Market Proof Marketing

Jackie, Julie, and Caroline talk about why incentives don’t always work the way you think they will and the importance of playing detective and digging deeper when your numbers look off.

They also dig into Q4 budget planning for 2027, why Google Business Profile updates matter more than ever, and what is going on with Zillow’s new Claude integration tool.

Announcements:

• DYC Events 2027 – Catch the DYC Team at IBS in February; Join the interest list for Market Proof Marketing Academy in late February; Join the interest list for Online Sales Academy in Spring, Join the interest list for Brand Academy in Summer; Join the VIP list for the 2027 Online Sales and Marketing Summit next fall.

Story Time:

• Julie: The incentive that worked (but not as planned)
• Jackie: Budget season is the best season
• Caroline: Trust your spidey senses

In the News:

• Google Moves Google Posts Higher Up on Local Panel
• How Marriott Bonvoy Got Scale and Speed with a Global Creator-Led Campaign
• Zillow Brings Specialized Housing Intelligence to Claude with a Path to Tours, Agents, and Financing

Kevin and Julie discuss why email marketing is still one of the hardest-working channels in your toolkit, how Summit attendees are putting what they’ve learned to real-world use, and why context still matters more than content, no matter how good AI gets.

They also talk about Google’s interesting new tactic of “poisoning” search results, the slow boil of Google Ads taking back advertiser control, and Meta’s new AI agent that wants to know everything (maybe too much?) about you.

Announcements:

• ResiDay 2026 – November 6, 2026 – New York City – Hosted by Lance Lambert and ResiClub, Kevin’s final speaking event of the year.
• Market Proof Marketing Academy – Virtual Event – February 23-25, 2027 – Over 200 digital marketers have already taken the course. Join the interest list and go deeper on the digital topics there’s never enough time for at Summit.

Story Time:

• Julie: The hidden trap of email marketing
• Kevin: Context is more important than content

In the News:

• Third-Party Google Rank Tracking Struggling Now
• Google Ads gives Demand Gen advertisers a way to keep Lookalike targeting restrictions
• Meta's Muse AI agent is a clever little bastard

Kevin is joined by Beth and Julie for a post-Summit debrief that unpacks what landed the hardest in Austin, from the difference between accountability and pressure to why your dashboard might be gaslighting every other team at your company.

They also cover fresh AI tools worth exploring and the latest Google updates on spam content and location asset requirements. Plus, they talk about Caroline’s “generational translator” moment that turned an AI skeptic into a believer!

Announcements:

• ResiDay 2026 – November 6, 2026 – New York City – Hosted by Lance Lambert and ResiClub, Kevin’s final speaking event of the year.

Story Time:

• Julie: The magic happens when the right people are in the room
• Beth: Confidence comes from curiosity
• Kevin: AI is a translator

In the News:

• Google Search Spam Updates Use AI To Find AI Spam & More
• Google location asset requirements: What you need to know

In this solo episode, Kevin takes listeners inside two of the Online Sales and Marketing Summit’s keynotes. He first breaks down Britney Muller's presentation, where she challenged builders to rethink how they're actually using AI day-to-day, and where most are getting it wrong.

Kevin then dives into Rand Fishkin's presentation, where Rand made the case that the traditional funnel marketers have relied on for the past 25 years is officially dead, and the path forward looks very different. Kevin adds important nuance for the homebuilding industry, gently pushes back on a few points, and reframes what marketers should actually be optimizing for in a zero-click world.

Announcements:

• 2027 Online Sales & Marketing Summit - San Antonio, TX - September 30-October 1- Join the VIP list and be the first to know when tickets are available for next year’s Summit!

Kevin is joined by Julie and Jackie to talk about AI tools we’d love to have in our personal lives, why buyer timetables never match the ones we build for them, and what a home builder could actually do with an extra $10 million.

They also dive into Meta's new AI agent, Google's "Dive Deeper" experiment, Pinterest's visual search ad play, and how a football club grew its audience by posting less.

Story Time:

• Julie: Buyers don't follow your timetable
• Jackie: Turn the music down
• Kevin: You can't buy demand

In the News:

• Meta says its Muse AI agent can do things for you. I put it to the test.
• Google Discover Tests "Dive Deeper" Feature
• Pinterest Turns Visual Search Into a New Ad Opportunity
• How Inter Milan Grew Followers, Impressions, and Views While Posting Less

Jackie is joined by Beth and Caroline to talk about why AI can't solve problems you don't already understand and what happens when sales, marketing, and online sales finally sit in the same room!

They also discuss why purchased lists are the VHS tapes of lead gen, what a new app signals about the demand for authentic content, and how to move beyond "resort-style amenities" fluff to create content that answers real buyer questions.

Story Time:

• Caroline: Skip the AI restaurant picks
• Beth: Know the problem before you prompt
• Jackie: Talk first, diagnose second

Announcements:

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026

In the News:

• Purchased Lists? Just Say No
• No AI, No Uploads, No Ads: Divine's CEO Says Friction Could Save Social Media
• Beyond Content Parity: Building A Validated Content Workflow For AI Search

Julie is joined by Jackie and Karla Tuten, Head of Creative here at DYC, to talk about what happens when builders hand the phones over to AI, how to actually measure brand consistency, and the topic that will lead to the most honest conversation you have with leadership this fall.

They also dig into Instagram's polarizing logo refresh, the growing uncertainty of what AI pulls about your brand during search, and the AI marketing campaigns that landed (as well as the ones that fell off the trust cliff).

Story Time:

• Jackie: The real cost of an AI-first strategy
• Karla: Brand consistency = brand improvement
• Julie: Creating a “wishlist budget”

Announcements:

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026

In the News:

• Instagram Head of Product Design Explains Thinking Behind That New Logo and Responds to Critics: ‘It’s Important for Us to Embrace the Future’
• Your Biggest AI Search Risk Is Conflicting Information About Your Brand
• 10 of the Best & Worst AI Campaigns

Kevin is joined by Julie and Beth to talk about the messy new relationship marketers are building with AI reporting tools, why your favorite pair of jeans holds the secret to better content strategy, and the uncomfortable truth that most "urgency problems" are really sales process problems.

They also get into why weekly (or - gasp - DAILY?!) reporting cadences can break marketing & operations, the danger of outsourcing customer context to a summary line, and how personalization at scale doesn't mean more automation.

Story Time:

• Beth: It’s ok to show the same pair of jeans
• Jackie: AI still needs a human eye
• Kevin: Business decisions come first

Announcements:

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026

In the News:

• Google: There Is Nothing Special To Do For Generative AI Responses In Search
• Personalize or Perish: What 2025 Taught Us About Online Sales
• Google confirms deploying goto URL redirects to search results links

Kevin is joined by Jackie and Beth to talk about why "best practice" isn't a dirty word, why doing 95% of the process still counts as doing it wrong, and why the resurrection of a two-year-old blog series says everything about the state of marketing right now.

They also unpack HubSpot's new AI visibility tool, YouTube's change to how views are counted, OpenAI apparently pulling back from Reddit, and why comparing today's market to 2008 might be the better perspective for your team to use. Plus: purchased contact lists, LinkedIn AI slop conspiracy theories, and a reminder that squirreling away still works.

Story Time:

• Beth: "Attribution is BS" rises from the dead
• Jackie: A decade of 20% effort, finally run at 100%
• Kevin: Why buying a contact list isn't necessary in 2026

Announcements:

• SOLD OUT! Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 - Join the waitlist to be the first to know if tickets become available.

In the News:

• What Home Builders Should Know About HubSpot's New AI Visibility Tool
• YouTube Is Making a Major Change to How Long-Form Video Views Are Counted
• OpenAI Seems to Be Backing Away From Reddit as Reddit Adds More AI
• 3 Alarming Predictions With the Housing Market on Pace for Its Worst Year Since 2011

Britney Muller, founder of Orange Labs and former senior SEO scientist at Moz, joins Kevin for a wide-ranging conversation on AI literacy, debunking the idea of LLMs as all-knowing oracles, calling out "complexity as competence" among self-styled AI experts, and explaining why foundational SEO and brand mentions matter more than ever in an evolving AI-supported search landscape.

AI literacy over better prompting: Many assume better prompting alone can fix AI's blind spots, but the deeper issue is a lack of AI literacy. Understanding how these systems are trained and retrieve information, without needing deep technical expertise, builds a stronger mental model of what AI is and isn't qualified to help with.

"Complexity as competence" is a red flag: Britney coins this term for self-proclaimed AI experts who use technical jargon to project authority on AI search, even though no one has actually reverse-engineered how AI search ranking works, and warns how this can mislead stakeholders.

Bias is structural: Because the internet overrepresents Western, high-frequency content, AI models magnify existing societal biases (illustrated by the Starbucks South Korea campaign controversy).

What questions do you have for Britney when she joins us at the Summit in Austin?

Follow Britney on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/britneymuller/

Learn More About MMIW - Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

https://www.niwrc.org/mmiwr-awareness

Kevin is joined by Julie and Caroline, and it starts with a question no marketer wants to answer on the record: have you ever broken the law for marketing? The confessions come quickly (and anonymously, if you'd like to submit your own).

The team also digs into why late-summer budget conversations shouldn't feel panicked, why reallocating spend usually beats adding to it, and how a $5 cost-per-click on a niche banner ad is nearly always a red flag.

Story Time:

• Julie: Have you ever broken the law for marketing?
• Caroline: Reallocate before you spend more
• Kevin: Holy AI

Announcements:

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – 95% sold out!

In the News:

• Claude’s new Scarlet Letter watermark is invisible—for now
• Google confirms testing new buttons on home page to drive users to AI-powered search features
• The Chart Isn't The Patient

Ryan Hillgartner, Director of Sales and Marketing at Tim O'Brien Homes, joins the podcast to discuss his nearly 10-year journey with the high-performance home builder and how the company has built consistent sales success through disciplined pricing, strong sales training, and a growing data and analytics function.

The conversation explores why Tim O'Brien avoids incentive-driven sales tactics, invests in integrated tech platforms, and treats each community's performance individually rather than chasing company-wide fixes.

Consistency over chasing more traffic

Tim O'Brien Homes has kept stable, strong sales performance (20%+ appointment close rates) for years without dramatically increasing marketing spend or traffic, showing that alignment between value and sales process matters more than volume.

Tech and data as a differentiator

From adopting HighArc early to building an internal data and analytics team that integrates other systems, Tim O'Brien has invested in connected data infrastructure well ahead of many builders their size.

Foundational trust enables autonomy

Ryan's leadership philosophy centers on supporting experienced sales managers rather than imposing change for change's sake, built on a track record of hitting sales goals.

Follow Ryan on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhillgartner/

Jackie, Julie, and Caroline talk about how the smartest marketing often comes from slowing down long enough to notice it, why "defending what we do" is quietly eating up marketers' time, and how the same incentive can flop or fly depending on how you frame the math.

They also cover Google's new AI content labels, the risk of leaning too hard on AI for blog content, and how to communicate to buyers that a brand-new home might actually be the best deal on the market right now.

Story Time:

• Julie: Your best content is hiding in plain sight
• Caroline: Sell the lifestyle before the listing
• Jackie: Stop defending, start communicating

Announcements:

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – 90% sold out! Don't wait to get your ticket.

In the News:

• Google rolls out AI content labels in asset studio
• Google May Be Penalizing AI-Generated Content As Thin Content
• The best deal in housing might be a brand-new home—how builders are winning over first-time buyers

Kevin is joined by Julie and Caroline to celebrate Episode 450 (only 50 to go until the grand finale…), perform Market Proof Marketing’s first dramatic live reading, and dig into why the flashy, top-down fixes so many builders reach for are rarely the ones that actually move the needle.

They also break down the Q2 Online Sales Benchmark data, talk through the risks of AI-generated content strategies, and unpack what happened when OpenAI's newest model got a little too curious for its own good.

Story Time:

• Julie: Getting ahead of the aftermath
• Caroline: Zoom in, zoom out
• Kevin: Fix the root, not the symptom

Announcements:

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – 90% sold out! Don't wait to get your ticket.

In the News:

• Q2 Online Sales Benchmarks
• OpenAI and Hugging Face partner to address security incident during model evaluation
• Google Local Services Ads Transitioning To Google Ads Platform
• It Works Until It Doesn't: AI Content Strategies That Backfire

Julie, Jackie, and Caroline talk about the anxiety of not knowing what you signed up for, why marketers keep drowning in the "junk drawer" of tools and tactics, and how to sell the communities everyone else has written off.

They also discuss why builder websites are burying their best photos and whether Google's new social signals in Search Console are actually helping you or just helping Google.

Story Time:

• Julie: What to do when a community has less-than-ideal neighbors?
• Jackie: Not my fault, but it is my problem
• Caroline: What Snuba taught me

Announcements:

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – Over 80% sold out! Don't wait to get your ticket.

In the News:

• Most Builder Websites Hide Their Best Asset
• Google Is Using Social Media Signals To Mask AI Search Click Loss
• AI SEO: Writing That’s Specific May Get Cited More

Beth Russell and Karla Tuten take over the podcast to talk about their personal experiences buying and nearly buying/renovating homes, using their own emotional and often illogical decision-making to illustrate what builders and marketers consistently miss about the customer journey. The conversation moves from house-hunting logistics into a broader argument about brand messaging, urging builders to sell the feeling of a life lived in a home rather than its spec sheet.

Buying is emotional, not spreadsheet-driven

Both admit that once they found "the one," specs like square footage, interest rate, and lot size stopped mattering.

New construction vs. resale is a peace-of-mind gap

Karla contrasts the "black and white" certainty of new construction (known systems, no bidding wars, warranties) against the chaos of resale (unknown home age, competing offers, escalation clauses, surprise maintenance costs).

Attention vs. emotion vs. conversion are three different jobs

Many marketers are good at getting attention but fail to translate that into the emotional resonance that actually moves someone to buy - and that gap is where builders lose customers.

Online Sales Coach Melissa Fort joins the podcast to trace her 20-year career journey through the new home industry, from launching one of the earliest online sales programs at Lennar in 2005 through the 2008 financial crisis, multiple cross-country relocations, and eventually into marketing leadership roles. The conversation blends nostalgic industry history with hard-won lessons about resilience, adaptability, and the value of gaining broad exposure across many builders rather than staying siloed within one company.

Crisis Reveals Character

The 2008-2011 downturn taught hard lessons about how quickly fortunes reverse; those who lived through it built resilience that served them in later market shifts.

Breadth Over Depth

Working across 100+ builders at Do You Convert (vs. staying at one company) has built pattern-recognition and problem-solving skills that function like an industry "MBA."

Advice For Newcomers

Push through the tough, absorption-heavy first three years; patience, geographic openness, and long-term relationships pay off, with opportunities compounding around year five or six.

Announcements:

• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – Over 70% sold out! Don't wait to get your ticket.
• Do You Convert is hiring! View all open positions.

Jackie, Julie, and Beth discuss the power of staying curious with your data and why obsessing over your competition might be steering you in the wrong direction.

They also dig into when marketing follow-up crosses the line from serendipitous to straight-up creepy, what a two-year-old spec home can teach us about listening to buyer feedback, and the growing tension between AI adoption and consumer trust.

Story Time:

• Julie: Sometimes the answer is a can of paint
• Beth: When follow-up feels like being stalked
• Jackie: Curiosity is a marketer's secret weapon

Announcements:

• Market Proof Marketing Academy – Virtual Event – Sign up for the interest list for next year.
• Online Sales and Marketing Summit – Austin, Texas – October 1-2, 2026 – Over 70% sold out! Don't wait to get your ticket.
• Do You Convert is hiring! View all open positions.

In the News:

• Assuming Why the Competition is Winning is Killing Your Results
• AI search adoption rises as consumer trust declines: Study
• OpenAI moves to automate ad creative

Kevin is joined by Julie to debate which AI tool will own the consumer mindshare race, why following an incentive through the buyer's journey matters more than the promotion itself, and the question every marketer should be asking their leaders this week.

They also dig into a fresh wave of zero-click search data, what the ProBuilder Top 200 reveals about where builders are betting their innovation dollars, and why "we need more awareness" might be the wrong instinct when buyers are already worried about missing your listings.

Story Time

• Julie: Follow the incentive the whole way
• Kevin: What’s keeping your leadership up at night?

Announcements

• Market Proof Marketing Academy - Virtual - July 7-9, 2026 - Only 2 spots remaining!
• DYC Online Sales and Marketing Summit - Austin, Texas - October 1-2, 2026 - Tickets are 70% sold out, don’t wait to get yours.

In the News

• Google Zero-Click Searches Hit 68% in Early 2026, Says Study
• Betting the House: Insights from the 2026 Top 200

Erin Willis, Chief Insights Officer at Sekisui House, joins the podcast to share her journey through the home building industry and challenges the sector to move beyond generic decision-making toward consumer-focusd, data-driven strategies that treat home buyers as whole humans instead of transactions.

Targeting everyone means reaching no one

Builders default to generic out of fear of missing buyers, but intentional design for a specific target actually expands the market by pulling people out of resale, rentals, and indecision. Only 36% of Americans feel at home in their home - that's the opportunity being left behind.

Erin also dives into how buyers aren’t making spreadsheet decisions, the status of the post-close relationship and how Sekisui House is operating a “happiest home” mission with their customers.

Follow Erin on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinboggswillis/

Learn more about The Nature Conservancy

https://www.nature.org/en-us/