Read This Week’s Digital Marketing News Updates

Digital Marketing News 6/14/2025 to 6/20/2025

This week: Streaming giants unite for smarter TV ads, $84B lost to ad fraud, and social video becomes retail’s top priority.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Retail Media Moves Toward Video and Social

According to new data from eMarketer, brands are shifting their ad spend.

While traditional websites remain an essential form of advertising, two-thirds of US retailers plan to increase their spending on video advertising over the next year. This is in addition to the 63% who plan to increase ad spend on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Key Takeaway: Video content and social media marketing are far from dead. Both forms of content will continue to grow, and introduce us to new and innovative trends.

2. Remarkable $84 Billion Lost in Ad Fraud

Are your affiliates costing you money? They could be! Although affiliate marketing is a popular and highly lucrative strategy, it could also be costing you more than you know.

In new data released by Juniper Research, a total of $84 billion was lost to ad fraud in 2023. The most common fraud tactics include:

• Ad hijacking
• URL hijacking
• Website cloaking
• Trademark abuse
• Coupon code fraud

When left uncovered, these tactics could cost brands billions of dollars in wasted marketing budgets, damaged brand reputations, skewed analytics data, and higher operational costs.

Key Takeaway: Ad fraud happens more than you might think. Keep your eyes open for violations or signs of fraud so you can stop them before you add to that whopping $84 billion in lost revenue.

3. Amazon and Roku Team Up to Reshape TV Advertising

Speaking of video content, Amazon Ads and Roku have formed a new partnership that could help brands connect with over 80% of US households.

This new partnership will use Amazon’s DSP to stream ads across the Roku Channel, Prime Video, and other popular spaces on the Roku and Fire TV platforms. Expected to launch in Q4 of this year, it opens up a new opportunity in sought-after streaming spaces.

In the early trials, the Amazon and Roku partnership resulted in:

• 40% more unique viewers reached, at no added cost to buyers.
• 30% lower ad frequency for viewers, meaning less repetition.
• A 3x increase in media value compared to prior CTV options.

If connected-TV advertising is on your radar for 2025, keep an eye out for this opportunity. It could open some lucrative doors to get your content in front of new audiences across the country.

4. Google Issue Highlights Problems with Centralization

Are you relying heavily on Google Workplace? While convenient, a recent outage highlights the dangers of over-centralization.

Last week, the Google Cloud was paralyzed, causing issues with a number of digital marketing platforms, including:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Box
• ChatGPT, Claude, and Vertex AI
• Spotify and Snap
• Shopify and Etsy
• Verizon and AT&T
• YouTube, Gmail, Drive, and Nest

The outage lasted 2 hours and 28 minutes, affecting users worldwide. While Google claims that this outage is due to a faulty policy update, it has shed light on the importance of having fail-safes in place.

Why We Care: While Google Workspace and other Google Cloud products are fantastic, growing AI usage is only going to cause more stress on our existing infrastructure. This could cause problems for those of us who rely on the cloud to make a living and push out quality digital marketing content.

5. ChatGPT Gets an Update

Speaking of AI, growth is abundant on that front, too. This week, OpenAI started rolling out new updates to improve the chatbot.

Updates include:

• Smarter, more intelligent responses that are better at understanding what you’re asking
• The ability to understand and hold longer conversations
• Improved search capability and instruction following
• More robust ability to follow instructions and significantly reduce repetitive responses.
• Capability to run multiple searches automatically for complex or difficult questions.
• The ability to search the web using an image you’ve uploaded.

6. Google is Testing Audio Overviews

If you thought Google’s AI Overviews were exciting, wait until you see this new tool: Audio Overviews.

Google launched the new test features in Search Labs this week. Using the latest Gemini AI models, Google turns AI Overviews into short audio summaries on the SERP.

If you want to sign up to test them out, you can do so through Search Labs. Currently, the feature is only available in the United States, and audios are only generated in English.

Key Takeaway: Google and other tech companies are going to continue to find ways to use AI to improve their products. Digital marketers who want to stay ahead of the curve need to accept and embrace these new technologies and learn how to use them for their brand’s benefit.

7. Google AI Mode Data Available in Search Console

Marketers can now see clicks, impressions, and positions from Google AI mode in Google Search Console reports.

Here’s how they’re reported:

• Click - Any click on an external link
• Impression - If your page appears in Google’s AI response
• Position - calculated like standard search results

As AI Mode expands, it’s essential for marketers to tap into these new metrics so they can figure out if their SEO strategies are working or need to be revised.

8. Meta Increases AI Ad Tools

Meta announced some new AI Advantage+ ad tools this week that brands might find interesting.

The new tools include:

• Cohesive branding and creative tools
• Improved personalization, including text personas and translations
• Video generation
• Image animation
• Customized CTA stickers
• Expanded virtual try-on abilities

Advertisers can also create AI-generated video highlights that allow consumers to view the key moments of a video when they don’t have time to watch the entire thing. Additionally, every business will now have access to a Business AI that can handle customer support and provide product recommendations.

Key Takeaway: Meta is trying to make Meta Ads the most popular and beneficial PPC ads on the internet. These new tools just might make that happen.

9. Studies Show Online Personalities Are Gaining Influence

Think the influencer era is dead? Think again!

A new study from the Reuters Institute reveals that consumers are turning to social media personalities more than ever before. Not only are they influencing fashion and spending, but they’re also becoming a central piece of the 24/7 news cycle.

According to the report, “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up, overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”

Why We Care: The more time people spend online, the more chances you have to reach them with your product. If people are increasing their screen time, you might want to consider increasing your ad spend.

10. WhatsApp Dives into the Ad Game

With 2 billion monthly users, WhatsApp is now attempting to capitalize on its recent momentum by monetizing the platform.

Meta announced this week that it will resume WhatsApp’s original monetization strategy and add ads to Status, its version of Stories.

Whether this will work or not is still up in the air, but it’ll be interesting to see how consumers respond to being served ads on their messaging platform.

Why We Care: An opportunity to reach a new audience of 2 billion people could be a game-changer for a lot of brands.

11. YouTube Launches New Shopping Tools

Do you want to increase the number of people shopping on your YouTube Shorts? This new tool might help!

Brands can now tag products in their Short with an AI-generated sticker that looks like the product they are promoting. According to YouTube, advertisers that used this new tool saw a 40%+ increase in clicks on products in their Shorts than when they used the typical Shopping button.

Key Takeaway: With Shorts now averaging more than 200 billion views daily, these little stickers could lead to a lot of sales!

Weekly Homework

• Do research into your affiliate marketing strategies and look for signs of fraud or abuse.
• Check out the recent updates to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to see how they can help you expand your reach, improve content creation, and help with consumer research.
• Sign up to test Audio Overviews and see how they could impact your SEO strategy.
• Download the 171-page Digital News Report from Reuters Institute to see how you can use the insights to improve your digital reach and connection.
• Add product stickers to your YouTube Shorts to increase clicks and purchases.

Digital Marketing News 6/7/2025 to 6/13/2025

This week: YouTube fuels $55B economy, Apple unveils smarter AI tools, and desktop dominates AI search.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Most AI Search Traffic Comes from Desktop

Mobile may dominate in the world of web traffic, but a new report reveals more than 90% of AI search referrals come from desktop searches.

While AI search is on the rise, it’s not yet a mobile-first experience. Users in the US, UK and EU all lean heavily on traditional search engines, with less than 1% of traffic coming from AI search engines on their mobile devices.

Most AI platforms are overwhelmingly desktop-driven:

• ChatGPT: 94% of referrals from desktop
• Perplexity: 96%
• Bing: 94%
• Google Gemini: 91%

AI tools on mobile often show answers in-app, meaning users don’t always click through to external websites. Even when they do, it usually takes an extra tap. That added friction, along with limitations inside mobile apps, is stalling mobile referral growth.

2. YouTube Announces Huge Impact to US Economy

If you’re a creator or brand looking to increase your bottom line, YouTube might be the place to do it. A recent report from Oxford Economics Impact Report announced this week that the site contributed $55 billion to America’s GDP, the equivalent of 490,000 full-time jobs.

Not only is this big news for the US economy, but also for creators and businesses. According to the report:

• 55% of ad and subscription revenue goes back to the creator
• 79% of small businesses say YouTube is essential to their business growth
• 92% of viewers use YouTube to gather information
• 77% of viewers say they value the diversity of content and perspectives

If you’re willing to put the work in, YouTube can be one of the most lucrative marketing platforms for your business.

3. Apple’s Announcements at WWDC

This year the company concentrated on updating its operation system, services, and software. Here’s some of the new announcements:

• Interact with Screen Content: Apple’s new Visual Intelligence feature brings real-time image analysis to your fingertips.
• Image Playground: Apple’s AI art tool, now taps into ChatGPT to offer new creative styles such as “anime,” “oil painting,” and “watercolor.
• Personal Trainer: It delivers real-time encouragement during workouts and recaps key stats like your fastest mile, average heart rate, and milestones—mirroring the experience of having a personal trainer at your side.
• Smart Call Management: Call screening vs hold assist

4. Microsoft Advertising Announces Huge Overhaul

It was a big week for Microsoft Advertising! The PPC platform has overhauled its Reporting homepage and introduced a range of new product and feature updates.

The latest updates are designed to help advertisers adjust to a shifting economy and consumer mindset. Within the Reporting homepage, users now have access to a more powerful Custom Report Builder. This will enable advertisers to get more granular with their KPIs, allowing them to better optimize their campaigns.

Other updates include:

• Performance Max: Campaigns can now follow standard auction dynamics when overlapping with Standard Shopping campaigns.
• Google and Meta Import: Importing carousel ads just got easier! This update removes the manual work and enables faster cross-platform scaling.
• Shopify + Microsoft: The Microsoft Channel app on Shopify is now live in more markets, including the UK, Japan, Australia, and select EU countries. This means that advertisers can connect their Microsoft Ads with their Shopify to sync product catalogs and manage P-Max campaigns.

5. Scam Fatigue is On the Rise

Scams are making it harder for brands to connect with potential customers. Nearly every US adult (96%) receives at least one scam a week. 37% get over 10 scam emails per week and 23% get over 10 scam calls.

Who gets hit the hardest by scams?

• Gen X & Boomers: 94% receive them weekly
• Boomers also lead in scam calls (89%)
  Gen Z: 2 out of 3 get scam messages weekly, often on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which account for 84% of social fraud cases (FTC)

What does this mean for brands?

• 60% of businesses say spam filters block their messages from inboxes (Kickbox)
• 64% have seen revenue or retention suffer due to email deliverability issues

5. Google’s Stance on AI-Translated Content

Google removed the section in their Guidelines about using robots.txt to block all automatically translated pages.

In the past Google has highly discouraged large-scale automated translation, warning that low-value, auto-generated content could be considered spam.

Platforms like Reddit are now auto-translating millions of pages, with company leadership even stating during an earnings call that Google had “totally sanctioned” the practice.

“Our policies do not strictly define content that has been translated by AI as spam. Our scaled content abuse policy mentions automated transformations, including translations, as part of the overall warning against creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users.

7. Mattel and OpenAI Collaborate to Create Toys

Mattel, the iconic toy company behind Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Uno, has announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to integrate generative AI into its toy-making and content creation processes.

This collaboration aims to launch the first AI-powered product by the end of 2025, focusing on enhancing fan engagement in a safe, thoughtful, and responsible manner .

Under this partnership, Mattel plans to utilize OpenAI's advanced AI tools, including ChatGPT Enterprise, to boost innovation and streamline internal operations. The integration of AI is expected to assist in developing age-appropriate play experiences, with a strong emphasis on user privacy and safety. By incorporating AI into its products and operations, Mattel aims to redefine traditional toy concepts and appeal to modern consumers, thereby rejuvenating its market presence.

While specific AI applications have not been disclosed, the collaboration signifies a step in bringing AI to children's playtime, potentially leading to innovative products that combine physical and digital experiences .

8. New Structured Data on Google for Loyalty Programs

If you use a loyalty program, you’re going to want to hear about this recent Google announcement!

This week, Google released two new types of structured data: one for loyalty programs and another to illustrate their benefits.

The announcement stated that “… member benefits, such as lower prices and earning loyalty points, are a major factor considered by shoppers when buying products online.”

Adding this feature to your account only requires two steps:

• Add loyalty program info to your ‘Organization’ structured data.
• Add loyalty benefits to your ‘Product’ structured data.
• Bonus step: Check if your markup works using the Rich Results Test tool.

You can also now define multiple membership tiers within your loyalty program and specify different requirements for joining.

This new feature is a significant indication that Google is committed to helping small and medium-sized ecommerce sites grow. If you fall into one of those categories, make sure you take advantage of this opportunity.

9. Google Reveals AI Mode Insights for Marketers

Calling all marketers! Google released some details behind the development of AI Mode that we should pay attention to.

The biggest recommendation is to tailor your content to question-based, user queries instead of relying solely on one or two-word keywords.

According to Google’s Product Management Director, Soufi Esmaelizadeh, “Instead of relying on keywords, you can now pose complex questions in plain language, mirroring how you’d naturally express yourself… [searchers] appreciate us not just finding information, but actively helping them organize and understand it in a highly consumable way, with help from our most intelligent AI models.”

10. Google Responds to Site Rank Loss After Googlebot DDoS Crawl

Concerned about their crawl budget and rankings being affected by Googlebot requesting URLs that don’t exist, one publisher recently went directly to Google to ask.

The publisher was concerned that Google was using all of their site’s crawl budget on 410 status pages. Mueller responded that “Google attempts to recrawl pages that once existed for a really long time, and if you have a lot of them, you’ll probably see more of them. This isn’t a problem – it’s fine to have pages be gone, even if it’s tons of them. That said, disallowing crawling with robots.txt is also fine, if the requests annoy you.”

Essentially, it’s okay, but if it’s bothering you, here’s what to do:

• Double-check that the ?feature= URLs are not being used at all in any frontend code or JSON payloads that power important pages.
• Use Chrome DevTools to simulate what happens if those URLs are blocked — to catch breakage early.
• Monitor Search Console for Soft 404s to spot any unintended impact on pages that should be indexed.

11. YouTube Includes Posts in Shorts Feed

YouTube creators have a new way to reach their audience! This week, the video platform announced that Posts will be shared directly in the Shorts feed.

The posts will show up vertically in the feed, and users can like or comment without stopping the video they’re watching. This helps to even the playing field for long-form content creators who haven’t dived into the world of Shorts, yet.

YouTube didn’t announce how these posts will be selected, so it will take some trial and error on the part of the marketer to see which posts work and which don’t.

12. YouTube Adds New Ad Features

Speaking of YouTube, the newest innovations to the advertising dashboard could help solve problems that videos have been facing for years!

The new feature rollout was focused on three areas:

• Connection to product feed
• Placement segmentation
• Ad type segmentation

Now, advertisers can:

• Add product feed to conversion video campaigns
• Segment out Discover and Gmail, in addition to the Google Display Network, to choose where ads are being displayed
• Segment between in-stream, in-feed, or Shorts

13. All Advertisers Can Access Meta’s Opportunity Score

Last month, Meta Ads expanded the rollout of its Opportunity Score KPI. This month, they’ve announced that it is now available to all users.

The score aims to provide opportunities to optimize Meta Ads campaigns and improve performance. Although it is not based on actual performance data, it does provide valuable insights on how to utilize Meta’s AI tools to enhance your campaign.

According to Meta, advertisers who use the recommendations provided by their Opportunity Score saw a 12% decrease in cost per result.

14. New WordPress Plugin Offers Necessary Security

Patchstack, a WordPress security company, announced a new security tier this week. The managed Vulnerability Disclosure Program (mVDP) will provide human and advanced AI plugin reviews to enhance security and reduce site vulnerabilities.

It’s no secret that WordPress is vulnerable to third-party plugin issues. While developers do try to keep their software resistant to these threats, when they happen, it can cause issues for the user and decrease their trust in the software provider.

PatchStack’s new tier aims to reduce these vulnerabilities and restore user trust. There will be two tiers of protection, a free and a paid one. The new Security Suite will cost $75 a month and include:

$40 worth of AI tokens for code security reviews each month
Team management feature of 5 seats
Discussion board with reporting researchers
AI code review and human research

15. Threads Adds Features and Users

It’s been a big week for Meta’s text-based app, Threads! Not only did it remain at the top of the Most Downloaded Apps list for May, but it also began rolling out a new feature – DMs.

According to Adam Mosseri, Threads is testing a DM feature with users in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Argentina. Originally, Threads tested the idea of using a user’s IG DMs as their Threads messaging option, but that idea was shelved.

Now, Threads is testing a stand-alone DM feature, which could be helpful for users who want to grow their brand or business through Threads. It’s one step closer to streamlining the app and making it more independent from other Meta apps.

Weekly Homework:

• Download the YouTube 2024 Impact Report to see how you can use the platform to grow your brand.
• Access your Meta Ads Opportunity Score for tips on how to maximize your Meta Ads and improve performance.
• Take some time to explore the new Microsoft Ads reporting and product updates.
• Decide if now is the time to add Threads to your social media marketing strategy.
• Refresh some of your content so that it specifically responds to questions, instead of just aiming for select one or two-word keywords.
• Download PatchStack’s newest program to protect your WordPress site from compromised plugins.

Digital Marketing News 5/31/2025 to 6/6/2025

This week: Google Marketing Live unveils 30+ updates, Meta plans full ad automation, and TikTok introduces powerful new ad tools, setting the stage for major shifts in AI-driven marketing, cross-platform ad performance, and creator-first advertising experiences.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Marketing Live 2025: Over 30 New Product Updates Announced

Google Marketing Live 2025 is over, but its major announcements will continue making waves throughout the year.

Some of the biggest announcements involved Search included:

• AI Overview Ads are now available for desktop users
• Ads will start to appear within AI Mode and Gemini by the end of the year
• Marketers will soon have access to the AI Max for Search Campaigns suite of features
• Google is creating clearer ad labeling within AI tools
• Google Ads for Search gets new Smart Bidding update

Performance Max also received the following updates:

• Access to channel-level performance metrics
• Additional search term reporting for Search and Shopping
• The ability to exclude certain searchers

There were also numerous updates announced to improve creative assets, such as a Demand Gen Maps inventory, new Creator Partnerships Hub, Insights Finder, Shoppable CTV, and improved AI tools in Product Studio.

2. Search Engine Land Releases Report on Zero-Click Searches and Organic Traffic Dips

If you’re concerned about how AI tools like ChatGPT are affecting your Google ranking, check out this recently released report from Search Engine Land.

According to recent data:

• More US users use traditional search (10.55%) over AI tools (0.55%)
• More EU and UK users also used traditional search (10.25%) over AI tools (0.71%)
• 40% of all US Google users and 43.5% of EU and UK users clicked on an organic search result in March
• 14.3 of all US Google Searches and 12.6% of EU and UK searches resulted in clicks to other Google-owned sites, like YouTube or Maps
• Zero-click searches increased to 27.2% of US searches and 26.10% of EU and UK searches

Key Takeaway: AI may not be killing traditional search, but it is reshaping it. Marketers need to learn how to embrace these AI tools to keep their brands ahead of the competition.

3. Study Shows Google AI Overviews Favor Certain Outlets

Do Google’s AI Overviews favor certain outlets? According to this recent report from SE Ranking, they do!

After analyzing over 75,000 AI Overview responses, SE Ranking found:

• 80% of all news mentions are captured by 10 outlets
• Only 20.85% of overviews cite news sources
• 31% of media mentions came from BBC, The New York Times, and CNN
• 11.37% of all mentions came from BBC (even for US-based searches)
• Financial Times, MSNBC, Vice, TechCrunch, and The New Yorker together account for less than 1% of all news mentions
• 60% of cited content doesn’t come from the top 10

4. Making LLMS-Friendly Content Could Help You

In a recent report from Search Engine Land, experts are noting that LLMS.txt is not like robots.txt – at all. Instead, it’s more of a curated site map for AI.

Although the names are similar, the two aspects are pretty different. Whereas robots.txt can block crawlers or dictate behavior, LLMS.txt is more of a site-map menu, showing crawlers the most valuable content upfront.

Basically, robots.txt is about exclusion, sitemap.xml is about discovery, and LLMS.txt is about curation. To make your content more LLMS-friendly, you need to adjust the structure of your content to include:

• Short, scannable paragraphs
• Clear headings and subheadings
• Lists, tables, and bullet points
• Minimal distractions
• Semantic clues

Key Takeaway: Use LLMS.txt as a map, not a muzzle, and it can help grow your content’s reach.

5. New Insight from Google on How to Fix Websites Caught in SafeSearch Filter

If you’ve ever gotten caught up in the SafeSearch Filter, you know it can be a pain to get your site fixed. This week, Google released a plan to help!

Google suggests following these three steps to see if SafeSearch is interfering with your website:

• Confirm that SafeSearch is set to Off.
• Search for a term where you can find that page in search results.
• Set SafeSearch to Filter. If you don’t see your page in the results anymore, it is likely being affected by SafeSearch filtering on this query

This most commonly happens when:

• Developers accidentally add the adult rating meta tag to content
• Labeling videos that aren’t explicit as not family-friendly in the video sitemap
• Allowing all UGC comments without content moderation
• Restricting Googleboy with an age gate
• Not separating explicit pages from non-explicit pages

If you find yourself stuck in the filter, Google points to this checklist to troubleshoot your issues.

Action Item: Bookmark Google’s checklist for easy access in case your site ever gets caught in a SafeSearch filter.

6. Google Ads API v20 Releases New Updates

Google recently released version 20 of the Google Ads API, and it includes several notable updates.

In addition to a release schedule change, other key updates include:

• Adding campaign level negative words to P-Max campaigns
• More granular report segmentation for Demand Gen campaigns
• Demand Gen campaigns can now support the platform comparable conversions measurement
• Reach forecasting is available to allowedlisted accounts

Google says that “[t]o use some of the v20 features, you must upgrade your client libraries and client code. The updated client libraries and code examples will be published next week.”

Action Item: If you’re using third-party software or you’ve built your own to manage Google Ads API, you need to review these changes. Some may make it easier for you to automate tasks and utilize more useful reporting.

7. Pinterest Highlights Latest Consumer and Advertising Trends

Pinterest wants to help you reach the right people with your content! This week, they released a list of the latest rising trends on their fast-growing app.

Typically, Pinterest trends can predict upcoming shopping trends and interests, which is important for ecommerce businesses. According to Pinterest: “It’s a Digital Detox Winter: Pinterest users are embracing the chill by unplugging from screens and reconnecting with nature this season. Think cosy cabin stays, bush retreats, and winter getaways as searches for digital detox ideas and digital detox vision boards trending up by 72% and 273% respectively.”

8. LinkedIn Launches New Video Ad Formats

You heard that correctly - LinkedIn has a new suite of video advertising tools for B2B marketers.

• First Impression Ads: Full-screen vertical video format lets advertisers reserve the first ad impression a user sees each day
• Reserved Ads: Guarantee the top feed placement for Sponsored Content, Thought Leader Ads, Single Image Ads, and Document Ads
• CTV Expansion: GIves advertisers access to premium streaming content with fixed pricing and brings VSAT tag support for faster activation
• Adobe Express: New integration streamlines video creation using LinedIn-optimized templates

According to LinkedIn, 91% of advertisers note their biggest pain point is trying to break through all the noise. These new video ad tools should help them reach their target audience easier.

9. Meta Announces Ad Campaigns Will Be Fully Automated by 2026

Are your Meta Ads stressing you out? This new announcement may provide some relief!

According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta announced that all ads will be fully automated by next year. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “We’re going to get to a point where you’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out. I think that’s going to be huge, I think it is a redefinition of the category of advertising.”

Some experts are saying that this will make huge changes in advertising as we know it. At the same time, others see it as an opportunity for human-centered branding to shape public perception and interest. Only time will tell.

What This Means for Us: Marketers will need to adjust their focus and become familiar with the latest AI tools to maximize their reach, ad ROI, and tool utilization.

10. Meta Shares Tips to Improve Ad Campaigns

Speaking of Meta, we can look to their recent announcement to optimize our digital ads while we await this new automation effort.

In conjunction with AppsFlyer and Dentsu, Meta released a new report that explains how advertisers can optimize their content and find more success on the Meta-family of apps.

In this newly released guidance, Meta claims the foundational elements of Meta Ads include:

• Create video ads in 9:16 (with audio)
• Emotional storytelling (incorporate emotional hooks within the first few seconds)
• Include a human presence
• Add text overlays to maximize messaging impact

In the report, Meta says that internal research says that when campaigns use this combination, they see a 16% lower CPA, 29% higher conversion rate, and an 11% greater reach across Reels, Feed, and Stories.

Action Item: Download the entire AppsFlyer report to see how you can optimize your Meta Ads.

11. TikTok Releases Ad Updates at TikTok World Event

TikTok recently hosted its fifth TikTok World event. During the event, the social media app announced a range of new ad options, tools, and opportunities.

Some of these updates include:

• New Market Scope analytics to help advertisers analyze key audience insights by separating them into different categories: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion
• A new ad offering called Brand Consideration Ads
• Additions to the TikTok One platform to help connect brands and relevant creators
• The launch of TikTok One Insights Spotlight
• Additional marketing and creator tools, including TikTok One Content Suite, which is full of user generated videos that mention a particular brand or product
• New features for its commerce-focused ad tools called Symphony, Smart+, and GMV Max

Key Takeaway: While the US TikTok ban is still up in the air, it’s clear that TikTok isn’t letting the threats slow them down from attempting to create the most creator and advertiser-friendly app in the world.

Weekly Homework:

• Every marketer needs to learn more about the announcements made at Google Marketing Live 2025. Whether you read in-person accounts or scroll through Google’s press releases, make time to update yourself this week.
• Do a content audit to ensure your content is structured correctly for AI crawlers. Use LLMS.txt for assistance, if needed.
• Watch the latest YouTube video from Google on the Google Ads API updates.
• Download Pinterest’s list of rising trends for inspiration on content for your own ads.
• Review AppsFlyer’s recent report for tips on how to optimize your Meta Ads.
• Get familiar with all of the TikTok updates to see which ones you can use to grow your brand on TikTok.

Digital Marketing News 5/24/2025 to 5/30/2025

This week: Google AI agents raise control concerns, TikTok launches $1M in ad credits for small businesses, and LinkedIn unveils ad insights that tie directly to B2B purchases.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Use Promoted Pins in Your Maps Demand Gen Campaigns

Drive more foot traffic to your physical store locations. Lean into Promoted Pins on Maps to put your business front and center as users explore locations and businesses nearby.

Existing image assets from your campaigns will be repurposed for your pins. They show up in Maps when users browse specific areas, search for directions or look up specific locations.

This new addition will help turn “browse-worthy” internet moments into physical store visits.

2. Newly Released Social Media Report Highlights 2025 Trends

Giraffe Social has released a new social media report highlighting key trends for 2025.

Some highlights include:

• AI-driven tools like Meta’s Advantage+ and TikTok’s Creative Assistant are improving e-commerce
• Short-form video is dominating all industries, with over 90% of marketers reporting a positive ROI
• Features like Instagram Checkout, TikTok Shop, and Pinterest Product Pins are improving retail, with projections of social commerce hitting $1.2 trillion in revenue by the end of the year
• Privacy-first targeting is taking over all industries
• Performance-based influencer marketing is outperforming traditional PPC in CPC and ROI

Action Item: Download GiraffeSocial’s report to learn more about how to capitalize on trends and realign your social media strategies.

3. Google Claims AI Search Still Delivers Quality Traffic

Recent data have revealed that new AI-powered search features are leading to significant reductions in website traffic. At Google Marketing Live this week, Google executives stated that lower traffic does not necessarily mean an increase in quality traffic.

According to Google, “When they get to a decision to click out, it’s a more highly qualified click… What we hope to see over time—and we don’t have any data to share on this—is more time spent on site, which is what we see organically in a much more highly qualified visitor for the website.”

They also noted that the point of AI tools is to help users discover more information and answer more questions. To help capture those clicks, Google recommends that SEO professionals:

• Create content that directly answers user questions
• Add more video content
• Develop detailed FAQs and Q&A sections

Key Takeaway: AI tools are changing the way Google crawls your site, but that doesn’t mean SEO is dead. There are numerous ways to capitalize on these changes and utilize them to garner more attention from your audience.

4. Google’s New AI Tools Raise Control Concerns

Google’s new AI agents can now modify campaigns automatically, but is that a good thing? Some experts are saying no. These control concerns became public at this week’s Google Marketing Live event.

Google introduced three new tools:

• Google Ads Agentic Expert - a tool to help create multiple ad groups with matching assets, add keywords and implement creative suggestions, fix policy issues, submit appeals, and generate reports about the campaign
• Google Analytics Data Expert - a tool to simplify data exploration, insights, and trends
• Marketing Advisor Chrome Extension - a browser extension that manages tasks, including automated tagging, tag installation, seasonal trend analysis, and problem diagnosis

While Google is hoping that these new tools make Google Ads easier and more profitable, some agencies and brands are worried about giving up that much creative control of their campaigns.

To prepare for the upcoming changes, marketers should:

• Set up AI change protocols
• Demand clear tracking
• Prepare for API changes, including third-party tool connections and agency workflow automation

Action Item: If you’re a Google Ads user, research how these changes will affect you and create a plan to prepare for the implementation of these new AI tools.

5. Google AI Overviews and Traditional Search Generate the Same Ad Revenue

There’s been a lot of talk about Google’s AI Overviews (AIO). Recently, Google addressed the concerns that AIO is negatively impacting ad revenue.

At Google Marketing Live, Google executives announced that AIO will be expanding to more desktop users, as well as into additional English-speaking markets.

They also shared that they’ve done traditional controlled experiments to see how AI is affecting monetization. According to their research, they found that “[w]hen we say AI overviews monetizes at the same rate, if you had taken the exact same set of queries and not shown AI overviews, it would have monetized at some rate. This continues to monetize at the same rate.”

Key Takeaway: If you are seeing a drop in monetization, revisit your content. Ensure that it is high-quality, cohesive, and beneficial to your audience.

6. AI Performance Insights Are Coming to Google Search Console

Speaking of Google’s AI Overviews, advertisers will soon be able to view insights on how well content is performing in AI Mode.

John Mueller from Google recently confirmed the insights as part of an upcoming AI mode rollout. He was quoted as saying, “the reporting is planned to be added to Search Console… There’s currently no separate break-out planned, and no API change involved. Stay tuned for more specifics – perhaps next week, but as always, we can’t promise specific timelines.”

While this is great news, there are still some setbacks. For example, you won’t be able to separate how your ads are performing with AI Overviews and AI Mode. It will all be lumped together.

Why We Care: Improved tracking data will lead to enhanced ad ROI, which is always beneficial for marketers. Additionally, AI is undoubtedly the future for Google, so it would be beneficial to understand how your content is performing in this new AI-driven world.

7. Google Expands YouTube Insights Finder Globally

Google’s YouTube Insights Finder tool is now available in over 20 markets worldwide.

• The tool is designed to help advertisers better understand their audiences by:
• Explore interests and trends that their audience is interested in
• Discover top creators in different segments, including topic, category, and audience
• Measure engagement and access metrics on viewer engagement and content preferences
• Analyze how audiences watch their content across devices

Key Takeaway: If you are a YouTube creator, this new insights tool could help improve your channel and expand your reach.

8. Fire in US Data Center Delivers Devastating Blow to X

Did you experience issues with your X app this week? It may be linked to the massive fire at one of its data centers.

According to Social Media Today, the fire happened in an Oregon data center and was reportedly caused by a battery issue. The fire set off a series of outages and issues with the social media app.

This fire comes on the heels of owner Elon Musk’s renewed comment to X/xAI, Tesla, and SpaceX. He noted that “[a]s evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made. The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not.”

Key Takeaways: If Elon Musk is serious about rededicating his time to X, we could see major impacts on the social media site. If some of these impacts include launching the much-discussed in-stream payments and banking features, X could become a bigger player in brands’ social media marketing campaigns again.

9. LinkedIn Reveals Improved Ad Insights

Could LinkedIn be the missing piece of your PPC puzzle? The app certainly hopes so! This week, they revealed new insights into how their campaigns can directly influence B2B purchases.

According to LinkedIn, “In B2B sales, buying decisions are rarely made alone - they often involve a buying committee of six to ten stakeholders, each influencing the path to purchase. Company-level attribution helps marketers understand the impact of their campaigns across multiple individuals and touchpoints, from initial engagement to closed deals.”

Action Item: Explore the recently released insights and see how you can apply the knowledge to your B2B LinkedIn ad campaigns.

10. Discord Throws Its Hat in the PPC Ring

Popular social platform, Discord, is testing new video ad options. Branded as In-Game Rewards, these unskippable ads mark the most aggressive move into monetization for the niche community platform yet.

The ads are unskippable and immersive. If the user looks away from the device, the ads pause. Users can also opt in to personalization to receive more customized ads. Additionally, the privacy-friendly targeting allows brands to target users based on their interests, without raising privacy concerns.

Why We Care: This platform was previously an ad-free, community-first platform. By rolling out ads, it will cause a shift for users and brands. By guaranteeing full user attention, it could be a great way to reach highly engaged, interest-based communities with minimal competition.

Weekly Homework:

• Read the insights into how AI is affecting SEO, and use them to tweak your SEO strategy.
• Download Giraffe Social’s 2025 Social Media Marketing report to see how you can bring your social media campaigns to life.
• Explore how Google’s YouTube Insights could improve your YouTube channel and ad campaigns.
• Keep an eye on improvements and upgrades coming out of X.
• Explore how LinkedIn ads could help boost your B2B bottom line.
• Determine if Discord ads can help you reach a niche-specific audience more effectively than traditional PPC ads.

Digital Marketing News 5/17/2025 to 5/23/2025

This week: Google Ads Bidding gets its biggest update in a decade, Gemini 2.5 AI tools enhance marketing workflows and reasoning, and IndexNow SEO boosts AI shopping visibility for ecommerce.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Ads Bidding Gets Largest Update in Over 10 Years

Google has been busy! Google Ads also got an update recently.

In the largest update in over a decade, Google announced the launch of Smart Bidding Exploration, a new opt-in feature. It's a fundamental shift in how advertisers can find value in queries and was designed to help them capture more conversions with their Google Ad campaigns.

Your Ads platform will also show you the impact of allowing Smart Bidding Exploration in your reports so that you can effectively determine if using this new tool is right for you. The reports won’t get incredibly granular, but they will show the number of unique search categories generating impressions and conversions, how much traffic came from those categories, and the volume of new conversions compared to your baseline.

2. Google Ads Rolls Out More Creative AI Tools

Bidding wasn’t the only part of Google Ads that got an update recently. Google also rolled out a ton of new creative AI tools to help optimize ads.

Now, advertisers have access to:

• Cinematic tools, including image-to-video transformation, and AI outpainting
• AI updates to Google’s Product Studio that suggest trending campaign ideas, optimized titles, and relevant product offers
• New and improved Merchant Center with customizable brand profiles, curated images, and refreshed product descriptions
• Shoppable video ads at scale

The tech giant is working behind the scenes to help marketers improve how they interact and communicate with their audiences, hopefully leading to higher sales and more successful Google Ads.

3. Google Marketing Advisor is Coming to Chrome

Google had another big announcement at the recent Google Marketing Live 2025 event: Google Marketing Advisor.

This AI-powered assistant will live within the Chrome browser to help advertisers better manage their marketing tasks across all Google platforms. The tool can:

• Identify missing tags
• Fix issues
• Surface seasonal insights

This anticipated tool is expected to roll out later this year, with integrations with Google Ads, Google Analytics, and other popular marketing stack tools.

Why We Care: Many marketers use a fragmented tech stack to help them with their work. Google Marketing Advisor could potentially streamline marketing tasks by putting everything in one centralized location.

4. Google Launches New AI Training Certification for Marketers

Do you want to increase your knowledge of generative AI and boost your resume? Google just announced a new generative AI certification program for marketers.

The course covers only Google’s generative AI tools. It could be helpful for marketers and other non-technical users who work in Google-centric environments.

While the training is free, the certification exam costs $99 and covers four areas:

1. Basic concepts and terms
2. How Google Cloud tools help AI-powered work
3. How to get better results from AI
4. Best practices for safe, responsible AI use

Action Item: Look into this new certification if you want to embrace the use of Google’s Generative AI tools in your work.

5. Google Releases List of HTTP Status Codes They Care About

Ever wonder which HTTP status codes Google actually cares about? On a recent episode of the Search Off the Record podcast, Google’s Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt revealed which ones Google is actually paying attention to – and which ones you can skip.

The conversation wasn’t a comprehensive guide, but it did offer some valuable insights, including:

• For redirects, focus primarily on the permanent vs. temporary distinction
• Don’t invest resources in optimizing 1xx responses specifically for Google
• When troubleshooting network errors, look beyond HTTP to deeper protocol layers
• Continue to implement standard status codes correctly, including those not specifically discussed

Why We Care: Understanding how Google processes signals like HTTP status codes is critical to creating an effective technical SEO strategy.

6. IndexNow Improves AI Search and Shopping SEO

Ecommerce sites – listen up! Microsoft Bing announced this week that the IndexNow search crawling technology is a powerful tool for ecommerce companies who want to appear at the top of the SERP.

According to the announcement, pairing IndexNow with Schema.org will help to ensure faster indexing, meaning your correct product information will appear within AI search and shopping features.

They recommend using the following Schema.org product types:

• title (name in JSON-LD)
• description
• price (list/retail price)
• link (product landing page URL)
• image link (image in JSON-LD)
• shipping (especially important for Germany and Austria)
• id (a unique identifier for the product)
• brand
• gtin
• mpn
• datePublished
• dateModified
• Optional fields to further enhance context and classification:
• category (helps group products for search and shopping platforms)
• seller (recommended for marketplaces or resellers)
• itemCondition (e.g., NewCondition, UsedCondition)

Key Takeaways: Ecommerce sites that want to be discovered should perform a website audit to ensure that they’re using all of the right schema product type properties to be discovered by AI search engines.

7. New AI Tools Come to Google Gemini

Google announced new upgrades to Gemini 2.5 models this week at Google I/O.

The new capabilities are designed to enhance reasoning, improve interface interactions, and create more efficient workflows. Updates include:

• Google Live camera and screen sharing to allow for real-time visual help
• Integration with Google Maps, Calendar, Tasks, and Keep
• The ability to create calendar events from conversations
• Deep Think abilities allow the AI model to consider multiple solutions before responding
• Thought summaries to explain the reasoning process
• Thinking budgets to control costs
• MCP support to allow for integration with open-source tools

Key Takeaways: Google Gemini is evolving and could become more beneficial for marketers, their analytical workflows, and their work product.

8. Google Search Expands AI Mode

Google announced major upgrades to AI Mode at its recent I/O developer conference. The upgrades aim to improve accuracy and global reach and create a more interactive search experience for Google users.

In addition to being available all over the US, AI Mode is also now available in over 200 countries and more than 40 languages. And users no longer need to opt-in to use it. Thanks to the ease of use of AI Mode, Google has reported a 10% increase in search activity in major markets like the US and India.

Updates include:

• Deep Search to build expert-level, fully-cited reports in minutes
• Live Visual Search
• AI Agents that can complete multi-step tasks
• Improved shopping capabilities such as personalized visuals, virtual try-ons, and AI-powered checkouts

Key Takeaway: Google is clearly pushing toward a user-centric experience. As marketers, your content and SEO strategies should adapt to meet the evolving expectations of Google and its users.

9. YouTube is Making it Easier to Interact with Viewers

YouTube rolled out new features designed to make it easier to interact with your audience.

Now, creators have the ability to create quiz stickers for Shorts and reply to comments with voice replies. All creators have also been given access to YouTube’s Shorts visual guide to make it easier to place where UI buttons will appear on your video.

It seems that YouTube is most excited about the quiz stickers, saying, “[w]ith this one-click sticker, creators can quiz their audience, and evaluate if they understand a particular concept. This, in turn, can inspire future content creation. Whether you’re testing their knowledge on a recent video topic, diving into a niche subject, or simply adding a dose of light-hearted competition to your channel, the possibilities are endless.”

Action Item: Log into YouTube and play around with these new options to create a more interactive experience for your audience.

10. Meta Tests Option to Create Unattached Threads Profile

Is Threads separating itself from Instagram? In the EU it is!

Some EU users are now able to create a Threads account without using an Instagram login. Since some users weren’t thrilled about having their Instagram account so deeply intertwined with their Instagram account, this could lead to more Threads users.

Why We Care: Making it easier to create a Threads account could greatly increase the app’s user count. Between this and the recent introduction of ads on Threads, you might want to consider adding it to your social media strategy soon.

Weekly Homework:

• Open up your Google Ads dashboard to learn more about whether Smart Bidding Exploration could be right for your organization.
• Look into the new Google generative AI certification process to see if it might benefit your work as a digital marketer.
• If you are an e-commerce site, perform a site audit to ensure your schema aligns with the new suggestions from IndexNow.
• Play around with Google AI Mode to see how you can tailor your content to users relying on this new AI-based search tool.
• If you are a YouTube creator, start using the new tools to see if they help form stronger connections between you and your audience.

Digital Marketing News 5/10/2025 to 5/16/2025

This week: TikTok launches $1M ad credit, AI tools show rising error rates, and PMax adds device-level targeting

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. TikTok Launches $1 Million Ad Credit for US Small Businesses

Is your small business on TikTok? You’re going to love how TikTok is celebrating Small Business Month this year!

Starting May 15th, TikTok will roll out a weekly webinar series to provide small businesses with expert guidance and campaign strategies to help improve their reach on TikTok. They are also hosting in-person training and networking events in Los Angeles, New York, and Austin.

One of the biggest celebrations: the launch of a $1 million ad credit program. The social media site will reward 500 businesses with $2,000 in TikTok Ad Credits and 1:1 onboarding support to help maximize their ads. To gain access to the ad credits, businesses must register for and attend the webinars and events.

Check out everything that TikTok has planned for the Small Biz Fest now!

2. New AI Tools Could Be More Harmful than Helpful

According to The New York Times, the newest AI tools may be faster, but they’re making more factual errors. This spells trouble for marketers relying on them to streamline content creation and customer services.

Newest tests reveal surprising error rates. For questions about people, OpenAI’s o3 system was wrong 33% of the time. The o4-mini model had a 48% error rate for the same questions.

The error rates were even higher for general questions, where o3 was wrong 51% of the time and o4-mini was wrong 79% of the time.

Similar rates appeared when the tests were run with Google and DeepSeek, as well. This is a problem, especially when people use AI to create content or solve customer issues.

Key Takeaway: AI is extremely helpful, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you rely on. If you’re using AI tools, be sure to have humans review all customer-facing content and create a process for fact-checking information. You can also consider using AI tools that cite their sources to make fact-checking easier.

3. PMax Device Control is Live

Google Ads rolled out the newest Performance Max (PMax) campaign update: Device Targeting Options!

Now, advertisers have critical control over where their PMax ads show up. This option allows them to advertise on computers, mobile phones, tablets, and/or TV screens. If there is one place you know your audience isn’t, you can uncheck the box and avoid wasting ad spend on that device.

This demonstrates Google’s commitment to giving advertisers the control they want without losing the AI-driven automation they’re so proud of.

4. PMax Image Optimization

Speaking of PMax, Google’s slowly rolling out new image optimization tools, giving AI more control over how your images will appear in your ads.

• Image Enhancements: Automatically reformat uploaded images and adjust the layout and style for better results
• Landing Page Images: Will pull images from your website to dynamically populate your ad creatives

When you opt into Dynamic Images, landing page images will be turned on automatically for all new campaigns. This is a time-saver, allowing PMax campaigns to alter ad creatives without direct input.

5. Google Business Profile Has a New Update

Google Business Profile just got better! This week, Google rolled out a new feature called “What’s Happening.” This will allow restaurants and bars to highlight weekly events, deals, and specials right at the top of their profiles.

This initial launch is only for single-location US, UK, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand businesses in the Food and Drink categories. If all goes well, expect to see a larger rollout in the near future.

Businesses must also share What’s Happening via Google Posts or automatically sync their Google Business Profiles with Facebook, Instagram, or X.

If you fall into one of the approved Food and Drink categories, play around with this new tool. It could drive more business your way!

6. Google Updates Image SEO Best Practices

This week, Google updated its image SEO best practices to let everyone know that inconsistent URLs for images on your site are eating up your crawl budget.

The changes were highlighted in the new best practices, stating: “If an image is referenced on multiple pages within a larger website, consider the site’s overall crawl budget. In particular, consistently reference the image with the same URL, so that Google can cache and reuse the image without needing to request it multiple times.”

It’s a good reminder to SEO experts that image optimization doesn’t end at alt text. Your image URLs could be affecting your crawling and indexing more than you realize.

Action Item: Check how your images are currently linked across your website and make sure you are using a standard structure for all image URLs. You could even consider using a centralized image management system.

7. Google Is Working Hard to Protect Searchers from Scams

This week, Google announced new updates to help protect its users from scams in search results, Chrome, and Android.

These updates now block twenty times more scams than before. Using AI identifiers, Google is focusing on two main areas:

• Fake customer service sites
• Fake official government services sites

Google’s AI tools are also working to protect Chrome and Android. According to Jasika Bawa, a Group Product Manager for Chrome, “The on-device approach provides instant insight on risky websites and allows us to offer protection, even against scams that haven’t been seen before.”

Mobile users may see warnings that flag suspicious notifications, including warnings about scam calls and texts in Google Message and Phone by Google.

Google is really stepping up its scam-detection game! This is necessary in a world where new scammers pop up every day.

8. Remember: Hreflang Tags Are Hints

Google wants marketers and developers to remember that hreflang tags are hints, not directives.

Google Search Advocate, John Mueller, recently highlighted that developers need to remember that hreflangs are not directives. When asked about Google ignoring hreflang instructions, Mueller said: “hreflang doesn’t guarantee indexing, so it can also just be that not all variations are indexed. And, if they are the same (eg fr-fr, fr-be), it’s common that one is chosen as canonical (they’re the same).”

Basically, don’t use hreflang as a command, because it isn’t! Remember that canonical tags can override variations, and that “same language” simplification still exists. If two pages share the same language, Google may group them together, even if the hreflang presents the correct variant to users.

Action Item: If you’re managing international SEO, you’ll need to add unique elements to each regional page to make the content more distinct. This makes it less likely that Google will group it together under one canonical URL.

9. Google’s AI Overviews Mostly Point Back to Google Search Results

If you’ve been fighting for your life in Google’s AI Overviews, the problem might not be your SEO ability. It could be Google.

A recent study by SE Ranking showed that Google’s AI Overviews link back to Google links 43% of the time. In fact, each answer will often include 4-6 links from Google. This means that unique URLs are not only fighting against other unique sites to be seen, but also against Google itself.

The study found interesting statistics, including:

• AI Overviews topped 30% of all searches
• 43% of AI Overviews linked back to Google itself
• Users have to click 10 times within Google before leaving the search engine platform
• Longer, more specific queries are more likely to be answered with a Google AI Overview
• The typical AI Overview is 1,766 characters and cites 13.3 sources.
• Fashion and Beauty have the lowest chance of being answered with an AI Overview.

Even with hoarding traffic, Google still delivers a ton of outbound traffic. In March alone, it sent out 175.5 million searches.

10. Meta’s Edits is Growing

Meta is certainly trying to keep up! Its new video editing app, Edits, rolled out a ton of updates this week.

Updates include:

• Beat Markers - to help align video content with the rhythm of the chosen audio
• Inspiration - to make it easier to use audio from another clip
• Video Effects - more animation and filter options

Meta also outlined additional coming features, including AI-generated background editing, collaboration tools, and still image animation.

11. Meta Releases New Ad Measurement Solutions

Check out these new solutions if you want to take your Meta campaigns to a new level.

In the recently released “Measuring Ad Effectiveness” guide, Meta shared some ways to measure ad performance, including:

• Attribution solutions
• Experiments
• Modeling
• Custom Analytics

They also noted that, “[a]longside the right measurement toolkit, it’s important to have alignment on the business objectives that are supported by your measurement approach. Businesses leading in this space have consensus from the top down on marketing objectives and key performance indicators.”

The overview also provides links for further information and a comprehensive list of the ad measurement requirements.

12. X Reverts Back to Link Previews and CTAs for Ads

If you’ve missed the old link previews and CTAs from Twitter Ads, they’re back!

The goal of bringing this back is to help ads stand out from traditional posts in X users’ streams. According to X, “Headlines will now appear below your images or videos, accompanied by a distinct, customizable Call to Action button to enhance your campaigns. Please note that this update applies only to ads - organic posts will retain their traditional layout with headlines overlaid on images or videos.”

Key Takeaway: Advertisers may enjoy this shift back to the old days of Twitter, where their ads stood out and grabbed attention.

Weekly Homework:

• Register for TikTok’s Small Biz Fest for access to free expert training, in-person networking events, and the chance to win $2,000 in TikTok Ad credits.
• Develop a process to fact-check your AI-generated content.
• Dive into your PMax Campaigns to decide where consumers can see your content.
• If you qualify, start using the What’s Happening tool on Google Business Profile.
• Download Edits to help edit scroll-stopping short-form video content.
• Review how your images are currently linked across your website and establish a standard structure for all image URLs.

Digital Marketing News 5/3/2025 to 5/9/2025

This week: ChatGPT dominates AI search, Google launches AI Max, and PMax gets deeper insights.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Introduces AI Max for Search Campaigns

Google is launching AI Max for Search campaigns, which will introduce a one-click upgrade with a bunch of enhancements to optimize targeting and ad creatives.

• Search term matching
• Text customization
• Final url expansion

Google recommends using all three together for maximum performance.

The goals of AI max are to:

1. Keep access to existing Search reports and controls while seamlessly introducing new ones
2. Introduce more granular reporting

Google also introduces brand safety controls including:

• Brand controls: Choose what brands your ads run next to
• Location of interest control:target users based on their location AND intent
• Creative asset controls: remove AI-generated assets that are misaligned with your brand

AI Max for Search campaigns will make it even easier to do so with some exciting features that boost ad relevancy and help you extend your reach through search term matching.
When Google officially releases AI Max for Search campaigns later this month, be sure to implement it to access a suite of features that can maximize your visibility for relevant Google searches.

2. ChatGPT Leads AI Search Market

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is dominating the AI Search market, accounting for 80% of all AI Search traffic.

Meanwhile, Google and other conventional search platforms are becoming less popular among search users.

As people continue to rely on generative AI platforms for searches, marketers will want to redirect their efforts to optimize for these platforms.

While Google and other traditional search engines are relevant, you may reach wider audiences on channels like ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

Action Item:

Be sure to implement generative engine optimization (GEO) to optimize your content for both AI platforms and traditional search results, supplementing your SEO efforts. Doing so could increase your chances of appearing in AI Searches on ChatGPT and all other popular platforms.

3. Google Adds Reporting Elements for PMax Campaigns

Google is releasing new features for Performance Max (PMax) campaign reports, including:

• Channel performance: figure out which channels need work and which play an important part in driving performance based on metrics from all your channels
• Search terms:Get better reporting insights that tell you which search terms perform the best, or discover terms that aren’t a good fit for your business
• Asset-level reporting:With access to impressions, clicks and cost you can see which asset types and themes drive the most impact

PMax campaigns are among the best for advertisers to use, helping them reach audiences via Google Ads and all sites within the Google Display Network.

4. TikTok Gives More Ad Placement Options for “Pulse” Campaigns

TikTok is enabling brands to get even more from “Pulse” ad campaigns, allowing brands to align their ads with the platform’s top publishers.

Pulse ads drive a 45% boost in exclusive reach, according to TikTok.

New “Pulse Premiere” offerings now let brands show their ads net to approved publisher content from select brands:

• Custom Lineups: AI offers advertisers the best content related to a brand category
• Ma Pulse: places the brand’s ads next to the top 4% of content across all categories
• Category Lineups: Ads are placed next to the best content related to specific topic or genre
• Seasonal Lineup: Ads are placed next to the best content related to seasonal, cultural, or holiday content

While your ads could appear beside some of the most popular clips using “Pulse” ads, “Pulse Premiere” offers the chance to further increase visibility and engagement by showing your ads among content from the most trusted publishers, including some of the biggest brands in the entertainment, lifestyle, and sports sectors.

5. Google Updates CTV Ads With AI Assistance and More

Google has unveiled new features for its Video & Display 360 capabilities that can help marketers track the customer journey from initial CTV ad views to sales. These features include:

• Smarter Inventory Selection: Tell AI what assets you need and it will find persoanlized suggestions for you, focusing on what’s relevant for your business
• Easy Campaign Setup: AI will automatically fill in the best settings for audiences, categories, brand safety, genres, and more
• Quick Help: Ask questions and get immediate answers to improve campaigns faster
• Instant Reports: Ask about the specific data needed and AI will generate a report

Determine which streaming services are resulting in the most sales with the help of the latest Video & Display 360 features, helping you see where CTV audiences are at every stage of the sales funnel.

6. Reddit Traffic Increases According to Latest Report

According to Reddit’s Q1 2025 earnings report, more users continue to flock to the platform every year, with over 400 million people visiting the site every week. More users are also logged in than in previous years.

The latest report shows how Reddit’s popularity continues to grow, and more logged-in users mean wider audiences for advertisers and marketers.

Action Item:

If you’re looking to diversify your marketing efforts and engage with audiences in a meaningful way, use Reddit marketing and ads to build and maintain a connection to drive more engagement and conversions.

Weekly Homework List:

• Get in front of more people in Google Search with AI Max features that integrate AI into Search campaigns.
• Optimize your content to appear in AI Searches, especially on platforms like ChatGPT that are beginning to outperform traditional search engines.
• Implement new Performance Max campaign features to determine which channels, assets, and search terms are performing the best.
• Use TikTok “Pulse Premiere” campaigns to boost brand credibility and ad performance by aligning your ads with top publishers.
• See how streaming ads lead to sales with more transparency using Google’s latest Video & Display 360 features.
• Integrate Reddit into your social media advertising campaigns to access wider audiences as the platform’s traffic grows.

Digital Marketing News 4/26/2025 to 5/2/2025

This week: Google AI Overviews hit 1.5B users, YouTube tests AI summaries, and ChatGPT launches shopping features.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google’s AI Overviews Reach Record Monthly Users

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced this week that Google’s AI Overviews have reached 1.5 billion users a month – a milestone record for the new tool.

In the recently released earnings report, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, was quoted as saying: “We’re pleased with our strong Q1 results, which reflect healthy growth and momentum across the business. Underpinning this growth is our unique full stack approach to AI. This quarter was super exciting as we rolled out Gemini 2.5, our most intelligent AI model, which is achieving breakthroughs in performance and is an extraordinary foundation for our future innovation.

Search saw continued strong growth, boosted by the engagement we’re seeing with features like AI Overviews, which now has 1.5 billion users per month. Driven by YouTube and Google One, we surpassed 270 million paid subscriptions. And Cloud grew rapidly with significant demand for our solutions.”

Many experts believe that the success of AI Overviews contributed to Alphabet’s 12% year-over-year revenue increase as well.

2. AI Overviews Boom for Key Industries

Google AI Overviews grew by industry according to data from BrightEdge:

• Entertainment: up 175% with 76% being movie-focused keywords
• Travel: Up 108% with 93% focused on location-specific activities
• Insurance: Up 7.9%
• B2B Tech: Up 7%
• Education up 4.9% with focuses on online learning, special degree programs, and professional certifications

If you do business in any of these industries it’s time to assess your SEO strategy and optimize for Generative Engines.

3. YouTube Tests AI Overviews Similar to Google’s

Google’s AI Overviews have been a hot topic for a while now. Now, other platforms are following the AI overview lead. YouTube announced this week that it was launching its own AI-powered video summaries.

The new AI-powered summaries are currently available only to a limited number of Premium members and appear under two types of searches: product and location-based searches.

Test users can give the summaries a thumbs up or a thumbs down to show how much they like the new feature.

YouTube hasn’t announced when the feature will be more widely available, but if the testing is successful, we should know more information in the next few months.

4. ChatGPT Updates Its Features: Shopping, Search, & Improved Citations

ChatGPT is growing again! OpenAI announced a big update this week. Many experts are seeing this as an opportunity to rival Google and other search engines.

ChatGPT users can now use the AI-generated platform to:

• Shop: Search for and compare products
• Buy: Buy products directly through ChatGPT
• WhatsUp Search: Search via WhatsUp by texting 1-800-ChatGPT

The platform will also provide multiple sources to help users better understand and verify the facts ChatGPT provides. An update to ChatGPT Memory is also expected soon, which will allow the technology to use your past conversations to provide more accurate information and results.

These new real-time search results rely on OpenAI’s technology, as well as Bing’s search index, utilizing OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, and GPTBot.

5. Yelp Updates Benefit Service Brands and Restaurants

Yelp announced 15 new improvements to help users hire service professionals and for restaurants to manage their operations.

1. AI-powered photo recognition to help identify service needs
2. New rating scores based on the quality of responses
3. Sync Yelp to over 800 CRM tolls
4. Automated Guest Experience Surveys
5. Guaranteed seating areas with real-time waitlist updates
6. Shift scheduling automation

And more.

Pro-Tip: If you’re on Yelp offering a service or a restaurant, check out these new tools to help you capture more customers and convert more leads.

6. Google AI Mode Now Available to All

Good news if you’ve been waiting to try Google AI mode: the waitlist has been removed. Users no longer need to opt in to test out new features and anyone over 18 will automatically be approved.

So what’s new?
Places and Product Cards: Information from local businesses including images, ratings, reviews, store hours, real-time pricing, and product availability is now visible at the top of SERPs.
History Panel: Review your past search queries and pick up where you left off

You can access Google AI mode in one of the tabs at the top of the search results page.

Action Item: Try Google’s new AI mode! What do you think of the new features?

7. Tariffs Affect PPC Market Share

Adthena’s PPC Market Share Report reveals that PPC ads are not immune to the recent tariff turmoil, with the US automakers' market share being the most significantly affected.

Adthena states that examining this benchmark data is crucial because it enables advertisers to identify gaps, uncover opportunities, and avoid falling behind their competitors.

If you are falling behind, Adthena suggests analyzing your brand’s:

• Share of clicks
• Share of spend
• Share of impressions
• Competitor count

It also suggests examining ad copy trends in your industry, as well as identifying the top industry movers in your market. With minor tweaks to your campaigns, you can mitigate the impact of global market fluctuations.

Action Item: Monitor your competitor’s performance and compare it to your PPC campaign. Take note of any potential threats or opportunities before they cause significant damage to your KPIs. By optimizing your budget and messaging, you can stay ahead of market shifts and achieve more sustainable growth.

8. Top Performing Ads to Now Appear at the Bottom of Google’s Search Results

The tech giant announced this week that a new update will be offering its most successful ads more visibility.

Thanks to this impactful change, high-performing ads will now be eligible for positions at both the top and bottom of the search results page. This means that if your ad is well-crafted, it may appear twice on the same page.

Don’t worry, though. This doesn’t violate Google’s Unfair Advantage policy. Google clarified that it doesn’t count because the top and the bottom of the page are two separate auctions.

Action Item: Refresh your Google Ads to increase the likelihood of achieving top-performing ad status. Monitor your impressions, watch for changes in CTR and conversion rate, and revisit your Quality Score drivers.

9. GoDaddy Launches New Program to Help Freelancers & Agencies

GoDaddy launched a new partner program this week – GoDaddy Agency.

Available to US-based freelancers and web development teams, this new program will help match small and mid-sized businesses to high-quality leads. In addition to earning up to 20% commission for each new client purchase, it also offers benefits such as:

• Access to premium WordPress tools
• Co-branded marketing
• Dedicated support from an Agency Success Manager
• Consolidated hosting and tools
• Incentives for migration from other hosts
• And more!

GoDaddy says that, “The GoDaddy Agency Program is all about helping agencies grow. We give partners the tools, support, and referrals they need to take on more clients and bigger projects—without adding more stress to their day. It’s like having a team behind your team.”

Action Item: If your agency or business fits the bill, apply for the GoDaddy Partnership Program.

10. 20% of Local Searches Start on Google & Apple Maps

If your SEO strategy hasn’t included Google and Apple Maps, it’s time to start! New research shows that these platforms are now vital for local SEO.

According to BrightLocal’s Consumer Search Behavior study, Google, Apple, and Bing Maps contribute to 20% of local searches. There are some generational differences, including:

• 18% of Gen Z use Google Maps as their primary local search tool
• 21% of Millennials prefer Google Maps
• 5% of Millennials use Apple Maps

Other interesting findings include:

• 85% say contact and hours information is important
• 49% often or always plan their route to a business after searching

Action Item: If you aren’t already, prioritize map listings beyond your Google Business Profile. Ensure that all your profiles are complete and accurate to increase your chances of success. Don’t see this as an afterthought, but rather a primary search channel that is vital to your local SEO results.

11. Performance Max Campaigns Gets an Update

Google recently updated its popular Performance Max Campaigns to include channel reporting. This is great news for advertisers seeking greater transparency into their campaign performance.

These long-anticipated reporting features will now provide advertisers with more information, including:

• Channel-level reporting
• Full search terms data
• Expanded asset performance metrics

The new Channel Performance page will show:

• Visual breakdowns by surface
• Campaign-level metrics for each channel
• A downloadable table of key performance data
• Diagnosis to check for missed opportunities or setup issues

12. Threads Launches New Desktop Interface

Threads is finally live on Threads.com domain! This week, Meta’s text-based app officially moved to its new domain and introduced several new features to the experience.

Some of the new features include:

• Adding additional columns for multi-stream tracking
• Accessing all of your liked and saved posts directly from the main menu
• Creating a post in-stream via a new pop-up
• Copying a Threads post as an image instead of a screenshot
• Uploading a list of profiles you follow on other apps into Threads

Threads still has some growing to do if it wants to replace X, but these new updates show that Meta is seriously coming for that number 1 spot.

13. Facebook Launches New Tools to Combat Spam

Everyone has seen spam posts and comments on Facebook, and Meta is taking measures to crack down on this spammy content.

New tools will crack down on overt engagement bait, such as unrelated captions, repeated posts, or excessive hashtag use. In the announcement, Meta revealed: “Some accounts post content with long, distracting captions, often with an inordinate amount of hashtags. While others include captions that are completely unrelated to the content – think a picture of a cute dog with a caption about airplane facts. Accounts that engage in these tactics will only have their content shown to their followers and will not be eligible for monetization.”

Facebook is also rolling out comment downvotes, which will let users decide which content is valuable and which is likely spam.

While these updates are beneficial, Meta is still developing tools to combat AI-generated spam photos, including fake depictions.

Check Your Content: If you start to see your comments or posts being limited, it could be a sign that they’re too spammy.

14. Meta’s Advantage+ Catalog Gets an Update

It’s a small but mighty update. Now, Meta’s Advantage+ Ads can add a dynamic overlay on its catalog ads to show price, share discounts, and more.

Advertisers can use these overlays in four different ways:

• Current Price
• Strikethrough Price
• Percentage Off
• Free Shipping

While it’s a pretty minor tweak, it’s one that can make a big difference in your Facebook Ad campaign’s success.

Action Item: If you’re running Advantage+ ads, try out the new dynamic overlays to see if they improve your campaigns' ROI.

15. Product Filtering Gets Easier in Merchant Center

Do you run a business with a ton of products in your catalog? Good news – Google is rolling out an AI-driven search feature in Google Merchant Center Next that will help you find and filter your products.

The new “Search for Products” feature will help you scan your catalog in plain-English, so you don’t have to worry about remembering categories.

Merchants could find this tool helpful in the following instances:

• Out-of-stock items that are still getting traffic
• Products with high impressions but low clicks
• Products with zero engagement

This tool is essential for product feeds with thousands of listings. Use it to your advantage to find stock issues or opportunities to optimize your listings or promote specific products.

Weekly Homework:

• Begin reviewing your content and planning to refresh popular pages. Align your refreshes with a strategy to push your content into more of Google’s AI Overviews.
• Test out ChatGPT’s new real-time features and update your robots.txt file to allow OAI-SearchBot if you want your website to be indexed properly.
• If you are a freelancer or small to mid-sized web development business, throw your hat into the ring and apply for GoDaddy’s new partnership program.
• If local SEO is important to you, tweak your strategy to capitalize on traffic from Google, Apple, and Bing Maps.
• Add Advantage+’s new dynamic overlays to your current campaign ads to see if it increases your ROI.

Digital Marketing News 4/19/2025 to 4/25/2025

This week: Search ad revenue hit a record-breaking $103 billion, Google Analytics introduced new privacy-first tracking tools, and Meta’s AI-powered ads proved to significantly improve performance and ROI.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. US Search Ad Revenue Balloons to $102.9 Billion in 2024

Paid search is growing! According to the recent IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, search accounted for $102.9 billion of the record $258.6 billion in US digital advertising revenues in 2024. That’s a $14.1 billion increase from the year before.

The report shows that:

• 2024 was a year of consistent growth.
• Social media ad revenue also grew by 36.7% to a record $88.7 billion.
• Video advertising is up 19.2% to $62.1 billion.
• Display advertising jumped 12.4% to $74.3 billion.
• Retail media networks also grew to $53.7 billion, an increase of 23%.

2. Google Analytics Adds New Privacy-Era Tracking Features

If there’s one thing about Google, it’s that the tech giant is always going to evolve with the times!

Just this week, Google Analytics announced updates that will enhance data accuracy and help marketers identify issues. Some of the main improvements include:

• Aggregate Identifiers: This new feature helps when Google can’t track ads through the Google Click Identifier (GCLID). It will help advertisers stop marking paid traffic as organic traffic.
• Smart Fallback Methods: Google will now use UTM tags as a backup to ensure that paid campaigns receive the proper credit for generated traffic.
• Data Quality Indicator: This tool will alert you to setup issues and direct you to resources for resolving the problem.
• System-Generated Annotations: Google Analytics will now automatically add notes to your reports to help you understand why numbers may appear differently.

Why We Care: These updates will help provide advertisers with more accurate campaign data, even without cookies.

3. Demand Gen Adds Sharper Targeting

Advertisers are getting even more control of ad placements. These new channel controls allow marketers to decide where they want their ads to appear across the Google Display Network.

Here’s the main benefits:

1. Creative Customization: Tailor specific content to platforms
2. Social Strategy Extension: Expand to social platforms like YouTube Shorts
3. Performance Transparency: Get channel-level performance data, available at campaign, ad group, and ad leves
4. While this feature is in beta and just beginning to roll out, we’re still seeing advertisers stick to the algorithm approach for channel selection.

4. ChatGPT Search Hits Milestone in the EU

ChatGPT Search is growing! In just a six-month stretch, it has reached a record 41.3 million users between October and March. This represents nearly four times the growth from the previous six-month period, during which the platform had 11.2 million users.

While this is great news for ChatGPT Search and indicates a notable increase in users, it is still far from Google’s average monthly signed-in users of 355.7 million and average monthly signed-out users of 424.4 million.

Key Takeaway: Even though its still far from Google’s numbers, it is approaching EU’s 45 million monthly user threshold to be qualified as a “very large online platform.” With growth like this, becoming a true Google rival is not out of the question.

Action Item: Download the full Internet Advertising Revenue Report for more valuable information and data.

5. Instagram Launches New Editing App

After months of previews, Instagram’s Edits app is here!

Launched in response to ByeDance’s CapCut, Instagram says: “The process of making videos can be challenging, often requiring multiple apps and complicated workflows. With Edits, you now have a dedicated space with powerful capabilities for video creation.”

The new platform offers options, including:

• Multi-channel editing
• Project management to manage multiple projects at once
• Notes for new videos and saved reels
• Reels Trends to see new trending audios
• Editing videos up to 10 minutes long
• Using greenscreen and cutouts to add effects to videos
• Exporting without a watermark

You can also add royalty-free music, captions, and view all of your content analytics within the app. Currently, the app is free, but it may become a paid app in the future.

Action Item: Explore the app to see how it can aid in content creation for your business.

6. Happy Birthday YouTube

YouTube’s turning 20 and it’s ringing in its new decade with a fancy set of new features.

1. 4x playback speed for YouTube Premium subscribers
2. AI-based option to create your own radio channel (thin Pandora)
3. Voice replies in video comments for creators
4. Build your own multi-view screen
5. Improvements to CTV user interface

7. YouTube Domination: Streaming Video Services

The latest data from Nielsen is in, and YouTube’s got more to celebrate than just it’s birthday.

The platform reached a new high of 12% of overall streaming watch time in March 2025, meaning its beat:

• Netflix: 7.9%
• Disney+: 5%
• Prime Video: 3.5%
• Paramount: 2.3%

8. Ads Expands to All Threads Users

They’ve been talking about it for a while, but the time is here! Ads are now available to all Meta users.

According to Meta, “To help people deepen connections with businesses they love, we are expanding ads in Threads to all eligible advertisers globally, as well as access to inventory filter. This new placement - Threads feed - will be on by default for new campaigns using either Advantage+ or Manual Placements. Advertisers have the option to opt out of Threads feed via Manual Placements.”

The inventory filter gives advertisers three levels of control over where their ads are placed, such as:

• Expanded inventory: Show ads adjacent to content that adheres to our Content Monetization Policies so you get the most reach.
• Moderate inventory: Exclude highly sensitive content. This lowers your reach and may increase costs.
• Limited inventory: Exclude additional sensitive content and live videos. This lowers reach and can increase costs.

Action Item: As Threads gains popularity, you may want to consider incorporating the platform into your content management strategy.

9. YouTube Shares Tips on Converting Long-Form Videos into Shorts

Need some help transforming your long-form videos to Shorts? This week, YouTube released some valuable resources to help you.

Some of their tips include:

• Using Shorts as a preview to your longer content.
• Focusing on one actionable point.
• Maintain consistent branding across all content.
• Add captions and text overlays to improve accessibility.
• Incorporate trending music and sound effects into your videos.
• End with a strong Call to Action.

Action Item: YouTube Shorts generates over 70 billion daily views, so if you aren’t using it yet, you may want to start!

10. AI-Powered Ad Campaigns Are Improving on Meta

This week, Meta introduced new “Advantage+Creative” AI ad options.

Meta explains: “In the past, advertisers relied heavily on targeting specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to reach their desired audience. However, with the rise of AI-enabled advertising tools, the focus has shifted from niche targeting to creative diversification as the best lever to find the most relevant audiences. By uploading multiple creatives with different themes and messages, businesses can leverage Meta’s AI to test and optimize their ads at scale. This unlocks new opportunities for reaching relevant customers and in some cases, even finding new audiences they might not have realized would be interested in their product.”

The social media platform claims that its AI options are enhancing ad performance. They’ve noticed that:

• Advertisers who adopted opportunity score recommendations saw a 5% median decrease in their cost per result.
• For every dollar spent on its AI-enabled Advantage+ products, advertisers generate on average $4.52 in revenue for their businesses: “An increase of 22% compared to business as usual campaigns.”
• On average, advertisers are seeing 9% lower cost per action when using the new streamlined setup for Advantage+ sales campaigns.

Action Item: If you’re a Meta Ad user, jump into your Ads dashboard and explore how the new AI tools can improve your campaigns.

11. Bluesky Adds Account Verification

In another attempt to one-up Twitter’s past reign, Bluesky is adding verification checkmarks to approved users.

The checkmark is blue, like most other traditional verification, however, users can tap on an account’s verification to see when and how the status was granted.

During this initial roll out phase Bluesky will nnot be accepting direct applications for verification. The rollout, while in testing, will start on a small scale so the Bluesky team can check and confirm each of the verifications.

Weekly Homework:

1. Review your Google Ads campaigns to ensure they comply with all the new policies. If they don’t, you could risk campaign deletion or account suspension.
2. Download the Internet Advertising Revenue Report to see if there are places you can improve your current campaigns.
3. Download Instagram’s new editing tool to edit your Reels right on your phone!
4. Analyze the possibility of adding Threads ads to your Meta Ads portfolio.
5. Explore how Meta Ads’ new AI features could improve your paid ad performance.
6. Set aside time to convert your long-form YouTube videos into Shorts.

Digital Marketing News 4/12/2025 to 4/18/2025

This week: After Google removed a record number of bad ads in 2024, will 2025 see worse? HubSpot launches over 200 powerful updates to elevate user experience, and Google files a bold new patent to personalize search results using your email and voice history

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. 2024 Was a Record Year for Google Ad Suspensions

Did you struggle with Google Ad suspensions in 2024? If so, you’re not alone!

Google’s 2024 Ad Safety Report shows that there was a massive uptick in ad suspensions and ad removals, thanks to large language models (LLMs) helping find policy violations.

The study revealed that Google Ads:

• Removed 5.1 billion bad ads
• Restricted 9.1 billion ads
• Suspended 39.2 million advertiser accounts.
• Enforced against 1.3 billion publisher pages.
• Blocked or removed 415 million scam-related ads.
• Introduced 30+ policy updates across Ads and Publisher guidelines.

Key Takeaway: Google isn’t playing when it comes to its policies. Follow its rules or risk suspension or removal.

2. Google Files New Personal History-Based Search Patent

Google filed a new patent this week that aims to redefine search. This new patent uses search history, email interface, and a voice-based assistant to improve search results.

The new search system uses a spoken or typed query to detect the user’s intent. It then applies filters such as the topic, time, or device to limit the search content and match it to the criteria.

This could have several real-world applications. It uses information from a personal search history, not the public internet. It also treats email inboxes as a part of searchable history. Voice assistants help the system with speech recognition to interpret intent.

Key Takeaway: Google aims to improve search results by accessing more personal information, such as email inboxes and voice search history.

3. Hubspot Improves User Experience with 200+ New Tools

As part of its Spring 2025 Spotlight release, Hubspot announced over 200 product updates and features. Some of the most exciting features include:

• 4 new Breeze agents to improve customer support and experience, including a Customer Agent, Knowledge Base Agent, Prospecting Agent, and Content Agent
• Lookalike Lists to simplify audience targeting and focus on higher-probability leads
• Journey Automation to build multi-stage customer journeys based on real-time behavior and data inputs
• Mutli-account management
• AI workspaces for sales, support, and success teams

These new features are designed to build a unified, AI-powered platform to support all of your sales, marketing, and customer operations needs in one central location.

Action Item: If you’re already a Hubspot user, log in and check out all of these new tools! If you’re not a Hubspot user but need a really great CRM tool, see if these new tools and features will help improve your business.

4. Wix Expands AI Assistant to Improve SEO, Sales, and Productivity

Calling all Wix users! The web development platform has made some changes that will improve how you work.

Wix’s new chat-based AI assistant, Astro, can:

• Carry out operational and administrative actions using conversational prompts.
• Navigate and use site management tools in the Wix dashboard.
• Offers personalized suggestions and up-to-date performance feedback to fine-tune the website.
• Reviews site analytics, including traffic patterns, purchase behavior, and search visibility, to guide strategy.
• Can generate articles, newsletters, and promotional content.
• Enables users to expand business opportunities by adding new products for sale and trying out alternative fulfillment models like dropshipping and other customizations.

Key Takeaway: These updates to this popular platform will support business growth, boost SEO strategies, and improve site performance.

5. Structured Data is Still Necessary, Says Google

Wondering if AI will make structured data unnecessary? Google says no.

Even though AI models are quickly evolving, Google still suggests that you keep using supported structured data types and review Google’s documentation for the right schemas.

Structured data makes it easier for AI to read and index your content, but that doesn’t mean you can’t control how. Google suggests:

• Use the robots nosnippet tag to opt out of AI Overviews.
• Add a meta tag like <meta name="robots" value="nosnippet">.
• Wrap certain content in a <div data-nosnippet></div>.
• Limit the amount of text shown with <meta name="robots" value="max-snippet: 42">.

Key Takeaway: AI is not replacing SEO basics, but will help improve them. As a digital marketer, it’s on you to learn how to use this to your advantage.

6. Product Content Makes Up the Majority of AI Citations

We now know where most AI citation content is coming from – and digital content creators should pay attention.

A new study by XFunnel revealed that: “This preference appears consistent with how AI engines handle factual or technical questions, using official pages that offer reliable specifications, FAQs, or how-to guides.”

• 46-70% comes from product content
• 5-16% comes from news and research articles
• Less than 10% comes from affiliate content
• 3-10% comes from user reviews, forums, and Q&A sites
• 3-6% comes from blog content
• Less than 2% comes from PR materials

Why This Matters: With AI consistently evolving, it’s important that we stay on top of the latest improvements. The marketers who continue to succeed will be the ones who can understand patterns and use them to gain a competitive advantage.

7. B2B Buyers Are Clicking on AI Citations

Speaking of AI citations, are people actually paying attention to them? Google says they are!

According to a new report from TrustRadius, 90% of B2B buyers are clicking on citations within AI Overviews when doing product and service research.

In order to succeed, website publishers must find that happy line between gated and ungated content. This will help improve AI discoverability and lead generation.

The report also suggests that: “The era of volume traffic is over… What’s going away are clicks from the super early stage of the buyer journey. But people will click through visit sites eventually… we’ll see a lot less traffic, but the traffic that still arrives will be of higher quality.”

Why This Matters: It’s another sign pointing to the fact that AI will not replace SEO, but instead help it evolve into something even more beneficial to brands and websites.

8. There’s a New Creator Hub on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is continuing to revamp its site to become more creator-centric. This week, the resume site launched a new creator hub with resources to improve content strategies.

Create on LinkedIn is broken down into three sections: Create, Optimize, and Grow. It’s goal is to help creators improve their content and grow their audiences on the popular business connection platform.

• Create: Offers suggestions on how to create content that grabs attention and improve their content creation strategy.
• Optimize: Uses data to optimize content and encourage growth.
• Grow: Provides specific tips and technical requirements for video content, text and images, newsletters, and live events.

Action Item: If LinkedIn is high on your priority list, set aside some time this week to explore how this new hub could improve your content creation and inspire more engagement and connection on the app.

9. Microsoft Monetize Gets Update

Microsoft launched a new Monetize experience full of AI-powered tools, a revamped homepage, and platform improvements. The goal is to help give publishers and advertisers more visibility and control.

Now officially integrated with Copliot, the updates are available to all Microsoft clients. Key features include:

• Performance highlights: Get a high-level summary of revenue trends and your most important KPIs at the top of the screen.
• Revenue and troubleshooting insights: What was originally in the Monetize Insights tool is now integrated into the homepage.
• Brand unblock and authorized sellers insights: Brings visibility to commonly overlooked revenue blocks.

Microsoft says that these improvements will help publishers manage and optimize their inventory, run more efficient ads, and learn of latency issues immediately.

Action Item: Jump into your Monetize dashboard and get familiar with these new updates.

10. TikTok Releases New Ad Exclusion Lists

There’s always something going on at TikTok! This week, the short-form video platform released new ad exclusion lists.

Advertisers can now manage the following two lists directly:

• Video Exclusion List. Advertisers can block individual video IDs from appearing next to their ads, enabling near real-time control over ad adjacency.
• Profile Feed Exclusion List. Brands can exclude ads from running alongside specific TikTok user profiles, adding another layer of customization for sensitive placements.

The platform also released a new comprehensive guide to its ad safety solution called the Brand Safety & Suitability Playbook. It details how to grow your business safely and securely on the app. It also includes case studies on how brands like KFC, Sony Pictures, and Adidas have found success using TikTok Ads.

Action Item: Download and read through the playbook for important information on how to grow your business using TikTok Ads.

11. TikTok Launches New Creator Incentive Program

Speaking of TikTok, a new, invite-only Specialized Rewards Program is being rolled out this week.

This new program will allow select creators and brands to earn incentives on top of the traditional Creator Rewards program. Many experts think it will help specific niche areas earn more money and expand their reach.

While this is undoubtedly in response to Meta’s attempt to promote Instagram as a more stable option for US-based creators and brands, it’s still worth looking into any opportunity for creators to get more money into their pockets.

Action Item: If you’re big on TikTok, keep an eye out for your invitation to the Specialized Reward Program.

12. Meta Wants to Help You Connect with Gen Z

Think Facebook is for older audiences? That’s not what Meta says! The social media giant released some new insights this week that show brands how to connect with Gen Z on their social media apps.

The report suggests that:

• Sharing content is easier than taking part in text-based conversations
• 83% of people think that short-form video is the best way to consume, share, and discover new brands, products, and content
• 67% of Gen Z will research or purchase a product if they’ve seen ads for it several times on Meta’s platforms

Action Item: Breathe new life into your Meta content strategy and download the full report here.

13. Reddit Adds Partner Collaborations Options to Its Ad Manager

Want to connect with people on Reddit but aren’t sure how? Check out the new Partners page inside the Reddit Business Manager dashboard.

In the press release, Alex Underwood, Global Head of Agency Development at Reddit says: “The introduction of the Partners page is a foundational shift that we believe will revolutionize how agencies leverage Reddit for their clients. The ability to manage permissions, share profiles, and centralize activity is just the beginning. We're thrilled about the future possibilities as we continue to add more shareable assets, further empowering our agency partners to thrive on the platform.”

This new tool is designed to help advertisers and agencies:

• Advertise a co-branded campaign on both advertiser's and the partner’s profiles
• Extend an advertiser’s credit line to an agency to be billed directly
• Easily collaborate with partners in one consolidated place
• Advertise on their client’s behalf

Why It Matters: Q&A sites like Reddit are becoming increasingly important regarding Google’s AI Overviews and SERP results. Finding ways to easily collaborate with creators and boost your brand’s visibility on the site will be imperative for success in the future.

Weekly Homework:

1. Check in on your Google Ads to ensure none of them violate any of Google’s policies.
2. Explore Hubspot’s 200+ new tools and features to see if this CRM could improve your business’s workflow.
3. Download TikTok’s new Brand Safety & Sustainability Playbook for important information on how to grow your brand using short-form video.
4. Create valuable product content to increase your visibility in AI overviews and citations.
5. Dive into LinkedIn’s new creator hub and explore how to use the tools to expand your reach.
6. Download Meta’s Gen Z report for information on connecting with one of the most popular audiences on the internet.

Digital Marketing News 4/05/2025 to 4/11/2025

This week: Consumers prove they can spot AI content, Google Maps combats fake reviews, and advertisers pull back spending from TikTok as uncertainty grows.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Consumers Can Tell When You Use AI-Generated Content, Studies Reveals

Can consumers spot your AI-generated content? New studies say yes!

According to a study done by Joe Youngblood, U.S. consumers could correctly identify the AI-generated image almost 72% of the time.

A separate study done by Hookline& revealed that:

• 82.1% of respondents can spot AI-written content at least some of the time.
• Among those aged 22–34, the rate rises to 88.4%.
• Only 11.6% of young people said they never notice AI content.

This study also revealed that AI-generated content could harm your business. Of those who polled, 40.4% said they would view a brand that uses AI-generated content in a negative light.

They aren’t totally anti-AI, though. Some approved AI tasks included:

• Brainstorming ideas (53.7%)
• Conducting research (55.8%)
• Editing content (50.8%)
• Data analysis (50.1%)

Key Takeaway: AI can improve your content creation, but it shouldn’t replace it. Instead, use it wisely for things like research and editing, but make sure you still let people have the final say.

2. Google Trains Quality Raters to Assess AI-Generated Content

Turns out, consumers aren’t the only ones with their eyes peeled for AI-generated content. Google is also on the lookout!

As part of the Search Quality Rater Guidelines January 2025 update, Google is now:

• Defining generative AI as a useful tool but one that can be abused
• Reorganizing and expanding spam definitions
• Explaining low rating as being reused content with some effort to modify it
• Tagging lowest rating as the type of content that is simply copied word for word
• Adding a new section on “filler” content to call out content that has no relevance to the page it’s on
• Getting stricter on exaggerated claims

Action Item: Review all of the updates in the new guidelines and make sure your content doesn’t offend any of the new suggestions!

3. Microsoft Introduces Copilot Search

Speaking of AI, Bing just got an upgrade! Copilot Search is now available on the search engine.

Launched this week, it is available in all countries except Russia and China. Some key features include:

• Summarized answers with clear sources
• Conversation-style search
• Mobile-friendly design

Action Item: As the larger search engines start to lean heavily into AI search tools, you should adapt your processes. You’ll want to focus on creating quality content and increasing user engagement. As AI summaries become more important, ranking high in traditional search results will have competition for your attention!

4. Google Maps is Combating Fake Reviews

Google Maps rolled out some new tools this week in an attempt to combat fake reviews and suspicious Business Profile changes.

Effective immediately, Google Gemini will spot fake five-star reviews. Available in the US, UK, and India, the tool has been trained to find and remove signs of abuse.

The new model will also stop questionable business updates. In the announcement, Google was quoted as saying: “We trained a new model with the help of Gemini that identifies potentially suspicious profile edits. A business that changes its name from ‘Zoe’s Coffee House’ to ‘Zoe’s Cafe’ isn’t suspicious—but a business that suddenly changes its category from ‘cafe’ to ‘plumber’ is.”

Fake reviews and suspicious pages have long been a problem for Google. In, 2024:

• Over 240 million policy-violating reviews were blocked or removed before many people saw them.
• More than 70 million risky edits to Maps listings were stopped.
• Over 12 million fake Business Profiles were removed or blocked.
• Posting was restricted on over 900,000 accounts that broke the rules repeatedly.

Action Item: If local SEO is a priority for your business, be sure to stay up-to-date on what is happening on your Google Business Profile and use the tools to report any suspicious activity.

5. The Disavow Tool is Not Normal Maintenance, says Google

A lot of publishers and SEO professionals use the disavow tool as part of their regular website maintenance. Now, Google is saying that isn’t necessary.

When asked about the notion of toxic backlinks, Google’s John Mueller said:

“For the most part, we work really hard to try to just ignore them. I would mostly use the disavow tool for situations where you’ve been actually buying links and you’ve got a manual link spam action and you need to clean that up. Then the Disavow tool kind of helps you to resolve that, but obviously you also need to stop buying links, otherwise that manual action is not going to go away.”

He was also quoted as saying: “the disavow tool is not something that you need to do on a regular basis. It’s not a part of normal site maintenance. I would really only use that if you have a manual spam action.”

Key Takeaway: Instead of focusing on using the disavow tool, fix your SERP ranking by focusing on things like SEO and creating quality content.

6. New Merchant Opportunities for Google Search Console

Google has renamed the Search Console Shopping Tab. Now called the Merchant Opportunities Report, it features new tools to streamline Google Shopping services.

The new tools include:

• Payment options: Add and manage e-wallet payments like Google Wallet, Paypal, Apple Pay, and Amazon Pay
• Store ratings: Tools to collect and show customer reviews
• Shipping and returns: Better tools for setting policies for each country you ship to
  Action Item: If you’re using Google Shopping, check out these new tools and use them to increase your business’s visibility in the shopping search results.

7. Ask Questions with Images in Google AI Mode

Google’s AI Mode feature is growing! Now, consumers can ask questions by simply uploading an image.

Robby Stein, VP of Product, Google Search, recently shared that “With AI Mode’s new multimodal understanding, you can snap a photo or upload an image, ask a question about it and get a rich, comprehensive response with links to dive deeper.”

While this is an exciting update, Google AI isn’t available to everyone yet. The search engine just sent out a third batch of invitations for users to upgrade to AI Mode.

Key Takeaways: Being able to search via image could shake up your generative AI SEO game!

8. Instagram Shares Tips to Grow Accounts

Last week, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri joined podcaster Brock Johnson to talk about all things IG. And boy, was tea hot!

The most valuable updates included:

• Photos and videos are shared more frequently through DMs
• Less people are using the static feed, so those that do are seeing high rates of growth and reach
• IG is looking for ways to improve its algorithm to benefit creators
• IG is not trying to optimize for time, they want to be a platform for you to enjoy yourself
• Engagement can do more to grow your profile than anything else
• IG does penalize some content, but shadowbans are not as extreme as people think

The most valuable piece of advice: “Hashtags are no longer a primary way to increase your reach on Instagram. They don’t significantly increase your reach on Instagram, contrary to popular belief.”

Action Item: Nix the hashtags and focus on engagement if you want to grow your IG follower count this year.

9. Instagram Launches Monthly Stats

Instagram has always had analytics, but now creators have access to a monthly recap summary to improve their content performance.

The Story-like summary includes data on:

• Total views of your Reels and posts (including month-on-month comparison %)
• Views from non-followers
• Notes on your activity, as well as recommendations on how to maximize your performance
• Top posts
• Comparative views data

These analytics can give you great insight into what your audience likes and what they don’t. They also provide you with the best times to post and some inspiration of other Reels that have been popular with your audience.

Action Item: If you want to grow your IG audience, you need to learn the ins and outs of these new stats!

10. Advertisers Pull Away from TikTok

With TikTok’s future in America still up in the air, PPC advertisers have already started to shift their budgets.

While an additional 75-day extension was granted on April 4th, advertisers are getting tired of waiting. They’ve started to shift their PPC budgets more toward Meta platforms and away from the popular short-form video platform.

In fact, TikTok’s US cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPMs) had a double-digit decline last month. When compared to Q1 2024, 8 of TikTok’s top 10 categories saw a decrease in ad spend in Q1 2025.

On the flip side, Facebook and Instagram’s short-form video CPMs are on the rise. This shifts show that brands who have been focusing heavily on TikTok are starting to make a shift and align their content, metrics, and audiences with Meta’s platforms instead.

Key Takeaway: This could all be temporary, depending on how the TikTok ban shakes out. But, for now, get used to Meta’s PPC being a little more crowded.

Weekly Homework:

1. If you’ve been using AI to generate all of your content, stop! Consumers and Google are both catching on to you and the impact could be detrimental to your business.
2. Log into your Google Business Profile account to make sure everything is solid and up-to-date so you don’t get pinged for suspicious activity.
3. Explore Instagram’s tips on how to grow your account. You should also review your monthly stats to find spaces for growth.
4. Keep an eye on the TikTok ban for updates and news. If you can’t wait any longer, start figuring out a strategy to move your PPC budget over to Meta or another social media platform.