Points-based loyalty programs often give the illusion of success while hiding low engagement and weak brand connection. Most repeat behavior stems from habit or convenience, not true preference. These programs reward actions that would happen anyway, inflate ROI with misleading metrics, and fail to build emotional ties. High breakage, unused rewards, and low redemption rates show customers aren't invested. Enrollment is often automatic, not a sign of interest. To create real loyalty, brands need simpler, more relevant experiences that reflect how people actually choose.
CEO branding is now important for trust, recruitment, and investor appeal, especially in startups. 93% of people believe socially active CEOs build stronger customer connections. CEOs like Jensen Huang and Elon Musk prove that a visible, intentional presence can shape public perception and drive business results. For impact, a CEO's voice must align with the company's values and be consistently expressed across platforms with clear strategy and measurable outcomes.
Men now occupy the majority of “Customer Activation and Growth” roles.
97% of US ecommerce companies say their AI investments delivered good ROI, yet only 25% report even slight improvements to customer experience.
Email sequences show an 85% higher reply rate than one-off emails.
Content demand hit a record 7.9 million registrations in 2024, but the average time to open content stretched to nearly 39 hours, a 23% increase year over year. Playbooks showed strong buying intent, being 115% more likely to lead to a purchase within 12 months, while eBooks were less predictive of near-term decisions. Short-term purchase intent dropped 12%, while mid-term intent rose 15%, emphasizing the need for well-timed follow-ups over immediate responses. C-suite engagement rose 27%, but marketers must respect varied buyer timelines, focusing on presence, relevance, and patience.
A study of 50 websites by Siege Media found that AI Overviews and LLMs lower overall site traffic but increase homepage visits by 10.7% on average. Some saw nearly 30% more clicks. This rise comes from stronger brand visibility in bottom-funnel AI search results that boost branded searches even without direct links. Established brands benefit most, while others struggle. Siege recommends optimizing homepages, enhancing retargeting strategies, investing in brand building, and focusing on brand awareness to leverage this shift effectively.
One Instagram share can lead to anywhere from 150 to 400 additional views, significantly outperforming likes, comments, and saves. This makes share-worthy content the most effective way to reach new audiences and drive organic growth. Marketers should focus on formats like motivational stories, highly specific relatable posts, timely cultural tie-ins, and opinion-driven takes that promote conversation and sharing.
Peec is an AI search analytics tool that helps brands monitor and optimize their visibility across AI-driven search platforms. Teams can track brand mentions, analyze performance trends, benchmark against competitors, and identify the sources AI models rely on when generating responses.
Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4. Opus 4 leads in long-running coding tasks and agent workflows, while Sonnet 4 offers improved performance and instruction-following for everyday use. Both models now support extended thinking, memory from local files, and tool use in parallel.
Splashin turned the classic high school game "Senior Assassin" into a viral hit by making video proof of eliminations a required part of gameplay. It turned every moment into shareable content. Since launching in July 2023, the app has hit $1M MRR, 600K downloads, and over 2B views across TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. Splashin's growth tactics include embedding viral content into the product itself, posting consistently through @splashin.app starting in April 2024, repurposing the same videos across multiple platforms, and focusing on “unexpected” eliminations to drive engagement. This user-driven content loop powers a content machine that removes the need for a traditional posting strategy.
More than three-quarters of small and midsize businesses report that social media improves their business performance. However, 54% struggle to keep content fresh and aligned with current trends while also running the business. Facebook leads as the most used platform, with 82% of businesses leveraging it to promote products and engage with customers, followed by Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Only 8% of people working in UK advertising agencies are over 51, yet 33% of the overall working population is over 50.
Understand the differences between positioning, messaging, and copy.
Streaming now accounts for 44% of total TV time in the US, with the majority of that viewing supported by ads.
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Marketers sit on a goldmine of customer insights trapped in sales calls, support chats, and interview transcripts. AI can help extract these insights - but getting reliable results takes more than a fancy prompt.
AI agents can now complete purchases using network-issued tokens from major payment networks such as Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal, making them more seamless and secure. The buyer journey is being compressed into background processes where bots search, buy, and handle returns without any human input. Brands that want to sell to agentic AI shoppers need to have machine-readable product data, API-integrated inventory, and AI-friendly post-purchase flows.
40% of UK consumers say content quality has worsened. Brands are turning to fan-first live experiences to reconnect. With 80% of Gen Z and 72% of Millennials reporting loneliness, and marketing budgets shrinking by 4.8% in Q1 2025, spend on live events and brand experiences have grown by 5.4% as a way to foster real connection. Fan-first strategies prioritize storytelling, inclusive exclusivity, subcultural relevance, and purposeful partnerships to deliver emotional resonance in a fragmented digital world.
SFG20 increased lead capture by 53% by redesigning its demo request form into a two-step process. The original form had multiple required fields, which lowered completion rates, but shortening it wasn't an option due to lead quality needs. The variation initially showed only three fields, then revealed more after the user started, leveraging the Ovsiankina Effect. This reduced perceived friction and encouraged more users to complete the form.
Visual product ratings like stars or bars are perceived as higher than number-based ratings, leading to greater purchase intent. In experiments, a 3.7-star rating was judged 25.7% higher and chosen 64% more often than the same number shown numerically. Ads using visual ratings had a 52.6% higher click-through rate than those with numbers. This effect is driven by left-digit bias, which causes people to mentally round down numerical ratings.
Brands that stay visible during recessions tend to recover faster and build stronger long-term growth. Instead of cutting spend entirely, shifting to focused campaigns allows companies to stay present in the market while controlling costs. Leveraging employee advocacy can increase reach and engagement without additional spend. Lastly, partnering with an external PR firm ensures consistent messaging and helps navigate uncertain times, protecting brand trust.
Google has published new documentation on how to succeed in Google Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode. Pages must provide a good user experience, be technically accessible for indexing, and use accurate structured data. Supporting content with quality images and videos helps with multimodal searches. Site owners should value user engagement over click volume, as AI-driven traffic often leads to more meaningful interactions.
Stop creating more content and start maximizing what you already have. Identify relevant topics from customer and sales insights, then record 1-hour interviews with 3 internal subject matter experts. Turn each session into a long-form article, video clips, and LinkedIn posts shared from personal profiles for higher reach. Repurpose content across your site, YouTube, and newsletters. After 3 months, boost top posts with Thought Leader Ads. At 6 months, expand reach through a LinkedIn employee advocacy program using the same content.
Shows like “Dying for Sex” and “Yellowjackets” move beyond the empowered woman trope. They reveal that autonomy is internal and activated through complexity, not granted by others. Their success shows audiences are ready for richer, non-linear portrayals of women's inner lives. For brands and media looking to connect meaningfully with women, this means moving past surface-level portrayals to embrace vulnerability, rawness, and the full spectrum of selfhood through deeper storytelling.
Google has started rolling out its Discover feed on desktop, a feature previously limited to mobile that shows personalized news headlines on the homepage. This change could generate a significant spike in traffic for major publishers, as desktop usage often drives higher engagement. Smaller independent creators are excluded, and the shift may incentivize content tailored to algorithmic preferences over audience needs and interests.
Google unveiled the Gemini 2.5 Pro AI model with faster processing, Google Beam for 3D video chats, real-time translation in Google Meet, and Agent Mode to automate tasks.
A pre-post teases or poses a question about a topic ahead of publishing longer content to gauge interest and build momentum.
A visual of LinkedIn's algorithm post lifecycle.
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When Bland's AI phone agent went viral, the company found itself with a massive influx of inbound leads.
Instagram has launched a 6-week, invite-only referral program offering select US-based creators up to $20K for driving new users or traffic to the platform via links shared outside the app. Participants can earn $100 per eligible sign-up or per 1K eligible visits. The initiative encourages creators to promote Instagram on rival platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Substack. As part of Meta's broader push to retain creator loyalty amid increasing competition, this test follows previous incentives like the “Breakthrough Bonus” and exclusive content deals.
Only 12% of creative directors in the UK are women, and the number is even lower when factoring in class and ethnicity. Systemic barriers, from rigid workplace norms to caregiving responsibilities and biased leadership expectations, make it difficult for women to enter and advance in creative leadership. Flexible work environments like Born Social have shown that inclusion strengthens teams and leads to more effective, emotionally intelligent campaigns. Companies with diverse leadership are 25% more likely to outperform peers, yet many women still face personal, financial, and cultural hurdles that limit access and retention. Real change requires equity-focused policies, mentorship, and a redefinition of what leadership looks like.
RevenueCat tested in-app purchases against web purchases after Apple allowed developers to bypass the App Store fee. In a four-way experiment with 5.6K new U.S. users of Dipsea, a subscription-based audio storytelling app for intimacy and wellness, the in-app only variant saw a 42% higher initial conversion and trial start rate than the web-only version, even with a 30% web discount. Most drop-off happened at the payment step, showing that sending users out of the app significantly reduces conversions. While web payments may offer longer-term advantages like faster payouts, early data suggests they come with a steep short-term cost.
Firms that created more distinct content from their competitors on X saw better results in engagement and audience expansion. A study categorized brand activity into three tiers, starting with basic promotional updates, followed by community-focused content, and finally, co-creation strategies that invited user input. Only a minority of brands operated in the last and most distinct tier, but those that did captured much more attention and loyalty.
Personal LinkedIn accounts reach 10X more people than company pages. To encourage your team to post, run a friendly internal competition with rewards. Track metrics like follower growth, engagement, impressions, and reach. Let the team vote on who created the best content. Set a shared goal for leads, meetings, or revenue, and make rewards conditional on the team hitting that goal to keep everyone accountable.
This free webinar on May 27, hosted by Exit Five in partnership with Loom, will explore how marketing leaders can reduce meeting overload and improve communication. Ashley Faus and Dr. Molly Sands from Atlassian will be sharing tips on running better meetings, using async tools like Loom, making work more visible, and balancing strategy with hands-on execution.
Adobe will automatically migrate Creative Cloud All Apps subscribers to a higher-priced Creative Cloud Pro plan on June 17, raising monthly rates. The new tier includes expanded generative AI capabilities such as Firefly-powered image and video tools, unlimited AI features in core apps, and 4,000 monthly generative credits. A lower-priced Creative Cloud Standard plan is available, but it restricts access to premium AI tools and mobile apps.
The last 16 years have seen a disconnect between growing media investment and stagnant brand growth across industries, from retail to pharmaceuticals. Advertisers shifted resources to digital platforms that optimize for short-term engagement and metrics, but this transition has failed to replace the long-term equity built by traditional brand campaigns. The result is a growing perception in the C-suite that marketing's primary role is cost containment rather than strategic, but intangible value creation.
Poppi's Alpine Blast campaign used gaming to drive customer interaction, launching a Fortnite mini-game with Creator Corp and a nostalgic arcade-style web game that reached 126,000 plays in four days. The brand supported this effort with a limited-edition merch drop and a Coachella-adjacent event featuring influencers and fans, reinforcing its strategy of blending digital experiences with real-world cultural trends.
A minute-by-minute structure of how to run a great demo.
Strategies include analyzing your competitors' frustrated customers, explaining your product to a child, and tracking the online behavior of 3 customers each week.
Duolingo has wiped its social channels weeks after the company's AI-first announcement triggered user backlash and anti-AI sentiment across its comment sections.
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Advertising in TLDR puts your brand in front of tech leaders when they're most engaged. Easily target millions of developers, PMs, and executives with our 12 interest-based newsletters. See how TLDR can drive results for your brand [4].
Gen AI is set to transform digital out-of-home by enabling personalized creatives that adjust in real time to external signals like location, sentiment, and environmental conditions. Nike is exploring AI-powered campaigns that tailor messaging by geography and event context, while WPP and Nvidia are working on systems to automate production across thousands of formats.
Ahrefs analyzed 900K new web pages and found that 74% contained AI-generated content. Only 25.8% were purely human-written, while 71.7% had a mix of AI and human input. Among the mixed pages, 25.9% had moderate AI use, 20.5% substantial use, and 15.5% dominant AI presence. The study highlights that AI is now the default tool for content creation, with 87% of surveyed content marketers using it.
To run A/B tests with low traffic, use higher-frequency goals like add-to-cart actions instead of orders, or micro-conversions such as clicks to key pages. Limit your test to a single variation to reduce the traffic needed for statistically significant results, and test additional variations iteratively. Increase the minimum detectable effect to 30% to lower the required traffic, but only if your variation is bold enough to produce a noticeable impact. Avoid unreliable metrics like time on page or scroll depth, which can lead to false positives.
Flash sales work best when urgency is built through dynamic low-stock alerts, tiered discounts for early buyers, and personalized timers based on user behavior. Segment audiences to re-engage lapsed customers, clear seasonal overstock, and revive inactive lists with one-day events. Coordinate messaging across email, SMS, and ads to prevent fatigue and protect ongoing campaigns. Limit exposure for recent buyers and promo-only shoppers to maintain list quality. Use a warm-up phase to tease offers, a short focused launch, and a cool-down to retarget non-buyers.
Google Merchant Center recommends adding the product's brand name at the beginning of titles when the brand is a key differentiator. This update aims to help shoppers quickly identify products and build trust by showing who makes them. While not yet mandatory, prepping titles now can improve click-through and conversion rates, ensure better search matching, and keep you ahead of potential enforcement. Avoid using your store name unless you manufacture the product. Brand names should only reflect the actual maker.