However even when you’re our most loyal fan, there’ll nonetheless be loads of insights that you simply’ve missed or have forgotten already. Many of those concepts are too good to let vanish.
So we went again by our catalog and rescued the insights from our company that need to be referenced again and again once more.
The perfect half? A lot of our company may also be on stage at Ahrefs Evolve in San Diego on October 14 and 15.
So, consider this as each the director’s minimize of our podcast and your front-row preview to Ahrefs Evolve.
Mark Schaefer is a globally-recognized creator, keynote speaker, futurist, and enterprise guide who blogs at {develop}, one of many prime 5 advertising blogs on the earth. He additionally teaches graduate advertising courses at Rutgers College and has written 10 best-selling books.
When he got here on the podcast, he didn’t sugarcoat it.
“In case you’re simply competent, you’re going to be eaten alive by AI. AI is already competent. It’s greater than competent. It’s magical. So we’ve received to dig deep and do higher.”
How can we do higher? Mark says we should always make advertising extra human, extra like artwork.
“I’m not going to purchase tickets to listen to AI play a Stephen Wilson music. He means one thing to me. There’s an emotional connection to his humanity and the tales he tells in his songs. our advertising indirectly should strategy artwork. It should unleash and spotlight this human ingredient.we have to educate by our tales, our experiences, our schooling. We have now to speak about what makes us comfortable, what makes us excited, what makes us offended, as a result of that’s what’s going to join with individuals. It’s this expression of the human expertise. That’s what artwork is. It’s an expression of the human expertise.”
Mark shall be talking on “How People Win in an Al Advertising and marketing World” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Mark reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Emily Kramer is a number one voice in B2B startup advertising. She beforehand led and constructed advertising groups from the bottom up at Asana, Carta, Astro (acquired by Slack), and Ticketfly and has been the first-ish marketer 4 instances, main groups by hypergrowth and at scale.
On the podcast, she defined why so many founders misdiagnose their advertising issues.
“Founders typically assume they’ve an engine drawback: they’re not doing sufficient channels, not sending sufficient emails, not working sufficient adverts. However actually their gas sucks. They’re pushing unhealthy messaging into channels that would work if the content material was higher.”
Emily breaks startup advertising into three components:
- Basis: your ICP, your positioning, your market.
- Gasoline: the concepts, content material, and creatives you produce.
- Engine: the channels you utilize to distribute that gas.
“You’re not going to carry a Tesla to a daily gasoline station. The mistaken gas for the mistaken engine received’t work. Startups want the correct gas and the correct engine, and so they must match.”
She additionally urges startups to search for what she calls advertising benefits: the unfair edges that solely your organization has. At Carta, that meant utilizing their proprietary information to publish a landmark report on the gender fairness hole. The marketing campaign was provocative, press-worthy, and put Carta on the map.
“Copying one other firm’s playbook received’t get you there. I’m all the time asking: what benefits do you might have that no person else does? That’s the place you must double down.”
Emily shall be talking on “Classes for Small Content material Groups: How I Handle My Content material Technique As A Two-Individual Crew And A E-newsletter With ~70k Subscribers” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Emily reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Peep Laja is a 3x founder (Wynter, CXL, Speero). At this time, he’s a acknowledged professional in technique, messaging, and market analysis.
On the podcast, Peep was blunt about why a lot content material advertising fails:
“Mediocre content material is harmful. Wonderful content material destroyed us at CXL. It wasn’t unhealthy, but it surely wasn’t nice both. And that’s the worst place to be. Dangerous content material individuals ignore. Wonderful content material wastes everybody’s time and erodes your model.”
For him, content material that wins must be both:
- Exceptionally helpful (distinctive insights, information, frameworks), or
- Exceptionally opinionated (a robust, even contrarian, level of view).
Every little thing else is noise.
Peep shall be talking on “B2B Manufacturers Don’t Have A Pipeline Drawback, They Have A Recall Drawback” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Peep reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Delbert Ty is a fractional CMO who’s the ex-CMO at Espresso Meets Bagel, a preferred courting app. Earlier than becoming a member of CmB, Delbert labored as Head of Advertising and marketing at Circles.Life—a Singaporean telco—the place he grew income to 9 figures in 5 years.
Having been behind a few of APAC’s wildest advertising stunts, he’s sincere:
“All the nice concepts begin as unhealthy concepts. Do the other of what you’re ‘supposed’ to do, then make the narrative tie again to your model.”
A few of his greatest stunts (and misses):
- The “vandalism” reveal (Singapore) — Delbert seeded a faux telco marketing campaign in MRT stations, then doodled over the adverts with creators earlier than revealing Circles.Life and its 20GB for $20 provide. In pristine Singapore, it hit a cultural nerve. Consequence: 10× new-user run charge in a single day, CAC down by ⅓–⅔, and model consciousness leaping from single digits to 30–40%.
- $3 Baller “merchandising machine” — Pay $3 and get $50 from a human inside a fake merchandising machine. It received tons of viral consideration and press lined it extensively. The police confirmed up.
- CMB’s “ship casuals away” characteristic — CMB needed to show that it was an app for severe relationships. So, if a person chosen “informal” throughout sign-up, the app pointed you to opponents as a substitute. A contrarian gesture that the majority corporations wouldn’t make.
How Delbert decides what to ship:
- Intention for anticipated worth, not heroics: Price range small, take many pictures, and don’t depend on a stunt to hit the forecast.
- Account for hidden prices: Stunts are “low cost” in money however costly in group power and braveness.
- Exploit the cultural erogenous zone: What shocks in Singapore received’t budge Manila. Context is king.
- Distribution helps, however the concept is king: Seeding and outreach are icing; a meh concept received’t journey.
“If 10% of your wild concepts land, that’s a win if every roll of the cube is reasonably priced.”
Delbert was a part of a panel at Ahrefs Evolve 2024 and likewise spoke at Ahrefs Evolve Mini 2025 in Singapore.
Madhav Bhandari is CMO at Storylane, an AI-native platform for creating interactive demos in minutes, giving patrons a hands-on method to test-drive merchandise.
On the podcast, he shared his greatest perception: Early-stage advertising isn’t about following a playbook. It’s really about constructing a portfolio of experiments.
“I all the time consider myself as a fund supervisor. The finances is my fund, and the shares are my advertising channels. My job is to choose the correct portfolio combine, primarily based on what the corporate wants, what’s already been tried, and the CEO’s danger profile.”
As an alternative of looking for one silver-bullet channel, Madhav runs dozens of small experiments shortly, then doubles down on the 2 or three that work.
“At Hubstaff, I attempted 80 or 90 techniques in six months. Out of that dash, perhaps two or three emerged as actual development drivers. That’s the job: run many concepts quick, discover your hits, and construct round them.”
He additionally warns in opposition to overcomplicating attribution too early: what issues is belief and directional indicators, not good information.
Madhav shall be talking on “How We 7x’d Model Consciousness in 6 Quarters Utilizing ‘Sample Interrupt Advertising and marketing’” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Madhav reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Glen Allsopp is the Head of Advertising and marketing Technique and Analysis at Ahrefs. He’s additionally the founding father of Detailed.com and the Detailed search engine optimisation extension, which we acquired in September 2025.
Earlier than becoming a member of Ahrefs, he was on the podcast sharing his huge search engine optimisation and enterprise knowledge with the world.
His edge comes from obsessive depth: doing the work others received’t.
“I’ve written 300 articles that no person cared about. The one means I get consideration now’s by doing the work nobody else will: manually checking 10,000 queries, analyzing hundreds of internet sites, and placing out analysis that’s bulletproof.”
That degree of rigor has earned him mentions in TechCrunch, Monetary Occasions, and Enterprise Insider.
His lesson for entrepreneurs is straightforward: go deeper than anybody else in your trade. True differentiation comes from effort others aren’t prepared to speculate.
Glen is notoriously non-public and can possible not be discovered talking at any occasions. However look ahead to his articles on our weblog!
Chris Cunningham is the Head of Social Advertising and marketing at ClickUp and one in all its 4 individuals who began the corporate. Throughout his time on the firm, ClickUp has grown to over 1,400 workers, raised $535 million at a $4 billion valuation, and run main campaigns together with a Tremendous Bowl business.
He additionally constructed ClickUp’s content material into one of the best in B2B SaaS, surpassing 1 billion impressions in 2024.
What’s his secret? Deal with content material like a inventive studio.
As an alternative of pushing product updates, Chris employed actors, writers, and comedians to make office sketches which might be humorous, relatable, and endlessly shareable. Then, when the viewers is warmed up, ClickUp retargets them with product-led adverts.
However Chris believes this isn’t simply ClickUp’s benefit. It’s the longer term:
“All B2B corporations are going to have a full-time creator. 100%.”
His recommendation to entrepreneurs is straightforward: cease following “greatest practices,” examine what really entertains individuals, and spend money on expertise that may pull it off. As a result of in a world the place consideration is scarce, each SaaS firm is competing with Netflix and TikTok.
Chris shall be talking on “The SaaS Social Playbook: Turning Natural Content material Right into a Progress Channel” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Chris reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Melissa Laurie is without doubt one of the main voices on EGC (Worker Generated Content material). By way of her company Oysterly Media, she’s helped manufacturers like SEPHORA, Salesforce, and even the Singapore Police Drive, flip their workers into a strong advertising channel.
Her massive concept flips the standard “worker advocacy” script: have workers create brief movies that go in your model’s channels, as a result of authenticity beats polish and scales throughout recruiting, tradition, and gross sales.
Quick video is now how individuals search and uncover. Which means your model feeds can’t be occasional press releases; they want a gradual cadence of human clips from actual teammates: product ideas, day-in-the-life, fast tales, green-screen explainers. Nevertheless it solely works when you deal with it like a program, not a one-off.
“I don’t consider we now have 3 seconds anymore… it’s the first body.”
“It’s not nearly posting one video and also you’re achieved. It’s about making a channel, a group.”
Melissa’s playbook in a nutshell:
- Practice and set guardrails. Don’t simply go to a Gen Z worker and inform them to “make a video”. Train hooks, first-frame textual content, pacing, and sample interrupts and assessment each put up.
Publish constantly. Observe saves, feedback, and completions to double down on what resonates. - Intention for enterprise outcomes. Quick video on model channels helps entice expertise, retain/have interaction groups, and promote (assume Sephora associates genuinely recommending their favourite merchandise)
In case your model continues to be making an attempt to go off TV spots as Reels, you’re “placing lipstick on a pig.” Put actual individuals, actual voices, and helpful micro-stories in your model account and make it a behavior.
Melissa spoke at Ahrefs Evolve Mini 2025 in Singapore!
Kevin Indig is an advisor to a few of the world’s fastest-growing startups and has outlined natural development methods for corporations like Ramp, Reddit, Bounce, Dropbox, Hims, Nextdoor and Snapchat. He led search engine optimisation and Progress on the world’s main e-commerce platform Shopify, the #1 market for software program G2 and the #1 developer firm Atlassian.
On the podcast, Kevin made one daring prediction:
“2024 would be the peak site visitors yr. From right here, clicks go down, impressions go up. AI is altering the sport, and search engine optimisation is getting into a brand new cycle.”
However relatively than declaring search engine optimisation useless, Kevin sees it evolving. Visitors could decline, however income doesn’t essentially comply with the identical path, particularly as AI Overviews begin exhibiting up for extra business queries.
His recommendation for SEOs is straightforward: Don’t simply optimize for key phrases, optimize for actions. Each search is a step towards doing one thing: shopping for, fixing, creating. In case your web site solely informs however doesn’t assist individuals act, they’ll go to AI as a substitute.
“The primary rules of search engine optimisation nonetheless apply—relevance, freshness, authority—however person habits has shifted. Persons are typing longer, hyper-specific prompts, and there’s a vacuum of content material that really solutions these. Whoever fills it’s going to win.”
Kevin shall be talking on “What Content material Works Effectively in LLMs” at Ahrefs Evolve. See Kevin reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
John-Henry Scherck is the founder and CEO of Progress Performs, a number one B2B content material technique & search engine optimisation company that works with mid-market and enterprise know-how companies to drive pipeline, not simply web page views.
The core lesson from his episode: Visitors alone is nugatory until it drives income.
That’s why JH is skeptical of the hype round “zero-volume key phrases.” Certain, some could herald a trickle of site visitors, however they hardly ever transfer the needle for venture-scale SaaS corporations:
“In case you’re hinging your profession on issues that carry 100 clicks a month, it’s essential to create a lot content material. Search may not even be the correct channel for it.”
As an alternative, he urges entrepreneurs to assume larger:
- Use search as an entry level, however funnel that site visitors into brand-driven and academic content material that builds belief.
- Spend money on product information research that get press and hyperlinks (like DocSend’s landmark VC pitch deck examine).
- Double down on occasions, partnerships, and distribution channels the place your patrons already collect.
For JH, all of it comes again to a easy reality: quantity is vainness, income is sanity.
John-Henry shall be talking on “Adopting Al: Every little thing We’ve Realized Turning into an Al-First Company” at Ahrefs Evolve. See John-Henry reside at Ahrefs Evolve, San Diego.
Neil Patel is without doubt one of the most recognizable names in digital advertising. He’s the co-founder of NP Digital, which has grown into a world company with over $100M in annual income, plus software program companies like Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic.
On the podcast, Neil minimize by the noise about why companies actually fail to scale:
“Most individuals assume the issue is gross sales. However the true cause companies don’t develop is churn. In case you maintain a shopper for 10 years, your corporation appears to be like fully totally different. In case you lose them in a single or two years, you’re all the time on the hamster wheel.”
For Neil, the important thing to lowering churn is increasing the connection. If a shopper solely hires you for search engine optimisation, they’ll churn. But when they depend on you for search engine optimisation, paid, e-mail, and CRO, you change into indispensable.
He additionally emphasised the significance of focusing on enterprise shoppers:
- They take longer to shut, however they keep longer.
- They broaden contracts throughout companies and areas.
- And if you win one model, you typically get launched to others inside the identical group (e.g., LVMH).
It’s not about closing the deal as soon as; it’s about retaining the deal for a decade.
Closing ideas
If there’s one frequent sample throughout these episodes, it’s this: The winners in advertising do what’s onerous. They obsess over depth, take dangers and ship “unhealthy concepts” in an effort to discover nice ones (i.e. construct a portfolio of bets), out-human the machines, and measure success by outcomes, not vainness.
Ahrefs Evolve is your probability to take these concepts off the web page and into observe. You’ll hear the unfiltered variations on stage, ask follow-up questions in particular person, and swap notes with entrepreneurs who’re working the precise performs you care about.
See you at Ahrefs Evolve in San Diego, October 14–15.
