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.
AMC and Magnite Unify Linear and Streaming TV Ads via ClearLine Platform
AMC Global Media and Magnite announced that their unified linear and streaming offering is now programmatically accessible through a single ClearLine access point, using Magnite's Live Scheduler. The move aims to simplify media buying as streaming revenue, up 14% YoY in Q4 2025, eclipses linear affiliate income.
Kroger Rolls Out $30 Online Deal Days Discount as Food Prices Jump 2.7% YoY
Kroger launched its "Online Deal Days" promotion, giving shoppers $30 off their first pickup or delivery order of $75 or more and free delivery over $50. The move comes as food prices rose 2.7% year‑over‑year in March and consumer sentiment...
Hollman, Inc. Rolls Out 50‑Year Brand Campaign to Spotlight Elite Locker‑Room Design
Hollman, Inc. announced a 50‑year anniversary brand campaign developed with Atlanta agency BALD, showcasing its elite locker‑room solutions, a new golf‑focused modular unit, and the neuro‑architecture‑driven MeSpace workstation. The rollout targets architects, developers, and corporate real‑estate leaders, positioning the company...
Traffic Decline Doesn't Hurt Lead Quality Anymore
Traffic is down 45% year over year for this client in a niche B2B space. And yet, lead volume and quality is exactly the same comparing April versus last year. I am seeing this across the board, client after client....
Xbox Names Asha Sharma CEO, Slashes Game Pass Price and Rethinks Exclusivity and AI
Microsoft appointed Asha Sharma as Xbox chief executive and immediately cut Game Pass Ultimate to $22.99 a month, down from $29.99. In a joint memo with content chief Matt Booty, Sharma announced a reevaluation of exclusivity windows and generative‑AI use,...
Duolingo Won the Internet With Chaos. Now Its CMO Says It’s Time to Rein It In
Duolingo’s chief marketing officer announced a strategic shift from its famously chaotic, 80% unhinged‑20% wholesome content mix to a more balanced approach. The language‑learning app’s viral owl antics once drove 17 million TikTok followers and 4.8 million Instagram fans, but growth has...
TikTok Influencer Kolin Jones Grows $120M Private Jet Brokerage Without Owning a Plane
Kolin Jones, a 24‑year‑old TikTok creator, says his startup Amalfi Jets has generated roughly $120 million in revenue despite never owning a single aircraft. The entrepreneur turned short‑form video into a sales engine, reshaping how high‑value private‑aviation services are marketed and...
Other Gum Is 'Dumb,' Says 'Smart' Neuro In First Campaign
Neuro, an 11‑year‑old functional chewing‑gum brand, has launched its first national advertising campaign titled “Gum Is Dumb,” positioning its product as the industry’s first “smart gum” for energy and focus. The campaign, featuring a sloth mascot, coincides with a retail...
Free Pinterest Marketing Kit: SEO, Design, Templates
The FREE Pinterest Marketing Kit 📌 Pinterest SEO Checklist 📌 Pin Design Checklist 📌High-Converting Canva Templates
Meta Rolls Out AI Business Assistant To All Advertisers, Agencies
Meta announced the global rollout of its AI Business Assistant, extending the beta to advertisers and agencies of all sizes across major markets and languages. The tool, first piloted with U.S. small businesses, delivers real‑time, data‑driven recommendations, account restoration, spend‑limit...
‘We Are Xbox’: New Leadership Further Pledges to Bring Brand Back to Its Previous Glory
Xbox announced a full rebrand, reverting from Microsoft Gaming to the original Xbox name under CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty. The leadership unveiled a ten‑point manifesto that stresses affordability, openness, and creator empowerment while positioning daily...
Post Sparingly, Share Insights, Engage Meaningfully on LinkedIn
I went to @LinkedIn's “what to post on LinkedIn” webinar today and here were the main takeaways, for the interested: 1. Share a recap of an event you attended with key takeaways for folks who couldn’t attend 2. Share a learning/original...
From Live Chat to Closed Deals: Why Smart Brands Move Conversations to WhatsApp and Instagram
Smart Shopify merchants are shifting customer conversations from on‑site live chat to WhatsApp and Instagram, citing dramatically higher conversion metrics. The article notes 98% open rates, 45‑60% click‑through rates, and cart‑recovery rates of 10‑25% on WhatsApp versus 2‑5% for email....
The Sports Audience TV Can’t Match Is on the Radio, Study Shows
A Vision Insights Decoder study of U.S. sports fans (August‑October 2025) shows sports radio listeners are twice as likely to back brands that sponsor their favorite teams, and they rate radio sponsors as more memorable than TV sponsors among 18‑34...
Enterprise Content Moves From Tools To Systems: Adobe Summit Takeaways
Adobe Summit 2026 signaled a shift from standalone AI tools to integrated content systems. The company unveiled GenStudio for Content Marketing, Brand Intelligence, and Firefly Creative Production, all aimed at accelerating content creation, scaling visual assets, and embedding brand governance....
Success Hinges on Precise Measurement and Low CAC
The real question I suspect for this venture to be successful and disruptive is if ETS can get the measurement right and whether the cost of acquisition of students will be low enough relative to the lifetime value. Will the...
There's a New Playbook for Partnering with Creators on Marketing Campaigns.
Google has rolled out YouTube Creator Partnerships within Google Ads and Display & Video 360, allowing advertisers to discover, activate, and manage creator‑driven ads directly in performance campaigns. The new tools aim to lower the entry barrier for creator marketing,...
Day 4: The Milestone Giveaway That Got Her to 30k Subscribers
Aleyda Solis leveraged a milestone‑driven giveaway to push her SEOFOMO newsletter past 30,000 subscribers, adding roughly 1,500 quality contacts in seven weeks. The campaign required existing readers to refer peers, using SEO‑focused tools as prizes and promoting the contest through...
Minto Pyramid: Secret Blueprint Behind Viral Content
i've never seen anyone talk about it but the minto pyramid is the most critical distribution skill in 2026 i use it religiously. it's how i average 10m+ impressions a month and pull about $5k mrr just from X revenue...
Ferrero NA’s CMO, Chad Stubbs
Ferrero North America’s chief marketing officer, Chad Stubbs, sat down with Barbara and Americus to discuss the company’s approach to large‑scale campaigns. He highlighted how Super Bowl spots, culturally resonant messaging, and viral moments are leveraged to turn Ferrero’s products...
Write2Sell: How to Make Money on Substack with Every Paid Post (My High Converting Paid Post Checklist)
A Substack writer reports an 11.7% free‑to‑paid conversion rate, the highest he’s seen, generating roughly three new paid subscribers per paid post. By analyzing top‑performing posts with AI, he identified a repeatable seven‑element structure that separates the WHAT and WHY...
Your Marketing Team Is Doing Everything Right — But the Results Aren’t Adding Up. Here’s Why.
B2B marketing teams are achieving individual channel metrics yet failing to translate activity into pipeline because they operate in silos. The article argues that consolidating PR, SEO, content, and AI optimization around a handful of high‑priority pages creates a unified...
Advil Says Toss Expired Bottles, Buy New in Awareness and Purchasing Campaign
Advil launched "The Advil Exchange," a digital campaign that lets shoppers scan expired bottles to receive a $3 coupon for a new 18‑plus count product. The initiative, driven by a survey showing consumers keep an average of 13 outdated pain‑relief...
AI, Brand Safety’s Frenemy | Behind the Numbers
In this episode, Marcus talks with UK analyst Bill Fisher and US AI expert Jacob about the surge of AI‑generated "slop" on platforms like YouTube and its impact on brand safety. They highlight how AI content now makes up roughly...
Ads Drive Traffic, But Weak Pages Waste Budgets
Ads are bringing people in But they don’t stay If your page doesn’t convince Your budget just bleeds
Ad Spend on YouTube, Google Search, Amazon Sponsored Products Is Growing: Report
Tinuiti’s latest report, based on more than $4 billion in managed ad spend, shows double‑digit growth across most digital channels in Q1 2026. Meta’s Instagram Reels now generate a third of the platform’s ad impressions, lifting Instagram ad spend 28% year‑over‑year, while...
Make Time Wellness Expands Product Line and Retail with Launch in Target Stores
Make Time Wellness, the women’s brain‑health supplement brand founded by Emma Heming Willis and Helen Christoni, is launching its products in select Target stores nationwide this April. The rollout follows the introduction of three new formulas—Menopause & Brain Health, NAD+ & Rhodiola,...
Ecommerce Trends: AI’s Key Conversion Metric Is Improving
Adobe Digital Insights reports that AI‑driven traffic to North American retailers converted 42% more often than non‑AI traffic in March 2026, overturning a year‑earlier deficit. AI‑referenced visits surged 393% year‑over‑year, while visitors stayed 48% longer, viewed 13% more pages and...
Automated AI Tool Turns Website Into Instant Sales Pipeline
RIP marketers. Someone built a money printer… you paste a website and it just starts bringing in customers in your sleep. It’s called Money Printer. It reads your site, figures out who should be buying, finds those companies, and reaches out to them...
Gatorade Restages Around ‘Science-Backed Hydration’ for Everybody
PepsiCo is relaunching Gatorade with a new "Gatorlyte Longer Lasting" variant that emphasizes science‑backed, sustained hydration for a broader audience. The product builds on a 2009 strategy overhaul that aimed to win back casual consumers who had drifted to water...
Same Brief, Three Distinct Tiered Email Designs
GPT Image 2’s range is wild. Had it make 3 ecommerce emails for 3 different brand tiers from the same brief. Luxury. Premium DTC. Mass market. Here’s the prompt: Create a clean presentation-style image on a soft warm neutral background showing 3 different ecommerce email designs...
TransUnion Launches Digital Business Profile
TransUnion announced the launch of Digital Business Profile, a portal that lets small‑business owners manage core listing information in one place. The service updates details such as name, address, hours, payment options, images and social links across more than 80...
Braze Launches BrazeAI Operator,?BrazeAI Agent Console, and Braze Creative Studio
Braze unveiled three new AI-driven products—BrazeAI Operator, BrazeAI Agent Console, and Braze Creative Studio—designed to embed decisioning, content generation, and asset management directly into marketers’ workflows. The tools enable real‑time data activation, AI‑generated copy, and seamless movement of designs from...
Automate Product Video Creation with Seedance 2.0 API
Filming videos for 50 products is the kind of project nobody wants to own. That's why most ecom brands don't have video for half their catalog. Here's what changes when Seedance 2.0 runs as an API call inside your automation stack: Your...
Google May Expand Unsupported Robots.txt Rules List via @Sejournal, @MattGSouthern
Google is preparing to expand the list of unsupported robots.txt directives in its public documentation, drawing on real‑world data from HTTP Archive. The team built a custom BigQuery metric to capture robots.txt files, revealing that beyond the four supported fields,...
Flipkart May Launch Standalone App for Quick Commerce Business Minutes
Flipkart is set to launch a dedicated quick‑commerce app for its Minutes service, targeting a pilot in July and a full rollout before year‑end, ahead of its Big Billion Days sale. The move mirrors Swiggy’s Instamart app and aims to...
Salesforce Renames AppExchange to AgentExchange: Community Reacts
Salesforce announced at TrailblazerDX that its two‑decade‑old AppExchange will be rebranded as AgentExchange, merging the marketplace with the Slack Marketplace and the Agentforce ecosystem. The unified catalog now hosts more than 10,000 Salesforce apps, over 2,600 Slack apps, and roughly...
Google’s Liz Reid on AI Search Changes, Query Shifts, and AI Slop
Google’s VP of Search, Liz Reid, told Bloomberg that AI isn’t killing search but reshaping how users interact with it. AI Overviews filter low‑value clicks, prompting more total searches while still directing users to deeper web content. She highlighted a...
Q1 2026 vs 2025: What Changed in Ecommerce (The Data)
In this episode, Richard Gaffin and Steve Recook analyze Q1 2026 e‑commerce data versus Q1 2025, highlighting a 13.6% revenue rise driven mainly by returning customers. They note that Meta ad spend jumped 25.3% while ROAS only fell 3%, and...
Shift to Monthly Analytics, Transform Your Content Perspective
Looking at your analytics month by month instead of post by post is going to change how you feel about your content.
Claude's Confident Yet Outdated Meta Ads Advice Misleads Marketers
Claude's guidance on Meta ads, pixels, audiences, etc is wildly bad and outdated, but said soooo confidently. I've seen too many founders and marketers freak out about something minor because of Claude's analysis about something they didn't understand.
Answer Engine Optimization Emerges as Next Search Frontier, BLVD Report Finds
Boulevard Digital Marketing (BLVD) released a new industry report that positions Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as the next major shift in search strategy. The analysis warns that traditional SEO is losing ground as AI‑generated answer engines dominate user queries, prompting...
ChatGPT Extends Ads to Logged-Out Users, Boosting Inventory
Now for logged out users. Interesting -> ChatGPT ads expand to logged-out users "ChatGPT is expanding ads to logged-out users, increasing inventory and making it easier for advertisers to scale spend." https://t.co/ljDF916Tsj via @TheMarketingAnu https://t.co/067EGOyLLI
Limited Spots for AI Search & Employee Advocacy Cohort
If you're a marketer trying to figure out AI search x employee advocacy (specifically on LinkedIn) and want to work with me + a small cohort of peers, applications for this are open 'til April 30th. A few spots left......
How Our Ads Bought Us Lufthansa First Class Seats
An online business spent $32,000 on Meta advertising in a single month and routed the expense through the American Express Business Gold Card, earning 128,000 Membership Rewards points. The points were transferred to Aeroplan, allowing the author to redeem 80,000...
Seeking Tiny Mic Cover Ideas for Brand Partnerships
What should my tiny mic™️ cover be? Could be fun pop for product placement if a brand wants to partner with me 👀 https://t.co/dxCi3sxBgx
Instantly Optimize Ad Spend with Top Budgets Widget
Stop guessing where your ad spend goes. The new Top Budgets widget in @Optmyzr ranks performance and flags instant optimization opportunities. Shift budgets to your best campaigns without context switching. Keep the boss happy and your ROI high. 🚀 #PPC #GoogleAds #Marketing...
5 Lessons From Delivering Bad SEO News to Executives
Organic traffic is falling across most SEO clients, with a 61% CTR drop for queries featuring AI Overviews. The article shares five hard‑earned lessons for SEO consultants on how to deliver bad news to C‑level executives, emphasizing early transparency, thorough...
Prize Choice Shapes Audience; Be Specific for Qualified Leads
I've run 100+ giveaways. Here's the pattern: 'Win a free iPad' giveaways got thousands of junk emails. 'Win our [product] and a 1-on-1 setup call' got a small list of hyper-qualified buyers. Your prize determines your audience. Be specific.
Hidden Fees Destroy Trust; Price for Partnership
Hidden costs and punitive #fees are trust killers. Algorithm-driven revenue might help Q4, but it erodes long-term #loyalty. Here's how to price for partnership > What the fees customers hate reveal about your pricing strategy @MarTechIsMktg https://t.co/DN9n1Tqk8r #cx #marketing https://t.co/MZrMbTJGwr