Yannick Khayati

Founder / Validation Lead

Say ‘hi’ to Cosmos Collective, where experimentation meets innovation. We help innovation teams tackling all their assumptions via rapid experimentation. 

We developed an approach that allows us to test any business idea or concept within a period of 3 months. 

The 🔑 is finding the right sequence of experiments in order to test (read: tackle) all your riskiest assumptions asap. 

In our track, the user / customer is centralized. We take your idea outside of the corporate walls & turn it into real-market data asap. 

Are you ready to jump on the validation train? 🚄

Full house for another AI Agent for Marketers Masterclass. 🚀

We're teaching AI Agents for different marketing purposes in 3 different (levels of) tools: 

1️⃣ EASY: Content repurposing agent via Relevance AI
2️⃣ MEDIUM: Building a marketing assistant that does research etc through n8n
3️⃣ HARD: A lead generation agent with Claude Code

But more importantly, we provide a reusable and repeatable framework to build an agent for (almost) all of your use cases. 

Step-by-step explanation & demo's. 

DM me if you want more info about upcoming dates.

Yannick  Khayati

Organizing the biggest AI conference for marketers in Belgium.

"Who do you follow in AI x Marketing to stay ahead of the curve?"

This is the number one question people ask me after every masterclass.

It makes sense. LinkedIn is currently filled with clickbait and AI bros. Finding signal in the noise is almost a full-time job.

I did that job for you.

The image below contains the specific voices, newsletters, and builders I actually trust. They only share valuable & actionable tips regarding AI x marketing. 

Save the image and start curating your feed. 

If you are ready to move from "following" to "implementing," I can help.

We go deep on this in the AI Agent Masterclass.

DM me if you want more info, the next one is on March 11.

RIP static lead magnets 🪦

Last week, we hosted another video shoot to create promo material for our upcoming webinars (5 of them 🤯).

Here is a sneak peek of one of the videos where we hosted a funeral for the lead magnet. Someone told me that advertising videos need to be a little cringe, right? 

Anyway, we're hosting a session where we teach you to build interactive lead magnets with AI, without any technical knowledge required. 

You can already sign up via the link here => https://lnkd.in/eNkhFm9P 

More webinars (and cringe videos) are coming your way really soon.

Webinar - Creating interactive lead magnets with Lovable, Google AI studio & Claude.

Free, live & you actually build something.

That's the pitch for our next 3 webinars on AI for marketers.

When was the last time you left a webinar with something actually built?

We run it differently. You follow along, you create live, you walk away with a working tool or asset in your hands.

3 free sessions coming up on AI for marketers. Spots are limited (why is hosting webinars so expensive btw? 😂)

March 24 - Building your own marketing tools with AI  - https://lnkd.in/eK39cxuG 

April 7 - 5 must have AI skills to stay relevant as a marketer - https://lnkd.in/eWjB87-X

April 28 - Creating interactive lead magnets using AI - https://lnkd.in/eNkhFm9P

Hey you! You know who you are. 

Comment 'guilty' to receive this starter pack.

This is not a roast. This is a mirror.

AI for Marketers Day 2026 is officially less than 3 months away.

We sold nearly half the tickets in two weeks after announcing the event. 

I am grateful for the support. 🙏🫶

But this pace signals something specific about the market. Marketers are not buying tickets because they enjoy conferences (or maybe a little 🥳). They are buying because they are overwhelmed. 

AI is moving fast. The noise is driving us crazy. 

You do not need more tools. You need a filter. 

On May 28 in Mechelen, we are providing that filter. 32 speakers. 4 stages. 

You build your own agenda based on the questions & challenges you have. 

Here are some of the interesting topics we are covering:

Maxime Verstrepen will explain what happens to the IP of the assets you create with AI. 
Nick Van Walleghem will teach you how to build your own marketing assistants with Clawbot. 
Jean Bonnenfant is showing us what growth marketing is like in the age of AI. 
Vince Buyssens is showing us how they build their own marketing tools at Loop, using AI. 
...

The Early Bird rate is €299, but prices might increase soon.

Lock in your 200 euro discount via https://lnkd.in/eGqHgYwa

AI is impacting marketing, period. 

Michael Humblet called me with a proposition.

He wanted to co-host a session on the future of B2B content.
I didn't hesitate: "Yes!"

Here is why this matters right now:

The barrier to create (B2B) content is almost zero.
That means the volume of noise is endless.

If you are just using AI to write posts, you are already behind.

We need to talk about adaptation.
We need to talk about what happens when custom tool costs collapse and everyone creates their own toolstack.

We are going live on March 13.

Come hang out with us and fix your B2B content strategy.

Link in the comments.

Agents don't replace marketers. They replace the work marketers hate doing.

Most marketers are still doing manually what agents can do on autopilot.

Heavy lifting 🏋️

Not because they don't believe in AI. Because they don't know where to start.

Here are the 6 agents I'd build first if I were starting from scratch today:

1️⃣ Research Agent - tracks competitors, handles social listening, ...
2️⃣ Reporting Agent - turns data into decks & live reports with AI insights automatically.
3️⃣ Content Agent - keeps your articles ranking without touching them, also great for updating outdated blogs automatically. 
4️⃣ Social Media Agent - schedules, repurposes, ...
5️⃣ Lead Scoring Agent - personalizes follow-ups at 1:1 scale (I love this for my webinars).
6️⃣ Campaign Ideation Agent - connects performance data to new ideas.

The stack isn't the hard part. Knowing what problem to point each agent at is.

That's exactly what we cover in our next AI Agent Masterclass for Marketers.

If you want to leave with a working agent setup (not just slides and theory), the next dates are May 21 & June 10, DM for more info. 🎯

BINGO! 

How many can you check off?

Most companies aren't slow on AI because of technology.

They're slow because of politics, fear, and processes designed to delay decisions.

The AI taskforce that never ships anything. 
The legal review that takes 6 months. 
Your colleagues all using any LLM (expect Copilot) with their private email.
You adding confidential company data in your private GPT. 
... 

Sounds familiar?

Tag someone who got BINGO 👇

My friends staged an intervention. I turned it into a webinar.

AI was supposed to give us more free time. Instead I'm building till midnight daily. 

Testing tools nobody asked for, and explaining prompts at the dinner table.

The trap is real. More power, more possibilities, more stuff you feel like you have to build.

The good news? If you want to learn how to actually build your own marketing tools with AI - without losing your mind in the process - join me and Nick Van Walleghem live tomorrow.

🎙 Building your own marketing tools with AI 
📅 Tuesday March 24 | 12:00-13:00 CET 
https://lnkd.in/eK39cxuG

Massive thanks to Yeni, Ken & Peter for the class acting. 🫶

Head of Marketing & Growth | Digital Marketer & Trainer | Product Innovation & Marketer | Speaker | Digital Marketing Specialist

A Digital Marketing Specialist with hands-on experience across social media, content management, and SEO—also contributing to brand building, partnerships, and growth marketing.

Over time, I’ve expanded into owning and driving integrated marketing strategy across digital, content, performance, SEO, and brand channels—focused on accelerating customer acquisition and engagement. I plan and execute demand generation campaigns (webinars, email marketing, ABM, and paid media) to support pipeline growth and product adoption. 

I’m equally passionate about building high-conversion funnels, optimizing landing pages, and running A/B tests to improve CAC, LTV, and conversion rates across the user journey. I track core marketing KPIs, build reporting rhythms, and use insights to continuously improve ROI. 

Beyond digital, I also support offline brand efforts—industry events, trade shows, partner activations—and coordinate print/outdoor/experiential campaigns to ensure consistent brand messaging across every touchpoint.

Alongside marketing, I bring a strong product mindset—helping shape product vision, roadmap, and strategy aligned with business goals and market opportunities. I enjoy gathering and prioritizing product requirements through customer and stakeholder inputs, competitive research, and trend analysis. 

I’ve worked across the product lifecycle—from discovery to delivery—collaborating with tech, design, and QA teams, and using data + user behavior insights to guide feature prioritization, UX improvements, and enhancements. 

I also contribute to product launches by partnering with marketing, sales, and customer success to drive adoption and satisfaction.

When I was 21, I ran my first Full Marathon (41.2 Kms). Not metaphorically—I literally covered my first and longest run in my life.

While I was running, I thought about quitting approximately 5,000 times. (And that’s a lowball estimate.) But despite the high-density sunlight, less practice, mental and physical fatigue, and healthy snacks overdose, I kept going. I’m that person. Once I say I’ll do something, it will happen.

Now, I put that perseverance to work—managing digital marketing and product portfolio across corporate, start-up, and freelancing environments, while also being deeply involved in digital marketing training programs and strategic growth initiatives for product. I don’t have to climb any mountains…but I do have to move them as a Growth Hacker.

If you’re interested in grabbing a cup of coffee and talking, please send an email my way at jyotiswaroop.mohanty23@gmail.com.

Jyoti Swaroop Mohanty

“10,000 followers”


Sounds impressive… until you ask the only question that matters:

Would they choose you when it’s time to buy?

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: Follower count is a distribution number. Brand strength is a trust + demand number.

The platform trends are screaming the same thing.

Algorithms reward depth, not breadth. LinkedIn looks at signals like how long users stay on posts and the quality of comments. It is also reducing the importance of clickbait and engagement bait. 

Organic engagement is getting harder, even as follower counts rise. Instagram engagement fell sharply in 2025. It dropped by around 24% from 2024. 

Even the best formats, like carousels, only average around 0.55% engagement. 

Brands are noticing an increase in inbound engagement. Sprout reports that average inbound engagements rose from 70% to 83% in 2024. 

The takeaway? The audience is there—but you have to earn attention. 

So if follower count is a weak proxy… what actually signals brand strength?

Brand strength looks like this (even with a “smaller” audience).

1) Trust that competes with price and quality

In Edelman’s 2025 research, trust is key in buying decisions. For example, 80% of people say, “I trust the company that owns the brand” is important or a deal breaker.

And 80% say they trust the brands they use to “do what is right.”

That’s brand strength. Not applause. Not vanity metrics. Trust.

2) Conversation density, not follower volume

A brand with 8,000 followers and 120 meaningful comments can be stronger than one with 80,000 followers and no engagement at all.

Because silence means:
👉 Low relevance
👉 Low memory
👉 Low persuasion

And the feed knows it.

3) Demand signals outside social

Real brands create pull:
👉 Branded searches
👉 Direct traffic
👉 Repeat purchases
👉 Referrals - “Heard about you from…” moments

Followers don’t guarantee any of that. Mental availability does.

4) Community behavior

Strong brands don’t get likes. They get:
👉 Saves
👉 Shares in private DMs.
👉 Friends tag people without anyone asking.
👉 Customers are defending the brand in comments.

That’s not reach. That’s resonance.

The litmus test I use

If your follower count dropped by 30% tomorrow, would revenue drop too?

If yes → you have built a platform-dependent audience
If no → you have built a brand

Quick upgrade: 4 “brand strength” metrics to track this quarter

Engaged audience rate (commenters + savers, not just viewers)

Inbound intent (DMs, emails, “can we talk?” messages)

Branded demand (search + direct + returning visitors)

Trust proof (reviews, testimonials, repeat purchase, referrals)

Follower count? Track it if you like.

Just don’t confuse it with strength.

What do you value more right now: a bigger audience… or a buyer-ready one? 👇

🚨 Unpopular truth:

Spending more on ads doesn’t grow your revenue.

It just makes your inefficiencies louder.

Let that sink in.

Because in 2025, brands are pouring $1 trillion+ into advertising globally —
yet many are seeing flat or declining ROI.

So what’s going wrong?

👇

1. Diminishing Returns Are Real

At some point, every extra ₹1 you put into ads delivers less than the previous one.

Overexposure leads to ad fatigue, where audiences stop noticing (or worse, start ignoring you).

Studies show excessive focus on performance ads can reduce ROI by 20–50% 

More spend ≠ more attention.
More spend often = wasted impressions.

2. You’re Reaching the Same People Again & Again

In fact, data shows massive frequency imbalance— some users see hundreds of ads daily while others see almost none.

That’s not scaling.
That’s saturation.

3. Creative Fatigue Kills Performance

We live in a world where the average person sees 6,000+ ads a day

Your audience isn’t tired of ads. They’re tired of boring ads.

Throwing more budget at stale creatives is like pouring water into a leaking bucket.

4. The Game Has Changed (And Most Brands Haven’t)

46% of consumers discover products via social media 

Influencer & creator ads are growing 4x faster than traditional media 

Privacy changes & cookie loss are making targeting less efficient and more expensive 

Translation? Old playbooks don’t work in a new ecosystem.

5. Growth Doesn’t Come From Ads Alone

The best-performing brands aren’t just spending more.

They’re spending smarter:
✔ Balancing brand and performance
✔ Investing in content, community & trust
✔ Fixing product, pricing & experience first

Because ads don’t create demand.
They amplify what already exists.

🔥 The Real Question Isn’t: “How much should we spend?”
It’s: 👉 “Is our business worth amplifying?”

💬 Curious—have you ever increased ad budgets and seen no real growth? What changed when you fixed it?

Truth is Truth. 😎 


👎 An unpopular opinion: Using the boost button often results in wasting your marketing budget, and it doesn't help you to gain more recognition for your brand.

Let the facts support that statement rather than just your feelings. 👇

Each day, there are brands pushing that enticing blue "boost post" button in hopes that by reaching more users, it will equal more sales.

However, the facts (data) say otherwise:
📉 Organic Reach is Already Dead
* On Facebook, posts on average reach about 1.37% of your followers.
* On Instagram, posts reach about 4% on average

So what do we do?
We boost.

And that’s where the situation gets worse.

💸 Boosting = No Strategy
💡 Boosting is lazy advertising.
💡Boosting is unoptimized.
💡Boosting is not targeted deeply.
💡Boosting does not generate conversions.

It’s like pouring gasoline onto an untested piece of content.

📊 Here’s the cold hard truth:
* About 30% of marketers feel comfortable measuring social ROI.
* By continuing to spend on “reach” and “impressions” that don’t correlate to revenues.
* Paid reach provides some visibility. However, paid reach usually results in lower overall engagement levels than does organic reach.


Let’s be clear:
👉 You are paying more for weaker levels of engagement with no clear ROI. 
👉 You’re calling this growth.

🔥 Here’s the even more disturbing truth nobody wants to talk about:

Using the boost the post button does not change poor content; it simply causes the poor content to fail at a faster pace.


Furthermore:
* Social media platforms have evolved to be “pay-to-play”
* This means they reward the brands that use a thoughtful strategy to reach users versus brands that just impulsively spend money to reach users.


🚀 What works in 2025 are:
✔️ Test your content organically before paid ads.
✔️ Determine which pieces of content are your “winners” based on the user engagement metrics and not based on your ego.
✔️ Utilize strategies to scale your winners through advertisements and not through the boost button. 
✔️ Focus on your audience's engagement and effectiveness rather than on your audience’s size or other vanity metrics.


Because…

Successful brands spend less money than other brands.
Successful brands think about how to best reach their customers.


💡 To recap:

Boosting posts creates a temporary rental of attention.

Utilizing great content combined with an effective distribution method creates a permanent ownership of that future visibility. 

—I’m curious—how many of you are still using the Boost Button without an actual overall marketing strategy?

taplio

The Battle

Yannick Khayati

Jyoti Swaroop Mohanty

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreYannick Khayati's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJyoti Swaroop Mohanty's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Yannick Khayati

Jyoti Swaroop Mohanty

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);}Yannick Khayati's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJyoti Swaroop Mohanty's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreYannick Khayati's LinkedIn Performance