The digital marketing experts featured for 2014 are Valon Badivuku, Ann Handley, Mark Traphagen, AJ Wilcox, Tom Critchlow, Amy Hebdon, Ryan Robinson, Sarah Bird, Kath Pay, Cyrus Shepard and Wil Reynolds.
What changed in digital marketing in 2014
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in February 2014, a startling price tag for an app with no ads and barely any revenue. The bet: that messaging apps, not just social feeds, are where brands will need to reach people next.
11 Professionals
Worth Knowing This Year
- 01
Valon Badivuku
Digital Marketer, Partia e Forte
In 2014, led Partia e Forte's digital campaign, running efforts across social media platforms alongside an earned media push for the political campaign.
That campaign work came together in a year when campaigns were still figuring out how to reach people beyond the social feed, right as Facebook's WhatsApp acquisition signaled where audiences were heading next.
Also featured in 2026
- 02
Ann Handley
Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Published the Wall Street Journal bestseller Everybody Writes on September 15, 2014, turning her content expertise into one of the decade's most-recommended marketing books.
The book's focus on plain, clear writing over jargon resonated with marketers drowning in content-production advice that rarely addressed the actual writing.
Also featured in 2018
- 03
Mark Traphagen
Senior Director of Online Marketing, Stone Temple Consulting
Was a MozCon 2014 community speaker, presenting on brand visibility in Google+.
Focusing research on Google+, at a time when its impact on search was hotly debated, made his data-driven talks some of the more closely watched sessions at that year's conference.
- 04
AJ Wilcox
Founder, B2Linked
Founded B2Linked in 2014, betting there's enough demand for a LinkedIn Ads-only agency to build a business around.
Specializing in a single, then-underused ad platform gave B2Linked a depth of LinkedIn expertise general agencies couldn't easily match.
- 05
Tom Critchlow
SEO & strategy consultant
Left Distilled to become an independent SEO and strategy consultant this year.
Going independent let him take on strategy work for larger organizations that a boutique agency's client roster wouldn't typically include.
- 06
Amy Hebdon
Founder, Paid Search Magic
Was building Paid Search Magic into a resource for Google Ads conversion strategy.
Her focus on conversion-side account structure, rather than just keyword bidding, filled a gap in PPC advice that was mostly about traffic, not results.
- 07
Ryan Robinson
Content marketing consultant
Was building a content marketing consultancy working with startups and Fortune 500 brands alike.
Working across that range of company sizes gave his advice a practicality that pure agency or pure in-house experience often lacks.
Also featured in 2023
- 08
Sarah Bird
CEO, Moz
Became Moz's CEO around this time, succeeding Rand Fishkin.
Taking over from the company's founder meant steering Moz through its transition from a scrappy blog-and-tools operation into a more mature SaaS business.
- 09
- 10
Cyrus Shepard
SEO Consultant, Moz
Is Moz's SEO Consultant, working inside the company's own SEO practice.
Working inside Moz's own SEO practice gave him direct visibility into how the ranking factors the company researched played out on real client sites.
- 11
Wil Reynolds
Founder, SEER Interactive
Continued growing SEER Interactive's reputation for audience-first SEO.
His consistent argument that SEO should start with real people, not just search volume, kept SEER's approach distinct from more purely technical competitors.
This page is an independent editorial mention published by Digital Business Marketing. The numbering above is a browsing order, not a formal award, contest, vote, or ranking, and inclusion does not imply any named person endorses Digital Business Marketing.
