Dave Steer

Great Harvard Business Review piece from Andy Jassy on maintaining our startup mentality at scale and driving innovation. Throughout my career here, I’ve seen firsthand how the approach of removing barriers and trusting teams to move fast (with good judgment) makes all the difference for customers. If you’re curious about how we think about speed and scale at Amazon, this one’s worth your time: https://lnkd.in/gSmTDKR9

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Substack publication 'The Free Press,' a blog started in 2022, has grown to around 15M a year in revenue, and is now in talks to be acquired by Paramount for $200M (and founder Bari Weiss given an exec role at CBS News). I've predicted blogging is back for several years - thanks mostly to email and the fact that Substack and Beehiiv got distribution right. It turns out independent media can thrive in an environment even when social platforms like this one, Meta and Twitter/X throttle our hyperlinks. I honestly think it's a loss for these products to not show them as often as they do. As many users here are simply less informed, less educated and stuck in algo-generated filter bubbles. Of course, this isn't everyone. The smartest internet users are looking to things like email where there's less algo interference. You hope the big tech platforms catch on and remember hyperlinks are important again, at some point this will be a liability for them jamming the plumbing of the web. Anyway - if you want to start a blog, it's never been a better time. We have so much validation all around us. You can even be well-compensated for your work this time. The internet is great if you play the right games.

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Sierra partnered with Curative to build their AI voice agent that's creating faster, better experiences for members and providers while freeing up their team to focus on what matters most: building deeper relationships

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Today's Yotpo announcement feels GREAT. We’re partnering with Novel to bring loyalty programs directly into customers’ mobile wallets. Together, we’re creating a best-in-class solution that makes loyalty simpler, smarter, and more impactful. I’ve known Roger for years, and anyone who has worked with him knows how sharp, kind, and relentless he is as a builder. Watching the journey of Novel has been inspiring, and it’s even more exciting to now work together on solving real problems for brands. Starting today, brands can: - Show loyalty points and tier status right in the customer’s wallet - Let shoppers earn and redeem in-store with one scan, no email or app required - Send unlimited push notifications straight to the lock screen And the early results speak for themselves: - 116% higher in-store point redemption - 22% more loyalty signups This is a big step forward for loyalty, and I’m excited to see what we build next with Roger and the Novel team.

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I recently had a great time chatting with my peer, Adam Morgan, and the team at Superside about a topic that's core to what we do: how to build a creative storytelling model that gets buy-in and drives real business value. 💬 Both Adam and I have found that in today's environment, it's not enough just to be creative; you have to prove the impact of your creativity. In the post, we've hit on a few core ideas that need to be considered: ➡️ Marrying Brand to Revenue 🤝: Creative work should be a core part of the revenue engine, not a separate function. ➡️ The Power of Both Data and Vibe 📊: You need hard numbers and the "feel" of a campaign to prove its value. ➡️ Building Your Internal Audience 🧠: Understanding and communicating with your leadership and sales teams is just as crucial as talking to your customers. If you're interested in how creative teams can get a seat at the table and influence business outcomes, this is a must-read, and yes, I'm biased, but you'll see why and hopefully agree. 😉 Read the full interview here and share your perspectives! 👇 https://lnkd.in/g8cbQ5qE #Marketing #Creativity #Storytelling #BrandBuilding Twilio

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At Monetize, Craig Shull, Justin Farris, Mandar K., and Michelle Verwest explored the case for a Chief Value Officer, an exec focused on aligning pricing, packaging, and customer outcomes. As monetization grows more complex, the need for someone to own value end to end is becoming clear. Metronome #Monetize2025

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Lots of new AI goodness from Heroku team for app and agentic development, bringing powerful tech to developers without adding complexity and cognitive load -- simplicity and ease of use are critical to maximize productivity -- but business require this to be secure and operationally efficient. Check out these three new releases for Heroku's Managed Inference and Agents: 🌟 Added support for OpenAI's new open-weight model, gpt-oss-120b https://lnkd.in/gF98nA2R 🌟 Support for LlamaIndex to build data aware AI apps https://lnkd.in/gJj22YG4 🌟 Support for Pydantic AI - a popular agent framework for #python https://lnkd.in/graThjk6 Salesforce #Heroku Python #PydanticAI #LlamaIndex #OpenAI Salesforce Developers #AI #LLM #AIAgents #softwareengineering #developers

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🔍 Nick Paladino and I just had a fascinating conversation with Kacey Sharrett, former digital leader at GoPro, on The Frictionless Experience podcast that every digital product team should hear. Her approach to frictionless digital experiences challenges conventional wisdom in ways that matter for your bottom line: • The "Fast Second" Advantage: Being first-to-market isn't always best. The most successful brands often perfect what innovators start—capturing market share without the pioneering costs and risks. This is especially true for brands whose customers make infrequent purchases. • KPI Warning: When fill rate becomes the north star metric, teams find creative workarounds—sometimes even purchasing from competitors to fulfill orders. Are your KPIs driving the right behaviors? • Beyond Multichannel Politics: Stop the cross-department battles. Focus instead on converting customers where THEY prefer to shop, not where your internal incentives dictate. • Test Small, Think Big: GoPro's transformation started with simple button color tests and evolved into a complete product page redesign. No massive budgets required—just strategic iteration. • AI Disruption Ahead: Is your digital strategy ready for when AI agents become the primary shoppers? When your site becomes just one data point in an algorithm rather than a destination? This conversation goes far beyond typical optimization tactics—it delves into organizational culture, unintended consequences, and preparing for an AI-driven commerce future. Check out this week’s episode on your favorite podcast platform

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The product leader’s role keeps expanding. First it absorbed engineering as CPTO. Now it’s crossing the chasm into GTM and marketing. I got to talk with Karen Chao this week on LaunchPod. She started at Flowspace as CPO and has since been elevated to Head of Marketing in addition. We're not just talking a dotted-line responsibility; she's owning discovery to messaging to activation. It was really eye opening to hear what it’s like to “cross the chasm” from Product into GTM leadership and why Product increasing aperture is becoming more common. Full episode here: 📰 Read/Subscribe on Substack: https://lnkd.in/e6HVnVu2 📺 Watch on YT: https://lnkd.in/ejqCkBAQ 🎧 Listen on Apple: https://lnkd.in/eFp9d4Nw 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eV3vDGGh Here are some of the biggest themes she breaks down: 1️⃣ Why the CPO role is expanding Product and Marketing share the same inputs: value, positioning, and customer insight. Combining them reduces friction and aligns teams around what customers actually care about. 2️⃣ Crossing the CPO to Marketing chasm Karen described the shift as learning a new toolkit for the same terrain. Product discovery and marketing experiments use the same muscles. The language is different. The thinking is familiar. 3️⃣ PMs skills in AI are perfect to accelerate GTM Her team uses AI for PRDs, competitive research, channel exploration, and even codebase analysis. The effect is a shared workflow where Product and Marketing learn together, not in silos. 4️⃣ With AI, PMs can go deeper than ever before With tools like Cursor and Claude, Karen’s PMs can explore architecture, propose small fixes, and prototype real flows. Engineers focus on high-leverage work. Marketing benefits from product leaders who truly understand the system. 🥡 The takeaway: The role of the product leader is expanding, just like many executive roles today. Product and Marketing already share many of the same inputs, and companies are stronger when those teams are tightly aligned. Whether they roll up to one leader or remain separate, closing the gap between Product and GTM creates a faster, clearer, more customer-centered organization. Have you seen this? Is this the future of product leadership? Full episode here: 📰 Read/Subscribe on Substack: https://lnkd.in/e6HVnVu2 📺 Watch on YT: https://lnkd.in/ejqCkBAQ 🎧 Listen on Apple: https://lnkd.in/eFp9d4Nw 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eV3vDGGh (Also, "Crossing the CPO to Marketing Chasm" book isn't real...yet. I feel like we should make a collection of these. What do people think?)

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AI can save your marketing team over $100K/year. Without adding headcount. For lean marketing teams, bandwidth isn’t just a pain point. It’s a growth limiter. Whether you’re juggling campaign execution, reporting, or audience insights, every hour counts. That’s where AI is no longer just an enhancement. It’s a necessity. We recently broke down how AI tools can streamline marketing operations across five key categories. The cost savings estimate is based on a 3-6 person team at an average $40/hr pay rate: 🔹 Content Creation & Management From automated blog drafting to smart content calendars, AI can save your team 35–50 hours/month, the equivalent to $1,400–$2,000 in labor. 🔹 Customer Insights & Segmentation AI simplifies predictive segmentation, churn modeling, and LTV forecasting, cutting 25–40 hours/month and saving $1,000–$1,600. 🔹 Campaign Optimization Real-time A/B testing, smart bidding, and dynamic creative testing? That’s 30–45 hours/month reclaimed, or $1,200–$1,800 back in your budget. 🔹 Customer Engagement & Support AI chatbots and personalized content flows trim 30–50 hours/month, translating to $1,200–$2,000 in efficiency gains. 🔹 Analytics & Reporting With automated reports and anomaly detection, your team saves 35–55 hours/month, or $1,400–$2,200. Total monthly impact? 💡 Up to 240 hours saved/month 💰 Worth $6,200–$9,600/month 📈 Annual savings: $74K–$115K For companies facing budget constraints and increasing pressure to perform, this isn’t theoretical. It’s actionable. The question isn’t whether to integrate AI; it’s where you’ll get the fastest return. Curious where your team can start? I created a list of 5 tasks in each of the categories above that AI can automate and the hours saved per task. 📌 To get the full list:  1. Follow me 2. Comment "AI savings" 3. I will send you the link! _________ Turning AI into Action | Consultant, Trainer, Speaker Follow Carolyn Healey for cutting-edge AI trends & tactics ♻️ Repost if your network needs this AI marketing playbook.

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Oh hey, LinkedIn, quick question for the community of marketers and rev ops folks here. Jon Miller, and I were on a panel at Pavilion CMO Summit (with the awesome Ray Rike) recently talking marketing financial benchmarks, which, naturally, led us to double-click on measurement. Jon (as he does) dropped a little one-liner that hit just right: “Attribution should inform your decisions, not justify them.” It echoes something I often say in same spirit, using different words: Marketing (and our partners in ops+) needs to evolve from grading to guiding. Yes, we all track attainment, ROI, CAC, LTV by channel, the usual lagging indicators of growth. Sound familiar so far? But what about the early signals? The ones that tell you something’s working before the dashboard does. If so, here’s my ask: 👉 How do YOU define a “signal”? 👉 And what’s one piece of signal tech or process you can’t live without to stay ahead of shifts in your market, audience, messaging, or channel mix? Appreciate anyone who helps make me become a little smarter than I was yesterday. Talk to me! Humbly, This CMO #MarketingAttribution #CMOlife #RevenueOperations #B2BMarketing

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Subscriptions sit at the exact intersection of business, product, editorial, and data, which makes head of subscriptions elite players in a game of extreme cross-functional collaboration. To succeed in this role, Selma Stern suggests working on these 5 things: - Accept your real job: consensus builder, not decision maker You bridge the gap between “commercial needs” and “technical constraints” by analyzing the data and presenting it without ego - Master internal storytelling When you don’t have the power to decide, you only have the power to compel. You can't simply tell an editor to “assign more premium content”. You have to sell them the story of why it matters in a freemium setup. - Build cross-functional infrastructure While storytelling matters, you cannot rely entirely on logic. You need to build a “shadow” organization that bypasses the bureaucracy to get things done - weekly meetings, chat groups, killer subscription dashboards... - Invest in human chemistry The strongest data pipelines aren’t built in SQL; they are built in social settings. Personal empathy unlocks collaboration - Give away the credit If you make teams look like heroes, they'll be ready to help you in the blink of en eye in the future! Find the full article on Audiencers: https://lnkd.in/eU8sxsRB

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