Brad Doll

Marketers: I realize AEO may be new to many of you, so I thought I would share a bit of insight, as I continue to learn the technology as well. - What is AEO? It stands for Answer Engine Optimization. - How does AEO work? It optimizes content so AI can extract direct answers without the user having to click a link and go to a website. - Why is AEO important? It's important because search behavior has fundamentally shifted...forget search & click, they want an immediate answer. It's no longer about keywords; your prospects are asking ChatGPT and AI assistants conversational questions like: - What satellite ground segment vendors are trusted by operators for mission-critical deployments? - What are the pros and cons of using Vendor A vs Vendor B for this application? - Who are the top suppliers for [specific satellite component] and how do they compare? AEO helps you intentionally structure content to match these real user questions so that your brand shows up again and again. My question to you: Is your brand aligned with how people search NOW? Happy to share more on how Via Satellite’s Social Sentiment & AEO Insights Scorecard helps companies understand how they’re being positioned — and how to influence the narrative. #search #AIanswerengine #AI #chatgpt #gemini #AEO #SEO #answerengineoptimization

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Of the many insights from the recent 34th edition of The CMO Survey, perhaps the most interesting is the expected growth rate change in overall and digital marketing spend over the next 12 months, which is forecast to increase by percentages not seen since September 2022 despite growth rates slowing over the last 12 months. Overall marketing spend slowed from 5.8% YoY last fall to 3.3% YoY in this spring’s survey, but the marketers surveyed expect that growth rate to rise back to 8.9% over the next year. Similarly, digital marketing spend slowed from 11.1% YoY last fall to 7.3% YoY in the spring, with a bounce back to 11.9% expected over the next year. Despite the predictions of stronger overall budget growth, marketers expect slower growth for “spending on customer relationship management, brand building, customer experience, and new products and services,” with pessimism about economic factors overall. “Almost half of marketers are ‘less optimistic’ about the U.S. economy compared to last quarter,” the report says. “This is a 64% increase over the 29.4% that were ‘less optimistic’ in Fall-2024. The number of marketers who are ‘more optimistic’ has decreased from 37% in Fall-2024 to 31.2% in 2025. Inflation, new policies, and the potential for additional tariffs may be driving these more pessimistic views.” Another area of projected growth was in AI use, with the report finding that respondents use artificial intelligence or machine learning to optimize and automate marketing efforts 17.2% of the time this year, up from 13.1% in the fall and expected to increase to 44.2% of the time in three years (for a projected growth of 157%). “Organizations have made significant progress in addressing these implementation challenges: minimizing bias and ensuring fairness, investing in necessary hardware infrastructure, and reducing vulnerability to malicious attacks,” the report’s analysis says. “Smaller improvements were made in ensuring that the marketing strategy created by generative AI … is a good fit for the brand and target markets. The investment is delivering tangible results, [with] 8.6% improvement in sales productivity, 8.5% increase in customer satisfaction, [and] 10.8% reduction in marketing overhead costs.” #marketing #marketingspend #digitalmarketingspend #AImarketing #AIinmarketing #publishing #publishingindustry #digitalpublishing #mediapublishing #AIsoftware #AImarketingsoftware #digitalmarketing #digitalmediamanager #digitalmediamanagement #MarketingManager #MagazineManager (Photo Source: The CMO Survey)

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What CMOs Are Thinking Last week, 1000s of CMOs met in Florida for ANA's Masters of Marketing (https://lnkd.in/g7NxY6je), one of the marketing industry’s biggest events to learn, connect, & wrestle w/one big question: what does marketing leadership look like in a world where brands & consumers are being redefined. If any CMOs from real estate were there, I’d love to hear your take. Here are some of mine: 1. CMOs are being pushed to innovate with AI not just to stay relevant, but to redefine leadership in a world where creativity and technology now share the same desk. If you run a brokerage or a team, that message is for you too. You need an active AI strategy, evolving & unmistakably your own. The time to build it isn’t later. It’s now. 2. The CMO role is expanding from managing marketing to leading transformation. Marketing isn’t a department anymore; it’s the connective tissue between creativity & business strategy. CMOs are being asked to orchestrate that evolution on the client side & leaning heavily into agency support to facilitate it. In real estate, your marketing leaders need more freedom & authority to shape how tech, brand, and the agent experience work together across recruiting, training, and client service & they need more outside support to do it. 3. Creativity & consistency still matter. The brands that win will be the ones that stay emotionally resonant & unmistakably human, not the ones who rely on AI to create everything. In real estate, marketing must be more of something we automate, delegate, or template. The strongest brands must treat AI as a tool to inform thinking, not replace it. Great marketing must still come from the brand & lean heavily into genuine storytelling that captures what people are really chasing: belonging and trust. I often sense that marketers in real estate still roll their eyes at “storytelling,” dismissing it as fluff & not realizing how powerful of a marketing device it is. I believe this because of what I see in real estate, identical marketing built around getting people to buy something rather than believe in or belong to something. The big takeaway of all is that AI won’t replace creatives; the creatives (and brands) who master AI will replace those who don’t. I can’t imagine that it would not hugely apply to real estate. If you’re a CMO, run a brand & care about outwitting your competitors, & you missed ANA, come to Denver in June for our Signal event. It’s built for you. https://lnkd.in/gCE8cKUk

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How to get your products listed in ChatGPT: 💡 Pro Tip: If your schema, reviews, and merchant policies aren’t clean and structured, ChatGPT won’t surface your listings — even with a valid feed. https://lnkd.in/gYxe-N2z

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The $1 Billion Budget Shift: CMOs are betting big on GEO in 2026. We’re seeing a massive pivot in marketing spend. Traditional SEO isn’t enough anymore when your customers are asking ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations instead of scrolling through blue links. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the new frontier. But you can't optimize what you can't measure. If you're still only tracking Google rankings, you're missing the conversation AI is having about your brand. Are you being cited? Is the sentiment positive? Are you losing share of voice to a competitor who optimized for the LLMs? We built CiteMetrix to give you the data Google Search Console doesn't: - ModelScore™: Your overall visibility across the top AI platforms. - Citation Tracking: Real-time monitoring of brand mentions. - Sentiment Analysis: How AI actually characterizes your products. The shift is happening now. Don't let your brand become invisible in the AI search era. Check your ModelScore today: https://citemetrix.com

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Designing once and distributing often is the key to infographic success - this blog explains how to build long-term visibility and credibility. https://lnkd.in/gnvYRWGJ

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CMOs are being pulled in 10 directions—and expected to deliver in all of them. Brand, pipeline, ABM, ops, AI… and oh yeah, don’t forget attention (good luck with that). Adam MacLean and I break down the real mandate modern CMOs are facing—and what it takes to thrive when the job keeps expanding in this week's blog post. We're curious. CMO's -- what's keeping you up at night? Adam and I are always seeking feedback on our content. We welcome it. Link in comments...

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Why there’s a growing CMO-CEO disconnect over what defines success https://lnkd.in/g8mQ-CE2 A widening gap between CMOs and CEOs is reshaping leadership alignment. While CEOs focus on financial outcomes, CMOs prioritize brand and customer metrics. Bridging this disconnect requires shared KPIs and more transparent communication to drive unified growth strategies. #CMO #CEOAlignment #MarketingStrategy #BusinessLeadership #KPIs #CustomerCentricity #BrandValue #GrowthMetrics #Management

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ABM: ideal world v.s. messy reality. We like sharing big picture ABM frameworks, but reality is always messier than our diagrams may make it seem. 1. Integrated brand, demand gen & ABM programs In ideal world, you would have brand awareness and demand gen programs that are: - Aligned with the same ICP used by sales and ABM  - Attracting attention and creating awarness of buyers in high value target accounts (before they start the buying process) - Challenging the status quo with a strong POV coming from real experts  - Align content and messaging with the use-cases and challenges of those accounts  - Provide multiple meaningful touchpoints over time on channels these buyers use In ideal world, your brand & demand gen programs would generate a pool of engaged ICP accounts, and ABM would source those accounts, accelerate demand capture, and increase win rates. But that's not the reality for many B2B companies. In reality, we need to:  - Take the time to figure out the ICP  - Map their use-cases and challenges with AEs and internal experts/SMEs - Create or repurpose content that will actually be relevant and attract the attention  - Start from cold ICP accounts and drive targeted awareness - Develop multiple meaningful touch points from scratch But given the other real-world constraints (see below) - the only way you can make this work is by starting with a scoped down ABM pilot program:  - 1 cluster mapped to one use-case - (Couple of) dozen accounts  - Small dedicated team 2. Cross-functional teams In ideal world, you have a cross-functional team with dedicated sales resources. But the reality is often siloed teams where different units focus on their own KPIs and metrics: - Content - traffic - Demand gen - MQLs - Field marketing - MQLs - Client success - NPS - SDRs - # of lead gen touches & meetings booked - AEs - pipeline won 3. Lean, iterative workflows Ideal: - Focus on throughput: cold → engaged → convos → discovery → deals → won - To do that, we need lean, cross-functional, iterative execution Reality: - Deprioritizing activities without immediate payoff - Internal approvals, indecision, analysis paralysis and too many meetings slow things down - Teams focus on avoiding blame and polishing internally, instead of testing and learning from market feedback ---  It's easy to claim what "real ABM" is and what isn't. It's also pretty meaningless. Reality is always messier. That's why we love hosting our clients on unfiltered, live case studies, sharing their real-world struggles and successes as they implement ABM. Join Andrei and me for another live case study of our client, Customs4trade, presenting ABM program to engage and land enterprise sales opportunities:  https://lnkd.in/d6V4DAet

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