Join B2B marketing leader and author Justin Levy as he dismantles the myth that influencer marketing is just a “brand” play, demonstrating how operational rigor, granular attribution, and deep creator partnerships can transform social influence into a high-performance demand engine.
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Episode Summary
It’s one thing to have a UTM for a webinar. It’s another thing to say individual influencer A is going to have their own UTM so that we can track the impact… how much pipeline they bring us versus other influencers. Because you’re paying every influencer different amounts of money, and their impact on pipeline, leads, and MQLs is going to be different.
In this episode of Radically Transparent, host Jennifer Gutman sits down with B2B influencer pioneer Justin Levy to dismantle the myth that influencer marketing is strictly a “top-of-funnel” brand play. With experience leading programs at powerhouses like ZoomInfo, Demandbase, and ServiceNow, Justin reveals the tactical blueprint for transforming influencers in B2B into a high-performance demand-generation engine.
The conversation dives deep into the “how-to” of attribution, starting with the surprising frequency with which brands fail to implement granular UTM tracking for individual creators and influencers. Justin also explains why a CMO’s demand for pipeline isn’t a threat to influencer budgets, but an opportunity to prove ROI through precise data.
He even shares a masterclass in “Social Selling 2.0,” detailing how smart sales teams can bridge the gap between an influencer’s comment section and a closed-won deal without breaking the audience’s trust.
What all of us on LinkedIn universally hate is a pitch slap. You accept an invite and 10 seconds later you get a message that’s, ‘Hey, thanks for the follow, here’s our cool product.’ If you do that at the influencer level, it’s a really bad and really quick way to break trust with your influencer.
Beyond the numbers and impact, Justin and Jennifer explore the shifting importance of influencer marketing for B2B brands in 2026. They discuss the rise of AI influencers and why the “trust economy” makes human creators more valuable than ever.
Whether you are looking to scale via micro-influencers who offer deeper partnerships or trying to convince your leadership that influencers deserve a seat at the “primary channel” table alongside webinars and ebooks, this episode provides the radical transparency needed to turn influence into revenue.
Hot topics:
- The attribution gap: Why individual UTM tracking is the “basic” step most B2B brands are still missing, and how it changes the conversation with the CMO.
- Influencers as demand gen: Shifting the mindset from “reach and impressions” to “pipeline and MQLs” by integrating sales teams into creator conversations.
- The micro-influencer advantage: Why creators with 10,000 followers often out-influence those with 500,000, and how to build “deep-dive” partnerships that larger creators can’t offer.
- The AI trust crisis: Navigating the rise of AI-generated creators and using LLMs to scale research and brief development without losing the human authenticity in influencer marketing that drives B2B sales.
Meet Justin
Justin Levy is a B2B marketing leader with 15+ years of experience building and scaling social media, influencer, and creator programs for high-growth enterprise brands.
Most recently, he led social media and influencer marketing at ZoomInfo, where he focused on turning social and creator partnerships into measurable brand and demand engines. Prior to that, Justin held senior roles at Demandbase, ServiceNow, and Citrix, leading global social media, influencer, and community initiatives across complex B2B buying cycles.
Earlier in his career, Justin led a social media agency serving Fortune 500 brands and has since consulted with marketing teams and agencies across B2B, SaaS, technology, and enterprise services.
Justin’s work sits at the intersection of social, creators, and revenue—building scalable programs, operational rigor, and measurement frameworks that move beyond one-off activations.
He has been featured in outlets including FOX Business, the Associated Press, Inc. Magazine, and The Boston Globe, and is the author of the second edition and co-author of the third edition of Facebook Marketing.
