60% of marketers say their top goal for the next 12 months is “increasing traffic.” And 59% say their primary KPI is… also traffic. To all those folks, I say: you’re about to have a terrible, horrible, no-good year. The Internet is sending less traffic. Period. That’s a provable fact, and it’s true for every
How to Use SparkToro + LLMs to Do Marketing Magic
By Most folks who follow me know I’m a bit of a late adopter and skeptic of AI. Yes, it can do some impressive things that takes humans a long, painful amount of time to replicate. But, they’re also stereotype machines whose reasoning and capabilities, especially in the creative and novel needs that marketing demands, isn’t
“AI will replace all the jobs!” Is Just Tech Execs Doing Marketing
By Over the weekend, I went digging for evidence that AI can, will, or has replaced a large percent of jobs. It doesn’t exist. Worse than that, actually, there’s hundreds of years of evidence and sophisticated analyses from hundreds of sources showing the opposite is true: AI will almost certainly create more jobs than it displaces,
Seriously, please stop with the new acronyms. It’s still SEO: Search Everywhere Optimization.
By It’s a day ending in Y, which means my social feeds are filled with people attempting to rebrand the acronym “SEO.” Look, I ain’t here to rain on your parade, so if you love calling it AIO or GEO or EIEIO, be my guest. I haven’t been an SEO for more than seven years, despite
A Marketing Conference That Actually Changes Your Mindset
By There are tons of marketing conferences. Most follow a familiar formula: slick slide decks, broad-strokes keynotes, case studies you’ve seen before, and maybe a tote bag to take home. But when you’re deciding where to spend your budget, time, and energy, the real question is: Which event will actually make an impact on me? That’s
You’ve Done the Audience Research… Now What?
By Our friend Tommy Walker, founder of The Content Studio, contributed the following, superb, much-needed article; thank you sir! Tommy was the Editor-in-Chief at ConversionXL, the first marketing hire at Shopify Plus, and Global Editor-in-Chief at QuickBooks. As a 20-year career veteran, his methodologies have contributed to 10-figures in revenue, and have become integral to developing
Zero Clicks Does Not Mean Zero Sales
By Look, I get it. The new world of a zero-click web, where search engines, AI tools, and social networks hoard traffic and send fewer and fewer visits out is scary. For a lot of businesses, especially those in publishing or those funded by CPM ads, it’s gonna get ugly. A world of declining traffic means
What Does the Coolest Graph in SparkToro Show You?
By Last week, we launched the latest version of SparkToro, replete with a plethora of new features and upgrades. And over the past 10 days, we’ve been answering a flurry of questions about the product, including one that’s come up so often, it deserves its own blog post. That question: “What are the Search & AI
Want better marketing output from your AI Tools? Give it real data about your customers.
By An overwhelming number of marketers are using AI tools to bolster their campaigns, their tactical output, and even their strategic ideas. I don’t actually recommend all of those (AI can seriously mislead you on strategy, and using it to write anything you’re going to publish directly is a recipe for unsubscribes), but there are some
The Fastest Way to Understand Your Audience Without Talking to Them
By “Talk to your customers” is one of the most common pieces of advice in marketing. And it’s not wrong. But it’s also not always realistic. Maybe you don’t have direct access or contact information for these folks. Maybe your team doesn’t prioritize customer interviews. Maybe you’re a founder wearing seven hats, or a marketer who