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 all marketing functions, shifting AI from a productivity add‑on to a core strategic engine. The analysis notes early adopters are using generative tools, while the next wave will involve autonomous agents that orchestrate decisions across workflows, guided by a five‑step implementation roadmap.
Silversea Launches Advisor Appreciation Campaign and Sweepstakes
Silversea has launched the "Extraordinary Journeys Begin With You" campaign to celebrate Travel Advisor Appreciation Month. From May 1‑31 2026, every advisor booking enters a sweepstakes that awards a pre‑owned Hermès bag to the winner, with $500 and $250 gift cards for second and third place. The initiative also spotlights Silversea’s global sales team, 24/7 multilingual contact center, and a suite of trade tools—including Rallio, Approach Guides, Silversea Academy, and Marketing Central—designed to empower advisors. The company invites advisors to review the dedicated flyer for full terms and additional resources.
Choose Camry‑sized Agents over Ferrari Demos for Real Results
Everyone wants a Ferrari agent. Expensive, beautiful, looks insane in the demo. Then you try to run your business on it and realize you built the AI version of a car that scrapes every driveway in LA. The temptation is obvious. You bolt...
The Real Power Partners: AI and the Human Marketer
The CMO Council and WongDoody surveyed nearly 400 senior marketers and identified a clear split between “power partners” that integrate AI with human judgment and those that do not. Power partners achieve dramatically higher personalization (60% vs 10%), loyalty/CLV (26%...
Contento Technologies Launches Content-Driven Digital Growth Platform to Help Brands Scale Visibility and Engagement
Contento Technologies unveiled an expanded version of its GoContento platform, a content‑driven marketing suite that blends SEO, editorial publishing, and brand promotion. The service promises to boost brand visibility, authority, and measurable engagement by distributing content across a global network...
Particle News Revives Brand Tracking via Claude Integration
Back in the early days of the @SlackAPI, one of the most popular in the directory was the Twitter app. Companies used it to track mentions of their brand, competitors, support requests, and more. The Twitter API may be mostly...
5W Research Shows AI Citation Overlap with Top Google Results Plummets Below 20%
5W Research reports that the share of top‑ranking Google pages cited by AI tools like ChatGPT has collapsed from 70% to under 20%. The finding forces marketers to reallocate spend from traditional SEO to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to protect...
Walmart Launches AI‑powered Beauty Tools to Personalize Product Discovery
Walmart announced the rollout of AI‑powered beauty shopping tools that let customers search by skin tone, hair type and budget, promising more precise product matches and faster decisions. The update, unveiled in late April 2026, is part of the retailer’s...
Want To Find New Customers? Shopify President Says AI Search Is Bringing Them in Twice as Fast
Shopify reported that AI‑powered search has become a growth engine for its merchants. In Q1, AI‑driven traffic to Shopify stores jumped eightfold year‑over‑year, while orders originating from AI search rose nearly 13×. New buyer orders generated by AI search are...
Checkers & Rally’s Rolls Out $3 Double Sandwich Lineup to Drive Value‑Focused Growth
Checkers & Rally’s unveiled a $3 Double Sandwich lineup, featuring three new double‑patty options and a $6 combo with fries and a drink. The launch, championed by CMO Scott Johnson, aims to attract price‑sensitive diners and increase average ticket size...
Inside Legal AI Startup Legora’s Celebrity and Sports Partnerships Playbook
Swedish legal‑AI startup Legora, now valued at $5.6 billion after a $550 million Series D and a $50 million follow‑on round, has launched a high‑profile marketing push featuring Jude Law as the face of its “Law” campaign. The effort blends celebrity endorsement with sports...
Fox’s Refreshed Pitch to Advertisers Connects Fandoms to Outcomes
Fox Advertising unveiled a refreshed brand platform and visual identity that consolidates its five verticals—Fox Sports, Fox News, Fox Entertainment, Tubi and Fox One—under the tagline “Turn Passion into Performance.” Developed with agency Sibling Rivalry, the new system highlights energy,...
The Demand Engine: Why Checkout Friction Is Killing B2B Deals
B2B buyers are abandoning deals before the final "Buy Now" click because slow, opaque pricing pages and cumbersome checkout flows erode confidence. Forrester predicts that over half of large B2B transactions will move to digital self‑service, while Gartner finds 61%...
The Moment Is the Medium
Retail media must adapt to an AI‑driven, fragmented path to purchase, focusing on influencing shoppers at the exact moment they decide to buy. While large‑language models shift intent signals outside retailer ecosystems, the actual transaction still often occurs within a...
Google Expands UCP Checkout to Main Search Shopping Results
Google has extended its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) checkout from the AI‑Mode interface to the main Google Search results, adding a “Buy” button directly in product overlays such as Wayfair’s listings. UCP creates a shared language between AI agents and...
Vote With Your Voice: Pluto TV Kicks Off Its 2026 Fandom Showdown
Pluto TV has rolled out a 2026 “Battle of the Fandoms” Sweet 16 tournament, pitting iconic sci‑fi, supernatural and cult series against each other in a bracket format. Rather than a simple poll, fans must rally support through comments, turning...
Why a PC Game Developer Is Using Roblox as a Marketing Channel | Exclusive
Psychedelic Games is leveraging Roblox as a low‑cost marketing channel for its upcoming PC MOBA, Golden Tides. The studio partnered with QuickGame to launch a Roblox mini‑game, Capture the Treasure: Golden Tides, on April 9, drawing roughly 23,000 visitors. The experience...
Arc XP Connect London 2026
Arc XP Connect 2026 is an invitation‑only executive forum held on June 10 in London for senior media leaders. The one‑day event will explore monetization tactics, audience‑engagement strategies, and AI‑driven organizational transformation. Participants will hear case studies from The Washington...
Google’s Preferred Sources Are Officially Live: The Marketing Impact
Google has rolled out Preferred Sources worldwide, letting users star the publications they trust so those outlets appear more often in Top Stories and a new "From your sources" carousel. The feature adds a user‑driven layer to search personalization, moving...
OpenAI Rolls Out Ad Tools, Targeting SMB eCommerce
ChatGPT launches a CAPI, a pixel, and self-serve "It’s not hard to imagine how the ad platform evolves from here. OpenAI is almost assuredly building a platform in the image of Meta’s, which means it will cater the platform to...
Mix Personal Stories and Community Questions for Growth
Combo day close. Personal story in the morning. Community question at night. That pairing drove every follower spike I had this year. If you tested one new format this week, what was it?
Will OpenAI’s New Measurement Tools And Ads Manager Prove Its Worth As An Ad Channel?
OpenAI unveiled a self‑serve ads manager and a conversion API (CAPI) alongside a cost‑per‑click (CPC) bidding model, shifting from its earlier high‑minimum, CPM‑only approach. The new platform eliminates the $200,000 minimum spend—now fully removed after a recent $50,000 reduction—making ChatGPT...
Ireland Forms Collective Oyster Brand for Marketing, Promotional Purposes
Ireland’s export promotion agency Bord Bia has launched the Irish Oyster Collective, branded “Ó”, to give domestically farmed oysters a distinct identity. The initiative, developed with Dublin‑based Slater Design, emphasizes the unique Irish merroir that sets its shellfish apart from...
More Views, Fewer Clicks? Get Zero Click Playbook
Impressions are up, clicks are down. It’s not that people don’t see your marketing — it’s that MORE people see it but fewer of them click. We need a new playbook. And lucky for you, Rand Fishkin and I wrote it!...
Self‑driving Trucks Could Cut Grocery Prices and Boost Safety
Autonomous trucking company Aurora is starting to put sponsored articles in sites like Axios stating that autonomous trucks will lower grocery bills and increase safety. "Autonomous trucks — trucks that operate without a driver — could lower shipping costs, helping reduce...
ZyG Raises $60M Series A Led by Accel to Build an Agentic Operating System for E-Commerce Scale
ZyG, a Tel Aviv‑based AI startup for direct‑to‑consumer brands, closed a $60 million Series A round led by Accel. The funding backs its “agentic operating system,” which automates store creation, creative generation, user acquisition, conversion, retention and logistics. ZyG was founded by...
AI Image API Understands Brief, Eliminates Prompt Engineering
I just watched a single API call replace an entire creative team's workflow. @LumaLabsAI shipped Uni-1. It is the first image API that thinks before it generates. Here is what that actually means. Every other image model treats your prompt like a search...
Agents Are Finally Bringing Analytics and Activation Together
AI agents are bridging the long‑standing split between analytics and activation in the customer data stack. By acting as a natural‑language interface that queries a warehouse and pushes segments to CDPs, agents eliminate manual segment rebuilding and SQL reliance. The...
Amazon to Blend AI Chat with Traditional Search
Sounds like AIOs are coming to Amazon search (for open-ended queries) -> Amazon Could Offer ‘Hybrid Mode’ AI Search on Retail Site From the article: "Amazon sees its traditional search tools as most useful for a straightforward shopping query, where having too...
Search Is Alive: Traditional Engines, Especially Google, Persist Despite Flattening
The Datos "State of Search Q1 2026" report shows traditional desktop search remains dominated by Google, which reclaimed a 94.3% U.S. market share in March, up from 92.1% in December 2025. Overall search activity is flat to slightly declining, yet user...
Reputation Launches Reputation IQ, AI Reputation Manager, and AI Location Presence Insights
Reputation announced three AI‑powered solutions—Reputation IQ, AI Reputation Manager, and AI Location Presence Insights—to give brands real‑time visibility into how they are perceived and discovered across thousands of locations. Reputation IQ lets users ask plain‑language questions about sentiment trends at top‑volume sites...
Why Meta's AI Has No Point of View
In this 9‑minute episode, Taylor explains why a robust context layer is essential for AI to produce reliable insights, using a live demo where an AI tool misinterprets a performance dashboard until it’s given a clear hierarchy of metrics. He...
Free AI Beats Paid: Why Gating Smarts Fails
"Why pay $20/month when the free version is already smarter than I am?" That's the paradox Google hit while designing its AI bundle. Vikas Kansal helped craft Google's AI freemium strategy, which has become arguably the most successful (and profitable)...
Why Your Brand Needs to Start Using Real Photos, Not Generic Imagery
Businesses are shifting from generic stock imagery to custom photo and video shoots to create authentic brand experiences. Tailored visual assets showcase real people, products, and operations, enhancing website design, social media performance, and print collateral. Original content drives higher...
Negotiate Every Deal, Say No More Than Yes
This year, I’ve secured more paid brand partnerships than I did in all of 2025. I do not have a talent rep but in my previous career as a communications exec, I learned a lot about negotiating and building relationships....
Distribution Wins; Data Fuels Superior Product Development
"The company that gets the most users, that gets the most data, is then able to train their product to be a superior product." — @CeciStallsmith from @Lovable_HQ at #YPO When anyone can build, distribution IS the moat.
Rushed AI Copies Tarnish Copilot’s Original Reputation
Copilot is a case study of how to wreck a brand with AI slop GitHub Copilot was a good product and remained one Every other Copilot was rushed, poor quality, and turned the Copilot brand into something most people hate, and associate...
PAA Impressions Boost Views, but Not Clicks
It's pretty common. An impression could be someone loading page 1 on Google, you're on the PAA, hit 1 impression, but nobody clicks those back to your site.
Public Speaking: Low‑Cost Powerhouse for Customer Growth
One of the best ways to promote your product or service and expand your customer base is also one of the cheapest. Interested? It's public speaking. I know this from firsthand experience. #publicspeakingtips #frippvt #virtualtraining
AI Teammates Boost Sales Performance Instantly
Why Your Sales Team Should Be Using AI Teammates Right Now by @Timothy_Hughes https://t.co/DzYTRvvqtK via @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesTips #SalesLeader #Marketing #MarketingSuccess #MarketingStrategy #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #Technology #TechNews
Free Benchmark Report Reveals SMS & Email Performance Trends
Zeta Global’s latest Marketing Benchmark report shares aggregated data on the performance of SMS and email marketing campaigns, along with expert commentary on industry and channel news. Free, no-form download > https://t.co/KX6zwD49rb #digitalmarketing https://t.co/2KoYvadftG
United's Customer‑Centric Strategy Beats Spirit's Model
Spirit Airlines just died. @united is thriving. My latest @ForbesCMO piece shows the contrast in strategies, the initiatives from United's CEO Scott Kirby, and the importance of customer experience. https://t.co/cIzKUQzRt3
Social Selling: Harness Social Media for Cold Outreach
What are we reading? Title: “Social Selling and Influnce - Using Social Media for Cold Outreach and New Business Sales” Author: Timothy “Tim” Hughes 提姆·休斯 L.ISP and Adam Gray @tim_hughes1 @theadamgray Publisher: DLA ignite @dlaignite #Books #Sa… https://t.co/R9PwdZjmvm https://t.co/qzDrjFvBwL
Quality Engagement Beats Vanity Metrics on LinkedIn and X
Brilliant post from @Lisapatb . "It’s tempting to focus on vanity metrics like the sheer number of likes or followers. But here’s the truth: both LinkedIn and X prioritize engagement quality over quantity."
Opinionated Brands Earn Loyal, Paying Fans
An opinionated company is a more human company. People like that. Some won’t agree with the opinion and won’t join. The ones who agree (enough) will be loyal and even excited to give you money. That’s why it’s better. See also: https://t.co/ZA4WruqhYd
Authority Should Build Expertise, Not Content Landfills
"Topical authority was never supposed to mean content landfill." Well, yes. Tying the brand to the expertise should always be the goal.
Make Bundles “May‑As‑Well” By Matching Hero Price
Bundle pricing works best when it's "may as well" pricing. It's better to raise prices on individual products but drop prices on the bundle. The closer the bundle price is to the hero product's retail price, the more compelling the...
AI Now Dominates Search and Buying Research
Super interesting insights from @McKinsey on how much of search + purchasing research has already shifted to AI https://t.co/VwHeJ0yvNV
True AI Agents Must Follow Rules, Show Reasoning
Agentic AI for CX: Real Agents vs Slideware | https://t.co/xtzQxtbZBT If an AI can’t follow rules, respect permissions, show its reasoning, and reliably move renewals/expansions… it’s not an agent. It’s a UI with good marketing. @castdotapp https://t.co/xmIlXJxyI8
Patients Research Themselves; Your Digital Presence Now Critical
Today’s patients (especially younger ones) do their homework. Ty Allen on why your digital presence matters more than ever—and how AI may change it further. 👇 https://t.co/4gFnT9yDIG @socialclimb_1 #PrecisionMarketing #hcmktg
Pedro's Candid AEO/GEO Guide Challenges New Schema Narrative
Pedro just wrote one of the most honest & accurate pieces about AEO/GEO that I’ve *ever* read. (And TBH - I’ve also been wondering about the “new” framing around Schema markup this whole time. 🫠🫠)