
Google will disable Customer Match uploads via the Ads API for developers who have not used the feature in the past 180 days, effective April 1, 2026. Affected accounts will receive errors and must shift to the newer Data Manager API. The Data Manager API provides unified data ingestion with stronger security, including confidential matching and enhanced encryption. All other Ads API capabilities continue unchanged.

Google has launched its Video Reach Campaign (VRC) Non‑Skip ads globally, targeting connected‑TV screens, while YouTube mobile users are encountering persistent overlay ads that cannot be dismissed. The ads stay visible despite repeated taps on “Dismiss,” prompting Reddit complaints and...

Google Ads now labels all retargeting lists as “Your data segments,” covering website visitors, app users, Customer Match, and content engagers. These lists not only power classic retargeting but also feed signals to Smart Bidding and Optimized Targeting across Search,...

Vudoo has partnered with PubMatic to embed its commerce‑media technology into PubMatic’s AI‑powered programmatic platform, enabling shoppable ad experiences across verified inventory. The integration lets agencies and brands activate commerce media with a single deal ID, supporting display, video and...
Marketers are discovering that AI can automate data‑heavy tasks, but it cannot set strategy or build trust. The most successful teams pair AI’s speed with human judgment, using automation to execute a clear, human‑crafted vision. Without human direction, AI‑driven campaigns...
Creator‑led companies like Donut Media are reshaping digital video advertising by building an integrated, 360‑degree ad stack that spans long‑form YouTube, short‑form social, podcasts and real‑world activations. The firm sells custom‑branded segments, 45‑ to 60‑second host‑read pre‑rolls and official partnership...
London‑based creator agency NewGen has signed Twitch star xQc to a social publishing services agreement, brokered with Evolved Agency. The partnership will repurpose xQc’s live streams and YouTube videos for distribution on additional platforms, aiming to broaden his audience and...

Enterprise SEO is failing not because of tactics but due to downstream operating models that treat SEO as a post‑launch audit. Most large firms place SEO inside marketing, relegating it to ticket‑driven fixes after product, content, and development decisions are...

OpenAI unveiled GPT‑5.3 Instant, promising more accurate, context‑rich answers while deliberately showing fewer web links. The model blends its internal knowledge with live web data, aiming to reduce dead‑ends and overly declarative phrasing. By surfacing the most relevant information up front,...

Google has released a new help document titled “Things to know about Google’s web crawling,” outlining nine key points about how its crawlers operate. The guide explains the existence of multiple specialized crawlers, repeat and frequent crawling, automatic optimization, and...

Google has confirmed that its Discover feed is now showing a higher volume of social media posts, including content from Instagram, TikTok, X and other platforms. The change was announced by John Mueller at the Google Search Essentials for News...
Ad agencies such as Havas, Broadhead and Supergood are rapidly creating generative engine optimization (GEO) tools by "vibe‑coding" on top of large language models, often within a single work session. Havas’ Brand Insights AI, built with Anthropic’s Claude Code and Replit,...
The article argues that SEO should prioritize topics over isolated keywords, leveraging semantic search and AI‑driven vector embeddings. It introduces a three‑tier framework—clearly defined, ambiguous, and expansive topics—to match the scale of a brand’s content universe. Practical steps include auditing...

Yoast SEO 27.1 introduces a Schema Aggregation feature that creates a single "schemamap" endpoint delivering the entire site’s schema.org data in one response. The endpoint deduplicates entities, preserves relationships such as author‑to‑article, and respects existing privacy settings. Responses are cached...

Bupa UK awarded its marketing and advertising account to start‑up agency Ace of Hearts after a competitive pitch. The insurer reported a 16% revenue increase to £16.9 bn and a 59% jump in underlying profit to £914 m, driven by strong private‑health...

FreeWheel’s Voice of the Viewer study shows that 85% of European streaming users watch ad‑supported tiers, with 83% satisfied overall. Content choice drives satisfaction, cited by 73% of respondents, while 47% exclusively use ad‑supported plans and 49% deliberately chose them....
Retailers such as Disney Store, ASOS, Zara and others are shifting to micro‑influencers for campaigns. These creators have modest followings but are deeply embedded in niche communities, delivering higher engagement and authentic storytelling. Agencies like Coolr and Iris note that...

The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned British Gas and Centrica Hive ads that promoted green‑energy savings, finding the claims misleading and insufficiently substantiated. British Gas advertised up to £546 savings from a heat‑pump tariff, yet ASA’s model showed...

IAB Europe released its 2026 State of Readiness – Sustainability in Digital Advertising report, the fourth edition covering both environmental and social dimensions. The study’s double‑materiality analysis finds social issues such as privacy and media plurality outweigh environmental impacts. AI...

Vodafone Egypt launched a culturally focused Ramadan campaign to counteract the growing fragmentation of family time caused by hectic work schedules and digital overload. The 360‑degree rollout combined TV, digital, OOH, radio, influencer collaborations and a new Bluetooth‑based "Nearby" feature...

Creator talent agencies are abandoning the legacy deal‑brokering model in favor of multi‑platform operations that place creators at the core. Companies like Shorthand Studios and Night Media have demonstrated rapid audience growth and secured sizable funding, such as Night Media’s...
X announced a revision to its creator revenue‑share program to curb AI‑generated deepfakes about the Iran war. Users posting AI‑created videos of the conflict without a disclosure will be suspended from revenue sharing for 90 days, with permanent bans for...
X reported a 15% decline in EU active users, dropping from 76 million in the first half of 2025 to 64.8 million in the second half. The dip appears despite Elon Musk’s public assertions of record‑high global engagement. Under the EU Digital...
Yeti Boo, an AI‑generated Bigfoot persona, exploded on TikTok, reaching over 439,000 followers and catching the eye of brands. KANE Footwear signed the character as an “AI athlete” to promote its Revive AC recovery shoe, pairing the mascot’s off‑beat wilderness...
Meta is piloting a shopping research feature inside its Meta AI chatbot for U.S. users. The tool returns a carousel of product images with brand, price, and website details, plus brief recommendation bullet points. The move mirrors similar experiments by...
Koah, a native monetization platform for generative AI, announced a $20.5 million Series A round. The round was led by Theory Ventures, with Tomasz Tunguz joining the board. The funding builds on a $5 million seed round raised in September 2025 and signals confidence in...

Audacy’s new "State of Audio: Sports Fandom" report reveals that the most avid sports fans are younger, more diverse, and increasingly reachable through audio channels. The study shows a 40% lift in purchase and usage among the fandom cohort when...

Influencer marketing in 2025 is being reshaped by AI-driven tools that automate influencer discovery, content creation, and performance analytics. Brands confront tighter budgets and heightened demand for measurable ROI, prompting a shift toward performance‑based contracts. Despite technological advances, human‑centric creativity...

The GrowthRise Mastermind call highlighted three core growth levers for B2B firms: optimizing outbound email cadence, leveraging Meta’s ad platform over LinkedIn, and tightening pixel event tracking. Email sequences spaced every three to four days lifted open rates to 21%...

The article outlines twelve practical steps for boosting pay‑per‑click (PPC) return on investment through automated bidding. It stresses defining a clear success metric, fixing conversion tracking, and selecting the smart‑bidding mode that aligns with business goals. Campaign segmentation by intent...
Backyard Ventures, an Austin‑based media partnership agency with over 200 clients, is hiring a Sales Planner for its newsletter vertical. The role blends advertising operations, campaign reporting, client management, and introductory sales tasks, allocating roughly 80 % of time to execution...

Seedtag announced the appointment of Brendan McCarthy as Chief Marketing & Communications Officer. McCarthy, former CMO of Criteo, brings over 20 years of marketing leadership at Fortune 500 firms. He will oversee global marketing, brand, demand generation, and communications to...
Digital‑wallet platforms from Apple and Google are evolving beyond simple payments, with startups like Badge turning them into interactive commerce channels. Badge’s infrastructure lets brands push real‑time, location‑aware offers and loyalty updates directly to a consumer’s wallet. The San‑Francisco‑based company...

OnSocial repositions influencer marketing as a social‑data problem, offering a toolkit that includes creator discovery, analytics, sponsored‑post tracking, audience overlap analysis, and an always‑on API. The platform targets agencies and brands that need defensible, data‑driven creator selections rather than an...

IDe aS unveiled a major upgrade to its hospitality marketing platform, Spotlight, adding a predictive "Potential to Influence" score that quantifies how responsive a market segment is to price and promotional changes. The solution, built on IDeaS' forecasting analytics, will...

Builderius launched an experimental integration that connects Anthropic’s Claude AI to live WordPress projects via the Model Context Protocol. The AI can read the full JSON‑based template, CSS, GraphQL schema and element tree, then apply structural edits, style changes, and...

Kochava announced the expansion of its Certified Partners Program, adding LG Ad Solutions, InMobi, Digital Turbine, Jampp, Adikteev and AppNext to its roster of vetted integrations. The certification requires strict adherence to integration best practices, traffic health standards and completion...

Meta is overhauling its ad measurement framework by restricting click‑through attribution to link clicks only, while moving likes, shares, saves and similar actions into a newly named “engage‑through attribution.” The update also halves the video engaged‑view window from ten to...
Google clarified image‑thumbnail selection for Search and Discover, confirming it relies on both schema.org markup and the og:image tag. The AI Mode sidebar was found to drop referrer data, a bug the Search team is investigating. Knowledge panels are being...

TapClicks announced two new Instant‑On connectors—AudioGO for streaming audio and Instacart Ads for retail media—expanding its AI‑powered Smart Marketing Cloud. The additions let agencies and brands pull audio and grocery‑shopping campaign data into a single platform for unified reporting and...
QYOU Media has launched QYOU Amplify, a performance‑media unit that combines creator strategy, paid media buying, advanced targeting and real‑time analytics to scale influencer campaigns. The new unit aims to identify high‑performing content early and reallocate spend instantly, treating creator...

Dstillery unveiled its DS-1 agentic advertising platform, partnering with CTV technology firm Keynes and major DSP The Trade Desk. The platform connects directly to Keynes’ Slack workspace via the Model Context Protocol, compressing audience discovery and custom modeling from days...

Comic Relief has launched a new Red Nose Day livestream campaign featuring artist Mr Doodle, produced by Amazon Ads' Brand Innovation Lab. The initiative streams on Twitch, showcasing Mr Doodle’s live drawing while integrating a Red Nose Day store app...

Cendyn has added Meta Hotel Ads to its Digital Marketing Platform, enabling hotels to run AI‑driven, real‑time ads on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network. The ads display live pricing and availability, targeting high‑intent travelers based on behavior. Integrated with...

Brick Marketing unveiled a structured system that unites traditional SEO, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for AI‑driven search, content marketing, and coordinated social media promotion. The framework aims to keep brands visible in classic search while also positioning them within AI‑generated...

YouTube Shopping has expanded in 2026 to let brands turn any video—Shorts, long‑form, or Live—into a direct storefront. By linking a product catalog through Google Merchant Center, brands can tag SKUs within videos, letting viewers purchase without leaving the platform....
Dstillery unveiled DS‑1, an agentic AI interface that lets advertisers build and refine custom audience segments in minutes instead of days, integrating directly with Slack, Teams, browsers and pushing audiences to The Trade Desk. The tool, built on the Model...
Dstillery unveiled DS-1, an agentic AI interface that lets advertisers create and refine custom audience segments in minutes instead of days. Built on the Model Context Protocol, DS-1 integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, browsers and pushes audiences directly to The...

Instagram’s algorithm now prioritizes Sends per Reach (SPR), measuring how often posts are privately shared via DM relative to their reach. Adam Mosseri confirmed SPR as a key ranking signal, shifting focus from likes and saves to intentional private sharing....
Magellan AI has licensed Nielsen’s proprietary DMA® data, adding local‑market measurement to its podcast attribution platform. The integration maps podcast performance onto Nielsen’s 210 standardized U.S. media markets, enabling advertisers to evaluate impact at the geographic level. This capability aligns...