There is a difference between doing what works and doing what is expected.
A lot of marketing is still done by habit, posting at the “right” times and following the platform’s best practices. If you build your funnel the way everyone says they will, they will come, right?
That doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but they often don’t solve the problem.
The environment in which many of these standard practices are built continues to change. Things that used to be reliable, like organic reach, keyword targeting, and polished content, don’t carry the weight they once did. But the playbooks haven’t quite caught up (and let’s be honest, we haven’t even started revising some of them).
Smart brands adjust before it becomes best practice. They won’t throw everything away, but they will be more honest about what is actually driving results and what looks like it should be. Because what really comes down to it is how those old metrics became standards in the first place.
At Liquid Death, results, not metrics, drive decisions
Liquid Death has built a brand on spectacle, from a coffin-shaped makeup kit to a skateboard infused with Tony Hawk’s blood. Their campaigns often feel more like stunts than strategies.
But behind that disruption is a far more disciplined change, one that goes against the way most brands still approach marketing. Rather than optimizing platform-reported performance or extensive attribution models, Liquid Death focuses on simpler questions. Did this actually drive sales that wouldn’t have happened otherwise?
That’s where incrementality comes in.
Using Ibotta’s LiveLift, the brand measures real-world purchasing behavior in near real-time, compares exposed audiences to a control group, and adjusts spend based on actual lift.
If a campaign is generating incremental sales at an acceptable cost, the campaign will scale. If not, it will be cut. This change not only improves efficiency; The way you manage your entire marketing funnel is changing.
Rather than treating brand and performance as separate initiatives, Liquid Death uses bottom-of-funnel data as a safety net. Once you know what’s actually driving sales, you can invest more aggressively to increase awareness without second-guessing whether it’s working or not.
Audience strategies are also being restructured. This data directs budget to lapsed and occasional buyers, the people most likely to generate incremental growth, rather than over-investing in loyal fans.
Most marketing isn’t judged by whether it works or not. It’s based on what works or doesn’t work, and Liquid Death has quietly opted out of that system.
What this means for real estate professionals
Many agents will probably still measure their marketing the way the platform wants them to: impressions, clicks, engagement, and perhaps leads.
But none of these metrics answer the only question that matters: Will this client work with you?
The idea of gradualism requires a different approach.
Instead of asking, “Did this post work?” a better question is, “Did this lead to a conversation, inquiry, or relationship that wouldn’t have happened otherwise?”
It looks like this:
Track where serious inquiries are actually coming from, not just form fills Pay attention to patterns of touchpoints that repeat before a client converts Shift your efforts from an audience that already knows and trusts you to an audience that wants to be reminded that you exist
You don’t need Ibotta level data to apply this. However, you must be willing to stop trusting surface-level (often called vanity) metrics.
Because the inconvenient truth is the same in real estate as it is in any other industry. Much of what looks like marketing performance is just noise.
Canva turns your designs into prompts and workflows
Canva’s modern AI assistant allows users to describe what they want, and Canva takes care of the rest, including planning the task, summoning the appropriate tools, and generating a fully editable design built into layers. Instead of navigating between features, the assistant coordinates the process for you.
The assistant does more than just generate visuals. Get context from tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Gmail, run background tasks, browse and type on the web, and draft content on a schedule. The goal is to reduce the number of decisions and steps from idea to execution.
At the same time, Canva is reinforcing its role as the “last mile.” Even as AI tools expand across platforms like Adobe and Figma, Canva is positioning itself as the place where content is ultimately refined, approved, and published.
What this means for real estate professionals
Design is becoming less of a barrier and less of a differentiator.
While anyone can create sophisticated listing graphics, social posts, or flyers with prompts, the advantage isn’t because they have better tools. It comes from better input.
In other words:
Clear positioning and messaging will be more important than ever Knowing your audience will outperform knowing your platform Consistency will be easier to execute, but standing out will be harder
When everyone uses the same tools to generate “good enough” content, most of it will look and feel the same. Winning agents will be those that treat AI as a production layer rather than a strategy.
Google replaces traditional search ads with AI Max
Google is phasing out older methods of running search ads.
With AI Max for Search out of beta, the company plans to replace dynamic search ads and other legacy tools by September. Advertisers can switch now, but the transition will be automatic.
This change reflects the way people search today. Queries become longer, more conversational, and harder to match with simple keywords. AI Max responds using real-time intents, extracts from multiple signals to make targeting decisions, and generates creative on the fly.
This means less manual control and more reliance on Google’s systems to optimize performance.
This trade-off is well known. As automation increases, it becomes harder to see what is actually driving results. Search is no longer just about matching queries, it’s also about interpreting them.
What this means for real estate professionals
Clarity is more important than optimization, as it becomes harder to control how it appears in search. Messaging, websites, and positioning need to be powerful enough for AI to interpret and reach the right people without much manual input.
Your inbox is becoming a new algorithm.
For years, email has been treated like a backup plan. Now, many are beginning to recognize it as a valuable resource and front-line strategy.
At Social Media Week, marketers made a clear case for why newsletters are so popular. Social platforms still facilitate discovery, but they are less reliable when it comes to consistent reach. Algorithms determine what is seen, when it is seen, and by whom. Also, having a large number of followers does not guarantee distribution.
Email reverses that dynamic.
Rather than competing with algorithms, brands are building direct relationships with audiences who have opted in. The result is more control, greater consistency, and often deeper levels of engagement.
However, the content seems to be different.
What works in newsletters is not polished, repurposed social content. It’s more raw, more specific, more human. Behind-the-scenes insights, niche topics, and unfiltered perspectives are better than highly produced formats.
As platforms become more automated, controlled, and unpredictable, the value of owned channels and the relationships within them continues to grow, and email is one of the few valuable channels that brands can truly own.
What this means for real estate professionals
If you rely on social media to stay in front of your audience, you’re building on rented land. Using an email list gives you consistency and control, but only if you treat it as a relationship rather than a sales channel.
TL;DR (too long to read)
Liquid Death uses incrementality rather than platform metrics to determine what marketing actually drives sales. Canva turns design into AI-driven workflows and limits execution to prompts. Google is replacing traditional search ads with AI Max, shifting control from advertisers to automation. Newsletters are gaining popularity as brands look for their own trusted audience channels.
Rather than defaulting to what a platform recommends or what has always been done, brands are more concerned with being able to prove that it actually works, or at least getting close to it. That means questioning familiar metrics and investing in channels that simplify your workflow and give you control.
These are less flashy than the trends themselves, but they are more permanent ways of operating.
The brands that continue to lag behind are the ones that are willing to rethink what they measure, how they work, and where they put their efforts before others.
Every week on Trending, digital marketer Jesse Healy takes a deep dive into what’s trending on social media and why it matters to real estate professionals. From viral trends to platform shifts, she analyzes everything to help you understand what’s worth your time and what’s not.
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