An interview with Rand Fishkin, Founder of SparkToro, and previously co-founder of Moz

An interview with Rand Fishkin, Founder of SparkToro, and previously co-founder of Moz

1. Tell us about yourself.
I'm the co-founder of SparkToro and, prior to that, Moz and Inbound.org. I've been a marketer and an entrepreneur for my entire career -- the last 17 years -- and have made a lot of mistakes from which I hope others can learn :-)

2. Did you choose to become a marketer?
Not entirely. I fell into marketing after entering the tech world as a web designer, but I love the combination of technical and creative processes required to succeed, and truly enjoy the people in the marketing world.

3. What do you think one should do to align their marketing goals with their business goals?
Tie marketing goals explicitly and directly to specific business goals, then show (as best you're able), how metrics improvements in marketing correlate (or cause) improvements in the business goal.

4. Your views on why MVPs (Minimum Viable Product) may not be ideal:
My basic contention is that many customers and amplifiers of your business and work will likely judge your product on their initial experience. If you release something that's barely viable but doesn't truly astound and impress, you're likely to burn the opportunity to re-earn that customer's business in the future. Worse, if that person might have been an amplifier of your company or a promoter of your product/service, you've lost the opportunity to reach their audience with a message of endorsement.

5. What would be some of the biggest challenges in marketing in the next few years?
The major web properties are all moving to a model of sharing out less traffic and keeping more for themselves. That makes many web marketing activities much more difficult, and mean that fewer people and organizations will benefit from the popularity that Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. have achieved. Rather than spreading the wealth of traffic and linking across the web, we're seeing consolidation and closing of gates to keep people on their platforms.

6. What's your favourite ad? Why?
A favourite ad is far too difficult, but I really enjoyed this concept from Reese's Peanut Butter Cups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89djlGgzIQ

7. Are there any marketing gurus you've been inspired by?
Hmm... Not sure they'd call themselves "gurus," but a few folks that have certainly inspired and impressed me lately include Purna Virji, Emily Grossman, Tara Reed, Everette Taylor, Camille Ricketts, 

8. What do you think is the most senseless marketing campaign? Why?
Hard to name just one, but I think politics is an area where a ton of marketing activity, advertising spend, and media effort of all kinds is placed, but with a very low return on investment. At most, 2-3% of the electorate seem to ever shift their votes in the United States, yet fewer than 40% of eligible voters even bother to cast ballots. Clearly, it's a field with perverse incentives, incredibly illogical thinking, and horrific bias of all kinds, yet I can't help but feel that most of the marketing dollars spent are done senselessly, too.

9. What's your favorite social media platform? why?
I still love Twitter. It's a wonderful place to engage with people and organizations, to form connections, to get help with problems, to socialize around professional, political, and interest-based issues. If the platform could work to solve its horrifying abuse and harassment problems, I think it would have a very bright future indeed.

10. What phone app do you use most?
Gmail :-) But right behind that is probably Twitter, Pocket, Lyft, Reddit, Fitbit, and Instagram

11. What do you do when you have free time?
My wife and I socialize a lot! We have so many wonderful friends in Seattle and the cities we frequently visit that our calendar is often booked up for months in advance. I love seeing people, eating good food, sharing stories, and being supportive however we can.

12. Is there a software product you love?
Many! I'm a big fan of Excel and Powerpoint -- still gold standards for much of the work I do. Google Drive has also proved invaluable, and for my new company, a few others like Gusto, Typeform, Docusign, and Carta have been invaluable.

13. What productivity hacks do you use?
I try to run 100% of my communication through just two channels -- my calendar and my email. If it's not in those two, it doesn't exist for me (or, at least, I don't prioritize it). That helps me stay mostly on top of everything I need to get in a day without falling too far behind.


    • Sticky Posts

    • 10 simple e-commerce marketing tips to boost sales

      Congratulations! You've finally set up that e-commerce store you've been thinking about for a long time. Hopefully it wasn't too difficult. Even if it was, the effort will be totally worth it when you start seeing some orders come through. Now that the store is live, let's take a look at some marketing tips you can apply for sales growth. 1. Avoid cart abandonment If you've ever shopped online, you might have added a product to the cart but then decided not to purchase it. This is known as cart abandonment.
    • Marketing in a post COVID-19 world!

      Consumers across countries are increasingly spending more time on a wide variety of digital activities, right from online grocery shopping, to video conferencing, to tele-medicine. There is a good chance that you performed one or more of the following activities during this lockdown, thanks to COVID 19: Cooked a meal Made a TikTok Video Signed up for a remote learning session Consulted a doctor online (or ordered medicines online) Shopped for groceries online A study by Hunter, a food and beverage
    • Inbound Marketing 101: The Foundational Blocks of Inbound Marketing Strategy

      According to a behaviour survey, 68% of the buyers use sources such as blogs to evaluate the product even before considering it. Before buying a product, we do a lot of research to learn more about the product through communities, blogs, social media,
    • How Zylker doubled their webinar registrations!

      Webinars are good educational resources to gather qualified leads for your product. But what if your visitors are dropping off from your webinar landing page without signing up? What more could you do to convert visitors into registrants? This is the
    • The ideology behind why features tell, but benefits sell

      Do you think there's any truth to this? Do features only tell, and benefits sell?  Well, let's see why we should focus on benefits rather than features as the great marketing wizards, David Ogilvy and Steve Jobs proved to be the best examples leveraging
    • Recent Topics

    • Execution failure when fetching a Name field from another app

      In creator I have one app [Employee Directory] with a form [Employees]. One of the fields is a name field called [Name]. Here is a sample that works, if executed from the Employees app: test_Employee = Employees[Name.first_name == "Alex"]; info test_Employee.Name;
    • Accessing Subform Data using getRecordByID

      I am getting data from Zoho Creator using deluge zoho.creator.getRecordByID task, from another application. The report contains a subform, and that subform is in the detail view of the report. I do not appear to have any subform data in the JSON response,
    • Allow customer to select meeting duration

      I would love to see a feature where I can give the customer the option to select the meeting duration they require based on a dropdown list which I have predefined in the service settings. For example: 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes.
    • Can you internally tag/categorize posts for campaigns?

      Would love to easily sort through posts by tags or categories (i.e. we have multiple memberships and share studies from each. It would be nice to pull reports in a second for "membership A studies" for a campaign etc.).
    • Function 56: Automatically enable the option for customers to pay via bank account

      Hello everyone and welcome back to our series! One of the key features of Zoho Books is its integration with multiple payment gateways, allowing you to receive online payments for your invoices. This ensures faster payments, automates payment tracking
    • Connect multiple Facebook ad accounts to Zoho Social

      Hi there. I'm doing the Facebook Ads and Zoho Social integration to automate the leads that come from Potential Customer campaigns on Facebook to Zoho CRM. I have a company (1 fanpage, 1 brand), but within the business or brand on Facebook, I manage several
    • Custom service report or Zoho forms integration

      Hello, So far the experience with Zoho FSM and the integration with Books has been good, however there are limitations with service reports. As with my business, many organisations send technicians to different types of jobs that call for a different
    • Creation of Path and subpath

      In order to improve the structure of the website for better organization, I would like to consider that when publishing a page, it can be within a section and sub-section. For example, if I have an events option in the menu, I can put past events and
    • Assign task owner using Deluge

      Use Case: Each task is a document development task wherein once the developer has completed the first draft, the next step in the process is for the document to be QA-ed by the project's assigned auditor. Thus, I am currently working out a blueprint where
    • Meta and Facebook data report discrepancy

      I have been currently gathering manually facebook follower data thru meta. In zoho marketing plus the social media reporting only allows for page likes, and so there is a discrepancy with the data. please the difference in files attached. Is there way
    • Links in Instagram

      Hi there, I have been using Later for a while now but keen to come back to Zoho Social as Later doesn't offer tagging of pages on Facebook but they offer something Zoho doesn't. You can add a link to your bio which opens up your profile feed where images
    • If I turn off the Task Prefix & ID in the Portal Configuration section, will it remove the dependencies in my projects?

      Hi all, basically the title, I am new to zoho projects and trying to get my head around some basic principles. Unfortunately I have not found this information via the search option and after deleting yesterday some Phases I had created in the Phases tab,
    • Enter dates in tasks with just "tue" or "+10" or "5d" ???

      Is there any way to enter due dates in tasks without typing the whole date or making time consuming clicks in the calendar? I don't see anything online in the help or third party videos.
    • Multiple time zones in zoho projects

      We are working in an international team. We need to set up different time zones in the organizational settings or at least for one project within zoho projects. Any ideas or help? Thx in advance
    • Zoho Desk : Field for 'Layout'

      I have many different layouts on my helpdesks and I want to be able to identify the stats for each one, however I can not find the field in the raw data from the Zoho Desk datasource. I thought it might be in the "Tickets" table but there is nothing.
    • Customize Zoho One Dashboard and URL?

      Hi everyone, Is there a way to customize my Zoho One URL to be different from the default portal URL? The current portal URL is: one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization] I want to map it to its own standalone domain that we own. eg) domain.com instead of one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization]
    • Enable Sending Direct Messages to Self in Zoho Cliq

      Hi, I would like to request a feature enhancement for Zoho Cliq to allow users to send direct messages to themselves. Currently, Zoho Cliq does not have the option to send a direct message to oneself. While creating a channel with just one member (the
    • JOB Sheet can not send PDF as service rapports and more info needed other topic

      Goedendag, - Jullie hebben nu job sheet erin gedaan en dar is echt super goed, enkel kunnen we de werkbon ( JOB sheet) nu niet verzenden als PDF als een service rapport naar onze hoofdaannemer hoe we dat nu doen als bewijs van de levering van het werk
    • Tax Deduction at Source (TDS)

      I issued a sale invoice outside UAE , the customer apply TDS on the invoice , i checked my Zoho ( professional version ) i couldn't find the option of Enable TDS to let it appear while posting the incoming payment , please how to make it and how to configure
    • UNAPPROVED record management

      When the unapproved list of duplicates is long, one needs the some tools to manage them - when this list has over 1500 records, we cannot manage it without some tools, such as: 1. The ability to apply a filter - ie similar to creating a CREATE a NEW VIEW
    • Zoho mail filter Add to WorkDrive doesnt't work

      Hello, We have a problem with using the filter in the email. So, we want that when a bulk payment confirmation from the online store arrives, this email is automatically saved in HTML format on the drive using the action 'Add to Zoho WorkDrive -> Email
    • Introducing Zia GenAI: Zoho's Native Generative AI for Zoho Desk

      Hello everyone, Zia GenAI is available on Early Access for Zoho Desk Enterprise subscribers. Kindly fill out this Registration Form to request early access. We are excited to announce the Beta release of Zia GenAI in Zoho Desk, now available through our
    • Add blueprint buttons to listview and kanban

      Hello, just started to use the Blueprints feature - really useful. I have one suggestion to help this work even better - can there be transition buttons that appear on the top of listview & Kanban? Maybe an option as well - "Blueprint transitions appear
    • Deleted message in SPAM

      In one of my gmail accounts (getnickifit@gmail.com) I had an email from PayPal in the SPAM folder. I thought I was moving the message to the inbox from the zoho mobile but it looks like it was deleted. It is no where to be found--inbox, trash, etc. Can it be restored?
    • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

      Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files
    • Multiple Facebook Pages under Single Brand

      Hi everyone, I'd like to know if there is a possibility of connecting multiple Facebook pages under a single brand on Zoho? At the moment, there are different Facebook pages of a single brand and would want to keep under the same brand on Zoho as we
    • Zoho Books Estimate to Zoho CRM quote?

      I'm not sure why this isnt automatic, but maybe I'm missing something. When we create a quote in zoho books we have a custom function that pushes the contact into a deal within the CRM. I can not for the life of me figure out how to push an estimate from
    • Zoho Developer Hangout (ZDH) – Episode 17 | Optimizing Organizational Processes through Automation

      Hey developers! Running a business can get quite overwhelming especially when juggling multiple tools like those in the Zoho ecosystem. Although integrating most of them is a piece of cake, manual intervention is needed at times. Being able to automate
    • Zoho One not working

      I'm having several issues accessing Zoho One. Some pages don't load (for example, Zoho Directory) and the labels are all messed-up (oz.account.directory.display.shorname, oz.settings...., etc.)
    • Apple Messages for Business in Omnichannel communications?

      Hello, Apple launched "Apple Messages for Business" but Zoho CRM or Zoho Desk don't appear in the list of possible integrators. Zoho already promotes https://www.zoho.com/crm/omnichannel.html Omni Channel integration, but Apple Messages does not yet appear.
    • Kaizen #140 - Integrating Blog feed scraping service into Zoho CRM Dashboard

      Howdy Tech Wizards! Welcome to a fresh week of kaizen. This week, we will look at how to create a dashboard widget that displays the most recent blog post of your preferred products/services, updated daily at a specific time. We will leverage the potential
    • Schedule meeting monthly on a particular day

      Suppose I wanted to schedule HR meeting every month on the first Tuesday with each employee separately for 20 minutes each. How could I automate these type of meetings? And if Sunday occurs on the first Tuesday I would like to shift that meeting on next
    • In ZohoCRM Dashboards - Editing Shown Columns on Drilldown of Components

      Hello! I'm working with some Dashboards inside of ZohoCRM. When creating a component (In this case, specifically a KPI Ranking Component), I'd like to customize which fields show when trying to drilldown. For example, when I click on one of the sales
    • Added Domain but SSL is not being set properly

      We added a Domain for our landing page and it pushed an SSL cert to it. The Cert is generated by LetsEncrypt, but it doesn't match our subdomain (i.e., it's just pointing to zohosites.com). How do we get the cert properly setup there?
    • Zoho CRM Widget not displaying 2 related lists (JS)

      Okay so I basically have 2 relatedLists that I want to get and render: ZOHO.CRM.API.getRelatedRecords({ Entity: data.Entity, RecordID: data.EntityId, RelatedList: "Notes", page: 1, per_page: 200, }) ZOHO.CRM.API.getRelatedRecords({ Entity: data.Entity,
    • KPI widget with percentage

      I'm trying to create a KPM widget that displays current performance as a percentage - something like the picture below. I've tried following the instructions at https://www.zoho.com/analytics/help/dashboard/kpi-widgets.html#chart but nothing ends up being
    • Canvas List View Not Saving

      Hi, I am trying to edit a list view to look different depending on the tags. Everything worked well and saved well with multiple views, but when I have gone back in to make some small changes like moving one of the icons it comes up with the error message
    • QR code image is not exported in PDFs

      The new QR code field works fine when I include it in a report template and I choose the print option: https://creatorapp.zoho.com/<username>/<app_link_name>/record-print/<report_link_name>/<record_ID>/ But when I try to save the document to a .pdf file
    • QR codes in templates

      I'm excited about the new QR code generator. I have included a QR code that contains the record ID setting "${ID}" as input data. In the report detail it works perfectly but when printing it in a template the code is not shown.
    • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

      Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?
    • Next Page