Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 128
Goodmorning everyone! Another edition of my newsletter on everything I find interesting. Mostly on Global Marketing & Retail. Go check out this edition.
❤️Lovable: search engine for crossborderalex substack archive try it yourself!
After last week’s post about the Lovable Growth Model, I decided to give Lovable a try myself again. Last time I used the tool was about 8 months ago.
So much has changed! I was able to create in about a about an hour this website: a search engine for my substack archive.
For a long time I am dissatisfied with substack’s search engine. I use my newsletters also for myself, to find back information for daily use (at work for example). I hardly can find anything with substack’s own search engine.
With Lovable you can create your own search engine for your substack and vibe code your way to optimization.
I am (for now) satisfied with the result and improvements are just a few lines of vibe coding away.
Try it for yourself. Here is the URL to the search engine I developed to search only through my substack archive: https://cba-search.lovable.app/
I am really happy with lovable, I used it now not only to build this search engine, but also to make wireframes and prototypes of improvements for apps and websites.
It helps if you can make things interactive for the product teams. It’s much easier to bring over your idea by doing so especially in remote teams.
If you want to try also, use this referal link for lovable and you get 10 credits for free (and I also get 10): https://lovable.dev/invite/J9IFDPI
It’s fun and you learn a lot when you play with the tool.
👩🏼💼AG Consult: top tasks & b2b research
A few times I have seen a talk from AG Consult. They are always entertaining (with humor) and always very much focused on users and user behavior. They are also a bit contrarian, they have a different opinion (often) then what you read in the main stream marketing communication, and that makes it very interesting to get fresh and new perspectives. Unfortunately I haven’t seen any recent talk, nor did they publish one on YouTube.
But this week they send out an e-mail and it reminded me again of them. Just sharing some links from that email below.
The first article they shared is on B2B and on what questions to ask directly after onboarding a new customer. I will try to use this in my daily work also as I am currently working on an onboarding document:
Focus on the following directly after onboarding:
Why did they choose to become your customer?
What ultimately convinced them to make the decision?
What were their biggest doubts during the decision-making process?
Why do some prospects decide not to become your customers?
More details in this blog post: https://www.agconsult.com/en/usability-blog/marketing-and-sales-personal-without-personalisation/
Now this is also interesting, I think: Top Task Research. AG consult talks about this concept in this post: 60% of visitors come to your website for the same 4 top tasks
The blog post does not go into detail but AG consult did not invent the “Top Task Research” concept, so a quick search in Grok tells me how to set something like that up.
Grok says (shortened):
Gather a long list of potential tasks (100–500 initially):
Brainstorm with stakeholders, content owners, support teams, call center logs, analytics (popular pages/searches), user feedback, competitor sites, etc.
Phrase them as user tasks/goals in plain language (e.g., “Apply for a permit”, “Find opening hours”, “Pay a bill”, “Check recycling rules”—not features like “View our calendar page”).
Refine to a shortlist (usually 50–100 tasks):
Run the voting survey:
Use any survey tool (e.g., Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Typeform, Pollunit, Optimal Workshop’s tool).
Present the randomized list of tasks (random order to avoid bias).
Ask participants to select/rank their top ones common formats:
McGovern’s classic “crazy” version: Pick your top 5 (or sometimes top 3–10), and assign points (5 for #1, 4 for #2, etc.) or just select without ranking.
Analyze the results:
Tally votes/points per task. & Create a “league table” (ranked list) from highest to lowest.
Follow-up (optional but recommended):
Use the top tasks to redesign navigation, content, or test performance (e.g., Task Performance Indicator testing: give users the top tasks and measure success rate/time).
I think very useful information if you are helping a client or in many cases in daily work for us digital marketers, product managers etc.
If you want to read more about an organisation that actually did this research, checkout the Canada.ca site as they explain their “top task research”
https://blog.canada.ca/2023/03/22/top-tasks.html
🥁The Drum: the traditional marketing funnel is dead
I largely agree with this column from The Drum (linked below). I’ve been saying it for months: the traditional marketing funnel is no longer. The phases (awareness, consideration, conversion or alternatively see, think, do ) might still exist conceptually, but the sequence is totally scrambled. and that, my friends, isn’t always clear or linear anymore.
Many agencies still sell separate flights for each phase (believe me I know), but I think that’s no longer the best option. User behavior has changed, people bounce around feeds or platforms, get influenced by comments/creators, loop back etc. Plus, ad algorithms have evolved big time recently (Hi Andromeda) Meta’s AI that loves creative diversity and blurs top/bottom funnel lines into one campaign).
This column explains that exactly, flattening of the journey, and I’m happy to read it because it confirms what I wrote earlier. Check these earlier substack posts on this topic from me:
Checkout this post that backs it up:
And this post as well
That said, I don’t agree with everything in the column. There’s more to it. Social won’t replace it all.
Sure, social often feels like the new front door now, but it’s not just social taking over everything. Other channels, like CTV ads (Prime Video, connected TV), Amazon streaming, Google Discovery campaigns, or even brand mentions in AI overviews and LLMs, can still work great for awareness, trust, or sales, especially when people aren’t just scrolling feeds.
The Drum column you can find here:
https://www.thedrum.com/industry-insight/the-marketing-funnel-is-dead-social-media-ate-it
✅A re-marketing warning by Jon
Something to remember. Jon Loomer’s (a respected Meta (Facebook/Instagram) ads expert, I follow already for a long time) primary point is that with newer tools like Advantage+ Audiences, Meta’s algorithm automatically prioritizes people who have already interacted with your brand. So creating a separate remarketing ad set is redundant and usually drives up your costs (CPMs).
📖 Fix the process first: why tech alone won’t save you (lessons from my coursera consulting teacher, John Kim)
A while ago, I followed a course on Coursera on “Consulting”. Really a nice course to be honest, and I still follow the teacher (John Kim) of that course (even bought his book). He regularly publishes on substack as well and I would like to share this post
Read John’s article on AI and processes:
McKinsey took a look at 80 different use cases. As a simple example, a technology company had thousands of smaller accounts which were not getting attention from their inside sales force (of course, the accounts were small). With GenAI, the company had 4 different AI-agents: 1) prioritized the accounts by public & proprietary account data 2) outreach to the accounts to qualify them 3) managed follow up and stratified the leads (good, okay, bad) 4) schedule contact with a human employee. Results? Saved 30-50% of time, and raised revenue from these small-accounts 7-12%.
Change is tough. Change is glacial:
So McKinsey offers these questions to ask:
Are you reimagining your business for future value?
Are you leading AI as a core business transformation?
Are you building a culture of experimentation and learning?
Are you building trust and ensuring safety?
Are you equipping your managers to lead teams of people, agents, and robots?
Are you preparing your workers for new skills and roles?
Basically what the author writes is fix/redesign the process first before applying tech (speeding up broken processes fails faster) and how you can use ChatGPT to do exactly that.
The course I followed:
https://www.consultantsmind.com/coursera-management-consulting/
📖Book snippets: the most human company wins
I have read this book already twice, it was lying around on my desk today. Great book! I share here some book snippets. Important to understand how to differentiate in the age of AI with humans.
🇩🇪 Germany: AI answers viafax
We all know by know Germany is not the most digital nation on earth, despite many talented employees and citizens (believe me I know). But did you know Germany has a FAX AI business model? Yes! No AI overviews, AI Fax views. Send a fax with a question and it will reply back with a FAX with an AI answer.
So go see if you still have a fax machine somewhere and fax: https://simple-fax.de/fax-ki
Thanks for reading, liking and subscribing, it means a lot to me! Hope you liked it. Slowly I am considering new opportunities (also international):
Contact me via LinkedIN → https://www.linkedin.com/m/in/alexbaar/