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
Hollman, Inc. Rolls Out 50‑Year Brand Campaign to Spotlight Elite Locker‑Room Design
Hollman, Inc. announced a 50‑year anniversary brand campaign developed with Atlanta agency BALD, showcasing its elite locker‑room solutions, a new golf‑focused modular unit, and the neuro‑architecture‑driven MeSpace workstation. The rollout targets architects, developers, and corporate real‑estate leaders, positioning the company for the next growth phase.
Duolingo Won the Internet With Chaos. Now Its CMO Says It’s Time to Rein It In
Duolingo’s chief marketing officer announced a strategic shift from its famously chaotic, 80% unhinged‑20% wholesome content mix to a more balanced approach. The language‑learning app’s viral owl antics once drove 17 million TikTok followers and 4.8 million Instagram fans, but growth has...
TikTok Influencer Kolin Jones Grows $120M Private Jet Brokerage Without Owning a Plane
Kolin Jones, a 24‑year‑old TikTok creator, says his startup Amalfi Jets has generated roughly $120 million in revenue despite never owning a single aircraft. The entrepreneur turned short‑form video into a sales engine, reshaping how high‑value private‑aviation services are marketed and...
Other Gum Is 'Dumb,' Says 'Smart' Neuro In First Campaign
Neuro, an 11‑year‑old functional chewing‑gum brand, has launched its first national advertising campaign titled “Gum Is Dumb,” positioning its product as the industry’s first “smart gum” for energy and focus. The campaign, featuring a sloth mascot, coincides with a retail...
Free Pinterest Marketing Kit: SEO, Design, Templates
The FREE Pinterest Marketing Kit 📌 Pinterest SEO Checklist 📌 Pin Design Checklist 📌High-Converting Canva Templates
Meta Rolls Out AI Business Assistant To All Advertisers, Agencies
Meta announced the global rollout of its AI Business Assistant, extending the beta to advertisers and agencies of all sizes across major markets and languages. The tool, first piloted with U.S. small businesses, delivers real‑time, data‑driven recommendations, account restoration, spend‑limit...
Post Sparingly, Share Insights, Engage Meaningfully on LinkedIn
I went to @LinkedIn's “what to post on LinkedIn” webinar today and here were the main takeaways, for the interested: 1. Share a recap of an event you attended with key takeaways for folks who couldn’t attend 2. Share a learning/original...
Enterprise Content Moves From Tools To Systems: Adobe Summit Takeaways
Adobe Summit 2026 signaled a shift from standalone AI tools to integrated content systems. The company unveiled GenStudio for Content Marketing, Brand Intelligence, and Firefly Creative Production, all aimed at accelerating content creation, scaling visual assets, and embedding brand governance....
Marketing Technology Market Projected to Reach Nearly $2.4T By 2033
The global marketing technology (MarTech) market is projected to reach roughly $2.4 trillion by 2033, expanding at a 20.1% compound annual growth rate from 2026 onward. Social media tools and AI‑driven platforms are the primary growth engines, while North America contributed...
There's a New Playbook for Partnering with Creators on Marketing Campaigns.
Google has rolled out YouTube Creator Partnerships within Google Ads and Display & Video 360, allowing advertisers to discover, activate, and manage creator‑driven ads directly in performance campaigns. The new tools aim to lower the entry barrier for creator marketing,...
Day 4: The Milestone Giveaway That Got Her to 30k Subscribers
Aleyda Solis leveraged a milestone‑driven giveaway to push her SEOFOMO newsletter past 30,000 subscribers, adding roughly 1,500 quality contacts in seven weeks. The campaign required existing readers to refer peers, using SEO‑focused tools as prizes and promoting the contest through...
Minto Pyramid: Secret Blueprint Behind Viral Content
i've never seen anyone talk about it but the minto pyramid is the most critical distribution skill in 2026 i use it religiously. it's how i average 10m+ impressions a month and pull about $5k mrr just from X revenue...
Real Results and an Attribution Void: Podscribe Benchmark Report
Podscribe released its Q1 Performance Benchmark Report, delivering the latest metrics on audio advertising across streaming, podcast, and video‑podcast formats. The data show streaming audio achieving higher conversion rates and lower costs than podcast‑only campaigns, while a larger U.S. YouTube...
Write2Sell: How to Make Money on Substack with Every Paid Post (My High Converting Paid Post Checklist)
A Substack writer reports an 11.7% free‑to‑paid conversion rate, the highest he’s seen, generating roughly three new paid subscribers per paid post. By analyzing top‑performing posts with AI, he identified a repeatable seven‑element structure that separates the WHAT and WHY...
Your Marketing Team Is Doing Everything Right — But the Results Aren’t Adding Up. Here’s Why.
B2B marketing teams are achieving individual channel metrics yet failing to translate activity into pipeline because they operate in silos. The article argues that consolidating PR, SEO, content, and AI optimization around a handful of high‑priority pages creates a unified...
AI, Brand Safety’s Frenemy | Behind the Numbers
In this episode, Marcus talks with UK analyst Bill Fisher and US AI expert Jacob about the surge of AI‑generated "slop" on platforms like YouTube and its impact on brand safety. They highlight how AI content now makes up roughly...
Ads Drive Traffic, But Weak Pages Waste Budgets
Ads are bringing people in But they don’t stay If your page doesn’t convince Your budget just bleeds
Beware: Fake Facebook Business Manager Partner Request Emails
Why does Facebook keep sending me an email about “You’ve received a Business Manager Partner Request”? Email send from address seems real.
Ad Spend on YouTube, Google Search, Amazon Sponsored Products Is Growing: Report
Tinuiti’s latest report, based on more than $4 billion in managed ad spend, shows double‑digit growth across most digital channels in Q1 2026. Meta’s Instagram Reels now generate a third of the platform’s ad impressions, lifting Instagram ad spend 28% year‑over‑year, while...
Automated AI Tool Turns Website Into Instant Sales Pipeline
RIP marketers. Someone built a money printer… you paste a website and it just starts bringing in customers in your sleep. It’s called Money Printer. It reads your site, figures out who should be buying, finds those companies, and reaches out to them...
PubMatic Brings Custom Creative Formats to AgenticOS
PubMatic has embedded its Creative Innovation Suite into the AgenticOS platform, giving marketers a single workflow to create, launch and measure custom ad formats across premium connected TV, mobile apps and more. The suite draws on partners Celtra, Brightline and...
TriCoast Media Expands Its Unified SSP/DSP Platform
TriCoast Media has expanded its unified supply‑side and demand‑side platform to compress the connected TV (CTV) supply chain. By turning its content library into a flywheel, the company offers publishers higher revenue shares in exchange for preferred backfill access, now...
Braze Launches BrazeAI Operator,?BrazeAI Agent Console, and Braze Creative Studio
Braze unveiled three new AI-driven products—BrazeAI Operator, BrazeAI Agent Console, and Braze Creative Studio—designed to embed decisioning, content generation, and asset management directly into marketers’ workflows. The tools enable real‑time data activation, AI‑generated copy, and seamless movement of designs from...
Google May Expand Unsupported Robots.txt Rules List via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google is preparing to expand the list of unsupported robots.txt directives in its public documentation, drawing on real‑world data from HTTP Archive. The team built a custom BigQuery metric to capture robots.txt files, revealing that beyond the four supported fields,...
Farewell, Twitter
Long‑time market commentator Barry Ritholtz announced his departure from X, formerly Twitter, citing a steep decline in genuine engagement and a surge of bots and scams. He blames the platform’s 2022 ownership change, paid‑verification model, and AI‑driven fraud for eroding...
Google’s Liz Reid on AI Search Changes, Query Shifts, and AI Slop
Google’s VP of Search, Liz Reid, told Bloomberg that AI isn’t killing search but reshaping how users interact with it. AI Overviews filter low‑value clicks, prompting more total searches while still directing users to deeper web content. She highlighted a...
Q1 2026 vs 2025: What Changed in Ecommerce (The Data)
In this episode, Richard Gaffin and Steve Recook analyze Q1 2026 e‑commerce data versus Q1 2025, highlighting a 13.6% revenue rise driven mainly by returning customers. They note that Meta ad spend jumped 25.3% while ROAS only fell 3%, and...
OpenAI’s Crawler Docs Now List OAI-AdsBot For ChatGPT Ads via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
OpenAI has added OAI‑AdsBot to its public crawler documentation, joining OAI‑SearchBot, GPTBot and ChatGPT‑User. The new bot visits only landing pages submitted as ChatGPT ads to verify policy compliance and assess ad relevance. OpenAI emphasizes that data collected by OAI‑AdsBot...
Shift to Monthly Analytics, Transform Your Content Perspective
Looking at your analytics month by month instead of post by post is going to change how you feel about your content.
Answer Engine Optimization Emerges as Next Search Frontier, BLVD Report Finds
Boulevard Digital Marketing (BLVD) released a new industry report that positions Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as the next major shift in search strategy. The analysis warns that traditional SEO is losing ground as AI‑generated answer engines dominate user queries, prompting...
How Our Ads Bought Us Lufthansa First Class Seats
An online business spent $32,000 on Meta advertising in a single month and routed the expense through the American Express Business Gold Card, earning 128,000 Membership Rewards points. The points were transferred to Aeroplan, allowing the author to redeem 80,000...
Google Expands Demand Gen Tools to Drive Faster YouTube Conversions
Google has integrated its Demand Gen offering into the Commerce Media Suite, allowing advertisers to tap retailers’ first‑party catalog and conversion data across YouTube, Discover and Gmail. The rollout also introduces view‑through conversion (VTC) optimization, which shifts bidding focus to conversions...
5 Lessons From Delivering Bad SEO News to Executives
Organic traffic is falling across most SEO clients, with a 61% CTR drop for queries featuring AI Overviews. The article shares five hard‑earned lessons for SEO consultants on how to deliver bad news to C‑level executives, emphasizing early transparency, thorough...
Convert Faster on YouTube with April’s Demand Gen Drop.
Google announced two Demand Gen enhancements aimed at accelerating customer acquisition on YouTube. The Commerce Media Suite now includes Demand Gen inventory in Google Ads, allowing retailers to use first‑party catalog and conversion data across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail. Additionally,...
Cannes, Captured: AdExchanger and Equativ Partner to Scale the Industry’s Biggest Moments
AdExchanger announced a strategic partnership with Equativ to turn Cannes Lions 2026 into a real‑time content engine. The collaboration will deliver executive video interviews, rapid‑response conversations, daily editorial coverage, and short‑form social content directly from the festival. By leveraging Equativ’s...
Beyond Clicks: 3‑layer Framework for AI Search Success
📊 A 3 Layer Framework to Measure AI Presence, Readiness and Business Impact: Redefining Metrics for the AI Search Era - A new guide where I cover: How the old organic search measurement model, built largely around rankings, clicks, and sessions,...
Native In‑Experience Ads Beat Ignored Traditional Ads
We’ve spent 20+ years training users to ignore ads. So why are we still designing them the same way? Rob Janes shares why native, in-experience ads are outperforming traditional placements. Learn more: https://t.co/eKmsXk6CsW @ad_butler #BrandTrust #hcmktg https://t.co/PCwkAnIrSX
A 3 Layer Framework to Measure AI Presence, Readiness and Business Impact: Redefining Metrics for the AI Search Era
The rise of AI‑driven search engines is reshaping how brands are discovered, with answers often influencing purchase decisions without generating clicks. Traditional SEO metrics—rankings, clicks, sessions—no longer capture the full impact of AI‑generated answers across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and...
Claude's Confident Yet Outdated Meta Ads Advice Misleads Marketers
Claude's guidance on Meta ads, pixels, audiences, etc is wildly bad and outdated, but said soooo confidently. I've seen too many founders and marketers freak out about something minor because of Claude's analysis about something they didn't understand.
ChatGPT Extends Ads to Logged-Out Users, Boosting Inventory
Now for logged out users. Interesting -> ChatGPT ads expand to logged-out users "ChatGPT is expanding ads to logged-out users, increasing inventory and making it easier for advertisers to scale spend." https://t.co/ljDF916Tsj via @TheMarketingAnu https://t.co/067EGOyLLI
Clinch Brings AI-Driven Creative Personalisation to Pause Ads Through OpenGlass Partnership
Clinch and OpenGlass have certified Clinch’s ad‑serving tags for pause‑ad formats across major CTV publishers such as Paramount, Tubi, and Plex, enabling AI‑driven creative personalization in real time. The integration collapses the historically fragmented, publisher‑by‑publisher workflow into a single tag...
Limited Spots for AI Search & Employee Advocacy Cohort
If you're a marketer trying to figure out AI search x employee advocacy (specifically on LinkedIn) and want to work with me + a small cohort of peers, applications for this are open 'til April 30th. A few spots left......
Advertiser ID: Personalized Ads vs Privacy Risks
The more you use your computer, the more personalized the ads become. Helpful, or big privacy problem? Here are the pros and cons of keeping "Advertiser ID" enabled for Windows and MacOS users: https://t.co/2Jztl0wWKP #privacy #mac #windows #advertising https://t.co/X64BKNNIsW
Google Tests “App Labs” Hub for Early Ad Features
Google is piloting an “App Labs” hub inside Google Ads, offering app advertisers a dedicated tab to trial experimental campaign features before they roll out broadly. The beta environment lets marketers run limited‑time tests, submit feedback, and explore tools still...
Scaled AI Content Site Crashed After 2025 Success
This is another 2025 case study on a scaled AI content tool website. Just crashed in March 2026. Ecomm site too 👀👀👀 https://t.co/lC0TKteq3O
Instantly Optimize Ad Spend with Top Budgets Widget
Stop guessing where your ad spend goes. The new Top Budgets widget in @Optmyzr ranks performance and flags instant optimization opportunities. Shift budgets to your best campaigns without context switching. Keep the boss happy and your ROI high. 🚀 #PPC #GoogleAds #Marketing...
![[Special Edition] The Missing Link Between Your Content and Your Audience](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TZb2!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc564565-2a0e-45e5-873b-64f687c95be0_358x358.png)
[Special Edition] The Missing Link Between Your Content and Your Audience
The blog introduces Yapper, a platform that tackles LinkedIn’s visibility problem by activating a user’s network within the first hour of posting. It argues that early engagement velocity, not content quality, determines algorithmic boost. Yapper’s “network activation engine” matches posts...
Prize Choice Shapes Audience; Be Specific for Qualified Leads
I've run 100+ giveaways. Here's the pattern: 'Win a free iPad' giveaways got thousands of junk emails. 'Win our [product] and a 1-on-1 setup call' got a small list of hyper-qualified buyers. Your prize determines your audience. Be specific.
Live AI Workflow Demo: Repurposing Content with Claude
Doing an AI “show and tell” of one of my @claudeai content repurposing workflows on @superpathco at 11 CDT, come hang 👀
Firefly Expands Programmatic Capabilities Through Integration with VIOOH
Firefly, the world’s largest mobile out‑of‑home network, announced an integration with VIOOH, a leading DOOH supply‑side platform. The partnership lets advertisers access Firefly’s 60,000 moving screens through major demand‑side platforms, enabling real‑time, data‑driven buying of mobility‑based inventory. By embedding moving...