Category: Blog Post

Dotted Line Agency has named Mark Pavia as Head of Media and AI, as highlighted in Campaign’s Movers + Shakers.

Pavia joins the integrated agency to lead and scale its AI-enabled media and AEO (AI Engine Optimization) capabilities, bringing deep experience across media strategy, data, and emerging AI-driven approaches to brand discoverability and performance.

In his role, he will oversee media strategy, activation, and AI-powered visibility initiatives, helping clients navigate a rapidly evolving marketing landscape.

Thank you, Campaign Movers + Shakers, for helping us share the news.

Dotted Line Agency has appointed Mark Pavia as Head of Media & AI, expanding the agency’s leadership team and accelerating its investment in AI-enabled media, performance, and discoverability services.

A veteran media, data, and AI leader, Mark brings deep experience building and scaling modern media organizations at the intersection of strategy, technology, and performance. His background spans full-funnel media planning and activation, advanced analytics, and emerging AI-driven approaches to brand visibility—including AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and AI-powered discoverability.

In his role, Mark will lead Dotted Line’s Media & AI practice, shaping how the agency helps brands navigate a rapidly changing marketing landscape. His focus includes integrating media, data, and AI to drive measurable growth—while ensuring brands remain visible, relevant, and competitive as consumer discovery continues to shift beyond traditional search.

“AI is fundamentally changing how people discover and engage with brands,” said Mark. “This moment demands a more integrated approach—one that blends media intelligence, creativity, and technology. Dotted Line is uniquely positioned to lead in this space, and I’m excited to help build what’s next.”

Mark’s appointment reinforces Dotted Line’s commitment to evolving beyond traditional media models and delivering future-ready solutions for growth-minded brands. By embedding AI-driven insights into media strategy and execution, the agency continues to sharpen its ability to connect brand building with performance outcomes.

“Mark’s leadership brings both clarity and momentum to where marketing is headed,” said Lauren Sweeney, Founder and CEO of Dotted Line. “As AI reshapes discoverability and decision-making, his expertise strengthens how we help clients multiply their potential—today and into the future.”

With Mark at the helm of Media & AI, Dotted Line continues to expand its integrated capabilities—helping clients move with confidence in a marketplace defined by rapid change and new opportunity.

Thank you, Roastbrief, for helping us share the news.

Read the full article here.

We’re excited to announce that Mark Pavia has officially joined Dotted Line as our Head of Media & AI.

Mark brings a rare blend of strategic media leadership, performance rigor, and forward-looking expertise in AI-driven marketing. With deep experience across full-funnel media strategy, analytics, and emerging technologies, he has built a career helping brands navigate complexity—and turn change into competitive advantage.

In his role, Mark will lead Dotted Line’s Media & AI practice, shaping how we help brands show up, perform, and stay visible in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace. From media strategy and activation to AI-powered discoverability, optimization, and measurement, he’ll guide how data, technology, and creativity come together to drive meaningful growth.

“Marketing is entering a fundamentally new era,” said Mark. “AI is changing how brands are discovered, evaluated, and chosen—and the opportunity is enormous for companies willing to rethink how media, data, and creativity work together. I’m excited to help Dotted Line and its clients lead into what’s next.”

Mark’s appointment reflects Dotted Line’s continued investment in modern marketing capabilities—ensuring our clients are not only keeping pace with change, but staying ahead of it. His leadership strengthens our ability to deliver integrated strategies that connect brand, performance, and technology in smarter, more effective ways.

We’re thrilled to have Mark on the team and energized by what his leadership means for our clients, our work, and the future of Dotted Line.

Thank you, Little Black Book, for helping us share the news.

See full coverage in Little Black Book.

As we begin a new year, we’re proud to share Dotted Line Agency’s 2025 Impact Report—a look back at a year of meaningful growth and a clear step forward into what’s next.

2025 marked a defining chapter for DLA. We continued evolving from a boutique, high-touch agency into a mid-sized strategic partner—expanding our leadership, capabilities, and the complexity of work we’re trusted to deliver.

A Changing Industry

AI isn’t a single algorithm — it’s an ecosystem of answer engines, reasoning models, and content. The marketing industry is shifting. Discovery is no longer limited to search results—it’s answers, summaries, and AI-driven recommendations. At the same time, AI is reshaping nearly every facet of marketing and advertising: how insights are uncovered, how ideas are developed, how creative is produced and optimized, and how performance is measured at scale.

In this environment, success isn’t about adopting more tools. It’s about building smarter systems—ones that combine human judgment with technology to move faster, work more efficiently, and deliver better outcomes without sacrificing quality or brand integrity.

How Creative Is Getting Smarter

In 2025, our teams pushed creative to work harder—designing brand systems, delivering integrated campaigns, and building performance-driven content. At Dotted Line, human creativity always comes first, now amplified by new workflows that let us test, refine, and scale with greater speed and precision. 

Introducing Multiply Potential

In response to these shifts, DLA introduced Multiply Potential—our operating system for growth.

Multiply Potential is how we align strategy, creative, and performance to accelerate outcomes. It guides how we diagnose opportunities, design solutions, and deliver work that creates clarity, momentum, and measurable impact. It reflects our belief that the strongest brands aren’t built by accident—they’re built through alignment.

Momentum, Recognition, and Growth

In 2025, DLA’s work earned recognition across healthcare, retail, education, and creative categories, alongside features in industry and regional business publications and continued thought leadership in Media + AI.

We also strengthened the foundation of our agency:

• Expanded senior leadership to elevate client experience and strategic rigor
• Grew our Media + AI practice to support visibility, relevance, and performance in an AI-first world
• Acquired long-tim, creative agency, The King Agency, adding depth in creative production, automotive and retail expertise, and senior talent
• Expanded beyond Richmond with a growing presence in Atlanta

These investments position DLA to support more complex challenges with confidence, creativity, and clarity.

Looking Ahead

At the center of everything we do is Multiply Potential—helping brands align ambition with execution and turn possibility into impact.

To our clients, partners, and team: thank you for the trust, collaboration, and energy you bring to this work. We’re proud of what we built together in 2025—and excited for what’s ahead.

Here’s to 2026 and the next chapter of multiplying potential.

By Mark Pavia | Head of Media & AI, Dotted Line Agency

Over the past year, two new buzzwords have been making the rounds in marketing circles: AEO (AI Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization).

Both capture a real shift — that AI is no longer just another channel; it’s becoming the interface between people and information. But as the landscape accelerates, we need a term that connects these two ideas into a single, strategic discipline.

That term is AVO: AI Visibility Optimization.

Why AVO Matters

AI isn’t a single algorithm — it’s an ecosystem of answer engines, reasoning models, and content generators that decide what brands show up, how they’re represented, and whether they’re trusted.

• AEO focuses on discoverability: making sure AI systems can find and verify your brand.

• GEO focuses on amplification: designing content that AI chooses to surface and summarize.

Both are critical. But executives don’t run two playbooks — they need one integrated strategy.
AVO unites them.

It’s about optimizing not just for visibility, but for veracity, velocity, and value in AI-driven ecosystems.

The 3 Pillars of AI Visibility Optimization

1. Data Integrity — Structure your brand data (schema, metadata, citations) so AI can verify and trust it.
2. Content Context — Create narrative-rich, fact-anchored content that generative models can confidently summarize.
3. Experience Intelligence — Measure and manage how your brand appears across AI interfaces — from search chats to smart assistants.

Together, these pillars make your brand discoverable, defensible, and desirable in the age of AI answers.

Why Marketers Should Care

Every generative response is now a competitive battleground.

When ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity answers a customer question, your brand either appears — or disappears.

AVO helps ensure:

• Your data is accurate enough to be cited.
• Your content is structured enough to be surfaced.
• Your brand is credible enough to be trusted.

That’s the new visibility game — and it’s already underway.

From SEO to AVO

• SEO made your brand visible to search engines.
• AEO + GEO made your brand visible to AI engines.
• AVO makes you visible — and valuable — to the AI ecosystem as a whole.

It’s not just about ranking higher. It’s about earning relevance in every AI-generated moment.

The Financial Upside of AI Visibility and AVO

As AI becomes the new discovery layer, one thing is clear: brands that show up inside AI answers will grow faster than those that don’t.

At Dotted Line, we call this advantage AVO — AI Visibility Optimization.

It’s the new frontier that blends the science of AEO (AI Engine Optimization) and the art of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) into one measurable outcome: how visible, accurate, and amplified your brand is inside AI ecosystems.

And yes — the financial impact is real.

In modeling, brands with high AVO consistently outperform those with low or inconsistent visibility — not by a few points, but by double-digit gains in organic reach, brand trust, and conversion efficiency.

The pattern is remarkably consistent:

As AVO rises, so does the compound return on every other marketing dollar — paid, owned, or earned.

Why? Because AI visibility compounds like interest.
Once your brand becomes part of the “trusted data layer” that AI engines draw from, you don’t just get found — you get preferred.

The Road Ahead

At Dotted Line, our Media + AI practice is helping brands operationalize AVO — combining structured data strategy, content engineering, and performance measurement to build lasting visibility in AI-powered ecosystems.

If your brand wants to show up beyond the search bar, AVO is where the next advantage begins.

#AIVisibilityOptimization #AEO #GEO #AVO #AIinMarketing #MediaAndAI  #BeyondTheEngine #MarketingInnovation #BrandVisibility

In Part 1 of this series, Lauren Sweeney, Founder and CEO at Dotted Line, argued that brand budgets are on the chopping block unless they can prove measurable revenue impact. The good news? When brand is built into the revenue conversation from the start, it stops being a discretionary line item and becomes growth capital.

At Dotted Line, we call this the Multiplier Effect: when the right insights meet powerful storytelling, every marketing dollar works harder. But that multiplier effect only happens when the brand is fully embedded in the revenue strategy.

The Multiplier Effect

When brand sits alongside sales, product, and finance, three things happen:

1. Campaigns become compounding assets – Every initiative adds to the long-term value of the brand while delivering short-term results.
2. Customer experience aligns with growth priorities – Messaging, visuals, and touchpoints are optimized for both engagement and conversion.
3. Budgets shift from cost to capital – Brand becomes a measurable investment, not a discretionary expense.

Why Smart Insight Is the Most Effective Brand Move

Every campaign we build starts with a simple but non-negotiable rule: smart insights first. An insight that reveals how your audience thinks, decides, and acts becomes the foundation for storytelling that can work anywhere in the funnel.

• Top of Funnel: It earns attention and positions you as the clear, relevant choice in a crowded market.
• Middle of Funnel: It builds preference, trust, and emotional connection that move prospects closer to a decision.
• Bottom of Funnel: It converts with precision, addressing the specific triggers and barriers that matter most to your buyer.

When insights drive storytelling at every stage, campaigns don’t just generate leads — they build trust, credibility, and long-term value. That’s the difference between chasing one-off wins and compounding brand equity.

DLA’s Revenue–Brand Bridge

To consistently deliver both equity and growth, we’ve developed the Revenue–Brand Bridge — a practical approach that closes the gap between brand strategy and financial outcomes:

1. Define Revenue-Linked Brand KPIs – Tie brand metrics directly to financial performance: market share, pricing power, customer lifetime value, lead quality, and win rates.
2. Design for Longevity – Architect campaigns with reusable assets, repeatable narratives, and consistent creative platforms that compound equity over time.
3. Measure Dual Impact – Track both near-term performance (leads, conversions, revenue lift) and long-term brand health (awareness, preference, trust).

Proof in Practice

We’ve seen the results firsthand:

• National Home Services Brand — By aligning brand and sales strategy, we increased lead conversion rates by 28% in six months. The campaign also lifted unaided brand awareness by 19%, creating a pipeline that continues to produce qualified leads long after the media spend ended.
• Regional Higher Education Institution — A brand-led enrollment campaign delivered record-breaking inquiry volume (+34% YoY) while repositioning the institution to attract a more competitive applicant pool. This equity shift has fueled a multi-year enrollment strategy that reduced dependence on discounting.

These weren’t lucky breaks. They were the result of brand being baked into the revenue conversation from day one — from KPI setting to creative execution.

The Bottom Line

If your brand isn’t in the room where revenue decisions are made, it’s probably on the budget cut list. The companies winning today — and tomorrow — are the ones treating brand as a core growth lever, measured and managed alongside every other driver of revenue.

At Dotted Line, we build campaigns that don’t just deliver results in the moment — they Multiply Potential, building equity and revenue, move after move.

Ready to give your brand a seat at the revenue table? Let’s talk.

In 2025, every marketing dollar is under a microscope.

Economic uncertainty, interest rate volatility, and the rapid commoditization of creative content through AI have changed the rules. CFOs are demanding tighter ROI models. Boards are questioning brand budgets. And companies that can’t link brand spend to business growth are seeing those budgets reallocated — often permanently.

If your brand can’t prove its impact on revenue, it’s vulnerable.

The most future-ready companies have already made the shift: they’ve moved brand from a marketing silo to a revenue lever. When brand strategy is integrated with sales, product, and finance, campaigns don’t just perform in the moment. They build compounding equity that drives margin expansion, market share gains, and pricing power for years to come.

At Dotted Line, we believe brand deserves a permanent seat at the revenue table — not as decoration, but as a driver.

Brand Equity Is Growth Capital

Brand equity isn’t soft. It’s an asset that moves markets. Every touchpoint — from a 15-second pre-roll to a first sales meeting to a customer service interaction — either builds or erodes that equity. And the financial impact is measurable:

• +20% market outperformance for companies with strong brands (McKinsey).
• 60% of long-term profit growth comes from brand-building; sales activation drives the short-term 40% (IPA, Binet & Field).
• 82% of B2B buyers are more likely to consider a company with strong brand visibility and credibility (LinkedIn B2B Institute).

When equity is strong, companies can:

• Command higher prices without eroding volume.
• Accelerate conversion rates because trust and recognition are already in place.
• Reduce cost per acquisition by improving efficiency across the funnel.

In other words: brand is not a marketing expense — it’s growth capital.

Why This Matters Now

Three converging forces make this shift urgent in 2025:

1. Economic Pressure on Marketing Budgets – Rising capital costs and margin compression mean CFOs are cutting anything that can’t prove ROI.
2. AI Content Saturation – With barriers to content production gone, distinct, equity-building brand experiences are harder — and more valuable — to create.
3. Shorter C-Suite Patience – CMOs now average less than 40 months in tenure. Demonstrating measurable revenue impact is no longer optional; it’s survival.

The bottom line: awareness without conversion is wasted potential — and conversion without brand equity is a race to the bottom.

In Part 2 of this series, I’ll share how to move brand from a cost center to a growth engine — including the practical framework Dotted Line uses to link brand directly to revenue.

Research on past recessions shows companies that pull back lose market share & brand equities, especially compared to competitors who stay the course with marketing spend. Companies that marketed aggressively during the ’08 recession had 256% higher sales than those that didn’t.

Think of brand as “creating demand” & performance as “harvesting demand.” Plans designed to “always be harvesting” strip-mine the soil. While its tempting to weight $ towards short-term conversion, you run the risk of what WARC terms “The Marketing Doom Loop” (a 40% decline in median ROI when you move from a mixed-approach to performance-only).

As we dive into the new year and reacquaint ourselves with the flurry of emails, meetings, and new goals, we’d like to pause for just a moment. Before we charge ahead, let’s make one final toast to our clients, our partners, and our incredible team.

Here’s to making 2024 a milestone year for DLA. For the late nights and early mornings. For the weekend emails and the calls taken from cars, airports, and sidelines. For the moments when you pushed the work to be better, when you challenged each other with gratitude and respect, and when you trusted us to help bring your vision to life.

This past year was special. It marked 10 years since Dotted Line partnered with its very first client in 2014. 

From those humble beginnings as a team of one, we’ve grown into a full-service, high-touch agency. The journey has been as much about embracing challenges as it has been about celebrating wins, and 2024 was no different.

We invested in our team, enhancing leadership and client service capabilities to ensure we’re always meeting the unique needs of those we serve. Through campaigns and high-impact marketing programs, we achieved results that reflect the exceptional talent and dedication of our team.

Together, we’ve built momentum. 

And that momentum is captured in our 2024 Agency Impact Report. This report isn’t just about numbers or milestones – it’s about the shared vision that drives everything we do. It’s about the partnerships that continue to grow stronger and the ideas that make a difference. It’s about our commitment to innovation, excellence, and sustainable growth.

To everyone who’s been part of this journey, thank you. Your trust and support are what make Dotted Line what it is today. Take a moment to explore our 2024 Impact Report. We hope it inspires you as much as the year inspired us.

Here’s to 2025 and the stories we’ll create together!

Are you tired of dealing with hidden fees, slow Wi-Fi, and horrible customer service associated with traditional wired internet providers? Twist Broadband, a startup that aims to revolutionize the home internet experience, hears you. They have partnered with the creative minds at Dotted Line Agency to deliver a playful yet powerful marketing campaign that personifies the frustrations associated with outdated cable internet services and positions Twist as the superior internet provider. 

Meet the Cable Snake: The Friendly Villain You’ll Love to Hate 

At the heart of the campaign is the Cable Snake, a mischievous and humorous villain that wreaks havoc on its customers by sneaking in hidden fees, constricting speeds, and slithering away when there are problems.  

Ron Villacarillo, Head of Creative at Dotted Line Agency, shares the inspiration behind the character: “We knew we had to take on big cable companies, so we created a playful villain that came straight from the source. A coaxial cable naturally looks like a snake, so we made it represent everything wrong with the current cable internet experience.” 

While the Cable Snake causes chaos, Twist enters as the champion of hassle-free Wi-Fi, rescuing consumers from the grip of cable monopolies with a promise of Wi-Fi that goes “above and beyond.”  

AI-Powered “Cable Horror Stories” Bring Frustration to Life 

In addition to the Cable Snake, Twist’s campaign dives deeper into the nightmares of cable internet service with “Cable Horror Stories”—a series of videos that dramatize real customer experiences. Using AI tools, Dotted Line brings online reviews of cable companies to life with visuals and sound designs that intensify the horror and remind viewers why it is time to cut the cable.  

Break Free from Bad Wi-Fi 

With its blend of humor and truth, Dotted Line delivers a campaign with a bold message: It’s time to leave cable behind. Twist is paving the way for a new era of home internet, one in which customers don’t have to struggle to have trustworthy internet service.