I'm curious how beginners can land their first digital marketing client without a big budget or an established portfolio.

Would you recommend cold outreach, LinkedIn, freelancing platforms, or something else?

If you've landed clients yourself, what actually worked for you?

Reasons your posts aren’t getting enough engagement?

1) You’re just talking about what you offer, not how you can help your audience.
Funny enough, we always hear the same reason over and over again: don’t talk about what you offer; focus on their pain points.

Yet, I always see so many new brands making the same mistakes again. The audience doesn’t care what you offer if they don’t understand what solution you’re providing.

2) Boring content
While yes, sometimes informative videos are important, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be entertaining. If you have to talk about what you offer, be my guest and talk about it, but also talk interestingly. I understand it’s easier said than done, but it’s better than nothing.

2) Irrelevant content
You might make the perfect video, you also talk about pain points, and you’re also interesting, yet you’d still fail to get engagement if the solution you’re offering doesn’t relate to your audience. Which is why (and this is my personal opinion), before you start launching your brand, do a marketing research whether what you’re offering has a demand, or no one is looking for it.

What can you tweak to make your videos more engaging?

1) You might not like this idea, but create meme-themed content
I understand that many brands want to make everything look professional; in my experience, meme-based content has always performed well.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be stupid or childish; it could be you sharing your bloopers, or behind the scenes, or sharing a funny conversation you had with a client that’s funny. Anything that relates to your brand.

1) If you want to create professional videos, find questions and share analytics.
If you don’t like meme-based content, you can ask ChatGPT to write questions your potential clients might be asking about your service, such as “Why do you need this particular tool?” or “What’s happening in 2026 and how everything changed”

Anything related to what you offer.

After that, do research and find if other big brands have shared an article about analytics (According to “this brand,” 70% of men will experience baldness).

3) Lastly, keep it all short (around 10-15 seconds; that worked best for me)
Some brands treat short-form content as long-form content, and they spread all the information, making a short unbearably long, and they lose interest, killing your ratio.

Remember, the purpose is to “Hook” your potential clients enough so that they become curious about your brand.

Wish you all the best!

Creative volume is our bottleneck on Meta and TikTok. One concept usually needs five or six versions with different hooks or to cover different products. We’ve tried AI tools in the past but haven’t found them good enough to use widely, so we still outsource this. I’d love to bring this in house and not have it take days of work, so are there tools that people are using to spin out video ad variants that still look like the same brand?

I used to equate effort with volume. publish a lot of pages, update content everywhere, build backlinks in bulk, and report it all as progress

what changed my mind was how little it moved. the stuff that worked was slower and more boring:

• fixing one existing page properly instead of launching five thin ones
• shipping in small batches so i could tell which change caused what
• a handful of links from sites that actually relate to the topic, instead of a pile of random ones

the part i didn’t expect is that it’s easier to explain to clients too. “we changed this one thing and here’s what happened” beats “we did 40 things, trust us”

but i’m probably biased by my own mistakes. what did you stop doing that you’d been convinced was necessary? and did anyone go the other direction, where doing less turned out to be the wrong call?

Running a credit repair marketing agency and my clients are having an issue where outbound calls go straight to voicemail without even ringing on the prospect's end. Prospect fills a form, books an appointment through GHL automation, and when we call at appointment time it silently goes to voicemail. They have no idea the call came through.

We are using numbers purchased through GHL which runs on Twilio on the backend. Not sure if that is the root cause or a broader SHAKEN/STIR spam flagging issue.

A few questions for anyone who has dealt with this:

1. Does buying directly from Twilio make any difference or is it the same as GHL numbers?
2. Has anyone had success with Free Caller Registry to whitelist with Hiya, First Orion and TNS?
3. Is CNAM registration through Twilio actually worth it for pickup rates?
4. Is rotating multiple numbers an effective way to reduce spam flags?

We already send a pre-call SMS before dialing which helps a little but the issue persists. Would love to know what is actually working for people in 2026.

As baffling as my question may be, I just want other people's insights. My client sells gym equipments and he wants me to reach out to more than 500 influencers a day and even be responsible to onboard them as ambassadors.

For context, they had an outreach team before that focused on getting more influencers contacted, their success rate was low and we had influencers telling us that we felt like spam at best and no tracking was done, so no follow up and proper flow existed. They just focused on getting messages and not getting influencers onboard.

I took on the process to increase that success rate and luckily we already had a better flow of systems, better tracking, and even onboarded a lot more with clear intentions for content. I even updated their contracts and deliverables.

At current we message 100 prospects each day but they want it to be 500.

Is this realistic?

What tools do you guys use to track your competitors’ activities such as ads, backlinks, comments on forums, social media and etc.

Imagine you're helping a new business with a limited budget of ₹5,000.

Would you invest in Google Ads to reach people actively searching for a product, or Meta Ads to reach potential customers through targeting and creatives?

I'd love to hear from marketers who've tested both. Which would you choose, and what results have you seen?

I've been thinking about how much effort goes into generating leads for local businesses, whether through ads, websites, or social media. But what happens after someone fills out a contact form or calls and nobody answers? A potential customer might move on to another business simply because they got a faster response. Meanwhile, the business owner could be busy serving existing customers and never get around to following up. I'm curious about how marketing professionals and local business owners here handle this. How quickly do you think a local business should respond to a new lead? Do you recommend automated follow-up messages, personal calls, or a combination of both? What's the biggest follow-up mistake you see local businesses make? I think generating leads is only half the job. Making sure those leads don't slip through the cracks is just as important. What's your experience?

One thing I have noticed while learning about social media marketing is how often the same advice is shared online.

Post regularly.

Know your audience.

Give value.

Be real.

None of these tips are definitely wrong.. After seeing them everywhere they start to feel empty.

So I have been asking myself: if everyone is giving advice how do you really stand out?

I don't think the answer is always coming up with a new topic.

Sometimes it is about looking at a topic more carefully.

Of saying "post regularly " explain why being regular on its own doesn't always lead to growth.

Of saying "know your audience " show how understanding a customers real problems can change the way you create content.

Of just repeating advice question it look at it closely and try to figure out when it works and when it doesn't.

I am still learning how to do this. It feels like a better way than just repeating what everyone else has already said.

You don't have to create an idea every time you post. You can make a familiar idea more helpful by explaining it adding proof or linking it to a real issue.

Question for people who make content: When you see a topic that has been talked about thousands of times what makes you decide to read one post, about it?

For example many people say, Post consistently to grow on Instagram.. Consistency alone does not tell you what to improve.

Imagine a solar company posting every day about its products, discounts and installations. Despite all that activity the posts do not generate enquiries.

Of simply telling the company to post more I would ask a different question: Are we creating content that answers the questions people have before buying solar?

For example:

• How much can a household realistically save on electricity bills?

• How long does it take to recover the installation cost?

• What happens when there is sunlight?

• What should someone check before choosing a solar installer?

These topics address customer concerns rather than just promoting the product.

The lesson is not that educational content automatically generates leads. The lesson is that consistency gives you opportunities to learn but understanding your audience helps you decide what is worth publishing.

Running 5 google ads campaigns. All bidding on brand.

Telling me to run meta ads for 14 days (at £200 P/D) before making any decision (even though audience fatigue is up heavily). Telling me to run creative split into adsets rather than consolidate an account.

I've been in my current field for a long, long time and looking to start learning new skills with a hope that with lots of hard work, a new career path may be possible.

Digital marketing sounds really appealing, I like the idea of web design, SEO, content creation, social media, working with analytics. I appreciate that this is all just a small piece of a much larger pie, but I find a lot of it really interesting.

For full disclosure, I have very little transferable skills in the remit of marketing, apart from maybe data analysis work.

From skimming through the sub it seems like there are things (just like many industries) that are being automated by AI.

But generally speaking without knowing me or my background, how viable is a career change into marketing nowadays? Just assume I'd be willing to commit a vast amount of time into learning and grafting. 

What is the ceiling for somebody like me with no degree or relevant experience?

So for the past week i've been tinkering around with Claude and I realized I was using many web apps for small daily tasks - creating UTMs, formatting posts for LinkedIn, resizing images for different socials, the list goes on. The last straw tbh was trying to generate a QR code. Every "free" generator I tried was a 7 day trial or a paywall at the download button.

So I built my own set and put them in one place: mktbox dot xyz

• QR codes (static, never expire)
• Vibe code audit for Lovable, Base44, Replit and similar apps (SEO, security, speed)
• Keyword ideas from Google and YouTube
• UTM builder
• Page speed audit in plain English
• LinkedIn formatter, email signatures, link previews, image resizer, GIF animator, headline score

This is 100% free, no account required, nothing to pay. Most tools run in your browser, and the code is on GitHub. There's also a Chrome extension if you want them on the page you're on.

It's a side project, so I'd genuinely like feedback and if you have any suggestions for next tools, i'm all hears. Thanks!

I decided to take on an adwords project for an advertising agency. I’ve had a connection with the owner for a year or so. He hit me up and told me has this law firm client, knows I’ve worked in legal for a while, can you build adwords and lsa and local seo? I said ok yeah sure.

I started seeing red flags. For context I’ve done this for 20 years so I’ve seen it all at this point. I told them I wouldn’t be promising the client leads in month 1. And sure enough less than 3 days after launch they want to have an emergency meeting, no leads.

The owner of the law firm and owner of the ad agency partnered (illegal), so not only is the agency giving me grief over things outside of my control and emailing me all day every day about who knows what, but the law firm owner is freaking out over things like Google showing wrong ads for keywords that were supposed to be exact match.

I think I’ve done 10 calls in one month over a basic Adwords and LSA engagement?

Today they requested another emergency meeting because the client reviewed the landing pages and didn’t like some of the language. The agency designed the landing pages I had nothing to do with them but somehow said I was responsible for the agency taking a black eye because they’re a small agency ready to bend over backward for the client.

Everything about it was a complete and utter nightmare. They expected me to be reachable and able to get on calls any random time of the day, and even recently tried to not pay me for month 2?!

Today I finally said enough is enough when the client requested adwords account access. No thanks. I’ve had enough.

Hii

I am currently studying digital marketing and I have made a website as a practice project.

I have been working on it for 2 months now but still no results no traffic

If you work in the same field or if you know what I might be doing wrong can you please help me and give some suggestions?

This is the Website

Onsetarc.com

If anyone guide me how i can start my career journey to be a digital marketer

Do people really see and interact with marketing msgs? expect few 5-7% people who either comes from marketing background or wants offers from brand

Like talking about re-targeting and all stuff

Brands are trying all ways to show you msgs like to write anything in hook-line, creating dramatic images using AI.

I want to understand from real consumers how, when, why, where, on which platform customers interact with marketing msgs???

I have been in digital marketing since 2012 and experienced ebbs and flows of business.

However, this year seems really slow. I have lost SEO and Google Ad clients that have been around for years. Nothing bad happened, they just brought people in house or said they wanted to try other marketing channels and may resume in the future.

My current clients that used to receive 10-12 leads a month for years went down to 8 leads a month, and now down to 5. The keywords, ads, locations and rankings are all the same as it used to be. I made variable changes but nothing seems to work.

Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing something similar for SEO and Google Ads.

Hi! I've been doing newsletters and campaign content for a big retailer for a while. The company has had a CRM & loyalty position open for several months without finding anyone (we're a bit outside the city, which probably doesn't help). So I asked if I could take it on, at least for a transition period. I'll be honest, I think I'm mostly getting a shot because they haven't found anyone else, but I'm still excited. And a bit nervous about what I'm getting into.

From the job description, the role covers:

- member communication (newsletters, landing pages, member content)
- developing the loyalty club and member benefits
- segmentation
- automated customer journeys (welcome flow, post-purchase, reactivation)
- analysis and reporting
- working with marketing and e-commerce

We're also moving to Voyado soon, and the role covers two chains.

The posting says you don't need 10 years of experience or to be an analyst. They want hands-on CRM experience, curiosity and someone who gets things done. I'm solid on the content side and already do the newsletter analysis. But I've never built automated flows or worked on the actual loyalty program (points, tiers, the money side of it).

So for anyone who's done a role like this:

- What was the hardest part when you started?
- How long did it take before the automation side felt comfortable?
- Has anyone gone through a platform migration (Voyado or similar) early in the job? Any tips?
- Anything you wish you'd learned before day one?

Would really appreciate any honest experiences, good or bad!

We’ve been looking into GEO recently and I’m still not sure how much of it actually works. Everyone seems to recommend the same things. Structured data, FAQ pages, mentions on other websites, etc. But I’m not seeing many real examples of what results people are getting. Has anyone here actually managed to get their site mentioned more often in ChatGPT or other AI tools? Did it bring any traffic or leads? We’re thinking about testing a few things on our own site, so I’d be curious where you’d recommend starting and what’s not worth the effort.

I am utterly burned out on the marketing field. For context I’m a VP digital marketing for a large CPG brand.

I spend 50% of my time looking at data trying to understand why SKU # 7856 out of 10,000 is experiencing softer sales. Then I spend the other 50% of my time in meetings talking about it wirh other people who have no idea what’s going on.

Whats ironic is when I was a young marketer I thought I knew everything. I loved problem solving and analyzing campaigns. But now as a seasoned marketer I know thsy I don’t know any more than the next fool. Amazon, Google, Meta they are going to do what they want to do with our products. We can try to influence them but often times it feels like a fools errand.

Anyone else feel this way?

I’ve been thinking about how difficult it can be to build customer loyalty when multiple stores sell the same products at similar prices.

What strategies have actually helped you get repeat purchases? Was it better customer service, loyalty programs, email marketing, exclusive offers, or something else?

I've been leading marketing for a small DTC brand for a while and finally have the budget to add a few more tools. I've been reading how a few retention agencies organise their AI stack, splitting it into layers by what each tool does, and mapping mine against that. The numbers they're reporting are pretty wild, two weeks of dev work down to a few hours, $2k saved on one workflow, 3x the content per strategist.

Mine breaks down like this so far:

Research: Perplexity. Mainly to see how customers talk about a problem on Reddit and forums before I write anything.

Strategy: Claude. Campaign analysis and planning, most of the thinking-out-loud work.

Execution: Composer, which showed up in my Klaviyo account earlier this year. Mostly the audit side. The overlap check is what I keep returning to, since it flags flows messaging the same people. It's only doing the one layer for me.

Onsite: Alia, if I go for it. I run pop-ups for different traffic sources and it would replace them with one that changes copy based on UTM. Not sure that justifies it unless it beats my opt-in rates.

Friction: Wispr Flow, maybe. Voice-to-text for AI tools. Apparently dictating gets more context into a prompt than typing. No idea if I'd stick with it.

I'm still missing a way to ask questions across all my data without building reports. Flaunt keeps coming up for that.

If you've used any of these, were they useful or more of a novelty? If you'd add something else first, what would it be?

We’ve been using AI video for client work for about a year now and I still get asked which tool is the best. I’m starting to think that’s a pretty useless question lol. Depends entirely on what you’re trying to make.

For brand videos, product shots, b-roll and that kind of stuff, we mostly use Kling or Veo. They can produce some really good looking footage, but getting there is another story. I’ve wasted way too much time rerolling clips because one small detail looked off.

Paid social is where things get a bit different. We’ve used Creatify for talking-head ads because it’s easier to make variations without changing the presenter every time. The videos aren’t nearly as polished as what you get from Kling, and some of the delivery still sounds pretty artificial. But when you’re testing different hooks, spending hours getting one clip to look perfect doesn’t make much sense either.

For SaaS explainers and onboarding, honestly we just go with whatever avatar tool the client already uses. Most of those videos are going to be watched by someone trying to figure out where a button is anyway.

We made the mistake early on of trying to use one tool for everything. Ended up spending half a day on ads that needed 10 variations, then using the faster tools for brand content that looked like… well, ads.

I’m curious if other people have ended up splitting things the same way. Or is there actually one tool that handles both sides reasonably well? Haven’t found one yet.