2 builders who never spoke to each other

Promise the thing a rival structurally cannot

Pick differentiators the competitor's business model forbids them from matching, and state them as flat permanent commitments rather than current advantages. Claiming an inability beats promising restraint, since a message saying the data cannot be read is stronger than one saying it will not be. Naming the technology you refuse to use works the same way when the market has learned to distrust it.

The method

1. 01

   Write your differentiator as two or three flat, permanent promises a competitor's business model structurally forbids them from making.

2. 02

   Claim inability rather than restraint. A message that says the data cannot be read outperforms one promising it will not be.

3. 03

   State plainly which technology you refuse to use, when the market has learned to distrust it.

What it returned

• Fathom's three stated promises are that it never shares or sells site data, never passes it to advertisers or third parties, and sells software rather than data or ads.

• Predicted as the marketing line a major vendor adopts: nothing can be handed over that was never legible.

• Rand Fishkin states that no generative AI produces SparkToro's results or affinity scores, that ChatGPT is used only to suggest related audiences when a query finds too few profiles, and that anyone wanting an amalgamation of copy can go to the language models directly.

Sources

• SparkToro V2 is Finally Here. It Can Do Incredible Things for SEO, Content Marketing, PR, and Ad Targeting. - SparkToroRand Fishkin · sparktoro.com · SparkToro V2’s Underlying Data Structure · undated
• Blind AI: Idle-Mac Networks, Zero Premium, Discovery Risk - Trends.vcDru Riley · trends.vc · 🔥 Hot Takes · 2026-06-24
• Why Fathom Analytics doesn’t have a free plan - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · Transparency is a super-power · 2023-09-18