Digital Marketing, SEO, Analytics, and Software Reviews

Explore practical digital marketing strategies, AI insights, and software reviews backed by 25+ years of experience and real-world testing.

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.
Marketing with Dave promotes WP Captcha for spam protection on WordPress forms, highlighting features like 8 CAPTCHA methods, affordable pricing, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Stop WordPress form spam with WP Captcha. Just $49 for lifetime protection on 3 sites.
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.

November Focus: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

November focuses on artificial intelligence (AI), not as a replacement for judgment, but as a force multiplier for it.

AI accelerates research, surfaces ideas, analyzes data, and clears repetitive work. Speed alone isn’t progress. More content, more reports, and more campaigns deliver little value without purpose, accuracy, and relevance.

The real edge isn’t doing the same work faster. It’s rethinking the work itself, spotting higher-value problems and creating space for sharper decisions and more meaningful customer experiences.

AI still requires direction, context, and human judgment. The advantage won’t go to those who use it the most. It will go to those who use it best.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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            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 show AI search reshaping both visibility and monetization. Semrush, SE Ranking, and seoClarity data indicates AI Overviews now appear on over 80% of Google searches, while a small opt-out study estimated a 0.9% click-through rate on AI impressions and found that opting out also reduced regular organic clicks. Google adopted a shared AI training preference signal for robots.txt, planned for early 2027. On Alphabet's Q3 call, Google said AI Mode monetizes at a lower rate than traditional Search and is scaling ads across AI Overviews and AI Mode, as ad revenue reached $82.01 billion, up 10.6% but below estimates. Microsoft reported revenue up 19% and Azure up 48%. In strategy commentary, an Aampe executive argued static segments are obsolete but segmentation still matters, and a MarketingProfs piece urged B2B marketers to use narrative power responsibly. Across these developments, marketers face a familiar challenge: adapt to AI-driven search and ad formats while protecting measurement, control, and trust.

            Google Adopts Shared AI Training Control for robots.txt

            Technology and AI • October 30, 2026

            Google will adopt an IETF-backed AI training preference signal, following Bing, OpenAI and Anthropic. Publishers can set one policy token in robots.txt instead of listing each AI developer separately. Google plans support in early 2027 and will read the token as a Google-Extended disallow when that agent is not specified. Site owners should audit robots.txt now and decide their opt-out stance.

            Small Opt-Out Study Puts AI Overviews and AI Mode CTR at 0.9%

            Marketing and SEO • October 30, 2026

            A small case study by Cyrus Shepard estimated a 0.9% click-through rate on impressions in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Opting the site out of the AI features also lowered regular organic clicks, hinting at a halo effect from AI citations. AI impressions were about 8% of the total. The sample is limited, so treat it as directional before changing opt-out settings.

            Google Says AI Mode Monetizes Less, While Scaling Ads Across It

            Digital Marketing • October 29, 2026

            On Alphabet's Q3 call, Google's Philipp Schindler said AI Mode monetizes at a lower rate than traditional Search, even as query growth is strong. Google is scaling ads within AI Overviews and AI Mode to more users and queries. He said click-through rates on sponsored and organic product list items in AI Mode are already similar. Advertisers should prepare for broader ad inventory there.

            View the full weekly digital marketing news digest →