Comment your thoughts it would be helpful

When I first started exploring digital marketing, I thought running ads or doing SEO was mostly about following the right steps.
But the more I learn, the more I realize that knowing the theory and getting actual results are two very different things.

For example, setting up a campaign is one thing, but figuring out why it isn't converting is another.

I'm curious to hear from people working in the industry:

What's one digital marketing task that seemed easy when you were learning it but turned out to be much harder in real projects?
Would love to hear some honest experiences from beginners and experienced marketers alike.

Founder here-

More of our traffic and discovery is coming through AI (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and so on), and I realised I had no idea what those agents actually see when they hit our pages.

So we built a small checker for it. You paste in a URL and it tells you which AI systems can reach and read your key pages, and where they fall short. It's free and needs no signup. (Link in comments)

We used it on our own site first. It was eye-opening, and fixing the gaps took us from showing up in 12 of 48 buyer prompts to 36 of 50 in about six weeks.

We launched the full thing this week, but I'm mostly posting because I'd like feedback on the checker. What's useful and what's off. Did we miss anything. Also curious how others here are thinking about this, or if it's still too early to care.

I'm a complete beginner in Social Media Marketing (SMM) and want to learn it properly.

I'd appreciate recommendations on:

- Skills: What should I learn first? (Content strategy, copywriting, consumer psychology, analytics, etc.)

- Tools: Which tools should I learn for content creation, video editing, scheduling, and analytics?

- Free resources: Any good YouTube channels, tutorials, free courses, or certifications?

- Books: Which books are genuinely worth reading for a beginner?

- Practical experience: What projects should I work on to build my skills and portfolio?

If you were starting from scratch today, what would your learning path look like?

I'd appreciate practical advice from people working in SMM. Thanks!

Hey guys,

My father is a contractor and saw an ad on Facebook about Adstruct Digital. He booked in a call with them and asked me to look them up to find up more information. He said had had a good conversation with them but i'm still a bit unsure about it and don't want him to get scammed. He said they do marketing services for contractors only, and he's interested in it cause he doesn't know anything about marketing but wants more customers.

If anyone has worked with them or has any information on them I'd appreciate it! I have their website too if anyone wants to view it, but I don't want to share it in the post in case it is seen as promotion by mods.

Hi,

Looking to partner or buy a large X account who focuses on sport content,

I have a small but growing YouTube channel (unmonetized yet) that focuses on mainly the English Premier League. I've recently focussed on this more regularly and want to push it.

I create all the content , including graphics, script and narration and each video is around 5 minutes long. I'm aiming to create multiple videos a day.

I'm looking for someone who has a large following on X and focusses on Football (soccer) / Sport who could promote the channel / Videos and can split monetization once there. Essentially someone with a large following who can post links and promote the content. I will do the video creating or can be flexible depending on what the other person wants ..

If interested or want more info, please comment or DM me.

I am not looking to earn thousand of dollars a month. I wan a part time job or side hustle that brings in 100 to 300 dollars a month would be enough for me.

I would lilke to start something in my free time but there are so many options that i keep going back and forth.

what are you doin right now for a small side income and how many hours a week doit it take? would love to hear real experiences even if you are just getting started.

I am currently working as SMM and need to work with influencers but market of creators are so much increasing its getting overwhelming. Is it actually worthy for influencer to be involve in every marketing campaign?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
AI is moving so fast, and as someone working in marketing, I feel like the skills that made us valuable a few years ago might not be enough in the next 3–5 years.
Content creation, copywriting, design, analytics, even campaign planning. AI can already do a pretty decent job at a lot of these.
I’m not necessarily scared of AI replacing marketers, but I do wonder how we can stay competitive and actually become more valuable instead of just producing more content faster.
Are you guys learning new skills? Moving toward strategy, data, automation, or something completely different?
Especially curious to hear from people who’ve been in marketing for 5–10+ years.
What skills do you think will actually matter in the next few years? And what are you doing right now to prepare?
Would love to hear some real experiences and perspectives!

I'm building an AI memory platform, and we're trying out performance marketing mainly on X, Instagram, and Google. A pattern that I really dislike with browser pixels is the cookie banners and the extra tracking and consent options that get added on.

I'm wondering if the server-side and API tracking options would prove better in this case, where something like data privacy is more important when it comes to saving memories and context for people and creating a brand perception around privacy. Are browser pixels as necessary for digital marketing as they used to be, or can you achieve most of the results with just server-side tracking?

To all marketing experts, why do you think campaigns based on AI designs achieve huge success? I understand that for some businesses, great design doesn't matter; they only care about visibility and attract customers through their cheap product/service prices (some beauty centers, travel agencies, supermarkets, car rental companies, and the list goes on).
In your opinion, do only big businesses or corporations need creativity in marketing? Tell me guys what do you think?

Hi all. Im wondering whether the Forbes councils is a total scam\fraudulent org. I encountered really strange and bad experience recently. I'm not been able to cancel my membership and delete/change the details of the credit card in my app or on site. And they have debited the card for the annual membership on 2500 USD. after debiting they have sent the email to [concierge@forbescouncils.com](mailto:concierge@forbescouncils.com) in case of some amendments and also they have terms of service which state that you can cancel the subscription and make a refund in 15 days and you need to write them. Ive been writing during few consecutive days and didnt get any response at all. Does anyone had this type of bad experience and knows what to do, please help with advise

With AI changing the industry and competition growing every day, is it still worth starting a digital marketing agency from scratch? What services would you focus on first, and how would you get your first few clients?

Would love to hear from people who are already running an agency or freelancing.

I’ve been working in SEO for years, and one thing I still find frustrating is how people underestimate digital marketing.

Some people think SEO is just updating website content and building backlinks. With Google Ads, they think you just select keywords, set a budget, and run ads.

But the actual work involves keyword research, competitor analysis, technical SEO, strategy, tracking, testing, and constant optimization.

The worst part is dealing with clients who offer ₹5,000–₹10,000 for a month’s SEO work but expect rankings to improve within 15 days.

You can prepare detailed keyword research, competitor analysis, strategy presentations, and tracking sheets, but if rankings don’t improve immediately, they assume you’re doing nothing. Some even refuse to pay at the end of the month.

SEO isn’t magic, and running ads isn’t just pressing a button. Results take time, and sometimes strategies need to be changed.

I’m curious, fellow SEO professionals and freelancers: what’s the most unrealistic expectation a client has ever had from you? 😂

I’ve been running on the assumption that 20% is OK but I’m hearing people do upwards of 50%. And I’m starting to learn that I need to beef up margins to make things scale.

To clarify, I mean, after you pay your staff, your tools, your admin, etc. What’s left at the end?

AI can automate a ridiculous amount of marketing work now.

Content drafts.

Ad variations.

Research.

Reporting.

Email personalization.

Keyword clustering.

Social posts.

Customer segmentation.

But I'm becoming more interested in the things marketers shouldn't automate.

For example, I'd be hesitant to completely hand over:

• brand positioning
• deciding what a brand should stand for
• interpreting unusual customer feedback
• creative strategy

Not because AI can't contribute to these things.

More because the output still depends heavily on someone understanding the business and the customer.

So I'm curious what other marketers think.

Hi everyone!
I’m currently studying Marketing and Digital Business, and I’m trying to get a better understanding of what career paths in this field actually look like in the United States.
I’d love to hear from people working in marketing, I’m especially interested in understanding how much people make, also what their day-to-day lives and financial situations look like.
If you’re comfortable sharing, I’d love to know:
● Location: Where do you live? (City/state or general region is fine.)
● Job: What is your current job title, and what do you actually do on a daily basis?
● Industry: What kind of company do you work for? (Tech, e-commerce, fashion (I’m especially interested in this 🙂), an agency, a corporation, your own business, etc.)
● Education: What degrees, certifications, or additional studies do you have? Do you think they were worth the investment? Anything u would recommend
● Experience: How many years have you been working in the field? Do you think ist worth the time
● Income: Approximately how much do you make per year before taxes?
● Lifestyle: After paying taxes, housing, bills, groceries, and other necessities, do you have enough money left to save, invest, travel, enjoy hobbies, go out with friends, and prepare for retirement? Or does your income mostly go toward covering your expenses?
● Work-life balance: How many hours do you typically work? Do you have a good work-life balance?
● Career growth: What has helped you increase your income the most? Changing companies, specializing in a particular skill, getting promoted, freelancing, starting a business, or something else?
And for those of you with more experience, I’d especially appreciate your advice on that If you were in your early 20s again, just starting your career in marketing and digital business, what would you do differently to build a financially stable and successful future?
Would you focus on a particular specialization, learn technical skills, pursue a master’s degree, work for a large company, aim for a remote job with a U.S. salary, or eventually start your own business?

Thank you very much guys!

Had something weird happen last month. A new customer told me they found us because ChatGPT recommended us when they asked for options in our area. I didn't do anything special for that, at least not on purpose. We have a website, a blog we update now and then, and some reviews.

Now I'm wondering if this is a real channel or if I just got lucky once. I've tried asking ChatGPT the same kind of question myself, and sometimes we show up and sometimes we don't, which makes it really hard to know what's working.

So curious, has anyone actually gotten customers from AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity recommending them? How?

Has anyone tested this out yet? How’s it going? I’ve been receiving a decent amount of leads for our business ( b2b) organically and considering investing in a test to see if it helps growth.

AI is already doing more than just writing posts or creating images. It's also making execution easier.

With more powerful models, MCPs, and AI tools built into Meta and Google Ads, a lot of the work marketers do today could be automated.

Imagine AI doing the research, creating ad creatives, setting up campaigns, and optimizing them.

It could even research competitors, study their strategies, and suggest what to do next.

So, what will be left for marketers to do?

I think we need to focus on 3 skills:

1. Communication
2. Original thinking
3. Understanding how a business actually works

Knowing how to run ads or create campaigns might not be enough when AI can handle more of that work.

Understanding customers, finding the right problems to solve, and knowing what actually makes a business money could become even more important.

I'm not saying these are the only skills that will matter. I'm trying to figure out what we should focus on now instead of spending all our time learning tools that might become outdated.

What do you think will matter most for marketers in the next 2–3 years?

I keep seeing different answers on this. Some say 5-10% of revenue, others say it depends on margins and goals, and some say spend until the returns stop making sense.

For a small business, what split would you start with between paid ads, SEO/content, and email? And how long do you give it before deciding it isn’t working?

Also curious how people decide when to increase the budget. Is it a set percentage of revenue, or do you scale once the cost per lead or customer looks healthy?

In fall 2024 I was prepping a quarterly review for a skincare client and noticed their open rate had climbed from 38% to 47% over two quarters while email revenue wasn't growing proportionally. Nothing was wrong with the emails. Instagram signups had pushed Apple Mail from half their opens to 58%, and MPP logs most of those the moment Apple fetches the pixel.

Open rate was always the number I put at the top of the report because it always made us look good, so I was hesitant to admit it wasn't telling us anything. The first thing I tried swapping in was click rate. It's a 3-in-1 metric, since a click needs the email delivered and opened first, but clicks don't always turn into sales.

I decided to go with how the client's Klaviyo account calculates conversion rate and RPR. Conversion rate is conversions divided by delivered, times 100, and RPR is email revenue divided by delivered. MPP can't inflate a delivered count.

Their campaigns were converting at 0.1% with RPR near $0.10. A lot less exciting than 47%, but we could grow those numbers.

I still check opens for a sudden drop, since that usually means deliverability trouble, but I’m no longer leaning on it. Opens being unreliable is old news, so what are you leading with instead? 

for a few months Ive been asking chatgpt, gemini and google’s ai the same buyer questions every week to see which brands they recommend. few things that surprised me

one check means nothing. ask the same question twice and you can get different brands, so built a system that asks each one 5 times and track how often a brand gets named. This uses scraped user interfaces for real user results

your own site getting cited matters less than I assumed. what predicted a brand getting named was being listed on the pages the engines cite, and most of those are “best x tools” listicles and comparison pages. so getting into those roundups looks like the main winner.

Started outreaching them to get these placments secured and now seeing my mention rate improve

hey, i'm looking for opportunities in social media and thought i'd ask here. i have experience with content creation and managing social media content, and i genuinely enjoy coming up with ideas and figuring out what works for a page. if anyone is hiring for a social media executive role or knows any brands or agencies looking for someone, please let me know. i'm open to remote or hybrid opportunities too. would really appreciate any leads!