Podcasts about Google Analytics

Which marketing channels actually bring your clinic patients? Learn simple ways to track Google, ads, SEO, AI, referrals, leads, and revenue.Episode webpage and blog post: https://propelyourcompany.com/marketing-attribution-for-clinics/When a new patient says, “I found you on Google,” do you know whether they found your clinic through Google Ads, Google Maps, organic search, AI, or somewhere else?In this episode, learn simple ways to get a clearer picture of which marketing channels are actually generating new patients and revenue. We'll cover better ways to track patient sources, how Google Analytics and Clicky Analytics can help, why leads don't always equal patients, and how to connect your marketing efforts to real results.You'll also learn why perfect marketing attribution isn't necessary. The goal is to gather enough useful information to spot patterns, understand what's working, and make smarter decisions about where to spend your clinic's marketing budget.Send in your questions. ❤ We'd love to hear from you!NEW Webinar: How to dominate Google Search, Google Maps, AI-driven search results, and get more new patients.>> Save your spot 

The discussion with Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS focused on why websites often attract high traffic but fail to convert that into sales, highlighting issues like confusing navigation, unclear offers, and lack of trust signals. John emphasized the importance of SEO and targeted keywords for driving the right kind of traffic that is more likely to convert 00:29:58. Carol and Celese stressed the need for an easy, streamlined purchasing process and understanding user behavior to minimize drop-off points 00:33:00 00:35:11. Participants emphasized using analytics and A/B testing to regularly refine content and calls to action for better conversion rates 01:04:04. The group agreed that clarity, trust, and simplicity are key factors in turning website traffic into actual sales 01:09:06.SummarySEO Is Essential: Multiple guests, especially Celeste and John, attribute business growth and audience reach primarily to consistent SEO efforts through content, keywords, and high-authority backlinks (Celeste at 06:10, John at 03:38).Content & Relevance: Content specifically targeting transactional keywords and providing clear, relevant information converts better. Consistency and updating content regularly are emphasized (Celeste at 35:40).Technical Elements: Secure sites (HTTPS), user-friendly navigation, fast load times, and mobile responsiveness are critical for both SEO and user trust (43:12).Analytics: Using tools like Google Analytics or Fathom Analytics to track user paths, page popularity, and drop-off points enables continual optimization (01:09:56).Trust Factors: Payment options, clarity on pricing, and visible security all influence both SEO ranking (indirectly) and actual conversions.Who is This For?This episode is for small business owners, entrepreneurs, web designers, marketers, and anyone interested in understanding why their website might generate traffic but not convert visitors into sales. It's especially valuable for those seeking actionable SEO insights and practical website optimization strategies.Key Moments & TimestampsIntroduction to the problem of website traffic vs. sales 00:00John introduces his podcast/radio brand and SEO focus 03:09Celeste shares her SEO success and journey from struggling entrepreneur to full-time business owner 05:05Carol introduces expertise in Shopify and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) 11:39Discussion: Website navigation, tabs, and user experience (John, Celese, Carol) 17:52The role of ease, simplicity, and minimizing steps for conversions (Celese) 35:11Pricing transparency, payment methods, and abandoned carts 43:12Tools, analytics, and actionable next steps 01:09:56Summary roundtable: final takeaways and implementation advice (John, Celese, Carol) 01:05:46For more support, listeners are encouraged to book a call, or subscribe to upcoming training and resources.FAQsQ: Why does my website get traffic but no sales?A: Common reasons include poor navigation, too many steps at checkout, unclear offers, lack of trust signals, and disconnect between content and buyer intent (Celeste at 36:15, 43:32).Q: What's the most important SEO tactic for small business?A: Keyword research focused on what your buyers are searching for, plus consistent, clear content supported by reputable backlinks (John at 03:38, Celeste at 06:10).Q: Should links on my site open in new tabs?A: Only external links should open new tabs. Internal navigation should stay in the same tab for a seamless user experience (Celeste at 19:01, Carol at 19:49).Q: How do I know where people are dropping off my site?A: Use analytics tools to monitor page visits, bounce rates, and conversion funnels (Carol at 01:04:04).Action Steps for Favour Obasi-ikeHighlight offers/service links more clearly (CLARITY = SALES) in all call-to-action buttons and navigation (01:09:02).Refine site navigation: Ensure internal links do not open in new tabs and streamline the visitor path for ease of use (Celeste at 19:01).Request user feedback: Regularly test your website's checkout and inquiry process from multiple devices (50:30).Show payment options upfront: Add visible payment logos and ensure broad compatibility (48:13).Install/Review Analytics: Regularly review entry and exit pages to find and fix drop-off points (01:09:56).Gather client source data: Continue to ask every client how they found you, using that info to double down on winning channels (Celeste at 06:07).A/B test changes: When updating navigation, CTAs, or checkout, track the impact using metrics for ongoing improvement (Carol at 01:04:43).Educate with transparency: Update website copy and offers to set clear expectations and reduce confusion (01:09:06).Ready to Rank? Book Your SEO & Web Dev Services Today

I've been on a hunt lately.Not for a new strategy. Not for a new platform.  For shortcuts.Real ones. The kind that save you actual time. Without costing you the impact.Let's be honest. Most "shortcuts" in marketing? Just corners getting cut. This isn't that.This is me trying to find where the busywork ends. And the real thinking can start.Here's the specific one I've been chasing.I want a tool. Something that looks at our Pinterest content. And tells me, fast — what's trending up. What's trending down. And what we should make next because of it.Not a vague vibe check.  An actual answer.Here's what that process looks like right now. Without the tool.Someone pulls Pinterest Analytics. Someone pulls Google Analytics. Someone's tracking Pinterest Trends by hand — because there's no public API for it.Then all of that gets stitched into a spreadsheet. Someone writes up what it means. And then, finally — we get to the fun part. Deciding what to create next.That's hours. Every single week. For every account.I've heard whispers of people doing this. Testing it on their own workflow. Their own content. Their own accounts.That's one thing.What I'm trying to figure out — is whether it holds up for client accounts. Multiple accounts. Different niches. Different goals. Different baselines for what "normal" even looks like.And here's my worry. I want to say this part out loud, instead of pretending I've got it solved.Gaps.What happens when the tool doesn't know a 20% dip in saves is totally normal for this account in July? But for that account, in that same month? It's a five-alarm fire.What happens when it flags something as trending, and it's really just noise?A good report doesn't just save you time. It has to be right. Or it's actually worse than doing it by hand — because now you're making decisions off something that looks trustworthy. And isn't.So here's what I'm building toward, behind the scenes.A weekly report. Pulls the analytics. Pulls the performance data. Flags what actually moved in a meaningful way. And hands it to us in something short.Bullet points. Something you can read in under a minute. Not a ten-tab spreadsheet you have to sit and interpret.I don't have it fully solved yet. I'm not going to stand here and tell you I cracked it, and here's the seven-step system.I'm in it right now. That's kind of the point of this take.So here's what I actually want from you.Have you seen anyone doing this well? Not just talking about automating reporting — actually running a tool like this against real accounts. Getting a report they trust.What did it get wrong? Where were the gaps?I want the real version of this story. Not the highlight reel.Because if we get this right — the payoff isn't just saved hours.It's that the time we get back goes straight into the part of this work that actually needs a human. Deciding what to create. Reading the account, not just the data.That's the shortcut worth chasing. Not less work for the sake of less work. Less time on the parts a machine can do accurately. So there's more time for the parts only we can do well.If you've tested something like this — or you're testing it right now — I want to hear about it.If you're in SPM Insiders, Drop it in the group. Let's compare notes.If not, email me, hello@Simplepinmedia.comThat's my take. Talk soon.—-------Here are some helpful links from the podcast:

Kevin Durkee owns Culinary Adventure Co., which runs six food tours in Toronto. Eighty percent of his guests are local, 99.9 percent book direct, and in fifteen years he has never run an ad, fought for SEO, or opened a Google Analytics account. The industry mantra is that locals do not take tours and that the OTAs own the demand, so Mitch spends much of the hour asking how the business actually works. The short answer is that Kevin sells celebration rather than sightseeing: gift cards, Christmas presents, and a birthday program that gives a guest a free seat when three friends book alongside them.Kevin also refuses to discount in either direction. He pays full price at every one of his forty vendor stops and quotes corporate groups higher when they ask for a break, with a setup fee and built-in gratuity, since the food costs the same in front of four people or forty. Private corporate work now runs thirty to thirty-five percent of annual revenue. He explains the retreat in Madrid that finally pushed his best tour from $119 to $199 with less food on it, and it has since sold better than in any prior year. Operators leave with a way to build a local repeat audience, a position to hold when a buyer pushes on price, and the three years and five cities Kevin spent learning what to cut.Resources:culinaryadventureco.comthiscityisdelicious.comInstagram: @culinaryadvco

In this episode of the Liquid Weekly Podcast, hosts Karl Meisterheim and Taylor Page are joined by Alexander Hupfer, founder of Fusion Metrics and a solo Shopify app developer.The conversation digs deep into the current state of Shopify app analytics following Mantle's shutdown, why certain metrics are far more subjective than they appear, and how AI agents are changing the way developers query their own data.Sponsor - The Support HeroesSTAY CONNECTEDSubscribe to Liquid Weekly for more expert insights: https://liquidweekly.com/EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS- Alexander's Origin Story- Why Shopify Doesn't Build This- The Mantle Shutdown- Metrics That Aren't Black and White- Installs as a Vanity Metric- AI Agents + Analytics: Using MCP servers and agents like Claude Code and Codex to write SQL queries - Build vs. Buy vs. Self-HostABOUT ALEXANDER HUPFERAlexander is the founder of Fusionmetrics, an analytics platform built specifically for Shopify apps. Coming from a theoretical physics background, he moved into the analytics space in 2022 and pioneered install attribution by linking Google Analytics events with Partner API data.FIND ALEXANDER ONLINE & RESOURCES- Fusion Metrics: https://fusionmetrics.com/- Alexander's Twitter/X: https://x.com/alexanderhupfer- PartnerMetrics by Björn Forsberg (open source): https://github.com/forsbergplustwo/partner-metrics- Matt De Sousa / Blair (ex-Mantle) conversation on attribution: https://orange-aphid-848.notion.site/Live-with-Blair-Beckwith-Shopify-Mantle-Growth-the-Future-of-Shopify-Apps-3c15075fb6d680a5bd14d8ec230430e4- Alexander's talk from last year's Mantle event on churn modeling: https://youtu.be/9g7N7VdHfWU?si=48yb1k9xM6sb9VwX- Darius's Dev Dashboard revamp screenshots: https://x.com/darius_gai/status/2087916085794283800?s=20- Alexander on Ilias' Podcast talking analytics: https://youtu.be/eC8i9ex6xnQ?si=97o59ZK31c-SfCgfTIMESTAMPS00:00 - Cold open: The mask-selling business00:30 - Introduction & the bat/rabies saga02:20 - Alexander's origin story: COVID masks to Shopify apps06:42 - Moving into analytics & the physics background11:03 - Current state of Shopify app metrics & the Mantle shutdown13:49 - Why Shopify doesn't provide revenue analytics (the ROI question)16:43 - The Dev Dashboard revamp & transaction vs. MRR21:57 - Reconstructing MRR from the Partner API event stream25:11 - Installs as a vanity metric & search ranking27:28 - Churn and LTV: the most complicated metrics34:11 - App acquisition & assessing performance objectively36:40 - The three Rs: Acquisition, Retention, Revenue37:06 - Attribution & app store conversion rates38:28 - Using AI agents & MCP to query analytics43:01 - GA4 attribution on the App Store vs. storefront45:31 - App Store optimization & keyword-stuffed titles48:17 - Build vs. Buy vs. Self-Host53:17 - Picks of the Week56:35 - Dev ChangelogDEV CHANGELOG- Oxygen is now available on development stores: https://shopify.dev/changelog/oxygen-is-now-available-on-development-stores- WebMCP support for Liquid and Hydrogen storefronts: https://shopify.dev/changelog/webmcp-liquid-hydrogen- Standard storefront events and actions now support cart attributes: https://shopify.dev/changelog/events-and-actions-cart-attributes-support- Hydrogen developer preview update, August 18, 2026: https://shopify.dev/changelog/hydrogen-developer-preview-update-august-18-2026- App intents on admin.app.intent.link now open as a full-page navigation: https://shopify.dev/changelog/app-intents-on-admin-app-intent-link-now-open-as-a-full-page-navigationPICKS OF THE WEEK- Karl: "Star City" on Apple TV — a sister show to "For All Mankind" exploring an alternate history where Russia reached the moon first- Alexander: "The Capitalist Manifesto" by Johan Norberg- Taylor: "Project Hail Mary" (the movie) — looking forward to reading the book next

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss how you will overcome creative blocks while navigating information overload and create new content ideas. You’ll discover why AI keeps offering generic advice and how you can bypass those predictable suggestions. You’ll learn to pull unconventional strategies from unrelated fields and apply them to your marketing plans. You’ll identify two distinct thinking patterns that unlock fresh content ideas when your usual topics feel stale. 00:00 – Introduction 03:15 – The challenge of information overload 07:40 – Why AI defaults to common advice 12:20 – Deductive versus inductive thinking 16:50 – Finding psychological safety for exploration 21:10 – Cross-pollinating ideas from other industries 26:35 – A practical research workflow 31:00 – Call to action Hit play to uncover how shifting your perspective transforms stale ideas into bold marketing breakthroughs. Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-content-marketing-inspirations.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn: In this week’s In Ear Insights. This is the age of AI, where there is more information than ever, more data than ever, more everything than ever before. And yet behind the scenes, when we were prepping for this episode today, Katie, I said, hey, what would you like to talk about today? And your response was, I have no idea. Let me ask you a couple of different questions. One, is it that the material recovering feels like it’s been done before, or is it also that there’s just so much to choose from that you end up with what Barry Schwartz calls the paralysis of choice? Katie Robbert: Yes. So let me pull those apart. So much is changing in the field of AI and where we focus down in on with analytics, marketing, operations, and helping businesses. We do such a good job of thoroughly exploring topics, and the process that we have for creating content is so efficient that we can churn out a lot of it very quickly. So I feel like personally, the things that we would cover that are relevant to our business and relevant to our audience now there’s always another stone to turn over. But then you start getting really deep into the weeds. And where I wrestle is do you start alienating parts of your audience to really focus on those very specific niche pieces? To the other part of the question? Yes, I do feel like there’s so much information. Again, this is sort of the side effect of generative AI that you sort of become numb and blind to all of the information because there’s so much. I remember when we worked at the agency and you used to produce this report, I think it was yearly, on the number of pieces of content created. And you know, this was prior to generative AI, this was just the number would go up exponentially year over year. And you know, I can’t even imagine what that number would be now. And just sort of seeing the uptick. And so I don’t, I feel like I’m deep in the weeds of stuff that I’m working on day to day in the business. Part of it is I’m like, I don’t know if anybody would even care to hear about this, if it even resonates or if it makes sense or if we’re supposed to be doing that big thinking and like introducing new concepts and you know, doing the thought leadership of what’s happening with AI and analytics. Here’s the thing about analytics. There’s only so many ways. There’s a lot of ways to analyze data, but there’s only so many ways to analyze data. And so I feel like at this point, unless a brand new analysis methodology is invented, which I could happen, but I feel like we’re pretty good, we’re solid, you know, it’s not worth talking about again. But I could be wrong. I could just be having a very blah Monday morning where I’m like very feeling very existential of like, what’s the point of any of it? Christopher S. Penn: Which, given the macro picture, which is a totally separate podcast, is true. In the catalog of analytics that we use, that I use, there’s about 1400 techniques that span 22 disciplines, everything from weather forecasting to agronomy and agriculture and stuff like that. And one of the things that I was talking about this weekend in my own personal newsletter was how limited marketers are in their choice of analytics when you use AI, because AI naturally gravitates to what we’ve already written about. So we’ll talk about attribution analysis, we’ll talk about social media marketing, we’ll talk about impressions. Our advisor, Ginny Dietrich’s most hated measurement of all ad value equivalents. And these are all associated statistically, probabilistically in these AI tools with marketing analytics. So if you say, hey ChatGPT, I need some marketing analytics help with this, you know, Google Analytics data source, it will give you the most probable things which will be old hat. Like, it will be like, oh, have you tried doing, you know, basic trend analysis? Like, yes. Have you tried doing time series analysis? Yes. Right. And that is a blind spot that AI can never overcome because of its nature as a probability based tool. You, the human, have to have the largeness of vision and the vocabulary to say, hey, you know, chat GPT or co pilot or whatever. I’ve got this issue here and I’m having trouble understanding what’s driving the set of changes. What analytics techniques from agriculture and agronomy might be a good fit for this data and suddenly be like, I know all about agronomy, which it does. And have you tried pairwise combination holdout? And you’re like, what is even? I don’t even know what those words mean. Katie Robbert: Nope. And I hear what you’re saying and I feel like we’ve talked about versions of this where in order to get the most out of the tools you have, you really have to be curious and thinking outside of the box and that’s something, Chris, that you do very well. That’s one of your strongest professional attributes is you say, where can I look outside of this lens and see like and pull out like agriculture. So I don’t think that’s the default thinking for most. Take marketing out of it. For most people, it’s like I’m looking at a problem. I’m trying to figure out why my bread dough isn’t rising. Let me look at the fashion industry and see what I can learn from that. About, like, it doesn’t make sense because it feels like putting square pegs in round holes and I don’t know, maybe that’s sort of where I’m stuck, is maybe I’m not someone who’s good at looking outside of. Like, I’m a very rules and process oriented person. I like things to be predictable. So perhaps for me, that’s where I struggle with this concept of I’m trying to analyze my marketing data. How does agriculture do it? Like that to me is just like, why would I ever do that? That seems ridiculous to me. That’s not how this rule works. And so that’s definitely not one of my strengths. Which again is why you and I are very complimentary in our strengths and weaknesses. And you know, I just went. When we come back to the purpose of today’s podcast, I feel like, you know, maybe that’s where thinking about topics to talk about is where I’m struggling because I feel like I’m a fairly creative person. But I also, I remember I started taking art classes in first grade and went all the way through 10th grade of high school. And I, my skill set really didn’t progress. It really wasn’t something that, like, it was something I wanted to be good at. But I just, I’m not an overly creative person. I’m creative when it comes to problem solving. But I feel like I also have a really Good toolbox. But if you start to say, okay, your toolbox is now going to contain these things that belong in, you know, biochemistry and welding, those are not industries I know a lot about. I’m like, nope, I don’t want that in my toolbox because I can’t, I don’t understand it. I don’t get it. I don’t know. There’s a lot of like therapy for me this morning. Christopher S. Penn: Well, what you’re describing is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. So as a rules based person, you would be a deductive reasoning person. You have a set of rules and principles and concepts in a domain that you break down to specific conclusions. If we think about the 5P framework by Trust Insights is exactly that. Five different areas, purpose, people, process, platform, performance that have governing principles for each of these. And you could take that general thing and distill it down for any problem that you run into, right? And say, okay, how can I make this. We’ve you’ve talked about even making it a prompt framework for AI because it’s so good at it. The opposite is called inductive reasoning where you say, I got a bunch of stuff, it’s all very confusing, it’s all not related. What is in common? And so for example, if you look at agronomy and weather forecasting and econometrics and marketing, what is the through line, the weird thread that goes through all of them for marketing analytics, and that is math, right? The mathematical techniques that each discipline has to use that are different from discipline to get to the answers. And so inductive reasoning says, can we find those threads from these crazily not related fields, hold on those threads and turn them into something like, oh, we can use this in marketing. We have data that resembles this. How do we adapt it? And so that’s the difference. And so when we look at like content creation, saying what are we going to talk about today? If we start from that deductive reasoning perspective of, well, we’ve done AI 18 ways to Sunday. We’ve done prompting, you know, 22 ways to Sunday. Well, they’re left to do that is a deductive perspective. And there’s, that is a great way to do it because you cover everything. The inductive way is okay, say okay, this is what you flip to when you’re like, we’ve done it all, what’s left? Okay, now you flip to inductive reasoning. Say what about this weird edge case over here? Let’s pull that apart and see where it leads. Katie Robbert: Well, I mean, and this aligns with what we always joke about, that you know, what will be written on your tombstone is what does this button do? You know, and there’s a part of me that wishes I was a little bit more open, more curious, you know, I feel like I am, but at the same time, not nearly as much as I could be in terms of, you know, in this context of like breaking out of what I know. And so what kinds of advice would you give to someone like me who, to your point, like, if I do the deductive reasoning and I cover all the different known angles, you know, and I think about things from a risk averse lens, what advice would you give to someone like me to then find ways to turn on some of that inductive reasoning when I need it? Christopher S. Penn: You can generally teach inductive reasoning in a couple ways. The one of the things, and this is very important, what you just said, you said from that risk averse lens, that’s the first switch that has to flip is to say, okay, you can do exploration if you can cycle, give yourself a sense of psychological safety that you’re not taking a risk. Like going out and reading random stuff on Reddit and things or people you don’t Normally follow on LinkedIn is not a risk. It can feel like a risk because it can feel like distraction, it can feel like confusion, but it’s not a risk. And so, one of the things you have to find for yourself, I don’t know how to do it, is to say, okay, let’s create a sense of psychological safety that says it’s okay to go look under this, under the stone. You may not like what’s under there, but it’s not dangerous to you. And the second thing is those fringe edge cases where, and this is where, like, LinkedIn is a terrible place to spend time because everyone is stuck in the same bucket, right? We’re all talking about, oh, AI is going to do this. Sam Altman did this. And it’s the same theme over and over again. You have to leave that and go to the fringes, go other places. Reddit is a good place because there’s, it’s a different set of fringes. Talking to our friends and colleagues, right? Chatting with them in group texts and stuff is a great place to do that, where you start to hear very specific edge cases. You’re like, oh, we’ve never run into that before one of the things. So it was really interesting. I did a drawing for my newsletter for filling out a survey back in July. And the giveaway was a one hour. Ask me anything private. And the conversation I had with the person was an industry that we don’t work in at all, like heavy industrial marine stuff. And just. And I learned as much as I talked, like, oh, I didn’t know that was a thing. And those, all those weird little edge cases was like, that’s interesting. And so that might be a possible antidote too, is to say, like, you know what spend. Say, I’m going to spend an hour talking to this person over here. I. Who we’re probably not going to do business with them. We’re pro. I’m. I’m not there to drum up business. I’m there to say, what kind of weird stuff are you running into that maybe wouldn’t cross my desk. Katie Robbert: H. I hear you. I think, you know, I like the idea of, you know, doing more reading outside of what you’d normally read. I agree that LinkedIn is very homogenous, very bland. The challenge. And, you know, this could be again, my own personal bias and my, you know, I like the term that emotional safety. Because if I’m being honest, that’s a big part of it is it’s not that I don’t feel safe talking about things outside of what we’ve talked about. And perhaps this, you know, this is all just sort of like a, you know, a horse of a different color is that I get concerned that if we stray too far from what our audience wants to hear about, they won’t come back. And that’s, you know, that could be my own personal concern and anxiety about it. And maybe they’re like, no, give me something different. You know, there’s really only one way to find out and that’s to ask them. So if you want to pop over to our free Slack community analytics marketers and let us know. But to your point, you really. What I’m hearing you say is it’s breaking outside of those comfort zones, those routines, which admittedly is not something I am personally great at. I’m very introverted. But reading outside of what I normally read and interacting with people online is not so uncomfortable that I can’t do it. I just need to make more of an effort to do it because then it’s, you know, it’s making sure that we’re staying in touch with things outside of our own little bubble. It’s a big reason why we have the community that we have. So know a little bit of tongue in cheek like join our free Slack community but at the same time join our free Slack community because we need it just as much as the people who are joining need it. So that we’re not just locked into well this is what we’re doing. This is how we’ve always done it. So this is how it shall be. End of sentence. Like I think that by asking the question of the day it that’s partly to understand like what’s going on in your world, what are you dealing with, what are you, what’s your perspective? And I’m always not. A question goes by and we ask them every single day that I’m not like huh, that’s interesting or I never would have thought of it that way. And I think that’s such an important thing. But I never thought of that in this context. Chris of that inductive reasoning of trying to find that sort of like through line through different topics. Christopher S. Penn: I will show, I will share with you an interesting observation about our analytics from Market Slack group. There’s a, there’s a topical split by gender. When you look at the questions people ask, even that itself is interesting. You know the, the people who are male identifying tend to be asking very technical questions. Hey, I’m doing this with this agent framework and you know, what’s the best? And the people who identify as female typically asking about outcome based things like you know, what’s better for getting this done. I need to get, accomplish these things. And so one of the things because obviously, you know, equality in general is important to us, but gender equality is very important to us as a company. You might want us to do privately, quietly reach out to some of the individual women in our community to say like hey, I’d love to have a one hour private, ask many things, I just want to know what’s going on. Talk to the folks who are already reasonably talkative in the community and just see what’s happening at the edge cases of their Worlds. You have Dr. Leslie who spends a lot of time on psychology and research. You have Hannah, you have Minion who spends a lot of time on writing in AI. And that’s where you can be reasonably assured of a psychologically safe experience and still get some really cool edge cases. Katie Robbert: Yeah, I think if I’m being honest, I would probably start with Reddit forums or something like that just because that’s for me the path of least resistance and doesn’t take extra coordination and time to figure out how to, you know, book this conversation with someone. But again, that’s all, you know, minor details, but. In general, you know, so let’s say every week we sit down to record the podcast. And every week I know you’re going to ask me, hey, what do you want to talk about this week? I mean, that’s just how it goes, you know. And I appreciate that you give me the opportunity to propose a topic versus it just being, you know, led by whatever you’re reading that week, which often happens because I’m like, whatever, sometimes I have a topic. You know, tell me a little bit about your process for like you mentioned agriculture and some other industry that I’ve never heard of. And I’m guessing I haven’t had a chance to read your newsletter yet for full disclosure. No, I mean, and I do. It’s on my list for later today. Is it more that like you look at like a list of something, you go, I don’t know about that. That’s interesting. Let me learn more. Or is like does it sort of organically just come up because you’re like searching for something and it just sort of leads you down a rabbit hole? Like what does your process kind of look like? Christopher S. Penn: It’s both. It is both. This past week though was on idea transfer. So I ha. I shared some prompts, some basic prompts to look at four level naics codes which are like profession codes, oil and gas extraction for example. And I said to the soft to I was using deep seek for this. Go and find the professional academic conferences for each of these professions out of the 340 professions and then find the award winning papers from 2025 and 2026 for each conference if they had one, and end up with like 300 some odd papers that all won gold medals at their events. And so download those papers and then start extracting out what are the key lessons that we could transfer into marketing and marketing analytics, especially from these award winning papers. And some of them there wasn’t, you know, some of them it was like a position paper. But there were a lot of very technical research studies like oh, that’s really cool. Like how the European. I forget what the organization name is, but it’s the European Council of Weather Forecasting and their new neural ensembling system for better weather forecasts. I’m like, that’s clever. Instead of trying to fit a neural model on an overall forecast to fitting neural models on individual components of forecast because they can forecast better those specific components and then glue the forecast together instead of trying to ensemble the whole thing. It’s like, you know, instead of trying to. People screw this up a lot. Westerners tend to try and make fried rice all in one big wok and your home stove can’t get that hot. So you cook each set of ingredients individually and then you mix it all together. That’s this, essentially this version of ensembling. Don’t try to make fried rice all at once. Make each of the components, get them each right individually and then you can just literally mix it all together. Katie Robbert: Well, at least I know I’m making fried rice correctly. Thank goodness for that. I’m taking the win today. But that’s an example. So the topic was how would you make it a. A fully AI written newsletter with no human intervention whatsoever that would still be valuable. And so I had it to a test run and the example was that pairwise combinations for agriculture. I read the newsletter of IT generator. Like crap. This is a really good idea. Like I gotta go figure out how to do this. I was reading the results as I was recording my, the newsletter on video. I’m like, this is really smart. Like it should be. It won an award. But like I can totally see how this applies specifically to social media marketing. Christopher S. Penn: Interesting. Which comes back to you have to have expertise in something in order to be able to, you know, apply it. So you know, I know what I know about running a business. I know what I know about operations and process and all that. So it’d be interesting to see what I can find outside of the lanes that I know, you know, because it tends to feel like, well, process is process. There’s only one way to do process. And I’m assuming that’s just not true. And so I need to look at what that could mean. I have no idea. And I think this is where my risk averse brain starts to kick in. I’m like, well if you have no idea where you’re going, you don’t have the time to waste to just sort of start exploring. You have other things that you have to do to keep the business running. And I think that’s just sort of a time and resources but also a mind shift thing. Because yeah, I have to keep the business running. Do I have the luxury of time to just sort of do some exploration? I don’t know. I’m hoping to find some because I feel like that would make me a better leader if I could. Katie Robbert: And you’re like, yeah, you could be A better leader. Way to go. Christopher S. Penn: Everybody has the opportunity to better. You could, if you wanted to and you didn’t want to spend a ton of time on it directly, you could purchase. Well, you know, you don’t have to purchase it, but yeah, the new deep research suite from the Trust Insights Academy, which helps automate a lot of the research process. And where I would suggest that you start is in the epidemiology around opiates and stuff like that. Because you used to work in that field. You know it like the back of hand. But it’s been 20 years. Yeah. What’s, what’s happened? What papers have come out in that field in the last even five years that, where the math has changed, where AI has changed that field. And you can go, oh, I know how we used to do it and I know how AI does it now based on these award winning papers. Holy crap, things are different. And I can take this, what I know from back then and what is steady state now, current state now, and go. I can apply that learning of how AI has changed that field to what, running our business. Katie Robbert: Yeah, that’s interesting. That actually already gives me a couple of places to start because I think about a few of the clinical trials that were running and they were so manual because it just was, it was just manual. That’s how it was 20 years ago. And so like hand coding things and human raiders and all of that, which at the time was fine. We didn’t know any different because there wasn’t anything different. This morning we had a lead file of 150 leads that needed augmentation and I had an AI go in and label it all and it took under 20 minutes. And I ran it locally. It didn’t have to use the cloud at all for it. And so that’s today. Yeah. It reminds me of when I was trying to do lead gen for the sales team at that same organization and I stumbled across a publicly available database of substance abuse clinicians and it needed cleaning up and it needed like all this stuff and it was just a manual process and it took me a couple of weeks to do it before I could even hand it off to the sales team. And then those ungrateful jerks were like, what do you mean there’s not an email address? And I was like, you got a phone number? Pick up the phone. What do you want from me? But anyway, yeah, it is definitely interesting. So I think I don’t do that often enough. I really try to stay grounded in like what’s right in front of me. And I think that maybe looking in the past of like what I had done, what I have accomplished might help at least get some of this started. Christopher S. Penn: Exactly. There’s a lot of. There’s a lot that’s changed. But you having that previous subject matter of expertise means that it will be easier to dip your toes in that specific angle on that discipline rather than going to like agronomy where you’re like, I don’t even know what any of these words mean because like what is this? This yield, you know, yield per field thing. If you’ve got some thoughts about how you are approaching deductive and inductive reasoning concepts for content creation or ideation, pop on buyer free slack. Go to TrustInsights AI analytics for marketers where you and over 47100 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. And if there’s a channel you’d rather have this show on that instead, go to Trust Insights AI TI Podcast. You can find us at all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you on the next one. Katie Robbert: Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable Insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive measurable marketing roi. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and martech selection and implementation and high level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google, Gemini, Anthropic, Claude Dall E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and metalama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams beyond client work. Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In Ear Insights Podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the so what Livestream webinars and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights in their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data, Trust Insights are adept at leveraging cutting edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations. Data Storytelling this commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights educational resources which empower marketers to become more data driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI. Sharing knowledge widely whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

Send us a message.madebyalex.onlineLast episode of "season" 3! We start with a Squarespace redesign that's been sitting untouched for over a year and end up on the case for building a site from scratch. Alex walks through his history with web design, from MySpace CSS to Adobe Portfolio to a few hundred dollars a year for templates that never did what he wanted, and what changed once LLMs made a custom build possible for someone who isn't a developer.From there we get into the IndieWeb, Neocities, owning your distribution, and the thousand-true-fans idea. We talk about deleting Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, why Instagram and YouTube stay on as the only two funnels for now, and what happens to your creative range when everything you encounter comes through a recommendation engine. That turns into effective creative entropy, a term Alex coins mid-conversation, and a deck-of-cards argument about the odds of getting to an original idea.We finish on what's actually being built: print layouts for every story and essay, marginalia, contact sheets, a guest-curated gallery that rotates every couple of weeks, postcards and a newspaper at cost. Also what's left out on purpose. No SEO, no paid ads, no Google Analytics, no Google-hosted fonts, no metadata on the photos, and AI crawlers blocked. The site is a place to visit and leave, not a place to get stuck. -AiSupport the show If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We appreciate and try to read all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode. Links To Everything: Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT Matt's YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT Matt's 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT Alex's YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT Matt's Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG Alex's Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG 

STOP TRACKING EVERYTHING: THE KPIs THAT ACTUALLY GROW YOUR PEST CONTROL BUSINESSPest control companies have access to more marketing and sales data than ever before—but more data does not always lead to better decisions.Google Ads, Local Services Ads, website analytics, call tracking, social media, HighLevel, and pest control management software can generate hundreds of reports and measurements. The challenge is determining which numbers genuinely matter and how to use them to grow your business.In this episode of The Pest Control Marketing Domination Podcast, Casey Lewis explains how to separate meaningful key performance indicators from vanity metrics and irrelevant data. The objective is not to build the biggest dashboard. It is to identify the numbers that reveal what is working, where opportunities are being lost, and what action should be taken next.IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN:• The difference between a metric and a meaningful KPI• Why more website traffic does not necessarily mean more customers• How to work backward from your revenue and growth goals• Which marketing, sales, operational, and retention KPIs matter most• Why qualified opportunities are more important than raw lead totals• How to calculate cost per qualified opportunity and customer acquisition cost• How response time and missed calls affect your closing rate• How to identify sales and follow-up problems inside your pipeline• Why every new opportunity needs a clear source, status, value, and outcome• How HighLevel can track an opportunity from the initial inquiry through the completed sale• How Google Looker Studio can combine information from multiple marketing platforms• Why dashboard information must lead to decisions, accountability, and actionTHE NUMBERS THAT MATTERA practical pest control business scorecard should help management monitor:• Marketing spend• Qualified opportunities• Cost per qualified opportunity• Speed to first response• Missed-call rate• Appointments or inspections scheduled• Sales closing rate• New customers acquired• Customer acquisition cost• Average initial sale• New recurring revenue• Customer retention and cancellationsHighLevel can help track what happens to each opportunity throughout the sales process. Google Looker Studio can bring information from HighLevel, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Search Console, call-tracking systems, social advertising, and other platforms into a more useful executive dashboard.However, technology alone cannot solve the problem. Accurate reporting requires consistent pipeline management, proper lead-source tracking, clearly defined stages, and accountability from everyone who handles new customer opportunities.The real purpose of data is to help you answer five questions:What happened?Why did it happen?What needs to change?Who is responsible for making that change?When will the results be reviewed?You do not need more reports. You need a small group of reliable numbers that tells you whether your business is moving toward its goals—and where you need to take action.ABOUT CASEY LEWISCasey Lewis is the host of The Pest Control Marketing Domination Podcast and the founder of Rhino Pest Control Marketing. Casey and the Rhino team help pest control, wildlife control, and lawn care companies improve their websites, digital marketing, lead generation, CRM systems, sales follow-up, and customer-acquisition strategies.CONTACT RHINO PEST CONTROL MARKETINGWebsite: https://rhinopestcontrolmarketing.comEmail: casey@rhinopros.comLearn more about SMART® Pest Control Websites, HighLevel CRM and automation, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, SEO, reputation management, and complete pest control marketing programs.If your company is generating leads but struggling to track, follow up with, and convert those opportunities, contact Rhino Pest Control Marketing to discuss building a more measurable customer-acquisition system. Call Casey at (925) 464-8383

Welcome solo and group practice owners! We are Liath Dalton and Evan Dumas, your co-hosts of Group Practice Tech. In our latest episode, we share a HIPAA-friendly way for therapy practice owners to get useful information about how their websites are performing, via Google Search Console. We discuss: What Google Search Console can tell you about your website The crucial differences between Google Analytics and Google Search Console Why Search Console is permissible for therapy practice websites Caveats and what to consider when configuring Search Console Listen here: https://personcenteredtech.com/group/podcast/ For more, visit our website. Resources for Listeners PCT Resources Podcast: Episode 625: Google Analytics for Therapy Practice Websites—The HIPAA Risks Explained — The companion episode explaining why Google Analytics is not appropriate for therapy-practice websites and how individually identifiable website activity can become protected health information. PCT CE course: Marketing in Mental Health: The Legal and Ethical Do's and Don'ts You Need to Know — This 3 legal-ethical CE credit hour on-demand training, presented by therapist and HIPAA attorney Eric Ström, JD, PhD, LMHC, unpacks the legal and ethical standards that apply to marketing in mental health practice, with particular attention to HIPAA marketing requirements, Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), authorizations/ROIs, advertising, referrals, reviews, and endorsements. PCT's Google Workspace Configuration Help Center — Includes step-by-step, video-based guidance for securing, configuring and leveraging Google Workspace appropriately for a therapy practice Group Practice Care Premium — Includes weekly live and recorded Group Practice Office Hours, including a monthly session with therapist and attorney Eric Ström, JD, PhD, LMHC; the Device Security Suite; the Remote Workspace Security Suite; and additional direct support and consultation resources. HIPAA Risk Analysis & Risk Mitigation Planning Service for Mental Health Practices — Care for your practice using our supportive, shame-free risk analysis and mitigation planning service. You'll have your Risk Analysis performed by a PCT consultant using a tool built specifically for mental health practices, along with a mitigation checklist to help you reduce identified risks. PCT's Comprehensive HIPAA Security Compliance Program bundles: For Group Practices For Solo Practitioners Comprehensive HIPAA Security Policies & Procedures Forms and logs for documenting the implementation and maintenance of Policies & Procedures Device & Workspace Security Suites Direct support and consultation from the PCT team and therapist-attorney Eric Ström, JD, PhD, LMHC HIPAA Risk Analysis & Risk Mitigation Planning service and tool HIPAA Security & Privacy Ethics training Resources Google Search Console — Google's free tool for understanding how a public website performs in Google Search, including the search terms that result in a website appearing, impressions, clicks, search position, indexing issues, and website-health information. Google Search Console Performance Report: Dimensions and Data Groupings — Google's explanation of the search-query, page, country, and device information available through Search Console. It also explains that some queries are omitted from reports to protect searcher privacy. Google Search Console: Verify Your Site Ownership — Google's instructions for verifying ownership through methods such as a DNS record or HTML file or tag. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are optional verification methods and do not need to be enabled to use Search Console. Google Search Console: Managing Owners, Users, and Permissions — Guidance for limiting Search Console access and periodically reviewing who has owner- or user-level access to a practice's website data. Google Search Console: Remove Information From Your Website From Google Search — Google's guidance for keeping sensitive, authenticated, or otherwise inappropriate pages out of search results and removing pages that have already been indexed.

Viele E-Commerce-Brands versuchen, First-Party-Daten mit Aktionen nach dem Prinzip „E-Mail gegen E-Book“ zu sammeln – doch Kundinnen und Kunden durchschauen diesen Tausch schnell. Datengetriebenes Marketing funktioniert erst dann nachhaltig, wenn die Datenpreisgabe einen direkten Nutzen stiftet und beispielsweise falsche Produktentscheidungen verhindert. Wer diesen Mehrwert klar vermittelt, erhält relevante Informationen, die weit über einfaches Tracking hinausgehen. Doch wie verwandeln wir freiwillig geteilte First-Party-Daten in echten Business Value für das gesamte Marketing? In dieser Episode spreche ich mit Mia-Malaika Lange, Head of Marketing bei BARFER'S, dem Spezialisten für rohe Tiernahrung. Mia kommt ursprünglich aus dem Brand Marketing und hat in verschiedenen Start-ups und Scale-ups früh gelernt, welchen Mehrwert Daten für die Markenführung bieten. Heute verantwortet sie bei BARFER'S die gesamte Bandbreite von Brand und Content bis hin zu Performance und Neukundengewinnung. Aus ihrer besonderen Perspektive zeigt sie, wie aus einer kreativen Brand-Spezialistin auch eine begeisterte Datennutzerin wurde. Wir sprechen darüber, -wie First-Party-Daten echten Mehrwert stiften, wenn die Preisgabe für Kundinnen und Kunden notwendig ist, um das passende Produkt zu finden und Fehlkäufe zu vermeiden. -warum verlässliche Kundendaten weit über reine Personalisierung hinausgehen und konkrete Upselling-Potenziale aufdecken. -weshalb eine präzise Segmentierung hilft, die Denkweise der Zielgruppe tiefgehend zu verstehen und neue Wachstumspotenziale zu erschließen. -wie der Wandel von der kreativen Brand-Welt zur datengetriebenen Marketing-Steuerung in der Praxis gelingt. Eine praxisnahe Folge darüber, wie BARFER'S First-Party-Daten nutzt, um Kunden besser zu verstehen, Marketing relevanter zu machen und echten Business Value zu erzielen. Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro und Vorstellung von Mia (03:00) - Hauptteil (19:40) - Abschluss und Tipps für Marketing-Teams Hier findest du Mia-Malaika Lange auf Linkedin: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mia-malaika-lange-8b93a0114/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mia-malaika-lange-8b93a0114/) Connecte dich mit mir auf LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlmatysik/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlmatysik/) Unsere Website findest du hier: [https://analyticsfreaks.com/](https://analyticsfreaks.com/) Ich freu mich immer über Anmerkungen, Fragen oder einfach deine Gedanken zum Podcast! :) Schreib mir gern eine Mail an marialena.matysik@analyticsfreaks.com oder auf Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlmatysik/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlmatysik/)

Earlier this year, we talked about how hard it is to measure whether your business is showing up in AI answers. That hasn't magically been solved, but the reporting is starting to improve. Google and Bing are adding new places to see AI visibility, and it's worth paying attention to. In this episode of Get Digital Marketing Results, we look at three places AI visibility is starting to show up in reporting: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Bing Webmaster Tools, and how to read them without overreacting. What's covered: ✅ Why AI visibility reports are signals, not scorecards  ✅ Google Analytics' new AI Assistant channel group, and what it misses ✅ Search Console's generative AI reports: are you being seen, not just clicked ✅ Bing Webmaster Tools' AI visibility insights (Intents, Topics, Compare) ✅ Why the real next step isn't chasing a magic AI ranking hack Three action steps for this week: Check Google Analytics for the AI Assistant channel group and see whether any recognizable AI traffic is appearing. Check Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to see whether the new AI visibility reports are available for your site yet. Choose one important service or topic and make sure that page clearly answers the questions your customers ask before they choose you. Show notes: www.delosinc.com/episode461 Subscribe for more actionable digital marketing tips for local and regional service businesses.

What happens when a 40-year-old legal data company decides its employees should start building their own software? This week on we talk with Best Lawyers CEO Phillip Greer and Senior Vice President of Research and Product Strategy Elizabeth Petit about an internal AI transformation that reaches far beyond adding ChatGPT to the corporate toolkit. Best Lawyers is experimenting with generative engine optimization, internal agentic systems, vibe coding, and an AI development environment where employees across research, finance, marketing, and other departments build applications around the company's data.Greer begins with a challenge facing every law firm marketing team: traditional search is changing. Google AI Overviews and answer engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini increasingly give users answers without sending them to the familiar list of blue links. Greer argues that SEO still matters, but law firms now need to think about Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, and the signals AI systems use when deciding which sources deserve trust. Structured data, schema markup, substantive content, and third-party validation all become part of the equation. For Best Lawyers, its long history of peer-reviewed rankings offers an interesting advantage. The company's data serves as an independent signal that AI systems might weigh differently from content produced by a firm's own marketing department.Petit explains how Best Lawyers is applying the same thinking to legal marketing through Smithy AI, a system designed to help attorneys and law firm marketers develop profile content without endlessly copying the same biography across websites. Smithy draws from Best Lawyers' structured information and existing lawyer content to produce a starting point that attorneys and marketers then edit. The larger goal is authenticity. As generative systems make producing generic legal content almost effortless, Greer argues that distinctive expertise, voice, and credible third-party signals become more valuable rather than less.The conversation then moves inside Best Lawyers, where Greer has taken a far more unusual approach to AI adoption. After building a secure data layer connecting systems including SQL databases, HubSpot, Gong, Google Analytics, and accounting data, he created an internal Best Lawyers App Store where employees use natural language to build applications against company data. What began with roughly 30 percent of the workforce vibe coding has grown to around 40 percent, according to Greer. Petit describes building research and KPI dashboards despite coming from a research rather than software engineering background. Projects that once required Excel formulas, Power BI reports, development queues, and weeks of waiting now sometimes move from a question at 9:30 to a working internal application by 10:30.That shift also changes the role of professional software engineers. Rather than spending their time building another reporting screen or internal form, Best Lawyers' engineers increasingly concentrate on architecture, data infrastructure, performance, governance, and the guardrails surrounding employee-built applications. Greer describes moving parts of the company's data architecture toward Elasticsearch and developing “Bestie,” an internal agentic AI team member. Yet speed introduces another problem. Petit and Greer describe an “AI vampire” effect, where instant feedback encourages people to keep working because the machine never gets tired, goes home, or stops responding. Human judgment includes knowing when the human needs to stop.Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠Substack⁠[Special Thanks to ⁠⁠Legal Technology Hub⁠⁠ for their sponsoring this episode.]Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: Jerry David DeCicca

Welcome solo and group practice owners! We are Liath Dalton and Evan Dumas, your co-hosts of Group Practice Tech. In our latest episode, we unpack the reasoning, step by step, behind PCT's position on Google Analytics for therapy practices. We discuss: Can website activity constitute Protected Health Information? HIPAA's definition of healthcare operations vs. HIPAA's definition of marketing Business Associates, and how there is no BAA available for Google Analytics The disclosures required for HIPAA authorization for marketing activity Cases where collecting PHI without a BAA has gone awry The risk context in an increasingly AI world The takeaway: is it permissible for therapy practices to use Google Analytics on their practice websites? Uniting as an industry to demand BAAs for Google Analytics Listen here: https://personcenteredtech.com/group/podcast/ For more, visit our website. PCT Resources Marketing in Mental Health: The Legal and Ethical Do's and Don'ts You Need to Know — This 3 legal-ethical CE credit hour on-demand training, presented by therapist and HIPAA attorney Eric Ström, JD PhD LMHC, unpacks the legal and ethical standards that apply to marketing in mental health practice, with particular attention to HIPAA marketing requirements, Business Associate Agreements (BAAs), authorizations/ROIs, advertising, referrals, reviews, and endorsements. Group Practice Care Premium weekly (live & recorded) direct support & consultation service, Group Practice Office Hours — including monthly session with therapist attorney Eric Ström, JD PhD LMHC Device Security Suite: assignable staff HIPAA Security Awareness: Bring Your Own Device training + access to Device Security Center with step-by-step device-specific tutorials & registration forms for securing and documenting all personally owned & practice-provided devices (for *all* team members at no per-person cost) Remote Workspace Security Suite: assignable staff HIPAA Security Awareness: Remote Workspaces training for all team members + access to Remote Workspace Center with step-by-step tutorials & registration forms for securing and documenting Remote Workspaces (for *all* team members at no per-person cost) + more HIPAA Risk Analysis & Risk Mitigation Planning service for mental health practices — care for your practice using our supportive, shame-free risk analysis and mitigation planning service. You'll have your Risk Analysis done within 2 hours, performed by a PCT consultant, using a tool built specifically for mental health practice, and a mitigation checklist to help you reduce your risks. PCT's Comprehensive HIPAA Security Compliance Program (discounted) bundles: For Group Practices For Solo Practitioners Comprehensive HIPAA Security Policies & Procedures Forms & Logs for documenting implementation and maintenance of Policies & Procedures in practice Device & Workspace Security Suites Direct Support & Consultation from PCT team + therapist attorney Eric Ström, JD PhD LMHC (live & recorded + searchable library) Includes the Risk Analysis & Risk Mitigation Planning service + tool HIPAA Security & Privacy Ethics training Resources HHS Office for Civil Rights: Use of Online Tracking Technologies by HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates — OCR's current guidance on how the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules apply to website and app tracking technologies. It addresses when website activity may constitute PHI, tracking on authenticated and unauthenticated webpages, Business Associate Agreements, marketing disclosures, HIPAA authorization, and risk analysis. Google: HIPAA and Google Analytics — Google's own guidance for HIPAA-regulated organizations. Google states that regulated entities must not expose Google Analytics to PHI and that Google does not offer Business Associate Agreements for Google Analytics. American Hospital Association v. Becerra — June 20, 2024 Court Decision — The federal court decision that partially vacated OCR's tracking-technology guidance regarding an IP address combined with a visit to an unauthenticated health-related webpage. The decision is important for understanding what may—and may not—constitute individually identifiable health information in the context of website tracking. HHS: Business Associates — HHS guidance on when a person or company becomes a HIPAA Business Associate, including when a vendor performs data analysis or other functions involving PHI on behalf of a covered entity. HHS: Marketing and the HIPAA Privacy Rule — Guidance on HIPAA's specific definition of marketing, the exceptions to that definition, and when written individual authorization is required for uses or disclosures of PHI for marketing. FTC: BetterHelp Health Data and Advertising Enforcement Action — The FTC's action concerning BetterHelp's disclosure of sensitive consumer health information to third parties for advertising purposes. Importantly, this was FTC consumer privacy enforcement, not HIPAA enforcement, but it provides a real-world example of the risks associated with health-related information flowing into advertising and tracking ecosystems.

Is your website actually helping your business, or is it quietly putting potential customers off? In this episode, Esther and Melanie look at some of the most common reasons websites fail to convert visitors into customers, from unclear messaging and confusing navigation to slow pages and calls to action that simply aren't obvious enough. They also talk about why it's so important to stop looking at your website as the business owner and start experiencing it from your customer's point of view.The ladies chat about exploring some of the free tools you can use, including Google Analytics, to understand how people are actually using your website, where they're dropping off and what might be getting in their way. They also discuss finding the right balance between useful information and overwhelming visitors, using visuals and written content to suit your audience, and making the next step clear. Your website isn't something you build once and forget about, so this episode will give you some practical ideas for what you can review and improve today.

This is Part 2 of a special two-part visibility series.Part 1 is over on Holly Marie Haynes' podcast, Crush the Rush, which is also linked below. That's where Sophia shares her framework for becoming known through visibility, authority, and hosted experiences.In Part 2, Holly flips the script and shares the strategy that's quietly grown her business for the last six years, without relying on social media.We dive into why people are searching instead of scrolling, how AI is changing the way experts get discovered, and why creating long-form, searchable content is becoming one of the smartest ways to build trust and attract clients.If you've been wondering how to get recommended by AI, create content that compounds over time, and build a business that doesn't depend on constantly posting to social media... this episode is for you.What we covered:Why people are searching, not scrolling, and what that means for your marketingHolly's long-form content flywheel for creating searchable authorityHow to optimize your podcast and blog so AI can recommend your workUsing Claude and Google Analytics to uncover your highest-performing contentThe intentional pop-up strategy generating 30 - 40 new leads every monthWhy micro partnerships outperform one-off collaborationsHow to position yourself as the obvious authority without relying on social mediaWhy your messaging matters even more in an AI-first worldResources:  Connect with Holly on Instagram:@thehollymariehaynesListen to part 1 of this series on Crush the Rush Podcast: http://www.hollymariehaynes.com/podcastThe Antisocial Shift: Holly's private podcast http://www.hollymariehaynes.com/a/2148281499/5TN9LZUCAnti Social School: Holly's signature 6-week program http://www.hollymariehaynes.com/a/2148281498/5TN9LZUC 

8/5/26Episode SummaryTwo things about AI are true at the same time: it's genuinely powerful when wired into your systems, and getting it there is a lot harder than the demos suggest. In this episode Scott gives you both halves. He walks through Client OS, the tool JadePuma built and runs on client brands — a connector that sits between Shopify, Klaviyo, Notion, GitHub, and Google Drive, holds a detailed brand definition, and routes each task to whichever AI model fits it best by API.The demo covers what's actually running today: automated 404 reports with confidence-scored redirect recommendations, scheduled ADA compliance checks that hand errors to a human expert, brand-compliance scoring on existing pages and emails, sentiment analysis on customer reviews to keep brand language in sync with how customers actually talk, and landing pages built from the theme's existing sections. Coming next: ad platforms, social, Google Analytics, and a connection to the marketing calendar — with the goal of one coordinated campaign across every channel, assembled by AI with human checkpoints built into every skill.Then the honest part. Client OS has taken more than a full-time month from JadePuma's strongest developer and it isn't finished. The connections break, APIs change, and chaining tasks together multiplies the failure points. That math works for an agency amortizing the build across a roster of brands; it usually doesn't work for a single store. Scott's takeaway for store owners: don't build this yourself — ask your agency what they're building, how they're using AI on your brand, and what they'd never let it touch.Show LinksLeave a review - https://ratethispodcast.com/solutionsVideo & Transcripthttps://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-191-what-ai-can-do-for-your-shopify-brand-today

¿Sabías que una gran parte de la comunicación digital ocurre fuera de las redes sociales públicas? En este episodio de PodCast DIRCOM, el Dr. Juan José Larrea explica qué es el Dark Social, por qué representa uno de los grandes desafíos para la comunicación estratégica, las relaciones públicas, la comunicación organizacional y el marketing, y cómo influye en la construcción de la reputación de personas y organizaciones. Cuando compartimos un artículo por WhatsApp, enviamos un enlace por correo electrónico o recomendamos un contenido por mensaje privado, generamos conversaciones que rara vez aparecen en Google Analytics o en las métricas tradicionales, aunque muchas veces son esos intercambios los que generan mayor confianza e influencia. Vas a descubrir qué es el Dark Social, dónde ocurre y por qué es difícil de medir, cómo impacta en la reputación organizacional, por qué las métricas tradicionales ya no alcanzan para comprender la comunicación digital, y qué desafíos plantea para el director de comunicación. Este contenido se complementa con Cuadernos de Comunicación Estratégica, volumen 2: Del mensaje al algoritmo, donde se profundiza el concepto del DirCom como curador algorítmico y la evolución de la comunicación en ecosistemas digitales mediados por algoritmos. PodCast DIRCOM es un espacio dedicado a la comunicación estratégica, la comunicación organizacional, las relaciones públicas, el marketing y la inteligencia artificial aplicada a la gestión de organizaciones.

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Noom's onboarding funnel runs 120 to 140 screens. Some 3-screen funnels convert above 10%. "The length does not matter. Bigger is not always better," as Jacob Rushfinn put it. Part 2 of the FunnelFox panel gets tactical on how web-to-app funnels actually get built.Part 2 of the FunnelFox webinar panel, with Rocketship HQ as partner. Shamanth Rao moderates Jacob Rushfinn (CEO, Botsi), Andrey Shakhtin (CEO, FunnelFox), Patrick Stuart-Constant (CEO, Sociaaal), Mike Gadd (VP Customer Success, Singular), and Elise Zareie (Head of Paid Social, Lingokids). If Part 1 was about the shift, Part 2 is about the mechanics.Elise Zareie on why longer funnels convert better in weight-loss and health but fail on kids apps, where a parent just wants to hand the phone over. Andrey Shakhtin on Noom's 120 to 140 screen funnel as the industry ceiling. Mike Gadd on why your MMP, your ad network, and Google Analytics will never agree, and why that is fine once you pick a source of truth. Jacob Rushfinn on cohort-quality guardrails: ROAS alone gets gamed, so you need activation rate, D1, D7, and trial-cancel rates on the same chart. Patrick Stuart-Constant on a Liquid Death-inspired ad that mocked confused users and ran profitably for months.Video Chapters:00:00 Recap of Part 100:45 Jacob: start with 10 to 15 screens, not 10002:00 Elise on why funnel length is vertical-specific04:00 Andrey on Noom's 120 to 140 screen funnel07:00 Platform hell: MMP, ad networks, and Google Analytics09:30 Mike on picking a source of truth, using SKAN as a check11:00 Andrey on optimizing for ROAS over conversion rate11:45 Down-funnel accountability for UA teams12:30 Jacob on cohort-quality guardrails (activation, D1, D7)14:20 Mike on tying campaign data to attribution and events15:30 Elise on creative-quality health checks17:00 Quick-fire: paywall and pricing wins18:30 Quick-fire: standout creative wins20:00 Closing advice from all 5 panelistsTopics covered:- Funnel length: when longer converts better, when it kills conversion- Platform hell: MMP as source of truth, SKAN as check- ROAS over conversion rate as the campaign KPI- Down-funnel accountability and cohort quality guardrails- Creative wins from social listening and negative comments- Paywall wins: intro offers, multi-page paywalls, paid trialsLearn more:- Original webinar recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYPDZlwLhNA- FunnelFox (webinar host): https://funnelfox.com- Rocketship HQ (partner): https://rocketshiphq.com- Jacob Rushfinn (Botsi): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-rushfinn/- Andrey Shakhtin (FunnelFox): https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-shakhtin/- Patrick Stuart-Constant (Sociaaal): https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-stuart-constant/- Mike Gadd (Singular): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-gadd-27a16427/- Elise Zareie (Lingokids): https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-zareie/- Shamanth Rao (Rocketship HQ): https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamanthrao/

In this episode, I chat about the real problem with your sales page and why those minor tweaks might not be the solution. Following on from last week's deep dive into sales pages, today I focus on understanding conversion rates and why traffic is often the overlooked culprit when sales pages don't seem to perform. I share industry benchmarks, revealing that a 6.6% conversion rate is actually solid, and why obsessing over button colours isn't the fix you might hope for. Instead, it's all about driving more traffic to your page, using strategies like organic social, email lists, SEO, and collaborations. I also stress the importance of data, recommending tools like Google Analytics to help you avoid guessing and start knowing. Tune in to gain practical insights and improve your sales page's effectiveness! Connect with Online Social Butterfly

AI ready website pet business structure is what gets you recommended by ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of skipped, and most pet sitting and dog walking websites are not built for it yet. In this episode of Bella In Your Business, pet sitters, dog walkers, and pet care business owners will learn exactly what AI checks on a website before it recommends a business, and what to fix first. Web developer Erika Godwin of Barketing Solutions joins Bella Vasta to explain why keyword-stuffed pages don't work anymore, what trust signals AI is actually looking for, how schema markup works behind the scenes, and why raw server data matters more than Google Analytics for tracking AI traffic. This is Episode 473 of Bella In Your Business. IN THIS EPISODE: • How AI decides if your AI ready website pet business setup earns a recommendation, and what it skips over • What schema markup actually does, and why your site needs it • Why a generic services page keeps you invisible to ChatGPT and Perplexity • How raw server data shows AI traffic Google Analytics cannot track • What to do first if your website hasn't been touched in over a year Erika also breaks down why an AI-built website alone is not enough. A developer still handles the schema markup, DNS setup, and page structure an AI tool will never get right on its own, the exact parts AI is reading closely before it decides whether to trust your pet business. She walks through why a bio page for the owner matters, why one general services page is not enough anymore, and why AI cross-checks your directory listings and news mentions against what your website says before it trusts any of it. Bella and Erika also cover directories, citations, and how a hub and spoke content strategy helped one client's Bloomfield Hills dog walking page jump in rankings across search engines within one month of launch. Bella shares her own shift away from social media as the main marketing focus toward content, schema, and signals, and explains why she believes pet business owners who build this now will be trusted ahead of anyone who tries to catch up later. If you want to know exactly where your own site stands, Bella runs a free AI ready website pet business audit at jumpconsulting.net/audit that checks your schema, your AI citations, and what ChatGPT and Perplexity currently say about your business. TIMESTAMPS: [0:00] Cold open, pet parents are asking ChatGPT, not Googling [0:45] Welcome back Erika Godwin, web developer and referral partner [2:00] How search behavior for pet businesses has changed in 2026 [4:00] Why an AI-built website still isn't enough on its own [6:30] What AI actually reads, trust signals and schema explained [10:00] The raw server data most pet business sites are missing [13:00] From static brochure to trust engine, how site design has shifted [17:00] Building real service pages, location pages, and FAQs [19:30] Hub and spoke content, the Becky Lea Bloomfield Hills case study [22:00] Predictions, what happens to pet businesses that wait [26:00] Citations, directories, and getting featured in the news [29:30] How to check your own website's AI health today [32:00] Closing thoughts and where to find Erika RESOURCES: Get your own AI ready website pet business audit: https://jumpconsulting.net/audit Barketing Solutions: https://barketing.co Jump Mastermind: https://jumpconsulting.net/mastermind Book 20 minutes with Bella: https://jumpconsulting.net/20 AI For The Busy Human: https://bellavasta.com/busyhuman The AI booking story, Episode 465: https://jumpconsulting.net/episode-465 CONNECT: Website: https://jumpconsulting.net Instagram and Facebook, search Bella Vasta: https://bellavasta.com #AIReadyWebsite #PetBusiness #BellaInYourBusiness

Want to get better sales leads? It starts with tracking what works. David: Hi, and welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, co-host Jay McFarland and I will discuss the topic of where are your best leads coming from? Welcome back, Jay. Jay: Thank you. And I’m just going to answer the question. I don’t know. (laughing) I’m just… David: Short podcast. Thanks for listening. Jay: Yeah, I’m just going to say it straight up. I mean, I do have some systems. We do try and use Google Analytics and things like that, and that helps a little bit. But I’ve never done a deep dive yet on this is the source, this is the well or the font of where my best leads have come from. So I’m looking forward to this discussion. David: This is really a good one to look at and to dive into a bit, because I’ve always maintained that if you don’t know where your best leads are coming from, then you don’t know where to go to get more of them, and when you are able to identify it, everything else gets a whole lot easier because now you can go fishing in the same ponds, rather than just trying to put stuff out to anyone and everyone, which is very expensive to do. You can really tune in and focus in on what people are doing, where they’re coming from, how they’re hearing about you so that you can go find more of them. In addition to… well, a number of the businesses that I’ve been involved in over the years, one of them was a retail mail order catalog business that I owned. And in a business like that, it’s absolutely critical to know where your best leads are coming from. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: We would run magazine ads and we would get people out of different magazines. We had ads running on television that were designed to get leads for our catalog business. And every single one of the ads we ran had some sort of mechanism to let us know where they were coming from. If it was calling an 800 number, we had one primary 800 number, but we would give them an extension to ask for. So we’d say, call this 800 number extension 214. Right? And 214 meant that it was coming from this particular TV station or whatever. If they were seeing something online, there would be specific links that they would click through that would tell us where it was coming from. If it was a magazine ad, it was a similar kind of thing on the back of the magazine, it would say, call this number, dial this extension, or go to this web address, and there would be a slash with a suffix on the url.. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: And that would tell us where it came from. And when people would call in, one of the first things that our people were required to ask them is, “where did you hear about us?” And there was a box there that they would fill out. Where did you hear about us? Oh, I saw your ad on such and such a magazine, or, I saw your ad on such and such a TV station. And so we would have the data that the computer said based on what they came in and said, and then we would also have the data corresponding with whatever the person said. So I was pretty pathological about it, and to this day I’m still very pathological about determining where leads come from. Even now when, you know, at the end of this podcast, when you say, how do people find out more? And I give out a link that link tracks back to the podcast, it lets me know that the people who register on that link, Came from the podcast. And if they’re coming from some other ad, then it’s going to have a different code and that sort of thing. So it’s not that hard to do when you discipline yourself to do it. And most people don’t do that until and unless they realize how much it is actually worth to you when you do that right. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And in today’s world, honestly, there is no excuse. It is so easy. There is so much data out there. If you want to target a specific group, you can target that group. And that’s kind of the process, right? You’re going to send out a link for this podcast, you’ll know who you get back. You’ll know age groups and those types of things. And then you’ll be like, well, let’s adjust it this way, or let’s adjust it that way. I mean, never in our history has there been such an easy way to say, I want this age group who’s interested in this type of thing. Then you can target that group. And then based upon that new batch of information you can target in even more. I know we all kind of complain that we’re being tracked everywhere we go, but at the same time, we’re all asking for it. We’re subscribing to newsletters, we’re hitting the like button. We’re feeding all of that information. So it becomes this circle, right? And I think it’s incredible personally. And if I am going to get sent an ad, I want it to apply to me. When I get something that I’m like, there’s no way that this is something that I would ever consider. I almost get angry. Like, come on, get your algorithms together here. David: Yeah. And what you’re talking about is probably a level or two above what I’m even talking about. Jay: Mm-hmm. David: I’m talking about simple things that most small or medium sized businesses can integrate into their own business, just so they have an idea of where the people who are paying them money are largely coming from. And I don’t mean every site they’ve visited over the past 20 years. Jay: Sure, sure. David: I mean, where did they hear from us most recently? Did they hear about us from the podcast? Did they hear about us from an email broadcast that went out through an email broadcast platform? If so, which one? If there is some sort of ad, which ad did they click on? There are some ads that we run on some websites where there’s an ad at the top of the page, there’s an ad on the side of the page. The ads say different things. We track those separately so we know which message and which ad. Does the top position get more of a response? Does the side position get more of a response? Because that tells us where to focus our attention on getting more people. And a lot of it, in the early stages especially, is just about seeing where the people are basically coming from. But then when you see who’s actually buying, that narrows it down even more. Jay: Yes. David: Because you may be getting more leads from one source than another, but you find out that the leads from that source aren’t converting. Jay: Yes. David: At which point you can stop advertising there and put your money behind the ads that work. Jay: Yeah, absolutely. And when I mentioned how easy it is today, I even mean for small businesses. I mean, we started a small business and I don’t know anything about pay per click or, you know, anything like that. But I looked on Fiverr, you know, the website, Fiverr and Upwork, and I found somebody who said, I’ll do this for you for a month for 30 bucks and I’m like, it’s 30 bucks. I’ll try it out. We did the $30 and the results were dramatic. So we’re like, wait a minute, if we do 30, let’s do 60. Now we’ve got this guy we spend about maybe 250 a month with him, and we get constant leads that convert from him. I don’t know how he’s doing it and I don’t need to know how he’s doing it. Right? Now I can spend my time focusing on those leads. The other thing he’ll do is come back and say, okay, you’ve got a lot of people who are landing on your checkout page, but they’re not converting. So we’re like, “oh, wait a minute, what’s going on?” Is it the language we’re using? Is it the pictures we’re using? Are we not conveying the message? These things can be done for relatively cheap nowadays, and so even if you’re at the smallest point, I would definitely try some of those things. David: Yeah, it’s simple enough to be able to at least get an idea of where most people are coming from to be able to go back and get more. And obviously, we’re talking quite a bit about online, but there are a lot of offline sources. If you do networking, you go to networking functions, you may find that one networking function does much better than another. You may find that you go to one particular networking function and you don’t get any leads from it. You go back again and again and again, and you’re not getting leads. Everybody’s just schmoozing. That happens a lot in business. Jay: Yeah. David: Particularly in B2B. Well, B2C as well. So in those situations you can make determinations if you’re keeping track of it. But very many small businesses in particular will just go out, go to some sort of networking function or go to something that’s supposed to generate business, and they use that as an excuse like, “I’m doing something.” But if you go out to something like that and you’re not going out there with the idea of coming back with leads that you can follow up on, it’s really just a waste of time. So there’s a focus aspect to this. There’s an online versus offline aspect to this. But ultimately what it boils down to is the subject of this podcast. Where are your best leads coming from? Jay: Yeah. David: Where can I go to find more? Jay: Yeah, and I see this a lot and I’ve been a victim of it. Movement for the sake of movement. You know? I’m doing something, I’m going to these networking events. Going to these shows. Placing these ads. So when is it going to start working? Movement for the sake of movement is of no value. Right? There has to be some intent. It has to be trackable. It has to be adjustable. And I think it’s so easy to fall into that trap of “I’m doing something!” And so, where’s the result? David: Yeah, it reminds me of that Zig Ziglar quote, “Don’t look for your ship to come in if you haven’t sent one out.” Jay: Yeah. David: And very often we’re trying to do things that are generating results. We talked about goal setting in a previous podcast, and a lot of times we’re so focused on the goal, “I need to generate X dollars per month or X dollars per year.” And what am I going to do to do that? And we just run around in a lot of different directions trying to generate that amount of money. Well, what we need to be doing is saying, “okay, what is going to get me to that?” In other words, how many leads do I need to generate in a month in order to get to my number? If I know how many leads I need to generate in a month, because a certain percentage of them will convert and a certain percentage won’t convert. If I know how many people I need to initiate contact with on any given month, then we can track those metrics and say, “okay, well today is the 20th of the month” or whatever the date is. How many people have I initiated contact with so far this month? And if it’s less than the number that you know, you need to reach to hit your numbers, then okay, I need to initiate contact with this many more people. Because when you focus on those lead metrics, the things that you can actually control as opposed to the lag metrics, like how much actually came in for the month. You can focus on the lead measures and then the lag measures will follow. Jay: Yeah. And again, the focus of this podcast, the high value leads. So if you’re just not fishing in any pond, but you’re fishing in that pond where you know you’ve gotten some good leads before, maybe you won’t get as many leads, but who cares, right? Because you’ve got quality customers who are going to come back to you. And we’d all rather have that than, you know, a hundred little minnows on our line, right? David: Yeah, and it absolutely ties into the topic of what we’re talking about. Because when you find those really popular or those really productive fishing holes, then you say, okay, well if I go here, primarily, I can get fewer leads and know I’m still going to hit my numbers, so why would I want to waste time bringing in more leads over here if it’s not going to produce at the same level? Jay: Yeah, maybe ’cause some people like movement. It feels like you’re busy, so that’s a good thing. It’s not always a good thing, right? David: No. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Jay: Yeah. Well, how do people find out more? David? David: Well, you can go to TopSecrets.com/call. Schedule a call with myself or my team. We’d love to have a conversation with you. If you’re looking to attract more high quality leads in your business. If you’d like to start focusing on the high value, high dollar leads that can do better things for your business, it’s probably worth a call. TopSecrets.com/call. Jay: All right, as always, great conversation. Can’t wait till we talk again. David: Thanks a lot, Jay. Are You Ready to Determine Where Your Best Leads are Coming From? If so, check out the five primary ways we help promotional product distributors grow: Just Getting Started? If you (or someone on your team) is just getting started in promotional products sales, learn how we can help. Need Clients Now? If you're already grounded in the essentials of promotional product sales and just need to get clients now, click here. Want EQP/Preferential Pricing? Are you an established industry veteran doing a significant volume of sales? If so, click here to get End Quantity Pricing from many of the top supplier lines in the promo industry. Time to Hire Salespeople? If you want to hire others to grow your promo sales, click here. Ready to Dominate Your Market? If you're serious about creating top-of-mind-awareness with the very best prospects in your market, schedule a one-on-one Strategy Session here.

We get brutally honest about why traffic is a vanity metric and how SEO only earns budget when it ties to real business outcomes. We lay out the data and reporting foundation you need to walk into the C-suite with confidence, even when attribution is messy and timelines are long. • separating vanity metrics from revenue-driving KPIs • building the business case for SEO with CFO-ready numbers • fixing data quality in Google Analytics and conversion tracking • enforcing CRM hygiene so leads can become pipeline and revenue • choosing KPIs for lead generation vs ecommerce models • setting expectations with leading vs lagging indicators for SEO • funding the messy middle and mapping the full buying funnel • aligning sales and marketing to improve lead quality and content Guest Contact Information: Website: unframeddigital.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/magsswiftMore from EWR and Matthew:Leave us a review wherever you listen: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon PodcastFree SEO Consultation: www.ewrdigital.com/discovery-callWith over 5 million downloads, The Best SEO Podcast has been the go-to show for digital marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs wanting real-world strategies to grow online. Now, host Matthew Bertram — creator of the LLM Visibility Stack™, and Lead Strategist at EWR Digital — takes the conversation beyond traditional SEO into the AI era of discoverability. Each week, Matthew dives into the tactics, frameworks, and insights that matter most in a world where search engines, large language models, and answer engines are reshaping how people find, trust, and choose businesses. From SEO and AI-driven marketing to executive-level growth strategy, you'll hear expert interviews, deep-dive discussions, and actionable strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve. Find more episodes here: youtube.com/@BestSEOPodcastbestseopodcast.combestseopodcast.buzzsprout.comFollow us on:Facebook: @bestseopodcastInstagram: @thebestseopodcastTiktok: @bestseopodcastLinkedIn: @bestseopodcastConnect With Matthew Bertram: Website: www.matthewbertram.comInstagram: @matt_bertram_liveLinkedIn: @mattbertramlivePowered by: ewrdigital.comSupport the show

AI-driven traffic from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini is invisible to most marketers. Learn how to track it in GA4 with custom reports, regex filters, and dedicated channel groups before you miss critical insights. Profit Acuity City: Pittsburgh Address: 239 Fourth Ave, Ste 1401 #8511 Website: https://app.profitacuity.com Phone: +1 877 624 1229

Unity just made direct-to-consumer payments free for every developer on its IAP SDK. No take rate, no fees. So what's the catch?I sat down with Steve Ganem, VP of Product at Unity, to unpack the real strategy — and it turns out the story isn't about payments at all. It's about data.Steve brings a rare vantage point: 19 years in games (EA, Activision's Tony Hawk franchise, 11 years running his own studio through the free-to-play transition), then a decade at Google Analytics. In this conversation we cover why "free" is a rational move rather than a giveaway, why going D2C without Unity could actually cost developers ad signal, the conversion tradeoff most coverage skips (web checkout is harder than Face ID), and how this connects to Unity's advertising business and its AI platform, Vector.Whether you're a developer weighing D2C, a PM modeling the conversion math, or an investor watching Unity's turnaround, this one goes well past the announcement.

Jeremy Packee and Emily Anderson break down June's biggest paid media updates, including Google's AI Max delay, new Smart Bidding controls, OpenAI's expanding advertising platform, and Meta's latest AI creative tools. They also discuss Reddit's growing role in product discovery, new Google Analytics reporting features, and what these changes mean for advertisers navigating an increasingly AI-driven landscape. As always, the conversation focuses on separating platform hype from practical strategies marketers can apply today. Episode Highlights Biggest Relief Google delayed the automatic migration from Dynamic Search Ads to AI Max until February 2027, giving advertisers more time to test AI Max before the transition becomes mandatory. Most Significant Change Google's Smart Bidding updates will optimize more aggressively toward target CPA and target ROAS goals for budget-limited campaigns, potentially changing how advertisers approach bidding strategies. Platform to Watch OpenAI continues expanding its Ads Manager with product feed campaigns, signaling that ChatGPT is becoming an increasingly viable advertising channel for e-commerce brands. Creative Reality Check Meta introduced new AI-powered creative tools and brand memory features, but advertisers should continue reviewing AI-generated assets carefully before publishing. Reporting Win Google Analytics introduced cleaner source grouping and additional reporting integrations, making attribution and campaign analysis easier to manage. Other Platform Updates • AI Max remains the default option for new Google Search campaigns • Google expanded Smart Bidding Exploration and introduced Promotion Mode for seasonal campaigns • Reddit launched new community-powered shopping ads and AI-assisted ad creation tools • Google added attributed brand searches and Shorts engagement metrics for YouTube campaigns • Microsoft introduced Product Explorer within Merchant Center • Google is testing a "Strongest Match" label on search ads • Google Analytics now integrates directly with Google Business Profiles • Amazon introduced Sponsored Brands Gallery for richer branded shopping experiences • Triple Whale added AI visibility reporting for e-commerce brands Final Take June's updates reinforce a trend we've been watching all year: AI is becoming the default across nearly every advertising platform. While these new tools offer more automation and efficiency, advertisers still need strong measurement, clean data, and human oversight to ensure AI is driving real business results—not just platform metrics. Follow The Click Brief for fast, no-fluff performance marketing updates. Visit The Click Brief blog for more in-depth analysis and updates from June

https://youtu.be/1Fjm6P43i8k Anastasia Golovko, President and CEO of Tino Digital Agency, is helping businesses build user experiences that work by creating intuitive digital experiences that simplify complex systems and improve the way people interact with technology. By combining strategy, design, and engineering, she helps startups, enterprises, and organizations in highly regulated industries deliver products that people actually enjoy using.  In this conversation, Anastasia introduces the Agency Growth Framework: Build Relationships, Find What’s Broken, Help Your Team Flourish, Nurture Creativity, and Offer Your Customers Relief. She explains why trust is the foundation of lasting client relationships, how identifying user friction creates immediate value, and why empowering creative teams leads to better products and stronger business outcomes. Anastasia also shares how eliminating user friction through live UX audits accelerates business growth, improves customer satisfaction and conversion rates, and demonstrates the importance of user experience in government digital services. — Build User Experiences That Work with Anastasia Golovko  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Anastasia Golovko, President and CEO of Tino Digital Agency, a team of experts specializing in helping companies and startups achieve their goals by providing comprehensive solutions in strategy, design, and engineering. Anastasia, welcome to the show.  Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.  Well, it’s very interesting that you combine strategy, design, and engineering. I have not seen this combination before. So where does this come from?  The foundation for all of this is user experience and the connection to the user that we’re trying to build for many companies. As soon as you start thinking about the user and their experience, they get to enjoy the product more and more, and they get to find the buttons that the clients want them to find in their product.  Okay. So basically, you have to have a strategy first, then you come up with a design, and then you engineer it. Yeah.  The design supports the strategy, and then you have a good product.  Exactly. We also work with startups, and we work with established companies. With startups, we encourage them to reach the market as fast as possible so that they get to prove their hypothesis. Because up until it reaches the customer and starts getting feedback from the customer, it’s all in numbers. It’s all in the… But it’s still a hypothesis of how it will perform. The sooner we’re there—with as few features as possible, while still being valuable—the better. Some clients call it an MVP, and some clients call it a Minimum Lovable Product. Then they can start getting feedback, and those relationships start building between the final user and the product. Yeah, that makes sense. And Lovable is actually also a vibe coding platform, isn’t it? Yeah.  Yeah. That’s right. Maybe that’s where it comes from—that you can get a lovable MVP very fast with vibe coding. So let me start by asking you, what is your personal “why,” and how are you manifesting it in Tino Digital Agency? I recalled such a wonderful story that I want to share with everyone from my childhood. I was born when it was still the USSR. I’m originally from Ukraine, and when the USSR fell apart, everyone was poor. When I was 13 years old, I remember talking to my friends and saying, “When I grow up, I’m going to drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee.” They completely mocked me. They said, “That’s impossible.” I remember that question to this day: “Do you even know how much money that costs? Have you ever seen that much money?” My brain just flipped a switch. I thought to myself, “That’s just money.  It can be made.” Money is there to be made. That mindset, I think, separated me from my childhood friends by giving myself permission to dream big without limitations. Just like somebody dreamed about sending a car to space, they gave themselves permission to think that up. So, ironically, I ended up owning a Jeep Grand Cherokee. We had it for 10 years. A while ago, there were floods in Houston, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee has very good ground clearance, so we were able to get through them.  After I got that car, I remembered this conversation from back in the day. So we started our agency with zero capital and zero connections. Without growing into connections here, that created a set of blocks. So we were attracted to subcontracting for top agencies in LA, Silicon Valley, and Switzerland. Eventually, we landed a massive contract with one of the top Swiss banks, modernizing their digital products as well as rethinking their strategy toward the younger generation. That was my wake-up call. I realized, “Wow, we’re incredibly good at this.” The Swiss bank had such high standards that we had to fit within their branding. They couldn’t rebrand just because we thought something up.  We had to fit into their tight branding and produce a good product within those guidelines. It made me look around the States and realize that—I had already lived here for more than half of my life—we have so much anxiety around finance and healthcare. After that moment, I decided to move our company in those two directions. Maybe our team can actually reduce that anxiety and make a real dent in the well-being of the nation—the well-being of the people who interact with products that are convenient, don't add to the problem, but instead resolve it and make it intuitive.Share on X  Yeah. That’s great. I never heard the combination of finance and healthcare phrased this way—that both of them are a big source of anxiety for people. And if you can fix their problems in these areas, then you can actually reduce their anxiety and increase their well-being. That makes perfect sense. I also love the example of, you know, “what the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve” kind of thing. Visualization is very powerful. It worked in my life as well.  So this is a podcast about frameworks. It’s called Management Blueprint, and what I’m looking for is some kind of, it could be a mental model. It could be some kind of process. Something that simplifies the world and allows you to see things more clearly, make better decisions, or create a bigger impact. So what comes to mind?  I love this question. I love this question, and I love viewing the answers from your other guests to this question, and how everybody approaches it differently. For different people, it is their own world that they built. So, in our world, first, we build relationships. No cold calls. We build these relationships with our clients and with our team.Share on X The digital agency market is oversaturated with low-quality providers who sign the client, then disappear for four weeks, come back, and drop a product that doesn’t relate at all.  Then they come to us. Some of our clients come to us and say that the agency disappears. It’s really important for us to stay in contact. So our first step is building these in-person relationships. That also means visiting conferences, visiting events, showing up wherever it’s needed—before, during, and after the process as well. So I think what we do by building relationships is that we sell trust, not just the code or the design.  Of course. Yeah, that makes sense. In this AI age, when there’s so much noise. When you’re online, you don’t know what’s real and what’s not. But when you meet someone in person at a conference, then you know they’re a flesh-and-blood human being. Yes. And also, describing to a person that user experience is important, that I can do it, and that I do it really well doesn’t really give them value. Rather than just telling them, I can look through the site face to face and find certain things that are broken right there on the spot. It’s not a simple presentation. It’s already proof of my value. So that helps. So that’s first. The next one is the human element. The human element of the team. Our designers and developers are not machines. Each of those teams needs its own approach. They need their own conditions to flourish.  They need their own conditions to be successful. If we keep a creative person locked into FinTech, compliance-driven products for too long, they’ll burn out. It’s two-faced. We try to avoid that as much as possible, but we consider what they’re telling us. We listen. If a designer tells us something isn’t working out, or they’ve hit a creative block, we try to rotate them, give them different exercises, give them a break, and so on. So, listening and rotating. Rotating between different types of projects. But whenever the FinTech project comes back, we need the FinTech team to work on it.  So at this point… Sorry, I have a clarifying question. The previous point was helping your team flourish, basically. By rotating them, is it about helping them gain more experience, not burn out, or create more ideas? So what’s behind this idea of rotating?  It’s the creativity that for it to exist, it needs different challenges. Let’s imagine a FinTech dashboard. It’s tables. It’s tabular. It’s a similar task that they’re solving. They’re solving how to convert tabular formats into digestible formats. Converting tabular formats into something that the user can comprehend quickly. With a food delivery app or a calorie-tracking app, they get to add more colors, use different styles, and solve a different problem. So I think that when they get to solve different problems, they keep their full creative potential.Share on X  Yeah. You’re not allowing them to fall into a rut and just go on autopilot, basically.  Not everyone. Not everyone. We mainly listen. We listen, and whenever we hear the signs that a person is asking for something more creative, we do that. Happy humans build great products.  Yeah, that’s true.  And we’re a service company. Our team is our main advantage.  All right. So you build relationships, you find what’s broken, you help your team flourish, you stimulate or nurture their creativity. So what’s next? What’s the last piece of the puzzle? Is there another piece of the puzzle, or is that it?  Yes. The next step is to provide relief. We could be building everything for everyone, but over time—my company is 10 years old now—and over those 10 years, we became really good at turning something that is complex or heavily regulated. For some reason, clients know that it has to be intuitive. To be competitive, it has to be convenient. Sometimes it’s in industries where they have a lot of competition. Whoever is more convenient for the client will move forward. Not for the client—I mean, for the final user.  Apple philosophy. Yeah. So, to be a relief, to be their right hand, we need to be looking for companies that are undergoing some changes. Maybe it’s a digital transformation. Once, we completed a merger for companies that were providing hosting and security. They merged into one. They needed all of that infrastructure to be brought together. Their internal teams were too busy doing their internal tasks. So for that overhaul, that digital transformation, we come in as a relief squad with the skill to make it intuitive. So we can call it becoming a reliefShare on X Offering relief.  Yeah.  Yeah. It’s a mindset, really. It’s thinking about, “How can I make these people’s lives easier? can I help them do their work better, with less mental strain and less cognitive load?”  And for them, in the end, it’s for their users as well. I often say that we build experiences that work. Every business owner comes up with an idea of what they want their end users to do, but they don’t always find it. They don’t always find it because, somewhere along that chain, there was a UX designer, a UI designer, and a developer who all worked together on that user experience, and something didn’t go right. Typically, with a little bit of data, or just complaints, or just suggestions, the owners and the product owners know what’s not working.  They can see that some registrations aren’t happening, some sign-ups aren’t happening, some applications aren’t being filled out completely, and so on. Some tickets aren’t getting booked. Marketing worked fine, but somehow the carts are being abandoned. Why is my cart being abandoned at the moment when we spend so much money on marketing? We don’t do marketing. We know what marketing is trying to do, but what happened then? So you’re treating the client’s effort as a complex system, and you want to optimize that system so that everything serves the same purpose, it’s simple, and you have a team that keeps improving it.  Yeah. If they have some kind of Google Analytics or Hotjar analytics, it’s always easier to put a number to the words. We can say that this user experience is broken because the consumer is overloaded at the cart. Maybe you’ve seen those shopping carts where there’s a timer, additional upsells, and also some additional decisions they have to make, whether they want insurance or not, and so on. It becomes very overloaded. Sometimes people just close it. It’s too much. So we look at the cart and see how it can be improved to be more pleasant.  Yeah. That’s great. That’s fantastic. So, switching gears here a little bit, what drives growth in your particular business?  That’s what I actually started to talk about. I now realize that this friction audit, UX review, UX evaluation—that gives immediate value. It is the foundation of our business growth.Share on X The thing is how it’s delivered. If I present it in a room and talk about user experience, how it’s important, and how to lay things out, the perceived value is hard to communicate. It can sound abstract unless we’re talking about something specific. Our real growth driver is a live, maybe casual, friction audit.  For example, at a recent conference, a business owner asked me to look at her website. Right there on my phone, I pointed out a few specific UX blocks that were delaying the purchase. I was like, “Look here. Every second user is delayed. They’re drifting away. They have to make two extra clicks to get where they need to be. This click is not necessary. You can remove it. You can place it here instead.” Control dropped. She said, “That’s exactly what I needed.” When business owners see exactly where they’re losing money in real time, that value is undeniable. So you go to these conferences, then you talk to people, they show you their website, and you point out a couple of friction points. Immediately they see, “Wow, you guys could fix that.” That already is value. Then, probably, if you found two friction points in two minutes, if you dive deeper, then you’ll find a lot more, right?  Yeah. That is the ultimate path, which we don’t always take. We can only go to so many conferences and have so many of these conversations. But the opportunity to have that conversation is where the most growth comes from. That’s the optimal way to grow—by showing, not just telling. We definitely have a good presence on the platform for designers called Dribbble. If you search on Dribbble for finance or FinTech products, you'll find me. That already speaks to our experience.Share on X  But this kind of conversion of experience into value for our clients, for those business owners, that’s an add-on. That doesn’t come from a pretty picture. I have many pretty layouts, and those who understand user experience can see it, but that’s not always the case. To understand user experience, you have to have experience. You have to be in that area. Typically, that’s for repeat entrepreneurs. A part of our clients are serial entrepreneurs who keep opening businesses. They can’t stop opening businesses. I think when you’re in that mindset, it’s hard to stop.  Yeah. Some people are good at starting companies, and other people are good at building companies and growing them.  Yeah.  So what’s one thing, Anastasia, that you’re actively trying to figure out in your business right now? I’m actively trying to figure out how to get into the government space—government contracting. That’s a whole different animal. To get a government contract, one of the rating criteria is previous government experience. Today, it’s 2026. Every agency has a website. It means they have a vendor. It means they’ve had a vendor, or somebody has a preferred group of vendors, and so on. Large companies are taking a big part of that market. The market is oversaturated.  Somebody comes in and does a website for dirt cheap, and it’s not good. Not always, but we’ve seen it. We’ve been trying to break into our local market in the city near where I used to live. They had an RFP for a website. I thought, “Oh, I wish I could do that. I know them so well.” But another company came in with a lower offer. I think the website became worse than it was before.  You know, there’s a big gap between commercial company websites and government websites. You try to pay a bill to the government, like taxes, and there are a million clicks. It’s so complicated, and it doesn’t have to be. I can totally relate to this. I say, “Why don’t these people fix this up?”  And I think it partially comes from one of the points that I was making before. It’s that understanding user experience and understanding the value of it isn’t a given. It’s not something that existed a while ago.  That was not one part of the rubric when they evaluated the offers. Exactly. It has to match the existing system. It has to transmit data. It has to be ADA compliant. But nowhere does it say that it has to be convenient for the users.  Yeah.  And we can quantify it. We can gather a user group, gather their feedback, and so on. So right now, on Monday, I’m doing a demo for our first nearly completed government contract. That client actually prioritizes user experience, and she asked, “Could we possibly do user testing with my actual users?” I cannot tell you how much I love that question. Just the fact that she prioritizes that is exactly what we do.  Yeah. Well, you bring a lot of passion to solving problems, and I love that. So if you had a magic wand to fix one thing inside your company in the next 12 months, what would that be?  Being the person who’s always trying to fix something—and in my family, it’s great that I have my business, because otherwise I’d be going around fixing them. Yeah. Yes. My husband would be just enough. So I think the first thing would be to focus on our team and make sure they're always heard. That they get the time they need. That they get their problems resolved on time by senior leadership, by HR, or by whoever is needed.Share on X I’ve noticed several situations where that’s been postponed, or the person doesn’t speak up, or they see that I’m busy, someone else is busy, and they just think, “We didn’t want to bother you.”  Then there comes a point where they’re not happy. That’s too late. We don’t want them to become unhappy. So if I had a magic wand, I would make sure that my team is heard. That’s the most important thing. Once they’re heard, then we can see if it’s solvable, if it’s not solvable, and so on.  Yeah. That’s very important because, ultimately, you said that you want a happy team. Because a happy team does great work. If people feel heard, they’re going to be happier and deliver.  And if somebody’s selling widgets, it’s the equivalent of saying, “I want my widget to be perfect.” For my widget to be perfect… Because we test for skill before we hire, so they already have the skill. They already have good teamwork. I think the environment that we’ve built is already there. We have those foundations for them to be able to apply themselves properly. But then, what if something happens along the way?  Yeah. Love it. I love this human-centric approach that you take—not just for your team, but also how you look at the human user experience, the people, to improve the lives of your customers by designing good products.  Yeah.  So if someone would like to take advantage of your services, or they have some friction that they want to alleviate, or they’re a government agency and they figure, “Well, maybe these guys down in Houston can help us,” where can they reach you, and how can they connect with you personally? It’s very easy. Tino.design is our website. There, you can schedule a call with me. Just choose any time on my calendar and speak with me or my right-hand person. Alexander is also available. Whichever time is more convenient, we can just have a conversation and see whether we can help or not. Okay. So you heard Anastasia Golovko, President and CEO of Tino Digital Agency, down in Houston. She really cares about your company, your user experience, and making sure your people aren’t frustrated using your technology. If you liked what you heard, reach out to them. Check out Tino.design. Book a call. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow us on YouTube, give us a review on Apple Podcasts, and stay tuned because every week we have an exciting entrepreneur come and share their best-kept secret framework with us. So thanks, Anastasia, for coming, and thank you for listening. Thank you, Steve. Important Links: Anastasia's  LinkedIn Anastasia's  website

If you have ever opened your Google Analytics, felt your eyes glaze over, and quietly closed the tab, this episode is for you. I sat down with Kyle Akerman, a digital measurement consultant in Nashville who helps small B2B marketing teams turn data into decisions without the overwhelm. We get into why your analytics should work like a feedback loop, why three good questions beat thirty random metrics, and how 25 minutes on a Friday (beer and tacos optional) can tell you more about your marketing than a year-end report ever will. If measurement has always felt like the punishment for loving the creative side of marketing, Kyle has a simpler, saner way in. https://www.theagentsofchange.com/629 Need help with your branding, website, or digital marketing? Reach out to me (Rich Brooks!) today at https://www.takeflyte.com/contact

Nobody shares a video they didn't watch. Nobody shares a podcast they didn't listen to, so how do we get people to listen? This week we follow up form last week's episode about measuring success without downloads and today I talk about completion percentage in Apple, Spotify, as well as Google Analytics. Josh Liston explains how he and his co-host from the SAKÉ THIS show.How Long Should My Podcast Be?The stand ard answer is "as long as it needs to be an not a minute longer." However, another way of looking at this is to ask, "How long can you hold someone's attention?"You Can See How Far People Listen to Your ShowThe Apple Dashboard: https://podcastsconnect.apple.comThe Spotify Dashboard: https://creators.spotify.comQuestion of the Month Audio ToolsLast week I had a ton of replies to the Question of the Month. The issue is some of you have a ton of bass. Some of you are so clear it's almost shrill. Other have lots of background noise. This use to take me FOREVER to deal with until I started using tools from Accentize. I use a tool called DXRevive Pro cleans up the audio. Their Dialogue Enhance helps adjust the tone and remove noise. Then they have a free plugin called DXLevel that adjusts the volume levels (and it's free).Takeaways:How Dave thinks about episode length (and why “as long as it needs to be” actually works in practice)How to use Apple Podcasts Connect and Spotify for Podcasters to measure completion percentage and attention, not just downloadsWhy video and YouTube completion rates look so much worse than audio—and how not to let that crush your egoHow to use Google Analytics or Fathom to see which episodes and pages really resonateA behind-the-scenes look at the audio tools Dave uses (Accentize DX Revive, Dialog Enhance, and the free DX Level plugin) to make listener submissions sound more consistentAn update on the “free version” experiment of the School of Podcasting and why future focus is shifting to live cohort-style classesDave also shares a listener contribution from Josh Liston of the SAKÉ THIS podcast, with two non-download ways he measures success for his Japan-focused comedy show.Mentioned in this episode:Podpage is Now Included with Blubrry HostingBlubrry Podcasting — one of the longest-running podcast hosting platforms in the industry — has chosen Podpage to replace their built-in website tool entirely. That means every Blubrry hosting customer gets a professional, automatically updated podcast website powered by Podpage, included with their hosting plan. For Podpage, this is more than a partnership announcement. It's validation that podcast websites deserve dedicated website tools built specifically for podcasters.PodpageHelp When You Don't Know Where To StartI get it. I talk to people looking to launch or grow their podcast. "“There's too much gear/software — I don't know what I need.” Microphones, mixers, hosting platforms, editing software — it's easy to get lost. Analysis paralysis kicks in fast. I help podcasters. I've been doing it 20 years. Let me help. Dave Jackson schoolofpodcasting.com/joinSchool of PodcastingCheck Out Dave's Newsletter With Behind the Scenes ContentIn each issue of Podcasting Observations, I share my thoughts on what is happening in the podcasting space, my latest content, and things that have caught my eye. I also may ask for your opinion. Join the free communityPodcasting ObservationsQuestion of the MonthSo you find out someone is a podcaster, what book would you recommend that they read. Obviously this could be a book about podcasting, or business, or storytelling, or, or... you get the idea. You find out someone is a podcaster, what is the book you recommend (audio or video). I need your answer by July 24th. Don't forget to say a little bit about your show and your website address (so I can add it to the show notes). Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/questionQuestion of the Month

$6,000 in Klaviyo. $600 in Google Analytics. Same campaign. Same week. Real numbers from a real account my team took over. If you've ever stared at two reports that should say the same thing and thought - is someone lying to me? - this episode is for you. Nobody is lying. But what's actually happening is something every ecommerce brand sending marketing emails needs to understand. Those two tools aren't giving you different answers because one of them is wrong. They're giving you different answers because they're asking completely different questions. Klaviyo is asking how much did the people who engaged with this email go on to buy. Google Analytics is asking how much was purchased in the single visit that started from clicking the email. Same campaign, different questions, different numbers. Once you understand that, the gap stops being scary - and starts being expected. But there's more to it than just the attribution philosophy. There are specific settings inside Klaviyo that most brands have never looked at, and those settings have a massive impact on the revenue numbers you're seeing every month. If you've never checked your attribution window or thought about whether open-based attribution makes sense for your account, this episode is going to be eye-opening. In this episode, I walk through exactly why these numbers differ, what to check first when you see a shocking gap, and how to actually reconcile your data so you can make real decisions instead of nervous ones. ✨ In this episode, you'll learn: Why Klaviyo and Google Analytics report completely different revenue for the same campaign - and why neither one is lying The first thing to check when you see a big discrepancy (it tells you immediately whether something is broken or not) How Google Analytics decides which channel gets credit for a sale - and why it's the most conservative number you'll see What Klaviyo's open-based attribution actually means and why it inflates revenue compared to other tools Why Apple Mail Privacy Protection may be affecting your open counts - and what to do about it The pros and cons of switching to click-only attribution in Klaviyo Why your Shopify store is the only real source of truth - and how to think about every other tool's numbers Why understanding this protects you in conversations with agencies, employees, and anyone else reporting on email performance When you can explain the gap, it stops being something that makes you feel like someone's pulling one over on you — and starts being something you can actually use. Work with Joy Joya: https://joyjoya.com

SHOW NOTES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.haileyrowe.comer/google-analyticsJoin my free Facebook community for business support & to connect with other health coaches: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/themarketinghubgroup/⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/haileyrowecoach⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/hailey_rowe⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/hailey_rowe⁠⁠⁠⁠

Did you know that roughly 50% of consumers are now using AI-powered search? And that number is only going up? In this Summer Series episode of the VOpreneur Podcast, voice actor Cody Rock asks the question that every voice actor with a website needs to hear right now: what is the difference between SEO and GEO, and how can voice actors use both to get in front of more buyers? Marc Scott breaks down the shift from search engine optimization to generative engine optimization - what it means, why it matters, and what he's actually doing on his own website right now to take advantage of it. Inside this episode: The key difference between SEO and GEO - and why the shift from keywords to context changes everything about how you build your website Why the top third of every Google search results page is now an AI summary - and what that means for your old SEO strategy How Marc built 50 to 60 new pages on his website using AI - and how Claude Cowork now does it automatically without him ever touching WordPress The "questions your clients ask" strategy - the simplest starting point for any voice actor who wants to show up in AI search Why GEO is a genuine ground-floor opportunity right now - everyone is starting at square one, and the voice actors who move early will have a real advantage How to use AI to analyze your Google Analytics and Search Console data and tell you whether your strategy is actually working Why fresh, contextual content matters more than ever - and what that means for the one-page VO website that most voice actors are still running Whether you're an SEO veteran or you've never thought about search strategy a day in your career, this episode gives you a clear, practical framework for making sure AI recommends you when buyers come looking.

Kevin McLaughlin is a Google Analytics and Tag Manager expert specializing in building custom Google Analytics implementations that give you consistent, accurate, and easy to use results that actually help you make better business and product decisions.  Because of his years of experience in product development and management, he knows how to implement your marketing analytics tools so you can derive new insights from your data. As a developer and engineer, Kevin can deal with any level of technical-detail, from quick audits to in-depth, custom javascript setups and maintenance.  He has worked at both large companies and small startups and have setup analytics for both as well as many blogs, small businesses, and non-profits.  Kevin is currently developing several web-applications myself, which keeps me up to date on the latest web technologies and how to implement analytics effectively with them. In This Conversation We Discuss:  [00:30] Intro [01:30] Solving messy data gaps in business [03:33] Building tools to fix your own pain [04:50] Rebuilding analytics for a new internet era [06:20] Adapting to a more privacy-first internet [06:56] Moving beyond session-centric measurement [08:15] Aligning analytics with real shopping sessions [09:24] Shifting from plug-and-play to custom reporting [10:25] Callout [10:36] Overcoming the GA4 learning curve shock [12:37] Unlocking power in custom GA4 explorations [13:13] Fixing tracking before analyzing performance [14:37] Breaking down how GA4 actually receives data [16:53] Understanding why GA4 misses real orders [18:23] Fixing missing orders with server-side tracking [20:44] Choosing build vs buy analytics tools [21:31] Keeping analytics simple for early-stage stores [22:37] Avoiding over-optimization too early [25:01] Staying grounded in real customer acquisition [25:47] Combining clean data with real interpretation [26:49] Making GA4 implementation simple for merchants Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube The leading GA4 integration for Shopify slideruleanalytics.com/ Follow Kevin McLaughlin https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-mclaughlin-1900/ If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

#943 From military spouse to marketing maven, Selena Conmackie turned an unexpected opportunity into a thriving agency! In this episode, host Brien Gearin sits down with Selena, founder of Hauoli-Socially Inspired, to dive into the real-world journey of building a marketing agency from the ground up. Selena shares how she went from 20 years in the restaurant industry to running a successful business helping entrepreneurs create websites and marketing systems that actually work together. From “falling into” marketing as a military spouse to scaling with referrals, testing ads, and managing clients across industries, she reveals the tools, lessons, and mindset shifts that made it all possible! (Original Air Date - 10/9/25) What we discuss with Selena: + Transition from restaurants to marketing + Accidental start in social media management + Building a business as a military spouse + Learning through “YouTube University” and Facebook groups + First clients from referrals and networking + Scaling with websites, ads, and analytics + Balancing a small, family-based remote team + Importance of Google Analytics and data + Differences between Google vs. Facebook ads + Honest client relationships and sustainable growth Thank you, Selena! Check out Hauoli-Socially Inspired at ⁠TheHauoli.com⁠. Follow Selena on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠LinkedIn⁠. Watch the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠video podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MillionaireUniversity.com/training⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Torsion Talk, Ryan breaks down the latest Google, AI, SEO, and digital marketing updates that are reshaping the future of garage door companies and home service businesses. From Google's newest AI-powered search features to ChatGPT advertising and major Google Business Profile updates, there's a lot happening that business owners need to understand right now.Ryan explains how Google is rolling out AI performance reporting inside Search Console, what the new AI visibility metrics mean, and why traditional SEO reporting is becoming more difficult as AI Overviews continue to replace website clicks. He also discusses how AI is changing customer behavior, reducing organic traffic, and creating new challenges for local businesses that depend heavily on search engine rankings.One of the biggest topics covered is Google's new AI calling feature, which allows Google to contact businesses on behalf of homeowners to gather pricing, availability, warranties, and service information. Ryan shares why answering the phone quickly, training your customer service team, and maintaining an optimized Google Business Profile may soon become even more critical for rankings and lead generation.The conversation also covers ChatGPT Ads, OpenAI's new advertising platform, local AI advertising opportunities, conversion tracking, and what these changes could mean for garage door companies, HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians, and other home service providers. Ryan discusses the opportunities, risks, and competitive advantages available to businesses that embrace AI early.Additional topics include Google's latest core update, AI Overviews appearing in nearly half of all searches, Google Business Profile integration with Google Analytics, AI attribution challenges, online reviews, local search optimization, and why relying solely on SEO is becoming increasingly risky.Ryan also shares updates on his latest garage door sales training program, discusses real-world success stories from service technicians implementing proven sales systems, and gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at the new Torsion Talk studio setup.If you own a garage door company, HVAC business, plumbing company, electrical company, roofing business, or any local service company, this episode provides practical insights on where digital marketing is headed and how to stay competitive as AI transforms the industry.Subscribe to Torsion Talk on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts for weekly content covering AI, local SEO, Google updates, digital marketing, sales training, entrepreneurship, leadership, garage door industry news, and business growth strategies.Find Ryan at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://garagedooru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aaronoverheaddoors.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://markinuity.com/⁠Check out our sponsors!Sommer USA - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://sommer-usa.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Surewinder - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://surewinder.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stealth Hardware - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://quietmydoor.com/⁠

Welcome to the Success With Jewelry podcast, hosted by Laryssa Wirstiuk and Liz Kantner, two experts passionate about helping independent jewelry artists thrive. Welcome to episode #176! Consider this part four of our website series - because apparently we had more to say. This week Laryssa and Liz are tackling website analytics in the most approachable way possible: not the intimidating, data-heavy version, but the practical one that helps you understand what's working, what isn't, and what to do about it. In today's episode, Laryssa and Liz cover: Where to actually look at your website data (and why Google Analytics is worth setting up now even if you don't need it yet) Vanity metrics versus the numbers that actually matter - and why followers and likes aren't telling you what you think they are How to read your traffic patterns and what big peaks and dips are trying to tell you Bounce rate, time on site, and conversion rate explained in plain language What a healthy conversion rate actually looks like for a jewelry brand (spoiler: it's lower than you'd expect) Why digital advertising has become so expensive - and what's working instead How often you should actually be checking your numbers In the bonus segment for Insiders only, Laryssa and Liz share the specific metrics they look at when auditing a jewelry website, plus the questions you should be asking your data every single month. Liz Kantner works with independent jewelry artists to help them find their unique voices and succeed in today's marketplace. With over ten years of experience in jewelry marketing and sales, Liz offers consulting services and digital strategy. She's also the founder of the Stay Gold Collective, a private group providing live training, industry insights, and personalized feedback. Learn more at https://www.lizkantner.com. Laryssa Wirstiuk is the founder and creative director of Joy Joya, a digital marketing agency for the jewelry industry. She's the author of Jewelry Marketing Joy and the creator of JoyDeck, a platform designed to make marketing accessible for jewelry makers and designers. Discover more at https://joyjoya.com. Tune in to hear Liz and Laryssa share valuable insights, tips, and strategies for success in the jewelry industry!

Sztuczna inteligencja zmienia nie tylko narzędzia marketingowe, ale również sposób, w jaki klienci szukają informacji i podejmują decyzje zakupowe. Coraz częściej pierwszy etap researchu odbywa się w ChatGPT i innych modelach AI.

Send us Fan MailGoogle Marketing Live 2026 just happened - and the message wasn't about features. It was a warning. In this solo episode, Anya Chrisanthon - CCO at Anewgo - breaks down the biggest announcements from GML 2026 and translates them into plain language for home builder sales and marketing leaders.The headline nobody said out loud Google's Chief Business Officer opened with "I'm not exaggerating when I say we have made a decade's worth of innovation in the last year alone." That's not marketing speak. That's a warning for anyone still in wait-and-see mode.How your buyers are already searching differently AI Overviews now reaches 2.5 billion monthly users. AI Mode has passed 1 billion. Searches in AI Mode run three times as long as traditional searches. Your buyer is having a conversation with AI right now - and if your website doesn't give AI enough to work with, you're not in that conversation.The best ads must be answers Google's VP of Ads said it directly on stage: "The best ads must be answers." Google introduced a Business Agent for Leads - already being tested in real estate - where buyers can ask questions inside an ad and get answers pulled directly from your website. If your website doesn't have clear, specific answers to real buyer questions, AI has nothing to pull from.AI Brief: great news for smaller builder marketing teams AI Brief lets advertisers give Google's AI a creative brief in plain language and let it handle execution. The role of your marketing team is shifting from doing to directing - and that levels the playing field against national builders with big agencies.The Universal Cart - and why John Lee called this years ago Google's Universal Cart follows buyers across Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail without losing their place. John Lee has been talking about this exact connected, agentic buyer journey for years. Anewgo's ChatGPT integration - where a buyer designs their home in ChatGPT and arrives on your website already identified and engaged - is the home building version of this. It exists today.Measurement finally grows up Google's Meridian marketing mix modeling tool is now inside Google Analytics 360. For the first time, builders have infrastructure to show leadership exactly which channels are driving sales - not just leads.

There's something sneaky happening in the online space right now — and it's costing entrepreneurs real money. We're talking five-figure fines. No warning. No appeal. Just a bill.In this episode, Vickie Dickson breaks down why alt text on your website isn't optional, what it actually is (hint: it's NOT a keyword dump), and how you can use AI to audit and fix your entire site in under an hour.In this episode:What alt text actually is — and what it's NOTWhy skipping it can land you a $20,000 fine (yes, really)How Vickie went from a 76 to a 100 SEO score in one morningThe difference between Google search and AI search — and why it matters for your businessWhat "answer intent" is and how to get cited by AIWhy your content ecosystem might already have the answers — it just isn't talking to itselfTools mentioned: AnswerThePublic, Google Analytics, Squarespace AI, Shopify AI, ClaudeThe bottom line: If you're creating content but ignoring the infrastructure behind it, you're building on sand. This episode is your wake-up call.Ready to dial in your SEO, personal brand, and business strategy this summer? Designed to Profit is a steal at just $797 for a full year of support, human design strategy, hot seats, and three powerhouse summer trainings covering personal branding, Pinterest, and SEO for AI citation.Check it out here - https://www.vickiedickson.com/designed-to-profitHere's what's on deck for the next 3 months.June: Personal Branding — niche vs. no niche, and what actually works right nowJuly: Pinterest — building pathways to your content so it works for youAugust: SEO for AI Citation — get found, get cited, get clientsJoin us inside Designed to Profit - https://www.vickiedickson.com/designed-to-profit

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 2067: Lisa Jeffs breaks down the digital marketing skills that are becoming essential in a rapidly evolving online economy. From SEO and video marketing to analytics and creativity, she highlights the technical and interpersonal abilities that can help marketers stand out, generate engagement, and build long-term career success. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://lisajeffs.com/top-skills-digital-marketers-need-to-know/ Quotes to ponder: "Video advertising provides more engagement from your customers. It also showcases your product or service in a detailed manner." "Content is an important aspect of the digital marketing industry. Organic reach through engaging content can help companies funnel traffic." "Digital marketing is an essential aspect of a majority of business processes. Sales are predominantly seen in dynamic online setups." Episode references: State of Video Marketing: https://www.wyzowl.com/state-of-video-marketing/ Thinkful Digital Marketing Program: https://www.thinkful.com/ WordPress: https://wordpress.com/ Wix: https://www.wix.com/ Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com/ Statista: https://www.statista.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jason Zigelbaum is the solo founder behind Zigpoll—the zero-party data platform trusted by Sony, HP, Kraft Heinz, and Hallmark.  Zigpoll collected over 100 million survey responses and counting. Third-party cookies are going away. Ad platforms are losing signal. Brands that don't collect first-party data are flying blind. Zigpoll fixes that.  Zigpoll makes it dead simple to launch contextual surveys that ask the right questions, at the right time, in the right channel so brands can stop guessing and start knowing.  How brands use Zigpoll:  - Discover how customers found you with post-purchase surveys - Improve products with real customer feedback  - Boost sales with on-site CRO surveys - Recover lost sales with abandoned cart & exit intent surveys  - Segment audiences by demographics and psychographics for higher-ROI campaigns  What makes it easy:  - No code. Installs on Shopify in seconds  - Surveys in any language with built-in translation  - Conditional logic and follow-up questions that dig deeper  - Triggers for post-purchase, abandoned cart, fulfillment, exit intent  - Deliver via SMS, email, or on-site  - Pipes data directly into Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Gorgias & more In This Conversation We Discuss:  [00:00] Intro [02:31] Starting with what you already know  [04:35] Uncovering your business blind spots  [07:38] Lowering mental friction for your users  [09:06] Eliminating the guesswork from strategies  [11:07] Callouts [11:07] Catching errors with your users' feedback  [13:35] Segmenting buyers to understand habits  [17:24] Using AI as a powerful force multiplier [22:21] Testing concepts without real users  Resources: Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on Youtube Survey & feedback platform.zigpoll.com/ Follow Jason Zigelbaum LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/jason-zigelbaum If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Losing a client is never fun, even when you saw the writing on the wall. The only question is how you choose to handle it. In this episode, Chip and Gini cover the practical and emotional side of client departures, from the moment you get the news to the lessons you take away. Gini points out that there are plenty of reasons a client could terminate the relationship, which may have nothing to do with your work. Strategy changes, budget cuts, and leadership turnover all end client relationships that were otherwise going fine. Chip’s advice is to not react immediately. Ask for a couple of days to review the agreement and put together a transition plan. That space lets you get the emotion out before you say something you’ll regret. Once you have your bearings, focus on making the exit clean. Read your actual contract, confirm the notice terms, and hand over everything the client needs: documents, passwords, contacts, work in progress. Chip is blunt about agencies that fight clients on the way out — it accomplishes nothing and just guarantees a bad final impression. Don't burn any bridges and you just might see those clients come back or send you referrals. Finally, be honest with your team about what the loss means for the business. If there are financial implications, say so before people start drawing their own conclusions. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “You never want to react immediately to the news in such a way that you perhaps compound a difficult situation, or at the very least you don’t make it as easy as it should be.” Gini Dietrich: “I always say that you’re remembered by how you left an organization versus the work that you did. And so you never want to burn a bridge, even if you’re caught by surprise, even if you wanted to fire the client and you’re happy about it.” Chip Griffin: “If the client is coming to you and canceling because they’re having financial issues, you’re probably not going to get the money anyway. So rather than fighting for something that probably isn’t there, why don’t you try to make it as painless as possible and get whatever you can so that you’ve built some goodwill potentially for the future?” Gini Dietrich: “Be honest and open with your team because I think they will come with solutions that you may not have thought of or that you may have assumed they’re not willing to do.” Related Why do agencies lose clients? Agency client cancellation policies Agency owners need to put themselves in other people's shoes How to protect yourself from an unexpected client breakup View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, as a famous American once said, “You’re fired.” Gini Dietrich: Oh, no. Chip Griffin: Okay. Maybe … pack your knives and go. Um- Oh … what would you like to go with instead? Gini Dietrich: Yeah, let’s, maybe we’ll do that one. I like that. Chip Griffin: Pack your knives and go. Top Chef is a great show. Gini Dietrich: I love Top Chef. Chip Griffin: Not as good as it was in the early days, but- Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I agree. Yeah … Chip Griffin: it’s still, it’s still kind of fun occasionally, and I, I still- Yeah … do watch part of each season. Yeah. From Restaurant Wars on. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I did love, I did love a little Top Chef. I agree. Chip Griffin:  Jen and one of my kids watch it up until Restaurant Wars, then they let me know, and I come in and I watch Restaurant Wars through the end. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. They’re like, “Okay, your turn.” Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, that’s where it starts to get interesting, so. Gini Dietrich: That’s funny. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Anyway, no, we are gonna talk about getting fired. Not fired as an owner. We’re, we’re not at that point yet. We don’t have boards that are gonna fire us, most of us at least. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: But clients do fire us from time to time, and we’ve had conversations in the past about firing clients ourselves and, and those sorts of things. But, what happens, what do you do when a client calls you up or, worse, sends you an email and says, “We’re done. We’re out”? Yeah, you know, it’s- What are things you should be thinking about at that point? Gini Dietrich: I think so. The, I think there’s a couple of things here. One is that the word, using the word “fired” makes it sound so bad. Sometimes it’s because there’s been a strategy change, there’s been a budget reallocation, maybe leadership has changed, maybe there’s a new VP of marketing or a CCO. Like, there are lots of reasons, right, that have nothing to do with you or the agency or your work. And so saying that you got fired is, I, I just don’t like that term. Now that I have that off my chest, I’ll step down off my soapbox and say, like, there, I think we should always be prepared for the eventual loss of a client. And because we don’t know, right? We don’t- Uh-huh … we can kind of guess, you know, if there are big changes at a leadership level, or if there’s been a reorg, or if the company has sold or things like that, we can guess. Like, we’re probably not gonna be working with that client much longer. We could also sort of read the tea leaves from the perspective of they’ve been ghosting us, and we haven’t been able to get any work done. They’ve been declining meetings or not showing up for meetings. Like, there are lots of reasons that you can kind of read those tea leaves. And so I always think it’s, it’s really good to be prepared. It should never come as a surprise when you lose a client, and you should be prepared. You should have, you should know what you’re going to say, you should know how, what a transition looks like, and you should have a full pipeline that will replace that client fairly quickly, even in a chaotic world that we’re living in right now, so that you’re not caught off guard. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I think the, you know, the first step when you get this news is, probably 95% of the time you’re gonna be annoyed, upset, unhappy. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Absolutely. Chip Griffin: Some negative emotion. A small percentage of the time you’ll be like, “Oh, thank God, I just- … I, I really wanted to get rid of them anyway.” Yeah. You know? So. Gini Dietrich: Blessing in disguise, yep. Right. Chip Griffin: So, so sometimes that’ll be your reaction, but most of the time it’s not gonna be a happy reaction that you have. And so I think the, the first thing is to just, whether it’s on a call with them or you get it by email or, you know, carrier pigeon or whatever, take a deep breath. Yes. Right? Yes … you, you don’t ever want to react immediately to the news in such a way that you perhaps compound a difficult situation, or at the very least you don’t make it as easy as it could or should be. And I think your advice to, to be prepared for this, certainly if you see the signs on the wall you need to be even more prepared. But sometimes these things are, you know, in retrospect they won’t be a surprise, but you might feel surprised in the moment because you didn’t pick up on all of the little signals along the way and, and that then becomes a learning experience. And I think that’s… to me, that’s one of the most valuable things when you lose a client for whatever reason, is taking advantage of that to learn for the future. Learn the signs to look for. Yep. Learn what you could do differently potentially to maintain the relationship, retain the client. Learn to target better ideal clients, whatever it is. But I, I always like to turn these things into a learning experience as much as possible. But you also have the logistics to actually handle the end of the client relationship, so why don’t we talk about that for a little bit. What, you know, it, it’s not just about the learnings that you can take for the future, it’s how do you handle that immediately? How do you transition the client out? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I think, you know, I always say that you’re always remembered by how you left an organization versus the work that you did. And so you never wanna burn a bridge, even if you’re caught by surprise, even if you wanted to fire the client and you’re happy about it, you should never burn a bridge because you just never know, right? So understanding what contract they signed and what the terms of agreement are, you know? We had a situation where I was working with a girlfriend and, she lost a big, big, big, big client. It came out of the blue, that she was not expecting it because she’d had a conversation a week prior that everything was fine. And so she works with several contractors, and we had to say like, “We’re really sorry. We know that we thought you were gonna be doing work in May and June,” and, like, we go, “The client’s gone.” So, and she had one person come back to her and say, like, “We have a 30-day agreement,” blah, blah, blah. They didn’t have a 30-day agreement, but in her mind they had a 30-day agreement. Sure. In the paperwork, there was no 30-day agreement. So I use that as an example because in your mind you may have a 30 or 60 or 90-day termination clause that may not have made it to the final piece. Maybe you have it for some clients and not others. Like, you have to really do your research to, and go back and read the executed agreement so you know what those terms are. And then spend that time ensuring that there’s a seamless transition, that they’re getting all the documents that you’ve created, that they understand where things are, that they understand where the passwords are, where you, what you have access to, all of those kinds of things. ‘Cause I will tell you, there have been situations where we’ve lost a client and we’re still in their Google Analytics. We’re still the admin on their Facebook page. Like, stuff like that, I’m like, “You guys, we’re not gonna do anything bad, but you really need to take us off.” Chip Griffin: Right, right. I mean, I’ve had former clients where, where I have had admin level access to a lot of their stuff- Yes … for as much as a decade afterwards. Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: Even when I flag it for them and say, “Hey, guys- Gini Dietrich: Yes … Chip Griffin: you might wanna take me out.” Gini Dietrich: Yes, yes. Chip Griffin: It, it’s kind of amazing at times that- It, it is, yeah … the things that, that people don’t pay attention to. But, I mean, I think that that’s great advice to, you know, to understand what your agreements say, and to really just focus on how do you make it as smooth a transition as possible. No matter how frustrated you are, you need to try to think through how do we make this as pain-free for everybody? Because you can make it difficult for them, but that’s really just gonna make it difficult for you. Yep. And to your point, that’s how you’re gonna be remembered, as the person who made it difficult. And so, you know, if you get it on a, if you get the information on a call, you know, certainly say, “Hey, look, you know, let’s, let’s put together a wind-down plan or transition plan,” or however you wanna frame it. Part of that will depend on how sudden it is. You know, are, are they saying, “We’re not gonna renew in, you know, three months,” or is it, you know, “We’re giving you as short a notice as possible”? That will affect the timelines- Sure … and those sorts of things. Yep, yep. But, but it doesn’t affect the fact that you want to try to make sure that you are making it smooth and clean and painless. And don’t hesitate to say, “Hey, let me, let me think about this and come back to you with a plan-” Right “for how we do it.” Right, right. You don’t have to have every answer in the moment, and, and giving yourself that time to step back and absorb it may allow you to come forward with a more productive plan all the way around. Because your goal has to be to make sure that you’re fulfilling your contract, while at the same time trying to get them to fulfill their end of it. Right. And, and the more that you fight, the less likely you are to even get what you are due under the agreement. And so, you know, you wanna try to make it as, as friendly as possible in, in how you wind it down to make sure that you do get those payments that you are still owed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I think, you know, if it comes as a surprise, I think you’re absolutely right that saying things like, “You know, gosh, I’m really sorry to hear this. I’ve really enjoyed working with you. Let me take a couple of days to craft a transition plan.” That gives you time. They, from their perspective, they’re like, “Okay, they’re being thoughtful about this and, you know, strategic about it, and they’re gonna be helpful.” And that gives you time to settle yourself and, you know, be, get all the emotion out of it and actually create something productive. Chip Griffin: Right. And it can be a, particularly if it’s done over the phone, it gives you that opportunity to sit down and take a look at the contract and see- Yeah … what it says. Yeah. Because then you can, you can go back to them and say, “Okay, you know, in order to make sure we do this the right way, you know, we’ll need the notification in writing so that, you know, we can memorialize this properly to protect both of us.” And I think you always wanna use that kind of language when you’re dealing with contract stuff. This is for both of our benefit, even if really maybe it’s more for you- Yeah … than for them, but you wanna stress the, the for both of us. And that’s also your opportunity to then look at other clauses in there that, that maybe are to your benefit, like the notification period, that maybe you didn’t bring up on the call. You know, you can say, “Hey, you know, we need to make sure we get this in writing, and of course, as, as you know from this agreement, you have 30, 60, 90, whatever the notification period is. So, you know, we’ll work to that, as we wind this down.” Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think, you know, there are, we, and we’ve talked about this before too, like our contracts say 90 days, and there are some clients where I’m like, “I don’t need to hold you to that. We’re good.” Like some- Right. Right? And then there are situations- Chip Griffin: How about, how about 90 minutes? How about 90 minutes? Can we, can we just be- 90 seconds? 90 seconds? We can be done now. We’re just, I’m out. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I’m good. Yep. Good. Yep. See ya. Yep. But then there are also situations, you know, we had the Great Recession, we had COVID. There are some situations where you’re just like, you just be, you can be understanding and be like, “Gosh, I’m really, yeah, I’m really sorry to hear business sucks, and we have a 90-day termination clause, but let me, let me waive that for you, and let’s do this instead.” And you’re always seen in good light when you do those things. Yep. And in fact, every time I have done that, either that business has come back or they’ve referred business to us. So you don’t wanna do that in every situation, and you don’t wanna hurt your cash flow, you know, if it’s, if it’s gonna be detrimental. But there are situations where you can be a little more understanding and use, use that kind of language so that they understand that you’re doing them a favor, ’cause you’re, you really are doing them a favor in some cases. Chip Griffin: Well, more to the point, if the client is coming to you and canceling because they’re having financial issues, whether it’s because of a global pandemic or there’s just something specific to their business, you’re probably not gonna get the money anyway. Gini Dietrich: Fair. Chip Griffin: Right? So, so rather than fighting for something that probably isn’t there anyway, why don’t you try to make it as painless as possible and get whatever you can so that you’ve built some goodwill potentially for the future? Because you also have to keep in mind that most of the time we’re not working with the actual owner of the business. Most of the time, even in a mid-sized business, we’re working with someone at least a step or two removed from that level. And so why are we making their life more difficult when it’s not, you know, it may not even be their ability to make a decision, particularly if it’s financially related. So, you know, think about that, and put yourself in their shoes if you were in a position. If you’ve got contractors, think about, you know, you want to react to them the same way you want your contractors to react to you. Gini Dietrich: Right. Yep. Chip Griffin: And, you don’t want your contractors coming at you, right? Yeah, yep. And you wanna try to work something out amicably. You should be doing the same thing upstream from you in the relationship as well. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I just, I think your earlier point about taking some time, and just, you know, it’s, it usually comes as a shock. Even if, even if we’ve read the tea leaves, it still is surprising. It still is stressful. It still has some risk involved. And so just take a beat and use the language of, you know, “Give me a couple of days to put together a transition plan.” And I think that helps you process it all, get the emotion out, and then start to salvage the relationship as best you can so that there is referral business later, or maybe they do come back later, or whatever happens to be. Chip Griffin: Right. I mean, time is your friend on these things in order to, you know, to formulate a better response. And most of the time when we react too quickly, it’s when we end up regretting it somewhere down the road. So- you know, buy yourself the time to avoid that future regret. Gini Dietrich: I will, I will tell you that 100 years ago when I started my agency, the first client I lost, I cried. And the client felt really, really bad, and I was mortified, but I cried. Chip Griffin: Oh, you, you cried when the client told you? Oh, wow. Gini Dietrich: I did. Uh-huh. Okay. So I will say that, you know, you learn and you grow, and you understand that sometimes it’s just not personal. I took it very personally because it was the first time it had ever happened. Like, I’d, I’d never been fired from a job. I’d never like … it was the first time it had ever happened. So I, I did. I’ve matured since then, but there are, you know, there are things that you’re just like, it’s an emotional time. Chip Griffin: Sure. I mean, nobody would ever enjoy that kind of- Gini Dietrich: Yeah Chip Griffin: experience. Mm-mm. Yeah. I, I mean, certainly any time I’ve ever had a contract end, I, I haven’t been like, “Yay!” Gini Dietrich: Right? Chip Griffin: I mean- Gini Dietrich: Woo-hoo! … Chip Griffin: it, it sucks. Yeah. I can’t say that I’ve ever cried when I’ve gotten that news, but may have hung up the phone and had a few choice words for the atmosphere around me or something like that. But, you know, it is what it is. So okay, so, you know, we’re, we’re thinking through the actual communications with the client who has fired us. Sorry, terminated the agreement- Let us go … or shared the decision. Mm, right. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever language you wanna use. I’m, I’m still a fan of firing because that’s kinda what it is. So now we need to think about two things, I think immediately. One is how do we communicate it to our team, whether that’s contractors or employees, and as a corollary to that, how are we going to act as a client for the remainder of the relationship that we have? So not the technical details of working out the trip, but the, you know, how do we continue to service them in that moment? And those two are related because as soon as you tell your team, you know, “Hey, this, this agreement is ending,” they’re probably gonna start mentally checking out of that relationship just as you have. Gini Dietrich: Of course. Yep. Chip Griffin: And I think we need to really fight that urge. Yep. Because, because it, uh, as you say, it is how you exit that people remember you, and a lot of that comes down to if you had, particularly if you have a longer notice period, right? If you’ve got a, you know, say a 60 or 90-day notice period, you can’t just, you know, put pens down unless they, the client is like, “No, we just, we’re, we’re done. We’ll just keep paying you, but we’re not.” Sometimes that does happen- It sure does, yep … where they treat it as sort of severance for the agency. It’s not super common, but it does happen. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But it needs to be on them to reduce your workload, not on you to say, “Eh, we don’t care anymore.” Gini Dietrich: Right. And I think, you know, if you’re doing things like media relations, it’s ensuring that those, the stories that are in progress or the things that are in progress, the pitches that are in progress, those get transferred over. If you, like we said, if you hold the keys to anything, you have to make sure that those are transferred over. All of the things that you have in progress, understand, you know, to your point, that it may be like they just want you to stop work immediately and hand everything over, or they may want you to continue, finish, they want you to finish things that are in progress. But understand what that is so that you can ensure that. And one of the things I always say to my team, and I repeat that, repeat what I said at the beginning, which is, you know, you’re always remembered how, by how you left. It is our job to transition smoothly and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Yep. And I understand that you’re checked out. I’m checked out. I’m surprised by this. It’s not, you know, this, this is gonna be a little bit of a painful process, but we have to be professional, and we have to ensure that we’re transitioning cleanly. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and please do not fight them. It’s, I mean, ’cause that’s even worse than-you know, we, we just kinda give up. But I’ve seen many agencies where they basically fight clients on the way out the door, and the client will say, “Can I have this? Can I have the latest draft of this even though it’s not finished?” And they’ll be like, “Well, no, because, you know, we’re not gonna be working with you anymore, and so, you know, you don’t get the draft. You only get the final version.” No. Gini Dietrich: Absolutely not. No. No. Yeah. Chip Griffin: If you’re doing media relations and they wanna know who you’ve reached out to about a press release- Yes … just tell them. Gini Dietrich: Just tell them, yes. Chip Griffin: Do not fight them on this. I agree. I, I, for the life of me, I do not understand- Gini Dietrich: Yep. I totally agree with that Chip Griffin: the, the way, particularly the PR agencies seem to be particularly guilty of this in my view, where they just will not share with the client anything that they’re doing in terms of detail around outreach or those kinds of things because, well, then they can do it on their own. Okay, fine. Let them, right? They’ll figure out it’s not that easy. It’s not just having the spreadsheet of what contacts you’ve made. Yeah. I’m not saying you need to give them your whole database with all of your personal notations about, you know, stuff that you do across other clients. But if it’s pitch work that you’ve done for this client, give them the information. Come on, man. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially if it’s in progress and there’s, like- Yes … something’s happening, like, there’s no reason on Earth not to give them that information. Chip Griffin: No, no reason. And, look, if all you’re good for is, is a spreadsheet, it probably wasn’t worth hiring you anyway. Yeah. So, you know, you, you’ve got to be realistic about these kinds of things. But as you’re communicating with your team, you want them to understand that, that they need to have this same mentality of being helpful and making sure they finish strong. I think the other thing is to, to make sure that, that you’re communicating clearly with your contractors and employees about what this means. Hopefully, what it means is you’ve got a strong pipeline, and so, you know, it’s a bump in the road, but it’s not a big deal. But if it is a big deal, don’t try to hide that fact, right? I mean, you don’t have to like terrify them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But, but if it does, if you’ve got a contractor and it’s probably gonna mean that you’re gonna have to cut them altogether or partially, if you think it’s, you know, a giant client and it might lead to layoffs, be honest with people sooner rather than later. Because the more you put this off, the harder it is to deal with. Yeah. And again, it’s a balancing act, ’cause you can’t, you can’t just be, you know, like panicking them, which is again another argument for taking a deep breath, absorbing the information, figuring out your plan. You don’t have to hang up the phone and then immediately call up all your team and say, “Oh my God, we just lost Acme Pharmaceuticals,” right? I mean, that doesn’t help anybody. Take the time, think it through, think through the questions you’re likely to get so that you can communicate confidently, but also honestly. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and I would say If you have access to an HR team or person, if you have access to a legal team or an attorney, reach out to them as well because as you’re crafting this plan because they’re gonna have a different… They’re gonna look at it through a different lens. They’re gonna have a different perspective, especially if you have a team, getting HR involved in that to say, “Okay, here’s scenarios A, B, and C” to help you plan so that when an employee asks, you have a response, and it’s not just shot from the hip a little bit. Right. And I, I know I’ve told this story before, but during the Great Recession, you know, we had 95% of our clients left between Christmas and New Year’s of 2008, 2009, and I had to go back to the office and lay everybody off. And the biggest mistake I made, I made two big mistakes in that. One is that everybody was talking about the economy and the Great Recession and all this stuff for a year, but I didn’t pay any attention. I didn’t… Like, I wouldn’t, I wasn’t mature enough. I wasn’t experienced enough, and so I just kind of put my blinders on and was like, “Everything’s great. We’re growing.” You know? Yeah. And so I didn’t plan. And the second thing I did, mistake I made is I didn’t let the team know ahead of time, and I didn’t think I could. And I’ll never forget this as long as I live. One of my employees came up to me after I let everybody know, and she said, “I wish you had told us because I would’ve been happy to go part-time.” And I was like, ohhh. Chip Griffin: Right. Gini Dietrich: You know? Like, yeah. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Gini Dietrich: So be honest and open because I think they will come with solutions too that you may not have thought of or that you may have assumed they’re not willing to do when they are. Chip Griffin: Right. Absolutely. So then I think that takes us to that, that final piece, as we’re wrapping up here, and, and that is to take lessons away from it. Because there’s something to be learned from the end of every relationship, whether it’s because it was a project and it just, it naturally ran its course, or because you were on a retainer and they decided to end it or what have you. Yep. There are always lessons to be learned, and I think it’s, it’s really helpful to sit down with your team, not just at the end, but at key milestone points as well and say, “Okay, you know, what, what have we learned from this? What could we have done differently? What should we do differently, not just with this client but with others in the future?” And make sure that you treat as much of what you’re doing as a learning experience as possible because that’s how you really grow- both individually and as a business. If you just keep doing the same old, same old, you might do okay, but you’re not gonna do as well as you could if you’re actually studying what you’ve done in the past. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I mean, that’s the example I just gave is a great example of that. Yeah. Now I know. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Gini Dietrich: That’s a great lesson. Chip Griffin: It’s why, again, I watch all of these episodes back so that I can sit there and say, “Okay, you know, what would I do differently next time?” Maybe I’ll lower the microphone a little bit, raise my voice a little bit, talk a little bit less so that we can actually hear from Gini, and I don’t just monopolize all the time. You don’t monopolize the time. And have Jen tell me what percentage of time I’ve spoken versus… I do talk a lot. I understand that. But it’s, it’s something I consciously work on every podcast that I’m on because I know that I have a tendency to talk a lot. Gini Dietrich: Okay. I don’t think you monopolize the time here. No. Chip Griffin: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Gini Dietrich: You’re welcome. Chip Griffin: So, I guess we’re not gonna monopolize any more of your time as a listener, so we will wrap up today’s episode, but hopefully we’ve given you a few things to think about the next time that you get that dreaded call or email from a client who is not firing you, but ending the relationship in whatever fashion we wanna call it, so. Gini Dietrich: It’s not always being fired. Chip Griffin: Okay. Gini Dietrich: Fired, fired means that you did a bad job. Chip Griffin: Okay. On that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Google just stood on stage at I/O 2026 and named pet care by name. Starting this summer, Google's AI agent will call your business on a client's behalf to check availability and pricing — and the businesses it can't read won't make the list. This episode breaks down what changed, the 7.22-word stat that just broke traditional SEO, the six-rule blog structure AI actually cites, the four places your reviews need to live, and the four things every pet business owner needs to do this week before the rollout hits. Timestamps [0:00] — Welcome + the CC story from February (the strainer in action) [3:00] — Why AI literacy is the new business literacy [4:30] — Google I/O: the biggest change to Search in 25 years [6:00] — The 7.22-word stat that just broke traditional SEO [8:30] — AI Mode hits one billion users — what that means for your visibility [10:30] — The new game: ranking vs. being citable [13:30] — The first 100 words rule + the brochure problem [16:00] — The 6-rule blog structure AI will actually cite [20:00] — Why Google Analytics is lying to you (and where to look instead) [22:30] — The Google quote: pet care named by name [25:30] — What it looks like when Google's AI agent calls your business [27:30] — Daily Brief + Gemini Spark for pet business owners [30:30] — Four things you can do this week (with the 4-place reviews framework) [33:30] — Close + Keep jumping In This Episode You'll Discover Why Google named pet care — by name, on stage — at I/O 2026, and what's actually rolling out this summer The 7.22-word AI search stat (and what your clients are actually typing into Google now) The 6-rule blog structure that gets your pet business cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode The 4 places your reviews need to live — and why having them only on Google looks suspicious to AI Why Google Analytics is hiding your AI traffic — and where the real fingerprints live Four things every pet business owner needs to do this week before the summer rollout About This Episode Bella Vasta — founder of Jump Consulting and host of Bella in Your Business — sits down to break down everything Google announced at I/O 2026, the biggest developer event of the year. Bella translates the keynote into pet-business plain English: what changed in Search, why the average AI Mode query is now 7.22 words instead of 4, the six-rule blog structure that AI engines actually cite, the four places your reviews need to live for AI to trust you, what it means that Google named pet care by name as one of the first categories its AI agent will call on behalf of clients, and exactly what business owners need to do this summer to stay in the conversation. She also closes the loop on a Google Labs experiment she flagged for The Jumpers community back in February — and now lives on the keynote stage. Resources Mentioned in This Episode Ep 428: ChatGPT Is Not Google Ep 433: 13 AI Pet Sitting Business Mindset Shifts Ep 421: Why AI Will Save Your Pet Business The AI Brain: The One File That Makes Every AI Sound Like You Google I/O 2026 keynote recap (Google blog) Book a website + AI visibility session with Bella Connect with Bella Website Sessions with Bella The Jumpers Mastermind Subscribe to Bella in Your Business Bella's Website Find Bella on Instagram + Facebook ? search Bella Vasta Frequently Asked Questions Q1: Is Google's AI really going to call my pet business? Yes. At Google I/O on May 19, 2026, Google announced that AI Mode will start performing tasks on behalf of users — including making reservations, booking appointments, and getting quotes. They named three industries to start: home services, beauty, and pet care. The agent will call businesses, check availability and pricing, and bring the results back to the searcher. Rollout begins in the United States this summer. Q2: What is the difference between SEO and AIO (AI Optimization)? SEO is about ranking — getting your page to the top of the blue-link results so a human clicks. AIO is about being citable — making sure an AI engine like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Mode can read your website, understand what you do, and confidently recommend you when someone asks. Old SEO chased the click. AIO is about being in the answer itself. Both still matter, but AIO is now the gate. Q3: Why is my pet care business invisible on Google AI Mode? Most pet care websites read like a brochure — vague phrases like 'passionate care for your beloved pets' or 'tailored services for your pet's unique needs.' AI engines cannot cite that language because it does not answer a specific question. To show up in AI Mode, your pages need specific facts in the first 100 words: city, zip codes, services, prices, availability, and what kind of pets you specialize in. Specific. Real. Answerable. Q4: Why doesn't my Google Analytics show AI traffic? Google Analytics runs on JavaScript. The crawlers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode do not execute JavaScript, so they never trigger your Analytics tracking. That means even when AI bots visit your site every single day, your Analytics dashboard shows nothing. The only place AI bot visits show up is in your server logs. Ask your web host or developer for access to your raw server logs — that is where the AI fingerprints live. Q5: How long is the average AI Mode search now? According to Google's own one-year AI Mode data published in May 2026, the average AI Mode query is 7.22 words — almost double the average traditional Google search at 4 words. The top words used to begin an AI Mode search are What, How, I, Is, and Can. The top action words inside the search are find, information, identify, explain, and summarize. Pet care clients are no longer typing 'pet sitter Phoenix' — they are typing full conversational questions, which is why brochure-style websites built around three-word keywords are losing visibility fast. Q6: How do I structure a pet care blog so AI will cite it? Six rules. One — make your headline a question a real client would type. Two — answer that question in the first 100 words with a specific number, city, or service. Three — make every H2 heading a question too. Four — add an FAQ block with six to ten real Q&As and FAQ schema markup. Five — internally link to one other blog on your site and link back from it. Six — include an author bio with credentials, photo, years in business, and service area. That signals E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, trust) — what AI engines look for when deciding what to cite. Q7: Where should I put my pet business reviews so AI can find them? Four places. Place one — your Google Business Profile (the floor). Place two — embedded on your website as real text (not screenshots), on a dedicated Reviews page AND on every service page, with schema markup. Place three — woven into your FAQ answers so reviews function as proof inside your actual responses. Place four — cross-platform on Yelp, Nextdoor, Facebook, and Bark, because AI engines look for citation consistency. A pet business with 300 reviews on Google and zero anywhere else looks suspicious to AI. The one with reviews distributed across four platforms looks like a real business. Q8: What are the four things every pet business owner needs to do this week? First, be your own client — open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode and search 'best pet sitter in [your city].' See whether you appear. Second, read your homepage like an AI would and audit the first 100 words for specifics: city, services, prices, availability. Third, lock down your Google Business Profile — hours, phone number, services, service area, photos. Fourth, distribute your reviews across the four places listed above so AI sees you consistently cited as a real business. Full Episode Transcript You guys, on February 26th, I was inside my mastermind with the jumpers and I was talking about this tiny little what they call Google Labs, right? It's an experiment that they were doing. It's called CC. And CC was this email feature that it was so cool because every morning it would read your Gmail and your calendar and then hand you a prioritized summary of your day. What was urgent, what was next, all in one place with links to go to it. So now you're not having to read through your emails and your ? appointments and requests and things that had deadlines and not know it it just it was amazing. I was fired up and I told all my jumpers that like they all needed to be on it right now. And the response was also excitement, and other people signed up for it too. Some people had to get on the wait list because There was a wait list for it, but it was a really cool thing. And since February, I personally have been doing it. Now let's fast forward to May 19th, which you're gonna hear a lot about today. Google stood on a stage at their biggest developer conference of the year and announced it to the world. It was a new name. It was built into their Gemini app on the keynote stage in front of a billion people. And guys, this is exactly what I do. I take this stuff. That is out there, that is overwhelming, that is just like there's so much that you become paralyzed. And I put it through a strainer. I decide what is actually gonna be important to you, the small business owner. I distill it and I give it straight to you. That's exactly what I did. Okay. And I filter out the noise. I bring you the things that actually matter before they matter, before the headlines, before everyone else gets on top of it. That's what I've been doing since 2023, okay? And today's no different because AI literacy is the new business literacy. And if you're listening to this, you are one of the special people in the small business world that wants to learn and wants to know. You're not one of the ones that are sticking your head in the sand or paralyzed by fear. Do you have fear? Probably.

AI traffic is growing fast, but most businesses have no idea how much of it they're getting, where it's coming from, or how well it converts.This video shows you exactly how to track traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot inside Google Analytics 4, including the quick method you can use today, and the proper setup that makes AI referral traffic a permanent channel in your reports.Here's what's covered:Why AI-referred traffic converts 4–5x better than Google organic and why that makes it worth tracking separately even when the volume is still smallThe quick filter method for isolating AI referral traffic in your existing GA4 reports in under two minutesHow to create a dedicated AI referral traffic channel group so you never have to click through filters againThe one ordering mistake that causes GA4 to misclassify your AI traffic as generic referral traffic and how to fix itWhy a large slice of AI-driven visits will never show up as AI traffic at all and what to track instead to get the full pictureThe tools we use to measure AI search visibility alongside GA4, including Semrush, Peak, and ProfoundAI traffic is still a small percentage of overall visits for most sites, but the conversion rates tell a different story. Ahrefs reported 12.1% of signups from AI search despite it driving just 0.5% of traffic. That gap is worth paying attention to.Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/blog/how-to-track-ai-traffic-in-ga4/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

I know how tempting it is to focus all our energy on homepage tweaks or endless marketing, but your hidden high-traffic pages might be quietly missing the mark. This week, I'm sharing the exact process I use to uncover your real top pages, evaluate whether they're doing their job, and make simple changes that get bigger results. You'll hear why every page needs one clear job, whether that's to explain, build trust, or drive action.By the end of the episode, you'll know exactly how to check your Google Analytics, identify your most important pages, and upgrade your action buttons for quick wins. No massive rebrands or endless redesigns required, just smart, targeted improvements that help your visitors do what you most want them to do. When you learn how to maximize the website traffic you already have, your site (and not you) starts working harder for your small business.01:42 - How to find your top five most-visited pages in Google Analytics03:03 - The three main jobs every website page should have06:44 - Questions to ask when evaluating if your pages are working for you10:51 - Small fixes that make your busiest pages more effective13:06 - How this looks in my own businessLinks & Resources:Episode 186. The 20-Minute Analytics Setup Every Small Business Website NeedsFollow me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co Let's talk about your website and systems: Book a Website Gameplan Call Explore your options for working together: Web Design Services Rate & review Small Business Savvy on Apple PodcastsShow Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode189Send us a text! (If you'd like a reply, please share your # in the message)Stop managing your WordPress website and let us handle it! Learn more about our WordPress Careplan at kristendoyle.co/care. Book your FREE Website Gameplan Call: https://kristendoyle.co/gameplanLearn more about my WordPress CarePlan: https://kristendoyle.co/wordpress-care-plan/

In this profound exploration of Matthew 21:40-46, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb unpack the Parable of the Wicked Tenants and its devastating indictment of Israel's religious leadership. The hosts navigate the complex theological terrain of kingdom transfer, covenant faithfulness, and the identity of God's people across redemptive history. With careful attention to the text's original context and its implications for the church today, they examine how Christ presents himself as the rejected cornerstone—the one upon whom people either fall in repentance or are crushed in judgment. This episode offers rich insights into supersessionism, the remnant theology of Romans 11, and the practical call for Christians to examine whether they're submitting to Christ as the true cornerstone or attempting to usurp his rightful place. Key Takeaways The Self-Condemning Verdict: The chief priests and Pharisees unknowingly pronounce judgment upon themselves when they declare the wicked tenants deserve destruction, demonstrating how the natural conscience can discern God's justice even when blind to personal complicity. Kingdom Transfer as Covenant Transition: The "taking away" of the kingdom represents not the abandonment of God's elect remnant but the historical-redemptive transition from the typological Old Covenant administration to the New Covenant church gathered from all nations. The Cornerstone's Double Judgment: Christ as the cornerstone presents two modes of encounter—those who fall upon him in repentance are broken but healed; those upon whom he falls in final judgment are ground to powder with no remedy. Visible vs. Invisible Church Distinction: The visible identification of God's people shifted from the geopolitical nation of Israel to the universal church, while the invisible elect have always been saved by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. Fear of Man vs. Fear of God: The Pharisees' restraint from seizing Jesus due to fear of the crowds (rather than fear of God) exemplifies how the wicked are dominated by human opinion rather than divine accountability. Infant Baptism and Covenant Community: The joyful inclusion of children in the visible covenant community through baptism reflects God's gracious promise sealed to those who contribute nothing to their own covenant status. Fruit-Bearing as Evidence: The "new tenants" are characterized not by works-righteousness but by evidential fruit—the genuine works that flow from "true and lively faith" worked by the Holy Spirit. Key Concepts The Irony of Self-Condemnation The theological and pastoral power of this parable reaches its climax when the religious leaders, failing to perceive themselves as the wicked tenants in Jesus's story, pronounce harsh judgment upon the hypothetical villains: "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end." This moment mirrors Nathan's confrontation of David after the Bathsheba affair, yet with a tragic difference—these leaders never experience David's repentance. Calvin observes that the natural conscience, even when blind to personal guilt, retains an "hidden impulse to identify with justice." The Pharisees demonstrate total depravity in high definition: they possess enough moral clarity to recognize egregious covenant-breaking in the abstract, yet remain entirely blind to their own embodiment of that very wickedness. This irony serves as both judgment and warning—we all possess an uncanny ability to see sin clearly everywhere except in the mirror. Kingdom Transfer: Covenant Continuity and Discontinuity The phrase "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit" requires careful theological handling to avoid both replacement theology (in its pejorative sense) and dispensational fragmentation. The Reformed understanding maintains covenant continuity: there has always been one people of God, defined not ethnically but by faith in the Messiah. What changes is the visible administration of the covenant. Under the Old Covenant, the visible church was largely coterminous with ethnic Israel—a geopolitical reality with boundaries, a zip code, and national identity. Under the New Covenant, the visible church explodes these ethnic and geographic boundaries, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that "in your seed all nations will be blessed." This is not Plan B; it's the eschatological unveiling of what was always intended. The "breaking off of natural branches" (Romans 11) refers to covenant unfaithfulness resulting in exclusion from visible covenant privileges, while the faithful Jewish remnant—the apostles, early believers, and the ongoing elect from Israel—remain fully incorporated into the church. The vineyard hasn't been abandoned; it's been opened to "other tenants" who will render the proper fruit: Gentiles grafted in alongside believing Jews into the one olive tree of God's redemptive purposes. The Cornerstone: Salvation or Destruction Christ's invocation of Psalm 118:22—"the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone"—followed by his dual judgment ("whoever falls on this stone will be broken...on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust") presents two exhaustive options for relating to Jesus. The cornerstone in ancient construction was the foundational stone by which all other stones found their proper alignment and orientation. To fall upon this stone willingly—in repentance, faith, and self-abandonment—is painful. It shatters pride, self-righteousness, and autonomy. But this breaking leads to healing, to being properly "squared" and aligned with reality as God has constructed it. The alternative is catastrophic: to have the cornerstone fall upon you in final eschatological judgment is to experience irreversible, total destruction—being "ground to powder" with no possibility of remedy. The practical application is urgent: we must examine ourselves continually to ensure we're not attempting to be our own cornerstone, measuring righteousness by our own standards, aligning the universe to ourselves rather than submitting to Christ as the measure of all things. Memorable Quotes "There's never a time where that righteousness is removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, as the faithful tenants when the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves?" — Tony Arsenal "The vineyard of God is still let out, the fruit is still demanded, the cornerstone is still laid. Blessed are they who receive him—and also get those babies into church." — Jesse Schwamb "This is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are not properly assigning the cornerstone its place... the whole thing is gonna crush you." — Tony Arsenal Full Episode Transcript [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 492 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  [00:01:14] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey brother.  [00:01:18] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother.  [00:01:19] Parable Recap [00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Well, the time has finally come for us to close out our discussion in Matthew 21. This is the Parable of the Vine growers, and everybody should just go back and list everything we said so far, but I think here's how we could sum it up. Jesus's authority gets challenged and he sets a trap so beautiful that we should put it into a museum. He tells basically the religious bigwigs, this whole story where tenants speed up servants, they kill the air. They generally behave like it's an HOA literally run by the devil. And then he asks them this question, so what should the owner of the vineyard do And the chief priest. Chest puffed up. Basically shout out the answers to their own indictment. Smoke 'em. Give the vineyard to somebody who isn't garbage. Listen fellas, you just preached your own funeral. So in this we get to see this total depravity in 4K. Sovereign grace skips the credential gatekeepers and it lands on the tax collectors and the gentiles. They elect the vineyard, the self-righteous, get the rock. And we're gonna close out what all of that means, including probably not a small amount of talk about the kingdom being transferred, whatever that means, and maybe a little engrafting. Aah, Romans 11 style. It's all there for us. And that is what is coming up. [00:02:34] Affirmations Setup [00:02:34] Jesse Schwamb: Of course before we can do any of that, we can't even get there. Tony, before we do affirmations, denials, you and I both know it's our contractual obligation. It's what the people want all over the world. If we skip this, there will be some kind of riot revolt. So we gotta start there. Let's not get too excited yet. So I'm curious as always, are you affirming with something or you not against something for this episode?  [00:02:58] Tony Arsenal: I am, I'm affirming, uh, this is gonna be like people are gonna grow and roll their eyes a little bit.  [00:03:04] Infant Baptism Joy [00:03:04] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming infant baptism today. We had a lovely infant baptism at church, um, and a couple recently had a child. Um, there's been, this was a kind of a particularly, um, poignant baptism. Um, the, the mother was in the hospital for several weeks before the baby was born, um, with some medical challenges, so was in. In the hospital. In the hospital for like, I want to say probably four weeks, which is a long time. Um, they have several other children, which makes it even harder. Um, and then, uh, then the baby was in the hospital for quite some time. He came a little early and then had some other issues. Um, and so this family was out of church for quite some time dealing with these health issues, and we, we all miss them very much. So it was a very sweet moment. Um, and it's just a, a good reminder, right? And, and the way our church does it is, you know, the pastor, the family comes up, they do vows, they do the baptism, but he calls all the children forward and the children come and sit, uh, right in the front row and they watch this all happen. Um. Which is, is very sweet. And you know, I, I went up there with Augie, and Augie was sitting on my lap and he was very, he was like super locked into this, this whole thing, which is, uh, which was nice to see. So I'm affirming infant baptism. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture of the gospel. Um, it's, it's God's promise being sealed to someone who contributes nothing to, um, to that promise contributes nothing to, uh, their own, um, position in the church or status in the church. They contribute nothing. Um, in most cases they're not even aware of what's going on. So I know not all of our listeners are, uh, are covenant infant Baptists, uh, type people. Um, so yes, I get it. You disagree, but there is something just sweet and beautiful, uh, even I think even for people who aren't quite sold on infant baptism. Um, and I think even sometimes for people who are kind of opposed to infant baptism, I think we've commented in the PA past that there's kind of this impulse that I think all Christian parents have that their children should be. Treated in a certain way that's different than how a non-Christian family treats their children. Right. Um, so there is kind of this instinct that the, there's, whether it's a formal status or just sort of a, a way of thinking about things, there is this impulse that the children of believers are somehow set apart in different, and of course, the, the Presbyterian Covenant Baptist, um, position would, would formalize that through the rite of baptism, uh, at least in part. So I'm affirming infant baptism, both theologically, but also just experimentally today. Like it was just, it was just a balm to my soul to see this, um. And like I said, the congregation has been praying for a long time for the health, uh, and the, the welfare of this family, um, and been, you know, doing meal trains and all the stuff that churches do. But it was, it was a very sweet moment, um, to see the pastor scoop this little baby up in his arms and be able to sort of introduce him to the church as the newest covenant member of the congregation. Uh, it was just a very nice moment. [00:05:59] Baptism Dedication Common Ground [00:05:59] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. We can all agree that there's something really beautiful about God growing his church, at least the visible church, through just the multiplicative effect of. People having children, there's something beautiful about that, and then welcoming them in an official way into your congregation, into your midst. Interestingly, in my church, there was a baby dedication today and I was also equally moved though like I would say the promises that were invoked during that time, the equipment's made are very different than what you might hear during kind of pedo infant baptism. You're right in that the spirit of this that is like a representation kind of bringing forward of the child to say he or she is part of us and we're making a commitment to raise them in admonition of the Lord is a really lovely thing. It's like a public recognition that God is providing a manifest blessing in our midst, and that he is growing and working out his church and he's doing it by just bringing new people into it who are being, who are the subjects of procreation. Creation itself, but procreation and how can you not be like, just excited about that. And, and also a little bit like it's also, and I'm not trying to denigrate any practice here, but also just on the face also super adorable. Like when you, when you see a pastor scoop up, like you said, a little child, whether that's to pray with them and dedication or to baptize them. Either way, it's super just like lovely and just pulls in your heartstrings. Yeah. In like this very spiritual way, not just in kind of an emotional kind of way.  [00:07:26] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't, I think, um, when I think back, you know, Augie's, obviously you know this, but Augie was dedicated, um, Addie was not. Um, but when I think back to the vows we took, when we dedicated Augie, there are some differences, but there's also a lot that's not different like the sure close to like, raise up your child in the church and to like, pray for them and set a good example. And then, and then the sort of reciprocal vows that the congregation typically takes, that the congregation will do what they can to support the family as they, they raise this child and the Lord. Um, you know, even in, even in a lot of contexts, like in the Presbyterian church, I'm in like prayers that this, this child would come to know Jesus and would, would come to confess the faith for themselves and become a full, you know, full communicate member of the church. Like, those things are all present. So as much as I think, um. As much as I wanna acknowledge that infant baptism or, or covenant, I, I say covenant baptism versus, um, sort of like baptist theology writ, large credo Baptist theology, which is covenantal, but differently covenantal in most cases. Right. Um, even though that is a dividing line, and I think like it's a real dividing line. There's a real division that exists and that there's good theological historical reasons why those divisions exist. There still is so much that is the same. Um, in terms of how Baptists and, and Presbyterians or however formed, you know, PR Christians, um, re reflect on and think about their children. There's some differences, but in terms of like. We all want our children to come to know Jesus. We all want their first memory to be worshiping in the church and loving the Lord. We, we don't want them to ever remember a time where the name of Christ was not on their lips as their savior. Um, all those things are the same and even the, the way we promise before God and, and primarily before God, but before others, even the way we promise to nourish them in, in right doctrine and nourish them in good teaching and bring them into the church and, and set a faithful example. All of those things are the same. So I I I, I never want to diminish the fact that there are differences 'cause there are real differences and there are important differences. But I also think we often sort of like. I think because we've talked about this before, like Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are so close that we have to bicker over the things that are different. It's like you're, it's like when you fight with your brother on whose side of the room it's on. Like you're so close that you have to find the little things to really bicker about and then you really, really bicker about them. And I think that kind of like describes the, the Presbyterian Baptist divide in a lot of ways. I know there's a lot of people that would say like, Lutherans are closer to Presbyterians and those people are just, I dunno, they're just wrong. Um, on, on, maybe on baptism, they're, they're not wrong. But in terms of general theological principles, like, you know, Westminster Confession, London Baptists, confession, like, it, it's 95% the same content. Sure. Um, and 95% like the same confession, not just the same like words, but the same meaning of the words. And, um, so yeah. Anyway, that's my affirmation. Infant baptism. It was a joy. I was happy to see it. Um, uh, we have a ton of little, little babies in the, the church. It's funny 'cause another, another, um. A couple announced today that they were expecting, and we've, we've had basically pregnant women in the church for, you know, obviously like at least nine months if someone is still pregnant. But like we've had, we've had this like rotation of, of women delivering babies for like, at least, probably, at least 16, 18 months of, of constantly having people who are, are expecting, which is really a great joy to see. So I, I love it. I love the church. I love the Presbyterian church. Um, and this was just another great example of, of the beauty of, uh, a robust confessionalism and a robust presbyterianism. [00:11:08] Jesse Schwamb: The way in which you said that made it sound like you're about to make like a grand historical statement. Like, we've had pregnant people in the church since the first century.  [00:11:18] Tony Arsenal: Well, I mean that's probably true, but  [00:11:19] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, it definitely  [00:11:20] Tony Arsenal: true. Not, not our church. Our church has only been around, our particular church has only been around for like 10 years, so I'm sure there have been times during that period where there were not pregnant people  [00:11:29] Jesse Schwamb: pregnant. It just sounded like we were going all the way back as if like to, again emphasize and maybe this isn't, this is as fair statement, like how faithful God has been like from the beginning. There's always been. Pregnant lady Church. Look, look at how faithful God is.  [00:11:42] Mic Grabbing Babies [00:11:42] Jesse Schwamb: And, and this is true, I like to play this game when there is a baby dedication. I'm not sure what the sound system is like in your church, but often our, our pastors wear like the tiny little like Backstreet Boys style. It's probably outdated reference, but microphone that comes over the ear and to the mouth and it's very discreet. But the game I like to play is like once, once he takes the child for a time of dedication or specifically prayer, the, the goal is to see like how long before that baby goes for the mic. Because as soon as like a baby sees a mic right there, it's like, oh yeah, this is the best thing that's happened to me in my tiny little life.  [00:12:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, it's like an angler fish is really what it is. Yes. It's like that glowing bulb that just sits in front of its face and it's, the baby's just gotta grab it. [00:12:27] Jesse Schwamb: It's just too tempting. It's just too tempting. And I, and I love, you can tell like our pastors are really adept at being able to keep the prayer going and like discreetly maneuver the child, keep the child happy. It's, it's really an amazing thing. So altogether, I'm totally with you on so many levels. It's so good to see that happen in the church. And I'm with you on that. We gotta take joy in that For sure.  [00:12:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse, what do you got for us tonight?  [00:12:50] Book Breath Pick [00:12:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, something that's entirely unlike everything you just said. Certainly. Well, maybe, I guess there is a large spiritual component to this, but it's, I would say, for me, totally unexpected book recommendation and I came across this 'cause it was recommended to me and a while back, the keen or the listener who's been with us for a really long time, or a member that we talked about the book or why we sleep, this book became for me, like the equivalent of that in a totally different kind of topic or genre. It's called breath. The New Signs of a Lost Art by James Nestor and it explores how the way that humans breathe profoundly affects our health, our performance, our longevity. It's a book that is filled with both science and pseudoscience, which the author is really good at distinguishing and calling you to think about those things. But it's really totally changed how I understand like this little pattern in Habits of breathing. And it's a really interesting book of course. Like he draws from a lot of like religious influences, including of course the Judeo-Christian one. And I think that it even drew me back to understanding how God created us. And he did in a very specific way that text's giving some great description to the breadth that he gives us and how he gives us that breath. So if you're looking, I guess, for a little bit of a read, so that might surprise you about something that you might thought was automatic and simple in life and also that might. Be able to bring you some recommendations on how to better your health. Again, we're not doctors, but we are routinely considered among the top 50 healthcare podcasts. Then I would say this would be an interesting book for you to check out.  [00:14:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I haven't read it, but it's been recommended to me and one of the, one of the takeaways, actually, I think it might have been my doctor, my my PCP who mentioned this to me is like, if you wanna improve your health drastically, like just make it a practice of breathing through your nose. Yes. Like something that simple and straightforward has pretty significant health impacts of like. Like the way that your brain processes breath when it comes through your nose, the way that like, there's more filtering that happens with breath, so the air that gets to your lungs is cleaner. There's just a lot of, um, I haven't read it. I've, I think I actually have it somewhere, but I have not read it yet. Um, I, I should, I should take a look at it. I, I've heard good things about it.  [00:15:01] Jesse Schwamb: At the very least, if you're a Christian, it'll cause you to marvel again. That's how beautifully complex God has made the human body and how it seems entirely impossible that anyone could even logically reasonably conclude that somehow we are just time plus matter, plus chance, and that all these things got worked out. I don't wanna spoil some of the punchline. A part of the book is about this. Breathe through your nose, which you might think was just kind of an innocuous decision. Breathe through your nose, breathe your mouth. How, how different could it be? They actually do an experiment where they plug their noses, the author and somebody else for, uh, several, like 10 days straight. And do all these these things under medical supervision to see what the impact is. And I'll leave you to read it so you can hear that. There's also something fascinating, absolutely fascinating about carbon dioxide and a study that's done where they actually have people inhale a little bit of carbon dioxide and what it does to the body. In other words, like the system that God has put into play to ensure that the body gets the kind of right amount of oxygen that it needs and how it functions when it's given the warning side of carbon dioxide, even when. Your lung capacity and your oxygen, your blood doesn't change. There's a fascinating section on that. So I didn't expect to be this interested in the book and generally I take a little time before I recommend a book. I finished this a couple weeks ago and I'm still thinking about it. So, and I'm trying to put some things into practice, including I try to do some running and for the longest time I just thought, well, when you run, like even at any like moderate speed, like you have to breathe through your mouth, this book challenges some of that. So lo and behold, I went out and started to try just a little bit to see if I could just breathe through my nose. It turns out it's totally possible, like all this time I just thought that was impossible, like God didn't make us that way, and it's actually improving how I feel when I run and the running that I'm able to do. So I am surprised, I, I'm shocked by all this, and it's just as simple as understanding breath. Who would've guessed.  [00:16:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I mean, I've heard it's a great book. I, I, I. It never ceases to amaze that the, the more we look at the human body, the more we look at God's creation, the more we see the fingerprints of our creators. So not, not  [00:17:07] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:17:07] Tony Arsenal: Sounds like a great book. I can't recommend it from personal experience, uh, although I've heard very good things.  [00:17:12] Reading Matthew 21 [00:17:12] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, I think we should probably just get into it because this is now week three of, uh, one week episode and, uh, we want to wanna dig in and we wanna wrap it up so we can move on to the next best thing out there, which is of course, the parables of Christ. [00:17:26] Jesse Schwamb: Let's get some. So I'm gonna read for us starting in verse 40 because if you've been tracking then you've already been with us through the first part of this parable, and it's notoriously or variously called parable the vine growers, or I kinda like the husband men, just because that's fun to say, and you don't get to drop husband men like very often. But vine dressers, vine growers, vine workers, it's all the same. But here's starting in verse 40. This is after Jesus has already explained the parable. He set it up for them and he's gonna bring for the indictment. So Jesus says, and therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to these vine growers? They said to him, he will bring those wretches to a wretched end and he will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons. Jesus said to them, did you never read in the scriptures the stone, which the builders rejected? This has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord in his, marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruit of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust. And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds because they were guarding him to be a prophet.  [00:18:48] Irony Blind Leaders [00:18:48] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, that, that last little section here is just such, it's like dripping with such irony,  [00:18:53] Jesse Schwamb: so good  [00:18:54] Tony Arsenal: that like they, they are so blinded by their own, um, I dunno, ambition isn't, maybe isn't even the right word, but something in that, that neighborhood, they're so blinded by their desire to. Maintain their own status quo, their own uh, their own status. That they fear the crowds because the crowds hold them to be a prophet,  [00:19:15] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:19:16] Tony Arsenal: When in reality, like there is a prophet in their midst and much more than a prophet, uh, and they can't see it because of their own blindness. So I'm stoked to get into it. This is such, like we said, this is such a, like on the nose, paril, it's crazy. This is so much like, you know, Nathan's, you are the man kind of parable. Like yes, that's right, except there never is a, you are the man moment for them. They never get it, which is. Stunning. Like I, I, it just sort of is like, I don't even know what to make of that. [00:19:41] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. There is like a wild blindness. I've been thinking about that a lot in our past conversations, but it culminates here. These chief priests and elders, I would say strangely, but I think that this is probably true of all of us, and maybe especially me, perhaps not yet, like perceiving themselves to be the vine growers here in view, they render this verdict of severe justice. It seems like you, you wanna say to them? Like, guys, guys, pull up, hold up a second. Yeah. Take a step back before you overreact here, because you're about to condemn yourselves and in the Greek here, this expression like, miserably destroy these wicked men. Or it gets like this double wretched in our translations. Mostly he will bring those wretches to a wretched end. It's this rhetorical intensification. It's incredible. And I, I think there's at least like two truths here. That come to my mind. One is, we've talked about before, but is in line with what you're saying, that the natural conscience, when not even aware of its own complicity, can still discern the justice of God's judgments. So here are these men who are so prone almost, I think what Calvin says elsewhere, like that we have this hidden impulse to identify with justice. Even when we can't see that we are the ones perpetrating something of injustice, still we can't help but cry out. We can't even help but identify it. And here they. Accurately identify it. And even though they're putting themselves exactly in the cross here, they cannot help but basically cry out that how egregious this behavior is of these vine growers that Jesus has basically, you know, created in this hypothetical environment, even still there, they're filled with rage and the rage gets turned on them. So the Pharisees here, of course, function as this unwitting witness to the righteousness of God's wrath against covenant breakers, even though they, they don't see it.  [00:21:29] Kingdom Transfer Talk [00:21:29] Jesse Schwamb: Uh, the second thing I think that comes to my mind, and maybe this is like more to the point, is that. The verse foreshadows this transfer of the kingdom from the Jewish nation to a new people that would bring forth its fruits, which I realize if I bring that up right now, that we've just committed to like six episodes just on that topic probably. But yeah, but like, we're gonna have to come to it because there's so much here. And the phrase of this, like, let out his vineyard unto other vine growers or husbandman, it does to me like anticipate this calling of the Gentiles and the formation of the Christian Church and in, in this way. It's not to me. The abandonment of the elect, remnant of Israel, but it is like the breaking off of the natural branches and then this engrafting of the wild olive shoots that come through like Allah, Romans 11. So it's, it's not like from one nation to another simply, but from like the carnal seed to a spiritual seed gathered out of all the nations, that that's wild. Right? I, I think that's all in view here. And it's like a kind of a crazy thing to say. It's certainly like a wild thing to say, no pun intended. And I imagine like, unexpected thing to say.  [00:22:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:22:40] Supersessionism Clarified [00:22:40] Tony Arsenal: Let's think about that a little bit because I think too, there's, there's almost an element of, um. Man, I'm gonna get a lot of flack for saying this. You're, there's almost like a legitimate replacement theology here, right? Like replacement theology. I got covenant theology, you know, reformed, um, reformed theology often gets slandered as, you know, supersessionism or replacement theology, uh, with this idea that like, it's, it's interest. Uh, you have to have dispensational presuppositions for that phrase to even make sense because like the reformed paradigm is that there is one people of God full stop. And yes, like the identity of the one people of God seems to sort of like morph from the Jewish national people to now like Jews and Gentiles and actually predominantly Gentiles in the scope of like the whole history of the church. But what I mean by this is like, there's a visible church in the Old Testament, in the old, under the old Covenant, and the visible church under the old covenant is the national people of, of Israel. Right. By and large. Right. Um, and there are, there are sort of like Gentile, um, Clingons, not like the Star Trek people, but like gentile, like attachments to that throughout the history of, of Old Testament, um, theology. Um. That visible, that visible identification of this is the people of God being the Jewish people. Uh, these are the people that are the vineyard, the, they're the, the owner or the tenants of the vineyard or the, the visible Jewish people of the geopolitical nation of Israel under the old covenant that does sort of like get superseded by the church in the church age, in the new covenant,  right?  [00:24:24] Tony Arsenal: But where, where Supersessionism or the accusation of Supersessionism goes wrong is that there is this distinction between the visible and invisible church. And that distinction is what prevents us from being like, sort of like true replacement theologians in the way that the, the dispensationalist wanna paint us. So I, I think you're right that there is a lot to say here about the fact that, um, and, and this is where it gets, um. We have to be careful systematically. Right. God, God doesn't have to pivot. He doesn't have like a plan B. It's not like the Gentiles are the plan B, but there is a sense in almost in which the way that this is presented, the way that it appears in the scriptures is actually, yeah, there is almost like this plan B, like there is the geopolitical ethnic people of, of Israel, the Jewish people under the old covenant. And, and they don't do what they're supposed to do. They don't follow the terms of their covenant. They don't accept the kingdom that is bequeathed to them under the terms of the old covenant. And they, they reject that kingdom because of a disobedience. And, and I think what Christ here is narrowing in on is it's not just disobedience, right? It's not sort of like, um, accidental ancillary disobedience. It's not generalized disobedience. It is this sort of like usurpation of God's rightful status as the ruler and king of the nation. That's right. The the people, the, the Pharisees. And the chief priests and the scribes and the Sadducees, they want to be the rulers of the nation. They want to, they, they seem to wanna take the place of God, at least as far as Christ is presenting it. In this, they wanna usurp the kingdom. They want to take the heirs, uh, rightful inheritance, and they want to claim it for themselves. That is not a generalized disobedience, it's a special t type of covenant unfaithfulness that causes God to causes and kind of air quotes that causes God to hand over the kingdom to another people. Right. Partially, I think, uh, we don't need to get into Romans, the Romans 11 stuff, but partially I think because that's actually the way that he's going to ultimately save the Jewish people, right, is by sort of making, making them jealous of the Gentiles. Like there's a, there's a real element of that, that the salvation of the Gentiles is actually for, in some sense is for or unto the salvation of the Jewish people or the, the faithful Jewish remnant that's all here. And, and you can't really get past that in this parable. Um, this is why I think a, a lot of dispensationalist, um, uh, some of the classic dispensational sources would actually see like this, this is not for the Jewish church. This, this is for the Gentiles. This is actually part of the parentheses, um. You know, and, and again, dispensationalist divide all that stuff up differently, but this is a really interesting section for us to talk about that we can't, we can't just gloss over that. [00:27:11] Jesse Schwamb: I certainly don't mean to imply that it's wild because it's unexpected. I think it's wild because interestingly, the Pharisees, the teachers here, they challenge Jesus authority and his response to that is to challenge their covenant faithfulness.  [00:27:24] Tony Arsenal: Right?  [00:27:25] Jesse Schwamb: So it's not just if he turns it around, he uses this opportunity to explain what's going to happen to them as those who are, like you said, were supposed to be representative. And I think critically like the qualifying phrase. That that's using the text here, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. That's like really important because these new vine growers are characterized by their fruitfulness. So this is not like a doctrine of works righteousness, but it's evidential fruit. And that's why, and I had to look this up and the Westminster Confession confession, chapter 16, good works are quote the fruits and evidences of true and lively faith, which I love. I was trying to find that language true and lively faith. So the visible church under that new administration is identified by the fruits of repentance, faith, and obedience worked out by the Holy Spirit. Again, I think that's all that is in view here, that that's a lot to say. But you know, famously, like you've kind of intimated, when we go back to the Old Testament, even we find when the Israelites leave triumphantly from Egypt, that they're accompanied by those outside of Israel. We find that other characters like Grh who continually want to identify with a Yahweh whom God is saving and drawing onto himself and here is kind. Him, Jesus, at least representing as the son of God. That kind of cli climactic view. Speaking from the prophet register again saying, this is what I was saying to Abraham. I said, like from your seed, all these nations in this spiritual sense will be gathered out. So there'll be a single nation as it were in Christ. And even now, I'm telling you, I'm breaking down those boundaries. But I think to your point, importantly Tony, in part because you have failed in the covenant promises and you who were to represent and to heed and to lead, have fallen down. And so now you're gonna trip over this stone and it's going to crush you. And as a result of that, the vine, the vine growers will be, or the vineyard itself will be turned over to those who bear this true and lively fruit.  [00:29:22] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:29:23] Israel Failure Remnant [00:29:23] Tony Arsenal: There's an interesting, um. There's an interesting dynamic here that actually strikes me as kind of similar. It's a little bit more opaque, but similar to, uh, like Joseph in, uh, in Egypt, right when his brothers come and he says, you meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. Mm-hmm. There's a, there's an element of here, we've talked about the parables. That's sort of like systematic theology in story form. Um, there's a reality here that it's both true, that God always intended for the kingdom to be expansive and, and to expand beyond the nation of Israel. To be this universal, global lowercase c Catholic, universal church universal in the sense that it's not bound by any particular nation, by any particular geopolitical reality. Um. That's true, but it's also true that the reason, uh, on a sort of like horizontal level that that's true is that Israel failed. Right? It so God always intended for Israel to fail, yet Israel is responsible for the fact that they failed. Yes, that's right. Um, and, and, and again, we, we, we sort of commented on this before, like there are some in our broader reformed circles that turn this into a sort of antisemitism, like a sort of hatred for the Jewish people. And I don't think, I don't think that there's any warrant in scripture for that. In fact, I think scripture speaks strongly against that. Is that, um. Not necessarily because there's any particular unique special affection that God has for Israel, like, like the modern Jewish people, but, but that, like racism in general is prohibited by the Bible. But I think where we do need to be clear though, is that there is a real failure. It's a true, genuine failure on the part of the first century Jewish. Leaders and people, um, with a faithful remnant. Right? There was, um, we're, we're getting, you know, we're in the springtime and we've already had, uh, we've already had discussions about this. We've already done Easter, but like there is always conversations around Palm Sunday of like, are the crowds that are following Jesus into, into town screaming, you know, yelling, Hosanna? Is that the same crowds that are yelling crucify him a couple days later? Um, I tend to think like, no, like actually, like the people who are saying crucified, crucify Christ are probably like the Jews who live in Jerusalem or like the, primarily the religious leaders. There's a whole host of Jewish believers and kind of the hoy pallo, the, the people out in the country that absolutely follow Jesus. Like they follow him as the Messiah. They, they confess him in many cases. They convince him to be, um, they confess him to be God, to to be the savior, to be the, the figure from Daniel seven, the son of man. Um. There's a reality in which the Jewish remnant absolutely recognize Christ and they persist in the church, right? The earliest Christians were all Jews, and you know, there was a few Gentiles along the way, you know, and maybe not even Gentiles like Samaritans. I don't even know if you would call them gentiles. They're kind of this midway point, but in Jewish gentil. But there are people throughout Christ's ministry, right? Cornelius or not Cornelius, the Centurion recognizes that this is the son of God. Like there are people, the s Phoenician woman, there are people who are not part of Israel proper, who even in the, in the midst of Christ's ministry are recognizing him as God and as Messiah and as the savior of the world. But, but by and large, the earliest Christian movement was Jewish people. It was the faithful remnant of, of Israel who recognized that their Messiah had come. That is true. And at the same time. The, probably the majority, and especially the rulers and the leaders of the Israel, you know, the Jewish faith in the first century absolutely rejected him. And this is what I, this is what I think is wild, is I think sometimes we think that, um, the prophecies and the understanding of Christ and what the messiah, who the Messiah was to be and what to expect, we think of those as like super obscured and super hidden until Christ comes and then all of a sudden they're really obvious. Christ doesn't seem to treat them that way. Right? Right. He tells this parable and they rightly identify that, and this is a, this is such a thinly veiled parable. Like this is like, you killed the prophets. You're going to kill me. And there's going to be consequences. Like he practically says that outright. Um. He treats that as like they should obviously know this, right? The, have you never read in the scriptures, the stone, the builder rejected has become the cornerstone, right? This was the lord's doing. It is, and it is marvelous in their eyes that have you never read?  [00:34:06] Decree in Rejection [00:34:06] Tony Arsenal: That is a, that's a rhetorical question with the implied answer of, of course, you've read exactly like he's not, he's not teaching them something that he anticipated is new to them. He maybe is teaching them something that he anticipated they maybe you didn't recognize. But actually I think probably like, uh, there probably were many among them that were like, oh yeah, we are doing this. But then almost like we're powerless to stop themselves from moving forward in that.  [00:34:32] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:34:32] Tony Arsenal: Sort of like wicked plan. [00:34:34] Jesse Schwamb: Right. Yeah. And I think we could extend that as well to say that this rejection of Christ by this Jewish leadership, which of course was a incredible failure, like you're saying, it wasn't an accident, it wasn't an unforeseen tragedy. So just like interestingly in Acts four in his sermon where Peter quotes from the same Old Testament passage about Christ being the cornerstone, you know, it was prophesied long before. And so the doctrine of God's eternal decree, I think finds v vivid illustration even here. This is all the Lord's doing. Yeah. And even the wicked rejection of the Messiah is serving this purpose, this sovereign purpose of God's great exaltation. And so it's fascinating, and we should marvel at the fact that, again, like God means what he says when he says like He uses what is weak to overcome that which is strong, or to embarrass the strong, he uses that which seems foolish. To make the wise themselves, the ones who are actually foolish in the same way.  [00:35:29] Cornerstone Unites Church [00:35:29] Jesse Schwamb: This very stone, which men in their malice cast aside on that day. God is in his wisdom setting as this chief cornerstone. And I love like that idea of this phrase, this head of the corner denoting that amazing preeminence of Christ, that Christ is not merely included in the building of the new Covenant church. He is its chief and constituent stone that joining together both like the Jew and the Gentile, finally into one structure. And that's really, I think to your point, that's the great mystery of the hidden ages from the past. That that's the thing which Christ is bringing to like this grand display, like out on the stage in the open, in front of everybody. He's drawing it up, he's calling it to account. And so in that way, the same Jesus that was rejected by men is in God's account of inestimable value. And that should be like, I think, familiar to most of us because like there a form tradition has always insisted that. The true theology always issues in doxology and the cross and exaltation of Christ are not merely these facts, which we give these intellectual ascent, but we, we confess them as mysteries which provoke us to adoration of who God is. It's the excellency of Christ expounding at length, like the wondrous conjunction of Christ's humiliation and his exaltation, which finds its pattern here, rejected by men, glorified by God.  [00:36:50] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:36:52] Works Covenant Failures [00:36:52] Tony Arsenal: And, and this is, um, we, we commented in our first, uh, episode on this par ball. This is not isolated to just the rulers of Israel at the time of Christ, right? This is in reality, kind of like a reflection of every failure of the covenant of works. In some sense, every failure to hold the covenant of works boils down to an attempt to make oneself, God. Right. This was Adam's failure in the garden. Um, Eve, Eve was the first person to eat the fruit, but Adam, Adam was responsible for that and he, he also ate the fruit and they, they did so in part because they thought it was useful to make them like God and, and in an illegitimate fashion. And they knew it was an illegitimate fashion. It's not as though Adam and Eve suddenly were like, maybe we can eat the fruit. Maybe like we actually are fine to do it. Like they knew it was still forbidden. Right. They did it anyways. And the Pharisees here, um, are in a real attempt. Um, they are trying to take the role of Messiah for the people. They're trying to be the savior of the people in sort of shepherding and guiding them into this like. Ultra legalistic Puritan, like puritanical in the worst sense, um, kind of approach to the law. Um, this is the, the story of Old Testament Israel, right? What is the first thing that the Israelites do? Um, at Mount Sinai? The first thing they do is try to fashion gods so that they have a tame God that they can control and that they can actually be God's over. So I think this is really key and, and this is where it becomes practical for us, is that. I think we always are faced with a choice, right? There's, there's obviously those who are Christ, who the son is set free. He's set free indeed, and they will never not be his people. Like you never become not justified. If you were justified, you always forever more are justified. Justified is a final. It's, it's the future judgment of God's people dragged and dropped into the present and applied. It's the righteousness of Christ applied. So there, there's never a time where that righteousness is like removed or unapplied, but we are constantly faced with a choice as to whether we want to be the kind of people who render our fruit unto the Lord, uh, as the faithful, the sort of the implied faithful tenants that are going to be brought forward when the, the unfaithful tenants are replaced. Or do we wanna be the people that reap wicked fruit and keep for ourselves? And I think that's, that's really the thing. Like we're either gonna rep. Fruit of wickedness, or we're gonna reap fruit of righteousness. And the only thing to do with fruit of righteousness is surrender it to the Lord. But we often are faced with that choice, like, are we gonna reap our own wicked fruit and keep it all to ourselves right, uh, to our own detriment? Or are we gonna go ahead and be the faithful tenants that give the Lord what he deserves?  [00:39:46] Kingdom Transfer Explained [00:39:46] Jesse Schwamb: We're seeing so much of the simplicity of God here that like you and I have said so many times before that his loving kindness, his long suffering ness is his righteousness, is his justice, is his wrath. And so I think it's helpful, again, to remind ourselves that we're, we are talking, or he specifically is speaking of the kingdom of God here. And again referring to this visible administration of the covenant of grace, not to the inward and invisible kingdom of saving grace, which as you just said, can never be lost from those who possess it, which by the way is a really important distinctive of reform theology. There are many that would disagree with that statement, and I think really much to their harm in, in disagreement with the scriptures themselves, this one in particular, but it is this external administration, the privileges, the ordinances, the oracles of God. That is being transferred from the Jewish nation as a corporate body to a new and broader people of God. And because I know that sounds very extreme, I did look up Calvin and his commentary on this and let me read what he says because this is interesting. I think even this could possibly mis be misunderstood. But here's Calvin who can say it better than I. He says, quote by these words, he means that God would deprive the Jews of the honor and the privilege of being his peculiar people and would call the Gentiles that out of them he might form a church end quote. And going back to what you said earlier, I'm with you. I, I. I mean, this is not, I think as some have wrongly concluded, like replacement theology in like a wooden sense. I, I see this still as like this historical redemptive transition from the typological administration of the old covenant to the eschatological fulfillment of the new. And the elect remnant of Israel is not cast off, but the national like typological privileges are being transferred to the Catholic church, gathered from all nations. And in that, I really do see this wonderful confluence of God's loving kindness, his, his fidelity to the promises that he's made and his wrath being manifested all at once. And somehow Jesus, of course, in complete perfection, can bring that all to bear in this tiny little story.  [00:41:51] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And and isn't it just like the master teacher to like, put all of this baked into this? I mean, that's right. We think of this as like a long parable, like I think,  [00:42:02] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:42:02] Tony Arsenal: I think like it's, it's amazing how we think of parables as, you know, like this is a short one. A short one is a couple sentences, a long one is like a half a dozen sentences. Like, and of course like Christ is teaching broader than this. He's teaching more than this. Just, this is what's recorded by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is what Matthews preserved for us.  [00:42:22] Stone Breaks or Crushes [00:42:22] Tony Arsenal: But you're right, there's so much baked into this little parable and I think, um, there's something to be said about this idea of like. Not only do those who smash against the, the rock, the, the cornerstone, those who smash against the rock, like those who who fall on the rock are broken to pieces, but also the rock falls on others and smashes them to pieces. Right? And, and there's something to be said about the fact that, and I'm not exactly sure how I wanna articulate this, but it's only those who like recognize the proper place of the rock and don't either let it fall on them or don't smash themselves against it. You know, we always joke about like running through a wall. Like this is not a wall you're gonna run through. Like you're gonna smash into this wall and it's gonna crush you. And if you are, if you're not properly assigning the cornerstone it's placed, right? The cornerstone is, is the stone that's placed in the foundation of a building that all the other stones find their orientation and their proper alignment based on. [00:43:26] Jesse Schwamb: Right.  [00:43:26] Tony Arsenal: You might think of this sometimes. I've heard this articulated as like the, the arch stone. I think it's a little bit different than that. Um, but it, the, the idea is the same, right? Like there's a stone in an arch. If you think of like a classic Roman arch, you have these piles of stones until you put the final arch stone in. That, in that stone is what makes the arch stable. Until that point, either side can fall, but if you don't properly set that arch stone where it's supposed to be, then the whole thing is gonna crush you. It's gonna fall down on top of you at some point. I think this is a little different. This is the cornerstone of a, this is more like the cornerstone of a building. This is the stone that the rest of the building, building is oriented against and is aligned with. If you get that wrong, then you have a, you have like a crooked wall, a wall that's not set, that's not straight. It's not stable. What this is saying and what this, this prophecy right from, from Psalm one 10, I think I should probably look it up, but I haven't yet. But this prophecy that Christ is referring to this, this prophetic statement in the Psalms that he's assuming the audience is familiar with, right? I think that's a really important point. Like he's not only assuming that they're familiar with it, there's rhetorical force of kind of like, of course you understand this principle that there is a cornerstone coming. There is something or someone who is coming that all other things will be measured against. And if you're either in alignment with this, with this person who is coming or you're out of alignment with reality, this thing is understood by them. It just is so critical and I think like the, the, a lot of the parables don't have explanations built into them. Some of them do. We've talked about some of them. A lot of them don't, this one does, but it's kind of like a really surprising way to explain it. And there's so much, um, the more that I look at this, the more we talk about it, this really is so similar to David and Nathan, right? Right. When with the, the affair with Bathsheba, he is saying to the Pharisees, look, you're the man. Like, you're the one here. You're the guy. You guys are the wicked tenants that are gonna, you've killed the prophets. Right? Um, I'm losing my, my timeline a little bit, but John the Baptist either had been executed or would be executed shortly at this point, right? So like the, the most recent prophet either was already killed or, or Christ knew of course he was going to be killed. Um, he's saying, look, you guys are the ones that are doing this and you're going to kill me. Right. And this is obviously what the prophecy is, that you think you're going to come against the cornerstone, but in reality you're going to shatter yourself upon me. You think you're gonna come against me, I'm going to crush you. And rather than say, you know, as ba, you know, as David does, where he repents, he, he fasts and he, he refuses to eat. He's, he's in mourning over both the loss of his infant, but, but more so over his own sin, I think is the picture the text gives us. Um, he's mourning trying to uh, sort of like reverse God's decision, but there's a genuine repentance to it, right? That's where we get Psalm 51, like creating, clean me a clean heart, oh God, renew a right spirit in me. There's none of that for the Pharisees, there's none of that for the sadist of the chief priests. They just continue to smash themselves against this rock, not recognizing that it's actually the rock that is crushing them. [00:47:05] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's, it's a bit like, I'm gonna speak like a little maybe beyond my depth here, but there's a little bit of like that Nathan, like Strategem, and then this is where I'm outside my own experience. And then a little bit like maybe like WWE the rock in terms of like. If you want some come and get some, right? It's a little of both. And of course the passage ends very tragically, well ends humorously by them, you know, saying that at some point they were like, they understood in these parables, again, this is one of three of the same kind of topic of variety, but that Jesus was referring to them, which is funny. You wanna be like, yeah, it took a, took a long enough, I guess, guys, but you finally got it. But then that last sentence of like, they still sought to kill him. So to your point, even after all of this, there wasn't repentance. And we do get these, I think, two very distinct judgements that are depicted here, which you've already kinda led us into this first, like, whoever shall fall on the stone shall be broken. You know, to me, I think that's invoking this idea that in this life, there we are, we can be brought to brokenness through the gospel and to fall upon Christ. And repentance. And faith is to be broken in self, in pride and self-righteous. It's a breaking that does lead to healing. But this second judgment, you know the one, but on whomever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder, grind him to dust, I mean. Man, think about what a vivid image that is. I mean, that's like the more terrible of the two. That that's like the, yeah. Final Es logical judgment of those who persist in unbelief and it, it admits there's like no remedy. So there are only two ways to relate to Christ. You either fall upon him willingly in faith and repentance, which is painful, but it is saving, you know, to have him fall upon us in judgment is final in damning, and so that's what Christ presents here. [00:48:48] Psalm 118 in Context [00:48:48] Jesse Schwamb: It's, it's both of these things and you're right, it is brilliant that he goes to Psalm one 18 even that as a setup, because as you've kind of already said, I love to think, of course that's, can you manner the tone in which this was said to these scribes and Pharisees? Because of course the, the secondary indictment here is like, listen, you guys who like your great pride is that, you know, the scriptures really well. Have you read this part is familiar to you. Yeah. Can you tell me where that is? So like, we, we should go there just, just quickly. This is Psalm one 18 because I think that here again is, as I'm hearing it in context. There are some verses surrounding this that I think we might be surprised that they come right on the heels of this idea of the stone. So just a couple verses. In Psalm one 18 being in verse 22, the stone, which the builders rejected, has become the chief cornerstone. This is from Yahweh. It is marvelous in our eyes. Here's the verses that we might not recognize. Come right after it. This is the day which Yahweh has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Oh, Yahweh, save. Oh, Yahweh, succeed. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh. We have blessed you from the house of Yahweh. Yahweh is God, and he has given us light by the festival sacrifice with corns to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I give thanks to you. You are my God, and I exalt you. Give thanks to Yahweh for his good, for his loving kindness endures forever. And so this idea that there's rejoicing in which day, I mean, usually we kinda say that it's like, well, it's a beautiful day out. It's the Lord's day. This is the day that Yahweh is like that. That's true. But also here in particular, it is this blessed day of Yahweh giving the stone, which the builders reject and which has become the chief cornerstone. And that stone is some will run headlong into and shipwreck their lives and others will be crushed underneath it. And guess what? This is the day which Yahweh has made and we're gonna rejoice and be glad in that.  [00:50:41] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:50:43] Mark's Angle on Fear [00:50:43] Tony Arsenal: The other thing I think, you know, we. Should, um, maybe not spend any time on, 'cause we're at like, out, like minute 50 of a 60 minute podcast. But just going to, to Mark's version of this parable real quick. Um, starting in verse, uh, this is chapter 12, verse 12. It says, and they were seeking to arrest him, but feared the people for, they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away. And the, the main difference here, the reason I'm reading this is Mark chooses a d. Concerning them. The verb is, or the preposition is Perry. So it's kind of like this idea that he was, he was sort of speaking around them. He was talking about them. Mark uses the, the preposition, proce, which is not, um, not against, in like the same, uh, direct sense. We might use the word against. That would be something like Kada. Um, but he's, he's speaking this parable towards them or to them, um, against them. He's, he's directing the parable at them. And this is, this is, we, we commented on this a little bit in the, the first episode here. Um, he is speaking to the crowds. But he's telling the parable about or against or concerning the Pharisees and the scribes, and they perceive this, right. The, the gospels here don't say that the crowds perceive this. Right. And I think that's key. Like the Pharisees basically look at this and say, uh, we better get this under control because he's talking about us. Right, right. Like, I'm just picturing Paul Washer's. I'm not trying to say Paul Washer is a Pharisee, although some people would probably make that connection. But like I'm, I'm just hearing Paul Washer's voice saying like, I don't know why you're clapping. I'm talking about you. He's speaking to the Pharisees here. And it's interesting because Matthew associates the, the, uh, Pharisees. Cowardice in acting against Christ, uh, because they fear the crowds and because the crowds believe Christ is a parable or is a prophet Mark associates. And again, both of these things are true, right? This is holy scripture. This is inspired, these are not contradictory accounts. This is facets of the same diamond. Mark associates this with, they fear the crowds. Um, because they had taken him. They, they understood that the parable was being spoken against them, right? So there's this element that the Pharisees are not only understanding that the, the parable is about them, they feared them because the crowds believe that Christ is a prophet and that prophet is speaking this parable against them, right? So like they're, they're recognizing full on that it's only a matter of time before the, the general population, the general people that are listening to Christ recognize that he's overturning. Not only the Pharisees, the entire geopolitical nation of Israel, he's overturning the ethnic based reality, the geopolitical based reality, that God's people have a zip code and that zip code is Jerusalem. That zip code is this little si, this little tract of land the size of like Vermont and New Hampshire in the Mediterranean, like off the Mediterranean Sea. He's overturning that. And the, the Pharisees, the educated people, the, the Sadducees, the chief priests, the rulers, they recognize it's only a matter of time before the people understand what Christ is doing. They, they follow him as a prophet and this is what he's prophesying. And

In this episode, I break down website behavioral data tools and show how to use them to support smarter decisions and sustainable small business growth.Most business owners think once Google Analytics is set up, their website data game is strong. But here's the problem: Google Analytics 4 gives you only half the story. Sure, you find out how many visitors stop by and which pages they visit, but you're left guessing about what they actually do once they land on your site. Today I'm sharing the free tools that show you exactly how people interact with your pages, the three heatmap types every small business owner should know about, and why having both quantitative data and behavioral data is the secret to understanding what's working and what's falling flat.It's time to make stronger website decisions using real tools and concrete data. I'll walk you through the practical steps to start tracking and understanding your visitors' behavior, so you can focus your business systems and simplified marketing exactly where they make the biggest impact.00:00 - Why Google Analytics only tells half the story01:54 - Quantitative vs. behavioral data (what you're missing)03:50 - How to use the three main types of heat maps07:19 - Two free tools for website behavioral data11:56 - Using path exploration in Google AnalyticsLinks & Resources:Episode 186. The 20-Minute Analytics Setup Every Small Business Website NeedsMouseflowHotjarBook a website strategy callWatch this episode on YouTube.Follow me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co Let's talk about your website and systems: Book a Website Gameplan Call Explore your options for working together: Web Design Services Rate & review Small Business Savvy on Apple PodcastsShow Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode187Send us a text! (If you'd like a reply, please share your # in the message)Stop managing your WordPress website and let us handle it! Learn more about our WordPress Careplan at kristendoyle.co/care. Book your FREE Website Gameplan Call: https://kristendoyle.co/gameplanLearn more about my WordPress CarePlan: https://kristendoyle.co/wordpress-care-plan/

Want to use AI in your voiceover business without giving up control of how you sound, how you write, or how clients see you? In this episode of the VOpreneur Podcast, Marc Scott shares the framework that keeps his AI use sustainable: treat AI like an employee, not the boss. Then he walks through five practical ways voice actors can put AI to work — saving time, saving money, and getting found by more clients, even with zero technical background or SEO budget. Inside this episode: - How to drop your raw Google Analytics data into ChatGPT for a plain-English breakdown of what's working on your website (and what isn't) - The same shortcut applied to Google Search Console — and why it's the fastest way to learn which keywords are actually driving traffic to your VO website - What SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) mean for voice actors — and how to position yourself to show up when buyers search inside ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini - The right way to use AI as a writing assistant for marketing emails so they still sound like you, not a chatbot - How to use AI as a brainstorming buddy for social media so "I don't know what to post" stops being the reason you don't post Marc also explains why the $20–$30/month investment can pay back significantly when you're a solo voice actor competing against established names with decades of website authority — and why the voice actors who choose to embrace AI now have a ground-floor opportunity in generative engine optimization that won't last forever. Whether you're an experienced voice actor looking to build efficiencies into your business, or a newer VO talent trying to figure out where to start, this episode gives you a clear, no-hype roadmap for putting AI to work — on your terms.

Kickstarter has become a key part of the author business for those who want to make more money per book, connect directly with readers, and produce beautiful editions they're proud of. In this episode, I share excerpts from interviews with Oriana Leckert, Head of Publishing at Kickstarter, Russell Nohelty, and Sacha Black, alongside my own hard-won lessons from six campaigns that have now made over $140K combined. Whether you're considering your first campaign or looking to refine your process, we cover everything from overcoming your fears to rewards, fulfilment, shipping, marketing, and why I keep coming back for more. In the intro, Writing StoryBundle; Spotify Expands Audiobook Features and Printed Books; Draft2Digital Activation and Maintenance Fees; comment by Kevin McLaughlin; and Barnes & Noble Press change to Minimum Retail Price for Printed Books; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars. This show is supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn  Joanna Penn is an award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, short stories and travel memoir under J.F. Penn and also writes non-fiction for authors and hosts The Creative Penn Podcast. What Kickstarter is and why it works differently from a normal book launch The fears that held me back for almost a decade — and whether they were justified Starting small: Why you don't need sprayed edges and special hardbacks to run a successful campaign. Creative reward ideas beyond merch: digital rewards, experiential rewards, naming rights, and bundling your backlist Common mistakes that sink campaigns: overestimating your reach, getting shipping costs wrong, and not allowing enough time Fulfilment realities, printing timelines, and reinvesting profit into future stock Marketing your campaign: pre-launch signups, content marketing, email lists, social media scheduling, and Facebook/Meta ads My update for campaign #7, Bones of the Deep: what's changed, what I'm doing differently, and how AI tools are part of my process now Why I now love Kickstarter campaigns and how the spike income model fits a sustainable creative career You can find my Kickstarter campaign for Bones of the Deep here (until 5 May, 2026) and all my previous campaigns here. Introduction Jo: In this episode, I've included excerpts from my own previous solo show about Kickstarter, as well as excerpts from interviews with Oriana Leckert, the Head of Publishing at Kickstarter; Russell Nohelty, who has done lots of successful Kickstarter campaigns and teaches direct sales; and Sacha Black, who did a six-figure campaign last year. I've also added my updates to the end of the episode filling in any last thoughts. You can listen to the full episodes here: Kickstarter for Authors with Oriana Leckert The Mindset and Business of Selling Direct with Russell Nohelty Lessons Learned and Tips from Pilgrimage, My First Kickstarter Campaign Two Different Approaches to Selling Direct with Sacha Black and Joanna Penn What is Kickstarter, and why use it instead of a normal book launch? Here's Oriana Leckert, Head of Publishing at Kickstarter — and the numbers she shares will be higher now, as the episode is from February 2025. Oriana: Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform. We are unique in the crowdfunding landscape for a few reasons. We are only for creative projects, so you can't use Kickstarter for medical bills, investment funding, or charitable donations. Every project has to create something new to share with the world. Jo: Have you got any numbers on how big the Kickstarter industry is now with publishing, or anything you can share around that? Oriana: Yeah, I would love to. First I'll tell you Kickstarter overall by the numbers. Since our inception, there have been 273,000 projects funded, eight and a half billion — with a “b” — billion dollars pledged, from more than 24 million backers. In publishing specifically, we've had 69,000 projects launched, 3.2 million unique backers, and over $380 million pledged to campaigns. I have lots of other stats, but a few things I'll share. The publishing category keeps growing The publishing category has grown year over year, every year since 2017, in terms of number of projects launched, number of projects successful, and the overall success rate. There has never been a dip since 2017. Another stat I really love about the publishing category: if you look at campaigns that have at least 25 backers, the overall success rate is 84%. I think that's really telling, because 25 backers is a little bit more than your mum, your best friend, the folks who are essentially obligated to support anything you do. So if you can get a little bit beyond that inner circle, your chances of succeeding on the platform are tremendously high. Backers are paying more — and waiting longer Another thing I wanted to call out — I just got some new numbers around this. The average backing amount per backer across the whole category has nearly doubled since 2020. We used to see an average backing around $40, and it's currently at $72 per backer. I think this is clearly around the trend of special and deluxe editions, but it's a great indication that backer behaviour on Kickstarter is just very different from your general book-buying public. People don't come here looking for 99-cent ebooks — the lowest bargain-basement prices. Folks are really willing to pay more because they understand this is a different kind of thing. It's not exactly a purchase. It really is supporting, bringing a strange and wonderful new thing into the world that wouldn't exist before. People are also much more forgiving about timelines. If you buy something from most online booksellers, you're expecting to have it in your hands within a couple of days. People wait months and sometimes years to get their Kickstarter rewards, and they don't mind if the creator is clear and transparent. You're also doing the work of demystifying the publishing process. Why does it take so long? Where are books printed? How long does it take them to ship via freight over the ocean? What do all these things really look like? So it's really interesting just figuring out what your backers want and will bear versus the general book-buying public out in the world. Kickstarter is not just for “desperate” authors anymore Oriana: People used to think Kickstarter was just for desperate folks who couldn't get a book deal through the traditional systems. The change has been so dramatic — people now understand that Kickstarter can be transformative for an author's career, and that it can work for traditional publishing, indie publishing, hybrid publishing, all kinds of authors. Kickstarter is really about collapsing the boundaries between a writer and their readers, a publisher and their fan base, any creative person and their audience. And there are so many benefits to doing that. You get to really thrill your backers with new and exciting rewards. You get to turn what can be a standard book release into a moment. You get to build your brand, your profile, get press, test out ambitious projects. You get to understand so much more about your audience and what they want and how you can give it to them. It's been really marvellous seeing the great success that people can have on our platform and outside of it. Why do a Kickstarter campaign? Jo: Why Kickstarter and not a usual book launch? Benefits for backers If you back a Kickstarter, you get special editions, bonus content, interesting merchandise, bundles, digital specials, print specials, early access. All of them pretty much are really cool books from creators you either already love or those you've never heard of, because you just want to see their cool stuff. I've started buying books from people I have never heard of because I think their books are really cool. Once you start supporting campaigns on Kickstarter, the algorithm will recommend campaigns for you. It's essentially a different way of shopping for great books and other products, and it's just another part of my ecosystem for how I shop. It's a form of direct sales, so you also have a closer connection with the creator. You can message them, for example, and they get it — rather than buying through an online retailer or bookstore. Benefits for creators In terms of benefits for creators, you get to know people in a more personal way through the campaign, messaging with people and connecting more than you would when selling through a retailer, when you don't know who is buying your books. As an author, you can make more money more quickly and retain a higher percentage of the royalties, rather than wait months or years to get paid and have a large percentage taken out by everyone down the chain — publishers, platforms, distributors, and retailers. Brandon Sanderson's $41 million Kickstarter was clearly the pinnacle of what can be achieved, but many authors are happy making a few thousand for their book project upfront and use campaigns multiple times during the year. Kickstarter takes 5% for their fee, although of course you have to factor in the cost of production and marketing. But even then, I make more profit on my book sales through selling ebooks and audiobooks direct, and also printing with BookVault, than I do with KDP Print or IngramSpark print on demand. Higher average order and faster payment Another way you make more money is that the average order per customer is higher with Kickstarter than sales on the usual stores. The average order on my campaign was £37.24 — that's around $45 US — which is at least four times higher than I might have made selling Pilgrimage in the usual way on the major retailers. You get paid two weeks after the campaign finishes, so the money is in your bank account much faster than if you sell on retailers. In terms of cash flow, make sure you time your campaign so you get the money before you have to pay for printing, shipping, and other significant bills. Spike income vs monthly income There are many creators who now make Kickstarter the core of their business. It's a spike income model rather than a monthly income, which most indie authors are used to. The monthly income model is fantastic — I love getting money every month — but it also has the effect of making indie authors behave as if this is a normal job: work every month, get paid every month, put out another book so you get paid in another few months' time. With the Kickstarter model, you can get a bigger chunk of money in one go, so you could potentially move to a big launch and then take more time off before ramping up to the next launch months later. And amusingly, this sounds a bit more like traditional publishing. It's just that as an indie author, when you get that amount of money, it's much bigger. So that kind of launch tempo is an attractive prospect if you think about it: if I just get this big spike of money even once a year, that's really cool. And then of course you can sell it later. What are some of the fears that might stop you? Jo: I held back from doing a Kickstarter for years — almost a decade, in fact — where I backed campaigns and resisted doing a campaign for my own books. Here are some of my fears. Prepare to face your fears Jo: This entire experience thrust me out of my comfort zone and into a new way of creating, launching, and connecting with readers. Pilgrimage is my first memoir, my first special hardback with colour photos, and my first Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. So I had a lot to learn. The book is very personal and I bare my soul about some dark times, so that was terrifying in itself, let alone trying a new product edition and publishing platform. On the evening I clicked the launch button — and yes, you have to actually click an actual launch button — my heart was hammering out of my chest. I have not felt that nervous since probably the first time publishing on Amazon. I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of being embarrassed if my campaign didn't fund. I wrote a book on marketing — how to market a book — so I would be mortified if I had not funded. In fact, I even changed my target from £5,000 to £1,000 the night before, as I was so terrified it wouldn't fund. I was afraid of getting something terribly wrong and ending up out of pocket through issues with printing and shipping. I was afraid of letting backers down by promising something I might not be able to deliver. I was afraid I had overcommitted myself to a whole load of work I might even resent doing. I am a one-person business, and although I work with freelancers, I still do pretty much everything myself. I am a control freak — you might have noticed. So yes, there was a lot of apprehension and fear. You don't have to go huge Another fear might be the fear of failure — that you'll put up a campaign and no one will buy from you. But one answer is just to do a modest campaign. You don't have to do special hardbacks or merchandise. As Russell says: Russell: Somehow all of the teaching that we have given over the last two years has been executed in a way that makes it seem like you have to do this enormous campaign with sprayed edges and big, beautiful hardcovers and interior illustrations and vellum and all of that stuff. And I want to say first: that is absolutely not true. You don't have to do any of those things. If you look at two of the last three campaigns I've done, all I was offering was paperback books and ebooks, and then audio commentary for one of the campaigns. You can do a Kickstarter — and I often will tell people, especially if they're not an already successful author — do a campaign that is small and easy to get data on before you do something big. The direct connection is actually the point Jo: One of my resistances to this was a sort of, “Oh, I'm actually going to have to do a more higher-touch thing.” But as you say, the reframe is: oh my goodness, this is amazing, because I actually do get to connect with people. Just yesterday I sent a signed book — Pilgrimage, which I did my last Kickstarter on — and this guy was like, “I bought it for myself. Can you sign it to me, because I'm going to do the Camino in a wheelchair?” And I was just so touched. Emailing him back, I just felt, oh my goodness, I'm having a connection with this person that if they'd just bought a book on Amazon, I would not have had. So now it's almost like — it's this totally different view of my business, which is that direct-first means a much more personal way. It really is like we're in that thousand true fans moment that we first talked about 20 years ago. Were my fears realised? Jo: Just to recap, I was afraid of failure and embarrassment if I failed to fund, of getting something wrong and being out of pocket, of letting backers down, and of overcommitting myself and resenting the workload. Really, the only thing that happened was overcommitment and a lot more work than I expected. But the time I put in was also likely the reason for the campaign's success and the reason that the other things didn't happen. I had to learn a new platform and a new approach to publishing and book marketing, so it was kind of a mini degree at the same time. So yes, I will do another Kickstarter — but only for special projects that are suited to this kind of intensive campaign. Tips for campaigns In this section, Oriana shares her thoughts on rewards, and then I'll go into some more of my tips. Thinking beyond merch Oriana: The rewards are really at the heart of the Kickstarter proposition and what makes this kind of fundraising so interesting and thrilling. Basically, your process is you're inviting people on a creative journey. You're saying, “I'm going to make this cool thing. I want your support, and in exchange, you're going to get stuff, you're going to get to be part of my process.” Obviously your main reward is going to be your book, or your series, or if you're a publishing company, your season — whatever it is. That's your main tier. Then you're going to build everything else out above and below that. A lot of people think rewards means swag and merch. Which is fine, but merch can add a lot to your production costs. It's causing you to learn how to produce all kinds of things that maybe you've never done before. So that's not the only way to do it. If you're going to do some merch, I think it's nice to come up with some custom items that feel really related to the work that you're doing. If you've got a romance novel with a pivotal scene on the beach, maybe you'd make some candles that smell like the ocean. Maybe you do some kind of handkerchief that's printed with the pattern of the dress your heroine is wearing. Digital and experiential rewards Oriana: But you can really think beyond merch into digital rewards and experiential rewards. There are a lot of parts of the writing process that can be pulled out and packaged as rewards — things like notes from the field, outtakes, deleted scenes. I've had people write bloopers, as if it were a comedy movie, added new scenes or novellas, other pieces from different works that you've done. Certainly your backlist and other books you've written can all be included. We've seen people do tours of the writer's studio, things like that. Also think about what skills you have in addition to your writing. Perhaps you're excellent at marketing or social media or poetry — you can offer webinars on those sorts of things. Other kinds of ways that people can experience your creative practice. High-end and naming rewards Oriana: Then you can get into high-end, one-off, crazy rewards. One whole section of rewards I love is naming rights. We've seen all kinds — “We'll name the dragon after your dog, or after your mother-in-law. We'll name the hero after your son.” There's a LitRPG novelist named Matt Dinniman who does this really well. He writes these big-cast novels — there are dungeons, and you're in an intergalactic reality TV show with hundreds of characters. In his last campaign, for $666 he would kill you off in his next book, and for $777 he'd let you live and write a whole scene around you personally. You can also do book release parties. You can do book clubs. If you're writing children's books, you can do colouring pages or supplemental material for teachers or other educators. The sky is really the limit, and it is based on your creativity and the things that both you can make and that your audience wants. This is another opportunity — talk to them. Ask them: if I'm going to do a piece of swag, would you rather have an enamel pin or a makeup bag? If I'm going to do alternate covers, would you like the blue cover or the red cover? See what your people are interested in, and then figure out whether it's possible for you to deliver it to them. Learn about the platform from experts Jo: I've been publishing and selling books through online retailers, as well as my own store, since 2008. I know what I'm doing, but I still had a lot to learn. With Kickstarter, it's essentially a completely different ecosystem, with different rules and a different audience, so you have to learn the ropes. Even if you're super successful in other places, you might crash and burn on Kickstarter unless you understand how it works and change your approach accordingly. Start backing campaigns Jo: See how it feels to back Kickstarter campaigns and discover what draws you in as a reader and a fan of specific things. You might find projects you love outside of books — there's plenty of other projects outside of books. You can browse the publishing category to find new books, and also use the search to find things you might like. In this way, you can support fellow creators and learn how the Kickstarter site works for discoverability and marketing. Make sure you go through the Kickstarter.com resources — they have a creator pack which will give you direction on the campaign. Also, their terms of use are really important to read, as there are some assumptions you'll have because you've published on another platform that are incorrect. So do not assume you know what you're doing if this is your first campaign. Ask for feedback before launch Jo: Once you have a draft of your campaign, ask specific people to review it before it launches. You can share a preview prior to launch and get feedback on your page. This helps you refine your story and the rewards, answer any questions before the campaign goes live, and it can also help pique the interest of your audience. I asked specific people who had done Kickstarter campaigns for help at different stages of the process, and this was really useful too. Review common mistakes from other campaigns Jo: If you examine how others made mistakes, you can learn from them. The most common seem to be: Not finishing the book before the campaign Getting the financials wrong for production, shipping, and any other rewards. I know some authors who have ended up breaking even, or sometimes even out of pocket from campaigns. Don't do that. Not making the most of the story sales page and not including everything necessary, so backers don't understand and don't want to support the campaign — essentially, not being clear enough Setting unrealistic goals, like expecting to make six figures on a first campaign Not allowing enough time for everything Not seeking feedback from people who have done it before Not marketing the campaign enough Overpromising and under-delivering Poor communication with backers about the status of rewards Set aside more time than you think you need Jo: The campaign ended up being far more significant than I expected in terms of workload and time to complete. Everyone told me that beforehand, but it was still a surprise. It took time to prepare the multiple editions for the rewards. I usually produce an ebook, paperback, and a large print edition, and I narrate my own nonfiction audiobooks. But for this Kickstarter, I also wanted to do this special hardback with colour photos, a flyleaf cover and silver foil. I wanted to create a special print product I could be proud of. I'm proud of all my books in terms of the content, but the usual paperback print-on-demand books are more about the content than the true beauty of the product. For Pilgrimage: A Book of My Heart, I wanted a special edition, so I worked with Jane on the design, going through my photos from the various pilgrimages to find those that resonated with the content — for example, the cadaver tomb at Canterbury, and my Compostela from the Camino de Santiago. Once we finished, I had that proof copy rushed so we could turn around everything. And I love, love, love the hardback. It has a silken-finish cover and it feels lovely and weighty. The pictures came out well, as the paper is of a higher quality and weight to allow for colour printing. Overall, I am incredibly proud of the finished product. I even sent a copy to my mother-in-law, which I have never done before. And yes, she thinks it's good. I definitely should have allowed more time, as I spent most of the Christmas and New Year period working on the book, recording and editing the audiobook, and preparing for the campaign. I also didn't have time to prepare, record, edit, and produce the Writing Setting and Sense of Place course until after the campaign, and it was really hard to find the energy to do this afterwards. Building the campaign page Jo: It took time to build the Kickstarter campaign page, create the video, and incorporate feedback. Most authors don't write sales pages anymore. Sure, we write a sales description for the book page on the retailers, but we don't often do a whole page for multiple editions. On Kickstarter, you are basically writing a sales page for your campaign, which they call a “story.” Some of your existing audience might just click through and back the campaign without reading it, but most backers will check out the details to find answers to any questions they have. It is a very long page, and you also need a video — or you don't need one, but it's highly recommended. It's best to record the video at the last stage when everything else is done. You can still see my Kickstarter video on my campaign page, so I won't go through everything in detail. But the key aspects are: Who the campaign is aimed at Why the campaign is important to me and the book What products are available Pictures of everything — the page should be really visual — and I included the images in the video as well Sample chapters and sample audio Specifications, with weight, pages, listening time, table of contents About me, the author Stretch goals Add-ons Any questions, risks, and challenges So it's pretty long. Then the reward levels have to be set up carefully for each pledge level with shipping costs, and specific details about what's included. Eventually, I felt like my page had way too much information, but since I didn't really get many backer questions, I guess it did what it was supposed to do. I rewrote and edited that page so many times — adding and changing the order of things, responding to feedback, switching things around. But hopefully I can use that as a template for other campaigns. Marketing takes time too Jo: It took time to prepare the marketing for the campaign. I'm pretty low-key for most launches these days — I publish a book, send a few emails to my lists, announce it on the podcast, do a little social media, update my websites, and move on to the next book. So this was probably my biggest effort in terms of a launch since my first novel back in 2011. I only had a two-week campaign, so I needed to make the most of that window. I'm going to detail the marketing in a separate section, but it took a lot of time to prepare the various things and execute them, as well as keep the energy up for promotion during the campaign. Two weeks was definitely the longest I would want to do — I was really over it by the end. Delivering stretch rewards Jo: It took more time to create and deliver the extra stretch rewards I promised. Since I had pretty low expectations of funding, I set my first stretch goal at £10,000 for “Lessons Learned from Writing a Travel Memoir.” When I promised it, I thought it might be a few pages of tips, and I didn't even think we would get there. But I'm incapable of delivering something that is half done. So when we did hit £10,000, I wrote essentially a short book on the topic, which I then formatted as an ebook and recorded as an audiobook. I'm actually going to turn that into a proper book at some point, so the content will get reused. But that definitely took more time than I expected, because I hadn't prepared it in advance. The backer spreadsheet and fulfilment Jo: It took time to figure out the backer spreadsheet and check all the fulfilment details. Once you finish your campaign, you send out surveys for mailing addresses and to fulfil rewards. I also needed to turn the backer report into a printing order for BookVault, and that was nerve-wracking. The spreadsheets were different formats, and then we spot-checked the orders to make sure people got the right books based on their orders. I was petrified that some people might get the wrong book, and I checked and checked and checked — both on the spreadsheet, and then once the orders were loaded, I checked BookVault as well. I was worried I'd have to resend the right book, which would end up with me out of pocket because they'd have to do double printing and shipping. But thankfully, all the checking made everything good, and I haven't heard from anyone who got the wrong book. Following up with backers Jo: It took time to follow up on failed payments and address issues. Most backers were easy to deal with — they received the updates and Kickstarter emails, they filled in the surveys, and I didn't have any problems. But there were problems with about 5% of backers, most of which were not their fault. There were failed payments when banks thought Kickstarter might be fraud. There were missed emails because of issues with deliverability, so backers didn't receive the rewards, or they didn't fill in the survey and return their address, which meant I couldn't do the order with BookVault — I had to do it later or manually. I had to follow up with every single one of these, some of them multiple times, and I slowly reduced my list of outstanding backers. A tip: If you back a Kickstarter campaign, please log on to Kickstarter a few weeks after the campaign has finished and check for updates. It's possible that you're not receiving the emails from Kickstarter, and the creator may need details from you in order to fulfil your pledge. Tax implications Jo: It took time to figure out the tax implications. This is not legal or financial advice, and your taxes will vary by jurisdiction. Please ask your accountant how you need to treat Kickstarter or any other book-related income. Wherever you are in the world, you will need to pay tax on the income, because we all have income tax, but the complicating factor is whether you also need to consider sales tax. And this definitely differs by jurisdiction. I went to my accountant, who said we should handle it as per any other book sales. I followed my accountant's advice, which treats backers the same way as my customers who buy on Shopify. Ask a professional in your jurisdiction about taxes and finances, even if you are in the UK. I cannot answer any questions. I'm not an accountant. Closing the loop Jo: I haven't had much time to do anything else, as I felt like I couldn't start anything new until everything in the campaign was finished. As soon as the campaign window closed, I felt like I had an open loop in my brain. I desperately wanted to close it in order to say the project was done. I have now delivered all the book and course rewards, and these lessons learned are really the last part of it. I've talked before about the different kinds of energy you need as an author — starting energy, pushing-through energy, and finishing energy. Once the campaign was funded, my finishing energy kicked in and I was driven to get everything finished as soon as possible. I sent the digital rewards out within a few days of the campaign closing, and also shipped the unsigned books, ordered the print books, then went and signed them, and then recorded the course. It has been my primary focus for the last few months, and I haven't been able to do much else except the podcast, which is my weekly commitment to you. Once again, I should have blocked out the time. Bonus tip: Don't plan an international speaking and book research trip during the campaign. International shipping and fulfilment Jo: Be careful with international shipping and fulfilment of signed books or products. Shipping costs can sink your campaign if you get them wrong, so be very careful with this area. I have sold books in 175 countries, and this podcast has a listenership in 228 countries, so I really wanted to have a completely international campaign. I wanted to ship Pilgrimage in any format to any country. Originally I thought I would just charge a bit extra for the book and include shipping. But once I set the book editions up at BookVault and I had the weight and dimensions sorted, I started checking the shipping costs to different countries. For example, we lived in New Zealand for seven years — my husband is a New Zealander, so we go back — so I definitely had to sell in New Zealand. And of course the shipping to New Zealand is very, very different to the US, for example. It is crazy how much shipping costs vary. I discovered I couldn't just assume it would all wash out and I'd end up making a profit somehow. I had to be a lot more careful with the calculations. So I focused on my biggest markets, which in terms of my book sales are the US, UK, European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. I added a note on the campaign to say I would add any other country for print shipping if people contacted me. As it turned out, no one asked for any other countries, so that was the best way to go in the end. If you're in a country where the shipping is outrageous — if you're willing to pay for the shipping, then that's absolutely fine. It's just that for the campaign, I had to focus. When the unexpected happens Jo: Of course, you can try to prepare for everything and then something unexpected and out of your control happens. A big spanner in the works for my campaign was the Russian hack, which took down the UK Royal Mail just before my launch. If you're not in the UK, you wouldn't have heard about this, because in some ways it's a very small issue — but it basically took down Royal Mail and a lot of shipping went into flux. It specifically hit the international side, and other shipping firms ramped up to take the slack. But it made planning for the launch difficult, as the prices were shifting and I didn't know how delivery was going to work. Even for posting in the UK it was hard, because the mail offices were getting backed up. Once again, I'm grateful for BookVault's adaptability, because I could check different addresses and shipping prices even as things changed, and they added new providers for shipping. About 95% of my shipping ended up being within an acceptable range of what I charged. So do your research, weigh and measure your items so you can get exact quotes for each. Check what kind of packaging you need. If you're doing your own shipping, you have to actually type in the shipping costs per reward and per country — it's a lot of manual setup to get it right. But this is critical, so check and double-check — and in fact, I triple- and quadruple-checked, then went to sleep, and then the next day checked again. Having spent 13 years as an IT consultant prior to this career as an author, I will always remember and have learned from the fact that something just might not be working, and then literally if you just go away, go to bed, come back the next day, it'll probably just be working. Sometimes it actually works. So yes, I did that, and every time I checked, pretty much I found something I'd typed in that didn't quite match, because you also have to retype — if you include all the books in the add-ons, you have to type it again. I didn't stop checking until the day before the launch, and then it was right. I was happy, and everything seemed to be fine. Shipping is always a moving target Jo: Revisiting this section made me laugh, because as I record this, in the week before I launch Bones of the Deep, international shipping is disrupted again — by the war in Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz being closed, which is affecting fuel prices. This underscores yet again how important it is to check your shipping. Of course, you can add shipping on later — Kickstarter allows this, as does BackerKit and other services. But as a backer, a customer of people on the platform, I hate being asked to pay shipping later. And since I hate that myself, I don't want other people to feel the same way. So just add a little buffer in, as asking people to pay an extra dollar in their pledge is not that big a deal, but you being out of pocket for every book shipped may well be. Sacha Black on pre-launch and fulfilment In an interview I did with Sacha Black, who writes as Ruby Roe, in December 2025, we talked about her issues with fulfilment. Sacha does a lot of complex printing, shipping, and custom book boxes and more. Her last campaign made over six figures, but of course it had its challenges. Here's Sacha with some of her tips, and then Oriana to close out this section with some other mistakes. Sacha: The first thing is — even before you start your Kickstarter — the pre-launch followers are critical. A lot of people think, “Well…” I guess there's a lot of loud noise about all these big numbers about how much people can make on Kickstarter, but actually a lot of it is driven by you, the author, pushing your audience to Kickstarter. You need more pre-launch followers than you think you do. Lots of people don't put enough impetus on the marketing beforehand. Almost all of our Kickstarter marketing is beforehand, because we drive so many people to that follow button. The other thing we do is early-bird pricing. We get the majority of our income on a campaign on day one. I think it was something wild, like 80% this time was on day one, so that's really important. Fulfilment takes longer than you think Sacha: The second thing is, it takes so, so very much longer than you think it does to fulfil a campaign, and you must factor in that cost. Because if it's not you fulfilling, you're paying somebody else to fulfil it. And if it is you fulfilling it, you must account for your own time in the pricing of your campaign. The other thing is that the amount of time it takes to fulfil is directly proportionate to the size of the campaign. So you do have to think about that. The other lesson we have learned is that overseas printing will drag your timelines out far longer than you think. So whatever you think it's going to take you to fulfil — add several months more onto that, and put that information in your campaign. Reinvesting profit and exclusive rewards Sacha: The last thing — if you have some profit in the Kickstarter, because not all Kickstarters are actually massively profitable. They either don't account enough for shipping, or they don't account enough in the pricing. Thankfully, ours have been profitable, but we've actually reinvested that profit back into buying more stock and more merchandise, which not everybody would want to do if they don't have a warehouse. However, we do have one. We are stockpiling merchandise and books so that we can do mystery boxes later on down the line. It's probably a year away, but we are buying extra of everything so that we have that in the warehouse. So it depends on what you want to do with your profit. For us, it was all about buying more books, basically. The other thing to think about is: what is it that you're doing that's exclusive to Kickstarter? Because you will get backers on Kickstarter who want that quirky, unique thing that they're not going to be able to get anywhere else. But what about you? You've done more Kickstarters than me — what do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned? Tiers, bundles, and AI for planning rewards Jo: Well, I think all of mine together add up to the one you just did. Although I will comment — you said something like £75 per pre-launch backer. That is obviously dependent on your tiers for the rewards, so most authors won't have that amount. My average order value, which I know is slightly different, but I don't offer things like book boxes as you have — so a lot of it will depend on the tiers. Some people will do a Kickstarter just with an ebook — just with one ebook and maybe a bundle of ebooks — so you're never going to make it up to that kind of value. So this is important too: have a look at what people offer on their different levels of Kickstarter. In fact, here's my AI tip for the day. What you can do — what I did with my Buried and the Drowned campaign recently — is, you know, I'm happy uploading my book. I uploaded it to ChatGPT and said, “Tell me, what are some ideas for the different reward tiers that I can do on Kickstarter?” And it will give you some ideas for what you can do, what kind of bundles you might want to do. So bundling your backlist is another thing you can do — as upsells, or you can just do it like I did for Blood Vintage, where I did a horror bundle of four standalone horror books in one of the upper tiers. Bundling is a good way to do it, and also upselling your backlist is a really good way to up things. And also, if you do it digitally — for ebooks and audiobooks — there's a lot less time in fulfilment. Oriana on the biggest mistakes Jo: What are some of the top mistakes you see that mean the campaign doesn't fund, or there are other issues? Oriana: Totally. I mean, the biggest mistake I think authors make — or any creator — is overestimating their ability to reach their crowd. Making sure that your ambition matches your reach is the number one most important thing to come close to guaranteeing that you will be successful. If you're an emerging writer and you're still building your audience and you don't have that many followers or subscribers out in the world, you should not try to fund a multi-volume leather-bound omnibus. Do a real honest assessment of who's in your crowd, how to find them, what percentage of them are likely to support what you're doing, and then find a project that feels realistic based on those numbers. That's really the biggest thing, conceptually. Building a strong project page Oriana: As far as tips for a project page — again, back campaigns and look at what other people are doing. A project page can be either as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. You definitely want to talk about the book: what is in it, what you're writing. Do a trope card if you want — we're seeing those all over the site. Say what kind of book it is, and the specs: page count, trim size, cover design. Obviously if you're doing a special edition, exactly what sorts of bells and whistles, with a prototype if you can. But you can be really expansive from there. What are your inspirations? Who are your collaborators? What brought you to this work? What are some of the things that make you excited about your writing practice, your timeline, your budget? What made you choose these rewards and how you're going to produce them? All those sorts of things will make backers feel both more trusting that you will do the things you're promising, and just more excited to be part of your journey. Marketing your Kickstarter campaign Let's talk about marketing. First, a snippet from Oriana, and then I'll share specifics around marketing tips — many of which are useful if you're launching in any other way. Kickstarter's algorithm rewards attention Oriana: Being on Kickstarter will help you grow your audience, but it's definitely not everything. You really do need to bring your people first. Our algorithm works on attention, so any project that's getting clicks, getting backings, getting comments — our algorithm says, “Oh, people want to look at this. We will expose it to more and more people.” That means raising it up in search results, slotting it into various of the macros and carousels around the site. Our recommendation engine powers recommended projects on the top of campaigns and at the bottom of emails. We are doing a lot to make sure that projects are being surfaced to folks who want to see them. Talk about the book while you're writing it Jo: Talk and share about the book while you're writing it, even though you might not know what it will turn into. I always share my book research and projects in progress, so this was nothing new. But Pilgrimage was years in the making, so I had years of sharing aspects of it. I've shared pictures from every pilgrimage walk on Instagram at @jfpennauthor and Facebook at J.F. Penn Author, and sometimes Facebook The Creative Penn. I've talked on this podcast about each walk, and I've done solo episodes and blog posts about each on my Books and Travel podcast and blog. I also did a poll and shared my book cover design process, and then I did an article on why I ignored target-reader feedback in the end. All this meant that many in my community — including you listening — became aware of my solo walking and also my ecclesiastical interest, my architecture interest, and you enjoyed my photos along the way if you follow me on social media. So when I announced the launch, it was the culmination of years of build-up. Use the pre-launch page early Jo: Set up the Kickstarter pre-launch page as early as possible, and keep promoting it. You can launch a pre-launch page once Kickstarter has approved your project, and you don't have to have finished everything to make it available — just complete the personal and business setup, and fill in enough detail so they can verify your identity and judge the campaign to be real and within the guidelines, and not a scam or spam campaign. I started to promote my pre-launch page, and by the time we went live, I had people signed up on launch. Those people get an email from Kickstarter. Those people were responsible for my campaign funding within the first few minutes, and then taking it to 5x the target within the first 24 hours. Then I started to email my lists, and all of this type of thing. But it was those pre-launch signups that really kick-started — see what I did there? — the whole thing. The benefit of using Kickstarter for multiple projects is that previous backers are notified of your new project. This compounds the effect over time, and is why those who use Kickstarter successfully do multiple campaigns. Kickstarter SEO and on-platform marketing Jo: Kickstarter has its own ecosystem. There's a discovery algorithm that can help you find projects you might like as a backer, and there are different ways to search, but only certain aspects appear in the search. So your title, subtitle, and your header image need to be optimised so people can find you. Your story sales page needs to be clear, with a compelling pitch. People also have to want your rewards, so marketing has to be baked into the products you're offering and who you're trying to attract. Your video doesn't need to be a professional-level product, but it does need to connect with potential backers, so take the time to make a good one. If you've never made a video before, you will need time to upskill. Kickstarter also has social media. Use #KickstarterReads and tag @KickstarterReads. If your project funds quickly and has a good trajectory, you might get picked for the “Projects We Love” badge, which also gives you better discoverability. I got that pretty fast. You can also tag Kickstarter on social media and inform them of your campaign. Content marketing Jo: Content marketing is offering something useful or interesting or inspiring or funny or entertaining for free, in order to attract your target market so they buy your book. This might be an article or blog post, video, audio, podcast, social media, whatever. For fiction, it's usually a free book or a short story or other free examples of your writing that draw people in. Content marketing is my favourite form of marketing, as it is about attraction, not interruption. It also involves creating something in the world that lasts over time, as opposed to an ephemeral spike ad or a social media post that quickly disappears. Each has its place, of course, and I use them all. This podcast is content marketing, although it now also provides direct revenue in the form of corporate advertising and Patreon support. Thank you, patrons and advertisers — and I consider this to be part of my creative body of work. My Books and Travel podcast is also content marketing. Guest appearances for the launch Jo: For this launch, I did content marketing on my own sites and shows, as well as other people's, which I arranged and recorded in advance. I've also mentioned the campaign in the introduction to every one of these shows leading up to the launch and during the launch. I was on some podcasts: Sacred Steps with Kevin Donahue, Wish I'd Known Then… For Writers with Sara Rosett and Jami Albright, Travel Writing World with Jeremy Bassetti, and Into the Woods with Holly Worton. I also did several of my own. I did one on this feed. I did another on the Books and Travel feed. I also included two chapters from the audiobook on the Books and Travel podcast. All of these took time to prepare and produce, but each is a chance for another person to hear about the book. Plus, they're evergreen, and Pilgrimage is available for everyone to buy now, so I can point people at Pilgrimage on other stores. Use a redirection URL Jo: For all my marketing, I used JFPenn.com/pilgrimage, which I can redirect using the Pretty Links plugin on WordPress and point to wherever I want it to go. Before the launch, it went to the pre-launch page; then the campaign itself; and now it goes to the book page. Once I build a special landing page, it will go there. Depending on where you're listening will depend on where it goes, but that's JFPenn.com/pilgrimage. The URL needs to be easy to say out loud for use in podcast interviews and audio-first media. Email your list multiple times Jo: Some things change in book marketing — like the emergence of new platforms like TikTok — but one thing has stayed the same for decades: if you have an email list, you can always sell books. Your email list consists of people who have opted in to hear from you, so you can email them about normal launches as well as your Kickstarter campaign. I have two email lists: one for The Creative Penn around writing, and the other around J.F. Penn for my fiction. I emailed both lists multiple times at different times in the campaign. I use ConvertKit for my email, but there are other options for authors. Use referral links for tracking Jo: Use specific referral links for different aspects of the campaign for tracking returns. Kickstarter allows you to create different tracking links so you can link revenue to specific marketing events. For example, I used one link for my Creative Penn email list, another for my J.F. Penn email list, and yet another for my Facebook advertising. You can also add the Meta pixel and Google Analytics code to the campaign, which can also help with figuring out advertising. And if you don't know what those are, don't worry — you don't have to use them. Book images and social media Jo: I initially mocked up the book using cover images on MockupShots.com, and then resized them in Canva in order to create social media images. I later did a book photo shoot with the hardback in different places to give me more marketing assets to play with — all of which I will use over time as part of ongoing marketing. I prepared and scheduled social media posts to go out every day, and I did that in advance, primarily for Twitter at @thecreativepenn, my Instagram and Facebook at J.F. Penn Author, and also Facebook at The Creative Penn. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it — weirdly — and I need to do more of this for my other books, especially as with Shopify, Facebook, and Instagram link directly into my store, so I can tag books. These days social commerce is a lot smoother through mobile, so someone can see an image on social, click through, and buy immediately. I also did some quotes from the book — so I did pictures, I also did quotes — and I blatantly used our cute British Shorthair cats, Cashew and Ramen, for marketing reasons. I use Buffer to schedule my social media, but there are other tools. I also asked some friends who are travel influencers to share the book, and I sent them the hardback in advance so they could review if they liked. Thanks to Sarah Baxter and Alastair Humphreys for sharing the book, and especially a big thank you to Anna McNuff, who gave birth to twins that week and still managed to share about Pilgrimage. Backer engagement and stretch goals Jo: Let's be clear — it was not natural for me to push a book every day for two weeks. I also felt awkward about engaging with backers multiple times, let alone the wider community who I was sure was sick of my book, but I did it anyway, as it was only a short campaign of two weeks. I sent four updates during the campaign to backers, some of which are visible to the public on my Kickstarter, and then I sent updates afterwards with delivery of the rewards. Although I did resist the stretch goals, as I mentioned earlier, I went with “Notes on Writing a Travel Memoir” and the backer live Q&A. I did scramble to decide on and deliver those, as I really didn't think I would need them — which is crazy. I had such low expectations of what I might achieve. But next time I would definitely plan stretch goals in advance and in more detail. Facebook advertising Jo: I did some Facebook ads for the campaign — although I should call them Meta ads, because they're also on Instagram. I primarily aimed them at my email lists and people who follow my pages, but also some wider reach using lookalike lists and walking interests. I used a tracking link, so I know that the revenue that came in through people backing it more than paid for the ads. So I would do more of this next time. Marketing things I didn't do Jo: I didn't try to get any press or traditional media attention, mainly because I would have had to approach outlets much earlier in the process. I didn't have the hardback finished until a few weeks before the campaign, rather than a few months before, which is when pitching for press is a better idea. I also didn't collaborate with other creators on Kickstarter, even though I knew other authors doing campaigns at the same time. A couple of people asked me about cross-promotion, but their campaigns were not at all related to Pilgrimage. As with all book marketing, there is only a point to cross-promotion if you target the same readers. I had intended to do some Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube Live videos, but I struggle with live videos in general — and especially when I'm tired — so I didn't go ahead with those. I might consider more of those next time. Do a survey for everyone Jo: My tip is — do a survey for everyone. As part of a campaign I previously backed, I noticed that I didn't actually need to do a survey for the digital backers, because they could just get the rewards if I emailed through Kickstarter. And sure enough, you can just email the BookFunnel links, the course discount code, etc., through the campaign. But this was a mistake. I should have done a survey for everyone. If you do a survey, you can get the real email, as some people use a cloaked email. You can also include a checkbox asking people if they want to sign up for your email list. Respecting backer data Jo: So while you do get the email addresses of everyone who backs your campaign in your backer report, you cannot just upload them to your email provider and start emailing them about your other books. Kickstarter's terms of use include the following: When you use Kickstarter, and especially if you create a successful project, you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in a Kickstarter project. Don't use it for other purposes and don't abuse it. This is about data protection and privacy laws. Basically, Kickstarter is the platform in this instance, and people have signed up to receive emails from Kickstarter, but not from you. All emails about the campaign go through Kickstarter, and you don't have permission to just upload that list to your own email system and start sending more emails. They have not specifically said they want that, unless they have in a survey with opt-in — which I didn't do. Of course, there are indirect ways to attract people to sign up for your list. My book Pilgrimage includes ways to hear from me further, so some backers will go on and sign up for my free thriller ebook at JFPenn.com/free, or my Author Blueprint at TheCreativePenn.com/blueprint. You can also do updates later, for example when you have a new campaign, and in this way Kickstarter acts as a different ecosystem for email. Should you consider a Kickstarter campaign for your book? Jo: To be honest — only if you consider this to be a career you want to invest in, and a platform you want to do more than one campaign with. If you just have one book or a couple of books, or you're just starting out, or you don't want to do marketing and connect with readers, then definitely don't do a Kickstarter. It is not some magic button that will make you money — like uploading to Amazon is not a magic button that will make you money. It takes time and effort to have a successful campaign. But if you do want to build a long-term author business, then selling direct should have some part to play, and Kickstarter is a great way to make more money per book and connect with readers. It's really only the beginning of the trend of authors selling direct, so don't worry — you can learn how to do this over time. Update for Bones of the Deep, my 7th campaign in April 2026 Jo: It was interesting to revisit my lessons learned and other people's tips, and really, there are only a few things that have changed. I love doing Kickstarter campaigns now Firstly, I absolutely love doing Kickstarter campaigns. I am not nervous at all anymore, and I am just so thrilled to produce gorgeous hardback editions of my books this way. I love delivering beautiful books and new stories or nonfiction to my readers. I love doing the discovery writing webinars and the coaching, and just in general, I appreciate the opportunity to publish this way. I feel like a “real author” — with beautiful hardbacks, doing a signing, getting photos and emails from readers who receive the books. Custom printing keeps expanding In terms of other changes, over the last few years since Pilgrimage, BookVault has expanded their custom printing, so now I have custom endpapers, sprayed edges, different kinds of foil, as well as the silken paper and the ribbon and photos inside. These gorgeous editions are my personal creative reason to keep doing campaigns. I love saying “I made this!” And over time, I would love to get all my backlist into special editions. A repeatable process I'm still doing similar kinds of rewards — the book in all editions — and it's all finished so it's lower stress. Even the audiobook narration is done, so I can fulfil immediately. There's just the live discovery writing webinar to do, and stretch goal Q&A and consulting sessions. I'm also doing bundles, and all my backlist gets bundled in the add-ons, so I have a repeatable process, which makes things easier. Using AI in production I'm using more AI, specifically in the images and video. I love making book images with ChatGPT and Gemini's Nano Banana, and story images with Midjourney, and I use ElevenLabs with my voice clone for audiobooks. I fill in all the details in the AI section of the Kickstarter page, so you can go have a look at that and model it as you like. Spike income, realistic expectations I still like the spike income — but to be clear, my campaigns have varied in terms of financial success, as would be expected given they are all so different. My highest was Writing the Shadow at over £36,000 ($48,000), and my lowest was The Buried and the Drowned, a short story collection, at just under £8,000 ($10,700) — not a surprise at how different they are, given the audiences. Together my campaigns have now made £105,868 (just over $140,000), which I am very happy with. And of course, that's just the beginning, as then I put the books on my stores — JFPennBooks.com and CreativePennBooks.com — and on the usual platforms. A sustainable launch rhythm I still like the project approach — the short-term campaign focus — as I am good at sustaining marketing energy for a short period, and then I can drop off again. As I discussed with Sara Rosett last week as well, it feels sustainable for my career, unlike constant social media or ads. Lower-key marketing this time around I'm putting a lot less energy into marketing in general, relying on pre-launch signups over months of build-up as I talk about my writing process on the podcast, then emailing my lists, announcing it here, and scheduling some social media. It's pretty low-key these days, and that is a happy thing. However, for this campaign, I am planning to run some Meta ads direct to the campaign page, since I have Claude Code/Cowork to help me set them up and run them and crunch the data — and that takes the strain off considerably. More campaigns to come I will definitely be doing more Kickstarter campaigns, most likely a nonfiction one next. I am so glad I was able to get over my fears and do that first one, and I hope that encourages you to consider what might be possible for you and your book. So, if you'd like to check out my campaign for Bones of the Deep — even if you don't want the book, you can always model the sales page, or check out the book trailer — it's at JFPenn.com/bones. That link will go to the Kickstarter campaign from 20 April until early May 2026, and will then redirect. The post Kickstarter Tips for Authors: Rewards, Shipping, Marketing, and Lessons Learned first appeared on The Creative Penn.