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- Don't Feed The Algorithm: Issue 033
Don't Feed The Algorithm: Issue 033
The algorithm never sleeps, but you don’t have to feed it.
🐊 Editor's Note
Hey there,
Welcome back to another Don’t Feed The Algorithm, your weekly dispatch from Averi — where we explore the intersections of marketing, AI and the future of work.
December has a funny reputation in marketing.
Everyone calls it the “slow month,” the “deadzone,” the time when nothing happens… so nothing should happen.
But here’s the truth… the audience doesn’t disappear — the marketers do.
And that’s exactly why December is one of the highest-leverage months of the year.
While most teams are coasting, recalibrating, or quietly waiting for January to save them, the smartest operators are doing the opposite: sharpening strategy, building assets, tightening systems, and preparing the kind of January momentum you can’t fake.
This week we’re leaning into that philosophy.
If December is quiet, good. It means you can hear your own thoughts again. It means you can build without the noise. It means you can finally get ahead instead of catching up.
Let’s make this “deadzone” your competitive advantage.
— ZC & The Averi Team
📝 The Good Sh*t
The December Marketing Deadzone: What Smart Teams Do When Everyone Else Goes Quiet
There's a peculiar stillness that descends on the marketing world every December.
Most marketers treat this like a gift. A chance to exhale. To catch up on admin tasks or, let's be honest, to mentally check out while physically remaining at their desks.
Here's the thing, though… and you might hate me for saying this… that two-week window between mid-December and early January isn't a deadzone at all.
It's a strategy zone, a rare pocket of uninterrupted time that separates the marketers who start Q1 scrambling from those who hit the ground with momentum already built.
Now I'm not saying you now need to work tirelessly through December. I'm saying you should do the right work during this time while everyone else is on auto-pilot… so you can save yourself stress later.
The 80/20 Marketing Stack: Which Tools Actually Matter in 2026 → Read online
2026 Tech Industry Trends: What Startups Need to Know → Read online
🎉 This Week’s Wins
Every week we’re spotlighting three heavy hitters who did big things. Tap a win to work with them, or get matched to your perfect expert in Averi.
Elena Park — Growth Strategist & Funnel Architect
Win (for a Series A devtools startup): Elena used Averi to rebuild their onboarding and activation funnel—from messaging to email flows to in-app prompts. Activation rate jumped from 27% → 44% in six weeks, and the team now attributes two enterprise expansions directly to the new flow.
Best for: SaaS teams needing full-stack funnel clarity and activation lift.
 |  |
Jonah Brooks — Senior Video Creative & Brand Filmmaker Win (for a healthtech brand): Jonah produced a “founder field doc” using Averi’s storyboarding and creative workflows—turning a scrappy shoot into a high-emotion brand film. Result: 6.1× engagement, 3× time-on-page, and their highest-performing top-of-funnel asset of 2025. Best for: Brands needing cinematic storytelling that doesn’t require cinematic budgets. | Maya Fernandez — Paid Social & Creative Testing Lead Win (for an e-commerce apparel brand): Maya used Averi to spin up a 14-day rapid creative testing sprint—hooks, angles, CTAs, everything. She cut CAC by 38%, doubled ROAS, and uncovered two winning concepts the brand is now scaling globally. Best for: Brands wanting performance gains driven by structured experimentation, not guesswork. |
🔥 In Case You Missed It…
AWS outage disrupts AI workloads across multiple regions — A multi-hour disruption hit the AWS us-east-1 region this week, impacting Lambda, Bedrock, SageMaker inference, and downstream MarTech stacks relying on real-time LLM calls. A timely reminder that AI-native workflows still depend on old-school pipes.→ Read incident report
Runway teases Gen-2 Ultra upgrades — Runway dropped a quiet preview of its upcoming “Ultra” mode for Gen-2, claiming major improvements in motion coherence and long-form scene stability. Private testers say it’s the closest thing yet to Sora-level realism.→ See the announcement
US online spending hit a record $11.8 B on Black Friday 2025 — powered in part by AI-driven shopping tools — According to Adobe Analytics, the U.S. raked in $11.8 billion in online sales on Black Friday, a 9.1% increase from 2024. AI-powered tools helped drive a huge surge in retail-site traffic and purchase volume, signaling a structural shift in how holiday shopping gets done. → Read more
Marketers around the world are rethinking CX, personalization, and AI for 2026 — especially in APAC — A new survey of B2B and B2C marketing leaders suggests expectations for hyper-personalized AI-powered customer experiences are spiking. The takeaway: generic, one-size-fits-all campaigns may soon be obsolete. → Read more
Upskill or fall behind — a new online analytics program shows why — As marketing becomes more data- and AI-centric, an online course recently launched promises to equip mid-career marketers with the skills to navigate analytics, attribution, and AI-augmented campaign planning. For those who don’t evolve, this year’s “safe bets” won’t cut it. → Read more
AI-powered shopping assistants reshaped holiday behavior — for good — A new report from Bluefish AI shows that generative-AI tools significantly shaped buying decisions this Black Friday / Cyber Week. Some retailers dominated AI search results, while others slipped — and these shifts dramatically impacted who won (and who got buried) when the discounts dropped. → Explore the report
Marketers: the holiday season just rewrote what “customer acquisition” looks like — With growing numbers of consumers using AI to discover, compare, and purchase products, the traditional funnel is evolving fast. AI-influenced shopping traffic spiked — meaning positioning, structured data, and brand voice matter more than ever. Brands still thinking “holiday = discounts” are already behind. → Learn why
If your marketing stack still lives on one cloud — you might want to rethink that — The recent AWS outage served as a harsh reminder: a single-vendor infrastructure is a single point of failure. With AWS + Google Cloud now offering multicloud links, survival requires architectural flexibility — especially for data-heavy, AI-powered operations. → Read update
🎮 Run This Play
This is where we hand you a ready-made growth move you can drop straight into Averi. No theory, no bs — just execution you can actually launch in minutes.
This week’s play is all about one thing:
Who you’re actually selling to — and how to talk to them.
Most teams think they know their ICPs.
Very few actually have messaging that speaks to them with precision, clarity, or conviction.
This play will help you lock down your ICPs, build messaging frameworks that convert, and give your entire company a shared language that aligns sales, marketing, product, and leadership.
Goal: Build 3–5 crystal-clear ICPs and the messaging frameworks that convert them.
Outcome: A complete ICP + messaging system stored in Averi, ready to drive campaigns, sales decks, landing pages, ads, and future strategy.
Play: Build My ICPs & Messaging
1️⃣ Define Your ICPs (30 min)
Open Averi and say:
“Help me build ideal customer profiles. My product is [describe]. Who should we target?”
Share context:
• Product/service
• Current customers
• Business goals
• Target markets
• Features + use cases
Identify 3–5 ICPs with Averi (roles, industries, growth stage, business model).
For each ICP, ask:
“Build a detailed profile for [ICP]: demographics, role, pain points, goals, buying motivations, objections, channels.”
Review and refine → Confirm your target customers.
2️⃣ Build Messaging Frameworks (45 min)
Open /create Mode →
“Create a messaging framework for [ICP]: value prop, benefits, pain point messaging, proof points, objection handlers.”
Edit → Save to Library → ICPs & Messaging > [ICP Name]
Repeat for all ICPs.
Then ask Averi:
“Create a master messaging document: our core positioning + how we message each ICP + when to use each message.”
Refine → Save to Master Messaging Framework.
3️⃣ Create Reference Templates (30 min)
In /create Mode →
“Create ICP summary cards — one page per ICP.”
Save to ICP Quick Reference.
Have Averi build a messaging matrix:
ICP → top 3 pain points → our solution → key message.
Ask Averi for example messaging across:
• Website hero copy
• Email subject lines
• Ad headlines
• Social post variations
Save all to Library.
4️⃣ Get Expert Validation (Optional, 15 min)
Type /intro → “Match me with a brand strategist to validate my ICPs.”
Share your workspace, frameworks, and ICP folder.
Strategist reviews:
• Are these the right targets?
• Does the messaging resonate?
• Are we differentiated?
Make revisions → Update all files.
Share your ICPs & Messaging folder with:
• Sales
• Customer Success
• Product
• Marketing
Host a quick review session → answer questions → align language.
Ask Averi:
“Create a one-page ‘How to Use Our ICPs’ guide.”
Save + circulate.
What You’ll Have
✅ Day 1: 3–5 detailed ICP profiles
✅ Day 2: Messaging frameworks for each
✅ Day 3: Quick reference cards + examples
✅ Day 4: Expert validation (optional)
✅ Week 1: Company-wide alignment
Pro Tip: Update every quarter. ICPs are living documents — not artifacts.
📺 The Algorithm Could Never
Apple — “Fuzzy Feelings” (Holiday Stop-Motion Film)
Every December, the internet fills up with the same polished, hyper-optimized holiday ads — shiny, fast-cut, algorithm-bait.
And then Apple dropped Fuzzy Feelings.
A stop-motion short film made with handcrafted puppets and miniature sets.
No AI. No templates. No data-driven “what converts best.”
Just pure human craft — nostalgia, warmth, a little melancholy, and a reminder that creativity isn’t always fast or scalable on purpose.
In the story, a young woman processes her complicated relationship with her boss by animating a stop-motion version of him… only to realize she may not be seeing the full picture.
It’s tender. It’s weird. It’s deeply human.
And it moves with a kind of emotional precision that no generative system could ever propose on its own.
Why We Love It:
Because this is what taste looks like when it slows down.
AI can generate frames. It can mimic claymation. It can even write stories.
But it would never choose this:
A quiet film about empathy, miscommunication, and the tiny creative rituals we use to process our lives.
Taste isn’t just what you make — it’s what you choose to make, and why.
Do we dig it? |
Want to see more of the best marketed companies on the planet? 👇
🗓️ Make Friends
Global Artificial Intelligence Virtual Conference | Virtual | | December, 15-17 | → Register
Digital Summit: Tech & Marketing | Dallas, TX | | December, 3-4 | → Register
Tech SEO Connect | Durham, NC | | December, 7-10 | → Register
AWS re:Invent 2025 | Las Vegas, NV | | December, 1-5, 2025 | → Register
2025 Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & Business Analytics | New York, NY | | December, 5-6, 2025 | → Register
AI Summit New YorkFor a decade, The AI Summit New York has been the trusted platform for enterprise leaders and tech innovators to explore and apply commercial AI. We unite influential minds, pioneering technologies, and practical insight, to transform theoretical discussions into tangible, profitable business outcomes.
| CES 2026This is where global brands get business done, meet new partners and where the industry's sharpest minds take the stage to unveil their latest releases and boldest breakthroughs. Get a real feel for the latest solutions to the world's biggest challenges with immersive activations and demos. Engage with the greatest minds and most impactful brands of our time.
|
🦄 Averi Stories & Startup Spotlight
LTV.ai — The AI-Powered Retention Playbook That Turns One Sale Into Many
When everyone talks about acquisition, LTV.ai quietly flipped the script: what if your follow-ups were smarter than your first pitch?
The Backstory: Originally founded as ShopToken, LTV.ai pivoted in 2024 to focus on AI-driven post-purchase marketing. By 2025, they’d landed a $5.2 M Series A — the signal was clear: brands aren’t lacking customers. They’re lacking follow-through.
LTV.ai works like this: instead of blasting every customer with the same promo, their system uses large language models (LLMs) to build hyper-personalized follow-ups. Think: “Hey — we know you bought jeans. It’s about to snow in NYC. Want a sweater?” Not generic. Personalized. Context-aware. Timing-aware.
Key Innovation:
LLM-Agnostic marketing stack: They integrate multiple leading LLMs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.) so clients always run on whichever model works best at that moment.
Trigger-based follow-ups: Every purchase, browsing pattern, or seasonal shift becomes a trigger to re-engage — without manual effort. It’s marketing that works while you sleep.
Retention-first thinking: Their core belief: loyal customers + repeat buys = compounding value. Instead of one-off conversion, they help brands build lifetime value (LTV).
💡Ask Averi
AI + Human Marketing Tip
"Use AI to lift the heavy load — then humans add the soul."
AI is amazing at speed, volume, and structure. It can generate drafts, outlines, ad variations, and even keyword maps in seconds.
But human judgment is what turns “technically correct” into “emotionally compelling.” Tone, nuance, values, authenticity — those remain human territory.
Best practice: Let AI do the mechanical work (research, first drafts, A/B copy variations), then always pass it through a human editor.
That combination — AI + human — is what builds scalable marketing with heart.
Strategy You Can Steal
The Human-Amplified AI Content Loop
A simple workflow for teams who want to create consistently high-signal content, without getting buried in volume.
Prompt & Draft (5–10 min):
Use AI to generate first drafts — blogs, social posts, ad copy, or ideas — based on a clear brief (audience, pain point, desired outcome).
Human Refinement (10–20 min):
A human editor reviews the AI content, sharpening language, adding stories or examples, adjusting tone to match brand personality, and injecting emotional or strategic nuance — the stuff AI can’t do well.
Test & Meta-learn (ongoing):
Launch content, monitor performance (engagement, conversions, feedback), and feed insights back into your content library.
Archive & Build the Library:
Save everything — prompts, drafts, final versions, performance data — in a central place (like Averi’s Library). Over time, this becomes your taste engine.
Repeat & Iterate:
Next time you need content, pull from your library — reuse, remix, or reimagine — but always run it through AI + human.
This loop makes content creation both fast and thoughtful — growth with integrity.
— Averi
This Week’s Prompt Highlight
“Write a web-copy hero section as if you’re pitching directly to a human — not an algorithm. Use emotional language, a clear promise, and one bold view that challenges the status quo.”
One Averi user plugged that prompt into our system last week while building a landing page for a niche SaaS product. The thing that came back? Not a standard hero headline.
It was a mini manifesto.
Because here’s the deal: when you write to a human, not a machine, people remember. They feel. They lean in.
And that’s the difference between content that hits — and content that sticks.
🏆 Expert of the Week
 | Pam Didner — B2B Marketing Strategist & AI-First Content Maestro🧠 Background: Pam spent over a decade leading global marketing at enterprise tech firms (including stints at Intel), before striking out on her own as a consultant. She runs her firm, advises B2B brands and enterprise players, and teaches teams how to build content, enable sales, and scale messaging across geographies and verticals. ⚡ Achievement: Pam has bridged traditional B2B marketing wisdom with the new reality of AI-augmented workflows. She’s publicly addressed how to integrate AI-driven content and scaling without losing tone, alignment, or sales-readiness in complex B2B environments. That makes her uniquely relevant as brands lean heavily into combined AI + human stacks next year. 🪩 Quirk: Pam treats content like a global CRM — every message, asset, and campaign is carefully mapped to ICP, buying stage, and sales motion. That structure + strategic discipline is why her clients rarely scramble — even when launching complex B2B offers. |
💼 Don’t Let AI Replace You
ONUM
Position: Sr. Data Scientist, Marketing — Remote
Location: Remote – United States
Details: ONUM is hiring a senior-level data scientist to lead AI-driven insights, predictive analytics, and revenue-driving models across sales, marketing, and GTM operations. → Apply Now
Lockheed Martin
Position: AI / ML Engineer (Early Career)
Location: Grand Prairie, TX (US)
Details: Lockheed Martin is seeking early-career ML engineers to work on mission-critical AI/ML systems — a great fit if you want to build applied AI under high-stakes requirements.
Humana
Position: Applied AI Engineer — Remote / United States
Location: Remote
Details: Humana is hiring engineers to build and deploy Python-based AI applications supporting health, data, and analytics work — bridging ML and real-world domain impact. → Apply Now
Experian
Position: Machine Learning Engineer — Remote / U.S.
Location: Remote – United States
Details: Experian is looking for ML engineers to build automation and AI-powered workflows for their data and analytics platform. Great for folks bridging data, dev, and ML. → Apply Now
Allstate
Position: Applied / Generative-AI Engineer — Remote / USA
Location: Remote – United States
Details: Allstate is hiring AI/ML engineers to integrate and deploy generative-AI and machine learning solutions in financial and insurance products — combining domain sensitivity with AI scale. → Apply Now
Censys
Position: Senior Machine Learning Engineer — Remote / USA
Location: Remote – United States
Details: Censys seeks experienced ML engineers to build scalable ML pipelines, work on security & internet data, and help expand AI capabilities in cybersecurity. → Apply Now
Torc Robotics
Position: Senior ML Engineer — Remote / USA (Autonomous Vehicles)
Location: Remote (US)
Details: Torc Robotics is looking for senior ML engineers working on scene-understanding and behavior prediction models for autonomous systems — ideal for ML engineers seeking real-world AI + robotics. → Apply Now
Spear AI
Position: Machine Learning Engineer — Remote
Location: Remote – Global
Details: Spear AI is hiring ML engineers for full-time remote roles, focusing on building and deploying AI-driven solutions. Good for flexible, remote-first AI talent. → Apply Now
Dropbox
Position: Digital Marketing Strategist (AI-adjacent Marketing Role, remote) — from recent listings on AI-marketing job boards
Location: Remote – US (check listing)
Details: Dropbox is hiring for marketing roles that intersect with AI/automation and marketing operations — ideal for marketers comfortable bridging growth, data, and tech. → Apply Now
Looking to fill an open role on your marketing team? Averi can help!
We have access to the best marketers in the world at our fingertips.
Fill out the form below and we’ll work with you to find great candidates for your roles.
Did You Know? — 74% of buyers say they can tell within 10 seconds whether a brand “gets them” — and the #1 signal is ICP-specific messaging, not design or price.
Most teams still write generic copy… and most buyers bounce because of it.
2026 will be the year specificity becomes a moat.
Til next time,
DFTA
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