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Welcome to Volume 272 🧑🎄
Happy Holidays!
This week, we’re taking a moment to look back at the content that defined 2025 for us. From the rise of Reddit as a marketing powerhouse to the emergence of Generative Engine Optimization, it’s been a year of big shifts — and we’ve been right there breaking it all down.
Here’s our roundup of the top 10 blog posts and top 5 podcast episodes from the year. Whether you missed one or want to revisit a favorite, consider this your holiday reading (and listening) list.
Let’s get into it.
📚 Top 10 from Foundation Labs in 2025
Content Supply Chain: Transforming B2B Marketing Into a Growth Engine
Still treating content like a campaign? This piece introduces the content supply chain framework — a system for turning research, creation, distribution, and optimization into compounding assets that actually drive ROI.
Understanding the Reddit Mod: A Marketer’s Guide
Reddit mods hold the keys to visibility — and the ban hammer. This guide breaks down how moderators enforce culture, wield power, and decide who stays and who gets shown the door. Essential reading for any brand trying to build a sustainable Reddit presence.
How the Discovery and Decision Process is Changing in Higher Ed
The enrollment journey is no longer linear. Students are bouncing between search, social, Reddit, and AI before they ever fill out a form. This piece maps out the fragmented path and what institutions need to do to meet students where they actually are.
An Old SEO’s Musings: How I’m Thinking About GEO
James Scherer, Foundation’s VP of Strategy, shares how he’s reframing optimization for the AI era. Spoiler: it’s not just about Google anymore. GEO means building visibility across Reddit, review sites, publishers, and the platforms LLMs are learning from.
Tailscale Shows Technical SaaS Brands How to Do Reddit Right
A masterclass in authentic community engagement. This case study breaks down how Tailscale turned Reddit into a scalable support channel, product feedback loop, and growth engine, all by investing in community infrastructure and showing up consistently.
How Brands Should Think About the ROI of Generative Engine Optimization
Clicks and last-touch attribution don’t cut it anymore. This piece reframes what success looks like for GEO, where visibility, sentiment, and AI-driven influence are the metrics that matter.
The Career Guides Filling WGU’s Enrollment Funnel with $315K Worth of Monthly Organic Traffic
WGU doesn’t wait for students to search for degrees — they capture them at the career curiosity stage. This breakdown shows how SEO-driven career guides generate over $315K worth of monthly organic traffic and feed the enrollment funnel.
Brands Are Losing Control of the BoFu Journey: Here’s How to Take It Back
Reddit threads and AI answers are now where bottom-of-funnel decisions happen, and most brands aren’t even in the room. This piece introduces the Lurk, Listen, Leap framework to help you regain influence where conversions actually occur.
How Vanta Built a $128K/Month SEO Moat
Vanta didn’t just rank. They built a fortress. This tactical breakdown covers how their collection-based content strategy, internal linking, and subfolder architecture created a defensible SEO moat dominating high-intent compliance keywords.
Reddit: The Focus Group Higher Ed Can’t Afford to Ignore
Prospective students are talking about your institution on Reddit right now, debating cost, ROI, and whether the degree is worth it. This piece shows enrollment teams how to tap into the unfiltered insights they can’t afford to miss.
Honorable Mentions:
8 Mistakes Killing Your Google Ads Performance (+ How to Fix Them)
An expert-led breakdown of the most common Google Ads mistakes draining B2B budgets + the fixes that actually move the needle on targeting, conversions, and ROI.
The Foundation Guide to LinkedIn Marketing for B2B
A comprehensive playbook for turning LinkedIn into a real growth engine: covering thought leadership, organic reach, AI visibility, and proven tactics that drive leads (not just likes).
🎤 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)
🎧 Top 5 Episodes from The Ross Simmonds Show
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Why I’m All In
Ross breaks down the seismic shift from traditional SEO to GEO, explaining how AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and TikTok Search are changing discovery + why being cited matters more than being clicked.
The Personal Brand Playbook: Leverage Your Expertise
A tactical, step-by-step blueprint for building a personal brand that drives real opportunity, from picking your lane and mastering one platform to creating systems that work while you sleep.
Reddit Marketing: How to Drive Traffic & Win LLM Search (2025–2026)
Ross unpacks why Reddit has become a SERP-dominating force shaping million-dollar buying decisions and AI outputs, plus introduces his R.O.S.S. framework for scaling authentic Reddit marketing.
Be the First to Reach Out: How It Changed EVERYTHING For Me
One deceptively simple principle that transforms leadership, relationships, and partnerships. Ross shares how initiating connection (instead of waiting) accelerates trust, alignment, and results.
The Death of Work-Life Balance: My Journey
A transparent look at the real cost of high performance. Ross challenges the myth of balance and offers frameworks for living with intention, saying no strategically, and building for the long game.
Happy Holidays from Foundation 🎄
That’s a wrap on 2025.
Thank you for reading, subscribing, and being part of this community. We’ve loved digging into the trends, frameworks, and strategies shaping B2B marketing this year — and we’re just getting started.
Enjoy the holidays, rest up, and we’ll see you in the new year with fresh insights, new research, and plenty more to talk about.
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.
Happy Holidays!
