Meta’s Ad Machine Is Purring, So Why Did Its Stock Drop?
Meta reported a strong Q1, posting $55 billion in ad revenue, a 33% year‑over‑year increase, while unveiling a $125‑$145 billion spending plan to fund next‑generation AI compute. The company highlighted AI‑driven improvements that lifted Instagram Reels time spent by 10% and boosted Facebook video engagement by over 7%, alongside a 19% rise in ad impressions and a 12% jump in average ad price. Despite these gains, the stock slipped more than 6% after hours, as investors weighed the higher capex and lingering legal exposure over youth‑related lawsuits. Meta also launched a beta for AI‑powered ad‑management connectors, signaling a push to embed generative AI deeper into its advertising ecosystem.
Liquid Death CEO on Building a Provocative Brand, Small Marketing Budgets and Super Bowl Ads
Liquid Death CEO Mike Cessario built the canned water brand on provocative, entertainment‑driven marketing, spending as little as $1,500 on a video that later earned 3 million views. The company now projects roughly $300 million in revenue while keeping video budgets under...
AMC Sees Second Chance to Win Ad Dollars for First Views of Long-Lasting Series
AMC Global Networks is rolling out a "first streamer" ad product that lets brands purchase the first ad slot in a viewer's initial watch of any series, even if the show is several seasons old. The offering treats a first‑time...
Fresho Appoints TAG to Drive Digital Growth
Fresho, a leading order‑management SaaS for food distributors, has appointed digital growth consultancy TAG to run its advertising and creative strategy across Australia‑New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The partnership focuses on a data‑led acquisition approach designed to...
Specsavers Unveils New OOH Work on Australia’s Longest Street Poster Site via Specsavers Creative
Specsavers has launched a 95.45‑metre out‑of‑home takeover on Swan Street in Richmond, Australia’s longest street poster site. The in‑house Specsavers Creative team installed 21 panels on one side asking "Loooooooooong sighted?" and a single panel on the opposite side asking...
Google Says It's Open to Putting Ads in Gemini
Google has not yet placed ads in its Gemini AI chatbot, but chief business officer Philipp Schindler signaled openness to the idea during the earnings call. The company is currently testing ad formats in AI Mode, the conversational layer of...
Meta Opens Its Ad Ecosystem to Third-Party AI Tools
Meta announced an open‑beta rollout of Meta ads AI connectors, letting advertisers link third‑party AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude directly to their Meta ad accounts. The connectors promise secure, cross‑channel insights and real‑time campaign management without forcing users...
A.I. Helps Online Ad Businesses Boom
AI tools from Meta and Google are reshaping digital advertising, letting firms like DribbleUp automate ad creation, targeting, bidding, and measurement. After moving its campaigns to Facebook’s AI platform, DribbleUp’s sales have outpaced its marketing spend and the company has...
AMC Comes Into Upfront With Bite, New Ways to Work With Advertisers
AMC has rebranded from AMC Networks to AMC Global Media, emphasizing a worldwide footprint. At its New York upfront, the company unveiled fresh advertising formats tied to sports, franchise content, and live events such as a Vampire Lestat showcase. The holiday‑season...
Bing Ads Revenue Up 12% - New Growth
Microsoft reported third‑quarter 2026 results showing Bing Ads revenue climbing 12% year‑over‑year, signaling a rebound in its search advertising segment. Overall Q3 revenue hit $82.9 billion, up 18% YoY, while operating income rose 20% to $38.4 billion. The company highlighted AI‑driven services...
Amazon Hits $70 Billion in Ad Revenue Over the Past 12 Months
Amazon’s advertising division generated $70 billion in revenue over the trailing twelve months, with Q1 2026 ad sales hitting $17.2 billion, a 24% year‑over‑year increase. The growth helped lift total net sales to $181.5 billion, up 17% YoY. The company also reported delivering one...
Former X CEO Linda Yaccarino: ‘X’s Ads Business Is Not Falling Short’
Former X CEO Linda Yaccarino told Adweek that the platform’s advertising business is not underperforming, despite reports that ad revenue has slashed roughly in half since Elon Musk’s 2023 takeover. She highlighted X’s role as the go‑to source for breaking...
Amtrak Is Trying to Attract Riders by Mimicking Car Commercials
Amtrak is revamping its advertising by parodying luxury‑car commercials, a tactic highlighted by chief commercial officer Eliot Hamlisch. The campaign, part of the "Retrain Travel" series, aims to reposition passenger rail as a faster, more comfortable alternative to driving and...
Retail Media Silos, Measurement, and Misconceptions Continue to Stymie Growth
Retail media spend is projected to near $70 billion in 2024, yet growth remains uneven. Amazon and Walmart dominate the market, using scale and first‑party data that smaller retailers can’t easily replicate. Executives at an ADWEEK House forum highlighted persistent challenges...
Santander Gets Ant and Dec Moving in First Campaign by Publicis
Santander appointed Publicis as its global media and creative agency starting in January 2025. The first activation features British TV icons Ant and Dec in a multi‑channel campaign designed to refresh the bank’s image. Publicis will oversee media buying, creative...
Omnicom Routinizes Agentic Buys, Compresses Media Supply Chain
Omnicom has moved its home‑grown OMNI platform from pilot to routine use, employing an agentic media‑buying protocol that enables direct, agent‑to‑agent transactions with publishers. The approach, described as a way to shorten the media supply chain, is powered by the...
Ndovesha AI Launches Unified AI Agent Platform for Marketing, Content Creation and Digital Growth
Ndodesha AI unveiled an expanded all‑in‑one AI agent platform that lets businesses generate marketing assets, automate content creation, and launch digital properties from a single workspace. The suite includes agents for social media images, ad creatives, videos, logos, landing pages,...
Want a Pop Star Collab? Brands Need to Be Ready to Take Risks
At an ADWEEK House panel during the Possible conference, leaders from Maybelline, Nespresso, creative agency Croing and Latin Grammy‑winner Joaquina discussed how brand‑pop‑star collaborations have evolved. They emphasized that successful partnerships now require genuine artist‑brand alignment, deeper creative involvement, and...
How Brands Block AI Crawlers & Then Pay To Get Seen: The Protection Paradox via @Sejournal, @Billhunt
The article defines the "Protection Paradox": B2B brands lock premium content behind lengthy forms, which removes it from search and AI discovery, then pay third‑party aggregators to surface the same ideas for a fee. This self‑tax leads companies to buy...
Introducing Industry Benchmarks: Contextualize Your Marketing With Competitive Insights
Branch introduced Industry Benchmarks, a new feature that delivers vertical‑specific competitive insights for app marketers. Powered by the Ivy AI, the tool provides daily‑updated comparisons of paid and organic install shares, CTI ratios, and spend efficiency against industry medians. Benchmarks...
The Confidence Layer: Building Data Foundations Marketers Can Trust
The May 6 MarTech Conference will host a panel titled “The confidence layer: Building data foundations marketers can trust.” Moderated by Cyndi Greenglass, the session features Ben Vigneron (Blackbird PPC), Stephen Williams (Marketing Evolution) and Josh Wilson (Whitefish Credit Union). Speakers will discuss how a unified, reliable...
A New Standard For Transparency In CTV: What Advertisers Should Expect
The 2026 CTV/OTT advertiser survey shows a decisive shift toward transparency as a non‑negotiable entry requirement. Ninety‑two percent of advertisers say inventory quality and transparency are critical, while 90% demand clear reporting and 88% expect upfront pricing. Advertisers now link transparency directly...
Q1 2026 Ad Fraud Benchmarks Report for EMEA
Pixalate released its Q1 2026 Invalid Traffic (IVT) and ad‑fraud benchmark reports for the EMEA region, focusing on the United Kingdom and Germany across desktop/web, mobile apps, and Connected TV (CTV). The data show IVT rates of 17% (UK) and 14%...
Balancing Authenticity and Compliance in Creator-Led Insurance Marketing
Insurance carriers see creator‑led marketing as a way to inject authentic, lived‑experience narratives into acquisition, but the lack of centralized control creates regulatory exposure. Statements about savings or coverage can be deemed unsubstantiated under state unfair‑trade‑practice laws, and FTC disclosure...
Google AdSense Vignette Ads Setting May Trigger Back Button Hijack Penalty
Google AdSense’s vignette ad configuration includes a hidden option called “Allow additional triggers for vignette ads.” When enabled, it can launch ads on a user’s back‑button click, violating Google’s new back‑button hijacking spam rule. Publishers who have this setting turned...
Out of the Restaurant and Into the Kitchen: Why Brands Are Rejecting Ad Agencies Serving "Overbaked" Ideas
Brands are increasingly rejecting ad agencies that serve generic, "overbaked" ideas, opting instead for deeper collaboration and chemistry with creative teams. The shift moves agencies from pure problem‑solvers to strategic partners handling broader remit, from storytelling to data‑driven execution. Authentic,...
Animmoov Partners with PubMatic for APAC Digital Advertising Push
Animmoov has teamed up with PubMatic to expand its AI‑driven creative suite across the Asia‑Pacific digital advertising ecosystem. The partnership integrates Animmoov’s interactive rich‑media, dynamic creative optimisation and measurement tools with PubMatic’s premium inventory on CTV, OTT, mobile and desktop....
Advertisers Set to Double Down on Audio Spend
A new Campaign research survey of 1,000 European agencies and advertisers reveals that audio advertising spend is set to rise sharply in the coming year. Respondents indicated plans to increase budgets for podcasts, streaming platforms, and digital radio, with many...
Rewriting the Rules of Ad Tech: From Black Boxes to AI Operating Systems
The ad tech industry in 2026 is undergoing a fundamental rewrite, with AI now serving as the core operating system that automates bidding, creative generation, and real‑time optimization. Privacy‑first regulations and the loss of cookie‑based IDs are forcing a shift...
Kargo Drives Measurable Store Visits for UCB India with Immersive Festive Campaign
Kargo partnered with United Colours of Benetton (UCB) India to launch an immersive festive‑season campaign using its Runway Expandable ad format. The full‑screen creative embedded a Store Locator, allowing shoppers to find nearby UCB outlets directly from the ad. Leveraging...
Europe’s Audio Ad Gap Has a Lesson for US Advertisers
A Bauer Media Audio and Elevate Consultancy study of over 1,000 senior agency and advertiser leaders across nine European markets reveals a stark mismatch between belief and spend in audio advertising. While 96% intend to maintain or increase audio budgets...
Traditional Channels ‘Smash Digital ROI for Retailers’
Independent Marketing Sciences (IMS) analyzed over 270 retail campaigns across 24 channels and found traditional media delivering the highest return on investment. Magazine and newspaper ads topped the list with a 9.6x ROI, followed by partnerships (8.9x) and retargeting (7.3x)....
Digest: Pinterest Launches CTV Audiences; Google Signs Pentagon Deal; Anthropic Builds AI Agent Marketplace
Pinterest is extending its intent‑driven advertising platform to connected‑TV by integrating the recently acquired tvScientific data, letting brands reach high‑intent audiences within CTV campaigns. The move comes as U.S. CTV ad spend is projected to eclipse traditional linear TV in...
Mirror, Mirror… Are LLMs the Fairest of Them All?
Shirley Marschall’s column argues that large language models (LLMs) have become the default answer in ad‑tech, eclipsing more specialized machine‑learning tools. She highlights the mirror‑room effect where hype, mega‑deals and endless prompts create a self‑reinforcing narrative. The piece warns that...
CaratLane Rolls Out Mother’s Day Campaign with Yami Gautam Dhar
CaratLane has launched a Mother’s Day campaign featuring Bollywood actress Yami Gautam Dhar, introducing a dual‑gifting concept that encourages customers to buy a diamond for their mother and one for themselves. The brand’s video ads debuted during the Indian Premier League,...
Bauer Unveils Study on Attitudes to Audio Advertising
Bauer Media Audio’s Sound Check Europe 2026 study, based on over 1,000 senior decision‑makers across nine markets, finds audio now sits at the core of most advertisers’ strategies. Eighty‑six percent say audio is central, and 96 % expect their audio budgets...
BackLite Media Reveals Study on Emotional Impact of Premium Out-of-Home
BackLite Media, in partnership with Publicis Media Luxe and Nielsen, released a study measuring emotional impact and brand‑lift of premium out‑of‑home (OOH) advertising on its Dubai Gateway digital landmark. The research, focused on a luxury jewellery campaign, found 80% recall...
Supergoop Partners With Target and the PGA as It Chases Mass Appeal
Supergoop has named January Digital as its agency of record for media planning and buying, covering brand, performance and retail spend. The decision follows the hiring of former Peloton CMO Lauren Weinberg, who met January Digital founder Vic Drabicky early...
Stop Scaling Mediocre Ads: How AI Can Actually Elevate Performance Marketing
Performance marketers are flooding platforms with AI‑generated ad variants, hoping volume will boost clicks, but this often results in bland, culturally tone‑deaf creative. The article argues that AI should not replace human insight but instead amplify nuance, helping brands detect...
Stop Scaling Mediocre Ads: How AI Can Actually Elevate Performance Marketing
Erin Emmerson argues that performance‑marketing teams are flooding the market with high‑volume, low‑creativity ads, and that AI should be used to amplify cultural nuance rather than simply churn more variants. She warns that relying on AI‑driven click metrics can erode...
WPP CFO Says The Trade Desk Operates in a Smaller Slice of the Ad Market
WPP’s chief financial officer, Joanne Wilson, told analysts that The Trade Desk operates in a relatively small, long‑tail portion of the advertising market, the open internet. WPP’s 2023 spend with The Trade Desk was about $1.1 billion, compared with $1.4 billion on...
‘That Is an Objective’: Omnicom Tests AI Agents to Cut Out the Ad Tech Middlemen
Omnicom Group has begun using autonomous AI agents to purchase media inventory directly from publishers, bypassing traditional demand‑side and supply‑side platforms. The company reported live client buys through its agent‑to‑agent framework during its Q1 2026 earnings call, citing the Ad...
‘The Bridge Between Intuition and ROI’: The M&A Race to Own Advertising’s Last Unmeasured Lever
The advertising sector is witnessing an M&A wave focused on creative intelligence – the data and AI layer that pre‑tests and predicts creative performance. Recent deals include Havas acquiring Ctrl Digital, Publicis Groupe paying roughly $100 million for AdgeAI, and Brave...
Making AI Search Count (and Convert)
AI search has shifted from a ranking‑centric model to one where brands must earn citations from large language models. Georgie Kemp of VEED highlights Amplitude's AI Visibility add‑on, which now measures visibility scores, sentiment, and revenue impact of AI‑sourced traffic....
Manifest Raises $2 Million to Help Ad Agencies Eliminate Timesheets
Australian startup Manifest has closed a $2 million AUD pre‑seed round—about $1.3 million USD—led by Brand Fund and backed by Antler, Techstars and several ad‑industry veterans. The company’s AI‑powered platform automatically records agency workflows across tools, replacing traditional timesheets with real‑time visibility...
Canadian Media and Advertising Sector Contributed $22.6B to GDP in 2024: Report
The Canadian media and advertising sector generated roughly $16.5 billion USD in GDP in 2024, supporting 193,120 jobs. However, digital ad revenue is plummeting as 94% of spend now goes to foreign platforms, siphoning an estimated $8.2 billion USD from the domestic...
Meta Updates Transparency Rules for Third-Party Ad Platforms
Meta announced updated developer policies that tighten ad‑spending transparency for third‑party platforms. The new rules require ad‑buying tools to break out Meta’s fees from the platform’s service charge, and to provide full campaign configuration and post‑campaign reporting. Advertisers must keep...
Snowflake Helps Unlock Data Collaborations with Consent Signals From OneTrust
Snowflake and privacy‑governance leader OneTrust have teamed up to embed OneTrust consent signals directly into Snowflake’s Data Clean Rooms. The integration makes consent data actionable across analytics, activation and data‑sharing workflows, helping marketers ensure privacy‑first collaborations. OneTrust, used by more...
Omnicom and iHeartMedia Put Numbers on Audio’s Ad Gap
Omnicom Media and iHeartMedia released a study of 3,500 U.S. adults that quantifies the advertising shortfall in audio, which commands roughly one‑third of daily media consumption. The research found audio ads generate a 22‑point lift in unaided recall and significant...
ENCO Introduces AI-Driven Video Ad Creation Platform
ENCO unveiled SPOTai, an AI‑driven platform that creates 1080p video advertisements from simple text prompts, expanding its SPECai technology beyond audio sales tools. The system guides users through brand setup, then generates fully edited video ads ready for TV, digital,...