Fresh from the desk
The Mid-Year Marketing Audit: 7 Checks to Run Before Q3
Half the year is already spent. These are the seven checks we run at the midpoint to catch wasted budget and reallocate it before the…
Agency & PricingWhat Is a Performance Marketing Agency, Really?
A performance marketing agency ties its work to measurable outcomes instead of activity. Here is what one does, the metrics that matter…
Agency & PricingWhat Does a Marketing Analytics Agency Do (and When You Need One)
A marketing analytics agency builds the tracking, attribution, and reporting that tells you what is working. Here is what one does and when…
54 posts
- Agency & Pricing
Marketing Strategy Agency vs DIY: What You Get
What a marketing strategy agency produces, why strategy without execution rots, and the honest questions to ask before you buy a strategy…
- Agency & Pricing
How to Hire a Landing Page Design Agency (and What to Pay For)
A landing page design agency builds pages that turn ad clicks into customers. Here is what to pay for, what is commodity work, and when you…
- 03
What to Expect From a Marketing Agency (and From Us)
What to expect from a marketing agency: onboarding, reporting cadence, and our 80/20 method. Know how the work runs before you sign. Book a…
- Agency & Pricing
How to Choose a Marketing Agency Without Getting Burned Again
Choose a marketing agency by looking past awards and logos to four things that predict results: whether they understand your business and…
- Industry Playbooks
Turf Marketing That Books Installs
Market an artificial turf business by leaning into what makes the purchase unique: it is high-ticket, high-consideration, and intensely…
- Industry Playbooks
HIPAA-Compliant Marketing, Without the Fear-Mongering
HIPAA-compliant marketing means protecting individually identifiable health information (PHI) while still marketing your practice freely.
- Industry Playbooks
How to Market a Therapy Practice Without Feeling Like a Sellout
Market a therapy practice by making yourself findable to the people already looking for help, not by selling therapy to anyone.
- Industry Playbooks
Home Services Lead Generation: The No-Fluff Playbook for High-Ticket Trades
Generate home-services leads by building channels you own instead of renting shared leads from aggregators: a fully optimized Google…
- Programmatic & CTV
How to Advertise on Spotify (Without Wasting the Budget)
You advertise on Spotify by running audio ads (the spots between songs) plus video, display, and podcast formats to the platform’s free…
- Programmatic & CTV
What Is OTT Advertising? CTV, Streaming TV, and How It Works
OTT (over-the-top) advertising means video ads delivered over the internet through streaming services like Hulu, Max, and Peacock, while…
- Programmatic & CTV
Programmatic Advertising, Explained Without the Jargon
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of digital ad space through software and real-time auctions, in the…
- Industry Playbooks
Cannabis Advertising Laws: Where You Can Legally Advertise in 2026
You can legally advertise cannabis through channels that are not bound by the federal ad bans: organic SEO and content, AI-answer…
- SEO
How Much Does SEO Cost? The Honest Numbers, No Quote Form
Ongoing SEO from a competent US agency typically costs between roughly $1,000 and $5,000 per month, with focused single-service efforts…
- AI Search & AEO
How to Advertise on ChatGPT
You advertise on ChatGPT through OpenAI’s new in-conversation ad units, which appear as clearly labeled cards that do not influence the…
- AI Search & AEO
AEO vs SEO vs GEO: Three Different Jobs, Not Three Words for the Same Thing
AEO, SEO, and GEO target three different surfaces, not one tactic.
- AI Search & AEO
How to Appear in Google AI Overviews (Before the Click Disappears)
Getting cited in Google AI Overviews is earned, not bought: there is no ad slot or submission form.
- AI Search & AEO
What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your content so AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI…
- Agency & Pricing
How to Choose a Digital Marketing Agency Without Crossing Your Fingers
To choose a digital marketing agency, judge it on three things: transparency, the seniority of the people doing your work, and proof it can…
- SEO
SEO for a New Website: How to Rank From Day One Without the Fairy Dust
**SEO for a new website is the work of making a brand-new site crawlable, trustworthy, and worth citing before it has any history, links…
- Web Development & CRO
The Website Redesign SEO Checklist That Stops the Silent Traffic Drop
Here is the dirty secret of agency-managed redesigns: the site launches, everyone toasts the new look, and three weeks later organic…
- AI Search & AEO
How AI Overviews Affect Organic Traffic
**AI Overviews affect organic traffic by answering the question at the top of the page, so fewer people scroll down and click your link…
- Industry Playbooks
Digital Marketing for Ecommerce Brands: The Playbook That Protects Your Margin
Most ecommerce marketing advice is written for two companies that are not yours: the four-person startup running one Meta campaign off a…
- Industry Playbooks
Digital Marketing for Real Estate Companies
## The short answer
- Industry Playbooks
Digital Marketing for Healthcare Practices: The Channel Guide That Won't Get You in Trouble
Most marketing advice for medical practices was written by people who have never read a Business Associate Agreement. That's a problem…
- Industry Playbooks
Digital Marketing for Law Firms: The Channel Mix That Books Cases
Most "law firm marketing" advice is written for one firm: a solo personal injury shop fighting over the same nine Google keywords as…
- Industry Playbooks
Digital Marketing for Home Services Companies: A Channel-by-Channel Breakdown
Most "digital marketing for home services companies" advice is written by people who have never had to make a phone ring on a Saturday in…
- Email Marketing
Email Marketing Agency Cost: What Managed Retainers Run
## The short answer
- Programmatic & CTV
How Much Does CTV Advertising Cost?
You want to run streaming TV ads. You also want to know what you are signing up for before a salesperson talks you into a number with three…
- Programmatic & CTV
How Much Does Programmatic Advertising Cost?
**Short answer:** Programmatic advertising pricing usually runs on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, with typical CPMs landing…
- Paid Search & PPC
How ChatGPT Ads Work for Brands: A First-Timer's Field Guide
Here is how ChatGPT ads work for a brand running them for the first time: you buy placements inside OpenAI's self-serve platform, target by…
- AI Search & AEO
How to Get Cited in Google AI Overviews
You searched something this week, got a full answer at the top of the page, and never clicked a single result. So did your customers. That…
- Paid Search & PPC
Google Ads Management Fees Explained: The 3 Models and Who They Really Favor
Most agencies will quote you a Google Ads management fee before they tell you how that fee is structured. That order is backwards, and it…
- Paid Search & PPC
What to Expect From a Google Ads Agency in the First 90 Days
**In the first 90 days, a Google Ads agency should audit your account, fix tracking, restructure campaigns around conversions, and start…
- Email Marketing
Highest-Revenue Email Flows That Print Money While You Sleep
Most brands obsess over the next campaign blast and ignore the automations quietly earning revenue 24/7. That's backwards. A handful of…
- Email Marketing
Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? (And How to Drag Them Back to the Inbox)
Your emails go to spam for three reasons, almost every time: broken authentication (missing or misconfigured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC), a…
- Paid Social
LinkedIn Ads for B2B Lead Generation: Worth the Premium, or Just Expensive?
LinkedIn ads are worth it for B2B lead generation when your deal size and sales cycle justify a higher cost per lead. You pay more per…
- Programmatic & CTV
How Spotify Advertising Works for Businesses
Spotify advertising puts your brand inside the headphones of 600M+ listeners while they cook, commute, work out, and zone in. You buy ad…
- Programmatic & CTV
CTV Advertising for Small Business: Yes, You Can Afford the Big TV
Small businesses can afford CTV advertising. Programmatic buying removed the enterprise minimums, and a real, well-targeted campaign starts…
- Programmatic & CTV
What Is a DSP in Programmatic? The Engine That Buys Your Ads (Plain English)
A DSP (demand-side platform) is the software that buys digital ad space for you automatically. When someone loads a webpage, app, or…
- Paid Search & PPC
Stop Lighting Money on Fire: How to Reduce Google Ads Wasted Spend
Most accounts are quietly bleeding a significant share of every dollar before a single real customer ever sees the ad. The leaks are…
- Agency & Pricing
11 Digital Marketing Agency Red Flags to Catch Before You Sign
You've been burned before, or you're worried you're about to be. Good instinct. The agency world runs on confident decks and quiet markups…
- Agency & Pricing
12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Marketing Agency (and the Answers That Should Make You Walk)
Most agencies hope you don't ask the hard questions. The hard questions are exactly how you separate a partner from a pitch deck. Here's…
- SEO
Is SEO Still Worth It With AI Search? Short Answer: Yes, but the Job Changed
Yes, SEO is still worth it with AI search, but the goal moved. AI Overviews and assistants like ChatGPT now answer questions before anyone…
- SEO
How Long Does SEO Take to Work? An Honest Timeline.
**Short answer:** Most SEO takes 3 to 6 months to show early movement and 6 to 12 months to produce meaningful, compounding results…
- Paid Search & PPC
How Much Do ChatGPT Ads Cost? The Real 2026 Numbers
There's no quote form here. Just the actual pricing, what moves it, and what you should budget if you want to be early to the channel…
- Paid Search & PPC
ChatGPT Ads vs Google Ads: Two Different Jobs, Not Two Versions of One
ChatGPT ads and Google Ads both buy you attention, but they catch the customer at opposite ends of the journey. Google Ads matches paid…
- Paid Search & PPC
Can You Advertise on Perplexity? (The 2026 Answer)
**Short version: no. You cannot advertise on Perplexity. The company walked away from advertising in February 2026 and went…
- SEO
Why Is My Website Traffic Dropping in 2026?
Your traffic is probably dropping for one of five reasons: a Google algorithm update, a technical issue on your site, seasonality, a…
- AI Search & AEO
Does Schema Markup Help AI Visibility? Yes, But Not the Way People Sell It
Schema markup helps you get cited by AI answer engines, but as a clarity and eligibility layer, not a magic ranking lever. Structured data…
- AI Search & AEO
AI Share of Voice: The Metric That Tells You If AI Even Knows You Exist
## How do I measure my visibility in AI answers (AI share of voice)?
- AI Search & AEO
Why Isn't My Brand Cited by ChatGPT? (And Your Competitor Is)
Your competitor gets cited by ChatGPT and you don't because the AI can find them as a clear, corroborated entity and pull a clean answer…
