Chris Tzitzis Exits SirLinksalot, Reenters Search Space with Bold AI-First Vision

Chris Tzitzis, longtime SEO strategist and co-founder of link-building agency SirLinksalot, has officially exited the company he built into a seven-figure global operation—marking a major shift in direction for the digital entrepreneur.

After six years, 1,500+ clients, and a firm reputation in the SEO trenches, Tzitzis sold his stake in the agency and took a deliberate pause. Now, he's back with a broader, AI-powered mission aimed at reshaping how brands approach search visibility in a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.

From Link Building to Large Language Models

Founded and bootstrapped alongside a longtime partner, SirLinksalot became a well-known name in SEO circles, not only for its services but also for its educational content, podcast, and community presence. By the time of the sale, Tzitzis had largely stepped back from daily operations—a move that made the transition easier.

Still, the decision wasn’t just about timing. According to Tzitzis, several factors motivated the exit:

• Financial diversification: A large chunk of his personal equity was tied up in the company.

• Market volatility: SEO is no longer the predictable game it once was, thanks to Google’s algorithm updates and AI-powered search features.

• Personal evolution: A desire to explore new technologies—and new geographies—played a role.

His travels through Southeast Asia doubled as an observational sabbatical. He watched how people searched, consumed, and trusted information differently, increasingly relying on AI chat interfaces like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode for answers. The takeaway? Classic SEO tactics were no longer enough.

A New Playbook: Search, Social, and AI-First Strategy

Rather than retreating from the space, Tzitzis is diving back in with a much broader scope. His current focus spans:

• AI-driven content strategy

• Omnichannel digital marketing

• Visibility optimization for large language models (LLMs)

Put simply: He’s helping brands show up not just in Google results, but everywhere users search or ask questions—from TikTok and YouTube to AI chatbots and voice interfaces.

“Visibility is no longer confined to blue links,” Tzitzis has said. “It’s about being part of the conversation—wherever that conversation happens.”

He now offers consulting, full-stack SEO, content audits, and educational content aimed at equipping marketers to compete across a fragmented and fast-changing search landscape. His YouTube channel and newsletter, once quiet, are buzzing again with insights on AI-aligned SEO and digital discoverability.

Why It Matters

With Google experimenting aggressively with Search Generative Experience (SGE) and AI snapshots, and platforms like OpenAI shaping how people retrieve knowledge, SEO is under pressure to evolve—or risk irrelevance. Tzitzis’ pivot reflects a broader industry trend: a shift from keyword rankings to content utility, entity authority, and multichannel resonance.

He’s particularly interested in how AI interprets brand signals, and how companies can build frameworks that “talk” to both humans and machines. That includes experiments in:

• Entity optimization for LLMs

• Content structuring for conversational outputs

• Cross-platform signal alignment

The End of SEO? Not Quite.

Tzitzis doesn’t see this transformation as a death knell for SEO—it’s a recalibration. "This isn’t the end of SEO,” he said. “It’s the evolution of how people find what they need—and how brands show up in that journey.”

For marketers wondering whether to double down on technical SEO, pivot to AI, or invest in both, Tzitzis' trajectory offers a potential roadmap: adapt or be invisible.

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Telnyx Launches RCS Messaging API, Bringing Rich Business Chat to Android and iOS

Telnyx is taking business messaging to the next level—literally—with the general availability of its RCS Business Messaging (RBM) API, just in time for Apple’s RCS support in iOS 18. The announcement positions Telnyx as an infrastructure-forward player ready to unify messaging across nearly every smartphone in the world.

While RCS (Rich Communication Services) has long been the SMS successor that never quite reached critical mass, Apple’s long-awaited adoption of the protocol may finally change that—and Telnyx is betting big on it.

Why This Matters: Rich Messaging, No Apps Required

With Telnyx's RCS solution, businesses can now deliver interactive, multimedia-rich messages directly to native messaging apps—with no third-party downloads, no friction, and no loss in fallback reliability.

That means branded carousels, clickable replies, video messages, embedded calendar invites, payment links, and more—all showing up in the default messaging app, whether your customer is using Android or iOS 18.

“This is a tipping point for business messaging,” said David Casem, CEO of Telnyx. “For the first time, brands can reach nearly every smartphone user with interactive, trusted messages in the default messaging app.”

Key Features for a Richer Customer Journey

Telnyx’s developer-first approach shines here. The new RCS API offers:

• Verified sender identity, to ensure customer trust

• Suggested replies, carousels, and media support, all native

• Embedded interactions like payments, location sharing, or event scheduling

• Global delivery with fallback-to-SMS and carrier-grade connectivity

• Unified API, complete with real-time analytics and webhook support

It’s all part of Telnyx’s broader mission to build real-time communications infrastructure for developers—a space they’ve already made waves in with programmable voice, messaging, and networking products.

Apple + RCS: The Messaging Shift Businesses Have Waited For

For years, RCS was the “Android thing.” Now, with Apple rolling out support in iOS 18, RCS finally stands a chance at becoming a true SMS replacement—bridging the feature gap without dragging users through third-party apps like WhatsApp or Messenger.

“This changes the game,” said Juan Hidalgo, Director of Messaging Connectivity at Telnyx. “Whether it’s a clickable product carousel or a real-time order update, RCS gives brands the ability to create moments of engagement that feel native, personalized, and secure.”

That “native” part matters. Unlike OTT platforms (Over-the-Top, like WhatsApp), RCS keeps the interaction inside the default messaging app, which most users check dozens of times a day. Combine that with interactive features and verified branding, and suddenly, your message isn’t just read—it’s experienced.

Telnyx’s Infrastructure Edge

What sets Telnyx apart? The same things that have made it a darling of developer-centric telecom:

• Direct-to-carrier architecture

• Real-time fallback logic

• Scalable global infrastructure

• Transparent pricing and clean developer tools

Telnyx isn’t just offering an API—it’s offering a launchpad for rich messaging at scale. And with Apple now in the RCS ring, the timing couldn't be better.

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Alibaba.com and Wix Ink Global Commerce Deal to Empower SMEs and Digital Entrepreneurs

In a strategic move to reshape how small businesses and digital entrepreneurs go global, Alibaba.com and Wix have announced a sweeping partnership that blends wholesale scale with storefront agility.

The collaboration promises to empower over 200 countries and regions by giving Wix users access to Alibaba.com's massive B2B marketplace and enabling Alibaba.com sellers to build sleek, AI-powered direct-to-consumer (D2C) and B2B storefronts through Wix’s platform.

The integration marks a big step in democratizing global commerce for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs)—offering them the kind of reach, sourcing tools, and brand-building capabilities once reserved for enterprise giants.

“Our partnership with Wix simplifies the complexities of international trade,” said Kuo Zhang, President of Alibaba.com. “It’s about making global expansion accessible to businesses of every size.”

1. Wix Sellers, Meet the World: Alibaba.com App Integration

At the heart of this partnership is a native integration between Wix and Alibaba.com’s Seller App. Wix merchants can now become Global Gold Suppliers (GGS)—a status that opens access to millions of verified global buyers—by installing the app directly from the Wix Marketplace.

The app offers automated product and order sync, fast identity verification, and seamless onboarding. The result? A frictionless path from local e-commerce to wholesale exports at scale.

2. Smart Sourcing with Global Suppliers

The deal also unlocks a curated Alibaba.com sourcing experience for Wix users, allowing them to discover high-quality global suppliers tailored to their product needs. This isn’t about dumping catalogs—it’s smart sourcing for agile brands.

Wix merchants can test new product lines, create private-label goods, and experiment with bundling strategies—without betting the farm on upfront inventory.

3. From Wholesale to Brand Building: Wix Powers Alibaba.com Storefronts

Alibaba.com sellers can now go beyond bulk transactions. With Wix’s AI-driven website builder, they can launch branded D2C and B2B storefronts that support full eCommerce, marketing automation, and design customization.

“This opens powerful new opportunities for our users,” said Nir Zohar, President of Wix. “We’re helping merchants on both platforms create stronger, more direct customer relationships.”

With Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality, Alibaba.com merchants can jump straight into the Wix ecosystem—designing storefronts, launching marketing campaigns, and optimizing sales funnels in minutes.

What’s Next: AI Tools and Smarter Product Discovery

This isn’t a one-and-done rollout. The partnership roadmap includes:

• AI-powered product matching

• Automated onboarding and seller guidance

• Intelligent discovery for product sourcing and sales

These innovations aim to eliminate the complexity that slows down global commerce—particularly for resource-constrained startups and growing brands.

Context: A Global Commerce Convergence

The Alibaba-Wix partnership comes at a time when the lines between wholesale and D2C are blurring. Brands today need to source like suppliers but sell like storytellers. This deal meets that moment by creating a two-way street: Wix users can scale up into wholesale, while Alibaba.com sellers can build consumer-facing brands with Wix’s tools.

For both platforms, it’s a strategic evolution. For digital-first businesses, it’s a serious shortcut to international exposure and eCommerce credibility.

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Local Dominator Supercharges Local SEO With New GBP Scan and SEO Audit Tools

If you’re still digging through messy spreadsheets and vague local SEO reports, it might be time to upgrade your toolkit.

Local Dominator, a growing platform built specifically for local SEO professionals and agencies, has just launched two powerful additions: the Google Business Profile (GBP) Scan Analyzer Tool and a real-time SEO Audit Tool. Both are now live and fully integrated into the Local Dominator dashboard—and they’re designed to save time, reduce guesswork, and deliver actionable insights within minutes.

Goodbye, Guesswork. Hello, Real-Time Clarity.

The GBP Scan Analyzer Tool turns complex, often overlooked scan data into visual, easy-to-understand insights. Think: incomplete listings, NAP inconsistencies, missing reviews, and underutilized GBP features—highlighted clearly, without the need to decode raw data.

Meanwhile, the SEO Audit Tool scans websites and listings to flag both technical and content-related issues affecting local visibility. From poor site structure to weak on-page content, users receive prioritized, step-by-step recommendations—helping them move from diagnosis to execution without wasting time.

“This is so far the best ranking tool I’ve used and the most accurate one!” said Raymond Beloy Bonifacio, agency owner at SEOrcerer Digital. “The scan results are accurate, fast, and super easy to share with clients.”

Built for Agencies, at Scale

Whether you’re managing five clients or five hundred, the updated Local Dominator platform is engineered to make multi-location SEO easier to manage, present, and scale. Key features include:

• Local rank tracking

• Automated review management

• Real-time listing health reports

• Competitor analysis

• Streamlined reporting dashboards

Reports are client-ready out of the box, making approvals faster and helping agencies clearly demonstrate ROI without extra formatting.

“It’s not just about audits,” said the Local Dominator team. “We’re focused on making the entire local SEO workflow—from scan to strategy to execution—as fast and frictionless as possible.”

The global marketing activation heavyweight just named Matt Strawn as its new Chief Growth Officer—a strategic hire aimed squarely at accelerating innovation and deepening global brand partnerships in a rapidly evolving martech landscape.

Strawn’s appointment marks a significant step in HH Global’s push for what it calls “sustainable, responsible growth,” but let’s cut through the buzzwords: this is a calculated move to stay competitive in a market where data-driven personalization, automation, and sustainability are rewriting the rules of engagement.

Who Is Matt Strawn?

If the name rings a bell, it’s probably from his decade-long run at Accenture, where he helped build Accenture Interactive—now Accenture Song—into a dominant digital agency network. That group didn’t just grow; it exploded, becoming the fastest-growing business in Accenture history and sitting atop AdAge’s Largest Digital Agency Network rankings for six years straight.

Strawn’s expertise lies in scaling marketing operations, integrating CX with digital tech, and tying strategy to measurable business outcomes. In other words, he doesn’t just talk transformation—he delivers it.

Why It Matters

Marketing services providers are under pressure. Brands want agile, tech-forward partners who can not only execute but innovate. HH Global’s business—centered around marketing execution, procurement, and creative production—depends on staying ahead of those demands. By bringing in a CGO with both the consulting chops and operational rigor of someone like Strawn, HH Global is signaling it’s not content to simply keep pace; it wants to lead.

This comes at a time when traditional agency models are being tested. In-housing trends, tighter marketing budgets, and rising expectations around ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) responsibilities have created both threat and opportunity. Strawn’s remit is to turn those pressures into strategic advantages—leveraging technology, sustainability, and global scale to win new business and grow existing accounts.

North America in Focus

The San Francisco-based Strawn will report directly to CEO Kristian Elgey, reinforcing HH Global’s executive presence in North America—a market where the company sees considerable room to scale. His addition follows a string of C-suite moves, including the hiring of a new chief HR officer, chief legal officer, and promotion of a chief client officer—suggesting the leadership bench is being deliberately deepened for a more complex era of marketing execution.

“This is more than just a title shuffle,” said Elgey. “Matt brings a global mindset and knows how to operationalize growth. That’s exactly what our clients—and the industry—need right now.”

The Bigger Picture

HH Global isn’t alone in recalibrating for growth amid a shifting martech ecosystem. Rivals like Williams Lea, Tag, and even Deloitte Digital are all leaning harder into tech and sustainability narratives. But HH Global has a particular edge: a reputation for blending creative activation with procurement efficiency—a rare hybrid that’s increasingly appealing to global brands trying to do more with less.

By elevating growth to the C-suite, the company is also echoing a broader B2B trend—one where growth strategy is no longer a function of sales alone but an orchestrated effort spanning tech, talent, data, and culture.

As Strawn himself put it: “True business growth comes from client impact, innovation, and integrity. That’s what drew me to HH Global.”

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Measured is flipping the script on how marketers plan media.

Building on its foundation in incrementality and causal Media Mix Modeling (MMM), the company has launched a major upgrade to its Media Plan Optimizer—a scenario planning engine designed to let marketers forecast real business outcomes in real time. It’s the kind of no-nonsense, data-driven tech that could finally put an end to the spreadsheet chaos and attribution guesswork plaguing media strategy teams.

At the heart of the new Optimizer is Measured’s triangulated measurement system, which fuses incrementality testing, MMM, and attribution into a single causal framework. That’s not just a mouthful—it’s a major step beyond traditional media planning, which often relies on backward-looking metrics and correlation-based models that rarely hold up under scrutiny.

From Guesswork to Ground Truth

“Today’s enterprise marketers don’t have time for guesswork or unreliable attribution,” said Measured CEO and co-founder Trevor Testwuide. “They need tools that are fast, flexible, and grounded in outcomes.”

And that’s exactly what the new Optimizer promises: the ability to simulate and plan media budgets across channels, timeframes, and KPIs—without waiting weeks for post-campaign analysis or pulling together scattered reports from different platforms.

Using diminishing response curves, the Optimizer accounts for saturation, seasonality, ad stock, and other factors that affect performance in the real world. Instead of just telling marketers what worked, it shows them what will work—and how much to spend, where, and when to reach efficiency and revenue goals.

The Why-Now of Media Planning

In an era where marketers are held more accountable for business results than ever, this kind of causal modeling isn’t just helpful—it’s becoming necessary. The death of third-party cookies, growing pressure to prove ROI, and fractured media consumption patterns have made legacy tools look increasingly brittle.

The Optimizer’s real power lies in how it operationalizes that complexity. By connecting measurement to action, it eliminates the limbo between performance analysis and strategic planning.

Planning that once took weeks of guesswork and gut feelings? Now it’s buttoned up in minutes.

Plug-and-Play for the Enterprise Stack

Measured designed the Optimizer with enterprise-grade flexibility in mind. It integrates seamlessly into existing workflows, accepts learnings from prior campaigns, and outputs plans directly into internal BI or reporting systems.

It also plays nice with third-party or in-house Media Mix Models, letting brands use their own measurement logic while gaining the speed and usability of Measured’s front end. That’s an important move in a category where vendors often force marketers to choose between control and usability.

Market Implications

Measured isn’t alone in pushing for outcome-focused planning—competitors like Neustar, Rockerbox, and Recast are all rethinking MMM with varying levels of real-time capability. But Measured’s edge lies in its causal triangulation approach: a rare blend of incrementality, modeling, and attribution that gives marketers a fuller picture of cause and effect.

For brands spending tens or hundreds of millions across channels, the implications are huge. Not only can they optimize on the fly—they can defend budget allocations, align teams faster, and adapt to shifting priorities without starting from scratch.

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AI-native startup CRED has officially exited stealth, announcing a $15 million seed round led by defy.vc with backing from HOF Capital, Alumni Ventures, and a roster of heavyweight investors. The company’s aim? To democratize predictive intelligence at a scale that was once the exclusive domain of Wall Street.

If you’ve ever wished your CRM could act more like a hedge fund quant, this is your moment.

CRED is positioning itself as the "AI operating system" for the enterprise, merging real-time external signals with internal business data to generate ranked, contextual, and—most importantly—actionable insights. The result: GTM teams spend less time guessing and more time executing.

The Hedge Fund Brain for Every Business

Predictive intelligence isn’t new—but until now, it’s been locked away behind armies of data scientists and expensive infrastructure. What’s different today is the convergence of three factors: exploding datasets, LLM breakthroughs, and cheap compute.

CRED’s platform plugs into a company’s CRM, MAP, and other systems, audits and enriches data in real time, and overlays it with dynamic market signals—like hiring surges, ad spend shifts, and funding events. The engine then delivers intelligent scores, real-time alerts, and personalized recommendations. Think: churn risk, upsell opportunity, ICP scoring—all ranked, timed, and ready to act on.

Need to build a high-intent outbound list based on live market triggers? Done.
Want to auto-prioritize sales outreach the moment a prospect shows intent? Already happening.
Looking to integrate this into your existing stack? That’s the whole point.

Why It Matters

Companies like Salesforce, Gong, and 6sense have built empires on sales and marketing intelligence. But where CRED differs is in scope and execution. It doesn’t just analyze behavior—it fuses external signals with proprietary synthetic data to predict what comes next, and automates action across the customer lifecycle.

While competitors often stop at “insight,” CRED keeps going—right into execution. The platform includes a built-in outreach tool and integrates directly with existing workflows, so reps can go from insight to email without toggling tools.

This positions CRED as not just a predictive dashboard, but a revenue orchestration engine. According to founder and CEO Jon Carr-Harris, the platform has already generated over $100 million in revenue and $20 million in cost savings for users—before the company even launched publicly.

Enterprise Traction, Sports & Beyond

In stealth, CRED quietly landed 25 large enterprise clients, including the Golden State Warriors, UTA, and the PGA. These customers have used the platform to automate over 10,000 hours of manual data work per month and unlock consistent double-digit revenue growth.

Its initial beachhead in Sports & Entertainment is now just the beginning. With fresh capital, CRED plans to expand into broader verticals, grow its go-to-market muscle, and double down on R&D, particularly in proprietary data models and LLM capabilities.

The AI Race to Action

With LLMs reshaping the landscape of business intelligence, timing is everything. The market is quickly shifting from dashboards and analytics tools to "actionable AI" platforms—a category where vendors must deliver not just insight, but outcomes.

CRED is staking its claim in that next generation of tools: platforms that don’t just interpret data but act on it. Think of it as the connective tissue between signal and strategy, between insight and execution.

Its main challenge now? Scale. As startups like Reprise, Mutiny, and even enterprise incumbents like Adobe and Salesforce beef up their predictive engines, the real differentiator will come down to how quickly these insights can drive automated, intelligent action across fragmented stacks.

CRED’s bet is that its “AI-native” architecture and hedge-fund-style modeling give it the edge—and investors are buying in.

As Carr-Harris puts it, “Just like in science fiction, we can finally start to predict the future.”

Time will tell. But for now, CRED has stepped out of stealth with a war chest, traction, and a sharply defined mission: to make predictive intelligence the standard, not the exception, in enterprise operations.

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When it comes to digital ads for consumer packaged goods (CPG), the hard truth is that only 18% of consumers buy after seeing an ad. AdAdapted thinks it can do better—not by shouting louder, but by giving shoppers more choices.

The adtech company just launched Add-It™ Pathways, a new format designed to reflect the way consumers actually shop online: unpredictably. Instead of forcing a single call-to-action, Pathways offers a modular set of CTAs that brands can customize to match where a shopper is in their buying journey.

It's a simple idea that could pack a serious punch: Give users a range of interactive options like See Recipes, Add-to-Cart, or Watch Video, and let them decide how to engage. The result? A "choose-your-own-adventure" experience that doesn’t just promote a product—it builds a relationship.

Why This Matters in a Shifting CPG Landscape

Shopping behavior has become increasingly fragmented. Thanks to inflation, price-consciousness is up, loyalty is down, and shoppers are switching brands, channels, and habits at record pace. Consumers might discover a product while watching a recipe video, but wait until a deal shows up in a circular before buying.

AdAdapted’s Pathways format acknowledges this complexity and adapts the ad experience accordingly. Brands can now choose from a suite of CTA options tailored to different goals, such as:

• Brand Awareness: Watch Video, See Recipes, Where to Buy

• Conversion: Add-to-Cart, Save to Phone, Shoppable Recipes

• Value Seekers: Local Deals, See Recipes, Coupon Links

The format also works across various campaign types—from new product launches to targeted promotions—and plugs into AdAdapted’s broader platform for pre-shop intent and retail integration.

“Brands often miss the mark by offering just one way to engage,” said Molly McFarland, co-founder and CRO of AdAdapted. “With Pathways, we’re letting consumers choose how they want to connect with a brand—when they’re ready and how they’re comfortable.”

How It Works

Pathways isn’t just about slapping on a few more buttons. The tech is built to be modular and flexible, allowing brands to:

• Configure CTAs based on campaign goals or product category

• Tailor experiences for different audience segments

• Reduce friction between awareness and purchase moments

• Capture intent signals across platforms and devices

It’s a move toward smarter, context-aware advertising—something the CPG industry has been lagging behind on while DTC and retail media networks surge ahead with personalization and automation.

With traditional display ad performance declining and retailers like Walmart and Kroger investing heavily in shoppable media and connected commerce, AdAdapted’s Pathways is a clear attempt to bring agility and personalization back into the hands of CPG advertisers.

The Bigger Picture: Flexibility is the New Funnel

The traditional marketing funnel is cracking. Linear pathways from awareness to purchase have given way to chaotic, multi-touch journeys shaped by algorithms, influencers, and real-world constraints like price and availability.

Add-It™ Pathways plays into this trend by abandoning the one-size-fits-all CTA and letting the consumer self-select how—and when—they engage. And for marketers, that means better alignment between ad spend and actual behavior.

For now, the product looks like a strong value-add for CPG brands trying to cut through the noise with flexibility, relevance, and smarter intent capture. It’s not just another ad format—it’s a tool for navigating the new chaos of CPG commerce.

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