The digital marketing experts featured for 2024 are Lily Ray, Andy Crestodina, Dana DiTomaso, Ross Simmonds, Barry Schwartz, Wil Reynolds, Chase Dimond, Jay Baer, Marie Forleo and Pat Flynn.
What changed in digital marketing in 2024
Google's AI Overviews launched in the US on May 14, 2024, putting AI-generated summaries above the traditional results list for the first time at real scale. Organic visibility hasn't worked quite the same way since.
10 Professionals
Worth Knowing This Year
- 01
Lily Ray
VP, SEO & AI Search, Amsive
Was part of the first announced speaker lineup for MozCon 2024, having spent years tracking how Google's E-E-A-T guidance affects search results, particularly in health and finance.
Her focus on E-E-A-T positioned her well to explain AI Overviews too, since both hinge on the same underlying question of which sources Google trusts enough to surface.
- 02
Andy Crestodina
Co-founder & CMO, Orbit Media
Published the 7th edition of Content Chemistry, his long-running book on data-driven content marketing, and kept up a pace of roughly 100 presentations a year.
A book in its seventh edition meant he'd been updating the same core content advice through multiple algorithm eras, AI Overviews being only the latest.
- 03
Dana DiTomaso
President & Partner, Kick Point
Returned to the conference speaking circuit nine years after her 2015 appearance on this list.
Coming back to it nearly a decade later gave her talk a natural before-and-after lens on how much analytics and search had changed.
Also featured in 2015
- 04
Ross Simmonds
Founder, Foundation Marketing
Kept making the case that content distribution deserved equal billing with content creation.
That argument mattered more than ever as AI Overviews made simply publishing content less reliable for driving traffic.
Also featured in 2020
- 05
Barry Schwartz
Founder, Search Engine Roundtable
Was, as ever, the industry's most consistent daily chronicler of search engine news.
Twenty-one years of daily posts made the Roundtable one of the only continuous public records spanning from early Google updates through the arrival of AI Overviews.
- 06
Wil Reynolds
Founder, SEER Interactive
Kept pushing SEER Interactive's long-running audience-first argument to a new generation of SEOs.
That argument took on new weight as AI Overviews made ranking for a keyword alone even less sufficient than before.
- 07
Chase Dimond
Co-founder, Structured
Built up Structured's reputation in ecommerce email marketing.
As paid acquisition costs kept climbing, owned channels like email became a bigger part of ecommerce brands' strategy, raising the stakes on agencies like his that specialized in it.
Also featured in 2019
- 08
Jay Baer
Founder, Convince & Convert
Advised brands on content and customer experience through Convince & Convert.
His long-standing case for treating customer experience as a marketing function kept gaining relevance as AI-generated answers made every customer touchpoint part of the brand's search visibility.
- 09
Marie Forleo
Entrepreneur & video marketing educator
Kept running one of the most-watched business education platforms online.
Years of consistent output had built an audience loyal enough that algorithm shifts affecting other creators' discoverability barely touched her direct-to-audience model.
Also featured in 2020
- 10
Pat Flynn
Founder, Smart Passive Income
Stayed a leading voice in online business and affiliate marketing education.
Nearly fifteen years of publicly documented income reports gave his teaching a transparency that newer AI-generated "passive income" content couldn't easily fake.
Also featured in 2021
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.
