CLICK HERE: How Modern Marketing Really Works (and What It Means for Creators in the AI Era)

Introduction: Why “Click Here” Still Matters

The first time I ever saw the words “Click Here” was in an early-2000s email promising freedom and online income. It didn’t deliver — but the idea did.

Back then, I was deep in my journey of reinvention. I’d left banking in 2001, spent five years as a profit improvement consultant, helped turn around a struggling manufacturing business, and experimented with a bookkeeping franchise.

But by 2009, I wanted a business that actually gave me freedom. So I sat down at the kitchen table and did a simple exercise — one that would change my life.

I wrote down two lists:

What I wanted:

• Low cost to start

• No stock or physical products

• No creditors

• No staff to manage (maybe subcontract if needed)

• Work from anywhere

What I didn’t want:

• Office politics

• Endless overhead

• Stressful financial risk

That list led me to the make-money-online niche. But at the time, building an online business was technically painful. Tools were clunky, integrations fragile, and scaling felt like pushing a wheelbarrow uphill.

Fast-forward to today — the rise of Artificial Intelligence has changed everything.

What once took a team now takes a system. (Inside software powered by AI, you can have the equivalent of a large team of expert marketers building your business based on the information and prompts that you input!)
What once took weeks now takes minutes.
And what once required technical skills now requires clarity of thinking.

That’s where Alex Schultz’s book “Click Here” comes in. Schultz — Meta’s Chief Marketing Officer — has built and scaled growth systems for eBay, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. His principles form the foundation of modern digital marketing.

But unlike the “growth hacking” trends that come and go, Schultz’s approach is timeless.

In this post, I’ll distil the book’s most powerful lessons through the lens of solopreneurs, creators, and coaches — and show how to apply them using IMMachines systems and GPT tools.

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Principle 1: Tools Evolve, Principles Don’t

Schultz’s first guiding law of digital marketing is simple:

“Tools evolve, but principles are timeless.”

That’s the core idea behind IMMachines too — whether you’re using an autoresponder, a funnel builder, or a custom GPT, the underlying psychology of marketing hasn’t changed.

Here’s what stays true:

1. You need attention.

2. You need to earn trust.

3. You need to measure impact.

4. You need to repeat what works.

Push notifications, emails, or TikToks are just new delivery systems for the same human desires. Schultz shows how every new channel — from direct mail in the 1980s to push notifications in the 2020s — is simply an evolution of the same logic:

• Grab attention

• Create curiosity

• Offer value

• Drive a specific action

The danger today isn’t in missing the newest tool — it’s in getting lost in the tool and forgetting the principle.

That’s why at IMMachines, every system we build — whether a Traffic Engine, List Builder, or Copy Pro GPT — starts with fundamentals: clarity, value, and testing.

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Principle 2: Incremental Results Are Everything

The second golden rule:

“If your marketing didn’t move the needle, it didn’t work.”

Marketers often celebrate vanity metrics: likes, clicks, or reach. Schultz calls that out bluntly — those are distractions unless they create incremental impact.

Incrementality means asking:

• If I turned off this ad, would anything change?

• If I stopped this email, would sales drop?

• If I removed this funnel, would conversions fall?

If not — it’s fluff.

This principle mirrors what I teach in IMMachines systems: measure what matters.
AI gives you unlimited data, but without purpose, data becomes noise.

In your own business, focus on one clear North Star metric — the measurable outcome that defines growth.

Examples:

• For a course creator: “Monthly paid enrollments.”

• For a coach: “Qualified consultations booked.”

• For a solopreneur: “Weekly system sales.”

Everything else should serve that metric — or be scrapped.

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Principle 3: Define Your North Star

Schultz calls this the clarity principle.

“The greatest threat to your North Star is your number two goal.”

At Facebook, their North Star wasn’t “revenue.” It was Monthly Active Users — MAU. Every decision had to serve that metric.

That kind of discipline transforms a business.

For solopreneurs, it might look like this:

• North Star: Build 1,000 engaged email subscribers.

• Supporting metric: Daily content consistency.

• Guardrails: Don’t chase viral trends that don’t serve subscribers.

Clarity beats complexity. Without it, you’ll spread yourself thin across tools, channels, and “urgent opportunities.”

As Schultz says:

“It isn’t prioritisation if it doesn’t hurt.”

In other words — if saying yes doesn’t mean saying no to something else, you’re not prioritising.

At IMMachines, this mindset shows up in the From Chaos to Clarity GPT — it helps creators simplify decisions by filtering tasks through impact, urgency, and alignment with the North Star.

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Principle 4: The Marketing Funnel Still Works

The marketing funnel is not outdated — it’s the backbone of human decision-making.

Schultz revisits the classic AIDA model:

1. Awareness – Do people know you exist?

2. Intention – Do they want what you offer?

3. Decision – Are they ready to act?

4. Action – Did they buy, subscribe, or book?

5. Word of Mouth – Do they share it?

This model isn’t theoretical. It’s practical.

For example, if your AI product isn’t selling, the problem may not be your sales page. It might be that your audience isn’t even aware that your product solves their problem.

Most solopreneurs try to sell before they’ve earned awareness. That’s like proposing marriage before the first date.

Here’s how Schultz advises fixing that:

Understanding the funnel helps you spend smarter. You’ll know which message belongs where and when to use it.

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Principle 5: Conversion is a System — Not a Moment

One of the best insights from Click Here is that “conversion” isn’t a button click — it’s an ecosystem.

Every action that leads up to the sale (landing page, ad, follow-up, email) is part of the conversion system.

Schultz defines conversion in four steps:

1. Understand it – What specific action defines success?

2. Log it – Measure every step accurately.

3. Optimise it – Improve each micro-conversion.

4. Repeat it – Scale what works.

He tells a great story about eBay realizing that many “new users” would have bought anyway — the marketing just took credit for it. Once they began tracking incremental conversions, not just clicks, they saved millions.

For solopreneurs, this means:
Don’t just look at total sales. Look at what triggered those sales.

Was it a blog post? A funnel? A GPT demo?
Track the cause, not just the outcome.

To make this easy, IMMachines tools like the Copy Pro Engine GPT and Sales Angle Generator GPT help you test angles and identify which creative actually moves people from intention to decision.

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Principle 6: Measure Incrementality, Not Vanity

This principle separates amateur marketers from pros.

Schultz describes two cautionary tales:

• eBay’s “Brand Keyword” Trap: They paid for ads on the keyword “eBay” — but tests showed users would’ve come anyway. Millions wasted.

• Uber’s Fraud Scandal: They discovered agencies were claiming credit for installs that happened without the ads.

Lesson: If your ads don’t create new conversions, you’re not growing — you’re paying for what would’ve happened anyway.

In AI-assisted solopreneurship, this means tracking where your GPT systems truly create leverage.

Ask yourself:

• Does my Traffic Engine bring genuinely new leads?

• Does my Offer Optimiser Pro create measurable revenue lifts?

• Does my Email System convert cold subscribers into paying users — or just warm up existing fans?

That’s the kind of measurement that makes AI marketing profitable, not just impressive.

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Principle 7: The Infrastructure Behind Great Marketing

Most creators skip this part — and pay the price later.

Infrastructure means:

• Proper tracking (Google Tag Manager, GA4, pixel events)

• A feedback system (testing, iteration, documentation)

• A team or process you can rely on

For large companies, infrastructure means departments. For solopreneurs, it means systems.

This is why IMMachines builds GPTs as modular components:

• AI List Engine = list growth

• Traffic Navigator = top-of-funnel awareness

• Copy Pro Engine = mid-funnel persuasion

• Offer Optimiser Pro = conversion

• Lifetime Value Builder = retention

Think of them as your digital marketing “team in a box.”

Schultz says, “Mediocre marketing with a great conversion flow beats great marketing with a broken one.”

Translation: don’t obsess over copy polish before your system is trackable.

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Principle 8: Understand Marginal Returns

Every pound spent on marketing should generate more than a pound in return — but Schultz goes further.

He emphasises marginal returns — the extra return you get from spending one more unit of effort or money.

Example:
If your first £100 in ads earns £200, that’s great.
But if your next £100 only earns £110, your marginal return is collapsing.

In other words, stop scaling when the extra pound earns less than it costs.

In solopreneur systems, the same rule applies to time.
If spending another three hours tweaking your funnel yields only 1% more conversions, it’s time to automate it instead.

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Principle 9: Collaboration Beats Competition

In Chapter 10, Schultz explores how marketing teams should work with product, data, and engineering teams.

For solopreneurs, this translates to something just as powerful: collaboration between your tools.

You are the “marketing team,” “tech team,” and “creative director” all in one.

That’s why integration matters. Your GPTs, funnels, and analytics should talk to each other.

When your AI tools are aligned, they amplify each other. That’s the secret behind IMMachines’ Creator Stack — every GPT outputs something another GPT can use.

Example:

• Traffic Navigator finds your ideal traffic source.

• Copy Pro Engine writes the ad copy for it.

• Offer Optimiser Pro tailors the pitch.

• Chaos to Clarity GPT tracks the system’s impact.

Together, they act like Schultz’s dream growth team — but automated.

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Principle 10: Storytelling Still Wins

Schultz admits: “Data alone doesn’t sell. Stories do.”

In a world of dashboards, charts, and CTRs, emotion still converts.

The human brain remembers stories, not stats.

That’s why every AI system you build should have a narrative spine:

• Who are you helping?

• What problem are they stuck in?

• What transformation are you promising?

Your offer is the logical solution. Your story is the emotional bridge.

Use the Thought-Leader Engine GPT to clarify your worldview and turn it into content that positions you as a guide, not just a seller.

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Principle 11: AI Isn’t the End of Marketing — It’s the Renaissance

The final chapter of Click Here dives into AI. Schultz sees it not as a threat, but as a multiplier of human creativity.

He reminds us: AI doesn’t replace the marketer — it replaces the inefficient marketer.

AI will handle:

• Research

• Drafting

• Testing

• Optimisation

But only you can bring judgment, ethics, and intuition.

The creators who thrive won’t be those who automate everything.
They’ll be those who build systems that think like them — consistent, creative, and scalable.

That’s exactly what IMMachines GPTs are designed for. They’re not meant to replace you. They’re meant to capture your thinking and multiply it.

You don’t scale by doing more — you scale by codifying how you think.

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The IMMachines Connection: Turning Schultz’s Principles into Practice

Let’s tie it all together:

When you apply these, you move from chasing hacks to building a machine that compounds.

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Final Thoughts: “Click Here” Is a Philosophy

The phrase “Click Here” isn’t about a hyperlink anymore — it’s a mindset.

It’s the invitation to take action. To test. To evolve.
To build something that outlasts every trend.

Schultz built billion-dollar systems around these principles.
You and I can build freedom-based, one-person businesses around the same ones.

Growth is not luck. It’s a system of choices repeated consistently.

And with AI as your co-founder, the only question left is —

Will you click here?