Colin Williams, Advu Media, on Making TV Ads Affordable for Small Business (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 968)
On this episode of North Fulton Business Radio, host John Ray welcomes Colin Williams, founder and managing partner of Advu Media, an Atlanta-based ad tech agency. Colin explains how programmatic media buying has changed the economics of television advertising, letting small businesses target a single zip code for as little as three to five hundred dollars a month instead of buying an entire market.
Colin walks through how programmatic buying works like a stock market auction, with ad placements decided in microseconds, and how that same technology now lets businesses measure a TV ad’s impact almost the way they would measure a digital campaign. He shares a story from earlier in his career, when a startup called Credit Karma grew its TV ad spend from ten thousand dollars a month to eight million dollars within two years and was acquired by Intuit for two billion dollars not long after.
The conversation also covers who this approach works best for, from franchise businesses that need to advertise without stepping on a neighboring franchisee’s territory to business owners who assume a commercial is out of their price range. Colin describes how Advu Media helps clients identify the “need behind the need” before recommending a media strategy.
John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. The show is produced by John Ray and North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®, and is recorded inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.
Key Takeaways from This Episode
- Programmatic media buying now lets small businesses target a single zip code on TV for as little as $300 to $500 a month, something that wasn’t possible five or six years ago
- Ad placements happen in microseconds through an auction process, similar to how stock trades are executed
- Television advertising can now be measured with the kind of precision once reserved for digital campaigns, tying an ad exposure to a specific website visit
- A three-month test is usually the minimum needed to see whether a campaign is working, with most results taking hold around the 90-day mark
- Franchise businesses can use hyper-targeted advertising to promote their location without advertising into a neighboring franchisee’s territory
Topics Discussed in this Episode
00:22 John Ray introduces the show and guest Colin Williams of Advu Media
02:06 Colin explains how Advu Media helps small businesses scale through technology and advertising
03:13 Colin shares his 27 years of experience in advertising, marketing, and technology
05:12 How advertising technology evolved from three TV channels to thousands of channels
07:32 Why programmatic media buying now makes TV advertising affordable for small businesses
09:47 Colin compares programmatic media buying to bidding in the stock market
14:19 Why television remains the most powerful advertising medium despite video overload
15:44 How TV ad performance can now be measured almost like digital advertising
18:44 Establishing value and calculating return on advertising spend
19:49 Who this approach works for, from B2B to franchise businesses
22:01 Addressing the cost of producing a commercial, including AI-generated options
23:42 How a conversation with a local business typically starts
25:13 Understanding the “need behind the need” that drives a business to advertise
27:09 Success story: how television advertising helped grow Credit Karma
29:29 How listeners can connect with Colin and Advu Media
Colin Williams, Founder & Managing Partner
Colin is a media strategist and founder of Advu Media, an Atlanta-based media, marketing, and ad tech agency helping businesses simplify how they advertise, create content, and measure results.
With 27 years of experience spanning video production, paid media, local business marketing, and campaign strategy, Colin works closely with small- and mid-sized businesses to make modern advertising more approachable, effective, and accountable. He helps companies connect their creative messaging with the right media channels, including streaming TV, YouTube, display, retargeting, social media, and other digital platforms.
Colin is especially passionate about helping local businesses compete at a higher level without getting buried in confusing marketing jargon, fragmented vendors, or bloated agency processes. Part of that work includes helping business owners understand tools like programmatic media buying, which uses technology and audience data to place ads across multiple digital channels more efficiently than traditional one-channel-at-a-time media buying.
Through his work with Advu Media, Colin focuses on creating clearer paths between brand awareness, content, advertising, and measurable growth.
Advu Media
Advu Media is an Atlanta-based media, marketing, and ad tech agency built to help businesses grow through smarter advertising, stronger creative, and clearer marketing strategy.
The company helps local and national businesses plan, create, launch, and measure campaigns across today’s most important media channels, including connected TV, streaming video, YouTube, display, retargeting, paid social, search, and digital audio.
A key part of Advu Media’s work is helping businesses understand and use programmatic media buying. In simple terms, programmatic media buying uses technology, data, and automation to place ads in front of more relevant audiences across digital channels. Instead of only buying a single TV schedule, radio spot, billboard, or social campaign, businesses can reach people across streaming TV, websites, YouTube, display ads, and retargeting based on audience behavior, location, interests, and other targeting signals.
One of Advu Media’s core platforms, MediaVu, simplifies this process by bringing multiple paid marketing channels into one streamlined dashboard. This gives businesses a more unified way to manage campaigns, understand performance, and make better decisions without needing enterprise-level resources or a large internal marketing team.
Advu Media works with businesses that want more than scattered marketing tactics. The agency helps clients build practical, creative, and measurable growth systems that connect brand storytelling, media placement, and campaign performance.
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About North Fulton Business Radio and host John Ray
Approaching 1,000 episodes and having featured over 1,400 guests, North Fulton Business Radio is the longest-running podcast in the North Fulton area, covering business in our community like no one else. We are the undisputed “Voice of Business” in North Fulton!
The show invites a diverse range of business, non-profit, and community leaders to share their significant contributions to their respective markets, communities, and professions. There is no discrimination based on company size, and there is never any “pay to play.” North Fulton Business Radio supports and celebrates businesses by sharing positive stories that traditional media ignore. Some media lean left. Some media lean right. We lean business.
John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. John and the team at North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®, produce the show, which is recorded inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.
The studio is located at 275 South Main Street, Alpharetta, GA 30009.
You can find the entire archive of shows by following this link. The show is accessible on all major podcast apps, such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and many others.
John Ray also operates his own business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their value, their positioning and business development, and their pricing. His clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants, bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.
John is the author of the five-star-rated book The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices, praised by readers for its practical insights on raising confidence, value, and prices.
