Market Proof Marketing

Kevin is joined by Beth and Julie for a post-Summit debrief that unpacks what landed the hardest in Austin, from the difference between accountability and pressure to why your dashboard might be gaslighting every other team at your company.

They also cover fresh AI tools worth exploring and the latest Google updates on spam content and location asset requirements. Plus, they talk about Caroline’s “generational translator” moment that turned an AI skeptic into a believer!

• ResiDay 2026 – November 6, 2026 – New York City – Hosted by Lance Lambert and ResiClub, Kevin’s final speaking event of the year.

• Julie: The magic happens when the right people are in the room
• Beth: Confidence comes from curiosity
• Kevin: AI is a translator

• Google Search Spam Updates Use AI To Find AI Spam & More
• Google location asset requirements: What you need to know

In this solo episode, Kevin takes listeners inside two of the Online Sales and Marketing Summit’s keynotes. He first breaks down Britney Muller's presentation, where she challenged builders to rethink how they're actually using AI day-to-day, and where most are getting it wrong.

Kevin then dives into Rand Fishkin's presentation, where Rand made the case that the traditional funnel marketers have relied on for the past 25 years is officially dead, and the path forward looks very different. Kevin adds important nuance for the homebuilding industry, gently pushes back on a few points, and reframes what marketers should actually be optimizing for in a zero-click world.

• 2027 Online Sales & Marketing Summit - San Antonio, TX - September 30-October 1- Join the VIP list and be the first to know when tickets are available for next year’s Summit!

Kevin is joined by Julie and Jackie to talk about AI tools we’d love to have in our personal lives, why buyer timetables never match the ones we build for them, and what a home builder could actually do with an extra $10 million.

They also dive into Meta's new AI agent, Google's "Dive Deeper" experiment, Pinterest's visual search ad play, and how a football club grew its audience by posting less.

• Julie: Buyers don't follow your timetable
• Jackie: Turn the music down
• Kevin: You can't buy demand

• Meta says its Muse AI agent can do things for you. I put it to the test.
• Google Discover Tests "Dive Deeper" Feature
• Pinterest Turns Visual Search Into a New Ad Opportunity
• How Inter Milan Grew Followers, Impressions, and Views While Posting Less

Jackie is joined by Beth and Caroline to talk about why AI can't solve problems you don't already understand and what happens when sales, marketing, and online sales finally sit in the same room!

They also discuss why purchased lists are the VHS tapes of lead gen, what a new app signals about the demand for authentic content, and how to move beyond "resort-style amenities" fluff to create content that answers real buyer questions.

• Caroline: Skip the AI restaurant picks
• Beth: Know the problem before you prompt
• Jackie: Talk first, diagnose second

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 

• Purchased Lists? Just Say No
• No AI, No Uploads, No Ads: Divine's CEO Says Friction Could Save Social Media
• Beyond Content Parity: Building A Validated Content Workflow For AI Search

Julie is joined by Jackie and Karla Tuten, Head of Creative here at DYC, to talk about what happens when builders hand the phones over to AI, how to actually measure brand consistency, and the topic that will lead to the most honest conversation you have with leadership this fall.

They also dig into Instagram's polarizing logo refresh, the growing uncertainty of what AI pulls about your brand during search, and the AI marketing campaigns that landed (as well as the ones that fell off the trust cliff).

• Jackie: The real cost of an AI-first strategy
• Karla: Brand consistency = brand improvement
• Julie: Creating a “wishlist budget”

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026

• Instagram Head of Product Design Explains Thinking Behind That New Logo and Responds to Critics: ‘It’s Important for Us to Embrace the Future’
• Your Biggest AI Search Risk Is Conflicting Information About Your Brand
• 10 of the Best & Worst AI Campaigns

Kevin is joined by Julie and Beth to talk about the messy new relationship marketers are building with AI reporting tools, why your favorite pair of jeans holds the secret to better content strategy, and the uncomfortable truth that most "urgency problems" are really sales process problems.

They also get into why weekly (or - gasp - DAILY?!) reporting cadences can break marketing & operations, the danger of outsourcing customer context to a summary line, and how personalization at scale doesn't mean more automation. 

• Beth: It’s ok to show the same pair of jeans
• Jackie: AI still needs a human eye
• Kevin: Business decisions come first

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026

• Google: There Is Nothing Special To Do For Generative AI Responses In Search
• Personalize or Perish: What 2025 Taught Us About Online Sales
• Google confirms deploying goto URL redirects to search results links

Kevin is joined by Jackie and Beth to talk about why "best practice" isn't a dirty word, why doing 95% of the process still counts as doing it wrong, and why the resurrection of a two-year-old blog series says everything about the state of marketing right now.

They also unpack HubSpot's new AI visibility tool, YouTube's change to how views are counted, OpenAI apparently pulling back from Reddit, and why comparing today's market to 2008 might be the better perspective for your team to use. Plus: purchased contact lists, LinkedIn AI slop conspiracy theories, and a reminder that squirreling away still works.

• Beth: "Attribution is BS" rises from the dead
• Jackie: A decade of 20% effort, finally run at 100%
• Kevin: Why buying a contact list isn't necessary in 2026

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 - Join the waitlist to be the first to know if tickets become available.

• What Home Builders Should Know About HubSpot's New AI Visibility Tool
• YouTube Is Making a Major Change to How Long-Form Video Views Are Counted
• OpenAI Seems to Be Backing Away From Reddit as Reddit Adds More AI
• 3 Alarming Predictions With the Housing Market on Pace for Its Worst Year Since 2011

Britney Muller, founder of Orange Labs and former senior SEO scientist at Moz, joins Kevin for a wide-ranging conversation on AI literacy, debunking the idea of LLMs as all-knowing oracles, calling out "complexity as competence" among self-styled AI experts, and explaining why foundational SEO and brand mentions matter more than ever in an evolving AI-supported search landscape.

AI literacy over better prompting: Many assume better prompting alone can fix AI's blind spots, but the deeper issue is a lack of AI literacy. Understanding how these systems are trained and retrieve information, without needing deep technical expertise, builds a stronger mental model of what AI is and isn't qualified to help with.

"Complexity as competence" is a red flag: Britney coins this term for self-proclaimed AI experts who use technical jargon to project authority on AI search, even though no one has actually reverse-engineered how AI search ranking works, and warns how this can mislead stakeholders.

Bias is structural: Because the internet overrepresents Western, high-frequency content, AI models magnify existing societal biases (illustrated by the Starbucks South Korea campaign controversy). 

What questions do you have for Britney when she joins us at the Summit in Austin?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/britneymuller/

https://www.niwrc.org/mmiwr-awareness

Kevin is joined by Julie and Caroline, and it starts with a question no marketer wants to answer on the record: have you ever broken the law for marketing? The confessions come quickly (and anonymously, if you'd like to submit your own).

The team also digs into why late-summer budget conversations shouldn't feel panicked, why reallocating spend usually beats adding to it, and how a $5 cost-per-click on a niche banner ad is nearly always a red flag.

• Julie: Have you ever broken the law for marketing?
• Caroline: Reallocate before you spend more
• Kevin: Holy AI

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – 95% sold out! 

• Claude’s new Scarlet Letter watermark is invisible—for now
• Google confirms testing new buttons on home page to drive users to AI-powered search features
• The Chart Isn't The Patient 

Ryan Hillgartner, Director of Sales and Marketing at Tim O'Brien Homes, joins the podcast to discuss his nearly 10-year journey with the high-performance home builder and how the company has built consistent sales success through disciplined pricing, strong sales training, and a growing data and analytics function. 

The conversation explores why Tim O'Brien avoids incentive-driven sales tactics, invests in integrated tech platforms, and treats each community's performance individually rather than chasing company-wide fixes. 

Tim O'Brien Homes has kept stable, strong sales performance (20%+ appointment close rates) for years without dramatically increasing marketing spend or traffic, showing that alignment between value and sales process matters more than volume.

From adopting HighArc early to building an internal data and analytics team that integrates other systems, Tim O'Brien has invested in connected data infrastructure well ahead of many builders their size.

Ryan's leadership philosophy centers on supporting experienced sales managers rather than imposing change for change's sake, built on a track record of hitting sales goals.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhillgartner/