Liam Moroney

Co-Founder, Storybook Marketing | Full-service demand generation agency

I lead Storybook Marketing, a consultancy that specializes in brand marketing strategy, to help companies become the brand that buyers think of, using an evidence-based approach to marketing.

We offer customized services, consulting, team workshops and training, to level up marketing programs so they are capturing market share and not just leads.

Founder

When we apply a performance marketing mindset to the top of the funnel, we can end up putting a lot of effort and expense into building an audience that often isn't big enough, and sometimes isn't even real.

In B2B tech I'm increasingly seeing this happening, especially with the new obsession to rank in AI search results. 

Where the effort is on trying to reach Goldilocks prospects who haven't been influenced by competitors yet, or even ones who haven't come to realize they need a solution yet, so we can come along and become their only solution.

While a very attractive concept, it's often an expensive effort to build an audience of unicorns. 

The research in B2B continuously shows that most buyers are experienced ones, or at least part of their buying group is. Kerry Cunningham frequently talks on the topic, and his research at 6sense continuously shows it.

Blank slate buyers who are problem aware but not solution aware are a fringe group, if they even exist at all. Most of our addressable market knows and has experience with the category, and have some form of a consideration set in mind.

The job in marketing isn't to find the undiscovered buyers, but to win the underserved ones. 

Our growth comes from people that exist in the big group in the middle, who have familiarity with the category and most of its players, have likely bought from at least one of them in the past, and don't need "educating".

They need a better alternative - and we have to show up often and relevantly to position ourselves in their consideration set.

Brand Marketer | Storybook Marketing | MarTech contributor

Brand gets underinvested in because it doesn't show up clearly enough in our attribution models, but should it?

Should attribution really be the central and core method for measuring marketing?

I'm not in any way anti-attribution, but I get incredibly frustrated at how much it's come to be how we, and especially leadership, believes that marketing works and gets measured.

What never gets measured in attribution is the underlying conditions that determine how well any of our efforts grow:

❓ How many potential buyers know we exist, and are we continuing to create awareness in new buyers over time?

❓ How effectively are we getting our brand to be thought of as an option to consider - something that becomes existential when purchase risk increases?

❓ How successfully are we being thought of by those buyers when they actually do come in market?

None of this shows up in attribution tools, and yet those conditions determine just how much of an upper limit there is in the effectiveness of our demand gen and performance marketing efforts.

Brand is very possible to measure in a growing variety of ways, and has been for a long time, but it requires leadership understanding and belief in how it works.

When we force it to show up in a measurement tool designed for something else entirely, we set it up to fail.

It's like trying to measure climate change with a thermometer - it will very easily miss the bigger and more existential trends because it's too narrow a view.

Brand is measurable. It's the leadership understanding that's lacking.

This race towards “AI visibility” is feeling like a gold rush without any guarantee of gold, but shovels of all shapes and sizes for sale. 

Everyone is obsessed with being mentioned or cited by LLMs, but it seems like those two things might not even be related - though you’d hardly know it from the confidence of those showing up as AI experts. 

Rand Fishkin has been raising some really important points and insights about how makes up the AI answer may not even necessarily be sourced from the citations. 

Rather it’s looking like citations are often post-hoc ways to support the answer and not what actually always informs it. 

Which, from a user standpoint is hardly reassuring, since AI might be using citations to make the answer look accurate as opposed to actually being accurate. 

And, from a brand point of view, this leaves a potentially massive delta between being part of the answer and beyond a supporting act to prop it up. 

We could easily be targeting metrics that don’t actually mean much, but the train is fully out of the station to try. 

And all of this is before we address whether being the true source of answer drives real brand value and exposure, or how much less value again a barnacle cited link might bring. 

Just like old-school SEO, more backlinks don’t guarantee more business, and not all search visibility is equal. 

All we know for sure is that none of us know for sure yet. 

It’s the Wild West out there - beware overconfident AI experts bringing their data and selling their shovel.

It's often said that "brand drives performance, and performance builds brand", but in many cases only the first half of that statement is true.

Which is problematic when you have a program whose budget heavily favors performance marketing.

Brand definitely should drive performance, and should make existing performance work better, since it's ideally creating more and better awareness of the solution to a broader group of people with at least some of them in-market now or very soon.

And performance marketing is a critical part of a healthy program, activating on people who are in-market and ensuring those hard-build brand memories get activated.

But, performance marketing often has little brand benefit since it's so volatile and opportunistic.

An ad trying to get you to take action on something you're not currently looking for is usually either totally ignored or very temporarily remembered. Our brains simply don't waste valuable cognitive energy and space on things that aren't relevant to us.

Much of performance marketing is about a moment-in-time ask - sometimes it's a price discount, sometimes just a request to take a demo.

There is little about creative like that that is remembered, if it's ever even paid attention to at all by people who aren't in-market.

It's not to say performance marketing isn't valuable - it's a critical part of an efficient program - but on its own it frequently doesn't have any lasting memory value at all. 

And, when you have programs where 70-80% of the budget is trying to nudge people to take action, you can end up with a program that is failing to build any real brand value, no matter how many logo impressions get served.

Marketing does all work together in a complex and integrated way, but it doesn't mean one type of creative is a good substitute for the other.

And when that nuance is missed, we can end up with a very ineffective and inefficient program even with a very healthy budget.

There is still a big brand marketing gap in the industry and the massive push to use AI isn't solving it. 

Most of what's being done to attract business with AI right now is reactive marketing - showing up in answers being asked in LLMs, and being mentioned as a solution when people are seeking one.

While it's important to make sure we place our brand where interest and traffic is happening, this doesn't solve the much harder job of proactively making the brand more familiar and considered before people are even there.

A lot of the buying searches happening in AI search are comparisons, where consideration search is anchored around the brands who are known, and where buyers are comparing them against others.

In essence, AI is mostly helping to do the digital equivalent of merchandising. 

We're putting the brand on the new shelves, and betting rather big that those new shelves are where most of the future buying will happen, which remains to be seen. 

But, just like getting on the shelf in a physical store, it still doesn't guarantee that you get bought even when it exposes you to active buyers. Plenty of brands have spent a fortune to make the shelves of Walmart, Target, etc, only to find that they need to spend even more on discounts to make up for the lack of awareness.

Most of what grows brands happens before the browsing moment, especially when the good being sold requires some consideration. 

It's not enough to occupy a shelf space - you also have to occupy a market presence and usually at a much larger ratio.

The truth about promotion is that it's not efficient. 

We have to get the creative in front of as many people as we can, the majority of whom aren't actively buying, and we have to keep pushing the message to overcome the reality that most won't get seen. 

To quote Les Binet, "If I had to choose between having a great ad with no money behind it and a good ad with a massive budget – I’d probably go for the good ad with a really big budget because media spending and share of voice really matter."

And because it's inefficient, it's often unpalatable to much of leadership, and so marketers get pushed towards things that feel much direct response - and we find ourselves in the advertising "Doom Loop" that David Tiltman and WARC have so eloquently described.

So here we are, where getting placed in an AI overview is taking up massive attention and effort in tech companies, while the underlying problem of being known and remembered is still neglected.

We might end up much better at being found when people are looking, but no better at being sought out by whose who aren't.

Gwen Lafage 🐝

VP Marketing, Global Brand and Content @ Sinch 🚀 I B2b tech marketing leader, brand builder

Why do you need a strong brand? 
Because it is the only true differentiator that can’t be copied. And yes that’s also true for b2b companies. 

Think about it: products and features are all becoming the same. Sure you can be a little cheaper or a little better. But why not use your brand to win instead? Your brand is your future-proof competitive edge. 
A strong brand means recognition, credibility, trust, loyalty. 

And that’s why I’ve dedicated my career to building strong brands. BRAVE brands. Brands that connect with people. Brands that dare to be different. Brands with strong beliefs. Brand that build new categories and become their kings. 

I personally believe in the power of communication and creativity. I believe in doing things with passion and taking risks. I spent 10 years in the best Ad agencies in London and Paris, working on the world's leading consumer brands. In my late 20s, I traveled the world for one year. In my 30s, I opened an art gallery in San Francisco before going back to marketing and branding for B2B tech companies in Silicon Valley. In 2017 I moved to Sweden to open the European office of a b2b tech creative agency. 
In 2023 I came back to the US to continue to lead the brand growth of one of the fastest growing tech company in the world, Sinch. 

I’m now VP of Brand at Sinch, where I lead global brand strategy, though-leadership, communications, global events and creative direction for one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world. 

Bottom line: when I want to do something, I make it happen. 
I apply this ‘can-do-attitude’ to everything I do. 

I am always looking for new challenges, opportunities, and learnings, and I love networking and sharing knowledge with other professionals in my field.
Feel free to get in touch.

Specialties: B2B Marketing, Marketing Strategy, B2B SaaS Marketing, Data-driven Marketing, Growth Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Branding, Messaging, Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Account-Based Marketing, Engagement Marketing & Events, Project Management, Client Relationship Management, New Business, Campaign Management, Leadership, Operational Excellence.

Interests: B2B Marketing, Brands, Design, Technology, SAAS, Startups, Growth, Women in Tech, Green Tech, Sustainability, Meditation.

Executive member

The Pavilion is a private, invitation-only community of sales and marketing executives at growth-focused companies.

I’ve lost count of how many MWCs I’ve been to. This year felt different.

The tech was impressive, the crowd huge, the booths as big as always, everyone talked about AI, the parties were fun. That’s every year now.

What was different is harder to point at.

It’s a chat on a bus to the Google after-party with someone you’ve never met. 
The late-night discussions where the real thinking happens. 
And the booth conversations that start somewhere completely new: a lot less “So what does Sinch do?”  and a lot more “we’ve been wanting to talk to you.” 😃

That’s new.

It doesn’t happen by accident. Weeks of event prep, months of brand work, the refresh that we’ve been building in pieces. 🐝
You do all of that and you wonder if it will land.

Then one day, Barcelona. 🔥

The brand showed up this week. Really showed up. And so did we! 

Sinch is building the future of communications. This week, Barcelona felt like proof.

Momentum is quiet. Until it becomes visible.
We’re going up, up, up. It’s our moment. 🚀

And we’re just getting started.​​​!!

#MWC2026 #WeAreSinch

No alternative text description for this image

We built carousels for IWD this year. 
Real women at Sinch already changing perception every day. 
The line between honest and performative can be very fine. Do you think we got it right?

Every year I wonder if awareness days like this actually move anything. 
Every year I decide to post anyway. Because the alternative is cynicism, and awareness is the first step to changing default images. 

Picture a CEO, a tech sales leader, an AI engineer. 
Most of us still see a man first. 

The women in these carousels aren't waiting for a spotlight, they're already doing the work, and we're just making that visible.
That's what today is for. More than a one-day celebration, it's about awarenes. And the quiet belief that visibility, over time, shifts something.

It's on all of us to keep showing up. 
Today and every day.

#IWD2026 #InternationalWomensDay #WomenInTech #WeAreSinch

Sinch IWD 

What my week felt like: 🔄

👉 Context switching is the tax you pay for scope.

Early in my career, I could spend days deep in one project. Now it’s a constant zoom in, zoom out. 😅

In a single day, I might:
✅ workshop a campaign concept
✅ present OKRs to leadership
✅ give feedback on a strategy deck
✅ review branded search & campaign KPIs
✅ prep annual performance reviews
✅ go back and forth with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
✅ answer Slack from 100 people
✅ review candidates
✅ approve booth design
✅ talk to finance about budget
✅ post on LinkedIn 😉

Strategic to tactical. Creative to analytical. Coach to peer to operator. Sometimes before lunch! 

That shift is not accidental. It is the role.

What I have learned is that the risk is not the switching itself. It is losing altitude, stepping in too often. Going deep when the bigger value is direction.

The difference between energized and spinning is rarely workload. It is intention.

The real skill is knowing when to dive and when to stay high.

Some days I touch ten things without finishing any of them.

👉 Leadership is not about finishing everything. It is about moving everything forward.

What’s the ROI of SKO? 
Asking for a friend…

It’s been SKO season for weeks. 😅

My feed is full of keynote energy, matching hoodies, and sales teams getting fired up for the year ahead. 🔥

This year I’m noticing a shift. 
More companies going beyond the Sales Kickoff. Revenue KO. Business KO. Marketing, CS, product all in the room together with sales. 
The idea: shared energy across the whole org is worth more than energy within one team
Probably makes sense, right? 
If the goal is alignment before the year gets chaotic, why limit it to one function?

But these events are also getting bigger every year. More days, more prep, higher-end production, more people flying in from everywhere.
👉 More budget. More work for the organizing team.

Funny how in B2B marketing, we justify everything, we measure everything, we attribute everything. SKO seems to be the one thing that gets a pass!! 😉

So I’m curious: what do you do, and what does success actually look like for you? 
How do you make sure that Jan/Feb energy drives impact after April?

What did you build on Lovable yesterday?

After a week away for work, Sunday had to be a family day. No work stuff.
So I spent the afternoon building with my son. 

⚽ We shipped a cool penalty game.  
🇫🇷 Then we made a French dictée app connected to Claude to help him practice: his favorite manga characters, little rewards and fun quotes, a fun experience. 
Writing recognition isn't perfect yet but we had fun and I even made him prep this week's dictée without (too much) drama!

At dinner he asked if there was an API key to connect Lovable to Roblox. 😂 
Ok there isn't. But nine years old!! 🤯 

Big FOMO missing the Stockholm event with my Swedish 🦹‍♀️  Frida Ahrenby 🧚🏼, Fredrika Bennison, Johanna Fagerstedt and co.
But I touched grass, had lunch with family, and apparently I'm quietly raising a developer who uses Claude and Lovable before he can spell in French!!

I'll take it 😁 

#SheBuildsonLovable
#IWD2026

taplio

The Battle

Liam Moroney

Gwen Lafage 🐝

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreLiam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreGwen Lafage 🐝's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Liam Moroney

Gwen Lafage 🐝

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Liam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreGwen Lafage 🐝's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreLiam Moroney's LinkedIn Performance