In todays piece, I am collaborating with Noa Eshed, and her Substack No BS B2B Tech Marketing tactics. Me and Noa exist in the same world of B2B advertising but we address it from slightly different angles. My background is programmatic advertising and the world of ‘adtech’ via my business
The shift from ‘winning auctions’ to ‘earning discovery’ is such a powerful mindset change. It reframes marketing from chasing volume to curating relevance.
I think it was always around earning discovery in b2b, but at some stage, as an industry, we were in denial, hoping for more quick wins than was ever realistic
This really captures the turning point B2B is at trust is no longer a soft metric, it’s the foundation. If buyers don’t see you as credible, no amount of impressions or clicks will matter."
I think you’re right poul, it’s always been absolutely critical but it’s hard to capture and measure. Hence ignored. Credibility + trust is always going to be critical for any big ticket and B2B wins on big ticket
The convergence piece is brilliant - paid, organic, content, and AI tools feeding each other in loops..
I'm experimenting with this exact approach: creating authority content, using paid to amplify it across our ICP, then letting AI systems surface it in discovery. Will see how that works :)
Hey Mia, I’d love to keep in touch and hear how this goes for you. Are you measuring the authority content based paid ads vs traditional display ads for ad metrics and post click performance against that ICP? The data I have so far shows a very interesting lift from authority and influencer content
I’ve got data indicating that the more influencer aligned creative - like the screenshots in the article - perform better on all metrics; higher attention, higher click rates, higher dwell time and on sure engagement. I think there’s creative novelty helping (unusual banner, draws attention, partially by being out of place - “looks like LinkedIn but wait, I’m on NY times”. Then you’ve got the authority and credibility seed - assuming the right influencer/s are used which aid in discovery flows and build click curiosity. This likely is the reason why it flows through to on site behaviours stacking up too
This nails the reality buyers aren’t short of content, they’re short of reasons to believe. Credibility has become the new currency.
Agreed warren - I dare say all the more so with all the llm content around and now people want to see the citations in llm as a new trust signal
exactly
llm content on the one hand - creating an uncanney valley effect, and on the other - strong emphasis on signaling trust to both alogorithms and humans
💯
The shift from ‘winning auctions’ to ‘earning discovery’ is such a powerful mindset change. It reframes marketing from chasing volume to curating relevance.
I think it was always around earning discovery in b2b, but at some stage, as an industry, we were in denial, hoping for more quick wins than was ever realistic
Love that Nickolas. Precision surgical marketing
This really captures the turning point B2B is at trust is no longer a soft metric, it’s the foundation. If buyers don’t see you as credible, no amount of impressions or clicks will matter."
spot on.
I think you’re right poul, it’s always been absolutely critical but it’s hard to capture and measure. Hence ignored. Credibility + trust is always going to be critical for any big ticket and B2B wins on big ticket
The convergence piece is brilliant - paid, organic, content, and AI tools feeding each other in loops..
I'm experimenting with this exact approach: creating authority content, using paid to amplify it across our ICP, then letting AI systems surface it in discovery. Will see how that works :)
Hey Mia, I’d love to keep in touch and hear how this goes for you. Are you measuring the authority content based paid ads vs traditional display ads for ad metrics and post click performance against that ICP? The data I have so far shows a very interesting lift from authority and influencer content
(Mike I'd love to hear what the data you have is showing)
I’ve got data indicating that the more influencer aligned creative - like the screenshots in the article - perform better on all metrics; higher attention, higher click rates, higher dwell time and on sure engagement. I think there’s creative novelty helping (unusual banner, draws attention, partially by being out of place - “looks like LinkedIn but wait, I’m on NY times”. Then you’ve got the authority and credibility seed - assuming the right influencer/s are used which aid in discovery flows and build click curiosity. This likely is the reason why it flows through to on site behaviours stacking up too
fascinating, and at the same time so intuitive
good point! I'm not measuring it against anything yet (although I probably should lol). I just started so I'm suuuuper curious to see how that goes!
Keep us posted! Genuinely interested 😊
Would love to hear how it's going Mia (love your name, it's also my daughter's name)
what AI systems are you using to surface the content in discovery?