Live in New York! - Part 1

In this Kitchen Side episode of The Long Game Podcast, Alex, David, and Allie record their first in-person conversation in New York City. The episode revolves around insights gathered from dozens of marketing leaders, discussing SEO traffic declines, AI’s real impact on marketing, attribution challenges, and the balance between brand and demand generation. The team reflects on how companies are adapting to falling organic traffic, the rise of video SEO, and why traditional top-of-funnel strategies are losing effectiveness. They also explore the importance of customer research, the disconnect between social media conversations and real-world priorities, and how teams can align leadership expectations with evolving marketing realities.

Key Takeaways

• SEO Traffic Declines: Nearly every marketing leader interviewed reported a drop in organic traffic, leading to internal strategy shifts and leadership concerns.
• AI in Marketing Operations: While AI is not yet a core part of content creation, teams are leveraging it for keyword research, automation, and efficiency improvements.
• Video SEO on the Rise: Many companies are prioritizing video content as search engines increasingly favor multimedia formats.
• Attribution & Leadership Education: As traffic declines, marketers are struggling to shift leadership focus from surface-level metrics (traffic) to real business outcomes (pipeline and revenue).
• The “Traffic Trap” Problem: Some teams have historically been gold on traffic rather than conversions, forcing a reevaluation of SEO and content strategies.
• Brand vs. Demand Debate: Companies are reassessing how to balance brand-building efforts with performance-driven demand generation.
• The Shift in Customer Research & Buying Behavior: Many marketing decisions are now happening outside of trackable systems, making traditional attribution models less reliable.

Show Links

• Connect with David Khim on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Connect with Alex Birkett on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Connect with Allie Decker on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Connect with Omniscient Digital on LinkedIn or Twitter

What is Kitchen Side?

One big benefit of running an agency or working at one is you get to see the “kitchen side” of many different businesses; their revenue, their operations, their automations, and their culture.

You understand how things look from the inside and how that differs from the outside.

You understand how the sausage is made. 

As an agency ourselves, we’re working both on growing our clients’ businesses as well as our own. This podcast is one project, but we also blog, make videos, do sales, and have quite a robust portfolio of automations and hacks to run our business.

We want to take you behind the curtain, to the kitchen side of our business, to witness our brainstorms, discussions, and internal dialogues behind the public works that we ship.

Past guests on The Long Game podcast include: Morgan Brown (Shopify), Ryan Law (Animalz), Dan Shure (Evolving SEO), Kaleigh Moore (freelancer), Eric Siu (Clickflow), Peep Laja (CXL), Chelsea Castle (Chili Piper), Tracey Wallace (Klaviyo), Tim Soulo (Ahrefs), Ryan McReady (Reforge), and many more.

Some interviews you might enjoy and learn from:

Actionable Tips and Secrets to SEO Strategy with Dan Shure (Evolving SEO)

Building Competitive Marketing Content with Sam Chapman (Aprimo)