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

    • Top Menu Disappeared from Blog Page

      Hi, Our top menu disappeared at Blog Posts page. However, it's still visible any other page on the website. I attached two screenshots, so it can be understood clearly. How can we bring back top menu? Thanks, K.

    • Missing phone numbers

      yesterday I have noticed that most contacts' phone numbers are missing. At first I thought it is a synchronisation problem with my Android phone but as I have found later, numbers are missing on Zoho. I have tried to reimport contacts from a backup but

    • Customise 404 page in Zoho Sites 2.0

      Is it possible to customise the 404 page in Zoho Sites 2? You use to create a new 404 page and that became the default 404 page, but this does not seem to work anymore? Any pointers/suggestions/support appreciated :)

    • [Important announcement] Zoho Writer will mandate DKIM configuration for automation users

      Hi all, Effective Dec. 31, 2024, configuring DKIM for From addresses will be mandatory to send emails via Zoho Writer. DKIM configuration allows recipient email servers to identify your emails as valid and not spam. Emails sent from domains without DKIM

    • Create workflow rules based on notes

      Last modified on 17/04/2023: Creating Workflow rules based on notes is now available for all Zoho CRM users in all DCs. Note that it was an early access feature available only upon request. As of April 13, 2023, it is rolled out for al Zoho CRM accounts.

    • Workflow sync between zoho books and zoho inventory

      Hello, While the custom fields, validation rules and even custom buttons are sync'd between zoho books and zoho inventory, the workflow rules do not. Not sure if this is an intentional purpose of zoho team for some good reason or if it's in the development

    • Item sales account via api

      Hey everyone, I’m making an invoice using the create invoice endpoint on the api. Is it possible to set a sales account in the line_items attributes?

    • Zoho Please change your ways

      I started using Your new Zoho bookings in earnest 3 days ago. What a mistake.  Once again, everything is backwards and upside down.  I had to spend 5 hours testing how the thing works in order for me to understand how to acutally use it.  When i started using google calendar years ago.  it took seconds to figure out how it works. Why is that. bc they put everything in places where it makes sense.  Today, I needed to add an appointment as well as a time off.  Stupid me i added the time off first,

    • Make a ticket visible in the Community

      Hi there, It is possible to have a conversation with a customer via a ticket and eventually the proposed solution isn't possible yet. Therefore you want to add it as an idea in the Community, available and open to everyone that is in the community, so

    • Zoho email folders gone

      Hi, All my email folders are gone, i cant found any email, except sent. Also before folder rulesas was changed and i didnt fixed them, could you please check it?

    • Pause/Resume Subscrtiption API

      I don't see the option to Pause/Resume a subscription using the API, is it in the pipeline?

    • Update Department on Ticket (with applied Blueprint)

      Hello, Is it possible to update the Department of a ticket which is dictated by a blueprint, e.g. I would like to change departments at different states in the Blueprint. I do not see this is an option in workflow rules or blueprint transition actions,

    • ERROR_CODE :554, ERROR_CODE :rejected due to spam

      Please verify bounce message: This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. xxx@thalesesec.com Error, ERROR_CODE :554, ERROR_CODE

    • Can't verify domain with AWS Route53

      I have a domain successfully transferred to AWS Route53 from NameCheap. When I try to CNAME or TXT Records as suggested, they are added in AWS console however zohomail does not verify them. For the TXT record zohomail says the value is wrong, whereas

    • Sent emails not going and showing "Processing"

      Hello Team, Could you please assist with sent emails showing "processing" and not actually going through? Many thanks and regards, Cycology

    • LinkedIn verification link and otp not receiving

      For the last 2 to 3 weeks I'm trying to verify my LinkedIn account to access my company's LinkedIn page, Linkedin is sending verification links and codes to this email address but I have not received any codes or links. Please help me here. Looking forward

    • send file to ftp or another external service

      i'v created a zoho creator application for take a picture and rename it by phone. Now i need to send Each renamed pictures to my ftp or to specific folder on google drive...then, delete it from creator. (every picture recived it will processed by another program and stored on my Erp) HOW CAN I DO ??

    • Mass pdfs into OCR field

      I am working on a Creator app that my org will use internally. Is there any way to mass upload pfs through a form with an OCR file upload field? Is Creator capable of this, or would I need to use Catalyst?

    • How to upload a file to form file upload field from deluge script.

      Hi guys, I need to store API response into Form File upload field . I'm not getting any errors but PDF file is not assigned to file upload field. You can check possibilities using below details: Method: POST URL: https://v2.convertapi.com/convert/web/to/pdf?Secret=<<SecretKey>>&Token=<<APIKey>>&Url=https://www.google.com You need to generate secretKey and APIKey by Login to https://www.convertapi.com/a/su Response: { "ConversionCost": 4, "Files": { "FileName": "www_google_com.pdf", "FileSize": 68342,

    • Export view via deluge.

      Hi, Is it possible to export a view (as a spreadsheet) via deluge? I would like to be able to export a view as a spreadsheet when a user clicks a button. Thanks     

    • Subform Time field showing as null in script.

      Good Afternoon everyone. I am trying to take the information from my subform and populate it into a multiline field in the CRM. The code below works with no errors. The problem is, it shows that the Open and Close (Time fields) are null. But they are

    • Is there a way to sort report on record template by a specific field like date field

      Hi, Is it possible to sort the report on the record template by the date field and not the default Added Time. Please check the example bellow: The records are sorting by the added time I wand to change that by the date field,

    • Shared subfolders

      Am I right in thinking that there is no Zoho email application that allows me to create a shared inbox and then add additional folders/subfolders under that inbox? If so, this is really quite incredible and probably a deal breaker for us to start using

    • Update Multi select field values to another form table as individual record

      Hi, I am new to coding and do basics within deluge. I need help with the deluge script to meet the following requirement. Form Student Attendance The fields are : Attendance Date Course (Lookup to Course Form) Class (Lookup to Class Form) Students (Multi

    • Shared Mailbox - Mark as read for all users

      Hi all, Maybe someone can help me out. At the moment we have a shared mailbox without streams. When a users reads an mail or marks it as read other users will not see this. How can we resolve this? We now archive the mails when read and followed up. However

    • Allocate emails to user in a shared mailbox

      Hi, This might be obvious, but I cannot find the answer. I have 3 shared mailboxes so any team member can see the emails. Is there a way of allocating a specific email to a user so that it is their responsibility to deal with it? Thanks in advance.

    • How to view shared mailbox in Outlook

      How to view shared mailbox in Outlook or in another software

    • Customising the approval email

      Is there anyway to customise the Approval email or to add further fields as the default looks so basic and unlike any of the other email notifications from Desk. My users just thought it was spam.

    • Pushing GCLID info from Gravity Forms to ZohoCRM

      We are switching to Gravity Forms from Zoho Forms and I cannot find any good info on how to make sure my GCLID tracking info is pushed through to the CRM through my new forms. There was an article in the documentation about placing something within the

    • Issue Configuring SSO Integration with Cognito in Zoho Help Center

      Dear Zoho Support Team, We have been working on configuring SSO integration for our Zoho Help Center using Amazon Cognito. While the setup appears to be completed successfully, we are encountering an issue when attempting to access the Help Center. The

    • Need manual aggregate column pathing help

      See linked video here: https://workdrive.zohoexternal.com/external/a5bef0f0889c18a02f722e59399979c604ce0660a1caf50b5fdc61d92166b3e7

    • Merging contacts does fail because of help center membership

      I'm trying to merge two contact records (they are the same contact) where one of them is a member on the help center. The system warns me about this situation and then I de-activate this contact as an "End User" for the help center. Right now the system

    • Duplicate Contacts - how to get merge or delete

      I have noticed that our list of contacts in Zoho Desk duplicates contacts periodically.  I have yet to identify when or why.  How do I merge or delete them?  I see there is a "Deduplicate" but I am unable to find anything that explains this feature.

    • "Mark as Spam" not working as expected

      Dear support, in the below scenario, clicking on "Mark as spam" identifies only the first of the checked emails as spam, removes that email from the visible list and leaves the rest of the list still visible & unchecked. I've tried check-marking them

    • Massive price increase for user licenses of Zoho Portal

      This actually a complaint about this announcement: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/free-user-licenses-across-all-portal-user-types You present this as an enhancement. And, yes, while reading the main part, I'd agree that (for smaller companies),

    • Calendar - "super compact" week view

      every time i go to my calendar i have to re-engage the "super-compact view" for the week view...is there a way to make "super-compact" a default view so I dont have to keep on setting it manually?

    • Calendar - "pop up" locations

      One of the attractive features of google calendar and outlook calendar is that locations for events will start to automatically populate the location drop down menu as you type. Adding this feature to zoho calendar would be the final feature i need.

    • Using Zia in Zoho Sheet data to research the internet and return answer to a cell in Zoho Sheet

      I'm trying to see if Zia (connected with OpenAI key) can take data parameters stored in a Zoho Sheet to conduct research out on the internet then return an answer into the same Sheet. I'm trying to do the equivalent of using something like the =AI() function

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Creator for the Education Industry

      Hello Everyone! We're thrilled to invite you to the Learning Table Series—a year-long initiative to demonstrate how Zoho Creator can transform industries with innovative and automated solutions. Each month focuses on a specific industry, and this time,

    • Remove the [## XXXX ###] from subject replies

      For our organisation we would like to have the [## XXXX ###] removed from subject replies. Cheers, Jurgen 365VitaalWerken

    • Next Page