Rand Fishkin

Founder/Wizard of Moz

SparkToro CEO. Author of Lost & Founder. Feminist. I love underdogs, cooking, & helping people do better marketing

I'm the cofounder and CEO of three companies: SparkToro, software that makes audience research accessible to everyone, indie game maker Snackbar Studio, and the vastly superior alternative to Google Alerts: Alertmouse. I'm also the author of Lost and Founder: (2018), prev founded & led Moz (2001-17) and am a frequent keynote speaker on marketing and entrepreneurship topics. But, I'm probably best known as the amateur chef husband of renowned author, Geraldine DeRuiter.

Cofounder & CEO

I co-founded SparkToro (with Casey Henry) to enable high quality audience research for marketers, PR folks, entrepreneurs, and product builders without the need for expensive, time-consuming, inaccurate surveys or impossible-to-scale manual research.

AI responses aren't lies; they're rarely dead wrong. But they're also nowhere near consistent. If you're using Google AI, ChatGPT, or Claude to get lists of recommendations (products, brands, etc.), or if you're trying to track if your own brand/product/entity in their responses, please arm yourself with this knowledge first.

Yesterday I published a heap of charts, graphs, dataviz, and stats... but for some people those don't land. So I made a short video attempting to sum up the painstaking AI consistency research that went near-viral after yesterday's launch (30K views in the first 24hrs!). Thanks to everyone who helped share it, and 🤞 this will help even more to wrap their heads around it 👇

Cofounder of SparkToro, Alertmouse, & Snackbar Studio. Author of Lost & Founder. Feminist. I love underdogs, cooking, & helping people do better marketing

NEW research: https://lnkd.in/gwyQz_wg

How consistent are AI tools when asked for a list of brands/products?

And do the answers mean those AI tracking tools are selling you a boondoggle of snake oil chicanery?

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because the answer took 3 months, dozens of surveys, thousands of AI requests, and more than a dozen graphs, charts, and visuals to uncover. Below, I've pasted just a little taste (3/15) of the data visualizations in this research, and, apologies, but for the full findings, including the conclusion, you're gonna have to read the post. 😎

p.s. Huge thanks to Patrick O'Donnell from Gumshoe AI for being my research partner on this. Couldn't have done it without him.

Nobody knows how to hate like LinkedIn's algorithm. They hate links with a passion, so much so that the classic "link in comments" workaround is now failing, too. LinkedIn's process? Just hide the comment, too!

But, for y'all who wanna get clever and are willing to put in a bit of work, it's still possible to drive traffic/signups/motivated visits with the right techniques, and that's the focus of this week's #5MinuteWhiteboard 👇

Me: "our brand positioning is audience research for marketers."
Google: "ha ha ha... your brand is whatever we say it is."

My advice:
Step 1 - monitor your search console ratio on branded terms, keeping a special eye on those where clicks:impressions is <65%.
Step 2 - set up brand mention alerts (because what others say about you on the web is how AIs decide what to say about you)
Step 3 - when a mention comes along that says great things about you and fits your positioning... QUOTE IT. CITE IT. LINK IT. SHARE IT.

👇👇👇

When your inventor friend is laid up after surgery, but already paid for a demo slot at CES Unveiled, what do you do?

DAMN RIGHT. You offer to fly to Vegas and present to hundreds of journalists in their stead. (even though you're more than a bit nervous 😅😅😅)

So, friends, especially #PR friends -- we could really use any advice on how to talk to journalists and influencers in the CES tech world.

KeySavvy

KeySavvy is the peer-to-peer transaction platform for vehicles. We eliminate payment and title fraud in private party transactions and guide buyers and sellers through a complex process with ease. As a result, it's easier than ever for sellers to get more than dealer trade-in and buyers to pay less than dealer retail.

If you're a marketplace or lender looking to provide an end-to-end vehicle transaction experience for your customers, contact me!

Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder

Amazon

I led an org (20+ full-time headcount) whose services delivered all personalized recommendation content for Amazon retail. As one of a handful of core services for the retail stack, my org was attributed to tens of billions in annual revenue and I more than doubled its size in two years.

In my spare time (yes, I had spare time at Amazon), I also personally built an internal tool that helped hundreds of teams across the company analyze their operational costs. The application was acquired by AWS in 2022.

Software Development Manager, Personalization

TRED

(Acquired by Cox Enterprises, Inc.)
Tred is an online used car marketplace and peer-to-peer transaction platform. As Tred's CTO, I built one of the industry's first fully remote financing platforms and automated many traditional dealer capabilities to increase the security and efficiency of the private party used car market. I also led our digital marketing team and launched integrations with Ally Financial, BECU, First Tech Federal Credit Union, Westlake Financial, Cars.com, AAA, and others.

Chief Technology Officer

Variat

Variat is software-as-a-service that provides manufacturers a simple way to collect inspection data on the shop floor, use that data to improve quality through real-time statistical process control, and monitor their supply chain performance.

As CEO, I assembled the team, raised a pre-seed round, and built a large portion of the technology stack. Variat's solution won "Best Industry Innovation Award" in Changchun, China at an event held by Microsoft and FAW in June, 2015.

Genesys | Interactive Intelligence

Senior Software Engineer

Continental Automotive

Senior Algorithm Development Engineer

John Deere

Software Engineer

Link-Belt Construction Equipment

Design Engineer Intern

I'm a hands-on technology leader who is mediocre at enough things to be dangerous. 

I have a track record of leading teams of teams while still writing a significant amount of code myself (even at FAANG). I can both set high level marketing team goals and implement campaigns across SEM, content/SEO, retargeting, and email channels. I work hard to align myself with people I can learn from (direct reports, advisors, investors) and companies I respect.

Outside of work, I enjoy skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, and bouldering. Basically any sport that has a high risk of personal injury.

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taplio

The Battle

Rand Fishkin

Andrew Crowell

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);}Rand Fishkin's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreRand Fishkin's LinkedIn Performance