TLDR Marketing 2025-12-01

Conquer the Q4 campaign chaos with Asana (Sponsor)

Marketers everywhere are feeling the pressure: launch more campaigns, ship them faster, and do it all with fewer resources.

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Asana is the work platform where human + AI collaboration comes together, helping marketing teams to plan more smoothly, speed up campaign production, and reduce busywork—without adding headcount.

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News & Trends

Winners and losers of Black Friday 2025 (4 minute read)

US shoppers spent more on Black Friday but faced higher prices and flat discounts. E-commerce sales rose to $11.8-$18 billion, yet online order volume fell 1% as average selling prices increased 7%. AI was a major winner as traffic to retail sites from AI sources grew 805% and shoppers arriving from AI were 38% more likely to convert. Retailers offering exclusive in store perks also saw gains, while buy now pay later usage increased 8.9% and helped drive $747.5 million in spending.

How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to 'win the narrative battle online' (6 minute read)

Silicon Valley is building a friendly media ecosystem that lets tech leaders shape their image at a time when public distrust is high. CEOs now favor in-house outlets, pro-tech podcasts, and influencer-style hosts who avoid tough questions. Firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Palantir have launched their own publications and shows, while creators like TBPN and Dwarkesh Patel offer upbeat platforms that attract top executives. The result is less scrutiny and a curated public image for tech elites.

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Strategies & Tactics

How to use ChatGPT for SEO (2 minute read)

Most still use ChatGPT to write blog posts, but it can replace tasks that once required entire SEO teams. Prompt it to find blogs, directories, and organizations for link-building, then generate outreach templates in a brand's voice. Feed it reviews to create on-brand, empathetic responses automatically. Import Search Console data for plain-English performance summaries and suggested fixes. Analyze competitors to map content gaps, create keyword clusters, and build an E-E-A-T checklist.

How Clio's SEO Dominance Translates into AI Visibility (10 minute read)

Clio achieved AI search dominance through a decade of structured, authoritative content targeting informational queries. Its approach includes long-form blogs, detailed resources, and localized pages that answer "what", "how", and "why" questions, with clear formatting that AI can parse. It increases visibility with high-quality backlinks from reputable organizations and builds trust signals across the web.

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Resources & Tools

Give campaigns more bang for your buck with Asana (Sponsor)

Asana helps you keep your campaigns on track and on message for better results.

With Asana, you can:

See the full picture across campaigns
Review and approve assets
Keep stakeholders informed

Try Asana for free →

Black Friday Archive (Website)

This archive contains over 1,400 historical Black Friday ads and 250,000 message board posts dating back to 2000. It offers insights into promotional patterns, category performance, and consumer sentiment.

Query Fanout Generator (Tool)

The Query Fan Out Extractor allows you to generate fan-out queries directly from Google's Gemini API based on an inputted prompt. The tool provides actual fan-out queries from Google's own database, which can then be used to optimize for key prompts or keywords.

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Miscellaneous

The Market Entry Timing Equation: When Being Early Wins and When It Kills You (25 minute read)

Pioneers often fail, while early leaders who enter during the growth phase tend to win. The T-Score framework turns timing into a measurable decision by combining market readiness, defensibility, and CAC volatility. Companies with low scores are too early and burn out, mid-range scores rely on perfect execution, and high scores lead to fast-follower dominance with efficient growth. The framework helps founders cut guesswork and validate timing with data.

Subverting the autonomous image (6 minute read)

AI has created autonomous images that operate independently from reality and human creative processes. Drawing on Debord's concept of the Spectacle, these visuals reinforce existing social and economic structures while presenting themselves as unquestionable and complete. The black-box nature of the systems, the speed and scale of production, and the resulting alienation from creation highlight the shift in image autonomy. Techniques now exist to subvert or critically engage with AI, using its mechanisms to expose biases and underlying material and social conditions.

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