Today's Digital Marketing Pulse
Updated 2h agoSpeed-to-Culture: Brands Win by Activating Creators in Hours
Brands that can activate creators within hours outpace competitors, relying on speed rather than larger spend. The article outlines a speed‑to‑culture framework built on pre‑vetted creator rosters, master contracts, and a single decision owner, which can be established in 30 days to enable real‑time engagement.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Levitate raises $16M in growth-stage funding
News•Feb 18, 2026
American Eagle Taps Bollywood Talent for India-Led ‘Great Jeans for Everyone’ Campaign
American Eagle has rolled out its ‘Great Jeans for Everyone’ campaign in India, featuring Bollywood newcomers Ananya Panday and Lakshya as global ambassadors. The initiative, crafted by Vayner Media, spotlights the brand’s heritage of comfortable, lived‑in denim tailored to Indian youth. To amplify the story, the campaign was projected on Times Square’s digital billboards, positioning the India‑centric narrative on a global stage. The move signals the retailer’s intent to deepen cultural relevance and accelerate growth in the Indian market.
By Campaign Brief Asia
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Retainers Free You From Weekly Price Negotiations
Hourly pricing makes you negotiate your value every week. Retainers let you deliver and move on.
By Rachel Pedersen
News•Feb 18, 2026
Perion Network Ltd (PERI) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Perion Network reported Q4 2025 revenue of $137.1 million, a 6% year‑over‑year increase, while contribution ex‑TAC rose 19% to $65.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA surged 53% to $24.3 million, and operating cash flow jumped over 400% to $21.8 million. The company...
By Motley Fool – Earnings Transcripts
News•Feb 17, 2026
YouTube Reveals the Top Ad Campaigns for Super Bowl 60
YouTube’s AdBlitz showcase for Super Bowl 60 identified the most‑viewed and engaging ad campaigns across the event’s week-long window. e.l.f. Cosmetics topped the list with nearly 40 million views, while Budweiser, Michelob, Jeep, Google and Salesforce also earned top spots. The platform...
By Social Media Today
News•Feb 17, 2026
Reddit Reveals the Latest Trends Driving Brand Engagement
Reddit’s advertising team released a seven‑page guide outlining four emerging trends that are boosting brand engagement on the platform. The trends—nostalgia‑driven storytelling, user‑generated content social proof, niche‑inspired campaigns, and multi‑phase “unfolding” activations—are backed by community data and case studies. Brands...
By Social Media Today
News•Feb 17, 2026
Expand 2026: Decoding Growth, Innovation and the APAC Opportunity
The Marketing‑Interactive team is launching Expand 2026, a one‑day, invitation‑only forum in Sydney on July 29 aimed at senior Australian brand leaders. The event will explore how growth is increasingly driven by Asia‑Pacific trends such as social commerce, super‑apps, and creator‑led retail....
By Marketing-Interactive
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
IP, AI And The Pandora’s Box We Just Opened
The episode examines the clash between AI‑generated video tools like ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 and traditional intellectual‑property enforcement, spotlighting cease‑and‑desist letters from Disney and Paramount. It explains how generative AI can produce near‑identical replicas of copyrighted characters, blurring the line between...
By Six Pixels of Separation
News•Feb 17, 2026
Google Launches More Visible Links in AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google has launched a new UI element that places visible link cards in AI Overviews and AI Mode. When users hover over these links on desktop, a pop‑up displays richer icons and descriptions, and the same style appears on mobile....
By Search Engine Land
News•Feb 17, 2026
How To Sell On Social Media: What You Need To Know Before Posting Products
The article outlines a step‑by‑step framework for selling products on social media, emphasizing platform selection, compliance, and visual storytelling. It details how Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube each suit different buyer intents and highlights common pitfalls such as category...
By Retail Insider Canada
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Recover Lost Shoppers, Turn Wasted Ad Spend Into Revenue
Your ad budget is on life support, and you don’t even know it yet. Let me explain how you’re losing money on things you THINK are working: Let’s say you spend $50K on ads… …leading you to drive 12,000 visitors at $4 CPC… …but...
By Kody Nordquist
News•Feb 17, 2026
Seedtag and IRIS.TV Bring Program-Level AI Targeting to Connected TV
Seedtag and IRIS.TV have partnered to bring privacy‑first, neuro‑contextual AI targeting to Connected TV by integrating IRIS.TV’s program‑level content signals into Seedtag’s Liz engine. The collaboration enhances contextual precision at the program and scene level, allowing media buyers to set...
By Street Fight
Podcast•Feb 17, 2026•47 min
626: The Content Strategies That Will Die In 2026 (And What’s Taking Over)
In this episode Toni and guest Tony forecast the content‑creation landscape for 2026, warning that high‑volume AI‑generated posts will drown out average creators and that many traditional tactics—like generic blogs, mass‑produced reels, and saturated podcast formats—will lose effectiveness. They stress...
By My Wife Quit Her Job
News•Feb 17, 2026
Partner Marketing Automation Platform Investment On The Rise
The episode highlights a sharp rise in investment in Partner Marketing Automation Platforms (PMAPs), with 75% of decision‑makers planning to increase tech spend and nearly 60% of non‑users set to adopt a platform within a year. It explains how PMAPs...
By Forrester Blogs
News•Feb 17, 2026
Google Shifts Lookalike to AI Signals in Demand Gen
Google is converting Lookalike audiences in Demand Gen campaigns from strict targeting buckets into AI‑driven optimization signals starting March 2026. The new model lets the system expand beyond the predefined Lookalike pool, using similarity tiers as guidance rather than hard...
By Search Engine Land
News•Feb 17, 2026
Google’s Jeff Dean: AI Search Relies on Classic Ranking and Retrieval
Google’s AI Search still relies on the classic retrieval‑ranking pipeline, with large language models applied only after a multi‑stage filtering process. Jeff Dean describes a "filter‑first, reason‑last" architecture that narrows billions of indexed pages to a few thousand candidates before...
By Search Engine Land
News•Feb 17, 2026
Wakefern Overhauls Legacy Loyalty System
Wakefern Food Corp., the nation’s largest retailer‑owned grocery cooperative, is replacing its legacy point‑of‑sale‑driven loyalty system with Eagle Eye’s AI‑powered platform. The new solution, slated for a mid‑2026 rollout, will process loyalty data faster and allow each of Wakefern’s 400...
By Grocery Dive
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Prioritize Message, Then Structure, Before Optimization
If you say your team is "testing constantly", then why isn’t your performance improving? I’ll take a guess: You have new landing pages, audience targets, offers, and creatives every week. Changing everything at once isn’t a “strategy”. Nothing can be isolated, nothing...
By Kody Nordquist
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Make Content Sales-Ready with the QUICK READY Check
Your business content has to make cents. That’s not a typo. Content can’t just be good to the Marketing team. It has be good to and for Sales. Marketing teams often review content like: “Is it good?” “Does it sound on-brand?” “Do we like the...
By A. Lee Judge
News•Feb 17, 2026
Monetisation, Player Retention and Communities on Discord: Top Tips Incoming at PGC San Francisco
Discord will showcase its Social SDK at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco on March 9, 2026, where senior developer Anthony Tešija will present strategies for acquiring, retaining, and monetising mobile gamers via Discord. He will outline how the platform’s community...
By PocketGamer.biz
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Unify Your Messaging Across Channels to Boost Conversions
Here's a quick exercise: 1. Open your homepage. 2. Open your latest paid campaign. 3. Open your sales deck. Now ask: Do they all describe the same ICP pain and the same unique solution? Or does each one position your company differently? We see this...
By devbasu
News•Feb 17, 2026
12 Content Marketing Conferences to Attend in 2026
The 2026 content marketing conference calendar features twelve flagship events across North America and Asia, ranging from intimate workshops like Content Jam to large‑scale gatherings such as Content Marketing World. Organizers are emphasizing AI‑focused tracks, small‑group interaction, and hybrid formats...
By Ahrefs Blog
News•Feb 17, 2026
25 SEO Conferences to Attend in 2026
The 2026 SEO conference roundup lists 25 events across North America, Europe, Asia‑Pacific and the Middle East, detailing dates, venues, ticket tiers and headline speakers. Highlights include SMX Munich’s AI‑focused sessions, the massive BrightonSEO gatherings, and region‑specific meetups such as...
By Ahrefs Blog
News•Feb 17, 2026
Google Lost Two Antitrust Cases, But Stock Rose 65% – Here’s Why via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Alphabet overtook Apple as the world’s second‑largest company despite losing two federal antitrust cases—one on general search and another on ad‑tech. Judge Amit Mehta rejected structural break‑ups, imposing one‑year caps on default‑search deals and limited data‑sharing obligations, while Judge Leonie...
By Search Engine Journal
News•Feb 17, 2026
Introducing Later 360: One View for All Your Influencer Marketing Data
Later 360 launches as an enterprise‑grade reporting suite that consolidates organic influencer metrics, paid amplification data, and commerce outcomes into a single, real‑time dashboard. Built on a dataset exceeding $2 billion in verified influencer‑driven purchases and 130 billion annual impressions, the platform uses...
By Later Blog
News•Feb 17, 2026
Andrex Account Shifts From FCB London Into McCann
Kimberly‑Clark has transferred the Andrex account from FCB London, which secured the business in 2019, to global agency McCann. The move marks a strategic shift as the consumer‑goods giant looks for fresh creative leadership. McCann will now manage Andrex’s advertising,...
By Campaign UK
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
AI, AEO, and GEO: Questions Every Hotelier Should Ask
The article advises hoteliers to begin AI adoption by focusing on AI‑driven performance analysis of paid search, hotel metasearch and Google hotel ads, where measurable demand already exists. AI can process large campaign datasets to pinpoint high‑converting markets, eliminate wasteful...
By Revenue Hub
News•Feb 17, 2026
“Omnichannel Planning Has Become a Living System.”: Yaron Tomchin, CEO, Mobupps
Mobupps CEO Yaron Tomchin says omnichannel planning has evolved into a living, AI‑driven system. He highlights fragmentation across mobile, web, CTV and emerging formats, and the need to shift from channel‑centric to outcome‑centric management. New ad‑tech advances enable near‑real‑time feedback...
By ExchangeWire
News•Feb 17, 2026
Google Ads Recommendations Doc About The Results Tab
Google has added a Results tab to the Google Ads Recommendations help page, letting advertisers see the actual performance impact after applying bid or budget suggestions. The system evaluates campaign data a week after a recommendation is implemented and contrasts...
By Search Engine Roundtable
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
Video Blogging Guide: How to Start a Vlog That Grows Your Brand in 2026
Neal Schaffer’s 2026 guide shows that anyone can start a vlog using just a smartphone, focusing on niche selection and consistent publishing. It outlines essential equipment, platform choices, and a step‑by‑step workflow for planning, filming, editing, and optimizing videos. The...
By Neal Schaffer’s Blog
News•Feb 17, 2026
A Practical Guide to Indie Comms: How Studios Can Build Visibility without Burning Out
Rebecca Attard‑Phillips, co‑founder of Boost, offers indie studios a practical communications roadmap that replaces noisy, omnichannel marketing with a realistic focus on clarity, consistency, and connection. The guide introduces three messaging pillars—emotional fantasy, signature mechanic, and world tone—and shows how...
By GamesIndustry.biz
News•Feb 17, 2026
WooCommerce May Gain Sidekick-Type AI Through Extensions via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
WooCommerce is evolving into an AI‑agnostic coordination layer through the open Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing AI agents such as OpenAI’s ACP and Shopify‑Google’s UCP to plug directly into its ecosystem. Automattic’s James LePage says the platform will support native...
By Search Engine Journal
Podcast•Feb 17, 2026•40 min
AI Video Made Easy: How to Create High Quality Content That Grows Your Business
In this episode, host interviews AI video specialist Stephanie Nivinskus about leveraging AI tools to produce high‑quality video content without any prior production experience. They discuss the common myths around needing expensive equipment, walk through step‑by‑step workflows for scripting, editing,...
By AI Explored
News•Feb 17, 2026
CASE STUDY: L’ERA Tops £140k in TikTok Live Sales as Livestream Shopping Gains Momentum
London jewellery brand L’ERA recorded over £140,000 in TikTok Live sales in 2025, nearly doubling its livestream revenue since launching in August 2023. The founders host four to six weekly livestreams, securing individual orders above £1,400 and using the channel...
By InternetRetailing
News•Feb 17, 2026
Did Somebody Say VCCP? Agency Takes Away Just Eat
Just Eat Takeaway.com has appointed VCCP to run its global creative account after a four‑way internal pitch, ending McCann’s tenure since 2018. VCCP won by showcasing an integrated model that blends creative, media, production and AI to translate audience insight...
By DecisionMarketing
News•Feb 17, 2026
Silverpush and Epitaph Release Attention Study with Lumen Research to Prove Performance of YouTube and Context
Silverpush and agency Epitaph released the first attention study for YouTube ads, partnering with Lumen Research. Analyzing over 60 million impressions across more than 30 campaigns, the study found contextual video ads delivered via Silverpush generated 37% higher attention per mille,...
By Streaming Media
Social•Feb 17, 2026
New Framework Distinguishes Thought Leaders, Influencers, Advocates
What's the difference between a thought leader, influencer and advocate? All of these terms have been used interchangeably over the years until Joel Harrison and Katy Howell discussed the topic last week on a LinkedIn Live. Joel shared his new framework which...
By Sarah Goodall
Social•Feb 17, 2026
AI Search Citations Drop When Organic Rankings Fall
Are AI search citations affected by drops in organic search? I dug in a bit with some recent examples try to find the answer. Check it out at my Substack: https://t.co/JBgyIVp40w https://t.co/CLNUvu0mII
By Lily Ray
News•Feb 17, 2026
Unilever Turns to AI for ‘New Era of Shopping for Brands’
Unilever has signed a five‑year partnership with Google Cloud to embed advanced AI, data and platform capabilities across its global operations. Leveraging Google’s Vertex AI and Gemini models, the consumer‑goods giant will build an AI‑first digital backbone that powers faster...
By DecisionMarketing
Social•Feb 17, 2026
SEO's Alive: Prioritize Quality, Update for AI
Stop thinking SEO is dead. It's just different. You're not ranking mediocre AI content anymore. Update legacy pieces, embed expert quotes, target LLMs AND Google. Quality > Quantity. https://t.co/LbqxucBTcZ
By Ross Simmonds
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Betting on Helpful Content Update 4.0 GEO Edition
Officially betting on the Helpful Content Update 4.0 (GEO edition) within the next 6 months.
By Lily Ray
News•Feb 17, 2026
Snap Inc. Reveals Insights Into Its Users’ Behaviour for Ramadan 2026
Snap Inc. released its Ramadan 2026 consumer insights, highlighting that the holy month will fall in winter for the first time in the Middle East, altering fasting hours and spending patterns. The report shows 40% of GCC Snapchat users plan Ramadan...
By Campaign Middle East
Social•Feb 17, 2026
YouTube Tops Growth: People Prefer Video over Reading
Had a Head of Growth tell me this morning that YouTube is their #1 source of new customers because no one wants to read anymore and I think that's incredibly true.
By Kaleigh Moore
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Sell Lifestyle, Not Product: Chubbies' $50M Formula
Chubbies made $50M with ONE content strategy: funny videos showing the lifestyle not the product. Meanwhile you're posting product photos with no context. That's the gap.
By Kamil Sattar
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Own a Compelling Idea, Not Just an Audience
Don't "build an audience" Find an idea you can own that people want to buy into
By Katelyn Bourgoin
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Organic Posts Endure; Paid Ads Stop when Funding Ends
Organic content can work long after it is created. Paid ads can work fast, but the results stop when you stop paying.
By Rachel Pedersen
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Measure Five Key Metrics, Not Just CPL, for Predictable Pipeline
SaaS teams debate CPL vs volume. Wrong focus. Track 5 metrics if you want predictable pipeline: • MQL→SQL rate • Lead response time • Lead→Customer rate • Customer LTV • Cost per qualified lead Which one are you not measuring? https://t.co/sYhVKy6dXN
By devbasu
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Instant Ad Research: Hours Turned Into Seconds
Most ad research is manual and slow. This does in seconds what used to take hours. Competitor hooks, angles, and what to test next. Check it out. I'm proud to be a paid advocate for them.
By Chase Dimond
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Turn Your Assets Into Offers, Not Missed Opportunities
If you have assets, you have options. Most people just never organize them into an offer.
By Rachel Pedersen
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Audit Your Content for AI Search Engines Efficiently
AI engine optimization audit: How to audit your content for #AI search engines via @HubSpot https://t.co/GgooRGVbw4 A complete workflow for running an AI engine optimization audit, priority fixes, a practical checklist, and the HubSpot tools that support the process. https://t.co/5Yr6KAgt3O
By Tom Pick
Social•Feb 17, 2026
Story-Driven Product Copy Triples Add-to-Cart Rates
I've tested 200+ product descriptions. Here's the pattern: Descriptions I wrote as 'features lists' got 2% ATCs. Descriptions I wrote as 'transformation stories' got 9% ATCs. Your specs don't matter. Outcomes do. Test everything. Trust nothing.
By Kamil Sattar