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AI may resolve a problem with the fishermen, but it wouldn’t change what is in the pond.
-Philippe Aghion
It’s time to rethink our approach to email marketing. Instead of leading with campaigns, we should focus on conversations — engaging customers throughout their entire lifecycle, starting when they opt in.
This is the business version of Austin Kleon saying:
Newsletters should be letters
After all, we’re (still) marketing to humans.
via MarTech
The nag factor (the tendency of kids to relentlessly beg their parents for purchases”) is back and better than ever:
A recent Horizon Media study found that 77 percent of millennial parents agree that “my child/children are more influential in determining purchases than I was to my parents.” Gen Alpha is emerging as the Chief Procurement Officer for the modern household.
The digital first media landscape has transformed the options here. It’s no longer G.I. Joe commercials during cartoons.
via Observer
This slide from Dan Frommer’s mid-year consumer trends report is a perfect example of pay attention to what people do, not what they say.
This is why focus groups or asking people “would you buy this? what would you pay?” rarely lead to great decisions.
The design joke is that clients always ask to make the logo bigger.
But maybe they should be asking to make the text bigger. At least when it comes to numbers, where it boosts memorability.
Caveat:
The effect is strongest when the brand is unfamiliar; for well-known or premium brands, prior brand equity outweighs visual design cues.
Purchases keep the lights on, but what happens after the purchase is what wins hearts and minds.
Many customers buy again out of habit, convenience, subscription inertia, or a lack of viable alternatives. That doesn’t mean they love you. It means you haven’t lost them yet. And the most dangerous thing in retention isn’t churn, it’s false loyalty.
Real loyalty is when a customer defends you, recommends you, and chooses you even when cheaper, faster options appear. It’s not just what they do, it’s what they feel when they think about your brand.
via Buyology
Trust has always been tricky in digital marketing. Building it in a post-AI world only more so.
All the video tips talk about hooking attention ASAFP. But when should you pitch your product?
On that front, short form is becoming long form:
“We’re seeing a trend where some ads are starting to introduce the product much later—like after 40 or even 50 seconds—focusing instead on education upfront. This wasn’t something we saw a year ago,” Chaimovski notes.
via Motion (Education Advantage card)
This is interesting
In a recent update, Google has started indexing and sourcing Instagram content.
Now posts and reels function like blog posts from an SEO perspective.
For professional accounts this could mean approaching it more like Pinterest than TikTok.
attached screenshot from IG announcing the update found online
The streaming wars are over, YouTube and Netflix won.
On average, YouTube has an audience of seven million viewers watching off a TV set at any given moment during the day, more than Netflix’s daily average of 4.7 million, Nielsen said.
&
tuned into YouTube on their TV screens at night this year while 10.7 million are watching Netflix, Nielsen said.
Netflix is TV 2.0. YouTube is the second screen home big screen.
From here on staying in business is about financials.
Because it’s still human to human
in the rush to embrace AI tools, it’s easy for marketers to lose sight of what advertising is truly about—building trust, evoking emotion, and connecting with consumers.
AI can help advertisers generate content faster, cheaper, and at a greater scale than before. But volume alone doesn’t make ads remarkable. As Mirella Crespi, founder of the agency Creative Milkshake reminds us, “The goal isn’t just to make ads faster—it’s to make people feel something.”
Accelerate, not replace. Free up your time for your mind.
via Motion (Authenticity Renaissance card)
Add this to the interesting pile:
Google Shopping ad clicks surge 18% in Q2 as Amazon, Temu pull back
The big low price players dropped spend (thanks tariffs) opening up room in the auction competition for other retailers. And shoppers seemed to like it.
🍵 Reading the tea leaves, people aren’t searching Google Shopping to find products on cost competing aggregator platforms. They either don’t want to buy on Amazon or already searched there and the came to Google.
Amazon (and other platform) discovery doesn’t happen via other shopping channels, it happens before shopping searches start.
Gary Washburn gets it, generations are garbage:
I think it’s stereotypical of people putting millennials, like all millennials should all be hanging out and doing all the same things and listening to Drake and playing video games and posting on Snapchat.
They’re not all the same. They’re different.
Similar demographics do not mean similar psychographics do not mean the same needs, wants, dreams, and aspirations.
Don’t fall for the proxy trap.
Amtrak on creating a viral messaging campaign
We need to be really different and captivate … attention
Similar with a twist is the recipe for algorithmic attention.
Being the same doesn’t stand out.
Being too different might backfire.
Using a familiar hook (Friday! Friday! Friday!) in a new context provides an on ramp to curiosity.
🚂
via EMARKETER
Partnerships and ad buys with prestige names confer status internally in the businesses that make the buy. “No one ever got fired for choosing IBM.”
Your audience doesn’t care that you paid to be on the top / hot channel. They care that you met them where they are.
Vanity / scale metrics are lazy proxies and ladder climbing fodder.
44% of the U.S. podcast audience who do not listen to shows within the top 1,000 have ever purchased a product as a result of hearing it on the medium, similar to the rate (47%) of U.S. podcast listeners to shows in the top 1,000 who say the same.
via Edison Research
The work of marketing is not the selection of suitable messages. The work is the task of engaging another mind. It is a constant dance between understanding your subject and understanding how a future customer will react to it - a customer you can never know, but which you still have to intuit.
vandalizing a quote from John Higgs
”By Humans, For Humans”
How long until this is a positioning signal?
How long until this is a signal of the new luxury?
If you can prove it in 5 seconds, don’t explain it in 20.
We’re all tired of explanations and promises, we just want results. Your marketing is no different.
via DTC Daily
The clock circus continues
TikTok is reportedly developing a separate version of its app for U.S. users, with a planned launch date of Sept. 5, according to reports. The current app would stop functioning in the U.S. by March 2026.
I’ve stopped paying attention to this charade for the time being, but a separate US-only TikTok could have interesting ramifications for advertisers.
Will it function the same?
Will the discovery algorithm be less effective?
Will advertisers still be able to target international markets?