One line of thinking at a time.
Field Notes from Throughline: explainers, diagnostics and essays on cross-channel attribution, visibility in AI answers, and the systems problem every founder-marketer has been handed. Short, concrete, no false precision.
AEO vs SEO vs GEO vs LLMO: what each one means, and which one you actually need
Four acronyms, one worry: when a buyer asks an AI assistant who to consider, are you in the answer? Here is what each term covers, where they overlap, and how to measure it in an hour.
What did my marketing spend actually buy? A one-line answer per channel
Between six figures and a million dollars a year goes into marketing at most growing companies, and it disappears between the tools. Here is how to make each dollar say what it became.
Your weekly marketing report, if a machine wrote it honestly
Most reports are a wall of numbers and a hope. Here is the four-paragraph report a founder actually needs, and the rules that keep it honest.
Your website went quiet. What buyers check before they reply
Cold email works until the buyer opens your site. The four things they check in ninety seconds, and the ones your tools cannot see.
AI marketing agents that never send: what human-in-the-loop should mean
“Human in the loop” has become a checkbox. Here is the version that actually protects you: the machine drafts, a person decides, and every run leaves a receipt.
Why did leads drop this month? The four places to look before you panic
A dip almost never has one cause. It has one cause you can see and three you cannot. Check all four, in this order.
Marketing attribution for startups: what works when your sample is forty people
Enterprise attribution assumes thousands of conversions a month. You have forty. Here is what honest attribution looks like at that size.
What is a throughline in marketing? (And why we named the company after it)
In stories, a throughline is the thread that connects every scene. In marketing, it is the one line from reach to revenue that your tools refuse to draw.
Which marketing channel is actually working? Stop trusting last click
Last click gives the credit to whoever was standing nearest the till. Here is how to find the channel that started the conversation.
How do I know if my marketing is working? A founder’s honest test
Not a dashboard. A five-line test you can run on a Sunday, and the one number most founders never write down.
The clocks melt. The memory doesn't.
Dalí’s most famous painting is the size of a sheet of paper, and it is not about time. It is about what persists after the clocks go soft. Your stack gets this backwards.
Your stack is not a system. The flow is.
Marketing tools are the elements. The flow of information is the system. Most stacks confuse one for the other.
You are the growth team. And the product team.
The marketer drowning in twelve logins is not bad at their job. They have been handed a systems problem and told it is a discipline problem.
When the sample is two, say two
Most dashboards lie politely. They round a coin flip into a strategy. The fix is not more data. It is more honesty.
The drop-off happens between the tabs
Every tool measures its own slice. Nobody owns the seam. That is where the money leaks.