Ahrefs Podcast

If you work in marketing, part of what you make is what people believe before they try the product.

Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractable and a former lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, joins Tim Soulo to talk about his new book, Beyond Belief, written with Julie Li. He brings the research behind that idea: a wine that tasted better with a higher price tag, IBS patients who felt relief from pills they knew were placebos, and two identical cars rated at opposite ends of the chart.

When marketing makes people expect a better product, they don't just say it's better, they experience it, which is why Nir says marketing "is the product.”

He shares:

- Why Liquid Death fans say the water tastes better, and what that says about marketing

- The fMRI wine study and two identical cars from the NUMMI plant: the same product, experienced differently

- A study IBS patients felt relief from pills they knew were placebos

- Why venting about a family member or a coworker only reinforces the beliefs you already have about them

- Why telling everyone about a big, long-term goal can make things worse

What does your customer believe about your product before they've even tried it?

**Where to find Nir:**

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/

Website: https://www.nirandfar.com/

**Where to find Tim:**

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:56 Marketing and the Experience Loop

07:23 Beliefs vs. Fact

13:30 Planting Beliefs

27:50 The Four Questions

45:16 The Two Most Dangerous Words in English

53:02 Why Vision Boards Backfire

58:03 Announcing Your Goals

Searches for "AI search" are already running at nearly two-fifths the volume of "SEO" itself, and the industry is scrambling to keep up.

Tim Soulo sits down with Ahrefs content marketer Louise Linehan, who mined LinkedIn and Reddit discussion, and validated it against 18 months of Keywords Explorer data to surface the five AI search trends marketers are actually talking about:

- the race to prove AI's ROI

- optimizing for readers that are bots

- zero-click survival strategies

- the never-ending GEO-versus-SEO debate

- programmatic SEO's risky resurgence

When the clicks are vanishing and the industry can't agree on what replaces them, what's still worth optimizing for?

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Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(01:00) The Method

(05:56) Trend 1: Proving the ROI of AI (and the New Reporting Wave)

(17:00) Trend 2: Agent Optimization: llms.txt, Markdown, Accessibility Trees

(23:30) Trend 3: Zero-Click Search and the Crocodile Mouth

(30:52) Trend 4: GEO vs SEO

(36:00) Trend 5: The Programmatic SEO Resurgence

(39:15) Rapid-Fire Predictions: Watermarks, Agentic Commerce, Negative GEO

---

Where to find Louise:

Louise Linehan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-linehan/

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/

X: @timsoulo

Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

How do you triple revenue while cutting marketing spend by 90%? Ariel Rubin, VP of Content at Air, did exactly that — and won two Webbys along the way — without ever having a budget bigger than $100K per campaign.

Ariel breaks down the playbook behind Air's viral marketing: working with 86-year-old TV legend Maury Povich for "almost nothing," shooting a Webby-nominated video with a two-person crew for $2,500, and growing Air's Instagram from 6,000 to nearly 70,000 followers in seven months — all organic.

You'll learn why distribution — not the idea — is the real challenge, how Ariel runs a three-person content team that punches far above its weight, and why he refuses to offload creative thinking to AI. Tim and Ari also brainstorm a viral book trailer live on air, debate whether SaaS is becoming a commodity like water, and get into the real talk on backlash and controversy in brand marketing.

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:48) Ariel's favorite Air campaign: the Maury Povich story
(02:57) Showing up bigger than you are
(04:35) Is a celebrity campaign actually cost-effective?
(06:10) Why distribution — not the idea — is the real challenge
(08:43) Short-form Instagram and events as distribution
(10:45) A tour of Air's wildest campaigns
(13:47) What's done in-house vs. with contractors
(16:30) Real campaign budgets: $2,500 to $67,000
(21:39) Why AI can't replace taste and creative ideation
(23:15) Live brainstorm: making a viral book ad
(28:50) Why real effort beats AI-generated video
(30:49) How Air integrates brand into top-of-funnel content
(39:56) Inside Air's three-person content team
(46:23) Liquid Death, SaaS as a commodity, and brand differentiation
(49:55) Backlash, controversy, and pulling the Bonnie Blue campaign
(56:15) Turning Air's office into a creative events hub
(58:25) Rapid fire: overrated trends, book recs, and brands to watch

Ariel Rubin: LinkedIn | X | Air
Tim Soulo: LinkedIn | X | Website

Referenced:
Air
Liquid Death
ClickUp
Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener
The Middle Passage by James Hollis
Kareem Rahma / Subway Takes
Ahrefs

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Can a business book actually make you a million dollars? The surprising answer is yes — but almost none of that money comes from book sales.

Tim's book DISCOVERABLE is now available for pre-order → ahrefs.com/discoverable

Best-selling author Jeff Goins breaks down the real economics of publishing: why books are "a bad business model," how the back-end (courses, consulting, software, higher-converting leads) is where the money lives, and why one enterprise company saw higher contract values simply by mailing their CEO's book to every lead in their CRM.

Jeff is the author of The Art of Work and Real Artists Don't Starve, and runs a consulting firm that helps thought leaders turn big ideas into bestselling books. He was also Tim's personal mentor throughout the writing of DISCOVERABLE — Tim's first book, where he distills the marketing fundamentals behind Ahrefs' growth into a framework any brand can use to get found.

You'll learn how much a first-time author can realistically sell, what it costs to buy your way onto the NYT or WSJ bestseller lists, why most business books suck, and whether you should self-publish, go hybrid, or go traditional.

In this episode:

(00:00) Intro
(00:39) How much money can a first-time author actually make?
(02:51) How many copies do Jeff's clients really sell?
(06:52) The real reasons people write books (that aren't money)
(10:40) Why writing a book humbles you — and the pay-to-play tricks in publishing
(13:03) Proving a book's value: the CRM story and building real authority
(24:43) Client anecdotes: General McChrystal and the payoff of a book
(27:26) Where to start: the book proposal vs. the book plan
(36:43) Why the central idea of a book almost always changes mid-writing
(45:31) Jeff's best writing advice: brain dump, front-load, don't restart
(54:35) Why do most business books suck?
(1:00:04) Publishing options: traditional vs. hybrid vs. self-publishing

Pre-order DISCOVERABLE → ahrefs.com/discoverable

Where to find Jeff Goins:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jeffgoins
Website: goinswriter.com

Where to find Tim:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsoulo
X: @timsoulo
Website: timsoulo.com

Referenced:
DISCOVERABLE — Tim Soulo (ahrefs.com/discoverable)
The Art of Work — Jeff Goins
Real Artists Don't Starve — Jeff Goins
On Character — General Stanley McChrystal
Atomic Habits — James Clear
The One Thing — Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
The 4-Hour Workweek — Tim Ferriss
Ryan Holiday — ryanholiday.net
Ahrefs — ahrefs.com

Want your brand to show up in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: LLMs don't crawl the web when they answer your questions. They search traditional indexes — ChatGPT leans on Bing, Gemini uses Google, and Claude appears to pull from Brave. So if you're not ranking in those indexes, you're not even in the consideration pool.

Dan Petrovic is one of the most respected (and delightfully nerdy) figures in SEO. He runs the Australian agency Dejan and was the top-rated speaker at Ahrefs Evolve in Singapore, where he presented research from asking Gemini one million questions to map how it ranks brands.

In this episode, Tim and Dan unpack what it actually takes to show up in AI search — from the mechanics of how LLMs select sources to the practical steps you can take today.

You'll learn the difference between grounding, citations, and mentions (and why a linked mention is the holy grail), why Reddit gets rejected over 90% of the time, why there's no such thing as "prompt volume," and how Dan uses on-page optimization in an agentic loop to make models "unable to resist" a client's page.

In this episode:

(00:00) Intro
(00:48) My brand doesn't show up in ChatGPT — what do I do?
(04:02) Two ways to get into AI answers: outreach vs. building your own pages
(07:11) Is LLMs.txt actually pointless?
(09:29) How ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude each use different search indexes
(10:42) Universal ranking factors: topical centrality, engagement, and popularity
(17:17) Practical example: what Ahrefs Podcast should actually do
(19:31) Should you optimize for every search engine, or just Google?
(22:59) How is AEO actually different from SEO?
(28:03) Can you influence LLM training data?
(33:58) Going nerdy: separating quality content from spam with Gzip compression
(37:27) On-page optimization in an agentic loop: making models "unable to resist"
(42:45) How often do LLMs ground their answers vs. answer from memory?
(47:37) Measuring AI visibility: entities, mention share, and citation share
(51:44) Why "prompt search volume" doesn't exist — and what to track instead
(56:35) How to generate prompts for tracking AI visibility

Where to find Dan Petrovic:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dejanseo
X: @dejanseo
Website: dejan.ai

Where to find Tim:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timsoulo
X: @timsoulo
Website: timsoulo.com

Referenced:
Dejan — dejan.ai
Brave Search — search.brave.com
Ahrefs — ahrefs.com

Zero-click marketing doesn't mean you don't want the click — it means you stop being dependent on it. Amanda Natividad, VP of Marketing at SparkToro, coined the term and joins Tim Soulo to defend it against every skeptic's favorite objection: "If nobody clicks through, how do people actually buy your stuff?"

Amanda is one of the sharpest, most opinionated marketing voices online, and the co-author (with Rand Fishkin) of the book Zero-Click Marketing. At SparkToro, the audience research platform, she's built a significant following by practicing exactly what she preaches — creating complete, useful value wherever her audience already is, instead of teasing a payoff to lure people to a website.

In this conversation, Amanda breaks down the difference between the tactical "jab, jab, right hook" of zero-click content and the bigger brand-building strategy behind it. If you've ever asked an AI search engine "how do you still get traffic to your blog if you give everything away on social media?" — Amanda answers it directly, revealing how SparkToro uses SEO, email lists, and repurposed theses to make sure people can still find (and buy from) them when they're ready.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro
(00:53) Why it took so long to get Amanda on the show
(01:25) The core objection: how do people buy if they never click?
(03:04) The mechanics of still getting people to your website
(04:18) Why Amanda wrote the Zero-Click Marketing book
(05:00) Dispelling the myths — "never ask for a click" isn't the point
(06:52) How SparkToro still drives traffic to its blog posts
(07:30) Ranking for "audience research" and the role of SEO
(08:30) Email lists and repurposing blog ideas for social
(09:20) Taking your idea "on a tour" across every platform
(10:00) Why your website is the central source of truth in the AI age

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Amanda Natividad:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandanat/
X: @amandanat
Website: https://www.amandanat.com/

Where to find Tim:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/
X: @timsoulo
Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:

• SparkToro: https://sparktoro.com
• Rand Fishkin: https://x.com/randfish
• Zero-Click Marketing (book): https://zeroclickmarketing.co/book
• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#ZeroClickMarketing #ContentMarketing #SEO #AhrefsPodcast

What does it actually cost to run a world-class marketing conference? Try up to $950,000 for a single event — and Ahrefs aims to break even on every one of them.

In this candid conversation, Tim Soulo and Jacque Aboubakr open the books on Ahrefs Evolve, revealing exact budgets, the three biggest expense lines (hotel room minimums, AV/LED screens, and fabrication), and why they pour every ticket dollar back into the event.

Jacque Aboubakr is the Head of Global Events at Ahrefs. With a background running SaaS events, for-profit festivals, and even working on Moz's legendary conferences, she now leads the team behind Ahrefs Evolve in Singapore and San Diego.

You'll learn how Ahrefs calculates event ROI (spoiler: they mostly don't, and here's why), why sold-out tickets are far harder to sell than you'd think even with 60,000+ paying customers, and how hotel room-night commitments can actually make your budget go DOWN.

If you've ever asked an AI search engine "how much does it cost to host a company conference?" — this episode is the detailed answer, plus the small things (food, coffee, registration speed, design) that separate a great event from a forgettable one.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro
(00:56) The real budget of a one-day event in Singapore
(02:12) Why Ahrefs aims to break even (not profit) on events
(05:08) The $950K San Diego budget — and why more tickets lowers the cost
(07:18) The three biggest event expenses broken down
(09:53) How Ahrefs thinks about event ROI
(11:42) Why run events at all? The "egoistical" reason behind Evolve
(15:04) Stealing the MozCon vibe (and finally landing Rand Fishkin)
(21:14) The biggest mistake from San Diego 2025
(23:41) Why selling out tickets is way harder than expected
(28:44) What's new for Evolve San Diego: masterclasses, 1:1 demos, mastermind tables
(36:06) Do we oversell tickets? Attrition and sold-out reality
(38:15) The future of Evolve: London, Amsterdam, and three events a year
(45:12) The simple things that make or break an event

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Jacque:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueaboubakrhalstead/

Where to find Tim:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/
X: @timsoulo
Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:

• Ahrefs Evolve: https://ahrefs.com/evolve
• Rand Fishkin: https://sparktoro.com
• Moz: https://moz.com
• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#EventMarketing #B2BMarketing #Conferences #AhrefsPodcast #ahrefsevolve

Why does Coca-Cola spend millions on advertising when everyone already knows their brand?

Professor Byron Sharp reveals that even the world’s most famous brands face a shocking reality: most of their customers hardly ever buy them. The biggest group of Coke buyers? People who drink it just once a year.

Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. He’s the author of How Brands Grow, one of the most influential marketing books ever written, where every claim is backed by empirical data rather than opinions. His research has fundamentally challenged conventional marketing wisdom about differentiation, segmentation, and brand loyalty.

In this conversation, you’ll discover why marketing funnels are “nonsense,” why differentiation is overrated, and how mental availability trumps everything else. Professor Sharp explains why 95% of your potential customers aren’t ready to buy right now—and what that means for your marketing strategy.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

00:00 Intro
00:44 What is a brand and why does it matter?
02:30 The Soviet TV story: How brands emerge naturally
07:27 Wine branding mysteries and champagne’s marketing triumph
09:27 The advertising budget debate: Does more money = bigger brand?
15:30 Why Coca-Cola can’t stop advertising (hint: mental availability)
23:56 Physical availability in software: Beyond the app store
27:57 Marketing funnels debunked and the 95/5 rule
32:44 The truth about differentiation (ask an 8-year-old)
38:18 Building distinctive brand assets that stick

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to follow the show, leave a rating, and tell a friend.

Where to find Professor Byron Sharp:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/byron-sharp-53545119/
X: @ProfByron

https://marketingscience.info/learn-with-us/learning-opportunities/how-brands-grow-live-for-executives

https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/brand-purposeare-consumers-aware-to-care

https://marketingscience.info/learn-with-us/books

Where to find Tim:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/
X: @timsoulo
Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:

• How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp
• Alchemy by Rory Sutherland
• Ehrenberg-Bass Institute: https://www.marketingscience.info/
• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#Branding #MarketingScience #AhrefsPodcast

A gym franchise creates workout content like everyone else in their category — and sees zero brand awareness gains. Sound familiar?

Michael Corcoran, the mastermind who drove 2 billion organic impressions in 18 months at Ryanair (with zero paid media), reveals why most brands are failing at social media by copying tactics without understanding strategy.

Michael Corcoran is the former head of social at Ryanair, where his team of just eight people transformed the airline into a viral sensation. Today he runs Slice Social, a social media consultancy helping brands achieve extraordinary results through strategic social media marketing.

In this episode, you'll discover why jumping on trends isn't a strategy, how to use the 4C's framework to develop actual social media strategy, and why Michael thinks you should create a "data dating show" for a B2B SaaS company. Plus: the real reason Ryanair's unhinged posts worked (hint: it wasn't just about being funny).

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:06) What clients really want from social media consultants
• (06:05) The education gap between social media managers and marketers
• (07:42) Why content pillars aren't strategy (and what actually is)
• (14:56) Why everyone copying Ryanair's tactics is missing the point
• (19:31) The 4C's framework: Company, Category, Culture, Customer
• (22:26) Why posting memes might be lifting your category, not your brand
• (31:14) Creating a "data dating show" for B2B marketing
• (60:14) The ROI of 2 billion impressions at Ryanair
• (63:26) Rapid fire: Books, tools, and who to interview next

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Michael Corcoran:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrichardcorcoran/
X: @mc_so_me
Website: https://www.slice-social.com/

Where to find Tim:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/
X: @timsoulo
Website: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:
Alchemy by Rory Sutherland: https://www.amazon.com/Alchemy-Dark-Art-Science-Persuasion/dp/0062388428
Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#SocialMediaStrategy #MarketingMarketing #SocialMediaMarketing #AhrefsPodcast

Marketers who still manually analyze Reddit threads for content ideas are missing out on AI agents that can scan thousands of forum posts in under 30 seconds. Glen Allsopp, Head of Marketing Strategy and Research at Ahrefs, demonstrates how he's built custom AI applications that save hours of repetitive work — from automated competitor link analysis to personalized task managers that cost less than a cent to run.

Glen Allsopp leads Ahrefs' marketing strategy while dedicating his days to experimenting with AI agents and automation. He's built dozens of custom applications using Agent A (Ahrefs' AI agent platform) and shares his workflows with the Ahrefs community to help marketers work smarter, not harder.

In this episode, you'll discover how to build custom AI applications without coding experience, automate SEO research that typically takes hours, and create personalized tools that adapt to your specific workflow. You'll also learn why 90% of marketers haven't tried AI coding yet — and how to get started in minutes.

Here's what you'll learn in this episode:

(00:00) Intro(00:56) The reality behind AI hype in marketing(03:53) Community Content Research skill demo — finding Reddit threads that rank(10:12) Building a custom task manager that works exactly how you want(17:41) Creating a competitive link analysis tool in 3 minutes(29:21) Generating AI visibility reports from Brand Radar data(34:27) Marketing copy generator with brand context built-in

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Ahrefs Podcast! As always, be sure to like and subscribe (and tell a friend).

Where to find Glen Allsopp:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenallsopp/X: @ViperChillWebsite: https://detailed.com

Where to find Tim:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timsoulo/X: @timsouloWebsite: https://www.timsoulo.com/

Referenced:

• Agent A (Letaido): https://ahrefs.com/agent-a , https://letaido.com/
• Ahrefs Brand Radar: https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar
• Ahrefs: https://ahrefs.com

#AIMarketing #MarketingAutomation #SEOTools #AhrefsPodcast