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
Why TikTok Shop’s Real ROI Was Never Meant to Stay on TikTok
TikTok Shop is being re‑positioned from a narrow sales channel to a powerful demand‑generation engine, a shift highlighted by Greek sun‑care brand Carroten’s rapid U.S. expansion. Leveraging over 13,000 creators, the brand generated 152 million views, sparking a cascade that lifted Amazon search rankings, cut cost‑per‑click and secured premium shelf space at Target. Carroten’s revenue jumped more than 224% year‑over‑year, with Amazon now delivering roughly 60% of total sales. The case shows that TikTok‑driven virality fuels growth across the entire retail ecosystem, not just on‑platform transactions.
ITV Won’t Air In-Game Advertising During 2026 Fifa World Cup Drinks Breaks
ITV has decided not to air in‑game advertising during the mandatory three‑minute drinks breaks at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, even though FIFA permits broadcasters to use picture‑in‑picture or cut‑away ads. The decision stems from FIFA’s strict timing rules and...
All 100k/Mo Promises Boil Down to Guaranteed Ads
Every 2-bit hack who claims they can help you scale your agency/consulting/coaching biz to 100k/mo teaches the same variation of “run ads with a guarantee” That’s it. That’s the entire playbook.
SoFire’s Hot Campaigns: Alix Earle’s Skincare Launch Proves Why Authenticity Always Wins
Alix Earle, a 14‑million‑follower influencer, has launched the skincare line Reale Actives in partnership with dermatologist Dr. Kiran Mian. A cryptic teaser campaign sparked strong pre‑launch engagement, turning curiosity into a ready‑made audience. Earle’s content has long documented her cystic acne journey and Accutane...
Marketers Shift Ad Budgets to AI-Driven Experimentation
AI is reshaping how companies approach experimental ad budgets. As platforms roll out new AI-driven ad products and traditional channels become saturated, marketers are rethinking where and how they test. Budgets are being adjusted toward areas like generative search, ChatGPT-style ads...
Scale DTC Faster by Optimizing Creative, Tests, and ROAS
Things that scale DTC brands faster than budget: 1. Faster creative cycles. 2. Cleaner offer tests. 3. Fewer hooks tested cleanly beats more hooks tested dirty. 4. Ad says one thing. Page says another - that's your conversion problem. 5....
Sett Raises $30m to Scale AI-Driven Marketing Automation Platform
Sett, a 2023 startup, raised $30 million in a Series B round to expand its AI‑driven marketing automation platform. The platform automatically generates playable and video ads while optimizing campaign performance across the user‑acquisition funnel for game publishers. The funding, led by...
Mars Gum Brands Mix Memes, ‘Borrowed Nostalgia’ in Global Campaign
Mars Snacking’s OEFY gum portfolio launched the global “Total Overthink of The Head” campaign, remixing Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 hit and weaving in viral memes to speak to Gen Z’s overthinking moments. The initiative, developed with BBDO Chicago and Omnicom, forms...
Marketing Skills v1.5.0 Launches AI-Powered Research Suite
Marketing Skills v1.5.0 is out. What shipped: /customer-research — full-stack customer research. Analyze transcripts, surveys, and reviews. Scrape Reddit, G2, Indie Hackers, HN, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Extract JTBD with confidence scoring. Generate structured personas. Nitrosend — AI-native email, fully MCP-controlled. Build sequences, campaigns,...
RudderStack Now Supports the Singular SDID for Mobile Attribution
RudderStack announced native support for Singular’s new universal device identifier, SDID, in its server‑side pipeline. The update automatically detects the `singularDeviceId` in event payloads and routes them to Singular’s V2 endpoint without any SDK modifications or configuration changes. By forwarding...
Own Your Platform, Don't Rent Your Content Space
Don't build your content house on rented land.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT Ads Trial Surpasses $100m in Six Weeks
OpenAI has opened a pilot that lets advertisers place ads directly inside ChatGPT conversations. Within six weeks the program generated over $100 million in ad spend, showing strong advertiser appetite. The format offers brand‑safe, native placements and reports higher engagement than...
Automations Outperform Campaigns, Driving Majority of Revenue
Your automations are making $5.96 per email… …Your campaigns are making $0.67… …But you're still spending most of your time on campaigns. @omnisend dug into 717 agencies to find out why, and the difference was brutal. The top 10% built automations first, and campaigns...
Afterverse Found TikTok’s True ROI Was 2x Higher. Singular’s MTA Showed What Last-Touch Missed.
Afterverse, the Brazilian studio behind PK XD, added Singular’s multi‑touch attribution (MTA) to its TikTok user‑acquisition campaigns in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. MTA revealed TikTok’s return on investment was twice the level reported by last‑click models, with a 70% assisted‑install rate,...
AI-Driven Social Media Boosts Client Growth, Says Analyst
Drivia uses AI and Social Media to help clients drive growth: Industry Analyst Jeff Kagan https://t.co/d70NM9aS8R via @ein_news @drivia #drivia @jeffkagan #jeffkagan #industryanalyst #ictindustryanalyst #ai #aianalyst #aiindustryanalyst #analyst #analystrelations #wirelessanalyst #telecomanalyst #tech #technology #techanalyst #techindustryanalyst #technologyanalyst #pr #publicrelations #pressrelease #marketing...
Building a Better Supply Chain: PubMatic on the Future of Programmatic Performance with Amazon Ads
PubMatic has integrated Amazon Ads’ Dynamic Traffic Engine (DTE) across its global supply‑side platform, adding demand‑side signal intelligence to its existing traffic‑shaping tools. The partnership aims to prioritize high‑value bid requests, delivering up to a 10% lift in eCPM and...
75 Words Max: Boost Email CTR by 37%
75. 75 words or fewer. Because if it looks too long, people won’t read it. Brain scientists call this the duration heuristic. People prefer things that are easy to skim and scan. So it’s no wonder that Jay Schwedelson and...
How ‘Vaseline Ghabga’ Turned Ramadan Gatherings Into Entertainment on MBC Shahid
Vaseline, through Unilever Arabia, launched “Vaseline Ghabga,” a four‑episode branded series on MBC Shahid that captures the traditional Gulf Ramadan gathering known as a ghabga. Produced by Team Reactivate Middle East with media agency PHD and influencer agency Mumkin, the...
AI Publisher Response Live: Automation Vs. AI
AI Publisher Response Live, a bi‑weekly virtual forum hosted by Rob Beeler, is gearing up for its May 6 AI Publisher Response conference. The series invites publishers, partners, and stakeholders to dissect current AI trends, especially the tension between automation and...
Cut the Friction, Keep the Value: What Publishers Need to Fix Now
The Pub Report webinar, co‑hosted by Prebid.org and Beeler.Tech, highlighted four urgent priorities for publishers: cutting operational drag, packaging value in buyer‑friendly terms, pricing content for an AI‑driven market, and simplifying ad‑tech stacks. Speakers warned that programmatic deals will dominate...
SEO Tactics for GenAI Visibility
Generative AI search agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini now rely on traditional SEO to surface content, making low‑ranked pages invisible to AI‑driven queries. Keyword research must shift toward longer, intent‑rich phrases that mirror conversational prompts, while optimized, problem‑solving content...
EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Pitchdeck Reveals Amazon’s Pitch to Get Advertisers on Rufus
Amazon is preparing to roll out Sponsored Ads on its AI‑driven shopping assistant Rufus, moving the feature from open beta to a general‑availability launch. The leaked pitch deck reveals that advertisers will be charged on a cost‑per‑click (CPC) basis and...
New SERP Layouts Reshape Paid and Organic Visibility
The SERP layouts are changing a TON. Aleyda did a tremendous job aggregating some trends & showing how layouts are impacting visibility in all facets from paid, to organic, to AIOs and who are the winners & losers in each....
LinkedIn Page Reach Falls to 3.5% – Use Best Practices
Organic reach for LinkedIn Pages is currently estimated to be 3.5%, down from 5% in 2021. To ensure your nonprofit is reaching your followers, utilize these 10 best practices: https://www.nptechforgood.com/101-best-practices/10-linkedin-best-practices-for-nonprofits/ ✅
Is the Era of ‘Rip and Replace’ over for Martech Stacks?
The 2025 MarTech Replacement Survey shows a marked slowdown in wholesale platform swaps, with SEO tools becoming the most‑replaced applications amid AI‑driven disruption. CRM replacements fell more than 12% year‑over‑year, reaching the lowest levels ever recorded. Artificial intelligence now influences...
The Hidden Tradeoffs in Moving to a Composable Martech Stack
The article examines the hidden costs of swapping a monolithic marketing cloud such as Adobe or Salesforce for a best‑of‑breed composable stack. It highlights ongoing integration overhead, tool sprawl, data‑governance challenges, multi‑vendor management, skill‑gap expenses, and latent execution delays. It...
Stop Over‑Contacting Stalled Accounts: Pause, Then Re‑Engage
For 25 years I believed that persistence wins in B2B sales and marketing. Stay present. Follow up. Don't let a stalled account go cold. Then I read the new research from Labs by Demandbase — built on 24 billion buyer interactions, 429,000...
Reporting Uncertainty Without Losing Credibility via @Sejournal, @Bngsrc
Attribution and analytics reporting are riddled with uncertainty due to tracking gaps, modeling approximations, data pipeline delays, and unpredictable human behavior. The article argues that hiding this uncertainty erodes trust and leads to poor decisions, while transparent communication of ranges,...
Google Chimes In On Teen SEO Wants To Save Family Spain Vacation Rental
Google’s John Mueller weighed in on Reddit after a teenager tried to rescue his family’s Spain vacation‑rental business through DIY SEO. Mueller warned that SEO isn’t a magic fix and that the vacation‑rental market is dominated by large aggregators. He...
Industry in Flux: DealMaker Shines Spotlight on Affiliate Transformation
The 2026 DealMaker conference underscored a rapid, AI‑driven transformation in affiliate marketing, with industry leaders warning that traditional measurement can no longer keep pace. Rakuten Advertising announced a partnership with Similarweb to track affiliate‑generated content inside large language models and...
Why Pre-Sales Determines How Well Revenue Will Scale
Advertising pre‑sales is a hidden bottleneck that determines how quickly and reliably revenue converts. Manual coordination across CRM systems, spreadsheets and email creates a structural tax on revenue capacity, leading to frequent pricing errors and proposal rework. A survey of...
Astrotalk Taps Everyday Uncertainties in New Ad Films
Astrotalk has launched a three‑film digital campaign for the IPL, directed by Nitesh Tiwari, that spotlights everyday dilemmas in relationships, careers and finances. Each short film shows a character turning to the Astrotalk app for a personalized astrological reading to...
Social Media For Advisors: Market Scalably With Evergreen Content
Social media marketing promises low‑cost visibility for financial advisors, but Kitces research shows acquiring a client via these channels averages $16,700 when hard and soft costs are included. The approach is time‑intensive, with only about 10% of posts driving most...
MetaDine Debuts AR‑Powered Guest App for Caffè Milano, Boosting Digital Dining
MetaDine, the hospitality‑tech arm of Strong Interactive, has rolled out a next‑generation guest‑experience app for Miami‑based Caffè Milano. The platform blends augmented‑reality dish previews, live Instagram engagement and WhatsApp reservations into a single browser‑based interface, aiming to lift guest satisfaction...
Google Faces Antitrust Data‑Share Order and Rapid Algorithm Updates, Shaking SEO Playbooks
A U.S. district court ordered Google to share portions of its search index and user‑interaction data with rivals, and the company released a spam update and a core update within 72 hours. The twin shocks are prompting marketers to overhaul...
How Sportsbooks Plan to Turn Bracket-Mania Into Long-Term Betting Interest
Sportsbooks are leveraging March Madness to turn casual bracket participants into long‑term bettors. BetMGM and Fanatics deployed former college athletes—Haley and Hanna Cavinder and gymnast Livvy Dunne—as social‑first influencers to attract younger, especially female, audiences. The campaigns combine digital content,...
Unity Sees Growth in Engine Revenue, Shuts Down IronSource Ad Network in Favour of Vector AI User-Acquisition Platform
Unity announced it will shut down the IronSource advertising and user‑acquisition network on April 30, 2026 and will divest its Supersonic publishing arm. The move is framed as a simplification effort that lets the company double‑down on its AI‑driven ad platform, Vector,...
The Battle for Attention on CTV: Premium Video Platforms Vs. YouTube
Connected TVs will be in 83% of U.S. households by 2027, prompting advertisers to lift CTV spend, with 70% planning a 17% increase in 2026. A VAB‑TVision study of 21 premium video platforms versus YouTube measured hard‑working impressions—co‑viewing, attention, and...
How to Turn the Insights You Already Have Into Better Commercial Outcomes
A global beauty brand shifted a large portion of its media budget to influencer and social channels to win Gen Z, but sales stalled despite higher engagement. The post‑campaign analysis showed the brand ignored existing consumer research that highlighted the continued...
Big Betty Partners Launches the Big Deal Promo for Affiliates
Big Betty Partners, an iGaming affiliate network launched in 2021, introduced the Big Deal Promo running from March 10 to June 1, 2026. The campaign adds a reward layer—Betty Points—on top of standard commissions, letting affiliates earn points for each first‑time deposit. New...
Why Attend Retail MediaX Europe – 14th May 2026
Retail MediaX Europe will be held on May 14, 2026 in London as the flagship event of RetailX’s Spring Commerce Media Festival. The conference gathers retailers, agencies and marketing leaders to explore the latest in retail media, connected TV, OTT...
Fix the Foundation: Marketing’s Signal Problem in the AI Era
Marketers are paying a growing "fragmentation tax" as scattered, low‑quality signals across platforms, channels, and tech stacks erode confidence and waste budget. AI does not solve this problem; instead it magnifies the impact of bad or incomplete data, leading to...
AI Overviews Dominate Half of Health Searches, Slashing Site Traffic
A lot of medical and health-related websites have been experiencing lower visitor rates since Google introduced AI Overviews that appear at the top of search results. Simply, these try to answer the questions users have while doing searches for certain issues. Now,...
No Clear Evidence of Core Update Yet
FYI I just checked many sites; still not seeing any convincing signs of the core update hitting yet.
How Ben & Jerry’s Turned TikTok Fans Into DoorDash Orders
Ben & Jerry’s leveraged DoorDash Offsite Ads, powered by Symbiosis, to turn its highly engaged TikTok audience into same‑day delivery orders. By pairing TikTok’s targeting tools with DoorDash’s first‑party retail data, the brand delivered shoppable ads that linked directly to...
Social Media: Easy Entry, Complex Success for Advisors
Social media is the 4th most-used marketing tactic amongst advisors; given its low barrier of entry and initial distribution costs (and a feeling of, "I've used social media– how hard can it be?"). However, the challenge of 'successful' social media...
Teen SEO Battles Google to Save Family Rental
Teen SEO wants to save his family's Spain vacation rental business and @johnmu from Google chimes in https://t.co/IqOT1YsucQ https://t.co/gvvClayuNp
Google Trials White Background for AI Overview Citations
Google testing using a white background (instead of blue) for AI Overview citations in Google Search https://t.co/JToJQxH25F via @SachuPatel53124 @glenngabe @SERPalerts written by @MordyOberstein https://t.co/OuUx1bFif3
Bing Expands Ads Within Product Carousel Format
Bing tests more ads in its products carousel format https://t.co/vF3JldUz6i found by @SachuPatel53124 covered by @MordyOberstein https://t.co/Z9shE076of
Focus on Who, Not What, for Effective Content
The “who” is more important than “what” when it comes to content by @Timothy_Hughes https://t.co/gZ6eMM3Aoy @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesTips #SalesLeader #Salesforce #Marketing #Leadership #MarketingSuccess #MarketingStrategy https://t.co/3kbRVolR3k