I've helped 100+ brands find their dream agency. Here's what ahead-of-the-curve brands are up to right now

Since launching The Collective 2 years ago, I’ve helped more than 100 brands find their perfect fit agencies in digital marketing, PR, social, branding and more. This means I’ve managed hundreds of searches, joined thousands of pitches and have an incredible viewpoint into how brands in all industries create their perfect marketing strategy.

I see what works. And I see what doesn’t. I’ve been on calls with CEOs nearly in tears because they didn’t know their attribution had been set up incorrectly (for years) and I’ve been on calls with heads of marketing that weren’t aware there was a?very lucrative?marketing strategy they could and should be employing. It’s fun to jump in, make an incredible match and watch brands quickly and effectively grow. But success shouldn’t be a surprise.

One thing I know for sure is that marketing strategy shifts don’t happen overnight. They can often take up to a few months to really lock in and start showing returns.?This is why Winter Brands are Made in Summer.?Today’s top marketers are using this summer to evaluate every marketing and sales channel, analyze their current strategies and make sure they have the right teams doing the best work for their brand in this climate.?There is no set-it-and-forget-it anymore. We’re speed boats, not cruise ships.

Most brands come to me when they need digital marketing, performance marketing, PR, social media, influencer, branding and creative. You can?book time with me?to talk about this. I do that all day long, but I’ve started making more brand / agency matches in a few specialized areas that are also worth noting:

TikTok:?You need to think of TikTok as streaming, not social.?We’re spending way more time on TikTok than we are on Netflix. By a lot. Google came out with its?own study?about how people are using TikTok for search and it’s eating into Google’s ownership of that space. The average TikTok user spends 91 minutes per day on the app (sounds low to me based on my personal network). My advice with TikTok is don’t be too precious with your brand. If TikTok makes sense for your brand, just get on it and figure it out as you go.

GA4: Moving to GA4 is not optional for digital measurement. What it can do for session-based targeting and dashboarding will be incredible. If you’re?not?on GA4 right now, you will have some year-over-year data loss. That ship is already sailing, but you can still get on it and mitigate your losses.

Marketplace: for the right brands that can sell on retail media and marketplaces (Amazon, InstaCart, etc.), many of them are seeing higher returns and more predictability than some of their other channels. This can be really rewarding.

Affiliate: for many brands, affiliate is such a smart part of their marketing strategy. If you even?think?affiliate is worth exploring, this is the time.

Preparing for a Cookie-less World: between iOS14 and the upcoming cookie-less world getting ahead of first-party data will define winners / losers in 2023. Smart brands are getting ahead of this.

Ooohhh and Programmatic Direct Mail. I love this for D2C and subscription-based brands.

Don’t let your marketing strategy get dusty. It’s impossible to keep up with every new tool, opportunity and resource. That’s why I’m here. I hope this was useful! I’m here to talk anytime - feel free to respond to this email or?book time with me here.