Current TikTok Trends to Try in 2026
TikTok now serves as the primary discovery engine for 61% of its users, a rate 1.5 × higher than other platforms. The 2026 trend forecast reframes trends as early signals of shifting consumer behavior, emphasizing real‑process videos, search‑led answer content, comment‑driven remixes, and proof‑before‑purchase creator reviews. Brands that move quickly, adapt formats to their voice, and measure intent‑based outcomes can turn fleeting spikes into measurable awareness, consideration, and sales. Effective social‑listening and pattern‑based analytics are essential to differentiate noise from actionable signals.
AI Bot Traffic Surged 300%, Hitting Publishers Hardest: Report
Akamai’s latest report reveals AI‑bot traffic surged 300 % in 2025, with publishers hit hardest. Users increasingly rely on AI chat interfaces, generating zero‑click experiences that divert traffic from organic search. The shift has slashed pageviews, raised infrastructure costs, and weakened...
Leveraging Google Ads for Local Businesses: Tactics to Dominate Your Market
Local businesses need a different Google Ads strategy than national brands because search intent is immediate and budgets are tight. The article outlines six tactical levers—geo‑bid layering, hyper‑local RLSA structures, call‑only ad scheduling with conversion thresholds, asset‑level creative pruning, time‑based...
“The Rate of Change Is Exponential”: Nick Fletcher on Consumer Journeys, Tracking and Industry Convergence
Nick Fletcher, SVP EMEA at Rakuten Advertising, warned that the pace of change in digital marketing is now exponential, driven by AI‑powered consumer tools and fragmented journeys. Marketers are struggling with unclear signals as traditional deterministic tracking falters, prompting a...
Google Tests Swipeable Location Carousel in Search Ads
Google is piloting a swipeable carousel within search ads that consolidates multiple business locations into a single, scrollable unit. The carousel displays key details such as ratings and proximity, letting users swipe through options without leaving the results page. Early...
Google Launches Developer Hub for Ads and Measurement Tools
Google unveiled an Advertising and Measurement Developers Hub, a single portal that aggregates documentation, tools, and support for its ad‑tech suite. The hub brings together resources for the Google Ads API, Google Analytics, AdMob, and Google Ad Manager, organized by...
Google Rolls Out Onboarding Guide for Universal Commerce Protocol
Google has released an onboarding guide for its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) within Merchant Center, enabling merchants to embed checkout directly into AI‑driven search experiences like Gemini. The guide walks merchants through technical integration, interest‑form submission, and sandbox testing before...
Meta Simplifies Pixel Setup with Official Google Tag Manager Template
Meta Platforms introduced an official Google Tag Manager (GTM) template for the Meta Pixel, eliminating the need for third‑party workarounds. The template leverages existing GA4 dataLayer events and automatically maps key e‑commerce actions, streamlining cross‑platform tracking. By reducing duplicate tagging...
Is Adobe Bringing AI-Driven Automation to Marketo?
Adobe is expected to announce a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Marketo Engage at its upcoming Summit in Las Vegas. An MCP server acts as a bridge between AI tools and data, allowing marketers to issue natural‑language prompts to create...
Quantilope Launches ‘Ad Optimizer’: Leveraging AI to Bridge the Gap Between Creative Intuition and Brand Strategy
Quantilope has introduced Ad Optimizer, an AI‑driven research tool that evaluates advertising creatives frame‑by‑frame against Category Entry Points. The platform analyzes visual and audio elements, delivering actionable recommendations and intuitive dashboards within hours. By integrating this capability into its Consumer...
Refining an Audience Can Sometimes Lead to Decreased ROI. Audience Expansion Can Help to Mitigate the Problem
Marketers often assume that tightening audience criteria improves lead‑generation performance, but excessive refinement inflates cost‑per‑lead and erodes long‑term ROI. Charlie Swift argues that the real lever is expanding to like‑minded, adjacent audiences while anchoring decisions to dollar‑based outcomes rather than...
Well Spirit Collective Bets That Trust Outlasts Scale in the Wellness Creator Market
Well Spirit Collective, a women‑owned, BIPOC‑led Los Angeles agency, prioritizes selective partnerships over volume, believing trust outweighs scale in the wellness creator market. COO Haley Oberon, who joined in 2021, has grown the firm by refusing misaligned deals, even when...
Publicis, Microsoft Partner On Agentic Marketing
Microsoft and Publicis Groupe have deepened their alliance to create a full‑stack marketing platform that unites legacy software, AI agents and identity‑based data. Leveraging Microsoft Azure AI, Office 365 and Copilot tools, the solution will run on Publicis’ cloud‑native Slingshot...
The Living Room’s Front Page: Why Home Screen Ads Matter
Home screen advertising is becoming the new front page of television, offering advertisers a high‑attention, native environment. Studies from LG, Omnicom and Telly show double‑digit attention gains, lower media waste and up to a 250% lift in brand recall versus...
Google Confirms March 2026 Core Update Is Complete via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google confirmed that its March 2026 core update finished rolling out on April 8 after a 12‑day rollout that met its two‑week target and was faster than the December 2025 update. The update followed a rapid 20‑hour spam update and a Discover‑only core...
GEO Was Invented On Sand Hill Road
The article exposes Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) as a venture‑capital‑driven hype rather than a genuine technological shift. Andreessen Horowitz’s May 2025 blog post seeded the term to promote portfolio tools, while fabricated memos and inflated statistics were amplified by engagement farmers....
Podscribe Announces SiriusXM Radio Airchecks, Podcaster Logins, and Automated Pixel Email Scheduling to Enhance Audio Attribution and Reporting
Podscribe unveiled three major upgrades—SiriusXM Radio Airchecks, automated pixel email scheduling, and podcaster‑specific logins—to tighten audio ad attribution and streamline reporting. The SiriusXM aircheck feature delivers verified, timestamped proof of ads on satellite radio, closing a long‑standing measurement gap. Automated...
Ausha Expands Its Growth Suite with Paid Visibility Ads on Spotify and YouTube – Open to All
Ausha announced the beta launch of Ausha Visibility Ads, a paid promotion tool that lets podcasters run campaigns directly on Spotify and YouTube. The solution builds on Ausha’s existing Podcast Search Optimization technology and incorporates Base for Creators’ ad‑tech platform....
AI Is Changing Retail. Here’s How Businesses Can Keep Up.
Retailers must ensure their Google Merchant Center data is clean and complete to unlock AI-driven shopping experiences such as conversational commerce, virtual try‑ons, and shoppable CTV. In a recent Ads Decoded Podcast, Google’s retail product leaders highlighted that messy feeds...
The 10 Fastest-Growing U.S. Instagram Accounts of March 2026
March 2026 saw a surge of Instagram follower gains among U.S. celebrities and brands, led by Megan Fox’s 2.8 million new followers after a high‑profile comeback. Event‑driven accounts such as Jason Derulo, Alysa Liu, and “The Tonight Show” each added over a million followers,...
Matter of Fact: The Two Audience Problem
Brands targeting Gen Alpha now face a dual‑gatekeeping challenge: they must appeal to kids while satisfying parental safety concerns. Only 25% of Gen Alpha trust social‑media ads, yet 95% of parents first encounter new brands through their children. Gen Alpha directly controls about...
Tired of Targeted Ads? This Simple iPhone Fix Stops App Tracking in Seconds.
Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) lets iPhone users block apps from accessing the advertising identifier (IDFA) and other tracking data unless they explicitly grant permission. Users can disable tracking globally or per‑app via Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking, turning targeted ads into generic ones....
Why Product Feeds Shouldn’t Be The Most Ignored SEO System In Ecommerce
Many ecommerce brands focus on category pages and backlinks while neglecting product feeds, which have traditionally been managed by PPC teams. Recent changes—Google Search Console’s Shopping report enhancements and OpenAI’s product‑feed specification—bring feed data into the core SEO ecosystem. Optimizing...
Silverpush’s Paul Briggs on Navigating YouTube and Using Contextual to Regain Visibility and Control
Silverpush’s Paul Briggs emphasizes that video now accounts for over 80% of internet traffic, making it a full‑funnel performance driver. He argues that contextual intelligence can map real‑time content intent to deliver ads at the precise moment of user engagement,...
Samba TV and TiVo Strike UK CTV Advertising Partnership
Samba TV and TiVo have launched a strategic partnership in the United Kingdom, effective April 1, to combine Samba's cross‑platform audience intelligence with TiVo's owned‑and‑operated CTV inventory. The deal makes TiVo Samba's preferred managed‑service advertising partner and positions Samba as the...
Sleepyhead Highlights Durability in BITE Sofa with Creator-Led Campaign
Sleepyhead introduced the BITE sofa, a compact, stain‑ and water‑repellent piece built with high‑resilience foam for everyday durability. The launch is supported by a creator‑led campaign featuring a music video starring artist Gandhar and dancer Piyush Gurbhele. Influencers extend the narrative...
Google Testing Jumping To AI Mode Directly From AIOs ON DESKTOP
Google is piloting a desktop version of its AI Mode that launches directly from the “Show more” button in AI‑generated overview (AIO) cards. The feature, previously limited to mobile, pulls users out of the classic SERP into an AI‑driven answer...
ÂJarvis Approachingâ: Google's Sundar Pichai Signals an Agentic, Multi-Threaded Future for Search
Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the Cheeky Pint podcast that Search will evolve into a Jarvis‑like, agent‑centric platform where multiple AI threads operate simultaneously to complete user tasks. He described future Search as an "agent manager" that orchestrates personal assistants...
Teads Expands Commitment to Inventory Quality & Safety Through Partnership with NewsGuard
Teads announced an expanded partnership with NewsGuard to apply the latter’s human‑vetted reliability ratings across its global ad marketplace. The move covers English, French, German and Italian‑language sites in key markets such as the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and...
Major Brands Back Tesco Premium Video Ad Placements
Diageo and PepsiCo have endorsed Tesco Media's new premium video ad placements after successful trials, highlighting the formats' ability to drive brand awareness at a crucial consideration stage. The Grocery Homepage slot reaches over 12 million unique monthly visitors, while the...
Stensul’s 2026 MarTech Outlook on AI and Agency Spend: The Demand Gen Report Interview with Rachel Meranus
Stensul’s 2026 MarTech Outlook, shared in a Demand Gen Report interview with Chief Revenue & Marketing Officer Rachel Meranus, highlights a rapid AI‑driven transformation of B2B marketing. The report finds B2B firms are 64% more likely to increase automation spend...
Google Says It Can Handle Multiple URLs To The Same Content via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
Google’s John Mueller clarified that having multiple URLs point to the same content does not trigger a penalty or ranking demotion. The search engine will automatically choose a canonical version, but site owners can influence that choice with proper technical...
Tipping the Balance: Conquering the Ad Tech Ecosystem with Content Ignite
Content Ignite, founded by James Hanslip and Ben Spencer in 2014, offers the Fusion platform that lets publishers control their entire ad stack with a single tag. The agnostic marketplace aggregates multiple ad‑tech vendors, reducing integration costs and enabling direct‑sale...
Publishers Get a New Revenue Line as Brambles.ai and Shopnomix Bring AI Commerce Into Editorial Content
Brambles.ai and Shopnomix have partnered to embed conversational AI shopping directly into editorial content, allowing readers to discover and purchase products from over 50,000 brands without leaving the page. The integration combines Brambles.ai’s on‑page chat interface with Shopnomix’s product data,...
BIGO Ads Becomes a Registered Vendor Under IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF)
BIGO Ads, the programmatic advertising platform of JOYY Inc., has been added to IAB Europe’s Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) v2.2 vendor registry. The registration confirms BIGO Ads’ compliance with GDPR and ePrivacy standards, enabling it to operate across the...
The Publicis-Microsoft Deal Is Bigger Than You Think
Microsoft has appointed Publicis Groupe as its global media agency of record and simultaneously launched an AI partnership that will blend Microsoft’s tools, technology, and data with Publicis’s client capabilities. The agreement covers a media business segment valued at roughly $1.2 billion,...
Superdry & Co Picks Verde to Style New Online Strategy
Superdry & Co, fresh from a brand‑centric rebrand, has hired SEO specialist Verde Digital to revamp its digital marketing. Verde will lead technical SEO, on‑page optimisation and emerging AI‑driven search tactics, targeting non‑brand, category‑level queries. The agency’s audit revealed untapped...
![How To Turn AI Search Visibility Data Into a GEO Strategy That Closes Citation Gaps [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Hethr_campbell](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/6-634.png)
How To Turn AI Search Visibility Data Into a GEO Strategy That Closes Citation Gaps [Webinar] via @Sejournal, @Hethr_campbell
Search Engine Journal is hosting a webinar where Writesonic CEO Sam Garg will reveal how more than 500 million AI‑driven conversations expose the citation signals that power ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Attendees will learn which content types and placements actually earn...
Liquid Death Lets Incrementality Decide What Tactics To Kill And What To Keep
Liquid Death, the metal‑themed canned water brand, has adopted Ibotta’s LiveLift platform to measure the incremental sales impact of its promotions in near real time. By comparing shoppers exposed to offers with a control group, the brand can identify which...
Who Needs ‘Corrosive Intermediaries’ Anyway?
The Ozone publisher alliance, founded by UK titles such as The Guardian and The Telegraph, is tackling the broken programmatic supply chain by pooling inventory and data to push back against what its COO Danny Spears calls “corrosive intermediaries.” Spears...
Who Needs ‘Corrosive Intermediaries’ Anyway?
Publishers are confronting a "perfect storm" of macroeconomic pressure, traffic declines, and AI‑driven search changes that threaten programmatic revenue. Ozone, a coalition of UK news brands such as The Guardian and The Telegraph, aims to counteract platform dominance by pooling...
The Creativity Trade-Off: What Marketers Risk Losing In The Age Of AI
AI has become ubiquitous in advertising, with 83% of ad executives now using it in creative workflows, up from 60% in 2024, and 86% of video‑ad buyers planning AI‑generated content. While generative tools accelerate idea prototyping, studies from Wharton and...
Who Is OpenAI’s Global Head of Ads, David Dugan?
David Dugan, a veteran of Meta’s advertising empire, has been appointed OpenAI’s global head of ads. His résumé includes leading Meta’s worldwide agency partnerships, selling BzzAgent to Tesco, and steering Havas Arnold Worldwide. OpenAI, which is burning cash as it...
Volkswagen Picks Agency to Lead Global Social Media Strategy
Volkswagen has selected Jung von Matt SPREE as its global social‑media lead agency, covering platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads and Facebook. The agency will advise the brand communications team, run headquarters’ channels, build communities, launch campaigns and...
LLM-Referred Traffic Converts at 30-40% — and Most Enterprises Aren't Optimizing for It
The rise of AI agents is reshaping web discovery, giving birth to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) where content must be understood and cited by large language models rather than clicked by humans. Enterprises that continue to rely solely on traditional...
These Absurd, Eye-Catching Ads From The Zebra Expertly Fuse AI and Live Action
The Zebra’s latest ad campaign, directed by Zack Seckler, pairs absurd, humor‑driven concepts with cutting‑edge AI and practical effects. Four spots—Jungle Rotisserie, Falcon Ride, Mountain Biker, and Window Washer—use custom rigs, stunt talent, and Unreal Engine‑generated environments to create hyper‑real...
Most Restaurants Are Missing Out on the Platform That Brings Customers In — Here’s What a Google Strategist Recommends
Google’s strategic partner manager Farah Shirzadi urges restaurants to treat YouTube as a core discovery engine, not just a marketing add‑on. By publishing short clips, long‑form videos, and live streams, eateries can showcase kitchens, chefs, and sourcing stories before a...
X Expands AI Translations and Adds In-Stream Photo Editing
X announced that its Grok‑powered AI auto‑translate is now enabled for all users worldwide, replacing Google Translate as the default engine. The platform also rolled out a new reply setting that allows Premium users to let second‑degree connections comment on...
Instagram Looks to Grow Notes Engagement
Instagram is expanding its Notes feature so that any follower, not just mutual connections, can view a creator's brief comments. The change follows strong adoption among teens, who post ten times more Notes than older users. Earlier attempts to place...
YouTube Expands Media Kit Insights and Adds AI Tools
YouTube has upgraded its Media Kit, now including family‑status and household‑income metrics to give creators richer audience demographics. The enhanced kit helps creators produce data‑rich PDFs for brand‑sponsored deals. In parallel, YouTube’s Create app gains Google’s Nano Banana AI image‑generation, letting...