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.
Bookloom Publishing Launches Integrated Digital Book Marketing Platform for Authors
Bookloom Publishing introduced a new SaaS platform that bundles author branding, social media promotion, SEO, and targeted advertising into a single service. The Colorado‑based firm says the solution is designed to give writers measurable visibility in a market where thousands of titles debut daily.
Nielsen Integrates Triton Digital Data, Spotify’s Q1 Report, & More
Nielsen has integrated Triton Digital’s Podcast Metrics Demos+ data into its Media Impact (NMI) planning platform and launched Predictive Sales Lift, a tool that forecasts sales lift for incremental video ads. Spotify reported Q1 2026 premium subscribers up 9% to...
GrowthRise Mastermind Recap Apr 28, 2026
The GrowthRise Mastermind call on April 28, 2026 tackled four core challenges for agencies: positioning content‑marketing services to fast‑growing SaaS firms, resolving unusually high Bing ad impressions, improving publisher outreach, and selling SEO/value to CMOs. The panel advised targeting $3‑15 M...
Simple Notebook Prop Supercharges Meta Ad Conversions
I held up a notebook to my camera for a Meta ad and conversions spiked 📈 The trick is so simple it feels like it shouldn’t work. But what you scribble on it makes all the difference 📓 Full breakdown...
Ibotta Is Actually a B2B Ad‑Tech Platform
Day 14 of 30: How $IBTA Ibotta actually makes money (which one should I do next?) Most people think it's a consumer cashback app It's not. It's a B2B ad-tech company that uses cashback as the user-acquisition wrapper And the latest earnings exposed the...
Marketers Need to Treat Data as a Product
Marketers often launch AI projects that fail because data foundations are weak. The article argues data should be treated as a product, with clear ownership, governance, and freshness. It proposes a three‑question test—speed, accessibility, consistency—to assess data readiness, and warns...
Can Media Companies Ever Claw Back Advertising Revenue From Big Tech?
Publishers have long hoped that better targeting and programmatic tools could reclaim ad dollars siphoned by Google, Meta and now Amazon. Rick Erwin, CEO of Adstra, argues that the dominant platforms’ advantage stems from far superior, unified consumer data and...
The Trade Desk’s Jeff Green Tells Agencies ‘We Want to Help’ After Months of Tension
The Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green addressed ad agencies at Possible 2026, acknowledging the mounting margin pressure they face from tighter budgets, AI adoption, and a more complex media supply chain. He emphasized that agencies are being squeezed as money is...
Influencers Aren't Optional Anymore - They Are Critical to Any Good Media Plan
Influencer marketing has shifted from a peripheral add‑on to the backbone of modern social media plans. With 61% of consumers trusting creator recommendations more than brands, algorithms now favor influencer content, making it the most effective tool for reach, persuasion,...
AI Search (AEO) Dominates Digital Marketing Talk
Judging by Season 5 of the Ahrefs Podcast, AEO is the hottest topic in digital marketing right now. The top 3 most popular episodes all dig deep into AI search: how to show up, what the data actually says, and which...
FTC and States Target Alleged Collusion in Digital Ad Agency Market
The Federal Trade Commission, together with a coalition of state attorneys general, filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that major digital‑advertising agencies coordinated pricing, placement and information‑sharing practices. The complaint targets the intermediary ad‑agency layer, expanding enforcement beyond dominant platforms like...
Life‑stage Moments Drive Purchase Intent More than Age
Interesting new Meta study 👀 The largest behavioral gaps Meta found aren't between generations —they're between lifestages Someone going through a key lifestage (eg graduating, getting married, having a baby) shows up to 26 percentage points higher purchase intent than someone who...
LinkedIn Expands Event Ads Beyond Its Own Platform
LinkedIn has launched Off‑Platform Event Ads, letting marketers promote events with ads that direct users to external webinar, landing page or livestream URLs instead of a native LinkedIn Event page. The format retains LinkedIn’s targeting options while sending clicks to...
What Your Podcast Trailer Is Actually Supposed to Do
Many podcasters simply lift a highlight from an existing episode and label it a trailer, but that approach leaves new listeners clueless about the show’s purpose. Liam Austin argues that a podcast trailer should be a scripted, stand‑alone introduction that...
How Adobe Is Building AI and Agentic Tools for Brands—While Keeping an Eye on Actual Adoption
Adobe announced a suite of AI‑driven tools aimed at boosting brand visibility and agentic capabilities as AI‑assisted retail traffic surged 393% year‑over‑year in Q1 2026. The new Brand Concierge and LLM Apps let brands appear inside large language model interfaces, while...
The Funnel Is Dead: Now What?
Brandweek’s 2026 panel, moderated by ADWEEK’s Alison Weissbrot, declared the classic marketing funnel obsolete, urging brands to adopt a flywheel mindset. Leaders from SmartCommerce, Liquid Death, LYS Beauty, Kellanova, Sephora, and Argonaut shared tactics for omnichannel commerce, retail‑media data leverage,...
Adobe Ramps up Firefly AI Campaign to Win Creators, Eyes Premium Tier
Adobe unveiled a new Firefly AI campaign starring YouTubers Kinigra Deon and Airrack, showcasing the tool’s audio, video and mood‑board capabilities. The push promotes a free tier, a $10‑per‑month plan with 2,000 credits and a $200‑per‑month premium tier offering 50,000...
Pinterest Teams with tvScientific to Tap High‑intent CTV Audiences
Pinterest has joined forces with tvScientific to deliver high‑intent, purchase‑ready audiences to connected‑TV (CTV) devices. The partnership extends Pinterest's ad inventory beyond its traditional web and mobile properties, giving advertisers a new channel to reach shoppers as they stream video....
Cars.com Deploys AI‑Generated VIN‑Specific Video Ads, Boosting Sales by 47%
Cars.com rolled out its AI‑powered VIN‑specific video advertising platform in March, delivering nearly 10,000 unique video assets to shoppers. Early data show a 35% rise in dealer website visits, a 45% jump in foot traffic and a 47% lift in...
Why the Best Creator Marketing AI Is Built on the Best Data
CreatorIQ argues that AI’s value in creator marketing hinges on the quality of its underlying data. Its proprietary Creator Graph ingests 250 million social posts each day and draws on more than a decade of aggregated creator, content, and performance signals....
Apple and Google Thwart California “Based Act,” Preserving Digital Ad Data Practices
Apple and Google successfully blocked the California‑based “Based Act” after an intensive lobbying campaign, preserving their existing data‑collection frameworks. The defeat halts a bill that would have limited platform advantages in app stores and search, a move that could have...
Most AI Carousels Fail Due to Poor Tool Setup
I am not saying AI carousels are always bad. I am saying most people making them right now don't have their AI tools set up for them to be good.
Impact.com and Rakuten Join Forces to Build a Unified Performance Marketing Ecosystem
Impact.com and Rakuten have announced a strategic alliance that will merge Impact's affiliate‑marketing technology with Rakuten Advertising’s global network and Rakuten Rewards’ consumer data. The partnership will make Impact.com the core platform for Rakuten’s performance‑marketing services, creating a single ecosystem...
Chesterfield Digital Marketing Agency Supports Over 150 Businesses Since Launch
Hello Social Avenue, a social‑first digital marketing agency founded by David and Abbie Coslett in January 2023, has expanded from a kitchen‑table startup to a full‑time team after a 74% turnover increase in 2025. The firm now supports more than...
Adobe Acquires Semrush to Boost AI-Driven Brand Visibility
Changes might be coming. The acquisition is complete -> Adobe Completes Semrush Acquisition, Strengthening CX Enterprise with Enhanced Brand Visibility Capabilities "By combining with Adobe’s Customer Experience Orchestration business and the new Adobe CX Enterprise, we (Semrush) are better positioned...
AI Coworker Automates Dull Marketing Tasks, Restores Creativity
Everyone who got into marketing got into it for the interesting part, right? The strategy. The ideas. The campaign that wins a creative award or is taught as a case study. Then you spend enough time in the industry to actually...
The View From HQ, Episode 1: Mark Zagorski
DoubleVerify launched a new video series, "The View From HQ," with its first episode featuring CEO Mark Zagorski. In the interview, Zagorski outlines the company’s expanding footprint in social‑media and connected‑TV (CTV) verification, the emerging opportunities and risks of AI‑driven...
SEO Isn’t Just About Being Seen — It’s About Being Believed and Chosen
Wil Reynolds, founder of Seer Interactive, warned that SEO’s traditional focus on visibility is insufficient in an AI‑driven search era. He argued that marketers must move from being seen to being believed and ultimately chosen, emphasizing that high rankings alone...
Liverpool FC and SAS Will Deliver More Personalized, Real-Time Digital Fan Experiences with AI
Liverpool Football Club has entered a multiyear partnership with analytics firm SAS to embed AI-driven marketing across its digital properties. Using SAS Customer Intelligence 360 and the Viya analytics platform, the club will unify web, mobile and social data to...
Real Sales on TikTok & eBay Prove Massive Opportunity
Pls pls pls my friends pay attention here .. I am starting to get the DMs and emails from the people that are actually starting to execute and have started to sell on TikTok or eBay or whatnot and...
Barry Diller Just Put Neil Vogel in Charge of His Media Empire. Here's Vogel's Strategy for Running People Inc.
Barry Diller renamed his IAC holding company People Inc. and installed Neil Vogel as chief executive of the entire media portfolio. Vogel, who previously relied on Google for about 70% of traffic, has seen that share fall to roughly 25%...
Our Deal Management Agent: Bringing Scaled AI-Adoption to PMPs, PGs, and Auction Packages
PubMatic’s Deal Management agent, launched last August, automates the configuration of private marketplace (PMP) and programmatic guaranteed (PG) deals using natural‑language prompts. The AI tool has already powered over 1,000 deals, cutting setup time by roughly 87% and handling millions...
Why More Content Is No Longer a Reliable Way to Grow SEO
The long‑standing SEO playbook of publishing massive amounts of content is losing its effectiveness as search ecosystems evolve. Saturated keyword spaces, AI‑generated overviews, and crawl‑budget constraints now limit the visibility of new pages, often diluting authority and cannibalizing traffic. The...
Free Webinar on How To Use AI To Sell More Tickets
Bauer Entertainment Marketing is hosting a free webinar titled “AI Built For The Business Of Selling Tickets” on April 29 at 10:30 AM PT/1:30 PM ET. The session will demonstrate how artificial intelligence can be applied to live‑event marketing tasks such as localizing...
Traditional Listening Misses Video; Syncly Reads Every Frame
There's a big problem with most social listening... They don't reallyyy read video. Sure, they'll index AROUND the video, grabbing captions, hashtags, @ mentions, but they often can't notice what's INSIDE the video—like when a creator holds up your product or...
Snapchat Brings AI-Powered Conversational Advertising to Its App
Snapchat is rolling out AI Sponsored Snaps, interactive ads placed in the app’s Chat tab that let users converse with brand‑run AI agents. The format builds on existing Sponsored Snaps, which already deliver 22% higher conversion rates and roughly 20% lower cost‑per‑action....
TALKERS News Notes
Nielsen Audio and Triton Digital announced a partnership that embeds Triton’s Podcast Metrics Demos+ into Nielsen Media Impact, giving advertisers a unified tool for planning podcasts alongside TV and digital. Seaboard Networks will distribute the one‑hour wrestling‑themed show “Wrestling with...
JWX and StackAdapt Partner To Give Advertisers Access to Consumer and Content Signals for Ad Targeting
JWX announced a partnership with StackAdapt, integrating its code‑on‑page video inventory and more than 21 billion monthly consumer and content signals into the AI‑driven advertising platform. The collaboration gives advertisers direct access to premium video supply and deep contextual data, turning...
15 Proven App Ad Formats Driving 8‑Figure Growth
These app ad formats are crushing for my clients. Some of these helped my clients scale to 8-figure in revenue. These are the 15 proven formats that you need to run to scale your ad account. Want a copy? Like + Comment "app"...
Boost LinkedIn Engagement with AI-Generated Posts
Trying to get more involved with the @LinkedIn community, but are finding that your posts don't get engagement? Use AI to make 'em more engaging. Here's how to give it a try: https://t.co/y53idalzyJ #linkedin #chatgpt #ai #socialmedia https://t.co/IcZDgKynkq
Paid Campaign Amplifies Manosphere Influencer’s Controversial Videos
New: Manosphere influencer Clavicular is everywhere, and that’s not an accident. A paid marketing campaign is spreading video clips of his controversial antics across social media. https://t.co/OcCDvGVASn
75+ New AI Prompts for E‑Commerce Success
I've just updated my E-commerce AI Toolkit for April 2026. 75+ new prompts for video ads, landing pages, and product research. New workflows for store optimization and content strategy. Comment 'AI KIT' and RT. I'll send it over. Free, as...
Fandango Adds Shoe Emoji for Prada 2 Seats
Here's a cute partnership between @Fandango & The Devil Wears Prada 2: Taken seats have a 👠 emoji https://t.co/U9NxfU5pHM
Stop Scrolling: Use Real Client Scenarios for Hooks
The only way to stop them from scrolling… Make them feel seen: Here’s your AI prompt: "Give me 50 specific, nuanced, observable situations where [your ideal client] experiences [their biggest problem]." Then use those to write your hooks.
Only Index Splits Google Brand vs Non‑Brand, Meta ACQ/RTN
Q1 spend by channel/tactic across CTC. As far as I know it’s the only index that breaks out brand/non brand for Google and ACQ/RTN for Meta. https://t.co/HXhhNbT9XI
Attribution Gaps Keep Influencer Campaigns From Proving ROI
One of the major hurdles for both influencers (pre-established celebs) and social media creators from a brand deal perspective is accurate attribution. Outside of affiliate links, it's very difficult to translate social campaign impact into dollars.
Authentic Testimonials: Show Real Users, Problems, Change
If your testimonials still look like 2019 YouTube ads, you're behind. This is the new bar. Forget the polished cut. Give me the user, the problem, what changed. That’s it. That’s the post.
AI Boosts SEO Salaries, Yet Titles Remain Unlabeled
The SEO job market quietly repriced around AI, but 4 out of 5 of the new higher-paying roles don't say AI in the title. https://t.co/ebo4ClmGNp via @Kevin_Indig, @sejournal
VPs Confirm B2B Creators Drive LinkedIn Growth
A peek inside the @exitfivemedia community, where again, I'm seeing VPs of marketing/growth saying B2B creators are what's moving the needle on LinkedIn (I told you so) https://t.co/AiODaALX9m
Simple Content, No JS, Authority Domains Boost AI
3 Things That Will Help You Rank in AI: 1. Simple, concise content 2. No JS rendering websites 3. Domains with Authority Mini-thread https://t.co/J3qls4WfMk