Danny Lima, Senior Paid Media Manager at Kanbar Digital, joins Michael Barber to unpack how modern performance marketers should think about paid media, channel expansion, and growth. With more than 15 years across Google, YouTube, Amazon, and Meta, Danny explains what organic search taught him about patience, customer language, and the full search journey.

They discuss how to decide whether a new platform deserves a real budget, why brands should earn the right to expand beyond their core channels, and how budget realities affect testing, creative, learning, and profitability. Danny also shares how he approaches YouTube as a measurable full-funnel channel, how to structure Performance Max around different funnel jobs, and why campaign metrics alone cannot tell the whole story.

The central lesson is simple: before asking which platform deserves more money, identify what is limiting growth, determine what needs to change, and fund the channels or business functions capable of changing it.

Watch the full conversation for a practical perspective on smarter paid media strategy and incremental growth.

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In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 01:20: Introduction

01:20 - 04:15: From organic search to paid media

04:15 - 07:16: How to test a new platform fairly

07:16 - 09:41: When to think beyond individual campaigns

09:41 - 12:40: The cost of expanding too quickly

12:40 - 14:45: Choosing core marketing channels

14:45 - 17:23: Why budget realities get ignored

17:23 - 20:07: Deciding where the next dollar should go

20:07 - 25:17: When YouTube deserves performance budget

25:17 - 30:15: Keeping Performance Max aligned to the funnel

30:15 - 33:24: Measuring incremental growth across campaigns

33:24 - 35:10: The constraint limiting growth

35:10 - 36:52: Closing thoughts

 Connect with Danny Lima

 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannyraylima/

 https://kanbar.digital/ugc-creators/

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