Katie Madding

Atlanta isn’t just participating in the AI revolution—it’s leading the way with a unique focus on how humans and technology actually work together. 🚀 Great to see Sean Wood and the #AtlantaAIWeek community highlighting the startups and innovators making this happen. It’s not just about the code; it’s about the culture and the talent building the future right here in the South. 🍑 Which Atlanta AI startup is on your radar right now? #AtlantaAI #AIStartups #FutureOfWork #Innovation

7

Meta shared their Creative Diversification Cheat Sheet (great for ecom brands) Oversimplified, but a solid baseline to audit your mix Use it to spot gaps fast, then layer real testing frameworks Great for 0→1 teams to get moving—learn the advanced stuff once you’re shipping consistently

56

14 Comments

💥💥BREAKING💥💥 A team of technical aces just dropped a 500+ page book on how to design and build Agentforce AI agents using common patterns. Here's why it's a holiday Kindle must-have: Co-authors Cynthia Q. and Andy Forbes (from Capgemini) do a heroic job moving the Agentforce conversation to another level, detailing primary patterns for AI agents, how they differ & thrive ... [FYI: I wrote the foreward ... and another holiday must-have book called "Agentforce: Harnessing the Agency of AI to Grow, Scale and Win Any Industry" (Wiley).] The patterns apply to Agentic AI in general as well as Agentforce. As they say the patterns are "abstract enough to apply anywhere" and reference common tools and frameworks beyond Salesforce like LangChain, Microsoft AutoGen, OpenAgents / CrewAI, #MCP etc. Since launching Agentforce in 2024 SF has been chanting "Don't DIY Your AI" -- which just means that agentic success is not as easy as it looks. Startups can show incredible brio but not a trusted, grounded, audited, governed, multi-#LLM platform that provides tools to help build and test agents & a Command Center to monitor the hybrid human-robot workforce ... such as Agentforce. Among the 8 patterns presented there are: 💥💥Sentinel (monitor-react): as an example, could monitor internal channels for policy violations and alert HR 💥💥Conductor (orchestration): coordinate the creation of a marketing campaign from brief writing through audience definition, media planning and optimization 💥💥Presenter (UX optimization): pull data from multiple disparate systems and present a rolled-up real-time view 💥💥Action (Task doer): automatically handle routine returns for an online retailer 💥💥Coach (insights/advisory): analyze a salesperson's upcoming pitch and suggest improvements And for each the authors provide detail around use cases across the enterprise -- Finance, Customer Care, HR, Marketing, etc. -- and event sources, evaluation logic, agentic actions, tools and tech. The latter spans platform events, Apex/Flow, Agent Builder, MuleSoft, #APIs and more, at times including actual code. In some ways, this is the design-thinking "handbook" that Agentforce users have been looking for ... And after detailing patterns, the authors delve deeply into topics like trust, handling memory and context, designing & governing multi-agent systems; and some sage hard-won counsel on deployment & staging ... There's no doubt Marc Benioff is right and the Agentic Enterprise is the present and future of business. There's plenty in here for readers from the merely agent-curious to the agent-adept, business-line users to architects and admins. Happy agentic holidays! (Link to buy Kindle edition in the comments; hardcover coming soon.)

153

9 Comments

Performance agencies sometimes think they need to differentiate by building proprietary tech. I’ve seen that story many times — and I disagree. I recently had a check-in with two C-level execs at a performance agency. We’d been delivering exceptional results for their clients, including a $33 CPA using our machine learning optimization engine, compared to $120 manually. But performance wasn’t their focus. They'd decided to build new tech in-house. “If other agencies can use tvScientific,” they said, “we’re not unique.” It brought to mind the New York Times’ decision to build its own ad server — a costly, years-long detour that ended with a move back to DFP. The problem was a lack of clarity about what business they were really in and what they were positioned to excel at. The same applies to performance agencies. They’re not in the business of building ad tech (which is a constantly evolving, capital intensive business and is an entire business in its own right). They’re in the business of delivering outcomes. That means using the best tools available on the market and winning on superior client service. Not rebuilding tools from scratch. The edge comes from execution — knowing how to evaluate, adopt, and apply best-in-class technology to drive better results. Trying to be both a tech company and a service business is a recipe for subpar results on both fronts. Instead, invest in identifying cutting-edge technology, use it better than your competitors, and deliver both superior results and superior client service. That’s the path to agency differentiation. Just my .02. More detailed thoughts on this topic in my weekly newsletter (see comments).

193

17 Comments

I am not sure that most teams build forecasting models like Working Planet does. But for those that do, this is great insight into the difference between what works for planning and what works to get the most out of ad platform algorithms.

1

Confession: Most influencer marketing is lazy 🤦‍♀️ And honestly? It deserves to be skipped. I was recently on a podcast where I said something that might ruffle some feathers: "Your creative is lazy. You deserve to have your ad skipped." Here's the brutal truth about what I see in our industry: The Lazy Approach:  → Mass emailing the same script to 500 creators → Zero personalization or creative tailoring → Stacking 5 ad reads in a row on podcasts → No onboarding calls with creators → Treating influencers like human billboards This all comes form agencies responding to brands racing to the bottom on paying the lowest agency fees. HINT: If an agency fee % feels too good to be true - it probably is. The Strategic Approach:  → Understanding what each creator's audience actually wants → Tailoring content to fit naturally into their style → Making the creator the only sponsor for that piece of content → Collaborative creative development → Investing in measuring real business impact, not just vanity metrics At Digital Voices, we have done a lot creatively exciting work that cuts through the noise on social. For our client Surfshark, we had creators in shark costumes, Colin Furze built a massive shark he could literally surf on, others do comedy skits and animations. Why? Because entertainment drives conversion. Authenticity builds trust. The result? We guarantee results to our clients. If we don't hit our numbers, we commission more content or refund our agency fee. Because lazy marketing shouldn't be rewarded. Bottom line: If your influencer content feels random, scripted, or interruptive - you're doing it wrong. Audiences are smart. They can smell lazy marketing from a mile away. Time to do better. 💪 What's the laziest influencer campaign you've seen recently? #InfluencerMarketing #CreatorEconomy #Marketing #DigitalMarketing

34

4 Comments

I wrote a blog about the new model LinkedIn has launched. I'm very curious to know how other people are experiencing 360Brew and the changes it's bringing to your feed.

8

2 Comments