The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

Today’s Issue

Are You Optimizing for AI Yet? 🤔

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Don’t optimize for leads. Optimize for revenue.

JULY 6, 2026

More leads doesn’t always mean better results.

One of the biggest mistakes advertisers make in Google Ads is optimizing campaigns for form fills instead of qualified customers. If your tracking only tells Google who submitted a form, the algorithm will keep finding people who submit forms, even if they never become paying customers.

The fix? Feed Google better data.

By connecting your CRM to Google Ads and assigning different values to different stages of your funnel, you can train the algorithm to prioritize the leads that actually generate revenue. Instead of treating every conversion the same, teach Google which actions matter most to your business.

A few ways to improve lead quality in Google Ads:
Connect CRM and offline conversion data back into Google Ads.
Assign higher values to SQLs, opportunities, and closed deals.
Use Maximize Conversion Value or Target ROAS when lead values vary.
Review search terms regularly and add negative keywords.
Keep budgets stable so Smart Bidding has consistent data to learn from.

Head to WordStream for more.

Subject Line Best Practices Have Changed

JULY 6, 2026

It’s time to revisit some of those old email-marketing best practices.

Many of the most common subject line rules were built on outdated spam filters, limited datasets, or one-off studies.

Nowadays, mailbox providers care far more about engagement, sender reputation, and whether subscribers actually want your emails than whether you used a certain word or hit a specific character count.

Here are a few subject line myths you can safely retire:

“Never use the word ‘free.’” Modern spam filters don’t blacklist individual words the way they once did. Context, authentication, and sender reputation matter far more than a single term.
“Keep every subject line under 50 characters.” There’s no universal ideal length. Mobile devices, desktop clients, audiences, and message types all perform differently, so test what works for your subscribers.
“Personalization always boosts opens.” Adding a first name isn’t a magic bullet anymore. Behavioral personalization (referencing actions, interests, or purchase history) is often better.
“Open rate is the ultimate success metric.” IYKYK… because of Apple, opens are less reliable than they used to be. Clicks, conversions, replies, and revenue tell a much more complete story.
“There’s one perfect formula.” Nope, there isn’t. The best-performing brands constantly A/B test subject lines, audiences, and messaging instead of relying on universal rules.

No more email folklore. Head to MarTech for more.

Do you know TikTok SEO?

JULY 5, 2026

Have ya heard? TikTok is a search platform.

Nearly half of U.S. consumers now use TikTok as a search engine for everything from restaurant recommendations to product reviews and how-to tutorials.

And TikTok SEO, which used to be not much more than stuffing captions with hashtags and hopping on trending sounds, is mich more sophisticated now.

It uses a combo of spoken words, on-screen text, location data, creator reviews, comments, and AI-generated summaries to understand and rank content. New features like Local Feed, Places, and TikTok Shop also give businesses more ways to surface organically.

A few ways to improve your TikTok SEO:

Answer real questions your audience is searching for.
Say your target keyword out loud early in the video.
Include keywords naturally in on-screen text and captions.
Add relevant location details for local businesses.
Build topic clusters instead of one-off viral posts.
Encourage comments and creator-generated reviews to strengthen relevance.

Head to Search Engine Land for more.

When to Sell Benefits, When to Sell Features

JULY 1, 2026

You know the golden rule, right? Always sell benefits, not features.

But what if that advice is too simple?

In crowded categories, every brand promises the same benefits: “grow revenue,” “save time,” “transform your business.”

These claims become so generic they’re almost invisible, and buyers skim past them because they’ve heard them hundreds of times before.

Specific features might actually be your strongest selling point. Those details are proof behind your broader promise. In competitive markets, features often create the differentiation that vague benefits can’t.

But that doesn’t mean benefits are dead. They’re still effective when they’re unique, memorable, and tied to a specific outcome your competitors can’t credibly claim.

Here’s a good rule of thumb:

Lead with benefits when introducing an entirely new product category or innovation.
Lead with features when competing in a crowded market where everyone promises the same outcomes.
Pair features with benefits by explaining why a feature matters to the customer.
Use specifics over buzzwords. Concrete claims are easier to trust and remember than abstract promises like “drive growth” or “transform your business.”
And know your audience. Technical buyers often want specifications first, while broader audiences may respond better to outcomes.

As usual, it’s not as black and white as the old adage suggests. Head to Reads to Leads for more.

Optimize Your Campaigns Against the Funnel

JUNE 30, 2026

You can’t apply the same KPIs across every campaign. Someone discovering your brand for the first time shouldn’t be measured the same way as someone with a full shopping cart.

At the awareness stage, the goal is getting in front of the right people.

As they move into consideration, the focus is engagement and education. Then, once they’re ready to buy, efficiency is the priority. And after the sale, retention metrics help determine whether you’re building lasting customer relationships or just replacing churned users.

So, optimize for where customers are in the funnel. Here are the metrics that should drive decisions:

🟢 Awareness (TOFU)
- Reach
- Engagement rate
- CTR
- Email open rate
- View-throughs
🟡 Consideration (MOFU)
- Video completion rate
- Time on page
- Email click rate
- Bounce rate
🔴 Conversion (BOFU)
- Conversion rate
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Email conversion rate
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
🔵 Retention & Loyalty
- Repeat purchase rate
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Head to Hubspot for a complete optimization guide.

Good SEO = Good GEO

JUNE 29, 2026

What does Google have to say about AI search?

Good SEO is good GEO. The fundamentals still matter.

Brendon Kraham, VP of Search & Commerce Global Ads Solutions, says that AI Overviews and AI Mode are built on the same core ranking systems that power traditional Search, so strong SEO is still the foundation for visibility.

Instead of chasing every new acronym (GEO, AEO, ???) or trying to reverse-engineer AI models, here’s what Google recommends:

Same as ever, create content for people, not bots.
Share original expertise and first-hand experiences.
Build content only your brand can create.
Maintain a fast, user-friendly website.
Keep product data and business profiles up to date.
Measure success with business outcomes like leads and sales > vanity metrics.

Unique insights, proprietary data, expert opinions, customer stories, and real-world experience still wins.

Head to Think with Google for more.

How Does ChatGPT Pick Sources?

JUNE 28, 2026

SEO expert Suganthan Mohanadasan inspected the browser network traffic behind ChatGPT answers to see what was happening under the hood.

The takeaway: ChatGPT doesn’t rank websites like Google. It gathers potential sources from several retrieval systems, then selects the pages that best support specific claims in its response. That means being mentioned, being fetched, and being cited are three different things.

Reddit punches above its weight because discussions are easy for AI to parse, while YouTube videos are often retrieved but rarely cited since the model can’t easily quote spoken content from a video’s metadata alone.

Here’s what that means for us:

Write one authoritative page instead of many shallow ones.
Put important facts in plain text, not buried in images, PDFs, or JavaScript.
Earn mentions on trusted third-party sites like Reddit, review sites, and industry publications.
Structure content with clear headings and concise sections so AI can easily extract information.
Traditional SEO still matters, but AI visibility increasingly depends on how easy your content is to understand and cite, not just where it ranks in Google.

Heaed to the blog to dive deeper.

Chatbot vs. Virtual Assistant

JUNE 24, 2026

Do you need a chatbot, a virtual assistant, or both?

While the terms are often used interchangeably, they solve different problems.

Chatbots excel at handling high-volume, repetitive interactions, while virtual assistants are designed for more complex, context-aware support. The right choice depends less on the tech itself and more on the experience you’re trying to create.

Chatbots are best for:

Answering FAQs
Order tracking and account inquiries
Lead qualification
Customer support triage
High-volume, low-complexity conversations
24/7 frontline support

Virtual assistants are best for:

Managing schedules and appointments
Handling multi-step workflows
Personalized customer interactions
Context-aware conversations
Cross-platform task execution
Voice-enabled experiences

The tradeoff is pretty straightforward. Chatbots are typically more affordable, easier to scale, and can manage thousands of conversations simultaneously. Virtual assistants offer deeper personalization, stronger natural language understanding, and the ability to complete tasks across multiple systems, but they often require greater investment and maintenance.

Dig deeper at Entrepreneur.

Reddit’s Role in The Buyer’s Journey

JUNE 22, 2026

Reddit’s latest research suggests that consumers increasingly turn to human conversations to sense-check purchases before they commit.

77% of Redditors say they visit two or more communities to validate a purchase decision, while 63% say they’re more confident in decisions informed by Reddit discussions than those influenced by other social platforms.

Even more telling: 58% say seeing a brand answer customer questions directly in a thread increases their trust in that brand.

Reddit calls this shift the “mission mindset,” or the moment when consumers actively investigate options rather than passively consume marketing messages.

That’s why brands need to participate in conversations, answer questions, and help buyers evaluate their options.

Consider this:

Buyers increasingly trust peer conversations over polished brand messaging.
Validation is becoming a distinct stage in the customer journey.
Community discussions can accelerate purchase confidence and decision-making.
Brand participation in relevant conversations can increase trust.
Consumers are more receptive when brands engage where research is already happening.

Check out Reddit’s full report for more.

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