Ahrefs Podcast

What does it actually cost to run a world-class marketing conference? Try up to $950,000 for a single event — and Ahrefs aims to break even on every one of them. In this candid conversation, Tim Soulo and Jacque Aboubakr open the books on Ahrefs Evolve, revealing exact budgets, the three biggest expense lines (hotel room minimums, AV/LED screens, and fabrication), and why they pour every ticket do...

Why does Coca-Cola spend millions on advertising when everyone already knows their brand? Professor Byron Sharp reveals that even the world’s most famous brands face a shocking reality: most of their customers hardly ever buy them. The biggest group of Coke buyers? People who drink it just once a year. Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at t...

A gym franchise creates workout content like everyone else in their category — and sees zero brand awareness gains. Sound familiar? Michael Corcoran, the mastermind who drove 2 billion organic impressions in 18 months at Ryanair (with zero paid media), reveals why most brands are failing at social media by copying tactics without understanding strategy. Michael Corcoran is the former head of socia...

Marketers who still manually analyze Reddit threads for content ideas are missing out on AI agents that can scan thousands of forum posts in under 30 seconds. Glen Allsopp, Head of Marketing Strategy and Research at Ahrefs, demonstrates how he's built custom AI applications that save hours of repetitive work — from automated competitor link analysis to personalized task managers that cost less...

Swearing on sales calls can boost win rates by up to 8% — that's just one of the counterintuitive insights that helped Gong grow from 11 customers to over $300M in annual revenue. Udi Ledergor joined Gong as employee #13 and marketer #1, eventually becoming CMO and now Chief Evangelist. His data-driven content marketing approach turned proprietary sales call analytics into viral marketing gold...

Most writers can barely publish one article per week — but what if AI could help you draft 30 articles in less time? Ryan Law has cracked the code with an automated content pipeline that’s already producing high-quality articles for the Ahrefs blog in just 8–12 minutes each. Ryan Law is Head of Marketing at Ahrefs and has spent years refining AI-powered content workflows. He’s built an intricate s...

Most SEO tools are playing catch-up with AI search while their users wonder if traditional keyword tracking even matters anymore. Tim Soulo tackles your burning questions about how Ahrefs is navigating this shift, revealing that Content Explorer is their most underrated feature despite being 10x less popular than Site Audit. Tim Soulo is the CMO at Ahrefs, one of the industry's most comprehens...

One of Deadpan Agency's comedy campaigns paid for the entire production cost within a single episode — and went on to influence 12 additional client deals. Luke Winter didn't get there by making polished corporate videos. He got there by making B2B brands funny. Luke is the founder and creative director of Deadpan Agency, a London-based studio specializing in comedy video for SaaS and tech compani...

ZoomInfo powers the world's outbound prospecting — and gets the majority of its own new business from inbound. Tal Raz, ZoomInfo's CMO, explains the flywheel behind a $1.2B ARR go-to-market machine. Tal is a nine-year veteran of ZoomInfo who joined as a marketing analyst and built her way to the C-suite by obsessing over funnel gaps, data quality, and campaign execution. She now leads a ~1...

Gamma is everywhere right now. With viral videos starring Rainn Wilson, massive drone shows over San Francisco, and a valuation of $2.1 billion, this AI startup has mastered the art of capturing attention in a crowded market. But behind these huge stunts is a surprisingly small, scrappy team using a very specific playbook to punch way above their weight class. My guest today is Kristin Fracchia, t...

Most marketers use AI to write generic emails. Kieran Flanagan used it to increase sales meetings by 30% and build a “Chief of Staff” that manages his 350-person team. Kieran is the SVP of Marketing at HubSpot, where he has helped scale the company from 250 to over 7,000 employees. He is also the co-host of the popular “Marketing Against the Grain” podcast. In other words, Kieran doesn’t just theo...

Is SEO actually dying, or are you just listening to the wrong people? While the media claims that AI is causing a 25% traffic collapse, data from 40,000 of the largest websites in the U.S. tells a completely different story. In this episode, Ethan Smith (CEO of Graphite) joins Tim Soulo to perform SEO Necromancy — resurrecting search from the dead by debunking the biggest myths in the industry. Et...

Early-stage marketing is often a race for reach, but Jay Acunzo argues that resonance is the only metric that actually moves the needle in 2026. Jay is the former Head of Content at HubSpot and Google, a world-renowned keynote speaker, and an expert in storytelling. He has helped countless brands find their "Premise"—the distinct point of view that makes them irreplaceable in a sea of commodities....

AI is already better at writing than 90% of people. It’s faster, cheaper, and never gets writer’s block. Yet, most companies that try to fully automate their content end up with "AI slop" that tanks their engagement. Meet Neville Medhora, the founder of Copywriting Course and SwipeFile.com. As an "OG blogger" who started in 1999 and a mentor to many top marketers, Neville has a...

Is Your Marketing Career Safe from AI? Ryan Law’s 6-Point Defense Plan Sam Altman predicts that 95% of what marketers do will eventually be handled by AI, and Microsoft claims that copywriters are at the top of the replacement list. So, is your marketing career in trouble? To answer this, we sat down with Ryan Law, our Director of Content Marketing. Ryan’s been experimenting with AI since the GPT-...

Clay went from zero revenue to a 3.1 billion dollar valuation in just 2 years. Was it luck, skill, or are they just riding the AI hype bubble? Meet Bruno Estrella, the Head of Marketing at Clay. He joined when the company was just 20 people and helped build one of the most effective partner and community-led marketing engines in SaaS. In this episode, Bruno reveals Clay’s full growth playbook, fro...

Influencer marketing might be the most hyped growth channel right now. But here’s the problem: most companies are burning money on it. How do you know which influencers are legit and which ones are just gaming the system before you waste your budget? Meet Jeremy Boissinot, founder of Favicon, an influencer marketing platform that has analyzed over 500,000 LinkedIn creators to understand the data s...

If you want your brand to show up in ChatGPT, do you follow the same rules as ranking in Google—or is it a completely different game? To settle the debate, we brought in Patrick Stox , one of the most experienced SEO professionals in the industry. Patrick’s been tracking the rise of “Answer Engine Optimization” (AEO) and has strong opinions about the advice new experts are spreading. In this episo...

AI search is exploding — and everyone wants to teach you how to show up in ChatGPT. But in this new “Wild West,” who can you actually trust? Meet Ryan Law , Ahrefs’ Director of Content Marketing. Ryan and his team have carried out some of the largest studies on AI search, backed by millions of data points, to understand what actually works when it comes to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) . If you...

Employee-generated content isn’t just a trend — it’s the future of marketing. In this episode of the Ahrefs Podcast, we dive deep into the world of Employee Generated Content (EGC) and short-form social video with Melissa Laurie, founder and CEO of Oysterly Media. Discover why authentic, employee-created video content published on brand channels is quickly becoming essential for companies that wan...

AI Overviews are changing search — but not in the way Google wants you to think. In this episode of the Ahrefs Podcast, Tim Soulo sits down with Kevin Indig to discuss the real impact of AI on search behavior, website traffic, and SEO strategy. Kevin analyzed over 5 billion search visits and found that while people are searching more often, they’re spending less time per session — and zero-click s...

Emily Kramer (Founder of MKT1 and the Dear Marketers podcast) has led marketing teams at Asana , Carta , and Astro (acquired by Slack). After working in-house, she became an advisor, consulting with B2B startup founders on marketing approaches across growth stages, audiences, and GTM motions. She’s seen it all. We chatted about positioning fundamentals , product vs. content marketing , the growing...

Tim Soulo posted on LinkedIn asking if anyone wanted the full breakdown of the publishing process behind Ahrefs’ AI-written articles that actually ranked. Over 400 people commented “do it.” This episode is the result. Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs, walks Tim through the entire AI content workflow he built — from crafting detailed briefs to editing hallucinated links. It’s not a...

Is your marketing stuck in “competent” mode? In a world where AI can generate endless content, being good isn’t good enough anymore. In this episode, Tim Soulo sits down with best-selling author and marketing futurist Mark Schaefer to unpack why most marketing feels flat — and how to fix it. Drawing from his book Audacious , Mark makes the case for out-humaning the machines: creating content that’...

Chris Cunningham, founding member of ClickUp, reveals the social media strategy that drives a staggering 150M monthly impressions. This is *the* exact strategy that's also attracted major clients like VaynerMedia (yes, GaryVee literally found them through social media). Grab your notes. 📝 Chris shares his contrarian take on hooks and pattern interrupts, explains why hiring LA actors is a no-b...