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Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 📉 8 Mistakes Killing Your Google Ads Performance (+ How to Fix Them)
- 📑 How AI is Changing the Economics Of Content
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get into it.
📉 8 Mistakes Killing Your Google Ads Performance (+ How to Fix Them)
Google Ads is getting more expensive and less effective.
Over the past year, cost per click for non-branded keywords climbed 29%, while click-through rates fell 26%. You’re paying more for fewer results.
But here’s the twist: 65% of industries saw conversion rates actually improve in 2025 despite rising costs.
So, what separates the campaigns thriving under higher costs from the ones burning budget?
In our latest breakdown, Foundation’s paid marketing experts unpack eight costly mistakes that can quietly destroy your ad ROI, and what high-performing brands do instead:
- Broken tracking that teaches algorithms the wrong lessons
- Generic landing pages that hemorrhage conversions
- Bidding strategies that waste budget on low-intent traffic
The most successful campaigns treat Google Ads as an integrated system where every element amplifies the others. Miss even one piece, and you’re leaving money on the table while competitors optimize their way to better results at lower costs.
Read the full breakdown on Foundation Labs to see the step-by-step fixes that turn underperforming campaigns into profit engines.
🎤 Ross is Speaking at GURU Conference 2025 — Get Your Free Ticket Now
This November 6-7, 2025, Ross Simmonds will take the virtual stage at GURU Conference, the world’s largest virtual email marketing conference. And yes, it’s 100% free.
GURU brings together industry legends like Ann Handley, Amy Porterfield, Donald Miller, and Sahil Bloom alongside pop culture icons (Nicole Kidman and Lance Bass are speaking) for two days of actionable strategies you can deploy immediately.
Whether you’re looking to level up your email deliverability, master AI-powered personalization, or steal proven tactics from direct-to-consumer brands crushing it right now, GURU delivers the insights you need to exceed your current strategies.
The event is free. Virtual spots are limited. Don’t wait.
Grab your free ticket for Guru 2025 now.
📑 How AI is Changing the Economics Of Content
Wikipedia just lost 90 million visits while scrapers and bots grew 162%.
According to SEO expert Kevin Indig’s analysis in Search Engine Journal, AI is fundamentally breaking the economics of content by destroying the value of evergreen educational content while elevating a new category of content:
Additive, conversation-driven material.
It’s an interesting perspective, especially considering Wikipedia — the ruler of evergreen content — has lost 90 million visits, while scraper and bot traffic increased by over 160%.
According to Kevin’s analysis, Wikipedia now sees AI Overviews on nearly 50% of its queries but gets cited as the source 33% less often. Meanwhile, YouTube’s citation rate jumped from 37% to 54% as video replaced text as Google’s primary answer source.
This could have massive implications for content strategy.
Pre-AI, evergreen content attracted clicks from Google that converted into customers. Now, LLMs use that content for training, but offer invisible citations instead of traffic, making the return on investment negative.
Indig’s recommendation: shift from 80/20 evergreen to at least 50/50 or even 70/30 in favour of additive content like original research, data stories, and thought leadership. Companies like Oura, Ramp, and Okta are already making this shift by hiring economists and researchers.
This shift forces a fundamental rethink of ROI in content strategy.
Evergreen still has a place, but it’s no longer a moat. To stay visible (and profitable), brands need to create work that can’t be scraped, summarized, or replaced by an LLM.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
📋 67% of ChatGPT’s Top 1,000 Citations Are Off-Limits to Marketers (+ More Findings) | Ahrefs
🖥️ Google Search Console adds Query groups | Search Engine Land
💰 OpenAI completes its for-profit recapitalization | Tech Crunch
📉 Amazon is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs | The Verge
🚨 New Podcast Alert: Press Publish, Even When You’re Not Ready
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross delivers a hard truth every creator needs to hear: no one is thinking about you as much as you think they are. And that’s actually great news.
Most creators stay paralyzed by the “ego trap” — the fear that everyone’s watching, judging, waiting for them to fail. Meanwhile, the top performers are pressing publish on messy drafts, testing ideas in public, and building momentum, while perfectionists are still planning.
This episode is a rallying cry for anyone holding back on launching something important. Ross breaks down why invisible beginnings are actually a superpower and how imperfect action beats perfect plans every single time.
Here’s what Ross unpacks:
- The ego trap: You’re not held back by lack of skills, you’re trapped by fear of judgment that doesn’t even exist yet.
- Why no one is watching: Being invisible early means you can experiment, fail, and find your voice without scrutiny.
- The power of imperfect action: Pressing publish, even on rough drafts, starts the feedback cycle that actually makes you better.
- Creation vs. criticism: People who judge from the sidelines aren’t building anything. Execution is rare, judgment is easy.
- Press publish now: You won’t be remembered for what you almost did — only for what you actually shipped.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to get the permission and encouragement you need to finally share your work with the world.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
Apologies in advance, but this week’s section is less brain food, more bragging and baseball.
Canada’s team — the Toronto Blue Jays — is giving the L.A. Dodgers a run for their money. (I’ve probably lost more than half of you already, but bear with me a second.)
I’m not a baseball fan by any means, but I do love hopping on a bandwagon. Especially when it involves my childhood city, and especially when the story is compelling. And this is one of those cases.
This championship series between the Blue Jays and Dodgers is like David vs. Goliath meets 21st-century geopolitics:
- An underdog written off against an all-star team with limitless spending power
- A team looking for revenge against the superstar that spurned them
- And, of course, a more-than-healthy dose of nationalism
At the time of writing, it’s currently deadlocked at 2-2. However the remaining games go, this Canadian is living for the story lines.
Go Jays Go!
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 Reddit Post of the Week
I’m an ex-Instagram reels algo engineer, and here’s what actually drives growth and customer acquisition In r/DigitalMarketing
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
We have reached a plateau in the volume of AI referral traffic. by Gaetano Nino DiNardi
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- LimeWire Buying Fyre Fest is the First Thing That’s Made Sense All Year | Vice
- Google Ads turns 25: A look back at the biggest changes and advances in search | Search Engine Land
- EA’s Attempt to Use AI for Game Development Backfiring Horribly | Futurism
- Social Media Analytics Explained: How to Measure What Works & Improve Performance | Distribution.ai
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity? Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation Marketing | Account Executive (Growth)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Data & Insights Analyst
- Foundation Marketing | Fractional Recruiter
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Assistant
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
Want us to include your job postings in our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS professionals today.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
Classical for Working (Spotify Playlist)
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
