Today's Marketing Pulse
McKinsey predicts agentic AI will power two‑thirds of marketing activities
McKinsey’s new report forecasts that agentic AI could drive up to two‑thirds of marketing activities, shifting AI from a productivity add‑on to a core campaign engine. Early adopters are already using generative tools, while the next wave will involve autonomous agents that coordinate decisions across workflows. The firm outlines a five‑step roadmap for implementation.
From SEO to GEO: 8 Tips for Publishers to Optimise Their Content for AI Discoverability
Publishers are transitioning from traditional SEO to Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) as AI chatbots like ChatGPT become the first point of information for many users. The Spanish Fundación Luca de Tena released an 8‑tip guide that outlines how media outlets can make their content discoverable by generative AI. Key recommendations include query‑oriented headlines, a conversational lead that answers the core question in the first paragraph, and a shift toward constructive journalism. The guide aims to preserve traffic, visibility, and revenue in the AI‑driven discovery era.
The Website Is No Longer the Center of Local Discovery
The traditional local‑marketing model that funneled customers to a brand’s website is eroding. Today, Google Business Profiles, reviews, AI‑generated answers, local articles and social mentions shape consumer preference before any click. Websites remain essential for validation and conversion, but they...
Google Patents Scheme to Sabotage SEO Rankings
Google Has a Patent to Trick SEOs Into Ruining Their Rankings https://t.co/B4pSgIEhfN via @YouTube #googleranking #googleanalytics #seo #searchengineoptimisation #ranking #googlesearch @lexfridman @KirkDBorne @Ronald_vanLoon @erikbryn @antgrasso @sallyeaves @Nicochan33 @HaroldSinnott @mvollmer1 @marcusborba @CatherineAdenle @vinod1975 @YuHelenYu @ingliguori @fogoros @ylecun @TerenceLeungSF @SourabhSKatoch @wil_bielert @HsrYueli @faustospain...
How OSI Could Finally Fix ABM’s Biggest Data Problem
Open Semantic Interchange (OSI) emerges as a vendor‑neutral data standard designed to unify disparate identifiers used in account‑based marketing (ABM) platforms. By wrapping IDs with shared definitions, OSI enables instant identity resolution, allowing intent signals to trigger personalized website experiences...
AI Overload Meets Flat Martech: Prioritize Data Quality
The martech landscape is essentially flat for the first time in a decade. AI is simultaneously multiplying tools, workflows, and "agents" inside the stack faster than most teams can govern them. Both are true. That's the puzzle. On May 20...
Culture Forces #1: The Rise of Trend Slop
The post introduces “trend slop,” a cultural force where leaders misuse generative AI to shortcut strategic decisions. It recounts a Krafton CEO who tried to evade a $250 million payout to Unknown Worlds by prompting ChatGPT for a takeover playbook, only...
FIFA World Cup 26 Ad Tracker: Brands Kick Off Summer of Soccer
ADWEEK announced a dedicated tracker for FIFA World Cup 2026 advertising as the tournament approaches. The event is projected to draw six billion viewers for 48 teams across 104 matches beginning June 11, 2026, with about five million fans attending games in U.S., Canadian and...
FAQ Snippets Removed From Google SERPs for Government, Health Sites
And I can confirm, FAQ snippets are officially gone from the SERPs (for the gov and health sites that still had them). See the CDC example below. The first was captured by Semrush recently, the second is that search today.
Meta Hits Cannes As Sponsor With Host Of Gen Z Stars Including Reece Feldman, Enora Hope & Zainab Jiwa
Meta has secured a multi‑year official partnership with the Cannes Film Festival, positioning the tech giant as a primary sponsor. The company will showcase its AI, wearable tech, and social platforms from a new "Meta House" venue, featuring a lineup...
YSEO Expands Data-Driven SEO Services in 2026 to Help UK Businesses Achieve Sustainable Online Growth
YSEO has rolled out an updated 2026 SEO Growth Strategy that adds advanced data‑driven optimisation services for UK businesses. The new framework blends technical audits, strategic content planning, local and e‑commerce SEO, and performance analytics to boost search visibility and...
Three Emails, One Topic, only One Made Money
The author tested three email formats—topical, story, and parable—while promoting a seven‑figure newsletter. All three used identical audience, ideas, and offer, but only the parable version generated revenue. The post argues that topical emails close the curiosity gap, story emails...
Culture Is the New Balance Sheet
The "Hitmakers" Season 2 podcast frames culture as the new balance sheet, arguing that cultural fluency now outweighs traditional levers like scale or ad spend. It shows how brands such as Labubu, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode (now a $600 million valuation), and even boot‑leg...
How One Brand Made TikTok Shop Their #1 Sales Channel in 6 Months
Clean‑eez, a family‑owned cleaning products brand, turned TikTok Shop into its top sales channel in six months, delivering a 180× revenue surge and capturing 53% of its Shopify earnings. The growth was driven by 600+ affiliate creators, 8,099 new customers,...
How We Use AI To Run A 90-Day Growth Audit
Growth consultancies are replacing weeks‑long manual audits with AI‑driven 90‑day sprint frameworks. By feeding investor decks, product data and competitive intel into Claude, firms generate a diagnostic brief in a day, then map tech stacks and identify redundant tools. AI‑powered...
Swiggy Ties IPL Sixes to Real-Time Snapchat Ads
Swiggy has launched the “Swiggy Sixes” campaign, linking every six hit in the IPL to a six‑minute Snapchat ad that offers a 66% discount on the Swiggy app. The partnership leverages Snapchat’s Live Cricket Data API to trigger ads in...
You Have Two Seconds to Hook Your Distracted Reader (Here's the Sentence That Does It)
The blog promotes The Startler, a tool that creates attention‑grabbing first sentences for writers. It argues that readers decide within two seconds whether to continue, making the opening line critical. The Startler uses a prompt to produce ten unexpected hook...
PNB Kitchenmate Ropes in Stree 2’s Sarkata for ‘Sabse Bada Offer’ Push
PNB Kitchenmate has rolled out the "Sabse Bada Offer" campaign, starring Sunil Kumar – the villain ‘Sarkata’ from the 2024 film Stree 2. Developed by Auro Piixel LLP and directed by Himanshu Bisht, the narrative‑driven ad targets Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 Indian consumers,...
Google Vehicle Ads Now In Standard Shopping Campaigns
Google has expanded its vehicle advertising offering by allowing ads to run within Standard Shopping campaigns, a feature previously limited to the Performance Max format. The change is documented in a new help guide that walks advertisers through enabling vehicle...
I Helped Build Google’s Keyword System. Here’s Why It’s Becoming Obsolete via @Sejournal, @Siliconvallaeys
Google’s legacy keyword system, built on exact, phrase and broad match, is being eclipsed by AI‑driven intent matching. The 2023 Broad Match overhaul and the 2026 launch of AI Max let advertisers run campaigns without declaring keywords, using synthetic intent...
Bowlers Pets Turns Pet Parenting Into Digital Contest with Shubman Gill
Bowlers Pets, the pet‑nutrition brand of Allana Consumer Products, has launched the digital "Bowlers Premier League" contest featuring Indian cricketer Shubman Gill. The Instagram‑based campaign asks dog owners to follow the brand, comment “BOWLERS” and share cricket‑themed pet content. Winners...
Mobupps Unveils ECHO AI – A Self-Learning Mechanism
Mobupps announced ECHO AI, a self‑learning ad‑tech engine that continuously ingests live campaign data to automate channel, audience and creative optimization. The platform integrates with Mobupps’ MAFO ecosystem, delivering real‑time recommendations that aim to lower acquisition costs and boost user lifetime...
Consumers Don’t Care About Regenerative Agriculture - Yet
A recent analysis finds that consumers, squeezed by inflation, are indifferent to sustainability and therefore unlikely to seek out regenerative agriculture products. Food and drink brands are advised to shift messaging toward nutrition, taste, and soil‑health benefits rather than planetary...
MiQ Report: B2B Marketers Must Replace Funnels With Flexibility
MiQ’s new "From Funnel to Flexibility" report finds the classic B2B marketing funnel no longer mirrors consumer behavior. 87% of shoppers switch digital activities at least once an hour and 42% say their purchase journey feels random. The study of 53 million...
Winning the Next Era of Local Visibility: How AI Is Changing Local Search by SOCi
SOCi and Google are hosting a June 3 webinar to explain how AI—through tools like Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Ask Maps—is reshaping local search. The session will cover new ranking signals, optimization tactics for Google Business Profiles, reviews, photos, and...
Winning the Next Era of Local Visibility: How AI Is Changing Local Search by SOCi
SOCi and Google are hosting a June 3 webinar to explain how AI is reshaping local search across Google Search, Maps, and Gemini. AI‑driven tools such as Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Ask Maps now prioritize complete business data and conversational...
Hit 100K Monthly Visits with No Backlinks, Ads
Most SEO agencies will never tell you this: You can take a website to 100K visits/month in under a year. Without backlinks, a massive team nor ads. Just some YOLO SEO. Do these 7 moves and you'll be playing in easy mode, I swear. 1....
Data Roundups Drive the Most SaaS Backlinks
Our research found that 'data roundups' are the most highly linked to content format in SaaS. Want more links and authority? Do more research and publish the data. https://t.co/7Rn0bI1WK6
Harnessing the Winds of Agentic AI at Adobe Summit 2026
At Adobe Summit 2026, CEO Shantanu Narayen unveiled a suite of agentic AI products designed to shift marketers from task‑driven work to purpose‑focused creativity. New offerings include Adobe CX Enterprise, a self‑orchestrating cross‑channel agent, a Brand Intelligence system that automates...
Burger King Revamps Whopper via Direct Consumer Calls, Boosts Sales 5.8%
Burger King president Tom Curtis published his personal phone number, took 1,800 inbound calls and routed more than 70,000 consumer messages into product decisions. The feedback drove the launch of the "Elevated Whopper," which helped the chain post a 5.8%...
Brands Are Already Losing the World Cup
The 2026 World Cup on U.S. soil offers brands a once‑in‑a‑generation cultural platform, with an estimated 5.6 billion viewers—equivalent to 44 Super Bowl audiences. While Adidas launched a striking film and Fox Sports promoted a Team USA narrative, most American brands...
Distribution First: The New Path to Business Success
hot take: the next wave of successful businesses won't be won by better products. they'll be built by founders who figured out distribution before they built anything worth distributing.
Why Display CPMs Fell in 2025 and How Publishers Can Protect Revenues in 2026
In 2025 UK display CPMs fell despite a 10% rise in overall digital ad spend and strong video growth. The slump stemmed from abundant display inventory, static demand, and AI‑driven traffic shifts, even as some publishers posted record display revenue...
Why AI-Generated Ads Are Becoming Indistinguishable
AI‑generated ads are becoming indistinguishable as marketers rely on pattern‑based tools that prioritize speed over originality. The resulting sameness erodes brand distinctiveness, especially for small and midsize enterprises that depend on memorable messaging. While AI can accelerate production, it often...
Good SEO Is the Foundation of AI Search Visibility and London Businesses That Invest Now Will Lead the Field
Cash Cow Marketing, a London‑based SEO agency, warns that good SEO is the key to appearing in Google’s AI Overviews, which now surface in more than a quarter of U.S. searches and are expanding across Europe. Research from Ahrefs shows...
AdPlus Beta Attracts Nearly 200 Marketers as AI Ad Platform Sets May 19 Public Launch Date
AdPlus, a Boston‑based AI‑native ad platform, opened its public beta in April and drew nearly 200 marketers without spending on paid acquisition. The tool lets users plan, launch and manage campaigns across twelve major networks—including Google, Meta, Amazon and TikTok—from...
Mercedes‑Benz CMO Melody Lee Deploys Social, Influencer and Data Tactics to Win Younger Buyers
Mercedes‑Benz U.S. chief marketing officer Melody Lee is steering a digital overhaul that blends social media, influencer outreach and data‑driven lead capture to attract younger consumers. The plan hinges on a 30 million‑visitor website, TikTok engagement and high‑visibility partnerships such as...
Clocsy Launches Autonomous AI Sales Engine Designed to Help Businesses Find Buyers and Automate Outreach
Clocsy, an autonomous sales technology platform owned by Nwudu, Inc., launched the Clocsy Sales Engine, an AI‑powered system that combines buyer discovery, intent analysis, multi‑channel outreach and automated follow‑ups into a single workflow. The platform builds a “Sales DNA” model...
A Smarter Way to Approach Reddit in PR
Reddit, now 21 years old, has become a primary source for AI‑generated answers, with Google paying $60 million annually for its content. This shift means that brand visibility on Reddit directly influences the information AI assistants present to consumers. PR professionals...
Burberry Bets on British Heritage and Gen Z as Turnaround to Be Scrutinised
Burberry is leaning into its British heritage and Gen Z shoppers through the "Burberry Forward" plan, which includes up to 1,700 job cuts and a target of £100 million ($127 million) in annual savings by 2027. The luxury label expects FY revenue...
How to Build Chiropractors Mailing List in Minutes?
The article evaluates five ways to build a chiropractor email list and finds Saleshandy to be the fastest and most accurate solution. In tests, Saleshandy delivered 100 contacts with 95% inbox placement in about five minutes, far outperforming directories, LinkedIn,...
MrBeast Is Wooing Big Advertisers at an Invite-Only Gathering in NYC. Here's What He's Planning.
Creator-driven media company Beast Industries is hosting an invite‑only breakfast in Manhattan to pitch its brand‑partnership vision to top advertisers and agency executives. The event, timed with the traditional TV upfronts week, signals the growing competition between creator‑led platforms and...
Target’s AI Trend Brain Speeds up Apparel Trend Forecasting
Target is piloting its AI Trend Brain tool to accelerate apparel trend forecasting, initially rolling it out to designers of its private‑label brands such as Wild Fable and Universal Thread. The system ingests social‑media posts, runway imagery and purchasing data...
Adobe Acrobat as a Marketing Tool? New AI Features Help You Reach Every Stakeholder, Every Time
Adobe introduced PDF Spaces, an AI‑powered workspace inside Acrobat that transforms static PDFs into interactive, shareable microsites. The tool bundles documents, links, notes and AI‑generated summaries, audio overviews, and a conversational assistant that answers stakeholder questions. Real‑time engagement analytics reveal...
The Gap Between Modern and Legacy ESPs Is Widening
Artificial intelligence is reshaping email marketing by embedding predictive audience selection, timing, and content optimization directly into modern email service providers (ESPs). Legacy ESPs, which rely on bolt‑on AI and relational databases, cannot match the speed, cost efficiency, or real‑time...
10 Best Email Tracking Software I Use for Smarter Campaigns
The article reviews the 10 best email tracking platforms for 2026, including Agentforce Sales (formerly Salesforce), HubSpot Sales Hub, Apollo.io, Instantly, ZoomInfo Sales, Pipedrive, Salesloft, Close, monday CRM, and Brevo. Each tool is evaluated on features such as AI‑driven insights,...
Tea Among the Stars: Space Sakura and Decaf Drive Japan Firm Exports
Japan GreenTea Co, a Tokyo‑based tea maker, is leveraging a 1992 spaceflight experiment that showed its sakura tea blooming in micro‑gravity to promote a visually striking, quick‑infusing product. The company has also rolled out a proprietary decaffeinated line—including sencha, hojicha,...
Digest: ChatGPT Ads Expand to New Markets Including UK; Meta Sues Ofcom Over Safety Act Fines; Apple Pays $250m Over...
OpenAI is rolling out its ChatGPT advertising pilot to five new markets— the United Kingdom, Brazil, Japan, South Korea and Mexico—following earlier launches in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The move coincides with the hire of former Trade Desk...
Seth Matlins Launches Marketing Podcast With Vox Media
Seth Matlins, former Forbes CMO Network director and Live Nation executive, has launched the weekly podcast “Create or Destroy: Reimagining Marketing” in partnership with Vox Media and his new venture, The Wisdomous Company. The show will interview CMOs, CEOs and...
Beyond Meat Signs Former England Footballer Karen Carney as UK Ambassador
Beyond Meat has appointed former England footballer Karen Carney as its UK ambassador for 2026, aligning the partnership with summer retail moments such as BBQ season and National Hamburger Day. Carney will front recipe content and media activities featuring the...
Growth Stats Launches Full-Spectrum SEO Services Designed to Propel B2B Brands to the Top of Search Rankings
Growth Stats, a performance‑driven digital marketing agency, has launched a full‑suite SEO service tailored for B2B technology and industrial firms. The offering spans six interlocking disciplines—local, technical, on‑page, keyword research, performance reporting, and content development—designed for cybersecurity, SaaS, IT services,...