This is crazy how real this is getting.

I made a post on here maybe a week ago about getting my first paid client and now we’re at two!

The first client I charged extremely low just to get a case study. ($825 for website, basic seo, and brand identity… I know..) ended up being $1250 with a $100 monthly retainer.

The second client was a local service business I charged $1200 for a website redesign + gbp setup/optimization

This client is a $1500 job for a website, SEO, and gbp setup.

I’m in the process of redesigning my website right now, adding very dense and technical SEO, and adding a lot of trust. It’s taken me a few days but I think maybe two more and it should be done.

I’m happy to answer and questions in the comments! I’m very blessed.

There are always new trends competing for attention, but only a few end up making a real impact.

Which one are you keeping an eye on, and what makes it interesting to you?

There are so many digital marketing certifications available now that it's hard to know which ones employers and clients actually value.

For those working in the industry:

• Which certifications have been the most useful for your career?
• Did any of them help you land a job, promotion, or new clients?
• Which ones would you skip?
• If you were starting over today, which certifications would you prioritize?

I'd love to hear your recommendations and whether the time and cost were worth it.

I'm in my bubble with hubspot, sendgrid, linkedin and etc, so my question is what do you use as a fractional/interim marketing to execute marketing strategy?

I bet you also have limited budget and if you found something roi positive - I'd be grateful for sharing

P.S. If you work for one client: skip this question

Some interesting findings for anyone who is in digital marketing, from a new study Hoverboard AI completed this past month, involving over 1,000 U.S. consumers age 18-65. Some of the key takeaways:

• 77% of consumers now use at least one answer engine
• Most people use multiple answer engines (average of 2.3 per person)
• 49% use them to research major purchases or life decisions
• Trust in AI answer engines is rising sharply especially among higher-income households. 
• 53% trust AI answer engines more than one year ago
• ChatGPT is the most used answer engine (no surprise there): 64% use ChatGPT, 50% use Gemini, 24% Claude
• ChatGPT is the most trusted answer engine for important life decisions. 43% said they would use ChatGPT, 15% for Gemini, 6% for Claude and 4% for Grok.
• Traditional search engines (mainly Google Search) still lead as the #1 source people use most for researching importance topics. 80% use search engines vs 49% who said would use answer engines.

Disclosure: I work for the company that conducted this research. I’m sharing the findings here because plenty here is relevant/useful/helpful for anyone in digital marketing. I’ve left off the link to the study to comply with the subreddit’s self-promotion rules.

Something we’ve been thinking about lately is how blogs are often judged almost entirely by traffic and rankings, but their value is much bigger than that now.

A strong content strategy is less about creating random blog posts and more about building an educational ecosystem around your brand.

A good piece of content can:
1. Help someone discover your brand
2. Answer questions before they ever become a customer
3. Build trust and authority over time
4. Support sales conversations
5. Give search engines and AI platforms more context about your expertise

Especially with AI search changing how people find information, I think brands that consistently create helpful, connected content have an advantage. A single blog post might not make a huge impact, but a library of content that clearly answers customer questions can help establish your brand as a source of information.

For example, a healthcare brand shouldn’t just have one article about a treatment. It should have content that answers the questions people ask before, during, and after making that decision.

Curious how others are approaching content measurement now. Are you still mainly looking at traffic and rankings, or are you thinking more about visibility, authority, and the bigger content ecosystem? Also how are you conveying the importance to clients so they understand?

Honest question for other founders here.

When you want real feedback on a product, not vanity metrics, where do you actually get it?

LinkedIn feels supportive but soft. Reddit is honest but hostile to anything that looks like promotion. IG ads measure attention, not intent.

I keep landing on: no single platform does all three. What's your combo?

Hi everyone! The company i work for is trying to figure out a way to streamline / semi automate the process between marketing and our account managers hosted events. We are a B2B software company.

Currently our event set up has a workflow of account managers sourcing their own location for events which is fine. But what we are trying to figure out is have a system in which account managers can just submit what all they need from marketing easily and then have a dashboard on the marketing side to view the workflow and make sure everything is getting done in a timely fashion.

Currently we just communicate everything via teams and outlook and it makes it difficult to make sure we have all the content from the AMs (testimonials, event pictures etc) all in one place for post event content and also making it easier for the AMs to see where we are at in their event process so they aren’t constantly hounding us

Hey all, trying to get my first agency up and running - I'm running cold out reach and posting content to 0 followers lol

I'm curious as to how everyone got their first clients? I aiming to just get one that I can use as a case study and build from there for now

Here is what I noticed

New AI's help you to create almost every tool you need

For example, an email verifier

Doesn't that mean that the other email verifiers will die soon?

And only the ones that have a strong reputation will survive

Let me know your thoughts

Recommend a competitor analysis tool to me. It must include or search LinkedIn data

We're looking for an experienced Digital Marketing Professional to manage a comprehensive client acquisition and brand growth project for a B2B creative services business.

Requirements:

• Proven experience generating high-quality B2B leads.
• Expertise in Meta Ads, Google Ads, and LinkedIn Ads.
• Strong SEO (on-page, off-page, and technical) experience.
• Content marketing and organic growth strategies.
• Email marketing and lead nurturing.
• Funnel creation and conversion optimization.
• Analytics, tracking, and performance reporting.
• Experience working with businesses targeting international markets (US, UK, Europe, etc.) is preferred.

When applying, please send:

• Your portfolio.
• Relevant case studies with measurable results.
• Examples of similar projects you've managed.
• Key performance metrics (ROAS, CPL, CAC, lead volume, conversion rates, revenue impact, etc.).
• Client testimonials or references (if available).
• Your proposed strategy for acquiring qualified B2B leads.
• Expected timeline to achieve initial results.
• Your pricing (monthly retainer and any ad management fees).

Only candidates with verifiable results and relevant experience will be considered.

Please DM with the above details or email your application.

what's everybody's opinion on service business using paper lead services or SEO services charging per lead?

in the past I've used SEO with mixed results so I'm looking into this kind for my local service business?

I see this question come up often around conferences, trade shows, event handouts, sales collateral and research posters.

You do not create a QR code directly for the PDF. You create a QR code for a link that opens the PDF.

The process is simple.

1. Upload the PDF somewhere people can access it, like Google Drive, Dropbox, your website, or a landing page. Make sure the sharing settings are public or anyone with the link can view it.
2. Copy the PDF link and test it in an incognito window. This helps catch permission issues before you print anything.
3. Paste that link into a QR code generator. If the PDF is final and the link will never change, a static QR code is fine. If the PDF might be updated later, use a dynamic QR code so you can change the destination without reprinting.
4. Customize the QR code if needed, but keep it readable. Strong contrast matters more than design elements. Dark code on a light background is still the safest choice.
5. Download the QR code in a high-quality format, preferably SVG or PNG for print. Add a short call to action next to it, such as Scan to view the full PDF or Scan for the abstract and figures.
6. Before printing, test the QR code on multiple phones, in different lighting conditions, and from the distance people will actually scan it.

The QR code itself is usually the easy part. The bigger decision is where the PDF lives, whether that file might change and whether you need scan analytics after people start using it.

For conference posters, sales sheets, menus, product documentation, or lead magnets, that choice matters more than people realize.

Two years into a junior design role at a small agency. I was hired for social, the odd logo, that kind of thing. Lately every client deck also lands on my desk because I am "the design one," and honestly I am out of my depth on longer presentations.

I can make a clean carousel. A twenty slide client deck with a real narrative is a different skill and I am figuring it out live, usually the night before.

So a genuine question for the people who do this daily. What are you actually reaching for when a client deck is due and the timeline is short? Templates you trust, a workflow, a tool that gets you a decent first pass without looking like every other generated deck. I am wary of the ones that all come out identical.

Not looking for a magic button, more the honest workflow of people who make these regularly. And if I am being underpaid to quietly become the deck person on top of my actual job, feel free to tell me that too.

Founders trying to sound like a YC company usually add: "revolutionary", "seamless", "next-gen", "AI-powered".

The companies they're imitating do the opposite. Stripe: "payments infrastructure for the internet." Zero adjectives. The size sits entirely in the noun: infrastructure, layer, standard, operating system.

The other tells of the register: flat certain present tense (no "we aim to"), a named enemy (the old way), and selling the shift rather than the feature ("Spending got fast. Approving it didn't.").

My test: delete the hype word. If the sentence still works, the word was never helping. If it collapses, the sentence had no content and the word was hiding it.

I packaged the full method as an open-source AI skill, link in the comments for whoever wants to tear it apart. But mostly curious: what would this sub add to the list of tells?

Hello everyone! I work at a social media company in Qatar and I am an account manager. The client I was managing decided to cut costs by creating their own in-house social media management and has terminated their contract with us.

Now, my boss has told me that it is my responsibility to find a client. This was not within my job scope and I’ve never had to look for clients so I am at a loss.

I’d really appreciate any advice on how to find new clients, where to look, or what strategies have worked for you. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

I run a small company that makes specialized ergonomic equipment for developers. Lately, I’ve noticed we’re getting mentioned more and more on Reddit, but it’s all over the place - scattered across about 10 different subs from coding to battlestations.

The problem is, whenever someone has a technical question or a minor issue with a setup, they post it in these general communities. By the time I find the thread, it’s already filled with random guesses or flat-out misinformation from people who don’t even own our gear.

I’m seriously debating whether to launch our own dedicated subreddit. I love the idea of having one "official" spot where I can control the narrative, post updates, and handle support publicly. But I’m terrified it’ll just become a "ghost town" or, even worse, a place where only the complainers hang out while the happy customers stay in the big subs.

On the other hand, playing "whack-a-mole" in giant subreddits is starting to feel like a full-time job. I feel like an intruder in other people's communities every time I try to correct a fact about our products.

Has anyone here successfully built a brand-specific sub that actually added value? Or are you better off just staying where the "noise" is and trying to manage it there?

Hey,

If you are a digital marketing or web agency founder, would love to have you on my podcast.

My podcast is all about agency growth, digital marketing, website and similar things.

Regards.

Put your hand up if your team already has too many dashboards. GA4, CRM, email platform, ads, social listening, heatmaps, LinkedIn analytics... collecting the data is only the start of the problem. the MAIN problem is that none of these dashboards talks to each other, and half the team is interpreting the same numbers differently.

 AI can help here  but only if the data is actually clean and you know what you're trying to figure out.

 asking 'why did traffic drop' is a bad question. asking 'which specific audience segment moved closer to buying last month and why' is a much better one. the dream is a system that looks at all your signals and surfaces the 3 decisions that actually need to get made this week.

 would you trust AI to summarize your marketing performance and tell you what to do next? or does that still feel like a stretch?

hello guys, I am working as an SEO for a new site and the client want the projection for the SEO KPIs. Its a SaaS based project, where we will be doing 30 blog posts per months targeting long tail and low KD keywords. Also, we will be doing outreach campaigns for backlink opportunities. However, i dont have a clear idea on the projection of SEO KPIs like impression,cliks,and CTR after 3 months. how should i estimate that??

I have been trying to get started making a marketing agency and I don’t think I should have tried this for my first business.

I’m not really getting anywhere with it and I thought I was going to be able to find out how businesses market themselves and I would be able to get clients from these services.

I feel like now that I’m trying to get into it is over saturated and too many people especially young people like myself are trying to get into it for there first business when they have never really worked at a place to help market a business.

I also feel like the making websites part is over saturated because people can make them with so now and I know that it is smart to be able to u destined the code and to not have to rely on ai but a lot of people that don’t know how to code are still just going to use ai to get it done for them for cheap

Any thoughts should I switch things up or keep trying with this?

What do you guys use these days for reporting and managing tracking - home service contractor niche like plumbing?

STAPE IO? GTM or native Google Ads reporting? CallRail?

Does using STAPE IO mean your tracking with CRAIL and Google Ads is simpler to do?

Do you use it along with CRAIL?

What other tools? Zapier?

Thanks

AI is changing how marketers work, but I'm curious where it's making the biggest real-world impact.

For those using AI regularly:

• Which marketing tasks do you no longer do manually?
• What tools are you using?
• How much time does AI actually save you?
• Which tasks still require a human touch?
• Has AI improved your results, or just made you faster?

I'd love to hear what's been genuinely useful versus what still feels overhyped.