The Dave Gerhardt Show (from Exit Five)

#356 | Dave sits down with Brett Domeny, product lead at Webflow focused on AEO, to talk about what it actually takes to show up in AI search. Brett breaks down Webflow's AEO maturity model — four core areas that actually matter: content, technical structure, authority, and measurement — and why most of AEO is just good SEO done right. They get into how LLM crawlers work and what your site needs to do to be discoverable, why Reddit and community platforms have outsized influence on AI citations, and how to measure whether any of it is working.

Check out Webflow's free AEO assessment here.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro and Brett's background

(02:00) - - The state of search and why CMOs are worried

(04:00) - - Webflow's AEO maturity model

(05:30) - - Why AEO is an evolution of SEO, not a replacement

(06:30) - - Technical: how LLM crawlers work

(16:00) - - Content: optimize for questions, not keywords

(19:00) - - Does authentic content still win in an AI world?

(26:00) - - Measurement: the three-bucket framework

(30:00) - - How accurate are the prompt visibility tools?

(37:00) - - How to show your boss AEO is working

(40:00) - - Authority: why Reddit has outsized influence on AI citations

(43:00) - - Why Brett has stayed at Webflow for six years

#355 | Dave sits down with Maria Scheifler to talk about why your marketing team might be getting less done as it grows — and what to do about it. Maria makes the case for running marketing like a product team: two-week sprints, a prioritized backlog, and a lightweight intake process that kills approval bottlenecks without losing control. She walks through the context-switching exercise that proves multitasking is destroying your output, how to push back on random requests from across the company without saying no, and why getting team buy-in before rolling out any operational changes is the step most marketing leaders skip.

Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro: the problem isn't your strategy, it's your operating system

(04:38) - - Maria's background

(07:38) - - Why teams get bigger and somehow get less done

(10:07) - - The multitasking exercise that proves context switching kills output

(17:36) - - Running marketing like a product team: the mindset shift

(20:24) - - Building a working agreement with your team

(22:56) - - The experimentation guardrail template: killing approval bottlenecks without losing control

(28:26) - - Building a prioritized backlog

(32:47) - - How the backlog helps you push back without saying no

(39:36) - - Two-week sprints: how to plan, commit, and ship

(41:48) - - Daily standups: how to keep them short and useful

(42:39) - - Sprint reviews: showing the rest of the company what marketing does

(44:20) - - Retrospectives

(46:19) - - Where to start on Monday

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.
Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get on the waitlist for their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
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#354 | Sue (Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Monarch Money), Jonathan (VP of Marketing, Seamless.AI), and Naomi (Senior Product Marketing Manager, Customer.io) join Dan for a live Exit Five session on customer marketing. Sue breaks down how Monarch discovered that the best time to promote their referral program was during trial and the data behind a 64% lift in referral shares and half a million dollars in incremental ARR. Jonathan shares how Seamless.AI stopped treating customer engagement like a campaign and built a full 365-day behavioral program, including an AI chatbot that deflected 55% of support tickets and live trainings that flattened their churn curve. Then Naomi walks through how she uses plain-text emails asking for replies to close the feedback loop on new features and shape the product roadmap.

Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro

(07:15) - - Sue: Why the best time to promote a referral program is during trial, not after

(10:15) - - The results: 64% lift in referral shares and $500K in incremental ARR

(17:15) - - Sue's background: 16 years in lifecycle marketing from online dating to Calm to Monarch

(20:15) - - Jonathan: Stopping treating customer engagement like a campaign

(26:15) - - Building a 365-day behavioral multi-channel customer engagement program

(27:15) - - The AI chatbot that deflected 55% of support tickets

(35:20) - - Live customer training 4x a week and how it flattened the churn curve

(40:20) - - Growth plays for NRR: marketing to users inside existing accounts

(42:20) - - Jonathan's results: 24% decrease in cancellations year over year

(43:20) - - Naomi: Using lifecycle marketing to close the product feedback loop

(49:20) - - The MCP server onboarding flow and why she asks for replies instead of clicks

(56:20) - - Using beta email campaigns to shape the product roadmap

(59:20) - - Live Q&A

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.
Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get on the waitlist for their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#353 | Tara (CMO, Optimizely), Julia (Director of AI Adoption, Optimizely), Lily (CMO, Three Play Media), Pejman (CMO, Menlo Security), and Kevin (CMO, CompTIA) join Dave for a live Exit Five session on how real marketing teams are actually using AI right now. Lily shows how she replaced two BDR headcount with a HubSpot prospecting agent and went from an 18% to 46% response rate on inbound leads. Julia walks through how Optimizely's marketing team embedded AI agents directly into their content workflow, from briefing to brand voice checking to traffic monitoring, without anyone having to leave the platform. Pejman shares the framework his team uses to map workflows and find the highest-ROI AI opportunities, plus a custom brand tone tool that turns hours of manual review into minutes. And Kevin talks through what it actually looks like to lead an AI culture change on a small team with limited resources.

Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro

(06:55) - - Guest intros: Tara, Julia, Lily, Pejman, and Kevin

(12:04) - - Tara on why AI adoption needs an internal owner and how to govern it without squashing enthusiasm

(15:02) - - Lily: why their first AI initiative failed and what they did differently

(17:15) - - How Lovable kicked off team-wide AI excitement at Three Play Media

(19:37) - - Lily's HubSpot prospecting agent: 18% to 46% response rate on inbound leads

(23:19) - - Julia: embedding AI agents into Optimizely's content workflow

(31:20) - - Using AI to monitor content performance and auto-assign optimization work

(33:24) - - Pejman: mapping workflows to find the highest-ROI AI opportunities

(35:55) - - Building a brand tone checker that scores and rewrites content against brand guidelines

(39:55) - - Kevin: making AI a mandate on a small team and building a culture of learning

(44:06) - - Group Q&A: optimizing spend vs. shipping faster, budget shifts, and new KPIs

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/
***
Brought to you by:
Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive, or check out the MCP server by clicking this link.
Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get on the waitlist for their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand generation agency that helps high-growth cybersecurity, DevOps, and enterprise software companies drive more pipeline through AI SEO, paid media, and go-to-market engineering. Visit compoundgrowthmarketing.com and tell them Dave sent you.

***
Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.
They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.
Visit hatch.fm to learn more

#352 | Dave sits down with Uzair Dada, CEO of Iron Horse, to talk about why most B2B companies are overcomplicating their marketing and what to do instead. Uzair breaks down his three-part growth framework — get discovered, get chosen, close — and explains why most companies are wasting the majority of their ad budget targeting the wrong audience entirely. He also gets into how to actually show up in AI search, why brand vs. demand is a false choice marketers invented to argue about, and how he blocks every Friday afternoon to build with AI. Then they get into what AI adoption really looks like inside enterprise companies, and why taste and judgment are becoming the only true differentiators left.

Check out Webflow's free AEO assessment here.
Timestamps

(00:00) - - Intro

(03:17) - - Running the same agency for 26 years and why AI makes it exciting again

(06:19) - - Why Uzair blocks Friday afternoons from 2-7 to build with AI

(11:13) - - How a personal prep tool became a company-wide account dossier app

(15:34) - - The leadership meeting habit that drove AI adoption across the org

(17:35) - - Are marketers going away? The case for taste and judgment

(25:02) - - Why brand vs. demand is a false choice

(26:29) - - Get discovered, get chosen, close: a simpler B2B growth framework

(28:03) - - The company targeting a million people when their real audience was 20,000

(34:52) - - The real bottleneck to AI in enterprise isn't the tech, it's governance

(41:46) - - AEO: start with your Gong call transcripts, not a new tool

(44:28) - - Why the second query matters more than the first in AI search