We talk about data all the freaking time. Why? Because Jeff likes it and Francis cries when he has to think about charts. 

But in this episode, we talk with Chuck Leddy, a lifelong creative who explains the importance of crafting a brand story. Because yes, a brand story CAN and DOES translate to revenue. 

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that puts privacy at the forefront of their business model. Seriously, you will get ZERO search customization, because you are anonymous. But is that what people want? Are searchers happy to give up their information in exchange for extremely customized results? 

It seems to be a mixed bag. People seem to want the customization, but NOT the tracking. But what we can say for sure is that DuckDuckGo is gaining market share. 

Tim Soulo, CMO and product advisor of Ahrefs, and industry-leading SEO tool, joined us for a discussion on searcher-intent, and SEO trends.

Tim explained how a simple modification to a high-value page brought their rankings from the bottom of page one to the top, effectively 5x-ing their traffic within days.

Tim also dropped a bombshell on us; Ahrefs is creating something BIG. We are talking game-changing BIG.

What happens when you have a deep dive into AI for an hour? You find out Jeff is a closet Taylor Swift fan (according to a chatbot) and Francis has real fear of a robotic Barbie. This all happens thanks to author James Vlahos joining the show who, coincidentally, wrote a book about AI called Talked to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think. That's right people, loopholes are real and they are spectacular. 

Eli Schwartz, former Direct of Growth and SEO at SurveyMonkey joined us to talk about all things SEO, search trends, and the value of surveys. 

It's been a while hasn't it? This is what happens when your two co-hosts end up taking vacation on opposite weeks. On this episode we welcome SEO and survey expert Eli Schwartz as a guest to take the boys through the finer points of enterprise SEO and surveys. And interestingly enough, the conversation may just reveal a recipe for how content could go viral (spoiler alert: it's weird stats). All this and random sounds from Colombia as Jeff was still there when this was recorded.

Nick Eubanks, CEO of the From the Future company joined us to talk about his article that blew up on SparkToro a month ago. In this article he did something crazy...

He opened his books to the world, breaking down his exact cost of doing business. Why does anyone care? Well, for starters, nobody has ever done it before, considering cost structures as "proprietary information." 

Most importantly, this level of transparency led to a great conversation about how to express to clients and prospects why digital marketing services are considered "expensive." The cost of creating quality content is fully built into the cost structure of high-quality agencies. And as we know, high-quality content is the ONLY content that performs on the web. 

In short, if you want results, you need to pay for them. 

Have you ever seen a 97-slide presentation and lived to tell the tale? Jeff and Francis have and now they know what the future of Digital Marketing is going to look like: a Flywheel. Can either of them explain what that is? That's questionable. 

The presentation is courtesy of Rand Fishkin, CEO/Founder of SparkToro who goes in detail about what the problems are with digital marketing today and what to do to change it. 

The entire podcast is dedicated to the presentation, along with wild veers off topic. You'll hear about how social media is faring (though you can probably guess) and how position zero is changing things. Enjoy as always. 

Below the Fold is completely unrelated to marketing and probably a waste of your time. But, sometimes banter about Chuck E. Cheese creating Frankenpizzas is way too hot to leave on the cutting room floor. 

Also, Jeff is traveling to Colombia, and we have no idea if he will ever be heard from again, so we figured we would get as much mileage out of our recordings a possible.

Times are a-changing. Francis and Jeff explore how the internet is evolving from Google potentially turning into a publisher to engagement on Facebook experiencing a downward trend. Where does this all lead to and are we in a Black Mirror episode? Or do we just need more digital and IRL friends? All joking aside, there are real changes in play that could affect digital marketing and upend the search industry. Regardless, the boys do find a silver lining, tying our future to a surprising industry that has a track record with making or breaking new technology. Go ahead and guess, but you likely already know...

94% of content created generates ZERO backlinks, and 1.3% of articles take 74% of all social social shares. Most content does not work, but why? Is it better to be "small data" rather than "big data"? DuckDuckGo addresses this question by collecting zero data about its users, and providing a high-privacy platform. 

Topic 1: DuckDuckGo

Inspired by this article: https://www.popsci.com/google-duckduckgo-bing-comparison

Topic 2: Why Most content doesn't work

Inspired by this report by Brian Dean and BuzzSumo: https://backlinko.com/content-study

Topic 3: Do marketing agencies practice what they preach?