Search is fragmenting fast

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Ready for another day of staying ahead of the competition in the Growth race?

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Partnership with Grapevine

The UGC Engine That Quietly Beats Your Ads

Branded creative looks incredible in a deck, but Q1 is where it quietly stops paying for itself. CPAs creep up, testing slows down, and every “pretty” ad becomes a bet you can’t afford to keep making.

Grapevine solves that with a done-for-you UGC engine designed to outperform the ads you’re running now quietly. No chasing creators. No contract chaos. No wasted cycles. 

Grapevine handles it all. Just authentic content plugged into your paid social flows, and the numbers prove it works.

• Editorial whitelisting campaigns reduced CPAs by up to 40%, unlocking immediate margin gains.
• Benchmarks confirm Grapevine ads outperform branded creative by 25%+ across platforms.

The after-state? Faster launches, cheaper acquisitions, and a UGC pipeline that compounds wins while your team focuses only on scale.

 Book a strategy call by February 27th for $500 off your first campaign!

💡 How To Create Content Optimized For AI Search

Off-page SEO used to be simple. Get links. Climb rankings. Repeat.

That playbook is breaking down.

According to David White, building links purely for rankings is now outdated because search is no longer a single platform game.

1️⃣ Search Has Fragmented Beyond Google: Discovery now happens across Reddit, LLMs, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Even Google reports that AI-driven sessions last two to three times longer than traditional ones. Treating search as only blue links ignores where attention has already moved.

2️⃣ Zero Click Is The Default State: When AI Overviews appear, and your brand is not cited, click-through rates can drop by as much as sixty-five percent. Visibility now depends on being referenced inside answers, not just ranking below them. Off-site campaigns must compensate for this traffic drain by winning attention inside AI and social environments.

3️⃣ Relevance Follows The Customer Journey: Optimization is shifting from keyword matching to journey alignment. You need to answer the questions users ask while exploring and evaluating. Whether someone is searching TikTok for reviews or asking an LLM for comparisons, your content must fit that moment of intent.

4️⃣ Measure Commercial Impact Not Just Traffic: Using a traffic index helps identify which topics drive real business value across both traditional search and AI prompts. Layering social listening tools allows you to monitor forums and subreddits where genuine conversations happen, replacing assumptions with evidence.

5️⃣ Content Must Be Modular By Design: One blog post is no longer a strategy. To win across platforms, content needs to be broken into formats that travel. Short-form videos work for social. Structured, prompt-friendly text works for AI. Campaigns now require multiple outputs built from a single core insight.

The Takeaway

AI search changes what visibility means. In 2026, off-site SEO is about becoming a trusted source across the entire digital landscape. If your content is not optimized for AI prompts and social hooks, it may exist, but it will not be found.

💡 It’s Not Polite To Ask About Salaries, But We Did Anyway
Insights from stackedmarketer

Talking about pay is uncomfortable. Ignoring it is worse.

Because exposure, interesting projects, and shiny AI tools still do not pay the rent.

The sentiment among marketers right now is clear, and it is not great.

1️⃣ Most Marketers Are Not Happy With Pay: When asked directly, fifty-five percent of marketers said they are unhappy with their current salary. Less than half reported being satisfied. When more than half of a profession feels underpaid, it signals a structural issue rather than individual dissatisfaction.

2️⃣ Effort Has Increased Faster Than Compensation: This frustration aligns with other trends in the industry. Marketers are managing more channels, learning new technologies like AI, and carrying broader responsibilities without proportional salary growth. The reward-to-effort ratio feels off, and that gap compounds stress.

3️⃣ Burnout Is A Predictable Outcome: When compensation does not keep pace with expectations, burnout follows. Increased workload without financial recognition erodes motivation over time, even for high performers. This pattern has shown up repeatedly in industry surveys over the past few years.

4️⃣ Inflation Quietly Worsened The Gap: Even when salaries technically increased, inflation likely outpaced raises for many marketers. Combined with tighter budgets and higher performance pressure, paychecks now feel lighter despite working harder than ever.

5️⃣ What To Do When Raises Are Frozen: If salary increases are off the table, non-monetary benefits matter more. Flexible hours, remote work days, and personal development budgets can meaningfully reduce burnout and improve retention. These perks do not replace fair pay, but they can soften the strain.

The Takeaway

Compensation dissatisfaction is no longer a fringe complaint. It is a widespread signal that expectations and rewards are misaligned. Employers who ignore it risk burnout and churn. Those who address it thoughtfully will stand out in an increasingly strained market.

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