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Jersey Mike's CEO Charlie Morrison said the sandwich chain had almost no digital marketing spend before this year, despite an annual advertising budget exceeding $200 million. In 2026, about 20% of that budget moved into paid social, search, and connected TV. The chain reported loyalty sign-ups up 21%, digital sales now at 43% of total sales, and systemwide sales up 11% to $1.2 billion.
A Fiverr survey of 6,000 small business owners released in May 2025 found that 77% use generative AI for business, personal needs, or both. Fiverr's more recent June 2026 Business Trends Index shows searches for AI-related freelance services surging, including a 278% jump in Video & Animation, 94% in Programming & Tech, and 938% for Claude Code specialists, comparing November 2025–April 2026 to the prior six months.
A marketing executive writing for Entrepreneur argues that websites' long-standing anti-bot defenses—CAPTCHAs, rate limits, fingerprinting—are increasingly misfiring because AI agents now shop and transact on behalf of real customers. The author cites a widely shared statistic that bots make up 53% of web traffic, noting that these agents often execute full workflows rather than simple scans, making it harder to distinguish helpful consumer agents from malicious scrapers.
In an opinion piece for Entrepreneur, a dual-role executive — owner of ÉLITER Packaging Machinery and Head of Digital Marketing at ActionPower — argues that SEO and branding efforts often fail to convert into revenue because of internal organizational silos rather than marketing shortcomings. The author contends that inconsistent customer experience across departments, not weak digital tactics, is the real bottleneck to growth.
An Entrepreneur contributor argues that after years of brands chasing attention through content, emails and notifications, consumers are now seeking analog experiences like dinner parties, run clubs, and phone-free events. The piece suggests marketers should reframe their goal from maximizing time spent with a brand to helping people use their time more meaningfully.
A contributor for Entrepreneur argues that small business owners who initially manage marketing themselves often hit a ceiling as their companies grow and technical demands multiply. The piece describes how tasks like website maintenance, SEO, video editing and social scheduling can overwhelm a single in-house coordinator, leaving no time for strategy or new campaigns.
An entrepreneur who has built companies in hospitality, real estate, construction, home inspections, healthcare and digital marketing argues that success comes from recognizing recurring problem patterns rather than industry expertise. He points to a NBER study of Danish firms showing serial entrepreneurs are 39% more productive than first-time founders, crediting this edge to pattern recognition rather than diversification itself.
AI-driven search tools such as Google's AI Overviews and conversational assistants like ChatGPT are increasingly pulling data from customer reviews to decide which businesses to recommend. This means the volume, recency and quality of a business's reviews are being read and weighted by algorithms, not just prospective customers. A thin or neglected review profile can make a business effectively invisible to these AI systems.