INSIGHTS FROM EXPERTS ON LINKEDIN
Garrett Mehrguth explains how his agency replaced time-heavy weekly client reports with an AI system that pulls from marketing, CRM, and third-party data to produce deeper, more strategic updates. He says this freed up thousands of consultant hours while keeping human review, fact-checking, and ongoing prompt improvements in place. The goal is to spend less time writing reports and more time driving results, without losing client trust.
Charlotte Louise Sharpe highlights a Google Ads test that adds third-party endorsements directly into Search ads, tapping into authority bias. She notes that expert or publisher validation can reduce friction and lift performance, especially for high-consideration products or services. Even if the feature stays limited, she suggests brands should focus more on using credible outside proof in their messaging.
Peep Laja shares survey data showing most B2B CMOs now start their software research with AI tools and peer communities rather than Google. He explains that Google has shifted into more of a verification step, while AI tools create the first shortlist, making visibility in LLMs and communities critical. Many marketing teams, he says, are still optimizing for a search-first world that’s quickly fading.
Stan Rymkiewicz outlines how he’s using AI to keep marketing driving half of pipeline as a solo marketer at a fast-growing company. He is building a structured “marketing brain,” channel-specific playbooks, and a system that pulls insights from sales and customer calls to keep AI context fresh. The aim is not to replace himself, but to give AI enough context to produce far more useful work.
Liam Moroney explains that brand discovery happens both actively (search, LLMs) and passively (ads, word of mouth), but marketers are over-fixated on the active side. He says active discovery only works well once buyers already understand the solution category, while earlier growth often depends on building basic awareness that a solution even exists. As categories mature, he argues, brand familiarity and mental availability matter more than simply showing up in searches or AI answers.
Peter Kang shares 18 pricing ideas borrowed from other industries and adapted for agencies, focusing on framing, premium positioning, and structured offers. He highlights tactics like leading with higher-priced flagship services, designing bundles that can’t be easily unpicked, and creating permanent entry-level offers instead of giving random discounts. Rethink pricing structure and positioning rather than competing on price alone.
Emmanuel Flossie welcomes Google Ads’ new dual-admin approval feature designed to prevent hackers from making high-risk account changes. He urges advertisers and agencies to immediately add two admins from different domains and avoid using generic email providers to reduce the risk of account takeovers. He also warns about phishing attempts, especially on LinkedIn, and stresses that proper setup is still the advertiser’s responsibility.
Frida Ahrenby 
says personal LinkedIn posts are now ranking in Google and getting picked up by LLMs, giving them a much longer shelf life than just the LinkedIn feed. She explains that even niche posts and low-engagement content can surface in search results, changing how individual profiles and brands gain visibility. She highlights that social content and SEO are blending, creating new opportunities for teams that adjust their content strategy early.
Josh Blyskal shares analysis of 27 million AI citations showing that only a tiny share comes from top-tier media, with most pulled from niche, trade, and specialist sites. He describes how AI answer engines focus on relevance to the question rather than publisher prestige, shifting discovery toward smaller industry publications while major outlets still help with credibility. He suggests PR and content teams may need to rethink where they invest if they want visibility in AI-driven search.
Rob Kaminski explains that top executives rarely consume marketing content directly and usually join the buying process near the end. He says buying decisions are shaped earlier by internal champions who research options and connect product value to business needs. He encourages startups to focus messaging and enablement on those champions rather than trying to market straight to the ultimate decision-maker.
WHAT'S NEW IN THE INDUSTRY
Pepsi’s Super Bowl ad revives the classic blind taste test but features a polar bear, one of Coca-Cola’s most iconic brand symbols, choosing Pepsi Zero Sugar. The move has reignited the long-running debate between differentiation and distinctiveness, questioning whether strong brand assets can ever truly be “borrowed” without reinforcing the original brand. Effectiveness may hinge less on buzz and more on whether viewers remember Pepsi, Coke, or both after the game.
Paid media performance usually stalls not because of who runs the ads, but because of weak strategy, poor visibility into revenue impact, and a lack of structured testing. It explains how teams often get stuck maintaining campaigns without fresh perspective, strong tracking foundations, or clear leadership alignment on what success looks like. A hybrid model with external strategic oversight and internal execution is presented as a way to keep performance sharp and accountable over time.
Code references discovered in ChatGPT responses suggest OpenAI is quietly building the infrastructure for ads, even though users can’t see them yet. The article notes this points to early testing of ad logic, targeting, and eligibility rules ahead of a broader rollout of paid placements inside conversations. If launched, these ads could become high-value, high-intent inventory that competes directly with organic AI answers.
Google Ads API v23 introduces channel-level reporting for Performance Max, letting advertisers see results across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, Maps, and Search Partners instead of a single mixed bucket. The data is available down to campaign, asset group, and asset level, helping teams understand which creatives work best on which properties. Advertisers and developers will need to update reporting setups, and the new breakdown only applies to data from June 1, 2025 onward.
A new multi-party approval feature now requires a second admin to sign off on high-risk actions like adding users or changing roles. Requests expire after 20 days if no one approves, and admins can track whether changes are completed, denied, or expired inside the Access and security section. The update strengthens protection for agencies and large advertisers managing valuable accounts and multiple collaborators.
Google’s AI-powered search experience is increasingly matching ads based on inferred user intent rather than just the exact words typed into the search bar. As AI Overviews and conversational search grow, campaign structure, landing pages, and creative need to align with the problems users are trying to solve, not just keyword groupings. Broad match, automation tools, and richer page context are becoming more important, while measurement and budget requirements make this shift easier for larger advertisers to adopt than smaller ones.
Google is rolling out a beta feature that allows advertisers to run structured A/B tests on creative assets within a single Performance Max asset group. By splitting traffic between existing and new asset sets, teams can measure creative impact in a controlled way without launching separate campaigns. Early feedback shows longer test periods and minimal other changes lead to more reliable results.
A new Data Manager diagnostics tool helps advertisers monitor the health of their data sources, including offline conversions, CRM imports, and tagging setups. The dashboard flags issues with clear status labels and alerts, plus a history of sync attempts and errors so problems can be fixed quickly. Stronger visibility into data pipelines helps protect conversion tracking, reporting accuracy, and automated bidding performance.
That’s the scoop for this week! If you found this valuable and any useful insights caught your eye, feel free to share them with your network.
Until next week!
