes it more than just a nice add-on—it’s arguably the category leader for physical-to-digital contact capture in the HubSpot ecosystem.

Why This Matters for Sales and Marketing Teams

The rise of hybrid work and event fatigue has created a new reality for B2B teams: in-person interactions are more valuable than ever—but only if they’re captured effectively.

Popl’s integration helps solve this with a frictionless workflow:

1. Capture contacts at events via badge scanning or digital business card taps

2. Instantly sync those contacts into HubSpot

3. Enrich contact data automatically using Popl’s AI engine

4. Trigger follow-up workflows and sequences within HubSpot

It’s CRM hygiene meets lead gen velocity—and in a world where sales cycles are lengthening, that’s exactly what scaling companies need.

“With Popl + HubSpot, we’re closing that gap,” said Jason Alvarez-Cohen, CEO of Popl. “We’re making sure every handshake turns into measurable growth.”

More Than Just a Card Replacement

While Popl’s origin story began with slick NFC-enabled digital business cards, the platform has grown into a full-fledged in-person marketing suite. The partnership with HubSpot only accelerates that trajectory, embedding Popl into the workflows of thousands of marketing and sales teams who live and die by CRM data.

It’s a smart play: HubSpot’s ecosystem has become the go-to marketplace for tools that align with a more agile, integrated approach to marketing. And as in-person events rebound, solutions like Popl are positioned to become essential infrastructure.

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