Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric opens with Bryan Johnson's team telling creators to forget the content calendar and iterate, and how he now rewrites and reposts flopped posts by voice on the walk to the gym. Neil's newest test asks viewers to comment for a free audit, and the pairing metric he wants on every social hire is leads, not views. Then enterprise specifics: a three-year contract that grew out of work in one region, why only two to three percent of NP Digital's enterprise revenue traces back to Neil's personal brand, and how ten-person search agencies quietly decide the biggest marketing contracts. Eric opens his Leveling Up channel to show the wide-TAM experiment, 8.9 million views on one short and interviews that got praise from entrepreneurs' spouses but no leads, before Neil explains the acquisition lesson that grows a bought agency's EBITDA 40 to 60 percent in a year and why he follows up with everyone. A grounded episode on measuring what actually pays.

Key takeaways
◾Pair views with leads for every social hire, or the team optimises for likes
◾Wide-TAM content brings views and comments, not enterprise leads
◾Buy the specialist that big brands already call; the follow-up is where the deals are

Chapters
00:00 F your content calendar
01:36 Comment-to-lead: the 37-places reel
03:34 Every metric needs a pairing metric
04:17 NP Digital vs NP Accel: where SMB leads go
04:53 A format library your agent keeps fresh
06:09 A 3-year contract from one region's work
07:56 Stop creating content for 90 days?
08:22 6% of enterprise leads come from Neil's brand
08:58 70% of SMB leads, 50% of SMB revenue
10:17 Procurement, RFPs and the search agencies
11:56 Dan Martell's formats and wider TAM
12:52 Seminars and ascension funnels
13:34 Eric's wide-TAM experiment on Leveling Up
15:17 The shorts: 3.9M, 2.7M, 2.1M views
17:02 Why Eric stopped: no leads
17:37 Distribution beats content when you have leverage
18:44 The acquisition lesson: 40-60% EBITDA growth
21:21 The fortune is in the follow-up
22:07 'How are things going?' scheduled for March 2027

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric and Neil open on Meta Muse, Meta's new autonomous agent, and Neil explains why he trusts Meta with it more than OpenAI or Anthropic: Meta has held everyone's data for years and people already live inside its products. Eric shows what his own Muse did in minutes, pulling Ryan Deiss's best Instagram formats and rewriting them for his channel, and argues that formats are now the job. Then the real debate: Neil says almost all of their content is still too broad, that specific content for a specific buyer drives revenue even at a fifth of the views, and that a room of enterprise marketers in Ecuador proved it when two or three percent knew he ran an agency. They land on a secondary hook, one line that says who you are and what your company does, placed wherever it sounds natural. A practical episode on trust, formats and making your content pay.

Key takeaways
◾Trust decides which AI agents win, and Meta starts with more of it than the labs
◾Let an agent keep your format library fresh so you can just record
◾Specific content converts; add a one-line credibility hook so buyers know who you are

Chapters
00:00 Meta Muse: Meta's autonomous agent
00:34 Why Neil trusts Meta more than OpenAI
02:35 Eric, the GrokBot team and Ryan Deiss
03:49 Ryan's Instagram: niche or broad?
05:46 Tier lists and reactions: the formats that work
06:49 Eric's Muse rewrites Ryan's formats
08:01 Neil: all three of us are still too broad
09:50 Danger gets views: Nick Shirley
10:47 A 100K-view video can be a great video
11:44 Ecuador: 3% of the room knew Neil had an agency
13:25 Accenture, TAM and who you're really selling to
15:22 The secondary hook: say who you are
16:50 Where the mention goes: wherever it's natural
17:27 Test it: from 3% to 10% in a year

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

It took 64 clicks to buy a Tesla online, 30 of them signing loan documents. Eric explains the five-step algorithm from the book of the same name (question, delete, simplify, speed up, automate) and how it 20x'd Tesla's website sales. Then the data: AI-generated ads are beating human creative on completion rate (92% vs 90% on connected TV), Shopify's Q2 shows $116 billion in GMV and a platform built for AI agents, and Neil's case that SEO and GEO are merging into one thing, brand. Eric on the new agents he is testing, Instinct and Meta Muse, and the week's grand finale: Rohan Nayak's post on how Pocket FM went from zero to $500 million in ARR with an AI ad machine that makes 17,500 ads a month.

Key takeaways
◾Question, delete, simplify, speed up, then automate; most people automate first and fail
◾SEO or GEO, the long game is brand; you have to show up everywhere
◾A 2% to 2.25% CTR lift cut Pocket FM's CAC by 30%; build the ad machine around that insight

Chapters
00:00 Tesla 20x'd website sales: 64 clicks to 3
01:35 Buying a car on a website
02:55 AI ads beat human creative on completion
04:19 Shopify Q2: $116B GMV and AI commerce
05:38 SEO and GEO are merging into brand
08:04 Search everywhere optimization, again
10:49 A SaaS company diversifying off SEO
11:46 Instinct and Meta Muse agents
14:15 Pocket FM: $0 to $500M ARR with 17,500 ads a month
17:11 Build your own ad machine

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric and Neil open up their own marketing week. Eric's $250 test assignment that turned into a $2,000 quote, the GrokBots he built in his free time (a call bot that phoned a spa and confirmed a booking, a haggle bot renegotiating every software bill, and a speed-to-lead bot that calls every form fill within 60 seconds), and the 2x2 he uses to decide which agency work becomes a reusable workflow and which gets killed. Neil on speed to learning, why wins on one channel take too long to reach the rest of the company, and how he finds agencies that stopped growing and buys the ones losing deals only because they are too small. Then the social tests: Neil's new screen-share format and LinkedIn engagement scraping, Eric's comment-to-DM flow with Lead Shark and Goji Berry, and the YouTube video that was edited entirely by AI.

Key takeaways
◾Every lead gets a call within 60 seconds; a bot can do it and sound good
◾Speed to learning is the bottleneck: move a win from one channel to every channel fast
◾Reusable workflows beat custom premium work; build them, then hand them to the team

Chapters
00:00 Our marketing week: the $250 test that failed
02:42 The GrokBot that booked Eric's massage
04:17 Haggle bot and speed-to-lead in 60 seconds
05:18 Neil: speed to learning
07:46 Buying agencies that stopped growing
10:24 Eric's 2x2: reusable workflows
13:14 Neil's new screen-share format
15:40 Scraping your LinkedIn engagers
16:38 Comment-to-DM with Lead Shark and Goji Berry
18:21 YouTube: relevant views beat viral views
19:54 A fully AI-edited video
22:16 AI thumbnails that actually look like you

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Nike's market cap peaked at $280 billion in 2021 and has lost $223 billion since. Eric walks through Trung Phan's breakdown of how it happened: McKinsey advised Nike to eliminate its running, basketball and soccer categories, the marketing budget moved from brand advertising to programmatic retargeting, and hundreds of wholesale partners were cut for a direct-to-consumer bet that collapsed when shoppers went back to stores. Neil on why consultants who never ran a business should not be running yours, and why a kid asking for Nikes is what good brand advertising looks like. Then LeBron James' Polymarket partnership and why both hosts call it brand eroding, and the shirtless YouTuber Eric calls the Sam Sulek of e-commerce.

Key takeaways
◾Nike cut what worked (categories, brand ads, retail partners) for what was easier to measure
◾A brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room; retargeting does not build it
◾It takes decades to build a brand and five minutes to erode it

Chapters
00:00 Nike lost $223B: McKinsey killed the categories
01:32 Consultants who never ran a business
04:06 Locked in: adapt or die
04:34 Nike swapped brand ads for retargeting
06:36 Why kids wanted Nikes
07:59 Neil's Tesla
09:16 Nike burnt its wholesale partners
10:07 LeBron x Polymarket: a brand-eroding move
13:07 The Sam Sulek of e-commerce
15:22 What views actually matter

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive says agency owners are dishonest about how business is really going, and that most have been flat for three or four years. Eric reads the post and Neil agrees the downturn started around 2022 and is the longest he has seen, then explains why NP Digital kept growing anyway. Eric's take: the agencies dying are the ones still doing what they did five years ago, and tough markets are exactly when adaptable founders win the deals against the holding companies. The episode closes on the part of being a founder nobody talks about: watching the people you trained go on to build their own companies, why mindset separates the people who survive the downs, and why a business win feels the way it does.

Key takeaways
◾Be honest about how business is going; it keeps leads and opportunities flowing to you
◾The agencies in trouble are still running the 2021 playbook; adapt or die
◾You can't train mindset, and hard years are what build it

Chapters
00:00 Agency owners are lying about how business is going (Wil Reynolds)
01:41 Neil: why NP Digital is still growing
03:54 Eric: adapt or die, the invisible hammer
07:06 Flat for 4 years? You're doing the same thing
08:06 The burn-victim YouTuber: keep going
10:34 If you're going through hell, keep going
11:14 The best part of being a founder
12:44 Mindset: people can't handle the downs
13:48 The business high

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric asks Neil to finally explain digital PR and how it helps with AEO and SEO. Neil gets there via a Huawei phone with a screen on the back, how ByteDance ran AI inside Lark two years before the rest of us, where America really ranks in K-12 education (34th, per Google AI Mode), what China mandates instead, and the FOMO playbook behind Alpha School's marketing. Then the answer: digital PR is the new link building, you're optimizing for the mention, not the link, and you want your product included everywhere the models read. They close on the only marketing advantage that compounds: consistency.

Key takeaways
◾Digital PR is optimizing for the mention, not the link. That's what the models read
◾America ranks 34th in K-12; China mandates 9 years and tracks 40% into vocational paths
◾Consistency compounds. Grey-hat wins evaporate, and one channel is never enough

Chapters
00:00 What is digital PR, actually?
00:27 Huawei's phone with a screen on the back
01:07 ByteDance and Lark were doing this two years ago
02:43 America is 34th in K-12 (Google AI Mode)
05:36 Compulsory schooling: US vs China
06:14 Alpha School's FOMO marketing
10:28 Digital PR: optimize for the mention
15:15 Consistency compounds

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

New Ramp data says 80% of OpenAI and Anthropic's enterprise revenue comes from 1% of their customers, a concentration risk unseen in any other software category. Eric and Neil dig into what that means for the AI trade and for every company betting on it. Then Tomasz Tunguz's five-year writing data: AI didn't reduce his editing, it raised the quality floor, and the weakest posts gained twice as much as the strongest. Plus ICONIQ's headcount report (the 100%+ growers added 133% more headcount while the 50-100% band cut hiring almost in half), YC's product-market-fit data on user conversations, and a detour into foldable phones.

Key takeaways
◾1% of customers drive 80% of OpenAI and Anthropic's enterprise revenue. That's the risk
◾AI raises the floor of your work, it doesn't shrink the effort
◾10+ user conversations a week is the most predictive variable for finding PMF

Chapters
00:00 80% of AI revenue from 1% of customers (Ramp)
03:29 AI productivity raises the floor (Tunguz)
04:55 ICONIQ: who's still hiring in 2026
09:07 YC data: the one variable that predicts PMF
13:03 Foldable phones and the China gap

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric introduces the new AEO: Autonomous Engine Optimization, the AI harness Nick Eubanks used to grow a 12-week-old website, and why every sales call and customer conversation inside your company is a page waiting to be published. Then the self-improving product has arrived: Amplitude's Wave agent found its own problems and shipped fixes worth +160% engagement and a 6% to 9% onboarding lift. Eric and Neil also pick apart OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra launch, the five things that took Andrew Warner's new YouTube channel to 937,000 views in a month, how B2B buyers now find agencies through Claude, and why the best salespeople sell like doctors.

Key takeaways
◾AEO now means autonomous: content creates, drafts and ships itself with a human in the loop
◾Self-improving products are live: Wave found and fixed real conversion problems on its own
◾On YouTube, info calls, retention data and trending topics beat subscriber counts

Chapters
00:00 The new AEO: Autonomous Engine Optimization
03:07 Self-improving products: Amplitude's Wave agent
06:44 OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra launch misstep
11:37 Andrew Warner: 937K views in a month
16:48 How buyers find agencies through Claude
21:18 Sell like a doctor

Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Need marketing help? Visit: https://www.singlegrain.com/ and https://npdigital.com/
Want to recruit great marketers? Find them here: https://marketingschool.io/hire

Eric came back from a founder retreat with a hard truth: the AI hackathons and training programs everyone planned in January didn't work, and the companies pulling ahead just raised the talent bar. He walks through the GitHub leaderboard that shows who's actually shipping, why one 200-engineer company is keeping only its top 40, and Neil's long-held view that you can't train mindset. Then the sycophancy trap: why ChatGPT agrees with whatever you feed it, what Neil found when he ran a real recommendation test across an accounting firm, and why most executives still don't understand how these models work.

Key takeaways
◾You can't train mindset. Raise the bar and hire people who already have it
◾A public shipping leaderboard exposes who's really working in about a week
◾AI is a sycophant. Optimize for it, don't just ask it follow-up questions

Chapters
00:00 Stop training, raise the talent bar
01:14 The GitHub leaderboard: keep the top 40
02:31 Neil: hire amazing people, it solves most problems
07:45 The AI therapy trap: it agrees with you
13:17 Neil's accounting-firm recommendation test
15:54 Three years in, executives still don't get it