This week on Digital Marketing from the Coalface, Julie and Leslie dig into what actually happens when you hand marketing decisions over to an algorithm, including a few stories that are more entertaining than they probably should be. When "optimised" budgets go rogue: a campaign built to get women into STEM programmes ended up serving ads mostly to men. Not, as we suspected, because of a biased dataset, but because of the maths. Women drive a higher share of buying decisions, so their clicks cost more, and an AI chasing a strict cost-per-click target will avoid them if it can. The multilingual blind spot in AI search: if you're running non-English pages, they may be nearly invisible to tools like ChatGPT. One experiment run by Strategy Director Pieter Serraris found it favours English content even when other languages are available on a website. Featuring English versions of a website pages might well lift AI citations by ChatGPT by over 120%, but keeping that content updated is key to avoid negatively impacting your digital footprint. Getting out of the bots-writing-for-bots loop: generic, over-bulleted LinkedIn posts are everywhere now, as the result of handing your whole brand voice to AI and letting it write in an echo chamber. Julie talks through how to actually train AI on your team's voice, so it speeds things up without smoothing out what makes you sound like you. AI is a genuinely useful assistant for scaling what you do, it just still needs a strategic brain behind it. The people who will stand out in the midst of all the samey garbage are the ones who know how to blend machine efficiency with genuine, real human connection. Have a listen!

In this episode of Digital Marketing From The Coalface, Dave and Julie return from a brief hiatus to strip away the AI hype. From silly software oversight errors to the critical mechanics of B2B user experience, they once again bring a no-nonsense, practical reality check for business owners, tech leaders, and marketing directors working in the B2B space.   Key Takeaways for B2B & Tech Leaders: The HubSpot AI nuance failure: Dave breaks down a real-world blunder where HubSpot's beta AI tool recommended reaching out to a competitor agency called "Blend" simply because the algorithm read the common noun "blend" in a text snippet. Be aware that AI still drastically struggles with basic context and business logic, so don't put all your trust in its supposed critical 'thinking'. Google's crackdown on "AI Slop": Bringing up the recent experiment where 1,000 bulk-generated AI blog posts were completely de-indexed by Google within weeks, Julie and Dave discuss why automated content engines are a fast track to search invisibility and why subject matter expertise remains your best SEO asset. Crafting an authentic B2B tone of voice: Avoid copy-pasted corporate speak when marketing to highly niche and technical audiences. You want to align your brand's vocabulary with the direct communication style of the teams you serve. How "self-indulgent" forms kill conversions: A single "required field" (like "How did you find us?") at the final stage of checkout can completely halt a transaction. Dave and Julie discuss how to identify and eliminate self-inflicted user experience (UX) friction on your B2B landing pages to keep high-value leads moving forward. The "pro bono" enterprise sales strategy: Dave shares how Red Evo recently won a highly competitive, 17-page HubSpot development contract by offering a no-obligation discovery session. IP intelligence & perfect sales timing: Do not dismiss IP-tracking software. Julie and Dave share how using a budget-friendly tool like Leadinfo lets you see major prospects browsing specific pages on your site, helping your outbound sales team time your business's outreach perfectly when quiet deals suddenly warm up. Listen (or watch!) the episode now to discover how to balance smart software with the irreplaceable human element in B2B marketing.

Feel like the internet is constantly telling you your marketing is out of date? You aren't alone. This week on Digital Marketing from the Coalface, David and Julie are talking about the exhaustion of "marketing FOMO" and how tech and engineering leaders can focus on the foundations instead of chasing the next shiny object. We get into the classic debate: should you specialise or generalise? Is niching down a massive risk, or is it the absolute best way to land great clients who actually get what you do? We're also blocking out the SEO noise to talk about what actually matters with meta descriptions right now (spoiler: please stop using them as a sales pitch). Finally, Julie shares a crazy story about how she accidentally coded a custom app using Claude (despite having zero programming experience) and David explains why moving AI out of the chat window and into your actual daily tools will make your life a whole lot easier. If you're a busy decision-maker who just wants straight-talking marketing insights, this one is for you. Grab a coffee and hit play!

Let's be brutally honest: if we stripped the logo off your manufacturing or engineering website, would your buyers have any idea who you are? Or are you indistinguishable from your competitors? Pragmatic engineers love to believe that simply listing capabilities like "NDT inspection" or "pressure testing" makes them special. It doesn't. In this episode of Digital Marketing From The Coalface, Dave and Julie rip into the boring, copy-paste marketing plaguing the B2B sector. Learn why you need to stop hiding behind your spec sheets and start "derisking" the sale for your buyers by stealing a brilliant psychological safety trick straight from the Lexus playbook. But the controversy doesn't stop at your homepage. We take aim at the search giant itself, asking the million-dollar question: Is Google Ads spending your marketing budget like a drunken sailor? Dave shares a rage-inducing reality check about how Google plays "fast and loose" with your cash, charging for completely irrelevant clicks like "Philippines web design" when you're trying to target UK industrial buyers. If you are tired of blending in and sick of digital ad waste, tune in to fix the leaks and finally give your B2B brand a spine.

Welcome back to another episode of Digital Marketing From The Coalface! After a brief hiatus (and a very jet-lagged return from Boston for Julie), we are back to call out the B2B marketing myths wasting your budget.   In this episode, we reveal the harsh truth about HubSpot Gold and Platinum Partners. Does that shiny badge actually mean an agency is highly skilled, or are they just excellent at selling software? We explain why partner tiers are not necessarily the mark of competence you might think they are, but are instead purely based on sales volume.   We also tackle the rise of 'zero-click search' and the impact of AI overviews. With organic click-through rates roughly halving, we discuss why targeting high-intent queries and producing content with genuine technical depth is your best defence. Plus, we explore the latest "snake oil" in the SEO world: why adding schema markup won't magically fast-track your content into AI chat engines like Perplexity or ChatGPT.   Finally, if you manage an engineering or tech website, we break down why outdated "brochure-style" layouts are costing you leads and highlight the essential trust signals you might be missing. Oh, and don't forget to update your privacy policy, there are new GDPR rules regarding complaint handling, and opportunistic scammers are actively targeting businesses with faulty cookie consent bars.   Tune in for your regular dose of no-nonsense digital marketing advice!

Did you know that 92% of B2B buyers enter a formal evaluation with a vendor already in mind?   In this episode of Digital Marketing From The Coalface, Julie and Dave dive deep into the hidden realities of the modern B2B buyer journey. With 70% to 80% of the purchase process completed before a prospect even speaks to a vendor, your website needs to do much more than simply capture leads.   We explore why obsessing over B2C-style Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) and button colours is a trap for B2B marketers. Instead, learn why your focus must be on building credibility, offering case studies for social proof, and making the 6 to 10 decision-makers involved in a deal feel completely "safe".   The conversation then unpacks a 2024 Forrester Report that proves B2B buyers are making up their minds about your business before you even know they exist. To help you adapt, Julie and Dave explain how to use Google and LinkedIn ads as a rapid "fishing exercise" to test product demand and search volume before committing six months to an organic SEO strategy.   We also cover the latest in digital visibility, specifically Google's rollout of separate AI impressions in the UK Search Console. You will learn how to use AI content graders to ensure your writing is specific and "non-commodity," which forces AI search engines to link back to your website rather than just regurgitating your hard work.   Finally, Dave and Julie share their own successes and frustrating hallucination failures using tools like Claude to automate tedious daily tasks.   Tune in to learn how to adapt your digital strategy for the highly-researched, AI-assisted B2B buyer!

Dave and Julie record with the office doors wide open to enjoy an unusually hot day here in Royal Deeside, where a quick run for cold drinks sparks an unexpected marketing lesson about the "famous brand rule". The discussion flows naturally toward the power of social proof in the B2B space. Unlike world-renowned B2C brands such as Adidas, lesser-known B2B companies must rely heavily on case studies, certifications, and social proof to make buyers feel safe.   Discussing the dangers of using confusing, engineering-led product names, Dave and Julie bring up Dyson's intricate model numbers that serve as a perfect illustration of this, as they often leave consumers confused and unable to make an easy choice.   In the second half of the episode, the conversation shifts to a deep dive into Google's recent major announcements, including their plan to weave sponsored product ads directly into conversational AI responses. Julie and Dave debate whether this will turn out to be an innovative move, or just an unimaginative reaction to losing search traffic to ad-free platforms like Claude. Julie also touches on the transition from dynamic search ads to AI Max, which aims to offer advertisers more control over their assets, and Google's new focus on tracking "qualified future conversions" to better accommodate long B2B sales cycles.   The episode wraps up with some staggering statistics on AI search adoption, noting that AI mode now boasts over one billion monthly users who are typing in increasingly long follow-up queries.   And as plugged multiple times throughout the show, be sure to go and listen to the Uncensored CMO podcast to hear the full conversation with Rory Sutherland and Tom Goodwin.

Is Google deliberately obscuring its AI search mechanics to protect its 20-year monopoly? In this episode of Digital Marketing From The Coalface, we dive into the smoke and mirrors of the latest Google AI guidelines, which frustratingly claim that nothing has actually changed. We also explore the widening divide between building websites for human journeys versus AI machine crawlers, and try to bridge the gap between marketing strategy and web engineering as we discuss why older, structurally simple websites might perform perfectly fine, while modern JavaScript-heavy, lazy-loading pages can be entirely invisible to AI agents. We also unpack the shift toward headless CMS to resist the heavy load of AI crawlers and deliver lightning-fast web pages, and we contrast human-centric design, which prioritises branding and UI, with agent-centric design that demands clear structure, entities, and metadata. Finally, we cover the topic of deep integration between CRM and Google Ads to track meaningful B2B conversions. The reality of keeping up with AI search is an exhausting marathon, but endurance is key.

Welcome back to this episode of Digital Marketing From the Coalface, where Julie and Dave discuss topics ranging from the power of specific messaging to the changing landscape of online search, before wrapping up with a surprising real-world use case for AI.   But first, we dive yet again into the "Search Everywhere" Phenomenon. Digital Marketing strategists have been saying it for months now, Google's dominance is shifting as audiences under 44 are now using five or more platforms to conduct searches. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and AI overviews are increasingly being used for discovery. We've been using them as well, from finding local restaurants to B2B competitor research, so don't be too quick to discard TikTok as an unfit place to share about your business: your audience might well hang out there.   We then proceed to air our grievances with the pricing models of major SaaS platforms like HubSpot and Unbounce, whose business models we have always found questionable. We compare said models to "drug dealers" who hook users with free or cheap starter tiers, only to hit them with massive price leaps (e.g., jumping from £20 to £300+ a month) the moment they need to scale. In a previous podcast episode, we discussed the power of MCP servers, which might well save companies quite a fair amount of money by bypassing certain SaaS services. Standing out in the age of AI is exhausting, and with the rise of AI agents creating an "ever-decreasing circle" of content and Reddit bots speaking to other bots, we highlight why maintaining a unique brand tone of voice is more important than ever. If you want to avoid producing generic "slop," your distinct branding is your best defence. That is why you should also tap into the power of plain English messaging. Julie discussed a recent piece of research proving that concrete, specific phrases are significantly more memorable than abstract corporate jargon. We dissect a real-world example of an engineering company claiming to be "leveraging our specialist capability", or whatever that means. Listen now to discover why you need to rethink your website's homepage, re-evaluate where your customers are searching, and maybe even start using AI for, say, your weekend marathon prep!

Are you a CMO or CTO struggling to align your marketing strategy and tech stack with the rapid rise of AI? In this week's episode of Digital Marketing from the Coalface, Dave and Julie unpack three massive shifts disrupting the B2B landscape.   First, let us introduce you to "SaaS-mageddon". We explore why major SaaS company share prices have dropped and how AI agents like Anthropic's Claude are fundamentally changing software licensing. By using Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to seamlessly pull data across platforms like HubSpot, Xero, and Monday, companies, like yours, may drastically reduce the number of expensive SaaS user seats they need. Letting AI handle the "busy work" might be the future of entreprise tech stacks and that could positively impact your software budget.   Next, we break down the transition from traditional SEO to Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). If you think blogging is dead, think again: new research reveals that 62% of AI citations actually come from blog posts. The purpose of content has possibly shifted to attract bots and agents rather than just direct human traffic, but we also explore why user-generated platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn have become the "new backlinks" for Large Language Models, too. Optimising for AI discovery is no longer optional.   Finally, we challenge your B2B targeting strategy with this simple question: are you marketing to the buyer or the specifier? Using the construction industry as an analogy, Julie explains why focusing your budget on the transactional buyer (the building contractor) is a waste of money if you aren't influencing the specifier (the architect) who actually dictates which brand must be used...