Become Indispensable to Your Industry.

Decades inside B2B media, helping media companies grow into the source their industry can't work without—content, intelligence, data, and the audience relationships that tie it all together. We start with where your value really comes from, then build the stack to get there efficiently: integrating the best tools in the space, building custom only where they fall short, and turning scattered platforms and first-party data into one system that works.

Check Out Some of Our Work

How We Work

Tools don't make you indispensable—strategy does. The best platforms only pay off when they serve a clear plan for what your industry should come to you for: the content, the intelligence, the data, and the audience relationships behind them. We start with that strategy, then integrate best-in-class vendors into one coherent stack, and build custom only where off-the-shelf falls short. No ongoing "executive" retainers, no vaporware—just project-based engagements with full accountability and measurable growth, efficiency, and revenue outcomes.

1

Seeing Systems Through Chaos

A detailed, fixed-price assessment that maps your whole operation across 42 areas—from editorial and audience data to acquisition, subscriptions, engagement, and monetization. You get a clear-eyed read on where value and effort are leaking and a prioritized effort/impact matrix showing exactly where to invest first for the biggest gains.

2

Building Lasting Solutions

Guided by the effort/impact matrix and your growth goals, we embed with your team and build out the stack—integrating best-in-class tools where they fit and building custom only where they don't. Every move ties back to the strategy: each piece tailored to your business, owned by your team, and designed to run without us.

3

Leaving the Dock

When the work is done, you won't need us anymore. Your stack runs on its own—efficiently producing, connecting, and monetizing what your industry relies on you for, without oversight. Should you ever need a tune-up, we're always here.

Learn More About Our Process

Selected Work

Real projects across the audience stack—acquisition, engagement, data, and monetization. Measurable outcomes. Systems that keep working long after we're done.

01

Automating Affiliate Linking

AI-powered pipeline replacing manual affiliate link curation across dozens of editorial sites with automated entity extraction, product matching, and dynamic widget delivery.

Read Case Study → 02

Deep Content Metadata Extraction

AI-driven metadata enrichment across a multi-brand portfolio, powering CDP personalization, audience discovery, and a vector-based related content engine.

Read Case Study → 03

AI-Generated Content for Market Testing

Automated content system that lets publishers test new markets with credible, editor-approved content—without the traditional editorial investment.

Read Case Study → 04

Personalized Subscription Offers

Vector similarity search matching anonymous visitors' reading behavior to tailored subscription offers, lifting email conversion by over 20%.

Read Case Study → 05

Omeda Platform Migration

Full-scale migration of email, CDP, and subscription systems to Omeda's unified platform—on time, on budget, with zero operational disruption.

Read Case Study → 06

Centralized UTM Tracking System

Proprietary, permission-based system standardizing UTM tracking codes across global teams, synced to BigQuery for reliable attribution reporting.

Read Case Study → 07

Sponsored Webinar ROI Dashboard

End-to-end measurement connecting webinar attendance to product adoption, with interactive Looker Studio dashboards showing sponsor ROI in plain dollars.

Read Case Study →

About Paperbak Labs

I've spent three decades inside B2B media—as an operator, exec, and builder—most of it focused on audience: how it's acquired, grown, engaged, and monetized. The work starts with strategy: a sharp point of view on where your audience growth and revenue actually come from, and only then the technology to deliver it. I help media teams get the most from the best audience platforms—choosing them, connecting them, and integrating the data they already have—and build custom audience tech only where the gaps are. Designed for your business, not the same SaaS every competitor is running.

The engagement is finite; the clarity and efficiency it installs are durable. That outcome is the product.

Joel Hughes

More about Joel Hughes

Most know me professionally as an experienced B2B media tech exec & entrepreneur.

A self-described builder, I apply business analysis, software, and AI tools to grow and monetize audiences for publishers and marketers.

Companies I've worked for or with include:

Scranton Gillette Communications, Farm Journal, SGC Horizon, CFE Media Group, Endeavor Media, Omeda, Credspark, EnsembleIQ, Lebhar-Friedman, Edgell Communications, Northstar Travel Group, Arkaea Media, Watt Global Media, Allured Media, Equine Network, Active Interest Media, Vance Publishing, Cloudbakers, Reilly Communications, Rogers Media, Fast Company, Inc.

I am a Folio: Top 100 recipient and recognized authority on audience, data, and digital strategy.