Ep 24: Inside Bitly’s growth team: What’s actually working in marketing right now

Ep 25: The Simone Biles strategy for modern marketing

Marketing teams are splitting into two groups. One group is using AI to produce more: More content. More tests. More channels. More dashboards. More noise. The other group is doing something much harder: They’re slowing down long enough to rebuild the foundation. In this episode, I break down: * Why “doing more” feels productive (but usually isn’t) * The hidden cost of AI-driven marketing * Why most teams are trapped in tactical loops * The marketing pyramid nobody talks about * And what Simone Biles and Hetty Green can teach us about strategy Because the teams that win over the next 18 months won’t be the ones producing the most, they’ll be the ones who understand their customers the best. RESOURCES → Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop → Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book CONNECT WITH ME LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw Website: https://getuplift.co/

Ep 24: Inside Bitly’s growth team: What’s actually working in marketing right now

Everyone keeps saying marketing has changed forever. Traffic is disappearing. AI Overviews are replacing clicks. Attribution is getting messier. And marketers everywhere are trying to figure out what actually matters now. In this episode of Heart Before Cart, I sat down with Sam Oh, VP of Acquisition at Bitly, to talk about what growth, CRO, AI, and customer journeys actually look like inside one of the internet’s most recognizable brands. Honestly, this is one of the most grounded conversations I’ve had about AI and marketing so far. Because Sam isn’t theorizing, he’s actively rebuilding workflows, rethinking attribution, adapting CRO strategy, experimenting with AI tools, and trying to understand how buyer behavior is changing in real-time across millions of users. But throughout the entire conversation, one thing kept coming up:  “Our job as marketers hasn’t changed. The environment has.” In this episode we cover: * Why CRO matters MORE in the AI era * How Bitly is adapting to AI search and changing buyer journeys * Why every page on your website is now a conversion page * How AI is changing attribution and traffic reporting * The role of experimentation in modern marketing * How Sam actually uses AI internally without outsourcing strategic thinking * Why the best marketers are still focused on people first If you’re trying to figure out how to adapt your marketing without losing the human side of it, this episode is for you. RESOURCES → Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop → Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book CONNECT WITH ME LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw Website: https://getuplift.co/

Ep 23: ChatGPT changed what your website is for

Your website used to have one job: convince your visitor to buy.  But, in the last few years your website has picked up a second job, and you may not have even realized it.  Your website is no longer the first step in the customer journey.  It may be the second, third, or even fourth place your potential buyer visits.  Now your buyer is researching you through:  * AI  * Reddit * YouTube reviews  * TikTok reviews  ...and many more, before they even land on your homepage.  So now your website has two jobs.  In this video I breakdown the two jobs, why websites need to do both, how to identify trust gaps in your messaging, and what to do to close them. RESOURCES → Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop → Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book CONNECT WITH ME LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw Website: https://getuplift.co/

Ep 22: Tracking is broken. Here’s what every marketer needs to measure

Analytics and attribution have changed. Buyers are making decisions on Reddit, through AI summaries, YouTube videos, LinkedIn posts, reviews, private communities, and conversations with peers long before they ever land on your website. And marketers are still obsessing over traffic, bounce rates, and attribution reports like it’s 2019. In this episode, Dana DiTomaso (Kickpoint) and I unpack what this fragmented, zero-click world means for marketers and what we should actually be measuring now. We talk about: * Why the traditional funnel no longer reflects reality * Why attribution is getting harder * What entrances and exits can actually tell you about buyer intent * How to measure trust and decision-making behavior * What marketers should stop tracking immediately * And how to think about analytics in a world where buying decisions happen off your website If you’re still relying on traffic and last-click attribution to understand buyer behavior… this episode will challenge the way you think about analytics. Subscribe for more episodes on conversion optimization, emotional targeting, buyer psychology, and what modern marketing actually looks like now that the customer journey is anything but linear. RESOURCES Dana’s free guide to UTM tracking: https://kpplaybook.com/how-to-track-campaigns-in-ga4-using-utm-parameters/ [https://kpplaybook.com/how-to-track-campaigns-in-ga4-using-utm-parameters/]  Dana’s course: analyticsplaybook.com [http://analyticsplaybook.com]  My book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book [https://taliawolf.com/book] CONNECT WITH ME LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/]IG: https://www.instagram.com/taliagw/ [https://www.instagram.com/taliagw/] Website: https://getuplift.co/ [https://getuplift.co/]

Ep 21: Your CRO won't work until you optimize everywhere

CRO has (definitely) changed.  I’ve been working in optimization for well over a decade, and this is the biggest shift I’ve seen.  CRO used to be about optimizing what you owned and what you controlled – from your landing pages to your emails.  But now, people are making a decision about you without ever visiting your website, receiving one of your emails, or going through your ad funnel… (They’ll likely still check out your website at some point but now it’s through a different lens) … and that changes EVERYTHING about what conversion optimization looks like, where it happens and how you need to think about it. Subscribe for more episodes on conversion optimization, emotional targeting and how to optimize everywhere because (let’s face it) things have changed. RESOURCES → Check out my FREE workshop: https://taliawolf.com/workshop → Get my NEW book (Emotional Targeting): https://taliawolf.com/book CONNECT WITH ME LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taliagw/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TaliaGw Website: https://getuplift.co/