Heads up: Baseball season is here, so my daily temperament for the next 6-7 months will correlate closely with how the Seattle Mariners are doing.

The Lead

• The flip side. You saw the headlines about the guy who used ChatGPT to sell his house, right? The buyer was repped by an agent in Florida, and that agent's broker shared their side of the story. I thank both sides for the perfect lead-in to today's Deep Dive.
• 90 days then RIP. We keep seeing tests and data like this in the SEO industry: 2,000 AI-written articles spread over 20 new websites. The content ranks for three months, then POOF. Gone. Bogdan Babiak has the details and a compelling visual on LinkedIn.
• But wait, there's more! Also on LinkedIn, Adomas Šulcas looks at three companies that bragged about their AI content success in 2025 and how they're doing so far in 2026. (Hint: like 💩)
• Why would you? Google just announced that it's working on a way to "let sites specifically opt-out of [appearing in] generative AI features in Search." In other words, you might soon be able to tell Google you don't want to show up in its AI answers. 🤔
• Quality over quantity. A Milwaukee marketing agency didn't publish a new blog post for 12 months. Instead, they spent all of 2025 refreshing and improving old blog posts. What happened? Rankings improved 140%, organic visits dropped 50%, but leads went up 7%. Same thing happened on my wife's site in 2025 -- less traffic, more leads. I'll take that trade any day of the week.
• For the PPC folks. If you're running Google ads for seller leads in Modesto, CA, congrats! Nobody pays less than you, according to CINC's latest quarterly look at cost-per-lead (CPL) across the country. Detroit is the best bargain among big markets. They have CPL data for the top 100 U.S. markets.
• Insta-updates x2. You may not have noticed, but you can now edit how thumbnails appear on your IG profile grid. That's nice. Maybe even better is that IG is testing clickable links in captions...but only for paying users.

Keep Your Clients Yours

You're already in a bunch of loyalty programs - airlines, hotels, grocery stores, credit cards, you name it. Your clients are, too.

What if they were in a real estate agent loyalty program? YOUR loyalty program.

Join me on April 7 at Noon ET / 9 AM PT for a behind-the-scenes look at Rockstar Rewards, the client loyalty program that was responsible for 23 of Cari's 52 sales last year. It's free. You'll learn exactly what we do to keep our clients ours, and stop losing them to other agents.

​RSVP here.

If you want to be their forever agent, you have to treat them like your forever clients.

Deep Dive: How to Save the Sale When Clients Turn to AI

Four times in the past two weeks, I heard stories directly from agents like you who had AI sabotage (or almost sabotage) a sale. You may have heard the Ryan Serhant story, but that was only one of them. If you missed what he shared, watch these two short videos:

• Video 1: ChatGPT is blowing up his $50M deal​
• A day later: He thinks he saved it via a hard talk with both sides​

When I say "four times" above, that doesn't include this from an agent in my mastermind community about clients using AI:

You and I both know where this is going right? It's like people treating their Zestimate as gospel truth, only much, much worse.

In today's Deep Dive, I'll share the rest of the stories I heard about AI's new (and dangerous) role for buyers and sellers. I'll also give you the new page that we're adding to Cari's listing presentation, buyer presentation, and eventually her website and social media, so you can R&D it and be get out in front of this trend before AI sabotages one of your sales. (Or more...)

Story 1: "They gave so much more weight to the AI opinion"

This is from a private Facebook group I'm in. The agent calls it a positive, but only because her seller eventually agreed with her price recommendation.

Story #2: "They were being coached by an AI that instructed them to break the agreement"

Here's another one from Facebook, I think this is from one of the mega groups (maybe LCA or Pivot).

Story #3: "My client declined it due to ChatGPT"

This is also from one of the big Facebook groups. In this one, ChatGPT's advice ruined what sounds like it should've been a slam dunk.

You have to get in front of "confirmation bias"

By now, everyone knows that AI gets things wrong. So what's going on?

1. AI has a built-in bias to tell us what we want to hear. Judging from the stories above, a lot of people have no idea this happens.
2. We all get trapped by confirmation bias. It's a cognitive bias that says we're pre-disposed to agree with information that supports our beliefs.

That's a dangerous combination.

I'm 100% certain these stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Stuff like this has probably happened dozens or hundreds more times already, and it's only going to get worse in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

I agree with the agent in story three -- we have to get ahead of this.

To that end, you're welcome to R&D (ripoff and duplicate) this page that Cari and I are adding to her buyer and seller marketing materials. Share it* with the agents in your office or friends in other parts of the country. This one is written specifically for Cari's seller listing presentation, but with a few small changes, it'll fit perfectly in a buyer consultation, too.

We're also gonna put something on her website like this, and do some social media posts in this vein, too.

Your takeaways: The writing is on the wall. Buyers and sellers are using AI in all kinds of ways, some of which aim to replace your knowledge, judgment, and experience. The time is now to educate, educate, and educate some more on the downfalls of relying on AI for things where they should rely on you. Feel free to use our listing presentation page above, customize it in your voice, and make sure your clients understand how and how not to use AI during a transaction. Good luck. And stay tuned...I have a feeling this won't be the last time we talk about this in Marketing Unlocked.

(*If you do share it with other agents, please let them know you got it from me/Marketing Unlocked. 🥰)

Inside the Mastermind

Here are a few of the great conversations in our Mastermind Community that I've enjoyed over the past week or two. Reminder: These links will take you right to the thread...but only if you're a member.

​Open Rates, Click Rates and Bounce Rates Oh My - one of our members got some great advice and feedback after asking about how to measure email marketing success

​Brokerage doesn't matter...until it matters? - a unique citation I spotted in ChatGPT where agents were being recommended specifically because of the brokerage they're with

​Lots of content ideas in here - about a new (free) source where you can find real questions that buyers and sellers are asking about real estate (really good for content inspiration)

​Original data + blog content + PR distribution - I shared a detailed case study about how Cari and I completely changed Google's and AI's answers for a local real estate topic by doing original market research, publishing it, then sending out press releases to local and online journalists

Not in the community? It's less than $1 per day. Where else can you mastermind with other SEO-savvy agents (and with me!) for so little? Learn more here and come join us.

Marketing, Unlocked

I know you probably don't have an "SEO team," a "brand team," and a CMO. But stick with me on this...

I've been talking for more than two years in this newsletter about the connection between SEO and brand. When I say "brand," I mean your prominence -- how well known are you in your market? Do people know you by name? Do they associate your name with real estate?

More and more, SEO and AI SEO favor the companies (of all sizes, CMO or no CMO) that are prominent and tell a consistent story of success online. Not just on their own website, but all over the internet.

Read that paragraph again.

I'm going to show what that looks like for a real estate agent in early June when I speak at Signal, the 1000WATT conference that's dedicated exclusively to marketing. It runs June 2-4 in Denver, and if marketing is important to your success*, you should be there. Speakers, schedule, and more are online.

(*It is.)

Clear to Close

Speaking of Signal, I had an eye-opening experience last week: A prep call with 1000WATT's Marc Davison about my session.

Background: I've spoken at countless conferences over the past 15-20 years. I've hosted/moderated panels and sessions, too. Each time, the prep call went something like this: The speaker and moderator get on a call for 10-15 minutes, go over the high-level points the speaker plans to make, the mod gives some guidance on the title and main message, and makes sure the speaker is up to speed on deadlines for submitting the deck and other logistics. Pretty standard stuff.

This prep call last week for Signal was nothing like that.

Marc had me deliver a dry run of my full talk with a timer going so we could make sure it fit the slot. When I finished that, we went back SLIDE-BY-SLIDE through the whole talk. Marc gave me ideas for where I could combine slides to make a stronger point, suggestions to tweak the wording and visuals on some slides, and at one point we brainstormed a different approach to one part of my talk that lacked clarity.

I've never been part such a hands-on prep call. It was terrific. Instantly improved my talk. We worked together for a little more than an hour and after it ended, I understood why the first two of these events were so good. I can't wait for June.

Closing Gift

This is terrific: Unsure if you're talking to a person or AI? Just ask for a cupcake recipe.

Thanks for reading! Have a great week. Go Mariners!

Matt

How was this issue of Marketing Unlocked?

​Loved it! 😍 | Liked it 😀 | Not for me 😐
​(just click to send feedback)

New Reader? Welcome.

I have a specific skill that I'm damn good at: organic lead gen and marketing for real estate. I hate buying leads, cold-calling, and mass spam texting. I believe most agents spend too much time and money trying to talk to people who don't need a real estate agent, and too little time and money trying to serve people who do. Here's more about me and my background. If you have questions, ideas for a future newsletter, or need help, just reply to this email.

VIP Reader? Thank you.

If you're a VIP member, you'll find my past issues of Marketing Unlocked right here. Click the log in link at the bottom when you click to read your first past issue:

When you're ready, here's how I can help.

Marketing Unlocked isn't the only thing I'm doing to help you grow your business. 🚀

• ​Forever Clients: A Million-Dollar Client Loyalty System - stop losing your clients to other agents.
• ​Mastermind Community - Ask all the marketing questions you want! Less than $1/day.
• ​Site Reviews - Get another set of eyes on your website and a list of specific SEO and AI SEO tactics to improve it.
• ​Real Estate SEO Training Course - I've paused sales until v4 is ready.
• ​Coaching/Training Calls - If you need a little of my time for you and/or your team, book a one-time call and ask all the questions you want!

​​​​​

(If this email was forwarded to you, you can get your own copy here!)