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
The $100 Billion Problem Lurking Inside Digital Video Ads
The digital video ad market has morphed from a transparent, relationship‑driven TV model into a sprawling programmatic ecosystem riddled with hidden fees and fraud. Industry estimates suggest tens of billions—potentially up to $100 billion—are siphoned each year, with some insiders claiming 90% of spend is lost to fraud and intermediaries. Entrepreneur Matt Wasserlauf founded Blockboard to combat this by using blockchain‑based smart contracts that verify each impression in milliseconds. The platform aims to restore transparency and cut costs across connected TV, video, audio, and display channels.
More Views, Fewer Clicks? Get Zero Click Playbook
Impressions are up, clicks are down. It’s not that people don’t see your marketing — it’s that MORE people see it but fewer of them click. We need a new playbook. And lucky for you, Rand Fishkin and I wrote it!...
AI Image API Understands Brief, Eliminates Prompt Engineering
I just watched a single API call replace an entire creative team's workflow. @LumaLabsAI shipped Uni-1. It is the first image API that thinks before it generates. Here is what that actually means. Every other image model treats your prompt like a search...
TikTok Partners with Vistar Media to Expand Out of Phone Ad Campaigns to over 1M Digital Out-of-Home Placements
TikTok has teamed with programmatic out‑of‑home platform Vistar Media to extend its Out of Phone ad product to more than 1.1 million digital OOH placements, including high‑visibility sites such as Times Square. The partnership builds on the October 2023 launch that originally...
Search Is Alive: Traditional Engines, Especially Google, Persist Despite Flattening
The Datos "State of Search Q1 2026" report shows traditional desktop search remains dominated by Google, which reclaimed a 94.3% U.S. market share in March, up from 92.1% in December 2025. Overall search activity is flat to slightly declining, yet user...
Why Meta's AI Has No Point of View
In this 9‑minute episode, Taylor explains why a robust context layer is essential for AI to produce reliable insights, using a live demo where an AI tool misinterprets a performance dashboard until it’s given a clear hierarchy of metrics. He...
Why Your Brand Needs to Start Using Real Photos, Not Generic Imagery
Businesses are shifting from generic stock imagery to custom photo and video shoots to create authentic brand experiences. Tailored visual assets showcase real people, products, and operations, enhancing website design, social media performance, and print collateral. Original content drives higher...
Google’s Back‑to‑Back 2026 Core Updates Slash Organic Traffic for 55% of Sites
Google rolled out two major core algorithm updates in March and April 2026, triggering traffic declines for more than half of tracked websites. The March update targeted large‑scale AI‑generated content, while the April update emphasized “information gain,” rewarding pages that...
Antigravity Automates GA4 Reports for Instant Insights
Connected Antigravity to the GA4 MCP and now I can simply ask Antigravity to create a report for whatever I want rather than trying to navigate the mess that is GA4. A client recently set up tracking for newsletter...
Identifying Agency Red Flags and Characteristics of Effective Partnerships
Choosing the right digital‑marketing agency is essential for sustainable growth. Effective partnerships are strategy‑led, collaborative, communicative and results‑driven, ensuring every dollar spent ties to measurable goals. The article outlines red flags such as overpromising, generic cut‑and‑paste tactics, slow response times,...
First $400 Client Taught Me Priceless Lessons
my museum of failure as a content strategist... I charged my first client $400/month to manage all of their social media. I made absolutely no money in the beginning.
M2THAK’s Real‑World Streams Elevate BC.Game to iGaming’s Front‑Row
M2THAK has turned BC.Game into a cultural touchstone by broadcasting live casino action from yachts, Formula 1 venues and other high‑profile locations. The streamer’s mobile, production‑heavy format draws millions of viewers and is being hailed by analysts as the next wave...
Bill Gross Pioneered Paid Search, Shaping $300B Industry
Bill Gross was a genius out of Caltech. When we met Bill, he explained how he was going to create the search tool for commerce. We were so impressed with his idea that we agreed to fund him. The idea was a...
Something Is Happening on Facebook
The author returns to Los Angeles after a week in New York, where they spoke at a Google social team offsite and promoted the Very Online Survey, a social‑media pulse check for marketers. The newsletter preview highlights four topics: whether...
Just The FACs, Ma'am: ANA Unveils Its Own New Ad Tax
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) unveiled a new "Fractional Advertising Contribution" (FAC) fee tied to its Aquila cross‑media measurement platform. The fee is set at 0.075% of media‑buy spend with a hard cap of $750,000, effectively limiting the charge...
Magellan AI: Podcast Advertisers Are Buying Blind In 2026
Magellan AI’s new guide, produced with True Native Media, reveals that most podcast advertisers are still planning campaigns without reliable audience data or attribution. Analysis of over 60,000 podcasts shows that 86.5% of podcast households are unique to the platform,...
Sprinklr CX Connect New York 2026
Sprinklr CX Connect 2026 convenes senior marketing, customer experience and service leaders on June 4 in New York’s Convene 237 Park. The half‑day event focuses on AI‑driven innovation, digital ecosystem transformation, and emerging business models reshaping brand‑consumer interactions. Attendees will engage in peer networking,...
AI Powers Email Copy, Ignores Outdated Segmentation
Email marketing has a serious AI problem. Not the kind you're thinking. Everyone aimed AI at the wrong part of the funnel. Two years of AI-generated subject lines and copy. Nobody used it to figure out who should actually get the email. Audience...
![The Complete Website Migration Checklist [SEO-Friendly]](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://static.semrush.com/blog/uploads/media/4e/bf/4ebf4354465d540ec22344963980d852/9b5a416b3627e3a7db0f62caa75e71fe/website-migration-checklist.png)
The Complete Website Migration Checklist [SEO-Friendly]
The article delivers a step‑by‑step website migration checklist that spans pre‑migration planning, build‑and‑test, URL mapping, the actual migration, and post‑migration monitoring. It emphasizes establishing baseline analytics, creating a detailed redirect map, and using a staging environment to catch crawl or...
Townsquare Ignite Lights Up Broadway With Latest Digital Pact
Townsquare Media’s Ignite division has signed a digital‑advertising partnership with Broadway Media, a Salt Lake City operator of seven radio stations and an outdoor network. The deal adds Broadway to Ignite’s Media Partnerships white‑label service, which already includes recent agreements...
NHL Digital Ad Infiltrates Man’s Skull on ESPN Broadcast
During the third period of the Flyers‑Hurricanes playoff game, ESPN’s digital ad overlay malfunctioned, projecting a rotating board advertisement onto a fan’s head as his shadow blocked the camera. The glitch placed the ad directly over the fan’s skull, creating...
Digital Video Ad Spend To Climb 11% To $82B In 2026: IAB
The Interactive Advertising Bureau projects U.S. digital video ad spending to reach $81.9 billion in 2026, an 11% year‑over‑year increase that outpaces the overall advertising market by 20%. Social‑media video is set to grow 13% to $31.9 billion, overtaking connected TV (CTV)...
Turn Facebook Emoji Reactions Into New Followers
Author friends… need to encourage more people who’ve interacted with your posts on FB to follow you? On your business suite you can find this little button here and select which emoji they pushed that you want to send invites...
Brianna Doe on the One Thing CMOs Should Change About Creator Marketing Right Now
Brianna Doe, founder of Verbatim, argues that CMOs must stop treating influencer marketing as a siloed paid‑media tactic and instead embed creators within broader brand programs. She highlights the creator economy’s rapid growth, the flood of AI‑generated content, and the...
Trust Is the Real Innovation in Agentic Advertising
PubMatic argues that trust, not technology, is the key to scaling agentic advertising. Early adopters report 87% faster campaign setup, 70% quicker issue resolution, and sub‑millisecond response times that beat manual optimization. The company’s AgenticOS builds on its Activate platform,...
What Does Declining Traffic Mean for the Future of Search?
The article warns that AI‑driven, zero‑click searches are reshaping how brands are discovered, turning traffic declines into signs of content authority rather than failure. Large language models now pull answers directly from authoritative guides, leaving no click trace in analytics....
Karol G Sells 2 Million Tickets in Four Days, Sets Latin Music Record
Karol G’s Viajando Por El Mundo tour moved 2 million tickets in the first four days after tickets went on sale, making her the first Latina artist to headline a stadium tour globally. The rapid sell‑out underscores her growing influence in...
B2B Influencer Marketing: What Practitioners Are Actually Doing in 2026
B2B influencer marketing has moved from a niche experiment to a multi‑million‑dollar channel, with enterprise software firms paying creators five‑ to six‑figure fees for LinkedIn posts. Buyers now start their purchase journeys by trusting individual voices rather than reading analyst...
Optmyzr Report Shows Google Ads CTR Up 21% as Conversions Slip
Optmyzr’s Q1 2026 benchmark, covering more than 21,000 Google Ads accounts, reveals click‑through rates climbing 21.31% to 2.22% year‑over‑year. At the same time, conversion rates fell 0.96%, cost‑per‑acquisition rose 4.41% and impressions dropped roughly 11%, suggesting a trade‑off between reach...
Fallout Co‑Creator Tim Cain Warns Influencers Are Shaping Gamer Opinions
Tim Cain, co‑creator of Fallout, told his YouTube audience that many players now turn to streamers and YouTubers for prescribed opinions rather than forming their own judgments. The veteran developer warned that this shift is influencing how studios design games,...
HUYA Posts $242 M Q4 2025 Revenue, Driven by Ad and Virtual Gifting Surge
HUYA Inc. announced Q4 2025 net revenue of RMB 1.74 bn (≈ $242 m), a 16% year‑over‑year rise, propelled by a 59% jump in advertising and game‑related services. The results highlight the growing role of ad‑driven and virtual‑gift monetisation in Asian live‑streaming, while margins...
The Approach That Pays You to Attract a Lucrative Audience
The post argues that the once‑free audience‑first model now requires paid advertising to acquire a minimum viable audience, especially for high‑ticket service providers. It shows how rising Facebook and Google ad costs have eroded self‑liquidating offers, making direct client acquisition...
Predict Virality, Then Reverse‑engineer Your Post
btw this is my dumbest prompt but its actually so effective for cooking viral content: "fast forward 1 week. this post just crossed 1M views. why did it go viral?" it'll tell you what worked (the hook/structural beat/lines that got shared, etc) then...
Automate Honest SEO‑friendly
I built a skill that creates competitor comparison and alternatives pages — "vs" pages, "alternative to" pages, feature matrices, and migration guides. You tell it your competitors and it builds SEO-targeted comparison content that positions you honestly, acknowledges competitor strengths, and...
U.S. Digital Video Ad Spend to Surpass $80B in 2026; Growing 20% Faster Than the Total Ad Market, According to...
The Interactive Advertising Bureau projects U.S. digital video ad spend to top $80 billion in 2026, an 11% year‑over‑year increase that outpaces the broader ad market by roughly 20%. Digital video—encompassing CTV, online and social video—will claim more than 60% of...
Authority Should Build Expertise, Not Content Landfills
"Topical authority was never supposed to mean content landfill." Well, yes. Tying the brand to the expertise should always be the goal.
Patients Research Themselves; Your Digital Presence Now Critical
Today’s patients (especially younger ones) do their homework. Ty Allen on why your digital presence matters more than ever—and how AI may change it further. 👇 https://t.co/4gFnT9yDIG @socialclimb_1 #PrecisionMarketing #hcmktg
How To Test A New Bid Strategy In Google Ads
Google’s AI‑driven Smart Bidding continues to dominate paid‑search, but even top‑performing campaigns eventually hit a plateau. The article outlines a data‑driven framework for deciding when to test a new bid strategy, choosing between native experiments and manual sequential tests, and...
Pedro's Candid AEO/GEO Guide Challenges New Schema Narrative
Pedro just wrote one of the most honest & accurate pieces about AEO/GEO that I’ve *ever* read. (And TBH - I’ve also been wondering about the “new” framing around Schema markup this whole time. 🫠🫠)
B2B SaaS Leverages LinkedIn Influencers for Brand and LLM Citations
LinkedIn influencers are a *thing* and B2B SaaS companies are putting them to work (for double duty) to drive brand awareness and win LLM citations. I dove into this in tomorrow's newsletter, with insights from @YoungHeike + others. Sign up to get...
Social Video Ad Spending Is Set to Outpace CTV in Growth Rate This Year
The IAB projects social video ad spend to grow 13% year‑over‑year in 2026, surpassing CTV’s 11% growth. Total U.S. digital video investment is expected to reach $80 billion, with platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit capturing a larger share of...
Three Proven Fixes for a Weak Newsletter
Top 3 fixes for an underperforming newsletter from Sean Devlin. Search "Nathan Barry Show" to watch the full episode. https://t.co/AAv1uciBHv
Get Free Google Brand Insight, 25‑Minute Feedback Session
Looking for 5 Shopify merchants to spend 25 min with me this month. I'll show you something about your own brand on Google you've probably never seen before. You tell me what's useful and what's broken. No pitch, no signup. Just feedback. DM...
B2B Growth Now Driven by Emotional Buying Blueprint
The real B2B revolution is emotional: inside LinkedIn’s ‘Buyability’ blueprint for growth https://t.co/XBYS6ACrY8 via @thedrum #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling
AI Marketing Toolkit Grows: New Tools Added
The best list of #AI #marketing tools anywhere continues to expand: https://t.co/Kb2ld19wrv New tools added recently include @HeadshotlyAI, Agentive SEO, Quadratic, @vistasocialapp , @ChatGPTapp Images, @moengage , @amplemarket , @socialpilot_co , Chatterbox Turbo by @resembleai , @lightfld , and @PlanableApp.
Scale with Many Niche Ads, Not One Narrow Ad
You can't scale with an ad that's only relevant to a tiny audience. You can scale with many ads that are relevant to many tiny audiences.
Programmatic Gets Tougher; AI Redefines Advertising Landscape
@TomBurkeIV , Chief Revenue Officer of @AI Digital, joins AdTechGod to break down why programmatic is getting harder, not easier, and how AI is reshaping the entire advertising landscape https://t.co/dkDWldy12X
Google's Ad Revenue Hits $300 B After One Year
Approaching a full year, I wonder how this is coming along… Google now at $300 billion of ads market.
ChatGPT Shows Accurate Reddit Citations, Confirms Ahrefs
And here are Reddit citations in ChatGPT. I pinged ahrefs about this since it looked off to me... They said it's accurate based on looking into the data. Not sure, but worth noting based on what Lily shared below for...
Gen Z Now Makes up over Half of Pinterest Users
While @Pinterest has long talked about Gen Z being its fastest growing demographic, what is NOT getting enough attention now is that Gen Z users represent over 50% of its 600 million monthly active users. $PINS aging down has meaningful...