Growth Insights for CEOs
Doug Bell
Recent Posts

The Contrarian Brand Play: Why Right Now Is the Best Time to Invest in Brand
Executive Takeaways
- Most companies are cutting brand spend to fund rising paid acquisition costs. That is the wrong response.
- Brand awareness now drives AI citations, and AI citations drive Day One shortlist inclusion.
- Google's redesign of Search makes brand recognition more important; AI systems favor brands users already know.
- The companies investing in brand while competitors pull back are building advantages at lower cost.
Part 4 of our four-part series on the evolving AI search landscape and what B2B leaders need to know to stay competitive.
Recent Posts

Your Paid Search Budget Is Buying Less. Here's Why.
Fri, Aug 14, 2026 — Executive Takeaways Paid search costs reached a six-year high while clicks and impressions declined. This is a structural shift, not a temporary correction, and B2B is disproportionately affected. AI Overviews appear on 54% of tracked B2B keywords versus 22% for B2C. Google's recent search redesign signals these pressures will intensify. The companies adapting fastest are shifting from click volume to conversion quality. Part 2 of our four-part series on the evolving AI search landscape and what B2B leaders need to know to stay competitive.

The AI Search Gap Between Buyers and Brands Just Got Wider
Fri, Jul 24, 2026 — Executive Takeaways B2B buyer AI adoption hit 94%, and company readiness didn't keep pace. The #1 organic ranking now captures under 2% of AI Overview searches. Google Gemini's chatbot share jumped 48% in a single month. The gap isn't awareness anymore. It's execution, and it's getting more expensive to ignore. Buyers have moved to AI search. Most companies haven't caught up.

You’re Being Talked About (or Ignored) - Offsite Signals Drive AI Search Visibility
Fri, Jan 23, 2026 — Part 3 of our four-part series exploring how AI search is transforming visibility, SEO, and digital strategy - and what CEOs need to do now to stay competitive. Executive Takeaways AI search engines pull data and content from across the web - not just your website. Brand mentions, reviews, and forum posts now shape how AI describes you. Reddit, G2, Quora, and even Amazon reviews influence AI-generated answers. Monitoring and managing offsite presence is now a strategic imperative.
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Why Generative AI Will Eat Your Website and Change B2B Marketing Forever
Tue, Mar 28, 2023 — The Tsunami We’ll start with an opinion and put it upfront to save you time. B2B marketing is over as we know it. Full stop. A tsunami of buyer behavioral change is coming. Generative AI will truncate buyer research cycles and steal away with the first-party and third-party data that drives so much of our buyer engagement.