Budget increase, performance drops, budget decrease. Almost every marketer knows that short-sighted game, where decisions are made on a daily basis and campaign performance fluctuates to extremes, without a clear goal. I’ve seen this pattern destroy more campaigns than I can count. The problem isn’t bad ads or wrong keywords – it’s “actionism.” That’s when…
Over the past few months, I’ve deeply analyzed how Google’s AI Overviews handle long-tail queries, dug into what makes brands visible in large language models (LLMs), and worked with brands trying to future-proof their SEO strategies. Today’s Memo is the first in a two-part series where I’m covering a tactical deep dive into one of…
Google published details of a new kind of AI based on graphs called a Graph Foundation Model (GFM) that generalizes to previously unseen graphs and delivers a three to forty times boost in precision over previous methods, with successful testing in scaled applications such as spam detection in ads. The announcement of this new technology…
OpenAI has quietly added Shopify as a third-party search partner to help power their shopping search, which shows shopping-rich results. The addition of Shopify was not formally announced, but quietly tucked into OpenAI ChatGPT search documentation. Shopify Is An OpenAI Search Partner Aleyda Solís (LinkedIn profile) recently noticed that OpenAI had updated their Search documentation…
The last few years have fundamentally transformed how businesses and consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. What began as a digital acceleration in 2020-2021 has evolved into an AI-driven revolution that’s reshaping the entire search landscape in 2025 across every industry vertical. Where organizations once relied on monthly snapshots and historical data, today’s market…
I recently compared my March 2025 “What works well in LLMs” analysis with Ahrefs’ May 2025 study of 75,000 brands, and we independently arrived at the same surprising conclusion about AI search visibility. It turns out, brand matters – a lot. Today’s Memo is a deep dive into a concept that’s often talked about (but…
As some of you have already heard, I accepted the role of Microsoft Ads Liaison in June of 2025. That means I will start sharing Microsoft-first strategies. It doesn’t mean: Giving preferential treatment to Microsoft if something else is genuinely a better answer. Telling you to do something because Microsoft has a quota (this isn’t…
Paid media is often treated like a checklist item in a marketing plan: launch a few search ads, run a Meta campaign, maybe test YouTube if there’s budget left. But not all paid media is created equal, and treating every channel the same is a fast way to burn through budget with little to show…
Something important is happening in Google Search. If you’ve looked at your website data in Google Search Console, you may have noticed something odd. Your pages are showing up more often, but fewer people are clicking through. These two signals – impressions and clicks – are used to rise and fall together. Now, they’re drifting…
YouTube is rolling out a new audience analytics feature that replaces the “returning viewers” metric with more detailed viewer categories. The update introduces three viewer types: new, casual, and regular. This is designed to help creators better understand who’s engaging with their content and how often. Breaking Down The New Viewer Categories YouTube now segments…