Week 35 🗓️
6 bites · 24–30 Aug 2026Bring one page that says where you fit
A prospect who arrived half-sold by your content isn't stuck on whether you're good — they're stuck on where you'd sit next to the team and agencies they already pay, and if you don't answer that, they default to doing nothing.
Write the kill line before you test a new ad channel
ChatGPT ads just opened in 31 European countries, agency-only for now, and a new placement always arrives with a fear-of-missing-out budget attached — the test that has no pre-agreed failure condition never gets killed, it just gets renewed.
Bringing work in-house? Rebuild the process, not just the team
82% of advertisers now run in-house teams, up from 55% a decade ago — and the ones that struggle rarely lack talent; they skipped the unglamorous step of rebuilding the approvals, brand rules and sign-offs the agency used to run for them.
AI shopping agents compare, humans still click buy
62% of AI-agent shopping activity happens at the comparison stage and only 23% ever reaches checkout — so the 'agentic checkout' integrations vendors are pitching solve a problem your buyers aren't yet handing to a machine.
Read two lines past the scary headline before you forward it
A widely shared headline claimed AI agents wiped out 10,000 marketing jobs — the cuts actually happened in early 2025, before agents mattered, driven by agency restructuring; a forecast got repackaged as a body count, and marketers are making budget and hiring arguments on it.
Admit one small flaw and people believe the rest
Copy and sales pitches that are flawless read as sales-y; owning a minor, honest limitation makes every other claim on the page more credible — and it's free to add.