Marketing Vanguard: "Timeless Marketing Principles in the AI Era"

A Conversation with Meta's CMO, Alex Schultz

Release Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Jenny Rooney (Adweek)
Guest: Alex Schultz (Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics, Meta)

Episode Overview

In this episode, Jenny Rooney welcomes back Alex Schultz, Meta’s CMO, for a deep-dive into his new book, "Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising." Schultz discusses how marketing fundamentals remain relevant even as AI reshapes the industry. The conversation explores timeless marketing principles, incrementality, North Star goals, organizational structures, short-termism in the industry, and advice for current and future marketers.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Alex Schultz’s Background and Motivation for Writing the Book

• Tenure at Meta: Been at Meta for 18 years, now back in the UK after time in the US.
• Book Genesis: Motivated by the lack of a foundational text on digital marketing akin to classics like Ogilvy’s "On Advertising" or Claude C. Hopkins' "Scientific Advertising."
• Quote:

  "I just think we don't have a book like those classics about online marketing and all the channels that have come about in the last 20, 30 years.... I want to write that one book."
  (Alex Schultz, 02:33)

• Writing Process: Largely written on long-haul plane flights and expanded during a holiday, with extensive feedback from colleagues and friends.
• AI Use: No AI in writing, but Meta AI was used for concepting the book’s cover design.

  "No AI was used in the writing, but the cover design...I got Meta AI to actually do a draft of the concept."
  (Alex Schultz, 07:15)

2. Book Structure, Core Themes, and Timeless Principles

• Content Structure: Basics, Infrastructure, Channels, and Summing Up (including AI’s impact).
• Audience: Applicable for small businesses to large corporations; written as a practical guide for practitioners and a resource for marketers to communicate with finance and leadership.
• AI and Timelessness: Connects new AI developments back to direct response tactics like email and snail mail.

  "When you think about AI marketing and chatbots, it's not that different to email marketing...the back and forth similar to direct mail.... All that's happening is the AI is now your creative and your conversion factor."
  (Alex Schultz, 07:59)

• Focus on Principles:

  "A lot of it is looking at those principles that are timeless, like what you learned in snail mail, what you learned in email, what you learned in SMS push, probably is very relevant to AI chat bots...."
  (Alex Schultz, 07:59)

• Incrementality: Stressed as a key measurement philosophy, especially for cross-team communication and credibility with finance teams.

  "I'm really pushing incrementality measurement. Do that right and I hope it will be a useful book for marketers who are struggling with their CFO, their finance organization, CEO board..."
  (Alex Schultz, 09:12)

3. Incrementality and its Importance

• Definition: The measurement of the actual impact of marketing efforts, above and beyond what would have happened anyway.
• Tactics:
  • For paid search: On/off tests, regional matches.
  • For social: Lift studies.
  • For SEO: Complex, since on/off tests not possible.
• Cross-Organizational Value: Incrementality enables marketers to justify innovative or hard-to-measure initiatives to finance and leadership.

  "If you come in as a marketer to finance and you're like, here is my incrementality measurement.... You usually get allowed to do those things if you measure the other stuff well and you prove the value you're bringing."
  (Alex Schultz, 11:47)

• Memorable Analogy:

  "I want to close Fifth Avenue and have Lewis Hamilton do donuts on it. And I promise you it's going to be good. And I also promise you I can't measure it."
  (Alex Schultz, 12:10)

4. North Star Goals vs. Metrics

• Clarification:
  • Metrics quantify progress but are not goals.
  • Goals are the guiding purpose.
  • Targets are the desired numbers in a metric.
• Meta Example: Facebook emphasized 'connecting the world' over immediate revenue, with monthly active user growth as a proxy metric.
• Quote:

  "A metric is never a goal. You have goals, you have metrics, and you have targets. A metric tries to describe a goal, but no metric perfectly describes a goal."
  (Alex Schultz, 12:35)

• Leadership Insight: Clarity around North Star goals keeps teams aligned and speeds up decision-making without constant CEO intervention.

5. Timelessness in Tactics: Evergreen vs. Contemporary

• Intention: The book avoids fads, favoring enduring lessons from both pre-internet and digital eras.
• Historical Parallels: Draws connections between affiliate/partner marketing, past and present, and retail ad networks to earlier ad practices (Sears Catalog, product placement).

  "Benedict Evans...says it feels like Amazon has taken the Sears catalog from the 1950s and, and is just implementing every tactic today in the 2000s."
  (Alex Schultz, 16:38)

• Balance of Philosophy and Tactics:

  "Start philosophical, get to tactical and practical, and then open back out to philosophical again."
  (Alex Schultz, 16:00)

6. The Trouble with Short-Termism

• Industry Challenge: Marketers and agencies often have “of the moment” reactions to changes like AI, but Schultz urges for a long-range view based on industry evolution.

  "If you look at the five year horizon, you sort of freak out. If you look at the 20 or 40 year horizon, you go, evolution is constant in our industry and agencies rise to it, CMOS rise to it, marketing departments rise to it."
  (Alex Schultz, 18:24)

7. Organization and Teams in the Age of AI

• AI’s Impact on Roles:
  • AI won't eliminate roles, but those who master AI tools will outpace others.

  “AI isn't going to take your job. Somebody using AI is going to take your job.”
  (Alex Schultz, 19:37)

• Team Structure:
  • Resembles classic marketing organizations: heads of insights, analytics, creative, consumer/business marketing.
  • The key difference now is the ubiquity of digital/AI tools.
• Adaptability: Emphasizes skill development and tool know-how over radical structural shifts.

8. Thought Leadership, Criticism, and Audience Engagement

• Vulnerability: Schultz describes publishing a book as “terrifying,” knowing it opens him to critique from all sides.
• Ongoing Conversation:

  “A book is the start of a conversation in general or... the continuation of an over century long conversation that goes back as far as Claude C. Hopkins.”
  (Alex Schultz, 22:43)

• Endorsements: Comfort in knowing leaders like Sam Altman and Daniel Ek have read/endorsed the book.

9. Vision for Book’s Impact

• Academic Adoption:
  • Intends for the book (and related teaching materials) to become part of MBA and undergraduate curriculums.
  • Actively collaborating with academics and supporting research initiatives using real Meta data.
• For All Marketers: Aims for both new and veteran marketers to find value, drawing on lessons applicable to past, present, and future marketing channels.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Marketing’s Biggest Challenge:

  “The easy thing is the ad tech and the data and coming up with that brilliant creative idea that changes everything, that's the hardest thing in marketing and everyone thinks they can do it.”
  (Alex Schultz, 00:31 and repeated for emphasis at 10:35)

• On Measurement:

  "The thing about incrementality is everything is finding a way to communicate to the rest of the organization what value you bring to the company..."
  (Alex Schultz, 10:35)

• On AI and Marketers:

  "AI isn't going to take your job. Somebody using AI is going to take your job."
  (Alex Schultz, 19:37)

• On Industry Evolution:

  "Evolution is constant in our industry and agencies rise to it, CMOS rise to it, marketing departments rise to it."
  (Alex Schultz, 18:24)

• On Criticism and Dialogue:

  "My perspective is a book is the start of a conversation in general or it's the continuation of a conversation... I am scared... But I feel I have pressure tested it..."
  (Alex Schultz, 22:43, 23:36)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:32] — Alex Schultz’s career background and personal introduction
• [02:33] — Motivation and origin story for the book
• [05:47] — Writing process & feedback from peers
• [07:15] — AI’s role in cover design
• [07:59] — Book outline and focus on timeless principles
• [09:12] — Incrementality in measurement & its necessity
• [12:35] — Defining North Star goals, metrics, and targets
• [14:33] — Timelessness vs. trendiness in the book’s guidance
• [16:00] — Philosophy vs. tactics: Both are necessary
• [18:24] — Perspective on industry short-termism and cyclical change
• [19:37] — Team structures and the impact of AI
• [22:43] — View on thought leadership and book as dialogue
• [24:52] — Ambition for academic adoption/use in teaching
• [27:06] — Where to buy/availability details

Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• Schultz’s book aims to be a “missing manual” for digital marketing, grounded in timeless principles but adapted for the AI era.
• Incrementality and the clear articulation of goals vs. metrics are the pillars for cross-functional credibility and marketing success.
• AI is portrayed as an amplifying tool, not a replacement for fundamentally strong teams and creative thinking.
• The book is positioned as both a practical guide and a philosophical reflection—useful for new entrants, seasoned marketers, and as an educational text for academia.

For further details and to pre-order, "Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising" is available now on Amazon and select retailers, officially released in October 2025 ([27:06]).

Host sign-off:
“Congratulations. I'm excited.... Tell us again when and where people can access this.”
(Jenny Rooney, 27:00)