TLDR MARKETING 2026-10-23

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YOUTUBE CULTURE & TRENDS REPORT: HOW TECHNOLOGY IS CHANGING PERSONAL EXPRESSION

AI is becoming a tool for personal expression rather than just content production. 72% of video posters aged 14-44 have used AI to create or edit images or videos, and 61% are interested in using AI to insert themselves into content. Creators use AI to restore childhood memories, and hobbyists turn fashion sketches into realistic designs and bring fan fiction to life.

HOW GEN Z IS CHANGING PACKAGING

Brands are moving from safe, minimal packaging toward designs Gen Z wants to display and collect, since the package stays visible in content long after purchase. Mane wraps heat protectants and smoothing products in consistent pink packaging that makes the whole line recognizable before anyone reads a label. Touchland keeps its sanitizer format fixed while rotating limited character collaborations, and Reale Actives pairs playful names like Go Calm with clear descriptions of what each product does.

WIN REPORT: HOW A SIMPLER HOMEPAGE INCREASED SALES BY 24%

The Raw Honey Shop increased sales by 24% by simplifying its homepage and making key selling points easier to find. The original page buried product information and trust signals in lengthy brand storytelling, and 50% of desktop visitors never reached the products section. The redesign replaced long paragraphs with a scannable checklist of product benefits, connected a beekeeper's photo to a specific trust claim, and added a “Shop our honeys” button near the top of the page. The test shows how clear value propositions and prominent calls to action can help visitors make purchase decisions with less effort.

HOW TO CREATE LINKS FOR SEO GOOGLE CAN'T IGNORE

Build links from topically relevant sites rather than chasing volume. Place links high in article text with descriptive surrounding context and natural anchors that reflect each page's unique purpose. Earn independent editorial links that add new information instead of relying on sitewide links or mass syndication. Space link-building efforts over time and keep the source page, anchor text, surrounding content, and destination closely aligned. Avoid redirects or content changes that weaken a page's topical relevance.

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WE TESTED MICROSOFT CLARITY TO UNDERSTAND BOT TRAFFIC AND CITATIONS

Microsoft Clarity adds useful AI visibility data to your marketing measurement stack by tracking bot activity, AI citations, and website usability issues. Brainlabs found that AI bots generated 27,190 requests between September 1 and September 28, representing 13.15% of measured traffic, but crawling activity did not necessarily translate into referral visits. Its Topic Insights feature also found gaps in citations for nonbranded prompts related to AI search measurement and agentic enablement. Session recordings can connect technical errors and user behavior to specific problems, such as a failing form that prevented clients from submitting feedback. The tool is free, but its AI visibility features are in beta and require carefully chosen prompts, relevant integrations, and validation against other analytics data.

HOW TO SUMMARIZE YOUR NEXT MEETING WITH GRANOLA

Granola lets users save prompts as recipes and run them by typing/followed by the recipe name. This post provides a prompt that distills meeting notes into two bullets under 12 words each, focusing on the 80% that matters most and the remaining 20% of key decisions or actions. Create separate recipes for different meeting types since sales calls and 1:1s need different summaries.

SHOULD YOU HARD-CODE YOUR WEBSITE AND RUN IT FROM GITHUB? (WEBINAR)

Vector's VP of Marketing Jess Cook and ércule founder Justin Dunham share what they learned from moving a live website to GitHub. They'll explain why Vector left its CMS and how the team managed the migration alongside a rebrand. The webinar covers launch challenges and lessons from the first 30 days.

IS EMAIL MARKETING DEAD? NO, BUT EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED

Email marketing still builds valuable audience relationships, even as open and click rates become less reliable measures of performance. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection inflates opens, while AI summaries can answer subscribers' questions without a click, making email's influence harder to track. Treat your email list as an audience to nurture rather than a pipeline of customers to convert, especially since roughly 95% of the B2B market is out of market at any given time. Measure performance across quarters using branded search, retention, replies, referrals, leads, and sales instead of relying on opens and clicks.

THE FORM BEFORE THE ANSWER: HOW CHATGPT QUESTIONS BUYERS BEFORE RECOMMENDING ANYTHING

79.4% of buying prompts trigger a follow-up questionnaire before recommendations. Most forms arrive pre-filled, with 89.7% of budget questions defaulting to the middle price range. Brands can use these forms to identify the criteria ChatGPT uses to narrow choices. Track them across repeated prompts and markets, then align product content with those criteria and ensure current prices and purchase links are easy for AI to retrieve.

HOW HARVEY IS BUILDING A FRONTIER MARKETING ORG

Harvey's marketing team used agents to make a tailored product film for each of hundreds of target accounts.

3 NEW STUDIES SUGGEST AI VISIBILITY & SEARCH NOT WORTH INVESTING IN

ChatGPT drove just 0.62% of Google organic's traffic across 145 million sessions, organic beat all AI assistants 39x in a second study, and a third found no AI lift in branded search.

CONTENT MARKETING AS WE KNEW IT IS OVER

Old content marketing relied on SEO and gated content, while the new playbook prioritizes creators, founder perspectives, and short-form content.