The latest Ahrefs Podcast episode is titled ‘Clay’s $3.1B Marketing Playbook’ featuring Bruno Estrella.Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:The GTM Engineer: How Clay Created a New Role Through InfluencersThe Story Behind Clay’s Iconic “Play-Doh” BrandingHow to Split Marketing for Self-Serve vs. EnterpriseClay’s Programmatic SEO Play Generating 60% of Their TrafficWhy Clay Uses Substack Instead of a Traditional BlogHow to Get the Right People to Attend Your Events.Ahrefs  [...]

SEO Cube contributor Mohammadreza Hasanpour has published an article highlighting the impact of AI on SEO job postings.He says, “There’s been a lot of noise lately. GEO this, AEO that. Generative Engine Optimization. Answer Engine Optimization. Every thought leader has an opinion. Most of them are guessing.I wanted to know what’s actually happening. Not what we think should happen, not what the conference circuit is selling. What are companies really asking for when they hire SEO professionals in 2026?So I pulled over 6,400 recent job descriptions from LinkedIn across the US, UK,... [...]

The state of AI Search reflects a major shift from keyword-based results to intent-driven, conversational, and multimodal responses. Search engines increasingly rely on LLMs to provide synthesized answers, making authoritative, structured, and user-focused content more important than ever.AirOps has published a new report, ‘The 2026 State of AI Search: How Modern Brands Stay Visible’.Oshen Davidson says, “The way people discover information has shifted with the rise of the answer-first web. Instead of scanning a list of links, millions now ask AI assistants for... [...]

Ensuring your emails land in Gmail’s Primary tab is crucial for maximizing visibility and open rates, as promotional placement often reduces user attention. This requires clean sender reputation, personalized content, and avoiding overly promotional triggers that push emails into other tabs.MailerStack contributor Lyn Wildwood has published an article featuring seven strategies to make sure your emails land in the primary tab in Gmail.She says, “In this post, you’ll learn how to make sure your emails land in the Primary tab in Gmail.1. Understand how gmail tabs workBefore... [...]

AI Search in 2025 focuses on intent-driven, conversational results that combine text, voice, and visual understanding for more accurate answers. Businesses must optimize for structured data and high-quality, context-rich content to stay visible in AI-powered search ecosystems.Marketing Week, in partnership with Google, has published ‘The AI Search Playbook’.The MW team says, “The AI Search Playbook is a strategic guide to the biggest questions in AI-powered Search, and how brands and agencies can unlock growth together. As people ask more complex questions through... [...]

Digital advertising trends in 2025 focus on AI-driven automation, smarter audience segmentation, and highly interactive ad formats that increase user engagement. As third-party cookies phase out, brands rely more on first-party data, contextual ads, and privacy-friendly targeting strategies.Smartly has published the ‘Smartly’s 2026 Digital Advertising Trends Report’.The Smartly team says, “The data’s in: based on insights from 450 marketers, Smartly’s 2026 Digital Advertising Trends Report reveals how AI is powering creative, media, and measurement to deliver... [...]

HubSpot contributor Laura M. Browning has published a new blog post ‘2025’s Lingering Questions, ‘ covering insights from 40+ marketers. She says, “Lingering Questions is one of my favorite parts of the Masters in Marketing newsletter, because it’s an opportunity for marketers to talk directly to one another.This year, a few clear themes emerged: yes, AI can help you be a better and more efficient marketer, but human connection is more important than ever; authenticity, even if it means you’re a bit unpolished, is preferable to perfection; and consumers across all... [...]

Increasing customer retention is essential because loyal customers generate repeat business at a lower acquisition cost and often act as brand advocates. Strengthening retention also boosts long-term profitability by increasing customer lifetime value and stabilizing revenue growth.HubSpot has published a new guide, ‘Best customer portal software tools for increasing customer retention’.Rami El-Abidin says, “Customer portal software is a secure self-service platform that provides customers with a centralized location to view their data, track support tickets,... [...]

Digital PR focuses on earning high-quality backlinks through newsworthy content, brand stories, and media outreach, enhancing both visibility and authority. Traditional link building relies on targeted outreach and directory placements, offering structured but often slower growth compared to Digital PR’s broader impact.Search Engine Journal contributor Adam Riemer has answered the question – ‘Digital PR Or Traditional Link Building, Which Is Better?’ in the Ask An SEO series.He says, “Digital PR is synonymous with link building at this point as SEO’s... [...]

Search Engine Land has published a new guide, ‘Think different: The Positionless Marketing manifesto’.The SEL teams says, “In 1997, Apple launched a campaign that became cultural gospel. “Think Different” celebrated the rebels, the misfits, the troublemakers. The ones who saw things differently. The ones who changed the world.Apple understood something fundamental: the constraints that limited imagination weren’t real. They were inherited. Accepted. Assumed. And the people who broke through weren’t smarter or more talented. They simply refused to believe the constraints... [...]