
800.com Launches Google Ads Integration to Connect Calls with Campaign ROI
We're thrilled to help our customers connect phone calls directly to ad performance, something that's typically costly or complex with traditional providers.
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More than 1.2 million businesses use Google Ads to increase sales and acquire new customers. With this new integration, 800.com users can automatically log call activity from ads and identify which campaigns, keywords, and landing pages are driving the highest-value leads.
'For businesses to accurately measure return on investment (ROI), they need visibility into every touchpoint—not just clicks and form fills,' said Tom English, VP of Marketing at 800.com. 'We're thrilled to help our customers connect phone calls directly to ad performance, something that's typically costly or complex with traditional providers.'
Key Benefits of the 800.com + Google Ads Integration:
Track inbound calls generated by Google Ads campaigns in real time
Attribute phone calls to specific campaigns, keywords, and landing pages
Identify top-performing ad copy and targeting strategies
Create seamless customer experiences using call-only or call-extension ads
With call attribution now fully integrated into Google Ads reporting, businesses can more confidently measure what's working—and make better decisions about where to invest their marketing dollars.
Easy Setup in Minutes
Connecting 800.com with Google Ads is simple. From the 800.com dashboard, users log in to their Google Ads account, grant permission, and assign tracking numbers to campaigns—no coding required. Businesses can choose from local or toll-free numbers, and results appear immediately in the 800.com dashboard under 'Call Tracking.'
'This is the next step in our mission to help small businesses compete smarter—by tying phone leads directly to marketing performance,' said Christina Reynolds, Brand Marketing Manager at 800.com.
800.com continues to expand its platform with additional integrations, including Slack, Meta Ads, Bing Ads, and more—offering a complete, cost-effective call tracking solution at nearly 50% less than traditional enterprise tools.
For more setup details, visit our Help Center. To request a live demo, visit 800.com/call-tracking.
800.com provides intuitive cloud-based voice and messaging solutions to help businesses connect with customers and grow with confidence. Trusted by thousands of teams and entrepreneurs, 800.com simplifies communication with powerful tools like call tracking, virtual numbers, SMS campaigns, and integrations with Google, Slack, Salesforce, and more.

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Time Business News
14 hours ago
- Time Business News
Is Skool a Pyramid Scheme? Honest Truth You Need to Know
The rise of online platforms has opened up countless opportunities for creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs. Among them, Skool has gained attention as a popular platform for building communities, hosting courses, and helping creators grow their businesses. But with its fast growth and referral program, some people have asked: Is Skool a pyramid scheme ? In this article, we'll break everything down clearly—what Skool really is, how it works, and why it's not the shady scheme some people assume. By the end, you'll know the honest truth and be able to decide whether Skool is worth your time. Skool is an all-in-one platform designed for people who want to create and grow online communities with paid memberships and courses. Instead of juggling multiple tools (like Facebook Groups, Slack, and Teachable), Skool combines everything into one simple hub: Community Spaces: A private, clutter-free forum where members can connect. A private, clutter-free forum where members can connect. Course Hosting: Easy setup for video lessons, training, or structured programs. Easy setup for video lessons, training, or structured programs. Calendar & Events: Built-in scheduling for live calls, Q&A sessions, or workshops. Built-in scheduling for live calls, Q&A sessions, or workshops. Gamification: Leaderboards, points, and rewards to keep members engaged. So, in reality, Skool is not about 'making money off recruiting people.' It's about building genuine communities and delivering value through courses and memberships. The confusion often comes from Skool's affiliate program. Here's how it works: Skool has a flat monthly fee of $99 . . If you refer someone to Skool, you earn 40% monthly commissions on their subscription. This means if you refer one person, you earn around $39.60 every month as long as they stay subscribed. Refer ten people, and you're earning nearly $400 a month in recurring income. Because this is so rewarding, some critics mistake it for a 'pyramid scheme.' But there's a big difference: Skool's business model is based on selling real services—community and course hosting—not on endless recruiting. Let's make it simple: Pyramid Scheme: No real product. People make money only by recruiting others into the system. Eventually, it collapses because there's nothing of actual value. No real product. People make money only by recruiting others into the system. Eventually, it collapses because there's nothing of actual value. Skool: Offers a real platform that creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses use to host communities, courses, and events. The affiliate program is just an added bonus—not the core product. So when people ask, 'Is Skool a pyramid scheme?' the answer is no. It's a legitimate software platform with a sustainable model. Now that we've cleared the confusion, let's look at why so many creators and educators are moving to Skool: Simplicity: No tech headaches—Skool is beginner-friendly. No tech headaches—Skool is beginner-friendly. Community + Courses in One Place: Instead of juggling multiple apps, everything is under one roof. Instead of juggling multiple apps, everything is under one roof. Engagement Tools: The gamified system keeps members motivated and active. The gamified system keeps members motivated and active. Recurring Income Opportunities: Beyond running your own community, the affiliate program is a nice way to earn passive income. Beyond running your own community, the affiliate program is a nice way to earn passive income. Clear Pricing: At just $99 per month, the flat rate is predictable and affordable for serious creators. The 40% monthly commissions are powerful, but they're not the main focus of Skool. The platform thrives because it helps people build thriving communities and sell courses, not because of the referral program. Think of the commissions as a reward for spreading the word about a tool that already delivers real value. Many software companies—like ClickFunnels, Kajabi, or Teachable—also run affiliate programs. Skool just happens to offer one of the more generous ones. If your main interest is to get rich quick, then Skool probably isn't for you. But if you're a: Coach, consultant, or educator Business owner who wants to train and engage customers Creator who wants a strong community around your brand …then Skool could be the perfect fit. It's built for long-term growth, not quick tricks. And that's exactly why it's winning trust. So, is Skool a pyramid scheme? Absolutely not. It's a real, reliable platform designed to help creators grow their communities and deliver value through courses. The 40% monthly commissions are simply a bonus for those who spread the word. At the end of the day, Skool is about building something real—a community, a business, and long-lasting relationships. And in the world of online platforms, that's exactly what sets it apart. TIME BUSINESS NEWS

Business Insider
a day ago
- Business Insider
The AGI-pilled and the damned
Henry, a boyish-looking AI researcher, believes there's about a 50/50 chance that in the next few years AI will become so powerful and sophisticated it will pose an existential threat to all human life. For his day job, he's trying to prevent this from happening by working for a small safety-focused AI research lab in the Bay Area. He takes this mission seriously: He's sworn off romantic relationships to dedicate himself to the cause, and he donates a third of his income to AI safety nonprofits. In his free time, he's preparing for the possibility of failure, by building DIY bioshelters to protect him and his family from an AI apocalypse. Speaking from a video call in his office, Henry tells me it's remarkably easy to build a bioshelter capable of protecting against lethal pathogens created by or with the aid of advanced AI. First, you buy an off-the-shelf positively pressurized tent, the sort typically used as grow rooms for plants. Then you stack multiple professional-grade HEPA filters in front of the air intake. Finally, you stuff it with as much shelf-stable food, water, and supplies as you can fit. Henry's bioshelter will be "quite cheap," he tells me, "probably less than $10,000 including the three years worth of food I'm going to put in there." He asked that I use a pseudonym because of the social stigma associated with being a "prepper" — particularly if his fears do not come to pass and humanity prevails. Henry is far from alone in putting his money where his mouth is regarding his deepest fears and hopes for AI. For a certain class of Silicon Valley denizens, AI is not just the next buzzy technological wave; it is poised to fundamentally transform our society, and very soon. For them, there is little time to babble about the possible futures of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, over Slack channels and dinner parties. The time for radical change is now. Rationalists, a Silicon Valley-aligned philosophy centered on trying to improve human rationality and morality, have grown increasingly concerned about the perceived AI risk — while on the other side of the aisle, startup boosters' predictions for the tech are growing ever-more ebullient. "A lot of us are just going to look back on these next two years as the time when we could have done something." Some believe we're at the dawn of an age of superabundance — in which almost all intellectual labor can be automated — unlocking an unprecedented wave of human flourishing. They're embracing a lifestyle shift they call "smart-to-hot." Others are bracing for economic catastrophe and making major investments and career moves accordingly. And yet others, who think AI will inevitably wrest free of human control and gain the ability to kill all organic life. They're spending their retirement savings, having "weird orgies," and building survival bunkers. "A lot of us are just going to look back on these next two years as the time when we could have done something," Henry says. "Lots of people will look back on this and be like, 'Why didn't I quit my job and try to do something that really mattered when I had a chance to?'" A biomedical research data scientist living in Los Angeles, Srinivasan had historically been attracted to a certain kind of intelligent guy, prioritizing smarts over conventional attractiveness, she tells me. Now she saw that because generative AI is doing the intellectual labor of more and more people, raw intelligence has become less important to her than charisma, social engagingness, and hotness. Or as she recently quipped in a semi-viral tweet, "If you're smart, pivot to being cool/hot." Many of the people I spoke to for this story believe a variation of this: that because AI will soon subsume much of intellectual life, social life will become much more integral to human society, and being physically attractive will become all the more essential to flourishing within it. Brains are over, beauty and brawn are in. "I've sort of always loved fitness," says Soren Larson, a tech entrepreneur in Florida, "and I rather think that being hot and personable and funny are poised to be rare features when AI can do all the sort of intellectual things." Jason Liu, an AI consultant, tells me he's "already made that pivot." Several years ago, a debilitating, repetitive strain injury in his hands brought his career as a software engineer to a standstill. He retooled his life, diving into leisure pursuits like jiu jitsu and ceramics, and fashioned a second career as a consultant, trying to optimize for delegation and free time to socialize rather than hustle. "I personally did not want to be valued for my intelligence," he says. "I was like, this intelligence is what physically hurt me, and caused me to lose my job." When we spoke by phone, he was out strolling the streets of Paris, as part of an extended international jaunt. "Really leaning into leisure is kind of how I think about AGI," he says. Other people I meet with are reshaping their social lives today not because of their hopes for AI, but because of their fears. "If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb," C.S. Lewis wrote in 1948, "let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs." In my conversations with people concerned about AI's impact, a few explicitly cited this Lewis quote, and many expressed a similar sentiment, in how they're trying to treasure the time they have now. "It's really freeing in some ways," Aella, a fetish researcher and sex worker in the San Francisco Bay Area with a cult following on X, tells me of her concerns about AI development. "I like throwing weird orgies, and I'm like — well, we're going to die. What's a weirder, more intense, crazier orgy we can do? Just do it now." As we sit out on the AstroTurf lawn at Lighthaven — a kitschy old hotel in Berkeley converted into an intellectual campus for the Rationalist movement — she talks about her fears of how AI may destroy humanity. "I can't face it all at once," she says. "I can catch glimpses of the big thing out of the corner of my eye and then I grieve it when I can, but I don't have the emotional capacity to really absorb it." As a result, she lives much more in the moment. She's gradually spending down her savings. She exercises less. She's tried "hard drugs" she would otherwise avoid. She's taking more sleeping pills, despite concerns about dementia risk. She's freezing a bunch of her eggs; "I'm just trying to get as many as I can, for fun." Over in San Francisco's Dolores Park, Vishal Maini, a venture capital investor, tells me something similar — though perhaps a little less extreme. "I think it makes sense to just adopt a little bit of a bucket-list-mentality around this," he says. "Do what's important to you in the time that we have." As we drink herbal tea, Maini talks me through his mental model for the coming years. He isn't sure if we're approaching a future where human capability is radically enhanced by AI, or a darker future in which humanity is "deprecated" by the technology. Amid this uncertainty, he advocates for "paleo-futurism": consciously prioritizing human interaction in a world replete with hyper-engaging, endlessly personalized digital content. "As we enter the era of AI companions, and increasingly dopamine-rich digital experiences, we have this choice," he says. "Do you go into the metaverse all the way, or do you stay in the real world?" For Holly Elmore, concerns about AI have impacted her life more intimately: It contributed to her decision to get divorced. At a coffee shop in San Francisco's Mission District, she tells me she and her husband were both deeply attuned to the risks of unconstrained AI development, but had different approaches to reining it in. Elmore, the executive director of anti-AI protest group Pause AI, believed steadfast mass organization against the big labs like OpenAI was the only viable way forward, which she says her ex-husband, Ronny Fernandez, was "unsupportive" of. "We had a lot of problems and I should have probably never been in that marriage, but it just became very clear that I wasn't going to be able to keep doing Pause AI if we stayed together," she says. "I had a very strong moral conviction on that and it did organize the priorities in my life very well. And honestly, I love living that way." "I do think that trying to use shaming and promoting in-group out-group thinking to achieve policy goals has a pretty bad track record," Fernandez, who is the manager of Lighthaven, writes over email. "Those disagreements led to resentments on both of our ends which contributed to our eventually getting divorced." While he believes that casting the AI scaling labs as "political enemies" will likely backfire, he stresses that "there is a significant chance that smarter than human AI will literally kill approximately everyone, or lead to even worse outcomes, within a few decades." For others, their dreams and worst fears about AI have transformed their approach to money. Sometime in 2020, Daniel Kokotajlo, then 28 years old, stopped saving for retirement. The AI researcher was growing concerned about the existential threat AI might pose to humanity. He worked at OpenAI from 2022 until he quit in 2024 over concerns about how it was handling AI safety — an issue he continues to work on. Earlier this year, he published AI 2027, a widely read online essay exploring how rapid advancements in AI may lead to several "loss-of-control" situations, from a world war over the AI arms race in the late 2020s to the extinction of human life by 2035, via an AI releasing a lethal chemical spray across civilization. Haroon Choudery, an AI startup founder, sees next few years as his last chance to make generational wealth. Amid these threats, he reasons, why bother saving for decades, when even the next few years look increasingly uncertain? "I have a decent amount of money, especially because of the equity, but I'm planning to spend it down," he tells me at a coffee shop in Berkeley. "I'm planning to have less every year." He says he knows of numerous other AI researchers doing the same. On a recent episode of Dwarkesh Patel's popular tech podcast, Trenton Bricken, a researcher at OpenAI rival Anthropic, shared that he, too, has quit putting money away for retirement, because he believes AGI is fast approaching. "It's hard for me to imagine a world in which I have all this money that's just sitting in this account and waiting until I'm 60 and things look so different then," he said. Others in the tech industry are taking a very different approach to their money. Among some of the most bullish about how bearish they see the future, there's a pervasive fear that there are only a few years left to earn as much as possible "before the music stops," when human intellectual labor becomes largely obsolete. "We have just a handful of years to try to make it financially," says a crypto writer in the Midwest who goes by the pseudonym Redphone professionally. "And if you don't, your bloodline could be relegated to this sort of peasant class under these technological overlords who control AI." Haroon Choudery, a former data integrity analyst at Facebook who now runs an AI startup called Autoblocks, has a similar concern. He emigrated from Pakistan to the United States when he was 5; his father was a cabbie, while his mother didn't work outside the home. He views the next few years as his last chance to make generational wealth for himself and his children. "Things are going to feel a lot more scarce from an upward mobility perspective, so people will generally freeze in their socioeconomic statuses," he tells me. Massey Branscomb, an executive at AI hedge fund AlphaFund puts this concept to me in even more blunt terms: "If you are not positioning yourself as a key member of these critical companies," by which he means top-flight AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, "and you're kind of living — the term is ironically a 'wagie' — you're living a wagie life, then you could be on the chopping block and then it's going to be harder. These jobs are not going to come back." Others are less sure AI will soon topple the global economy. As an assistant professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, David Thorstad could be considered a wagie. But he tells me he's not too worried about it. While he has increased the amount he's saving because of uncertainty around AI, he urges caution about any grand predictions. "I think that there are lots of communities," he says, "particularly in the Bay Area where groups of very smart, like-minded people live together, work together, read similar forums and podcasts, and when they get very immersed in a particular kind of an extreme worldview about AI, it tends to be very hard to break out." And then there are the people who aren't just preparing AI-driven financial apocalypse; they're preparing for an AI-driven apocalypse apocalypse. Ulrik Horn had always been interested in "societal problems," which led to work in renewable energies after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. But in recent years, the Stockholm-based entrepreneur has been concerned about a different kind of problem: biosecurity. Horn is worried about "mirror life," an emerging field of biological research that involves creating mirror-forms of naturally occurring life. Specifically, he's worried that AI may help accelerate research into the field — and may lead to devastating biological weapons. We're five to 10 years out from AI developing this capability, he believes. After raising philanthropic funding to research protections against biothreats, he founded Fonix — a startup building off-the-shelf bioshelters with high-grade air filters. For $39,000, you can buy a shelter you can erect at home if and when the scat hits the fan. He has received a handful of pre-orders, he said, with shipping expected in 2026. Horn isn't the only one viewing the perceived threat of AI as a business opportunity. Ross Gruetzemacher, an assistant professor of business analytics at Wichita State University, is launching a "resiliency" consulting firm to help businesses and individuals prepare for significant shocks as a result of AI and other existential risks. He has also bought land in Wyoming, on which he plans to build his own secure facility. James Norris, an entrepreneur and longtime worrier about a variety of threats to humanity, has recently moved into what he describes as a "survival sanctuary" in an undisclosed location in South-East Asia, and is also offering consulting services and assistance setting up sanctuaries to others. Norris has also sworn off having children, he tells me, because of the havoc he believes AI will wreak on the world. Despite his personal fears, Kokotajlo, the ex- OpenAI researcher, is heavily skeptical of any attempt to aggressively prepare for a bad AI outcome today. "I think more likely it's either we're all dead, or we're all fine," he says. "I think if I spent a few weeks I could make a bug-out bag and make a bioshelter or whatever, and then in some sliver of possible futures it would save my family. But it is just more important for me to do my actual job than to do that." A few weeks after I first chatted with Henry, the young AI safety researcher, I check in via email. He's had a change of heart, and is no longer trying to build a DIY bioshelter. He's determined that he wasn't thinking big enough. Instead, he's now trying to buy land in California, where he can build more permanent defense structures to protect more of his friends and family. "The main scenario I think about is the one where misaligned superintelligence AI takes over," he says. He wants to be prepared for a near-future in which an all-powerful AI wages war against humans, but the "AI still has a little bit of empathy." Once the AI wins that war, he concludes, "maybe they'll take care of the survivors and they'll put humans in some kind of human zoo. And I'd much rather live in a human zoo than be killed by bioweapons."


Time Business News
2 days ago
- Time Business News
The Role of AI in Personalizing the Customer Journey
Personalization is no longer just a buzzword—it's a critical component of a successful customer experience strategy. As competition intensifies and consumer expectations rise, businesses must deliver hyper-personalized experiences to stand out. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a transformative role. AI is revolutionizing how brands understand, interact with, and serve their customers throughout the buyer journey. From awareness to post-purchase, AI enables businesses to tailor interactions at scale, in real-time. Modern consumers expect brands to know who they are, what they want, and when they want it. According to McKinsey & Company, companies that excel at personalization generate 40% more revenue from those activities than average players. Additionally, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn't happen. In other words, personalization isn't a luxury—it's an expectation. AI-powered personalization refers to using machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analytics to tailor customer experiences across various channels and touchpoints. It leverages real-time and historical data to make, like courier package delivery systems, intelligent decisions about what content, product, or message to serve each user. Unlike traditional rule-based personalization, AI systems learn and adapt continuously. They identify patterns and make recommendations with increasing accuracy over time. In the initial stage of the customer journey, AI helps brands deliver the right message to the right audience. AI in programmatic advertising allows for real-time bidding and targeting based on behavioral data. AI-powered tools like Meta's Advantage+ and Google Ads' Smart Bidding automatically optimize ad performance. Predictive algorithms analyze customer segments and choose the best creative formats or messaging. Once a prospect shows interest, AI refines the experience further by delivering personalized content or product recommendations. E-commerce platforms like Amazon and Shopify use AI to suggest products based on browsing history, cart activity, and similar customer behavior. Content recommendation engines (like those used by Netflix or YouTube) keep users engaged longer by suggesting personalized media options. When customers are ready to convert, AI simplifies the process: AI chatbots provide real-time answers to pre-purchase questions, increasing conversion rates and reducing support costs. Dynamic pricing algorithms adjust prices based on demand, user behavior, and competitor pricing. Email automation platforms like Klaviyo and Mailchimp use AI to send personalized messages at optimal times. After a purchase, AI plays a critical role in retention: Predictive analytics helps identify at-risk customers and trigger proactive retention campaigns. AI suggests loyalty rewards based on customer value and behavior. Post-purchase emails, tailored with AI, recommend complementary products or services. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): Aggregate and unify customer data from various sources Aggregate and unify customer data from various sources AI-driven CRM Systems: Salesforce Einstein, HubSpot AI, and Zoho Zia use AI integration to guide sales and marketing decisions. Salesforce Einstein, HubSpot AI, and Zoho Zia use AI integration to guide sales and marketing decisions. Recommendation Engines: Tools like Dynamic Yield, Adobe Target, and Algolia personalize content and product suggestions Tools like Dynamic Yield, Adobe Target, and Algolia personalize content and product suggestions Natural Language Processing: Powers chatbots like Drift, Intercom, and ChatGPT-based solutions to offer human-like support. While powerful, AI-driven personalization comes with challenges: Data privacy concerns: Striking a balance between personalization and respecting privacy is crucial. Transparency and compliance with GDPR and CCPA are non-negotiable. Striking a balance between personalization and respecting privacy is crucial. Transparency and compliance with GDPR and CCPA are non-negotiable. Bias in algorithms: Poorly trained models may reinforce biases, leading to inaccurate personalization. Poorly trained models may reinforce biases, leading to inaccurate personalization. Integration complexity: AI systems require clean, structured data and often need integration with legacy systems. Amazon: Amazon uses AI extensively to personalize product recommendations, which account for 35% of total sales. Their recommendation system is based on collaborative filtering, deep learning, and clickstream analysis. Spotify: Spotify's AI tailors playlists like Discover Weekly and Release Radar to individual listening habits. This personalization drives user loyalty and increases listening time. Starbucks: Through its Deep Brew AI engine, Starbucks customizes offers, drink suggestions, and email content based on customer behavior and weather, location, and order history. The next wave of AI will be conversational and contextual. As technologies like Generative AI, augmented reality (AR), and edge AI advance, personalization will go beyond product suggestions and into immersive, human-like experiences. We're also likely to see more AI Employees—virtual brand representatives that engage with customers across platforms like social media, email, and websites in real-time, offering personalized assistance at scale. The role of AI in personalizing the customer journey is undeniable. It empowers brands to deliver value-driven, relevant, and seamless experiences at every stage of the funnel. As customer expectations evolve, the businesses that win will be those that invest in intelligent, AI-powered personalization systems. Personalization at scale is no longer a future goal—it's a present necessity. TIME BUSINESS NEWS