Nearly all of its prospect audience is matched to Amazon's, giving it up to 75% penetration on FireTV. For its part, Amazon has been able to pick up additional audience segments based on conversion data that is flowing in.

Sleep Number, which produces adjustable and smart beds, was creating short-form videos that were getting -- at the most -- 2,000 organic views. It needed to ramp up awareness of its mattresses and the technology build into each one.

"We knew there was a big opportunity here to capitalize on what we own in the cooking space to drive affiliate and commerce for one of our big partners," said Nilla Ali, VP of Strategic Partnerships at BuzzFeed.

Using its secret sauce, it took Culture, multiplied that by Curation, added Community and got ComplexCon. It defined culture as the attitudes, attributes and behaviors of a specific social group.

"The riches are in the niches, right?" REVRY's Damian Pelliccione said, to the audience's amusement, before more sternly advancing the idea that companies need to have more women in the C-suite.

Over at Publishers Clearing House, "often our users look like bots because they're so active, they're playing so many games. We are sensitive to that. People get slightly crazy when they're wanting to win a million-dollar sweepstakes."

Neither agency is going after any Fortune 500 companies. "Our right to win is around content, areas where we are strategically aligned. We have100 sellers. Most agencies would die to have five sellers."

Thrillist' s Jody Rones and WAVE's Andy Wiedlin went at it at Friday's Publishing Insider Summit in Austin, debating the best length of an ad yet united against the duopoly. It was pretty good theater.

"Don't be afraid to explore foreign territories, and be ready to learn," says Kathryn Friedrich, EVP, GM of operations at Conde Nast Entertainment. "Come up with something that inspires people to spend more time with you."

"We try to use that as a reference for marketers and sales people. Now, in practice, I'm not going to say that every salesperson always looks at The Audience Bible but we can say, well, here it is on page 22."