#35 - 10 Marketing Mistakes Businesses Will Make in 2026

A fast breakdown of the 10 digital marketing mistakes businesses will make in 2026. Clear explanations, real-world examples, and practical fixes you can implement right away. If you want your marketing to actually work next year, start here.

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Transcript

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You're listening to Over the Bull, where we cut through marketing noise. Here's your host, Ken Carroll.

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Nine digital mistakes businesses will make in marketing in 2026 and how your business can avoid the issues. Welcome back to Over the Bull. Thank you so much for attending. We've recently expanded our office space, and so hopefully there's not a real bad reverb as we're getting oriented to our expanded locations. If so, my apologies in advance to post-production. So here's kind of the deal, guys. Digital marketing, as we've been talking about, is shifting faster than most businesses really understand it. And the sad reality is a lot of digital marketing agencies are adopting bad practices and they're ignoring good practices because the bad practices using artificial intelligence is easy. And easy is not going to be where you want to be. Now, many businesses, in my notes here, I've wrote from um are using strategies from 2018 to 2022 without understanding how search ads and consumer behavior have changed. Now, here's the deal: we're not talking 2022. We're talking bad practices from March 2025. And so that should give you an idea how bad things are changing and how quickly they're changing. And this is why we're seeing a large influx of people abandoning their digital marketing solutions and seeking some help from us because the reality is it's a lot of work. So here's kind of the thing. What I want to do is talk to you about nine mistakes that can drag your business down and what you can do to kind of avoid it. Now, this top nine list is predicated largely on things that we are seeing within our agency. And so as an owner, you've got to be careful because those proven or those things you think are proven that have helped your business in the past may not be so good as we move forward. So let's talk about number one: mistaking content volume for content quality. So businesses will continue to publish large amounts of AI generated content with no strategy, no structure, and no authority signals. This is what everybody is doing. And if you or your digital marketing firm or your blog person or whomever is generating vast amounts of AI-generated content, this is a big mistake and it will bite you. Um, it can absolutely destroy your domain authority for your business. Um, so here's the thing: AI search systems favor expertise and depth, not volume. Okay, so we're back to the old adage of quantity is not as important as quality. Kind of like when you buy food, you know, cheap food that's really bad for you. Uh you can get in mass amounts, but the good stuff you cannot. So here's what you want to be able to do with that: create fewer pieces with actual research data and structured topical depth. Use clustering, one pillar topic, several supporting pages, and internal linking. Number two, running ads without conversion tracking. And yes, this is happening a lot still. I'm surprised by this. Uh, I'm working with a uh group right now, and believe it or not, a very large group was running ads for this organization and never seemingly brought to their attention the fact that conversions need to be tracked. And so companies will pour money into Google and Meta while not tracking things like phone calls, form submissions, high-value events, and booked appointments. Now, why this fails is algorithms can't optimize toward revenue without the signals. Simply said, if you can plug everything in to places like Google and Meta and other places, and you can train their system on meaningful actions, you'll get more meaningful actions. If you don't do that accurately, you will not. So obviously the fix is get proper call tracking, event tracking, and conversion tagging in place before launching any ad spend. Notice before launching any ad spend. So if you're tracking things like how long people are watching videos or how many people click or impressions, but you're not tracking meaningful actions, all those marketing dollars are going to nothing. Now, what I mean by that is of course you're getting visibility. Of course there's something there, but you're not training these systems to get you meaningful actions that add to your bottom line. Okay, the next one is treating AI search like traditional SEO. Now, the mistake is assuming AI-driven SERPs will behave like classic keyword lists and rankings. Okay, so SERPs are search engine results. That's pretty much uh what that acronym stands for. So you go and you type something in Google and you hit the search button, that's a SERP page. Now, why is this failing? AI surfaces surfacing depends on authority, clarity, and structured data, not keyword stuffing. Now, of course, this is one of the things that a lot of SEO guys do. They're still hyper focused on things like keyword density and trying to trick the system. The systems are getting smarter. Not only are they using AI to assist the person on the internet looking for different things, but they're also using it to weed out a lot of these practices that were kind of hard to track historically. And so a lot of the old SEO tactics in which you once trusted are falling to the wayside. So the fix is to build your brand authority, use clear, structured content, and reinforce entities with strong off-site signals. So basically, what this means is build your reputation. Now, I've been talking for about the last six months that your reputation and credibility is the new currency of the internet. This is becoming more and more true. So not only does your digital marketing person need to help you do all the things like bring you valuable traffic, but they also need to help you build your reputation. Now, if people are trying to gain the system, these two things do not live together. So it's time to make some decisions. And with AI becoming more and more ingrained in everything that we do, and the competition kicking up between places like Google and OpenAI, which is Chat GPT, what you're going to see is more determination to make sure the best results come up on the top of search engines. And that junk AI content is not going to cut it. All right, so the next thing is ignoring local search fundamentals. So the mistake is businesses will keep treating Google Business profiles like a set it once and forget it. I don't know if you're doing this where you go to business.google.com, you set up your business, you put in your address, add some photos, put a couple categories in it, and then launch it and never look at it again. This this actually died pretty much in around, well, for a while now, but it really became completely unacceptable in 2025. And so Google Business Profile drives up to 70% of local conversions in many industries. Okay, so 70%. And so the fix of this is to maintain consistent directory data, add postweekly, upload geotag, relevant photos, and monitor your NAP shift, name, address, phone number, drift. Excuse me, I believe I said shift. I meant drift, which actually I think those both would be relevant in that um in that uh point. Uh number five, overrelying on cheap freelancers or SEO packages. Okay, this is a pain point for me. The mistake hiring low-cost providers who deliver no measurable output. Just mail with a company a little over a week ago, and they said that their person was in quote doing SEO. I said, what does that mean? They had no idea. So literally, uh, after looking at it, it appears that this person was selling a concept with no measurable metrics, no goal, just saying we're doing SEO. Now, why does this fell? The industry is filled with people selling these nebulous SEO services with no evidence, no reporting, and no strategy. They're building things that are inconsistent with your branding. So here's the fix. Require verifiable work, guys. I mean, we've just expanded our offices here, and part of the reason we're doing that is because we want to bring people in, have them sit with us face to face if they're local, if not in Zooms. And let's have those real hard talks where we work through and build a system together. Um, you want to make sure you identify things like keyword targets, content outlines, uh, backlinks that are earned, technical fixes that were completed, and monthly measurable key performance indicators or KPI, as you may know that as. And once you get those things in place, then it's kind of hard to hide in the weeds with uh general terms. And by the way, this is a large reason we're seeing a large influx to our organization. Um, using social media without a funnel. Now, um there's two things here. There's something called a sales funnel and a sales ecosystem. I won't get in the weeds with that, but basically just think of uh a funnel. What do you try to do? Take take a big opening to a small opening and you try to guide people through that. That's exactly what this is. So the mistake is posting without an offer, a nurture path, retargeting a call to action or clear KPI goals. Now, why this fails? Social is a traffic source, not a conversion engine. Fix, define the funnel, awareness, engagement, lead magnet, conversion offer, and retargeting. And so it's important to understand if your digital marketing person is not describing to you accurately how social media marketing dramatically differs from, say, Google Ads, then uh they're doing you an injustice because these are apples and oranges in terms of how you approach them. Both of them can be effective. And depending upon what you do in your business, one could be more effective than others. All right, number seven, treating websites like digital brochures. Here's the mistake: businesses build static sites with no experimentation, no heat mapping, no usability improvements. Now, why does this fail? The web in 2026 is about user behavior, not aesthetics. So the fix is use heat mapping, session recording, and A-B testing to continually optimize user flows. This is why we're moving away from anything a la carte in 2026 because it's dying. It doesn't work. You've got to have a complete system and you've got to have people on your side. This is why our team is dedicated to working with clients within uh different business sectors in order to be able to optimize these flows. It's very common for us to adjust our campaigns. Very common. And uh so it's this is just needed. Uh ignoring first party data, number eight. This one's big because I heard a guy three or four weeks ago who's developing an app and he said that things like EML marketing was dead. Wrong. The mistake relying exclusively on Google, Meta, and third-party platforms for analytics and targeting. Why this is failing, privacy changes continue to tighten, reducing tracking precision. And so you want to be able to collect your own data, first person means you own it. And you can do that through things like email, SMS, website behavior, CRM insights, and customer segmentation. This is going to be a big one. Uh, number nine, treating marketing as an expense instead of a system. Man, this is going on forever. The old joke is uh business starts going the wrong direction. What do they do? They cut out their marketing. That's like you have an uh infected uh toenail and you cut your heart out. Marketing is essential, but you've got to treat it as a system moving forward and not as an expense. Show the short-term thinking is something like we tried this for 30 days and it didn't work. Why fails? Marketing is cumulative, not instant. Trust requires six to ten touch points before conversion, sometimes more. So the fix is thinking systems, research content, traffic data optimization, and long-term retention. This is absolutely phenomenally huge, which means a person that's driving your digital marketing space, um, they can no longer cheat. It's got to be comprehensive, and it's got to all build up into this nice crescendo where you're the most credible business within your service area, and that's going to take time. Um, and so uh that's kind of where we're at. Now, I want to throw number 10 out because 10 is probably the most overlooked thing that you could possibly uh ignore today. And it's easy to do so, and that's because artificial intelligence makes you think that the gap is being filled. This is a concept called EEAT. Become very familiar with that. So, EEAT is basically human-touched, authoritative, experienced, uh-driven content. I mean, if you want to bowl it down. And so the idea is we're working heavily with businesses where we're using artificial intelligence to create the right uh ground so that uh content can be created, but we're having to go back and lean on the owners of businesses to help us mold that content and make it more geared toward them. So think about stock photography, think about stock content, think about AI content, and think about how that's not as relevant as things that are personalized to your business. People are sensing these things now, and it's garnering distrust. This is why we have uh a whole photography department where we also do videography and we're certified drone pilots. Uh, we don't do this because, you know, it just sounds like something that uh we just might want to do. It's something that we do in order to build a proper experience for businesses. And so what you're going to find are digital marketing agencies are going to cheat. They're going to start using more and more artificial intelligence and not think about your business. This is a huge mistake everywhere, every place. Now, of course, there's still a place for stock photography, and there's a place where you can do things as long as you stay within your branding. We do it and everybody does it. But it's like putting a little bit of salt into soup. You dump the whole container of salt into soup, you've ruined the soup. So it's kind of like that. I just came up with that analogy. Hopefully, it wasn't too bad of one. Um, so here's the thing in 2026, um, they're not going to reward businesses who do more. Period. More is not better. It will reward businesses who do the right things with clarity, strategy, and measurable outputs and following the best practices as deemed by these companies. Now, the best practices will not be followed by a lot of digital marketing agencies and businesses because there's too many toys out there and too many temptations to cut corners. Um, the uh path to destruction is very wide in this case. And to be successful, it's going to require digging in deep. Uh, so remove the noise, fix the fundamentals, and build systems that compound your business's credibility. Okay, guys, I think I'm going to uh end it here for this week. We've been busy moving into our new office locations and adding a lot of interactivity and doing a lot of different things in order to ramp up for 2026 and complete our transition in our offerings and getting everything lined up. And uh, but anyway, I really do appreciate you tuning in. I hope these points do help you out. Stay diligent, you know, trust but verify. That's the biggest thing that I can tell you to do. And if you do want to reach out to us, you can go to integristdesign.com and uh feel free to reach out. Maybe we can do a consultation and find some holes and figure out how to get them filled for you and your business. Until next time, this is Over the Bull.

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Thanks for tuning in to Over the Bull, brought to you by Integrist Design, a full service design and marketing agency out of Asheville, North Carolina. Until next time.