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ONE METRIC FOR TOTAL MARKETING SPEND

The marketing efficiency ratio (MER) compares total revenue to total marketing spend.

BRANDS USING AI-GENERATED INFLUENCERS TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

70% of people are unable to correctly identify real vs. fake videos.

UBER ADVERTISING EXPANDS BEYOND OWNED APPS IN PLAY FOR MORE AD DOLLARS

Uber Advertising is now expanding campaign reach beyond its own apps for the first time.

HOW KENDALL JENNER, ROSÉ, AND MRBEAST CREATE CONSUMER OBSESSIONS

A list of Hollywood's 26 top marketing masterminds.

THE PROMPT-TO-PURCHASE PIPELINE: WHAT MILLIONS OF SEARCH EVENTS TOLD US ABOUT HOW AI INFLUENCES BUYER BEHAVIOR

AI search is becoming a measurable top-of-funnel channel even when analytics fail to credit it. A study found that when an AI platform recommends a brand to a new prospect, that person is 182% more likely to search for the brand, 117% more likely to visit its website, and 185% more likely to view its products within a week. Recommendations drive roughly twice the impact of simple mentions, which makes visibility alone less important than earning placement as a recommended option. Brands should optimize content, reviews, and comparison assets to increase recommendation rates across AI platforms, especially ChatGPT, and track AI visibility as a demand generation metric rather than relying only on last click attribution.

THE MISSION MINDSET: HOW HUMAN CONVERSATIONS BUILD BUYER CONFIDENCE

Buying decisions aren't driven by ads alone anymore. People now rely on human conversations to validate what they're considering before they act. On Reddit, they compare options, ask questions, and read real experiences from others to reduce risk and build confidence. This “validation layer” sits between interest and action, shaping what people trust, and often deciding what actually gets purchased in the end.

I TRIED SENDING 3,645 LINKEDIN OUTREACHES IN 49 DAYS (9 MINUTE VIDEO)

A 49-day LinkedIn outbound test used one account to send 3,645 messages and book 21 qualified demos, or one per 174 messages. It required about 15 minutes of daily effort. Leads were sourced from recent LinkedIn posts signaling intent. Each prospect was researched, then messaged using a consistent structure with a signal, insight, and soft ask. The campaign sent 2,756 connection requests with a 26.5% acceptance rate and 1,570 open InMails. Results were driven by high intent list building and consistent personalization.

THE ANATOMY OF A COPYWRITING PROMPT

Generic “write like an expert” prompts underperform because they lack context. A better structure includes a visual reference, a clear plain language message with product context, and explicit copy techniques to guide style. This gives AI the inputs it needs to produce stronger outputs.

LARGE-SCALE BLASTS VS. NARROW TARGETING

More targeting beats more reach. Highly segmented emails can hit 50%+ opens and 40–90% click-to-open, while broad sends often drop to 2–5% opens and ~1% CTR. Smaller, tighter segments outperform big lists almost every time.

THE CHOICES THAT DETERMINE WHETHER YOUR MMM (MARKETING MIX MODEL) ACTUALLY WORKS

MMM success depends more on model design than modeling technique. Validate three requirements before building an MMM: at least 18 months of data, meaningful spend variation, and paid channels that drive at least 20% to 30% of top-of-funnel activity. The most important strategic decisions are choosing the right outcome metric, segmenting self-serve and sales-led motions, and aligning the model to the stakeholder using it, since those choices directly shape ROI, saturation, and budget recommendations. Avoid using short-term adstock decay as a guide for brand investment decisions because business impact can peak 6 to 8 weeks after sustained spending begins. Strong MMM programs present results as ranges instead of point estimates and pair MMM insights with incrementality testing to improve budget decisions and reduce wasted ad spend.

AI GOVERNANCE FOR CMOS: FIND RISKY MARKETING USE CASES FAST (WEBINAR)

Many teams already use AI for copy, personalization, and media, but few have a clear map, guardrails, or evidence they can show a CEO or board. This lesson helps you identify your riskiest AI marketing use cases and apply a simple governance model to protect brand and revenue. The free webinar will take place on June 25 at 10 AM.

MORE TRAINING WON'T SOLVE MARKETING'S CRITICAL THINKING GAP

Imposter syndrome in marketing feeds on a specific gap between what marketers know and what they can defend. The standard fix, adding more courses and qualifications, reinforces the cycle by building knowledge without developing judgment. One marketing leader reports that 9 out of 10 people can't explain their reasoning when asked why they made a decision. As AI makes tactical execution feel replaceable, the inability to demonstrate strategic reasoning leaves marketers vulnerable in organizations where C-suite leaders often don't understand what marketing does beyond execution.

THE BEAUTY CATEGORIES, CHANNELS, AND CONCEPTS SHAPING 2030 GROWTH

TikTok is now one of four retailers that together make up just under half of the US beauty market, alongside Amazon, Ulta Beauty, and Sephora. Social commerce is the fastest-growing channel. Amazon and TikTok combined could surpass Sephora and Ulta in beauty sales this year. AI platforms are projected to drive up to 35% of e-commerce transactions within three to five years. Winning on emerging channels now requires structuring product content for AI recommendation engines rather than search keywords alone.

20 COPYWRITING RULES

Great copy is rewriting until every line is impossible to copy, starting with the headline.

NOBODY HATES YOUR BRAND. NOBODY EVEN KNOWS YOUR BRAND EXISTS

Top B2B brands have 1.6X more buyers who don't know them than reject them, and for smaller brands that gap jumps to 8-16X.

TIKTOK FEEDS SHOW 3 TIMES MORE AI SLOP THAN YOUTUBE

59% of videos served to a new TikTok account are AI-generated, roughly three times YouTube's 21% rate, with kids' content the worst-hit category at 57%.

NET INFLUENCER: THE GRWM INDEX Q1 2026

LTK led share of voice in YouTube's GRWM videos, despite only appearing in descriptions via affiliate links. The format is largely unpaid, with nearly 90% of mentions driven by creator choice. Prestige brands lost ground while Sephora gained share, and budget brands surged. Rising platforms like ShopMy also point to increasing competition in the creator monetization layer.

CHATGPT'S PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS CHANGE 80.2% WHEN SEARCH IS ENABLED VS DISABLED (STUDY OF 20,000 RESPONSES)

ChatGPT's product recommendations depend heavily on whether search is enabled, which means brands should focus less on influencing AI training data and more on influencing the sources AI cites. In a study of 20,000 responses, 80.2% of recommended products changed when search was enabled, and only 15.8% of products that appeared in 100% of non-search responses also appeared when search was enabled. The findings suggest that cited web content plays a major role in recommendation outcomes. Brands should focus on earning mentions in the articles, reviews, and comparison pages that ChatGPT already cites for high-value product queries.

HOW PAID MEDIA ACCELERATES AI VISIBILITY

Paid media now plays a critical role in AI visibility because it helps you identify winning messages and audience signals faster than any other channel. High-performing ad copy should inform content, community engagement, and thought leadership since the language that drives clicks often becomes the language buyers recognize across Reddit, YouTube, review sites, and other sources AI models cite. Paid media should also fund distribution, since content that reaches and influences audiences is more likely to generate the third-party mentions and citations that shape AI answers. Treat paid, organic, SEO, and community channels as a connected system where paid uncovers insights, validates positioning, and accelerates the spread of content that can compound visibility over time.

THE 95/5 PLAYBOOK FOR LINKEDIN GROWTH

Most B2B LinkedIn content fails at one of two extremes: too dense for a social feed or too shallow to earn professional credibility. The 95/5 playbook addresses this by structuring content across three complexity levels mapped to where a buyer sits in their decision journey, then pairing it with two synchronized motions. Zero-click thought leadership builds familiarity with the passive 95%, and signal-triggered outbound converts the active 5%. High-intent signals like gated downloads or pricing page visits earn a direct message referencing the exact resource. Low-intent signals like likes and comments get a softer reply first.

STRIPO'S WIDGETS

Widgets let users create and edit interactive email elements through chat instead of code. After adding a widget like a quiz or scratch card, users can describe changes in plain language. The assistant handles configuration, generates HTML, AMP, and fallbacks. It also applies updates instantly, reducing the effort required to build and maintain interactive emails.

SOUNDCORE WORK

Soundcore Work is a clip-on AI recorder designed for in-person meetings. It records conversations, flags key moments with a tap, and syncs transcripts to a phone in real time. Afterward, it generates a one-page summary and lets users query the transcript for specific details, reducing the need for manual note-taking.

HINGE'S CHIEF MARKETER ON WHY COMMUNITY IS MORE THAN A MARKETING CHANNEL

Hinge is building brand credibility with Gen Z by funding the social infrastructure its users depend on rather than treating community as a marketing channel. The ‘One More Hour' initiative has distributed more than $2M in grants to grassroots social groups across New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and London, with $1.5M more planned globally this year, requiring no promotion or app downloads from recipients. The strategy is a deliberate contrast to brands pulling back from purpose-driven marketing, grounded in a real behavioral gap where Gen Z spends 1,000 fewer hours of in-person connection per year than peers did 20 years ago.

THE AI NOTETAKER WINNING BY NOT JOINING YOUR MEETING

Granola grew by removing friction instead of adding features. It avoided meeting bots and recorded audio at the operating system level, which let it work across Zoom, Meet, Teams, phone calls, and other audio sources without integrations. Its note taking workflow increased trust by letting users create lightweight notes that AI expands into useful summaries, which made the output feel personal and worth revisiting. Granola also built habit loops through simple product design such as one click meeting notifications that launch the call, open the app, and start transcription. After earning trust as a notetaker, it turned meeting data into a searchable knowledge base through chat, shared team spaces, and reusable prompts, which expanded its value beyond note taking and helped drive word of mouth growth, 70%+ weekly retention, and a $1.5B valuation.

PEOPLE PREFER PRODUCTS WITH FEWER INGREDIENTS

Consumers associate fewer ingredients with products that feel more natural, healthier, and less processed, making ingredient simplicity a strong messaging lever for food and beverage brands. Across 19 experiments, framing a product as having "few ingredients" increased choice rates by 21.6% for an identical granola bar and generated up to 44.2% higher click-through rates in Meta ads. Brands should prominently highlight low ingredient counts on packaging, ads, and product pages, especially for health-focused products where differentiation is difficult. The tactic is less effective for products bought for indulgence, flavor variety, or nutritional complexity, so brands should match the message to the purchase motivation.

TIKTOK BANS AI-GENERATED VOICES IN SHOPPING LIVESTREAMS

TikTok has added new rules that ban the use of AI-generated voices or recordings in live broadcasts.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS THE LEADING SOURCE OF NEWS

Social media has overtaken TV and news websites as the most-used daily news source, with TikTok and Instagram rising in influence as X continues to lose ground.

NATHAN JUN POEKERT 3 SOCIAL HOT TAKES

Oversaturating your feeds with content may be a smart way to break through vs. scaling back.

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CONTENT MARKETING IS GETTING TECHNICAL. THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM

Content marketing is being rebuilt as a set of systems rather than manual workflows. Blogs move to static infrastructure so they can be updated like code. Customer conversations feed real language into content strategy. Automated audits combine rankings, backlinks, technical health, and AI visibility into prioritized fixes. A central dashboard ties everything together while humans focus on direction and review. The technical layer is not the problem since most of it is already feasible. The constraint is knowing what to build and why, and applying proper strategy and judgment so the system produces useful output.

FOR WORKING PARENTS, THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN WORK AND FAMILY IS OFTEN BLURRED

For most full-time US parents, work and family blur together. 70% handle parenting tasks while working, 59% do work tasks around their kids, and 54% say balance is difficult. Flexibility is scarce. 71% want it, but only 25% have real control, and just 6% have onsite childcare. Remote work helps with logistics, but not balance. 65% can't work from home at all, and those who do are just as likely to struggle, even as overlap increases.

WIN REPORT: HOW A HOMEPAGE REDESIGN WON BY 25%

A homepage redesign increased transactions by 25% by making the brand's core differentiator clear and reducing navigation friction. Research showed customers cared deeply about product safety and non-toxic materials, but many abandoned the site because it looked cluttered, outdated, and difficult to navigate. The winning version led with a message that challenged standard safety claims, highlighted 35 years of product testing, and surfaced trust signals such as expert advice and MCS safe products. It also replaced overwhelming navigation with clear category paths and action-focused CTAs, which made it easier for visitors to find relevant products and move toward purchase.

RYAN LAW'S HUMAN-CENTRIC AI WRITING PROCESS (5 MINUTE VIDEO)

A walkthrough of how Ryan Law goes from keyword idea to published article in 91 minutes. The workflow starts by pulling keyword data to validate which topics are trending using search volume and growth signals. That data is used to build a structured outline. He then talks through each section in rough form while the AI expands it into full paragraphs with examples and references. A stored writing guide keeps tone consistent and refines output through feedback loops. The system then formats content, adds internal links, generates charts, and publishes to WordPress.

GOOGLE AI IS CHANGING HOW CONTENT IS DISCOVERED

Pages no longer need top 10 rankings to appear in AI answers, so freshness signals are key. Adding explicit dates like “June 2026” in titles helps signal relevance. LinkedIn profiles are now a major source of AI citations, especially individual posts that use bullets and clear structure. Email is also being filtered through AI tools before users see it. This makes live HTML text essential since AI can miss or ignore text embedded in images.

SEE HOW AI READS MY SITE →

CLIKDEO

ClikDeo is a free, web-based video editing platform for content creators that doesn't leave a watermark. Use it to create videos for Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. It allows you to trim videos, merge clips, and add custom transitions.

FROM RESEARCH TO REVENUE: 5 AEO ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW (WEBINAR)

AirOps is hosting a webinar on improving AI search visibility and citation performance. It explains why ranking well is no longer enough since AI systems often retrieve content but do not cite it. The session breaks down how prompts flow into retrieval and final answers and why many pages are surfaced but not selected. It will take place on June 25 at 3 PM EST.

HOW AI IS MERGING PAID AND ORGANIC VISIBILITY

The same AI system running Google's paid auctions evaluates organic content and powers AI Overviews, which means the brand-training investment that improves organic visibility also improves paid performance. The clearest application is treating paid and organic as a single loop. Run PMax or AI Max to find which cohort-intent-profit combinations actually convert, then build organic pages designed precisely for those audiences so user behavior sends the engine the same signal the paid campaign declared explicitly. CPC drops when Gemini trusts a brand because the engine stops second-guessing creative, and organic rankings improve because behavioral signals align with what paid already declared.

THE COST OF LINK INSERTIONS, BASED ON ~420K SITES

Link insertions look like a low-cost link-building tactic, but the market is dominated by low-quality sites. The average insertion costs $179 (versus $461 for a guest post), yet 97.5% of sites selling insertions fall into the low quality tier and only 0.34% of sites qualify as high quality. Don't assume lower cost equals better value because most paid insertion opportunities sit on sites with little traffic or authority. Use a targeted outreach strategy to find and pitch relevant, authoritative posts that would genuinely benefit from a link to your content.

AD REVENUE STANDS TO GROW BY 8.9% THIS YEAR – AND AI MIGHT BE WHY

Generative search ads are projected to reach $5.1 billion globally in 2026 and hit $100 billion by 2030, making it the fastest ad channel ever to reach that threshold.

META'S NEW ‘AI MODE' ON FACEBOOK PULLS FROM PUBLIC INFO ACROSS ITS PLATFORMS

Facebook's AI Mode synthesizes plain-language answers from public posts across Groups and Reels rather than returning search results.

WHY OATLY'S MARKETING WENT FROM WORDY BILLBOARDS TO BEVERAGE EVENTS

Oatly's team of ex-baristas learned about drink trends to feed an annual lookbook of flavor and texture predictions modeled on fashion industry trend reports.

IT IS TRIVIALLY EASY TO USE REDDIT TO MANIPULATE AI SEARCH

AI search and deep research tools can be influenced by extremely small pieces of UGC on sites like Reddit, Wikipedia, and Quora. As little as a 13-word snippet can shift AI outputs and cause models to repeat or cite spam-like claims. These systems rely heavily on user-generated sources for retrieval, which makes them vulnerable to targeted manipulation through lightly edited or promotional posts. Well-placed comments can also distort what AI tools surface as answers.

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS HONESTY ABOUT AI USE AT WORK IS BACKFIRING

AI adoption at work is near universal, with 94% of knowledge workers using it and most openly discussing it with managers and peers. New research shows disclosure carries a cost even when outputs are identical. In a controlled experiment, participants rated AI users as 10X lazier and were 24 percentage points less likely to recommend them for high-visibility work when told AI was used. Framing AI as helping the team improves ratings but still ranks below workers who do not mention AI.

TOPICS MATTER FOR THIRD-PARTY AUTHORITY SIGNALS

AI pulls from a different set of trusted sources for every topic, making broad off-site authority building inefficient. Instead of spreading mentions across generic high-authority sites, brands need depth within the specific sources models already trust in their niche. AI reuses existing trust from those entities, meaning citations depend more on topical reputation and credible third-party mentions than overall backlink volume. Concentrated placements in a few top-tier, in-topic sources drive more visibility than scattered coverage.

WE ANALYZED 137K SITES: 97% OF LLMS.TXT FILES NEVER GET READ

97% of llms.txt files got zero readers in May, despite growing adoption driven by speculation about AI benefits. Of the limited traffic, 77% came from non-AI bots, with most AI access coming from coding agents like Claude Code, not search tools. Perplexity and ChatGPT together made up just 1.1% of requests, and no AI system actively looked for the file when it wasn't present.

QUANTIFYING YOUTUBE KEYWORD OPPORTUNITIES

YouTube keyword research uses different metrics than traditional SEO since most views come from discovery, not search. Instead of search volume, use Median Monthly View Velocity (MMVV) to estimate demand across top videos. Competition is measured by median subscribers of ranking channels, while median video age shows how long content stays relevant. Keywords with strong view velocity, lower subscriber competition, and longer lifespan signal more potential.

HOW G2 REVIEWS ARE BUILDING THE TRUST LAYER OF AI SEARCH IN B2B

ChatGPT and Perplexity are increasingly citing G2 to recommend software, even over traditional search results. G2 jumped to ~23,700 citations in Perplexity and 12,000 in ChatGPT as 71% of B2B buyers now use AI for research. Models rely on fresh reviews, ratings, and comparisons to justify answers. This makes recent, high-quality customer feedback more influential than search rankings.