Refine Labs

Next week we're so excited to have Anthony Pierri and Rob Kaminski join the roundtable with 🤘 Matthew Sciannella! Whether you join on this LinkedIn live or in the zoom call, we hope to see you there! https://lnkd.in/gVnVDxKV?

this is happening in less than one hour! will we see you there?

Something interesting is happening across the paid media landscape for B2B brands running brand awareness objectives. Over the past eight quarters, we've been tracking CPM, CPC, and CTR across Meta, LinkedIn, and Reddit and the story the data tells is more nuanced than the platform reps will share with you in a QBR. This post breaks down what we're seeing at the agency level at Refine Labs, why it matters for how you think about awareness investment, and what the Q1 2026 numbers suggest about where we're headed. read more 👇

most companies aren't using AI wrong because they picked the wrong tool...they're using it wrong because they skipped the thinking part. We're seeing it everywhere right now - teams cranking out more content than ever, reaching fewer people than ever. Faster output, weaker signal. AI is genuinely useful. We use it. But the teams getting real lift from it are using it to think better, not to think less. They're stress-testing ideas, moving through options faster, freeing up space for actual strategy. The moment you hand judgment over to the tool is the moment you lose your own voice, your own perspective, your own personality. The answer to better marketing is still people who know how to make meaning out of information - AI just helps them do it faster.

AI will commoditize execution. It won't commoditize judgment. If your value as a marketer (or as an agency 👀 ) is "we run the plays," that's the part under pressure. If your value is pattern recognition, strategic framing, and knowing what not to do based on what you've seen across a lot of companies and contexts - that's durable. The question isn't "how do I use AI?" It's "what do I know that AI can't replicate yet?" Build from there.

A lot of companies have a stated ICP and then a totally different set of customers actually in their CRM. That gap is expensive. Non-ICP customers close slower, close at lower rates, churn more, and eat up resources that should be going somewhere else. A real ICP isn't a brainstorm exercise or a slide in a deck. It's a data-informed definition built from actual customer signals and validated against pipeline and revenue outcomes. When sales, marketing, and product align on that picture, everything downstream gets sharper. Targeting, messaging, roadmap, retention. ICP clarity is one of the fastest growth levers most teams aren't pulling.

The real reason sales cycles are getting longer isn't budget. It's not competition either. It's that buyers don't trust fast enough. They need peer validation. Clear differentiation. Consistent education over time. A discount at the end of the cycle doesn't fix a trust deficit that started at the top. The teams closing faster aren't better at selling. They're better at building belief before the conversation starts. #b2b #marketing

hey uh....this is super exciting.

 "Share of search" is one of the most underused signals in B2B. It measures how often people search your brand vs. competitors. Which gives you a directional read on: ✔️ Brand strength over time ✔️ Whether awareness is actually building ✔️ Whether a competitor just made a move worth paying attention to It's not a perfect metric. But it's one of the cleanest ways to answer the question most marketing teams avoid: are we actually showing up in the minds of buyers? That's the real game.

You don't need a bigger content calendar. You need a clearer point of view. A calendar tells you when to post. A POV tells you what you actually believe...and that's what people follow, share, and remember. Posting consistently is good. Posting with conviction is what builds a brand. What's the one thing your company believes that most of your market hasn't fully accepted yet? That's your content strategy.