Growth marketing
Notes on reaching the right people with the right offer, and knowing whether it worked.
STREAMS
Follow the streams.
A notebook on the digital world from a growth marketer: what works, what does not, and how to tell the difference. Written in plain language, no jargon for its own sake.
Four threads.
Attribution
Making sense of where results actually come from, instead of guessing from the last click.
AI workflows
Using AI tools to move faster without handing over your judgment.
Creativity
Ideas, craft, and the work of making something worth noticing.
If I knew then what I know now — revisited
Originally on LinkedIn, June 10, 2022. Reworked November 2026.
In 2022 I wrote that digital marketing felt like a whole new world — so many channels, so many platforms, algorithms changing under your feet, enough to make your head spin. That part hasn’t changed. What’s changed is what I’d tell someone starting out now, because I’ve lived the next four years of it.
I started in SEO. Search taught me the long game: earn visibility, answer the real question, don’t chase tricks. Then paid media taught me the short game: spend real money, learn fast, and be honest about what a click is actually worth.
Channels are tools, not a strategy. SEO, PPC, social, email — each has strengths, and none of them works as a one-size-fits-all blast. The question isn’t which channel, it’s who you’re trying to reach and what a win looks like for them.
Targeting beats volume. Account-based marketing was the new idea in that 2022 piece. Now it’s just how I think: find the people most likely to convert, tailor the message to them, and stop paying to shout at everyone.
Attribution is where the truth lives. A lead is not a result. At Smile Systems I judge paid media on booked consultations that show up — not raw leads, not cost per click. If you can’t trace a dollar from first click to booked revenue, you’re guessing, and guessing gets expensive.
AI is a workflow, not a replacement for judgment. Chatbots, automation, AI-assisted analysis — they move faster than any of us can alone. But they don’t know your customer, your market, or when a number smells wrong. Use them to compress weeks of iteration into days. Keep the decisions.
Staying on top of it is the job. New platforms will keep coming — voice search and AR were the new things in 2022; something else will be the new thing next year. The marketers who last aren’t the ones who chase every trend. They’re the ones who experiment, measure honestly, and aren’t afraid to get out of their comfort zone.
There is a whole new digital world out there. It was true in 2022, and it’s still true. The difference now is I’ve walked more of it — and I know which parts are worth the climb.
Notes are published here as they are written. No case studies, no client names, just the thinking.