New Book by Patrick Gilbert
Never Always,
Never Never.
Strategic Marketing in an AI World
The playbook that built most digital marketing careers is falling apart. This book is about what comes next and why strategy, not tactics, is what separates the marketers who thrive from those who get left behind.
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Order it on Amazon today!
Available in paperback and ebook.
About the Author
Patrick Gilbert
Patrick has spent over a decade at the intersection of marketing strategy and emerging technology. His first book, Join or Die, became an Amazon bestseller and is cited in Google's own training materials. He's delivered keynotes across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and serves as CEO of AdVenture Media, a digital marketing agency based in New York.
Read full bio →The Premise
The old playbook is broken.
The platform tricks, targeting hacks, and optimization shortcuts that once drove easy returns have been commoditized. AI is accelerating the gap between marketers who have real strategy and those who've been getting by without it. Most of what the industry believes about loyalty, targeting, and funnel optimization is either incomplete or flat-out wrong.
Never Always, Never Never puts strategy back at the center and shows you how AI changes who gets to be effective at it.
The Core Idea
What does “Never Always, Never Never” mean?
The concept comes from poker. You never always make the same play, even with the best hand in the deck, because predictability kills you. And you never rule out a play entirely, because under the right conditions, anything can work. The best players constantly vary their approach based on context, not rigid rules.
Marketing works the same way. There are no universal “best practices” that guarantee success in every situation. And there are no ideas so bad they should be dismissed forever. The marketers who thrive are the ones who reject rigid playbooks in favor of adaptability, who treat every decision as context-dependent, and who understand that strategy is never static.
“Dude ... this book is incredible.”
— Kirk Williams
What People Are Saying
Praise for Never Always, Never Never
“Perfectly timed for the AI era, Patrick Gilbert offers a breath of reason while challenging us to shed outdated assumptions about how we reach our customers. It is a deeply researched dive into the fundamentals that still matter and a guide to using AI for long-term strategic growth. A vital read for any marketer who refuses to rest on yesterday's wins.”
— Ginny Marvin, Google Ads Product Liaison
“Tactics change…constantly. Channels are always in flux. Consumer motivation is as fickle as the consumers themselves. Culture never sits still. And now AI. The one constant is strategy…..because it's never static…..evolves as the market does and is limited by nothing except your imagination. My good friend and colleague Patrick makes the case….teaches the lesson…..provides the roadmap and thrown in an AI tutor to boot. This book is a must!”
— David Sable, Vice Chairman, Stagwell; Former Senior Advisor, WPP; Former Global CEO, Young & Rubicam
“We talk about moats in the age of AI; the protective scaffolding businesses must build to thrive. Refined human intuition is one such moat. So is sophisticated taste, expert judgment, and deep consumer empathy. Patrick's content isn't just AI training — he teaches you how to build your personal and professional moat with the accessibility few authors can match. It's time to fortify your moat, and it starts with this book.”
— Isaac Rudansky, Founder, AdVenture Media; #1 Ranked PPC Expert in the World by PPC Hero
“I hope my direct competition never finds this book — because I don't want them to discover the same value I did. This is one of those truly paradigm-shifting reads: exceptional at tying the past to the future of digital marketing. Patrick doesn't leave the reader in the theoretical; he dives into the practical with specific things to implement and real-life case studies. This book will help shape the future of our industry.”
— Kirk Williams, Owner, ZATO Marketing; International Marketing Conference Speaker; Top PPC Expert by PPC Hero
“Patrick gets it. "Best practices" are a crutch for the average and the funnel died years ago, we just kept drawing it on whiteboards. Never Always, Never Never finally says it out loud, then does the harder thing: hands you a real playbook for the messy middle of consumer journeys. Light buyers over super-fans, mental availability over vanity metrics, AI as a copilot not an oracle. Plus, a healthy dose of the Buffalo Bills!”
— Aaron Levy, Evangelist, Optmyzr
“AI is exposing a hard truth: many marketers have been optimizing tasks, not outcomes. Patrick Gilbert's book is a much-needed reset — shifting the focus back to strategy, goals, and the fundamentals that actually drive growth. This book is a timely call to think more deeply about why we do what we do.”
— Fred Vallaeys, CEO and Cofounder, Optmyzr; Former Google AdWords Evangelist
Amazon #1
Bestseller — Join or Die
Top 5
Most Influential PPC Expert — PPC Hero
Training material citations
Free Preview
Read a free chapter.
Download Chapter 15, “The Emotional Edge,” and see why emotional campaigns outperform rational ones over time.
Get the free chapterIncluded with the Book
An AI companion that reads with you.
Every chapter includes a QR code that opens a conversation with an AI agent trained on the book's ideas. Ask follow-up questions, explore frameworks, challenge the arguments, or apply concepts to your own business.
Try the CompanionLiving Portfolio
Six levels of AI building.
From standalone tools to full platforms. Each project puts the book's ideas into practice.
1
Tools
Calculators, Chrome extensions, single-purpose apps
2
Websites
Marketing sites built entirely with AI assistance
3
Web Apps
This site: auth, chat agent, gated content
4
Workflows
PSEO engines, daily digests, scheduled automations
5
Agents
Morning briefs, search term mining, competitive intel
6
Platforms
Sherpa: full PPC management across Google, Meta, Microsoft
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