Lead generation is broken.

Too many companies:

- Try to generate leads themselves, but fail
- Hire a lead gen agency with bloated retainers who can’t deliver

Lead generation as a whole is always changing, so unless you’ve got a dedicated team
on it (that knows what they’re doing) — you can expect to overpay for underwhelming
results.

That said, in 2025 — you don’t need to try to generate leads yourself, or pay an
outsized retainers for subpar work.

With Leadbird, you:

- Don’t pay for overpriced retainers
- Only pay per meeting-ready-lead we deliver
- Get the expertise of career outbound salespeople

We achieve this for you through:

- Targeted lead list building
- Domain + inbox set-up and warm-up
- Proven cold email copywriting principles
- Done-for-you cold email campaign management

Book a free demo from the link in my bio to join over 115 active clients getting
high-quality, meeting-ready-leads every single month.

Talk soon,
Nick

Nick Abraham

I recently visited a company’s site and got hit with a live cold call from one of their reps a few minutes later. I absolutely loved it.

Every bit of data we have shows that the faster you call your leads after they show any type of intent, the more likely they are to book into an appointment. 

So much so that we call leads that respond to our cold emails as fast as humanly possible to try to capitalize on this. 

But, frankly, I had never seen it done off of a website visitor play. In retrospect, it's quite obvious, though. 

1. Identify website visitor
2. Enrich and get email + phone
3. Assign to rep
4. Have rep call

There's clear alpha in this right now, and I'd love to see more companies take it on. 

The future of GTM belongs to those who pick up the phone fastest.

For the longest time while cold emailing local businesses, I removed “info”, “support”, and “help” @ [company name] emails. Wow, what a mistake that was.

I thought that those were generic emails and nobody checks them. So, I’d of course favor actual people’s (generally the owner) emails. Except over time, I realized how small this made our list.

It became clear that not all SMB business owners actually set up personal email accounts, and sometimes do operate out of the generic names (some friends in the space made this clear to me!).

And, it just…worked (see below for confirmation).

This changes a lot for us. It’s almost like we unlocked new TAM by confidently reaching out to addresses we never would have before, being that we now know they actually may be fruitful.

All that to say: if you’re cold emailing local businesses, don’t shy away from the generic addresses. They might just be exactly what will work.

I send 2M+ cold emails and 1M+ LinkedIn DMs per month for 1,000+ active clients across Leadbird and Cleverly

Mark Cuban says the best business opportunity right now is selling AI implementation to businesses. Here’s how I’d do it with cold email:

People that do it wrong will mass-send generic copy about “implementing AI” to a massive list. It will go nowhere, and they’ll claim this “doesn’t work”.

People that do it right will:

1. Find 1 problem that’s solvable with AI for 1 type of business (ex: a specific AI workflow for HVAC businesses' back office).

2. Solve it in a way you can productize/replicate (using AI).

3. Scrape a list of ONLY those types of businesses (smaller, but more targeted).

4. Email a subset of the list offering to do execute this for free in exchange for case studies/testimonals.

5. Run the playbook 3 times for free to land case studies (video customer interviews + written case studies on-site).

6. Email the rest of the list saying:

"{{name}} - want {{problem solved}}?

Asking because we did it for other {{company types}} like {{company 1}}, {{company 1}}, and {{company 3}}.

Worth a chat?"

This has really always been the playbook for getting services businesses off the ground. AI has just increased demand for certain services, and made it faster to deliver for the vendors.

If I were fresh out of college trying to start something, this would likely be it.

It feels like every week, we see people in outbound preach about a new data vendor, infrastructure provider, or even sending platform. 

Even within tools themselves, I feel like I can't scroll the timeline without seeing Smartlead, Clay, or others announce a big new feature.

It's both awesome and exhausting, sometimes.

At the same time, it's indicative of how much this space moves and how fast it does. Every outbound marketer needs to be on their toes constantly to ensure they're not missing something. 

And though I don't want to come across like I'm fear-mongering, it's true. I've seen this in the last year with competitively generated agency owners, unfortunately fizzling out because they were stuck in their ways and didn't adapt. 

You absolutely need to keep your finger on the pulse of all tools and strategies in this space or you will fall behind. 

I like to frame it mentally as being a student of the game. It is ever-evolving, meaning it is quite literally impossible to master it. 

That’s my Tuesday reminder.

I've sent over 3,000,000 cold emails since January 1st. Here are my 25 rules for deliverability every outbound marketer needs to know in 2026:

Infra:

1. Always use Google or Microsoft accounts, never SMTP. SMTP providers consistently fail after a few months when spam filters update.

2. Domain endings don't matter much. Use .com when possible, but .org, .info, .co, and .biz work fine because they're cheaper.

3. Warm up domains for minimum 2 weeks, ideally a month for better performance and longevity.

4. Use an A/B rotation strategy. Buy two sets of infrastructure per client - use set A in month one, set B in month two, then rotate.

5. Keep emergency non-branded domains ready as backups when main infrastructure goes down.

6. Use proper naming conventions: Client_Campaign_Industry_LaunchDate_Group to identify performance issues.

7. All providers will eventually mess up DNS settings at scale. Always send yourself a test email and check headers before launching campaigns.

Campaign setup

8. Don't track opens. Open data is unreliable and hurts deliverability.

9. Plain text only. No fancy formatting.

10. Send Monday-Friday, 9-5, but randomize the exact time daily within a 30-minute window using Smartlead's API. Saturdays work well for SMBs and mid-market targets.Keep campaigns running on holidays because business owners check email every day.

Lead list management

11. Format company names properly, but ideally don't use them at all. Campaigns perform worse when they include company name or title.

12. When using titles, normalize them with AI (e.g., "CEO" not "Chief Executive Officer").

13. Remove all email security from your list. Use Google's DNS endpoint to identify anyone with Proofpoint, Barracuda, Mimecast.If removing security emails makes your list too small, put them at the end instead.

14. Don't isolate ISPs. Mix Google, Outlook, and SMTP recipients or your domain gets flagged.

15. Always validate with any tool right before launch, regardless of what data providers claim.

16. Separate catch-all campaigns from regular campaigns because catch-alls have higher bounce rates.

Copywriting

17. Spintax everything, but review all variants yourself. AI creates variants that sound unnatural.

18. Keep it simple. No images, PDFs, or links in the first email.

19. Two tests for copy: Can a 10-year-old understand what you're selling? Would you actually say this to someone in person?

20. Make copy conversational, not complicated with technical terms and corporate language.

21. Strong offers > personalization. Focus on making the offer better instead of building complex personalization workflows.

Continued in the comments.

Name drop campaigns make 100% automated emails look like warm referrals. But most people execute them wrong and kill credibility. Here's how to do it right:

The concept: You reference a colleague at the prospect's company in your cold email. This makes it look like you sat there, did your research, and wrote the email normally. When done right, these convert 2-3x better than standard cold outreach because you've lowered their automated email guard.

The mechanics:

- Pull colleague names by identifying their senior leadership (Find People → Department → Seniority) within the company.

- Reference the colleague in your first line ("not sure if you're the right person or if I should be speaking with [[ColleagueName]]")

- Optional: Add a PS that ties back to the colleague reference

- End with a soft CTA

The entire email should almost read like someone at their company gave you a warm intro.

Common execution mistakes:

- Generic opening lines that don't reference the colleague
- Formatting that exposes it as automated (inconsistent spacing, broken variables, obvious merge fields)
- Not cleaning your data before sending (colleague left the company, wrong person entirely)

The prospect should almost think a coworker mentioned them. When they open the email and see their colleague's name, their guard drops. That's when your message actually gets read instead of deleted.

We’re seeing incredible results with this right now…let me know if you want to hear more on it.

undefined undefined

Hey, thanks for replying. 

Here's the guide:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ogdq83o7sRMARFopD_t_-nqHF0XIOPsD/view?usp=share_link

Leadbird

P.S. If you’re an established agency or SaaS with a GREAT offer and want leads — Leadbird can help

… and we’ll do it on a Pay-Per-Lead basis.

Book today: https://www.leadbird.io/book-a-call

Spintax Guide

Tool

Article

Message

yuri

For the first time ever, YC included agencies in their request for startups. I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.

Historically, Agencies were rarely considered in venture conversations because of the required human capital. Revenue scaled only with headcount. This made software-like margins impossible to replicate.

YC’s argument is that this is no longer the case, thanks to AI. In a roundabout way, they're saying you can get the same output with less humans, and that all of the salaries you aren't going to pay go right back to your bottom line. 

That's the semi-obvious stuff. The less obvious angle here is that YC realized how fundamentally great the business model is compared to what they typically invest in. 

The venture game is one of moonshots. You pour a bunch of money into an asset that will burn cash for 5-10 years and hope it either turns cash flow positive at scale, gets acquired, or IPO’s.

By no fault of YC, this leads to a lot of failed companies and a lot of burned investor money. 

To me, YC asking for agencies is almost a safer hedge to a lot of the moonshot venture plays they try. Sure, rarely do agencies get acquired for what SaaS companies do or even IPO…but they're much more predictable and easier to spin up and operate than a lot of other companies. 

I say this is someone who's automated and systemized a lot of our fulfillment. We're able to run an extremely lean team for a relatively large client base because of these systems. And I do think this will become the norm moving forward.

Cold email sending schedules should not be the hot topic that they are. Really, the rules for sending are simple (backed by 25M+ cold emails):

1. Send Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. We use Smartlead’s API to randomize start and end time daily (+/- 30 mins of start and end time to increase variability).

2. Saturdays can, in fact, be a good day to hit SMBs or mid-market companies. 

3. Same goes for holidays.

It’s that simple. Stop reading in to data about which days and times perform better. You’ll drive yourself crazy.

There’s a massive business opportunity for someone that wants to use this cold email right now. Let’s walk through why:

I don't need to educate you on the AI opportunity right now for businesses that aren't using it at all. Businesses, especially local ones that operate way outside of our bubble, have arguably more upside than anyone in terms of properly using AI to boost efficiency.

There are huge consulting shops being spun up right now that solely implement this for customers.

And I think there's a huge play to do so locally with this cold email alone. Why?

1. The subject line is relevant enough to a business owner in a given suburb / area.

2. We layer on the local social proof in the first line with an outcome promise as well. 

3. We really play up the local angle by effectively saying “we are going to be in the area upcoming, so let us know if you are interested”. 

4. We of course end with a soft CTA. 

Cold email doesn't need to be that difficult. You just need to have a strong and unique offer presented well. This is a great example of that.

People are taking spintax too far and it's ruining their cold emails. They're trying to spin individual words to increase variance, but this often leads to certain sentences just not making sense or sounding weird when read out loud.

This is not the way. You clearly show your prospect that a human did not write the email.

The right way to run spintax:

1. Identify the right variables to do it with in the first place.

Certain ones are over the top and risk-prone for messing up the email. Especially with certain Clay workflows, people are going overboard.

Easy, less risk-prone ones:

- Case studies (switch out company name and result)
- CTA sentence (spin 4-5 different ways of saying "Can I send you more info?")

2. Instead of spinning specific words, do it with specific phrases all together that still mean the same thing.

This reduces the chance of the email sending platform creating a sentence that just looks weird or doesn't make sense.

This is “boring” stuff but it's important.

My agency has worked with 500+ clients. In the last 5 years, I've learned a TON about how to deal with unhappy customers. My top 3 learnings about doing it:

1. Product <> Fulfillment <> Sales must all be aligned.

All messaging has to be completely aligned at all times and updated frequently across the board if needed.

Customers can and will get confused by what you are saying, pitching, or delivering.

Example:

Our product team built a new way to launch campaigns, and our fulfillment team started leveraging it. But, our sales team is still pitching the prior way (the outcome was the same, but the workflow is different).

This ultimately led to confused customers and was an issue we had to mitigate.

Don't let that happen!

2. Your contract is, literally, the law.

This goes for any B2B company. Everything you put in there on how your service gets delivered is very important. So is the reverse (everything you don't do.)

This will help prevent scope creep and give you clear boundaries on what you do and do not do for clients.

3. Calling mechanisms are crucial.

Similarly, this goes for both lead generation agencies and other B2B companies. Do not let anyone on your team get comfortable with doing the back-and-forth email battle.

The much more efficient, personable, and higher-leverage play is simply calling the client and figuring out the problem.

Broadly, most people are reasonable and somewhat logical, so explaining your stance (as long as it's justified) should work just fine.

Ensure you have a cell phone data/calling mechanism for all clients.

I know this wasn't anything flashy, but I promise you this is what is important at scale.

Almost every day, I get a cold email referencing my engagement on a social post I didn't think twice about. Cold emailers are using this signal the wrong way, and it's ruining their reply rate. Here's how to fix it:

People engaging with content in your space are actively researching the problem you solve right now. These lists convert at 3-4x higher rates than standard cold outreach because of recency and intent.

The wrong way:

"Saw you engaging with [Creator's] content about cold email..."

This feels like surveillance, not relevance. 

The right way:

"Noticed you've been engaging with content about outbound lately..."

Reference the intent and topic, not the creator. The intent matters, but usually the specific creator doesn't.

How to run this properly:

1. Identify 5-10 creators with your ICP audience (look for competitive overlap and high engagement).

2. Build a DNC list before scraping (generate competitor domains and exclude them so you don't email creators directly)

3. Scrape engagement weekly with Apify (pull last 7 days of engagers to keep lists fresh)

4. Deduplicate against a master database (dedupe by LinkedIn URL first, then at ingestion and pre-campaign)

5. Enrich and route channels (email first, if open profile → send InMail, then connection requests)

6. Use intent-based copy, not creator name drops

Common mistakes that kill these campaigns:

- Scraping once instead of weekly (make the campaign evergreen)
- Not excluding competitor domains (you email the creator and other competitors)
- Name dropping creators in copy (feels invasive)
- Not deduplicating (hitting same people repeatedly)

Quantity of prospects usually isn’t high (especially after filtering down), but the quality is solid if hit right. Strongly recommend!

The problem with cold email is that once people figure out what’s working, they overuse it and run it in to the ground…until it no longer works. Let’s fix that.

The perfect example of this is the time-tested campaign copy:

“If we could help generate 1[result] with our [unique mechanism], would you be interested in speaking?”

It worked for a while because it wasn’t intrusive, was relatively low-risk, and promised an outcome (those principles remain, by the way). But, it got overplayed.

The fix to this is not simply different copy, but offering something different altogether.

By this, I mean:

1. Identifying a small set of deliverables everyone in your ICP ideally needs, or could benefit from.

2. Anchoring your cold email around offering that for free.

3. Doing a great job at it, and then opening up the conversation to more services.

There’s a great example of this in the graphic below. Yes, you’ll do some free work. But you have the right to qualify leads up front and only do it if it makes sense.

Like it or not, this will help a lot of outbound teams “win” cold email coming up.

Last week, I posted about being cold called by a rep after I visited their site. I said I loved it, and people were…not happy, to say the least.

I saw tons of comments saying that this was “creepy” and bordering on an “invasion of privacy”.

I’m not here to debate the efficacy of the play. If your company books demos from it, do it. If you don’t, then don’t.

But this privacy point is hilarious to me.

People wrote comments about a company using their online behavior to give them targeted messages at a specific time.

…and then opened Instagram and saw 3 retargeting ads from sites they visited in the last week, and didn’t bat an eye.

My point is that companies do this all day long. We wouldn’t have some of the social media products we do if advertisers couldn’t pay for this ability.

It’s not novel. It’s just being adopted in B2B.

Adding prospects to a Google Doc or sending random calendar invites to stand out in the inbox isn’t new.

Docs, Loom, Canva - people have used these for years because their domain reputation helps deliverability. And yes, you’ll likely land in primary.

But at scale, it’s not the unlock people think it is for two reasons:

1. Enterprises run heavy phishing training. If they don’t recognize the sender, they’re told not to click. That kills the play fast.

2. It carries the same negative sentiment as cold email. Some people will think it’s clever. Others will hate it.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

I used Notion Agents to build a lead gen competitor intelligence agent in maybe 60 minutes. How it works:

1. Discolike grabs the largest B2B lead gen agencies (our competitors).

2. An agent runs via Firecrawl MCP that finds updates on them (new case study, site update, etc.)

3. Sends me a monthly update of all new competitor activity.

No, this isn’t going to change my life and suddenly add $100K of revenue to my agency. But, it’s a dead-simple way to keep me in the loop on our competitors without doing a bunch of research or paying a VA to do it.

Not to mention, there are obvious applications to use this data in a lead gen setting. Ex: Monitor prospects’ competitors’ activity > reference their activity in an email to a prospect.

I don’t think Notion Agents is getting enough love right now, so I thought I’d share.

"We don't chase customers if they don't get back to us after the first reply, mark them as closed lost." That’s a real quote I heard from someone trying to get leads from outbound.

Short take: Some people just don't want it.

Long take: Outbound marketers everywhere are complaining that reply rates are down, deliverability is getting harder, and meetings are scarce, to say the least.

Prospects are fatigued from being hit with the same cold email template variants and are only replying to the emails that are strong, relevant, and have good offers.

So to effectively “waste” a good lead because you had to follow-up with them more than once is simply irresponsible.

In fact, I think the winning outbound teams of the next few years will:

1. Get back to positive replies borderline instantly.
2. Be extremely regimented about maintaining their CRM.
3. Prioritize strong, tasteful, relevant follow-ups until Closed Won or Closed Lost.

People who are disciplined about chasing positive replies will run circles around those that don’t follow up more than once because they “don’t chase leads”.

I can’t believe this is even a take.

The easiest and fastest way to write more relevant, personalized email copy with 0 extra work is to let your list write the copy for you. Let me explain:

I recorded a podcast episode with 🦾Eric Nowoslawski a while back, where he explained this perfectly. He explains that marketers often go too broad with their targeting, making relevance much harder to achieve.

He goes on to share that you can simply tighten up your list with certain filters that make it easier to write copy that’s relevant to everyone on that list.

Perfect example: Let’s say you’re a bookkeeping service.

You can reach out to CEOs of companies in the USA with <20 people, and say something like:

“We help small businesses in the USA close their books within 5 days at the end of each month.”

…OR you can reach out to:

- CEOs of companies in the USA with <20 people
- Who founded their company less than 2 years ago
- Are a first-time founder
- Don’t have a finance and accounting person on their team

And say something like:

“I saw that you guys were recently founded, and congrats, it's your first time running a business like this. 

How are you thinking about your finance operation? Asking because we help…”

Do you see how simply filtering down the list makes it easier to write more relevant copy with no extra work? You of course give up some volume in doing so, but the tradeoff is often there.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single company should make a practice of doing this. It's a low-effort, high-reward way to get meetings on the board from outbound.

I'm talking about simply reactivating old leads that never closed or fizzled out from a time in the past. These are people that showed a level of interest in what you were offering, and they were more familiar with you than a true cold lead. 

Not to mention, especially if you're kicking off an outbound motion, these emails are more prone to replies. This will build trust signals early with Google and Microsoft, and overall improve deliverability. 

This is important enough that at onboarding, we ask clients for lists of older leads they want to reactivate. By reaching out to them, we're usually able to get 1-3 wins on the board in the first 7 days of a campaign going live. 

The messaging is fairly simple as well:

"Hey {{name}}, we spoke in the past about {{what you do}}.

Wanted to touch base again because we {{did something new / have new method, etc.}}.

Would it make sense for us to chat later this week?"

If you need any help with this, comment and I can answer as best as possible. I strongly recommend you get it up and running if you haven't already.

I’m convinced every B2B service provider should reach out to churned clients at the 30-day post-churn mark to win them back. As unconventional as it sounds, it’s been working well for us. My thesis:

Clients churn because they think the grass is greener on the other side (another vendor that’s cheaper, running the process in-house, etc.). In our experience (including vendors we’ve churned from) this often isn’t the case. 

Especially with regards to lead generation agencies: if an agency can get you some* leads (even if it’s less than you anticipated), that little bit is better than zero leadflow.

All that to say:

We’ve learned that clients aren’t always happier post-churn. Because they’re familiar with you and your process, you’re ripe to reach out again (unless you ended on bad terms, of course).

There are simple, non-intrusive ways to do so for every B2B service business. For a lead generation agency like us, for example, the messaging might say:

“Hey - noticed you never asked for your domains back. We could spin up infra today and relaunch a campaign if you’re still open to it.”

I’m not saying this has a 100% success rate. I am saying it’s worth doing.

Head of Content Marketing @Smartlead.ai | Driving Organic Growth and Revenue through Strategic Growth & Content Marketing

Most SaaS marketing fails for a simple reason: it stops working the moment you stop feeding it.

Campaigns spike. Channels decay.
Teams chase tools, trends, and traffic - then wonder why nothing compounds.

I don’t run campaigns.
I design organic growth systems that get stronger with time.

Systems where:
- Content builds demand before buyers search
- SEO compounds instead of resetting every quarter
- AI surfaces amplify authority instead of replacing thinking
- Visibility becomes an asset, not a dependency

This is how modern SaaS wins:
Not louder marketing.
Not more output.
But infrastructure-level growth.

That’s the work we do at EmploraX.

We help B2B SaaS teams replace fragmented execution with systems that:
- Shape market perception
- Control how they’re discovered - by humans and machines
- Keep driving growth long after execution slows

If your marketing needs constant effort to survive, you don’t have a growth engine, you have a liability.

I build what compounds. Everything else is noise.

If you’re building a SaaS company and want demand you don’t have to keep restarting, we’ll probably get along.

📩 Open to conversations.

Alka Gupta

Probably every marketer know by now that SEO isn’t Google anymore..
it’s everywhere..

people ask AI for advice... 
they search inside tools

they scroll social, watch videos, read communities, and talk to their phone.

if you only optimize for blue links, you miss where decisions actually form.

modern SEO is about showing up when answers get pulled, cited, and shared...

not in one place, but across the internet.

search is everywhere now... 
your content should be too.

Founder, EmploraX | Helping SaaS teams build content growth engines

3 months ago, i chose to quit my job and start my entrepreneurship journey.

and where i am right now… i’m proud of myself.

I didn’t start with a perfect plan.

I started with one belief.

that i’d figure it out as i went.

all I really had was trust in myself...my judgment...my ability to adapt.

that belief is what got me here:
building my own business..
and growing it exactly how i once imagined while staring at a blank page.

even when nothing felt ready or certain,
i just started.

so start before you feel ready.
you’ll figure out the rest.

This is how to use reddit to rank your website faster..

Reddit is where people explain problems in their own words,
compare options, and admit what’s not working.

that place is gold if you know how to use it.

the trick isn’t copying threads. it’s studying patterns, emotions, and objections,
then turning those into content people actually search for and trust.

AI helps by speeding up the boring parts... you still decide what matters and what to ignore.

if your content feels disconnected from how users talk,
read this carousel and fix that gap :))

are you reading user discussions before you write, or after things don’t rank?

How to use Reddit to rank your website faster

“I replaced a $500k marketing team with AI.”
“I replaced my SEO agency with ChatGPT.”
“I fired my content team.”

You’ve probably seen posts like this all over LinkedIn.

and you know the funny part?

Most people posting this didn’t replace a team.
Coz they never had one. 😐 

And many of those “AI-only companies” won’t exist in a few years.

Here’s the problem no one talks about.

AI gives everyone access to the same intelligence.

same prompts.
same strategy frameworks.
same “best practices.”
same positioning advice.

Which means the more people rely only on AI…
the more everything starts looking identical.

same content, same messaging, same thinking...

and when everything looks the same, the only thing that matters is PRESENCE.

The brands that win aren’t the ones replacing teams with AI.

They’re the ones showing up everywhere their buyer already spends time.

Search.
Communities.
LinkedIn.
YouTube.
AI answers.
Partner ecosystems.

Because when people see you everywhere, trust compounds,
and trust still beats automation.

AI is a powerful tool.
But it’s not a strategy.

Visibility isn’t a channel...

it’s infrastructure… but most teams don’t treat it that way.

channels come and go.
algorithms shift.
distribution resets overnight and suddenly what worked last quarter just… doesn’t.

but infrastructure compounds quietly in the background.

When content, SEO, AI discovery - all of it - is designed like a system, not a campaign… it doesn’t just spike, it stays. 

it keeps working even when you’re not pushing.

what I see too often is this faucet mindset.
turn visibility on when pipeline dips.
turn it off when budgets get tight.
and then wonder why nothing compounds.

that’s not visibility actually...that’s just renting attention.

if the moment you slow down… everything disappears..

you didn’t build an asset...you built access.

The 3-System Stack I build for most SaaS companies 👇 

Most companies try to scale organic growth with one tactic.

“We’ll focus on SEO.”
“We’ll build a community.”
“We’ll create more content.”

but the problem is simple.
-one system doesn’t compound fast enough.

You need three systems working together.

System 1: The Flywheel (Distribution architecture)

Goal: Make it economically valuable for others to amplify you.

Components:
 • Partner certification programs
 • Co-marketing partnerships
 • Revenue / lead-share models
 • Integration marketplaces

Metric to watch: Distribution multiplier
(how many others are creating content about you)

Example:
A Martech company activated 12 agency partners.
Those partners produced 60+ pieces of content per quarter, creating 10x more distribution than the internal team alone.

System 2: The Foundation (SEO compound layer)

Goal: Make every piece of content increase the value of everything already published.

Components:
 • Topic cluster architecture (not random blogs)
 • Strong internal linking
 • High-intent search topics
 • Domain authority building

Metric to watch: Traffic growth from older content

Example:
A SaaS published 40 strategic articles in six months. Traffic kept growing even after publishing slowed because the system compounded.


System 3: The Engine (UGC knowledge layer)

Goal: Let users create SEO-ranking content you don’t have to write.

Components:
• Community Q&A/ AMA sessions
• Webinars / YouTube videos
• User-generated how-to guides
• Customer templates and playbooks
• Public knowledge bases

Metric to watch: % of traffic coming from user-generated content

Example:
An EdTech SaaS built a community with 200+ Q&A threads.
they are seeing 40% increase in organic traffic came from UGC, without expanding the content team.

How the systems reinforce each other :

Partners create awareness → (Flywheel)
Awareness drives search demand → (Foundation)
Search leads users to community knowledge → (Engine)
Community members become future partners → (Flywheel again)

That’s where compounding begins.

Typical timeline be -
Month 1-2 → infrastructure
Month 3-4 → traction
Month 5-6 → compounding signals
Month 7-12 → acceleration

Most companies quit around Month 2-3 because “it’s not working yet.”

But that’s the point.

You’re building systems, not campaigns.
...and systems take time before they start working for you.

so keep building without stopping. 
Cheers :)

Every marketer knows this feeling.
but here’s the habit that nobody tells you about team productivity.

Your team is not slow.
Mayb they are just waiting for you..

And every hour you don't show up to unblock them,
is an hour of output you will never get back.

Here's what actually happens when you do this consistently:
- your SEO person knows what's launching so they know what to push.
- your designer has full context so briefs take 5 minutes not 50.
- your growth marketer knows the positioning so every campaign is aligned.

Most growth fails because teams execute poorly..
not because the strategy is wrong.

Fix alignment first.

good input = good output

Sat in 2.5 hours on the office hours webinar today hosted by Smartlead.

And I have to admit - what a power-packed session it was. 🔥 
Absolutely loved it.

The topic was how SaaS founders are scaling GTM with AI in an increasingly crowded market.

Some of the strongest founders shared what’s actually worked for them in their SaaS entrepreneur journey.
Adam Robinson Bethany Stachenfeld Max Mitcham Mohamed Chahin Ilija Stojkovski Alina Vandenberghe 🌶️ Jesse Ouellette Vaibhav Namburi

I went in expecting conversations around AI workflows, tools, and automation stacks.

But interestingly… that wasn’t the biggest takeaway.

The conversation kept circling back to something much simpler.

BRAND.

The brand you build through presence.

A few things that really stood out to me:

1. Social has quietly become the new discovery layer

A lot of SaaS discovery today doesn’t start with Google anymore.
It starts with LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads, YouTube videos, and founder content.
People often follow the founder, the thinking, the ideas…
…and only later discover the product.

2. Distribution matters more than content

One thing several founders emphasized:
Great content alone isn’t enough anymore.
The real leverage comes from distribution.
Founders who are winning are consistently showing up across multiple surfaces: social, communities, newsletters, webinars, podcasts, partnerships..

Not just one channel.
Many.

3. Inbound pipelines are engineered

Another insight that I say out loud in almost all linkedin posts:

A lot of companies think inbound is something that “happens”.
But the founders in the discussion made it clear - inbound is designed.

Through consistent content, founder narratives, education, and strategic distribution.

4. A new discovery layer is emerging: LLMs

Said this 100s of times too...

Buyers are increasingly asking tools like GPT, Claude, and Perplexity questions like:
"What are the best tools for X?"
Which means showing up in AI-generated answers might quietly become as important as showing up in search results.

Biggest takeaway from the session:

In a crowded SaaS market, the companies that consistently show up… win.
through ideas.
through content.
through distribution.

My "this works" moment in marketing came from a Google search result...

Not a course...not a mentor, but a ranking.

I didn't start in marketing. 

I came from science - writing research content, scientific journals and papers, books...

My first marketing role was Content Marketing Manager at a small company.

We targeted a few keywords, nothing fancy. 
Educational content that solved real problems...the pages ranked... 

This was pre-Covid, when ranking actually meant something.

Traffic came...leads came...revenue came.

Zero ad spend.

That changed everything for me.

Content wasn't branding...it was distribution

Writing well isn't enough, where it shows up and who sees it - that's what matters.

SEO changes. Algorithms change. AI is changing search right now.

But this hasn't changed: if your content reaches the right people at the right time, it works. every single time

If it doesn't, nothing else matters.

and that belief still drives how I build growth systems today.

After hiring 50+ team members across different marketing functions over the last 10 years… 

and managing teams of 15+ marketers at a time… one thing I can tell you for sure:

Talent ≠ Attitude.

You can hire a highly talented candidate.
Impressive experience.
Dream resume

Perfect mix of left brain + right brain.

And still struggle to: 
– manage them
– get consistent output
– see real ownership
– drive accountability

At the same time, you hire a another candidate — maybe not so solid experience, but professional ethics, grounded attitude....

...and they end up driving far more growth and better results for the team.

and no, it’s not always about how you enable them.

you give both equal ownership.
equal opportunities.
equal exposure.
equal room to grow.

But still — the later candidate often drives the better outcome.

And in marketing, outcome is everything.

So next time you hire, look beyond resumes and experience.

hire for attitude...ownership...hunger

Skills can be sharpened.

Character and mindset is much harder to fix.

Most B2B marketing teams are trying to convert the 5% of buyers who are ready today.

Paid ads.
Outbound.
Retargeting.
 - all focused on the same small slice of the market.

but the reality is…
about 95% of your buyers aren’t ready yet.

they’re learning.
researching.
figuring out the problem.

and this is where most companies lose.
because they invest heavily in demand capture…

- but almost nothing in demand creation.

The companies that win build a simple loop:

first → build presence everywhere your buyers learn
then → watch for intent signals
then → capture demand when it appears
then → use outbound to accelerate the highest intent prospects
not a funnel.

A system that runs continuously.

This is the blueprint i keep coming back to when thinking about B2B growth.
 - not complicated, just structured.

One of our customers had this problem 

Ranked in Google searches. Invisible in ChatGPT answers.

This is what happened to a leading K-12 digital learning platform we work with.

July 2024:
Strong product (used by 800K+ students globally)
Award-winning (named Best K-12 LMS for 4-5 consecutive years)
Decent SEO presence for category searches

Traffic: steady, but flat

I asked: "What's your AI visibility?"
They didn't know what I meant.
so I tested myself

Searched ChatGPT: "What's the best K-12 learning platform for school districts?"

ChatGPT's answer mentioned all competitors..
but our client? not listed.

Zero citation.

Here's why:
Google ranks pages. LLMs cite entities with peer validation.

Google looks at: keywords, backlinks, page authority, technical SEO
LLMs look at: entity mentions across the web, peer validation (Reddit, forums, discussions), structured data (FAQ, schema), comparison content

The problem:
School district buyers weren't Googling "K-12 LMS comparison".

They were asking LLMs: "What platform should we switch to from Google Classroom?"

And LLMs recommended Canvas, Schoology, Moodle.
My client didn't exist in that conversation.

We built an AI visibility strategy over 8 months:

Added FAQs with schema
Created 15 glossary definition pages
Embedded structured data on every product page
Published 12 comparison articles (vs Canvas, vs Google Classroom, vs Schoology)
Answered 150+ Reddit questions
Activated LinkedIn and community engagement
Created use case pages
Added "What is..." explainers that LLMs could parse
Built Medium and Quora authority
Technical deep dives and pillar SEO blogs
Comparison essays with honest pros/cons

A steady graph shown below.

LLM traffic sources:
ChatGPT: 90% of referrals
Claude.ai: 10% of referrals

Before: Great product, invisible in AI answers, buyers didn't know they existed

After: Mentioned in 6 out of 10 ChatGPT searches for K-12 LMS category queries

So,
if you're only tracking Google rankings, you're measuring the wrong thing.

Your buyers are researching in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini.

If you're not in those answers, you don't exist at the moment of highest intent.

The new metric: AI Citation Rate
= How many times your brand appears in LLM answers / Total category queries tested

This K-12 platform went from 0% to 61% in 8 months.

Not by paying for ads.
By engineering for AI retrievability.

If you’re a founder and think growth is expensive, this is for you.

I’ve spoken to 50+ SaaS founders over the last few years....and
one pattern shows up every time.

they try to scale demand by pushing harder.

and eventually… they can’t keep up.

more ads.
more content.
more outbound.
more headcount.

costs go up.
and growth becomes fragile.

because they’re solving the wrong problem.

real demand isn’t generated at the bottom of the funnel...
it’s built upstream.

Start with:
- clear positioning
- repeated education
- consistent presence
- trust over time

by the time someone hits your website, the decision should already feel obvious.

funnels capture demand,
systems create it.

most teams optimize the former and ignore the latter...
that’s why growth stalls.

ChatGPT trusts Reddit more than your website.
And it's not even close.

Look at this. 
A buyer asks: "What's the best HR payroll software in 2026?" or "best email marketing software?"

ChatGPT's sources:
5 Reddit threads
4 Medium articles
1 Wikipedia article
1 GitHub discussion
0 official product websites

Your SEO-optimized comparison page? Ignored. 
Your feature-rich homepage? Not cited. 
Your case studies page? Doesn't show up.

Why Reddit wins?

LLMs are trained to value:

- Peer validation over marketing claims
- Real user experience over polished copy
- Discussions over declarations
- Problems + solutions over feature lists

Reddit threads have all four.
Your website has none.

This is the shift:

Buyers used to research alone (Google → your site → decision).

Now they research in public (Reddit/ChatGPT → peer consensus → decision).

If you're not part of that peer consensus, you lose.

Here's what we'are doing for our customers:

- Reddit → SEO Loop Find Reddit threads where your ICP asks questions
Answer with genuine insight (not promos)

- Turn those objections into FAQ pages

- Embed Reddit discussions as social proof in blog posts

- Make your content "LLM-ready" Prompt-compatible summaries

- FAQ schema that answers "best [category]" queries

- Comparison tables that LLMs can parse

- Structured headings that match search intent

- Seed narratives where LLMs look Medium long-reads (indexed by ChatGPT)

Reddit technical breakdowns (cited in Perplexity)

LinkedIn thought leadership (Gemini trusts it)

The old playbook: Rank in Google, capture traffic.
The new playbook: Get cited by LLMs, win the narrative.

Your website is no longer the source of truth.
Peer consensus is.

most SaaS teams try to scale with content and ads.

the real leverage sits in community and ecosystem.

when partners win, you win.

when users create, you scale.

when integrations promote, demand compounds.

distribution shouldn’t depend on your team alone.

Most SaaS founders are confused about the wrong thing.
“should we focus on social… or seo… or ai visibility?”

that’s like asking… should we build trust or capture demand?

you need both.

but you need to understand what each one is actually doing.

➡️ social is your authority layer.
 it shapes belief before someone ever searches.
 it builds familiarity… sentiment… founder leverage.

➡️ LLM SEO / AI visibility is your capture layer.
 it shows up when buyers are already asking.
 it converts existing intent into pipeline.

one builds market memory... and the other harvests it.

the mistake i see all the time…

teams go hard on AI SEO without building social authority first.

...and then wonder why they’re not being cited.

or they post daily on linkedin… but never structure content into citation-worthy ecosystems.

social feeds AI <> AI validates social

thats how it works ....and together they compound

if you do it separately… they stall.

and if you’re treating these as two different strategies… you’re already behind.

This is one system.

build authority.
engineer visibility.
capture demand.

in that order.

taplio

The Battle

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Alka Gupta

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