Hello Reader Your team just spent two weeks building an outbound sequence that generated four replies, two of which were out-of-office messages. If you’re experiencing this scenario then it will come as no surprise that reply rates on B2B email have dropped from 7% to 3.43%, according to Instantly’s 2026 Benchmark Report. At the same time, an estimated 376 billion emails are sent every day, a number expected to climb past 408 billion by 2027. With the math working against you, what are you...
7 days ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader A few weeks ago I was building a Claude workflow to update a product page and I went looking for real opinions on Reddit. I searched three subreddits, found 14 threads and read every reply. People were naming competitors, describing specific frustrations, features they loved and using words and phrases I could use in my copy. It was the most useful 45 minutes of research I’d done in months. Then I asked ChatGPT to recommend a vendor in that category. Two of the threads I’d just...
14 days ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader When Jodie Woodworth found her team down a product marketing manager (PMM) in early 2026, her Brand President said no current backfill until Q4. She had a full PMM workload, a five-person team already at capacity, and no clear answer for how any of it was going to get done. Jodie is Head of Marketing at a 200-person Fortune 500 subsidiary a lean team operating with relative independence inside a 20,000-person parent company. She has access to pre-approved tools only, no API...
21 days ago • 7 min read
Hello Reader I run a lot of AI workshops with marketing teams. When I ask who’s using AI tools, every hand goes up. When I ask who has a coordinated team effort behind it, most of the hands come down. A lot of teams are moving to Claude right now, or switching over to take advantage of its model capabilities and connected tools. Buying the license is the easy part. What most teams skip is the setup and coordination that makes the license worth paying for. Without a shared foundation, you get...
28 days ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader Half of all marketing teams are still using AI the way they were two years ago. They open ChatGPT, paste a brief, spend 45 minutes massaging the output, publish it and move on to the next one. The Averi AI 2026 benchmarks report says 50% of content teams sit at what the report calls Level 1—ad hoc usage, with no architecture or system behind supporting it. Only 5% have reached Level 4, where AI agents create, publish and iterate with human oversight at the strategy level. I...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader You're reviewing a campaign brief. It's well-written, covers all the bases and landed in your inbox without anyone sending you a draft to review first. Halfway through, you realize you don't know how it was made, who shaped the thinking in it, or who you'd call if the campaign went sideways. The brief looks finished but you have no idea who’s accountable for the work. If your team is using AI tools and agents, you're probably seeing this more than you care to admit. Moving from...
about 1 month ago • 8 min read
Hello Reader I spent yesterday at the Phocuswright AI Marketing Summit in New York City and during my session, I asked the room to raise their hands if they had an agentic AI program in the field. About half the hands went up. Then I asked how many were seeing real success with it. One hand stayed up. Adoption is widespread. Results are rare. And while teams are still working out what produces outcomes, the platforms are accelerating without them. Microsoft shipped a new version of Copilot....
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Hello Reader A single growth marketer at Anthropic handled paid search, social, email and SEO for 10 months using Claude Code. The company is now valued at $380 billion. Of course, the story went viral and every marketing leader I’ve talked to since has the same two reactions: That’s incredible and what does this mean for my team? This week I’m sharing what I’m hearing from CMOs across my network and what it means if you’re running marketing at an established company with real customers and...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader There’s a dynamic I hear from marketing leaders right now, and it usually sounds like this. “My CEO keeps pushing us to drive results with AI, but when I put together a proposal, with budget, headcount, and a timeline, I struggle to get it approved.” If that feels familiar, you’re not alone, and the problem isn’t your proposal. It’s that most AI programs get stuck in what I call pilot purgatory: lots of small experiments, zero coordinated investment, and a CEO who’s enthusiastic...
2 months ago • 7 min read