An agency should never be a black hole for your budget.
The short version
College
Worked full time as residential painting company district manager. Later I set up its commercial arm, which netted more than $3M in year one. I oversaw 40 painters and 2 assistants - I also created the direct mail marketing campaigns.
1996
After discovering the Internet a year earlier, I opened my 1st Consultncy - Softsell - creating websites and managing email newsletters and affiliate marketing for early adopters.
1999
Co-Founded and launched my first successful subscription website, which would earn $20M ARR. Founded two additional startups in the affiliate data management space.
March 2005
After an exit and successes in the performance marketing space, launched Synergy Intermedia.
2014 to 2024
Today
Who is Synergy
Synergy Intermedia is where media and the internet meet. I’ve watched audiences scatter across screens for 30 years. Everybody is everywhere now, so the channels have to be planned together. In my experience they return more that way than the same channels run apart.
I opened my first digital agency in 1996, before most businesses had a website. In 1999 I had a viral hit with a startup, and I spent the years after it in affiliate and performance marketing, where nobody gets paid until something sells.
I started Synergy Intermedia in March 2005 and I still run it today. Between that first agency and Synergy, I’ve served more than 100 clients.
For ten of those years I also worked in-house, running digital marketing for three manufacturers. I was the one signing off on the budget, so I know what a buyer needs to see before saying yes. Along the way I’ve been trusted with tens of millions of dollars of other people’s money.
Where the discipline comes from
I had a strong Catholic education from a young age, and I credit it for the discipline it takes to stay the course. I went on to Loyola University Chicago and earned a B.S. in Applied Psychology, magna cum laude.
The hard work came early. In college I painted houses for a student painting company. I went from painter to district manager of its most profitable, high-end neighborhoods. Later I set up a commercial arm for the company that netted more than $3M in its first year. You learn fast when 40 people need work on Monday.
Then came the internet, and 30 years of earning my 10,000 hours several times over.
What I took from all of it is a way of working built on hard work, trial and error, observation, analysis, and the sheer willpower to succeed. It produces strategic plans that hold. There are a lot of purple monkeys out there, my name for the next shiny thing. I don’t rewrite a client’s plan to chase one. I test the new thing first and add it when the numbers earn it a place.
That philosophy has brought clients success and taken them further than they expected to go.
Five things the work is built on
Hard work
Trial and error
Observation
Analysis
Willpower
What I believe about marketing now
One foundation, then six positions I’ve argued in public.
Your data is your product
Put the money on intent
People search to fix a problem or answer a question. Answer it before they know they need to ask, and you win most of the time.
Win your audience’s audience
First-party data, every meeting
The riches are in the niches
A CRM is a bicycle
AI needs a wrangler
The Synergy way
The word agency means something. A client gives us agency to reach their goals, even when they aren’t yet sure what those goals are. Your budget never goes into a black hole. You know what is running and what it brought back.
We work as a team. I lead the strategy on every account. When it’s time to build, I bring in blue ribbon practitioners from a network I’ve built over 30 years, matched to the job. Some clients need their paid media managed day to day. Others need an organic advantage built with a mix of new methods and time-tested ones.
We stay at the tip of the spear on the technology that changes digital marketing. We adopted AI early, and we keep a healthy curiosity (and skepticism) about how it should be used to automate and enrich a company’s sales process.
The customer comes first. The mission is the best return we can earn on every dollar a client gives us. Period. Hard stop.
Our goal is yours: go farther with less, and see results that last.
How we work, side by side
The bench
Paid media
Web and SEO
Creative
Data and automation
GTM engineering
RevOps
Selected experience
$12M to $24M
$15M
in sales in 90 days from one campaign there, built around a new OSHA safety rule.
26%
revenue growth in one year at an industrial connector maker, on a $250K digital budget.
10:1
return on $6M a year in media across 16 brands at a $1.6B electrical products maker. Those campaigns also built more than $20M in pipeline.
Selected experience from in-house roles I held at manufacturers between 2014 and 2024. None of it is Synergy client work, and past results don’t predict future ones.
What you won’t get with Synergy
Mediocre performance
Mediocre communication
Stale old ideas
A set it and forget it mindset
A bait and switch
Overhead on your invoice
Podcasts I’ve been featured on
B2B marketing strategies in the age of AI
A conversation with Dr. Bill Williams
The Friday Podcast with Andrew Wee
What people I’ve worked with say
From the recommendations on my LinkedIn profile, word for word.
“All of our KPI's increased significantly as a result of Jim's efforts with the most significant being the doubling of our website traffic in less than a year after several years of little to no growth.”
Jim Piazza Jr.
“He played a key role in setting up our digital strategy, creating a detailed and effective go-to-market digital playbook that became a vital resource for our team.”
Deanna Lessard, MBA
Marketing Manager - Electrical, NSI Industries
“The talent that he brings, along with the resources and tools that he has implemented within our organization, has transformed our lead generation process. As a salesperson myself, Jim has made cold calling a process of the past.”
Brian Oleksy
Business Development Manager, NSI Industries
“He is an accomplished leader who is collaborative, genuinely respectful and values his team’s contributions.”
Sunny Mallavarapu
Director of Digital Operations and Products, Robert Bosch Tool Corporation NA
“If you need the latest in digital and a no-fluff approach - Jim gets results and has a great network of cutting edge contacts.”
Kevin Enke
“It’s rare that you come across talent in the marketing and SEO world like Jim.”
Joe Calderone
Senior Digital Media Coordinator, Tech Image
Questions people ask first
Me. I lead the strategy on every account and I stay on it. When specialists join, they work under my direction and you still have one line to me.
Over 30 years I’ve built a list of practitioners I trust. For each project I bring in the ones the work calls for. You don’t pay for people you don’t need.
Yes. An agency should never be a black hole. You’ll know what is running and what it brought back.