Today's Digital Marketing Pulse
Ad tech vendors pivot to cloud‑hardware ownership to cut latency and costs
Vendors are splitting between owning their own cloud infrastructure and renting from public clouds such as AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. SSPs PubMatic and Index Exchange introduced containerized solutions—Decision Fabric and Index Cloud—that let DSPs run models on‑premise, lowering latency and data‑transfer expenses. The shift balances cost savings against control of the stack.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Accenture Song acquires influencer marketing agency Whalar
TechCrunch Leads,Yahoo Drops: Picnic’s 2026 Inventory Quality Rankings
Picnic released its PIQ10 2026 ranking, naming the UK’s ten highest‑quality publishers for advertising based on its continuously updated PIQ platform. TechCrunch surged to the top spot, while National Geographic, Politico and The Guardian entered the list for the first time. Yahoo, Wired and MSN fell off, underscoring that inventory quality is fluid. A controlled test showed PIQ‑curated sites delivered five times more consented sessions than low‑quality placements for the same budget.
Publicis Acquisition of LiveRamp Reshapes Commerce Media
Publicis announced a $2.167 billion acquisition of LiveRamp, a leading data‑clean‑room provider. The deal builds on Publicis’ recent string of commerce‑focused purchases, including Epsilon, Profitero and Mars United Commerce. By pairing LiveRamp’s neutral data‑collaboration platform with Epsilon’s identity graph, Publicis aims...
AI Ads Are Already Here. Your Lead Data Isn’t Ready.
OpenAI and Criteo announced a pilot that places ads inside ChatGPT, turning the conversational AI into a new performance marketing surface. The article warns that AI‑generated lead data can be plagued by hallucinations, producing inaccurate names, titles, or contact details...
The Growing Role of Social Media Hashtags in Recruitment and HR Marketing
Social media hashtags are becoming a core component of recruitment and HR marketing, helping talent‑acquisition teams surface job posts to early‑career audiences. Testing across campus hiring, software roles, and retail shifts showed that free first‑party tools like Creative Center excel...
Tap4Change Launches First Campaign Platform with Koala in a Blond Wig via All Good Collective
Tap4Change, an Australian donation platform, launched its first digital campaign with All Good Collective, featuring a koala in a blond wig for wildlife charity People For Nature and hair‑salon brand Franck Provost. The platform routes 100% of donor money to...
Agencies Are Moving Closer to Supply, and It’s Reshaping the Programmatic Middle Layer
Publicis Groupe’s pending acquisition of LiveRamp signals agencies’ push to own more of the programmatic stack. The move follows a broader industry trend where DSPs and SSPs blur traditional boundaries, and buyers seek tighter control over supply‑path economics. Index Exchange’s...
Far and Wide vs Bullseye
At the ET Brand Equity ‘igNight’ event, media veterans Vikram Sakhuja and Shashi Sinha sparred over whether reach remains the primary marketing metric or if targeted, attention‑driven advertising has taken precedence. Sakhuja argued that broad reach is essential for acquiring...
The 7 Best URL Shorteners in 2026
Jill Duffy’s updated 2026 roundup identifies the seven leading URL‑shortening platforms, ranking Rebrandly as the all‑around winner and Bitly for enterprise needs. Each service is evaluated on branding, analytics, QR‑code generation, automation support and price, with a detailed pricing matrix...
90% Of Brands Have Zero AI Search Mentions, New Study Finds 4 Key SEO Insights
A Victorious‑sponsored study of 177 brands across healthcare, SaaS, financial services, ecommerce/retail, and legal sectors found that 90% of them received no AI‑search mentions in Q1 2026. Only 18 brands were cited or mentioned on any of the eight AI platforms...
X Pitches Advertisers on Rising Opportunities in the App
X is revamping its ad sales pitch by highlighting a major AI‑driven upgrade to its targeting engine, which it says can better understand user behavior and boost campaign performance. The company also touts an affluent audience, with average household incomes...
Walmart Boosts Ad Relevance by Prioritizing Semantics over Clicks
How Walmart improved sponsored search by prioritizing semantic relevance over engagement Candidate retrieval in ad / RecSys systems often uses a user's historical engagement data as a proxy for relevance. But researchers at Walmart argue that this approach is incomplete in...
Omdia Forecasts Amazon, Netflix, Google Will Command $40 B of CTV Ads by 2030
Research firm Omdia projects that Amazon, Netflix and Google together will control about half of the $81 billion connected‑TV (CTV) advertising market by 2030. The forecast signals a rapid consolidation of ad spend toward the three streaming and tech giants, raising...
AdPlus Launches Public AI Cross‑channel Ad Platform, 50 Free Pro Seats
AdPlus, a bootstrapped Boston startup, opened its AI‑powered cross‑channel advertising platform to the public after a beta that attracted nearly 200 sign‑ups. The launch includes a promotion giving the first 50 users six months of the $99‑per‑month Pro plan at...
X Launches Display of Active Followers to Contextualize Performance Data
X has added an active‑followers metric to its creator analytics, showing the exact number and percentage of followers who were active in the past 24 hours and a 3‑hour reach snapshot. The move aims to give creators clearer context for engagement...
Content Marketing for Hotels: How 10X Content Improves SEO and PR
TravelBoom is urging independent hotels to adopt "10X" content—a step beyond basic guides—to boost organic search visibility, earn media coverage, and increase direct bookings. The approach focuses on delivering comprehensive, insider‑level travel information that outperforms existing web results, rather than...
Amazon, Netflix and Google to Capture Half of CTV Ad Market by 2030
Omdia forecasts global connected‑TV (CTV) advertising revenue to rise from $44 billion in 2025 to $81 billion by 2030. Google, Amazon and Netflix together are projected to capture 50% of that market, with shares of 26%, 13% and 9% respectively. The data...
Liftoff Upgrades Cortex
Liftoff, a leading mobile‑app performance‑marketing platform, announced a major upgrade to its Cortex neural‑network engine on May 19, 2026. The enhancements add unattributed sample learning, multicast user‑level ROAS modeling, and sequential behavioral modeling. These changes expand the data pool, shift predictions to...
Why Marketing Measurement Feels Broken and How to Fix It
Marketing measurement feels broken because deterministic attribution once gave a false sense of certainty, and recent privacy and platform changes have exposed its limits. Gary Danks argues that the problem isn’t tools but mindset, urging teams to focus on total...
ITV Launches Live Addressable+ with Omnicom
ITV has introduced Live Addressable+, its first addressable advertising solution for live linear channels, in an exclusive beta with Omnicom Media Group. The trial involves more than 20 brands across automotive, retail and telecoms, leveraging ITV’s first‑party audience data and...
Cadent Launches First Audience‑Activation Platform on Gemini Enterprise
Cadent announced today that its audience‑activation platform is now available on Gemini Enterprise, making it one of the first such solutions on the programmatic marketplace. The integration gives marketers new ways to reach target audiences across digital channels.
Advanced CTV Measurement, Now Live for Universal Ads
Singular announced that its Advanced CTV Measurement is now live for Universal Ads, enabling app promotion campaigns on connected‑TV inventory. The integration requires no new SDK or separate data pipeline; advertisers create a CTV‑to‑Mobile tracking link in Singular and attach...
Accounts in Transit: Thundery Adds Celebree School
Thunderly Marketing has been hired by early‑childhood education franchisor Celebree School to run its digital‑marketing and franchise‑development program, covering paid media, SEO, creative and analytics. CIIC PR added luxury‑travel operator Kemetale, which offers intimate Nile cruises, to its client roster,...
Accounts in Transit: Thunderly Adds Celebree School
Thunderly Marketing has been hired by early‑childhood education franchisor Celebree School to run a full‑scale digital marketing and franchise development program, covering paid media, SEO content, website optimization and analytics. CIIC PR added luxury travel client Kemetale, a provider of...
AdWMG Launches Mobile UA Solution for App Growth Campaigns
adWMG introduced Mobile UA, a dedicated user‑acquisition solution for mobile studios and agencies. The platform taps into 1.4 trillion ad requests through adWMG’s DSP, letting advertisers run performance‑based CPI and CPA campaigns. It integrates with major mobile measurement partners for transparent...
Describe, Not Build: AI Accelerates Campaign Execution
We are moving from “build it” to “describe it” in marketing. This shift feels overdue. Execution today still moves slowly. Too many tools and too much manual setup sit between idea and launch. Conversion Agents closes that gap. You describe a campaign. It builds the...
Omnisend Cuts SMS Price, Brands Save up to 35%
Per-message rate is one of the few line items in the retention stack where a small change moves through the whole P&L for the brands I work with. @omnisend just dropped SMS pricing to $0.007/message. 2 things worth knowing before you write...
Microsoft Has Sought Ad Compatibility For Many Years
Microsoft Advertising is intensifying its push for cross‑platform ad compatibility, adding immediate performance recommendations after each import and enhancing Performance Max to capture new customers. The company’s recent upgrades aim to cut manual resizing, speed time‑to‑launch, and boost ROI, positioning Microsoft...
Reorganize Existing Content Before Writing New SEO
Most Startups don't need more SEO content. But someone to rearrange the content they already have. Walk into any 200-post blog and you'll find: - 12 posts targeting the same keyword - 40 orphan pages no one links to - A pillar page that links...
Boulevard Digital Marketing Releases Guide on AI Visibility for Brands
Boulevard Digital Marketing launched a resource on May 18, 2026 that details three core factors influencing AI visibility and digital discoverability. The guide aims to help marketers navigate AI‑powered search, conversational interfaces, and recommendation systems. It arrives as brands scramble...
ADvendio & Kevel Launch New Integration to Power the Next Wave of Campaign Management
ADvendio announced a strategic partnership with Kevel, integrating the retailer‑focused ad‑serving platform into its omnichannel advertising management suite. The new integration, rolling out in the Spring 2026 release, automates key campaign‑management tasks such as trafficking, forecasting, targeting and billing through AI‑powered...
One Big Mistake Companies Are Making with AI Content
In this brief episode, host Jordan Cooney talks with Holly Enneking, Vice President of Marketing at Markup AI, about the biggest mistake companies make with AI-generated content: treating AI adoption as the end goal rather than a tool within a...
Why Incrementality Testing Alone Won’t Fix Your Paid Media Budget – The Missing Metric via @Sejournal, @Tonyadam
Direct‑to‑consumer brands are increasingly relying on lift studies, but incrementality alone can mislead budget decisions. The article argues that Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER)—total revenue divided by total ad spend—provides the essential business‑level anchor. By stacking MER, incrementality, and attribution, marketers...
AnyMind Launches AI Platform to Link Online Ads with Retail Sales
AnyMind Group unveiled AnyAI OMO, an AI‑driven platform that ties online advertising and social media activity directly to offline retail sales in Japan. The service combines the firm’s data infrastructure with Japanese distributor Sun Smile’s network, offering real‑time insights and...
Zambuki Unveils AI-Focused Blog for Home-Services Contractors
Zambuki, a Florida-based digital marketing agency, launched a dedicated blog to deliver AI-powered lead generation and SEO insights for home‑services contractors. The platform aims to bridge the gap between complex AI tools and practical marketing tactics for service‑based businesses.
Investigation Into Suspected Anti-Competitive Conduct by Google in Ad Tech
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened a Chapter II investigation in May 2022 into Google’s dominance across the ad‑tech stack, alleging the company favours its own services in online display advertising. In September 2024 the CMA issued a statement...
Pinterest in 2026: Cold Traffic, AI Slop, and Smarter Search with Kate Ahl
In this episode, Pinterest expert Kate Ahl explains why Pinterest is a prime source of cold traffic for businesses, especially B2C brands in food, fashion, DIY, and lifestyle. She emphasizes a long‑term, slow‑burn strategy focused on high‑quality vertical images, consistent...
What eCommerce Brands Get Wrong About Retail Media Measurement
Retail media networks report ROAS using proprietary attribution rules, creating up to a 63% variation across platforms. eCommerce brands typically operate on six different networks, turning each into its own source of truth and inflating a fragmentation tax. Because the...
Blind to 40% of Customers: Fix GA4 Unassigned
One of the most expensive mistakes in D2C: Making decisions on incomplete attribution data. When GA4 shows “Unassigned” it means your business is partially blind. Imagine running a retail store where 40% of customers enter through invisible doors. That’s what poor tracking looks like.
Wolt Ads and Koddi Team to Expand Programmatic Access to Commerce Media in Germany
Wolt Ads, Germany's leading in‑app retail media platform, has partnered with commerce‑media technology firm Koddi to enable programmatic buying of its inventory. Koddi’s supply‑side platform now integrates directly with Wolt’s auction system, giving brands and agencies a streamlined path to...
Why LinkedIn Is the Most Underrated Answer Engine Optimisation Channel
LinkedIn has emerged as a top source for large language models, ranking ahead of Wikipedia and YouTube in AI citations, according to SEMrush’s 2026 LinkedIn AI Visibility Study. Long‑form LinkedIn articles account for roughly 50‑66% of all LinkedIn content cited...
Pitch Deck: X Leans on AI and Performance in a Bid to Win Ad Dollars
X is re‑branding its advertising offering around AI‑driven performance, promising brands higher ROI through algorithmic targeting. The platform highlights its massive user base and new tools that claim to optimize creative placement, bidding, and audience segmentation in real time. However,...
Meta Bug Halts 200+ Ads, No Quick Fix
Meta is having one of the worst bugs I've ever seen. Currently on day 4 of 200+ ads (100k+ in daily spend) being turned off due to a "known platform-side regression on our ad-review pipeline". Once an ad is hit with this...
2025‑2026: DTC Advertising Enters the AI Guinea‑Pig Era
I'm presently sitting in a cafe in my wife's hometown of Jeonju, South Korea drinking a latte and doing a bit of a gut check on Meta / Media Buying and the state of DTC in May of 2026. Right...
Study Finds AI-Generated Ads Lag Human Creatives on Sales Impact
A joint study by Ipsos and Syracuse University's Newhouse School tested 20 ads across 10 brands and found AI‑generated spots consistently underperformed human‑made ads on short‑term sales impact. The findings, based on 3,000 U.S. respondents, challenge the notion that AI...
Organic Clicks Surge as 0‑click Searches Dip
Interesting data from @sparktoro @DatosInsights and @randfish that shows that 0-click searches actually dropped in 3/2026 - paid clicks increased, but organic clicks actually grew to their 2nd highest month in the chart https://t.co/CYccqqdIru
Success Lies in Replies, Not Just Posting
Everyone thinks that the action is in POSTING across social media platforms… but the people who are really good at it know that relationship-building is all in the replies or DMs. Be a reply guy.
Google Removes FAQ Rich Results and Adds Cross‑campaign Testing to Ads Platform
Google announced it will stop supporting FAQ rich results in Search, forcing marketers to adjust structured data strategies, while simultaneously debuting Mix Experiments, a beta tool that lets advertisers test across multiple campaigns. The twin moves signal a shift toward...
From SEO to GEO: Understanding AI-Driven Search Answers
Transitioning to Generative Engine Optimization: How Modern Search Engines Form Their Answers [NEW POST] - B2B Marketing Blog | Webbiquity https://t.co/UlVsecAi5r #SEO #GEO #AIO
Searchable Raises $14M, Hits $85M Valuation as AI Search Reshapes Marketing
Searchable, the AI performance‑marketing platform, closed a $14 million funding round led by Headline, bringing total capital raised to £31 million (≈$38 million) and valuing the company at $85 million. The cash will accelerate product development and expand the firm’s US‑UK footprint amid a...
AI Is the Next Generation Ad Channel. Here’s How Brands Must Get Ahead
OpenAI’s rollout of ads marks AI’s transition from a research tool to a full‑fledged advertising channel, forcing brands to confront a new, opaque influence point in the consumer journey. Large language models now shape product preferences before shoppers reach search...