Darren Goldstein, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at SoSafe, joins Austin Willman on E-Coffee with Experts to break down how AI is reshaping the day-to-day work of B2B marketers. Instead of replacing marketers, AI is turning them into orchestrators who automate manual reporting and free up time for strategy and planning.

Darren shares how he built his own MCPs and connectors, including a Search Console workflow and a Google Ads MCP, despite not being a developer. He explains why getting your hands dirty matters more than waiting for the perfect skill set, and how automation can act like a junior team member at the cost of tokens rather than salary.

The conversation also digs into the harder truths of modern marketing: shrinking attribution, GDPR limits on data signals, the difference between B2B and e-commerce testing, and why data quality beats high-volume creative testing in niche B2B.

If you work in SEO, paid media, B2B growth, or marketing operations, this episode gives you a grounded, practical view of where AI actually helps and where marketers still need to think for themselves.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 01:05: Introduction

01:05 - 03:50: What's No Longer Relevant in the Age of AI

03:50 - 05:10: The "Get Your Hands Dirty" AI Policy

05:10 - 07:05: Building a Search Console Workflow

07:05 - 08:10: Building a Google Ads MCP

08:10 - 09:50: Open Loop vs Closed Loop Systems

09:50 - 12:10: Token Costs and the Junior Salary Analogy

12:10 - 13:05: AI Hype vs Real Value

13:05 - 16:10: Data as the Value Driver in B2B

16:10 - 17:40: Signals and Regional Limits

17:40 - 20:15: Feedback Loops in a B2B Sales Cycle

20:15 - 23:10: The Attribution Problem and Hidden Data

23:10 - 25:40: Solving Data Gaps by Collecting More

25:40 - 27:25: Progressive Forms and Cookie Consent

27:25 - 29:19: Where to Find Darren and Wrap-Up

Connect with Darren Goldstein

https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrengoldstein/

https://sosafe-awareness.com/

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Max Matson, Marketing Director at Planetizen, joins E-Coffee with Experts to break down how knowledge-led brands build trust and authority in a search landscape reshaped by AI overviews and generative answers.

Max shares their journey from copywriting to leading marketing for a 26-year-old industry platform and explains why having real domain experts create your content is the fastest way to build credibility with niche audiences.

They dive into the shift from institutional trust to individual trust, why brands without decades of authority need to find and empower credible voices in their space, and how their team approaches AI visibility tracking alongside traditional SEO. Max also unpacks cross-channel measurement challenges as attribution windows become less reliable, from UTM limitations to back-end tracking to using LLMs to reconstruct disconnected data points.

The conversation also covers the practical differences between agency and in-house marketing careers, how sales and marketing should operate as one pipeline, and why young marketers should resist trend-chasing and stay grounded in core marketing fundamentals before experimenting outward.

If you work in marketing, SEO, or content strategy for a niche or technical industry, this episode offers a grounded look at building credibility that actually holds up as search continues to change.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:28: Introduction

00:28 - 02:18: Max's Career Journey

02:18 - 03:17: Running Their Own Agency

03:17 - 04:31: Hands-On Creation and Strategy

04:31 - 05:44: Marketing to Technical Audiences

05:44 - 06:47: Aligning Sales and Marketing

06:47 - 08:25: Content in the Age of AI Search

08:25 - 08:49: Favorite AI Tools

08:49 - 09:59: Cross-Channel Attribution Challenges

09:59 - 10:38: Tracking AI Visibility

10:38 - 11:43: Building Credibility in Niche Markets

11:43 - 13:14: Agency vs In-House Challenges

13:14 - 14:48: Advice for Young Marketers

14:48 - 15:50: Closing Thoughts

Connect with Max Matson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwellmatson

planetizen.com

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Dennis Kelly, CEO at Postalytics, joins E-Coffee with Experts to break down how he built a direct mail automation platform to over 10 million dollars in ARR without raising investor capital. As his sixth startup, Dennis brings a rare perspective on bootstrapping, customer acquisition, and knowing when outside funding actually makes sense.

In this episode with our host Ranmay Rath, Dennis explains why traditional direct mail has been stuck in outdated processes since the 1990s, and how Postalytics connects commercial printers to marketing platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Marketo to make direct mail measurable, automated, and data-driven. He shares why declining email open rates and rising digital ad costs are pushing marketers back toward physical mail, and how AI is now being used for creative generation, audience modeling, and attribution analysis in direct mail campaigns.

Dennis also discusses the risks of scaling mistakes through AI automation, why testing should come before scaling any campaign, and offers a grounded piece of advice for early-stage entrepreneurs about managing personal finances while building a company.

Topics covered include direct mail automation, marketing technology integration, bootstrapping versus venture funding, AI in marketing, personalization strategy, and attribution modeling.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:33: Introduction

00:33 - 02:25: What Is Postalytics and Its USP

02:25 - 03:32: Lessons From Six Startups

03:32 - 04:53: Bootstrapping vs. Investor Capital

04:53 - 06:19: How to Decide: Bootstrap or Raise Funds

06:19 - 09:03: From Boingnet to Postalytics: The Strategic Pivot

09:03 - 11:14: Direct Mail as Part of the Customer Journey

11:14 - 12:57: Why Direct Mail Is More Relevant Than Ever

12:57 - 15:18: What Real Personalization Looks Like

15:18 - 18:48: Where AI Is Actually Useful in Direct Mail

18:48 - 20:09: When to Slow Down Before Scaling With AI

20:09 - 22:51: Advice for Early-Stage Entrepreneurs

22:51 - 23:59: Closing Remarks

Connect with Dennis Kelly

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisjohnkelly/

postalytics.com

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Reddit has become one of the most powerful and most misunderstood channels in SEO and AI search visibility. In this episode, Ann Smarty, Co-Founder of Smarty Marketing, breaks down why brand reputation management on Reddit cannot be scaled, automated, or faked, and why that is exactly the reason it works.

Ann has been active in viral marketing and Reddit strategy for over a decade, long before Reddit became a primary data source for AI search engines and LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. She explains how Reddit's human moderation creates a level of trust no other platform can replicate, why old negative threads can haunt a brand for years, and why trying to fake positive sentiment on Reddit almost always backfires.

The conversation covers the real timeline for Reddit reputation results (often six months or more), why branded subreddits can become a brand's safest long-term asset, the difference between training data and live search grounding for AI answers, and why backlinks remain fundamental for both traditional SEO and LLM visibility.

Ann also shares the origin story of guest blogging, a strategy she pioneered back in 2008, and explains how brand visibility, not links alone, increasingly determines whether a business gets recommended by AI tools.

If you work in SEO, digital PR, brand strategy, or AI search optimization, this episode offers a grounded, experience-based look at where reputation management is heading next.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 01:30: Introduction

01:30 - 03:00: How Ann Got Into Reddit Marketing

03:00 - 05:30: Why Reddit Can't Be Scaled

05:30 - 08:00: Reddit as an Intent-Based Trust Channel

08:00 - 11:30: Why Fake Reviews Backfire on Reddit

11:30 - 14:00: Reddit's Risk vs. Other Platforms

14:00 - 17:00: Building and Owning Your Own Subreddit

17:00 - 20:30: Setting Realistic Client Expectations

20:30 - 23:00: How GEO Is Reshaping Reputation Management

23:00 - 25:30: Why Scaled Content No Longer Wins

25:30 - 28:00: The Guest Blogging Origin Story

28:00 - 31:00: Training Data vs. Live Search Visibility

31:00 - 34:00: How LLMs Verify Brand Trust Like Humans Do

34:00 - 37:45: Where to Find Ann and Closing Thoughts

Connect with Ann Smarty

https://www.linkedin.com/in/annsmarty/

https://smarty.marketing

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Cliff Tillery, Digital Marketing Consultant at Make It Loud Web Design, has spent 22 years building an SEO agency, and in this episode, he breaks down how he's evolving his service offerings as AI reshapes search behavior. He shares how he's building custom data-driven research studies for clients, like storm damage reports for roofers and CPR survival statistics for first responder training companies, that double as lead magnets and authority-building content.

Cliff explains the difference between optimizing for Google versus optimizing for AI visibility, focusing on the idea of brand entity and how AI pulls data points from press releases, reviews, and other digital assets across the internet to define a business. He also shares his approach to vibe coding internal tools, including an app he built called Henry that automates alt tags, meta descriptions, and schema markup, cutting page production from 15 a day down to over 100 in two days.

The conversation covers the shift away from city-targeted landing pages, why AI content scores well on graders but still needs heavy editing, and why he believes the SEO industry needs to move from a vendor mindset to a partner mindset, especially as 45 percent of consumers turn to AI to search for local businesses while still converting at low rates compared to direct Google traffic.

Cliff also unpacks why he no longer trusts visibility score as a core metric after issues with his rank tracking tool, and what KPIs actually matter now: form fills, phone calls, and Google Business Profile engagement.

If you are an SEO professional, agency owner, or business owner trying to understand how AI search is changing client acquisition and reporting, this conversation is full of practical takeaways.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction

01:00 - 03:30: Building Custom Research Studies for Clients

03:30 - 07:30: The Roofing Storm Report Case Study

07:30 - 10:00: Brand Entity and AI Visibility Explained

10:00 - 13:20: Building Henry: An Internal SEO Automation Tool

13:20 - 15:50: From Computer Science to Counseling to SEO

15:50 - 19:30: AI Content Quality vs Human Editing

19:30 - 22:00: The Decline of City-Targeted Landing Pages

22:00 - 24:30: Client Onboarding and Digital Asset Audits

24:30 - 27:00: The Vendor vs Partner Mindset Shift

27:00 - 30:30: Why Visibility Score Lost Trust as a Metric

30:30 - 32:00: The KPIs That Actually Matter Now

32:00 - 33:24: Where to Find Cliff and Closing

Connect with Cliff Tillery

https://www.linkedin.com/in/clifftillery/

https://makeitloud.net/

FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Klint Rudolph, Founder at The Xcite Group, joins Austin Willman to break down how a 15-year-old agency built an entire AI-powered workforce without cutting a single job. This conversation is a masterclass in using AI responsibly: humans provide the spark, AI does the grinding.

Klint shares how he turned his own brain into a trained AI agent that saves him 20 hours a week, and how Sophia, the agency's AI sales agent, nurtured an inbound lead over four weeks of email until the client booked a meeting believing she was human.

You'll hear why Klint forbids his team from calling it a chatbot, how the Excite AI Manifesto created guardrails for responsible adoption, and why "people first, always" drives every decision.

He explains the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge, why most companies don't even know how their own work gets done, and how to plug AI agents into real operational friction.

We also cover the Culture Club, biweekly all-hands meetings, department-level hackathons, and the goal of doubling client count without adding headcount.

If you run an agency or any service business, this episode shows you exactly where AI fits and where it never will.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 01:20: Introduction

01:20 - 02:30: Using AI Responsibly and the Excite AI Manifesto

02:30 - 05:15: Building an Agent Trained on His Brain

05:15 - 06:45: Why an AI Manifesto Comes First

06:45 - 08:00: People First, Always

08:00 - 10:10: Tacit Knowledge and Inserting Agents

10:10 - 13:25: Sophia and the Four-Week AI Sales Story

13:25 - 16:00: Operations, Pricing, and the Real Playbook

16:00 - 18:00: Why Marketing Hasn't Changed for Clients

18:00 - 21:10: AI Is Not a Replacement for People

21:10 - 23:00: Doubling Clients Without Adding Headcount

23:00 - 25:40: Culture and the Culture Club

25:40 - 29:50: Organic Adoption to Department Hackathons

29:50 - 32:05: All-Hands Meetings and Staying Aligned

32:05 - 33:40: Top Down Meets Bottom Up

33:40 - 36:40: Kick the Tires and Training AI Correctly

36:40 - 39:45: The AI-Powered CRM and Agent Hierarchy

39:45 - 42:00: The Orchestrator Brain and Churn Analysis

42:00 - 42:48: Where to Find Klint and Closing

Connect with Klint Rudolph

https://www.linkedin.com/in/klintrudolph/

xcitemediagroup.com

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Matt St. Peter, Director of Web and SEO at Wrike, joins the show to unpack how search and discovery have fundamentally changed. From managing SEO for car dealerships in 2010 to leading enterprise web strategy today, Matt shares how AI search, AEO, and brand sentiment are reshaping the buyer journey.

In this episode, Matt breaks down why clicks matter less than they used to, how Rike thinks about complex B2B buyer pain points, and what separates a content strategy that compounds from one that just produces volume. He also shares lessons from a major CMS migration at Lattice, experimentation lessons from scaling traffic at Bitly, and how to align brand, SEO, and growth teams around a single source of truth.

Topics covered include AI Overviews and direct traffic growth, content systems versus content volume, e-commerce lessons for B2B SaaS, off-page signals like sentiment and citations, and what the best web and SEO teams will prioritize over the next year.

Whether you lead a web team, work in SEO, or are building a content strategy for the AI search era, this conversation offers practical frameworks for adapting your approach.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:17: Introduction

00:17 - 01:52: Matt's SEO Career Journey

01:52 - 04:09: When the Website Stopped Being the End of the Funnel

04:09 - 06:40: Lessons From a Major CMS Migration

06:40 - 08:51: Building a Content Strategy That Compounds

08:51 - 09:59: SEO vs AEO vs GEO

09:59 - 11:03: Why Consistency Matters More Now

11:03 - 12:55: What E-Commerce Taught Matt About Search Intent

12:55 - 15:25: Building Pages Around the Buyer's Real Problem

15:25 - 17:21: Improving Lead Quality Without Killing Conversion

17:21 - 19:33: What Makes a Serious Experimentation Program

19:33 - 21:38: Aligning Brand, SEO, and Growth Teams

21:38 - 23:35: Reporting AI and SEO Impact to Leadership

23:35 - 26:11: Prioritizing Off-Page Signals

26:11 - 28:03: What the Best SEO Teams Will Do Differently

28:03 - 30:33: Rapid Fire Round and Closing

Connect with Matt St. Peter

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewstpeter/

wrike.com

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Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./

Dan Salganik, CEO & Founder at VisualFizz, joins E-Coffee with Experts to break down how he built a senior-only marketing agency focused on infrastructure and B2B industries like concrete, steel, and construction.

Dan shares why hiring 15-20 year experienced professionals beats hiring cheap junior talent, the real cost of redoing bad work, and why he has turned down six-figure clients over culture fit. He also discusses how referrals and relationships outperform paid acquisition, what actually builds trust with AI search systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity, and why consistency across platforms matters more than chasing algorithms.

This conversation covers agency positioning, client education, founder mistakes, and the operating principle Dan trusts most after nearly a decade running VisualFizz.

Get Your Exclusive AIO Growth Plan - We’ll kick off with a Live AIO Audit to see how shoppers find you, followed by Competitor Research to steal their spotlight: https://lunacal.ai/team/dws/dws-meetings

In this episode, we discuss:

00:00 - 00:29: Introduction

00:29 - 02:59: Dan's Background and the Founding of VisualFizz

02:59 - 06:25: Senior Talent vs Junior Hires: The Real Cost Comparison

06:25 - 09:03: Lessons From a $650K Agency Failure

09:03 - 10:41: Why Relationships Beat Paid Acquisition

10:41 - 12:36: Advice for Young Agency Owners on Niching Down

12:36 - 14:31: Saying No to Six-Figure Clients

14:31 - 18:16: Educating Clients on Realistic SEO Expectations

18:16 - 22:36: Why Dan Stopped Selling Dreams to Founders

22:36 - 26:25: AI Search Trust Signals and the Future of GEO/AEO

26:25 - 30:20: The Biggest Lesson: Learning to Delegate

30:20 - 31:53: Rapid Fire Round

31:53 - 32:58: Closing Thoughts and Goodbye

Connect with Dan Salganik

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dansalganik/

visualfizz.com

FOLLOW US

Website: https://www.digitalwebsolutions.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digiwebsol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dws_global

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-web-solutions./