Marketing Ops Now Build on AI Infrastructure, Not Apps
For most of the SaaS era, martech platforms won by shipping applications. That era is ending. The most sophisticated marketing ops leaders I've talked to recently don't live inside their MAPs anymore. They're building their own AI apps and agents on top of them — increasingly treating HubSpot, Marketo, and Salesforce platforms as back-end infrastructure instead of applications. Jason M. Lemkin put it well: "The CRM decision is no longer a CRM decision. It's an AI infrastructure decision." The new build-vs-buy equation: buy infrastructure, build differentiation. My latest newsletter explores what this migration means for marketing ops leaders, platform vendors, and agencies — including why the hardest migration isn't yours, it's theirs. Not yet subscribed to my newsletter? Hit "View my newsletter" on my LinkedIn profile. P.S. Included in this week's newsletter is the registration link for #MartechDay , where Frans Riemersma and I will be releasing the State of Martech 2026 report and the updated 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape on May 5. Free to attend, live or on-demand.
Pluribus Boosts Light Viewer Engagement Over The Morning Show
When it comes to understanding the value of programming on streaming, Netflix wrote the manual. One of their key metrics is "Adjusted View Share". Do at-risk subscribers overindex as viewers of a given title? If yes, adjust the value of...
Beyond Ads: Positioning Product when Creative Budget Dries
Most people think I create & run ads. Me: How to effing position this product now. The creative has spent $5mn & there is no more juice out of it.
Create a Full AI Marketing System in 2 Hours
i'm running a live claude cowork workshop for non-technical people on april 22 by the end of the 2 hours, you'll have a fully set up marketing system on your computer that: > produces a full week of content in one sitting,...
Unlock Affiliate Growth: SEO Strategies to Break Plateaus
How To Break Through An Affiliate Site Plateau & Find New Growth - Ask An SEO https://buff.ly/PL974zp
Create Pro Video Ads in 90 Minutes – 70% Off
Seedance 2.0 just went live on Higgs for everyone. You can take one product image, write a few prompts, and have UGC, production-level, and lifestyle video ads ready in about 90 minutes. You can get up to 70% off right now with...
Google Rankings Use Chrome Visit Data, Not Just Links
Do you ever notice your rankings go up after a surge of unrelated traffic? Many reasons why this could happen, but in the Google antitrust trial, they found Popularity is based on both links + "Chrome visit data" Importantly, this data is...
Free Custom Video Ads Skyrocket Cold Outreach Responses
A 19-year-old freelancer scraped 5,000 Shopify stores from his bedroom. No degree. No portfolio. No LinkedIn with 10k followers. Just a spreadsheet, Apollo for contacts, and one weird idea that he tested on a loaf of bread Bakers don't hand out menus. They...
Vulnerable Content Builds Loyalty; Viral Content Draws New Eyes
Your best content and your most viral content are probably not the same post. The vulnerable stuff builds trust and deepens loyalty with the people already paying attention. The viral stuff attracts new eyeballs. You need both but they serve...
More Isn’t Better; Smarter Data‑driven Decisions Drive Growth
The general advice in the business space is to add more. More channels, more content, more campaigns. That's usually the first instinct when growth slows down. But after 15 years doing this, what I keep seeing is that more rarely fixes...
E‑commerce Brands Test only Subject Lines—Miss Five Steps
Most ecom brands A/B test subject lines and stop there. That's step one out of six. Here's the full priority list: https://t.co/JdpTVaeubz
AI Neutralizes SEO Tricks, only Deserving Brands Rank
The main difference between SEO vs GEO is that you can't really bulldoze your way into getting brand recommendations for something you don't deserve. For example, "best insider threat management" There is a company named Exabeam doing a self-promotional list page...
Cut Budget, Boost Pipeline: Focus High-Intent Yields 119% Target
Budget cut 20%. Pipeline still exceeded target. What we did: • stopped funding low-impact campaigns • reallocated to high-intent • refreshed top content instead of adding more Results: • MQLs at 72% • pipeline at 119% Less volume. More revenue. https://t.co/zwh1WOxnj5
Google to Penalize Back‑Button Hijacking Starting June 15
Google Search new spam penalty for back button hijacking kicks in June 15th https://t.co/kKEcy16MOG https://t.co/gskMbjcUoO
Long “Ultimate Guides” Underperform Short, Focused Pages
We analyzed 815,000 query-page pairs. The "ultimate guide" strategy produces worse citation results than a focused shorter page. https://t.co/rwNXL7kLMo via @Kevin_Indig, @sejournal
Separate Campaigns Prevent ROAS Inflation and Prospecting Starvation
Your Meta campaign is feeding past purchasers and starving new customers. You just can't see it in the ROAS. So we run a 3-to-4 campaign architecture. When you consolidate cold, warm, and retention into one campaign, the algorithm gravitates toward the...
AI Marketing Toolkit Grows: New Tools Added
The best list of #AI #marketing tools anywhere continues to expand: https://t.co/1MqMiJPCBB New tools added recently include Marey by @moonvalley, @SalesAPE_AI, @coachvox, @gradialai, @aivideocut, Cora AI, @UpsurgeCRM, @withdelphi, @UnwrapAi, and @TailwindApp.
Rank and Headings Drive AI Citations, Not Authority
The Fan-Out Effect: What Happens Between a Query and a Citation - From a research developed by @Kevin_Indig & @AirOpsHQ analyzing 16,851 queries and +353K pages across ChatGPT's full retrieval pipeline: * Retrieval rank is the #1 signal. A...
Leverage One Piece of Content Across All Channels
Most teams don’t need more content. They need leverage. Turn one blog, video, or podcast into emails, LinkedIn posts, and X updates automatically. Same ideas. More surfaces. Less manual work. https://t.co/TMyyX29S08
Focus on Meta Until $50M Revenue, Skip Distractions
Because would rather find a problem elsewhere than fix what's truly wrong with their funnel. Most brands should put 90% of their focus on Meta exclusively until $50M+ in revenue.
Ally Shifts Ad Spend From Cable to Women's Sports
Financial-services firm Ally wanted to increase the ad dollars it spent on women's sports. To do so, it cut the commercials it ran on traditional entertainment-focused cable networks.... https://t.co/BmFwrCvBNw via @variety
Aggressive AI Listicles Trigger Massive Core Update Traffic Drops
I'm looking at several sites right now that got demolished by the last Core updates. -65% in org. traffic / ranks and still declining. One commonality is aggressive AI content, often listicles, that is not relevant to their site.
Your Mindset, Not Price, Blocks Higher‑price Conversions
I spent months blaming the wrong thing. The price wasn’t the problem. I was. 👇Comment POD55 to find out what actually has to be true before a higher price converts
Multiple URLs Confuse Google—Keep It Simple
Sure, Google can handle pages with multiple URLs but why do that? Why make it harder? https://t.co/a22eUaKmFI via @johnmu https://t.co/tVJGEDAdUv
True Content Pillars Blend Expertise, Audience Needs, Engagement
Your content pillars are not what YOU want to talk about. They're the intersection of your: • Expertise • Audience's problems • What gets engagement If one of those is missing, it's not a pillar. It is a hobby.
Ramp Leverages AI and Incrementality to Rethink Marketing Attribution
How Ramp is building an AI-pilled marketing team A few months ago I met Drew Pinta (he supports marketing in a growth/data science at Ramp) on one of our webinars and thought he came across as an impressive guy. Useful...
Google Update Punishes Gimmicky SEO, Rewards Real Value
Google's March Core Update finished rolling out April 8th. If you vibe-coded a landing page with purple gradients, three emojis in the H1, and copy that starts with "In today's fast-paced world…" Check your traffic. Government PDFs are outranking your "AI revolution." Established...
B2B Marketers Must Stop Treating LLMs.txt as Standard
Misunderstood Marketing - : llms.txt Is Not a Standard. Here's What B2B Marketers Should Actually Do About It. https://t.co/vLp1VVuAO0
Revenue Grows Through Consistent Optimizations, Not One Campaign
A $195K revenue lift doesn't come from a single campaign. It comes from small, consistent optimizations: messaging that's aligned, a team that's led well, and a strategy that doesn't require the CEO to babysit it every week. That's what a real marketing...
Ramp's Daily April Posts Can Transform Your Business
Why is this month suddenly Ramp releases a BANGER x post per day April? You could rebuild your entire company just reading their stuff. I'm dead serious.
AI Generates Weekly Social Calendar for Consistent Growth
I built a skill for Claude Code that plans and writes your social media content — LinkedIn, X, Instagram, TikTok, and more. You tell it your product and audience, and it builds a weekly content calendar with specific post types, topics,...
Human‑First Social Strategy: Turn Content Into Clients
Starts April 14 - want to join us? 🚀 Brand-new live masterclass: The HUMAN-First Marketing Method. Turn Your Content Into Clients: A Human-First Facebook & Instagram Strategy That Works in Today’s AI-Driven World https://t.co/rc1HJyfQEF
Launching My First SEO Bootcamp: Join the Journey
I've been running SEO workshops for a couple of years, and it's been a lot of fun. So I'm doubling down on this path, and having so much fun putting my first BOOTCAMP together. This is just one of many one we'll...
Marketing Plans Must Align Engagement With Customer Journey
RT @VisionEdgeMktg 📋 Your marketing plan is an alignment tool, if it calibrates engagement to the customer journey. Otherwise, it's just a list of activities. https://t.co/OBSClokFDG #MarketingStrategy #CustomerJourney #Alignment
AI Could Shift Weeks of Tweets in Seconds
Just had to push my currently scheduled content ahead until after 22nd April (when we launch Stanley for 𝕏). That's 3x tweets a day (30x total tweets). Manually had to move all of them. Took me a good 30 min. Imagine if I could've...
Most Followers Miss Your Posts, Stop Over‑Repeating
90% of your audience isn't seeing your content the first time. Most people don't see your posts, and you're stressing about "looking too repetitive."
Use AI to Build Your B2B Homepage Structure
If you’re building a B2B website right now, this is the part everyone rushes and regrets. Tomorrow I’m doing a live session on using AI to turn positioning into a homepage structure and messaging system, plus prompts and templates so...
Product Copy Can Double or Halve Your Sales
The moment you put words on your product, you either increase sales by 50%… or kill them by 50% Let’s talk about it. 🧵
Validate Ecom Demand Fast with Ugly Site Tests
If I lost everything and had to build a profitable ecom brand by summer, here's exactly what I'd do. 1. RUN THE UGLY WEBSITE TEST. Find a competitor with a horrible site, no real ads, and photos that look like they...
Beyond Engaged vs Unengaged: 6 Overlooked E‑com Segments
Most ecom brands segment by "engaged vs unengaged" and stop there. Here are 6 segments that most brands skip: https://t.co/SQEJtS1okC
Become the Answer, Not Just a Keyword Ranker
It’s no longer about ranking for keywords; it’s about being the answer. With AI-powered discovery engines becoming the default, brands need to shift from publishing more content to building predictive, authoritative content systems. At Marketing (re)Focus 2026, I’ll be discussing what this...
Too Many Ads Hurt Performance and User Experience
There’s a fine line between personalization and overload. Rob Janes explains why too many ads don’t just hurt performance—they damage the user experience. See how leading teams are approaching it: https://t.co/eKmsXk6CsW @ad_butler #BrandTrust #hcmktg https://t.co/UqGG6MsvVe
Let Social, Not HR, Run Employee Advocacy
My hot take: the reason a lot of employee advocacy programs fall flat is because they're run by HR Employee advocacy — turning employees into brand ambassadors on social — should be run by the social team. Social people know what...
Fast‑track Content Strategy for Founders in Post‑SEO Era
Next up at MicroConf: Amanda Natividad (@amandanat ) on content-marketing in the post-SEO era. "A framework for founders who can't wait 12 months"
Email Metrics Mislead: Focus on These Real Indicators
6 email metrics that are lying to you. Your dashboard says everything is fine, but most of these numbers are showing you an incomplete picture. Here's what to actually look at: https://t.co/gUFuntorod
Marketing and Distribution, Not Product, Drive $0‑$1 Success
The little-known truth about $0-$1 ... the hard part isn't the product, it's the marketing and distribution.
AI Back‑Button Tactics: Smart UX, Risky Geo Strategy
Published on the same day Google just announced a new manual action for hijacking the back button. Good timing @MediaWyse :) -> AI buttons: Smart UX play, risky GEO tactic, or both? https://t.co/lDNUuhP7Q2
Ship AI Pages Now, Iterate Later—Don’t Overplan
Nobody gives a damn that your page is AI-generated. This AI-generated page converts enterprise leads for our Single Brain unified intelligence. When demand is there, it's important to just ship it. You can optimize as you go. Don't fall into the trap of overplanning....
Meta's Muse Spark Bridges Consumer Ads to Enterprise AI
Contextualizing Meta’s Muse Spark "Whether this API pilot emerges as a direct enterprise opportunity or not, there’s clear applicability to the Manus agent use case (which has already been brought to Meta’s ads manager), Meta’s off-platform Business AI initiative, and other...
Show Only Buyer‑Problem Features, Not Every Demo Detail
Your product team's demo training is sabotaging you. They mean well. But they want you to show EVERY feature. Your job is the opposite. Only show features that solve problems your buyer expressed. Leave off the rest. The product team builds awareness. You build deals. Different jobs.