Marketing Fix #30 | New Interview on B2B Marketing + Recent Culture Favourites

Hello marketers!

I'm making up for a 3-week break in May by sending an extra one this week.

There are two things I'm excited about and want to share with you.

Or actually, two marketing-related plus some random finds & ideas & things that made me happy this week.

🔥 12h left: Send your questions for next week's Q&A issue

The season finale of Marketing Fix on June 27 will be a Q&A special.

Submit your questions here before June 20, 23:59 CET.

⤴️ That's tonight so do it NOW. (Takes 1min).

You can ask about anything: B2B + B2C marketing, freelance life, creativity & culture, etc. etc.

Here are my 3 favourite questions this far:

1. Do you regret any "burning bridges" moments in your life, e.g. leaving Bolt at the peak of your career, saying no to freelance (money) projects to write your book, speaking out loud against something that many people disagree with?

2. When a B2B marketer tells you "we can't get any leads," what are the first audit questions and fixes you would suggest?

3. How to become more of a "generalist" marketer, the trend that tech job market is moving towards?

In case you missed it, here's the Q&A issue on freelance life from June 2024.

🦊 New interview on B2B marketing & LinkedIn ad hacks

This week, a new interview I did with the OG Estonian marketing guru Hando Sinisalu came out.

He grilled me on my decision to leave LinkedIn, and then we discussed the best practices of B2B marketing in 2025.

It's got some great questions, thoughts, and tips.

Below are 3 questions + answers from the interview. But you should really read the whole thing!

Q: Let’s talk about LinkedIn Ads. From your experience, how do they compare to other platforms like Facebook?

Well, the sad truth is most marketers will tell you the same thing: LinkedIn ads are 10x more expensive.

But as a B2B brand trying to reach decision-makers in other companies, LinkedIn might still be the most direct route—even if it’s expensive.

[...]

As to B2B advertisers considering Meta ads, think about it this way: if I go to Instagram or Facebook—or even Twitter, for that matter—I don’t want to see anything work-related.

That’s why I think Meta’s whole ad offering for B2B is inherently flawed. Sure, you can target people with specific job titles or interests, but you’re reaching them when they’re not in the work mode.

And it shows. You might technically reach your target audience, but you’re interrupting them at a moment when they’re interested in memes, friends, beauty tips, holiday ideas. They have no interest in your SaaS webinar or an enterprise-grade cybersecurity tool.

Q: From a LinkedIn advertising perspective—can a brand actually run ads from personal profiles?

Yes! And it works really well for some companies.

Look at Instantly, for example—one of the most successful Estonian startups in recent years. They’ve built this killer ambassador program. Tons of LinkedIn creators post about them: videos, tutorials, reviews.

If you check their ad library, you’ll see many of those ambassador posts being used as paid ads. That’s a smart play.

Q: Other brands are doing the same?

For sure. Hotspot, Shopify, and Ahrefs all do it.

Ahrefs is a great example. Their CMO regularly posts on LinkedIn, and the brand promotes his posts instead of publishing branded ones. It feels more authentic, and people trust it more.

Q: Speaking of engagement—what do you think of the strategy where the sales team follows up with everyone who liked a corporate ad?

I’ve heard about that one. The idea is that if someone liked your ad, they’re “warm,” so you send them a message or email. But honestly? I’m skeptical.

Why would anyone like a branded ad on LinkedIn? I mean, people do it, sure. You’ll see hundreds of likes on some posts. But who are these people?

Q: Okay. Finally, I’d ask for your recommendation—reading or listening or following—about marketing. Not fine arts.

(laughs) Yeah, otherwise we’ll end up with a really quirky list of, like, Black Mountain poets and obscure Substacks.

...

To find out what "about marketing" recommendations I gave, read the full interview here.

🪡 Needles in a haystack

Things that cut through the internet noise + what I've been reading, listening, watching, liking, thinking.

As I'm taking a break from LinkedIn – and new marketing-related content in general – today's selection will be a hedonistic & cultural one.

🪡 Film rec: All the Vermeers in New York. Recently, my film-buff friends have been raving about the US film director Jon Jost. Being someone who watches max 6 films per year, I was glad to have seen Jost's 1990 masterpiece on Mubi some years ago. The film has been hailed as an equal to Rohmer's romanticised depictions of common people lives. It's really, really good.

Looking for a streaming service to re-watch it, I found none available in the UK. But then (!!) I found the full-length film free on YouTube. Winning in life.

🪡 Art rec: Ithell Colquhoun exhibition at Tate Britain. Last Friday, after tapping the "Send" button on this newsletter, I took a train to West London to see the newly-opened exhibition of the 20th century surrealist painter Ithell Colquhoun.

My favourite exhibit was a long wall covered in her occultist Tarot deck, featuring cards w/ titles such as "The Lord of Earned Success" and "The Lord of Unstable Effort."

🪡 Book rec: Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon + Nabokov's memoirs as an audiobook

Monday evening, as I returned from a walk in the park listening to Nabokov's memoirs as audiobook, I stood in front of my bookshelf figuring out what to read. (I've only read less than 50% of the books on my shelves – it's an endless battle of purpose and excitement...)

I picked Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon, whose book Essayism is one of my all-time favourite non-fiction books. SaS features a series of essays prompted by a single sentence the author admired – from Shakespeare to Gertrude Stein. I read the chapters on Roland Barthes and Elizabeth Hardwick and felt blissful and brimming w/ inspiration.

PS The publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions is having a site-wide 30% OFF summer sale right now.

🪡 Essay rec: "The Reenchanted World" by Karl Ove Knausgaard

I haven't read any of the Norwegian writer's hyper-popular memoirs (which I've heard are great, but I'm just not that interested in other people's lives – unless they're Nabokov).

But Knausgaard's essay on the our disassociation from the real, living world in the age of digitalisation, in the latest issue of Harper's I found absolutely brilliant. Below's a passage to give you a taste.

"Now that voice [inhuman, auto-generated voice] is everywhere. On trains and subways, planes and ferries, and at home in people’s living rooms, and even though it is warmer and individualized and more humanlike, it comes from the same place: it is dead matter speaking with our voice. And if I were forced to mention the most distinctive feature of our time, it would be precisely that: everything addresses us. The products in the supermarket, the self-checkout machines there, the games on the computers, the dashboard in the car, the kitchen appliances, the billboard screens in the cities, the feeds on Instagram and Spotify and Facebook, the algorithms on Amazon, not to mention all the online newspapers and magazines, podcasts and series."

🪡 Consumer rec: Rainier cherries, any cherries

It's finally the season of huge, lush, plump cherries. Here in London, if one passes enough grocery stores, it's possible to find the imports from Spain, Hungary, Greece, Poland, France, as well as locally grown berries.

This week, I spotted my favourite variety: the yellow-red Rainier variety. A favourite not only because of their superior beauty and mild flavour, but because one of my most cherished paintings in the Louvre features a pearly bowl teeming w/ them. "Coupe de cerises, prunes et melon" (ca 1633) was painted by by the French still life connoisseuse Louise Moillon, and lies somewhat hidden away in the 3rd floor of Sully wing. Go find it if you can.