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.
Compound Growth: How U.S. Bank Uses AI to Drive Revenue and Results
U.S. Bank is embedding artificial intelligence into its core growth engine, using AI‑generated synthetic audiences to slash campaign development time by roughly 50 percent. The bank’s AI‑driven personalization platform is already delivering tens of millions of dollars in incremental revenue by tailoring advice and offers at scale. Integrated CRM intelligence supplies real‑time context to service reps, reducing friction and deepening loyalty. A broader strategy that bundles financial products and leverages sports sponsorships reinforces cultural relevance while aligning cross‑functional teams around profit‑center outcomes.
14 Digital Marketing Conferences to Attend in 2026
The 2026 digital‑marketing conference lineup spans five continents, featuring flagship events like Social Media Marketing World, OMR Festival, and Web Summit, each adding AI‑focused tracks or new formats. Organizers are blending hybrid access, extended virtual recordings, and intimate networking experiences...
Unified Attribution Solves Conflicting Credit Across Platforms
The eCom world is obsessed with making decisions based on attribution data...but Meta and Google are claiming the credit for the SAME conversion • You recalculate your break-even ROAS. • You shift budget. • You scale what looks like a winner. But if the...
Conversational Keywords as the Foundation of Generative Engine Optimisation
The article argues that generative engine optimisation (GEO) now hinges on conversational keywords rather than traditional, rigid terms. As users pose full‑sentence questions, AI‑driven search engines evaluate intent and context, making keyword stuffing ineffective. Voice‑assistant adoption—over $9 billion in market size...
Publicis Advises Clients to Avoid The Trade Desk, According to a Leaked Memo
Publicis has instructed its clients to stop recommending The Trade Desk after a third‑party audit uncovered improper fee applications and a lack of transparent cost invoicing. The audit, performed by FirmDecisions, concluded that The Trade Desk charged fees without clear...
LLMs Have Redefined Brand Reputation: Are You Behind?
Large language models (LLMs) are reshaping how consumers research brands, moving beyond the traditional focus on the first page of Google results. By autonomously querying multiple sources—review sites, forums, news outlets, and public filings—LLMs deliver richer, multi‑dimensional brand insights. This...
Beverage Marketer Sees Cost Savings with Agentic Media-Buying Test
PubMatic and Butler/Till executed Geloso Beverage Group’s first fully autonomous, AI‑driven media campaign using the AgenticOS platform. The test cut buy‑side supply‑chain costs by 5.5× while delivering a 98% video‑completion rate and 40% more impressions than planned. Quality metrics were...
MarkApp Joins IAB MENA
MarkApp has joined IAB MENA, reinforcing its commitment to transparent, standards‑driven digital advertising in the Middle East and North Africa. IAB MENA is a leading industry body that shapes programmatic standards, best practices, and education across the region. MarkApp brings...
Anna Reveals How to Fix Evergreen Funnel Failures
Most evergreen funnels fail before they get a real chance 😥 Show-up rate. Price point. Cold traffic trust. Anna cracked all three. This episode she breaks down exactly how. 👇 Comment POD51 to learn it.
![How to Use Salesforce for Marketing [Maximizing CRM for Effective Campaigns]](https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/8fde748ee32da7a0d40ab325f1c0debf.webp)
How to Use Salesforce for Marketing [Maximizing CRM for Effective Campaigns]
Salesforce Marketing Cloud consolidates customer data, campaign management, and analytics into a single platform, enabling marketers to deliver personalized experiences across email, social, mobile, and web. Features such as Journey Builder and Einstein AI automate multi‑step journeys and predict customer...
Gamma Adds AI Image-Generation Tools in Bid to Take on Canva and Adobe
Gamma has unveiled Gamma Imagine, an AI‑driven image‑generation tool that lets users create brand‑specific marketing assets such as charts, infographics, and social graphics from simple text prompts. The product plugs into a suite of integrations—including ChatGPT, Claude, Zapier, Atlassian, n8n,...
LinkedIn VP Reveals Winning B2B Ad Strategies
LinkedIn is the number one channel for B2B marketers (for content, social, ads, you know we love it here) so I had LinkedIn VP Marketing Davang Shah on the podcast this week to go right to the source about what's...
Meta's Delays Cost Businesses $30‑40K in Overspend
Meta rarely, if ever, sends comms in a fast enough manner for bugs like last night. Today please demand them too. Some businesses are waking up to $30-40k in overspending from what I'm hearing. That's a significant amount of $...
IAB Connected Commerce Summit to Highlight the Path for Scalable, Sustainable Commerce Media
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) will host the 2026 Connected Commerce Summit in New York on April 14, gathering senior leaders from retail, brands, and media to address the next phase of commerce media. The event will concentrate on establishing...
AI Transforms Website Rebuilds with Better Content
The dirty secret of most website rebuilds is that nothing really changes. You take content written by people who don't know how to write for the web, drop it into a shiny new design, and wonder why the metrics don't improve....
Future Is Training Its AI On Publisher First-Party Data
Future Media unveiled Helix, an AI‑powered audience platform that builds on its first‑party data assets. Helix replaces the legacy Aperture system in the U.S., adding predictive modeling and real‑time audience segmentation for outcome‑based campaigns. Early tests across 20 fashion, retail...
How to Stay Motivated to Keep Building
In this brief episode of the MarTech Podcast, host Benjamin Shapiro talks with Chris Golick, founder of Demandbase and current CEO of Channel 99, about what keeps him motivated after a $380 million exit. Golick explains that his drive comes from...
Best Influencer Database Software in 2026
Influencer database software has become essential as brands scale creator programs, with 59.4% of marketers planning to raise influencer budgets in 2026. These platforms turn manual scouting into searchable, filterable datasets that include demographics, engagement, and cross‑platform reach. The article...
Consistency Still Wins in Evolving Social Media Landscape
Back in 2013, I wrote an article for the Online Marketing Institute entitled “Social Media: It’s Not Easy, But It’s Simple.” The core concept was timeless: brands must be ready to send the right message to the right people, in...
Inclusion in AI Answers Is Becoming a Discovery Advantage
Generative AI assistants are reshaping product discovery by delivering synthesized answers that embed brand mentions, creating a new visibility layer beyond traditional search rankings. Similarweb’s 2026 AI Brand Visibility Index shows that a small group of brands dominate AI mentions...
TrafficGuard Appoints Head of AI to Battle Rising Fraud
TrafficGuard has appointed Scott Thomson, a former Google, Adobe and Telstra AI leader, as Head of AI to strengthen its fight against sophisticated agentic bots. The move comes as autonomous bots that mimic human behavior are reshaping the digital ad...
Retail Media X Europe 2026: Why Retailers Need to Be in the Room This May
Retail Media X Europe will convene over 750 senior executives, brands, agencies, and tech innovators in London on 14 May 2026 to discuss the fast‑growing European retail media market, projected to reach £25 billion by 2026. The conference features three tracks—scaling networks,...
Google Knowledge Panel: What It Is & How to Get One
Google’s Knowledge Panel is an information box that appears in search results when Google identifies a recognized entity such as a brand, person, or place. The panel can occupy up to half of the visible SERP, offering facts, images, and...
OPINION: Retail’s $210 Billion Paid Advertising Blind Spot
Global ecommerce retailers—estimated at nine to twelve million—are collectively spending about $210 billion on paid digital advertising each year, yet confidence in the returns from that spend is eroding. The rise of privacy regulations, cookie deprecation and AI‑driven ad platforms has...
The Next Phase of Social Strategy: Giving Audiences Ownership of the Story
Social marketers are moving from one‑way authenticity to audience ownership, inviting fans to co‑create brand stories. Panels at Ragan’s Social Media Conference highlighted how gaming, National Geographic, Xbox and U.S. Soccer use two‑way conversation, repeatable formats, and layered content capture...
Burberry’s Trench Coat Campaign Shows Luxury Marketing’s Shift to Social Platforms
Burberry’s latest trench‑coat campaign marks a decisive shift from traditional, season‑driven luxury advertising to a digital‑first approach. By tailoring assets for Instagram and TikTok, the brand can launch content in real time, reacting to viral moments and algorithmic boosts. The...
Limelight Inc Report Calls for “Efficiency Reset” In Ad Tech to Tackle Environmental Costs & Waste
Limelight Inc. released a whitepaper urging an “efficiency reset” across programmatic advertising, highlighting that operational waste now threatens economic performance, brand reputation, and the environment. The report details how practices such as circular trading, over‑intermediation, and bid duplication inflate costs...
The Value of Search Visibility
Despite headlines proclaiming the death of search, Google’s query volume grew more than 20% in 2024, handling billions of searches daily. While zero‑click rates now hover around 60% overall and up to 77% on mobile, the total number of clicks...
“Demand Doesn’t Disappear. It Relocates”: Jessica Saunders, Eyeota
Jessica Saunders of Eyeota warns that AI‑driven search is compressing the traditional click economy, with daily AI search usage more than doubling and click‑through rates softening. Marketers are shifting spend from intent‑heavy search to discovery‑focused channels such as CTV and...
Measuring AI Search Impact Beyond Traffic Metrics
🚨 How do you measure AI search optimization success when traffic no longer reflects real impact? I’ll be covering this in my @brightonseo session next month, including: * How to select the right mix of performance and brand influence metrics...
Empowering the Affiliate Ecosystem with Affilka
Affilka, an award‑winning iGaming affiliate management platform, has launched two major features: a Sub‑affiliate Module and Hierarchy‑Based Roles Management. The Sub‑affiliate Module gives operators granular visibility into multi‑level affiliate structures, offering detailed performance metrics and two configurable reward models. Hierarchy‑Based...
Digest: OpenAI Tests Ads Manager and Prepares Agentic Storefronts Feature; Meta Plans Layoffs While Publishers Back Its Expulsion From IAB...
OpenAI is expanding its commercial toolkit, testing an Ads Manager dashboard with a select partner group while preparing the Agentic Storefronts feature that will surface Shopify merchants’ products directly inside ChatGPT. In Sweden, major publishers have backed Meta’s expulsion from...
The Vital Role of Advertising in Times of Uncertainty
Terry Kane of The Trade Desk argues that advertising is a critical infrastructure that keeps the free internet, quality journalism, and economic activity alive during periods of uncertainty. Historical research shows brands that maintain or increase ad spend in downturns...
Why LinkedIn Might Have Two Algorithms — and Why Marketers Should Care
A recent analysis by Christopher Penn suggests LinkedIn runs two distinct algorithmic systems: a retrieval stage that decides whether a post enters a viewer’s candidate pool, and a ranking stage that orders those candidates in the feed. Retrieval relies on signals...
The 10 Best Mailchimp Alternatives in 2026
Mailchimp remains a top email marketing tool, but growing user demands for better pricing, specialized features, and AI capabilities have spurred a vibrant alternatives market. Zapier’s updated 2026 guide lists ten contenders, ranging from advanced automation platforms like ActiveCampaign to...
After WPP Reckoning: The Case for and Against Principal Media
In this Digiday episode, hosts Kamika McCoy and Tim Peterson dissect the contentious practice of principal media buying, using recent WPP whistleblower revelations and a high‑profile lawsuit to illustrate how agencies pocket rebates from platforms like Google, Meta, Amazon, and...
14 Lifetime Deal Tools for Marketers—
AppSumo just dropped their Build Different collection — 14 lifetime deal tools for marketers, creators, and agency owners. A few standouts: - reap for video repurposing, - Lapis for cross-platform ad creation, and - Press Ranger for AI-powered PR pitching. Lifetime pricing...
Creation Alone Won’t Compound; Prioritize Distribution
Most marketers are addicted to creation. They write. They publish. They move on. Then wonder why nothing compounds. Distribution, folks. Embrace it.
Meta Switches up Its Ad Transparency Labels In-Stream
Meta is replacing the “Sponsored” label with a smaller “Ad” tag on Instagram, part of a broader UI refresh. The change is already live on Instagram and being piloted on Facebook in limited tests. By reducing label size, the disclosure...
Threads, Carousels Dominate; Brands Face Authenticity Gap
Social Media Management Trends: Threads, Carousels, and the “Authenticity Gap” (Research) [NEW POST] - B2B Marketing Blog | Webbiquity - https://t.co/dme2PVKwTC New #socialmedia research from @Sendible . https://t.co/0ejvIF5SK0
AI Marketing Toolkit Grows: New Tools Added
The best list of #AI #marketing tools anywhere continues to expand: https://t.co/1MqMiJP4M3 New tools added recently include @post_everywhere, @HumanticAI, @Jogg_ai, Omnilingual ASR from @Meta, @claudeai Haiku, @hedra_labs, @TrySpiral, @tight_studio, and @averi_ai.
AHA Launches New Ad Celebrating Hospitals’ Compassion and Care
The American Hospital Association (AHA) unveiled a new television and digital advertisement that spotlights the compassion and care delivered by hospitals across the United States. The ad, released during Patient Safety Awareness Week, weaves together authentic patient narratives and frontline...
Full‑Scale SEO Automation Using WordPress Agents
Automating all my SEO with Wordpress agents. - updating metas - expanding content - reorganizing keywords - following a topical map / editorial calendar Join the newsletter. I’m spilling the sauce tomorrow https://t.co/9M2DBJrOOC
Micro‑influencers, Not Megastars, Drove Fashion Nova’s $1B Revenue
Fashion Nova hit $1B+ in revenue by building a micro-influencer army. Automated gifting. Structured content formats. Thousands of small creators as a scalable engine. Meanwhile you're DMing one big influencer hoping they reply. That's the gap.
Audit Meta Spend Now, Prepare Refund Data
Overspends everywhere on meta tonight. Check your accounts and prep your data for refund requests.
Meta Suffers Severe Delivery Outage and Massive Overspending
This was a very severe delivery outage that's just occurred on Meta. Massive overspending. Buckle up
AI CMO Instantly Spots Growth Opportunities
i just hired an ai cmo from @askokara to help grow. so far it has: • identified reddit opportunities • discovered seo issues • analyzed competitors • found geo issues curious to see how far this goes
AI Panel Refines Copy to Perfect, Boosting Conversions
One of my favorite prompts summons AI expert panelists that recursively score output until it's top-notch. You can use this for copy of any kind: Sales copy E-mail marketing Landing pages Social media copy and more. We're using this in our sales agents to create...
AI SEO Agents Replace Human Reviewers for WordPress
I'm installing SEO agents for my own wordpress websites. With this, I don't need a person to review anything, since AI is going to be able to review it better than most SEOs I know. Also, it does light rewrites of metas...
Live SEO+AI Cohort: Pay $1K for Expert Training
I’m thinking about teaching everything I know about SEO + AI (building tools, prompting, etc) to 50 people. Would you pay $ 1K to join the first (live) cohort?