Category: Big Businesses (Page 1 of 10)

The Strategist’s Dilemma: When Even Google Says “Just Let Us Run It”

July 27, 2025 / Andy / 0 Comments

Early in my career, I was a tactician. Email campaigns, SEO, SEM, building landing pages, hacking together A/B tests. Whatever the job needed, I’d figure it out.

Then I got older. Took on bigger roles. Strategy became my thing. I got an MBA, which basically teaches you how to never do real work again. Just make PowerPoints and use fancy terms like “ubiquitous” and “leveraging synergies.” Just kidding. Kind of.

Then I taught at UW. Strategy-heavy, theory-driven. But not much time for learning how to troubleshoot a broken Meta ad pixel or chase down why TikTok didn’t like the file format you uploaded.

Fast-forward to a recent client gig. A small, scrappy brand with big potential. I figured with AI at my side, I could go back to being a full-stack marketer. The headlines promised that AI was like hiring a 12-person team. All I had to do was show up and prompt. Well, that’s what I thought would happen…

To be fair, some of it worked. AI helped me:

Learn the market faster than any onboarding doc ever could
Code landing pages I wouldn’t have touched otherwise
Test language, generate image prompts, draft copy

But some things were harder than I expected. Not because of AI. Because of me.

I wasn’t great at managing $500 social ad budgets with a bunch of audience segments. I’d get excited, generate new copy, then forget which ones were running. I’d have four tools open at once and three dashboards with zero clear answers.

And the real challenge? AI made me want to move too fast. It gave me confidence, not always clarity. I overlooked the years of work the brand had already done. I thought, “Let’s just rebuild it.” Because I could. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Not only that, but with all the worry about tactics, I forgot about building an actual strategy. Sure I was fixing things, but why? Why was I spending the time on these ad images and audiences a la carte? Where was the the overall gameplan, which is the thing I’m actually really good at?

And then came the pressure. I’d read stories of brands handing over their entire budget to Meta’s Performance Max or Advantage+ campaigns and watching sales jump 300 percent. Google says the same. Just let the algorithm run it. Trust the machine.

But then the experts, the real paid media folks, all say the opposite. You should never blindly hand over your budget. You need control. You need constraints. You need human judgment layered over the models.

So which is it?

That’s the strategist’s dilemma. You’re smart enough to see the big picture. But now you’re supposed to run the machine, too. You’re supposed to click every box, track every metric, and learn new rules every week. It’s not that you can’t. It’s that if you’re not careful, you’ll burn your whole day trying to beat an algorithm that’s already 10 moves ahead.

And yet… you also can’t sit back. This isn’t a time for marketers to lean only on decks and plans. You have to try things. Publish things. Watch what works. Learn what doesn’t.

Especially if you’re working with a brand built on authenticity. You can’t just let the machine write your voice. You have to start with something human. Something true. Then let AI accelerate, not replace.

That’s what I’d do differently next time. Not give up the strategy. Not fake the tactics. But respect both. Use AI as the intern, not the architect. Build the plan myself, then use the tools to get further, faster, without losing the voice or the vision.

Because in the end, it’s not about chasing trends or automating everything. It’s about making sure the brand stays true, the work gets done, and the results actually matter.

Does LinkedIn Still Belong in 2025 Marketing Budgets?

December 15, 2024 / Andy

As companies (like my clients) finalize their 2025 marketing strategies, many are asking whether LinkedIn still warrants a dedicated line in the budget. Once a critical space for B2B visibility and thought leadership, the platform now faces new competition, rising costs, and declining returns for some sectors. Plus, it seems like hardly anyone actually works there.

It seems like for every reason to keep it, there’s an equally valid one for abandoning it.

Engagement Is Still Strong—But Flattening

For B2B marketers, LinkedIn has historically been unmatched in terms of audience intent. But engagement metrics suggest the platform may be nearing a plateau. According to LinkedIn’s own Benchmark Report, click-through rates on thought leadership posts declined year over year:

2023: 0.55%
2024: 0.49%

Meanwhile, a June 2024 Socialinsider study found carousel posts remained the most engaging format, especially for professional services firms. Short videos, once seen as a growth area, now underperform outside of HR or recruitment content.

The Cost Equation Is Shifting

Advertising on LinkedIn remains expensive—often prohibitively so for performance marketers. Wordstream’s Q3 2024 report shows stark differences in average CPM:

LinkedIn: $38.12
Meta (Facebook/Instagram): $14.74
TikTok: $8.91

For campaigns focused on lead generation or direct conversions, the ROI may be difficult to justify compared to cheaper alternatives.

When LinkedIn Still Delivers

Despite those challenges, LinkedIn still drives value for certain brands—particularly those with high-ticket offerings or a professional audience. Sectors continuing to see returns include:

SaaS and enterprise software
Management consulting
HR technology and recruiting firms
Financial services
Executive coaching and leadership training

These industries benefit from the trust and credibility that LinkedIn still holds with decision-makers.

For Consumer Brands, Less Justifiable

For lifestyle or direct-to-consumer brands, LinkedIn rarely makes sense. The professional context limits emotional storytelling, and users are less receptive to brand content unless it’s tied to employment, entrepreneurship, or career development.

Even brands experimenting with employer branding and culture posts are seeing limited traction unless the content is truly unique or backed by a hiring initiative.

A Tighter, Smarter Approach

LinkedIn isn’t dead, it just isn’t automatic. Marketers should reevaluate its role based on goals, cost, and audience fit. For brands that use it well, the platform can still offer high-quality engagement. For others, 2025 may be the right year to scale back and reinvest in channels with broader reach and better value.

2022 Marketing in Review – The world tried to be normal again

January 15, 2023 / Andy

Title: Burnout, Bots, and Brand Trust: The Year Marketing Tried to Be Human Again
Published: January 2023

In 2022, marketing stopped trying to win the internet and started trying to win people back.

After a two-year sprint through pandemic pivots, remote chaos, and digital everything, the mood shifted. Customers were burned out. Teams were burned out. And somewhere in the noise, a quiet message emerged:

“Don’t try to be everywhere. Try to be real.”

It was the year of rebuilding brand trust. Of cutting through automation sludge. Of rethinking the funnel. And for many of us—of remembering why we got into this work in the first place.

Here’s what actually happened.

Consumer Behavior Changed—And Got More Selective

78% of consumers unfollowed brands in 2022 due to “inauthentic” messaging
(Source: Stackla, “Bridging the Gap” Report)
Trust in social ads dropped for the third straight year—down to 43%, with Gen Z showing the sharpest decline
(Source: Edelman Trust Barometer)
Email open rates held steady at 21.5%, but click-throughs declined by 5%
People opened out of habit, not curiosity.
Reviews, UGC, and peer-led content outperformed branded ads in 73% of A/B tests
Trust shifted to real people, not stylized creatives.

We Over-Automated, Then Regretted It

Martech stack bloat peaked: the average mid-sized marketing team used 91 tools
(Source: ChiefMartec 2022)
Chatbots replaced contact forms on 62% of B2C websites—but customer satisfaction dropped by 11%
The human touch was missed more than expected.
AI-generated content became trendy—but conversion rates were 37% lower when used without human editing
You can’t automate authenticity.

What Did Work? Anything That Felt Human

Influencer marketing spend rose 42% year over year
Especially micro-creators (under 100K followers), who delivered better ROI and engagement.
SMS campaigns saw a 35% click-through rate—with 98% open rates
Text isn’t dead. It’s just underused.
Podcast ad revenue jumped to $2 billion, and listener trust remained higher than any digital format
People still like voices more than headlines.
Brands that publicly admitted mistakes saw an 8% brand trust lift
Honesty scaled.

So What Do We Do With This?

The lesson of 2022 wasn’t “be everywhere.” It was:

Be somewhere real. With something worth saying. To people who might actually care.

We learned (again) that automation should support communication—not replace it. That being human still scales when done right. That trust still matters more than targeting.

And that the brands who won last year weren’t louder. They were clearer.

Five Takeaways From 2022

For CMOs, marketing leads, and teams who want to make smarter moves in 2023:

Cut your stack. Most teams don’t need 90 tools.
Edit your AI. Machine content is only as good as the human who sharpens it.
Trust is the new KPI. If your customers don’t believe you, your reach is meaningless.
Get personal again. SMS, podcasts, micro-creators—small formats built real engagement.
Real is rare. That’s why it still works.

An Olympic Sized Irony

July 11, 2021 / Andy

My deep thought of the day.

This is backwards-looking of course. But if the IOC powers-that-be had figured out last year how to test potential Olympic athletes for COVID-19, quarantine them when they got to Tokyo, and accept that they would have to ban all spectators, then a global population stuck at home would have made it the most-watched Olympics ever. Maybe by 25-40%. People would have been arguing on Twitter about archery and synchronized swimming.

But instead, out of safety, the Olympics were postponed a year. And in the summer of 2021, when we can all go outside again and do other things with friends and family, who really wants to sit at home and watch the Olympics? Instead, this could be one of the lower-rated Olympics ever. Tough break for NBC.

Tips for New Zoomers

March 12, 2020 / Andy

Welcome to the “Work From Home” Lifestyle!

I know a lot of you prefer to have a 1/2 hour commute, walk in the rain from your car to your building, and then sit at your cube in a cavernous, fluorescent-lit room full of despair. But now you have to join us work-from-homers. And you’re going to be here a while, so you may as well get some best practices down now. Here are some basic things you need to know.

Always wear pants – Yes, the temptation is there. You want to sit in pajamas (or less) from the waist down. Resist the urge. Comfortable sweat pants are fine, just make sure that if your cat somehow readjusts your camera for you, you’re ok with what your co-workers are exposed to.
Figure out your two-monitor setup – For whatever reason, Microsoft, Apple, Zoom and all the monitor companies seem to have conspired to make sure that the default setting for your two-monitor set-up is to have the camera broadcast from whichever one you don’t want it to. This is fixable, just takes a little time. Do a practice run with friends and get it all situated.
Lighting is important – You know when you want to take a picture of yourself standing in front of an awesome sunset, and you get the sunset but you are just a shadowy blob in front of it? Same concept with Zoom. You can shoot with a window as your backdrop, just invest in a decent lamp that brightens your face.
Warn your roommates when you are on a call – Many people have a story similar to this one I heard recently. “I was on a Zoom call with my whole team. When suddenly, in the background of one of my team members, I see his wife walking around the kitchen buck naked. Not a stitch of clothing. Now, he had his headset on, and someone else was talking so she would have no way of hearing he was on a call. And I didn’t know what to do. Do I interrupt and tell my employee to turn around and tell his wife to get out of the frame, calling MORE attention to it? Do I just ignore it and hope no one sees it? Well before I could decide, the wife turned around and realized she was on live TV, screamed at the top of her lungs (alerting everyone who hadn’t noticed it yet), and ran out of the room. So we went on with the meeting from there.”
Backgrounds are cool, but... – If you are new to Zoom, the background features are pretty cool. “Look, I’m at a mountain or on a beach!” There are reasons and times to use these backgrounds. For example, if your spouse and kids are all working and learning from home at the same time and your only available spaces to broadcast from are the bathroom, car, or garage, use a background. Or, if you have a calm and professional customized background of an office environment, that is better than the view from your kitchen table. And if you have kids that like to run in the background of your Zoom calls, the background can mitigate that risk. Just keep in mind that the “floating head phenomenon” will probably happen at some point and it’s hard for people not to get distracted away from the brilliant point you were making.
In large meetings, default to “Mute On.” – I find it helpful to think about how much I expect to be talking in any given meeting, and if I’m not going to be the majority presenter, I go to “Mute On” right after salutations. There’s an added benefit to this, in that instead of just blurting your genius thought of the moment over someone already talking, you have to think, prepare yourself by taking off the mute, and wait for a proper place to jump in. And if you are at all like me, often you’ll realize that what you were about to say added little in the way of a contribution and was better left unsaid.
Not everything needs to be a Zoom call – Zoom is addictive. It’s the best way to replicate a face to face meeting. But remember, sometimes you don’t need face to face. Even if Zoom is an option, there’s nothing wrong with picking up the phone and calling someone for 5 minutes.

If you have your own Zoom tips, send them over,

Can Legalized Sports Gambling Save Baseball

May 15, 2018 / Andy

On one hand, you could say baseball is thriving. Revenues are over Gross revenues are $10 billion, National TV ratings are up, and many teams have lucrative local or regional TV deals that help pay the bills and then some. Plus, every time an NBA or NFL team gets sold for a new record, each team sees its valuation go up as well.

But then there’s that pesky issue of attendance and fan interest. From Forbes, “The 2017 regular season saw a total of 72,670,423 in paid attendance across the league. This was the first time since 2010 that attendance dipped below the 73 million mark, which was surprising.”

People will argue why attendance is down, but most ideas fall around a central theme. The games are too long for today’s environment, often too boring, and the reliance on stats and analysis to make the smartest decisions possible takes the fun and unpredictability out of the game. Heck, even former players think the game is boring now. Jim Kaat says they should only play seven innings.

I made a comment earlier this week that I thought baseball was at its “Kodak Moment.” By that I meant, there was a time in the 1990’s when Kodak was making heaps of cash with a near monopoly on film and film development. Digital cameras kind of existed, but Kodak didn’t want to believe that people would prefer digital over film, so they just to keep looking at their stacks of cash, half-heartedly built some bad digital cameras, and ignored the direction the market was going. It’s easy to forget that in the mid-90’s, Eastman Kodak was a $90 stock. Today it’s barely above $5.00.

Compare that to Major League Baseball today. Heaps of cash, a storied history and a plethora of purists who want to make sure the game never changes. And the new entrants to their market are eSports and a growth in soccer, where people can get in and out of a match in a guaranteed 105 minutes. The market is shifting, and 10 years from now, you might be able to make an argument that the 2017 World Series may have been baseball’s apex.

But a savior has arrived, and its name is Legalized Gambling.

Today betting on a baseball game is dumb. Choose odds on a game or a point spread and hope for the best. It’s unpredictable at best, a monkey throwing darts at worst. Plus, why watch the game? All you need to do is check the score in the morning.

But the 2020 version of Legalized Sports Betting is intriguing. Be in the park or on your couch. Open your mobile phone app. Bet a tiny micro amount on each inning or each at bat. 2.5 to 1 he gets a hit. 2 to 1 they score a run. 10 to 1 there’s a home run in the inning. 1 to 1 there’s a strikeout. You could make 50-100 bets at $.25 to $2.00 per bet and the game would be awesome every pitch. And realistically, you’re probably only going to win or lose $10 to $20 per game unless you are exceedingly good or bad. A small price to pay for three hours of entertainment.

Baseball needs to get behind this. Having people actively involved on a batter by batter basis is akin to Fantasy Football players watching the 4th quarter of a 34-7 blowout to see if their receiver can pick up 60 cheap yards in garbage time. It would be great for the game, and engage a whole new set of fans who need instantaneous entertainment on their mobile devices. This generation of fans wouldn’t even need to watch the whole game – they could log in for an hour, play 20-30 bets, and then move on with their day.

Baseball need to embrace this. Don’t listen to the people who want to make fancier film. Go where the market wants to go.

NCAA: Don’t Pay the Players – But Let the Players Get Paid

March 1, 2018 / Andy

Full disclosure, I love Arizona Basketball. In fact, I think I actually ended up at Arizona because I went to the 1988 Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games at the Kingdome, and Steve Kerr became my favorite college basketball player.

And now the Arizona basketball program is in – shall we say – some turmoil. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t say SOMETHING. But since I know NOTHING, what can I really say?

Except this.

Any NCAA athlete should be allowed to profit from their likeness.

We don’t need schools to pay athletes. We should just allow people who want to pay athletes out of their own pockets to pay them. If that means the guy who runs Tuscaloosa Ford and Chevy wants to give an 18 year old kid $250,000 to be a spokesperson, who cares? If John L Scott in Seattle decides a good use of funds is paying $80k to a UW QB to be their official face of Instagram, why not?

What does it hurt to let 18-22 year olds get paid for the notoriety that 90% of them will never have again?

You could argue that we can’t let high school kids be corrupted by agents who want to take advantage of them. But that is a solvable problem. There are ways to create a licensing program where only people who properly qualify – and stay qualified – can gain access and negotiate on the behalf of a minor. It would actually lend legitimacy to an already existing corrupt system.

Now should the NCAA be paying the players? Thats a thornier question that begets a ton of problems. But in the meantime, let’s just let players get paid by people who want to pay them.

So Where Should Amazon Build HQ2?

September 20, 2017 / Andy

Amazon has outgrown Seattle. It’s the kind of thing that happens when you build your company in a downtown core, rather than take over some unused farmland in a far flung suburb like Redmond. So now it’s time to find HQ2. Where should they go?

There’s no doubt that every city from Anchorage to Yuma will make a bid. But if I worked at Amazon, with a chance to be transferred at any moment, here are my top 5 picks.

Raleigh, NC: The Carolinas are fantastic. Since most Washingtonians haven’t made it that far southeast, you might not know this. But Raleigh is especially comparable to the Pacific Northwest. In fact with Raleigh you get a more educated population, more universities, and closer access to a warm beach. You’d give up Uber access to an NFL or MLB team, and day trip access to Double Diamond ski runs. But you coud still get a Daisy run in if you need it. Plus you could buy a 5,000 square foot house for a year or two of salary.
Pittsburgh, PA: If a company is interested in AI, cozying up to Carnegie Mellon would be a pretty good way to do so. It would have plenty of opportunity to build a downtown campus, and still be close to New York and Washington D.C. As an employee, if you can deal with a Seattle winter, you could probably deal with Western Pennsylvania.
Nashville, TN: Far enough east to give you access to New York, Boston, etc… and far enough north to keep you safe from hurricanes. Several great universities in driving distance, so there is a huge talent base to draw from. Plus, it’s great a place for distribution. Didn’t FedEx make its HQ in Memphis?
Charleston, SC: Full disclosure, I have an affinity for Charleston. I think it’s the most underrated place to live in the country. You are giving up major league sports for friendly southern living. But you’d have Clemson, USC, and College of Charleston all in spitting distance. Oh, and if you are a current Amazon employee, its another place where your mortgage payment for a monster 5 bedroom estate would be the same price you now pay for your 800 sq ft apartment in Seattle.
Detroit, MI: Detroit? Detroit?! Who wants to live in Detroit? Well several decades ago, the auto industry decided it was a good place to dominate an economy. So why can’t Amazon repeat that? Easy access to New York, Chicago and Canada. REALLY REALLY cheap downtown real estate. Employees could buy McMansions for nothing. Heck, Amazon could buy entire neighborhoods, develop them and sell them to employees. Plenty of professional and collegiate sports teams to support. And you could always escape the Midwest winter with a quick trip to Florida.

Your thoughts? If you were a current Amazonian, where would you be ok being transferred to?

* Image used without previous permission from https://www.designboom.com/architecture/seattle-approves-amazons-biosphere-headquarters-by-nbbj-10-25-2013/

Meet Your New 2017 Sounders

March 2, 2017 / Andy

The MLS season is a long one, running a full 9 months from early March to early December. So before the ink was even dry on the papers forever documenting the 2016 Sounders MLS Cup win, the wheels of progress were underway to form the 2017 version. Many of the players who played a decent sized role in the title run found themselves trading their Rave Green uniforms for flights back to their home countries. Meanwhile, a new set of Sounders filled out change of address forms, and made plans to move to Seattle.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the turnstyle over the last 3 months. (For a full review, read this article from SounderAtHeart.)

Who’s Out?

The MLS has some pretty onerous salary cap rules. Add in 2 new expansion teams this year in Minnesota and Atlanta, and it makes it hard to keep a team together. Here are the 18 names you won’t see wearing a Sounders uniform this year:

Nelson Valdez (released because he was too expensive and signed with a team in Paraguay)
Tyrone Mears (released and signed by Atlanta)
Dylan Remick (released and redrafted by Houston)
Erik Friberg (released and signed by a team in Sweden)
Andreas Ivanschitz (released and signed by a team in the Czech league)
Zack Scott (retired)
Herculez Gomez (retired)
Some guys you may or may not recognize were also released and signed with minor league teams (or retired): Darwin Jones, Charlie Lyon, Jimmy Ockford, Victor Mansaray (loaned out) Michael Farfan (retired), Nathan Sturgis (still unsigned), Oalex Anderson (still unsigned)

Who’s New?

New Sounders are often guys we’ve never heard of. So, for these 8 new players, I’m sharing the 0-100 ratings the video game FIFA 2017 gives them.

Clint Dempsey, F, (Back from Disabled List): 80
Gustav Svensson Mid, / Def (from Sweden and Chinese League): 72
Will Bruin, F, (from Houston): 69
Harry Shipp, Mid, (from Montreal): 68
Bryan Meredith, GK, (from San Jose): 61
Nouhou Tolo, Def, (Sounders 2): NR
Henry Wingo, Mid, / Def (Homegrown): NR
Seyi Adekoya, F, (Homegrown): NR

Who’s Back:

Check and make sure your favorite players are still here. Just 14 remain from the team that won in Toronto, but 9 of them started that night.

Tony Alfaro, Def: 62
Osvaldo Alonso, Mid: 79
Brad Evans, Def / Mid: 70
Alvaro Fernandez, Mid: 70
Oniel Fisher, Def: 61
Stefan Frei, GK: 73
Joevin Jones, Def: 66
Aaron Kovar, Mid: 62
Nicolas Lodeiro, Mid: 78
Chad Marshall, Def: 74
Tyler Millar, GK: 58
Jordan Morris, For / Mid: 68
Cristian Roldan, Mid: 65
Roman Torres, Def: 72

Now I’m no math genius, but if you lose 18 players and add 8, you should still have some roster space available. In fact, an MLS team can carry 28 players on their roster at one time, so since the Sounders only have 22 on the current sheet, logic dictates you’ll see 4-6 more players either get signed from Sounders 2, or come in a late transfer window signing. The primary MLS transfer window runs from Feb 18 – May 11. Then, the secondary one opens from July 10 – August 9.

The Sounders still do have one ‘Designated Player” spot available, meaning they can essentially sign a player for any amount of money they want and not have it hit the salary cap. (Dempsey and Lodeiro are the other two. Valdez was the 3rd, so they cut him to get that Designated Player spot back.)

So there you go; that’s your 2017 Sounders squad. See you at Century Link.