Today's Digital Marketing Pulse
Accenture Song Acquires Whalar to Bolster Influencer Marketing
Accenture Song announced the acquisition of Whalar, adding a 170‑person global creator agency and keeping co‑CEOs Emma Harman and Jo Cronk in place. The deal also includes a three‑year strategic partnership that gives Accenture access to Whalar’s talent‑management, technology and venture assets, integrating the creator network with Accenture’s data and AI capabilities.
Battersea Power Station Director on Why Social Influence Is Redefining Retail Destinations
Battersea Power Station’s leasing director says social influence has become a critical leasing KPI, reshaping how landlords curate retail mixes. Gen‑Z now turn to social media before search engines, prompting landlords to prioritize brands with strong digital followings. Battersea leverages its 370,000‑plus social followers and photogenic heritage site to attract pop‑up concepts that quickly convert to permanent stores, driving footfall and spend. The approach mirrors a wider London trend where socially‑driven brands secure flagship space, reinforcing the digital‑first retail model.
Africa’s Digital Surge: What Affiliates Need to Know for 2026
Africa’s iGaming sector is projected to reach $4.14 billion by 2030, driven by a youthful, increasingly connected population and maturing regulatory frameworks in markets such as Nigeria and Kenya. Mobile connectivity is the primary growth engine, with more than 70% of...
The Economic Value of Outsourced Link Acquisition for Agencies
Agencies are turning to white‑label link‑building marketplaces to outsource link acquisition, allowing them to meet fluctuating client demand without expanding permanent staff. This model shifts costs from fixed overhead to variable, campaign‑based expenses, improving margin flexibility. By leveraging established publisher...
SEO Test Shows It’s Trivial To Rank Misinformation On Google via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
An SEO professional deliberately inserted an AI‑generated hallucination about a non‑existent March 2026 Google core update into a LinkedIn newsletter. The fabricated article quickly ranked on Google’s first page for “Google March update 2026” and appeared in the AI Overview feature....
New Report ‘Brings the Receipts’ on ROI of Women’s Sports Ads
WPP Media’s new “Women’s Sports Playbook” report shows rapid growth in advertising within women’s sports. Ad impressions rose 79% year‑over‑year and overall spend reached about $127 million, up roughly 70% YoY. Brands such as Ally Financial saw 85% higher engagement on...
Costco Adds Adtech Firm Moloco to Scale Retail Media Network
Costco has teamed up with ad‑tech firm Moloco Commerce Media to enhance the relevance of ads on its e‑commerce platform. The partnership will be rolled out as a beta program in Q2, coinciding with the launch of Costco Velocity, the...
Google Explains Why HTTPS Migration May Negatively Impact SEO via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
Google’s John Mueller explained that moving a site to HTTPS can temporarily hurt rankings because the change functions like a full site migration. The process forces Google to recrawl and reprocess every URL, and mis‑configured 301 redirects or misuse of...
Coach and Kate Spade Conclude Global Media Pitch
Luxury conglomerate Tapestry, owner of Coach and Kate Spade, has appointed Dentsu as its global agency of record for media planning and buying outside the United States. The agreement covers the APAC region—including Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and...
Uber Eats Sponsors Comedy Category on Prime Video UK
Amazon Ads announced Uber Eats as the first brand to sponsor Prime Video’s comedy slate in the UK, launching on March 19 2024 alongside the Season 2 premiere of *Last One Laughing UK*. The partnership runs through the end of 2026 and includes...
Gen Z Doesn’t Hate Your Brand, They Hate Being Talked Down To
Brands that try too hard to mimic Gen Z often backfire, eroding credibility. Successful examples like Tower 28, SULT, and Hinge demonstrate that treating Gen Z as peers, embracing transparency, and leveraging authentic long‑form storytelling resonate better. The article outlines...
Why One Creator Commerce Platform Is Connecting Brands and Creators for ‘Flat-Fee’ Campaigns
Creator commerce platform LTK has introduced Quick Collabs, a new feature that lets brands launch flat‑fee, one‑click campaigns that creators can opt into. The tool leverages LTK’s data on 44 million monthly shoppers, $6 billion in annual spend, 400,000 creators and 8,000...
Advertisers Aren’t Happy About Picking up Meta’s European Tax Tab
Meta will begin charging advertisers a "location fee" starting July 1, 2026 to cover European digital services taxes. The fee varies by country—2 % in the U.K., 3 % in France, Italy and Spain, and 5 % in Austria and Turkey—adding directly to ad spend....
Watsons Malaysia Celebrates Raya with ‘The Raya Glam Stage’ Campaign via MBCS
Watsons Malaysia, in partnership with Omnicom’s MBCS, launched the “Pentas Raya Glam” campaign to celebrate the Hari Raya festive season. The multi‑channel activation features a humorous film starring local celebrities, a #WatsonsPentasGlamRaya dance challenge on Instagram and TikTok, and in‑store sensory...
Geloso Cuts Media Costs 5.5× with Agentic AI Buying, Boosts Impressions 40%
On March 17, 2026 Geloso Beverage Group partnered with PubMatic and Butler/Till to run a fully agentic media‑buying campaign for its Johnny Bootlegger and Clubtails brands. The test, executed on PubMatic’s AgenticOS using Butler/Till’s Claude interface, reduced buy‑side costs by 5.5 times...
Okara Launches AI CMO Platform, Automating SEO, Content and Growth for $99/Month
On March 16‑17, 2026, startup Okara introduced its subscription‑based “AI CMO” platform, a suite of autonomous agents that handle SEO audits, content generation, community engagement and a new Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) score. The service, priced at $99 per month,...
Adobe and NVIDIA Team Up to Power Next‑Gen Firefly AI for Marketers
On March 18, 2026, Adobe, led by CEO Shantanu Narayen, and NVIDIA, founded by Jensen Huang, announced a strategic partnership to develop next‑generation Firefly AI models for creative, marketing and agentic workflows. The collaboration will fuse Adobe’s Firefly suite with...
Candid Unveils Live Marketing Platform, Claiming AI Handles 90% of Operational Tasks
Candid announced today the launch of Live Marketing, an AI‑powered platform that it says will perform 90% of all operational marketing tasks. The new suite is positioned as a turnkey solution for brands seeking to automate campaign setup, reporting, and...
Google Rolls Out Personal Intelligence AI Mode with Gemini Integration, Keeps It Ad‑Free
On March 17, 2026, Google announced that its Personal Intelligence service is moving out of beta and into a broader U.S. rollout called AI Mode, now integrated with the Gemini app and Chrome browser. The company also confirmed that users...
Stunt Accounts Turned Brands Boost Launch Intrigue
influencers are launching stunt accounts to tease new products. those accounts are then typically converted into the brand account, with built in audience and intrigue for day one of the announcement.
Amazon Ads and Spotify Expand Partnership in Australia
Amazon Ads and Spotify have integrated Spotify’s premium audio and video inventory into Amazon’s demand‑side platform in Australia. The partnership lets Australian marketers buy across connected TV, display, audio and video through a single programmatic workflow, leveraging Amazon’s shopping and...
Cut Vanity Marketing Spend; Focus on Revenue Impact
Marketing spend that deserves more scrutiny: 1. content programs that create activity but not pipeline 2. paid channels with weak downstream conversion 3. SDR-heavy inbound systems with poor efficiency 4. overproduction of assets nobody uses 5. events that look important but do not influence deal...
Meta Delays Mandatory Invoicing After Overspending Bug
It’s only fitting that as a make good for this massive overspending bug that Meta should kick mandatory invoicing down the road.
The Trade Desk's OpenRow Debate Could Mean Churn In Programmatic Ecosystem
The Trade Desk’s OpenPath platform is facing pushback from major agency networks, with WPP and Dentsu withdrawing over concerns about cost transparency. While the service is free for advertisers and agencies, publishers are charged a 5 % fee tied to advertiser...
Google Deleting Citations on Self‑promoting Listicles: Ultimate FAFO
Imagine if Google actually removes *all* citations for queries that previously showed self-promoting listicles. That would indeed be the ultimate FAFO
ADMA Launches New Podcast Unpacking How Marketers Can Harness AI to Lead the Next Era of Marketing
ADMA has released a new podcast episode that explores how marketers can ethically harness artificial intelligence to drive the next era of marketing. The discussion draws on findings from ADMA’s State of AI in Marketing Survey 2025, which shows 75%...
Google AI Overviews Cut Germany’s Top Organic CTR By 59% via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
New SISTRIX data shows Google’s AI Overviews now appear on about 20% of German search queries. When present, they cut the click‑through rate for the top organic position from 27% to 11%, a 59% drop. Across all positions the average...
Reddit Partners with Pacvue to Expand Ad Access
Reddit has partnered with ad‑tech firm Pacvue to let advertisers buy and track Reddit campaigns directly within Pacvue’s management platform. The integration adds Reddit to Pacvue’s suite, which already supports over 100 retail media networks and serves more than 70,000...
YouTube Expands Livestream Gifts to Users in Korea
YouTube has rolled out its Jewels livestream gifting system to Korean users, following earlier launches in the United States and Canada. Jewels are an in‑app currency that lets viewers purchase digital stickers, which appear in chat and generate Rubies for...
Report Finds Reddit Ads Drive Strong Performance for Retailers
Fospha’s State of Retail Commerce 2026 report shows Reddit’s influence on retail conversions surged in 2025, delivering an 82% lift in ROAS when Amazon sales are accounted for and a 257% increase in revenue attributed to the platform. The study...
Wendy’s Seeks An Influencer for New Chief Tasting Officer Role
Wendy’s announced a contest to appoint its first Chief Tasting Officer, a brand‑ambassador role paid $100,000. The company asks applicants to post a one‑minute video on TikTok or Instagram using #WendysCTOContest, highlighting personal taste and creativity. The posting emphasizes a...
Automated Daily Swipe File of Proven Viral Hooks
my new favorite thing to check every morning: the results from my viral content research agent that ran while i slept 1. it searches x for the highest-performing posts in my niche from the last 24 hours 2. extracts the hooks 3. and...
From Journeys to Systems
Channel99 launched Paid Search Optimization, an AI‑driven feature that shifts B2B paid‑search measurement from clicks and CPC to cost‑per‑target‑account engaged. The capability surfaces waste, scores keywords and ad groups, and recommends budget reallocations, giving marketers and finance leaders clearer ROI....
Ranking Engineer Agent (REA): The Autonomous AI Agent Accelerating Meta’s Ads Ranking Innovation
Meta introduced the Ranking Engineer Agent (REA), an autonomous AI system that runs end‑to‑end machine‑learning experiments for ads ranking. REA generates hypotheses, launches training jobs, debugs failures, and iterates without continuous human oversight, using a hibernate‑and‑wake cycle for multi‑day workflows....
MyFitnessPal Wants To Start The Health And Wellness Subsector Of Retail Media
MyFitnessPal has launched a data‑driven advertising business, expanding beyond its legacy mobile display unit to include video, interstitials, full‑screen takeovers, newsletter sponsorships and branded recipe integrations. The platform will leverage its opt‑in food‑logging data—averaging 16 items per user per day—to...
Beyond the Frame: Why Video Is the Strategic Supercharger for Modern DOOH
Video is reshaping digital out‑of‑home advertising by converting static billboards into dynamic, cinematic moments that capture fleeting attention. Brands must adapt each video asset to the unique viewing context of DOOH screens, a process the article calls “transcreation,” using modular...
8 Variables To Determine Your LinkedIn Posting Strategy
The article identifies eight variables that determine the optimal LinkedIn posting format—short post, long‑form text, carousel, or video. It highlights that LinkedIn’s algorithm now rewards dwell time, giving an edge to lengthy text and carousel slides, while vertical videos excel...
Documenting the Move to Beehiiv
Alex Hilleary outlines his recent migration of a newsletter to the beehiiv platform, using Episode 135 of his "Freelancer Niche Explosion" series as a case study. The piece highlights how beehiiv’s tools streamlined audience growth and monetization. It also references...
Stop Micromanaging Meta Ads; Let Algorithm Learn
The operators losing money on Meta aren't spending too little. They're touching the account too much. What a $50K+/month account actually looks like: 1-3 campaigns max ↓ Broad audiences only (no manual targeting) ↓ 6-10 creative variants per ad set ↓ CBO at...
YouTube Tests Sticky Banner After Ad Skip
YouTube is piloting a sticky banner overlay that stays visible after a viewer skips a video ad. The banner, linked to the original ad, remains on‑screen until the user dismisses it, extending brand exposure beyond the skip point. This experiment...
7 Prompts to Monetize The Archives
The solo economy now includes roughly 30 million U.S. solopreneurs, generating close to $2 trillion annually, but many are overwhelmed by relentless content demands. A case study of Simon, a solo publisher with 400 articles and three e‑books, shows that halting new...
Informa TechTarget Launches AI Visibility and GEO Solutions
Informa TechTarget unveiled two new offerings—the AI Visibility Audit and the GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) Topic Planner—to help B2B marketers navigate AI‑driven search ecosystems. The audit evaluates how audiences discover brands via AI, pinpointing gaps in visibility and accuracy, while...
fullthrottle.ai Launches Enhanced SmartMail Capabilities
FullThrottle Technologies introduced an upgraded SmartMail feature on its fullthrottle.ai platform, enabling marketers to fuse identity‑driven direct‑mail with digital display, audio, and CTV campaigns. The solution converts third‑party audiences into verified first‑party households, allowing real‑time, trigger‑based mail activations. Integrated into...
Smartly Signs Letter of Intent to Acquire Measurement Platform Incrmntal
Smartly has signed a letter of intent to acquire Incrmntal, a real‑time marketing measurement platform. Smartly’s AI‑driven suite automates campaign creation, while Incrmntal provides incremental lift analytics across channels. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition aims to embed live...
SEO vs GEO... LMAO, STOP IT!
The author dismisses the SEO‑vs‑GEO debate as a distraction, arguing that the real challenge is evolving strategy for AI‑driven search. He highlights that large language models now surface answers based on citations, digital PR, and brand signals rather than classic...
80% of Local Pack Listings Missing Call Buttons
Focus on Local? Watch those call buttons... -> Are Local Packs Losing Their Call Buttons? From the study: "Out of 2,580 results we checked, just 510 had a call button. That's a 19.8% call button rate. If you search for a local...
As Retail Media Enters Its Second Act, Savvy Brands Diversify Networks and Tactics
Retail media is evolving from a bottom‑funnel, search‑only model to a full‑funnel ecosystem that includes video, display, and off‑site formats. Amazon’s share of retail media spend dropped from 56% to 46% as marketers allocate more budget to Walmart and mid‑size...
Incremental Attribution Cuts CPM 68% and Boosts Reach
A compelling case for more Incremental Attribution in your ad accounts. Maybe. I know many people are concerned with driving access to more NEW CUSTOMERS on meta. In a test across 13 accounts we found that IA campaigns delivered a 68% average...
Vary Your Ad Formats, Not Just Angles
Everyone talks about 'different angles' Not enough people talk about 'different formats' Stop making every ad look the same
AURN Teams With AdGrid For Multicultural Marketer Push
American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), a Black‑owned radio consortium led by Chesley Maddox‑Dorsey, announced a strategic partnership with ad‑tech platform AdGrid. The collaboration will launch a new initiative that blends AURN’s multicultural radio reach with AdGrid’s programmatic technology. The goal...
Give Ads 3‑4
I've analysed 500+ ad accounts. Here's the pattern: Accounts that killed ads after 24 hours never found winners. Accounts that let ads run 3-4 days found scalable campaigns. Your assumption that you should kill losers fast is wrong. You need...