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.
Live Sports Streaming Ad Market Rife With Fraud, Experts Say
The rapid shift of live sports to streaming platforms has created a fragmented ad marketplace where third‑party aggregators resell inventory they don’t directly control. Experts from Good Karma Brands and Digital Remedy warn that these middlemen often misrepresent placement guarantees, promising specific game spots that cannot be delivered. Local advertisers—car dealers, HVAC firms, and small agencies—are buying into these false promises, risking wasted spend and unreliable metrics. The lack of transparency also threatens regional sports networks by undercutting legitimate ad rates.
AI Max vs DSA: Advertisers Question Control as Google Responds
Google is transitioning advertisers from legacy Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) to its AI‑driven Max campaigns, sparking concerns over lost URL‑level targeting granularity. Marketers argue that DSA’s ability to align ads with site architecture via categories, URL paths, and page rules...
Trade Desk Growth Slows to Lowest Rate Since Covid; Publicis Talks Ongoing
Trade Desk reported Q2 revenue of $689 million, a 12% year‑over‑year increase that beat estimates but marked its slowest growth since the 2020 Covid‑era downturn. Adjusted EBITDA rose to $206 million, reflecting a 30% margin, while earnings per share missed forecasts, sending...
Your Creative Woes Stem From Weak Offers, Not Ads
Most brands think they have a creative problem. They don't. They have an offer problem dressed up as a creative problem. Here's what I mean: You're testing 15 new creatives a week. Rotating hooks. Swapping thumbnails. Trying UGC vs. static vs. carousel. And nothing moves. CPAs stay...
MNTN Wants Its AI Video Ad Generator To Stand Apart From Its CTV Platform
MNTN unveiled QuickFrame AI 3.0, an AI‑driven video ad generator that lets users craft multi‑scene narratives and reuse assets across projects. The tool is sold as a standalone subscription aimed at small‑ and mid‑market advertisers and individual creators, separate from MNTN’s...
Klaviyo Expands Integration with Anthropic
Klaviyo has broadened its integration with Anthropic’s Claude AI, linking its Model Context Protocol (MCP) server across Claude.ai and Claude Cowork. The expanded connector lets marketers query Klaviyo customer and performance data in natural language, generating reports, briefs, and campaign assets...
Truthset Integrates with Unified ID 2.0
Truthset has integrated its Data Rated Audiences with Unified ID 2.0, the privacy‑first identifier created by The Trade Desk. The integration enables a one‑to‑one match between validated demographic segments and UID2 IDs, allowing advertisers to activate audiences across CTV, mobile and...
“SEO Expert” Became “AI Search Expert” (Gulp.): How To Control AI Answer Accuracy via @Sejournal, @Lorenbaker
SEO professionals are now expected to manage AI search outcomes as brands increasingly rely on generative models for answers. In a recent webinar, seoClarity executives outlined three tactics—Orchestrator’s Playbook, Answer Certainty Metrics, and Narrative Reclamation—to help marketers ensure AI delivers...
Technical Account Manager
DAX Audio is hiring a New‑York‑based Technical Account Manager to support its rapidly expanding programmatic audio business. The role reports to the SVP of Programmatic and carries a salary of $85,000‑$95,000 plus bonus. Responsibilities include managing inventory forecasts, optimizing campaigns,...
Why Signal Quality Is Shaping the Future of Streaming Media Performance
Streaming has become a premier digital‑advertising venue, with Disney reporting a 5% rise in ad revenue in Q2 2026 as budgets shift to video and connected TV. However, the explosion of data signals—metadata, audience segments, and third‑party classifications—often creates overlap and...
Why Your Ads Aren't Working
In this episode, host Richard Gaffin and Joy Sharma break down the five core levers of e‑commerce growth—landing pages, offers, creatives, customer journey, and marketing moments—and argue that the customer journey is the single most critical factor for scaling a...
Why Chasing Vanity Metrics Is Killing Your Social Strategy
Viral Nation EVP Richelle Batuigas argues that likes, views and impressions are poor indicators of marketing success. She unveils the Cultural Relevance Score, a framework that measures awareness, affinity and velocity to tie social activity directly to business outcomes. The...
![Keyword Research Has A New Strategy & It’s Getting Local Businesses Into AI Results [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Hethr_campbell](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/3-3-837.png)
Keyword Research Has A New Strategy & It’s Getting Local Businesses Into AI Results [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Hethr_campbell
The Search Engine Journal webinar reveals that modern local SEO hinges on turning keyword research into "trust signals" that feed AI-driven business recommendations. By embedding keyword‑rich language in Google Business Profile posts, reviews, and responses, agencies can influence the AI...
AI Redefines Martech Stack as Growth Slows to 0.7% in 2026 Report
The State of Martech 2026 report, authored by Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma, finds the martech ecosystem grew only 0.7% to 15,505 solutions, while churn accelerated with 1,488 new products added and 1,367 removed. The data suggest AI, orchestration, and...
Optimove Report Finds 52% of Summer Shoppers Will Spend More in 2026
Optimove's new Summer Shopping Report reveals that 52% of U.S. consumers intend to increase their summer spending in 2026, driven by a focus on quality, price and AI‑enabled discovery. The findings signal a competitive, high‑intent season for retailers that must...
People Inc. Boosts Digital Revenue as Google Traffic Falls 63%
People Inc., the rebranded IAC publishing arm, posted an 8% year‑over‑year increase in Q1 digital revenue to $253 million despite a 63% collapse in Google‑referenced traffic. The growth stems from off‑platform audience expansion, AI licensing deals and a new contextual ad...
Build & Launch A VOC Landing Page With Claude Code In 5-Steps
The post teaches marketers how to use Claude, Anthropic’s AI model, to mine Voice‑of‑Customer (VOC) data from Reddit and other forums and instantly generate a conversion‑focused landing page in five steps. By extracting raw customer language instead of relying on...
Google Disables Back‑button Trigger for Vignette Ads
And there you go! I knew they would just remove the back button trigger for vignette ads. Great move by Google. A win for all users. :) "Google explained that the back button trigger will no longer work after June...
One Bold Free Offer Multiplies Demo Bookings Fivefold
3 changes to our cold email copy 5x'd demos booked at Retention(.)com. The old version led with price. Subject line: "$18 per lead is a lot." Body explained: > What we do > Mentioned our free trial > Asked if they had thoughts Reasonable...
Rakuten Advertising Unveils Mirai, First AI‑Driven Affiliate Marketing Optimizer
Rakuten Advertising has launched Mirai, the industry's first AI‑driven optimization agent for affiliate marketing. The conversational platform lets advertisers create and fine‑tune offers through natural language, cutting manual effort and delivering real‑time performance gains. The rollout marks a strategic shift...
Google’s Mueller: Vibe Coding Won’t Handle Your SEO For You via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google Search Relations engineers John Mueller and Martin Splitt explored AI‑driven "vibe‑coding" on the Search Off The Record podcast. They found that while tools like Claude Code, Gemini CLI and Google AI Studio can spin up functional sites quickly, SEO quality still depends...
Why Artemis II Chose Threads for Growth
In today’s newsletter I interviewed the Artemis Digital Lead about the Artemis II social media strategy. I asked her about the decision to join Threads.
ANA Town Hall: 'How About Nothing -- Is Nothing Good For You?'
At the ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference, executives highlighted that media now represents roughly 80% of agency service costs, shifting the compensation debate from traditional fees to principal media buying. In this model, agencies purchase media outright and resell it...
What Publishers Can Learn From Penguin Random House’s $1 Million In-House Media Experiment
Penguin Random House invested $1 million in an in‑house media unit inside its Crown Publishing imprint, launching the food‑focused brand Taste. With just one full‑time employee, Taste’s newsletter and podcast are projected to exceed $1 million in revenue by 2027. The experiment...
Google Adds AI-Powered Bidding and Demand-Led Budgeting to Search and Shopping
Google is extending its AI automation suite to Search, Shopping and Performance Max with Journey‑aware Bidding, Smart Bidding Exploration, and demand‑led budget pacing. The new tools let the algorithm ingest full‑funnel signals, target incremental queries and shift spend in real...
New AI-Powered Bidding and Budgeting Innovations in Search and Shopping
Google announced a suite of AI‑driven tools for Search and Shopping ads, including journey‑aware bidding, Smart Bidding Exploration, and demand‑led pacing. Journey‑aware bidding feeds the algorithm with the full lead‑to‑sale funnel, while Smart Bidding Exploration expands reach by targeting less...
Scene-Level Targeting Unlocks CTV Performance, Cuts Waste
How much is your CTV strategy leaving on the table by sticking with broad audience targeting? In the first episode of our From Show to Scene series, sponsored by @wurlctv , @LJayNYC of @KERV_ai joins us to challenge legacy...
Day 16: The 7 Emails Keep You Out of the Promotions Folder
Tyler Cook, a deliverability specialist at Hypermedia Marketing, rebuilt a 300,000‑subscriber welcome flow into a seven‑email sequence. By starting with a short, non‑founder email that elicits a reply, he forces Gmail and Yahoo to auto‑whitelist the sender. Subsequent emails add...
11 Google Ads Best Practices to Maximize Return on Ad Spend
Google’s latest best‑practice guide outlines eleven tactics to stretch return on ad spend across Search, Shopping, YouTube and other formats. It stresses starting with clear goals, conversion tracking and a well‑structured account before selecting the appropriate campaign type. The guide...
Carousels Top Instagram Engagement, Reels Close Behind
When it comes to best-performing post formats on Instagram, Carousels lead the way in engagement, while Reels are not far behind: https://www.socialinsider.io/social-media-benchmarks/instagram ✅
The Creator Economy Keeps Adding Tools – The Influencer Marketing Factory Keeps Finding the Same Gap
The Influencer Marketing Factory (IMF) has evolved from a $1,500 startup into a full‑service creator‑economy agency handling organic, paid amplification, and TikTok Shop for brands like Google and Hyundai. Over the past three years, about 90% of its clients now...
Google Seeks EU Deal Over ‘Parasite SEO’ News Rankings
Google is offering the European Union a revised approach to its “parasite SEO” program, aiming to stop demoting news sites that host third‑party commercial content and avoid fines that could reach $40 billion under the Digital Markets Act. The EU probe...
SocialChain Taps Havas Play UK Veteran Sophie Berman to Lead Influencer Division
SocialChain has appointed Sophie Berman, former Head of Talent and Influencer at Havas Play UK, to lead its CreatorChain influencer division. Berman will oversee strategy, talent partnerships, and scalable campaign tools while reporting to CEO Jacinta Faul. CreatorChain, which counts...
First-Party Data Begins with Consent
First‑party data has become the cornerstone of digital marketing as browsers block third‑party cookies and privacy laws tighten. Deloitte’s 2023 report, commissioned by Meta, shows 82% of marketers now prioritize first‑party data to deliver immediate customer value. However, the effectiveness...
Giant Eagle Taps Ibotta As Exclusive Digital Promotions Partner
Giant Eagle has appointed Ibotta as its exclusive digital promotions partner across more than 200 stores. The deal integrates Ibotta’s Performance Network, expanding the retailer’s digital offer gallery and delivering performance‑based promotions for CPG brands. The partnership aligns with Giant...
TikTok Targets Australian E-Commerce Brands With Ecommerce Equation Partnership
TikTok Australia has teamed up with e‑commerce education platform Ecommerce Equation to help local online retailers grow on the app. The partnership launches a “TikTok Bootcamp” that teaches organic and paid media tactics and provides members with exclusive ad‑credit rewards....
Rufus, ChatGPT, and the Agentic Ad Convergence
Amazon disclosed that roughly 20% of shoppers who engage with a sponsored brand prompt in its AI assistant Rufus keep the conversation going, marking the first concrete performance metric for ads inside an AI shopping interface. Rufus’s monthly active users...
Hybrid Monetization Drives 59% Ad Revenue Surge
AppLovin Q1 2026 earnings: 59% ad revenue growth, the hybrid monetization opportunity for games "In prepared remarks, AppLovin’s CEO highlighted a trend of mobile games adopting a hybrid monetization model (ads and in-app purchases), given the opportunity to monetize through advertising...
No Industry if Fully Transparent, But There Needs to Be a Level Playing Field
The ad industry’s transparency debate resurfaced as ad‑tech vendors and agency‑holding groups face accusations of opaque business practices. Jonathan Lucas‑Lucas, Managing Director of JLL Media and agency auditor, says transparency has improved over time but full openness is unrealistic. He...
🗺️ 5 Steps to Turn Your Google Maps Profile Into a Patient Booking Engine
The article outlines a five‑step system that transforms a Google Business Profile into a self‑servicing patient booking engine. It stresses completing every profile field, automating review collection, responding to reviews within 24 hours, posting weekly updates, and synchronizing data across...
Bing Shifts To
It's New 5/7: Bing On Indexing For AI Grounding vs Traditional Search via @mordyoberstein GA4 data API update by @TheMarketingAnu Google Ads AI Max more exclusions coming by @gregfinn and Bing Places for Business is mobile friendly - We Search...
Daily Search Forum Recap: May 7, 2026
Google announced five new ways to improve linking from AI Mode and AI Overviews, tightening the connection between AI‑generated answers and source pages. Microsoft Bing published a detailed blog differentiating indexing for traditional search versus grounding for AI responses. Google...
SEO: Feed the Machine, Optimize Until It Prints Money
SEO is an OPTIMIZATION game You feed your machine, and see what’s coming out on the other side. If on the other side you’re not printing money, then something is broken in your machine. You have to take whatever is working and optimize...
Fundamental SEO Basics Still Drive AI Search Rankings
What actually moves the needle in AI search: - Schema markup (clean entity signals) - Original data nobody else has - Mentions across multiple sources - A site fast enough that bots don't give up None of this is new, but it is often ignored.
ABM Success Starts with Right Accounts, Not More Tools
If ABM feels overwhelming, it might be because you’re approaching it the wrong way. Saul Marquez shares why ABM isn’t about adding more tools—it’s about focusing on the right accounts and truly understanding how they buy. 👉 https://t.co/6kGGbBQdYf @OutcomesRocket #ABM #hcmktg
B2B Visibility Now Driven by Creators and SMEs
Aaaaand another one: @Substack's Comms lead surfacing that more teams are talking creator partnerships over on LinkedIn today. The future of B2B visibility is creators and third-party SMEs 👏 https://t.co/ayEauSHIgX
Free SEO Content Structure Audit for Three Projects
I have some time off this afternoon, so post your URL and I'll audit your SEO content structure. I'll pick 3 random projects.
Seeking Top Video Editor for Fun 2‑Minute Marketing Clip
Hi All - who is the most incredible video editor you know? I’m looking for someone who can take some raw footage about a new keynote and turn it into a super fun and compelling 2-minute social media marketing video. Reply...
SEO Basics Stay Unchanged: Authority, Citations, Topics, Speed
Funny thing about 2026 SEO: The advice is the same as 2016. - Build real authority - Get cited by real sources - Cover topics, not keywords - Make your site fast and clean
Embrace AI: Learn Now or Lose Jobs
AI is coming for content marketers and journalists' jobs (largely already has.) The only thing to do about it: Get curious and start learning how to use it. https://t.co/NlfayVxMjw