IAS LAUNCHES IAS TOTAL TV SOLUTIONS GIVING MARKETERS ‘LINEAR-LIKE’ TRANSPARENCY FOR CONNECTED TV
Integral Ad Science (IAS) unveiled IAS Total TV, a suite that brings linear‑TV‑style transparency to the fragmented Connected TV (CTV) ecosystem. The platform delivers real‑time, show‑level insights across major streaming services such as Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Prime Video, while also verifying media quality and invalid traffic. By unifying content, quality and supply‑path data in the IAS Signal UI, marketers can confirm that premium spend lands in brand‑safe environments. IAS plans to extend the solution globally and add pre‑bid optimization and incrementality measurement.
Townsquare and Columbus’ NABCO Ignite Digital Ad Partnership
Townsquare Media’s Ignite division announced a digital‑advertising partnership with North American Broadcasting Company (NABCO) in Columbus, Ohio, marking its latest addition to the Ignite Media Partnerships program launched in 2024. The deal grants NABCO white‑label access to Townsquare’s proprietary programmatic...
Warehouse-Native CDPs vs Standalone Platforms Explained
The article compares warehouse‑native CDPs, which run on Snowflake or BigQuery, with traditional standalone platforms such as Tealium and BlueConic. It highlights how native solutions centralize data, lower duplication, and enable deep customization, while standalone tools offer pre‑built activation features...
Kriti Sanon Turns ‘SPF Police’ in Hyphen’s New Ad
Hyphen launched a new campaign featuring actress‑entrepreneur Kriti Sanon as the whimsical “SPF Police,” reinforcing sunscreen as a daily habit. The short film shows Sanon stopping a gym‑goer from leaving without sunscreen, while Blinkit appears to deliver the product instantly...
TikTok Campaign Shows How Brands Turn Reach Into Real Traffic
A TikTok campaign for pet‑care franchise Camp Bow Wow, run with Scorpion, proved that native, lo‑fi creative paired with interest‑based targeting can drive measurable traffic at scale. The effort generated 23,000 landing‑page views at $2.01 each, over 50,000 clicks at...
Even PayPal Ads Has Its Own ID Now
PayPal announced the PayPal Ads ID, an omnichannel identifier built on its and Venmo’s credit‑card‑linked customer base. Unlike cookie‑based graphs, the ID is free for any data or ad‑tech vendor that maintains a commercial relationship with PayPal Ads and can...
Albertsons Media Collective Brings Retail Signals to YouTube with Google’s Commerce Media Suite.
Google’s Commerce Media Suite now integrates Albertsons Media Collective’s first‑party shopper data into YouTube and Display & Video 360. The partnership lets brands reach high‑intent Albertsons customers across YouTube and premium publisher inventory while receiving SKU‑level sales attribution. Early adopters such as Keurig Dr Pepper...
Stagwell Builds TV Ad Platform with FreeWheel
Stagwell has teamed with Comcast-owned FreeWheel to create a unified TV advertising infrastructure that spans connected TV, linear broadcast and live sports. The deal integrates FreeWheel’s Curation Hub and Buyer Cloud into Stagwell’s media acquisition layer, powering the new Stagwell...
One Year Ago, Unilever CEO Swore to Hire ‘20x More Influencers.’ Did It Deliver on That Promise?
A year after CEO Fernando Fernandez pledged to hire 20 times more influencers, Unilever has expanded its creator network from roughly 10,000 to 300,000, exceeding the target by a factor of 30. The company now works with 17,000 influencers in India...
Customers Want Personalized Marketing. Why Can’t Most Brands Deliver? By Adobe
Adobe’s 2025‑2026 AI and Digital Trends reports reveal a gap: while 71% of consumers expect personalized, seamless experiences, fewer than half of brands consistently deliver. The root cause is fragmented customer data that hinders real‑time insight sharing across channels. Adobe...
Cult Beauty Pulls Adverts From GB News Following Social Media Pressure
Cult Beauty, the THG‑owned online beauty retailer, has removed its advertising from the UK news channel GB News after a social‑media backlash driven by activist group Stop Funding Hate. The campaign urged the retailer to stop funding a channel described as...
Brands Can Now Deploy Their Own Agents Inside Publisher Chatbots
Dappier unveiled Sponsored Conversations, a new ad format that inserts brand‑specific AI agents into publisher chatbots. The agents engage users in real time, pulling from the site’s own content and, for brands like Miku, driving qualified leads with roughly 50 %...
SaaS AI Search Optimization: The 8-Step Playbook
Buyers now start SaaS research in AI search, asking multi‑part questions about pricing, integrations, and compliance. If a SaaS brand is missing or mis‑represented in AI answers, it loses early visibility. The guide offers an eight‑step playbook—auditing AI citations, structuring...
Cumulus’ Bob Walker Releases AI Media Planning Guide for Radio
Cumulus Media Operations President Bob Walker released an AI media‑planning guide aimed at local advertisers and radio sales teams. The playbook outlines five best‑practice prompts for large language models such as ChatGPT, emphasizing precise questioning, source verification, and platform awareness....
The End Of SEO? How AI Is Reshaping Brand Discovery On The Web
AI-powered generative search engines are displacing traditional SEO, ushering in a new discipline dubbed Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimisation. Brands now compete to be recalled by large language models rather than ranked on keyword lists, as AI...
Guide to eBay Video Ads Promoted Listings
eBay has launched video ads for Promoted Listings using its priority strategy, currently in beta. Sellers can attach a 5‑60 second video that autoplays in eligible placements, with no change to cost‑per‑click pricing. The new format adds video‑specific metrics such...
Goodway Group and Optable Partner to Feed AI Agents Cleaner Data
Optable has partnered with Goodway Group to layer Anthropic Claude‑powered AI agents on its data clean‑room platform, unifying first‑party, third‑party and campaign data. The rollout currently reaches about 70 of Goodway’s 350 employees, primarily in media planning and analytics, to...
How to Create Content AI Can’t Replicate
Kate Rourke warns that marketers risk disappearing into a sea of AI‑generated sameness unless they prioritize authentic, human‑centric briefs. She notes that most briefs now explicitly request real people and raw, unfiltered moments, because audiences crave unpredictable emotion. By anchoring...
News UK Turns The Times’ First-Party Data Into Synthetic Audiences for Advertisers
News UK has launched "Times ExplorAItion," a synthetic‑audience tool that converts The Times' first‑party subscriber data into AI‑generated audience models for advertisers. Powered by Electric Twin, the platform creates privacy‑safe, persona‑level segments that can be surveyed and tested in seconds,...
Media Buying Briefing: Agencies Turn Creators Into Test Labs for Campaigns and Product Innovation
Agencies such as Horizon Media are turning creators into live test labs, using them to pressure‑test and even shape campaign concepts and product features. SharkNinja’s partnership with Blue Hour Studios exemplifies this approach, where creator feedback informs launch strategy and...
Marketers Join OpenAI’s Ad Pilot, Nudged by FOMO
OpenAI launched a paid‑ads pilot inside ChatGPT in early February, attracting brands such as Williams‑Sonoma, Target, The Knot Worldwide, DSW and BEHR. Within six weeks the program generated an estimated $100 million annualized revenue, while ad prices fell from $60 to...
Consumer Brands Take the Leap Into Influencer Marketing
Consumer brands are moving influencer marketing from a side project to a core media channel. Vaseline’s "Vaseline Verified" effort teamed with 450 creators, racking up hundreds of millions of views and a sales lift, while the Dettol #HandWashChallenge in India...
Streaming Services Give TV Adverts a New Lease of Life
Streaming giants Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video have introduced ad‑supported subscription tiers, reviving TV‑style advertising on their platforms. While linear TV remains pressured, TV ads still account for 85% of video ad viewership, and ad‑supported streaming revenue is accelerating,...
Marketers Tackle Risks and Opportunities on Social Media
Social media remains essential for advertisers, but recent moderation rollbacks at Meta and X have heightened brand‑safety risks. Marketers are feeling pressure from geopolitical instability and inflation to prove return on ad spend, prompting a shift toward tighter campaign execution....
How Do Digital Marketing Agencies Help Home Maintenance Businesses Generate Leads and Increase Bookings?
Home maintenance firms—plumbers, electricians, handymen—are missing leads because they lack a robust online presence. Digital marketing agencies fill that gap by deploying local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization, paid search, and social media tactics that drive measurable enquiries and bookings....
Adobe (ADBE) Announces Upgrades to GenStudio
Adobe Inc. announced major upgrades to its AI-driven GenStudio platform, introducing an agentic content supply chain that automates planning, reviews, and delivery for over 20,000 brands. New features include brand intelligence, workflow‑optimization agents, and creative production automation designed to eliminate...
TikTok Lets Users Add Relevant Keywords to Metadata
TikTok introduced a metadata tool that lets creators edit the keywords attached to their videos. The interface displays automatically generated tags based on popular searches, and creators can block irrelevant terms or suggest more accurate ones. TikTok retains final oversight...
Instagram Brings Simplified AI Video to Edits
Instagram has added generative AI video creation to its Edits feature, allowing users to produce short clips from text prompts, photos or existing videos without recording. The tool is accessed via the plus icon and AI option within the editing...
Instagram Improves Insights UI, Adds New Metrics
Instagram rolled out a refreshed Insights interface that places key performance metrics directly on the home screen. New tabs let creators quickly view engagement activity, audience demographics, share and skip‑rate percentages, and a views‑over‑time chart for posts and Reels. The...
Optimove Insights: Nearly Half of Mother's Day Shoppers Use AI Tools, and 64% Are Open to Buying From a Brand...
Optimove’s 2026 Mother’s Day Shopping Report finds that 49% of U.S. shoppers use AI tools to discover gift ideas, while 64% are open to buying from a brand they have never tried. The study of 648 consumers with incomes above...
The Fully Non-Human Web: No One Builds The Page, No One Visits It via @Sejournal, @Slobodanmanic
In January 2026 Google secured patent US12536233B1, enabling it to score landing pages on conversion, bounce and design quality and automatically replace under‑performing pages with AI‑generated, hyper‑personalized versions. Simultaneously, AI agents are now handling the majority of web interactions, with...
AI Overview CTR Fell 61%, But Clicks Didn’t Collapse via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Seer Interactive’s analysis of 5.47 million queries across 53 brands shows AI Overview click‑through rates (CTR) fell 61% from Q3 to Q4, driven by a surge in impressions rather than a collapse in clicks. September’s 2.52% CTR dropped to 1.21% in...
Future of Recruitment: Moving Beyond First Impressions to Build Stronger Teams
Performance marketers are hitting diminishing returns with AI‑generated video because the initial frame often lacks the visual rigor needed for stable motion. Stuart Gentle labels this the "First‑Frame Fallacy," arguing that motion models like Nano Banana Pro simply amplify flaws...
Google Pushes “Bounce Clicks” Explanation For AI Overview Traffic Loss via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google Search head Liz Reid told Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast that AI Overviews are reducing what she calls “bounce clicks,” low‑value visits that quickly return to search. She argues the lost clicks are offset by higher query volume and stable...
Brands, Think You’ve Missed Out on the London Marathon? Think Again
Brands often assume that missing official London Marathon sponsorship means losing the marketing hook, but the event offers a broader ecosystem for engagement. Ambush tactics—such as supporting run clubs, pre‑race shake‑out runs, and community chats—allow non‑sponsors to embed themselves in...
Meet The People Launches MTP Intelligence, A Proprietary AI-Enabled Platform Unifying Creative, Media and Commerce
Meet The People (MTP) has launched MTP Intelligence, an AI‑enabled platform that merges creative, media, commerce and analytics into a single workflow environment. Powered by the group’s RADaR Analytics unit, the system connects to clients’ existing tech stacks, eliminating traditional...
ChannelSight Launches the ChannelSight.AI Platform to Help Brands Win the Race for AI-Driven Discoverability
ChannelSight unveiled ChannelSight.AI, a platform that audits and optimises how brands appear in AI‑driven recommendation engines such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. The tool scores product discoverability, delivers actionable fixes and quantifies the associated revenue impact. Built on 13 years...
5 Ways to Get Your New Brand Into AI Search Results
The article outlines five practical steps for new brands to appear in generative‑AI search results such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. It notes that 64% of consumers now use AI tools to discover products, with 34% turning to ChatGPT first,...
Taboola Strengthens Agentic Across Open Web Advertising
Taboola launched Realize+, a rebuilt, agentic AI advertising platform that automates campaign strategy, budget allocation and creative generation. The system debuted with an AI‑generated YouTube ad and introduces tools like the Budget Allocator and Element Generator to shift spend in...
Beyond The Social Silo: Navigating Meta's New Location Fees
Meta will start billing advertisers a 2%‑5% digital services tax (DST) fee in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Austria and Turkey beginning July 1. The charge is added on top of ad spend, shifting a cost Meta previously absorbed onto marketers....
Advertising As A Service: The New Agency Compensation Model?
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) announced the retirement of CEO Bob Liodice and EVP Bill Duggan, prompting reflection on the industry’s compensation models. The author contrasts traditional billable‑hour and value‑based pricing with the emerging "Agency as a Service" (AaaS)...
Google AI Overviews CTR Shows Early Signs of Recovery: Study
Google’s AI Overviews saw click‑through rates (CTR) bottom at 1.3% in December 2025, then rebound to 2.4% by February 2026 – an 85% rise in two months, according to Seer Interactive. Pages cited within an AI Overview still attract more...
Google Ads Demand Gen Campaigns Hit by Review Delays
Google Ads is experiencing unusually long review times for Demand Gen campaigns, with some ads remaining in "in review" status for more than seven days. The delays appear isolated to Demand Gen, as Search and Performance Max campaigns continue to...
YouTube on Mobile Makes Livestream Ads Way Less Annoying, but There's a Caveat
YouTube is rolling out side‑by‑side livestream ads on mobile after testing them on desktop and TV. The new format places a video ad in the lower half of the screen while the livestream remains visible above, eliminating visual gaps during...
TikTok Is Testing an AI 'Remix' Feature, but You Can Opt Out
TikTok is piloting an AI "Remix" tool that lets viewers generate custom images from a creator's video using generative AI. The feature is currently experimental and limited to a small group of users, with no guaranteed full rollout. Creators can...
Attention, Please: TVision Deal Enhances Connected TV Measurement
xpln.ai has entered a strategic partnership with TVision to integrate the latter's person‑level attention data into its Connected TV (CTV) modeling platform. The collaboration transforms granular, second‑by‑second viewer engagement signals into scalable, predictive models that can be applied across linear...
Floyi Publishes Three-Pillar Topical Authority Audit for SEO and AI Search Teams
Floyi launched a free Three‑Pillar Topical Authority Audit that lets SEO teams evaluate Content, Market, and AI authority in just 15 minutes. The 21‑question scorecard assigns a 0‑14 score to each pillar and a combined 0‑42 rating, pinpointing the weakest...
Automate the Busywork: 8 SEO Tasks You Shouldn’t Do Manually
Search Engine Land outlines eight SEO tasks that can be automated with AI, from content‑calendar generation to metadata creation. By leveraging custom GPT prompts and spreadsheet formulas, marketers can cut repetitive work by minutes to hours per item. The article...
HP Quietly Launched a Streaming App to Grow Its Advertising Ambitions
HP has quietly launched HP TV+, a free ad‑supported streaming app for U.S. laptop users, extending its HP Media Network ad inventory. The service aggregates content from publishers such as USA Today, PBS, and the Tennis Channel and is available...
Omnicom Advertising, Google Launch AI-Powered Creative Intelligence System in Middle East
Omnicom Advertising and Google have launched an AI‑powered creative intelligence platform in the Middle East, pairing Google’s ABCD video‑performance framework with Omnicom’s proprietary Brave Bot. The system was first piloted with telecom operator du, where it evaluated ten YouTube video assets...