I recently sat down with Jeff MacPherson, AI expert & CEO of Cloud 37, on the Marketing Minds Podcast, and he dropped a statistic that stopped me in my tracks:

"95% of businesses are implementing AI wrong at the current state."

Now that's a bold claim, but the more we dug in, the more it made sense. And honestly, if you've been trying to plug AI into your business & feeling like it's not quite delivering what everyone promised, this is going to be a valuable read for you.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The #1 Mistake Businesses Are Making with AI Right Now (& How to Avoid It)

• The "Most Important AI Agent" Every Service-Based Business Should Build (Almost Nobody is Doing This)

• The 4 Pillars of Building an AI Agent That Actually Works

• A Real Case Study of a Business Owner Who Saved $3,000/Day Using This Framework

• Why AI is Actually Exposing "Fake Experts" (& Why That's a GOOD Thing for You)

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The #1 Reason Most Businesses Are Failing with AI

Jeff put it perfectly on the podcast:

"AI, just like Facebook or Instagram, is just a tool to amplify good or bad marketing."

Here's the truth most people don't want to hear - AI is not going to fix a broken business.

If your business was messy, unfocused, or trying to do too many things before AI came along, then plugging AI into that mess is just going to help you scale the mess faster.

The businesses winning with AI right now aren't the ones adding 8-10 new verticals & trying to automate everything. They're the ones who identified their ONE thing they're incredible at & used AI to double down & scale it.

This was one of my biggest takeaways from the entire conversation:

Don't ask "What can AI do for my business?" Ask "What am I amazing at without AI, and how can I scale it WITH AI?"

That subtle shift changes everything.

The Most Important AI Agent Every Service-Based Business Needs

This was probably my favorite insight from the entire episode, and honestly, almost nobody is talking about this.

Jeff shared that the #1 most valuable AI agent you can build in a service-based business isn't a sales agent, a content agent, or even a fulfillment agent...

It's an Onboarding Agent.

Here's why - there is ALWAYS a gap between when a sale happens & when fulfillment begins. Your salesperson neglects it, your fulfillment team doesn't really support it, and the client is left in this weird "no man's land" wondering what happens next.

But if you build an onboarding agent that collects the client's specific business information & then dynamically trains all your OTHER agents to do the work for them, the output becomes hyper-customized to their business.

That's how you go from being a generic AI tool on the market to being a hyper-focused expert in your field.

The onboarding agent is the multiplier. It's what allows you to give every single client a "custom" experience while still scaling to hundreds or thousands of clients at once.

If you take one thing away from this newsletter, let it be this - build the onboarding agent first.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Stop losing deals in between meetings.

Aligned is changing how B2B teams run their most important deals.

Most reps guess where a deal really stands. They forecast on a gut feeling and the buyer’s word vs what's actually happening. Then they realize the deal slipped through only after it's too late. Aligned surfaces what buyers are actually doing inside every deal: the risks, the openings, and the exact next step to keep things moving.

Start increasing your close rates and stand up your first deal room in minutes.

Start Now For Free

The 4 Pillars of Every Great AI Agent

One of the things I appreciated most about my conversation with Jeff is how he simplified something that most people over-complicate.

According to Jeff, every AI agent is built the exact same way. There are only 4 pillars to focus on:

1. The Output - What is the final result you want the agent to produce?

2. The Expert - Who has the knowledge to train what "good" looks like?

3. The Prompt - The instructions that turn expertise into a repeatable system

4. The Input - What data does the agent need to produce the output?

And here's the key insight - you build agents backwards from the output.

Jeff shared that when a client comes to him wanting to build an AI system, the first question he asks is: "Can you show me the final product?"

If they can't show him what a good final output looks like, he won't build it for them. Because if you don't know what "good" looks like, no AI on earth is going to figure it out for you.

This is why expertise still matters more than ever in the age of AI. Your job isn't to compete with AI - it's to know what great looks like so you can direct AI to produce it consistently.

Real Case Study: How One Business Owner Saved $3,000/Day

I love when guests come on the podcast & share real numbers, and Jeff shared a great one.

He's currently working with a client who teaches people how to write faceless TikTok scripts. Before working with Cloud 37, this guy was:

• Manually building custom GPT profiles for each audience

• Spending 6 hours a day doing this work

• Charging $500/hour for his time

• Teaching clients how to use custom GPTs (& troubleshooting when context windows filled up)

That's $3,000/day of his time being spent on repeatable, systematizable work.

Once they built out his onboarding agent, clients now answer a series of questions after they pay, which dynamically trains the agents in his studio to give them custom output automatically.

Result? He got that $3,000/day back to focus on scaling his business, adding new agents (like a video prompting agent for faceless content), and expanding to other platforms.

That's the power of doing AI RIGHT.

The Best Part About AI (In My Opinion)

Jeff said something during our conversation that I want you to sit with for a second:

"AI is exposing people for who they're not. It'll expose lazy people, and it will expose people who are not actually experts. That's my favorite piece of all of AI."

And I couldn't agree more.

The narrative that "AI will replace experts" gets it backwards. AI is actually going to reward the true experts more than ever, because they're the ones who know what great output looks like & can build systems around their expertise.

The people who are going to struggle? The ones who were faking it. The ones who never really developed deep expertise. The ones who thought they could shortcut their way to success.

For those of you who have put in the work, who have built genuine expertise in your niche, who have real frameworks that get real results - this is your time to shine. AI is your force multiplier, not your replacement.

The One Thing You Should Do Before Implementing AI

I asked Jeff for his single biggest piece of advice for business owners looking to implement AI, and his answer was so counterintuitive I had to include it here:

"Slow down."

In a world that's moving faster than ever, the businesses winning with AI are the ones taking a step back before they move forward.

Map out your business. Look at your SOPs. Identify what you're truly great at. Understand what your ideal output looks like.

THEN, and only then, bring AI into the equation.

As Jeff put it - "Remove AI first, and then implement AI afterwards."

Watch the Full Interview on YouTube

There's honestly SO much more we covered in this episode, including:

• Why building community is your only real "moat" in the age of AI

• The difference between AI tools, chatbots, & true AI agents

• How Jeff stays up to date with AI in a market moving at breakneck speed

• The 3-tier ascension model for turning your service into a subscription

• His honest take on where AI is going & who's going to win in the long run

If you're serious about implementing AI the right way in your business (or if you're just curious about what the future looks like), this is one you don't want to miss!

Watch the Full Interview with Jeff McPherson on YouTube! (Click Here)

My Biggest Takeaway from This Episode

If I had to boil down my entire conversation with Jeff into one sentence, it would be this:

AI doesn't replace expertise, it amplifies it. So bottle up what you're already amazing at, build systems around it, and let AI help you scale it to more people than you ever could on your own.

That's the game. That's the opportunity. And that's exactly what we're focused on helping our clients achieve.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Some teams never seem to stop moving. They're on Attio, the agentic CRM.

It’s your always-on revenue engine: agents and workflows build pipeline, chase every buying signal, and move deals forward alongside your team.

Teams like Parallel, Turbopuffer, and Wordsmith build on Attio. Are you one of them?

Try Attio now

Imagine if you got in early on Google Ads back in 2008... or Facebook Ads in 2012... or YouTube Ads in 2015 like I did.

How different would your business look right now?

If you've ever thought, "I wish I got in on the ground floor of a new ad platform before it got crowded" - well, this is that moment.

ChatGPT Ads are officially here. I actually got beta access before they went live to everyone, and I've been testing them ever since. And I can tell you - this is one of the biggest Blue Ocean opportunities I've seen in years.

In today's Newsletter, I'm going to break down everything you need to know to start running ChatGPT Ads for your business & reach your ideal clients at the exact moment they're asking for solutions.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• I'll break down exactly what ChatGPT Ads look like & who actually sees them (this stat surprised me)

• I'll reveal the BIG shift in how you target with ChatGPT Ads vs. Google or Meta (this changes everything)

• I'll share the current promotion where you can get $1,000 in ads for just $500

• Plus, I'll give you a link to my full step-by-step YouTube training walkthrough

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

What ChatGPT Ads Actually Look Like

Picture this - someone opens ChatGPT & asks, "How do I grow my coaching business past 500K?"

ChatGPT gives them the answer... and directly underneath that answer, your ad appears.

That's the magic of it. You're not interrupting - you're showing up at the exact moment of decision, right when your prospect is actively looking for a solution.

There are three main types of ChatGPT Ads you can run right now:

• Standard Ads - A clean card with a headline, sub-headline & image

• Product Ads - Great for e-commerce, showing your product with price, ratings & a shop button

• Carousel Ads - Multiple products or destinations all in one placement

Simple, clean & designed to complement the conversation rather than disrupt it.

The Stat That Blew My Mind (Who Actually Sees These Ads)

Here's something that surprised me when I first dove into this...

ChatGPT Ads show up for the free users & the users on the $8/month Go plan. They do NOT show up for Plus, Pro, or Business users.

Now, you might be thinking - "Well, everyone I know has a paid ChatGPT plan, so who's actually seeing these ads?"

I thought the same thing at first. But here's the reality:

Only 5.6% of ChatGPT users pay for a subscription.

Let that sink in for a second.

That means 94.4% of ChatGPT users can see your ads.

With over 1 billion weekly active users on ChatGPT, that's potentially 944 million people you can reach.

As business owners, we're in a bit of a bubble - most of us pay for the premium tools. But the average consumer? They're on the free plan. And that's your opportunity.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

The ice cream shop that makes money when it's cold

28 Wishes sells ice cream in Los Angeles. Below 70°F, sales fall about 20%. The weather is out of their hands. Rent isn't.

So the owners started putting about $20 a day into Kalshi weather markets, taking the cold side. The days that keep customers away now pay something back.

This is hedging. Big companies have done it for decades, buying protection against bad weather, fuel spikes and rising rates. It used to take a broker, a trading desk, and an order size no corner shop could meet.

Kalshi opens it up. Contracts on weather, fuel prices, inflation, tariffs and regulation, starting at a few dollars. Take a position on the outcome that would hurt you. If it hits, the payout softens it. If it doesn't, the contract expires and the good month was the point.

See how other owners are doing it at Kalshi.com/hedging

The BIG Shift - How Targeting Works on ChatGPT

This is where it gets really interesting - and this is the piece most people are getting wrong.

Here's the shift you need to wrap your head around:

• Google targets the keyword (what people are searching)

• Facebook & Instagram target the person (who's browsing)

• ChatGPT targets the conversation (what people are actually asking AI)

ChatGPT knows the context of what your ideal prospect is saying - which means you can reach them at the exact right moment with the exact right message.

The way you do this is with something called Context Hints.

A Context Hint describes, in plain English, the conversation your ideal client is having with AI.

For example - the old way (Google) would be targeting the keyword "online course platform."

The new way (ChatGPT) would be a Context Hint like: "A coach or expert asking how to package their knowledge into an online course, what platform to use, and how to get their first students."

See the difference? You're describing the actual conversation, not just a keyword.

Another example - instead of targeting "meal delivery," your Context Hint could be: "Someone planning weeknight dinners for a busy family and asking for fast healthy recipes or ways to do simple grocery shopping."

So the question you need to ask yourself is - What are my ideal clients actually asking ChatGPT?

Answer that, and you've got the foundation for a killer ChatGPT Ads campaign.

Write Ads That Read Like the Next Step

Here's a mistake I see people making already...

They're writing ChatGPT Ads the same way they'd write a Google Ad or a display ad - with big, bold, interruption-style copy.

Something like "Revolutionize Your Business Today - The #1 Industry-Leading Platform!"

But remember - your ad is showing up directly under an answer ChatGPT just gave your prospect. So your ad needs to feel like the natural next step in that conversation.

A better version would be: "Reports in 3 hours, not 3 days. See the 10-minute setup."

That reads like a next step. It flows with the conversation instead of interrupting it.

I recommend testing 3 different angles, 3 headlines, and a couple of descriptions - which gives you 18 ad variations to test right out of the gate.

The Buyer Stages to Target

Not every prospect asking ChatGPT is ready to buy. So you want to match your ads to where they are in the journey:

• Awareness - "How do I get more coaching clients?" → Send them to a free guide or training

• Consideration - "Is a business coach worth it?" → Send them to a demo or webinar

• Decision - "Northstar Coaching pricing and reviews" → Send them to a booking page or purchase

Meet them where they are, and your conversions will skyrocket.

You Can Now Optimize for Conversions

This is a big update from when ChatGPT Ads first launched...

You can now optimize campaigns directly for the result you want - whether that's booked calls, sales, free trials, or leads.

You can even set a cost cap - so if you want to pay a maximum of $50 per booked call, you set that, and ChatGPT will find people most likely to convert at or below that cost.

And here's a fun trick - if this all sounds complex, you can literally just talk to ChatGPT itself. Ask it: "Build me a ChatGPT Ads campaign from my landing page."

It'll map the whole thing out for you. That's how powerful this is.

The Current Promotion (This Is Huge)

Here's what makes right now the perfect time to jump in...

You can start running ChatGPT Ads for as little as $25/day.

And ChatGPT is currently running a promotion where if you spend $500, they'll match it with another $500 for FREE.

That means:

• Spend $25/day for 20 days = $500

• Get the next 20 days FREE

• $1,000 in ad spend for just $500

That's 40 days of ads on a brand new platform where costs are the lowest they'll ever be.

Blue Ocean platforms always work this way - the earlier you get in, the cheaper the clicks, the less competition, and the more room to scale. YouTube Ads were the bluest ocean in 2015 when I got started, and getting in early is exactly what allowed me to scale AdOutreach to 8 figures.

ChatGPT Ads is that opportunity right now.

What's Coming Next (This Is Big)

Here's what has me really excited...

ChatGPT has announced that ChatGPT Video Ads are coming soon.

If you've been following me for a while, you know I love video. I've been on YouTube for 17 years, I wrote the book Video Authority: The Art & Science of Converting Viewers into Clients, and I've scaled my business past 8 figures using YouTube Ads.

When ChatGPT rolls out video ads, that's going to be a complete game-changer. Getting on the platform NOW - before video hits - means you'll have all the reps, data & positioning ready when it drops.

They're also rolling out CRM integration soon, so ChatGPT leads can land directly in your CRM automatically. (Right now you can do this, but it requires a bit more of a tech setup.)

Watch the Full Video Walkthrough

Alright, this Newsletter gave you the what & why of ChatGPT Ads - but I know you're going to want the how as well.

So I filmed a complete video breakdown that walks you through every one of these strategies in more depth - plus I share exactly what to do to get your first ChatGPT Ads campaign live this week.

Watch the Full ChatGPT Ads Video Here! 🚀

Inside the video I go even deeper on Context Hints, the ad formats, buyer stage examples, and the specific promotion details so you can hit the ground running.

The 3 Keys to ChatGPT Ads (Recap)

Before I wrap up, here are the 3 things to remember when you start running ChatGPT Ads:

1. Target the conversation (Context Hint), not the keyword

2. Write ads that read like the next step, not an interruption

3. Optimize your campaigns for conversions to maximize results

Imagine it's 4 weeks from now. Your first ChatGPT Ad has been live for a month, you've spent $500 & had another $500 matched, and you're bringing in a consistent flow of new leads & clients from a platform most of your competitors haven't even touched yet.

That's the opportunity in front of you right now.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

See You in the Next One!

I hope this Newsletter gave you a clear picture of what ChatGPT Ads are, why they're such a massive opportunity, and exactly how to get started.

Being early on new ad platforms has been one of the single biggest drivers of growth in my business - and I want the same for you.

If you have feedback on today's Newsletter, hit reply & let me know! I read every single response. 😁

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming Your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources - straight to your Inbox!

• The Latest YouTube Ad, AI & ChatGPT Ad Strategies as we Discover Them

• Real Case Studies & Examples of Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what's happening in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry

• And a LOT more...

I'll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

NVIDIA's Founder Says Farmers Should Absolutely Use AI

“If I were a farmer, I would absolutely use AI.” 

That’s Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. 

He’s pointing to one of AI’s biggest untapped opportunities: farming. 

DIT AgTech is already putting AI to work with 500+ units deployed and 370,000 head on-platform.

Invest in DIT AgTech Today

^{𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘋𝘐𝘛 𝘈𝘨𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘢 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘊 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘣𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦: https://bit.ly/4bzuWCi​}

If cold email has ever crossed your mind as a channel to grow your business (or if you've tried it and felt like it wasn't working the way it used to), then this Newsletter is going to be a game-changer for you.

I recently sat down on the Marketing Minds Podcast with my good friend AJ Cassata - one of the top cold email experts in the world. AJ has helped over 400 clients, sends between 500,000 to 1 Million cold emails per month, and runs over 700 active cold email campaigns.

And the results speak for themselves. One of his clients is currently booking 150 calls a month from cold email alone. Imagine what you'd have to spend in ads to get that kind of volume!

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• Why the "old way" of cold email is broken (and what's replaced it)

• AJ's "Pentagon of Performance" framework for high-converting cold email campaigns

• The exact cold email funnel numbers you should expect (open rates, reply rates, positive reply rates & more)

• The "Micro Campaign" strategy that's producing outsized results

• A breakdown of the 4-part cold email template that actually gets responses

• And the full podcast episode so you can dive even deeper!

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Why Cold Email Got Harder (& Why That's Actually a Good Thing)

Here's what most people don't realize about cold email right now.

Over the last 2 years, the game has completely changed. A perfect storm hit the channel:

1. More people started sending cold emails post-COVID (the volume has literally tripled)

2. Ads got more expensive, pushing businesses to look for alternative channels

3. Instantly.ai launched and made cold email accessible with unlimited email accounts for $100/month

4. Google & Outlook tightened their spam filters dramatically, making deliverability harder than ever

The result? Most people are still running cold email like it's 2020 - loading up a giant list, writing a generic 3-email sequence, hitting send, and hoping for the best.

That approach is dead.

But here's the thing - AJ made a great point that I loved. When channels get harder, that's actually a HUGE opportunity for those willing to level up.

It's like YouTube Ads. It's harder now than it was 5 years ago, but that means the marketers who really understand the strategy get to dominate while everyone else struggles. Same principle applies here.

AJ's "Pentagon of Performance" Framework

One of my favorite things about having experts on the Podcast is getting their frameworks. AJ shared his 5-part framework (in order of importance) for making cold email work:

1. Email Deliverability - The least sexy, but MOST important. If your email lands in spam, nothing else matters.

2. The List / Targeting - You can't sell meat to a vegan. Get in front of the right people and half the battle is won.

3. The Offer - What are you actually offering them? And remember, you can position the same service as different offers to different markets.

4. The Messaging - The copy has to be tight, clear, and specific.

5. Volume - Most people massively underestimate this. AJ typically starts clients at 1,000 to 2,000 emails per day.

The first four determine your response rate. The fifth determines your total pipeline. You need all five to hit.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Some teams never seem to stop moving. They're on Attio, the agentic CRM.

Every customer signal is captured in one shared context layer, always current and compounding. Agents and workflows build pipeline, chase every buying signal, and move deals forward, an always-on revenue engine running alongside your team.

With Attio, you’ll get:

• Leads automatically prioritised and routed to the right rep

• Expansion and risk signals caught the moment they land

• Follow-ups written in your voice, already there when you arrive

Teams like Parallel, Turbopuffer, and Wordsmith build on Attio. Are you one of them?

Get started now

The Cold Email Funnel Numbers You Should Expect

This is something I really wanted AJ to break down because most people have no idea what "good" looks like in cold email.

Here are the benchmarks he shared:

• Open Rate: 30-60% (though he recommends turning off open tracking to avoid getting flagged as spam)

• Reply Rate: 1-5%

• Positive Reply Rate: 1 lead per 500 emails sent is a GOOD campaign

• Elite Campaigns: 1 lead per 100-200 emails

• Below 1 in 1,000? Time to go back to the drawing board

• Leads to Booked Calls: 30-50% conversion

• Show Rates & Close Rates: Often higher than you'd expect because of the precision targeting

Knowing these numbers changes everything. It lets you diagnose exactly where your campaign is broken instead of guessing.

The Micro Campaign Strategy (This is the GOLD)

Alright, here's the big shift that AJ has been implementing that's producing crazy results for his clients.

The old way was "Spray & Pray" - one massive list, one generic email, blast it out, hope for the best.

The new way is what AJ calls Micro Campaigns - highly segmented lists with copy that's specifically tailored to each segment.

For example, if you're a digital marketing agency with multiple services, you'd:

• Break out each service into its own campaign

• Then segment by industry within each service

• Then further segment by job title (because the CEO cares about different things than the Marketing Director)

The magic here is that when you get hyper-specific, prospects feel like you truly understand their world. That builds instant credibility.

And when you layer in AI tools like Clay for enrichment & personalization, you can send 20,000 emails where every single email feels like it was written specifically for that person.

That's the difference between 2020 cold email and 2026 cold email.

The 4-Part Cold Email Template That Actually Works

Everyone always wants to know the "magic template." AJ was generous enough to break down the framework he uses:

Cold emails should be 3-5 sentences MAX and hit these 4 things in order:

1. Why you're reaching out (so it doesn't look like a random blast)

2. The value proposition (how you can specifically help them)

3. Social proof (why they should believe you)

4. A low-friction call to action (like "Can I send you a 2-minute Loom video?" instead of asking for a call right away)

That's it. No fancy copywriting gymnastics. No 500-word sales letters. Just clear, direct, and personalized outreach that respects their time.

Watch the Full Marketing Minds Podcast Episode

This Newsletter only scratches the surface of the gold that AJ dropped in this episode.

We also dove deep into:

• The best tools to use (Instantly, Clay, Apollo & more)

• Email deliverability dos & don'ts

• How AI is transforming cold email (and where it's going)

• How to A/B test your campaigns the RIGHT way

• How often to recycle your lead lists

• The future of cold email with AI agents

If you're running any kind of B2B business, coaching business, agency, or SaaS - this episode is a MUST watch.

👉 Watch the Full Marketing Minds Podcast Episode with AJ Cassata Here

Trust me, take out a notepad, grab a coffee, and take notes. This is one of the most tactical episodes we've done on the Podcast.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

I hope you found today's Newsletter Valuable! Cold email is one of those channels that a lot of marketers write off because they've been on the receiving end of bad cold email - but when it's done right, it's still one of the highest ROI channels out there.

The strategies AJ shared in this episode are the exact same ones his team is using to book hundreds of calls per month for their clients. Now you have that same playbook in your hands!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Most AI Tools Weren't Built for This

B2B customer issues move across teams and systems, not through a single chat window. A new Harvard Business Review Analytic Services briefing paper, sponsored by Front, breaks down where AI tools fall short in B2B service and what to ask before you invest.

Get the Free Report

I recently sat down for a great conversation on a podcast out in Austin, and we went DEEP on where YouTube Ads are at right now.

It was a fun one because the person interviewing me runs mostly Meta Ads, so we got to compare notes on both platforms honestly (and cordially, haha).

And I walked away thinking, "This is exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes breakdown I need to share with the Marketing Minds community."

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The 2 Big Shifts that Changed YouTube Ads Forever (and how to actually capitalize on them right now)

• Why YouTube Creatives Last WAY Longer than Meta Creatives - the "Forest vs Balloon" framework

• The "Trojan Horse PDF Funnel" + the 8-Minute Delay Hack that got us ~60% video watch rates

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The 2 Big Shifts That Changed YouTube Ads Forever

If you tried YouTube Ads a few years ago & wrote them off, I get it - because the platform changed underneath a lot of people & most weren't shown how to transition.

There were really 2 Big Shifts that happened back-to-back:

Shift #1 - YouTube moved from Content Targeting to Audience-Based Targeting. In the old days, you could put your ad in front of a specific keyword or a specific channel (think targeting a big fitness channel if you're a fitness coach). They removed that.

Shift #2 - YouTube moved everything into Demand Gen. Instead of running individual TrueView ads, you're now running Demand Gen campaigns that combine in-stream ads, YouTube Shorts ads, in-feed ads in search & suggested videos, AND placements on other platforms.

Here's the thing most people missed: both of these shifts happened to give you MORE Scalability.

In the past, YouTube was a highly profitable, low-spend platform - we could beat people's Meta performance, but depending on the industry, you could hit a ceiling on how much you could scale.

Those shifts blew the ceiling off.

Now instead of only reaching someone based on what they're watching RIGHT NOW, you can reach them based on who they ARE.

The new targeting toolkit looks like this:

• Custom Intent Audiences - target people based on what they've actually searched on Google, YouTube, or even Google Maps (looked up "personal trainer" on Maps? We can reach them next time they're on YouTube)

• URL Affinity - target people who've visited specific websites (like your competitors)

• Income Layering - stack all of that with Top 10% Household Income Earners

^^ This is why I say YouTube is now more like Traditional Media Buying. You're scaling INTO something specific & intentional. On Meta, you're essentially telling the AI "please go find my people." Both can work - but the control is very different.

Why YouTube Creatives Last WAY Longer Than Meta's (Forest vs Balloon)

This was one of my favorite parts of the conversation, because it clears up a LOT of confusion.

Here's the honest pros & cons of each platform:

Meta is like Kindling. It's easier to set up, the algorithm picks it up fast, and it'll find a pocket of buyers quickly - which is exciting (I'm convinced "beginner's luck" is almost TOO common on Meta, haha). But it lights fast & burns out fast. Creatives fatigue quickly (a lot of advertisers refresh WEEKLY), and when you try to scale, it can shoot way off-KPI as it reaches cold audiences too fast.

YouTube is like Logs. It's harder to light - your video actually needs to be good, and you need to target it the right way with custom audiences. There's more of a hurdle to get a campaign performing. BUT once it's burning, it burns for a long time. We refresh creatives roughly QUARTERLY on YouTube (I tell Meta advertisers that & they think I'm crazy).

Why do YouTube creatives last so much longer?

Because the targeting is intent-based. There are new people searching "how to count calories" every single day - so your audience is constantly refreshing itself. On Meta, you're hitting more of a fixed pocket of people, so that pocket gets exhausted faster.

The mental model I love is this:

YouTube = planting a Forest. You plant a bunch of seeds, see what sprouts, take care of it & grow it over time.

Meta = blowing up a Balloon. How much air can I put in before it pops?

And the honest takeaway? The best advertisers I know run BOTH. They're not loyal to a platform - they use each one for what it's great at.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

The Future of AI in Marketing. Your Shortcut to Smarter, Faster Marketing.

Unlock a focused set of AI strategies built to streamline your work and maximize impact. This guide delivers the practical tactics and tools marketers need to start seeing results right away:

• 7 high-impact AI strategies to accelerate your marketing performance

• Practical use cases for content creation, lead gen, and personalization

• Expert insights into how top marketers are using AI today

• A framework to evaluate and implement AI tools efficiently

Stay ahead of the curve with these top strategies AI helped develop for marketers, built for real-world results.

Download the Free Report

The "Trojan Horse" PDF Funnel (+ the 8-Minute Delay Hack)

If you've followed me for a while, you know I love this funnel - and I'm happy to report it's made a HUGE resurgence & is crushing on BOTH YouTube & Meta right now.

Here's the structure:

YouTube Ad → Simple PDF Opt-in → "Watch the Video Version While You Wait" (VSL) → Book a Call → Application

Why start with a PDF? Because people opt in for a PDF at a HIGHER rate than a training video. It feels quick, easy & consumable, so there's more of an "I want that thing, I don't want to miss out" pull.

But here's the genius part - and the little psychology hack that makes it work:

When someone opts in, the page says: "Great, your PDF is on its way to your inbox. Now watch the video version of the PDF while you wait."

And we intentionally delay the PDF email by about 8 minutes (we even note in the eyebrow text that it can take 5-10 minutes to arrive).

Why? Because if the PDF lands instantly, people skim it & save it for "later" (which usually means never). But if they start watching the video while they wait - now they're IN.

When we were really cranking on this, ~60% of people were watching, with basically the same engagement spikes as a dedicated VSL funnel - at a significantly LOWER cost per lead. 🚀

And there's a bonus benefit most people never think about:

It gives your team a far better frame for outbound calls. Compare these two:

• "Hey, have you watched our sales video yet?" (feels salesy)

• "Hey, I just wanted to make sure you got our PDF - sometimes it goes to spam, so I wanted to check." (feels like customer service)

Same goal. Completely different response rate. And genuinely - we DO want to make sure they got it!

What's Actually Working with AI Ads Right Now (& the Lego Lesson)

I've been testing a lot of AI-generated ad content, and here's the most useful thing I learned from splitting it 3 ways:

• All-AI ads = the WORST performer (they just don't build the Know, Like & Trust - people don't know who the brand is)

• No-AI ads = solid, and interestingly making a comeback

• AI Hook + Natural Ad = the winner for a while there

That middle-ground formula - an AI-generated hook in the first 8 seconds, then cutting to a normal, authentic ad - was outperforming everything for a stretch.

Think me walking down a medieval street as the "King of YouTube," or riding the "Revenue Roller Coaster," or showing up as a Pixar character.

And this leads to my favorite story & the real lesson underneath all of it:

I ran an AI ad where I was a Lego character holding up my PDF. A new client hopped on one of our trainings and said, "I enrolled because I saw your ad where you were a Lego man - I LOVE Legos, and when I saw you loved Legos too, I knew I had to enroll." 😂

Here's the lesson: everyone has something that captures their attention. Some people love Legos. Some love anime. Some love space & astronauts. The AI style lets you speak to those little pockets of "that's so me" inside your audience.

Now, the pendulum is swinging - AI content isn't as novel as it was 6 months ago, so the bar is higher. It can't just be "AI,"; it has to be a genuinely BETTER AI video. So keep testing.

We also got into whether you should ever put an actor or a different spokesperson in your ads instead of yourself (short answer: it depends on your scale & your brand credibility) - and I break down the exact case study of when it 10x'd our results in the full video.

Watch the Full Conversation on YouTube:

There was SO much more we covered - the funnels working right now, why YouTube Premium isn't the threat people think it is, where my bookings actually come from, and the spokesperson strategy I mentioned above.

Do yourself a favor & watch the whole thing:

Watch the Full Video on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

I recently sat down for one of the most fascinating Marketing Minds Podcast episodes I've recorded in a while...

And the topic honestly captured my attention the moment I heard it: the Secret Speed Reading Strategy that the CIA uses.

Yes, you read that right - the CIA. 🕵️

My guest was David Kirkpatrick (you may know him as David Reads Fast on Instagram) - a speed reading expert who's read over 300 books in the last 3 years & spent months studying a CIA reading program that was actually Declassified back in 2001.

Now you might be wondering... what does Speed Reading have to do with Marketing & Business?

Honestly? Everything.

Because the Entrepreneurs & Marketers who Learn the Fastest are the ones who WIN.

As David put it in our conversation: "If you could learn fast enough & actually have it improve your behavior - what isn't possible?"

That line stuck with me.

So today I want to share some of the biggest Golden Nuggets from our episode - and then you can watch the Full Episode on YouTube to go even deeper.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Why the CIA Cared About Reading Speed in the First Place

Here's the fascinating part.

In war, Information is Power.

The CIA has entire teams of agents whose only job is to collect information - so if they can collect & process that information faster than the other side, they have a massive edge.

So they asked a simple question: "Why are some people reading 50% slower than others?"

To answer it, they studied the work of researchers like Samuel Renshaw - the experimental psychologist who trained WWII fighter pilots to identify enemy aircraft faster & even improved athletes' vision.

The result was a full program showing agents going from the average reading speed (around 238 words per minute) up to 500, 600, even 700+ words per minute... with strong comprehension.

The wild thing? The government spent Millions perfecting this - and the core ideas are things You can start using today, for Free.

The 3 CIA Speed Reading Levers

David broke the entire declassified program down into 3 core things anyone can do:

1. Read a Book a Week (Volume) You can have all the fancy techniques in the world, but without the reps, you won't get faster. It's exactly like going to the gym - the technique only works when you show up & put in the volume.

2. Expand Your Perceptual Span (Vision) This is about widening how much your eyes take in with each glance. David pointed to research showing that just 4-8 more bits of information per fixation can lead to a 30%+ increase in reading speed. Your eyes are actually jumping across the page - and you can train them to take in bigger chunks.

3. Set a Timer When You Read (Working Memory) Most people never time themselves reading, so they have no idea how many pages they finish in an hour. The CIA used software that faded the text out slightly faster than you'd normally read - which pushes your Working Memory (think of it as the "whiteboard of your brain") to keep up & get stronger.

Small levers. Big Compounding Results. 📈

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

AI made PMs faster. Multiplayer mode is still broken.

A PM can summarize research, draft a PRD, and mock up a prototype before lunch. The hard part starts when the team has to decide what actually gets built.

Jira Product Discovery gives product teams one place to capture insights, prioritize ideas with consistent frameworks, and build living roadmaps stakeholders can rally around.

And because it’s connected to Jira, the context behind every decision stays with the work—so developers and their agents know not just what to build, but why.

AI helps PMs move faster. Jira Product Discovery helps the whole team build with confidence.

Get Started for Free

The Reading System that Actually Makes it STICK: PQRST

Here's the truth: Speed means nothing if you can't Remember & Apply what you read.

That's why David's favorite mental model for retention is PQRST:

• Preview - read 3-5 summaries of the book BEFORE you read it

• Question - write down 3-5 questions you can't answer unless you read the book

• Read - (the obvious part!)

• Summarize - build a one-page map at the back of the book with the big ideas & how they connect

• Test - can you actually explain it in a sentence?

As David said: "What is comprehension? It isn't memorizing every 500th detail. It's the high level - how does everything connect?"

The Marketing Lesson Hiding Inside a Reading Technique 🧠

Now here's the part that made me smile as a Marketer...

Notice how David reads the book summaries & writes his questions BEFORE he ever reads the book?

I asked him why - and his answer was brilliant.

It builds what he calls "Mental Scaffolding" - anticipation, curiosity & excitement about what he's about to read.

In his exact words: "You're now behaving like an Expert Marketer. What do expert marketers do? They create Open Loops."

He literally Sells His Own Brain on the book before he reads it.

And that's the SAME psychology behind everything that works in Marketing...

• A great Hook that keeps someone watching

• A subject line that makes someone HAVE to open the email

• An ad where the first sentence exists only to get you to the second sentence, & the second exists to get you to the third

David actually credited this "each sentence earns the next" idea to Breakthrough Advertising - one of the marketing classics - and it's exactly why one of his reels hit 1.7 Million views.

The best readers & the best marketers are playing the SAME game: opening a loop & making the brain want to close it. 🔥

Reading vs. Audiobooks (& When to Use Each)

This was a fun debate.

David's point: listening to an audiobook at 2x speed is about 300 words per minute - while a strong reader is doing 500-700+.

Reading a physical book is a Full Brain Workout - it lights up more of your brain & engages your spatial memory (you remember where an idea was on the page, in the front or back of the book). He calls those little anchors "Memory Glue."

But he's not anti-audiobook at all - and neither am I.

His framework: think of your Working Memory like a plate. Deep copywriting work fills the whole plate. But a walk, the dishes, or a drive leaves plenty of room to "throw in an audiobook."

The takeaway? It's not either/or. It's a Hybrid. Read to go deep & retain - listen to stay stimulated while you move.

The "Dumb Tax" - Why the First 5 Books in Any Niche Feel Slow

This one is a game-changer if you've ever felt slow starting a new topic.

David referenced Steven Kotler's idea of the "ROI of Reading" - you pay a kind of "Dumb Tax" on the first ~5 books of any new subject. On book one, you're barely reading - you're just Learning the Words & Mental Models.

But once you get past those first few books, your baseline speed & comprehension jump dramatically.

It's why I can fly through Marketing & Business books - I've built up the vocabulary & frameworks over years.

So don't get frustrated on book #1 of a new topic. Push through the Dumb Tax & you'll come out the other side reading Faster than ever. 💯

David's Take on AI (Every Marketer Needs to Hear This)

Of course, I had to get his take on AI.

His response was sharp: "Why isn't everyone an AI millionaire right now?"

His point wasn't that AI isn't powerful - it's incredible, & he uses it constantly (it's actually how he FOUND the declassified CIA reading program).

His point was that YOUR brain, knowledge & experience are still the real limiter. The way a seasoned operator uses AI will run circles around the way a beginner uses it - because they're bringing the reps.

He warned about what he called "Digital Dementia" - outsourcing so much of your thinking that your own mental muscles get weaker.

His advice mirrors something I say all the time: Use AI to Augment & 10X you - not to Replace the thinking that makes you sharp in the first place.

And this one is key for us as Marketers: "It can replace a corporate brand. It can't replace my brand with my face."

Authenticity is the one thing AI can't manufacture - which is exactly why building YOUR personal brand matters more than ever.

The Story that Hit Me the Hardest

I'll leave you with the story David shared that I can't stop thinking about.

So many people say "I'd love to read more, but I just don't have the time."

So David flips it around:

Imagine 30 years from now, you've written a book on building the exact business your son or daughter is now trying to build. You watch them make all the same mistakes you already made... so you hand them your book & say, "If you read this, it'll solve your problems - I wrote it for someone exactly like you."

And they say, "I don't read. I don't have the time."

How much pain would you feel? 😮

Because here's the reality - there are almost certainly 30 books out there right now that could save YOU years of trial & error... if only you'd read them.

That reframe alone is worth the entire episode.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube:

There was SO much more in this conversation - the exact free reading exercises David uses, how he & his sister built their Instagram pages, the "this book or that book" format they invented, his top 10 books & more.

If you want to Read Faster, Learn More & Sharpen the #1 skill behind every successful Entrepreneur - this one's for you. 🚀

Watch the Full CIA Speed Reading Episode on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Turn AI into Your Income Engine

Ready to transform artificial intelligence from a buzzword into your personal revenue generator

HubSpot’s groundbreaking guide "200+ AI-Powered Income Ideas" is your gateway to financial innovation in the digital age.

Inside you'll discover:

• A curated collection of 200+ profitable opportunities spanning content creation, e-commerce, gaming, and emerging digital markets—each vetted for real-world potential

• Step-by-step implementation guides designed for beginners, making AI accessible regardless of your technical background

• Cutting-edge strategies aligned with current market trends, ensuring your ventures stay ahead of the curve

Download your guide today and unlock a future where artificial intelligence powers your success. Your next income stream is waiting.

Get Your Guide

Last year, as a global society, we spent over $700 Billion on Digital Marketing - the first year in history that Digital surpassed Traditional Marketing.

And by conservative estimates, over $140 Billion of that was stolen by fraud.

That's more than 20% of every dollar spent on ads - gone.

When I first heard that number, I had to sit with it for a second. We're not talking about a rounding error. We're talking about 1 in every 5 dollars in the entire digital ad economy being siphoned off by fraud.

That's why I was so excited to sit down with Rich Khan on this episode of Marketing Minds. Rich is a 33-year digital marketing veteran, a serial entrepreneur who's bootstrapped five multi-million dollar internet companies, and the Co-Founder & CEO of Anura.io - one of the leading ad fraud detection companies in the world.

As a Reminder, my Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The real scope of ad fraud & why it exploded after 2018 (hint: it's AI)

• How fraud actually works - from BOTH the fraudster's & the business owner's point of view

• The hidden ways fraud quietly destroys your ROI, your brand & even your compliance

• What you can actually do to stop it (and the mindset shift that makes it a growth lever, not just a cost)

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Here's what struck me most in our conversation: this is a massive, expensive problem that almost nobody in the industry wants to talk about.

Why? As Rich put it - the people selling $700 Billion worth of digital marketing aren't exactly incentivized to point out that a chunk of it doesn't work.

The result is a lot of business owners looking at weird data, making good decisions based on bad numbers, and getting bad results without ever knowing why.

And the truly wild part? The first commercially viable fraud detection solution came out in 2008. That's almost 20 years of a solvable problem - and most people still don't know it exists.

Why Ad Fraud Exploded (It's Not What You'd Guess)

Rich has been tracking this since 2012. And for the first several years, the numbers were oddly stable - sitting around $3-4 Billion a year, even as digital ad spend kept climbing.

Then around 2018, something changed.

It jumped from $6-7 Billion to $10 Billion, then $20 Billion, then $40 Billion - and it's been growing out of control ever since.

The catalyst? AI.

There are now tools that will literally write fraudulent bots for you, then give you step-by-step instructions on how to deploy them. You don't even need to know how to code. The barrier to entry for becoming a fraudster has collapsed - and the average individual fraudster is now pulling in around $5 Million a year.

Here's the kicker that genuinely surprised me: there's no specific law against it. We all know it's stealing. But there's no clean legal mechanism to prosecute it as theft. So if someone's moral compass doesn't point north, there's very little standing in their way.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

For its first CTV campaign, Jennifer Aniston’s DTC haircare brand LolaVie had a few non-negotiables. The campaign had to be simple. It had to demonstrate measurable impact. And it had to be full-funnel.

LolaVie used Roku Ads Manager to test and optimize creatives — reaching millions of potential customers at all stages of their purchase journeys. Roku Ads Manager helped the brand convey LolaVie’s playful voice while helping drive omnichannel sales across both ecommerce and retail touchpoints.

The campaign included an Action Ad overlay that let viewers shop directly from their TVs by clicking OK on their Roku remote. This guided them to the website to buy LolaVie products.

Discover how Roku Ads Manager helped LolaVie drive big sales and customer growth with self-serve TV ads.

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more.

How Ad Fraud Actually Works (From Both Sides)

This was the part of the conversation I found most eye-opening, so I want to break it down for you the way Rich broke it down for me.

From the Fraudster's Point of View:

A fraudster builds a blog site around something with mass appeal - say, car insurance (80% of the population drives, so nearly everyone needs it). They pump out AI-generated content, get the SEO score up, and start driving traffic. Then they slap Google AdSense on the page.

Insurance clicks can pay anywhere from $5 to $20 per click. So they build a bot to mimic human behavior - scrolling, spending time on the page, clicking around - and then clicking the ad. Bots cost next to nothing to run. You can launch tens of thousands of them at once.

Do the math: 10,000 bots, clicking a $10 ad once an hour... you can see how that becomes $5 Million a year.

From the Business Owner's Point of View:

Here's the part that should concern every marketer reading this - because you can fall into this without ever intending to.

Say you own a legitimate site making $10,000/month from ad inventory. You think: "What if I buy some cheap traffic to amp up those numbers?" So you go find cheap traffic on a second-tier network.

The problem? Cheap traffic is rife with fraud.

Your AdSense revenue spikes, you think you're crushing it, and then eventually the platform flags the activity as fraudulent and shuts you down. You weren't trying to commit fraud. You were just trying to run a good business - and you stepped into it without knowing.

Two completely different paths. One intentional, one accidental. Both feeding the same $140 Billion problem.

The Hidden Costs That Go Way Beyond Wasted Spend

When Anura runs a free traffic audit for a client, they find an average of 25% fraud.

Think about what that means. If you're spending $1 Million a year on ads, that's $250,000 going to traffic that will never truly convert. As Rich put it, you might as well pile that money in the middle of the room and set it on fire.

But it gets deeper than wasted spend. Fraud creates a cascade of hidden problems:

• Sophisticated fraud fills out your lead forms using real people's contact info scraped off the internet. Now your sales team is chasing "leads" who never opted in.

• Your call center costs go up because those "leads" don't answer - they're not expecting your call.

• You risk breaking TCPA compliance (one of the fastest-growing class action areas in the country) by calling people who never actually filled out your form.

• Your brand reputation takes a hit when confused people ask, "How did you get my information?"

Rich even shared a story about a call center manager who fired reps for "not doing their job" - reps who were telling the truth that the leads never filled out the form. The leads were fraudulent all along.

Where the Fraud Lives (Platform by Platform)

One thing I appreciated about Rich is that he doesn't dodge the tough questions. So I asked him directly where he's seeing fraud across the major platforms. Here's roughly what Anura sees on average:

• YouTube: ~25% fraudulent traffic

• Google & Facebook: ~10-15%, depending on the campaign

• Programmatic: ~50% - the highest of them all

That programmatic number stopped me in my tracks. Half of every dollar spent.

And even on user-generated platforms like Facebook and YouTube - where you'd think there's no outside traffic to worry about - fraud sneaks in through fake profiles and purchased followers/likes that have to "interact" with ads to stay alive and look human.

The Mindset Shift: Fraud Isn't Just a Cost to Cut - It's an Upside to Capture

This is the part I really want you to internalize, because it reframes the whole conversation.

Most people think about fraud as a downside to minimize - "How do I stop wasting 20%?"

But flip it on its head.

If 25% of your traffic is fraudulent and you clean it up, that budget doesn't just stop being wasted - it becomes real, high-quality traffic that can actually convert at your normal return.

Rich shared a client in the plumbing industry (under NDA) who did exactly this. After turning on Anura's software, their ROAS went from 4:1 to 8:1. They doubled their campaign performance by cleaning up the traffic they were already paying for.

And here's the math that really got me thinking. When you recover fraudulent traffic, the lift is actually larger than the loss - because you're not just getting back to breakeven, you're capturing the full return you make on good traffic. Rich and I worked through it and landed somewhere around a 37.5% lift in performance from recovering a 20% loss.

If you regular readers remember my Risk Arbitrage concept, this is a close cousin. You have far more to gain than you have to lose - the odds are stacked in your favor.

So What Do You Actually Do About It?

The short version: you can't realistically build this yourself. It takes a dedicated team of fraud experts, massive data infrastructure, and - crucially - visibility across hundreds of clients' data to spot patterns a single business would never see on its own.

That's why solutions like Anura exist. The good news is there are real, practical ways to fight back - like blocking fraudulent conversions before they fire a pixel (which retrains Google & Facebook's algorithms to send you better traffic over time) and automatic filters that can cut your fraud in half within 90 days.

But the first step is simply knowing your number. You can't fix what you can't measure.

Watch My Full Conversation with Rich Khan on YouTube:

Rich went WAY deeper than I could capture here - including the inside story of the massive AI-powered fraud attack that got around every detection solution on the market last year (including his own), how he tracks fraud across 12+ platforms, his take on the big ad fraud lawsuits, and the exact process Anura uses to stop fraud in real time.

This one is a true master class, and Rich made a genuinely technical topic engaging & easy to follow.

Watch the Full Video on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

AI Insights. Real Growth. Higher GMV, Better Profits

The difference between growing stores and stagnant ones isn't more effort. It's better insights. StoreClaw analyzes your Shopify and Amazon data, surfaces your biggest growth opportunities, and helps you increase GMV while protecting profit. Start free with bonus tokens. No credit card required.

Try it FREE today

Right now it's bringing you EXACTLY the kind of leads you trained it to bring you. Most entrepreneurs just have no idea that they're the ones doing the training.

And if you're spending money on ads at all, this might be the single most expensive thing you're getting wrong - so I want to break it down for you today.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• Why the "AI" running your ads is only as smart as the data you feed it - & how most marketers are accidentally training it to find junk

• My 3-Step Framework to Retrain Your Algorithm so it goes hunting for your BEST clients instead of your tire-kickers

• The One Warning you need to hear before you make this switch (so you don't panic & undo it)

• The mindset shift around AI that almost nobody is talking about right now

Alright, let's Dive In…

Apply for a Complimentary Strategy Call:

Junk In, Junk Out - At Scale

YouTube, Google & Meta are running some of the most powerful AI on the planet. And that AI has ONE job:

Find more people like the ones you call a "win."

That's it. That's the whole mission.

So the moment you tell it that a "win" is anyone who fills out a form, here's what happens:

🔴 Feed it every lead → it studies your junk → it goes out & brings you MORE junk.

🟢 Feed it your BEST leads → it studies your buyers → it brings you High-Value CLIENTS.

Same platform. Same budget. Same targeting.

Completely different business.

I've spent over $7.7M+ of our own money on YouTube Ads & a couple million more on Meta Ads (not client spend - MY money), & this is one of the biggest lessons that's come out of all of it:

The algorithm doesn't actually know what a quality lead is. It only knows what you report back to it.

Most marketers optimize for the cheapest possible opt-in, then complain that the leads are garbage.

Well, of course they are! You just told the most powerful AI on the planet that your dream client is anyone with a pulse & an email address.

So it went out & found you thousands of them. It did its job perfectly.

Junk in. Junk out. At scale.

How to Retrain Your Algorithm (3 Steps)

Here's the good news: once you understand how this works, you can flip it in your favor. This is one of my favorite things to break down because the results can be so dramatic - & it's the same process we've dialed in across 3,000+ businesses over the last 10 years.

Step 1 - Redefine what a "conversion" actually means

An opt-in is not a win. A low-quality call that no-shows isn't a win. A qualified booked call that actually shows up? That's a win. A closed client? That's a win.

The key here is to optimize for the deepest event in your funnel that you have enough volume to feed. Point the algorithm at the outcome that actually makes you money, not the one that's easiest to rack up.

Step 2 - Sort every lead by quality, automatically

Every lead that enters our funnel answers a few extra questions & gets sorted instantly into one of three buckets: Qualified, Unclear, or Unqualified.

This is the "Dynamic Funnel" concept I've shared before - it works like a traffic light 🚦. Green means go, yellow means take a closer look, red means it's not a fit. The point is that the sorting happens on its own, so you're not manually guessing who's worth chasing.

Step 3 - Port ONLY your best leads back to the platform

This is where the magic happens. Send your qualified calls & closed clients back to the platform as the conversion signal. Offline Conversions on Google & YouTube. Conversions API on Meta.

Now the AI is studying your ideal clients instead of your tire-kickers, & it goes hunting for more of the people who actually pay you.

That one change alone can create a MASSIVE boost to both lead quality & ROAS. 💯

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads

Home furniture brand Blu Dot blew up on CTV with help from Roku Ads Manager. Here’s how:

After a test campaign reached 211,000 households and achieved 1,010% ROAS, the brand went all in to promote its annual sales event. It removed age and income constraints to expand reach and shifted budget to custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.

The results speak for themselves. As Blu Dot increased their investment by 10x, ROAS jumped to 2,308% and more page-view conversions surpassed 50,000.

“For CTV campaigns, Roku has been a top performer,” said Claire Folkestad, Paid Media Strategist, Blu Dot. “Comping to our other platforms, we have seen really strong ROAS… and highly efficient CPMs, lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”

Using Roku Ads Manager, the campaign moved from a pilot to a permanent performance engine for the brand.

Learn More

One Warning Before You Do This

I have to be straight with you, because this is the step where most people lose their nerve.

When you make this switch, your lead volume will drop & your cost per lead will go up.

Let it.

Cost per lead is a vanity metric. Cost per CLIENT is the business.

On a $5K offer, one qualified booked call is worth somewhere between $750 - $2,000 to you. So I'll happily pay 3x more for a lead that's worth 10x more, every single day of the week.

If you only stare at cost per lead, you'll panic & undo the exact change that was about to make you more money. Watch the metric that actually matters instead.

What Almost Nobody Is Paying Attention To

Here's why this matters more right now than it ever has.

Everyone is obsessed with what AI can CREATE for them - the ads, the creative, the funnels, the copy.

Almost nobody is paying attention to what their AI is LEARNING from them.

And these platforms get smarter every single quarter. Whatever direction you point them, they run faster.

Feed it junk & it becomes world-class at finding you more junk.

Feed it your best clients & it becomes the greatest client-finding machine ever built - working for you 24/7. 🚀

So stop asking "why are my leads so bad?"

Start asking "what have I been teaching the algorithm?"

Because your algorithm is learning something today whether you're intentional about it or not. The only real question is what you're teaching it.

Want My Team to Walk You Through It?

We've spent 10 years dialing this exact system in across 3,000+ businesses, & setting it up correctly for your ads is one of my favorite things to map out with people.

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy Call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business - including how to set up this Conversion & Data strategy so your algorithm starts hunting for your best clients.

This is a 20-minute call where we'll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them.

Book Your Complimentary Strategy Call Here

Run the 3 steps either way. Your algorithm is learning something today no matter what. Let's make sure it's learning the right thing.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your next 100 customers are already in Apollo

Find, reach, and close your perfect deals — without juggling five tools or hiring more reps.

Apollo gives you everything you need to build real pipeline, fast. From inbound to outbound, first touch to close.

All in Apollo.

Sign up for free

If your lead flow has felt like a roller coaster lately - one month you're riding high, the next it's falling off a cliff - you are not alone, and it is not your fault.

Right now there are four things quietly squeezing almost every lead-driven business I talk to: lead costs are climbing, lead quality is dropping, you're stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle, and AI competition is getting more crowded by the day.

If you're a Coach, Consultant, Course Creator, Expert, Author, Speaker, or run any kind of service business, I'd bet you're feeling at least one of these right now.

So in today's edition, I want to give you the exact system we use to solve all four - what I call the Self-Improving Marketing System. This is the same framework behind most of the 7 & 8 figure businesses you see out there, but almost nobody talks about it openly.

Today, I'm pulling back the curtain.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• Why your lead flow keeps breaking (the 3 mistakes almost everyone is making)

• The 3 Core Strategies of the Self-Improving Marketing System

• The "Recursive Funnel" - the secret weapon that makes your ads get smarter over time

• 3 things you can implement THIS week (even if you never work with us)

• My Full Free Training Video walking through the entire system, step-by-step

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Why Your Lead Flow Keeps Breaking

Before I give you the solution, I want to name the problem - because most businesses are making the same 3 mistakes without even realizing it.

Mistake #1: Putting all your eggs in one basket.

So many businesses build their entire lead flow on ONE platform. One ad account. One Instagram account. One channel.

Here's the question I want you to sit with: what would happen to your business tomorrow if that platform got shut down, banned, or shadow-banned?

This isn't theory. I've seen it happen time & time again. You do not want to wake up to a red banner on your ad account & realize your entire business had a single point of failure. That's a massive risk hiding in plain sight.

Mistake #2: Optimizing for MORE leads instead of BETTER leads.

Most people chase volume. They run what I call a "static funnel" - 100 leads come in, but they're all kinds of quality. There's some gold in there, but there's a lot of junk too.

And here's the real problem: there's no system filtering it out. So you pay for all 100 leads, you get maybe a couple of real clients, and worst of all, the algorithm learns nothing.

Remember this: the algorithm is only as good as the data you feed it. Feed it every lead, and it brings you more junk. Feed it your BEST leads, and it brings you more clients. This is one of the biggest unlocks in the entire system, and I'll show you exactly how to do it below.

Mistake #3: The Content Hamster Wheel (or the Ads-Only Faucet).

You know the hamster wheel - you post a piece of content, hope it gets traction, it fades within 24 hours, and you do it all over again. Organic alone burns entrepreneurs out.

But the opposite extreme isn't the answer either. The "ads-only faucet" means the second you turn off spend, everything stops. You're not building a business - you're renting one.

The real solution is an Evergreen Engine: ads that consistently bring in new ideal clients, PLUS organic content multiplied by AI. The organic builds trust, the ads scale it, and together it compounds.

So how do we fix all of this? With 3 core strategies working together as one flywheel.

The 3 Core Strategies

Strategy #1: Multi-Platform Video Ads

Why video? Because video builds Know, Like & Trust faster than anything else - and in a world with a "trust recession" where people don't trust online marketing like they used to, that matters more than ever. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

But not just any video. We use the Value-Ad Framework: Hook, Educate, Call to Action.

Instead of "Hey, do you have this problem? Go buy my thing," you say "Hey, if you have this problem, here are a few things you can do about it… and if you want more, here's how we can help." That single shift makes people think "Wow, I didn't know that" - and it produces dramatically higher results, especially for expert & service-based businesses.

Here's a bonus tip that saves a TON of time: you can create 36 different ad variations from just 2-3 hours of filming. Film your hooks separately (6 of them), your educate sections separately (3 of them), and your calls to action separately (2 of them). Then in editing you mix & match: 6 x 3 x 2 = 36 ready-to-run ads. That's 36 variations in the time it'd take to film about 2 and a half full videos.

Now, where do you run them? My anchor platform is YouTube Ads - because people go to YouTube to LEARN. They are literally searching for how to solve the exact problem you solve. That's intent you can't get anywhere else, and it consistently leads to higher lead quality & higher return on ad spend.

That said, don't stop at one. Use Multi-Platform Arbitrage. If everyone's fighting over Meta, you're in the "red ocean" where costs keep climbing. Go where attention is still cheap - the "blue ocean." Then layer in what I call Alpha-AI Targeting, training the platform's AI with your split tests & data to find more of exactly the right people.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

The Future of AI in Marketing. Your Shortcut to Smarter, Faster Marketing.

Unlock a focused set of AI strategies built to streamline your work and maximize impact. This guide delivers the practical tactics and tools marketers need to start seeing results right away:

• 7 high-impact AI strategies to accelerate your marketing performance

• Practical use cases for content creation, lead gen, and personalization

• Expert insights into how top marketers are using AI today

• A framework to evaluate and implement AI tools efficiently

Stay ahead of the curve with these top strategies AI helped develop for marketers, built for real-world results.

Download the Free Report

Strategy #2: Omnipresent Retargeting

This is the most valuable list in your business that you're probably ignoring.

Everyone obsesses over their email list & their followers. But of every 20 people who watch your videos or hit your landing page, maybe ONE becomes a lead. The other 19 already know you. That's a goldmine just sitting there. They just need to keep seeing you.

I like to think of retargeting like a giant microwave. Your cold leads are the popcorn kernels. Your ads are the heat, warming them up from every angle until they're ready to "pop" and become clients.

There are 4 main stages to get right:

• Warm Retargeting - people who visited your site or watched your videos

• Hot Retargeting - people who almost booked a call, brought back to finish

• Trust Retargeting - hitting people with proof AFTER they book but BEFORE the call

• Cross Retargeting - they saw you on YouTube, so you retarget them on Meta (and vice versa)

And don't forget organic content - but you don't need to live on the hamster wheel. Take ONE video and repurpose it into Shorts & Reels across platforms. When people see you everywhere, on both ads & content, you become the only choice they even consider.

One of my favorite retargeting plays is the Testimonial Supercut - a bunch of client wins edited back-to-back into one rolling video. Most people won't watch 100 separate testimonials, but they'll happily watch one compressed reel of wins. It builds trust fast.

Strategy #3: The Recursive Funnel

This is the piece almost nobody talks about, and it's what turns a normal funnel into a self-improving machine.

Most people build their funnel front to back and just try to get "more leads." The Recursive Funnel does something different: it sorts your leads, then feeds the winners back to the AI, so your targeting gets smarter every single month.

Here's how it works:

Step 1 - Add an application with qualifying questions. Instead of letting anyone book a call, have people apply. Ask about their revenue, budget, challenges - whatever's relevant to your business.

Step 2 - Score every lead like a traffic light.

• Red = not qualified (send them to a low-ticket offer or your YouTube channel)

• Yellow = maybe (have a setter vet them first)

• Green = qualified (straight to your sales team's calendar)

You're now automatically rating AND routing every lead that comes in.

Step 3 - Here's the secret: feed ONLY the green data back to the ad platform. You're telling the algorithm, "This is a high-quality lead. Get me more people exactly like this." This works on YouTube, Meta, LinkedIn - virtually any ad platform.

That's the Self-Improving Loop. Your ads run, leads come in at every quality level, the funnel sorts them green/yellow/red, and the green leads get signaled back to the platform. Then it repeats - smarter targeting, cheaper leads, better clients - improving while you sleep.

And here's the compounding part: every month this gap widens. Businesses running the old static funnel stay stuck, because they never reinforce what a "quality lead" actually looks like. Businesses running the recursive funnel pull further & further ahead.

Remember - cheap leads are expensive when they don't show up & don't buy. This system gets your cost-per-qualified-call down, your show rate up, and your client-value-to-cost ratio climbing over time.

Do These 3 Things This Week

Whether or not you ever work with our team, I always want to lead with real value. So here's your action plan you can start on right now:

1. Film one Value-Ad using Hook, Educate, Call to Action.

2. Turn on Retargeting - it's the easiest win sitting in your business right now.

3. Add a qualifying question to your application - and if you can, set up a way to port that green data back to the platform.

Because knowledge without implementation is just entertainment. The businesses that win are the ones that take action.

Watch the Full Training on YouTube:

I walk through this entire Self-Improving Marketing System step-by-step in my new video - including the exact Recursive Funnel, the retargeting layers, and how we feed the AI to get better leads on autopilot.

If you got value from this newsletter, the full video goes even deeper.

Watch the Full Self-Improving Marketing System Training on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

AI Insights. Real Growth. Higher GMV, Better Profits

The difference between growing stores and stagnant ones isn't more effort. It's better insights. StoreClaw analyzes your Shopify and Amazon data, surfaces your biggest growth opportunities, and helps you increase GMV while protecting profit. Start free with bonus tokens. No credit card required.

Try it FREE today

Every single week I get asked some version of the same question: "Aleric, of ALL the places I could spend my ad dollars right now - why YouTube?"

And it's a great question.

Because here's the truth - most people are running ads on platforms where their audience is mindlessly scrolling. We've all done it. You open an app, you thumb through a feed, and 20 minutes later you couldn't tell me a single thing you actually saw.

But YouTube is different.

On YouTube, people show up for one of two reasons - they're there to be Entertained, or they're there to Learn. And when someone is in what I call the "Learner's Mindset," you have a golden opportunity to reach them with a Value-Driven ad that turns a viewer into a real client.

That's the entire game. And today I want to hand you the exact framework I've used - spending millions of dollars on my own YouTube ads - to do it.

I recently gave a talk breaking this whole strategy down on stage, and I want to share the core of it with you right here in this email. Then, if you want the full step-by-step walkthrough, I'll drop the link to the full video at the end.

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

What Makes YouTube Ads a Different Beast Entirely

Most people, when they hear "YouTube Ads," picture one thing - that skippable video that plays in front of the video you actually clicked on.

That's called an In-Stream ad, and yes, it's powerful. But it's just ONE type. Here's the full menu of what's actually available to you today:

• In-Stream Ads - These appear in front of other videos on YouTube. Classic, effective, and great for direct response.

• In-Feed Ads - These show up in search results & as suggested videos, promoting videos you're already creating.

• YouTube Shorts Ads - These appear as people scroll through Shorts.

• Cross-Placement Video Ads - Google is now placing your video ads in Gmail, Discover & other areas as people browse online.

Here's the part most people miss - Google has bundled all of these together into a single campaign type called Demand Gen.

So if you've ever gone to set up a campaign and thought, "Wait, where do I even find the YouTube ads?" - this is your answer. Demand Gen lets you take these different video ad formats and get them in front of your ideal clients across the entire Google ecosystem.

But the real magic isn't just WHERE your ads show up. It's the AI powering WHO sees them.

The Waymo Moment (Why AI Changes Everything)

I live out in Austin, Texas now (though I'm originally from right here in Massachusetts), and out in Austin we have these Waymo self-driving cars everywhere.

One day I'm sitting in the back of one of these things, watching it navigate traffic completely on its own, and it hit me - what does a Waymo have to do with YouTube ads?

Everything.

Because they're BOTH powered by Google's AI. Google owns Waymo. Google also owns YouTube. And here's the thing I want you to really sit with:

If Google can build an AI smart enough to safely drive a car through a busy city with no human behind the wheel... do you think they can build an AI smart enough to put your video in front of exactly the right person at exactly the right moment?

Absolutely they can.

Google has millions upon millions of data points on every single user, and they've injected all of that intelligence directly into your ad targeting. This is what unlocks a completely new paradigm for reaching your ideal clients - and it's exactly what makes the Alpha-AI strategy work.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Cut Lead Review From Hours To Minutes

Sign up for a free trial of Attio, the agentic CRM.

Ask Attio to build a daily workflow that surfaces the deals that need your attention today, like anything with a stage change, a recent reply, or a new signal in the last 24 hours.

Review your pipeline in Claude, synced live from Attio via MCP.

That's it.

Try Attio Now

The "Value Ad" Framework (How to Script an Ad People Actually Watch)

The single biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs and marketers make with their ads?

They forget to provide Value.

They lead with a hard sell, the viewer's guard goes up, and they skip. But remember - the people we want are in the Learner's Mindset. They WANT value. So we give it to them.

I call this the "Value Ad" - a video ad that is genuinely valuable but is engineered to inspire action. And it comes down to three simple components:

• Hook - This pulls people in. It captures attention & primes them for the rest of the ad. You have just a few seconds, so make them count.

• Educate - This is where you deliver real, tangible value. And here's the good news - if you're a coach, expert, author, or business owner, you already do this every day. You just take a small piece of what you know and teach it inside the ad.

• Call to Action - This makes it clear & concise for the viewer to take the next step. Buy the book. Download the PDF. Join the email list. Book the call. Don't leave them guessing.

Hook. Educate. Call to Action.

It sounds simple - and it is - but this exact structure is the difference between an ad people skip in 2 seconds and an ad that turns a cold viewer into a paying client.

The Targeting Playbook (This Is Where It Gets Exciting)

You've got a great ad. Now - how do you get it in front of the RIGHT people?

This is the part most people don't realize about advertising - you have an incredible amount of control. Let me rapid-fire walk you through the layers.

1. The Broad Layers

You can target by location (all the way from a whole country down to a single street address), by device, and by demographics. And here's a pro-tip for high-ticket business owners - you can even filter by household income to reach people who can actually afford your premium services.

2. Google's Pre-Made Audiences

Google has already built audiences for you based on all that data:

• In-Market Segments - People actively in the market for what you do. (Got a fitness book? Target people shopping for fitness services right now.)

• Affinity Audiences - People with a genuine interest in your space. (A finance book? Target people interested in finance & banking.)

• Life Events - People going through a relevant life moment. (A book on retiring in style? Target people who are retiring soon.)

• Detailed Demographics - Hyper-specific groups. (A book on getting your kid into a great college? Target parents of teens aged 13-17.)

3. Your Own Data (The Gold Mine)

This is where it gets really powerful. You can plug in your own website visitors, your app users, your customer list, and - if you have a YouTube channel - everyone who's watching, subscribing & liking your videos.

If you have a YouTube channel, you are sitting on a Gold Mine. You can retarget every person already engaging with your content and turn them into buyers.

4. Custom Audiences (Where You Get "Alpha" Results)

This is the top of the mountain. When you build custom audiences, you're actually training the AI on exactly who you want to reach - and that's how you get Alpha results. A few of my favorites:

• Target people by their interests & purchase intent using your own keywords.

• Target people based on what they're actively searching for on Google or YouTube.

• And my favorite - target people who visit your competitors' websites. You can literally enter a competitor's URL and reach those same people the next time they're on YouTube.

Facebook Ads vs YouTube Ads

I get asked this constantly, so let me address it head-on.

I'm not here to tell you Facebook ads don't work - they can. But here's the core difference:

On most social platforms, people are scrolling passively. On YouTube, people are leaning in to Learn. You get to reach them when they have Intent - and when you pair that intent with a value-driven ad, you're not interrupting them, you're helping them.

That's the whole philosophy. Because when it comes down to it, marketing is really about three things:

Reaching the Right People, at the Right Time, with the Right Message.

That's what the Alpha-AI YouTube Ad Strategy is built to do.

Watch the Full Training on YouTube

I packed a LOT into this email - but I only scratched the surface of what I covered on stage.

In the full video, I walk through the complete Alpha-AI targeting strategy, how to script your winning ads step-by-step, and the exact targeting setups you can start using in your business today. If you want to see the whole thing laid out, this is the one to watch.

Watch the Full Video on YouTube! (Click Here)

Grab a notebook, hit play, and take it in.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

I hope you found today's Newsletter Valuable - my goal is always to give you the Highest Level of Value Possible, and I plan to keep Over-Delivering on that promise.

If you have feedback, just hit Reply & let me know! 😁

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

AI Insights. Real Growth. Higher GMV, Better Profits

The difference between growing stores and stagnant ones isn't more effort. It's better insights. StoreClaw analyzes your Shopify and Amazon data, surfaces your biggest growth opportunities, and helps you increase GMV while protecting profit. Start free with bonus tokens. No credit card required.

Try it FREE today

Welcome back to another edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter!

As always, my Goal here is to give you the Highest Level of Value Possible - and today's edition is a special one, because I got to sit down with someone who has spent multiple Decades mastering the exact thing every marketer is fighting for right now: Attention.

I recently had Stuart Cohen on the Marketing Minds Podcast - and Stuart is the real deal. He's a director & photographer who has worked on big national campaigns for brands like Pepsi, Gatorade, Coca-Cola & American Airlines. He's photographed Tony Robbins (you've probably seen the shot & didn't even know it was his). And he owns Superstock, a digital media content licensing company operating across the US, UK & Canada.

What made this conversation so valuable is that Stuart has lived through every major shift in visual media - analog to digital, digital to 4K & 8K, and now the AI wave - and he's stayed on the cutting edge the entire time.

So I pulled out the Best Golden Nuggets from our conversation & I'm going to break them down through a Marketing lens for you today.

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• Why "visually compelling content" is the single best way to capture attention in history - & what that means for your ads

• The "Unified Strategy" that made Stuart irreplaceable to his clients (this applies to way more than photography)

• The one mindset shift that pulls a genuine, authentic performance out of anyone on camera

• Our real-world test comparing a Fully-AI ad vs. a Fully-Authentic ad vs. a Hybrid ad (the results surprised even me)

• Stuart's Golden Nuggets on landing bigger clients & building a business that lasts

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Golden Nugget #1: The Best Way to Capture Attention in History

I asked Stuart right out of the gate: "What's the best way to capture attention right now?"

His answer was immediate - the most visually compelling content is the best way to capture attention in the history of the world.

And here's the part that stuck with me. Stuart said he fell into this industry way back when, not knowing the power he had. His exact words: "I wish I knew the power that I had at the beginning of my career as I do now."

That's a lesson for all of us. Visual content - and video especially - is the most powerful attention-capturing tool we have ever had access to, & most people are massively underusing it.

If you're running ads, building a brand or growing an audience, the quality & pull of your visuals is not a "nice to have." It's the whole game. The businesses that treat video as their core attention engine are the ones winning right now.

Golden Nugget #2: The "Unified Strategy" That Made Him Irreplaceable

Here's something I loved about how Stuart built his business.

Back in the day, the industry was siloed. If you came to a shop for still photography, you got still photography. If you came for video, you got video. Two separate worlds.

Stuart realized his real value-add was doing BOTH - so even when a client only asked for one, he'd often deliver both anyway, just to prove they should come to him for everything. His photography & his video shared the same creative direction, so the images always aligned with the footage.

Now, why does this matter to you as a marketer?

Because the same principle applies to your entire funnel. When your ad creative, your landing page, your emails & your offer all share one unified strategy & one consistent message - you get compounding results. When they're siloed & disconnected, you leak conversions at every handoff.

Great marketing isn't a collection of separate pieces. It's one aligned system.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your team’s new support player

Stax Payments, a Hubspot customer, now books 80% more meetings with the exact same team they had before.

No new hires. No new territories. Just HubSpot's Prospecting Agent finding the right accounts, surfacing the right contacts, and drafting outreach that actually gets responses.

Your best rep is great because they know who to go after and when. Prospecting Agent gives every rep that same starting point.

Get a demo

Golden Nugget #3: "It's Not About Me. It's About Them."

I asked Stuart how he captures that almost-tangible essence you can feel in his portraits - the reason someone like Tony Robbins wants to work with him.

His answer was deceptively simple: "It's not about me. It's about them."

He genuinely cares about the person in the frame. He's more interested in learning about them than in showing off how he's going to shoot them. And here's the magic - when people feel relaxed & genuinely seen on the other side of the camera, they open up, & the performance transforms.

As Stuart put it, letting people mess up, be nervous, have a good time - that's what shows up in the final product.

^^ Read that again, because it's one of the most important marketing lessons there is.

The brands that connect are the ones that make it about the customer, not about themselves. Your best-performing ad isn't the one that brags about you - it's the one that makes your prospect feel understood.

Golden Nugget #4: Great Pre-Production Makes for Easy Production

When I asked Stuart how he merges cinematic quality with a specific outcome - whether that's brand lift or direct-response conversions - his answer came down to one thing:

Know the outcome you want before you start, & get everyone aligned on it.

It sounds obvious. But Stuart told me that even after months of pre-production, casting & location scouting, you can still show up on shoot day & find that not everyone is on the same page.

His mantra: "Great pre-production makes for easy production."

This is exactly what we see with high-performing YouTube Ads. The campaigns that win aren't the ones with the biggest budgets - they're the ones where the strategy, the message & the desired outcome were dialed in BEFORE a single dollar was spent. Clarity up front saves you from expensive mistakes later.

Golden Nugget #5: The Authenticity Shift (& Where AI Fits In)

This was my favorite part of the conversation.

Stuart pointed out that post-COVID, the whole industry shifted away from super-polished, flashy content toward Authenticity - because people realized authenticity actually works. In fact, he said sometimes it's HARDER to make content look real than to make it look put-on.

But here's the nuance: authenticity alone can only carry you so far. Pure UGC-style content hits a ceiling. The real challenge today is blending a higher level of production WITH that raw, natural, organic feel.

That combination is where the magic happens.

And that brings us to AI.

Stuart & I are aligned here - AI is a genuine game-changer. He shared a story about a Christmas commercial they shot entirely organically, except for one final scene where they needed a snowy house with Christmas lights... in July. So they created it with AI, & you literally cannot tell the difference.

For things like background plates, environments & impossible-to-shoot scenes, AI is magical. Where it's not quite there yet? Genuine human emotion & facial expression.

So here's a real-world test we ran that I think you'll find fascinating.

The Fully-AI vs. Fully-Authentic vs. Hybrid Ad Test

We recently tested three versions of a YouTube Ad:

• A Fully-AI ad

• A Fully-Authentic (non-AI) ad

• A Hybrid ad - an AI-generated hook for the first 8 seconds, leading into a naturally shot ad with a real person

Here's what happened:

• The Fully-AI ad performed the WORST

• The Fully-Authentic ad landed in the middle

• The Hybrid ad performed the BEST

Why? The AI hook at the start was so unique & attention-grabbing that it stopped the scroll - people thought "I've got to watch this." But then the real person took over & built the Know, Like & Trust that actually drives conversions.

AI is incredible at capturing attention. Authentic footage is incredible at building trust. Combine the two & you get the best of both worlds.

Stuart's take on where it's all headed? A giant pendulum - more & more AI usage, then a swing back toward this hybrid balance. I think he's exactly right.

(Quick caveat: this is based on our current testing. As AI keeps improving, this will keep evolving - which is exactly why we keep testing 😁)

Golden Nugget #6: How to Land Bigger Clients (This One's for the Marketers)

I asked Stuart directly - how do you break into bigger brands & bigger rooms?

His answer was one word: Relationships.

The intern you're kind to today might be the CMO of Coca-Cola in ten years. Nurture every relationship first. Stay in touch with people even when there's no immediate business reason to. And once you get in with one small division of a big company & do great work, they talk - & suddenly you're working with four different people inside that same organization.

And his advice on HOW to build those relationships? Be real, be yourself & lose the giant ego.

Stuart said one of the biggest lessons of his career was learning that you don't need a big ego to succeed - being approachable, compassionate & genuinely interested in other people gets you much further. "To be more of a compassionate human being that cares about other people actually gets you further."

Golden Nugget #7: Invest in Yourself First

One thing Stuart & I completely agreed on - your biggest & best investment is always in yourself first, then your team & your business.

As Stuart said, that's the engine that keeps everything else running. He never had a problem investing back into his staff or into marketing his own work, because he always knew the best return comes from investing in yourself.

And his final Golden Nuggets for a marketing audience? I'll let his words speak for themselves:

"Marketing works. Telling stories works. Experimenting works. Not being afraid to fail also works. Find the best people you can afford to work with & surround yourself with people smarter than yourself."

Wise words from someone who has done this at the highest level for decades.

Watch the Full Marketing Minds Episode with Stuart Cohen

I truly only scratched the surface here.

In the full episode, Stuart goes deeper on his origin story, how he transcended every major technology shift while others got left behind, how he pulls authentic performances out of celebrities & everyday people alike, & where he sees the future of AI & filmmaking going.

If you create ANY kind of visual content for your business - & in today's world, you should be - this is a conversation you don't want to miss.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

I hope you got a ton of value out of today's edition - I want to keep bringing you the Best Marketing Minds of today, along with real strategies you can put to work in your own business.

If you enjoyed this episode breakdown & want more guest features like this one, hit Reply & let me know! 😁

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Learn How to Stay Visible in the AI Era

AI is changing how customers discover businesses. If your SEO strategy is built for yesterday's search, your visibility is already slipping. Learn how to optimize your content for today’s AI search results with BELAY’s latest report..

Get your copy for free.

There's a Gold Mine sitting in your DM inbox right now - and most people walk right over it every single day.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with my good friend Sean Malone on the Marketing Minds Podcast. Sean is the co-founder & CMO of Flow Chat, the author of the book "DM Me," and quite possibly the most qualified person on the planet to talk about Direct Message selling.

Why? Because over his 25+ year career, Sean has personally sent over 1.5 Million DM conversations - and he's tracked what actually works the entire time. He's trained over 8,000 sales professionals, worked with 5,000+ founders, and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales through the DMs.

In our conversation, Sean shared the 4 Most Profitable DM Campaigns he's ever discovered, his 3 Golden Rules of DM Copywriting, and the exact framework he uses to turn a cold message into a closed deal. I took a LOT of notes, and today I want to share the best of it with you.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The 4 Most Profitable DM Campaigns of All Time (Sean's exact frameworks after 1.5 Million DMs) 📩

• The 3 Golden Rules of DM Copywriting - including one counterintuitive rule that boosts reply rates by 35%+

• The 4 "Hinge Points" every DM conversation must move through to close a deal

• How to speak the right "dialect" on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & X

• A link to the Full Interview on YouTube where Sean shares even more 🎙️

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The Cash That's Sitting in Your Inbox

Here's a stat from our conversation that stopped me in my tracks.

Sean told me that most people he works with - and remember, that's thousands of founders & business owners - have easily Six Figures, if not Seven Figures, sitting unread in their inbox right now.

He calls it "the cash can of social media" because most people walk right past it. They'll chase a brand new ad strategy or a shiny new funnel, when the truth is there are warm conversations already waiting for them on every platform.

And here's the part I love: this doesn't compete with your other marketing - it multiplies it.

Think about it. You run paid ads, and only about 3-7% of the people who see your ad actually click through to your landing page. But what about the 60, 70, even 80% of people who liked & commented on your ad and never went any further?

DMs become the glue. They're the filler that catches all the people slipping through the cracks of your existing system. You mine the conversations you already have, that funds more ads, and those ads create even more conversations. It all works hand in hand.

So let's talk about how to actually run those conversations.

The 4 Most Profitable DM Campaigns

After tracking 1.5 Million DMs over 25 years, Sean narrowed the winners down to just 4 core campaigns. Two are for Inbound traffic (people coming to you) and two are for Outbound (you reaching out to them).

Here they are:

1️⃣ The Two-Step Post Flow (Inbound)

You've seen these before - a piece of content that says "comment this keyword below" or "DM me this word." That's step one, and it draws the inbound traffic in your direction.

Step two is where the magic happens. Instead of jumping straight into a pitch, you open with a simple, easy question:

"Thanks for the comment. Are you here for the content or something else?"

That's it. It's so easy to answer that it gets them to engage - and engagement is the whole game (more on that in a second).

2️⃣ The Follower Flow (Inbound)

This one is nearly identical, but it's built for paid ads where your call to action is "Follow my profile." When someone follows, you reach out with:

"Thanks for the follow. Are you here for the content or something else?"

It's personalized enough to draw a reaction, but it never leads with a pitch. Which brings me to Sean's biggest warning…

The #1 mistake people make in the DMs is the "Pitch Slap" - that giant opening message that screams "Here's who I am, buy my stuff, here's my link." We ALL get a million of them. Nobody likes them. Don't be that person.

3️⃣ The Group Flow (Outbound)

This one is for anyone building a community. The first message is a casual invite to your group - with NO link:

"Looks like you're crushing it in the YouTube game. I just launched a really interesting community that talks about X, Y & Z. You wouldn't be interested in learning more, would you?"

Notice there's no link. It's a soft invite that lets THEM raise their hand. Once they say "Actually, that's interesting to me," THEN you drop the link:

"Here's the link, let me know when you join and I'll make sure my team gives you a warm welcome."

(I'll share Sean's brilliant "warm welcome" strategy in the full video - it's a masterclass in grabbing mind share.)

4️⃣ The Book-a-Call Flow (Outbound)

This is the one most people use, and Sean's approach is genius. The very first message is nothing but a genuine, authentic compliment:

"You're crushing the YouTube game right now and all the video stuff you teach - it's amazing to watch. I'm crazy busy today, probably like you, but I'll be back tomorrow to say something more intelligent. In the meantime, keep up the great work."

The goal of that first message isn't to sell anything. It's simply to get them to engage. That's it.

So how do you know which campaign to use? Sean's answer was simple: it comes down to your business model. Do you have a sales team? Do you sell without a call? Do you run webinars or paid ads? Whatever you already have in place, you slot the DM campaign that fits best right into the equation as the glue.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

125,000+ podcasts, transcribed and searchable in minutes.

Particle transcribes 125,000+ podcasts where executives, officials, and analysts talk candidly and publicly, transcribed and queryable within minutes of airing.

Watch a company, a person, or a theme with the Particle API and get alerts whenever they're mentioned.

Particle is built by former Twitter and Tesla engineers, using an AI-native transcription pipeline that delivers high accuracy and extensive data enrichment.

Start with $10 in free credit.

The 4 Hinge Points of Every DM Conversation

Here's what I found fascinating. Sean said that every single DM conversation he's ever been in - out of 1.5 Million - moves through the same 4 "Hinge Points."

Master these and you have a repeatable system instead of just winging it:

• Hinge Point 1 - Get Engagement. This is why that first message never sells. All you want is for them to say something back to you. Nothing else.

• Hinge Point 2 - The Transition. Now you use 2-5 questions to qualify or disqualify them. The trick is to craft questions that pull out your "secret sauce" without them realizing you're steering. For Sean, it's as simple as: "Have you ever closed a deal through the DMs before?" - which puts him right on topic no matter how they answer.

• Hinge Point 3 - The Invite with a CTA Link. Once they're qualified, you invite them to the next step: "I think we should have a conversation, this looks like a fit. Are you open to it? Great - here's my link, let me know when you book."

• Hinge Point 4 - Clear the Future. This is the step right before the call: "Before we hop on, watch this 2-minute video, it might spark some ideas for our conversation." It sets the table so they show up ready.

None of this was theory. As Sean put it, this was built over millions of real conversations, watching exactly why things worked and why they didn’t. He's a data nerd (like me), because numbers & math are what create the results we all want.

The 3 Golden Rules of DM Copywriting

This was my favorite part of the whole interview. Sean broke down 3 rules of DM copywriting - and rule #1 might be the most counterintuitive marketing tip I've heard all year.

Rule #1 - Do NOT use the person's first name in the first 5 words of any DM you send.

I'll be honest, this one caught me off guard because I've been breaking it! 98% of people open with "Hey Sean!" or "What's up, Aleric?" And yes, psychology tells us people love hearing their own name.

But that's exactly the point. If everyone does it, doing it makes you blend in. You want to stand out.

So instead of "Hey Aleric, I see you're killing it in the YouTube world," you flip it: "You're crushing it in the YouTube world, Aleric." According to Sean, that one tiny change can boost your response rate by roughly 35-38%. Zig while everyone else zags.

Rule #2 - End every single DM with a question.

And make it a question that's simple enough to answer in one or two seconds. Questions position you as the Trusted Advisor and let you guide the entire conversation. Ask enough of the right questions and eventually the dam breaks - they'll tell you everything going on in their world. That's when you've built the rapport to move the conversation anywhere you want.

Rule #3 - Match their cadence.

This is a personality rule. If someone fires back a one or two word reply, you keep yours short too. If they send you a big long paragraph, you send a big long paragraph right back. Subconsciously, they think, "This person talks just like me, I like them, we're the same." That mirroring builds the rapport that gets deals closed.

Every Platform Speaks a Different "Dialect"

One more gem before I send you to the full video. Sean explained that each platform has its own dialect - like how Spanish in Mexico differs from Portuguese in Brazil. Same idea, slightly different language. Here's how he breaks down the Big 4:

• Facebook - Casual & friendly, like you're whipping towels in the locker room with an old buddy. Message people as if they're already a close friend.

• LinkedIn - Suit-and-tie and more direct. There are more founders & business owners here who are short on time, so you can get to the point a little faster (just don't hit them with the pitch).

• Instagram - The language of beauty. Short, beautiful words. Incomplete sentences and a missed bit of punctuation are totally fine - it makes you human.

• X - A cross between Facebook & Instagram. Beautiful words, a bit longer, kept casual.

Speak the right dialect on the right platform and you'll win far more often than you lose.

Watch the Full Interview on YouTube:

There was SO much more that Sean shared that I couldn't fit into this email - including his "warm welcome" Facebook Group strategy that floods a new prospect's feed with your content for free, how to prime your profile to hit a 25%+ connection rate, how to use AI to do the heavy lifting while keeping a human in the loop to close, and even the story behind putting a QR code on the cover of his book.

Do yourself a favor and watch the full conversation - it's packed with actionable value from someone who has truly done the work:

Watch the Full Interview with Sean Malone on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Tax Prep with Confidence

Tax season doesn't have to mean wondering if you have the right forms, second-guessing your deductions, or scrambling to pull everything together before the deadline.

With BELAY’s Tax Prep Checklist, you can start preparing for tax season with confidence.

Download the Free Checklist

Imagine describing the exact funnel you want in a few sentences & watching AI build the entire thing for you - designed in your brand's style, animated, mobile-ready & good enough to go live.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, that's exactly what I've been doing lately - & the results have honestly blown me away.

I built an entire marketing funnel, from scratch, 100% using AI. No designer. No developer. No dragging little boxes around a page builder for six hours. Just a prompt, a few rounds of feedback & a finished funnel I could host on my own domain.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The exact "Design System" trick that gets AI to build funnels in YOUR brand style (this is the step almost everyone skips)

• My simple prompt framework for turning an offer into a full funnel

• The Pro Tip that makes your funnel 10X better (hint: it involves your VSSL)

• How to polish, quality-control & host your funnel - either free with Cloudflare or on GoHighLevel to actually capture leads

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Why This Changes the Game for Marketers

For years, building a proper funnel meant one of two things: either you paid a designer & developer a small fortune, or you spent your own precious hours wrestling with a page builder trying to make it look halfway decent.

Neither of those is a great use of your time or money - especially when you're testing new offers & you need to move FAST.

That's what makes this so exciting. With a tool called Claude Design, you can now describe the funnel you want & have AI build it for you - in your brand's exact colors, fonts & style.

And I'm not talking about some generic, cookie-cutter template. I'm talking about a genuinely beautiful, animated, conversion-focused funnel that looks like you hired a top-tier agency to build it.

Let me walk you through exactly how this works.

Step 1: Build Your "Design System" First (Don't Skip This!)

Here's the mistake most people make - they jump straight to asking AI to build a page & then wonder why it looks generic.

The secret is to first create what's called a Design System.

A Design System is what teaches the AI everything about YOUR brand - your logo, your colors, your fonts, your voice & your style - so that every funnel it builds actually looks like it belongs to your business.

And the easiest way to build one? Feed it your existing website.

You simply describe your company in a sentence or two, drop in your website URL & upload your logo (I also like to add a photo of myself). The AI then studies your entire site - all your colors, icons, cards, layouts & branding - & builds a complete Design System around it.

Pro Tip: No website yet? No problem. You can still build a Design System just by uploading a few images & brand assets, or even start with no style at all & build one from scratch.

Once it's done, you've got a reusable brand blueprint that you can use for every single funnel you build from now on. That's the foundation - & it's what separates a generic page from one that looks unmistakably like YOU.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Apple’s Starlink Update Sparks Huge Earning Opportunity

Apple just secretly added Starlink satellite support to iPhones through iOS 18.3.

One of the biggest potential winners? Mode Mobile.

Mode’s EarnPhone already reaches 490M+ users that have earned over $1B, and that’s before global satellite coverage. With SpaceX eliminating "dead zones," Mode's earning technology can now reach billions more in unbanked and rural populations worldwide.

Their global expansion is perfectly timed, and investors like you still have a chance to invest in their pre-IPO offering at $0.52/share.

With their recent 32,481% revenue growth and newly reserved Nasdaq ticker, Mode is one step closer to a potential IPO.

Tap into a $1T opportunity — invest now at just $0.52/share and get up to 20% bonus.

^{Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.}

^{Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.}

^{The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.}

Step 2: Turn an Offer Into a Full Funnel With One Prompt

Once your Design System is ready, building the funnel itself is almost embarrassingly simple.

You just give it a prompt like this:

"Create a marketing funnel for [your offer] in the [your brand] design style, using the attached assets that describe the offer."

That's it. That's the core prompt.

But here's where I want to give you the Pro Tip that makes ALL the difference…

If you've already recorded a VSSL (a Video Sales Letter - basically a video promoting your offer), you're sitting on a goldmine of context.

Take the transcript of that video & feed it into the AI. Add your slide deck. Add the video link itself so it can embed it on the page.

Now the AI doesn't just know what your brand looks like - it deeply understands your offer, your messaging & your pitch. And that means the funnel it builds is dramatically better, because it's built around the exact words & angles you already know convert.

If you don't have a VSSL, that's totally fine - you can just describe the funnel you want in plain English & it will get to work.

Step 3: Let It Ask You the Right Questions

Here's something I love about this process - it doesn't just guess. It interviews you.

Once you hit go, it'll come back & ask smart questions like:

• Which pages should the funnel include?

• How long should the page be? (Pro Tip: I always choose long-form first - you can always cut later, but it's harder to add)

• What should the "Apply Now" button do - open a form, or redirect to your application page?

• Which proof elements do you want? (client logos, video testimonials, trust badges, revenue screenshots, "as seen in" strips, etc.)

• Do you want a few variations to choose from?

You answer those, hit continue & then the real magic happens. Sit back, grab some popcorn & watch it build your entire funnel behind the scenes. 🚀

Step 4: Edit Everything in Plain English

When your first draft loads, it won't be perfect - & that's exactly how it should be. This is a starting point you shape into the final product.

The beautiful part is you can edit ANYTHING just by describing it.

The video isn't embedding right? Type "the YouTube video isn't embedded properly" & hit send. Too much space at the top? Just say so. Want your client logos added? Point it to your success page or upload a screenshot & it'll pull them in for you.

You can also click directly on any text on the page & edit it yourself - change a headline, unbold a phrase, tweak your sub-headline - it's all fully editable.

And yes - remember to tell it to "remove all em dashes & replace them with regular dashes." (The fact that we still have to do this in 2026 genuinely makes me laugh - but hey, it works, haha.)

Step 5: Polish, Animate & Quality-Control It

This is where you take a great funnel & make it exceptional.

Animate it. Open a fresh chat & prompt: "I want to make this site even more polished & professional. Please animate the site so elements pop up as the user scrolls." This adds that subtle, high-production-value feel where sections slide & fade in as your visitor scrolls. It's a small touch that makes a BIG difference.

Quality-control it. Before you go live, I always run this prompt: "I'm about to finalize this funnel. Please do a full quality control check to ensure it's ready to go live & make any final polishes." The AI literally reviews its own work & cleans up anything that's off.

Bonus prompt for extra ideas. Want it to think for you? Try: "Is there anything else based on my website you'd recommend I add to this funnel?" It'll come back with genuinely useful suggestions you can approve on the spot.

Step 6: Host It & Start Capturing Leads

Now the fun part - making it live.

You've got two solid options:

Option 1 - Cloudflare + GitHub (Free). You export the funnel as a repository, upload it to a free GitHub account & host it on Cloudflare (both have free tiers). The advantage here is that any time you update the files, your live site updates too.

Option 2 - GoHighLevel (My Recommendation). If you're serious about capturing leads, this is the way I'd go. You simply grab the HTML file, copy the page source, create a new funnel in GoHighLevel, drop in a custom HTML block & paste your code. Save it & your entire funnel loads inside your CRM - video embedded & all - ready to capture & follow up with every lead.

The reason I lean toward GoHighLevel is simple: capturing leads is the whole point. A gorgeous funnel that doesn't feed into a system to follow up with prospects is just a pretty page. Inside GoHighLevel, every opt-in flows straight into a place where you can text, call & nurture them into clients.

The Big Takeaway

We are living through a genuine shift in how marketing gets built.

The things that used to cost thousands of dollars & weeks of back-&-forth can now be done in an afternoon - by you, with AI, in your own brand style.

That doesn't replace strategy (you still need to know what makes a funnel convert) - but it removes almost all of the friction between having an idea & putting a live, professional funnel in front of your market.

And when you can test offers that fast & that cheap, you win - because in marketing, speed of testing is speed of learning, & speed of learning is speed of growth.

I made a full step-by-step video walking through this entire process on my YouTube Channel - from building the Design System, to the exact prompts I use, to hosting it on GoHighLevel. If you want to actually build one alongside me, this is the one to watch:

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming Next:

• More AI Tools & Workflows we're using inside our Companies to Build Faster & Sell More (I keep my finger on the pulse of AI - so you don't have to!)

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you're Always on the Cutting Edge

• And a LOT More…

I'm serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You're Subscribed to - Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I'll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

• Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Build a Holiday Creator Affiliate Program in 90 Days

Creators lock in holiday content calendars 90 days out, before brands figure out commissions. Waiting too long to launch an affiliate program means less runway to build demand and a missed shot at the best partnerships.

The 90-Day Holiday Sprint covers commissions, recruiting, and scaling a program at Day 30, 60, and 90.

Download the Free Guide

There's a Question that every single business must know the answer to - and almost none of them actually do.

It's not your revenue. It's not your number of customers. It's not even your average order value.

The Question is this: How much is a customer actually worth to you at every single day of the journey - for every product, every funnel, every traffic source & every affiliate?

I know that's a mouthful, but stick with me here - because once you see what I'm about to share, you won't be able to unsee it.

I recently sat down for an incredible episode of the Marketing Minds Podcast with Tyler Ryan - a former NASA software engineer (yes, actual rocket science) & the Founder & CEO of Data-Driven OS. Tyler's team has analyzed over $3.1 Billion in customer data, & what he shared completely reframes the way you should think about your Lifetime Value (LTV) & Cost to Acquire (CAC).

This one hits close to home for me, because it connects directly to something I preach all the time: The Business that can afford to spend the most to acquire a customer WINS. And the only way to know how much you can actually afford to spend... is to know what your customers are truly worth.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• Why the "single LTV number" you're using right now is not just ineffective - it's potentially dangerous

• The "Fog" that's silently dragging down your margins (& why you can't see it)

• How your LTV can be $60-$80 higher on one platform vs another - & why the "average" makes you wrong everywhere

• The big risk of blindly dumping your data into AI to get your numbers

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The $300 LTV Trap

Let me ask you a simple question: What's your LTV?

If your answer is a single number - let's say "$300" - I've got some tough love for you. That number is essentially meaningless.

Here's why, & this was one of my favorite parts of the conversation with Tyler. The moment you say "my LTV is $300," the very next question should be: At what day?

Because that number could represent 30 days... or it could represent 5 years. And those are wildly different realities.

Most businesses calculate LTV the lazy way - they take all their revenue & divide it by all their customers. Tyler put it perfectly: when you do that, you're blending apples, oranges & pears together into one number. You're taking customers who are 1 day old, 275 days old & 3 years old, mashing them all together, & landing on the highest possible version of that number.

And here's the dangerous part - if you then go spend on ads based off that $300 figure, thinking "I can afford to spend up to $300 to acquire a customer," but it actually takes your customers 2-3 years to hit that number... you're going to get crushed.

As Tyler said it: Averages kill insights.

LTV Isn't a Number - It's a Curve

This is the mindset shift.

Real LTV isn't a single point. It's a curve that tells a story over time:

• Day 0 = your Average Order Value (the money you make right when they buy)

• Then a Day 1 value, Day 7, Day 14, Day 30, Day 60, Day 90, Day 180, Day 365... & beyond

When you can see that full curve, everything changes. Now you can have the real conversation every business SHOULD be having:

"Based on my LTV, how much can I actually afford to spend to acquire a customer - & how long am I willing to wait to make that money back?"

Maybe you're comfortable spending against your 30-day LTV. Maybe you can afford to spend against your 90-day LTV because your cash flow allows you to wait a little longer. Either way - THAT is how you unlock the ability to outspend your competition.

Think about it. If all you knew was your $300 AOV, you'd be terrified to spend more than $300 to acquire a customer. But if you could see that those same customers grow to $383 over the next year... you now have a competitive advantage. You can confidently spend more up front to win, because you KNOW the backend is coming.

That's the exact concept I talk about with ROAS & Risk Arbitrage - but it only works when you can actually SEE the full picture.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

The GTM Playbook Behind Warmly's Acquisition

Warmly ran pipeline, outreach, and lead scoring on autopilot for hundreds of startups — before a single sales hire.

HubSpot acquired them for it. Now the cofounders are walking you through the exact system, live, before they disappear into product. Join the Builder Session on August 12.

Leave with an agentic GTM stack you can replicate this week. Plus HubSpot Credits when you join HubSpot for Startups.

Register Free Today

The "Fog" That's Killing Your Margins

Here's the analogy from the episode that really stuck with me.

Tyler describes most businesses as operating in a "fog." You can clearly see where your customers start - the AOV, the first purchase. But the second they walk into the fog (everything that happens AFTER you acquire them), you have no idea what's actually going on.

And what happens in that fog can completely reverse your decision-making.

He gave a great example: a health & wellness brand using aggressive front-end marketing to push bigger packages. Their AOV looks amazing - let's say $240 - so they feel confident spending $240 to acquire a customer. But hidden in the fog is a brutal refund rate quietly dragging their margins into the ground.

If they spent based on that AOV, it would be catastrophic - & they'd have no idea why the business "just isn't as profitable as it should be."

This is the reality for SO many businesses. The customer behavior happening under the fog is silently deciding whether you win or lose - & you can't see it.

Your LTV Is Different on EVERY Platform ⚡

This is the part that I think will hit home the most for anyone running ads.

Let's say you finally get visibility into your LTV curve for your whole business. Tyler makes the case that even THAT is almost useless - because it's still an average across all your traffic sources.

Here's the real data he shared: One traffic source started at a $260 AOV with very modest, trickle-of-growth LTV. Another started at a $325 AOV with aggressive growth in the first 7 days & strong long-term gains. The bottom curve? That was Meta. The top curve? That was YouTube. And there was $60-$80 of separation between them.

Now imagine you just spent against the "average" of those two.

You'd be dramatically OVERSPENDING on one platform & dramatically UNDERSPENDING on the other - leaving money & scale on the table while quietly bleeding cash somewhere else.

And this doesn't just happen at the traffic-source level. It happens at the campaign level, the product level, the funnel level, even the individual affiliate or influencer level.

That's why Tyler repeats this line like a mantra (& honestly, it's worth memorizing): LTV at every day of the journey, for every product, funnel, traffic source & affiliate.

If you can't get down to THAT level of detail, you've just got a bunch of "interesting" information that you can't actually act on.

A Quick Warning on Just "Throwing It All Into AI"

I know exactly what some of you are thinking right now: "I'll just dump all my data into AI & ask it for my LTV & CAC."

I love AI - we use it every single day. But Tyler made a point here that every business owner needs to hear.

AI will get you 80-90% of the way there & it will sound incredibly confident doing it. The danger is all in that last 5-10%. Because when you ask AI for your day 0, 30, 60 & 90 LTV, it WILL give you an answer - a very convincing one.

But can you audit it? Can you trace it? Can you double-check it?

If the answer is no, that's your warning sign that you probably shouldn't be making million-dollar media-buying decisions off of it. As the stakes of the decision go up, so should your ability to verify the answer.

This is where Tyler's NASA background really shows. When you're landing a rover on Mars within a mile of its target, accuracy isn't a nice-to-have - it's mission critical. Why would we treat the numbers driving our entire business with any less rigor?

The takeaway: use AI as a layer that sits ON TOP of accurate, auditable analysis - don't rely on it to build the analysis from scratch & then bet your business on the results.

This Is the Heart of Your Business 🫀

If there's one thing to take away from this episode, it's this:

The relationship between your Lifetime Value & your Cost to Acquire is the single most fundamental thing that determines the health of your business. Whatever profit you make per customer over their lifetime is the ENTIRE budget you have to operate, grow & acquire more customers.

And yet 99% of businesses are flying through the fog, making their most important decisions off of blurry averages & guesswork.

So here's my challenge to you this week: Can you actually see your LTV curve right now? Broken down by platform, by funnel, by product?

If you can't - that's not a small gap. That's the biggest constraint on your ability to scale.

Watch the Full Marketing Minds Podcast Episode on YouTube:

Tyler & I went WAY deeper than I could fit in this email - including live examples of real LTV curves, the "confidence curve" method that lets you get early signals WITHOUT irresponsible projections, & how to build the kind of accuracy & autonomy into your data that NASA builds into a Mars mission.

If you make decisions with your marketing dollars, this is an episode you'll want to take notes on.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

What is an EOR—and why are companies using it?

Opening entities in every country can be slow, expensive, and hard to scale.

That's why more companies are using EOR to hire globally faster.

See how Oyster helps teams hire, pay, and support talent in 180+ countries while staying compliant along the way.

Get all the answers

Here's something that took me over a decade to fully understand:

Marketing gets easy when you become a Video Authority.

Not "a little easier." Easy.

Because when you become the Video Authority in your industry, you stop chasing clients & clients start coming to you - already knowing you, already liking you & already trusting you before you ever get on a call.

That's the whole game. And today I want to break down exactly how it works.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The #1 Lesson I learned growing a YouTube channel to 500k+ subscribers (that most creators never figure out)

• Why "Views" & "Clients" are two completely different games - & how to win the one that actually matters

• The Organic + Paid combo that turns your video content into an always-on client-getting machine

• The Big Shift AI just created in marketing - & why it's great news for you

Alright, let's Dive In…

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The Difference Between Views & Clients

Let me take you back to 2009.

That's when I started my very first YouTube channel, teaching tech tutorials. Over the years I grew it to over Half a Million Subscribers.

Sounds like a dream, right?

Here's the part nobody talks about…

Views don't pay the bills.

I had the traffic. I had the audience. I had the subscriber count that most people would kill for. But I quickly learned the Hard Truth that there is a Massive Difference between getting a lot of Views & getting real Clients.

You can have millions of views & still struggle to make sales.

OR you can have a much smaller, focused audience & convert them into high-paying clients like clockwork.

So the question isn't "How do I get more views?"

The question is "How do I turn the right viewers into clients?"

And that - that right there - is the Art & Science of becoming a Video Authority.

Why Video Builds Trust Faster Than Anything Else

Think about the last time you bought from someone you'd never met.

Chances are, before you ever spoke to them, you watched their videos. You heard how they talked. You saw how they explained things. You started to feel like you knew them.

That's the magic of video - it builds the Know, Like & Trust factor at scale.

When someone watches your video, they're not just consuming information. They're deciding whether they trust you enough to hand you their hard-earned money.

And here's the beautiful part - once that trust is built on video, the "selling" almost takes care of itself. People show up to your calls already sold. They're not asking "Should I work with you?" - they're asking "How do we get started?"

That's what I mean when I say Marketing Gets Easy.

You're not convincing anymore. You're just inviting.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your creator program stopped working. You're the bottleneck.

It's not a criticism. It's just math.

One person can only recruit, vet, contract, manage, and pay so many creators before growth stalls.

partnrUP turns influencer marketing into a scalable creator engine. AI automates creator recruitment and campaign operations, helping brands activate more creators, generate more content, identify top performers faster, and create more opportunities to drive traffic and sales.

You focus on strategy.

The creator engine keeps running.

Get two videos free

The Organic + Paid Combo That Changes Everything

Now here's where most people leave a fortune on the table.

They pick ONE lane.

Some go all-in on Organic Video - posting on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok & hoping the algorithm blesses them.

Others go all-in on Paid Video Ads - running YouTube & Meta ads to cold audiences.

But the real magic? It's when you combine BOTH.

Here's why this works so well:

• Your Organic Videos build authority, trust & a library of content that works for you 24/7

• Your Paid Video Ads let you get in front of your exact ideal client on demand - you're not waiting on the algorithm

• Omnipresent Retargeting keeps you top-of-mind, so the people who discover you keep seeing you everywhere until they're ready to take action

When you layer these together, something powerful happens - you become Omnipresent to your ideal client. You're on their YouTube, you're in their feed, you're the expert they keep bumping into.

And when it finally comes time for them to buy? There's only one name they think of. Yours.

(This is exactly the approach we've used to help over 3,000 businesses scale - & the same strategy I've put my own money behind, spending over $7.7 Million on video ads myself. I don't teach anything I don't personally use.)

The Big Shift AI Just Created

Here's a truth that a lot of "gurus" don't want to admit:

AI made information cheap.

Ten years ago, information was the product. You paid for the knowledge - the "how-to." Today? You can get a decent answer to almost any marketing question in about 4 seconds from ChatGPT.

So if information is now basically free… what's actually valuable?

Implementation.

Actually getting it done. Getting your video ads live - reviewed by experts - instead of sitting in your drafts. Getting your organic content out consistently instead of "I'll post next week." Getting real feedback on your funnel, your scripts & your targeting from people who've done it thousands of times.

That's the shift. The value moved from knowing to doing.

And this is fantastic news for you - because it means the people who Take Action & actually implement will win bigger than ever, while everyone else is still "researching."

Remember: Advice is only as good as the action by which it's acted upon.

Here's the Bottom Line

If you're a coach, consultant, agency founder, course creator or service business owner…

Video is the single highest-leverage skill you can build right now.

Become the Video Authority in your industry, and marketing stops being a grind. You build the Know, Like & Trust at scale, you combine organic + paid to become omnipresent, & you convert viewers into high-paying clients on repeat.

I just recorded a full video breaking down this entire framework - including how AI is transforming video marketing & exactly what it takes to become a Video Authority in your industry.

If today's newsletter got the wheels turning, the video takes it a whole lot deeper.

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Watch the Full Training on YouTube! (Click Here)

(In the video I also share how you can get live expert help implementing all of this every single week - so definitely stick around to the end.)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources - straight to your Inbox

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Video Funnels that Scaled Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Organic Video Strategies as we Discover Them - so you're Always on the Cutting Edge

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what's actually working in Video Marketing right now (based on what we're seeing across Thousands of Clients)

• & a LOT More…

I'm serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You're Subscribed to - Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I'll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

• Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Stop typing what you could say in 10 seconds.

Wispr Flow turns your voice into clean, professional text inside any app. Emails, Slack, client updates — speak once, send without editing. 4x faster than typing.

Try Wispr Flow free

Here's a stat that stopped me in my tracks.

The average online course has a completion rate of around 6%. Free challenges? Only 10% of people even START them, let alone finish.

But my guest this week runs a 21-day challenge with an 80% completion rate.

Not 8%. Not 18%. Eighty percent.

When I heard that number, I knew I had to have him on The Marketing Minds Podcast to break down exactly how he does it - because whether you run challenges, courses, coaching programs, or you just want to actually follow through on your own goals, this is pure gold.

My guest is Brian Ford, a Follow-Through Coach & the host of the Self Improvement Daily podcast with over 21 Million Downloads.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The REAL reason paid challenges crush free ones (and how to engineer 80% completion)

• Why "Self-Sabotage" quietly hijacks your best intentions - and the framework to beat it

• When to Follow Through vs. When to Pivot (the answer to the "shiny object" trap)

• The Accountability reframe that turns every setback into a win

• How the Ripple Effect can propel your Follow-Through (this one's close to my heart)

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

Why People Finish What They Pay For

Let's start with that 80% number, because it holds a lesson for anyone selling a transformation.

Brian's take is simple: when you pay, you pay attention.

There's accountability when you pay. There's investment & commitment when you pay. You're simply more serious. And that shift changes everything about whether someone shows up.

But here's the part most course creators miss - the payment alone isn't what gets someone to 80% completion. It's the environment you build AROUND that commitment.

Brian doesn't just hand over content & hope for the best. When someone signs up, he personally reaches out - his actual phone number, a video message, a voice note: "Hey, I'm Brian. I'm your accountability partner. We're starting Monday. Are you all in?"

That single human touch activates something deep in our evolutionary wiring. We're social creatures. When we make a commitment to a real person - not a robot, not an automated reminder - we feel compelled to follow through, because letting someone down carries a real emotional cost.

The takeaway for marketers & coaches: your job doesn't end at the sale. If you want people to actually get the transformation they paid for, you have to design the environment that carries them there.

The Silent Killer: Self-Sabotage

This was my favorite part of the conversation.

Brian defines self-sabotage as your unconscious mind actively resisting something you said you were going to do. And why would your own mind do that to you?

Because the action you're about to take contradicts your current identity - and your brain is a threat-detection machine whose only job is to keep you safe. Anything uncertain gets flagged as "unsafe," so your mind quietly talks you out of it.

The tricky part is that self-sabotage almost never shows up wearing a name tag. It disguises itself as:

• Procrastination

• Limiting beliefs & negative self-talk

• Imposter syndrome

• Overthinking & confusion

• Fear, anxiety & stress

Each one hijacks your short-term decision-making and hands you a comfortable rationalization: "I'm not ready yet." "That's too risky." "Let me just do this other thing first."

And every single one of them, Brian says, traces back to a single root: fear.

So how do you beat it? Here's the framework that genuinely shifted how I think about this...

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Live Webinar: SSP Automation, Native to Your Billing Platform

Most finance teams still track SSP in spreadsheets — manually updated, disconnected from billing. On July 22, Tabs' product and marketing leads show what changes when SSP runs natively inside your billing platform: built from real billing data, connected to your Product Catalog, and generating audit-ready documentation automatically.

You'll leave with a clear view of how SSP and billing connect, what transaction price allocation looks like under ASC 606 in practice, and what it takes to close faster without reconciling SSP to contracts by hand.

July 22, 2026 · 1:30–2:00 PM EDT · Live + recording

Register now to save your spot, or read more about how Product Catalog powers billing automation.

Register for the Webinar

Make the Unconscious Conscious

You can't judge a decision in the heat of the moment, because in the moment, the rationalization always sounds right.

Brian's approach is to review your decisions from a third-party, bird's-eye view AFTER the fact - outside of the emotion & environment where you made them.

Was it okay that I skipped my 10 sales calls because a fulfillment project came up? Was that a legitimate priority, or was that self-sabotage dressed up as a good excuse?

When you step outside the moment & honestly observe how you actually did, you make the unconscious conscious. And that awareness primes you to make a better decision the NEXT time you're in a similar situation.

As Brian put it, quoting Maya Angelou: "You do your best until you know better, and then once you know better, you do better."

Follow Through or Pivot? The Question Every Entrepreneur Asks

If you're a quick-start entrepreneur like me, this one hits home. (I'm a 9 out of 10 on Quick Start on the Kolbe - so trust me, I know the pull of the next shiny idea!)

So when do you grind it out & follow through, and when do you pivot?

Brian's answer: think twice before pivoting.

Picture your goal as the top of a mountain. There are countless paths up - and honestly, most of them work. As Alex Hormozi says, "Anything works. It's just a matter of how well it works."

The path that works BEST for you is simply the one you can actually climb. When you're a few steps up one trail & another path suddenly looks faster or easier, that's usually a distraction in disguise. Pivoting means walking all the way back down the mountain just to start climbing another one from the bottom - throwing away all the momentum you've built.

His rule of thumb: optimize FAST on the small stuff - the tactics, the split tests, the details. But be SLOW & deliberate about changing your core strategy. More often than not, that shiny new direction is your unconscious mind looking for an escape hatch.

The Accountability Reframe That Changes Everything

Most people are afraid of accountability because they think it means reporting back that they failed.

Brian flips this completely by breaking the word down to its roots: account + able.

To "account" for something just means to keep track of it honestly - like accounting for the money in your bank account. It's not about being perfect. It's about honestly observing & reporting whether you did the thing or not.

So even when you slip up, there's still a win available:

"I'm accountable because I admit I didn't do it."

That honesty reinforces the intention behind the goal - it signals "this still matters to me, even though I had a lapse today." And then you get to ask WHY. Bad scheduling? A coworker dropped something on your plate? Now you're aware of the pattern getting in your way, which means you can design around it next time.

This is the exact mindset I preach as an entrepreneur: you're either Winning or you're Learning - and Learning is just delayed Winning. But you can only learn if you honestly observe & reflect. Skip that step, and you rob yourself of the second bite at the apple.

The Ripple Effect (Why This Resonated So Deeply)

Now this is the part that's close to my heart, because it's a big piece of WHY I do what I do.

Brian & I first connected at a mastermind event over a shared belief in the Ripple Effect - the idea that a single action at one epicenter can spread out to create impact far beyond what you could ever measure.

Brian builds homes for families in Mexico (he's been 17 times & counting). And when you trace the ripples, it's incredible: a family gets a concrete floor instead of a dirt floor. The kids get sick less often, miss less school, get better grades, earn more, and one day give THEIR kids a better foundation too. One single intervention expands into an unquantifiable amount of good.

The same is true on the giving side - one person says yes, then invites others, who invite others, and the impact compounds.

This is exactly the mission behind everything we do here at Marketing Minds: to Empower Entrepreneurs to Amplify their Impact & Create a Positive Ripple Effect on the World. Hearing Brian articulate it so beautifully was a real highlight of this episode.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube 🎙️

I've only scratched the surface here. In the full conversation, Brian goes even deeper on the psychology of follow-through, the exact interventions he uses at Day 10 of his challenge (when EVERYONE starts to struggle), his "Do It For The Story" philosophy from his TEDx Talk, and where AI fits into human performance & accountability.

If you've ever started something with excitement & then watched your momentum fizzle out, this episode is for you.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube Now!

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

See You In the Next One!

I hope you found this Newsletter Valuable! Follow-through is one of those quiet superpowers that separates the entrepreneurs who dream from the ones who actually build - and Brian dropped so many golden nuggets on how to master it.

Do yourself a favor & carve out 30 minutes to watch the full conversation. I promise it's worth it.

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• More Guest Interviews with the Top Marketing Minds of Today

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So you're Always on the Cutting Edge

• Real Case Studies & Examples from the Trenches

• And a LOT More...

I'm serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You're Subscribed to!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Win AI Search Without a Big Team

92% of VCs use AI to find companies. 58% of buyers start there too. If you're not showing up in AI answers, you're invisible before the conversation even starts. Join HubSpot for Startups, Anthropic, and Marketing Against the Grain on July 30th (11am ET) for a live AEO teardown. Real startup. Real recs. Register and unlock the free Startup Visibility Bundle.

Register Now

What if you could create videos of yourself - sailing on a yacht, flying through space, or simply talking to the camera - without ever hitting record?

Well, that's no longer a "what if"...

Google just rolled out a new AI Avatar feature that lets you create a digital version of YOURSELF & then cast that avatar directly into AI generated videos - all from a simple text prompt.

I've been testing this inside of Gemini & Google Flow this week and let me tell you - this is a Game-Changer for anyone creating video content!

And in today's Newsletter, I'm going to walk you through exactly how it works & how you can use it in your business.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• I'll show you How to Create Your Own AI Avatar using Google's new Likeness feature (it takes just a few minutes!)

• I'll walk you through How to Cast Your Avatar into AI Videos inside of Gemini & Google Flow

• I'll share How to Rapidly Create Multiple Video Variations using Google's AI Video Agent

• And I'll give you the link to my Full Step-by-Step Video Tutorial so you can see it all in action!

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

How to Create Your Own AI Avatar with Google

Google has officially rolled out the ability to create an AI Avatar of yourself - and once you've created it, you can add yourself to ANY video or image just by typing @me or @yourname into your prompts.

Yes, it's really that simple.

Here's how to set it up:

Step 1: Go to gemini.google.com/likeness

This is where Google's new Avatar feature lives. When you arrive, you'll see the option to "Create Avatar"

Step 2: Scan the QR Code & Record a Quick Selfie Video

Google will show you a QR code - scan it with your phone & it will walk you through recording a simple selfie video of yourself.

That short video is all Google needs to build your AI Avatar - capturing your likeness AND your voice.

Step 3: Click "Use Avatar" & Start Creating!

Once your avatar is ready, you can start generating videos & images with yourself in them immediately.

Just type @me (or @yourname) into any prompt & Gemini will draw your likeness directly into the video.

For example, I created a video of myself looking at the camera saying "Creating AI videos with your avatar is as simple as typing a prompt" - and within minutes, there I was, on screen, saying it word for word.

It looked like me. It sounded like me. And I never touched a camera.

Taking It to the Next Level with Google Flow

Now, creating videos one at a time inside of Gemini is great - but if you want to create videos at scale, that's where Google Flow comes in.

Google Flow is Google's professional AI video production tool & it comes with an AI Video Agent that can rapidly create videos for you.

Here's how to use your Avatar inside of Flow:

Step 1: Go to labs.google/fx/tools/flow & Create a New Project

As long as you're signed into the same Google account, your Avatar automatically carries over into Flow. No extra setup needed!

Step 2: Type @me Into Your Prompt

Just like in Gemini, you can inject yourself into any video prompt by typing @me or @yourname.

Want a video of yourself sailing on a yacht while explaining your offer? Type it. Want to be flying on a spaceship holding a cute alien? You can do that too (I did, haha!)

Step 3: Dial In Your Settings

A few key settings to check before you hit go:

• Make sure the Engine is turned ON - that's what does the video work for you

• Choose your format - 16:9 widescreen or vertical for mobile

• Set it to create 4 variations - I always generate 4 versions at once so I can pick the best one

• Keep the model on Omni Flash - this is important because it's what incorporates your AI Avatar

Step 4: Click Go & Watch the Magic Happen

Flow will render all 4 variations automatically. And here's the best part - you don't even have to wait for them to finish before creating more!

Just click "Reuse Prompt," change anything you want & generate 4 MORE variations while the first batch is still rendering.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your creator program stopped working. You're the bottleneck.

It's not a criticism. It's just math.

One person can only recruit, vet, contract, manage, and pay so many creators before growth stalls.

partnrUP turns influencer marketing into a scalable creator engine. AI automates creator recruitment and campaign operations, helping brands activate more creators, generate more content, identify top performers faster, and create more opportunities to drive traffic and sales.

You focus on strategy.

The creator engine keeps running.

Get two videos free

The Editing Superpowers Built Right In

This is where it gets really powerful for marketers & content creators...

Once your videos are generated, you can:

• Describe Edits in Plain English - I typed "have me wearing a green sweater instead" & Flow automatically created a new version with me in a green sweater. No re-shooting. No editing software. Just a sentence.

• Trim & Extend Clips - Cut out what you don't need or extend the video further

• Stitch Videos Together - Right now videos are limited to 10 seconds each, but you can easily stitch multiple clips together using Flow's built-in editor to create longer videos

Think about what this means for your marketing...

You could create ad creative variations, social media content, video hooks & more - all featuring YOU - in a fraction of the time it would take to film them yourself.

Now, is it perfect yet? Not quite. But here's what I've learned watching AI video evolve - it only gets better from here.

I remember saying the same thing when VEO 3 first came out & look how far it's come. The people who learn these tools NOW are the ones who will have the edge when they become mainstream.

Watch the Full Step-by-Step Tutorial 🎥

Now, reading about this is one thing - but SEEING it in action is another!

That's why I filmed a full video tutorial walking you through the entire process step-by-step - creating your avatar, using it in Gemini, setting up Google Flow, generating multiple variations & making edits with simple prompts.

You'll even get to see my AI Avatar sailing on a yacht & flying on a spaceship (with the alien, of course, haha!)

Watch the Full AI Avatar Tutorial on YouTube!

Trust me - once you see how easy this is, you're going to want to create your own avatar today.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Headed Your Way!

I hope you found today's Newsletter valuable & I'm excited to see how you use your own AI Avatars in your business!

If you create one, hit reply & let me know how it turns out - I'd love to hear about it! 😁

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peak at What's Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources - In your Inbox!

• The Latest AI Tools & Software that we're using inside our Companies to 10X Productivity (I keep my finger on the pulse of AI - so you don't have to!)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you're Always on the Cutting Edge

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• And a LOT More...

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your competitor's growth lead already saw the spend spike.

While your team is still in standup, the other growth lead already got the alert. Viktor is an AI employee that lives in Slack. It watches your Meta and TikTok spend overnight, flags the underperformer by 7am, and drafts the new brief before your first meeting.

Get Started for Free

"When you're on a podcast, you're not only talking to your ideal client - you're talking to the AI that refers them."

That one line stopped me in my tracks on the latest episode of the Marketing Minds Podcast...

And it comes from someone who knows podcast guesting better than just about anyone on the planet - Tom Schwab, Founder & CEO of Interview Valet, who has helped 1,500+ clients land over 75,000 podcast interviews.

Tom is also a big part of my own story. Back in early 2020, I was booking my first speaking stages when the world shut down. So I called Tom, & instead of stages, we launched a massive podcast tour. That year we 5x'd the business - & podcasts played a huge role in that growth.

Honestly, without Tom introducing me to the world of podcasting, there might not even be a Marketing Minds Podcast today!

So when Tom tells me the entire podcast game is changing because of AI... I listen. And you should too.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

AI Is Listening (The New Podcast SEO)

We all know the world is shifting from SEO to AI search - call it AEO, GEO, or whatever acronym sticks. People are going straight to ChatGPT & other AI tools for recommendations on who to work with.

And here's the stat that should make you sit up: a study out of Cornell found that traffic from AI converts 9x better than SEO traffic.

Think about that. These are pre-educated leads. They already know your company, your offer & what you believe before they ever reach out.

So the real question becomes - how do you get the AI to recommend YOU?

Here's the answer Tom shared: AI is listening to podcasts.

There's a phenomenon called Model Collapse (some call it "Digital Dementia") - when AI trains on AI-generated content, it's like making a copy of a copy of a copy. The quality degrades fast.

So AI models are actively hunting for authentic human content to learn from...

And podcasts are one of the last corners of the internet that are still overwhelmingly human. Real experts. Real conversations. No place to hide.

Remember when ChatGPT started showing its sources? Wikipedia at the top... then Amazon... & then long-form collaborative content: iTunes, Spotify & YouTube.

Tom saw this play out firsthand. His team leaned in hard - 5 team members actively guesting on shows - & by May of 2025, AI officially became Interview Valet's #1 referral source.

It's not a trick. It's not a hack. It's simply putting content into the world that tells both AI & your future clients: This is the problem we solve. These are the clients we work with. This is what we believe.

Here's how to optimize your interviews now that AI is listening:

1. Never do the same interview twice. You wouldn't publish the same blog post every Monday - so stop giving the same interview on every show. As Tom put it: "Content is King, but Context is God." Vary your themes, problems & examples for each audience so AI indexes the full range of your expertise.

2. Bring in Multiple Voices. If you're the only spokesperson, YOU are the bottleneck. Tom's team member who leads their health & wellness division started guesting on shows in that niche - & the leads jumped. HubSpot ran this play with six different "talents" at once. More voices = more shows, more audiences & more indexing.

3. Rotate Your Topics. Once you've covered a topic on a few shows, retire it & swap in a new one. Every interview becomes fresh content for humans - & new material for AI to index. (More on this in the One Sheet section below!)

The "Better is Better" Booking Playbook

Now, how do you actually get booked?

Tom's answer flips the industry on its head: More is not better. Better is better.

There's a service out there bragging that you can pitch 1,500 podcasts in the time it takes to pitch one. And sure, you might get an invite... just not the one you want. You'll drown in a sea of sameness & burn your reputation along the way.

Instead, put yourself in the host's shoes. Who does any podcast host actually want on their show?

Their Friends, Friends of Friends & People They Want to be Friends With.

That's it. That's the list.

So here's the play - what I'd call Give, Give, Give, Give, Ask:

✓ Pick a handful of podcasts where you'd genuinely add value (this doesn't have to be Joe Rogan - even Broadway starts Off-Broadway!)

✓ Actually listen to the shows

✓ Leave a rating & review - we're all a little vain, & hosts read those!

✓ Engage with their content & comment genuinely

✓ THEN reach out - leading with the value you can bring their audience, not "I wrote a book, let me use your audience"

And once you land the interview, show up like a true guest:

✓ Confirm the day before & come prepared (there are three ways to show up: early, on time & rude - don't be rude!)

✓ Give your absolute best value on air

✓ Thank the host afterward & promote the episode when it goes live

✓ Then ask: "Do you know any other podcasts where I could add value?"

Is it scalable? Maybe not at first. But it's effective. Start with 5 shows, land 2 invites, get referred to 2 more from each... your calendar fills up fast.

And when you DO want scale - that's when you bring in a team that already has the relationships built. That's exactly what Tom & his team do at Interview Valet, & it's what I used for my 2020 podcast tour.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your growth team woke up to a briefing they didn't ask for.

Monday 7am. Three messages in #growth.

Stripe revenue by channel, Meta and Google spend reconciled against GA4, Klaviyo flow performance, Shopify AOV by source. Posted by Viktor at 6am.

The campaign brief he wrote sits in #campaigns. Brand monitoring scrape runs every six hours. Competitor pricing update lands every Friday.

Your media buyer, content lead, and CMO open Slack to the same prepared room. 3,000+ integrations including every ad platform, CDP, and CMS you run.

"Viktor is like the most capable all-round colleague you can imagine." Sam, CEO, Givr.

Get Started for Free

The One Sheet Formula (That Gets You Booked)

Here's something most people don't realize: podcast hosts are NOT trained journalists.

Hand them a beautiful 15-page media kit & you've just made it harder for them to say yes - & harder for them to give you a great interview.

Instead, give them One Clean Sheet:

✓ Your photo (the one YOU want them to use)

✓ Your company logo

✓ The right social links (so they promote you - not someone with the same name)

✓ A short third-person "rip & read" bio so they introduce you correctly

✓ And the most important part: Interview TOPICS - not questions

This distinction matters. The best hosts feel insulted when you hand them questions. The worst hosts read them in order... & every interview sounds identical.

Topics give the host room to have a real conversation with you.

The Pro Move: After you've talked about a topic on a couple of shows, take it off your One Sheet & rotate in a new one. You're now intentionally forcing fresh conversations - which means more content to repurpose & more of your expertise for AI to index. It all connects!

The "Small Yes, Medium Yes & Heck Yes" CTA Stack

You crushed the interview... now what?

This is where most guests fumble. The host tees up the perfect ending - "Where can people find you?" - & the guest rattles off Twitter, Instagram, an email, a phone number...

Meanwhile the listener is multitasking at 1.5x speed. They remember none of it.

Instead, send everyone to ONE link - then give them 3 ways to say yes:

✓ The Small Yes - Something quick & free. A checklist, an assessment, even an AI chatbot trained on your content that keeps the conversation going.

✓ The Medium Yes - A deeper step that takes a little more time or money. Your book, a training, a face-to-camera video.

✓ The Heck Yes - If someone hears you & you're the answer they've been looking for, do NOT slow them down in a funnel. Let them book the call. Let them buy.

One link. Three doors. Meet people exactly where they are.

And one more gem: 70% of podcasts are listened to sped up. So say your URL slowly. Spell it out. Then say it again.

Tom learned this the hard way - so many people heard "Interview Valet" as "Interview Ballet" that he bought the misspelled domain & redirected it! 😂

It's the same reason you'll hear me spell out "A-D-O-U-T-R-E-A-C-H" on every show I guest on. Say it, spell it, say it again.

Video is Your "Proof of Life"

One more shift you can't ignore: 96% of podcasts now include video - & YouTube is the biggest podcast search engine in the world.

In a feed full of AI-generated everything, real video of real people having a real conversation is what Tom calls Proof of Life. There's no doubt you're a genuine expert - you can't hide a lack of expertise in a long-form conversation.

That's instant credibility. That's Authority. (It's the entire thesis of my book, Video Authority!)

And the reach lives in the clips. Even Joe Rogan's famous "100 million listeners" are mostly clip viewers - his average episode pulls around 2.5 million downloads. The clips carry the rest.

Quick clip strategy from the episode:

✓ Ask the host's permission first (they virtually always say yes - just tag them & attribute the show)

✓ Include the HOST in your clips, not just yourself - their authority transfers to you & they're far more likely to share it

✓ Promote the episode for the first 30 days, tagging the show each time - you stay in front of their audience again & again

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube! 🎙️

We went even deeper in the full episode, including:

• The "I Believe" opener that transforms the dreaded "so, tell me about yourself" question into your most powerful positioning moment

• How to take control of an interview when the host asks the same questions as everyone else

• Why marketing should work like a magnet - attracting the right people & repelling the wrong ones

• How enterprises, VC firms & even law firms are using podcast tours to get their experts out of "witness protection"

This is one of those episodes you'll want to take notes on - especially if getting recommended by AI is on your 2026 roadmap (it should be!)

Watch the Full Episode with Tom Schwab on YouTube! (Click Here)

And I'll leave you with the golden nugget Tom closed the episode with:

"What's ordinary to you is amazing to others."

You ARE the expert. The person who's mastered fourth-grade math is an expert to every second grader. Whatever stage you're at, what you know could genuinely help someone today - so get out there & share it.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming your Way!

Here’s a Sneak Peak at What’s Coming Next:

• More Free Trainings & Resources — In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels that Scaled Coaching Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what’s going on in the Online Marketing & Coaching/Consulting/High-Ticket Industry (Based on our Insights working with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - So that you’re Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Articles, Videos & Podcasts from the Top Marketing Minds of Today — Stay tuned for some exciting announcements around this ;-)

• And a LOT More…

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

P.S. Tom mentioned it on the episode & it fits perfectly here - if you want the complete system for turning long-form video & podcasts into clients, grab my Amazon #1 Best Selling book, Video Authority. It's the exact playbook for becoming the Authentic Authority in your space. Grab Video Authority on Amazon Here!!

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Your next 100 customers are already in Apollo

Find, reach, and close your perfect deals — without juggling five tools or hiring more reps.

Apollo gives you everything you need to build real pipeline, fast. From inbound to outbound, first touch to close.

All in Apollo.

Sign up for free

You know I love talking about YouTube Ads... but today I want to take you onto a different platform that's quietly become one of the fastest ways to generate leads & build real relationships with your ideal clients: Instagram.

I recently sat down on the Marketing Minds Podcast with Harrison Colly, a B2B go-to-market expert who has generated over 1 Billion views across his clients on Instagram & 8-Figures+ in revenue directly from the platform.

We "nerded out" on the exact playbook he installs for businesses doing anywhere from $3M to $500M+ per year... & I walked away with so many golden nuggets that I had to break them down for you right here.

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

✅ The "Capture, Keep & Convert" Framework for turning content into clients
✅ How to set up your Instagram Profile to build instant trust & authority
✅ The exact Content Cadence to post (Reels, Carousels & Stories)
✅ Why selling in the DMs "prints money" - & the simple 4-Step DM Framework
✅ The "Trial Reels" hack that gives you FREE advertising on Instagram

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Why Instagram Plays by a Different Set of Rules

The first thing Harrison helped me understand is that Instagram & YouTube are fundamentally different machines.

YouTube (& Google) are search-based, intent-driven platforms. Someone looks something up, & your content shows up to answer it.

Instagram is the opposite. It's an interest-based, interruption-based platform. Nobody is searching for your Reel - it just appears in their feed, & you have a split second to stop the scroll.

That changes everything. Because Instagram isn't a search platform... it's a reputation platform.

It's shorter, more human & more relational. Over time, you're not just posting content - you're building a world & a reputation that people come to know, trust & want to be a part of.

That's the lens to keep in mind for everything that follows.

The "Capture, Keep & Convert" Framework

Here's where it got fun, because Harrison's signature framework is almost identical to the one I teach for YouTube (it's amazing how the best marketers independently arrive at the same core principles).

He calls it Capture, Keep & Convert - & it applies to every single piece of content you post:

✅ Capture - Your hook. The first 3 seconds. This is where the majority of your effort should go, because if you don't stop the scroll, nothing else matters.
✅ Keep - The body of the content. Why is someone staying? What are they actually getting in return for their attention?
✅ Convert - The action. Do you want them to follow, comment, DM you, or click? (& yes - a like or a share counts as a conversion on short-form content too.)

Every post should live inside one of these three buckets... & ideally, a great piece of content does all three at once.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

Want to get the most out of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a superpower if you know how to use it correctly.

Discover how HubSpot's guide to AI can elevate both your productivity and creativity to get more things done.

Learn to automate tasks, enhance decision-making, and foster innovation with the power of AI.

Download the free guide

Optimize Your Profile FIRST (Your "Business Card")

Before you create a single piece of content, Harrison says to start with your profile - because it's the "business card" everyone sees first. Three pieces matter most:

Your Bio. Don't try to sell here. Instead, clearly state three things: who you work with, how you help them & your authority for helping them. A simple call-to-action like "DM me [keyword] for my free playbook" works far better than a hard pitch.

Your Link. The link in your bio should build trust, not sell. Point it to your YouTube channel, an authoritative website, or your Trustpilot reviews - anywhere that makes a new visitor think "oh wow, this is the real deal."

Your Story Highlights. This is where most businesses leave money on the table. Harrison recommends three types:

✅ A "Public Journal" - your honest thoughts on your industry, market & customers
✅ Social Proof - case studies, client wins & transformations (remind people you're a winner!)
✅ Your Story - how the business started, why you do what you do & what makes you different

The magic? These Highlights compound over time into "asset libraries" & time capsules - so a new follower can watch years of your growth in 2-second snippets.

What to Actually Post (& How Often)

This is the question I get asked constantly about every platform, so I made sure to pin Harrison down on a real cadence. For a B2B brand, here's the balance he recommends:

✅ Reels - Every Day. This is your main content engine.
✅ Carousels - Once a Week. Treat these like a mini sales letter with high production value. They're excellent for lead gen (more "time under attention") & they run great as ads.
✅ Stories - 3x a Day. A simple formula: two social-proof posts & one reflection/thought post. Do this every day for a month & your audience starts to think "wow, this person is winning ALL the time."

& for your Reels, there are really only two types you need to make: clipped content (slices of podcasts, videos, or conversations) & talking-head content (scripted to a teleprompter OR casual selfie-style - whatever fits your brand).

The best part? Harrison argues Instagram is actually the least overwhelming platform. You don't need to dance like on TikTok or produce like on YouTube. Pick your style, decide what's sustainable (start with once a week!), & put the majority of your energy into the Hook.

Why Selling in the DMs "Prints Money"

This was one of my favorite parts of the conversation. Harrison is a master at DM selling, & his reasoning is simple: it's relational, personal & high-trust... which is exactly what you need for anything B2B or high-ticket.

Unlike a sales call, the DMs give you a strong feedback loop AND the ability to curate every message (you can even have a manager review responses over your shoulder). It's the best of both worlds.

His simple 4-Step DM Framework looks like this:

1. Introduce the Subject - "Is this something you actually want to talk about?"

2. Qualify - Are they the right type of person for what you offer?

3. Identify the Problem - "We help people solve X... does that sound like your situation?"

4. Offer the Solution - help them solve the problem they just told you they have.

Done right, the prospect never feels "sold." They just feel like they had a genuine conversation about solving a problem you both care about. (One client of his is generating over $800K/month off DM leads alone using this approach.)

"Trial Reels" = FREE Advertising

If there's one tactic from this episode that blew my mind, it's Trial Reels.

A Trial Reel is an Instagram Reel that's only shown to people who DON'T already follow you. It doesn't appear on your main profile - it goes straight to a brand-new, cold audience.

Why is this such a big deal? Because you can post 10, 20, even 30+ versions of a piece of content without "punishing" your account or fatiguing your followers. Then you simply find the winner & promote it to your main page with a few clicks.

It's essentially free advertising & free split-testing rolled into one. Harrison uses it to test different hooks & edits, get raw feedback from an unbiased cold audience, & pick up new followers along the way.

As Harrison put it, Trial Reels are "a paid advertiser's understanding of organic content." & as someone who lives & breathes paid ads, that's exactly why I love it.

A Few More Golden Nuggets

Because we always reward the people who read all the way through, here are a few more gems Harrison dropped:

✅ Pin 3 Posts at the Top - one for who you are, one for what you do & one for who you work with.
✅ The Hooks Working Right Now - "Situation-Based" hooks ("If you keep fighting with your kids, here's what I've learned...") & "Disqualifier" hooks ("If you're not already doing $50K/month, this isn't for you..."). The old ICP call-out hooks are fading.
✅ Use ManyChat + ChatGPT - build an automated DM survey that scores & qualifies leads, then routes them to a payment link or a sales call automatically.
✅ Know Your DM Math - because sales is math. If 1,500 DMs = one $10K sale, you suddenly have a predictable, repeatable game plan.

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube:

Harrison & I went WAY deeper in the full conversation - including his journey from photographing small-town hotels to advising businesses doing up to $500M+ per year, his honest take on AI clones (& where he's bullish vs. bearish), & the "trinity" of traffic every business should be building (word of mouth, paid & organic content working together as one unstoppable flywheel).

This is a true masterclass on Instagram for B2B, & I can't recommend it enough:

Watch the Full Episode on YouTube! (Click Here)

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

This wouldn't be a Marketing Minds Newsletter without me reminding you that there's a LOT more value on the way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming In the Following Weeks:

• More Free Trainings & Resources - In your Inbox!

• Real Case Studies & Examples of the Marketing Funnels Scaling Coaching & Consulting Businesses past 7 & 8 Figures

• The REAL on-the-ground insights into what's happening in the Online Marketing & High-Ticket Industry (based on our work with Thousands of Clients)

• The Latest YouTube Ad & Marketing Strategies as we Discover Them - so you're Always on the Cutting Edge

• Guest Episodes & Interviews from the Top Marketing Minds of Today

• And a LOT More...

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

A $3K spend spike got caught at 2am.

Viktor watches your ad accounts overnight. When CPA jumps 340% on a broad match campaign, he posts in #growth with a recommendation and pauses pending your approval. Across Google, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn at once.

Get Started for Free

What's the #1 thing that determines whether your YouTube video actually gets watched?

Most people say "the content."

But after 16+ years creating content on YouTube, here's the truth I've learned: The best video in the world does nothing if nobody finds it - & even when they do find it, nothing happens if they don't click.

That comes down to two assets that almost every creator underinvests in:

• Your Short-Form Clips - what gets your content discovered by brand-new viewers

• Your Thumbnail - what earns the click once they find your long-form video

Nail both, & you've solved the two hardest parts of growing on YouTube.

In today's Newsletter, I'm going to break down why these two assets matter more than almost anything else - & I'll show you how my team & I just made it possible to create BOTH from a single YouTube link. 🚀

As a Reminder, Our Goal with this Newsletter is to Give You the Highest Level of Value Possible. That's my Promise to you & I intend to Over-Deliver!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Inside This Email:

• The Discovery vs. Decision divide that explains why most great videos still flop

• Why your Thumbnail is the single highest-leverage asset in your content

• How Short-Form Clips became the #1 discovery engine on every platform

• The hidden cost that quietly kills most creators' consistency (& exactly how to fix it)

Alright, let's Dive In...

Watch the Full Video on YouTube:

The Two Jobs Every Piece of Content Has to Do

Think about how someone actually becomes a viewer of your long-form content. It happens in two steps:

Step 1 - Discovery: They have to find you. On today's platforms, that almost always happens through short-form video - a clip that shows up on their feed & stops the scroll.

Step 2 - Decision: Once they land on your long-form video, they have to choose to click it. & that decision is made in about one second, based almost entirely on one thing: your thumbnail.

I call this the Discovery vs. Decision divide.

Most creators obsess over the video itself (the middle) & completely neglect the two things on either side that decide whether the video gets seen at all. Let's fix that.

Why Your Thumbnail Is Your Highest-Leverage Asset

Here's something that took me years to fully appreciate: Your thumbnail is the single highest-leverage asset in your entire content strategy.

Why? Because it's the gatekeeper to everything else.

You can pour 10 hours into filming & editing the perfect video - but if the thumbnail doesn't earn the click, none of that work ever gets seen. A great thumbnail can be the difference between a video that flops & one that takes off. Same content. Same title. Completely different results - just from the image people judge in a split second.

That's exactly why I built ThumbnailCreator.com - my AI YouTube thumbnail software. Instead of guessing, you paste your YouTube video, it analyzes it, & it automatically creates thumbnails trained on the top-performing YouTube thumbnails out there.

That's a big reason it's now used by thousands & thousands of YouTube creators - because it isn't "ask AI to make a thumbnail & hope." It's trained on what actually gets the click.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

10,000+ brands found their 3PL with Fulfill.

From Liquid Death to Longchamp, thousands of brands trusted Fulfill to find their fulfillment partner. Tell us your products, order volume, and shipping zones, and our team screens a network of 2,800+ vetted 3PLs to hand you a ranked shortlist of your best-fit partners. You talk to the matches you like, get pricing directly from them, and decide on your own terms. No fee, no pressure, and most brands get their shortlist within days. Find your best-fit 3PL.

Find My 3PL

Why Short-Form Clips Are Your Discovery Engine

Now let's talk about the other side of the equation: getting found in the first place.

Short-form video has become the #1 way new audiences discover creators. A single clip can reach people who have never heard of you - & funnel them straight to your long-form content & your offers.

But here's where most people get stuck: They film one great long-form video... & then it just sits there. They never carve out the clips. Why? Because clipping, captioning & formatting short-form content has always been a separate, time-consuming job - usually in a totally different tool.

& that friction is the silent killer of consistency.

The Hidden Cost Most Creators Pay

Here's the pattern I see over & over: You make a great video. You bounce to one tool for the thumbnail. You bounce to another tool for the clips. You bounce to a third for captions. Somewhere in all that tool-hopping, the momentum dies - & the clips never get made.

The result? You're leaving your single biggest source of new reach completely on the table.

The fix isn't "work harder." It's One Source, Many Assets - pulling everything you need from a single long-form video, in one place.

One Link. Your Thumbnail AND Your Clips.

This is exactly why I'm so excited to share the biggest update to ThumbnailCreator.com yet.

You can now create AI Video Clips from your YouTube videos - right after you make your thumbnail, inside the same platform you're already using.

Here's how simple it is:

• You paste a YouTube URL (the same way you already do for thumbnails)

• It scans the video & automatically generates multiple short-form clips

• You fine-tune everything: caption styles, highlighted keywords, intros, progress bars, & even AI B-roll

• Then you export & download your clips - ready to post

So now, from that one video, you walk away with a scroll-stopping thumbnail to win the click AND a batch of short-form clips to win the discovery. Both front doors to your content, created from a single link.

& it doesn't stop at clips - you can also repurpose that same video into blog posts, email newsletters, infographics, social posts & more.

This feature is still in beta, & we're refining & expanding it constantly - but it's already a genuine game-changer for anyone serious about showing up consistently.

You can try it & get your first 10 thumbnails or AI clips free at ThumbnailCreator.com.

Watch the Full Walkthrough on YouTube:

I recorded a full video walking through exactly how this works - including a live look at the new AI Clips feature in action, so you can see the quality for yourself.

Watch the Full Video on YouTube! (Click Here)

That's a Wrap (For Now!)

Remember: your content lives or dies on two things - getting discovered & getting clicked. Nail your clips & your thumbnail, & you've handled the two hardest parts of growing on YouTube.

Watch The Full Video on YouTube:

Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call!

Are you looking to Scale your Business with Video Marketing?

I want to invite you to a 1-1 Strategy call with my Team to map out a YouTube Ads & Video Marketing Strategy specifically for your Business!

This is a 45-minute call where we’ll dive into your Business, your Goals & map out a Custom Strategy to help you Achieve them through YouTube!

Fill out the Quick Booking form to Schedule your Strategy Call.

Book Your Complimentary Video Marketing Strategy Call Today!

More Value Coming Next Friday!

Stay Tuned for More Great Value & Content Coming Your Way!

Here's a Sneak Peek at What's Coming Up:

• More AI-powered content & ad strategies - straight to your inbox 🚀

• A deeper dive into ChatGPT Ads & OpenAI's new Ads Manager (I've got early access & a LOT to share!)

• The latest YouTube Ad & creative strategies as we discover them - so you're always on the cutting edge

I’m serious when I say I want this to be The Most Valuable Newsletter You’re Subscribed to — Look out for us in your Inbox Every Friday!

I’ll see you in the next one!

To Your Success,

- Aleric Heck | Founder & CEO of AdOutreach

P.S. If you're ready to turn that content & attention into real clients, my team & I can help you map out a custom YouTube Ads & Video Marketing game-plan. Book a complimentary strategy call at adoutreach.com/apply.

This Edition of the Marketing Minds Newsletter is Sponsored by:

We ranked 2,800 3PLs. Here are the top 100.

Every 3PL says they're the best. So we did the work. We ranked the top 100 in the country on the things that actually break or save a brand: peak season, accuracy, real support. Find out who made it, and whether your current one should have.

See the list