Shows
The Marketing MillennialsThe Truth About Audience Building in Marketing with Marc Sirkin, Growth Consultant and Former CEO of Third Door Media| Ep. 393Growing an audience is easy. Turning that audience into a real business is the part most marketers completely miss. And if you don’t understand the difference, you’re already behind.
In this episode, Daniel sits down with Marc Sirkin, former CEO of Third Door Media and longtime builder behind brands like MarTech.org and Search Engine Land, to unpack what it really takes to grow a media company….and why eyeballs don’t automatically equal revenue.
From why viral reach doesn’t guarantee conversions, to the danger of chasing ne...
2026-02-1851 min
AI: Voice or Victim?The Lead Flow Crisis: Why Traditional Marketing Died in 2025 (And What to Do About It)Search is broken. Email is harder. Paid ads cost more. Lead flow is drying up across the board—and most marketers are still playing by the old rules.In this episode of AI: Voice or Victim, Greg Boone sits down with Marc Sirkin, former CEO of Third Door Media, and Chris Long, co-founder of Nectiv and SEO strategist behind brands like Adobe and Amazon. Together, they dissect the lead flow crisis facing revenue leaders, marketers, and operators in 2025—and why ignoring it could be fatal.This is not another "SEO is dead" debate. This is a hard look...
2026-01-2150 min
Playbook Broken PodcastTechnical Branding: The Discipline That Doesn't Exist Yet“Stop watching gurus telling you what to do.”Myriam Jessier doesn’t ease into conversations. She’s a technical SEO strategist, co-founder of Pragm, and possibly the most irreverent voice in search right now. And she’s tired of watching marketers fail because they’re following advice that worked in 2019.“There’s best practices for SEO out there,” she tells me, “and then there’s your business reality. The stuff that actually works for you.”Here’s what she means: while you’ve been optimizing for rankings, the entire game changed. AI didn’t just speed up search. It col...
2026-01-0642 min
Playbook Broken PodcastYour Marketing Calendar Is Dead. Here's What Kills It.Tejas Manohar was at Segment when it sold to Twilio for $3B. Now he’s co-CEO at Hightouch, watching marketing teams make the same mistake over and over.They’re using AI to make their old playbook faster. Wrong move.“You can’t assume that people are going to interact with your website the same way they interacted with your website a few years ago,” Tejas said. “Consumers are going to be viewing their travel planning in ChatGPT. If you’re just optimizing your website, that’s not going to work.”The marketing calendar worked wh...
2025-12-1044 min
Conversations with MarTechThe CDP Fantasy Is over: Data Chaos Ends Here with Tejas ManoharCustomer data platforms promised clarity, unity, and true personalization — but reality didn’t live up to the hype. In this episode, Hightouch Co-CEO Tejas Manohar joins Marc Sirkin to dismantle the outdated CDP playbook and reveal why modern teams are shifting toward composable data architectures and AI-driven decisioning. Tejas shares the inside story of the CDP market’s evolution, why most organizations still struggle to activate their data, and how AI is finally enabling the kind of individualized marketing the industry has chased for decades. From broken batch-and-blast tactics to the rise of automat...
2025-12-0344 minAI: Voice or Victim?The Lead Flow Crisis with Marc SirkinMarketing is in freefall. Search traffic is tanking. Cold email is useless. Paid media costs keep climbing. The playbook everyone relied on no longer works. Today’s guest, Marc Sirkin, Founder and Principal of Marc Sirkin Consulting and former CEO of Third Door Media (Semrush), breaks down what’s really happening.Marc joins Greg Boone for a straight talk conversation about how AI has already reshaped marketing, sales, and go-to-market strategy. They dig into why 2022 was the real turning point, why leaders are still clinging to outdated metrics, and how activity is being confused for actual progress.
2025-12-0334 min
Enterprise AlchemyThe Future Is Human + Machine with Marc Sirkin, Founder & PrincipalThe next era of work isn’t human versus machine.It’s human + machine, and the tension between those two forces is where the real leadership begins.In this episode, Marc Sirkin shares how to navigate that tension, name your resistance, and turn uncertainty into momentum.🎧 Listen in & tell us what you think.
2025-11-2836 min
Elements of Culture PodcastAI Was the Earthquake — Welcome to Integration TimeImagine the earthquake already hit the day AI went mainstream, and everything since has been aftershocks. That’s the lens we bring to a fast-moving conversation with Mark Sirkin—founder, former CEO, and longtime operator across startups, nonprofits, and media—about what it really takes to lead through the AI integration era. We’re not debating whether AI matters; we’re focused on how to apply it, where to start, and how to bring people with you without breaking trust.In this episode of Elements of Culture, Marc Sirkin joins us for a candid conversation about what leaders ke...
2025-11-2136 min
Playbook Broken PodcastYou’re Not Data-Driven. You’re Just Scared.I’ve spent my career trying to marry art and science. The creative and the analytical. The gut instinct and the spreadsheet. Never leaning too far in either direction because the best decisions live in that tension.So when Philip Armstrong told me most executives use “we need better data” as a stalling tactic, I immediately recognized the pattern. I’ve seen it a hundred times. Hell, I’ve probably done it myself.It’s not that they don’t trust the data. It’s that they don’t trust themselves to be wrong. No one ever got fired...
2025-11-1437 min
Conversations with MarTechBlowing up the Dashboard: Rethinking Data, AI and the Real Customer Journey with Philip ArmstrongWhat if everything you thought you knew about being “data-driven” was wrong?In this episode of Playbook Broken, host Marc Sirkin talks with Philip Armstrong, SVP and Go-to-Market Head of Insights & Analytics at Truth in Data (and formerly of Nike), about why most dashboards fail, how to overcome data paralysis, and why AI might be breaking more playbooks than it’s fixing. Philip unpacks how Fear of Better Options (FOBO) shapes customer behavior, why no one truly “owns” the customer journey, and how generative AI is changing...
2025-11-1237 min
Playbook Broken PodcastYour Marketing Stack Just Became ObsoleteYour marketing workflows are already obsolete.Amanda Cole, CMO of Bloomreach and Executive Board Member at MACH Alliance, drops truth bombs about AI, marketing's future, and why "ignorant thinking" might be your only competitive advantage.She admits what most executives won't: "I have no idea what I'm doing." Then explains why that's exactly the qualification needed to lead through AI transformation.⏱️ KEY MOMENTS:[00:00:48] The Death of Workflows - Why everything you learned about marketing automation is wrong[00:14:45] "We Have to Unlearn What Feels Safe" - The vulnerability required to lead...
2025-11-0541 minAI: Voice or Victim?SEO Isn’t Dead... It’s Changing Fast: Marc Sirkin on the AI Search RevolutionFormer MarTech CEO Marc Sirkin explains how Google’s AI Overviews are rewriting the rules of discoverability.AI isn’t the future—it’s here. And if you’re still running your marketing playbook like it’s 2019, you might already be invisible.In this episode of AI: Voice or Victim, host Greg Boone sits down with Marc Sirkin, former President and CEO of Third Door Media (Search Engine Land and MarTech) and now consultant, to unpack the lead flow crisis—a seismic shift caused by Google’s AI Overviews, declining organic clicks, and changing search behaviors.
2025-10-2255 min
Playbook Broken PodcastAI Took Nate's JobIn the latest episode of Playbook Broken, Nate St. Pierre told me, “The value of what I bring is approaching zero.” But don’t worry about Nate, he’s not panicking. He’s selling his replacement.Most consultants facing extinction would deny it’s happening. Nate built the thing making him obsolete, called it Youbots, and started selling it to small businesses for 10% of what they used to pay him.Then he took Wednesdays off.We get into a ton of stuff, including his journey into Hollywood, the future of AI and human cr...
2025-10-2139 min
Playbook Broken PodcastFrom Broken Playbooks to Category RevolutionsFor years, B2B growth felt predictable: run the demand-gen playbook, crank the funnel, and expand into new segments. But the moment you try to scale upmarket into enterprise? That deal is off. Or gets very, very tricky at best.What worked in SMB and mid-market stalls out at the top of the pyramid. Sales cycles balloon. Brand trust matters more than tactics. Buyers suddenly have committees. And the old “demand gen on repeat” playbook doesn’t just break, it collapses under its own weight.That’s where (and how) Ryan Nelsen built his career with hug...
2025-09-2929 min
Playbook Broken PodcastWhy Brand Is Back and AI Is Forcing the RewriteWe all swore off brand. Declared it dead. Buried it under a decade of dashboards, funnels, and “growth hacks.”But the playbook we tried to shred is clawing its way back. And the irony? AI, the very force accelerating sameness, is pushing us to rediscover the one thing machines can’t fake: brand, story, and the human spark.My latest guest on Playbook Broken was Deema Tamimi, VP of Marketing at Creatopy, and I felt, a kindred spirit (shout out to Anne of Green Gables. If you know, you know). Deema lived through Xbox, YouTube, Flipbo...
2025-09-0839 min
Playbook Broken PodcastThe Funnel is DEAD. Pipeline is a Lie. SaaS is Next.If you're still bragging about MQLs, SQLs, and pipelines, Sangram Vajre thinks you should be fired.If you're still running 20-step nurture campaigns, he thinks you're stuck in 2012.And if you're still clinging to a SaaS business model? He says you're the next Blockbuster.According to Sangram, the sacred cows of marketing are getting slaughtered, and it's about damn time.In this episode of Playbook Broken, Sangram Vajre (co-founder of Terminus, GTM Partners, and author of MOVE) didn't just challenge the status quo, he torched it. What emerged from the ashes...
2025-08-2446 min
Playbook Broken PodcastPlaybooks Don’t Scale. Frames Do.We’ve spent the last decade duct-taping marketing tech stacks together, trying to run faster while seeing less. Every quarter, someone yells, “We need a better playbook!” But what if the playbook was never the problem?The frame’s freaking busted, bruh.In this episode of Playbook Broken (S01E05), I talk with Ed See, Chief Growth Officer at Zeta Global and a former McKinsey partner who has advised the world’s top CMOs. Ed doesn’t just look at marketing data; he weaponizes it. And what he says will either punch you in the gut or wake...
2025-08-1332 min
Playbook Broken PodcastThe internet’s unspoken deal is DEAD.For 20 years, we operated under an unspoken agreement: create great content, get traffic in return. That deal is dead.Search engines built billion-dollar empires on it. Publishers structured entire business models around it. But now, LLMs are devouring content, serving up answers, and bypassing the creators who made them. Referral traffic is falling off a cliff. The old “SEO-for-traffic” equation isn’t just eroding — it’s being rewritten in real time.AIO? GEO? SEO? Regardless of what we end up calling it, this is disruption in real time.But this shift isn’t limited to m...
2025-08-0341 min
Playbook Broken PodcastThe Playbook Is Dead. Long Live the Feedback Loop.That’s the biggest takeaway from my recent conversation with Zach Vidor, CEO of Octave, on Playbook Broken. We covered a lot of ground, but one theme kept circling back: the old go-to-market (GTM) playbooks aren’t failing because they were bad. They’re failing because the game changed, and we’re still pretending the field looks the same.Octave’s philosophy that “outbound isn’t broken, your playbook is,” isn’t just a cheeky line. It’s a diagnosis. The explosion of generative AI, the collapse of traditional moats, and the accelerating entropy in tech markets have outpaced how mo...
2025-07-2135 min
Playbook Broken PodcastPlaybook Broken Season 1, Episode 3: Hyper AdaptiveIn this episode, we dive headfirst into the rapidly changing landscape of marketing, driven by AI and automation. Featuring Melissa Reeve, a 25-year marketing veteran and co-founder of the Agile Marketing Alliance and Marketing Frontier.ai, the conversation explores the concept of 'Hyper Adaptive' organizations.Melissa discusses her upcoming book, organizational restructuring, and the need for dynamic governance over static playbooks. She also shares insights on the importance of AI literacy, social learning, and how to prepare for an AI-native future. Tune in to uncover how leaders can navigate this chaotic yet exciting new world.
2025-07-1332 min
Daily Marketing Insights PodcastAI Marketing Pulse: Key Developments from 18 June 2025Yesterday brought a wave of developments across AI, SEO, and marketing tech. From Google’s rollout of conversational search and Veo 3 integration to Supermetrics acquiring Relay42, it’s clear that automation and AI are reshaping how brands interact with customers. But strategy still reigns—marketers must balance human meaning with machine output.📰 Article Breakdown1. Beyond ChatGPT: What AI agents really do (and why it matters for customer experience)Date: 18 June 2025 | Author: Digital Marketing DepotRead the full article* What Happened:Digital Marketing Depot explores how AI agents are being deployed to automate parts of...
2025-06-1905 min
Playbook Broken PodcastThe Search Traffic Playbook Is Dead. Now What?For years, the SEO game rewarded volume. Loosely researched blog posts. Light rewrites of existing content. Top-10 lists with no real perspective.That era is over.On Playbook Broken, I talked with Matthew Kay, Head of Search at ActiveCampaign and one of the creators of the Tech SEO Connect, about what’s breaking in search and why traffic is drying up across the board.“You go look at the traffic of some of these sites… one click in 90 days. It might be indexed. But no one’s reading it.”We covered the slow d...
2025-06-1823 min
Playbook Broken PodcastSocial Selling, AI Sanity, and the Death of the Marketing MiddlemanIf you’re still trying to sell the way you did five years ago, here’s the truth: you’re not just out of touch. You’re in the way.In this first episode of Playbook Broken, I brought on one of the sharpest minds I know. She’s a creative strategist, media whisperer, and ex-AI skeptic turned power user. My guest is Molly St. Louis, co-founder of Mosaic Group Media. Molly doesn’t pull punches. She also doesn’t waste time defending broken tactics.Molly brought real talk, sharp takes, and challenged me to rethink a few...
2025-06-0536 min
Digital Marketing TodayTransformative Innovations in Digital Marketing: AI, Strategic Partnerships, and Authentic Engagement
Digital Marketing Today Podcast
Digital Marketing Today: News About Digital Marketing Techniques and Innovations
Welcome to the latest episode of the Digital Marketing Today podcast, where we unravel the groundbreaking innovations transforming the digital marketing industry. In this episode, you'll discover the dynamic shifts and technology-driven advancements turbocharging the way marketers operate.
Key Highlights in This Episode:
ClarityCut AI by CLEANZONE HVAC LLC: Revolutionizing content creation, this AI-powered Creative Engine automates and personalizes video creation, offering marketers innovative ways to engage with their audience.
Comscore and ShowSeeker Partnership: Delve into their strategic alliance that...
2025-06-0404 min
Conversations with MarTechPlaybook Broken: Rethinking Marketing with Molly St. LouisIn the first episode of Playbook Broken, Marc Sirkin, CEO of Third Door Media, dives into the fast-evolving world of marketing and why traditional playbooks no longer work. Joined by Molly St. Louis, co-founder of Mosaic Group Media, they explore the effectiveness of social selling, the decline of traditional PR, and the complexities of brand measurement in today's AI-driven landscape. Molly shares insights from her career in media and marketing, including her personal journey of adapting to AI technology. Tune in to hear how these disruptors are navigating and reimagining m...
2025-06-0436 min
Speaking From Experience by Cortico-XAuthenticity VS. Automation: The Content Dilemma with Marc SirkinOn this episode of Speaking from Experience, host Len Devanna, sits down with Marc Sirkin, CEO of Third Door Media, a company recently acquired by Semrush. Marc shares his incredible journey through the waves of digital transformation, from the early internet days to the AI-powered marketing landscape of today. With decades of leadership in strategy, innovation, and enterprise transformation, Marc brings a rare depth of insight into how brands must evolve to meet the accelerating demands of a rapidly changing world.In a conversation filled with energy and honesty, Len and Marc discuss the...
2025-05-2244 min
Playbook Broken PodcastBarcelona Broke Me Free. Outsourcing Your ImaginationSnatching my wallet back in Barcelona — and what it taught me about complacency.Building from scratch at the Semrush AI Hackathon.Why executives must stop outsourcing their imagination.Lessons from friction, failure, and unexpected wins.How curiosity, not strategy decks, fuels real innovation.First-place finish, but a bigger personal victory.The future belongs to builders. Here’s how I rejoined them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visi...
2025-04-2903 min
Playbook Broken PodcastCreative Play in the Digital SandboxThose AI-generated figurines flooding your feeds? I think they're vital.When we prompt, manipulate, and iterate on these digital sculptures, we're not just creating tchotchkes, we're building mental models of AI behavior. It's finger-painting with neural networks. Messy but developmentally essential.Yes, they're overhyped and derivative. But dismissing them misses the forest for the AI-generated trees. Like toddlers stacking blocks before designing architecture, we're developing AI literacy through play.My hot take? Make your figurines unapologetically. This seemingly shallow pool is where we're learning to swim in the sea of generative AI.
2025-04-1700 min
What Gets MeasuredWhat's Next for Digital Marketing?CEO of Third Door Media, Marc Sirkin, unpacks the AI-driven shift in marketing, the chaos of data, and why transformation takes more than tech. From one-to-one dreams to LLM-powered SEO, this episode cuts through the hype to reveal what really matters in the future of digital marketing. SHOWPAGE: www.ninjacat.io/blog/wgm-podcast-whats-next-for-digital-marketing © 2025, NinjaCat
2025-04-0842 min
MarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business GrowthThe Story Behind Semrush’s Acquisition Of Third Door MediaMarc Sirkin, CEO of Third Door Media, discusses the acquisition of his company by Semrush, a leading online visibility management SaaS platform. The deal, finalized on October 16 2024 after a year-long process, involved a 30-person team transitioning to a larger, publicly traded company. Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech.org, has evolved from a search-focused to a martech-focused media company. The acquisition aims to leverage Semrush's resources and Third Door Media's established brand to enhance content reach and scale. Marc emphasizes the importance of brand in the media landscape and the challenges of integrating media and...
2025-02-0339 minMarTech Podcast ™ // Marketing + Technology = Business GrowthThe Story Behind Semrush’s Acquisition Of Third Door MediaMarc Sirkin, CEO of Third Door Media, discusses the acquisition of his company by Semrush, a leading online visibility management SaaS platform. The deal, finalized on October 16 2024 after a year-long process, involved a 30-person team transitioning to a larger, publicly traded company. Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech.org, has evolved from a search-focused to a martech-focused media company. The acquisition aims to leverage Semrush's resources and Third Door Media's established brand to enhance content reach and scale. Marc emphasizes the importance of brand in the media landscape and the challenges of integrating media and...
2025-02-0339 min
EDGE of the Web - The Best SEO Podcast for Today's Digital MarketerSemrush Acquires Search Engine Land | What's Next?This is the first for EDGE of the Web, which has the top brass from Search Engine Land! Erin welcomes the impressive panel featuring: Marc Sirkin, CEO of Third Door Media, Danny Goodwin, Editorial Director, Search Engine Land & SMX Barry Schwartz, contributor to SEL and owner of Search Engine Roundtable. They discuss the huge news of Semrush's recent acquisition of Search Engine Land (a Third Door Media property). The discussion highlights the ongoing mission to maintain editorial integrity amidst the transition, and the group shares insights on brand visibility strategies and adaptation to the evolving SEO landscape....
2024-11-1248 min
EDGE of the Web - The Best SEO Podcast for Today's Digital MarketerNews from the EDGE | Week of 10.21.2024We're back from Tech SEO Connect! And we brought Mark Williams-Cook to pinch-hit for Mordy while he was on holiday….and last minute, so there's that. We dialed into some things that we missed while we were away. For starters, the Semrush buyout of Search Engine Land is huge news, and we have even bigger news! Marc Sirkin, Danny Goodwin, and Barry Schwartz will be on the show soon to discuss the event. Matt Mullenweg seems to be melting down about First Amendment claims against WP Engine. The WordPress community seems to be up...
2024-10-2547 min
Conversations with MarTechCan you really build marketing tools with AI — even if you can’t code?On this episode of the MarTech.org podcast, we talk with Marc Sirkin, President of Third Door Media, about his experience building four fully functional marketing calculators using generative AI. This episode is packed with practical advice and real-world examples, so you can start building your own AI-powered marketing applications today.This podcast is produced by MarTech, a Third Door Media property.
2024-09-1911 min
The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CXGen AI and the Future of Publishing with Marc Sirkin, Third Door MediaIs the future of research and content creation a chatbot? With all of the commotion that ChatGPT has created, several industries, including the marketing industry, are evolving to utilize some of the things that make generative AI technologies so interesting and captivating, to make them useful for research and creation of meaningful content.Today we’re going to talk about what a vertically-trained chatbot that has been fed 25,000+ industry-focused articles can do, and the potential for the future.To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Marc Sirkin, EVP Product and Technology, Thir...
2024-04-0832 minThe Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CXGen AI and the Future of Publishing with Marc Sirkin, Third Door MediaIs the future of research and content creation a chatbot? With all of the commotion that ChatGPT has created, several industries, including the marketing industry, are evolving to utilize some of the things that make generative AI technologies so interesting and captivating, to make them useful for research and creation of meaningful content.Today we’re going to talk about what a vertically-trained chatbot that has been fed 25,000+ industry-focused articles can do, and the potential for the future.To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Marc Sirkin, EVP Product and Technology, Thir...
2024-04-0832 min