Discover what’s working in B2B marketing right now – in just 5 minutes a week

40,000+ marketers read Dave's newsletter every week.

Twice a week, you'll get:

  • Lessons from 15+ years in B2B marketing From PR intern to CMO and everything in between.
  • Cutting-edge strategies from top B2B practitioners So you know what's working right now.
  • Real stats, examples & tools You can take straight back to your team and put into action.
Newsletter Archive

Latest editions

Dave Gerhardt at an Exit Five mic next to an overflowing mailbox of community questions
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #298

AMA: How to Market Like You Give a Damn, Breakfast Like a Founder, Brand + Demand, Etc.

Dave Gerhardt answers reader questions rapid fire, from the most underrated marketing investment and balancing brand with bottom-of-funnel to his first 90 days as head of marketing. The through-line: there's no B2B marketing playbook, so ship often, get feedback, and give a damn.

Oct 22, 2026 · 4 min read
Photos from the Exit Five NYC meetup and podcast recording
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #297

Exit Five Meetup + Live Pod In NYC: How The CMO Of Varonis Runs Marketing

Highlights from Exit Five's NYC meetup and live pod with Varonis CMO Rob Sobers: leaders who still ship work, the reasonability test for marketing measurement, keeping content fresh for AI, and why human touches stand out.

Oct 20, 2026 · 5 min read
Felix Rosenqvist's Texas A&M helmet
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #296

How Texas A&M Takes Big Brand Swings

Texas A&M CMO R. Ethan Braden on strategic presence: how NASCAR, IndyCar and SXSW partnerships make a brand impossible to ignore.

Oct 16, 2026 · 5 min read
My Favorite B2B Marketing Examples
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #295

My Favorite B2B Marketing Examples (brands I’d steal from right now)

Dave's favorite B2B marketing examples right now, from Ramp, Anthropic, Rippling, Bland AI, Clay, Databricks, PostHog and ManyChat, with what to steal from each.

Oct 15, 2026 · 6 min read
6 Tips to Nail B2B Landing Pages
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #294

6 Tips So You Don’t Waste Good Traffic

Six fixes for B2B landing pages that waste good traffic, from dedicated campaign pages and message match to one clear CTA, plain language, and an FAQ.

Oct 13, 2026 · 3 min read
Dasha Shakov and Ross Simmonds seated outdoors on a mountain for an Exit Five interview, with text overlay reading Create Once, Distribute Forever
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #293

How To Get 10x More From Your Content

Ross Simmonds' create once, distribute forever playbook: the 4 Es of great content, a 9-step distribution run, and keeping your best assets fresh for LLMs.

Oct 8, 2026 · 4 min read
Dave holding a sign that says u ok and Chelsea holding a laptop showing a WordPress dashboard, each behind a window
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #292

How To Turn Ideas Into Viral LinkedIn Posts

Chelsea Castle on the habits behind her viral LinkedIn posts: save every idea, use AI to sort them, post when the idea is ready, and replay the hits.

Oct 6, 2026 · 4 min read
Dave and Dasha seated on stage surrounded by Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini robots, with the caption I honestly think AI has rotted my brain
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #291

How To Find The Big Idea In Anything You Write

How Harry Dry helped Dave find the one core idea behind his Drive 2026 keynote: find the conflict, boil it down to one word, show it, and cut until it's a 9 or a 10.

Oct 2, 2026 · 5 min read
Town hall reenactment with two people hugging the green SurveyMonkey mascot as a crowd cheers and signs read The SurveyMonkey is back
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #290

Why SurveyMonkey Brought The Monkey Back

SurveyMonkey's CCO Katie Miserany on why the company undid its Momentive rebrand and brought the monkey back, plus her early lessons on standing out in a sea of AI sameness, fixing a perception problem, and persona marketing.

Oct 1, 2026 · 6 min read
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #289

How To Build 1:1 ABM Landing Pages with AI Agents

Optimizely works with thousands of companies. Giving each target account its own 1:1 page would take a team of ABM managers, so Michiel, who runs Optimizely’s website, built an agent to do the job instead. It figures out what each account cares about, decides what belongs on the page, and hands sales a warm lead […]

Sep 29, 2026 · 5 min read
Three people discussing AI technology
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #288

An Agent That Edits Drafts Before You Do

Despite what you might read on LinkedIn, most marketers are still figuring agents out. Of the 1,000 marketers we asked, more than half hadn’t built an AI agent or tried and got stuck. Three quarters didn’t know where to start or didn’t have time to learn. If that’s you, you’re in the right place. First, […]

Sep 24, 2026 · 5 min read
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #287

5 Takeaways from Hubspot’s Unbound 2026

Two events in two weeks: from 400 people at Drive in Stowe, VT last week to 13,000+ at Unbound in Boston. One person put it like this: we went from marketing summer camp to marketing mayhem. Lots of people came up to me to talk about Drive – I actually couldn’t believe how many people […]

Sep 22, 2026 · 6 min read
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #286

Make LinkedIn growth a team sport

Have you noticed the Exit Five team publishing more on LinkedIn over the last month? Not a coincidence. Our CEO Dan and I challenged the team to grow their following through what we’re calling the Clout Cup. Whoever grows the most over 90 days wins. There’s a cash prize, plus perks at our offsite (winner […]

Sep 17, 2026 · 8 min read
B2B Marketing event Drive by Exit Five
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #285

Drive Top 5 (According to the Exit Five Team)

After Drive, we jammed out as a team on our highlights. And since we couldn’t help but notice all the feedback pouring in from attendees on LinkedIn, we pulled in some of that too. Here’s what we’re feeling and seeing after this year’s event. 1. Key takeaway: Humanity is the differentiator I keep coming back […]

Sep 15, 2026 · 6 min read
Man speaking on stage with microphone
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #284

The Best B2B Marketing Education Likely Won’t Come From A Course

I spent about a decade in marketing before founding Exit Five, working my way from PR intern to CMO. Ten or so years ago I landed what was then my dream job at Drift: 28 years old, backed by top-tier VC firm Sequoia Capital, with Pat Grady on the board, fresh off taking HubSpot public. […]

Sep 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Cartoon characters in a meeting room
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #283

5 Findings from Analyzing Every B2B Mascot That Exists

Editor’s note: Taking it from here is Louis Grenier, author of Stand The F*ck Out and founder of B2B consultancy STFO, a positioning + GTM consultancy for B2B companies. Louis has spent over a decade telling B2B companies uncomfortable truths about their positioning. He’s advised Dropbox, Hotjar, Ahrefs, and Balsamiq – and he’s headlining Drive […]

Sep 7, 2026 · 6 min read
Person celebrating with large balloons
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #282

How to Turn LinkedIn Into Your Best Growth Channel in Fall of 2026

I’ve been writing on LinkedIn for over a decade, and I still think it’s the most effective channel in B2B marketing for most industries (as we’ve discussed recently, not every industry, but many). Since most of you are in this world, today we dive into the LinkedIn for B2B playbook – specifically how to make […]

Sep 2, 2026 · 6 min read
Professionals working in tropical water
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #281

B2B Doesn’t Have To Be Boring: 3 Creative Tactics for Scroll-Stopping B2B Ads

Dasha here. (Editor’s note: Dasha is VP Marketing at Proton.AI and co-host of the Exit Five podcast.) A lot of you are marketing products that can be a bit dry (to put it mildly).  That’s perfect, because today’s featured guest is Shlomo Genchin, founder of Unbore – what he calls the unofficial school for B2B […]

Aug 31, 2026 · 5 min read
Group of people promoting webinars
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #280

5 battle-tested webinar tactics for B2B Marketing

Low registration for your live sessions? These five plays come from B2B marketers who already fixed it, with receipts. Borrow an audience by partnering with a guest whose following overlaps your ICP (AirOps pulled about 900 registrants). Turn one-off sessions into a series with a single registration (CaliberMind: 900 registrants). Post a teaser registration page […]

Aug 26, 2026 · 9 min read
Green sports car being serviced indoors
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #279

Marketing to B2B buyers who aren’t on LinkedIn

People often say B2B marketing is boring (usually people who aren’t actually doing it). Some of the best marketers are building great brands in categories nobody talks about: fintech, healthtech, industrial and manufacturing, insurance, facilities management, professional services, and so many more. We recently interviewed a VP on the pod who runs marketing for a […]

Aug 25, 2026 · 6 min read
Dave Gerhardt and Rob Sobers talk about lessons from 15 years of experience as a CMO for B2B Marketing
EXIT FIVE

3 Lessons From a 15-Year CMO of a $700M Cyber Company

Fifteen years at one company, in one role could get stale. For Rob Sobers, it hasn’t. He’s had the same employer and title for 15 years, but not the same job description. As the company has changed under him – from startup, to growth, to IPO, and now public, so have his objectives as CMO. He […]

Aug 18, 2026 · 5 min read
the best marketing tactics run by real marketers in b2b marketing
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #275

4 Proven Growth Plays to Use Right Now in B2B Marketing

A Claude skill that boosted AI visibility by 30%, LinkedIn articles built for AEO, the “3S” framework for better content creation fueled by VOC, and a physical book launch that turned into a year of ABM touchpoints. Here’s how these B2B marketing pros pulled off these four proven plays.

Aug 13, 2026 · 6 min read
B2B Marketing Blitz Part 2
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #274

Steal these 8 B2B marketing plays

We all need ideas and inspiration for marketing plays to run at work. That’s why today, I’m bringing you eight proven plays that real B2B marketers ran inside of their actual companies, with receipts to back them up. These plays came out of our recent Exit Five Live Session, the B2B Blitz Part 2.

Aug 11, 2026 · 8 min read
How marketing can work better with finance
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #273

Why Every B2B Marketing Leader Should Master Working With Finance

Here’s something we don’t talk about enough: being good at marketing isn’t just what shows up on LinkedIn. There’s a separate skillset – internal marketing – and a huge part of that is how you partner with Finance. Apparently, Patrick is good at it. He’s the SVP of Global Marketing at BlueVoyant, a $175M revenue, […]

Aug 6, 2026 · 5 min read
Man beside oversized cartoonish car
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #273

How This B2B Brand Stands Out Among 200+ Competitors

Discover how Exit Five differentiates itself among 200+ competitors in the B2B landscape. Key insights and strategies revealed.

Aug 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Group photo with mascots in autumn
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #272

Why B2B Companies Should Have a Mascot

A few weeks ago, we featured Louis in a guest newsletter about his audit of 100 B2B brands, scoring each one on how distinctive they actually are. Out of that sample, only one company landed in the ownable band: Wiz. We got into the full research on the pod, but today I’m zooming in on one piece […]

Jul 30, 2026 · 6 min read
B2B ads with engaging visuals and tips
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #271

B2B paid ads that don’t suck: Proven creative recipes that sell anything (even boring products)

How to Create a Fun Ad for a Boring Product and Drive 1,000+ Leads We’ve all been through annoying processes with endless forms we have to fill out manually. The HR portal that asks you to confirm a date you typed in twice. The fact that I can’t even copy and paste the ACH number […]

Jul 28, 2026 · 4 min read
Group of people in a competition
EXIT FIVE

8 Ideas for your Next Ad Campaign Play (Including Social Ads, TV ads, AI, OOH, Events)

Inspired by the World Cup, we decided to run our own “playoff” of sorts. But ours wasn’t soccer (Football? Futbol?), it was B2B ad examples (I know, you’re a marketing nerd just like we are, it’s OK. This is a safe space). And it was AWESOME. The rating was one of the highest we’ve ever […]

Jul 24, 2026 · 6 min read
Two men discussing LinkedIn Ads strategies.
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #269

Using AI to Drive Down LinkedIn Ads Costs

Today we’re going to talk about two of the most popular tools in the modern B2B marketing stack: LinkedIn Ads and Claude. If you or your team have tried plugging AI into LinkedIn Ads and gotten something mediocre back, it’s likely because nobody fed it the right data or gave it a system to work […]

Jul 23, 2026 · 5 min read
EXIT FIVE
Newsletter #268

The 12-Point AEO Checklist Worth Stealing If You Want LLMs To Cite You

An AEO checklist is the short list of things to check so AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity can read your pages and cite them. This one comes from Rebecca Busk, CEO and Partner at Kvalifik, and the 12 points boil down to: make sure your site is crawlable and indexed, write in plain […]

Jul 21, 2026 · 4 min read
Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you might be wondering about the newsletter.

Dave Gerhardt sends the Exit Five newsletter twice a week. Every issue covers what's actually working in B2B marketing right now, drawn from real conversations with practicing marketers.

Dave Gerhardt, founder of Exit Five, writes every issue himself. He spent 15 years in B2B marketing — including VP of Marketing at Drift and CMO at Privy — before building Exit Five into one of the largest B2B marketing communities in the world.

Yes. The newsletter is free and open to anyone. More than 40,000 B2B marketers subscribe.

Real plays from real marketers — names, numbers, and examples you can take straight back to your team. Expect B2B marketing strategy, demand gen, positioning, and career growth, not recycled industry news.

Most B2B marketing newsletters round up industry news. Exit Five's is written by a practitioner drawing on direct conversations inside a 6,000+ member community of B2B marketers, so the advice is grounded in what's actually working right now, not theory.

Yes. Every past issue is archived and free to read below, with new issues added twice a week.