Quicken Is Producing 100 Pieces of Content Every Few Weeks Using AI
Quicken, a financial‑planning software firm, discovered its strong SEO presence did not automatically translate into visibility within AI‑driven answer engines. After lagging behind a smaller competitor in generative search, CMO Euan Campbell launched a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategy. The brand now creates about 100 AI‑generated content pieces every few weeks, overseen by senior copywriters who have replaced junior writers. Early data shows AI‑originated traffic remains under 1 % of total visits, highlighting the transition’s early stage.
Dentsu X Launches The Creator Catalyst Playbook for Creator Marketing
dentsu X unveiled The Creator Catalyst, a playbook that transforms fragmented creator activity into a systematic growth engine for brands. The framework, built for the Algorithmic Era, combines AI‑driven casting, early‑stage cultural integration, and commerce‑focused measurement to deliver scalable, measurable...
Everyone Hates Ads on Social Media. Or Do They?
Researchers leveraged Meta's 14.5 million‑user no‑ads holdout to test whether Facebook users care about advertising. In a 2022 survey of 53,166 participants from 13 countries, the median amount users would accept to quit the platform was $31.04 for ad‑exposed users and...
Why Comments Are the Real Secret Behind Every Viral Instagram Post
Instagram’s algorithm now prioritizes comment velocity over likes, saves or views when deciding which posts to amplify. Early‑hour comments act as a quality signal, prompting the platform to test the content with larger audiences. Creators can deliberately trigger this loop...
America’s Test Kitchen Puts Direct And Programmatic Access On Its Menu
America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) has launched direct and programmatic buying for its free ad‑supported FAST channels, allowing advertisers to purchase inventory as a standalone product rather than through genre bundles. The move follows a 30% year‑over‑year rise in streaming audiences...
America’s Test Kitchen Puts Direct And Programmatic Access On Its Menu
America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) has begun selling its FAST channel ad inventory as a standalone product, offering both direct insertion orders and programmatic guaranteed deals through Magnite and PubMatic. The shift follows a 30% year‑over‑year rise in streaming audiences and...
9 Types of Google Ads (Pros, Cons, and when to Use Each)
Google Ads now comprises nine distinct ad formats, each designed for specific user intents and placements across Google’s ecosystem. Search ads deliver text‑based results driven by keyword intent, while Display, Shopping, Video, App, Discovery, Local Services, Performance Max, and Smart...
Youi Appoints Veridooh As Its Exclusive OOH Independent Verification Partner
Australian insurer Youi has appointed out‑of‑home verification platform Veridooh as its exclusive independent verification partner. Veridooh’s SmartCreative technology will provide real‑time tracking, measurement and verification of Youi’s OOH campaigns, aligning metrics with the insurer’s digital KPIs. The partnership enables mid‑campaign...
Davidson: It’s Time for Naked 2.0
AI and automation are driving down the cost of media execution, exposing a mismatch in traditional agency billing that bundles strategic thinking with operational work. The article argues for separating these functions: pricing execution on measurable outputs while charging a...
X Adds AI Article Summaries In-Stream
X introduced an AI‑powered “Summarize” button for native X Articles, delivering concise TL;DR bullet points and an AI‑generated audio version. The feature, initially limited to Premium+ members, is now available to all paying subscribers as part of a broader push...
X Adds Comment Downvotes to Improve Algorithmic Ranking
X is testing a new comment downvote button for replies, available only to Premium subscribers. Users can select one of five reasons—Not interested, Incorrect, AI generated, Spam, or Report—when downvoting, but the count won’t affect the like total. The move...
Pinterest Shares Tips on How to Utilize Its AI-Powered Ad Options
Pinterest has released new guidance for its AI‑driven Performance+ campaigns, which automate creative, targeting and budgeting. Launched in October 2024, the fully automated solution leverages Pinterest’s engagement data to optimize ad delivery. Internal tests show advertisers achieve more than 10%...
The Government Uses Targeted Advertising to Track Your Location. Here’s What We Need to Do.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed it has leveraged location data harvested from the online advertising ecosystem, specifically real‑time bidding (RTB) streams, to track individuals’ phones. The practice builds on a broader government reliance on data brokers and SDKs that...
IAB AU’s Future of Measurement, Projected iOS 26.4 Release Window, & More
IAB Australia has announced its Future of Measurement (FoM) initiative, a 2026‑focused review of advertising metrics that will culminate at the MeasureUp conference in September. Apple Podcasts is set to roll out HLS video support with the iOS 26.4 update slated...
LiveRamp, Chalice AI Partnership Offers Growth Scored Audiences
LiveRamp and Chalice AI have formed a strategic partnership that embeds Chalice’s Growth Scored Audiences directly into LiveRamp’s data collaboration ecosystem. The offering assigns a predictive growth score to every U.S. household, reflecting its likely impact on a brand’s specific...
Tax Prep But Make It Catchy
Boss Up Taxes, a Houston‑based tax‑preparation outlet, has exploded on TikTok, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers and generating a surge in client appointments ahead of the April 15 deadline. The firm’s bold, meme‑style videos contrast sharply with the traditionally...
Nielsen’s SIGMA Shuttering Gives Guideline A Growth Window
Guideline is launching Local Dynamics Quarterly, a subscription report that provides transaction‑level advertising intelligence across more than 175 DMAs and multiple media channels. The service arrives just weeks after Nielsen announced the shutdown of its SIGMA radio‑monitoring platform, leaving a...
Quince, McDonald’s Top Magellan Podcast Advertiser Lists
Magellan AI released its February rankings of podcast advertisers, highlighting both the highest spenders and the fastest spend growth. Quince and McDonald’s topped the list of total spend, while sports podcasts captured the majority of investment across the top fifteen....
Breaking the Martech Value Plateau
Most organizations tap only 57% of their primary martech platform’s capabilities, leaving nearly half of their investment idle. The shortfall is attributed to strategic misalignment rather than technology limitations. Platforms like Adobe Experience Cloud offer real‑time AI‑driven personalization, yet many...
How Brands Can Use Creators as Cultural Translators
Creators have become cultural translators, shaping trends and consumer trust on platforms like TikTok. Brands that partner with creators see dramatically higher engagement, exemplified by CeraVe’s 15.4 billion pre‑Super Bowl impressions and a 70 % lift in click‑through rates versus traditional ads....
Loyalzoo Unveils Integrated CRM and Advanced Loyalty Functionality for New MX™ POS Smart Terminals
Digital loyalty specialist Loyalzoo has partnered with POS provider Priority to embed its CRM directly into the new MX™ POS terminals. The built‑in solution gives merchants immediate access to customer data, AI‑powered segmentation and tiered loyalty programs without separate installations....
How Crumbl Leveraged CTV to Drive Mobile App Downloads
Crumbl’s inaugural connected‑TV campaign, run with Samsung Ads, delivered more than 16,000 mobile‑app downloads—213% above its goal—over a seven‑week period. The CTV‑to‑Mobile solution used machine‑learning to place ads across Samsung TV Plus, mastheads and other screen‑first environments. In the first week...
Kale’s Isha Patel: Why Fan-Powered Marketing Works Better Than Average Influencer Campaigns
Isha Patel and Luis Molina founded Kale in 2021 to turn everyday customers into a scalable, trackable marketing channel. Leveraging insights from LinkedIn’s creator ecosystem, Kale offers a fan‑advocacy platform that rewards low‑friction content and provides real‑time analytics. The company’s...
#paid Partners With Pinterest to Connect Brands With Consumers Through Creator-Led Campaigns
#paid has become an official execution partner for Pinterest’s Idea Ads, linking its creator‑brand matching technology and Handraise workflow with Pinterest’s creator ecosystem. The integration enables creators to self‑select campaigns and produce Idea Ads that blend organic inspiration with paid...
Sky Media Opens Premium VOD Inventory to Programmatic Buying Through DV360
Sky Media announced that its premium video‑on‑demand (VOD) inventory is now available through Google Display & Video 360 (DV360), extending programmatic access across Sky’s owned and partner channels. The offering includes entertainment, drama, sport and news assets such as Sky Atlantic,...
What Can Log File Data Tell Me That Tools Can’t? – Ask An SEO via @Sejournal, @HelenPollitt1
The article explains why SEOs should incorporate server log file analysis into their workflow, highlighting that logs capture raw bot and user interactions that other tools miss. It outlines how logs reveal crawl frequency, budget allocation, technical outages, and spoofed...
Digital Remedy Takes on the Biggest Pain in Ad Performance
Digital Remedy launched Echo, a unified measurement platform that aggregates cross‑channel ad data—including CTV, display, audio, DOOH, and search—into a single dashboard. Echo enables marketers to analyze performance at hyper‑local levels such as DMA or ZIP code, compare regional outcomes,...
Why Email Is Now Identity and Deliverability Infrastructure
Email continues to grow its share of digital marketing spend, accounting for 7.4% and delivering 10‑to‑50× ROI, making it a budget‑resilient channel. However, inbox competition and stricter authentication standards have lowered average placement to 83%, turning deliverability into a core...
Digital Natives Wins KP Snacks Social Media Account
Digital Natives has been awarded the social media account for KP Snacks, a leading UK snack manufacturer. The agency will oversee digital strategy, content creation, and community management for brands such as Tyrrells, KP, and Butterkist. Creativebrief managed the agency...
Google: 404 Crawling Means Google Is Open To More Of Your Content via @Sejournal, @Martinibuster
Google’s John Mueller clarified that repeated crawling of pages returning a 404 status is not a problem and can even be a positive signal. Googlebot continues to revisit 404 URLs for an extended period to verify whether the content has...
Buying Traffic: Does It Work?
Affiliates are increasingly turning to paid traffic as organic search becomes volatile, but success hinges on a simple margin test: earnings per click must exceed cost per click. High‑ticket SaaS, finance, and insurance offers provide enough commission to absorb higher...
Traditional Channels Beat Digital as ‘Super Touchpoints’
A new DMA and Jicmail report finds traditional media outperform digital in trust, creativity, targeting, and measurement. Channels like TV, radio, out‑of‑home and direct mail—dubbed “Super Touchpoints”—deliver 25% higher effectiveness but are used in only 55% of campaigns. Effectiveness rises...
Digest: Publicis Advises Clients to Avoid The Trade Desk; Meta Misses Illegal Financial Ads; Alibaba Forms New AI Business Group
Publicis Groupe told select clients to pause work with The Trade Desk after an independent audit flagged questionable fee applications and opaque cost reporting. The Trade Desk rejected the allegations, citing confidentiality constraints on the auditor’s data requests. Meanwhile, Meta...
Traffic Is Dying as a Media Metric. What Comes Next Is More Important
Recent Growtika analysis of Ahrefs data shows tech media traffic plummeting, with Digital Trends down 97%, ZDNet 90% and The Verge 85% since their peak months. The decline is linked to AI‑driven search, which consolidates answers and reduces clicks to...
Influencer Marketing Around IPL Set to Touch ₹700 Crore in 2026: Report
Influencer marketing tied to the Indian Premier League is projected to hit roughly ₹700 crore by the 2026 season, according to Qoruz. Spending has risen from about ₹250 crore in 2023 to ₹550 crore in 2025, reflecting a 40 % compound annual growth rate....
What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like?
Publishers are piloting AI‑powered sell‑side agents that use large language models to negotiate and package ad inventory on behalf of sellers. Early adopters such as The Weather Company and Optable have built prototypes leveraging the open Prebid framework and Anthropic’s...
What Does A Beta Test Of A Sell-Side Agent Look Like?
Publishers are experimenting with sell‑side agents—LLM‑powered sales bots that negotiate ad inventory on their behalf. An open‑source framework donated by AdCP to Prebid now lets companies build and test these agents, with early pilots at The Weather Company and data‑clean‑room...
UK Programmatic DOOH Spend to Rise 41% as It Becomes Core to Omnichannel Planning
VIOOH’s 2026 UK programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) report shows the channel now appears in 34% of campaigns, up from 31% in 2024, and is projected to reach 47% within the next 18 months. Marketers anticipate a 41% increase in pDOOH spend,...
Why Programmatic Quality Control Needs To Focus On The Bid Request, Not Domains
Programmatic buyers have traditionally relied on domain‑level whitelists and blacklists to clean up inventory. The article argues that domains are merely containers and that true quality control must happen at the bid‑request level, where signals such as device, geo and...
Why Programmatic Quality Control Needs To Focus On The Bid Request, Not Domains
Programmatic buyers are shifting from traditional domain‑based inventory cleanup to bid‑request level rationalization. The article argues that domains are merely containers and that real quality resides in the signals of each bid request. By focusing on bid rationalization—prioritizing specific request...
AdFest 2026 Releases New Batch of Finalists
AdFest 2026 announced its second round of finalists, adding ten new award categories to the competition. The new categories cover Brand Experience, Digital & Social, Direct, Effective, Outdoor, PR, Sustainable, Digital Craft, Film Craft, and Print & Outdoor Craft. Notable...
TikTok Shop Turns Shopping Into Shoppertainment in New Fishermen Integrated Spot
TikTok Shop partnered with Fishermen Integrated to launch the Ramadan‑Raya campaign “Bazar Direka Untuk …”, turning the shopping journey into a curated shoppertainment experience. The initiative runs from 1 March to 13 March 2026 and blends product curation, creator‑led content, original music and...
#ThisWeek on MarkLives MEDIA: Media24’s Shift Toward Performance-Led Publishing • #NextWeek: Being Bruce Whitfield
Media24 announced a strategic pivot toward performance‑led publishing, consolidating advertising, content marketing, and data analytics into a single commercial engine. The platform is built to deliver measurable campaign performance rather than relying solely on traditional inventory metrics. By unifying these...
YouTube Launches AI-Powered Reimagine Option for Shorts
YouTube introduced Reimagine, an AI‑driven feature for Shorts that converts a single frame into a new eight‑second video using Google’s Veo model. The tool embeds directly into the Shorts editor, offering preset visual variations rather than freeform prompts. It aims...
LinkedIn Adds New Ways for Brands to Tap Into Creator Partnerships
LinkedIn unveiled Premium Creator Sponsorships with Top Voices 360 and expanded its BrandLink suite, giving B2B marketers new ways to partner with influential creators. The platform now lets brands place ads alongside top creator content, bundle BrandLink and Event Ads, and...
Multiply Closes $9.5M Funding
Multiply, an AI‑native media agency targeting B2B firms, emerged from stealth with a $9.5 million Series A round led by Mayfield. The funding includes contributions from Sorenson Capital, Instacart co‑founder Max Mullen, Google Gemini head Josh Woodward, and senior executives from...
How New Infrastructure, Like the Model Context Protocol, Is Reshaping Marketing Workflows
Amazon Ads has launched an open‑beta Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI agents a contextual layer over its advertising APIs. The protocol lets agents orchestrate multi‑step campaign creation, ad‑group configuration, and analytics queries with a single natural‑language prompt....
Smmwiz Emerges as One of the Best and Cheapest SMM Panel Platforms for Social Media Growth in 2026
Smmwiz has positioned itself as one of the leading and cheapest SMM panel platforms in 2026, offering a broad suite of engagement services across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and more. Its low‑cost pricing, rapid order fulfillment, and intuitive dashboard enable...
Google "Developing" Opt-Out of Generative AI Features in Search
Google announced it is developing a mechanism that lets website owners opt out of having their content used in generative AI features within Search. The move is part of a broader response to the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s proposed...
Google Retires Several Legacy Ad Format Policies
Google announced that as of March 17 it is retiring several legacy ad format policies, including those governing form ads, image quality, responsive ads, and text ads. The removal reflects the migration of these older formats into newer, automated campaign...