Marketing Trends

A bank just issued the world's first loan to an AI agent. The agent applied, signed, and set its own repayment schedule. That's where marketing now lives — and most teams are still optimizing for the wrong layer. In this episode, Katja Forbes (founder of The CX Evolutionist and author of the field guide on machine customers) explains why AEO is a trap, why "the more discoverable you are, the more interchangeable you are," and what the actual moat looks like in agentic commerce. Fresh off a trip to Alibaba, BYD, and Unitree Robotics in China, Katja walks through the fi...

What if everything you're optimizing for in marketing — attention, clicks, engagement — is a proxy for the one thing that actually drives action?

Pranav Yadav is the Founder & Global CEO of Neuro-Insight, the world's largest measure of memory. His company maps brains to determine what advertising actually does to people — second by second — with an 86% correlation to real-world sales. In this conversation, he makes the case that memory is the only metric that matters, explains why hyper-personalization is destroying culture, and breaks down exactly why Budweiser's most iconic Super Bowl ad failed at the brain level while Samsung's Wallhugg...

Your blog will never earn an audience. Ever. That's not me — that's Melissa Rosenthal, who ran the SEO content engine at ClickUp, built media at BuzzFeed and Cheddar, and is now co-founder of Outlever building the playbook that replaces it.

In this episode, Melissa makes the case that the SEO blog era is collapsing in real time, that one strategic LinkedIn poster will out-perform 150 employees doing employee advocacy, and that while every other B2B operator is betting on AI, she's betting on humans — and using AI to do it. She's also dogfooding the entire thesis with her...

Every CMO is being told to replace people with AI agents as fast as possible. Keri McGhee, CMO at Attentive, is doing some of that — and deliberately refusing to do other parts of it. The line she's drawn between the two is the most useful rubric we've heard in months.

Attentive runs SMS, email, push, and RCS for thousands of consumer brands — a category where the temptation to automate everything is maximum. But Keri's strongest customer-loyalty moment last year wasn't an AI agent. It was a single text from a real human after a graduation dress arrived with...

Most CMOs think personalization requires complex AI and endless customer segments. Elizabeth Maxson proves otherwise.

She breaks down actionable personalization strategies — from geo-tagging that drove a 51% lift in event attendance to playful homepage tricks that captured marketers' attention and boosted engagement.

The takeaway: Stop overcomplicating personalization. Start with big buckets and simple, contextual changes.

Chapters

00:00 - Why Personalization Should Be Simple

00:32 - First-Time vs Returning vs Current Customers

01:07 - Marketer vs Developer Homepages

03:01 - Geo-Tagging: +51% Attendance

04:28 - The Big Buckets Approach

05:28...

What happens when your next customer isn't even human?

Chris Koehler is the CMO of Twilio, and his 2026 marketing plan lasted exactly one month before AI agents forced him to rethink everything. In this conversation, Chris gets real about why planning horizons have collapsed from years to weeks, what happens when AI agents — not humans — are doing the buying, and why brand might matter MORE in an AI-driven world, not less.

Chris Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer at Twilio, a $5B+ customer engagement platform. Previously, he led marketing at Box and helped build the anal...

Merriam-Webster named "slop" the 2025 word of the year - and it explains everything about where AI-generated content is heading.

Elizabeth Maxson, CMO of Contentful, reveals the uncomfortable truth about AI adoption: 96% of CMOs say it's a top priority, but only 65% are making meaningful investments. The gap between enthusiasm and execution is costing teams momentum.

She breaks down research conducted with The Atlantic, surveying 425 global marketing leaders. The findings expose why teams are stuck in experimentation mode, what top performers do differently, and why soft skills matter more than prompt engineering.

We explore evidence-based...

Best practices told you to optimize reputation across all 10,000 locations equally—but granular competitive data just revealed that 7,000 of those stores don't need it, and you're wasting millions on the wrong priorities. The era of broad-based marketing is over.

Michael Walrath (CEO & Founder of Yext) reveals why we're entering a "post-best-practice world" where context trumps everything. From the 10,000 taco restaurant problem (why you're overspending on 7,000 stores that don't need help), to why pay-to-play platforms like Forrester and Gartner face disruption, to how ChatGPT's memory will match insurance agents to customers based on shared interests like golf—without anyo...

Most websites are bleeding traffic before visitors even see the page… and Google Analytics can't tell you it's happening. Pantheon's data shows that if your site takes longer than 2 seconds to load, users swipe away before your page even renders. The magic number is now under 1 second, and mobile users expect websites to feel identical to opening an app.

Josh Koenig (Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon) reveals what's silently killing growth: the brutal shift in user expectations, how AI crawlers swarm websites like "denial of service attacks" on UFC fight nights, and why companies need to...

What if the marketing channel getting the least resources is actually shaping your entire brand reputation?

Daniella Sampson reveals why B2B teams chase the wrong AI trends while underfunding social media. She breaks down GEO vs SEO, why monitoring 10,000 prompts daily is mostly noise, and how AI agents are forcing brands to evolve from social listening to social intelligence.

She explains her 300-data-point framework, manually analyzing competitors across websites, LinkedIn, Instagram, press releases, and ads to create spider chart visualizations revealing genuine white space opportunities. She details why ChatGPT failed to automate this work...

Every startup hits the same ceiling: your founder customers love you, but they won't get you to $200M. So how do you move upmarket to enterprise without losing the community that built you?

Harmony Anderson, VP of Growth & Marketing at Superhuman, gets into the real mechanics of it:

Plus, Harmony's vision for where AI-native...

In January 2026, a CMO at a six billion dollar software company scrapped his entire year's marketing plan only two weeks into the year. AI agents made it obsolete.

Stephanie Postles, CEO of Mission.org, and Lacey Peace, VP of Content, explain in plain English what AI agents are, why they are fundamentally different from the automations marketing teams rely on today, and what this shift means for marketing jobs, team structure, and the skills that will matter most going forward.

If you have confused AI agents with automation or wondered whether your role is safe...

Most brands think viral marketing takes months of planning and massive budgets. Nick Tran engineered it in 72 hours.

In this segment from Marketing Trends, the former Global Head of Marketing at TikTok breaks down the exact reverse-engineered playbook that turned unknown creators like the Ocean Spray skateboarder into overnight viral sensations, and why the traditional 2-3 month campaign timeline is dead.

From understanding why Nick tells marketing leaders to "kill your KPIs" and hire for intuition instead, to learning how he identified viral potential before it happened, this is a masterclass in...

The marketing teams winning with AI today are not the ones chasing every new model release. They are the ones who found the boring, repetitive tasks their teams hate and automated those first.

Nir Pochter, Co-Founder and CMO at Lightricks, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what AI actually means for creative workflows and why most teams are still using it wrong.

You’ll learn:

- The "algebra problem" of AI adoption

- How to save your design team 80% of their time

- Why the gap be...

The websites that win today are not the ones with the most content. They are the ones that deliver a fast, clean experience in the very first second a visitor arrives.

Josh Koenig, Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what he is seeing across thousands of high-traffic sites and why most teams still miss the basics. He explains how the shift from search to ask is changing online discovery, what AI bots prioritize when they crawl a site, and why the fundamentals of clarity, structure, and speed...

The most future-ready marketing leaders aren’t the ones chasing trends… they’re the ones who can reinvent themselves every time the industry changes.

Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, joins Marketing Trends to break down the mindset that kept her relevant through every major tech revolution, from Web1 to cloud, SaaS, PLG, and now AI. She explains how to balance curiosity with focus, why AI is really about automating judgment (not just tasks), and how she’s redesigning her marketing org around agents, automation, and new workflows.

Michelle also shares early results from Alteryx’...

The strongest marketing leaders are not the ones with perfect plans. They are the ones who know how to lead through real life.

And few people understand that better than Niki Hall and Dayle Hall.

Niki, former CMO of Five9, and Dayle, CMO of SnapLogic, join Marketing Trends to share how they balance two big careers, raise a family, and approach marketing from completely different angles.

They break down how they support each other through major job shifts, navigate brand versus demand debates, and build teams that can adapt to rapid change. They...

The brands everyone talks about are not the safest ones. They are the bold ones.

And few people understand that better than Nick Tran.

The former TikTok Global Head of Marketing and current Diageo President and CMO joins Marketing Trends to break down how he built momentum inside fast moving environments, rebuilt brands under pressure, and helped TikTok become a cultural engine instead of just another app.

Nick explains why the traditional marketing playbook is obsolete, how to create ideas that move culture instead of reacting to it, and what today’s fastest mo...

When everyone has access to the same AI tools, what separates the great from the forgettable is the human behind the screen.

Fiverr’s VP of Global Brand Communications, Shiri Hellmann, joins Marketing Trends to break down how her team turns chaos into creativity. From producing the viral “Gary” campaign with real freelancers to writing a rom-com about avocados, Shiri reveals how Fiverr spots cultural moments early, takes smart risks, and proves that talent still beats the algorithm.

CHAPTERS / KEY MOMENTS

00:00 - The Weirdest Fiverr Requests Ever

02:58 - How Fiverr...

Brands don’t live in campaigns… they live in memory.

In this episode of Marketing Trends, Ulli Appelbaum, Founder & CSO of First The Trousers Then The Shoes, joins Stephanie Postles to unpack how brand associations and mental availability determine what people choose long after the ad ends.

From Geico’s 15%, Snickers’ hunger fix, and Nike’s evolution of “Just Do It,” to Salesforce’s AI rebrand and Harley-Davidson’s Jumpstart, Ulli reveals why the brands that last are the ones that refresh old memories instead of chasing new fads.

Key Moments:  <...

How do you market the experience of walking through rooms of illusion that flip reality on its head?

In this episode, Stephanie Postles chats with Andy Levey, the mastermind CMO behind the Museum of Illusions, to discover how to craft unforgettable moments that captivate audiences. Learn how to apply these strategies to market brands that sell experiences - from local business, SaaS, B2B, and more.

Key Moments:

00:00 Andy Levey Turns Wonder Into Marketing Strategy

02:00 Inside the World’s Most Photographed Museum

04:00 From Wall Street to V...

He became CMO of GoodRx in just five years, then started taking big swings: reviving nostalgic jingles, building an audio-first brand strategy, and proving that sound can punch through today’s visual overload.

Ryan Sullivan joins Marketing Trends to share how he moved from performance marketer to CMO at record speed, why he’s betting on radio and podcasts, and how a singing prairie dog and memorable earworms can do serious brand-building work.

Ryan and Stephanie dig into balancing art and science in measurement, evolving a beloved brand without throwing away equity, launching the “Savings Wrangl...

Monster trucks, skeletons, and a CMO who doesn’t think about cost analysis very often.

In this in-studio conversation, Torq CMO Don Jeter breaks down how brand-led world-building beats feature dumps, why entertainment now matters more than information on the trade show floor, and how a Monster Jam partnership and an episodic LinkedIn “junior intern” series created real pipeline by earning mental real estate long before buyers are in-market. We get into the 60-day rebrand sprints, showing up at Black Hat, aligning sales and product so bold creative actually converts, measuring what matters when attribution gets fu...

What does it take to rebrand a 40-year-old tech giant — and make it relevant for the AI era?

Stephanie sits down with Ann Minooka, Chief Marketing Officer at Synopsys, to uncover how she’s redefining brand storytelling in one of the most complex spaces in tech. From repositioning a legacy company to pioneering demand generation strategies that deliver real pipeline, Ann shares her full playbook — including how AI is reshaping marketing, storytelling, and the future of customer search behavior.

If you’re a CMO, marketing leader, or just fascinated by the intersection of AI, storytelling, and stra...

If you’re still optimizing for traditional SEO, this one might sting. But if you’re ready to win the AI search wars, welcome to your new bible.

Michael Walrath (CEO of Yext) is not sugarcoating our new AI-dominated environment that has transformed the market. He breaks down exactly how search is being torn apart by AI, why local SEO is being rewritten in real-time, and what it actually means to structure your content for machines — not humans. Stephanie and Mike go head-to-head on search nostalgia (Google geeks, look away) and unpack the playbook for brand visibility in a w...

How do you future-proof your marketing strategy when LLMs are rewriting the rules in real time? Salesforce Applications CMO Amber Armstrong has answers — and the data to back them up.

Stephanie Postles sits down with Amber to unpack how Salesforce is rethinking SEO, scaling AI agents, and finally cracking the code on account-based marketing. From converting LLM traffic at 40% to building cross-cloud alignment with “guilds,” Amber shares tactical insights and bold bets that every modern marketer needs to hear.

Key Moments: 

What happens when your top-performing SEO strategy becomes obsolete in just 90 days?  

In this special “fire drill” edition of Marketing Trends, host Stephanie Postles teams up with guest host Lacey Peace to tackle the urgent question every marketer is asking:  

How do we actually show up in an AI-powered search world?  

With explosive growth in LLM-powered search results, YouTube and podcast citations rising by over 300%, and AI agents reshaping how buyers make decisions, this episode delivers a practical, 5-step playbook to future-proof your content strategy. Whether you're leading a...

Harmony Anderson didn’t wait 90 days to make an impact at Superhuman — she launched a major campaign in her first five weeks. Harmony Anderson, Head of Marketing and Growth Product at Superhuman, breaks down why moving fast (and strategically) matters more than playing it safe, especially in high-growth startups. We dig into what it really takes to scale from $20M to $200M ARR, how to enter the enterprise market without abandoning your early adopters, and why traditional attribution models are falling behind in the age of AI and influencers. If you're navigating go-to-market pivots, building modern marketing infrastructure, or just...

What do you get when you mix a 70-year-old legacy brand, Gen Z tax filers, and a reality TV show called Responsibility Island?

An absolute marketing fever dream. And Jill Cress — CMO of H&R Block — is the mastermind behind it. We unpack how she’s giving TurboTax-meets-Gen-Z realness. We’re talking Roblox integrations, bold brand storytelling, and what happens when you challenge a category that’s historically allergic to change.

We cover:

– How H&R Block turned tax season into a cultural moment

– What marketers get wrong about Gen Z (and how to fix...

What if the next big wave in marketing isn’t about targeting people at all—but impressing their AI agents instead?

Abhay Parasnis, CEO of Typeface and former CTO at Adobe, joins us to explain why the future of brand discovery is less “search bar” and more “autonomous agents doing your shopping.” Abhay makes a bold case that most traditional marketing (think SEO strategies, AB tests, and static brand books) is already becoming obsolete. Instead, the brands that win will be the ones building content systems smart enough to speak directly to intelligent agents that buy and sell on our...

Think LinkedIn is the place to reach technical buyers?

Auvik CMO Susanne Rodriguez breaks down how her team built an insanely effective Reddit and Facebook strategy — yes, Facebook — to reach IT pros who dodge sales emails like it's their job (because it is).

We’re talking memes that convert, subreddits that slap, and how to avoid getting flamed by Reddit mods who smell B2B fluff from a mile away. You’ll also hear how Auvik got dragged for a meme, owned it publicly, and came out stronger — a.k.a. how to market like a human.<...

You’re still optimizing for Google? That’s cute…

Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask, You Answer, joins us for a high-energy episode, he joins host Stephanie Postles to break down why the playbook most B2B marketers are still running is dangerously outdated.

They dive deep into the collapse of traditional SEO, the rise of AI-generated answers, and why brands that aren’t building trust through video, transparency, and self-service tools are already falling behind. Marcus shares tactical examples from the likes of Liquid Death, Shasta Pools, and his own viral pool...

In a twist that flips the format, today’s Marketing Trends episode puts longtime host Stephanie in the guest seat as Lacey Peace — the show’s behind-the-scenes force for nearly a decade — grabs the mic.

What unfolds is a no-BS conversation about how AI is dismantling the old playbook, why cold emails are basically spam of the past, and what marketers need to do now to stay relevant. Stephanie unpacks why Account-Based Experiences (ABX) — not just ABM — are the new battleground for meaningful engagement, and why trust, speed, and human connection are the real growth levers in an...

Imagine onboarding a new employee who never sleeps, speaks every language, knows all your products, and can handle thousands of customers at once.

That's the reality Salesforce is building with Agentforce — and it’s already transforming customer success, marketing operations, and revenue growth.

In this episode, Salesforce SVP of Digital Customer Success Bernard Slowey joins us to break down how they became Customer Zero for Agentforce, what went wrong (and right), and why agentic AI is reshaping the future of marketing and operations.

If you lead marketing, operations, or customer success — and you’re serio...

What does it take to launch an AI product on the biggest stage in advertising — and actually make it stick? 

GoDaddy CMO Fara Howard joins us to unpack the strategy behind their standout Super Bowl campaign for GoDaddy Airo, featuring actor Walton Goggins (White Lotus, The Righteous Gemstones). From idea to execution, Fara shares how her team translated a complex product into a message that millions could instantly understand — without losing the creativity that made it unforgettable.

We dive into the balance of data and storytelling, how to earn the right to be bold with your...

What if successful teams could operate without a leader?

Spoiler Alert: If you still think leadership is about barking orders from the top, Keith Ferrazzi is here to tell you: you’re doing it wrong. The legendary author of Never Eat Alone is here, and he’s coming for your org chart.

Tune in to discover why traditional leadership is dead, how AI is forcing us all to rethink teamwork, and why teamship is the future.

Key Moments:

0:00 Who is Keith Ferrazzi, Author of Never Lead Alone?

0...

What’s worse than pissing people off with a bold marketing campaign? Boring them.

So why is everyone following the same playbooks, recycling “best practices”, and relying on cookie cutter AI to generate the same-sounding content?

If you want to truly stand out, you have to break the rules… or at least question them.

Stephanie sits down with Udi Ledergor, Chief Evangelist at Gong and author of Courageous Marketing, to talk about how marketers can push past fear, embrace bold strategies, and create campaigns that people actually remember.

Udi shares why "best pra...

AI Won’t Save You. Strategy Will.

AI is transforming the way brands connect with consumers. But are companies actually leveraging it the right way? And what about marketing teams — are their operating models built for the future, or stuck in the past?

In this episode, Rebecca Messina, former Global CMO of Uber and marketing leader at Coca-Cola, unpacks what brands are getting wrong about AI, strategy, and team structure. She also reveals the top traits she looks for in marketing hires, and why adaptability and a relentless drive to learn are non-negotiable in today’s indu...

Neglected customers. Disconnected executives. And a limited budget. 

What if the remedy to all of the issues plaguing our marketing strategy was… simple? 

What if the key to staying relevant allowed marketers to do more with less?

Adriana Gil Miner, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Iterable, shares her modern marketing playbook — and there’s a lot to learn. Adriana, who has a rich background in digital marketing and brand building, is giving away the keys to leveraging AI, building community, and integrating SMS in B2B marketing strategies for 2025. She highlights the importan...

On this episode of Marketing Trends, Amanda Kahlow, founder of 6sense and CEO of 1mind, explores the future of B2B sales and marketing through the lens of AI superhumans.

Amanda introduces us to a groundbreaking AI superhuman designed to think, empathize, engage with customers — better than your top-performing rep.

She also discusses how incremental changes can drive massive categorical transformation. So many of us once thought that getting into a stranger’s car for a ride to the airport or renting out your house to strangers was “creepy”, but overtime AirBnb and Uber became our new...