Mike Canarelli

AI-driven discovery is starting to create real commercial value, but many businesses are still approaching it like traditional SEO. For WTM, that creates an opportunity to help brands rethink how customers discover, evaluate, and choose their services. Showing up in AI recommendations takes more than ranking on Google. Businesses need clear website content, credible information, and direct answers to the questions potential customers are asking. Their digital presence needs to make it easy for AI platforms to understand what they offer and who they serve. WTM can help businesses adapt their digital marketing strategies before AI discovery becomes more competitive. The brands investing in visibility now have a chance to get ahead while others are still catching up. performancemarketingworld.co…

Digital marketing is moving beyond getting found on Google. As AI platforms start acting like personal concierges, brands need to show up in the recommendations and answers that influence what people do next. For WTM, this means helping businesses rethink their content, SEO, and digital presence for a world where customers increasingly rely on AI to research options and make decisions. Clear information and credible content will matter just as much as traditional search rankings. The goal is to make sure your business is part of the consideration process before a potential customer ever visits your website. Visibility is evolving, and marketing strategies need to evolve with it. performancemarketingworld.co…

An iced coffee at a job interview somehow became a viral debate. That’s a pretty good reminder for marketers: the smallest, most ordinary behaviors can become surprisingly powerful cultural moments. People don't share a discussion about interview etiquette because they care deeply about coffee. They share it because they recognize themselves in it, have an opinion, or want to argue with someone who does. That tension is what gives a tiny idea legs. For brands, there’s something useful here. The next big piece of cultural relevance may not start with a massive campaign. It could start with a very ordinary behavior that people suddenly realize they have an opinion about. hr-brew.com/stories/iced-cof…

AI is making competent content easy to produce. That means originality is becoming a competitive advantage. When every brand can publish polished answers to the same questions, the brands people remember are the ones with something real to say. The most valuable insights often already exist inside a business, in customer experiences, employee expertise, and lessons learned firsthand. The challenge is getting those perspectives into the content people actually see. searchengineland.com/human-e…

First-party data is becoming more valuable when customers get something useful in return. The strongest data strategies create a clear exchange rather than asking people to fill out another form. At WTM, that means thinking beyond lead volume. The goal is better information about who is actually interested, so marketing dollars can be focused on higher-value prospects. Better data should lead to better decisions, not simply bigger databases. When the information is useful and actionable, marketing becomes more efficient. martech.org/how-to-maximize-…

AI is making search more contextual, which means showing up for the right keyword may not be enough. Brands need to understand what people are actually looking for and why. As platforms like Google bring advertising into personalized AI search, businesses need to rethink how their content answers customer needs and how they measure performance. Visibility matters, but it needs to translate into meaningful action. WTM Digital helps connect discoverability with business outcomes. As AI changes how people find and evaluate brands, the focus should be on reaching the right audience, delivering relevant content, and measuring what drives leads and revenue. searchengineland.com/google-…

More traffic won’t fix a broken customer journey. If the experience after the click creates friction, more media spend simply creates more expensive drop-off. At WTM, this is why marketing performance has to connect the full path from acquisition to conversion. The audience, message, landing experience, and follow-through all need to work together. The best place to look for growth may be the traffic you’re already paying for. Fix the journey before increasing the budget. Full piece: thedrum.com/opinion/cro-may-…

AI is changing how people discover products, but being recommended by a tool doesn't guarantee a sale. Consumers still need a reason to trust a brand before they're ready to buy. That means brands need to think about how they show up in AI-driven search while making sure their content gives people useful, credible information. Visibility gets a brand considered, but trust helps move a customer toward a purchase. WTM Digital works at the intersection of discoverability and performance. As AI reshapes the path to purchase, brands need a strategy that connects being found with turning that attention into measurable business results. performancemarketingworld.co…

Performance marketing is moving from automating tasks to automating decisions. That changes what good marketing looks like because the system needs to understand the business goal, not just optimize a single metric. For WTM, that means looking beyond clicks, leads, and conversion rates. Marketing performance has to connect back to revenue, customer quality, and what actually moves the business forward. The value of AI will come from giving it the right context and clear boundaries. More automation is useful. Better decisions are what matter.

Not every conversion starts with a search. A customer might discover a brand on social media, remember it days later, and eventually search for it when they're ready to buy. That’s why digital marketing works best when channels support each other. Social content builds awareness and familiarity, while search helps capture demand when someone is ready to take action. For WTM Digital, the focus is on understanding how these channels work together to drive results. Measuring clicks and conversions matters, but understanding what influenced the decision gives brands a clearer picture of what’s working.

More automation in marketing means less room for sloppy measurement. As platforms take more control over targeting and spend, businesses need to be sharper about where their budget is going and what it’s actually producing. That matters at WTM because marketing performance ultimately needs to connect to revenue. Clicks and cheap leads don't mean much if they don't turn into qualified opportunities and customers. The more control platforms take, the more important it is to have clean data, clear KPIs, and a close eye on what’s driving real business results. searchengineland.com/google-…

Advertising is moving closer to the moment when people are actually paying attention. Netflix bringing Pause Ads into programmatic buying is another example of platforms giving marketers more control over when and who sees an ad. That makes audience data and creative context more important. Reaching the right person is only part of the equation. The message has to make sense for the moment it appears. performancemarketingworld.co…

Nike’s challenge isn’t finding the next athlete, campaign, or product. It’s making sure the brand still has a clear reason to matter to the customer. That applies well beyond sportswear. Brands can have massive reach and still lose relevance when the customer experience, product, and message stop moving together. WTM Digital sees this in the way businesses approach digital marketing. Attention only goes so far. The website, content, and customer experience have to reinforce why someone should choose the brand and come back. performancemarketingworld.co…

AI can get a brand in front of someone, but discovery alone does not create a customer. If people are finding brands through AI and not sticking with them, the gap is happening after the click. That puts more pressure on the experience that follows discovery. Your website, content, positioning, and follow-up all need to reinforce why someone should choose you, not just make sure they can find you. That is where WTM Digital spends a lot of time. AI discoverability matters, but it has to connect to a digital experience that builds trust and gives people a reason to come back. performancemarketingworld.co…

AI is changing how quickly brands can test, learn, and improve their advertising. The companies that benefit most will be the ones that can connect creative, performance, and distribution data without adding more complexity. That is where WTM Digital fits. We help businesses build the digital infrastructure around their marketing so paid media, content, SEO, and analytics are working from the same strategy. More AI-generated creative is only useful if the underlying system can turn that volume into better decisions. The technology is moving fast. The infrastructure behind it needs to keep up. performancemarketingworld.co…

I’m starting to think physical presence is becoming one of the most underused parts of a modern marketing strategy. Digital gives brands scale, but it’s getting harder to stand out when everyone is producing more content and more ads. There’s still something different about experiencing a brand in the real world. An event, retail experience, billboard, or activation can create something people remember and then carry that experience back into their digital lives. That’s something we think about at WTM Digital. The strongest digital strategy doesn’t have to live entirely online. Sometimes the best content starts with something people actually experienced.

Marketing gets expensive when you can't clearly connect spend to results. As channels multiply and AI adds even more noise, attribution needs to be treated as a business system, not a reporting exercise. If you can't trust the numbers, you're making budget decisions with incomplete information. That also changes how agencies should be measured. Clients are going to expect clearer connections between the work, the spend, and the business outcome. The agencies that can create that clarity will have a much stronger case for the dollars they manage. performancemarketingworld.co…

A channel that performs well today can still be the wrong place to put the next dollar. Every marketing channel has a point where more spend produces less incremental value. The mistake is treating strong performance as proof that a channel can keep absorbing budget. Good growth planning means knowing where a channel starts to plateau and having the next lever ready before you hit it. That takes more discipline than simply putting more money behind what is already working. performancemarketingworld.co…

I’ve never understood the idea that every company needs the same marketing package. Four blog posts, three social posts, and a monthly report might look tidy on a proposal, but it doesn't tell you whether those things will actually solve the client's problem. One company may need basic reporting and a clear foundation. Another may need to untangle a much bigger technical or growth issue. Good agency work starts with figuring out where the business is and what it's trying to accomplish. You’re not buying a set number of deliverables. You’re bringing in people to solve a problem, and that takes accountability on both sides.

The size of an agency doesn't tell you much about the experience a client is going to have. I’d rather work with a senior group of people who know the business, understand the history, and can make decisions without everything moving through layers of account management. When someone leaves, that experience also stays inside the agency, which makes it much easier to keep the client moving. Experience matters when you're scoping work, setting expectations, and spending someone else's money. You shouldn't have to pay for someone to learn the basics on your account.