Douglas Karr's Articles on Martech Zone
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Scary… What Retail Marketers Can Learn from 2024’s Record-Breaking Holiday Spending!
Halloween has become one of retail’s most profitable and dynamic seasons—no longer a single night of costumes and candy, but a multi-week celebration that engages nearly every consumer segment. The 2024 season set new records in participation, décor sales, and…
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Marketing and Diversity: Building Authentic Connections, Not Virtue Signals
Diversity in marketing is not a moral obligation, nor is it a universal necessity for every company. It’s a matter of value. If your brand, product, or service has relevance to communities you haven’t yet reached, then diversity becomes a…
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Why Human Creativity Is the Most Critical Talent in the AI Age of Marketing
We’ve entered an era where artificial intelligence ( AI ) has drastically lowered the barrier to entry for marketing. What once required teams of analysts, copywriters, and designers can now be done in minutes by a solo operator with access…
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Measuring Performance: Google Ad vs Facebook Ad Benchmarks in 2025
If you’re running digital ad campaigns on Google or Facebook, knowing how your results stack up to industry benchmarks is essential. Not only does it help validate your strategy, but it also reveals opportunities to refine targeting, messaging, and budget…
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How Publishers Can Protect Themselves from Modern Malvertising Scams
The email lands in your inbox: Major brand CPM, go live today. The sender’s domain is unfamiliar, but the offer sounds lucrative. They’re offering premium rates, a fast turnaround, and a recognizable brand. You hesitate for a moment, but the…
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Will We Ever Return to Building Our Own Computers? Framework Gives Me Hope
I began my digital career by connecting PCs to PLCs and networking the devices to retrieve performance data for preventive maintenance routines. Back then, building a PC was part art, part obsession, part continual discovery. You’d choose your case, pick…
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Unlocking Marketing Effectiveness With Scalable Measurement
Marketing’s value has often been difficult to quantify, but that challenge is no longer something marketers can sidestep. With customer journeys spanning numerous channels, privacy regulations reshaping data access, and finance leaders demanding accountability for every dollar, measurement has evolved…
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The Power Of Simplicity: Why Less Is So Hard To Master
In nearly every corner of business, 1 the winning strategy. It reduces friction, speeds up decision-making, increases adoption, and fosters trust. Yet, despite all this evidence, most organizations tend to drift toward complexity. We add features to products, layers to…
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How Long Does It Take To Rank In Google? Hint: Way Longer Than You Think!
How long does it take to rank on Google? The short answer—longer than most expect. Search engine optimization ( SEO ) remains one of the most powerful, compounding sources of traffic and credibility a brand can build, but it’s also…
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Seriously… Stop Writing for Search Engines
I've rewritten this article several times over the past 20 years, and I’ve never stopped advising clients with the same advice. Stop writing for search engines! My reputation as an SEO consultant precedes me, although to be honest, I’ve never…
