The AI boom has a hidden casualty: anything that can be easily copied dies fast. When every team has the same tools, prompts, and playbooks, surface-level work becomes interchangeable. Are you building on something real, or something that can be automated away?
The dividing line is expertise.
Deep knowledge doesn’t appear because you wrote a prompt. It comes from years inside an industry, learning what actually works and where things break. Most of this knowledge lives in people’s heads. When teams document how decisions get made and why certain approaches work, that experience becomes a system.
You see the same dynamic in communities. Real conversations carry a different weight than polished brand messaging. People trust peers sharing honest experiences far more than generic content.
That’s why we’re hosting a Virtual Insider Session with the team at Reddit on March 19. Reddit has become one of the places where real conversations shape what AI systems surface in answers. You can save your spot here: Reddit For Marketing Leaders - Virtual Insider Session
Surface tactics fade. Generic content blends in. Tool chasing rarely creates advantage. What lasts is usefulness: sharing what you’ve actually learned and showing up where professionals are already exchanging ideas.
You might want to ask yourself: Is our marketing built on authentic expertise and real community value? Or are we just putting a logo on tactics anyone could copy?
Now let’s dive into the stories from this week.
Patrick Patterson
CEO at Level Agency
Podcast spotlight
The unconventional journey from tie-dye to term sheets
Last week on Good Enough Isn’t, Myles and I sat down with Thomas Cooperrider, Principal at Dynamic Core Capital Partners, for a conversation I enjoyed quite a bit.
Tommy is one of those people who can move easily between finance, strategy, mentorship, and AI without sounding rehearsed. We talked about the teachers and mentors who pushed him early, the awkward and uncomfortable stretches that end up mattering more than you think, and why he believes 2026 is the year AI starts becoming a genuinely useful virtual assistant for everyday professionals.
What I like about this episode is that it’s not a polished success story. It’s a real conversation about how careers actually get built: unevenly, with good guidance, a few hard lessons, and a willingness to keep going long enough for the path to make sense.
P.S. I’m always looking for growth leaders with a “good enough isn’t” story. If you’ve broken rules, unlearned old playbooks, or driven change with AI and innovation, I want to hear from you.
Build a Full Content Strategy in 6 Minutes (For Free) Building a topic map used to take days of manual research. Now, you can do it in the time it takes to brew a cup of coffee. Watch as SEO Manager Matt Beaulieu uses a custom GPT called TopicMapper Pro to audit a sitemap and instantly generate a full calendar of TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU topics. See more
Why GA4’s “Direct Traffic” Is Lying to You If you’ve ever opened GA4 and wondered why “direct traffic” suddenly dominates the chart, you’re not alone. Much of what shows up there is actually unattributed traffic from email, apps, and dark social. The bigger lesson is strategic: attribution systems are approximations, not truth. Read more
The Overlooked Power of Secondary Keywords Most SEO conversations obsess over the primary keyword. In reality, the supporting terms around a topic often determine whether a page becomes authoritative enough to surface in AI answers and search summaries. When used well, secondary keywords help machines understand whether your page deserves to be cited. Read more
Why Younger Audiences Are Rewriting the Rules of Search Younger users increasingly treat platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and AI assistants as discovery engines. For marketers, the implication is clear: visibility no longer comes from a single channel. It comes from being present wherever people actually ask questions and compare options. Read more
ChatGPT Ads Reveal Who’s Experimenting First Retail and grocery brands are among the earliest adopters to test advertising inside ChatGPT. These industries move fast, operate on tight margins, and constantly test new distribution channels. The interesting takeaway for growth leaders isn’t the ad format itself. It’s the signal about who is willing to experiment early in a new interface. Read more
The Hidden Cost of AI Overload for Marketers A new report shows marketers reporting some of the highest levels of “AI fatigue” across professions. Success will depend on leadership and teams setting clear rules, being selective about the vast number of AI solutions, and focusing resources only on the most valuable key platforms. Read more
Deep dive: AI
Reddit is the decision room behind AI answers
Most marketing attribution misses a massive step. It's the moment a prospect leaves your site to see what real people say about you on Reddit.
Our latest article explores why Reddit has become the most trusted information environment on the web. Platforms like Reddit contain something traditional content often lacks: lived experience. Instead of polished explanations, you get practitioners comparing tools, debating tradeoffs, and sharing what actually worked.
That’s one reason AI systems frequently cite Reddit discussions when answering complex questions. The format naturally captures nuance. Multiple viewpoints. Real-world examples.
For marketers, this means your "Reddit reputation" now flows directly into search results and AI-generated answers. If buyers are using these communities to vet your brand (and 70% of them are) you cannot afford to be absent from the conversation.
If buyers are gathering insight from communities, brands need to think about participation differently. Specifically, creating strategies for contributing knowledge. Showing up where professionals already exchange advice and adding something useful to the discussion.
Related signal: If you're wondering how to build your presence in these "decision rooms," we're hosting a live session on March 19th with the team at Reddit. We'll show you exactly how leaders are using the platform to drive strategic visibility.
AI can speed up customer experience, but alignment still wins
There’s a common belief that AI will fix customer experience simply by making systems faster. Chatbots respond instantly. Automation routes tickets. Personalization engines recommend products.
Speed helps. But it doesn’t solve the deeper problem. Customer experience breaks most often when internal systems are misaligned. Marketing promises one thing, sales interprets it another way, and support teams inherit the confusion.
AI simply accelerates whatever system already exists. If your teams share data definitions, communicate clearly, and design journeys intentionally, AI amplifies the experience. If they don’t, the technology scales confusion just as efficiently as it scales clarity.
That’s why many organizations deploying AI in CX are discovering the same lesson: success depends less on the tools themselves and more on how well teams coordinate around them.
Alibaba’s Wan 2.6 is quickly becoming one of the most interesting open-source video generation models available.
Unlike earlier models that create a single clip, Wan 2.6 understands multi-shot storytelling. You can prompt it to generate a short sequence with different camera angles, and the characters remain visually consistent across scenes.
For marketers experimenting with AI-generated content, give this tool a try. Concept videos, product explainers, and social clips that once required complex production workflows can now be prototyped in minutes.
What does ChatGPT actually say about you?
When a potential buyer asks an AI agent for a Top 5 list in your category, do you make the cut? More importantly: Why or why not?
Don't leave your brand’s reputation to an algorithm you haven't audited. Our scorecard pulls back the curtain on how AI platforms frame your brand sentiment and which sources they use to vet your authority.
Inside your custom report:
Sentiment analysis: Is the AI's summary of your brand accurate or outdated?
Citation audit: Discover which third-party sites are feeding the AI your info.
AEO roadmap: Immediate steps to improve your "AI discoverability."
