Lead generation is broken.

Too many companies:

- Try to generate leads themselves, but fail
- Hire a lead gen agency with bloated retainers who can’t deliver

Lead generation as a whole is always changing, so unless you’ve got a dedicated team
on it (that knows what they’re doing) — you can expect to overpay for underwhelming
results.

That said, in 2025 — you don’t need to try to generate leads yourself, or pay an
outsized retainers for subpar work.

With Leadbird, you:

- Don’t pay for overpriced retainers
- Only pay per meeting-ready-lead we deliver
- Get the expertise of career outbound salespeople

We achieve this for you through:

- Targeted lead list building
- Domain + inbox set-up and warm-up
- Proven cold email copywriting principles
- Done-for-you cold email campaign management

Book a free demo from the link in my bio to join over 115 active clients getting
high-quality, meeting-ready-leads every single month.

Talk soon,
Nick

Nick Abraham

friEND
girlfriEND
boyfriEND

You know what doesn't END?

A well-run campaign with a great offer targeting 5,000 net new prospects per month.

I send 2M+ cold emails and 1M+ LinkedIn DMs per month for 1,000+ active clients across Leadbird and Cleverly

As expected, outbound marketers are freaking out about Google's AI Inbox update, with some calling it the death of cold email. I’m here to tell you not to panic.

Here’s why this won’t kill cold email as long as you’re half-decent at it, and willing to put the work in:

(1) First of all, this isn’t currently being deployed on Workspace emails (only personal). That means you literally don’t need to worry for the time being.

(2) For when that roll out does happen, Google will not have it easy. Enterprises don't want AI to read or index their data.

This has been why enterprise AI adoption has been so slow, and Google isn't exempt.

(3) Even if SOMEHOW, this got deployed to every Workspace inbox, people will find workarounds and loopholes within 7 days (just like we did for every other infrastructure change).

The ONLY people who can potentially suffer here are people who are weak at cold email and want a low-effort, high-results motion.

And they shouldn't be sending cold emails anyway.

If I told you to pick all AI-written emails out of your inbox, I bet you could do so with 90% accuracy. It brings up an interesting point:

AI in outbound is great, but so many people are going way too overboard.

People will use Claygent + another prompt to come up with crazy, “human-looking” lines that sound great on paper but rarely get executed well against an entire lead list.

You might get some right on the nose, but the majority of them will certainly sound a little “off”, thereby killing your campaign altogether.

The variance, even with quality checks, is a little too high (as of Jan 2026…because this will certainly change).

The “right” way to handle this right now is using it to find super simple variables (i.e. company case study name) and entering those variables into human-written sentences.

If you have any other use cases that actually* work, drop them below.

There is no bigger waste of time in outbound than the debate over warm-up pools and which ones to use.

Take it from someone who bought into the hype before (I literally tried to build a company solely focused on this, promising the same stuff a ton of vendors do today): Just use Smartlead’s warm-up pool and move on.

In fact, private warm-up pools can be even riskier than public ones, considering that Seeds can burn out (ask me how I know 🙄).

At the time of writing this, we have ~130,000 inboxes in the Smartlead pool and will continue to add as we need them.

In short: There are a million other things you should spend time worrying about regarding outbound. Your warm-up pool isn’t one of them.

PS - This was a part of Smartlead’s roundtable from last week. It was an awesome time, and I highly recommend watching the replay on YouTube if you couldn’t make it. Thanks to Vaibhav Namburi for having us!

undefined undefined

Hey, thanks for replying. 

Here's the guide:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ogdq83o7sRMARFopD_t_-nqHF0XIOPsD/view?usp=share_link

Leadbird

P.S. If you’re an established agency or SaaS with a GREAT offer and want leads — Leadbird can help

… and we’ll do it on a Pay-Per-Lead basis.

Book today: https://www.leadbird.io/book-a-call

Spintax Guide

Tool

Article

Message

yuri

90% of the time someone asks me about cold email infrastructure, I tell them to take a step back and consider what actually matters.

Yes, at scale and at the highest level of outbound, the infrastructure you use has a material impact on performance.

But (and I don’t mean to come off as arrogant in saying this), most of the time people ask this, they have issues with the fundamentals of their outbound operation that render the infrastructure question irrelevant.

Things like:

1. Company names not being formatted properly (ex: still having “LLC” or “Inc.” in the name).

2. Having emojis / special symbols in contacts’ first names.

3. Not properly cleaning and formatting prospects’ job titles.

4. Having a lead list that isn’t well-targeted.

5. Not having basic copy variance set up.

These are things that come much before advanced infrastructure, yet people seem to overlook.

My advice: Get all of the above and the rest of the cold email fundamentals down first before even starting to worry about advanced infrastructure.

You’ll save time, money, and headaches.

Something to keep in mind when you see lead generation agency owners flexing crazy Smartlead / Instantly screenshots on the timeline:

Anyone with half a brain knows how to get a campaign to a 10% reply rate and 60% positive reply rate.

It doesn’t come from being some type of cold email wizard.

It’s simply putting an extremely low-friction CTA in with some type of money-back guarantee.

And to be clear, nothing is wrong with that. We still do it for certain clients, where it makes sense for the offer.

But, flexing this to try to show prospects that these are typical results is just silly.

Sure, there may be some people that aren't super familiar with outbound that are impressed by this.

But, there's also a cohort of people who are very familiar with it and know exactly what led to that performance, thereby degrading your credibility instead of adding to it.

You’re better off showing “worse” results for a much harder campaign!

You, not a $32B company: I might burn my TAM!

Ramp, a $32B company: We must email every decision-maker on earth 10 times per year.

As silly as it sounds, it’s true: If you play your cards right, it’s impossible to burn your TAM with outbound.

Playing your cards right, in this regard, means coming up with fresh and unique angles to re-market to the same prospects.

Ramp has mastered this.

They have different reps reach out at different times with overall solid emails.

Though it feels like they’re always in my inbox, I’ve never once felt pestered, spammed, or annoyed.

They’re doing this tastefully, with personalization and relevance.

And if Ramp isn’t worried about burning their TAM, there’s a great chance you shouldn’t be either.

My advice to you: Figure out ways to reach out to the same prospects that weren’t interested or didn’t respond prior in unique ways, and you’ll never worry about TAM burn again.

I would love to tell you that the solution to all your lead gen problems is the intricate Clay workflow I spent 43 hours building, but that’s not true. For 90% of teams struggling to generate leads, the problem is much simpler:

A bad offer.

Your offer, above all else, has the biggest impact on whether or not you book calls from cold email.

To that point, I can’t tell you the amount of conversations we’ve had with clients that amounted to us trying to convince them to improve their offer and make it more suitable for outbound.

Because so many of them simply don’t say anything special or that peaks the prospect’s interest.

Here’s a real example we dealt with:

The client sold CRM implementation services.

They wanted to run with messaging along the lines of: “We help HubSpot users market better and get the full use of their CRM.”

…so can every other company in their inbox.

The right way to think about this (and how we did so for this client) was to instead sell an outcome.

So, we transitioned the offer to strictly companies that used HubSpot, and saying:

“{name] - most HubSpot users don’t have a nurture re-engagement flow. I’d love to help re-book 10-15 appointments onto your calendar by building you one.

Interested in speaking?”

This email has a much higher likelihood of being responded to than the prior one, because you directly promise an outcome instead of using vague corporate messaging.

Let me know if you have any questions on doing this successfully.

Alex Hormozi says he books 4x more appointments when he calls his leads immediately after showing interest.

If you’re sending outbound and want to systemize this so that you can do it at scale, follow this process:

Tech / vendors you’ll need:

- Masterinbox.com
- LeadMagic
- Salesfinity
- No Accent Callers

—

1. Build correct tagging within Master Inbox to identify positive replies.

2. Set up an automation to automatically enrich positive replies to pull those leads’ phone numbers via LeadMagic.

3. Build the simple automation to update the contact within Master Inbox and set two tag: “interested” and “phone number found”.

4. Set up the automation to push to a call list in Salesfinity for your rep (via No Accent Callers) to call immediately.

I can’t put the same “4x improvement” tag on this, but we have seen a much better appointment set rate after implementing a flow to call our leads faster.

Comment if you want me to make a video on building these automations / setting up the system.

If someone tells you they can get you consistent leadflow from outbound in 30 days or less, don’t listen.

We send over 2 million cold emails per month for almost 300 clients… trust me, it takes 60-90 days to properly get consistent lead flow coming from outbound if you’re starting from zero.

BUT

There are some things you can do to speed up the process that we are implementing across the client base.

Namely, there are 7 types of campaigns you can keep always on and running in the background, additional to your actual campaign copy. 

Though these won't put a hundred calls per month on your calendar, they are certainly worth running and do not take much input or upkeep at all.

I break down each of them in detail in the carousel below, so be sure to save it:

Always-On Campaigns

Google your name right now. What comes up?

Does your website show up?

If so, does it have a VSL?

Is it full of case studies and customer interviews?

What about your LinkedIn and X profiles?

Are they optimized and active?

Are you showing off your expertise?

This might sound overboard, but this is exactly what goes through a prospect’s head when you email them.

The first thing 90% of them do is Google your name.

If you can’t show that you’re a real person with a real business that solves real problems for real clients, you’re dead in the water.

Really, cold outbound is nothing more than a trust game.

You need to make it so that someone who doesn’t know you one bit automatically trusts you. And you do so by optimizing everything I talked about above.

If you don’t have those things in check, much of your outbound is just a waste of time.

Alex Hormozi famously says that if you want more leads, you should dedicate the first half of your day to getting in front of more people.

Whether that’s content, paid ads, or however else, you need to be getting in front of people.

Outbound, generally, will be both the cheapest and easiest to generate results from immediately.

And let me tell you after doing this first-hand: Alex Hormozi is right about this.

In college, I started an Instagram growth agency.

I did everything I thought I needed to do:

- Make a logo
- Put up website
- Form LLC
- Post blogs

And when all of that was done, I looked up and still had zero people paying me.

That’s when I started dedicating my entire day to messaging prospects and seeing if they’d get on a call.

The business hit $10,000/mo of revenue in the months that followed.

The point:

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of sales ops and revenue tech out there, but most of the time, all you need to do is get yourself in front of more prospects.

Shreya Batra

We manage deliverability for 130,000+ inboxes with Hypertide.io. At that volume, you can't afford to baby underperforming domains. Our 4-step process for handling deliverability issues:

Step 1: Flag problems early

We monitor inbox performance daily. If a domain is underperforming by 40%+ vs that client's average, it gets flagged automatically.

Step 2: Kill it without losing capacity

We delete the domain using Hypertide Layover. The domain gets removed from billing immediately, but sending still works for 18 days. This gives us breathing room without sudden volume drops.

Step 3: Replace while the old one's still running

During those 18 days, new infrastructure gets spun up and warmed properly. This works so that there’s loss in total sending capacity.

Step 4: Protect the replies

Once the old domain shuts off completely, Hypertide Relay kicks in. All replies from the deleted domain automatically forward to the new infrastructure. Importantly, there are no leads missed and no broken threads.

Quite importantly, we don't try to save domains that are already burnt.

A lot of agencies waste weeks trying to nurse underperforming infrastructure back to health. Using this system, we just assume domains will fail and build systems that swap them out seamlessly.

As a result, capacity never drops and your deliverability stays clean. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

Local lead generation is so underrated that we started asking all clients (not just ones with local businesses) if they’re open to it on the onboarding form, so that we can run this campaign.

No matter what anyone tells you, cold email is most definitely getting harder. Each day, we have to think harder about the best way to get in front of prospects in a way that stands out.

This local lead generation play is exactly it.

We:

1. Call out that we’re in the area.

2. Casually mention what we do and share how we did so.

3. Use a soft, casual CTA to gauge interest.

Yes, this is of course harder to scale in that there are finite local businesses you can sell to. But, in most cases and for most offers, this is worth trying.

If I were a local general contractor, for example, I know I’d be inclined to work with an SEO agency in my area as opposed to one on the other side of the country. There’s a local preference there that you can tap into.

If you have anecdotes on local lead generation working well for you, leave them below.

After spending $2M to send 30,000,000+ cold emails for 500+ clients, this is my number one learning about outbound:

Offer. Is. King.

You hear everyone say it, but nobody really internalizes it.

You can have:

- 3-4 blocky paragraphs
- 2-3 links
- Images
- OK-but-not-great targeting
- Basic infrastructure

…and still outperform the “best” outbound teams who spend thousands of dollars trying to optimize all of the above, as long as your offer is strong.

Strong offer = more replies.

More replies = less spam risk.

Less spam risk = more replies.

The cycle repeats.

Before you try to optimize for anything else, make sure your offer is strong to begin with.

I mean this diplomatically, but if you can’t get cold email responses from your ICP, it is not because inboxes are crowded. It’s likely one or more of the following factors:

1. Bad offer
2. Weak email
3. No social proof
4. All of the above

The simplest way to get responses is following this workflow, which attacks all of the above issues:

1. Come up with a no-brainer offer that the prospect would feel stupid saying no to (i.e. performance, money-back guarantee, etc.)

2. Use Apollo to find the email of the right job title to sell to at the company (might be CEO, might not be).

3. Do a baseline level of research (or use Clay) to write a line personal enough to the decision-maker.

4. Put it all together with a template like this:

{{name}} - saw {{personalized line}}.

Just curious, if I could {{generate result}}, would you be interested in speaking?

Only asking because we helped {{company}} do exactly that, and figured {{their company}} might want something similar.

Worth a chat?

If you do this right, you will get responses. Period.

I uploaded this video on November 18, 2024 saying the only 3 channels you need to get 50 calls/month and blow past $1M in revenue are:

- Cold email
- Cold calling
- LinkedIn

It was true back then, but is far more true just 13 months later.

The truth is, as much as nobody likes to admit it, cold email is getting harder. We’re no longer in the 2021 glory days, where seemingly anyone with a few inboxes could book calls from the channel.

Yes, it’s still viable (and still our bread and butter), but you’d be foolish not to diversify into cold calling and LinkedIn DMs (the right way) as you solidify cold email.

After working with 500+ clients and having 283 active right now, there are 3 things I wish I did on Day 1 of my agency.

(they would've made me much wealthier today)

1. Become an expert on my financials early.

This is so easy to overlook but ridiculously important.

At any point when asked, you should know your numbers to a T.

- What was last month's revenue?
- What was last month's gross margin?
- What was last month's net margin?
- What was last month's profit?

The more you can get in the routine of checking and understanding this, the better.

2. Make demos booked your north star.

You should wake up every day trying to improve that metric.

Every single day. Forget "marketing" and "growth" and "building the brand".

Every day, wake up and figure out how to put more meetings on your calendar, and you will grow.

3. Keep fulfillment as simple as possible while still being able to get the results you promise.

The more complex, the harder it gets to maintain.

Once you have these in place, and you can communicate your offer + results in a non-gimmicky way, you're on the right path.

If you have any questions on this, let me know.

We got to 0-10 clients with outbound, but what took us from 10-30 clients was something completely different: Referrals.

How we did it:

1. Put a question on onboarding form: "Is there anyone in your network that you think could benefit from this service?"

2. Client would often think of someone and put their name/email.

3. We would manually reach out saying "[name] is a customer of ours and said you might be a fit for out services - worth a chat?"

This worked because it was easy for our client to think of someone, and the person they thought of would likely think "well if they're using this service, there's likely something to it".

NOTE: This is far easier when you have a strong offer + social proof to lean on!

Me: I want to add cheesy openers to your cold emails.

Client: Absolutely not. That's way too unprofessional for our brand.

Me: What's unprofessional about it?

Client: Lines like 'I'm sure your inbox is busier than a bee in a flower shop'? That sounds ridiculous. What will prospects think of us?

Me: They'll think you're human instead of another boring corporate email.

Client: But we're a serious B2B company. We can't sound like we're joking around.

Me: How many meetings are you booking per week right now?

Client: Maybe 2 or 3.

Me: From how many emails sent?

Client: We're sending about 1,000 per week.

Me: So your professional emails that barely get any meetings are protecting your brand better than emails that actually get responses?

Client: Well, when you put it like that...

Me: Look, I get it. It feels weird. But these openers work because they cut through the noise.

Everyone else is sending the same I hope this email finds you well garbage.

Client: What if prospects think we're not serious?

Me: The prospects who judge you for a cheesy opener weren't going to buy from you anyway.

The ones who reply are the ones who appreciate authenticity.

Client: I just don't want to hurt our reputation.

Me: Your reputation is already being hurt by emails that get ignored.

Let's test it for two weeks. If it doesn't work, we'll go back to boring.

Client: Fine. But if my CEO sees this...

Me: He'll see the meeting bookings.

Head of Content Marketing @Smartlead.ai | Driving Organic Growth and Revenue through Strategic Growth & Content Marketing

Most SaaS marketing fails for a simple reason: it stops working the moment you stop feeding it.

Campaigns spike. Channels decay.
Teams chase tools, trends, and traffic - then wonder why nothing compounds.

I don’t run campaigns.
I design organic growth systems that get stronger with time.

Systems where:
- Content builds demand before buyers search
- SEO compounds instead of resetting every quarter
- AI surfaces amplify authority instead of replacing thinking
- Visibility becomes an asset, not a dependency

This is how modern SaaS wins:
Not louder marketing.
Not more output.
But infrastructure-level growth.

That’s the work we do at EmploraX.

We help B2B SaaS teams replace fragmented execution with systems that:
- Shape market perception
- Control how they’re discovered - by humans and machines
- Keep driving growth long after execution slows

If your marketing needs constant effort to survive, you don’t have a growth engine, you have a liability.

I build what compounds. Everything else is noise.

If you’re building a SaaS company and want demand you don’t have to keep restarting, we’ll probably get along.

📩 Open to conversations.

Alka Gupta

90% of brands can't explain how they rank in AI search.

The other 10%... are getting cited everywhere.
Which one are you?

The distinction is simple:

Traditional SEO asks: "How do we rank?"
AI-era SEO asks: "How do we get retrieved, cited, and trusted by AI?"

SEO optimizes pages.
AI Search Optimization structures your entire information system.

SEO changes with algorithms.
AI visibility compounds with structure, clarity, and consistency.

Too many teams still obsess over keywords and reports.

But here's the insight everyone is missing:
Citations aren't influence. Visibility + Share of Voice are the real AI battleground.

The brands tracking both are the ones winning LLM search.

I've watched teams fixate on keyword plans instead of AI positioning.

But ask them one question:
"How do AI tools find, interpret, and choose your content?"

Silence.

Or worse: "We just publish more and hope ChatGPT notices."
That's not a strategy.

Remember brands that dominated Google in 2020?

Perfect content with massive keyword footprints.

But those brands are invisible in ChatGPT today.

Why?

Because generative engines don't care about keyword density.

They care TOO much about: → Semantic structure → Retrieval-friendly formatting → Entity clarity → Citation signals

Real AI-Search strategy example:
"Become the most trusted source for AI-detected answers in eCommerce operations by structuring every asset for retrieval, summarization, and citation."

Then the plan supports it:
Q1: Rebuild content into semantic, prompt-aligned blocks
Q2: Add FAQ + summary schema, stat boxes, entity definitions
Q3: Create RAG-friendly documentation and API-ready data layers
Q4: Ship UX upgrades that match decision-stage intent

See the difference?
GEO gives you the theory of how to win in AI search.
AEO gets you surfaced in Google SGE.
AIO scales your content across tools and integrations.
SXO converts that visibility into trust and action.

When you master the layers:
✓ AI chooses your pages more often
✓ Your content gets quoted instead of ignored
✓ Your brand becomes an authoritative answer source
✓ Visibility compounds without chasing trends

When you skip them:
❌ AI answers with competitors' content
❌ Your pages become invisible in overviews
❌ Traffic drops without clear reasons
❌ You blame "algorithm updates" instead of structure

Your competitors who structure for AI are winning the future of search.

While you're optimizing keywords, they're optimizing retrieval.
While you're writing posts, they're training the models that cite them.

Stop publishing content AI can't use.
Start engineering content AI can't ignore.
GEO shapes your strategy.
AEO, AIO, SXO execute it.

Founder, EmploraX | Helping SaaS teams build content growth engines

Google still gets 82 billion visits a month. 
ChatGPT gets 3.8 billion. 

So why is everyone saying search is dead? 

Because they're looking at the wrong numbers. 

Search engines: Down 6-12% last year. 
AI chatbots: Up 17-23% last year. 

The shift isn't about who has more traffic today. 
It's about where the momentum is going. 

Here's what the data actually shows: 

Search engines still dominate with 92.24 billion monthly visits across Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, and DuckDuckGo. 

AI chatbots are at 7.99 billion monthly visits across ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and Perplexity. 

That's a 12:1 ratio. 

But here's the part most people miss 👇 
Chatbots are growing 23% while search engines are shrinking 12%. 


And the behavior on each platform is completely different. 

Search engines: 
People type keywords. 
They click links, the intent is clear but fragmented across sessions. 


AI chatbots: People have conversations. 
They ask follow-ups, here the intent is deeper but harder to track. 

What search engines do well: 
- Strong intent signals through keyword choice. 
-Trusted for product research. 

What search engines struggle with: 
-Zero-click results mean fewer clicks to your site. 
-Intent gets scattered across platforms. 

What AI chatbots do well: 
-Conversations reveal what people actually want. 
-Can guide decisions and recommend products. 

What AI chatbots struggle with: 
-Lower trust for purchase decisions. 
- Tracking tools are still evolving. 

So which one should you optimize for? 
Both. 

Because your customers aren't choosing between Google and ChatGPT. 

They're using both. 

They Google a product. 
Then ask ChatGPT for advice. 
Then search again with new keywords. 
Then check Perplexity for comparisons. 

The customer journey isn't linear anymore. 

It's scattered across search engines and AI tools. 

The brands winning in 2026 aren't picking a side. 

They're showing up everywhere their audience searches.

Winners vs. Invisibles in 2026


AI will be the core growth driver for SaaS brands

And it cares about one thing
Can it trust you enough to recommend you?

And that trust is built across 5 stages most brands are ignoring

▶️ Stage 1: Awareness
You need AI to know you exist.
Be in the conversation when someone asks a question in your space.

What to create: educational blogs, expert POV pieces, content on high-authority sites.

What to track: Are you showing up in AI answers? Are people sharing your stuff? Is traffic growing?

Reality check: This takes serious effort upfront. Skip it, and everything else fails.

▶️ Stage 2: Interest
Getting mentioned once won't cut it.
You need to own topics and build enough depth that AI sees you as the source, not a source.

What to create: content hubs, valuable downloads, newsletter sign-ups that deliver real value

What to track: Are people coming back? Spending time reading? Is AI mentioning your brand by name?

Reality check: This is where brands separate from noise. You're building a moat here.

▶️ Stage 3: Consideration
This is the money stage.
When buyers are comparing options, you need to be in that comparison. And you need to look good.

What to create: Real customer stories, honest product breakdowns, side-by-side guides

What to track: Are people signing up for trials? Staying on your site longer? Appearing in featured snippets?

Reality check: Moderate lift, massive impact. This is where your pipeline starts filling.

▶️ Stage 4: Conversion
You've earned trust. Now make it dead simple to take action.
Clear offers. Clear next steps. No friction.

What to create: Strong calls-to-action, valuable lead magnets, interactive tools

What to track: Form fills, qualified leads, click-throughs on your CTAs

Reality check: If the earlier stages are solid, this becomes the easiest part.

▶️ Stage 5: Retention
The most underrated stage.
Your best customers are your best marketing asset. Help them succeed, give them reasons to stay, and they become proof that AI cites in future recommendations.

What to create: Support content, advanced guides, upsell resources that actually help

What to track: Do customers keep using your content? Is your community growing? Are they going deeper?

Reality check: This is your long game. Compounds over time.

Here's what this actually does:
Gets you into LLM training data → Shows up in AI-generated answers → Turns strangers into buyers → Keeps them loyal

But most teams are randomly creating content across these stages.
A blog here. A case study there. Some social posts.

That won't work in 2026.

AI doesn't reward random. It rewards the sequence.

If you're creating awareness content but have no consideration layer? 
AI won't recommend you when it matters.

If you've got great conversion content but no awareness? 
Nobody ever gets there.

The winning move for 2026:
-Map your content to the full funnel
-Fill the gaps
-Build the sequence

Be the brand AI finds impossible to ignore

One lesson I’ve learned over the years:
A person’s capacity for growth is directly tied to
how much truth they can face about themselves - without running from it.

I used to think confidence was a personality trait.

Either you had it, or you didn’t.

As an introvert myself, I assumed it just wasn’t meant for me.

But that changed when I moved out right after school to a new city for higher studies.

I learned quickly that staying quiet DOESN'T make life easier. 

It just makes people test your boundaries.

Being polite, being silent. Trying not to be “difficult.”

None of that protected me. It made things harder.

That’s when I slowly started to realize something important:

Confidence isn’t about being loud. It’s not charisma.
 ..and it’s definitely not something you’re born with.

Confidence gets built in moments where you’re forced to choose between staying quiet — and respecting yourself.

Those uncomfortable situations don’t damage you. But train you.

And the confidence you build there doesn’t disappear later.

Confidence isn’t a personality trait.

It’s a survival skill that eventually becomes an advantage.

Most SaaS marketing is structurally broken.

Not because - 
teams aren’t working hard or the playbooks are missing.
 
But because the entire system collapses the moment effort stops.

Campaigns spike... Channels decay... Momentum resets every quarter.

If your marketing only works while you’re actively pushing it,
you don’t have a growth engine - Sorry, but you have a treadmill.

Real growth compounds.
It creates memory.
It keeps working after execution slows.

Until your marketing is built to survive without constant pressure,
you’re not scaling... you’re sustaining.

And those are very different games.

Your brand has a 11/100 AI visibility score.
And you don't even know it.

When someone asks ChatGPT for recommendations in your industry, your competitors show up. You don't.

When someone uses Perplexity to compare products, your name is missing.
When Google AI Overviews appear, you're not cited.

You're invisible where 8 billion monthly searches are happening.

And most brands have no idea this is even trackable.

Here are the simple steps to fix it.

Step 1: 
Gain brand mentions
Get mentioned on platforms AI trusts. 
Reddit, Wikipedia, news sites, niche media, podcasts, expert roundups.
Keep your brand details consistent everywhere.

Step 2: 
Make your content easy for AI to understand
Use real question phrases like "how to" or "what is" as subheadings.
Start with a quick answer, then add context.
AI reads content differently than humans.

Step 3: 
Show your experience and expertise
Share original data and research.
Add author bios and expertise tags.
Content with citations, quotes, and stats gets 40% more visibility in AI results.

Step 4: 
Keep content fresh
Refresh your stats and examples regularly.
Show "Last updated" dates and use datePublished/dateModified schema.
95% of ChatGPT citations come from content updated in the last 10 months.


Step 5: Measure what matters
Manually test prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Track your AI visibility score and share of voice using tools like Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit.

This isn't optional anymore.

AI search is growing 23% year over year while traditional search is down 12%.

Your competitors who show up in AI results are capturing traffic you don't even see missing.

The good news is - you can fix this starting today.

All you need is a good strategy.

5 Steps to rank on LLMs

Lately, I’ve been sitting in back-to-back discovery calls with SaaS founders and VP-level marketers.

And there is only feeling every time I close my laptop - gratitude. 🙏 

Grateful for the trust.
Grateful that the work is resonating.
Grateful that EmploraX is growing in the exact direction I hoped it would.

The volume is increasing and the conversations are getting more meaningful... and we’re entering the next phase.

And hence...it’s time to add more team members 🩵 

EmploraX is looking to bring on a #SocialMediaExpert who:

1. Thinks like a creator, not just a manager
2. Has worked with B2B SaaS brands and understands nuances
3. Can translate strategy into content that actually compounds
4. Has proof of work and real outcomes (no vanity metrics)
5. Is comfortable in an individual contributor role

This is for someone who:
- Cares about voice, positioning, and signal
- Understands how content fits into a larger growth system
- Wants to grow alongside an agency that’s building for the long term

This is NOT a role for - post schedulers, template recyclers, people chasing trends for engagement alone.

If this sounds like you or someone you know in your circle feel free to drop in the CV at admin@emplorax.com.

Upwards and onwards 🚀

I DON'T “post consistently” on LinkedIn.

I run a content system that makes consistency the default.

Yes, there are tools involved.

But the tools aren’t the point.
The point is this..
thinking and execution are completely separated.

Ideas don’t live in my head.

They get captured immediately.

Loose thoughts, client conversations, things I notice mid-scroll .... everything goes into one place.

AI helps me structure them, not replace them.

From there, content flows through a single source of truth.

Nothing gets lost.
Nothing needs remembering.

Design, video, copy .... each step has one job.

No overlap.
No decision fatigue.

Here’s what that actually changes 👇 

I never ask, “What should I post today?”

I don’t context-switch between thinking and formatting.

I don’t burn energy managing drafts, DMs, or workflows.

The system doesn’t create content for me.
 
It removes friction so I can focus on thinking.

That’s why publishing 7+ times a week doesn’t feel heavy.

And why I still have time for real conversations with serious leads.

Most people think the problem is discipline.

It isn’t.
It’s that their content depends on effort instead of structure.

Build the system once.
Let the output compound.

Comment "LINKEDIN" for the detailed playbook. Make sure we are connected

Happy Thursday 🩵

Website traffic is NOT growth. 👈 Read this twice


Traffic is attention - borrowed, temporary, unreliable.

Growth is what remains when attention leaves.

You can double traffic and still lose the market.

You can publish endlessly and still be forgettable. 

Because visibility without reinforcement doesn’t compound...it evaporates.

What matters isn’t how many people find you.

It’s how clearly they remember you.

How consistently you show up.
How strongly your point of view sticks.

If traffic is your primary KPI, you're tracking a vanity metric.

Most brands are invisible in AI search and don't even know it.

ChatGPT gets over 3.8 billion visits a month.

Perplexity handles 159 million searches.

If you're not showing up there, you're losing traffic you didn't even know existed.

Here's the 11-step system I use to rank across all AI engines:

Step 1: Check your AI Visibility score in Semrush One 
Step 2: See where you actually rank 
Step 3: Compare yourself to competitors 
Step 4: Find the prompts competitors rank for 
Step 5: Review how AI describes your brand 
Step 6: Fix your brand narrative 
Step 7: Optimize what AI thinks you're known for 
Step 8: Measure your share of voice 
Step 9: Fix technical issues AI engines hate 
Step 10: Track key prompts over time 
Step 11: Create content that AI engines cite

The brands showing up in ChatGPT and Perplexity right now - are not guessing.

They're using tools like this to track, measure, and improve their AI visibility.

-Start by checking your AI Visibility score. 
-See where you rank. 
-Find the gaps. 
-Build better content.

Swipe through for the full step-by-step breakdown.

Where does your brand show up right now? 
Google only? Or across AI search too?

How to rank in AI search results

I turned 40 today..and instead of celebrating milestones or listing achievements, 

I was thinking about how hard it can be for women to let themselves dream big.

not saying because someone is stopping us outright...

but because of everything that comes attached to being a woman - especially in an Indian family.

There are so many unsaid expectations: to be available, to be accommodating, to make things easier for everyone else.

No one tells you not to grow.
They just expect you to adjust.

And for a long time, I thought ambition had an expiry date.

and that if you didn’t start early enough, you probably missed your chance.

My entrepreneurial journey started late.

There were moments of doubt...

moments where it felt easier to stay where I was and not push too hard.

but the choice becomes easier when you have loved ones who trust you and support your dreams..

My parents who always pushed me for more.

my husband who stands firmly beside my dreams.. my biggest cheerleader.

my son who is proud of the work I do...
who understands that its okay for mom can take late night client calls instead of tucking him in for a good night..

That kind of support changes everything.

It gives you the courage to try ...even when you’re unsure.

What I’ve learned over the years is this:
there is no “right time”.
there is only the decision to keep going.

You keep pushing your boundaries.
you keep learning.
you keep showing up, even when it feels uncomfortable.

That’s how things shift.

If you’re a woman reading this and wondering whether it’s too late, too risky, or too selfish to want more - it’s not.
 
You’re allowed to grow.. to build.. to take up space.

Forty feels less like a milestone today and more like a reminder.

It’s never too late to choose yourself. 🩵

Visibility is not a channel.

It’s an infrastructure.

Channels will come and go.

Algorithms shift all the time.

Distribution resets every quarter.

But your infrastructure compounds if built right.

When content, SEO, and AI discovery are designed as systems,
they don’t just spike...they persist.

Most teams treat visibility like a faucet.

Turn it on when needed.
Turn it off when budgets tighten.

That’s not visibility. That’s dependency - and will never give you results.

If your visibility disappears when activity slows, you never built an asset. 
Period.

Everyone loves talking about growth.
Very few people talk about what actually sustains it at scale.

Over the last few years, I’ve led content and growth systems that together drove 10M+ website visits for SaaS brands, resulting in 8X organic signups and 5X revenue growth from organic channels.

Not because of one channel or just “SEO tricks”.
and definitely not because of publishing more content on the website.

SEO doesn’t create momentum. Distribution does.

Search captures demand after the market is already warm.

But momentum is created before that... through repeated exposure, reinforcement, and recall.

And what worked over time wasn’t just volume.

It was about designing growth as a system:

- Content built to compound
- Distribution treated as a first-class channel
- Visibility reinforced across multiple surfaces, not trapped on a blog
- Assets built to survive pauses, pivots, and team changes

That’s why traffic didn’t just grow ... but it held too.

But unfortunately.. that’s the part most SaaS teams miss today.

They invest heavily in just creation - without distribution..

and under-invest in making their presence unavoidable...with inconsistent and fragmented marketing efforts.

Real scale comes from systems that keep working even when execution slows.
Everything else is activity.

For a long time, I thought growth meant becoming someone new.

New goals, labels, a new version of yourself.

That’s what we’re told sometimes, especially in work and careers.

But when I looked at my own journey, I realised something.

Everything I value today came from my past.

A science background that taught me discipline.
Years of writing that trained me to think clearly.
Marketing roles where results mattered more than opinions.

None of that was wasted.

And none of it needs to be replaced.

What changed wasn’t who I am...it was how I want to live and work.

For years, my time wasn’t fully mine. 

Especially as a working mother, my mornings felt rushed.

Days were shaped by systems I didn’t control, even when the work itself was good.

Over time, that stopped feeling right.

I don’t want chaos and constant urgency.
I want slower mornings, intentional work, and the freedom to decide how my day looks.

and I realised something simple but important.

Growth isn’t always about adding more.
sometimes it’s about removing what no longer fits.

And I’m just choosing to live and work in a way that feels more intentional.

Fast-growing SaaS companies don’t scale because they “do more marketing.”

They scale because they create momentum early  and then protect it ruthlessly.

Because momentum doesn’t come from funnels, channels, or tactics.
Those are downstream.

Momentum comes from market memory.

When buyers:
- recognize your name before they need you
- recall your point of view before they compare options
- associate you with a problem before they search for solutions

Demand stops being reactive.
Most SaaS teams wait for intent to appear.

The fastest-growing ones manufacture it upstream.

They invest in:
- visibility that reinforces the same belief repeatedly
- messaging that sounds consistent no matter where it’s encountered
- top-of-funnel presence that feels inevitable, not interruptive

This is why some brands feel “everywhere” without posting constantly...
 and others publish nonstop and still feel invisible.

Growth isn’t about capturing demand faster.
 
It’s about making demand easier to capture when it shows up.

If your strategy only activates once buyers are already shopping,
you’re competing late .... and expensively.

The real leverage in SaaS growth is simple: be remembered before you’re needed.

Everything else is execution.

Happy Wednesday 💪

I don’t spend hours doing manual SEO checks anymore.

Simply because manual work doesn’t scale.

I realized most SEO effort isn’t strategic... it’s repetitive:
checks, validations, confirmations, context gathering.

And when you remove that friction, the work changes.

You stop doing SEO and start deciding where SEO matters.

The carousel shows a few browser tools I use to eliminate busywork.

Not as “must-haves” ... but as examples of a broader principle:
Growth compounds when execution becomes boring.

Tools don’t create outcomes.

They remove waste so thinking can matter.

That shift is where scale actually comes from.

Top 12 Chrome Extensions in 2026

Most people are still asking: “which is the best AI model?”
That’s the wrong question.

I tested multiple LLMs across real work... for strategy, writing, research, analysis, and execution.

What became obvious very quickly..
there is no single model that wins at everything.

Each one is optimized for a specific kind of thinking.

Some are built for deep reasoning.
some are exceptional at coding.
some are better at research, math, or real-time synthesis.

When people say AI is “overhyped,” it’s usually because they’re using the wrong model for the job.

When you match the model to the task,
AI stops feeling impressive — and starts feeling obvious.

The carousel breaks down:
- where each model actually shines
- where it falls short
- and how to think about choosing one intentionally

stop asking which AI is the best...
start asking which AI is right for this work.

and that shift alone changes the outcome.

Top 8 AI Models

We are still #hiring! 

At EmploraX, social media is not a posting function.

It’s not scheduling content, repurposing templates and chasing trends for short-term engagement.

It’s a thinking role.

The person we bring in will be expected to:
- Understand why a post exists before writing it
- Protect voice and positioning across every piece of content
- Think in systems, not standalone posts
- Care about compounding visibility, not just weekly metrics

If your strength is execution without context, this will feel uncomfortable.

BUT if your strength is thinking and shipping, this will feel exciting.

We’re building for founders and senior SaaS leaders who care deeply about signal.

That requires creators who think beyond the calendar.

If that sounds like you or someone you know, apply below 👇  or drop resumes at admin@emplorax.com 

Let's go 💪 🚀

In 2026, AI won’t reward the loudest SaaS brands.

It will reward the ones it trusts enough to recommend.

That trust isn’t built with one blog, one mention, or one viral post.

It’s built in a sequence most teams don’t design deliberately.

Here’s the part everyone misses:
AI doesn’t evaluate content in isolation.
 
It evaluates coverage, depth, and reinforcement across the funnel.
Miss a layer...and you disappear when it matters.

1. Awareness

AI has to recognize you as part of the conversation.
If you’re not consistently present when questions are asked in your category, nothing downstream activates.

2. Interest
 
One mention isn’t authority. Depth is.
Brands that own topics - not just keywords - become defaults.

3. Consideration

This is where recommendations are made.
If you’re not visible when buyers compare options, AI doesn’t surface you as a serious choice.

4. Conversion

Trust already exists here.
Friction is the only enemy left.

5. Retention
 
The most ignored layer...and the one AI quietly values most.
Brands with successful, vocal customers get cited again and again.


Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Most teams create content randomly across these stages.
A couple of blog here... a few case studies there.
Some social posts in between.

AI doesn’t reward randomness..it rewards sequencing.

If you build awareness without consideration, AI won’t recommend you.
If you optimize conversion without awareness, no one arrives.

The brands that win in 2026 won’t create more content.

They’ll design the entire visibility system... end to end.
Be impossible to ignore at every stage.

That’s the game now.

A simple test most teams avoid 👇 


If you paused content for 60 days, would your pipeline slow - or collapse?

Slowing means you built momentum.

Collapsing means everything depended on activity.

Most SaaS teams mistake motion for traction.

They publish, promote, repeat... without building anything that lasts.

If stopping feels risky, that’s not discipline.

that’s fragility...

and the downstream effect is worse than it looks.

taplio

The Battle

Nick Abraham

Alka Gupta

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taplio

The Battle

Nick Abraham

Alka Gupta

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nick Abraham's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreNick Abraham's LinkedIn Performance