Most marketing teams are still trying to choose sides: brand or performance, creativity or data, vibes or dashboards.

That’s adorable. And wildly inefficient.

On this episode of Cover Brand, I sit down with Casey Hill of Do What Works to unpack how demand actually gets created, why SEO is still misunderstood, and how A/B testing at massive scale reveals what marketers think works versus what actually does.

We dig into why common forms of social proof often backfire, how attribution models oversimplify human behavior, and why buyers don’t experience marketing in funnels—they experience it like real people with context, memory, and skepticism.

This is a shop-talk episode for anyone who’s tired of chasing short-term wins that quietly erode long-term growth.

Main Topics

• Why brand and performance aren’t opposites (they’re roommates)
• How DoWhatWorks analyzes thousands of real A/B tests across major brands
• What SEO really does (and doesn’t do) for demand creation
• Why common social proof elements (logo bars, star ratings, badges) often lose tests
• The danger of cheap signals vs. costly, credible proof
• Attribution models vs. how humans actually decide
• Why removing “best practices” sometimes improves conversion
• How personalization and relevance beat generic “impressive” branding

Examples & Case Studies Discussed

• Jotform — removing third-party review badges improved performance
• Dropbox — logo bars tested and removed despite “impressive” clients
• Clay — logo bars linked to detailed case studies performed better
• Spotify — full homepage rebrand testing
• Sage — industry- and company-size-based homepage personalization
• Hotels.com — experimentation and trust signal optimization
• At-scale testing references: Nike, Disney, Netflix, NFL, MLB

Resources & References

• DoWhatWorks (Casey’s company & testing platform): https://www.dowhatworks.io
• DoWhatWorks Insights & Research: https://www.dowhatworks.io/blog
• DoWhatWorks Newsletter (Substack): https://dowhatworks.substack.com
• Casey Hill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyhill
• Wayback Machine (Web Archive) — historical website versions: https://web.archive.org
• Review & Social Proof Platforms Referenced:
• G2 — https://www.g2.com
• Capterra — https://www.capterra.com
• Trustpilot — https://www.trustpilot.com
• Book Referenced: Influence by Robert Cialdini
• Cover Brand Spotify Playlist (cover songs mentioned on the show): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6h4QzTqrtn9DIAPvdn1iCI?si=tr1zrnnBSaqif-xmEIpaZQ

Who This Episode Is For

• Founders wondering why growth stalls the second spend slows
• Marketers stuck between “brand people” and “performance people”
• SEO leaders tired of being treated like technical support
• Anyone suspicious that “best practices” are mostly just habits with good PR

Final Takeaway

You don’t optimize your way into being remembered.

You build memory—and then performance finally has something to stand on.

Castmagic and Descript used to create drafts and then edited with human eyes, ears and hands. Produced by BiCurean.com

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