The Collective

The legend of go to market & B2B advertising, Chris Walker, joins the pod!

Chris is the founder of Refine Labs which is a B2B Demand Generation Agency.  He had a 7-figure exit from the business and is now focused on building Encoded which is a science-backed mental training system for founders, athletes and leaders.

We covered a ton in this episode:

• How Chris initially approached his personal brand’s content to grow Refine Labs.  Chris mentioned he posted on LinkedIn for two years with no tangible results.  He shares what led to a breakthrough with his content and event strategy to grow the agency business.

• How raising venture capital rarely leads to positive outcomes for founders and what types of businesses potentially make more sense to raise vs bootstrap.

• Founding encoded, the science behind encoded and what types of outcomes it leads to. 

• How Chris approaches personal development and his content diet.

• Sobriety.  Chris opens up about his path to sobriety and how that has positively impacted his life over the past two years. 

• Daily habits & supplements.

• How Chris invests his money and his approach to capital allocation.

• Bitcoin & crypto. 

Where to find Chris:

Encoded: 

https://www.encoded.ai/

The Frequency Era book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYJJGDSK?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_9TH1N8Q8Y6F2HS0JJCH1&bestFormat=true

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswalker171/

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax #grokbot #muse #aiagents #agenticai #affiliates #affiliatemarketing 

One of those things where a topic comes across your X feed and then you get more & more of it.  Well, that’s what happened to Trev with “Parasite SEO” and the guys dedicated a good portion of this episode discussing how this has been around for years, how to do it and some of the disadvantages with how difficult it is to track.

The guys also talk about Steve’s new eBay store he’s been running for about a month or so and how a side hustle like selling on eBay could net you $1-2k per month with minimal effort. 

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax #grokbot #muse #aiagents #agenticai #affiliates #affiliatemarketing

Grant Ongstad (@2whazzuup) joins the pod!  

Grant has built and grown affiliate niche sites across multiple verticals. He's lived the full cycle — niche selection, content systems, and monetization.  He focuses on finding underserved angles, building distribution before relying on search, and turning a site into a durable asset.

We cover everything from:

• How to make money with affiliate marketing

• How Grant finds his next niche idea

• How to drive traffic to affiliate sites

• How to use Reddit & other sources to acquire customers & drive revenue

• What platforms & tools he uses for his affiliate marketing process

• How Grant approaches things differently in the AI world

• General dos & don’ts

• The Affiliate Niche Site platform Grant & team recently launched

If you want to learn more about Grant:

X account:

https://x.com/2whazzuup

Affiliate niche sites:

https://affiliatenichesites.com/

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax #grokbot #muse #aiagents #agenticai #affiliates #affiliatemarketing 

Steve & Trev discuss the latest in AI tools, including ChatGPT, Grokbot, and what some people are calling marketing engineering. 

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax #grokbot #muse #aiagents #agenticai

If you’ve been following you know Steve and Trev have implemented AI in their business but have been quite skeptical about some of the advancements Twitter hypes & shares.  

But, with the release of Grok Bot, it seems like agents are finally providing real value.

In this episode and future ones the guys will show more details about how they use Grok Bot in their day to day running their agency businesses. 

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax

Steve gives an overview of the Omarchy operating systems and how it’s helping him with productivity, marketing, and personal life. 

The guys also discuss Grok Bot and the importance of critical thinking in the world of AI.

Featured:

https://omarchy.org/

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax

Steve gives a masterclass on how to approach SEO in the world of AI Overviews, LLMs and the shifting SERP landscape.  Steve gives an overview of how they approach SEO for their C42 and how that brings in quality leads on a weekly basis.  

Tons of myths broken down in this episode.  If you’re looking to grow inbound using SEO or if you’ve been wondering if “GEO” is a bunch of nonsense then this is the episode for you! 

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax

Peter Thiel moves to Argentina, Uber blows through 2026’s AI budget in 4 months and cannot track any tangible ROI from AI usage, Meta cuts 8k jobs to help fund AI investments and Google’s rich content update.  Lot going on in this one!  But trust us, these are all interconnected and made for a great episode. 

Articles mentioned in the podcast:

Meta layoffs:

https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/technology/articles/meta-cuts-8-000-jobs-181620319.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAKCfKIozyJbnpEG0o8rKjP5khffPmqoGAGsRLrKi7solHHK-3DamkgHoO6yh1dzd3dWQCBYDFaVcoYeY2gSpj9kZbS2Ikj9h5ODSwQA3NxPjF6ylHupNTkV7K85E7cpJux7MfmsG83kzEq1JtIC2nvv5OC4ld0Cmaq7QBuWVe7u

Uber’s AI budget issues: 

https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-andrew-macdonald-ai-token-spending-harder-justify-2026-5

Google’s rich content updates:

https://searchengineland.com/google-nick-fox-ai-search-deeper-content-478686

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax

Minted’s founder, Marcus Milione, went on TBPN and broke down how he approached preventing bots from buying all of their sneakers with their recent Saucony collaboration.  Pretty sick technique!  But it might be done after Marcus revealed how they did it.

The guys also discuss updates shared from Google’s I/O event where the company shared their thoughts around shifting from “search” to “ask”.  Google is beefing up their search engine with features like uploading images and videos directly to your search bar.

And they end by discussing why conversion tracking and attribution is the most important thing you can have dialed when it comes to paid ads marketing in 2026 and beyond. 

Articles mentioned in the podcast:

Minted’s Marcus Milione TBPN clip about how they tried to prevent bots making purchases:

https://x.com/tbpn/status/2057257896170381573?s=20

Google’s update from search to ask: 

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-intelligent-search-box-41343.html

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax

Google finally responds to the industry with what they call "mythbusting generative AI search: what you don't need to do”. 

And we gotta say, it was fantastic!Google breaks down how certain things being pushed right now in the GEO / AEO / AI Search landscape are utter nonsense.  They specifically state you do NOT need to do the following to win in AI search:

• LLM.TXT and other “special” markup is basically irrelevant.  Sure you can do it but it’s not a game changer. 

• “Chunking” content = make content for your target audience, not AI.  At the end of the day content needs to resonate with humans and that means sometimes writing shorter, punchy content.  Or long form content.  Either can rank in AI.  Worry about great content, not chunking your way to citations.

• Don’t overfocus on structured schema.  Seems like every GEO tool pushes this one like crazy! 

The guys also cover a recent GA4 update to how Google will bucket traffic from LLMs in reports and they also speak about a search term update Google Ads recently dropped.

Articles mentioned in the podcast:

Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide

GA4 AI traffic bucketing:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-ai-assistant-traffic-41327.html

Google Ads search term reports:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-search-terms-report-best-users-intent-41316.html

Want to learn more about us and our services? Reach out!

Steve:

https://collective42.com/

Trevor:

https://www.r40collective.com/

#digitalmarketing #ai #aimarketing #ppc #seo #growthhacking #googleads #searchenginemarketing #sem #ga4 #googleanalytics #growthmarketing #demandgen #pmax #performancemax #gtm #tagmanager #marketingagencies #chatgpt #claude #perplexity #llms #openai #aimode #aimax