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Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast from marketers. We share quick tips, things you can do right now, and then we add a little bit of chaos at the end of every episode. We also keep it short like this intro. Let's check it out. We are back for what's up this week from the do this not that podcast. This is our episode where we break down what's going on in marketing, in business and in life. So let's jump into it. There is now something that you need to be doing your email marketing called signal phrases. And signal phrases are the things that the AI email summaries are looking for. So in Gmail they have these email summaries. In Apple Mail they have these email summaries where they are looking for things that are the most critical components of your email marketing message. And they're putting them sometimes in your pre header or they're putting them at the very top of your email message. And. And they are the things, these signal phrases that are actually radically increasing your open rates. And there's some data that came out from attentive of what are the signal phrases that if you put at the top of your emails at the very start of your emails, that you are going to have a greater likelihood of getting your emails open. So the number one structural cue that these AI tools are looking for in terms of these signal phrases, the number one phrase is what's included colon. If you write what's included colon and you put the most important thing from your email after that, that is what's going to get picked up by the Gmail summaries, by the AI mail summaries stuck in the pre header in the AI mail on your mail app. So what's included is the number one structural queue. Then the other ones are offer ends colon tomorrow colon and action required colon. And I know this is like really, this is what I have to do. Yes, because we want to be able to give the simplest roadmap to the AI tools as possible as to the thing that we're trying to promote the most. So these signal phrases are a new must do at the very start of your HTML emails, your graphic emails, your written emails, whatever they are, this is how you're going to win. And the last thing you don't want to do for sure is have your email opened up just with an image that has no text in it, because that is going to really screw up getting the right thing pulled into the top of your emails. What else going on in the world of marketing? Well, I saw Duolingo came out with something which is really, I'm not on board with it. So Duolingo is amazing. They're the, you know, the, the, the language app that is not only just a language app, but they really changed marketing. What Duolingo did on social and on TikTok and kind of being slightly unhinged really allowed so many other brands to go off brand, if you will, or just to really be themselves. And it really fueled this whole world that we're in now that just being more authentic is real. But Duolingo themselves, they are the, the goat of unhinged. Their CMO came out this week and actually said, this is not like me paraphrasing. They said we're going to make fewer but jokes and they're going to be recalibrating their marketing instead of being 80% unhinged. Right. They're going to go much more normalized, if you will, and they're going to leave a lot of the chaos to the side, which I'm not a fan of. You know, sometimes you get too close to it as a marketer and you're like, oh, this is what everybody knows us for. This is all they care about. But you know what, that's why you break through, right? And when I say get too close to it as a marketer, you get tired of what you're doing, so you do something different. But Duolingo, you should keep doing what you're doing. That's why we talk about Duolingo on a marketing podcast. Okay, so the other I'm talking about marketing podcast is Reddit. Reddit marketing is exploding. They just came out with their most recent data. They have shown a 69% year over year growth in their ad business. I'll tell you, for my agency, we are running a ton of campaigns on Reddit for our clients, business and consumer. It is crushing it. And the people get confused about thinking about Reddit in terms of should they spend their marketing dollars there? Because on a monthly basis, Reddit has a 126 monthly active daily. Monthly active. That makes no Sense. They have 126 million daily active users. Now that may not seem like a huge number when you compare it to like Instagram or whatever, but the reason it's a huge number and the reason that if you're not marketing on Reddit, you should, and you should call me, but you should, okay. Is because Reddit is the intent platform. I don't work for Reddit. They didn't pay me to say that. People go to Reddit these 126 million people daily, when they have an issue they're trying to solve for, they're trying to find out certain informations about certain topics. It is the intent platform. So your advertising and your marketing works so much better there than just advertising on any of the other social networks where people are just going brain rot and scrolling through. So if you're not advertising on Reddit, whether you're a business, consumer marketer, nonprofit, I think you're missing out. I'll tell you what else is missing out, which is click throughs. I saw this. Google AI mode has now hit 75 million daily users. And when I say the clicks are missing out, Seer Interactive just came out with this data that they analyzed 25 million impressions within Google AI mode and found that 93% of the AI mode queries are resulting in zero clicks. That people are just getting their information from the Google AI mode stuff and that is it. What does that mean for you? Two things. One, how are you going to show up in Google AI mode? That's really important with your content offers. And two, your email list is the most important thing in your business because now people are not just going to click through and go into your website. You need to be growing your email list. What else going on? Totally randomness. So Six Flags, they just opened up for the season. I didn't even know they had a season. So they opened up for the season, okay. Just these last few days. And they had at their St. Louis location, they had a huge brawl that broke out. Like a hundred people got into a fight. They were trying to get in. What is going on? Why are we trying so hard to get into Six Flags? I will tell you. I cannot go on roller coasters at all. I went on when I was a little kid, I went on the Gravitron. I was like nine years old, okay? And the Gravitron is that thing where you, you put yourself against a wall and spins in a circle and it sucks you against the wall and you're going in a circle really fast. It's like, you know, 30 or 40 people all sucked against the wall. Well, I threw up in the middle of this ride. I was like 9 years old. And because you're going so fast, my throw up hit the guy next to me, this adult man, and they had to stop the ride because there was throw up everywhere. And I'll never forget this. The dude, I was there on a camp field trip or something. The dude grabbed my arm. I don't know where my counselors were he grabbed my arm and he took me to the store of the like Six Flags place or whatever it was. And, and he said, you need to buy me a new shirt because you got vomit. All of me. I'm like nine years old. I don't know why. I think I had like $10 in my pocket. Thank God I did. And I was scared and I bought this man a shirt. And you know what? That's not cool. Whoever you are out there, you scared the crap out of me and I never went back on a Gravitron. That's a very weird story, but it did happen. All right, before we get into absolute nonsense that I want to talk about with some TV information, this this episode is sponsored by Knack. KN A K. Now here's the deal. Knack Designs. We use KNACK to design all of our landing pages, all of our emails. And the thing about KNACK that is awesome is they integrate with everything. If you are designing and creating your landing pages in your esp, your email sending platform, if you're doing that in your marketing automation platform, you are failing. Those are not the best in class stuff. For all this design stuff, you need to be using KNACK to integrate with Marketo and HubSpot and Adobe and Salesforce and everything. You need to go to knack.com k n a k.com/demo. It is worth a few minutes of your time. This demo is not boring. I am telling you, it is awesome. Kn a k.com/demo. All right, let's get into the ridiculous portion of this podcast. Since you didn't ask. I'm really annoyed about something. Whenever I, like, start watching a show, okay, it takes like three years for the next season to come out. Like when I started watching Severance, okay, I started watching it. It was, I looked it up. It was 33 months in between seasons. Stranger Things was 35 months and Bridgerton was two years the Thing. So I have a new plan and it's working very well. I'm going to tell you what my new plan is. So I look now and I see what new seasons are coming out that are not season one of a popular show. And then if it's, I look for shows I haven't seen. So, for example, Dark Matter. I'd never seen Dark Matter and I saw, okay, that Dark Matter Season 2 is coming out this summer. So I said, you know what I'm going to do? I never saw season one. That came out like two years ago. I watched season one of Dark Matter on Apple. It was awesome. And now I only have to wait like a month or two before I get to see season two. This is my new hack. When I was younger, it used to be, okay, I'm watching the show Cheers. It ended in, like, I don't know, may. And then it would come back on in September. And that was for every show that you watched. Now I have to wait like, two years. Who can remember on severance who hell he is? I don't even remember who the people are. It drives me crazy. So now I'm gonna only start shows that have a new season coming out. And I'm going to go backwards. Nobody cares. Well, you don't care. Listen, this book is coming out. You can buy right now. All net proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Stupider people have done it. You can go on Amazon right now. You could buy it. Okay? And it comes out. It drops. It will go in your mailbox like, June 9th. Check this thing out. I wrote this. It is ridiculous. We're going to kick cancer's butt together. You're awesome. And we'll see you at the next one later. Wait. I have two huge things to share with you. First, I have a book coming out. Stupider people have done it. It's coming out the first week of June, and all net author proceeds are going to the V Foundation for Cancer Research. This book might be terrible, but who cares? When you buy this thing on Amazon or anywhere else, you are going to be helping to kick cancer's butt. Let's do that together. The second thing is you can go to jschwettleson.com on the upper right hand corner, this thing that says partner. My agency wants to help you. If you're a business marketer, consumer marketer, doesn't make a difference. I want to help you drive net new sales, registrations, growth, change the design. All the stuff that you you are doing, hit me up there. Also, if you want to do brand collabs, I want to know about your brand. I want to help you amplify that message. Go to jweddelson.com click on partner. Let's do stuff together. And the last thing is, leave this show a review if it wasn't the absolute worst podcast you've ever heard. And you're awesome for being here later.
Do This, NOT That: Marketing Tips with Jay Schwedelson
Episode 502 – What’s Up THIS WEEK!🧠NEW! Email Phrase AI Is Secretly Hunting For....TV SHOW HACK!
Date: May 5, 2026
Host: Jay Schwedelson (presented by GURU Media Hub)
This episode, hosted by Jay Schwedelson, is a rapid-fire update on key trends, data, and actionable marketing hacks—particularly focusing on how AI is shaping email marketing, the evolution of brand authenticity (with a spotlight on Duolingo), the surge of Reddit as a performance ad platform, the changing nature of Google click-throughs, and some irreverent life/tv hacks. The tone is energetic, direct, and irreverently humorous, packed with practical advice for marketers.
Marketing Takeaways:
Bonus:
Tone & Language:
Jay’s delivery is fast-paced, conversational, self-deprecating, and sprinkled with direct actionable advice, personal anecdotes, and punchy humor.