Episode Guide: 50% of Google Searches Now Get Zero Clicks

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The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five) — "60-Minute B2B Blitz Part 2: 8 Marketers Share Their Best Plays from 2026 (So Far)"

Runtime: 53 min | Host: Dave Gerhardt | Guest: Dasha Shakov, Molly Bloom, Austin Fuller, Holly, Aditya, Molly Y, Anthony Blattner, Brendan Hufford

Audience: Demand Gen leaders struggling to hit pipeline numbers via content, especially those looking for real-world, AI-driven content plays that deliver ROI.

This episode delivers eight battle-tested plays from practitioners, proving that content, when executed with precision and AI leverage, still drives pipeline. Highlights include optimizing old blog content for AI visibility (30% boost, 104% active user increase), product-led content driving 10x engagement (and getting CEOs in front of Congress), and an ABM book campaign generating a 65x ROI. If you think content is dead, this will make you rethink your budget allocation. Seriously, the data here is solid.

"AI prioritizes content that has been updated in the last six months. And bots prefer a specific format when they're looking for information." — Molly Bloom

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Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips — "What We Got Wrong About Social In 2026"

Runtime: 19 min | Host: Eric Siu and Neil Patel | Guest: None

Audience: Heads of growth and acquisition managers trying to accurately attribute social media ROI, especially for enterprise accounts, and those considering M&A for growth acceleration.

Eric and Neil dissect their 2026 social strategies, revealing that social media accounts for a mere 2-3% of Neil's *attributable* revenue, primarily effective for mid-market and SMB lead generation, not enterprise contract closing. Neil's contrarian growth playbook? Buy the growth. He actively acquires successful companies in new regions rather than spending traditional marketing dollars. This episode cuts through the fluff on social's direct impact and offers a different perspective on scaling.

"My model is I keep doing what is making me my money. I keep trying to grow organically and then I'll use the profits from whatever ends up working. So let's say there's 50 companies that are trying to do what Eric's doing. If that model ends up proving out to work really well within the next 12 to two years, 12 months to two years, I will go and I'll just buy one of them." — Neil Patel

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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX — "From Ai4: Coca-Cola FEMSA's Jose Martinez on balancing continuous improvement and CX consistency"

Runtime: 22 min | Host: Greg Kihlström | Guest: Jose Martinez

Audience: Data-driven CMOs and Marketing Ops leaders at large enterprises, particularly those building out AI foundations and trying to get executive buy-in for data governance.

Jose Martinez, Global Chief Data Officer at Coca-Cola FEMSA, delivers a hard truth: AI errors aren't perceived as data problems by customers, but as a company that 'doesn't know them.' Managing petabytes of transactional data across 15 countries means data quality is paramount. He explains how to sell data governance to the board by focusing on revenue impact and cost savings, not just compliance. If your data foundation isn't solid, your AI strategy will fail, quickly and publicly.

"When an AI system gets something wrong about a customer, the customer doesn't experience it as a data problem. They experience it as a company that doesn't seem to know them." — Greg Kihlström

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MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business Growth — "Let AI agents use your platform or force marketers into your UI?"

Runtime: 7 min | Host: I Hear Everything | Guest: Brendan Farnand

Audience: MarTech buyers and product leaders evaluating platforms for AI readiness, and SaaS execs grappling with the shift from seat-based to usage-based pricing models.

Brendan Farnand of Knak drops a bombshell: their product isn't the UI, it's the "incredible marketing" marketers can create. Their strategy? Prioritize AI agent accessibility over forcing users into a proprietary interface. This episode challenges traditional SaaS thinking, especially as the industry moves from predictable seat-based pricing to potentially volatile usage-based models, and what that means for future revenue forecasting and business operations.

"The UI isn't the product, right? Okay. What the product is, what we're offering our customers or enterprises all over the world is the ability to do incredible marketing." — Brendan Farnand

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Marketing Over Coffee Marketing Podcast — "Christopher Lochhead on the Creator Capitalist"

Runtime: None | Host: John Wall and Christopher Penn | Guest: Christopher Lochhead

Audience: Marketing leaders and individual contributors looking to understand the fundamental shifts AI is bringing to the economy and how to position themselves and their companies for future value creation.

Christopher Lochhead pulls no punches: the marketing of AI has been a "batshit crazy" failure, with 50% of Americans having a negative impression. Yet, PwC projects AI will contribute $15.7 trillion to global GDP. He argues technology doesn't kill jobs; it shifts where value is created, from knowledge to creation and monetization. The future is hybrid: humans and AI as co-founders. Critically, niche SaaS vendors with existing intellectual capital are poised to win by building "context layers" for LLMs, enabling synthetic simulation for scenario planning and risk reduction. This isn't just theory; it's about re-engineering your GTM.

"Roughly 50% of Americans have a negative impression of AI that's batshit crazy." — Christopher Lochhead

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Social Media Marketing Podcast — "The New LinkedIn Content Playbook: AI, Collaboration, Creator Marketplace, and Out-of-Network Reach"

Runtime: 41 min | Host: Michael Stelzner | Guest: AJ Wilcox

Audience: B2B content marketers and social media managers strategizing their LinkedIn approach for organic reach and paid campaigns, especially with the rise of AI.

AJ Wilcox lays out the harsh reality: LinkedIn is cracking down on "AI slop" in organic content to promote authenticity, while simultaneously encouraging AI for ad creation via its Brand Kit. This means your organic content needs to be genuinely human, but your ad creatives can be AI-powered. Key insights include leveraging LinkedIn's Creator Marketplace for sponsored posts from relevant influencers and utilizing collaborative posts to boost out-of-network reach, measured by new analytics. Ignore these shifts, and your LinkedIn presence will stagnate.

"If everything is slop, no one's going to stay on the network. It's not going to be a great place to be." — AJ Wilcox

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Fractional CMO Show — "Calling Yourself a Fractional CMO is Stupid?"

Runtime: 15 min | Host: Casey Stanton | Guest: None

Audience: Fractional CMOs and marketing consultants looking to define their value, increase their rates, and stay competitive in an AI-driven landscape.

Casey Stanton takes on the provocative title, arguing that a Fractional CMO Show fills a vital leadership void, owning the marketing department's strategic outcomes. He cites Dan Kennedy's principle: there's "enormous advantage to being the most expensive." This isn't about being cheap; it's about solving bigger problems for bigger paychecks. The core message for Fractional CMOs is to continuously learn, especially with AI tools, to maintain relevance and impact, ensuring you're seen as a value driver, not just a task doer. One member recently closed a client at $15,000/month by embodying this.

"There is no strategic advantage to being the second cheapest option, but there's enormous advantage to being the most expensive. Right? To be the second most expensive. No real benefit. To be the most expensive. True benefit." — Casey Stanton

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Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips — "Airtable's Acquisition Tells Us One Lesson"

Runtime: 16 min | Host: Eric Siu and Neil Patel | Guest: Jason Lemkin, Alfred Lin, Jensen Huang

Audience: SaaS leaders and growth managers focused on operational efficiency, M&A strategy, and fostering high-performance company cultures.

Eric unpacks Airtable's $1.25B acquisition, revealing it wasn't a "down round" but a strategic maneuver to carve out their valuable HyperAgent business. Airtable still had $900M cash and 3.1x ARR growth since 2021. The real takeaway: "Grow or Die." Speed is the core operating value. Also, a fascinating look at NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's management style: he "tortures you into greatness" rather than firing, an unconventional approach that leads to self-selection of top talent. This highlights the ruthless pragmatism needed for sustained growth in today's market.

"There's only one lesson here. It's grow or die." — Eric Siu

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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX — "From Ai4: Big Spaceship's CEO Taryn Crouthers on prioritizing human judgment while moving fast"

Runtime: 24 min | Host: Greg Kihlström | Guest: Taryn Crouthers

Audience: Creative leaders, agency heads, and brand managers navigating the integration of AI into creative workflows while safeguarding brand integrity and human oversight.

Taryn Crouthers, CEO of Big Spaceship, explains how AI is shifting from mere efficiency gains to enabling *better, more impactful* creative outcomes, particularly with generative AI for storyboarding and post-production. The critical challenge is maintaining human judgment to avoid brand risk. While AI offers "unlimited changes," this can ironically slow projects by creating cyclical revisions. The episode also touches on the evolving agency payment models as the value of "human capital" behind AI prompts becomes harder to quantify. Agile isn't just fast; it's consistent in its adaptability.

"As AI moves deeper into creative work, which decisions are you still certain belong to a human? Real agility here isn't being quick with the latest tools, it's moving fast without losing the through line that makes a brand recognizable." — Greg Kihlström

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Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips — "Content vs Paid Ads: The Answer Is Both"

Runtime: 17 min | Host: Eric Siu and Neil Patel | Guest: None

Audience: Growth marketers and business leaders trying to decide between organic content and paid advertising, or justify their integrated marketing spend.

Eric and Neil decisively declare the "content vs. paid ads" debate a false dichotomy: "The answer is both." They underscore that profitability dictates investment. Neil's company dedicates $7-9M/year to marketing, with a significant chunk going to acquisitions as a faster growth path than pure organic. Data shows a 1% increase in brand awareness reduces short-term CAC by roughly 1%. The real strategic advantage lies in highly leveraged recruiting, as top talent requires less management and drives disproportionate impact. This isn't about choosing sides; it's about intelligent allocation for maximum ROI.

"I think the answer at the end of the day, content versus paid ads. I think the answer is both totally. We run paid ads, we do content. I think you should do everything that you can end up doing that's profitable." — Eric Siu

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The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five) — "How to Talk to Finance About Marketing Budget with Patrick Shea (Global Head of Marketing at BlueVoyant)"

Runtime: 41 min | Host: Dave Gerhardt | Guest: Patrick Shea

Audience: Marketing leaders struggling to articulate budget value to finance, especially in enterprise B2B settings, and those building account-based field marketing strategies.

Patrick Shea, SVP of Global Marketing at BlueVoyant, reveals the secret to talking to finance: ditch CPL. Instead, he advocates for "average cost per opportunity" — total marketing spend divided by new business opportunities created. This executive-level metric ties marketing directly to pipeline. Field marketing needs to evolve into an account-based job, not just events. He also emphasizes the immense effort required for "hyperscaler tech alliances" (like with Microsoft), taking years to get right. Dave also drops a personal anecdote about HubSpot's internal mobility policy that directly led to his departure for Drift. This is real talk on enterprise budget justification.

"I don't like talking about cost per lead or any of those, like, that level of metric. What I like to do with finance is I'm going to say, look, I took all of the marketing money that we spent in the last year, and I divided it by the number of new business opportunities that the company created." — Patrick Shea

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Marketing Against The Grain — "Where to Spend Your 2027 Ad Budget, Explained Simply"

Runtime: 16 min | Host: Kipp Bodnar | Guest: None

Audience: Paid media managers and demand gen leaders looking for immediate arbitrage opportunities and strategic shifts in their ad budget allocation amidst AI-driven market changes.

Kipp Bodnar warns: your 2027 marketing budget is likely already wrong due to AI's disruption of paid ads. Google Paid Search CPCs are up 14% with 6% fewer impressions, thanks to AI Overviews reducing clicks. The major arbitrage opportunity? YouTube Shorts, with a stunningly low $4.85 CPM. The ease of AI-powered video creation outstrips advertiser adoption, but this window will close in 12-18 months. He also highlights LinkedIn as an undervalued B2B platform when used with targeted messaging. This is a clear, actionable breakdown of where to shift your dollars *now*.

"The price of YouTube Shorts, which is a $4.85 cost per thousand impressions... is I think one of the biggest arbitrage opportunities in marketing." — Kipp Bodnar

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