Intended Consequences – Details, episodes & analysis

Digital marketing is undergoing a seismic shift. In this episode, Brian Massey sits down with marketing strategist Andy Crestodina to explore how AI is becoming the "third partner" in every customer relationship—and what that means for your website and content strategy.

Discover why traditional SEO tactics are losing effectiveness for top-of-funnel content, while bottom-of-funnel optimization matters more than ever. Andy reveals how to train AI models to recommend your brand, including practical tips on optimizing your website content, leveraging podcast transcripts, and balancing clarity with brand personality.

Key takeaways include:

• Why AI visitors convert at higher rates than traditional traffic
• The dramatic difference between Google queries (4.2 words) and AI prompts (23 words)
• How to audit what AI "knows" about your brand—and fix misconceptions
• Whether to sacrifice creative content for AI-friendly clarity
• Why your LinkedIn newsletter might deliver 10x more visibility than SEO

If you're wondering how to adapt your digital strategy for an AI-powered future, this conversation offers grounded, actionable insights you can implement today.

In this episode of Intended Consequences, Brian Massey sits down with Deborah O'Malley, founder of GuessTheTest.com, to explore the fast-changing world of AI in experimentation — from A/B testing myths to the ways AI is already changing how digital marketers approach conversion optimization.

People like funnels because they provide us with some sense of progress in our marketing efforts, but the marketing funnel is under attack, especially in the B2B lead generation space.

Carman Pirie (@pirie) is the co-founder of Kula Partners, an agency built to help leading manufacturers digitally transform marketing and sales to deliver more leads, close more prospects, and grow their competitive edge.

The solutions that purport to step into the funnel's place come with their own baggage. The more interactions with someone, the more likely they are to be a prospect, right? However, this approach treats the funnel more like a swarm of flies. People seem to swarm around our content until, finally, and unpredictably, they qualify for a call.

Carman believes there's something better than a funnel or a swarm, and his agency delivers that something better. 

If digital marketing is a swarm, how is a swarm of bees different than a swarm of flies? Find out from Carman on this episode of Intended Consequences. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Carman
• Learn more about Kula Partners
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Lance Loveday (@loveday) is the founder and CEO of Closed Loop, a digital advertising agency that specializes in paid media management. 

As an optimizer by nature, digital marketing comes naturally to Lance. He's analytical but also creative - he uses his left brain and his right brain. 

In this episode of Intended Consequences, we discuss the tough questions to ask when bringing on external resources to solve your most important problems. Listen in as we explore how to find an agency relationship that gives you a competitive advantage. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Lance on Twitter @loveday
• Learn more about Closed Loop
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

Chris Mercer (@merecertweets) aka 'Mercer' is not only good at analytics, but he's also good at teaching analytics. That's what he spends his days doing as the Co-Founder of Measurement Marketing.io. 

Chris and his team help people like you discover how to grow your business using tools like Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Data Studio and more. Essentially, Chris helps people get to know the numbers - to grow the numbers. 

He is genuinely excited about analytics, and Google Analytics specifically. He is infectious. So, if you listen to this episode of Intended Consequences, you might get excited about analytics, too.

How can anyone plug into Google Analytics? And where do you start?

You'll be surprised by some of Chris' answers. Listen in. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Chris on Twitter @mercertweets
• Learn more about MeasurementMarketing.io
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

"The best way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else." 

In this episode of Intended Consequences, we're talking to BJ Fogg, PhD, author and founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. His new book, "Tiny Habits," has turned business management lessons into a program for individual behavioral change.

Anyone involved in marketing is involved in what BJ calls "behavioral design." How can science change your behaviors and your marketing effectiveness?

Habits make time for themselves. Listen in. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with BJ: bjfogg.com 
• Learn more about Tiny Habits: tinyhabits.com/book
• Follow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences: https://conversionsciences.com/ 

We're told terrifying things: that people have the attention span of a goldfish, that Millennials don't read, that we only have 8 seconds to make our point. No wonder we're confused about how to communicate through copy.

However, the words we use to establish our value and persuade visitors to take action can be tested. Data to the rescue!

Olivia Ross (@ortdesign) is the Director of Conversion Rate Optimization at Directive Consulting. She is a designer turned conversion optimizer who believes that copy is at the core of any great customer journey.

How does Olivia increase conversion rates and ensure landing pages are optimized to succeed? Listen in.

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Olivia on Twitter @ortdesign
• Learn more about Directive Consulting
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

"CMOs are abdicating their strategic position in their businesses."

Just when I was marveling at how much CMOs really must do for their brands, Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing, said the above statement that stopped me in my tracks.

Laura has been focused on performance marketing and the proper use of data since before it was "cool," and if anybody knows what's going on with CMOs, it's her.

A few weeks later, I was on a panel that brought up the Fornaise Marketing Group study. This study states that of the 1,200 CEOs polled, 80% of them did not trust and were not impressed by the work done by marketers. By comparison, 90% of them trusted their CIOs and CFOs. 

I did some additional research and found more incriminating news. Forrester recently reported that "dozens" of major brands had eliminated the CMO position altogether, brands like Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, Taco Bell, and Netflix.

I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Was I part of the problem, focusing on just one channel? And why does Laura believe CMOs are losing their seat at the table in the c-suite? Listen in to find out.

Resources and links discussed:

• Connect with Laura: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurapattersonvem/ 
• Learn more about VisionEdge Marketing: https://visionedgemarketing.com/ 
• Check out the Fornaise Marketing Group study: https://www.fournaisegroup.com/ceos-do-not-trust-marketers/ 
• Follow Brian on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bmassey 
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences: https://conversionsciences.com/

There is a ceiling on your conversion rate. It's not your price. It's not your copy. It's not your form.

It's eating your website from the inside out. It's causing your SEO to atrophy. It's causing your paid search placement to drop. It's causing your visitors to bounce, and it's only getting worse as mobile traffic grows. 

What is the ceiling on your conversion rate? It may be....your page load time.

On this episode of Intended Consequences, Lukas Haensch, founder of Pathmonk and former Google performance analyst, is bringing load time down to a level that we can all understand. 

Listen in as Lukas discusses how to diagnose your site and some tactics to ask your tech team to implement to break through the ceiling. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Run a free WebPageTest report on your site 
• Check out this Google Car-Buying Process article Lukas mentioned
• Connect with Lukas
• Learn more about Pathmonk 
• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences

On this episode of Intended Consequences, host Brian Massey is pulling in Joel Harvey - Chief Operating Officer at Conversion Sciences - and they're talking website redesigns.  

In this episode, the duo is going to tell you something that may surprise you. Website redesigns don't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to push all your budget in and wait 3, or 6 or even 12 months later. 

Brian and Joel are letting you in on a little secret: slow and steady wins the [website redesign] race. If you can incrementally test your way through it over, say half a year, you'll know it's working and there won't be any doubts.

If you're contemplating a website redesign, this is a must-listen. 

Resources and links discussed:

• Follow Brian on Twitter @bmassey 
• Follow Joel on Twitter @JoelJHarvey
• Learn more about Conversion Sciences