The Mid-Funnel is the Biggest Opportunity in Marketing

What It Covers

GaryVee and Jon Evans discuss why organic social media — the mid-funnel — represents the largest untapped opportunity in marketing today. The conversation covers creative validation, live social shopping, UK versus US market gaps, hiring philosophy, and why marketers must challenge fake data in boardrooms to stay relevant.

Key Questions Answered

• •Mid-Funnel Creative Validation: Never spend a dollar of paid media on creative that hasn't first been tested organically on social platforms. Algorithms on Meta, ByteDance, Snap, YouTube, and Google are built purely for relevance, meaning organic reach serves as a free, real-world focus group that eliminates guesswork before any working media budget is committed.
• •Live Social Shopping: Live social shopping is the single most significant emerging channel for any product-selling brand. China's market already generates $600 billion GMV annually. In the US, Whatnot and TikTok moved aggressively in 2025, with Meta reportedly entering the space. Brands that move early will gain competitive separation equivalent to early social media adoption in 2015.
• •UK Market Opportunity: The UK and European social media marketing landscape is significantly less competitive than the US, where creators like MrBeast and VC-backed startups dominate feeds. UK brands have a structural advantage right now, but the market remains over-invested in awards, vanity metrics, and production budgets that target audiences no longer inhabit.
• •CFO Over CMO Alignment: When pitching mid-funnel social investment internally, target CFOs rather than CMOs. GaryVee reports that CFOs consistently align within 45 minutes of seeing the model, while CMO culture remains attached to brand theater and unverifiable data. Showing existing budget waste on declining-ROI channels is the most effective entry point for the conversation.
• •Intentionality and Impact Framework: GaryVee's 2026 personal operating system involves defining tight intentionality frameworks per business unit and measuring impact explicitly against them. The content production strategy remains: create daily, post-produce with technology and people, identify which platforms fit each asset, validate organically, then amplify only proven creative with paid media spend.