The Digital Marketing Podcast by Exposure Ninja

Hosted by Tim Cameron-Kitchen

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Episodes

557

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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EN-GB

About the show

Learn powerful and profitable high-ROI marketing tips from Tim Cameron-Kitchen, founder of the relentlessly high-impact digital marketing agency, Exposure Ninja. Visit https://exposureninja.com/podcast for show notes and links.

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60 recent

June 15, 202622 min

How To Beat Your Competitors in AI Search

Sponsored by Semrush. Try Semrush One 👉 https://exposureninja.com/semrushoneYour competitors are showing up in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. You're not, and right now, you have no idea why.This video changes that. I'll show you exactly how to reverse-engineer what your competitors are doing, intentionally or not, to get recommended in AI answers. So you can copy their strategy, close the gap, and start dominating the conversations that matter.Here's what I cover:Why some brands are consistently recommended across every major AI platform and the three metrics that reveal exactly how they're doing itHow to use Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit to benchmark your brand against competitors across mentions, citations, and cited pagesThe difference between missing, weak, shared, strong, and unique topics and how to use the gap to build your action planWhy not all prompts and topics are worth chasing and how to filter by the ones that will actually drive customers to your businessHow to identify the third-party sources feeding AI answers in your category and how to get your brand mentioned on themThe exact prioritisation framework we used to take a client from 50 conversions per month to nearly 400 and grow their AI Search visibility by more than 10xYou don't need to be a huge brand to win in AI Search. Everything your competitors are doing is visible, if you know where to look.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/beat-competitors-in-ai-search/

June 10, 202645 min

Growth Strategy in the AI Search Era with Nick Lafferty, Profound

What does it actually take to build a go-to-market strategy for a category that barely existed 18 months ago?In this episode of The Growth Leaders Series, Charlie Marchant sits down with Nick Lafferty, Founding Marketing Engineer at Profound, the AI Search tracking platform helping major brands understand how they show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and other LLMs.Nick brings serious growth experience to this role. Before Profound, he drove millions in B2B SaaS pipeline at Loom and Mailgun, then spent two years running a solo consulting agency before joining Profound. In this episode, Nick Lafferty covers:Why velocity is a moat in AI SearchWhat a modern, lean marketing team actually looks like, why Nick hires for a generative marketer mindset, and his advice for showcasing this online The growth strategy behind Profound, centred on sharing data and insightsThe go-to-market motion behind Profound's Zero Click events, scaling from 400 to 800+ attendees across New York and LondonThe layered mentality around AI Search for different business sizesWhy FAQ content and FAQ schema is the lowest-hanging fruit most big brands are leaving on the tableHow to make the internal case for AI Search investment when leadership is still thinking in Google termsThe career advice he'd send back to his first dayRead the full show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/growth-leader-series-nick-lafferty/Follow Nick Lafferty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicklafferty/New episode launches every Wednesday throughout June 2026, so stay tuned to hear from growth leaders from leading brands like McKinsey and Company, Wise, and AirOps! Book a consultation to get a live review of your website and marketing 👉⁠https://exposureninja.com/review/⁠

June 9, 202611 min

How To Turn AI Mentions Into High-Value Leads

Most businesses are chasing more AI mentions. More citations. More visibility.But if those mentions aren't happening when someone is about to buy, they're not driving pipeline.In this video, I break down exactly how to turn AI visibility into high-value leads, and why most businesses are completely missing the step that actually matters.Here's what I cover:Why being mentioned in "What is a mortgage?" is completely different from "Should I choose Halifax or Nationwide?" and why only one of those drives revenueThe three criteria you need to score every AI prompt against before deciding whether it's worth chasingHow AI platforms build entity associations and the specific signals you can use to make sure your brand gets recommended during high-intent buying momentsThe biggest conversion mistake companies make when they earn AI visibility for informational content (and exactly how to fix it)How we helped a DAX 30 client change how AI platforms perceived their brand and what that meant for their stakeholder positioningThe goal isn't maximum AI visibility. It's maximum AI visibility during the moments that generate pipeline.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/turn-ai-mentions-into-leads/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

June 3, 20261 hr 16 min

The Organic Growth Playbook Behind Wise with Fabrizio Ballarini

What does a decade of organic growth at one of fintech's most successful companies actually look like?In this episode of The Growth Leaders Series, Charlie Marchant sits down with Fabrizio Ballarini, Head of Organic Growth at Wise, the multi-billion dollar global money transfer platform operating across 160+ markets.Fabrizio shares the thinking behind Wise's famous growth philosophy: going as broad as possible, as fast as possible, and then refining what works. He breaks down the story of the currency converter that became one of the most powerful organic acquisition tools in fintech, how a single page generated 1 million clicks in one month, and why Wise continues to build acquisition for products that don't yet exist.The conversation gets into the AI Search question head-on: what it really means for an established brand like Wise, why traffic is still at an all-time high despite the hype, and where the genuine risk lies. Fabrizio also talks about the LTV forecasting models that changed how the team evaluates content, why he rarely kills pages that aren't converting, and what he'd tell his younger self about growth.Follow Fabrizio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabrizioballarini/Read the show notes:https://exposureninja.com/podcast/growth-leader-series-fabrizio-ballarini/New episode launches every Wednesday throughout June 2026, so stay tuned to hear from growth leaders from leading brands like McKinsey and Company, Profound, and AirOps! Book a consultation to get a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/

June 1, 202619 min

COPY Vanguard’s 6M+ Organic Traffic Strategy

Vanguard manages over $10 trillion in assets, but their dominance in search and AI visibility isn't just because of their size. Most big brands their size are leaving millions of visits on the table. Vanguard isn't.This video breaks down the Vanguard digital marketing strategy behind 6.2 million monthly organic visitors, an AI visibility score of 85/100, and 74,500 AI mentions, and the lessons any marketer can steal from it.Here's what I cover:Why Vanguard built their entire website around customer goals, not products, and why that single shift is the foundation of everything else they're doingThe topic cluster content strategy generating 6.2 million US organic visits a month, and how they've structured it to cover every stage of the buyer journeyHow their educational articles are structured to get cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Gemini, including the exact formatting choices that make AI tools want to pull from their contentWhy their retirement income calculator has attracted 462 linking domains and 74,000 monthly visits to a single page and how to replicate this for your industryThe internal linking and CTA strategy that turns content readers into customers (and why most brands get this badly wrong)The 7 lessons any marketer at any size business can apply immediately to build this kind of search and AI visibilityVanguard isn't winning because they're Vanguard. They're winning because they're doing the work. Here's exactly what that looks like.Book a consultation call for a live review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/vanguard-marketing-strategy/Listen to these episodes next:Rippling's $16B Marketing Strategy https://exposureninja.com/podcast/rippling-marketing-strategy/How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

May 26, 202618 min

Google I/O 2026: The 5 Updates Every Marketer Needs To Know

Google just called this a new era for AI Search, and after seeing these five updates from Google I/O 2026, it's hard to disagree.In this executive briefing, Charlie Marchant (CEO of Exposure Ninja), covers:The new AI Search box that lets users write full briefs, attach files, and search like they would in ChatGPTInformation agents that search on behalf of users 24/7 in the backgroundAI Mode going fully conversational, with persistent context across an entire search sessionAgentic coding in search, building custom dashboards and mini apps on the flyPersonal intelligence and agentic calling, where Google literally phones businesses to check availability and book on your behalfGoogle is no longer just a search engine. It's becoming an interactive, agentic interface, and businesses that aren't thinking beyond ten blue links are already falling behind. Here's exactly what these updates mean for your marketing strategy.Future-proof your brand with our AI Search Audit 👉 https://exposureninja.com/services/ai-search-optimisation/ai-search-strategy/ Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/google-i-o-2026/Subscribe to Charlie Explains AI Search on LinkedIn for the latest updates in AI Search Optimisation:https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliemarchant/recent-activity/newsletter/

May 25, 20268 min

How To Track AI Traffic in GA4 (Step-by-Step)

AI traffic is growing fast, but most businesses have no idea how much of it they're getting, where it's coming from, or how well it converts.This video shows you exactly how to track traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot inside Google Analytics 4, including the quick method you can use today, and the proper setup that makes AI referral traffic a permanent channel in your reports.Here's what's covered:Why AI-referred traffic converts 4–5x better than Google organic and why that makes it worth tracking separately even when the volume is still smallThe quick filter method for isolating AI referral traffic in your existing GA4 reports in under two minutesHow to create a dedicated AI referral traffic channel group so you never have to click through filters againThe one ordering mistake that causes GA4 to misclassify your AI traffic as generic referral traffic and how to fix itWhy a large slice of AI-driven visits will never show up as AI traffic at all and what to track instead to get the full pictureThe tools we use to measure AI search visibility alongside GA4, including Semrush, Peak, and ProfoundAI traffic is still a small percentage of overall visits for most sites, but the conversion rates tell a different story. Ahrefs reported 12.1% of signups from AI search despite it driving just 0.5% of traffic. That gap is worth paying attention to.Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/blog/how-to-track-ai-traffic-in-ga4/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

May 18, 202620 min

The Metrics That Actually Matter in 2026

Sponsored by Semrush. Try Semrush One for 14-days (exclusive Exposure Ninja deal) 👉 https://exposureninja.com/semrushoneMost marketers aren't short on data. They're short on clarity.In 2026, marketing teams are tracking more metrics than ever and still can't answer the most important question: what's actually driving leads, revenue, and growth?This episode shows you exactly which digital marketing metrics are worth your attention, which ones you can safely ignore, and the tools you need to track them properly.Here's what I cover:Why conversion events, not traffic, should anchor your entire measurement strategy and how to set them up correctly in GA4How to analyse traffic channels, landing pages, and devices, and cross-reference them to find your biggest growth opportunitiesThe lead gen metrics that live outside GA4, including lead-to-opportunity rate, revenue per lead, and conversion-to-customer rateHow to read the purchase journey report in GA4 for e-commerce, and why a dropping conversion rate isn't always bad newsThe SEO metrics that actually matter in Semrush, and why tracking keyword volume without watching page-one positions is quietly misleading youHow to measure AI Search visibility and brand sentiment across LLMs, and why branded organic traffic is becoming one of your most important signalsWhy 58% of marketers say AI Search traffic converts at a higher rate than regular organic, and how to build a dashboard that tracks it properlyThe businesses winning right now aren't tracking more. They're tracking smarter.Request a review of your website and marketing 👉 https://exposureninja.com/review/Read the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/blog/website-metrics/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

May 11, 202618 min

Rippling’s $16B Marketing Strategy (You Can Actually Copy)

Rippling has grown from over $16 billion, and their website traffic went from 20,000 monthly visitors in 2021 to over 1.5 million today.This didn't happen by accident. It happened because of a three-part digital marketing playbook that any business — software, services, or anything else — can copy.Here's what I cover in this breakdown of Rippling's marketing strategy:How Rippling ditched generic messaging and rebuilt their entire website around laser-targeted customer segments — and why this drove higher-quality leads from real decision-makersThe content strategy that grew their blog from 5,000 to nearly 200,000 monthly visits — and the exact topic clusters they used to do itWhy Rippling built out state-by-state labor law content across every US state, and what this teaches you about hyper-specific audience targeting- What "Rippling Plus" is, why it's a smart play to insulate against AI search disruption, and whether it's worth attempting for your businessHow Rippling uses original research and digital PR to get coverage in the exact publications their target audience reads — and why this is now critical for AI search visibilityWhere Rippling's AI search visibility currently stands, and the one area they need to improve before competitors chip away at their leadThe three-pillar playbook behind Rippling's rise is something any business can learn from — whether you're starting from scratch or trying to scale what's already working.The key lessons from Rippling's approach:Tell a specific story for each customer segment — not a generic one for everyoneBuild content around the topics your different audiences actually search forUse original data and digital PR to earn coverage in the publications AI tools citeRead the show notes: https://exposureninja.com/podcast/rippling-marketing-strategy/Listen to these episodes next:The BEST SEO Strategies for 2026⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/368/⁠How To Dominate AI Search Results in 2026⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/372/⁠Copy The 3 Pillars of £50m+ SEO Campaigns⁠https://exposureninja.com/podcast/371/

May 1, 202633 min

Google's Revenue is EXPLODING. But Are Brands Winning Too?

Google just posted a monster quarter — search ad revenue up 19% year on year, cloud breaking $20 billion for the first time, and products built on Gemini growing over 800%. But behind the headline numbers lies a more nuanced story for brands and marketing leaders trying to figure out where to place their bets.The "doomish narrative" that ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews are gutting Google Search simply isn't supported by the data. Google Search is still growing. Queries are at an all-time high. And AI Overviews are actively driving that growth, not cannibalising it.But that doesn't mean everything is rosy for the brands appearing in those results.In this episode, Charlie Marchant (CEO of Exposure Ninja) and Dale Davies (Head of Marketing at Exposure Ninja) break down:• Why Google's 19% ad revenue surge may actually be fuelled by brands panicking about organic traffic losses — and whether that panic is justified• How AI Overviews are reshaping click behaviour, with impressions staying stable but clickthrough rates shifting in ways that don't always hurt conversions• The rise of "personal intelligence" in search — where two users searching the same query could see entirely different results — and what that means for keyword rank trackers• Why Google's long-term vision looks far more like AI Mode than traditional blue links, and how quickly that transition could happen• The emerging "agentic commerce" trend where Google becomes a marketplace that completes transactions without users ever visiting your website• How AI chatbots like Claude are creating entirely new brand ranking systems — with only three recommendation slots instead of ten organic positions• What the earnings call doesn't tell you: the DOJ antitrust case, competitive pressure from ChatGPT and Claude, and whether Gemini is an underdog in its own rightCharlie shares her framework for how marketing leaders should allocate budget in this shifting landscape — the 80/20 rule that prioritises what's already working while leaving room for strategic experimentation.As Charlie explains in the episode:"If people are still scared in 2026, it's because they haven't yet shifted their SEO strategy to understand how AI Overviews and other AI platforms are part of that search journey."Whether you're weighing up organic versus paid, trying to figure out how agentic search affects your eCommerce strategy, or simply trying to make sense of what Google's numbers actually mean for your business — this episode gives you a clear-eyed breakdown of where search is heading and what to do about it.Get the podcast show notes:https://exposureninja.com/podcast/dojo-74/Listen on your favourite podcast player instead:Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/googles-revenue-is-exploding-but-are-brands-winning-too/id1161818237?i=1000765508727Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1KIX7OCYzx9DCe7qUg4pBm?si=uxQkVJ20QR-7mnghSFAY6wListen to these episodes next:ChatGPT Sends 21% of Its Traffic to Google. Here’s Why That Matters.https://exposureninja.com/podcast/dojo-73/What Does AI Really Think of Your Brand?https://exposureninja.com/podcast/dojo-71/Do Rankings Still Matter with AI Search?https://exposureninja.com/podcast/dojo-66/