Digital Marketing, SEO, Analytics, and Software Reviews

With 25+ years in digital marketing, Marketing With Dave focuses on discovering, measuring, and optimizing every aspect of it.

Marketing Tools Spotlight

My current top picks from everything I’ve been reviewing and testing.🔥 On My Radar → and view all reviews and comparisons →

Comparison chart of social media management software showing costs over three years, highlighting SocialBu's affordable lifetime deal and other options like Buffer and Hootsuite.
After years of searching, I found my long-term solution. I use SocialBu every day.
TidyCal scheduling software interface showing calendar, booking options, and features like unlimited bookings and integrations, promoting easy calendar management.
Book meetings and accept payments for $29 lifetime, with no monthly subscription.
Compare four lifetime deals and find the AI Search Visibility tool that best fits your needs.
Latest Analysis and Articles
LinkedIn profile optimization tips from Marketing with Dave, including how to fix, get trusted, and contact for career success.
Your LinkedIn Profile Mastered

Get found. Build trust. Create opportunities.
Available in Kindle (ebook), paperback, and audiobook formats.
Learn how to improve your LinkedIn profile in about an hour with 17 practical improvements based on a real job search after 25+ years in digital marketing.
Step-by-step guidance to help you make the right changes the first time and build a profile that attracts recruiters, strengthens your personal brand, and creates new opportunities.

Looking for your next marketing read? Check out my 2026 Marketing Book Releases Worth Checking Out collection on Amazon.

October Focus: Content Marketing

October focuses on content marketing: creating something worth someone’s attention.

We talk about audiences, traffic, followers, and reach. But every piece of content is read by one person at a time. Start there.

Good content answers a question, solves a problem, teaches something useful, or gives someone a reason to think differently. It is created for people first, not for algorithms, search engines, or publishing calendars.

And it keeps working. One useful article can rank in search, surface in an AI answer, fuel your social posts, anchor an email campaign, and help a future customer decide. The goal is not more content. It is content worth finding, worth reading, and worth remembering.

If you missed past content or want to revisit a topic, check out the Content Calendar. Explore the insights below, and please share your thoughts.

This Month

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🧭 Start here

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          📚 Book Summaries

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            Marketing with Dave: Marketing book summaries with 30+ book breakdowns and practical takeaways, featuring top marketing books for digital marketing success.

            Week in Review

            This week's stories center on AI becoming a bigger commercial layer for marketers. OpenAI expanded ChatGPT ads to 26 more countries and 89 markets, with more than 100,000 advertisers now running campaigns, while also bringing its models and Codex tools to Google Cloud. MarketingSherpa's AEO research showed transparency, source attribution, and customer language helping brands earn AI citations and calls, though measurement remains directional. Google refreshed its documentation on controlling what appears in Search, and forum reports of an unconfirmed October update left site owners comparing Search, Discover, and News data. Meta added creative-level audience signals to its Marketing API, Shopify began taxing return shipping fees, and Cleverbridge and Ascend2 research found buyers increasingly comfortable with self-serve software purchases. Across these developments, marketers face a familiar challenge: test new AI channels while protecting attribution, trust, and control.

            AI Update, October 23, 2026: OpenAI Brings Its Models and Codex to Google Cloud

            Technology and AI • October 23, 2026

            OpenAI is bringing its models and Codex tools to Google Cloud, making them available on all three major US clouds. Customers can buy them through Model Garden and Marketplace using existing cloud commitments, with general availability expected within weeks. Teams already standardized on Google Cloud may find procurement easier. The same issue reports that OpenAI treats in-person field marketing as its strongest enterprise channel and slots launches into a fixed calendar.

            Shopify Tax Will Now Tax Return Shipping Fees in the United States

            Digital Marketing • October 22, 2026

            Starting October 23, 2026, Shopify Tax and Tax Platform will automatically tax return shipping fees like other US shipping charges. Merchants who charge customers for return labels should expect tax to appear on those fees without manual changes. Review return policy copy, refund flows, and accounting reconciliation so customer-facing totals and reports stay consistent.

            ChatGPT Ads Expand to 26 More Countries, Reaching 89 Markets

            Technology and AI • October 21, 2026

            OpenAI announced that ChatGPT ads are expanding to 26 more countries, bringing availability to 89 markets. More than 100,000 advertisers have run ads, up from 20,000 in August. Ads show only to Free and Go users, and buying runs through technology partners or self-service Ads Manager. New visual ads tied to image generation start in the US later this month with limited advertisers. International marketers should treat this as a separate test channel.

            View the full weekly digital marketing news digest →