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Welcome to Volume 276 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🔍 Reddit for Business: What to Know Before Getting Started
- 💰 OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Ads on CPM Model
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
- 📣 We’re Hiring: Check Out Our Open Positions!
Let’s get into it.
🔍 Reddit for Business: What to Know Before Getting Started
Reddit drives 1.2 billion monthly visits through organic search at a traffic value of over $500 million. But here’s what most brands miss: AI models are already using Reddit to answer buyer questions — whether you participate in those conversations or not.
Ahrefs data shows Reddit pages are cited 5.3 million times by Google’s AI Overview, 4 million times by ChatGPT, and 5.5 million times by Perplexity. When someone asks an AI for CRM recommendations, Reddit threads inform those responses. Your competitors’ customers are researching alternatives in subreddits right now, shaping perception in conversations you don’t own.
Foundation’s complete Reddit guide breaks down what’s working in 2026:
- The Reddit Maturity Model: A diagnostic framework to assess whether your brand is ready for Reddit — and which stage-appropriate tactics to deploy first (hint: jumping straight to ads without organic presence backfires).
- Why mixed sentiment wins: Reddit’s algorithm considers posts with positive AND negative perspectives more reliable. Pure positivity looks suspicious to both users and AI models.
- The B2B advantage: Tech decision-makers overindex on Reddit — 72% use it for peer reviews, 49% for product research. Ross breaks down how Cloudflare turned their subreddit into 18,000 monthly visitors from organic search alone.
Your category conversations are happening whether you show up or not. Check out the full guide and learn how to get your brand in the game.
🎙️ Webinar: AI Visibility & Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Ranking on Google isn’t enough anymore. The new game is getting LLMs to recommend to you.
Join Ross Simmonds on January 28 for a Reddit-hosted session on how generative engines decide which brands to surface, what signals actually matter, and how to build “answer assets” AI systems trust and reference — including why your Reddit presence may be more important than you think.
OpenAI announced this week it will start testing ads in ChatGPT for free and Go tier users, with one revealing detail buried in the pricing model: advertisers will pay per impression, not per click.
According to The Information, OpenAI is asking select advertisers for commitments under $1 million each over a trial period, with ads launching in early February. The company doesn’t yet offer self-service ad buying — campaigns will be managed manually, similar to how early Google Ads launched.
The CPM model is the story here (brands will pay based on impressions, not clicks) and Glenn Gabe asks the right question: “what does that tell you about clicks from ChatGPT?”
According to OpenAI, Ads will appear at the bottom of responses when relevant to the conversation, clearly labeled and separated from organic answers.
For marketers, this represents a new battleground. If Reddit became essential for AI citations and organic visibility, ChatGPT ads offer paid access to conversational AI discovery. The question is whether impression-based pricing delivers ROI in a zero-click environment where answers eliminate the need to visit websites.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week?
OpenAI and ServiceNow Strike Deal to Put AI Agents in Business Software | The Wall Street Journal
Google’s Gemini Sees Developer Requests More Than Double in Five Months | The Information
Instagram CEO thinks real content should be labeled | Mashable
Retail startup Another raises a $2.5M seed to help sell excess inventory | Tech Crunch
🚨 New Podcast Alert: How to 10X Your Output with Claude or ChatGPT
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross pulls back the curtain on how you can use tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Distribution.ai to gain an edge instead of getting left behind.
He shares strategic frameworks, prompting techniques, and real-world use cases that show how you can use AI to elevate what you do best. Here’s what Ross covers:
- AI is a strategic partner, not a threat. High performers build systems and know that the real differentiator is how you work with it. Iteration and judgment matter more than prompts.
- Claude outperforms for brand-aligned content. Claude consistently delivers stronger positioning, messaging, and copy that actually sounds human, not robotic.
- Repurpose content at scale without burning out. Tools like Distribution.ai and Claude can extract quotes, threads, newsletters, and social posts from one piece of long-form content.
- The four-phase AI workflow: Discover → Framework → Build → Polish. Ross shares a structured process that breaks complex projects into phases — improving quality, alignment, and creative control.
- AI amplifies strategy but doesn’t replace it. Speed and execution come from AI. Judgment, taste, and insight come from you. Marketers who avoid AI risk falling behind peers who use it strategically.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to learn how to make AI your unfair advantage and 10X your output without losing your voice.
🎤 Ross is Speaking at Digital Cut 2026
Ross is taking the stage at Digital Cut 2026 — a three-day online conference bringing together the sharpest minds in AI, marketing, and digital innovation.
His session, “Unlocking Reddit: What the World’s Conversation Data Means for AI-Driven Innovation,” will explore how Reddit’s massive conversation dataset is shaping AI tools and what marketers need to understand about this shift.
He’s joining a lineup that includes Seth Godin, Neil Patel, Ali Abdaal, and Sophia Amoruso.
When: February 6-8, 2026
Where: 100% online (recordings included)
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
A Delphi study with 16 experts in human-robot interaction and educational technology reveals a troubling disconnect in how GenAI-powered robots will actually reach classrooms.
The experts ranked developing ethical frameworks and pedagogies as the two most important opportunities for educational robots — yet rated both as the least feasible to achieve, even within five years. Meanwhile, what experts considered less critical (like improving accessibility) was deemed most achievable in the near term.
The silver lining: Three robot roles showed alignment between importance and feasibility — boosting learner engagement, serving as conversational interfaces for accessing knowledge, and assisting disadvantaged students.
Translation: The infrastructure that matters most for safe, effective AI-powered robots in education is moving slowest. The technology will arrive before the guardrails do.
Read the full open-access study here.
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
ChatGPT ads are (almost) here In r/PPC
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
Does “Link below in the comments” work or not? I sifted through my LinkedIn analytics over the past year to see if I could confirm or deny that. by Amanda Natividad
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
ChatGPT Is a Search Engine. Here’s How It Works. | QueryBurst
DeepL cut costs by 25% with Max campaigns | Reddit Business
How to Run WhatsApp Ads for Your Business | HubSpot Marketing
💻 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 | GEO Partnerships Coordinator (PT)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Content Strategist
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Marketing & Outreach Assistant
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
Bill Withers – Lovely day (1978) (Remastered)
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!
