Your blog will never earn an audience. Ever. That's not me — that's Melissa Rosenthal, who ran the SEO content engine at ClickUp, built media at BuzzFeed and Cheddar, and is now co-founder of Outlever building the playbook that replaces it. In this episode, Melissa makes the case that the SEO blog era is collapsing in real time, that one strategic LinkedIn poster will out-perform 150 employees doing employee advocacy, and that while every other B2B operator is betting on AI, she's betting on hum...
Jun 03, 2026•55 min•Ep. 556
Every CMO is being told to replace people with AI agents as fast as possible. Keri McGhee, CMO at Attentive, is doing some of that — and deliberately refusing to do other parts of it. The line she's drawn between the two is the most useful rubric we've heard in months. Attentive runs SMS, email, push, and RCS for thousands of consumer brands — a category where the temptation to automate everything is maximum. But Keri's strongest customer-loyalty moment last year wasn't an AI agent. It was a sin...
May 19, 2026•53 min•Ep. 555
Most CMOs think personalization requires complex AI and endless customer segments. Elizabeth Maxson proves otherwise. She breaks down actionable personalization strategies — from geo-tagging that drove a 51% lift in event attendance to playful homepage tricks that captured marketers' attention and boosted engagement. The takeaway: Stop overcomplicating personalization. Start with big buckets and simple, contextual changes. Chapters 00:00 - Why Personalization Should Be Simple 00:32 - First-Time ...
May 06, 2026•7 min•Ep. 554
What happens when your next customer isn't even human? Chris Koehler is the CMO of Twilio, and his 2026 marketing plan lasted exactly one month before AI agents forced him to rethink everything. In this conversation, Chris gets real about why planning horizons have collapsed from years to weeks, what happens when AI agents — not humans — are doing the buying, and why brand might matter MORE in an AI-driven world, not less. Chris Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer at Twilio, a $5B+ customer e...
Apr 15, 2026•52 min•Ep. 553
Merriam-Webster named "slop" the 2025 word of the year - and it explains everything about where AI-generated content is heading. Elizabeth Maxson, CMO of Contentful, reveals the uncomfortable truth about AI adoption: 96% of CMOs say it's a top priority, but only 65% are making meaningful investments. The gap between enthusiasm and execution is costing teams momentum. She breaks down research conducted with The Atlantic, surveying 425 global marketing leaders. The findings expose why teams are st...
Apr 01, 2026•49 min•Ep. 552
Best practices told you to optimize reputation across all 10,000 locations equally—but granular competitive data just revealed that 7,000 of those stores don't need it, and you're wasting millions on the wrong priorities. The era of broad-based marketing is over. Michael Walrath (CEO & Founder of Yext) reveals why we're entering a "post-best-practice world" where context trumps everything. From the 10,000 taco restaurant problem (why you're overspending on 7,000 stores that don't need help),...
Mar 25, 2026•15 min•Ep. 551
Most websites are bleeding traffic before visitors even see the page… and Google Analytics can't tell you it's happening. Pantheon's data shows that if your site takes longer than 2 seconds to load, users swipe away before your page even renders. The magic number is now under 1 second, and mobile users expect websites to feel identical to opening an app. Josh Koenig (Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon) reveals what's silently killing growth: the brutal shift in user expectations, how AI...
Mar 18, 2026•14 min•Ep. 550
What if the marketing channel getting the least resources is actually shaping your entire brand reputation? Daniella Sampson reveals why B2B teams chase the wrong AI trends while underfunding social media. She breaks down GEO vs SEO, why monitoring 10,000 prompts daily is mostly noise, and how AI agents are forcing brands to evolve from social listening to social intelligence. She explains her 300-data-point framework, manually analyzing competitors across websites, LinkedIn, Instagram, press re...
Mar 11, 2026•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 549
Every startup hits the same ceiling: your founder customers love you, but they won't get you to $200M. So how do you move upmarket to enterprise without losing the community that built you? Harmony Anderson, VP of Growth & Marketing at Superhuman, gets into the real mechanics of it: The 70/30 resource split between enterprise and community Why she's hiring a "startup evangelist" to hold down their founder base Why they didn't need a rebrand to start winning enterprise deals What she learned ...
Mar 04, 2026•15 min•Ep. 548
In January 2026, a CMO at a six billion dollar software company scrapped his entire year's marketing plan only two weeks into the year. AI agents made it obsolete. Stephanie Postles, CEO of Mission.org, and Lacey Peace, VP of Content, explain in plain English what AI agents are, why they are fundamentally different from the automations marketing teams rely on today, and what this shift means for marketing jobs, team structure, and the skills that will matter most going forward. If you have confu...
Feb 25, 2026•24 min•Ep. 547
Most brands think viral marketing takes months of planning and massive budgets. Nick Tran engineered it in 72 hours. In this segment from Marketing Trends, the former Global Head of Marketing at TikTok breaks down the exact reverse-engineered playbook that turned unknown creators like the Ocean Spray skateboarder into overnight viral sensations, and why the traditional 2-3 month campaign timeline is dead. From understanding why Nick tells marketing leaders to "kill your KPIs" and hire for intuit...
Feb 18, 2026•15 min•Ep. 546
The marketing teams winning with AI today are not the ones chasing every new model release. They are the ones who found the boring, repetitive tasks their teams hate and automated those first. Nir Pochter, Co-Founder and CMO at Lightricks, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what AI actually means for creative workflows and why most teams are still using it wrong. You’ll learn: - The "algebra problem" of AI adoption - How to save your design team 80% of their time - Why the...
Jan 21, 2026•47 min•Ep. 545
The websites that win today are not the ones with the most content. They are the ones that deliver a fast, clean experience in the very first second a visitor arrives. Josh Koenig, Co-Founder and SVP of Marketing at Pantheon, joins Stephanie Postles on Marketing Trends to break down what he is seeing across thousands of high-traffic sites and why most teams still miss the basics. He explains how the shift from search to ask is changing online discovery, what AI bots prioritize when they crawl a ...
Jan 07, 2026•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 544
The most future-ready marketing leaders aren’t the ones chasing trends… they’re the ones who can reinvent themselves every time the industry changes. Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, joins Marketing Trends to break down the mindset that kept her relevant through every major tech revolution, from Web1 to cloud, SaaS, PLG, and now AI. She explains how to balance curiosity with focus, why AI is really about automating judgment (not just tasks), and how she’s redesigning her market...
Dec 17, 2025•53 min•Ep. 543
The strongest marketing leaders are not the ones with perfect plans. They are the ones who know how to lead through real life. And few people understand that better than Niki Hall and Dayle Hall. Niki, former CMO of Five9, and Dayle, CMO of SnapLogic, join Marketing Trends to share how they balance two big careers, raise a family, and approach marketing from completely different angles. They break down how they support each other through major job shifts, navigate brand versus demand debates, an...
Dec 03, 2025•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 542
The brands everyone talks about are not the safest ones. They are the bold ones. And few people understand that better than Nick Tran. The former TikTok Global Head of Marketing and current Diageo President and CMO joins Marketing Trends to break down how he built momentum inside fast moving environments, rebuilt brands under pressure, and helped TikTok become a cultural engine instead of just another app. Nick explains why the traditional marketing playbook is obsolete, how to create ideas that...
Nov 19, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 541
When everyone has access to the same AI tools, what separates the great from the forgettable is the human behind the screen. Fiverr’s VP of Global Brand Communications, Shiri Hellmann, joins Marketing Trends to break down how her team turns chaos into creativity. From producing the viral “Gary” campaign with real freelancers to writing a rom-com about avocados, Shiri reveals how Fiverr spots cultural moments early, takes smart risks, and proves that talent still beats the algorithm. CHAPTERS / K...
Nov 12, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 540
Brands don’t live in campaigns… they live in memory. In this episode of Marketing Trends, Ulli Appelbaum, Founder & CSO of First The Trousers Then The Shoes, joins Stephanie Postles to unpack how brand associations and mental availability determine what people choose long after the ad ends. From Geico’s 15%, Snickers’ hunger fix, and Nike’s evolution of “Just Do It,” to Salesforce’s AI rebrand and Harley-Davidson’s Jumpstart, Ulli reveals why the brands that last are the ones that refresh ol...
Oct 29, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 539
How do you market the experience of walking through rooms of illusion that flip reality on its head? In this episode, Stephanie Postles chats with Andy Levey, the mastermind CMO behind the Museum of Illusions, to discover how to craft unforgettable moments that captivate audiences. Learn how to apply these strategies to market brands that sell experiences - from local business, SaaS, B2B, and more. Key Moments: 00:00 Andy Levey Turns Wonder Into Marketing Strategy 02:00 Inside the World’s Most P...
Oct 15, 2025•53 min•Ep. 538
He became CMO of GoodRx in just five years, then started taking big swings: reviving nostalgic jingles, building an audio-first brand strategy, and proving that sound can punch through today’s visual overload. Ryan Sullivan joins Marketing Trends to share how he moved from performance marketer to CMO at record speed, why he’s betting on radio and podcasts, and how a singing prairie dog and memorable earworms can do serious brand-building work. Ryan and Stephanie dig into balancing art and scienc...
Oct 01, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 537
Monster trucks, skeletons, and a CMO who doesn’t think about cost analysis very often. In this in-studio conversation, Torq CMO Don Jeter breaks down how brand-led world-building beats feature dumps, why entertainment now matters more than information on the trade show floor, and how a Monster Jam partnership and an episodic LinkedIn “junior intern” series created real pipeline by earning mental real estate long before buyers are in-market. We get into the 60-day rebrand sprints, showing up at B...
Sep 17, 2025•56 min•Ep. 536
What does it take to rebrand a 40-year-old tech giant — and make it relevant for the AI era? Stephanie sits down with Ann Minooka, Chief Marketing Officer at Synopsys, to uncover how she’s redefining brand storytelling in one of the most complex spaces in tech. From repositioning a legacy company to pioneering demand generation strategies that deliver real pipeline, Ann shares her full playbook — including how AI is reshaping marketing, storytelling, and the future of customer search behavior. I...
Sep 03, 2025•57 min•Ep. 535
If you’re still optimizing for traditional SEO, this one might sting. But if you’re ready to win the AI search wars, welcome to your new bible. Michael Walrath (CEO of Yext) is not sugarcoating our new AI-dominated environment that has transformed the market. He breaks down exactly how search is being torn apart by AI, why local SEO is being rewritten in real-time, and what it actually means to structure your content for machines — not humans. Stephanie and Mike go head-to-head on search nostalg...
Aug 20, 2025•47 min•Ep. 534
How do you future-proof your marketing strategy when LLMs are rewriting the rules in real time? Salesforce Applications CMO Amber Armstrong has answers — and the data to back them up. Stephanie Postles sits down with Amber to unpack how Salesforce is rethinking SEO, scaling AI agents, and finally cracking the code on account-based marketing. From converting LLM traffic at 40% to building cross-cloud alignment with “guilds,” Amber shares tactical insights and bold bets that every modern marketer ...
Aug 06, 2025•58 min•Ep. 533
What happens when your top-performing SEO strategy becomes obsolete in just 90 days? In this special “fire drill” edition of Marketing Trends, host Stephanie Postles teams up with guest host Lacey Peace to tackle the urgent question every marketer is asking: How do we actually show up in an AI-powered search world? With explosive growth in LLM-powered search results, YouTube and podcast citations rising by over 300%, and AI agents reshaping how buyers make decisions, this episode delivers a prac...
Jul 23, 2025•24 min•Ep. 532
Harmony Anderson didn’t wait 90 days to make an impact at Superhuman — she launched a major campaign in her first five weeks. Harmony Anderson, Head of Marketing and Growth Product at Superhuman, breaks down why moving fast (and strategically) matters more than playing it safe, especially in high-growth startups. We dig into what it really takes to scale from $20M to $200M ARR, how to enter the enterprise market without abandoning your early adopters, and why traditional attribution models are f...
Jul 09, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 531
What do you get when you mix a 70-year-old legacy brand, Gen Z tax filers, and a reality TV show called Responsibility Island? An absolute marketing fever dream. And Jill Cress — CMO of H&R Block — is the mastermind behind it. We unpack how she’s giving TurboTax-meets-Gen-Z realness. We’re talking Roblox integrations, bold brand storytelling, and what happens when you challenge a category that’s historically allergic to change. We cover: – How H&R Block turned tax season into a cultural ...
Jun 25, 2025•1 hr•Ep. 530
What if the next big wave in marketing isn’t about targeting people at all—but impressing their AI agents instead? Abhay Parasnis, CEO of Typeface and former CTO at Adobe, joins us to explain why the future of brand discovery is less “search bar” and more “autonomous agents doing your shopping.” Abhay makes a bold case that most traditional marketing (think SEO strategies, AB tests, and static brand books) is already becoming obsolete. Instead, the brands that win will be the ones building conte...
Jun 11, 2025•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 529
Think LinkedIn is the place to reach technical buyers? Auvik CMO Susanne Rodriguez breaks down how her team built an insanely effective Reddit and Facebook strategy — yes, Facebook — to reach IT pros who dodge sales emails like it's their job (because it is ). We’re talking memes that convert, subreddits that slap, and how to avoid getting flamed by Reddit mods who smell B2B fluff from a mile away. You’ll also hear how Auvik got dragged for a meme, owned it publicly, and came out stronger — a.k....
May 28, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 528
You’re still optimizing for Google? That’s cute… Marcus Sheridan, author of They Ask, You Answer, joins us for a high-energy episode, he joins host Stephanie Postles to break down why the playbook most B2B marketers are still running is dangerously outdated. They dive deep into the collapse of traditional SEO, the rise of AI-generated answers, and why brands that aren’t building trust through video, transparency, and self-service tools are already falling behind. Marcus shares tactical examples ...
May 14, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 527
