SparkToro’s Year 2 Retrospective: Can Chill Work, Alternative Funding, and an Indie Approach Scale?
Two years ago today, at the nerve-wracking start of a global pandemic, we launched SparkToro. Since then, we’ve learned a lot, and uncovered plenty…
Provable Marketing Attribution is a Boondoggle; Trust Your Gut Instead
You’ve heard the marketing analytics spiel before. It goes something like: Marketing journeys are long, complicated, multi-channel paths. Tracking them is always imperfect, but…
What Your Marketing Needs is a Bad Guy
If you’re a big brand, already established, conservative in your ways and happy with your performance, this advice isn’t for you. But, if you’re…
Is This a Twitter Thread or a Blog Post?
Eureka! I just had a great idea for a blog post… or wait.. maybe it’s short enough to be a Twitter thread. Y’know what?…
How to Invest in Episodic Content that Promotes Itself
I’ve long been bullish on episodic content; in fact, I think it’s likely the best kind of long-term content investment most online brands can…
Hook, Line, and Sinker: A Model for Crafting Successful, Viral Content
Despite studying content that overachieves for years, it’s only in the past few months that I’ve stumbled into a mental model I’ve called: Hook,…
Influence Maps—The Best Marketing Framework You’ve Never Heard Of
When you find a tool that massively improves your work’s effectiveness and dramatically cuts down on poor decision-making, there are two natural responses: “This…
The Best Damn Food & Drink Gift Guide 2021
Welcome back to the best edible, potable guide to gift-giving the Internet has to offer. Like last year, we’ve assembled a lengthy list of…
What if Performance Advertising is Just an Analytics Scam?
“What the pandemic showed is we can take marketing down to zero and still have 95% of the same traffic as the year before.…
Hustle Culture vs. Chill Work
A few weeks ago, Wil Reynolds and I were on a video call together. I think I joined in a couple minutes after him,…