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 the stock down 15% in after‑hours trading. Growth was driven by connected TV, audio‑video, and news products, and the company unveiled AI‑powered agents for media planning in a pilot with Stagwell. Ongoing acquisition talks with Publicis add strategic uncertainty.
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 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The ROI Problem With AI Traffic Nobody Is Measuring Correctly via @Sejournal, @DuaneForrester
The article argues that measuring ROI of AI‑driven traffic with traditional click‑through metrics is flawed because large language models provide answers in place rather than routing users. While AI referral traffic hovers around 1% of total visits, overall organic search...
R&B Fashion Launches an AI Fashion Runway with Takumi AI
R&B Fashion has launched an AI‑powered runway campaign in partnership with Dubai‑based Takumi AI. The “Fashion Walk” video showcases 94 distinct looks across men, women and teen collections, displayed on LED screens in 135 R&B stores. Takumi’s proprietary AI system...
Pubstack’s Q1 2026 State of Programmatic Benchmark Shows UK Publishers Facing Sharp Volume Pressure, While eCPM Holds
Pubstack’s Q1 2026 State of Programmatic Benchmark reveals UK publishers endured an 18.6% YoY revenue decline as impression volumes fell sharply, yet eCPM modestly rose 0.9% to £1.30 (≈$1.65). The report frames the downturn as a volume‑pressure issue rather than a...
Proximity Beyond Audiences Reimagines Performance Metric For TV
Blockgraph and the 4As released a report urging advertisers to replace audience‑first TV buying with proximity‑based targeting. The study shows 93% of shoppers travel less than 20 minutes to a store, and households within a brand’s conversion radius respond far...
Rightmove Unpacks ‘Glow’ to Promote Range of Services
Rightmove has launched “Glow,” an integrated multi‑channel campaign designed to showcase its suite of tools and services beyond the traditional property‑search function. Developed with agency Neverland, the campaign features a brand‑led film shot in Manchester and Liverpool, augmented with AI...
Google’s Quality Threshold Is Quietly Killing Scaled AI Content via @Sejournal, @TaylorDanRW
Google’s evolving Quality Threshold is curbing the long‑term success of large‑scale AI‑generated content. While AI can deliver a quick traffic surge thanks to Google’s freshness boost, the boost fades as the algorithm evaluates deeper quality signals. Sites that flood the...
8 GEO Metrics to Track in 2026
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as the next evolution of search visibility as AI‑driven answers replace traditional click‑throughs. The article outlines eight core GEO metrics—AI citation frequency, Share of Model Voice, answer inclusion rate, entity recognition, sentiment, prompt coverage,...
Digital Video Spend Surges Past $80 Billion, Leaving Linear Behind
The Interactive Advertising Bureau reports U.S. digital video ad spend will surpass $80 billion in 2026, outpacing traditional linear television for the first time. Growth is driven by programmatic buying, higher CPMs on streaming platforms, and advertisers’ shift toward audience‑centric formats....
Magnite Says It’s Not Afraid Of The Agentic Era – Or Of Google
Magnite reported first‑quarter revenue of $164.4 million, up 6% year‑over‑year, driven primarily by CTV and an 80% surge in March Madness ad spend. Its DV+ exchange posted a 5% decline, though mobile and app revenue grew 8%. The company is embedding AI...
Kargo Announces Integration with ChatGPT, Unlocking Access to Emerging AI-Native Advertising Opportunities
Kargo has become an OpenAI technology partner, integrating its adtech platform with ChatGPT to deliver AI‑native advertising formats. The move lets brands place adaptive, localized creative directly within conversational AI experiences, extending Kargo’s Creative Science® engine to this emerging surface....
Is Trend-Jacking Actually Driving Results, Or Just Making Brands Look Late?
Brands are increasingly turning to TikTok trendjacking to ride viral moments and align with youth culture, but the tactic’s effectiveness hinges on speed and authenticity. Early adopters that partner with creators see amplified reach and higher engagement, while late‑comers risk...
How To Leverage AI Ad Placements And Are They Worth It? – Ask A PPC via @Sejournal, @Navahf
Advertisers can access AI ad inventory either by buying directly on AI‑first platforms or by integrating AI surfaces into existing campaign types such as Performance Max. Metrics for these placements differ from classic search ads, with internal Microsoft data showing...
Amazon, LinkedIn Help Advertisers Reach Professionals via CTV Ads
Amazon Ads and LinkedIn have launched a collaboration that integrates LinkedIn’s first‑party audience data into Amazon’s demand‑side platform for connected‑TV inventory. Through Microsoft’s Monetize SSP, advertisers on Amazon DSP can now target LinkedIn’s 1 billion‑plus members by job title, industry and...
Most Travel Influencers Failing to Disclose Paid-For Posts
An Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigation of 531 Instagram and TikTok posts found that only 20% of travel influencer ads were properly disclosed, with 69% offering no indication they were paid content. The probe, prompted by the ASA’s 2024 Influencer...
5 Content Marketing Ideas for June 2026
June 2026 presents a rich tapestry of cultural and seasonal moments that ecommerce marketers can turn into high‑impact content. The article outlines five ideas: capitalizing on the North American FIFA World Cup, the lucrative wedding season, historic anniversaries such as...
Google Ads AI Max Content & Titles Exclusions On Account Level Coming
Google announced that its AI‑driven campaign type, Ads AI Max, will gain account‑level exclusions for content and titles later this year, likely within six months. The new setting lets advertisers block any undesired page elements across all campaigns, extending the platform’s...
Five Guys UK Hires Spin as Retained Social Agency
Five Guys UK has appointed Spin as its retained social media agency, bypassing the traditional pitch process. The decision was made directly by the burger chain’s UK marketing team, signaling confidence in Spin’s existing portfolio. Spin will now handle both...
InMobi Acquires MobileAction to Strengthen iOS Advertising Business
InMobi announced the acquisition of MobileAction, an AI‑powered iOS app growth and analytics platform, to bolster its advertising capabilities across the iOS ecosystem. While the purchase price was not disclosed, the deal adds MobileAction’s extensive data set—covering more than 90 million...
Demandbase Launches Premier+ Partner Tier, Names Marketbridge Inaugural Partner
Demandbase unveiled a Premier+ Service Delivery Partner tier, appointing Marketbridge as its first certified partner. The tier bundles onboarding, strategy, analytics and managed services to help B2B firms operationalize AI insights. Marketbridge brings a decade of joint experience and deep...
Digital Marketing Optimization: 10 Best Strategies to Increase Marketing ROI
The article outlines a system‑first approach to digital‑marketing optimization, presenting ten actionable strategies that shift focus from isolated campaigns to a unified, data‑driven process. It emphasizes shared KPIs, continuous testing programs, and the integration of first‑party data to connect every...
AI SEO Punishes Lazy Marketing Strategies by Brick Marketing
Brick Marketing warns that AI‑driven SEO is exposing lazy, siloed marketing tactics. The article explains that AI search pulls brand signals from a wide array of online sources—social media, directories, press releases, and more—making a website just one piece of...
AI SEO Punishes Lazy Marketing Strategies by Brick Marketing
Brick Marketing warns that AI‑driven SEO is reshaping digital marketing by rewarding brands with a cohesive, cross‑channel presence. Traditional tactics that focus solely on website optimization are losing ground as AI pulls data from social media, directories, press releases, and...
Snap Launches Promoted Places, Transforming the Snap Map Into Real-World Discovery
Snap Inc. introduced Promoted Places, a new ad product that embeds sponsored locations directly into the Snap Map. The feature debuted in Saudi Arabia, where brands like Almarai and Starbucks used it in Ramadan campaigns to drive in‑store visits. Promoted...
Amazon Bets AI Can Rewrite the Upfront Playbook in a Fragmented TV Market
Amazon is revamping its upfront pitch by marrying premium streaming content with AI‑driven ad technology. The company’s DSP now reaches roughly 90% of U.S. households through an authenticated graph and has added LinkedIn’s CTV inventory, tapping over a billion first‑party...
Yahoo Uses Scout AI Campaign to Focus on Trust in AI Search
Yahoo launched its first ad campaign for Scout, the company’s AI‑powered search assistant, emphasizing source transparency to build trust. Scout, built on Anthropic’s Claude and Microsoft’s Grounding with Bing, taps Yahoo’s vast data assets—including 500 million user profiles and a billion‑entity...
Emerging Channels, Cleaner Pipes: Assembly’s Tom Cogan on Where MENA Programmatic Is Heading
Tom Cogan, programmatic associate director at Assembly Global, says MENA advertisers must broaden beyond Google and Meta by embracing emerging channels such as connected TV, digital audio, programmatic DOOH and AI‑driven search. He points out that less than 10% of...