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 Bonjour Millionaire, Ralph Lauren was late with my order so they sent me a discount code towards a future purchase. All is great there, no problem and we've all done it. It was 10% off which isn't exactly rich, and I will use. But the subject line kinda scared me. Maybe that was the point? An Important Update Regarding Your Recent Ralph Lauren Order To me that SL reads like a cancelation or like a recall LOL. Was this email forwarded to you? Sponsored by Levanta ⚠️ Influencer & affiliate program managers, circle up please. ON THIS EPISODE OF GO-TO-MILLIONS  I used to be client-side. I was honestly very, very good at it. I traveled with my clients. I became friends with my clients. I made my clients rich, and so they liked me. But I wasn't always perfect. Even my most favorite of clients, the clients that tried to steal me and make me theirs, would sometimes get mad at me. For example, this story... It's 2022. I'm the whisperer of a very big brand. They are my client, all is well. I guide much of their strategy and my team loves them, too. We're on a big, big call. Like 40 people on the call. And, the subject of People.com comes up. A press badge that the team purchased that we now have rights to utilize in the ads and landing pages that my team is to create for paid media. No problem, except... problem. I don't think that's smart. At least I didn't, back then. A people.com badge isn't exactly Vogue. A people.com badge, in my 2022 opinion, is a sign of weakness. If you are bigger than people.com, if you are strong and known and hot on the market, why reach down and grab any old badge that you "win". By "win" I mean any old badge that is sold to you, that you buy to then leverage. You win because they think you'll pay. And if you pay, they were right. So I unmuted on this 40-person call and spoke my truth. That I didn't want to put that badge anywhere in our marketing. That it wasn't a strong-enough signal. That 5 of my other clients had been offered it, too. The consensus on the call was that I was right. Great! Except, not great. Because remember, the badge had already been purchased. I got a very fair, very evenhanded Slack following the call from the person who bought that badge. That person was very high up. And, I unknowingly went against them. All was forgiven, and they did say I was right (I was), but wasn't my best. Why do I bring this up? AGENTIC LOVES PRESS BADGES2022 was not the time to buy cheap status. 2026 isn't about buying cheap status, either. Don't get me wrong, I still think people.com is lame in almost all circumstances. But since 2022, I have learned some things. I've since worked on a women's health brand that did $1M a day, thanks to an Oprah.com seal that they purchased that when overlaid on any single ad we made, would crush. Oprah has that impact on the demo in which this brand served, and so with Oprah's likeness and stamp, we made our money back that we spent getting the badge a few hours after it went live. And, I now work in beauty again. In beauty, there are certain badges that AEO / GEO / Agentic really, really indexes on and that really guides your ability to rank in LLMs. Allure is that. If you're offered an Allure badge, buy it. If you're offered an Oprah badge, buy it but negotiate it down and reserve it only for your landing pages that target ages 50+. AI MEANS ANYONE CAN MAKE AN AD LOOK LIKE ANYTHINGBack to why you have to buy the badges now. We live in the land of AI-slop and massive quantity. Where non-artistic, untalented people can make ads en masse. So what stands out in the market, what stands out in the feed, is content that is hard to pull off and that has a barrier to entry. Press-badges are a barrier to entry. You can rip any ad style, but you can't leverage an Allure or and Oprah badge without winning and paying for them. It's a good bar. We need bars these days as it's hard to compete and to build trust. You know who has built trust? Oprah. Borrowing credibility from a source people already trust is, arguably, the only thing you can’t fake.  The brand I 1st used the Oprah badge on sold menopause products. Can you think of anything more perfect than an Oprah badge to sell to that group? I can't. Would I have unmuted on a 40-person call to back the badge in that scenario? Yes, I would have. Would 2026 version of me back a people.com badge? Still, no. But would I back an Allure badge? Yes, I'd pay double. For agentic. And for trust. And for proof. Would I back an Oprah badge? Yes. Nobody is too big for a badge, in the era of agentic. That's my entire point, and so I'm going to bold it and repeat it. Buy the badge if you want to rank. Use the badge in your marketing, on the side of your website if you're too big for it. I don't want to put an Oprah badge in my emails. But, that's because I don't work for a brand that is perfectly suited for it. I would use it on a landing page. I would put the Allure badge in emails though. Because I work for a brand that is suited for it. See? P.S. Change your mind often and quickly. And, I'm still sorry about the people.com thing. Not for saying it was bad. But for not realizing who bought it LOL. Sponsored by Roku Streaming TV + shopping is now officially a documented ritual. (Literally, the biggest streaming weekend last year was Cyber 5) Thought you'd enjoy... .png?sig=1a2ba75f69decb6cb091cf43c552ed82e142cc1ba556d9316987f8bcfd67c19b&size=email-body&dpr=2) Yours, | ||||||||
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