Thinking out loud about marketing in the AI era.
27 articles since 2017 on zero-click marketing, AI search, marketing leadership, franchise systems and selling, written from the marketing director’s chair, not the vendor’s.
MeasurementBrand love is not a KPI: what Coca-Cola’s CMO changed, and the test to run on your dashboard
At ANA Masters of Marketing, Coca-Cola’s Manolo Arroyo said he no longer believes in “brand love” as a lead metric. Six numbers from his talk, and the four moves for anyone who owns a marketing dashboard.
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LeadershipWhat a fractional CMO costs in 2026, with my actual rates
Almost nobody publishes fractional CMO pricing, which is why the question gets asked so often. The market ranges, what drives them, what a full-time director really costs loaded, and the exact numbers I charge.
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AI toolsClaude chat, Claude for work, and Claude Code: which one to use for what
I run marketing with all three, every day. They look similar and they are not. Here is the split that keeps me from using a chat window for a job that needs an agent, or an agent for a job that needs a conversation.
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LeadershipFractional CMO or marketing consultant? What the titles mean, and why I use one of them
“Fractional CMO” is the hot title and “marketing consultant” is the old one. They describe different jobs, buyers conflate them, and the difference decides how an engagement goes. Here is how I draw the line, and why my card says consultant.
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StrategyYouTube was Google’s smartest buy, and the lesson is not the one people quote
Google paid $1.65 billion in stock for YouTube in 2006. In 2025 it cleared $60 billion in revenue, more than Netflix, and in July 2026 it set a record 14.2 percent share of all U.S. TV viewing. What the deal teaches a marketing leader about buying attention early.
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MeasurementLooker Studio (still Data Studio to most of us): the six dashboards worth building, and the three that waste a week
Google’s free dashboard tool is the most underused thing in the marketing stack. Here are the reports I build in the first month at every company, how I wire them, and the ones I have learned to skip.
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ContentFrom six drafting passes to one: an AI content SOP that experts will approve
AI-assisted content fails when the reviewer is the bottleneck. The six-stage process that cut article revisions from six passes to one or two, with compliance checked before an expert ever sees a draft.
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AI searchThe glossary is the new blog: definitional content for answer engines
AI answer engines quote definitions, not opinions. Why a well-built glossary now outperforms a blog for professional-services visibility, and how to build one that gets cited.
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StrategyWhy I rebuild websites in twelve weeks, not twelve months
Long website projects fail for predictable reasons. The constraints that made it possible to relaunch two professional-services sites in a single quarter, and what I would cut again.
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PlaybookSpeed to lead: the five CRM rules I set before any campaign goes live
Most lead problems are follow-up problems. Five rules, each one buildable in HubSpot or Salesforce in an afternoon, that stop good leads from dying in the inbox.
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LeadershipThe first 90 days as a one-person marketing department
Twice now I have been the first marketing hire. The order you do things in matters more than how hard you work. Here is the sequence that held up both times.
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AI toolsBuild a daily marketing intelligence brief with AI agents
Every weekday at 7 a.m., an automated brief lands in the team chat: what the market is asking, what to post, what to comment on, and a question-of-the-day script. No human touches it. Here is how it is built.
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AI toolsThe 2026 AI marketing toolkit: 20 platforms, evaluated by a working marketer
A no-affiliate review of the 20 AI tools that consistently deliver value for marketing teams, and how to combine them by team size.
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StrategyZero-click marketing: why B2B visibility no longer depends on the click
Most online journeys now end without a click. What that means for B2B brands, and why the companies that adapt will capture demand first.
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ContentPlatform-native content: stop posting links, start owning the feed
Each platform has its own content economy. How to build LinkedIn, YouTube and community content that performs where your buyers already spend time.
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AI searchAnswer engine optimization: how to become the source AI tools cite
AI tools are becoming the first stop for B2B research. How to structure content, build entity authority and track your presence in AI answers.
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MeasurementMeasuring zero-click marketing: the metrics that replace traffic
When buyers never click, traffic stops telling the story. A measurement framework built on share of voice, brand search and self-reported attribution.
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PlaybookA 30-day plan to launch a zero-click marketing strategy
A week-by-week plan to audit your visibility, build a content engine, distribute natively and measure what changed.
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StrategyDo you know your business? The right marketing channel for ten kinds of company
A restaurant, a PEO and a Shopify store should not be marketing the same way. Which channels fit which business model, industry by industry.
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AI toolsAI in marketing: the best tools for copywriting, design and social media
A 2024 field guide to the AI tools that earned a place in a working marketer’s stack, by task: copy, design, social and planning.
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StorytellingWhy your brand’s feel-good story could double your engagement, and how to craft it
Why emotional stories outperform promotion, five big-brand examples, and a practical playbook for small and local businesses with no budget.
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LeadershipInternal efficiency and streamlined workflow drive customer service and sales growth
What a fast-growing mortgage lender changed inside marketing, sales, operations and HR during a growth cycle, and why customers felt it.
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LeadershipHow to turn an in-house marketing team from loan officer support into a scalable brand function
Marketing teams that start by "supporting" sales end up run by sales. Treat loan officers like franchisees, and the brand gets its team back.
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StrategyBefore you spend another dime on digital marketing, read this
Stop renting the land you build your house on. Fix the website, tell the story, then buy media, in that order.
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Sales5 tips to start selling anything (or: how the best salesperson never sells)
Computers, telecom, cars, marketing. The five habits that separated selling from order-taking across every one of them.
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FranchiseFranchising in the digital age: sell and support your system with tools and content
A franchisor runs two businesses: selling franchises and supporting franchisees. A long-form guide to the marketing foundation, team and programs that serve both.
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ContentBusiness owner: don’t waste your time with social media (until this is in place)
Social media works when the foundation under it works. The website, content and analytics questions to answer before the first post.
ReadZero-Click Marketing, in five parts.
Zero-click marketing
Most online journeys now end without a click. What that means for B2B brands, and why the companies that adapt will capture demand first.
Read Part 2 · ContentPlatform-native content
Each platform has its own content economy. How to build LinkedIn, YouTube and community content that performs where your buyers already spend time.
Read Part 3 · AI searchAnswer engine optimization
AI tools are becoming the first stop for B2B research. How to structure content, build entity authority and track your presence in AI answers.
Read Part 4 · MeasurementMeasuring zero-click marketing
When buyers never click, traffic stops telling the story. A measurement framework built on share of voice, brand search and self-reported attribution.
Read Part 5 · PlaybookA 30-day plan to launch a zero-click marketing strategy
A week-by-week plan to audit your visibility, build a content engine, distribute natively and measure what changed.
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