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Nate Nead
|
October 21, 2025
Marketers Love Vanity Metrics, CFOs Don't

There are two types of people in the world:
Marketers, who get a dopamine rush from hitting “refresh” on an Instagram insights dashboard, and
CFOs, who break into hives when they hear the word “impressions.”

The marketer wants to build brand awareness and boost engagement.
The CFO wants to reduce CAC and increase margin.

And while both technically work for the same company, their version of "success" might as well come from parallel universes.

Marketer: “We got 100,000 video views!”
CFO: “...and we got 12 sales?”

Let’s face it: marketers are often hired to make noise.

CFOs are paid to cut it out.

What Are Vanity Metrics Anyway?

Vanity metrics are the glitter of marketing—shiny, attention-grabbing, and utterly useless in the long run. They include:

  • Followers (bought or otherwise)
  • Pageviews (bounce rate conveniently ignored)
  • Likes (from bots, interns, or Aunt Kathy)
  • Engagement rate (whatever that means this week)
  • Impressions (where good budgets go to die)

These marketing metrics are easy to get and even easier to manipulate. And that’s why marketers love them.

They pad decks.

They look great in graphs.

They get you SEO bragging rights.

They make you feel productive without the hassle of delivering actual business value.

Snark alert: Vanity metrics are the adult version of gold stars. Congrats! Now go sit back down.

What CFOs Actually Care About

CFOs don’t want your glitter. They want your numbers to tell a story that ends in profit. That’s why they focus on things like:

  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – How much did it cost to acquire that customer who ghosted us?
  • Lifetime Value (LTV) – Is that customer ever coming back?
  • Churn Rate – How quickly are we bleeding users?
  • Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Was that $50K Facebook campaign worth anything?
  • Marketing-Generated Revenue – Show me the money, not the motion.

To a CFO, a marketing report full of “engagement spikes” is about as comforting as a PowerPoint presentation from Fyre Festival’s head of ops.

The Problem with Chasing the Wrong Metrics

Here’s where things go off the rails:

  1. False Positives
    Vanity metrics can create the illusion of success. A million impressions sound great—until you realize they led to 12 clicks and one confused conversion.
  2. Budget Black Holes
    Marketers invest time and money optimizing campaigns for the wrong outcomes. It’s like tuning a race car to look fast instead of actually winning.
  3. Misguided Strategy
    Teams start building campaigns around what looks good in reports instead of what actually moves the needle.

Reminder: If vanity metrics were KPIs, every influencer with 200K TikTok followers would be a CMO. (Spoiler: they’re not.)

Why Marketers Keep Doing It Anyway

Because they’re part salesman. And salesmen love to puffer-fish the numbers.

Marketing is persuasion, and part of persuasion is showmanship. That means marketers will do whatever it takes to inflate the optics. It’s not necessarily malicious—it’s instinct. When a campaign doesn’t convert, you lean into what did look good.

"We didn’t generate revenue, but look at that click-through rate!"

Here’s why it keeps happening:

  • Fast Wins: It’s easier to drive vanity wins than revenue wins.
  • Presentation Pressure: CMOs want wins for the boardroom. Likes load faster than pipeline.
  • Misaligned KPIs: If the exec team is rewarding engagement, guess what gets optimized?

The puffer-fish strategy is simple: make your numbers look big, scary, and important—even if they're mostly air.

Finding a Middle Ground (So Nobody Quits)

Yes, marketers and CFOs speak different languages. But that doesn’t mean they’re doomed to hate each other forever.

A few ways to bridge the gap:

  • Top-of-Funnel ≠ Bottomless Pit
    Brand awareness is fine—as long as it’s part of a measurable funnel. Tie awareness to email captures, retargeting engagement, or even direct search lift.
  • Attribution Models Matter
    Use multi-touch attribution to show how “soft” marketing activities influence eventual revenue. No more pretending that organic brand lift happens by accident.
  • Shared KPIs
    Create common goals like “qualified leads influenced” or “pipeline sourced,” so marketing can still be creative without CFOs thinking they’ve joined a circus.

Compromise mantra: You can’t hug your Instagram followers, but you can pixel them and track their behavior until they convert.

Metrics That Make Both Sides Happy

Here are a few metrics that offer the dopamine fix and the fiscal rigor:

Metric Why Marketers Like It Why CFOs Tolerate It
MQL to SQL Rate Shows lead quality Indicates pipeline value
Pipeline Velocity Moves fast = looks good Moves fast = closes faster
LTV:CAC Ratio Fancy acronym Real profitability
Marketing Sourced Revenue Big win story Actual cash flow
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) Industry standard Spending with sense

No more guessing games.

If both teams can agree on a few grounded KPIs, the CMO won’t dread quarterly reports, and the CFO won’t start twitching when someone says “engagement.”

Ditch the Fluff, Show the Money

Vanity metrics aren’t evil.

They’re just... decoration. Like the parsley on a steak—nice to have, but not why you ordered dinner.

Marketers must evolve past the thrill of cheap metrics and focus on meaningful outcomes. That doesn’t mean abandoning creativity. It means channeling it toward business growth.

And for CFOs? Maybe chill a bit when the marketer gets excited about a viral post. Just ask for a follow-up showing what it did to revenue.

Because in the end, marketing isn't just about visibility. It's about viability.

Final Word:
Vanity is for mirrors. Marketing is for margins.

If your metrics aren’t helping the business grow, they’re not metrics—they’re makeup.

Nate Nead
|
October 21, 2025
The Paid Ads Ponzi Scheme

How Marketers Keep Pouring Money Into a System Where the House Always Wins

Let’s get one thing out of the way: paid ads work.

Sort of.

Until they don’t.

What started as a straightforward way to buy attention has slowly evolved into something that looks suspiciously like a Ponzi scheme.

Not in the criminal sense — but in the systemic sense: unsustainable returns, over-reliance on new capital (i.e. ad budgets), and a growing pile of players who profit off the addiction rather than the outcomes.

We need to talk about the Paid Ads Ponzi Scheme — how we got here, who’s getting rich, and how you can get out before your business becomes the next bag-holder.

The Paid Ads Ponzi: How It Works

The mechanics are simple:

  1. The Early Wins
    You launch your campaign. The CPMs are cheap. The clicks are plenty. The leads flow in. You show your boss a ROAS chart that resembles hockey-stick growth. Life is good.
  2. The Algorithm Kicks In
    Google, Meta, TikTok — they love you. Their machine-learning models reward fresh spenders. Your audience pool hasn’t been saturated yet. You’re a model advertiser. Just spend more to scale up your leads, sales and revenue.
  3. The Competition Floods In
    Word spreads. Your competitors notice. VC-funded startups pour money into the same audiences. The platforms raise prices (aka, your CPC and CPM). You now need to outbid everyone to maintain your sales volume.
  4. The Red Queen Race
    You run faster just to stay in the same place. That higher budget you got approved? It’s not improving margins — it’s maintaining them. Spend becomes a treadmill, not a growth engine.
  5. Agency Enablers
    Many agencies, particularly the percentage-of-spend variety, are all too happy to encourage more spend. Why? Because 10-20% of $100K is a lot better than 10% of $10K. Whether your profits improve is secondary. In short, your digital marketing agency has misaligned incentives to your ultimate business goals.

The Real Winners

Let’s not pretend everyone loses. Plenty of people are doing just fine:

  • Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon
    They’ve built trillion-dollar monopolies on the back of our collective ad addiction. Each tweak of the algorithm tightens their grip. They control the data, the users and ultimately the outcomes. In the auction-bidding scenario, the advertisers get squeezed, whilst the platform wins.
  • VC-Backed Startups
    Flush with other people’s money, many are spending $1.50 to make $1.00 — because top-line revenue buys higher valuations. When growth is sacrificed for profit, SMBs struggle to compete for ad eyeballs.
  • Ad Tech Middlemen
    DSPs, SSPs, affiliate networks, brokers — thousands of companies skim pennies off every ad dollar spent, adding layers of “optimization” and “attribution” that mostly serve themselves.
  • Certain Agencies
    Especially those compensated by spend volume rather than performance. The more you spend, the more they make.

The Attribution Mirage

Perhaps the most diabolical part of the Ponzi scheme is attribution.

Marketers cling to dashboards showing beautiful ROAS numbers. But attribution is increasingly broken:

  • Platform Self-Attribution
    Google says Google deserves the credit. Meta says Meta does. Both are "right" according to their own data models.
  • Incrementality vs Cannibalization
    How many of these sales would have happened organically? Many marketers don’t want to know.
  • The iOS14 Privacy Bomb
    Post-Apple privacy updates, platforms lost visibility into customer journeys. But ad budgets didn’t shrink — they just got dumber.
  • Multi-Touch Theater
    Multi-touch attribution often gives everyone partial credit, masking real causality. It's marketing participation trophies.

Why It’s Unsustainable

The Paid Ads Ponzi works until it doesn’t. The breakdown usually happens here:

  • Rising CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs)
    As more advertisers compete, acquisition costs rise faster than lifetime value.
  • Diminishing Margins
    Higher CAC eats into profit margins, forcing brands into constant price hikes or margin compression.
  • Shallow Moats
    Paid ads don’t build loyalty, brand equity, or community — just short-term transactions.
  • Barriers to Entry Vanish
    If you can rent customers via paid media, so can your competitors. The deeper pockets usually win.

The Psychological Trap (aka Marketing Stockholm Syndrome)

Why do brands stay on this treadmill? A few reasons:

  • FOMO
    What if we turn off ads and sales drop? (Hint: they probably will — because you built no organic foundation.)
  • Investor Pressure
    Top-line growth impresses boards, even if margins are garbage.
  • Agency Cheerleading
    Agencies are incentivized to maintain or grow spend.
  • Platform Manipulation
    “Your campaign could perform better if you just increase budget” — an upsell disguised as helpful advice.

How to Escape the Ponzi Trap

Paid media isn’t inherently evil. But it cannot be your only channel. If you're ready to escape, here's your game plan:

  1. Own Your Audience
    Build lists — email, SMS, community platforms. Own the data, own the relationship.
  2. Invest in Brand
    True brand equity compounds. It lowers CAC (customer acquisition cost) over time.
  3. Content + SEO + PR
    Organic attention is durable attention. SEO compounds. PR builds credibility.
  4. First-Party Data Strategy
    Use owned data to refine retargeting, personalization, and loyalty loops.
  5. Community & Word of Mouth
    People trust people more than they trust ads.

Paid Ads Aren’t Evil — But They’re Not Your Savior

Let’s be clear: paid media has its place. It’s a powerful accelerant. But accelerants aren’t foundations.

You should treat paid ads like a faucet — something you can turn on and off, not something that controls your entire water supply.

If your business dies when the ads turn off, you don’t have a business — you have a leveraged position.

The House Always Wins

The ad platforms will keep tweaking algorithms. Agencies will keep proposing "new creative tests." Your CAC will keep rising. And unless you build something outside of the ad platforms’ walled gardens, you’re just the next mark in the Paid Ads Ponzi Scheme.

Build real marketing assets.

Diversify your acquisition portfolio.

And above all: stop thinking of paid media as growth — it's rented revenue.

Timothy Carter
|
October 21, 2025
Social Media Lead Generation: Tips for Every Major Platform

Lead generation is the cornerstone of successful marketing, and social media is a goldmine for capturing high-quality leads. For years, businesses have leveraged platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to build their email lists and grow their customer bases, and you can, too

The good news is you don’t need to be a major corporation with a massive marketing budget to get results. And since each platform has unique advantages and access to a variety of audiences, social media is ideal for generating leads in any industry. Whether your goal is to reach consumers or other businesses, try these platform-specific strategies to generate leads and grow your business faster than ever before.

Fundamental strategies for social media lead generation

Before exploring platform-specific strategies, it’s important to understand the overarching methods of generating leads through social media.

1. Understand and define your audience

Like every other marketing strategy, successful lead gen begins with identifying your market and crafting your messages and content to resonate with their desires and needs. On social media, attention is limited, so you need to capture attention quickly, and that requires knowing your audience.

2. Create valuable and engaging content

Since people scrolling through social media feeds tend to be multi-tasking and have limited attention, it’s crucial to craft content that captures attention immediately.

3. Optimize your profiles

Users will check your profile to see who you are and get a better sense of your legitimacy. Optimize your social media profiles with your business name, website, and any other important information.

4. Use paid advertising

Paid advertising is a huge component of social media lead generation and provides a significant advantage over just posting content.

5. Leverage user-generated content

When people create their own content featuring your products or services, you’ll naturally start to earn trust and that will positively influence purchase decisions. You can get people to create content by running contests or by creating an irresistible brand people love.

6. Don’t forget about sales

When you think of generating leads, don’t forget to include sales as part of your strategy. For example, some businesses sell a simple PDF guide for $15-$47 that delivers immense value just to capture relevant leads they can nurture and upsell later. The revenue from sales is nice, but the main point is to capture hot leads.

Selling a PDF guide works similarly to giving way a free lead magnet, and you might be surprised to see how well it works. Some people are more likely to give you their email address in exchange for a free download, but paying customers are more likely to buy upsells and make additional purchases.

7. Engage with your audience

Last, but not least, no matter what social media platform you use, it’s helpful to engage with your audience by responding to posts, shoutouts, questions, and even complaints. Interacting with people shows your customers and leads exactly who you are and why they should do business with you.

With that said, let’s take a deeper dive into generating leads on specific social media platforms.


Facebook lead generation strategies

Facebook has more than 3.06 billion monthly active users and is one of the most widely used platforms for lead generation. No matter your industry, there’s a good chance your target market hangs out on Facebook. Here’s how to reach them.

1. Leverage Facebook ads

Facebook offers several ad formats that support different end goals. For example, lead gen ads are specifically designed to generate leads, while standard ads are used for generating website traffic. While you can use standard ads to send people to a lead capture form on your website, there’s a difference.

Unlike traditional ads that send users to your website, lead gen ads keep the user on Facebook’s platform while they fill out a form in exchange for a lead magnet. Lead gen ads have been shown to get an average click-through rate (CTR) of 2.5% across all industries.

Don’t want to spend thousands on your first experimental ad campaign? You don’t need to. Facebook sets a different minimum daily budget based on how your account gets billed, but it can be as low as $1 per day. With a low cost of entry, you can start experimenting with any budget.  

2. Use your website analytics data to choose keywords

Getting your ads in front of the right people begins with using the right keywords. While brainstorming can be a good place to start, using the keywords in your website analytics reports will be even better. These are the actual phrases people typed into search engines to find your site.

While looking through your reports, identify the keywords that make sense to use with your ads and test them out in a campaign. You can also use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, and other SEO keyword research tools to find additional keywords and phrases.

3. Implement retargeting campaigns

Ad retargeting, also called remarketing, can increase conversions by 43% across all devices. This strategy allows you to show specific ads to people who have already interacted with your ads, viewed your ads, or visited your website. People who have already been exposed to your brand are more likely to engage, especially when you tailor your ads to feel more familiar. A user might see your ads three times before deciding to sign up for your free report.

4. Participate in relevant Facebook groups

Participating in Facebook groups or even creating your own group can significantly increase the number of leads you generate. It takes time to grow a group and cultivate a trustworthy vibe, so you’ll need to invest time and effort to get it going. Connecting with your audience fosters trust, and when done right, will position your brand as an industry leader or expert.

Instagram lead generation strategies

As a visual-centric platform, Instagram offers unique opportunities to capture leads. Here’s how.

1. Use Instagram stories

Instagram Stories will promote your content outside of your feed and can include “swipe up” calls to action. It’s not as good as paid ads, but it can help. Whenever you post stories, be sure to link to a landing page with a lead capture form.

2. Boost your posts

Boosting your Instagram posts can get you a better reach, but you don’t have control over your target audience. Still, it’s a decent way to get followers who may eventually see your ads and sign up for your email list.

3. Run Instagram ads

Since the algorithm makes organic social reach difficult, paid ads are by far the best way to generate leads on Instagram. You can do this in three ways: instant forms, chats, and calls. When you use instant forms, leads will fill out your lead capture form without ever leaving Instagram.

If you sell services, the chat ads can help you acquire leads through direct communication. When an ad is clicked, it opens up a DM and you can connect with your prospects through messages. The call feature works by allowing users to call you by clicking your ad.

4. Collaborate with influencers

Building up an Instagram account from scratch is not an easy task. It’s tough to generate leads organically without a large following. Collaborating with an influencer who already has a big fanbase is the easiest way to grow your Instagram account and get those leads.

Most Instagram posts don’t reach a wide audience anymore, and that’s because the entire algorithm has been overhauled, including the search function. It happened gradually, but people noticed the impact as far back as 2017. Meta’s latest update was designed to “boost original content,” but Instagram still favors accounts with a large following. Influencer marketing can do wonders for your conversions.

TikTok lead generation strategies

Although TikTok is facing a potential ban in the United States, it’s still around for now and shouldn’t be overlooked. Here’s how you can generate leads from TikTok.

1. Build a trustworthy account

From your bio to your content, spend time creating a trustworthy, appealing account. There isn’t much room, so make every word count.

2. Use TikTok Lead Ads

Just like Facebook, TikTok offers lead gen ads that keep users on the app while they fill out your form.

3. Use image ads

TikTok makes it even easier to reach your audience with image ads. Rather than spending time and money producing videos, you can use existing images and turn them into ads. Image ads allow you to showcase multiple products or services in a carousel, creating an engaging experience without the high cost of video production.

4. Sign up for TikTok Shop

If what you sell qualifies for TikTok shop, sign up right away. Each sale also counts as a lead, and it’s an excellent way to grow your email list with leads who are more likely to buy again.

5. Create 1-minute videos

In the past, TikTok favored short content, but is now starting to push longer content, like one-minute videos. Longer videos are starting to get more views and engagement, and that’s your cue to follow suit with your regular content and ads.

A well-executed ad with a compelling call-to-action (CTA) can generate an enormous amount of leads. Although one-minute videos are doing well, test different video lengths for yourself – some creators find optimal success with videos between 15 and 30 seconds long.

Pinterest lead generation strategies

Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is a visual-centric social media platform with plenty of opportunities for lead generation. With more than 480 million monthly active users, Pinterest is one of the most popular platforms around. If you’re not using Pinterest to expand your reach and attract new leads, now is the perfect time to start.

1. Use Pinterest Lead Ads

Just like other platforms, Pinterest Lead Ads are designed to capture leads while keeping the user on the app. Even if you’re getting great results from standard image and video ads, Lead Ads can make a big difference in your conversions.

2. Experiment with imperfection

One thing to note about Pinterest is that users don’t necessarily expect visual perfection like they do on Instagram. That’s because a large portion of Pinterest consists of screenshots of websites and random low-resolution text-only memes. While pixel-perfect, beautiful images will certainly capture attention, you may want to experiment with a more handmade, less-than-perfect approach to your visuals.

LinkedIn lead generation strategies

Boasting one billion users in 200 countries, LinkedIn has been the go-to platform for business professionals for years. Although spam is a big problem, LinkedIn remains an effective channel for high-quality lead acquisition when used correctly.

Although there are several ad formats for lead generation, Lead Gen Forms allow users to sign up for your email list without leaving LinkedIn. Key fields will be automatically populated based on the user’s profile, helping you get more information on your leads. This mobile-friendly format increases conversion rates and creates a better user experience.

Final tips that apply to all social media platforms

Now that we’ve discussed ways to use specific social media platform for lead generation, let’s end with some tips that apply to all platforms.

1. Use powerful, simple CTAs

Regardless of the platform, a convincing call-to-action (CTA) is required to get clicks and signups. Your CTAs should be clear, direct, and action-oriented, telling users what you want them to do. For example, “buy now,” “sign up,” “learn more,” “get your free trial,” or “get started now.” Using strong verbs encourages fast action.

2. A/B testing (split testing)

Split testing will help you identify specific ad elements that perform best. Start by creating two different versions of the same ad, but only make one element different between them. For example, use different headlines and keep everything else the same. When you know which ad is performing better, keep that headline, copy the ad, change another element on the second version, and test your new ads against each other. Continue this process by testing one element at a time to create a highly optimized ad.

Note that while some high-performing elements may translate well to other platforms, sometimes that isn’t the case. Always split test your ads on every platform.

3. Optimize your landing pages

If your ads send people to your website, it’s crucial to have powerful, persuasive landing pages.

4. Don’t blindly copy your competitors

When you see ads from competitors, don’t automatically assume that they are performing well. Even ads with comments, likes, and shares aren’t necessarily generating sales or leads. Some ads gather quite a bit of activity and do next to nothing for the business. If you use your competitors’ ads as a base template, track your results and make adjustments accordingly.

5. Use ugly ads to your advantage

So-called “ugly ads” are ads that look like native content rather than a polished advertisement. These ads work well across social media platforms (especially TikTok) because they bypass the internal “ad filter” that makes people keep scrolling when they see something that resembles an ad. When you create ads that look like native content, users pay attention and you’re more likely to get the lead.

6. Play to the strengths of each platform

Finally, use strategies and content that work best for each platform. Users behave differently and have unique expectations for each platform. For example, use visuals with limited text on Instagram, and film your TikTok video ads vertically. If you’re not getting results on a particular platform, it might not be the right space.

Samuel Edwards
|
October 21, 2025
Why Marketing on Every Social Media Platform Isn’t a Success Strategy

If you search for information about what social media platforms you should be using, you’ll find articles explaining why every business needs a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. At first glance, this seems to make sense. What’s the harm in reaching your audience on as many platforms as possible?

Although it seems strategic, not every social media platform will be equally effective. Taking this approach to social media marketing campaigns can prevent you from concentrating your resources on top-performing channels. Your marketing resources – including time, money, and creative energy – are limited. If you invest your resources in low-performing social media efforts, you might get a few leads and sales, but it will take a ton of effort to get those small returns. Your resources will be tied up and unavailable to invest in more effective channels, making it harder to scale your efforts.

What makes a social media platform high-performing will be determined by your market, budget, and goals. Some businesses excel on Facebook, while others corner their market on TikTok.

Whether you’re just getting started, or you’re already using multiple social media platforms, here’s why you need to be selective.

Posting content doesn’t automatically equal conversions

If your social media marketing strategy involves posting daily content to as many platforms as possible, that’s not going to work. Rumor has it that businesses need to maintain a presence on every social media platform, but that’s simply not true. Having a presence won’t automatically generate conversions, nor will it do much of anything for your brand if you don’t have a social media strategy.

Your market might not be on every platform

Social media marketing efforts require in-depth knowledge about your market, including knowing where your market hangs out online. It’s safe to assume that most people have a Facebook account, but they might spend more time on other platforms. Your goal should be to reach your market where they hang out and where they are most likely to convert.

For example, X is not a good platform for generating sales. Even if 100% of your market hangs out on X, you’ll struggle to get sales through this platform, and that’s intentional. It’s not designed for selling – it’s meant to keep people scrolling while consuming content.

There’s a good chance that your target audience doesn't use every social media platform equally, if at all. For effective paid social media advertising, you’ll need to sort out where they actually spend time and focus your efforts there.

Consider the effort and money it takes to get sales on each platform

According to research data, here’s a breakdown of where consumers say they’ve made purchases:

 

·  Facebook (75%)

·  Instagram (50%)

·  YouTube (29%)

·  TikTok (18%)

Although these numbers make Facebook look like the ideal platform, that may not be the case. It depends on your market and your paid advertising budget.

Most brands have to spend a lot of money on Facebook Ads to get results. Due to the complex nature of running Facebook Ads, it usually requires hiring an agency, and that makes it even more expensive. You’ll get more sales than you would on your own, but it will take more effort and money. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in Facebook Ads. On the contrary, paid ads are one of the most efficient and fastest ways to grow your business, but it requires a significant budget on Facebook.

If you have a generous Pay-Per-Click (PPC) budget and can afford to hire a marketing agency, Facebook Ads can work in your favor to get you a steady stream of leads and sales. However, if you’re trying to save money and are working with a small budget, it will be a struggle to gain traction. If you’re on a tight budget, it’s better to focus your efforts on platforms that make paid ads a little easier. Namely, Instagram and TikTok.

Unlike Facebook Ads, it’s easy to set up and start running your own TikTok ads in minutes, and the conversion rate for many industries is typically higher. While fewer people overall buy on TikTok compared to Facebook, the returns are better for brands with a market that spends a lot of time on TikTok simply because the conversion rate is higher.

Instagram ads are equally easy to set up and run. However, the market on Instagram is much different than TikTok. Still, it’s worth experimenting with both if you haven’t already.

X (formerly Twitter) actively suppresses posts with external links

When experts recommend social media platforms to businesses, X is always at the top of the list. However, X is not what it used to be, and it’s no longer marketing-friendly.

Sharing links to your website is fundamental to social media management, but you won’t get far with that on X. Many X users have noticed that after Elon Musk bought Twitter and altered the algorithm, social media posts with external links have been heavily suppressed.

Financial Analyst Jesse Colombo noticed this and ran an experiment where he published the same content one day apart, but only inserted an external link in one of his posts. His first post, which contained an external link to an informational report he wrote, received 3,670 views, 3 comments, 13 reposts, 40 favorites, and 12 bookmarks. His second post – posted the next day without the link – received 65,400 views, 74 comments, 258 reposts, 873 favorites, and 97 bookmarks.

Reviewing his past threads on X, Colombo noticed that many other posts with external links only received a fraction of the reach and engagement compared to posts without external links. His observations may be anecdotal, but they aren’t without merit. Elon Musk confirmed that X posts with external links aren’t prioritized in the algorithm because he doesn’t want people to be taken off the platform.

Knowing this about X should give you a good reason to assess whether or not you need to maintain social media campaigns on the platform.

X might be a good fit for your business if you:

·  Can post interesting, engaging, and informative information on a regular basis related to your business. If you own a plumbing company, you probably won’t do well on X. People aren’t going to get excited about tips for unclogging drains.

·  Aren’t solely focused on trying to get people to visit your website. If your main goal is to capture leads and send people to sales pages, X isn’t the right platform.

·  Want to build a personal connection with your market, and can post about topics they’ll find engaging. If you don’t have time to connect with your market, or there’s nothing for them to talk about on their own, X is probably not a good fit.

Like all marketing channels, you’ll need to assess your intention and goals for having a presence on X and it needs to make sense based on how the platform works. If your approach is aggressive self-promotion with little to no user-focused content, your resources will be better spent establishing yourself on other platforms.

Your market’s mindset changes based on the platform

Maybe your research says that your target market spends a lot of time on Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, and Instagram. That’s great information, but it still doesn’t mean you’ll effectively reach your market on all of those platforms. It depends on what you’re selling, how you sell it, and what state of mind your market is in when they encounter your content.

Each of the aforementioned apps – Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram – require a unique approach to marketing because people have a different mindset when they’re on each platform.

People on X are looking for interesting content they can absorb at-a-glance or within a few seconds while scrolling. Short content works great for brand building and creating rapport with your market, but as previously discussed, it’s not ideal for lead generation because external links get suppressed. If you can’t send people to your online store, a sales page, or your email signup form, X might not be all that useful.

The Instagram mindset

On Instagram, many people are intentionally searching for products to buy, but will only interact with a post or ad if it has stunning aesthetics. Users may never actually read your text-based caption, but if you post engaging videos and images, Instagram can be highly effective.

You can post links on Facebook without fear of suppression, but people still scroll rather quickly through their feed, and you’ll need a good visual to catch your market’s attention. The problem with Facebook is you have to get people to click to play your videos.

The TikTok mindset

TikTok is even more rapid fire. People are scrolling through their feed at lightning speed, wanting to be entertained by short and engaging videos. Since videos automatically play, it’s easier to capture attention with your ads. TikTok ads average a 5-16% engagement rate, leaving Facebook (0.09%) and Instagram (1.22%) in the dust.

Although it began as a music-centered app, TokTok has become one of the best social media platforms for ecommerce. TikTok Shop makes it easy to reach your market, and a whopping 30% of daily users say they’ve bought something from TikTok Shop.

TikTok Ads also work exceptionally well. However, you’ll need to be creative to get those conversions. Still, even when users see your ads, but don’t interact, you’ll benefit. According to recent data, 41% of users say they trust a brand just by seeing an ad on TikTok.

Unlike other platforms, TikTok ads are always videos, and you need to capture a user’s attention in the first few seconds or they’ll just keep scrolling. This requires planning and strategy. Another key to success on TikTok is to make your ads look like native TikTok videos by adding your text overlays and music directly from the app. Video ads that look too polished and professional can be off-putting to users. If you can do this or hire out the task to a video production company, TikTok could be your best social media marketing channel.

Something else that sets TikTok apart is that the company constantly analyzes their best-performing ads, and makes the data available for free through their Creative Center. They also consistently publish content to help business owners reach more people. Compared to other social media platforms, TikTok is extremely business-friendly.

Some platforms don’t support certain conversions

Not all platforms are ideal for every type of conversion. For example, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram are great for generating impulse sales and building your email list, but don’t use TikTok solely for lead generation. The user base tends to be younger, they’re looking for entertainment, and are unlikely to be in the mood to download a PDF guide. They will, however, click a few buttons to make an impulse buy

Some platforms aren’t good for any kind of conversion, like X (due to the suppression of external links). However, if your goal is to create brand awareness or establish expertise in your industry, then X can be useful. And while many people still use LinkedIn, it’s not ideal for marketing, and its effectiveness for networking is questionable.

Take a strategic approach to building your social media presence

Remember that successful marketing requires precision targeting rather than a broad reach. Trying to market on every social media platform will only waste your resources and cause your organic social to die a slow death. Success comes from being selective. Understand where your target customers spend their time, and establish a strong presence on those platforms. With a targeted approach, you’ll reach a larger portion of your market and get more of the conversions you want.

Samuel Edwards
|
October 21, 2025
Best Link Building Services for SEO

If you want to be seen online, you need your website at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).And if you want to be at the top of the SERPs, you need backlinks.Unfortunately, backlinks are hard to build on your own.You need to develop content. You need to build publisher relationships. You need to practice outreach. And you need to follow up.

It's a lot of time and effort that isn't guaranteed to make you successful.

That's why link building agencies and link building services exist.

Competent SEO experts have the knowledge, experience, and resources necessary to help you build all the links you need to dominate the competition.

The big problem is that there are too many link building services to choose from. Darn.

Now obviously, not all of these link building services are worth using.

So, we saved you a couple of steps.

We've done the research, so you don't have to, and we've compiled a list of the 20 best link building services that are currently available.

The Value of Link Building Services

It's hard to overstate just how valuable links are in the SEO industry.Backlinks pass “authority,” a measure of trustworthiness, to your site. The more links you have, and the better those links are, the higher the authority of your site is going to grow. And the more authority your site has, the higher it's going to rank.

On top of that, link building can provide you with greater brand visibility, referral traffic, and even new partnerships and connections.

Taking advantage of link building services enables you to get all of these benefits without spending hundreds of hours of your own time tuning for SEO or working tirelessly to hire the perfect internal team.

The only downside is that some link building services use unscrupulous or predatory tactics, ultimately harming your site more than helping it.

Since Google has really stepped up its efforts in cracking down on low-quality content and links, these types of services are getting rarer and rarer.

But it's still important to do your research and find the best link building services you can afford.

Criteria for the Best Link Building Services

What criteria are we using to declare the best link building services available?

  • Approach and ethics. First, we need to look at the approach and the ethics of the business practicing link building services. Is this a company that spams the web with barely relevant blog comments? Or is this a company that's dedicated to white hat, value-centric link building services? Anything less than the highest ethical standards could end up hurting your brand, so we're only going to consider white hat link builders.
  • Flexibility. We also appreciate some degree of flexibility. Some link building agencies exclusively focus on one niche, while others can serve a wide range of companies. Some link building agencies have very firm SEO packages or approaches, while others offer a flexible array of services. Versatile companies get a bonus.
  • Pricing. We also need to consider pricing. If you're prioritizing quality, you should expect to pay a premium – but we also don't want to include link building services that charge an unfair amount for the work they do. Marketing agencies should always be able to justify what they charge with return on investment (ROI) calculations.
  • Results and reviews. Of course, we’ll also be considering results and reviews. What kinds of clients has this agency served in the past? What kinds of results have they seen? What kinds of reviews and testimonials do they typically receive?

We haven’t personally used all of the link building services that we’re about to list. Instead, we’re basing our assessments on publicly available information about each organization.

The Best Link Building Services Available

These are some of the best link building services that money can buy:

1. SEO.co.

SEO.co Best Link Building Services

Yes, we put ourselves at the top of the list – why wouldn’t we? SEO.co and Link.Build are based in Seattle (with satellite offices across the country) and is a full-service SEO agency, offering consulting, link building, content development, onsite SEO, and other SEO services.

We’ve been serving everything from local startups to Fortune 500 enterprises since 2010 and we have an undying commitment to ethical, value-centric link building. If you’re ready to outwrite and outrank the competition, contact us for pricing and more details today!

2. LinkDoctor.io.

LinkDoctor.io Link Building Service

LinkDoctor.io, in Sheridan, WY, currently has more than 138,000 keywords on page one. With decades of combined industry experience on the team and a deep knowledge of best SEO practices, LinkDoctor.io can help almost any site with natural link building services, across a wide range of niches. Pricing is available upon request.

3. Rhino Rank.

Rhino Rank

Rhino Rank, located in Shrewsbury, UK, popularized the concept of “curated links.” With an uncompromising focus on quality and clients all over the world, Rhino Rank has been helping clients achieve global reach since its founding in 2017. Prices are highly competitive for the industry, with average price per link ranging from $42-200, depending on DA.

4. Siege Media.

Siege Media

Siege Media is a fully remote marketing and PR agency that offers both passive and active link building services. It handles everything from initial research and outreach to link placement and quality assurance. Areas of specialty include fintech, e-commerce, and SaaS. Link building strategies are developed for individual clients, and pricing is custom.

5. BlueTree.

BlueTree Link Building Agency

BlueTree, located in Chicago, IL, is a digital PR agency that focuses primarily on SaaS and tech companies – but offers link building plans for a variety of businesses. Utilizing existing relationships with tech publications and a robust editorial approach, BlueTree is dedicated to building domain authority and organic traffic. Plans start at $2,500 per month.

6. uSERP.

uSERP

uSERP, located in Denver, CO, is a full-service link building agency that relies on white hat, ethical outreach strategies and “quality over quantity.” With strategic direction stemming from content gap analysis, URL analysis, and other data-centric approaches, uSERP works with lean startups, major corporations, and everything in between. Plans start at $10,000 per month.

7. Sure Oak.

Sure Oak

SureOak, based in Brooklyn, NY, serves industries including B2B services, SaaS, fintech, education, e-commerce, insurance, and healthcare. It offers a variety of link building services like editorial link insertions, link analysis, link reclamation, toxic link management, and even white label link building. Plans start at $2,000 per month.

8. Page One Power.

Page One Power

Page One Power, headquartered in Boise, ID, is primarily focused on B2C clients – and has more than 12 years of experience serving them. With full SEO services, Page One Power can help you with onsite optimization, content development, and, of course, link building. It also offers white label services to other agencies. Pricing is custom.

9. Neil Patel.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is both an individual and the functional name for his marketing agency. Located in San Diego, CA, Neil Patel serves almost every imaginable business with high-quality content, onsite optimization, and link building.

Patel’s blog currently has more than 4 million links pointing to it – a powerful demonstration of what good content can do. Pricing is custom.

10. Green Flag Digital.

Green Flag Digital

Green Flag Digital, also located in San Diego, CA, typically serves clients in SaaS, medical, real estate, and e-commerce, and exclusively practices ethical link building. They believe in trustworthy, genuinely helpful content – and they have a proven, 10-step process to ensure their clients get the best evergreen links possible. Campaigns start at $3,000.

11. The HOTH.

The HOTH

The HOTH, based in St. Petersburg, FL, gets its name from the acronym “hittem over the head,” and strives to build natural, traffic-generating links for their clients. Using both offsite content and social media, the HOTH has a signature link building method that’s especially powerful for social media content. Pricing is custom.

12. LinksThatRank.

LinksThatRank

LinksThatRank follows a 23-step process for quality control and maintains a blacklist that filters out the types of sites that Google typically frowns upon.

Every link placement is designed to meaningfully improve your chances of ranking – and you’ll receive a report when the work is done. White label services are available. Pricing ranges from $177 to $327 per link.

13. eCommerce Link Builders.

eCommerce Link Builders

eCommerce Link Builders, in New York, NY, practices link building with a focus on return on investment (ROI) and quality over quantity. Through their plans, you’ll get access to blogs relevant to your niche, premium content creation, and exhaustive quality control. Link packages start at $1497 per month, but custom plans are also available.

14. Authority Builders.

Authority Builders

Authority Builders, located in St. Pete Beach, FL, offers a robust dashboard where you can place orders, monitor progress, and generate reports to view your results. You can choose the websites where you want to build links – and they even offer a 365-day money-back guarantee. Pricing is custom.

15. Get Me Links.

Get Me Links

Get Me Links, founded in 2019, offers services that include guest posting, niche edits, link packs, tiered links, and local links, so you can customize a full campaign that covers all of your needs. All you have to provide is a target URL and desired anchor text; Get Me Links handles the rest. Guest post links start at $160 per link.

16. Loganix.

Loganix

Loganix, with locations in Vancouver, Seattle, and Honolulu, has access to a diversity of different publishing websites, including Forbes, Mashable, and Backlinko. Their guest posting services are the main draw, but they have a wide range of other SEO services that can help your business rank. Pricing starts at $200 per guest post.

17. Love to Link.

Love to Link

Love to Link is an exclusively white hat link building agency that primarily uses guest posting as a link building tactic. They have a full team of in-house writers and their links are vetted to ensure they bring SEO value to your brand. Pricing starts at $139 per guest post, and services are available as packages or a la carte.

18. Samurai Marketers.

Samurai Marketers

Samurai Marketers, in New York, NY, uses real-world data to acquire links from Google-approved websites across a wide range of different industries and niches. Each link is thoroughly vetted – and clients get access to a totally hands-off experience, with no requirements for developing new onsite content. Pricing is a la carte, and varies based on DA.

19. Outreach Labs

Outreach Labs is a fresh-faced agency that offers a mixture of digital PR and blogger outreach to acquire links.

It’s a tech savvy agency run by Ajay Paghdal, a seasoned link building veteran with over 10 years of experience.

They offer their clients full transparency through live dashboards, weekly reports, website approval and pricing based on website quality. Pricing is tier-based, depending on the website quality.

Invest in Link Building

Link building is an investment.And as long as you choose the right partner, it's an investment that will almost certainly pay off.Here are some reasons to consider investing in or hiring a link building service:

  1. Improved Search Engine Rankings: High-quality and relevant backlinks are a significant factor in search engine algorithms. Link building can help your website rank higher in search engine results, leading to increased organic traffic and visibility.
  2. Increased Organic Traffic: As your website climbs the search engine rankings, it will receive more clicks and organic traffic from users searching for relevant keywords. This can lead to a higher number of potential customers visiting your site.
  3. Authority and Credibility: Backlinks from authoritative and reputable websites signal to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. This can enhance your website's credibility and authority in your industry.
  4. Brand Exposure: Building links on relevant websites can expose your brand to a wider audience. Users who visit these websites may discover your brand for the first time, leading to potential new customers.
  5. Targeted Audience Reach: Link building allows you to target websites that are relevant to your industry, niche, or target audience. This means you're reaching users who are more likely to be interested in your products or services.
  6. Long-Term Benefits: Quality backlinks can provide lasting benefits. Once established, they can continue to drive traffic and improve your rankings over time, even after the initial link building efforts.
  7. Faster Indexing: Backlinks from reputable websites can help search engine crawlers discover your content more quickly, leading to faster indexing of new pages and updates.
  8. Competitive Advantage: If your competitors are investing in link building, not doing so could put you at a disadvantage. Building a strong link profile can help you keep up with or surpass competitors in search rankings.
  9. Diversified Traffic Sources:** Relying solely on one traffic source, such as paid advertising, can be risky. Link building diversifies your traffic sources and reduces your dependence on any single channel.
  10. High-Quality Referral Traffic: Backlinks can drive referral traffic from the linking websites themselves. If users click on your links from these sources, they're likely to be interested in your content, leading to higher engagement and potential conversions.
  11. Relationship Building: Outreach for link building often involves building relationships with other websites and bloggers in your industry. These relationships can lead to collaboration opportunities, guest posting, and more.
  12. Adaptability to Algorithm Changes: While search engine algorithms change regularly, high-quality backlinks have consistently proven to be a strong ranking factor. Investing in link building is a strategy that is less likely to become obsolete due to algorithm updates.

However, it's important to note that not every link building company is created equal.Quality matters more than quantity when it comes to backlinks and off-page SEO.

Black-hat or spammy link building practices can actually harm your website's reputation and rankings. When considering link building strategies, prioritize those that focus on ethical (e.g. broken link building), white-hat practices and emphasize the importance of relevant, high-quality backlinks.

Everything begins with a conversation.So, if you're ready to talk about your current link building strategy, or if you just want to know more about how we can bring the best links to your website, contact us today!

Timothy Carter
|
October 21, 2025
AI Chatbots: Revolutionary Impact of ChatGPT on Digital Marketing

AI chatbots have revolutionized our approach to communication and customer service in many industries. They are powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to generate dynamic, intelligent responses based on keywords or phrases detected in the conversation.

By leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI chatbots can better understand specific contexts and deliver tailored answers accordingly. 

ChatGPT is an advanced AI platform that takes this a step further with its diverse capabilities, offering users more accurate information retrieval and refined conversations even for complex challenges.

Enhancing Natural Language Processing (NLP) Capabilities

How does chatgpt works

Source

ChatGPT's advanced language understanding and generation

AI models like ChatGPT are revolutionizing the landscape of AI chat through their advanced natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. Utilizing a large-scale transformer model trained on an extensive dataset of dialogues, ChatGPT provides high accuracy and understanding for human conversation and generates AI-generated responses that are fluent in style with improved cohesion across conversational turns.

It has also been optimized for both open-ended dialogue scenarios as well as specific query resolution systems. Leading chatbot software like these are essential in building the foundation for more sophisticated and effective AI assistants that understand human language in a natural manner. The ability of AI chatbots to work seamlessly across various interactions makes them indispensable tools in modern communication.

Improved contextual understanding and responses

Through deep learning algorithms and preceding context sequences, ChatGPT-generated responses are able to draw associations across conversations from a number of nodes simultaneously to better provide solutions or understandings.

For instance, when asked follow up inquiries such as "What about X?", ChatGPT can draw on its recent discussion points and add pertinent answers accordingly in the same overall conversation thread. 

Furthermore, these kinds of conversational abilities allow fewer interruptions from humans and create a more natural, human-like response.

This level of contextual awareness is particularly valuable in customer relationship management, where AI-driven interactions can enhance customer engagement and support.

Enhanced handling of complex queries and conversations

ChatGPT's NLP capabilities are revolutionizing how complex conversations and queries are handled by AI chatbots. With its advanced language understanding and generation, it is now more adept at understanding contextual cues which enables it to provide detailed, accurate responses based on specific user inquiries.

The system also has enhanced memory robustness resulting in millisecond responses regardless of the nature or depth of the query. 

As each request increases in complexity, the technology maintains highly efficient transaction speeds while providing superior customer service in a natural, engaging conversational style.

Additionally, as AI agents continue to evolve, they are becoming more adept at integrating AI image generation alongside text-based conversations, enhancing user experience across multiple domains. The best AI chatbots will continue to refine their capabilities, ensuring seamless interactions that closely mimic real human communication.

Empowering User Interactions

Natural and engaging conversational style

Funny meme of ChatGPT

SourceChatGPT offers a natural and engaging conversational style to users. With its complex understanding of dialogue and immersion in language advancements, it produces accurate, prompt, and detailed responses that stimulate individuals as though the chatbot was a real person.

Additionally, ChatGPT features social skills such as recognizing emotions which aids in a more interactive user experience by making users feel comfortable with talking.

By continuously learning from interactions with people ChatGPT is able to enrich its knowledge of vocabulary as new expressions or terms are used in conversations, and keep up with language trends.

Therefore ChatGPT executes conversational AI interactions seamlessly, Elevating customer service while simplifying manual tasks for staff.

Enhanced user experience through personalized responses

Enhanced user experience through personalized responses has pushed the boundaries of AI chatbot interaction for customers. ChatGPT responds in an even more natural and engaging tone customized to each conversation or thread.

Conversations are extended by proactively providing customers with relevant information requested and also suggested results as per their conversations to speed up response times. Customer engagement is improved when bots can target key interests, naturally adjusting conversation pacing and content based on current responses.

Ability to handle multiple user queries simultaneously

ChatGPT is equipped with the ability to handle multiple user queries simultaneously. This allows organizations to save time and improve efficiency by handling an entire conversation as one query rather than individual statements.

The tool also provides users with highly relevant, accurate responses quickly while providing a natural conversational intuition that puts humans at ease. In addition, it offers personalized marketing responses based on individual interaction history which empowers even more engaging interactions between chatbot and user. To ensure effective learning integration too, feedback is recorded from every interaction.

Expanding Domain Knowledge

Comprehensive training on diverse topics and industries

SourceThe adoption of AI-enabled chatbots has enabled organizations to move promptly and accurately turn around customer inquiries.

Expanding an agent's domain knowledge base is integral in providing timely and accurate responses that draw on a comprehensive base of information such as product features, services, industry trends, or technologies.

To avoid silos between model specializations, chatbot developers are now turning towards ChatGPT for sophisticated and multi-domain training modules which can collectively inject context to user queries from varied topics.

Quick access to up-to-date information and trends

The ability to access vital, up-to-date information improves the effectiveness of AI chatbots. ChatGPT empowers this by providing comprehensive training on diverse topics and industries ranging from cognitive science and natural language processing to health care and sports.

Furthermore, webhooks in ChatGPT allow for real-time integration with external APIs enabling the quick transition from mere knowledge acquisition to practical implementations such as complex Q&As for customer service solutions or automated report generation in enterprises.

All this make it easier than ever before to take advantage of advancements in a huge variety of domains and stay totally up-to-date.

Improved accuracy and relevance of responses

ChatGPT has the ability to extend its area of knowledge beyond the conversational domain. Not only can it remember earlier inputs and conversations, but it is also able to synthesize additional related data from external sources.

The training datasets feed into ChatGPT’s topic-specific knowledge bases, which allow its responses to be more accurate and relevant in real-world applications. Training on diverse topics also allows ChatGPT’s accuracy and wealth of language skills within any area or industry to evolve.

Advancing Ethical AI Practices

Common ethical challenges in AI

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Ensuring unbiased and inclusive responses

Advancing ethical AI practices is an important element in harnessing the full potential of chatbots. Unbiased and inclusive responses must be ensured at all times to avoid misframing data.ChatGPT through its training approach ensures that specific policies are embedded within response metrics when responding to user queries, offering valuable protection against discrimination and imbalance powered by prejudicial classification systems from chatbot responses.

Mitigating risks associated with malicious use

To ensure the responsible deployment of AI chatbots, measures must be taken to mitigate potential risks associated with malicious use. ChatGPT features a continuous review system designed to identify any inappropriate or possibly harmful content among user responses.

Through its automated monitoring and reporting capabilities, it can alert stakeholders about suspicious behavior quickly and accurately in order to take corrective action right away.

Striving for transparency and accountability

Advancements in ethical AI practices seek to ensure responsible navigation of the complex opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies. Mitigating risks associated with malicious use becomes increasingly important as individuals interact with chatbots on a regular basis.

To prevent adaption or manipulation of the conversational system, extra measures need to be put into place, such as reputation protection techniques and code obfuscation to reduce digital footprints. 

ChatGPT's detection systems allow developers and users to actively monitor for misinterpreted instructions, off-policy behavior and misuse of data, giving the AI technology greater reliability and peace of mind.

Pioneering Continuous Learning and Adaptability

Key ChatGPT features

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Ability to learn from user interactions and feedback

Pioneering Continuous Learning and Adaptability is a key capability of ChatGPT. It allows for an artificial intelligence chatbot that can naturally evolve to become smarter, faster, and more accurate with age in response to user interactions. By “learning” from each interaction it gains understanding and recognition of patterns so that future conversations are tailored to the user’s preferences.

In addition, it seamlessly integrates new data without having to repeatedly adjust its training datasets while constantly striving to provide better results as a result of feedback from user interactions.

By learning from each user and conversation it participates in, ChatGPT is able to build up knowledge in order to provide expected responses with improved accuracy rates and an ever-advancing level of capability.

Integration of new knowledge and improvements over time

This process is facilitated by advanced architectures that draw from comprehensive training datasets containing millions of conversational utterances to allow the ChatGPT bot to better understand contextual nuances and intent.

Ongoing feedback loops between users, trainers, and domain experts work hand-in-hand with the learning framework to ensure an ongoing dialogue, enabling the system to continuously learn new skills and deep dive into domain-specific knowledge.

In addition, the chatbot can be trained on a continuous basis through leveraging adaptive learning enabling models to evolve at an unmatched rate.

Evolving to meet changing user needs and preferences

Through continual training with relevant datasets combined with feedback from users, ChatGPT evolves its responses in order to offer personalized services and greater accuracy.

With advanced conversational machine-learning techniques, this AI-powered chatbot is efficient at spotting subtle changes in understanding human interactions and adapting its response accordingly—ensuring that user questions are answered quickly and accurately according to their current needs.

This is an invaluable and revolutionary capability that moves AI chatbots closer to "real-world" levels of conversational ability and problem-solving.

Limitations and Challenges

Potential for misinformation and false information propagation

The potential for misinformation and false information propagation is an important limitation of AI chatbots, specifically ChatGPT. Without proper implementation of ethical AI practices, results generated by the chatbot may have inaccuracies or convey prejudice implications, both of which can lead to a skewed user experience.

Machine learning algorithms ingest learnings from large volumes of data and signals from previous conversations - as such, maintaining accuracy requires being extremely selective in the type of data used as well as employing rigorous integrity checks during training sessions.

Addressing ethical concerns and biases

Addressing ethical concerns and biases when deploying AI chatbots is a critical component often overlooked. Questions surrounding data privacy, questions of purposeful or accidental implicit bias, and other moral issues can reduce user trust levels.

Tackling those types of ethical concerns requires technology to conform to certain values such as conduct rule decision orientations. Additionally, by enhancing transparency and building auditing capabilities we could gain better insights into awareness from users on potential unfairness cues produced by chatbot interactions.

Balancing user privacy and data security

Data security and user privacy remain the foremost challenges when it comes to developing and deploying AI chatbots. This becomes even more problematic where real-time data that is fed into these chatbot systems holds private information and needs to be encrypted.

Balancing compliance with regulation standards like GDPR along with engineering limitations brings forth complexities that need to be taken seriously if building trust is important. Moreover, a single infringement could lead to reputational losses or legal issues down the line for companies using or connected with an AI Chatbot system proving its essential importance.

Conclusion

ChatGPT has shaken up the field of AI chatbots, transforming it from a limited technology hub to an innovative powerhouse. Its advanced language understanding and use of NLP give ChatGPT significant capabilities in user interaction, domain knowledge, ethical practices, and continuous learning.

With the right tools and AI strategy put in place for how they are used responsibly and ethically, ChatGPT is truly an exciting breakthrough that holds great promise not only inside the current realm of chatbots but for so many other future possibilities with artificial intelligence technology.

Regulatory frameworks must be implemented to ensure appropriate usage while preserving user privacy and security. As this space continues to progress there will remain more obstacles yet also opportunities ahead - all thanks to ChatGPT’s revolutionizing influence on AI chatbots.

Samuel Edwards
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October 21, 2025
How to Detect AI-Generated Content

Ever since ChatGPT launched, marketers have been using it to scale their content creation.

For SEO in particular, AI-generated content seems like an excellent way to speed up the content marketing process and significantly cut costs. Unlike the black hat article spinners of the past, ChatGPT (and similar tools like Jasper and Google Bard) produce intelligent, original content that reads as if it were written by a human. To the untrained eye, it’s hard to tell the difference.

So, why would you want to detect content created by artificial intelligence? If the output reads well, what’s the problem?

The issue boils down to quality. AI-generated content might read well, but it lacks depth and nuance. It can rank well in the search engines, but it’s not likely to provide adequate value for a visitor unless the topic is something extremely basic, like instructions for removing a carpet stain or directions to a business. Unfortunately, if you publish content made just for search engines, it will be considered spam by Google.

What does Google say about AI-Generated content?

You may have heard that Google considers all automatically generated content to be spam. This was their position at one time. 

In an Office Hours video from April 1, 2022, John Mueller clarified Google’s official position on automatically generated content, and stated, "If you're using machine learning tools to kind of generate your content it’s essentially the same as if you’re just shuffling words around… for us it's still automatically generated content and that means for us it's still against the webmaster guidelines, so we would consider that to be spam.

"Google’s official stance has since changed. On February 8, 2023, Google announced that AI-generated content is not against their guidelines unless it’s created to manipulate search rankings. Useful content created by automation is perfectly acceptable.

6 Ways to detect AI-generated content

Despite the well-written nature of generated content, it can be detected easily. 

AI-content-generating algorithms are basically a glorified form of predictive text, where the system knows the words most likely to come after one another. To detect AI, this process is reverse-engineered, where the system predicts the most likely word to come before a certain word.

Even though AI content is allowed, you might want to avoid publishing it to your website. If you hire writers to create content for you, and you’re not sure if they’re using an AI tool, here’s how to detect it.

1. Get GPT-2 Output Detector

GPT-2 Output Detector

One of the best AI content detectors is GPT-2 Output Detector. It’s free and you don’t need to register for an account. This particular tool is highly accurate and allows you to paste in more copy than other tools.

This tool uses a scoring system of real/fake, so the higher your content scores as real, the more likely it was written by a human. This tool doesn’t seem to have a character limit, but the more content you paste, the longer it takes to analyze.

2. GPT-Writer

GPT-Writer

Another great tool to use is GPT-Writer. Although some people have said it isn’t as accurate as other tools, it depends on the subject. For some content, this tool scores human-written samples as 100% human-generated content, while other tools score the same content at 98% human-generated.GPT-Writer limits samples to 1500 characters, but that should be enough to get the information you need. If you aren’t sure, run multiple samples.

3. AI-Detector – Content at Scale

AI-Detector – Content at Scale

AI-Detector – Content at Scale is another highly accurate tool and has a 2500 character limit, which is more than enough to get a decent analysis.

4. Honorable mentions

AI Detector Pro

There are a few tools that don’t make the cut for reliability, but you may find them useful. The first one is AI Detector Pro (the free version). 

Your input is limited to 200 characters, which may not tell you much. However, the paid options might be more beneficial. Even so, with accurate free tools like GPT-2 Output Detector, there’s really no reason to pay for a tool unless you need the extras, like reporting.

Originality AI

Originality AI is a plagiarism and AI detector, so you get the best of both worlds with this tool. However, some people have said it was really easy to alter a little text to bypass the detections and get a human score.

5. Plug your suspected content into AI tools

Often, when people use AI tools to generate content, they keep the headings intact or alter them by a word or two. You can reverse engineer an article by plugging one heading at a time into some AI tools to see what content is generated. If the content was written using the same AI tool you’re using, each heading will likely generate text that can also be found in the body of the article you’re investigating.

For example, say the article you want to verify contains the heading, “Why is AI content bad?” If you type this heading into Google Bard, you’ll get several bullet points in response. If the content of those bullet points also appears in the article either word-for-word or very similarly, you can be fairly certain it was written using AI.

You can also plug in full paragraphs from the article in question. If the AI tool returns content that is also found in the article, it is more than likely AI-generated.

6. Use manual detection methods

Tools are great for detecting AI-generated content, but you can also use manual methods. Here are some things to look for:

  • AI-style quirks. Sometimes AI detection tools can spot patterns that make AI-generated text noticeable. For instance, Google Bard often provides both pros and cons to a prompt and concludes with a neutral statement. Other AI models might repeat certain words within the text more frequently than a real human, making it easier for an AI detector tool to flag the content.
  • The absence of human error. No matter how good a writer is, they will make mistakes that some AI tools won’t. For instance, some people are too generous with commas and misuse semicolons. Other times, writers end sentences with a preposition. Although it’s usually acceptable to end sentences with words like “on” when it’s part of a phrase, for example, “I lost the paper it was written on,” it’s not a format AI tools generally use. This is one way detection tools differentiate human-written content from AI-generated text.
  • Too many bullet points. Bullet points are an excellent way to break up text, but if your article looks more like an outline rather than content with a few bullet points here and there, it could be AI-generated. AI detection models frequently analyze structure, and an excessive reliance on lists can help AI detection tools identify patterns in machine-generated text.
  • A lack of contractions. AI tools are specifically programmed to produce formal content. Contractions make content more informal, and although that’s often better for readers, AI tools don’t agree. You can get an AI writing tool to use contractions and an informal tone, but you have to specifically ask for that. Content that carries a formal tone without personality is a candidate for AI-generated content, which can be flagged by the most accurate AI detector tools available.
  • Obvious factual errors. Content generators are known for making mistakes with simple facts, and humans don’t always correct them. Strange errors that seem too obvious to be made by a human are likely a sign of AI writing. This is also true for images—specialized AI tools can detect AI-generated images, just as an AI checker can analyze text for AI patterns.
  • No opinions or personality. Not every piece of content needs an opinion, but there should be some traces of personality. AI detection tools often recognize that AI-generated text is generally objective and dry, devoid of personality, making it easier to identify AI-generated content.

Should you avoid AI content?

Although you don’t need to worry about AI-generated content hurting your search rankings simply for being AI, there are several reasons to avoid it:

  • It’s too generic to get decent conversions. General content will only convert people who are ready to buy anyway. Avoid using AI to create sales pages. If an AI-generated page is already converting, your conversion rate will increase when you have a human copywriter rewrite the page.
  • It’s not engaging. AI-generated content reads like a human wrote it, but because it lacks personality, it won’t capture and hold attention like professionally-written copy.
  • Can a human do better? If you need content for a page and a human can do better, choose the human writer.
  • It lacks personalization and creativity. AI content is bland. When the goal is to provide value to visitors, the more detailed you can get, the better. AI can’t create nuanced content that really speaks to a visitor’s pain points and dilemma in-depth. Without this, you won’t see high conversions or repeat visitors.

There are also some good reasons to use AI-generated content:

  • AI is great for generating technical information. Content that isn’t supposed to sell a product or engage a reader is perfect for AI, like sports game scores, recipes, directions for how to do certain projects, and even code.
  • Quick descriptions. When you just need a short description for something and you can’t think of the right words, AI can give you exactly what you need.
  • Writing emails. You can get some great email templates for common situations using AI prompts.
  • Social media posts. When all you want is quick content to publish to social media, AI is a good resource.
  • Article outlines. If you’re stuck on ideas, you can get your articles written much faster by using AI prompts for an outline.

How you shouldn’t use AI-generated content

There are two main ways to avoid using AI content: to spin scraped content and to fill space on your website.

Scraped content is spam and spinning scraped content is plagiarism. Google has algorithms that can detect scraped content that has been altered by an AI tool. Publishing scraped content has always been considered spam, and using ChatGPT or any other tool to alter it is still considered plagiarism. In other words, don’t steal other people’s content and use AI to rearrange it to make it look original because Google will know.

Another use case to avoid is filling space. If you’re generating long articles to populate your blog or other website pages just to fill it out, you’re probably not providing value to visitors.

Back in December 2022, Google announced a Helpful Content system update that promised to detect and suppress content made for search engines and promote websites designed for humans. 

Many people noticed a drastic drop in rankings after this update, even sites with high-quality human-created content. It’s too risky to use AI tools to populate your website for the sake of filling space. You’ll waste your time, money, and you probably won’t rank.

Use AI tools with caution

Poor-quality content that doesn’t provide value isn’t going to rank whether it was created by a human or ChatGPT. Google can tell the difference between AI-generated content created to manipulate search rankings and content that exists to provide value to web visitors. If you choose to use AI tools like Jasper, ChatGPT, or Google Bard, be responsible. 

There’s nothing wrong with AI-generated content as long as it is helpful and provides value to your visitors. As long as you follow Google’s E-E-A-T Guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), you can rank AI content in the search results just like any other page.

Remember AI is typically not as good at developing high-level digital marketing strategies.

That's where we come in! Contact us today! 

Timothy Carter
|
October 21, 2025
Advantages of Implementing a Data-Driven Sales Approach

The data-driven sales strategy is a modern approach to sales usually powered by technology and data. Leveraging big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) tools today, digital businesses are able to analyze data and focus their resources on more targeted opportunities with higher returns.

The advantages of such sales strategy span from improved capability in decision-making processes, expanded customer understanding, enhanced sales effectiveness, and higher return on investment for companies. By integrating the thoughtfulness of human agents with powerful technologies capturing important insights, innovative businesses have begun threatening traditional approaches that once reigned in the market.

By leveraging historical sales data and market data, businesses can make informed decisions that improve efficiency and maximize sales revenue. Additionally, customer relationship management (CRM) tools play a crucial role in refining sales and marketing teams' outreach by enhancing engagement strategies and streamlining communication processes.

Even though approaches like this may seem at times intimidating due to its fast-paced, ever-changing environment, having a lack of proper adaptation ability can result in lags behind increased competitive enterprises. Sales leaders who fail to embrace a data-driven strategy risk falling behind competitors who optimize their processes with AI-powered tools and data insights.

We will be examining the different advantages and challenges that come with adopting a data-driven sales strategy, thoroughly discussing the improved efficiencies seen in this area of operation, and providing initiatives to follow through on such implementation.

Therefore, it can be argued that an optimal data-driven strategy is key for success today. By highlighting its potential impact on business performance—including lead generation, conversion rates, customer lifetime value, and customer communications quality—together with cost savings in customer acquisition cost, companies can stay ahead in an increasingly data-driven marketplace.

1. Improved Decision Making

Improved Decision Making

SourceAdopting a data-driven sales approach provides businesses with robust insights that can be used to inform decision-making and shape their marketing campaigns.

With real-time access to accurate customer data and analytics, employers can stay closely aligned with what the marketplace wants, look for trends in purchase behavior, target specific leads more effectively, and eliminate the guesswork normally associated with age-old methods.

This helps facilitate informed decision making on-the-fly which enhances business strategy by identifying potential paths to increase profitability or disrupt the market before fixed strategies become obsolete. Improved decisional visibility offers unprecedented agility when dealing with competing deadlines and even completely unanticipated market surprises.

2. Enhanced Customer Understanding

Enhanced Customer Understanding

SourceData-driven sales approaches enable businesses to increase their understanding of customer behavior and preferences. Accurate customer data derived from the analysis can be used to segment customers and optimize campaigns for improved engagement.

Customer profiles with detailed insights can equip marketers with further intel on how best to market products and services, as well as provide personalized responses through the meticulous study of customers’ behavior in terms of purchases, browsing history, interactions, etc.

Through customer segmentation, businessmen analyze gathered information to rethink buying journeys that boost results like conversions. A more solid understanding acquired by data-driven marketing allows companies to offer product bundles tailored carefully to complementary services clients want or need most often and will value highly.

In that way, it leads businesses to present the most customer-oriented experience possible and enables eliminating guesswork in people targeting and nurturing along their journey with the brand. The result is satisfied customers who engage more efficiently with companies according to their stated needs, leading to better overall ROI per individual buy.

3. Optimized Sales Performance

Optimized Sales Performance

SourceSales performance optimization is a key advantage of using data-driven sales approaches. The use of accurate, real-time data enables targeted decisions and actions to be taken for optimal outcomes. Data can be analyzed to discover trends and patterns to assist in creating effective customer segmentation.

This insight helps sales teams engage with customers more effectively by providing tailored services that are better suited to their needs, leading to improved client satisfaction. 

Predicting the most valuable leads as well as future opportunities boosts company revenue potential, while optimizing existing processes often results in increased sales efficiency saving time and relevant resources.

With enhanced predictive analytics for sales forecasting providing a competitive edge all parties involved will profit from this approach‘s implementation securely on track toward a successful end goal attainment.

4. Improved Efficiency and Productivity

Improved Efficiency and Productivity

Source

Improved efficiency and productivity are one of the major advantages achieved with a data-driven sales approach. Using accurate and real-time data, businesses can efficiently streamline their sales processes, eliminate guesswork and manual labor, reduce errors, save time and resources, and move quickly towards greater ROI and efficiency goals.

Automation further helps by automating routine tasks so that they take less time, are less prone to human error, and are more cost-effective in terms of resources.

This helps create better customer experiences as customers' needs are met faster without any need for manual effort which in turn improves sales conversions as well as customer satisfaction and loyalty scores. Overall these efficiencies play an important role in driving peak performance top-line growth over the long term.

5. Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage

SourceData-driven insights can serve as a powerful competitive differentiator when used effectively. By leveraging accurate insights generated from data analysis, businesses have the potential to gain a valuable edge over their competitors.

Teams can identify trends in customer behavior and anticipate market changes quickly. This information allows them to adjust strategies and react to external factors with agility before their rivals even recognize the opportunity.

Data-driven approaches also lend themselves nicely to identifying unexplored revenue sources or untapped markets, bringing fresh value that rivals cannot replicate easily. Ultimately, data-driven solutions can be an invaluable asset for gaining a real competitive advantage within any sector or industry.

6. Increased Revenue and ROI

Increased Revenue

SourceAdopting a data-driven sales approach offers numerous benefits, including increased revenue and ROI. 

Businesses can use it to identify high-value leads and optimize their strategic practices to maximize returns on investments. Data-driven insights help companies segment customers and tailor their marketing efforts to specific target groups. Additionally, businesses benefit from improved forecasting that enables them to create sales strategies that yield maximum profits.

Overall, with accurate customer and product analytics along with automation of routine tasks, firms are able to improve lead generation while increasing conversion rates—ultimately generating higher revenues in the process.

Challenges and Considerations

Challenges and Considerations

Source

These days, businesses are collecting data from diverse sources and platforms. As such, it’s more important than ever to ensure that this data is of high quality and reliability, as bad or greasy data can lead not only to increased costs in trying to capture accurate information but unreliable analyzed trends.

Companies need to identify key internal dashboard metrics as well as external indicators for an effective operations structure. Cross-checks should also be performed regularly against historically validated statures sectioned off into demographic areas through empirical modeling adaptation measures.

Additionally, a detailed review of the business software must take place routinely in order to mitigate any potential mal technics that could possibly sabotage the vigilance margin through deploying surveillance authorities over notable technical anomalies discernible by sufficient proficient remediation speed only partaken utilized and united through universal protocols. 

By doing so, companies small and large can ensure that as more data is collected it will be of the highest quality and accuracy.

1. Data quality and integrity

These days, businesses are collecting data from diverse sources and platforms. As such, it’s more important than ever to ensure that this data is of high quality and reliability, as bad or greasy data can lead not only to increased costs in trying to capture accurate information but unreliable analyzed trends.

Companies need to identify key internal dashboard metrics as well as external indicators for an effective operations structure. Cross-checks should also be performed regularly against historically validated statures sectioned off into demographic areas through empirical modeling adaptation measures.

Additionally, a detailed review of the business software must take place routinely in order to mitigate any potential maltechnics that could possibly sabotage the vigilance margin through deploying surveillance authorities over notable technical anomalies discernible by sufficient proficient remediation speed only partaken utilized and united through universal protocols. By doing so, companies small and large can ensure that as more

2. Privacy and data protection concerns

The handling of private customer information and the need for secure data protection are prominent concerns when proposing a data-driven sales approach. Accurate personal data—such as financial transactions, addresses, email IDs, and birthdates—must be highly secured from unauthorized access to provide customers with privacy and due trust.

Having safeguards in place during storage and transmission is highly recommended when dealing with sensitive challenges like cybersecurity threats, identity theft, or personal data breaches.

Businesses must adopt strong encryption protocols meant to strongly discourage malicious or potentially damaging activities found within their database networks. Companies likely also should invest adequate resources into early detection of possible risks that endanger stored customer data profiles as tackling them back may come out tedious later on.

3. Integration of data sources and systems

Integration of data sources and systems is an important challenge to consider when starting a data-driven sales approach.

Although obtaining analytics can enable companies to make faster, smarter decisions, getting these resources into one comprehensive platform won’t be instantaneous — it takes time and focus.

All systems created in different platforms must be coordinated together and both workers and managers shaped with up-to-date skill sets. The architecture might range from clean IT integration processes sharing small encapsulated chunks of information that rely on mature architectures.

4. Ongoing training and skill development

Ongoing training and skill development is essential when implementing a data-driven sales approach. In order for businesses to optimize data-driven methodology, individuals need to understand the technical skills necessary to analyze complex data sets and to interpret those findings into actionable strategies that produce effective outcomes.

This is one area where outsourcing via value added resellers (VARs) can be beneficial for scaling your systems.

Employees must also possess a keen understanding of all relevant software applications as well are appropriate methods for tactically applying distribution techniques. 

Ensuring professional development through ongoing education will help ensure that all personnel remain abreast of changes in technology regardless of their level within the organization.

Conclusion

Data-driven sales approaches can provide a clear competitive advantage. By collecting and analyzing customer data, businesses can personalize their messages and offerings to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ROI. 

Additionally, these approaches offer tremendous benefits from improved decision-making to optimization of sales performance for businesses that view data as an asset.

In order to capture the most value with this many companies need to address the important data challenges such as quality control, privacy issues, and integration of systems while staying apprised of industry regulations and trends.

Overall, investing in a comprehensive data-driven approach will help companies stay ahead of emerging market conditions and ensure sustainable growth across new channels with maximum profitability.