Read This Week’s Digital Marketing News Updates

Digital Marketing News 2/7/2026 to 2/13/2026

This week: Google rolled out a Discover-focused Core Update, OpenAI officially began testing ads in ChatGPT, and Bing introduced a new AI citation report to track visibility in generative answers.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google’s Core Update Targets Discover Feed

Google launched its February Discover Core rollout late last week.

Expected to take two weeks to complete, the update addresses user experience by:

• Showing more locally relevant content
• Reducing sensational content and clickbait in Discover
• Showing more in-depth, original, and timely content from websites with expertise
• Showing more content that is personalized based on the users’ creator and source preferences

As with any Core Update, it may cause traffic fluctuations, but they should all shake out eventually. The update is currently being released to English language users in the US and will expand to all countries and languages within the next few months.

2. Google Revises Discover Guidelines

In addition to launching the Discover Core Update, Google also revised its “Get on Discover” documentation. Google Revises Discover Guidelines Alongside Core Update

The update includes ways to increase your likelihood of being featured on the Discover page, including:

• Avoiding clickbait and similar tactics
• Using page titles and headlines to capture the true essence of your content
• Avoiding sensationalism that caters to morbid curiosity, titillation, or outrage
• Providing content that is necessary and timely
• Including compelling, high-quality images within the content
• Providing an overall great page experience for the reader

Why We Care: Any time you can improve your content and get it in front of more people, the better! Following these tips from Google could help you maximize your reach and find new audiences.

3. OpenAI Ad Testing Starts

If you use ChatGPT’s U.S. free or Go subscription tiers, you should start seeing ads soon. OpenAI announced this week that it has started testing sponsored content.

 

Here’s some information you should know:

• Ads will not be shown to users under 18 years of age
• Ads are not eligible to appear near sensitive or regulated topics like health, mental health, or politics
• Not everyone is allowed into the advertiser program
• Chats will remain private and never be shared with advertisers
• Ads will be shown depending on what you’re discussing, ads you’ve previously engaged with, or your past chats or memories

OpenAI is also giving users control over the ads they see inside the program. Users will be able to access their ad history, share interests, and opt in to (or out of!) personalized ads based on past chats and memories.

4. Meta’s Marketing Messages API Ended This Week

If you used Meta’s Marketing Messages API to send follow-up messages, you’ll need to find another way. The social media giant discontinued the ability to send these messages on February 10th.

In the discontinuation announcement, Meta shared that “Marketing messages (also known as recurring notifications) lets businesses send promotional content to opted-in users via Messenger. This feature on Messenger API will go away on 10 February 2026.”

Users will now only be allowed to send one message per subscriber every 48 hours. Access will also be limited to existing partners and businesses. No new integrations will be allowed.

If you’ve been using this tool, click here to catch up on the news, as well as learn what to do next.

5. U.S. TikTok Addresses Privacy Concerns

When the new U.S. TikTok deal was announced a few weeks ago, many users became concerned over the updated privacy settings. The TikTok U.S. has finally addressed these concerns.

In a press release late last week, TikTok U.S. said: “Our U.S. Privacy Policy aligns with data privacy laws, mirroring language used in state laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These laws require companies to describe broad categories of personal information that could be processed, including when that information is shared voluntarily by you - for example, in the content you post to platforms. When you voluntarily post to TikTok, we process the information you share, and we're required by law to tell you this. TikTok has included this type of language in its privacy policy since 2024, and similar language appears in the privacy policies of other platforms subject to the CCPA.”

To make a long story short, there isn’t much need to be concerned. What TikTok U.S. is doing is consistent with other social media platforms, with no new requirements to allow the app to track you and your location.

6. TikTok U.S. Launches Local Feed

So you don’t have to provide your precise location data, but if you want to, you’ll gain access to TikTok U.S.’s new and improved Local Feed.

Already active in select European markets, including the U.K., France, Italy, and Germany, the new hyper-local feed is designed to help users stay connected to their local community and discover new opportunities.

This feature will be available only to users aged 18 or older and will collect information only when the app is in use. From that data, the feed will be curated to include recommendations for new restaurants, local events, shopping, and more. With 84% of small-business users on TikTok reporting that the platform has already helped them grow their brand, this could be an excellent opportunity.

Why We Care: If you’re a small business looking to boost your local foot traffic, this could be an incredible opportunity for you to expand your reach with new customers.

7. TikTok Launches New Enhanced Shops Promotion Program

A new seller program is coming to TikTok! The short-form video platform announced that the Smart Promotion Program, launched last month, will replace the existing Co-funded Promotion Program.

 

Smart Promotion Program registrants can expect:

• Point rewards to improve conversion and repeat purchasing rates
• Transparent fee structure
• Guaranteed ROI through February 28, 2026
• Enhanced product exposure through pop-up messages and surprise placements
• And more

Those monetizing their TikTok can learn more about this program, including who is eligible and how to enroll here.

8. Amazon Enables Communication Between AI Agents and Amazon Ads API

Amazon is testing a new platform to improve its ad offerings.

This best test integrates Amazon Ads with a range of AI agents to improve campaign integration and streamline ad creation. According to the mega-retailer, the new Amazon Ads MCP Server is built on the Model Content Protocol, an open standard that will allow AI platforms to communicate with external tools.

Paula Despins, Vice President of Ads Measurement at Amazon Ads says that it will “act as an instruction manual for AI agents to turn the complex, multistep operations of advertising workflows into simple actions that can be handled through natural language prompts. For example, if an advertiser is running campaigns in the U.S. and Canada, we have a tool that enables them to quickly expand it to another country with a single prompt.”

Why We Care: If you’re an Amazon Ads user, being able to launch different campaigns in different countries with just a click of a button could really boost your bottom line.

9. Bing Webmaster Tools Adds AI Performance Report

A new performance report has come to Bing’s Webmaster Tools. Launching in beta, this report will help you see where and how often your content is cited in AI-generated answers across the Microsoft ecosystem.

The new report will detail where and how often your content appeared across Microsoft Copilot, Bing’s AI summaries, and select partner integrations. The tool will show you:

• Which URLs were cited
• Which queries triggered those citations
• How citation activity changed over time

While these metrics only show citation frequency, Microsoft says it's working on expanding the tool to show ranking, prominence, and how a page contributed to a specific answer. Armed with this knowledge, content creators can be more specific in their content to provide the exact answers AI bots and human users are seeking.

10. Reddit to Expand AI Search Capabilities

Reddit announced strong fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 revenue, but the improvements appear to be continuing for the forum website.

With a record-breaking 471 million weekly active users, Reddit is looking to expand its hold on the search ecosystem with new AI-powered search tools.

In addition to its current tools and ad offerings, Reddit is working to integrate AI and new entry points into its search to increase search volume and queries per user. The platform is also working on enhancing its internal and external search displays.

2025 was the year for Reddit Ads. Could 2026 be even better?

Weekly Homework:

• Monitor your Google Analytics to see if your site is impacted by the February Core Update.
• Review the new updates to the Google Discover documents to ensure that your content is aligned with the new rules.
• Decide if advertising on ChatGPT is something your team wants to explore in the future.
• If you have been using Meta’s Recurring Marketing Messages API, make sure you have plans to support your marketing efforts without the feature.
• Explore TikTok’s new Local Feed opportunity and the enhanced Shops Promotion Program to see if either of the updates could be an opportunity to expand your brand’s reach.
• Check out your Bing Webmaster Reports to see if your content is gaining traction in the Microsoft AI ecosystem.

Digital Marketing News 1/31/2026 to 2/6/2026

This week: Firefox handed users full control over browser AI, Google cracked down on SEO shortcut listicles, and ChatGPT revealed a high-stakes, invite-only ad rollout.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Want to Block AI Features? Firefox Says Okay

AI usage in internet browsers has been a major topic of conversation, with some consumers fully on board and others highly annoyed. In a recent announcement, Mozilla shared that Firefox will soon let its users block all current and future AI features.

The announcement shared that “AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it,” the company wrote in a blog post. “We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI. We’ve also heard from others who want AI tools that are genuinely useful. Listening to our community, alongside our ongoing commitment to offer choice, led us to build AI controls.”

This opt-out opportunity will begin on February 24th, when Mozilla releases Firefox 148.

Why We Care: If other browsers follow suit, it could reshape AI search strategies and make traditional SEO strategies more valuable again.

2. SaaS Brands See 30-50% Visibility Drops on “Best Of” Listicles

Are you a big fan of “best of” listicles? Google might not be!

After the December 2025 core update, some well-known SaaS and B2B brands observed a 30-50% drop in organic visibility, particularly in blog, guide, and tutorial subfolders. The most common drops occurred on self-promotional listicles in which the publisher ranked itself first.

While this could change as volatility from the update levels out, it’s important to note that it may also indicate that Google is reevaluating how it treats “best” content.

The best way to get ahead of this? Don’t take SEO shortcuts. Ranking yourself first without any third-party testing or clear evidence of peer or consumer evaluation will fall short.

3. Google Says: 2 Mistakes Cause 75% of Crawling Issues

Every marketer wants to know how to improve Google's crawl of their site. In Google’s 2025 year-end report, Gary Illyes revealed that most crawling issues stem from two specific issues.

Here is what the report found:

• 50% come from faceted navigation, such as sites that create near-infinite URL combinations
• 25% come from action parameters
• 10% come from irrelevant parameters, such as session IDs, UTM tags, and other tracking parameters appended to URLs
• 5% come from problematic plugins or widgets
• 2% come from other “weird stuff,” such as double-encoded URLs and related edge cases

These are all pretty common mistakes, so be sure to check your site to see if you’re making them.

4. LinkedIn Offers Insight on AI Search Visibility

LinkedIn recently did an internal study on what drives visibility in AI-generated search results, and the results may be helpful for you – both on LinkedIn and off.

The results revealed that:

• Non-brand driven-traffic has dropped 60%
• Click-through rates have dropped
• Up to 60% of searches in the US/EU are zero-click

In a response to the results, LinkedIn is telling its users to:

• Focus on accessibility in their content
• Understand that early visibility compounds
• Keep publishing authoritative content to improve visibility
• Lean into cross-functional content
• Remain consistent with their content production
• Stay agile and continue to test and refine content strategies
• Keep a pulse on their industry

As LinkedIn says, “We are moving away from 'search, click, website' thinking toward a new model: Be seen, be mentioned, be considered, be chosen.”

You can read more about the findings and how you can adapt to them here.

5. WordPress Updates Guidelines to Counteract AI

Like many technology companies, WordPress is working to counter AI adoption. This week, it published new AI guidelines intended to encourage responsible use and prevent the internet from becoming AI slop.

While the guideline release goes into more specific detail, the five biggest takeaways include:

1. Produce your own content. AI can help, but it shouldn’t be a contributor.
2. Disclose meaningful AI assistance.
3. All contributions must be compatible with GPLv2-or-later, including AI-assisted output.
4. Non-code assets (docs, screenshots, images, and educational materials) also count.
5. Choose quality over volume.

Basically, it’s what we’ve been saying all along: Use AI as a tool, but not as your total creative process.

You can catch up on all of the nitty-gritty details here

6. ChatGPT Advertisers Asked for $200k Spending Commitments

We reported last week that OpenAI will soon be adding ads to ChatGPT. This week, we know how much that will cost advertisers: $200,000 in early commitments.

This is according to an AdWeek article, which reports that four brands said they were approached to join the tightly controlled beta test for ChatGPT ads and were offered a spot in exchange for future commitments of $200,000.

It’s still too soon to know exactly how ads on ChatGPT will play out, or whether they will become more affordable for brands unwilling to commit much of their marketing budget. But with so many people using ChatGPT, it’s still a good idea to keep your eye on the platform as a future marketing option.

7. TikTok Reaches 90 Million Daily Active Users

Last week, we reported that many US users were leaving TikTok in an apparent protest of the US ownership change. This week, the numbers show that many of those users came back.

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Typically, TikTok sees about 92 million daily users. After the announcement that the US deal was closed, it dropped to about 86 million daily users. While downloads of alternative apps like Skylight Social and Upscrolled took off.

In the days after that report, UpScrolled's active users have plummeted, and Skylight Social is also declining. On TikTok, however, metrics are improving, with the app recently reaching 90 million daily active users.

While it might be a good idea to still hold onto your brand’s handles on those alternative apps, it looks like TikTok might weather this storm and continue to be a key tool in the social media marketing toolbox.

8. X Is In Hot Water with French Authorities

X is in the news again – and not necessarily in a good way. French authorities reported that they have raided X's Paris offices as part of a year-long investigation into the social media platform.

According to Europol: “An investigation led by the French authorities is currently underway concerning the online platform X, in relation to the proliferation of illegal content, notably the production of deepfakes, child sexual abuse material, and content contesting crimes against humanity. The investigation is conducted by the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office with the support of the French Gendarmerie’s cybercrime unit (UNCyber) and Europol.”

X issued a statement on their platform saying that the investigation is “politically motivated.”

France isn’t the only government taking a look at X. The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also announced a formal investigation into the platform and its processing of data for the Gork AI chatbot on the same day as the Paris raid.

Why We Care: No matter how these situations play out, it’s a good reminder that, as marketers, we need to diversify our marketing efforts. While it’s good to stay current with popular apps, it’s even more important to have a content strategy with multiple touchpoints. This way, if you lose connection with one, you still have many other ways to reach your target audience.

9. The Winter Olympics Are Starting and Brands Are Ready

With the Winter Olympics starting this week, many brands are looking to make the most of this global event.

According to eMarketer:

• 67% of millennials say it's important or very important for brands to get involved with large cultural events like the Olympics or the Super Bowl
• Worldwide media ad spend will reach $1.15 trillion, a 10% increase over last year
• NBCUniversal will cash in the most, with the Olympics and the Super Bowl being held on the same Sunday for the first time in years
• US CTV Ad spend will reach $37.95 billion, a 14.5% increase
• YouTube is expected to see a boost in viewership, too, with 17% of all Summer Olympic watchers engaging with the event on the video platform

Why We Care: A lot of marketers will be looking to make a splash at this year’s Olympics. It could be an inspirational gold mind – or a stark reminder of what not to do.

10. Get Ready for Those Super Bowl Ads

Speaking of an inspirational gold mind, the Super Bowl is also coming up this weekend, and you know what that means: promotional content the internet will be talking about for days!

Everyone from Nerds to Squarespace is looking to make a splash during this year’s big game. If you’re more interested in the promotional content than who wins the Seahawks vs. Patriots showdown, you can follow along with what content is performing well (and which content isn’t!) on Marketing Dive’s Super Bowl 60 Ad Tracker.

Why We Care: No matter your industry, we can learn a lot about our target markets and overall consumer attitudes from how they react to Super Bowl ads. Which ones go viral and which ones flop could give some insight into how to run your own campaigns. And who knows, you might even get some inspiration!

Weekly Homework:

1. Check your site rankings to see if you were negatively affected by Google’s December 2025 Core Update.
2. Watch or listen to Google’s recent podcast to see if your site is making any of the most common crawling errors. If you are, log into the backend of your site and fix them!
3. Read through LinkedIn’s findings on how to boost your visibility in an AI-driven world.
4. Get ready to get inspired (or turned off) by big-name brands during the upcoming Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl.
5. If X is a significant part of your marketing strategy, you might want to monitor its recent UK and France-related issues closely.

Digital Marketing News 1/24/2026 to 1/30/2026

This week: TikTok’s U.S. deal is done, Google search volumes fell nearly 20% year over year, and AI-driven traffic delivered massive gains across holiday shopping.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. It’s Official: The TikTok Deal Is Done

A White House official confirmed this week that the US TikTok is finalized. TikTok’s new US operations will be run by Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, with ByteDance retaining just under 20% of the new organization.

In a statement, TikTok announced that it “will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for U.S. users.”

Since the U.S. takeover, users have been seeing a pop-up with updates to TikTok’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. According to CBS News, the biggest change is that TikTok will now collect precise location data from users.

Why We Care: Although this ends the “will-they-won’t-they” game around the TikTok ban, it raises questions about how sustainable the app will be going forward. Under U.S. ownership, app deletions have increased 150%, with many users saying they aren’t fans of the forced sale. If the app continues to lose users, will it remain a primary marketing tool for brands?

2. 3 Apps Gain Attention After TikTok Deal

With some American users seeking alternatives to TikTok, three apps are benefiting from the exodus.

A sudden uptick in downloads hit these three apps this week:

• Upscrolled - an Instagram-style social platform
• Skylight - an open source TikTok alternative
• Yope - a visual messaging app popular with Australian teens

While it’s still way too early to tell if the US deal will affect TikTok’s sustainability, if you think your audience might be jumping ship, it might be a good idea to at least grab your brand’s handle on the up-and-coming apps.

3. Google Searches Fell Nearly 20% YOY

A new report from Search Engine Land says that U.S. Google searches are down almost 20% from this time last year.

While Google still accounts for a strong majority of search results, the report indicates a change may be coming. With fewer searches also comes fewer opportunities for clicks, ads, and traffic.

Search Engine Land maintains that this drop could be due to AI-powered answers and instant results because:

• Users are getting what they need with fewer searches and follow-ups
• Zero-click searches remain high
• Repeat searches and clicks within the Google ecosystem show minor changes

The study also showed that queries are getting longer, with most queries totalling between six and nine words. Additionally, very long searches of 15 words or more remain rare but are increasingly common. This indicates that users are becoming more comfortable searching for more complex questions.

According to Rand Fiskin, co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, “The big highlight here is the decline in # of Google searches/searcher from 2024–2025. It’s a nearly 20% decline in the US, though only 2–3% in the EU/UK. Other studies have shown that Google is sending less traffic than in years past, especially to the long-tail of the web, and I suspect that AI answers have dramatically altered the way many users engage with Google, answering their questions before they ever need to click on an organic result or perform a second/third/fourth search.”

You can download the full report here.

4. Google is Considering Letting Sites Opt Out of AI Search Features

If you aren’t a fan of generative AI search features, you might soon be able to opt out of letting it explore your website.

In a recent Google blog post, Ron Eden, Principal of Product Management, was quoted as saying: “Building on this framework, and working with the web ecosystem, we're now exploring updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt out of Search generative AI features. Our goal is to protect the helpfulness of Search for people who want information quickly, while also giving websites the right tools to manage their content. We look forward to engaging in the CMA’s process and will continue discussions with website owners and other stakeholders on this topic.”

A survey by Barry Schwarts on X showed that 1 in 3 publishers would opt to block Google’s AI search features.

While no timeline or concrete guidance has been provided, if this happens, publishers will have greater control over where and when their content appears on the web.

5. AI Recommendation Lists Repeat Less Than 1% of the Time

A new study from SparkToro and Gumshoe.ai finds that AI-generated brand and product lists almost never repeat, even with identical prompts.

Key findings:

• Less than 1% of lists repeat exactly
• Rankings jump wildly, but intent survives (top brands appear frequently)
• Smaller markets show more consistency; larger markets are chaotic

Takeaway: Track visibility across multiple runs, not exact rank. AI outputs are random by design. Focus on brand presence, not position.

6. AI Local Visibility Is Up to 30x Harder Than Google

A new SOCi report shows that appearing in AI recommendations is far more difficult than ranking in Google’s local results.

Key findings from 2,751 multi-location brands:

• ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of locations, Gemini 11%, Perplexity 7.4%
• Google’s local 3-pack featured 35.9% of the same locations
• Fewer than half of top Google local performers appeared in AI recommendations

Industry highlights:

• Retail: Only 45% of top local brands carried over to AI
• Restaurants: Visibility clustered among leaders with strong ratings
• Financial services: Brands with poor ratings or incomplete profiles were often invisible

Download the full report here: The 2026 Local Visibility Index

7. Google Adds Data to Demand Gen Campaigns

Google recently announced new updates to its popular Demand Gen campaigns.

Among the updates, new features include:

• Attributed Brand Searches: shows the volume of branded searches your campaign drove on Google/YouTube to help you quantify your impact beyond core conversion goals
• Shoppable CTV: enables viewers to seamlessly browse and purchase products while watching YouTube ads on the big screen
• Travel Feeds: hotel advertisers can now connect their Hotel Center feed with their Demand Gen campaigns to populate dynamic ads

Explore all of the details of these exciting new opportunities here on the Google Ads & Commerce Blog.

8. Pinterest Adds Tool to Improve Media Management

If you’re one of the many brands on Pinterest, you’re going to love this recent announcement.

Thanks to the new Media Planner tool, managing campaigns just got easier. Now marketers can:

• Explore audiences, including high-value audience segments
• Estimate opportunities to see how much key awareness campaign metrics, including impressions, reach, frequency, and CPM, will cost you
• Narrow down cost estimates to specific countries
• Review different model scenarios to determine the right budget and media needed to accomplish your goals

Pinterest has long been a growing platform for brands and businesses. With access to new data and this new tool, it could climb higher on the must-have social media tool chart.

9. X Launches Paid Promotion Tags

Previously, if you were posting a paid promotion on X, you had to write it within the caption. This new feature will remove that requirement.

In a previous version of X’s rules, it stated that “Posts that are part of a Paid Partnership published as an organic Post must include clear and conspicuous language indicating the commercial nature of such content, like ‘Ad’ or ‘Promoted Content.’” Most creators would simply add a #ad hashtag to their captions.

Now, users will be able to click “content disclosure” and toggle on a notification indicating that it’s sponsored content.

This is all part of X’s bigger push to increase app usage, along with increasing creator payouts and offering a cash prize for the best-performing X article of the month.

10. Threads Ads Open to All Regions

If you’re an American Threads user, you might have noticed ads in your feed, but the ads were still pretty limited and not available globally. Meta announced this week that Threads Ads will now be available in all regions.

In the announcement, Meta said: “Beginning next week, we are expanding ads on Threads to users in all markets globally […] For advertisers, ads on Threads are an easy way to extend the reach of their existing Meta campaigns, automatically adding Threads placements to Advantage+ and manual campaigns. The familiar image, video, and carousel ad formats appear natively in the Threads feed, helping brands reach more people in more places across Meta’s family of apps.”

With over 150 million daily active users and 400 million monthly active users, Threads is quickly becoming a popular social media site – and a place where your ideal consumers could be hanging out.

11. The Numbers Are In: AI Changed Holiday Shopping

You might still be recovering from the holiday rush, but don’t let that keep you from exploring these recent sales numbers.

According to Adobe’s “Quarterly AI Traffic Report,” every single industry saw a huge increase in AI-driven traffic, with the biggest increases being in:

• Retail: 693%
• Travel: 539%
• Financial services: 266%
• Tech and software: 120%
• Media and entertainment: 92%

Conversion rates also rose, with AI-driven traffic outperforming non-AI-driven traffic. As with revenue, AI-driven traffic accounted for a 33% increase over non-AI-driven traffic.

The study also explored demographics, finding that states such as Virginia, Washington, New York, California, and Massachusetts are engaging with AI at twice the US average, while engagement in the South and Appalachia remains at the bottom.

Why We Care: If your target audience is using AI to discover products and services, you need to find a way to get your content mentioned on those platforms.

Weekly Homework:

1. If you’re a TikTok user, monitor your metrics carefully to see if the new U.S. deal affects your audience.
2. If you want to look outside of TikTok, claim your brand’s handle on the three most popular TikTok replacement apps.
3. For Demand Gen users, don’t forget to check out the new tools to see if they could help improve your ROI.
4. Download the State of Search report from Datos to see if the numbers are aligning with your brand’s forecast.
5. If you’re a Pinterest user, be sure to check out the new tool to streamline your campaign creation.
6. If word-based advertising is more your thing, check out the new opportunities on X and Threads.

Digital Marketing News 1/17/2026 to 1/23/2026

This week: Ethical concerns around AI agents intensify, new data confirms organic search is far from dead, and ChatGPT officially steps into the advertising arena.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. ChatGPT Starts Testing Ads in the United States

ChatGPT is launching two new changes – one is ads for ChatGPT Free and ChatGPT Go users.

Ads will appear below responses and remain clearly labeled, so as not confuse searchers with actual responses. They will also not be shown to users under 18 and are not eligible to run near sensitive topics, such as:

• Physical health
• Mental health
• Politics

Any conversations about ads will not be shared with advertisers, and user data will not be sold.

The ad test launched alongside the U.S. launch of ChatGPT Go, the low-cost subscription tier at $8 a month. It includes greater access to GPT-5.2, more messages, more uploads, more opportunities to create images, and a longer memory.

Why We Care: With more and more people using ChatGPT, it could become valuable real estate for marketers across industries.

2. Google Gemini Rules Out Ads – For Now

ChatGPT might be the only AI tool with ads, at least for now. Google denied this week that it will be running ads on Gemini any time soon.

Originally mentioned in December, this sentiment was again echoed this week by Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at the World Economic Forum in Davos. At the same time, he shared that Google would rather focus on creating a more robust and capable assistant than on figuring out how to monetize it.

This comes on the heels of ChatGPT announcing it will begin showing ads on its platform. It’ll be interesting to see if the introduction of ads on ChatGPT influences usage on either app.

Why We Care: If you’ve been waiting for ads to come to AI chatbots, you might want to turn your attention to ChatGPT, instead of Google Gemini.

3. 71% of Marketers Say Ethical and Privacy Standards Need to Be Established for AI Agents

A new study published by eMarketer reveals the desire for higher ethical and privacy standards for AI agents.

When asked about what needs to happen in order to prepare for a future where consumers delegate tasks to AI agents, the study revealed that:

• 71% think that ethical and privacy standards need to be established for AI agents
• 53% says they need to optimize their content for conversational AI
• 53% wants to reimagine the path to purchase when discovery and selection happen via agents instead of direct search

Marketers aren’t the only ones thinking about AI. Consumers are also incorporating AI into their daily lives, with 29% saying they have made a purchase solely based on an AI-generated response.

Why We Care: AI clearly isn’t going anywhere, and as marketers, we need to make the shifts necessary to adapt to new tools and grow with the industry.

4. Organic Traffic Is Only Down 2.5% YOY – Not the 25-60% Some Experts Had Claimed

We can finally put it to rest: SEO is not dead. New numbers show that organic search is only down 2.5% YOY, not the 25-60% some experts had predicted.

A new report from Similarweb revealed:

• Organic SEO traffic: -2.5% YoY
• Search engine traffic overall (2025): +0.4%
• Google traffic (2025): +0.8%
• Organic vs. paid clicks: ~90% organic, ~10% ads
• AI Overview CTR impact: -35% when present
• AI Overview prevalence: ~30% of SERPs

The numbers showed that AI Overviews affected organic traffic, but it didn’t completely take it over as previously predicted. AI Overviews appear in only about 30% of queries, mostly for informational questions.

You can learn more about the Similarweb report here.

5. Google Search Ad Clicks Hit 5 Year High

Google Search spending is up – but so are ad clicks.

In a Q4 2025 report by Tinuiti, numbers showed:

• Spending rose 13% since Q4 2024
• PMax campaigns accounted for 62% of total Google Shopping spend
• Non-shopping inventory made up 39% of PMax spend
• YouTube video accounted for 13% of impressions outside of search
• Text ad clicks hit a 19-quarter high – growing 9% year over year

Google Ads weren’t the only ads that grew. Microsoft actually outperformed Google with a 16% year-over-year increase and 10% click growth.

You can learn more about Q4 2025 benchmarks for digital ads, including Google, Meta, Amazon, and more, by downloading Tinuiti’s report here.

6. TikTok Introduces More AI-Powered Tools for TikTok Shop

This week, TikTok launched new AI-powered tools to help TikTok Shop creators make more money and have greater influence.

Among the editions are:

• AI Fashion Video Maker - a new tool to make producing Shoppable Videos easier than ever
• AI Dubbing - a tool to automatically create scripts based on product details
• Customer Relationship Management tool - designed to help boost sales, increase loyalty, and retention

TikTok Shop has already proven successful for many brands, and the more tools and features they add, the more brands will be able to expand their reach and find success on the short-form video app.

Why We Care: TikTok is one of the fastest-growing apps, especially for ecommerce brands. If you’ve already added it to your marketing strategy, put checking out these tools on your to-do list.

7. TikTok Shares 2026 Marketing Trends

Speaking of TikTok, the social media app has some ideas for how 2026 will go for digital marketers.

The app says that there are 3 main emerging trends that digital marketers should pay attention to:

• Reali-Tea: telling real stories about real people
• Curiosity Detours: taking audiences to unexpected places
• Emotional ROI: tapping into audience emotions

The report explains why it considers these trends to be emerging and what marketers can do to capitalize on them. Learn more about the trends shaping the social media landscape by downloading the full report here.

8. Google Introduces New Budget Allocations for Ad Campaigns

Do you want to make the most out of your ad campaigns? Now you can! This week, Google announced the introduction of campaign total budgets for Search, Performance Max, and Shopping campaigns.

In the press release announcing the move, Google said: “Instead of making daily manual tweaks to keep pace, campaign total budgets optimize your spend, and aim to fully and effectively utilize your budget by your end date. Whether you’re running a 72-hour test or a month-long activation, you can launch with confidence knowing you won’t overspend or miss out on opportunities. Your campaign will stay on track for your budget goals without the need for daily maintenance.”

While this will reduce the time spent managing your account, it could lead to missed opportunities. For some brands, that might be the better choice.

9. More Creator Features Come to Instagram’s Edits

Instagram rolled out its very first update to its Edits app. The new features are designed to make using the app even easier.

The additions include:

• New video effects, including bounce, fisheye, and blackout
• The ability to add multiple takes of audio and video clips to your storyboard
• Adding interactive links as clickable overlays or more creative possibilities
• 10 new ideas shared weekly to inspire your content

Why We Care: If you’ve been using Edits to make your Instagram Reels, these new edits might make editing your brand’s videos even easier and more interactive.

10. Complex Queries Now Use Gemini 3 Pro

Google has been making many changes to its AI Mode lately. First, it announced AI Mode results in November, then added Gemini 3 Flash for AI Mode. Now, Google introduced Gemini 3 Pro to AI Overviews.

Google’s VP of Product, Robby Stein, said:

• Update: AI Overviews now tap into Gemini 3 Pro for complex topics.
• Behind the scenes, Search will intelligently route your toughest Qs to our frontier model (just like we do in AI Mode) while continuing to use faster models for simpler tasks.
• Live in English globally for Google AI Pro & Ultra subs.

Why We Care: This might make Google’s AI Overviews look different, but that’s because Google is improving its Gemini models and rolling those upgrades into Search, including AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Weekly Homework:

• Download the Similarweb report on paid ad benchmarks to see where your data measures up.
• Consider whether or not you’d like to be one of the first to test running ads on ChatGPT.
• If TikTok is part of your content marketing strategy, download the 2026 Marketing Trends Report. Explore where you can make tweaks to your strategy to align with upcoming trends.
• With Google Search Ad clicks and spending both up from last year, brainstorm ways that you can improve your paid search strategy.

Digital Marketing News 1/10/2026 to 1/16/2026

This week: Apple taps Google Gemini, Google launches AI-powered checkout, and LinkedIn dominates AI citations.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. 54% of Millennials Use TikTok for Product Research

If you’re trying to reach millennials, TikTok may be the place to do it. In a new study by eMarketer, 54% of millennials use TikTok for product and company research.

The study also found that a large share of consumers aged 13-24 and 45+ use TikTok for product research and discovery.

And it doesn’t stop at research and discovery. Many of those surveyed also reported either purchasing a product or service they heard about on TikTok or recommending the product to a friend or family member.

2. Apple & Google Announce AI Partnership

The race for the most popular AI model just got a little more interesting. This week, Apple announced that Google’s Gemini will power Apple’s Siri and Apple Intelligence.

The multi-year collaboration means that Gemini will be the foundation for all of Apple Intelligence’s next-generation devices. Currently, Apple integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Siri and states that it will not make any further modifications to that agreement.

Why We Care: This is especially important for brands that want to show up in AI citations, especially for local and near me searches. If you want your brand to be featured, it’s more important than ever to get Gemini’s attention.

3. Google Announces Protocol for AI Mode Checkout

New protocols and features are coming to Google, specifically the AI Mode Checkout Protocol and a new Business Agent.

The first is the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). This upgrade establishes a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers. It was co-developed by industry leaders like Shopify, Etsy, and Wayfair, and has been endorsed by over 20 others, including American Express, Mastercard, and Stripe.

The new Business Agent will enable shoppers to chat with brands directly on the Search page. Users can use it as a virtual sales associate to answer product questions, as if it were the brand. The agent is already live for retailers including Lowe’s, Michaels, Reebok, and Poshmark. Other eligible US retailers can activate their brand agent inside their Merchant Center.

Google also rolled out Direct Offers, which is a new way to test ads in AI Mode. The pilot allows advertisers to present exclusive offers directly in AI Mode to shoppers who are ready to buy.

If you’re a product-based business that wants to grow on Google, it’s a good idea to check out these new features and learn how to use them to your advantage.

4. Reels Account for 50% of Time Spent on Instagram

A new study from Social Media Today highlights how much time people spend watching short-form content.

According to the data:

• 50% of the time spent on Instagram is spent watching Reels
• YouTube Shorts are viewed over 200 billion times per day
• Snapchat Spotlight clips views have increased by more than 300% since last year
• Users spend more time on TikTok than on any other social media platform
• Facebook’s primary engagement takes place on Reels

The article also revealed other marketing trends, including Reddit ads and Facebook offering an algorithm opt-out.

Get yourself ready for the upcoming changes and trends by reading the article here.

5. Google Ads Tests Prebuilt Campaigns

Want to jump into Google Ads but not sure where to start? Google’s new campaign set up is meant to reduce friction for new users.

Based on an existing campaign, advertisers can shorten the time to campaign launch prioritizing speed over manual set up.

While Google hasn’t officially announced this feature is here to stay, its fair to assume that this is either a test or a slow roll out of the new feature.

6. Want More AI Citations? Use LinkedIn Articles

According to a recent study, LinkedIn articles are taking over citations in AI responses.

The study was cited as saying “Google search traffic to publishers declined globally by a third in the year to November […] Since May 2023, Google search referrals were down 21% globally, with Google Discover down 18% and all external referrals down 24%.”

The study also said that “data from Spotlight’s extensive database shows that ChatGPT cites LinkedIn 4.2 times more, Perplexity 5.7 times more, and the average across all LLMs is about 4 to 5 times the usual rate. Of the total 19,202 LinkedIn sources cited, over 15,000 come from LinkedIn Pulse articles specifically.”

Is this the year your business starts publishing more LinkedIn content?

7. Almost 30% of AI Overviews Cite YouTube Content

Speaking of appearing in AI Overviews and LLMs, if you aren’t creating YouTube content, you might want to. According to new studies, the video platform is a key source for AI Overview material.

YouTube has long been a popular site, but now that it’s averaging over 1 billion hours of watch time per day, it has overtaken traditional TV and become a key part of the marketing mix.

AI models and recommendation systems aren’t just learning from watch data. They’re also forming connections by monitoring how users bounce between long-form videos, short clips, live commentary, and companion apps on their phones.

If optimizing YouTube is on your 2026 to-do list, here are some things to focus on to get to the top:

• Intent-driven metadata.
• Structural optimization.
• Authority signaling.
• Strategic integration.

8. Instagram’s “Your Algorithm” Option Now Available to All English-Speaking Users

Last October, Instagram announced a new manual control option that would give users greater control over their Reels experience. This week, they announced that it is now available to all English-speaking users.

Instagram users can now select which topics they want to see more or less of. This can be highly helpful for marketers targeting specific audiences, especially when users have selected their topics as a “see more of” option.

One downside is that users must be proactive and select these options, which may not always occur. It is also possible that your Reels won’t reach the people you want because they’ve selected not to see your content.

9. TikTok is Expanding its Marketing Partners Program

TikTok announced a change to its Marketing Partners Program this week with a new “Channel Sales Partner” element.

This new feature connects prospective TikTok advertisers with better platform support aligned with their specific business requirements.

TikTok was quoted as saying, “More and more small and medium-sized businesses are turning to TikTok to drive real business results, from discovery through to leads, bookings, and sales. Sitting under the Marketing Technology badge, the Channel Sales Partner Program recognizes partners that meet TikTok’s technical, operational, and go-to-market standards while driving SMB adoption and investment through their platforms at scale.”

Why We Care: If 2026 is the year you grow your brand on TikTok, the addition of Channel Sales Partners is a great way to do it.

10. Google Launches A/B Testing for PMax Campaigns

Do you wish you could do more with your PMax campaigns? Now you can! This week, Google launched a new Beta that allows advertisers to A/B test asset sets.

Since Performance Max (PMax) campaigns generally rely on automation, enabling testing is a significant step forward. It gives advertisers greater control over asset-level performance without launching a new campaign.

You can learn more about this new feature and how to access it for your brand by reading the Google Blog.

11. Google Trends Explore Page is Getting a Major Update

Big news as Google announces it is integrating "Gemini capabilities to automatically identify and compare relevant trends for your area of interest," in Google Trends.

This new and improved Google Trends Explore page has a side panel that is powered by Gemini and meant to help users find even more search terms to explore.

The new “suggest search terms” button will ask Gemini to break out all related terms and compare them to each other. You’ll get a list of relevant terms as well as prompts to take you further into related trends.

Increase the depth of your searches with this tool today. Google Trends now assigns dedicated colors and icons to each search term to improve comprehension, allows you to add even more search terms and doubled the amount of rising queries that will show up in results.

Try it out today!

12. TikTok Phases Out Custom Identify Option for Advertisers

Speaking of TikTok, the social media platform also announced it will phase out its Custom Identity Option early this year.

When the change is complete, all advertisers will need a verified TikTok profile to continue running ads in the app. To help prepare for the switch, TikTok is advising advertisers to review the F.I.R.S.T. framework to avoid any pauses in their current marketing campaigns.

Once an advertiser completes the framework, they will be able to continue to use all of the TikTok ad tools and options, even after the Custom Identity Option is phased out.

In addition to aligning with the new system, TikTok says that following the F.I.R.S.T. framework could also help your bottom line. In the announcement, TikTok said that, “[a]ccording to backend tests, 59.3% of advertisers saw their cost per acquisition (CPA) decrease by at least 10% after linking accounts.”

A detailed guide to the new framework is available here.

Weekly Homework

1. Brainstorm ways to improve your business’s chances of being noticed by Google’s Gemini. This will boost you in both the Google ecosystem and Apple Intelligence.
2. If you’re a product-based business, explore the new features in Google’s AI Mode, specifically the Business Agent or Direct Offers.
3. Read the 2026 trend report from Social Media Today to find ways to fill in the gaps in your current social media strategy.
4. Consider whether LinkedIn articles could improve your chances of ending up in an AI citation.
5. If you are using TikTok’s Custom Identity Option to run your ads, be sure to follow the F.I.R.S.T framework so your ads aren’t disrupted when the Custom Identity Option phases out.

Digital Marketing News 1/2/2026 to 1/9/2026

This week: Consumers increasingly trust AI over traditional search, Google’s December Core Update caused major SERP volatility, and Instagram is forcing brands to rethink discovery by limiting hashtag usage.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. 60% of Consumers Say AI Delivers Better Answers than Traditional Search

A new study revealed insights marketers can use to get ahead in 2026.

Not only did more than one-third (37%) of consumers say they are turning to AI chatbots for search assistance instead of Google, but many also report search fatigue with traditional search methods. Some of the top frustrations include:

• 40% - Clicking through too many links
• 37% - Getting too many ads or sponsored results
• 33% - Difficulty getting a straight answer
• 28% - Receiving repetitive or low-quality information

Of those surveyed:

• 60% said AI delivers better answers
• 80% feel confident that AI is unbiased

Even with that level of confidence, 85% still double-check AI answers elsewhere.

While consumers may use AI for shopping assistance, the study also finds that traditional search engines remain the preferred option for searches on product reviews and pricing, news and recent events, images and videos, and health and medical information.

These insights are just the tip of the iceberg. Click here to download the entire 2026 AI and Search Behavior Study.

2. 40% of Marketers Are Using AI for Social Media Management

Wondering how other marketers are using AI in their content generation? A new study published by eMarketer offers insights for you.

The study revealed that:

• 40% of marketers are using it for social media management
• 39% turn to AI for marketing automation
• 38% are using it for customer engagement
• 34% identify as intermediate-level users when it comes to AI marketing maturity

Have you heard of Rallio? It’s our AI-powered social media management tool that can help streamline your content generation and engagement strategies, allowing you to manage multiple social channels efficiently.

Rallio empowers brands, content suppliers, business owners, and employees to rally together and amplify their social media presence like never before, all in one social media platform.

3. Google’s December Core Update Produced A Lot of Volatility

Have you seen a lot of volatility in your SERP results? It could be due to Google’s December Core Update.

The update finished on December 29th, and here’s what changed:

• News publishers experienced volatility across Search, Discover, and Google News surfaces
• “Best of” round-up posts are no longer ranking as highly as before
• Brands and commercial sites with product authority are seeing higher rankings
• Specialized retailers and brands picked up traffic, while broader retailers lost some
• Specialized software sites also gained more traffic, specifically to landing pages and resource content

If you were affected, click here to read more about how the core updates work and what you can do to reclaim lost traffic.

4. Google Ads Upgrades Creator Partnerships

Google Ads’ Creator Partnerships recently got an upgrade with new search and management tools.

The new tools include:

• The ability to search for YouTube creators by keyword or channel handle
• A filter to break search results down by subscriber count, average views, location, and contact availability
• A centralized creator communication hub with direct email access built in

With creator-led campaigns expected to play a larger role in digital media in 2026, these new Creator Partnership updates arrive at the right time.

Click here to learn more about the new tools and how you can use them in your content this year.

5. Experts Say Content Curation is Vital to Keeping Consumers in 2026

According to a new study published by eMarketer, brands need to curate the right content and culture to retain their consumers in 2026.

Experts say that providing curated product selections is the key to strengthening loyalty, encouraging repeat purchases, attracting new customers, and improving the shopping experience.

This applies to both in-store and online shopping experiences, as 73% of Gen Z shoppers and 67% of millennials say social media is their primary source of information for discovering new products.

That doesn’t mean to push out more content. It simply means curating your content more effectively. In fact, less is more in 2026: 75% of shoppers say the ability to narrow choices strengthens their confidence in purchase decisions.

How will you curate a more customized context and environment to improve your consumer experience in 2026?

6. Max Campaigns Come to Reddit

Reddit spent 2025 going all in on its ad offerings. So far, 2026 seems to be continuing the trend.

The site recently introduced Max campaigns, a new automated campaign that offers a simplified setup, improved performance capabilities, and deeper audience insights.

Early reports say that this new format is proving successful. According to Reddit, Brooks Running saw a 37% decrease in cost per click and 27% more clicks over the course of a 21 day campaign using a beta version of their Max campaigns.

Jyoti Vaidee, VP of Ads Product at Reddit, said that, “[n]ew advertisers are coming to Reddit each day. Our goal is to make their experience as simple and insightful as possible. Max campaigns empower advertisers to launch high-performing ads in the right places on Reddit, while giving them insight into the audiences they’re reaching. We’re not just making ad management faster – we’re making it smarter and tailored to our community.”

For now, Max campaigns is still in a beta format for traffic and conversion campaigns for select advertisers. Reddit says it expects to roll out access to more advertisers over the next few months.

Reddit has been working hard to capture PPC revenue and this new format may help it achieve its lofty goals.

7. Instagram is Limiting Hashtag Usage

Are you a hashtag fan? You might have to adjust your strategy! In a new announcement, Instagram shared that it is now limiting hashtags to 5 per post.

The social media platform says that this comes from research that says “using fewer (up to 5) more targeted hashtags, rather than many generic ones, can improve both your content’s performance and people’s experience on Instagram.”

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What This Means: For social media managers, it's time to ditch the generic hashtags and instead focus on being more intentional. Choose 5 specific and relevant hashtags to still encourage discovery of your posts, but lean into your caption writing to grab the attention of more users.

8. Google Adds Maps to Demand Gen Channel Controls

Listen up! Advertisers now have the opportunity to run Demand Gen campaigns on Google Maps. This changes the ad landscape by prioritizing intent-driven placements, giving advertisers even more control.

Think about the power of intent-driven placements. Advertisers should begin to tailor ads to local discovery and navigation when possible.

Get creative and start prioritizing location-centric ads today.

9. Instagram Shares 2026 Insights on Content

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, recently shared some thoughts on the future of content, specifically on his app, where he says “authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible.”

Some of his most important points include:

• AI is able to replicate anyone’s work
• AI content will soon be indistinguishable from human-generated content
• People connect more personally in DMs than on their Instagram feeds
• To help combat AI fakes, creators are producing less polished content
• Instagram is working to highlight AI through labeling, but it is becoming overwhelming

Mosseri also shared that Instagram is exploring ways to better identify who is behind each account, both to reduce misinformation and to detect AI-generated content.

It’s no secret that AI is being incorporated into every aspect of our lives, but do you agree that it will affect social media in the same ways that Mosseri is saying?

10. OpenAI is Reporting Looking to Buy Pinterest

OpenAI is always looking for ways to evolve, and this might mean purchasing Pinterest in the near-future.

According to an article in The Information, OpenAI is interested in the social media/search engine app to help it acquire more human-generated data, specifically around product searches. That information will help them turn ChatGPT into a more robust shopping tool and create additional ad-revenue opportunities.

With over 600 million monthly users, Pinterest collects substantial data that could be highly valuable to OpenAI.

If you’re one of the many brands that advertise on Pinterest, you should keep an eye on this potential merger. The acquisition could affect your 2026 strategy if it proceeds.

Weekly Homework:

1. Download the AI and Search Behavior study to uncover valuable insights to help improve your SEO strategy.
2. Analyze your SERP rankings to see if your site took a hit during Google’s December Core Update.
3. Explore the new Creator Partnership tools to see how you can use them in your ad campaigns this year.
4. Download HubSpot’s Reddit Guide and check out the new Reddit Max campaigns to see if advertising on Reddit makes sense for your social media and SEO strategies.
5. Have your social media team review your upcoming and recently posted Instagram captions to ensure you’re using only 5 specific hashtags.

Digital Marketing News 12/13/2025 to 12/19/2025

This week: New data shows a surge in global internet and AI-driven traffic, Google’s December Core Update and what it means for faster ranking recovery, and major platform changes from Meta and Instagram that could affect link sharing, engagement, and visibility.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Global Internet Traffic Grew 19% in 2025

According to Cloudflare’s Year in Review, it’s been a busy year on the internet! Global internet traffic grew 19% this year, with significant growth starting in August.

In a recent report, Cloudflare said Googlebot crawled 200 times more pages than other AI bots and crawlers. Other key findings include:

• Global internet traffic grew 19%
• Starlink traffic doubled, including in 20 new countries and regions
• Human-generated web traffic grew to 52%
• iOS devices were responsible for 35% of global mobile traffic
• Google is the top search engine, with Yandex, Bing, and DuckDuckGo following
• AI bots account for 4.2% of HTML requests

Cloudflare’s Year in Review includes a ton of other interesting findings in topics such as Traffic, AI, Adoption and Usage, Connectivity, and Security. Read it now for insights that could affect your marketing strategy moving into 2026.

2. Google’s December 2025 Core Update is Here

Google started rolling out its third core update of 2025 on December 11th.

Before the rollout started, Google revised its core updates documentation to include this language on ongoing algorithm changes: “However, you don’t necessarily have to wait for a major core update to see the effect of your improvements. We’re continually making updates to our search algorithms, including smaller core updates. These updates are not announced because they aren’t widely noticeable, but they are another way that your content can see a rise in position (if you’ve made improvements).”

The roll-out is expected to take 3 weeks to complete. During that time, it’s likely that you’ll see some shake-ups in your SERP ranking and organic traffic.

3. Google Search Live Gets an Upgrade

Google updated Search Live this week with Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio, and it could cause some wrinkles in SEO.

According to Google, “When you go Live with Search, you can have a back-and-forth voice conversation in AI Mode to get real-time help and quickly find relevant sites across the web. And now, thanks to our latest Gemini model for native audio, the responses on Search Live will be more fluid and expressive than ever before.”

Updates include:

• Broader update to Gemini 2.5 Flash Native Audio across the Google ecosystem
• Improvements for Voice-Based Systems
• Smoother conversational translations

With this update, Google is one step closer to realizing its vision for voice search.

4. AI is Coming to Firefox … if You Want it To

Mozilla CEO announced this week that AI is coming to Firefox in 2026.

The last few years haven’t been easy for the company. It underwent a restructuring, laid off 30% of its employees, and discontinued advocacy and other global programs.

While they need to make a comeback and see the opportunity in AI, Anthony Enzor-Demeo, CEO of Mozilla Corporation, said in a blog post that: “People want software that is fast, modern, but also honest about what it does. They want to understand what’s happening and to have real choices. Mozilla and Firefox can be that choice.”

He also noted that, “AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.”

This means that the company is introducing AI tools in its browser, but only if the user allows it. The goal is to keep up with technology without losing consumer trust.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if it helps Mozilla pull consumers back from other browsers that force its users to use AI.

5. YouTube Shorts Get Updates to Improve Engagement

YouTube released several new features this week, including comment sections and the ability to add Shorts ads to mobile web browsers.

The updates include:

• A comment section on Shorts Ads
• Links for branded content that bring clicks directly to the advertiser’s website
• Expansion to add Shorts Ads to mobile web browsers

According to Kantar research, YouTube Ads on Shorts increase purchase intent by 8.8% and drive 2.9x more consumer spending intent than other competitors. It’ll be interesting to see whether these news features increase those numbers and drive more traffic and sales.

6. Meta Tests Limiting Link Sharing for Business Profiles

Is your business profile verified on Meta? If it isn’t, you may have seen this interesting update this week.

According to a new pop-up some accounts have received, “Starting December 16, certain Facebook profiles without Meta Verified, including yours, will be limited to sharing links in 2 organic posts per month. Subscribe to Meta Verified to share more links on Facebook, plus get a verified badge and additional benefits to help protect your brand.”

While this is still in beta, it could be a significant change for Meta in 2026. If you’re a business without a verified account and you post a lot of links, this could seriously affect your content strategy.

7. New Features Aim to Improve Creator Partnerships on Meta

This isn’t the only announcement Meta made this week. The social media platform also shared some updates to improve partnership opportunities for brands.

In the announcement, Meta shared new updates, including:

• More content types in the Partnership Ads Hub
• The ability to view performance insights
• A new Facebook Partnership Ads API
• Expanded creator eligibility for partnership ads, including professional mode profiles
• Simpler permissions to convert UGC into partnership ads

These updates could significantly improve how brands create and use UGC on Meta’s platforms.

8. US Users Can Now Control Their Reels Algorithm

Meta announced a soft launch in October, and now all US users have access to its “Your Algorithm” manual control option.

According to Meta’s Chris Cox, “We’re launching the ‘your algorithm’ tool on Reels today in the U.S. and will roll out soon to all English-speaking users — a big step towards a more controllable experience. We’ve done a bunch of work on the tech under the hood and we will continue to refine these tools, but already it’s quite powerful to steer your recommendations towards your specific interests.”

This could go one of two ways for advertisers. Either you’ll be able to reach more interested parties through topic buckets, or you’ll lose views on your Reels because people mark them as not interested.

9. Pinterest Shares 2026 Trend Predictions

Want to know what big trends are coming up in 2026? Pinterest might have the answer for you in its annual Pinterest Predicts report.

The annual list has been successful in the past, with 88% of its predictions coming to fruition.

In addition to the trend predictions, the report also includes a fun quiz to take to help you decide which trend is right for your brand.

Discover everything packed into the 24-page guide, including brand tips and advice, and how to incorporate them into your Pinterest strategy, by reading the full report here.

10. TikTok Deadline Is Extended Again

What’s going on with TikTok in the United States? No one knows.

Since a deal to sell the social media app did not close by the December 16th deadline, a new executive order extended the deadline to January 23, 2026.

The executive order stated: “A plan has been presented to me to undergo a qualified divestiture of TikTok’s United States operations, as outlined in a framework agreement. Under this Framework Agreement, TikTok’s United States application will be operated by a newly established joint venture based in the United States. It will be majority-owned and controlled by United States persons and will no longer be controlled by any foreign adversary, since ByteDance Ltd. and its affiliates will own less than 20 percent of the entity, with the remainder being held by certain investors.”

It is the same plan that was signed off on in September, but details of the deal are still up in the air.

For now, it is business as usual for TikTok, its advertisers, and its users.

11. Experts Predict a Volatile 2026 with Tighter Budgets and Reduced Headcounts

In a new article published by Marketing Dive, experts say B2C marketers will face several challenges in 2026, including price hikes and AI-driven privacy breaches.

In the article, stats are shared, including:

• 52% of industry executives predict tighter budgets
• 51% predict reduced headcounts
• 64% say 2026 will be more volatile than 2025

AI is contributing to these projections, with some experts forecasting a 20% increase in class action lawsuits driven by AI-driven data breaches.

Whether these predictions come true or not, it's important to consider them in your 2026 planning, especially if you’re in the B2C space.

Weekly Homework

1. Get up-to-date on the state of the internet with Cloudflare’s Radar Year in Review.
2. Keep an eye on your SERP ranking and organic traffic to see if your site is affected by Google’s December 2025 core update.
3. Explore all of the updates to Meta’s Creator Partnership Ads Hub in the Ads Manager to see if any of them can improve your content strategy.
4. If Reels are a big part of your social media strategy, be sure to monitor your views now that users can access the Your Algorithm tool. If you’re seeing a drop in views, try some new content strategies to help your audience mark you as interesting again.
5. Download the annual Pinterest Predicts report to see what’s coming up for 2026 and how you can use these trends to improve your brand’s online presence.

Digital Marketing News 12/6/2025 to 12/12/2025

This week: AI-driven traffic surges 805%, TikTok drives explosive holiday revenue, and OpenAI halts ads amid overhaul.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. AI Traffic to Websites on Black Friday Up 805% from 2024

Numbers are still coming in on Black Friday, but initial indications suggest e-commerce growth.

According to MarketingDive, initial numbers include:

• Adobe Analytics: e-commerce sales hit $11.8 billion, a 9.1% increase from 2024
• Salesforce: Online Black Friday sales grew to $18 billion, a 3% increase over last year
• Shopify: offline sales increased by 26% year over year
• AI traffic to US websites grew 805%
• AI leads were 38% more likely to convert

The biggest Black Friday winners: AI-driven traffic and retailers with exclusive store perks (like the Target Black Friday Tote and the Lowes Black Friday Bucket)

The biggest Black Friday losers: online order volume, flat online discounts, and short-term financing.

2. Black Friday to Cyber Monday: TikTok Sales Hit $500 Million

TikTok had a great Black Friday, sharing that it sold over $500 million in merchandise between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This large sales number was accompanied by a nearly 50% increase in shoppers compared to 2024.

Last year, TikTok reported $100 million in sales on Black Friday alone, demonstrating how quickly the platform is growing.

In just four days, TikTok reported:

• 84% sales growth from last year
• Shoppers tuned into more than 760,000 livestreams
• Livestreams generated 1.6 billion views

eMarketer stated that it expects TikTok to generate over $15.82 billion in US retail ecommerce revenue alone this year, up over 108% from last year.

Love it or hate it, the truth is: TikTok is powerful.

3. TikTok Creator Ads Have a 70% Higher Click-through Rate than Non-Creator Ads

If you want to increase your sales, TikTok says you should lean into influencer partnerships.

In a new blog, the social media platform shared that creator-led content is more successful than non-creator ads. When compared to non-creator ads, creator-led ads received:

• 70% higher click-through rate
• 159% higher engagement rate

When those ads are posted directly to the creator’s platform, rather than the advertiser’s account, they received:

• 59% higher engagement rate
• 16% higher six-second view-through rate

This shows that consumers are looking for real-life advice, especially from their favorite creators.

As you push through the holiday season and into 2026, attempt to create some relationships with creators in your industry or niche. They may become valuable advertising partners.

4. New ChatGPT Data Reveals Top 20 Factors that Influence ChatGPT Citations

Everyone wants to know how to get their content into ChatGPT citations and a new study from SE Ranking might have the answer.

After analyzing 129,000 domains, they found that the number of referring domains was the single strongest predictor.

Other signals that made the list included:

• Domain traffic
• Content depth
• Structure
• Social signals
• Review platforms
• Technical performance

The authors were quoted as saying, “For smaller, less-established websites, engaging on Quora and Reddit offers a way to build authority and earn trust from ChatGPT, similar to what larger domains achieve through backlinks and high traffic.”

Why We Care: The study finds that many of the same things you’re probably already doing as a part of your SEO strategy are the things you should be doing if you want to appear in AI citations.

5. 45% of Consumers Are Turning to Online Reviews Before Making a Purchase

A recent report by DoubleVerify revealed some eye-opening statistics about the state of social media and online shopping.

After looking at how consumers’ social media usage impacts their shopping and purchasing habits, the study found that:

• 45% of consumers look at online reviews before making a purchase
• 72% of consumers are on YouTube, followed by 69% on Facebook
• 31% said that social media influencers significantly impact their purchasing decisions
• 23% said they’ve made a purchase based on a positive comment on an influencer’s post
• 58% said they interact with influencers
• Most marketers use Instagram (96%), Facebook (96%), YouTube (94%), and TikTok (88%) to reach their target audience

If you’re interested in learning more about the study’s findings, as well as regional trends in marketing, download the full report here.

6. Google Launches “Partner Match” for YouTube Targeting

If you want to improve your YouTube targeting, you’re going to love this new tool from Google.

“Partner Match” lets you match third-party user data to signed-in YouTube accounts. With this data, advertisers can target the matches through Video Reach campaigns, Video Views campaigns, and Demand Gen campaigns (YouTube channel only).

Google says that this tool has two major benefits:

• You can use third-party partner data to improve your ad targeting.
• You can boost brand awareness and drive consideration to specific audience segments that you may not have reached before.

The tool was rolled out globally, with the exception of the UK, Switzerland, and the EEA.

If you’re a YouTube advertiser and you want to improve your targeting or reach new and relevant audiences, log in to your account and check out all that Partner Match has to offer.

7. ChatGPT Hits Pause on Ad Plans

We’ve previously reported that OpenAI was signaling that ChatGPT Ads could be coming, but a new internal memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal says otherwise.

In the memo, OpenAI SEO Sam Altman ordered a ChatGPT quality overhaul and pushed pause on any plans to develop advertising opportunities. The company wants to focus more on making ChatGPT better, faster, and “more intuitive and personal” before adding any advertisements.

This is due to several factors, including rising competition from Google and heavy financial strain on the company. The troubles are so bad that the internal memo called it a “Code Red.”

It probably didn’t help the “Code Red” panic feeling when ChatGPT went offline for thousands of users earlier this week.

In addition to pausing work on advertising initiatives, OpenAI is also pausing work on AI health and shopping agents and a personal assistant called Pulse.

You can read the full company-wide memo here.

8. Bing Explains What Matters for AI Search Visibility

Do you want to increase your traffic from AI Search? Bing explains how to do it.

In a recent blog post, Bing explained that:

• AI repurposes your content into an easy-to-read summary with clickable links
• Your highest priority should be to create high-quality content
• Online publishers should also focus on these three signals: citations, impressions, and placement in AI answers

Bing was quoted as saying, “As AI-powered search reshapes how people explore information, more of the journey now happens inside the experience itself.”

Essentially, Bing is encouraging you to show up in review sites, build relationships, and try to get in front of customers as much as possible.

You can read the entire blog here.

9. Google Shares 2025 Year in Review

This week, Google released its 2025 Year in Review. It’s full of insights on everything from Performance Max to Demand Gen.

The biggest news?

• Ads in AI Overviews expanded.
• AI Mode opened a new mid-funnel inventory.
• Changes and improvements came to AI Max for Search, Smart Bidding Exploration, and Search Partner Network.
• Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor also stepped up their guided support.
• YouTube, DemandGen, and PMax also grew substantially, thanks to additional support and features.

Here’s where Google is turning its attention to for 2026:

• Creating clearer consistency in AI Overviews
• Expanding customization settings and transparency in AI Max
• Improving Asset Studio and Meridian’s measurement tools.

Review all of the important 2025 insights here.

10. Apple Releases Top Downloaded App of 2025

What was the top downloaded app in 2025? Apple says – ChatGPT!

The top 10 free apps included:

1. ChatGPT
2. Threads
3. Google
4. TikTok – Videos, Shop & LIVE
5. WhatsApp Messenger
6. Instagram
7. YouTube
8. Google Maps
9. Gmail – Email by Google
10. Google Gemini

This is great news for digital marketers, since most of these apps, like ChatGPT, Threads, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Google Maps, can be used to drive organic traffic your way.

Check out all of the other Top 10 lists, including Top Paid Apps, Top Free Games, and Top Free iPad Apps here.

11. Customize Your Instagram Recommendations

Tired of seeing content on a specific topic? Good news, Instagram allows you to modify the topics that are landing Reels in your feed.

Using the new tool Your Algorithm, the new Reels icon opens a list of topics Meta AI is recommending to you, based on your recent user behavior. From here, you can indicate which topics you’d like to see more or less of.

Instagram VP Tessa Lyons reveals, “We’re always trying to show people the best possible reels for them. I think we do a pretty good job today, but we don’t always get it right, and we know that people’s interests change. What we really want to do is give people control over the experience that they have on Instagram.”

We’re looking forward to seeing how this algorithm change affects Explore, the search tab and other areas besides Reels in the future.

12. Fresh Content or Evergreen? YouTube Shorts Report Reveals Shift

Should you post fresh content or stick with evergreen videos on your YouTube Shorts channel? A new study reveals that fresh might be the way to go.

Mario Joos, a strategist who works with MrBeast, Stokes Twins, and Alan’s Universe, first noticed the pattern after experiencing a broad dip in performance amongst his client portfolio. After analyzing data from channels with 100 million to one billion monthly views, he found that:

• Shorts older than 28-30 days now receive fewer impressions than the videos in a similar threshold did in mid-September.
• YouTube is pushing creators toward high-volume uploads over quality content

YouTube hasn’t confirmed any algorithm changes, other than to say that “recommendation systems are driving robust watch time growth and that the Gemini models are enabling further discovery improvement.”

However, if you publish Shorts, review your analytics to see whether your views decline after 30 days. If you’re noticing a sharp decline, too, you should consider this when planning your 2026 YouTube Shorts content strategy.

13. TikTok Wants to Enhance Connection with Shared Feed Options

Have you ever wanted to share a feed with your friends? With TikTok’s newest tool, now you can!

TikTok announced this week that its new Shared Feed option will go live. This new feed will be a combined stream of recommended content, based on shared interests.

In the press release, TikTok explained that “Shared Feed can help two people stay connected by surfacing new content tailored to both of their tastes, from sports to holiday winter activities and even their favorite fashion creators. Each day, friends and family members will find a curated selection of 15 videos in their private chat aligned with their interests.”

This could be an interesting feature for both users who want to stay connected with their favorite friends and family, and for marketers who want to expand their product reach among existing customers and fans.

14. LinkedIn Announces New Ad Tools to Reach Buyers Earlier in The Customer Journey

LinkedIn is committed to helping B2B marketers reach their potential customers quicker with smarter targeting and visibility through the following new features:

1. Reserved Ads - Get prime placement in the LinkedIn feed for our Video, Thought Leader, Single Image and Document Ads.
2. Ad Personalization - Messages will adjust automatically using profile data including name, title, industry, company, etc. to personalize messaging.
3. AI-Powered Creative - Test multiple ad variations. Upload your text and assets and Ad Variants will generate new on-brand copy while Flexible Ad Creation will mix, match and optimize your assets.

Use these google to land at the top of your audience’s feed with personalized ads. Focus on AI to generate more variations, enable testing and allow you to optimize your content.

15. 2026 Content Strategy News: Mentions, Citations, and Clicks

Search Engine Land released its 2026 content strategy suggestions this week.

Topping the list was:

• Generating mentions, citations, and structured visibility signals from generative systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity
• More content on pricing and cost
• Less top-of-funnel guides and “how to” posts
• Focusing on TOFU content to generate interest at the awareness stage

By focusing on the top-of-funnel and less on the bottom-of-funnel, you’ll be able to grab more attention in the very beginning in 2026.

16. Google Year in Search 2025: What Tools Topped Trending Lists

In addition to releasing an overall Year in Review, Google also released a Year in Search with insights on AI tools and search trends that could impact your business.

Topping the list? AI tools like Gemini and DeepSeek. The results also showed that searches in the United States differ from those in the rest of the world. US trends tended to focus on entertainment and public policy.

You can check out all of the trending topics here. You can also break it down by region, as well as topics such as Trending, Entertainment, Sports, and more, so you can be sure to know exactly what is trending in your own industry and market.

Reviewing the Year in Search data and comparing it to your content calendar can reveal gaps or opportunities for you to update your content and generate more traffic.

17. SocialMediaToday Shares 4 Trends Shaping Social Media Marketing in 2026

A recent study published by SocialMediaToday and conducted by Meltwater News US shared four critical trends that will shape social media marketing in the upcoming year.

The study found that:

• Social SEO is the new top-of-funnel, with 24% of consumers preferring social media searches over Google
• Multi-platform engagement is critical
• Social customer care is a must-have for brands that want to build a strong reputation
• Reddit communities drive buying decisions

If you want to find social media success in 2026, you have to admit that what you did in 2020 might not work and instead pivot based on some of these findings.

You can discover more critical insights for 2026 by downloading the full report here.

18. New Agreement Between Publishers and Meta Aims to Improve AI Answers

Meta recently signed a new slate of deals with news publishers to improve AI-generated answers.

In the press release, Meta said: “We’re beginning to offer a wider variety of real-time content on Meta AI - from global, breaking news to entertainment, lifestyle stories, and more. When you ask Meta AI news-related questions, you’ll now receive information and links that draw from more diverse content sources to help you discover timely and relevant content tailored to your interests.”

The company also said, “These integrations will also facilitate easier access to information by linking out to articles, allowing you to visit these partners’ websites for more details while providing value to partners, enabling them to reach new audiences.”

Publications such as CNN, Fox News, Le Monde Group, People, Inc., and USA Today Co., Inc. have already signed on to the agreement.

19. Judge Limits Default Search Deals for Google

Judge Amit Mehta released a ruling late last week that could put an end to Google’s long-term pacts with Apple and Samsung.

The ruling imposed a one-year cap as a “hard-and-fast termination requirement” to enforce antitrust remedies he already rewarded in a previous 2024 ruling that found that Google had monopolized search and search ads.

Now, Google must cap its default search and AI app deals at one year, rather than the current long-term agreements.

This could open the door to a more fragmented search landscape that includes AI-powered rivals like OpenAI, Perplexity, or Microsoft.

Weekly Homework

1. Explore all of the Year in Review data released by Google to learn more about the tech giant’s most successful releases, upgrades, and extensions. It will give you a clear understanding of what to expect in 2026, as well as introduce you to concepts from 2025 that you may have missed.
2. Watch Google’s Year in Search video and highlight gaps or opportunities for your business in the trending search topics.
3. Review your YouTube Shorts data to see if your evergreen content is still performing as well as it used to.
4. Review Search Engine Land’s 2026 content strategy suggestions and brainstorm ways to fit them into your strategy.
5. Get some inspiration from Marketing Dive’s list of top 2025 marketing campaigns.

Digital Marketing News 11/29/2025 to 12/5/2025

This week: AI drives record-breaking traffic, TikTok dominates $500M holiday sales, and OpenAI freezes ads amid a company-wide “Code Red.”

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. AI Traffic to Websites on Black Friday Up 805% from 2024

Numbers are still coming in on Black Friday, but initial indications suggest e-commerce growth.

According to MarketingDive, initial numbers include:

• Adobe Analytics: e-commerce sales hit $11.8 billion, a 9.1% increase from 2024
• Salesforce: Online Black Friday sales grew to $18 billion, a 3% increase over last year
• Shopify: offline sales increased by 26% year over year
• AI traffic to US websites grew 805%
• AI leads were 38% more likely to convert

The biggest Black Friday winners: AI-driven traffic and retailers with exclusive store perks (like the Target Black Friday Tote and the Lowes Black Friday Bucket)

The biggest Black Friday losers: online order volume, flat online discounts, and short-term financing.

2. Black Friday to Cyber Monday: TikTok Sales Hit $500 Million

TikTok had a great Black Friday, sharing that it sold over $500 million in merchandise between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This large sales number was accompanied by a nearly 50% increase in shoppers compared to 2024.

Last year, TikTok reported $100 million in sales on Black Friday alone, demonstrating how quickly the platform is growing.

In just four days, TikTok reported:

• 84% sales growth from last year
• Shoppers tuned into more than 760,000 livestreams
• Livestreams generated 1.6 billion views

eMarketer stated that it expects TikTok to generate over $15.82 billion in US retail ecommerce revenue alone this year, up over 108% from last year.

Love it or hate it, the truth is: TikTok is powerful.

3. TikTok Creator Ads Have a 70% Higher Click-through Rate than Non-Creator Ads

If you want to increase your sales, TikTok says you should lean into influencer partnerships.

In a new blog, the social media platform shared that creator-led content is more successful than non-creator ads. When compared to non-creator ads, creator-led ads received:

• 70% higher click-through rate
• 159% higher engagement rate

When those ads are posted directly to the creator’s platform, rather than the advertiser’s account, they received:

• 59% higher engagement rate
• 16% higher six-second view-through rate

This shows that consumers are looking for real-life advice, especially from their favorite creators.

As you push through the holiday season and into 2026, attempt to create some relationships with creators in your industry or niche. They may become valuable advertising partners.

4. New ChatGPT Data Reveals Top 20 Factors that Influence ChatGPT Citations

Everyone wants to know how to get their content into ChatGPT citations and a new study from SE Ranking might have the answer.

After analyzing 129,000 domains, they found that the number of referring domains was the single strongest predictor.

Other signals that made the list included:

• Domain traffic
• Content depth
• Structure
• Social signals
• Review platforms
• Technical performance

The authors were quoted as saying, “For smaller, less-established websites, engaging on Quora and Reddit offers a way to build authority and earn trust from ChatGPT, similar to what larger domains achieve through backlinks and high traffic.”

Why We Care: The study finds that many of the same things you’re probably already doing as a part of your SEO strategy are the things you should be doing if you want to appear in AI citations.

5. 45% of Consumers Are Turning to Online Reviews Before Making a Purchase

A recent report by DoubleVerify revealed some eye-opening statistics about the state of social media and online shopping.

After looking at how consumers’ social media usage impacts their shopping and purchasing habits, the study found that:

• 45% of consumers look at online reviews before making a purchase
• 72% of consumers are on YouTube, followed by 69% on Facebook
• 31% said that social media influencers significantly impact their purchasing decisions
• 23% said they’ve made a purchase based on a positive comment on an influencer’s post
• 58% said they interact with influencers
• Most marketers use Instagram (96%), Facebook (96%), YouTube (94%), and TikTok (88%) to reach their target audience

If you’re interested in learning more about the study’s findings, as well as regional trends in marketing, download the full report here.

6. Google Launches “Partner Match” for YouTube Targeting

If you want to improve your YouTube targeting, you’re going to love this new tool from Google.

“Partner Match” lets you match third-party user data to signed-in YouTube accounts. With this data, advertisers can target the matches through Video Reach campaigns, Video Views campaigns, and Demand Gen campaigns (YouTube channel only).

Google says that this tool has two major benefits:

• You can use third-party partner data to improve your ad targeting.
• You can boost brand awareness and drive consideration to specific audience segments that you may not have reached before.

The tool was rolled out globally, with the exception of the UK, Switzerland, and the EEA.

If you’re a YouTube advertiser and you want to improve your targeting or reach new and relevant audiences, log in to your account and check out all that Partner Match has to offer.

7. Google Tests New Website Optimizer Tool

Partner Match isn’t the only new Google tool on the block. The internet giant is also testing a Website Optimizer tool.

Website Optimizer seems to be a reinvention of the previous Google Optimize tool. Its goal is to improve A/B testing right inside your Google Analytics 4 platform.

Here are the details:

• Google Ads access and GA4 admin permissions are required
• If you don’t have a GA4 property, it will create one.
• The tool will run directly through Google Ads, streamlining setup and putting all tools in one place.

While this is still in the very early stages of testing, it could help advertisers find a more integrated way to test and improve website performance, directly in the GA4 dashboard.

8. Simplify Your Holiday Shopping with ChatGPT

OpenAI recently rolled out a new feature that will create personalized buyer’s guides for users.

The new feature works differently from typical ChatGPT responses. To access personalized lists, users can describe what they need, include budget and preferences, and receive a fully optimized shopping guide.

The feature is available on mobile and web for all users on the Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans. From now until the end of the holiday season, OpenAI is offering nearly unlimited usage of this new shopping experience.

Why We Care: As marketers, we all know that showing up during the holiday season is essential. Getting your brand featured in one of these holiday shopping guides could boost your sales.

9. ChatGPT Hits Pause on Ad Plans

We’ve previously reported that OpenAI was signaling that ChatGPT Ads could be coming, but a new internal memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal says otherwise.

In the memo, OpenAI SEO Sam Altman ordered a ChatGPT quality overhaul and pushed pause on any plans to develop advertising opportunities. The company wants to focus more on making ChatGPT better, faster, and “more intuitive and personal” before adding any advertisements.

This is due to several factors, including rising competition from Google and heavy financial strain on the company. The troubles are so bad that the internal memo called it a “Code Red.”

It probably didn’t help the “Code Red” panic feeling when ChatGPT went offline for thousands of users earlier this week.

In addition to pausing work on advertising initiatives, OpenAI is also pausing work on AI health and shopping agents and a personal assistant called Pulse.

You can read the full company-wide memo here.

10. Bing Explains What Matters for AI Search Visibility

Do you want to increase your traffic from AI Search? Bing explains how to do it.

In a recent blog post, Bing explained that:

• AI repurposes your content into an easy-to-read summary with clickable links
• Your highest priority should be to create high-quality content
• Online publishers should also focus on these three signals: citations, impressions, and placement in AI answers

Bing was quoted as saying, “As AI-powered search reshapes how people explore information, more of the journey now happens inside the experience itself.”

Essentially, Bing is encouraging you to show up in review sites, build relationships, and try to get in front of customers as much as possible.

You can read the entire blog here.

11. TikTok Ban Update: Deadline is Expiring Soon

It’s almost the end of 2025, and the TikTok ban still hasn’t been enforced. With the fourth extended deadline coming up on December 16th, many people are wondering what will happen.

Back in October, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was quoted as saying, “We finalized the TikTok agreement in terms of getting Chinese approval, and I would expect that would go forward in the coming weeks and months, and we’ll finally see a resolution to that.”

However, with the deadline approaching and no deal having been announced, marketers and consumers alike are wondering if Americans will be bringing TikTok into 2026.

Is no news good news? We’ll find out in the next week or so.

Weekly Homework:

• Review your Black Friday through Cyber Monday sales to see if your successes were aligned with the general ecommerce data.
• Brainstorm ways your brand can take advantage of the powerhouse success of TikTok and TikTok creators.
• Review AI traffic data from ChatGPT and Bing to see which strategies can help you find your way into more AI citations.
• Set up Google’s Partner Match tool to improve your YouTube targeting.
• Table any plans you might have had for ChatGPT Ads.
• Keep an eye on the upcoming TikTok ban deadline to see if you should include the short-form video app in your 2026 marketing or remove it from your plans.

Digital Marketing News 11/15/2025 to 11/21/2025

This week: AI citations vary dramatically, Cloudflare outage risks rankings, and Adobe acquires Semrush powerhouse.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. New Report: Comparing Google Rankings to AI Citations

A new report produced by an SEO software company analyzed 18k+ queries and matched them using semantic similarity scoring across OpenAI’s GPT, Google Gemini and Perplexity, against traditional Google search results.

Here were some of the main findings:

• Perplexity showed a median domain overlap of 25-30% with Google results
  • It shared about 43% of the domains it cited with Google, which makes sense since it is a live web retrieval tool.
• ChatGPT showed a median domain overlap of 10-15% with Google results
  • It shared about 21% of its cited domains with Google
• Gemini showed a median domain overlap of just 4% with Google results

This report supports the fact that different AI systems interpret and value pages across the web in different ways. In this case, Perplexity actively searches the web for it to function, so its citation patterns are more similar to traditional search rankings.

2. Cloudflare Crashes Internet: How It Could Affect You Long After the Outage

A Cloudflare outage affected pretty much everyone this week, and if you’ve been on the receiving end of the burst of 5xx errors, you’ll need to pay attention to your crawl behavior in the upcoming weeks.

Here’s why: If Googlebot crawled your page during the outage and recorded a 5xx response, it will affect your ranking. Since Search Console is not updated in real-time, this means you might not see the dip in crawl activity or spike in server errors until a few days later.

If this happens, don’t panic. Instead:

• Record the timing and add an annotation to your analytics that this happened because of the Cloudflare outage.
• Keep an eye on your server logs, and if it returns to your baseline in a few days, you can mark it up as a contained event.
• Do not hit “Validate Fix” in the Search Console immediately. Wait at least 24 hours to see if the problem resolves itself before adding additional check failures to your reporting.

Let this remind you that where you show up in the SERP depends as much on server reliability as it does relevance. While Cloudflare is generally reliable, if you’re seeing decreases in your ranking, it could be due to an unreliable tool in your tech stack.

Action Item: Keep an eye on your crawl, error, and conversion metrics. If the situation isn’t resolved in a few days, it’s time to review your tech stack for issues.

3. Adobe Acquires Semrush

Announced earlier this week, Adobe will acquire Semrush, valued at $1.9 billion early in 2026 as long as it is approved by all necessary stakeholders.

Best known for its search marketing capabilities, Semrush has a wide variety of tools wrapped up into an all-in-one platform, offering keyword research, site audits, competitive intelligence, brand visibility, and tools that monitor how brands are referenced in large language models and traditional searches.

What else comes with this acquisition? Semrush’s recent deals include SEO assets Backlinko and publisher Third Door Media. The plan is to integrate Semrush and tools into Adobe products like Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Analytics.

Stay tuned for more updates and what this will mean for marketers everywhere.

4. Google Improves Suspension Accuracy and Appeal Turnaround Times

If you’ve ever been hit with a Google suspension, you know how frustrating it can be to wait for your account to be reviewed. Google has heard you and is speeding up the process. They also announced an improved method to stop incorrect advertiser suspensions in the first place.

Over the past few months, Google has been working out the new process. They’ve focused on making the policies clearer. They also deployed AI to enhance their detection processes and rolled out a new and more effective review process for appeals.

So far, the results have been impressive:

• Over 80% reduction in incorrect account suspensions
• 70% faster response time to advertiser suspension appeals
• 99% of appeals are resolved within 24 hours

This is fantastic news for Google and advertisers alike!

5. Google Rolls Out New AI Tools to Improve Shopping

Just in time for the holiday season, Google rolled out new AI-powered tools to help make shopping easier.

The new tools enable:

• Conversational shopping searches in AI Mode
• The ability to track prices and complete purchases through AI agents
• An AI-powered calling feature that will call local stores to ask questions and check stock

Local calling is currently only available for a limited set of shopping categories, but is expected to roll out to more stores over time.

The other AI tools are focused on the US market. Google is still working on broader merchant eligibility and expanding the functionality to an international market in the future.

6. Google Drops New Demand Gen Tools

AI Mode and Shopping aren’t the only Google products getting a boost. The tech giant also dropped some new features for Demand Gen Ads.

Since the beginning of 2025, Demand Gen users have seen an average 20% increase in conversions and conversion values, and these new tools aim to increase that average further.

The new features include:

• AI Image Enhancements: automatically create and optimize images
• Video Enhancements: automatically create video variations to improve performance amongst screens and attention spans
• Asset Uplift A/B Experiments: the ability to run creative tests on your content to leverage your best-performing assets
• Brand Suitability Controls for YouTube Feed and Discover: new controls for YouTube Home Feed, Watch Next, and Discover

If you’re a Demand Gen user, you should check out these tools to see how they can improve your holiday campaigns.

7. Study Reveals Insights into AI Overview Keywords

A new Brightedge study revealed valuable insights into AI Overview keywords.

The study revealed that Google retained only 30% of AI Overviews at its peak. The categories with the highest retention rates included:

• Grocery: 56%
• TV & Home Theater: 43%
• Small Kitchen Appliances: 37%

The categories with the lowest retention included:

• Furniture: 3%
• Home: 7%
• Apparel: 23%

If you’re trying to claim a spot in those lower categories, it could be harder because they have a higher turnover rate. Things that worked for the higher retention categories included comparison content, specifications, and “how to” content.

The biggest takeaway? Research queries win and transactional queries lose. When creating content, make sure you’re crafting it to answer questions rather than to sell immediately.

Why We Care: If you want your content to end up in a Google AI Overview, you have to create content that the algorithm is looking for. Studies like these pull the curtain back to give us valuable insight into what is working and what isn’t.

8. Gemini 3 Powers AI Mode

Gemini 3 is now available in AI Mode for subscribers within the US.

In the content of search it was designed for state-of-the-art reasoning and multimodal understanding. That means this new model should be able to explain advanced concepts, work through more complex questions and offer support to searches that have interactive visuals.

AI mode will return your results in a responsive layout, delivering images, tables, grids and other structured elements when necessary to provide users with a clear answer to their search.

Additionally, Google will be able to access more pages per question when scanning the internet for answers with a new deeper query fan-out. This matters to marketers because it could change which sites receive links or citations, and overall will impact the way results show up.

9. TikTok’s Major Holiday Shopping Push

Everyone is pushing sales at this time of year, but TikTok is raising the bar with new TikTok Shop Partners (TSP) incentives.

New incentives circulating include:

• Daily GMV Incentive Program: TSPs can receive cash incentives between $5,000 and $20,000 based on the amount of GMV growth between October 1 and December 31
• Onboard and Upgrade Incentives: TSPs can earn up to $10,000 in cash for upgrading through the TSP rankings
• Vertical Creator Incubation Incentive: TSPs can earn between $1,000 and $10,000 per creator when they successfully incubate TikTok’s target list creators
• Affiliate Service Incentive: Incentives between $1,000 and $5,000 in ad credits for increasing rank

There are also a variety of Black Friday/Cyber Monday challenges where creators and TSPs can earn between $2,000 and $25,000 in cash.

TikTok is also offering fully-funded and partially-funded coupons and discounts that cover all or part of a brand’s marketing costs, as well as invitation-only flash sales.

Why We Care: With many consumers turning to social media like TikTok to influence their holiday shopping, now is an excellent time for brands to zero in on these TikTok challenges to both sell their products and earn valuable incentives for using the platform to do so.

10. TikTok Launches Holiday Campaign Hub

Speaking of TikTok, the digital platform recently launched a Holiday Hub to help brands make the most of their holiday campaigns.

The guide helps advertisers learn more about how to use TikTok ads, as well as how to use the app to gain traction and raise brand awareness for your business.

In the guide, TikTok claims that:

• 3 in 4 users say they are likely to buy from a brand they’ve seen on TikTok Shop
• 88% of small businesses that use TikTok Shop say it made them sell more products
• 80% of users took an action after seeing holiday content on TikTok

The bottom line? TikTok is one of the best platforms to get your products in front of the right people, so don’t miss your chance to make this your best holiday season ever.

11. X Shares Holiday Advertising Tips in Hopes of Winning Back Advertisers

X wants to get a part of your holiday advertising puzzle! The social media platform updated its Holiday Marketing Hub with some tips on how to improve your X ROI.

The platform noted that:

• 1 in 3 X users will plan before shopping
• 39% find inspiration in X ads
• 69% of X users will spend more this year than last year

The biggest takeaways include:

• The best performing ads are between 50-100 characters.
• Ads should create urgency, but still maintain authenticity.
• Provide only one exit point to keep your message laser-focused.
• Use a clear call-to-action.
• Lead with your logo and front-load messaging.
• Caption everything!

Read all of the data, insights, and tips X has to offer on how to improve the ROI of your ads on X here.

12. Consumers Now Prefer Traditional Content Over genAI Content

A recent eMarketer study shows that AI-generated content is losing steam with audiences.

The study revealed that:

• 32% said that AI has negatively impacted the creator economy, up from 18% in 2023
• 41% said that AI has improved the diversity of creator content, up from 35% in 2023
• 32% said that AI has positively impacted the creator economy, down from 34% in 2023

Perhaps most shocking, though, was that 26% of those surveyed preferred genAI content to traditional content. This is down 34% from the 60% who said they liked genAI content over traditional content.

Could we be seeing a balance between AI and human-generated content emerging?

Weekly Homework

1. Keep an eye on your crawl, error, and conversion metrics to see if your SERP ranking will be affected by this week’s Cloudflare outage. If the situation isn’t resolved in a few days, it’s time to review your tech stack for issues.
2. Download and review Brightedge’s Google AI Overview report to see how you can use content to increase your brand’s odds of ending up in the popular SERP position.
3. Download TikTok’s Holiday Marketing Hub for valuable ideas on how to increase your sales on social media.
4. Brainstorm ways to use TikTok Shop to increase the amount of sales you make this holiday season, while also tapping into valuable TSP cash and ad credit incentive opportunities.
5. If you want to advertise on X, or improve your existing campaigns, check out the platform’s new Holiday Marketing Hub for valuable data and tips.
6. Evaluate your Demand Gen Google Ads to see how the new AI tools could help you improve your campaigns.

Digital Marketing News 11/8/2025 to 11/14/2025

This week: Reddit shoppers research earlier, ChatGPT may get PPC ads, TikTok partners with iHeartMedia.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. US Ecommerce Sales Up 8.2% in October

If you’re like any other marketer, you are probably firming in Black Friday/Cyber Monday mode. While much of the early reporting indicated signs of a declining holiday season, the reports from October are somewhat hopeful.

According to Adobe Analytics:

• Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days brought in $9.1 billion from US shoppers in 2 days
• Those two days showed a 7.3% YoY increase
• October’s overall online sales rose 8.2% YoY to $88.7 billion
• Sales from social media sites grew 28%
• Purchases driven by influencers and affiliates were up 15% from last year

These findings align with the National Retail Federation’s forecast of a historically strong holiday sales season. The NRF predicts that sales will rise between 3.7% and 4.2% from last year, putting total retail sales between $1,012.2 billion and $1,017.1 billion once all is said and done.

Biggest Takeaway: Consumers are leaning into social media and influencer marketing, so be sure to add that to your holiday sales strategy, if you haven’t already.

2. Reddit: 79% of Americans Are Researching More Before Shopping

Reddit released new tips for brands that want to go big this holiday season, and the biggest takeaway? Consumers aren’t waiting for Black Friday to start buying presents.

In the report, Reddit was quoted as saying, “[t]his year, shoppers aren’t waiting for Black Friday or Cyber Monday. With prices fluctuating and inventory unpredictable, they’re starting earlier to feel in control. Unlike previous years, they’re not impulse buying - 79% of Americans plan to research more before purchasing, comparing products, reading reviews, and seeking genuine recommendations from real people.”

Reddit also notes that, “[i]n the days leading up to Prime Day, Reddit communities were buzzing with shopping strategies, deal comparisons, and wish lists. During the event itself, views of Prime Day conversations exploded - skyrocketing more than 150x and peaking on day two as Redditors shared their best finds in real time.”

The top gift categories being researched on Reddit included:

• Gaming
• Electronics
• Apparel and accessories
• Media and entertainment
• Beauty and personal care

You can read more of Reddit’s findings and tips here.

Why We Care: If shoppers are starting now, brands should, too. With so many people turning to Reddit for their pre-purchase research, you need to consider how to get your brand involved in those discussions. Focusing on relevant keywords and topics could help your Reddit Ads, as well as organic Reddit discussion threads.

3. Reddit Launches New Interactive Ad Options

Reddit has been making some big moves in the PPC space. This month, they introduced interactive ads.

In a press release, Reddit explained that, “Interactive Ads are a Reddit-unique ad unit that lets brands build custom, interactive ad experiences directly for Reddit’s 100,000+ communities – inviting redditors to play, participate, and explore directly within the ad itself. Interactive Ad units range from fully bespoke campaigns and creative activations to low-lift, high-impact, repeatable templates like countdowns, quizzes, dynamic reveals, and trivia, offering flexibility based on creative goals and investment needs.”

Whether these ads are successful or not still remains to be seen, but with 116 million active daily users who spend 24 minutes a day in the app, they might be worth considering.

4. PPC Ads Could Be Coming to ChatGPT

Even though OpenAI’s founder, Sam Altman, had previously stated that he wasn’t a fan of ads on ChatGPT, he has recently expressed a change in opinion.

When asked about his willingness to add PPC ads to the platform, Altman said, “there’s a kind of ad that I think would be really bad… There are kinds of ads that I think would be very good or pretty good to do. I expect it’s something we’ll try at some point. I do not think it is our biggest revenue opportunity.”

With ChatGPT gaining more attention as a search engine, the addition of PPC ads could be a game-changer for brands, especially those that are already appearing in ChatGPT results.

While the development of these ads seems to be a way out, Altman's change in stance on allowing ads on the platform at all is a good sign for marketers desperate to reach AI users and new audiences.

5. TikTok and iHeartMedia Partnership Aims to Help Creators and Brands Improve Audio

TikTok recently announced a high-profile partnership with iHeartMedia. This partnership aims to help TikTok creators expand into audio formats, including podcasts, radios, and live events.

The partnership introduces the TikTok Podcast Network, with up to 25 newly created TikTok creator podcasts, as well as TikTok Radio, and iHeartRadio + TikTok Live Events, similar to the heavily attended iHeartRadio Music Festival and the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball.

In the press release, TikTok was quoted as saying, “iHeartMedia, the leading audio company in America, and TikTok, the world’s leading destination for short-form mobile video, today announced a groundbreaking, multiplatform partnership that will bring TikTok creators into iHeart’s ecosystem. This collaboration includes the launch of the TikTok Podcast Network, which will feature up to 25 new podcasts hosted by TikTok creators, as well as a national broadcast and digital radio station, and a series of live event integrations.”

Why We Care: This is an incredible opportunity for brands with podcasts and audio offerings to expand their content on the wide-reaching app. Even if your brand doesn’t have a podcast, getting your product or service featured on the brand-new TikTok Podcast Network, on TikTok Radio, or at an iHeartRadio live event could help expose your brand to a whole new audience that was previously unreachable.

6. TikTok Expands Access to Bulletin Boards Feature

Speaking of TikTok, the short-form video app also recently expanded access to its newest feature: Bulletin Boards.

First tested back in June, Bulletin Boards have become an easy way for brands to connect with their audiences, boost engagement, and generate loyalty. Many brands, including People Magazine, have found success with this one-to-many messaging option, using it to share text, images, and video updates in concise, direct-to-consumer messages.

Follow these steps to access your TikTok Bulletin Board:

• In the TikTok app, tap Inbox at the bottom. From here, if you receive a banner notifying you about bulletin boards, tap “Try it” to get started.
• Tap the “Chat” button at the top.
• Tap “Create a bulletin board.”
• Turn the “Show on profile” setting on or off to change the visibility of your bulletin board.
• Tap “Create” to open your bulletin board.

You can use it as a way to keep your audience engaged with key events or updates, which could be critical to your holiday season sales.

7. Negative Google Ad Scams Are On The Rise: Here’s What to Do

Have you been targeted by a negative review extortion scam? If so, you’re not alone. Google says that they’re becoming so popular that they needed to launch a new form solely to keep track of them.

The scam involves a sudden increase in 1-star or 2-star reviews on a business’s Google Business Profile, followed by a demand for money to remove the fraudulent reviews.

If this happens to you, don’t panic. Follow these tips from Google:

1. Do not engage or pay the posters.
2. Do not try to resolve it yourself.
3. Gather all evidence immediately, including screenshots.
4. Report all communication and evidence directly to Google using the newly launched form.

While this scam is disheartening, especially during this time of year, some businesses are reporting success with the form. One business noted on a Local Search Forum that all 11 fraudulent reviews were removed in a little over 24 hours after they used the form to report it to Google.

8. Stagwell & Palantir: A New AI-Powered Marketing Platform Is Coming

If you’ve been looking for a new tool to help you identify, segment, and understand your target audiences, this new tool from Stagwell and Palantir might be what you’ve been looking for.

The partnership was announced earlier this year, and reportedly, the tool is getting closer to release. In a joint press release, the tech brands said that they are “already seeing client adoption of its early MVP model in the United States through Stagwell's leading media company Assembly. Stagwell plans to roll out the offering to the broader network and clients on an opt-in basis in the coming months.”

The tool, reportedly called the Audience Creative and Optimization System, is designed to help large enterprises go through “tens of millions of records to identify, segment, and understand audiences for improved brand strategies and optimized ROI.” Stagwell says that one key aspect that sets their tool apart from others is the “use of differential privacy technology to protect data.”

If you’re a large enterprise that is getting stuck in the mud of analyzing millions of pieces of marketing data, this new tool could be a lifesaver.

9. Google Ads Asset-Level Reporting to Display Campaigns

Do you want to dive deeper into your Google Ads Display Campaigns? Thanks to the newest update, you can!

Just this week, Google rolled out asset-level reporting for Display campaigns. This a big step toward moving Display Ad visibility closer to the visibility already available for Performance Max campaigns.

The new updates will allow Google Ads users to:

• Compare performance of each creative asset.
• View when assets were last updated to track iteration history.
• Decide which assets to keep, refresh, or remove based on data.

You can learn more about this Google Display Ads update here.

10. Brand Inclusions Appear in Standard Shopping Campaigns

*Cue Mariah Carey’s voice* It’s time!

Google finally introduces brand inclusion controls to give advertisers management of which brands can appear in their shopping ads.

This long-awaited feature lets advertisers add or remove brand lists within the ad group targeting in both PMax and Standard Shopping campaigns. This update allows brands to protect their budgets, eliminating wasted ad spend on unwanted traffic.

Advertisers gain control and efficiency over Standard Shopping ads, instead of relying on automated campaign types. Gain control and efficiency for powerful upgrade in advertising.

11. Google Launches Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor to Global Users

Google is launching new Ads tools left and right. This time, it’s Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor.

Built on Gemini, Ads Advisor can:

• Generate recommendations to improve ads
• Directly apply recommended changes (with user approval)
• Analyze and adjust things like target ROAS, bids, and budgets
• Implement focused sitelink extensions
• Diagnose performance shifts and propose fixes
• Flag policy violations and suggest edits to copy, keywords, and headlines to remove the violations

Also built using Gemini, Analytics Advisor offers a conversational experience that delivers specific metrics, generates visualizations, and provides valuable insights.

These new tools will be available for English-language Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts in early December. To access them, simply log in to your account and use the in-product advisor interface.

12. Google Simplifies Search Results

Google is cleaning up its search results and removing support for certain structured data types in Search Console and its API starting January 2026. The goal: a simpler, more focused search experience.

For SEOs, that means auditing your structured data now. Check if your schema or reports depend on data types being phased out.

Why We Care: Technical SEO is shifting toward quality over quantity. SEOs must focus on clear, useful markup that enhances user understanding, not just rich results.

Weekly Homework:

• With more and more signals that consumers are trusting social media and influencer campaigns to help them make informed purchases, consider different ways you can add these strategies to your holiday sales campaigns.
• Read the Reddit holiday tips to see how you can boost the conversation around your brand this season.
• If Reddit Ads are part of your content marketing strategy, consider exploring how the new interactive ad feature can boost engagement with your target audience.
• Between the partnership with iHeartMedia and the expansion of Bulletin Boards, there are new ways to boost your engagement and reach on TikTok. Check out each new tool to see how you can use it to your brand’s advantage.
• Keep your eyes peeled for fraudulent reviews on your Google Business Profile. If you are a victim of the extortion scam, use the newly-launched form to report it to Google

Digital Marketing News 11/1/2025 to 11/7/2025

This week: AI-driven shopping skyrockets on Shopify, Google’s AI Overviews cause major drops in click-through rates, and Google Labs teams up with DeepMind to launch Pomelli, a new AI tool reshaping digital marketing creativity.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. AI-Driven Orders Up 11x Since January, Says Shopify

Will AI make a difference in this holiday season? Shopify thinks so! This week, the ecommerce platform reported that AI-driven traffic has increased 7 times and orders have risen 11 times since January.

Shopify president, Harley Finkelstein, said that the platform has “been building and investing in this infrastructure to make it really easy to bring shopping into every single AI conversation… The fact that we’re already working with the leaders in the space should, I think, be a testament to the fact that we want to make sure merchants on Shopify are better prepared than those that are not.”

Like it or not, AI is becoming increasingly integrated into our society, and ecommerce is no exception. Luckily for retailers, platforms like Shopify are here to help make the transformation easier.

You can read more about Sidekick, the Shopify tool that’s helping retailers connect with consumers this holiday season, here.

2. Goodbye Call-Only: Google Ads To Phase Out Phone-Only Campaigns By 2027

Google has formally announced that its Call-Only ad format will be retired in two phases: no new Call-Only ads can be created after February 2026, and all existing Call-Only ads will stop receiving impressions by February 2027.

If your campaigns heavily rely on direct phone-calls from Search, you need to plan now:

• Audit all current Call-Only campaigns → convert to RSAs or include call assets.
• Make sure your tracking for phone calls is solid (call conversions, proper attribution).
• Consider whether your business model still needs a “call-first” ad format or whether website/landing-page + call extension makes more sense.
• Ignoring this could lead to lost impressions and leads as the format winds down.

Why We Care: Many service-based businesses (plumbers, law firms, repair services) have relied on Call-Only ads to generate phone leads directly. The shift signals big changes in how phone-call conversions are tracked and how ad assets need to be structured.

3. The New Local HQ: Bing Places for Business Gets a Facelift

Microsoft launched the revamped Bing Places for Business experience: new domain (bing.com/forbusiness), streamlined import from Google Business Profile, a recommendation tool for optimizing listings (photos, details, menus, online order links), improved UI/UX and bulk editing.

This isn’t just a cosmetic update. For local SEO and multi-location marketers, this means a renewed opportunity: if you’ve largely focused only on Google listings, Bing’s upgrade means the “second” search engine (especially in certain demographics/regions) may present new visibility gains. Also, data-consistency between Google and Bing becomes more important since import is now faster/more reliable.

4. Google AI Overviews Drive 61% Drop in Organic CTR, Study Reveals

A new study from SeerInteractive shows that Google AI Overviews are having big impacts across organic and paid CTRs for businesses across industries.

The most notable numbers include:

• Google AI Overviews are responsible for 61% of organic CTR drops
• Paid CTRs on those same queries dropped 68%
• Organic CTRs fell 41%, even on queries without Google’s AIOs
• Organic CTRs for AI Overviews queries dropped from 1.76% to 0.61%.
• Paid CTRs for AI Overviews queries fell from 19.7% to 6.34%.
• Organic CTRs for queries without AI Overviews perform better (1.62%), but that’s still down 41% year-over-year.
• Brands cited in AI Overviews earned 35% more organic and 91% more paid clicks than those not cited.

Bottom Line: If your CTRs are struggling, you aren’t alone. It’s a shift in content marketing and how searchers are finding information.

5. Agentic Booking Comes to Google AI Mode

Ever wish customers could book your business directly through Google’s AI Mode? Now they can!

This week, Google announced that it will start rolling out agentic capabilities in AI Mode as a Search Labs experience. This allows searchers to book restaurant reservations, wellness appointments, or purchase event tickets directly from the AI Mode interface.

This tool is limited, and not every Google user has access to it. Google will continue to roll out this option on a staged basis, so expect expansion in the coming weeks.

Why We Care: If you are looking to increase bookings or purchases, this option could help boost your conversion rates. If consumers can book directly from search results, it eliminates one step in the process of becoming a paying customer.

6. Study Shows Brand Mentions Boost AI Search Rankings

A new study from Ahrefs shows that brand mentions are important for AI search citations.

The study found that off-page activity, such as brand mentions, is becoming even more important for off-page SEO, saying: “You just need to see where your competitors are mentioned, where you are mentioned, where your industry is mentioned. And you have to get mentions there because then if the AI chatbot would do a search and find those pages and create their answer based on what they see on those pages, this is one thing. But if some of the AI providers will decide to retrain their entire model on a more recent snapshot of the web, they will use essentially the same pages.”

Need some help finding those important domains and mentions? Ahrefs’ Brand Radar tool can help you find the ones that are most frequently mentioned in AI search results.

7. Google Labs and DeepMind Launch New AI Marketing Tool

Looking for some marketing help? This new tool, developed by Google Labs and DeepMind AI, may help.

The two tech companies announced a new partnership – Pomelli. This AI tool can:

• Analyze your website
• Create a Business DNA profile
• Generate a tone of voice, color palette, fonts, and visual style
• Prepare social media campaign ideas

The tool is currently available in public beta in English in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Google has not announced when it will be rolled out in more languages and countries yet.

8. HTTPS Encryption Will Be Required Starting in 2026

Take a look at any SEO checklist, and you’ll see HTTPS as a recommended option. Starting in 2026, Google says “Always Use Secure Connections” will no longer be recommended. It will be required.

In an announcement this week, Google stated that Chrome will begin requesting user permission before loading public websites that do not use HTTPS encryption. This update will be available to over 1 billion Enhanced Safe Browsing users in April 2026 and will then be rolled out to all Chrome users by October 2026.

Google said, “HTTP navigations to private sites can still be risky, but are typically less dangerous than their public site counterparts because there are fewer ways for an attacker to take advantage of these HTTP navigations.”

Why This Matters: If you aren’t using HTTPS encryption, your site is going to lose authority, both with Google and your visitors. Don’t risk losing traffic or risking your brand’s reputation and secure your site today.

9. Gen Z Prefers Humans Over AI-Only Outputs

Looking to reach Gen Z consumers? You might want to skip that AI-only support.

A new study from eMarketer reveals that Gen Z is open to some AI involvement in most aspects. Still, they strongly desire a balance between technology and trust by incorporating human creativity into their AI generation.

If you’re trying to reach Gen Z this holiday season, keep this in mind. You should blend AI assistance with human input to get the best result.

10. Google Maps Gets AI Update

Google is including Gemini in all of its tools, and now it’s Maps' turn.

This update improves navigation and encourages hands-free use through voice search.

For marketers, though, it presents another opportunity to get in front of your target audience. It’s now more important than ever to make sure your content is optimized for Near Me and voice searches, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar location.

11. Pinterest Hits Major Milestone: 600M Monthly Active Users

Pinterest has been around for years, but it continues to grow steadily into a key discovery platform. This week, it announced that it added 22 million monthly active users over the last reporting period, bringing its total monthly active users to an impressive 600 million.

It’s especially noteworthy that Pinterest achieved success in every single region, even after losing 2 million users in Europe in the previous reporting period.

Pinterest isn’t just generating traffic. It’s also generating revenue. According to this same report, average revenue per user is up across the board, including in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

This news comes at the same time as Pinterest’s announcement of its AI assistant tool. This new tool can help searchers find visual matches and relevant items through conversational queries.

Why It Matters: Pinterest is continually growing and making changes to enhance its platform. As users flock to Pinterest, it’s important that your brand be there, too.

12. 78% of TikTok Advertisers Agree TikTok is Demonstrating Improvement Due to AI Innovation

TikTok and NewtonX have released a new study on advertising and AI automation, revealing some interesting findings.

The study showed that:

• 97% of marketers are satisfied with making a high investment to fully integrate AI into their businesses
• 72% site cost savings is their primary driver of AI success
• Other measurements of AI success include increased operational efficiency, efficiency of media buying and planning, faster task completion or reduced time to market, enhanced employee productivity, and revenue growth
• 78% of advertisers say that TikTok consistently demonstrates innovation in its AI usage

Although 1 in 3 executives and advertisers believe AI will fundamentally change how society operates, 62% agree that AI tools still require improvement, including stronger oversight, regulation, and development, before they reach their full potential.

Download the full study here to see how your business aligns with the other marketer insights on AI adoption.

Weekly Homework:

1. Make sure your site (and all accompanying pages) are using HTTPS encryption.
2. Find some social media inspiration with Google and DeepMind AI’s new tool, Pomelli.
3. Do research to see how you can boost your site’s AI citations, improve your authority, and increase your reach.
4. Consider whether adding your brand to Pinterest could benefit your bottom line and help you reach a wider audience of consumers. If you’re already on Pinterest, generate ideas on how to improve your content and reach more people.
5. Review your content to ensure that it’s optimized for voice and Near Me searches, especially if you’re a brick-and-mortar location. Doing so will improve your reach but also prepare your business to be featured on Google Maps’ recommendations.
6. If you’re a Shopify user, explore the ways their AI tool, Sidekick, can help you expand your reach this holiday season.

Digital Marketing News 10/19/2025 to 10/31/2025

This week: Google boosts restaurant visibility, PayPal powers AI shopping, and marketers race to adapt SEO.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Expands “What’s Happening" Feature to Multi-Location Restaurants

Google is expanding its "What’s Happening" feature within Business Profiles to multi-location restaurants and bars in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The feature, originally launched in May for single-location businesses, lets restaurants highlight events, specials, and deals directly in their Google Business Profile.

For marketers in the restaurant and hospitality industry, this expansion means greater visibility for local promotions across multiple venues. As explained by Google’s Lisa Landsman, it's an easy way to surface timely offers like “Happy Hour” or “Taco Tuesday” right when customers are searching where to go next.

Action Item: Keep an eye out for this rollout if you manage multiple restaurant locations, testing and optimization early could help you capture more real-time foot traffic from local search visibility.

2. What Prime Day Data Reveals About Shopper Trends

Amazon ran its annual October Prime Big Deal Days event, and its data could reveal some valuable insights about spending this holiday season.

According to a report by Civic Science, the sales data revealed:

• Beauty and health was the most popular category
• 51% of purchases were personal or household goods
• 36% of purchases were holiday gifts
• 42% of consumers said they shopped the event to save on essentials
• Trusted brands were the biggest sellers

The data also revealed that TikTok trends are having an impact on ecommerce search keywords, as well as the beauty lexicon.

Biggest Takeaway: If you are an ecommerce brand looking to make an impact this holiday season, make sure your messaging aligns with TikTok hashtags and trends, especially when it comes to keywords, product pages, and ads.

3. 49% of Middle-Income Shoppers Are Worried About Holiday Spending

A new survey from Bankrate and eMarketer revealed that 49% of consumers earning between $80,000 and $99,999 are concerned about their holiday shopping this year.

Other findings revealed that a third of US adults say tariffs and import changes are negatively affecting their shopping, while younger consumers are also prepared to cut back on spending.

If your brand is targeting cost-conscious shoppers this holiday season, be sure to lean into value messaging with highlighted deals, bundles, and early-bird savings.

4. ChatGPT Shopping Just Got Easier – Thanks to PayPal

We shared a few weeks ago that ChatGPT is now allowing users to shop directly from the platform, and this week, PayPal is making shopping even easier.

In an announcement this week, PayPal said it will work directly with OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature to let users pay for their purchases without leaving ChatGPT.

Alex Chriss, president and CEO of PayPal was quoted as saying, “Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop. By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.”

This is big news for ChatGPT, PayPal, and marketers! Now, just appearing in the AI searches isn’t enough, but you’ll have to convince users to purchase there, too.

The payment function is expected to be added to the platform in early 2026.

5. 90% of Businesses Fear Losing Visibility to AI

A new report from Ann Smarty revealed that a whopping 90% of businesses fear losing their SEO visibility to AI.

The report also found that:

• 49% prefer the label “SEO for AI”
• 41% prefer saying GEO
• 85.7% of businesses are already investing or plan to invest in AI/LLM optimization
• 61.2% plan to increase their SEO budgets to account for AI
• 75.5% say their top priority is to appear in AI-generated answers, even without being linked
• 14.3% prioritize being cited as a source

The biggest fear? “Not being able to get my business found online.”

As we’ve been saying, AI is not a total overhaul of the system. It’s just another pivot, and those businesses that pivot with it will be just fine.

6. Pinterest Experiences with AI-Powered Personalization

Last week, we shared that Pinterest was allowing users to block AI-generated content from their feeds. This week, Pinterest is sharing a partnership with AI – personalized boards.

In the Pinterest Newsroom announcement, Vicky Gkiza, VP of Product Management, said that “Boards are central to what makes Pinterest an inspirational experience for our users, so we’re investing in making them even better... today’s updates make boards into a personal shopping assistant, powered by AI, to help users move from admiring their dream styles or spaces to actively achieving them.”

“Styled for you” collages can help users add clothing and accessories to one board, while swiping through AI-recommended pins to add to their collection.

Pinterest is also experimenting with AI-personalized boards that feature trending styles, weekly outfit inspiration, shoppable content, and more. “Boards Made for You” are currently being tested and will start to roll out in the US and Canada over the next few months.

Why We Care: This is just another way to show up in front of your potential customers. If you’re using Pinterest for your brand, make sure that all of your keywords and descriptions are searchable and relevant to increase your chances of landing on a Board Made for You.

7. YouTube Takes Action on Likeness Tools

AI “deep fakes” have been a concern, especially for large creators and celebrities, for some time now. This week, YouTube announced an expanded response to these complaints.

YouTube will be expanding its likeness detection tool to all YouTube Partner Program channels over the next few months. This tool allows creators to detect and report any videos made using an AI-generated image of their facial likeness. After a review by YouTube, the video can be removed from the platform.

The goal is to protect major users’ reputations, as well as keep YouTube’s reputation as a reliable source for accurate information.

If you’re interested in learning more about how the tool works and how you can use it, click here to watch the entire video of the announcement.

8. Google Introduces AI-Powered Query Groups

Google is shaking up the SERP again! This week, it announced Query groups, a new Search Console Insights feature.

This new feature will help you get a higher-level view of what people are searching for and how it relates to your content.

The “Queries Leading to Your Site” is broken down into three details:

1. Group performance
2. Queries list
3. Drill-down capability

The trending data will show the top queries, which are trending up and which are trending down. You can then use this information to curate content that your audience wants to see.

Since this is a new tool, Google is still working out the bugs and requests that users provide feedback, either through the thumbs-up/down buttons or by submitting a comment in the Google Search Central Community.

9. Microsoft Extends OpenAI Partnership Through 2032

Microsoft and OpenAI are in it for the long haul, or at least until 2032. In an announcement this week, the two tech giants announced an extension of their partnership.

Key details include:

• Microsoft has exclusive IP rights and Azure API
• OpenAI has agreed to purchase $250 billion of Azure services
• Microsoft does not have the right of first refusal to always be OpenAI’s computer provider
• OpenAI can develop products with third parties, as long as they still run on Azure
• OpenAI can provide API access to US government customers on any cloud

Microsoft now owns roughly 27% of OpenAI, with a stake valued at about $135 billion.

Why We Care: This confirms that Copilot, Bing’s AI answers, and any related products will be powered by the newest OpenAI models through 2032. This will affect the responses you receive when using those products, as well as how your content appears in those responses.

10. Posts Gone Ghost? Threads Launches New Temp Posts

Is Threads copying Snapchat? Their temporary updates feature has officially launched. “Ghost Posts” are automatically auto-archived from display after 24 hours in the app.

They’re still available to you, but for everyone else they’ll disappear. Similar to Snapchat, we can expect these posts to create new buzz for the app, using FOMO (fear of missing out) to draw users into the app and increase app usage overall.

Once you post a Ghost Post, you can’t make edits to it. You also cannot add photos or videos. They’ll appear in a speech bubble, allowing users to see the difference between real posts and Ghost Posts.

Creators of this feature hope it will increase app usage and allow users to let go of what people think about them. The goal is to focus on sharing what’s authentic, without judgement.

11. Meta Adds Ad Variations to Threads

In an updated Marketing API, Meta announced that more ad variations will be coming to Threads.

In the announcement, Meta explained: “As part of ongoing efforts to improve the Threads ad experience and ad performance, we’re expanding ad formats and creative enhancements on Threads. When new media setups and ad formats become compatible with Threads, both existing and newly created campaigns using them will automatically leverage your Threads profile or Instagram account to deliver to Threads feed if that placement is included. You can review and update your ad placements at any time.”

The new features include:

• 4:5 ad rendering for images and videos
• Video ad support
• 1:1 image carousel ads
• Placement Asset Customization (PAC) to allow advertisers to customize their images and videos

Why We Care: With over 400 million (and growing!) monthly active users, Threads could be a great place to reach new customers and generate leads.

Weekly Homework:

• If you’re one of the many businesses concerned about losing visibility due to AI, take a look at your current SEO strategy and figure out where you can make some tweaks that will get you found both on the SERP and with AI bots.
• Consider how the changes to ads on Threads could benefit your business.
• Come up with value-based messaging if you’re targeting middle-income Gen Z and millennials this holiday season.
• Freshen up your Pinterest Pin descriptions and keywords in anticipation of the new AI-powered tools rolling out in early 2026.

Digital Marketing News 10/18/2025 to 10/24/2025

This week: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Atlas browser, Google ends Privacy Sandbox, and Pinterest limits AI content in feeds.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. OpenAI Launches New ChatGPT-Powered Browser

OpenAI expanded into the browser landscape this week with the launch of its AI-powered browser, ChatGPT Atlas.

Built entirely around ChatGPT, it offers:

• A unified new tab experience
• ChatGPT sidebar
• Cursor chat to highlight text in emails, calendar invites, or documents
• Agent mode to open tabs and click through websites to complete tasks for users
• Browser Memories allows ChatGPT to remember context from other sites and return it when you need it
• Privacy Controls to control what ChatGPT can see and remember

This blurs the line between the browser and the search engine by bringing them together into one platform. Depending on the way it ranks websites, it could also complicate SEO strategies in the near future.

ChatGPT Atlas is currently available on macOS. It is scheduled for release on Windows, iOS, and Android in the coming months.

2. Google Officially Ends Privacy Sandbox

Google’s Privacy Sandbox and a cookieless Chrome have officially come to an end. In an announcement from Google, Vice President of Privacy Sandbox Anthony Chavez said it has been eliminated due to “low levels of adoption.”

In addition to the Privacy Sandbox, Google also removed the remaining 10 Sandbox technologies that were still available, including:

• Attribution Reporting API
• IP Protection
• On-Device Personalization
• Private Aggregation (including Shared Storage)
• Protected Audience
• Protected App Signals
• Related Website Sets (including requestStorageAccessFor and Related Website Partition)
• SelectURL
• SDK Runtime
• Topics

Chavez’s blog post also says that Google will “continue to utilize learnings from the retired Privacy Sandbox technologies, share web platform proposals for ecosystem feedback, and build with developer choice and user protection at the core. For example, feedback from companies who built on the Attribution Reporting API will help inform our work on an interoperable Attribution web standard through the Private Advertising Technology Working Group of the W3C.”

Why We Care: This is a big change in the cookie and user privacy world. Marketers should act accordingly, strengthening their first-party data collection and continuing to test alternative solutions.

3. Pinterest Offers Option to Reduce AI Content in Users’ Feeds

Pinterest users can now reduce the amount of AI content in their feeds.

In the announcement, Pinterest stated: “Generative AI content is rapidly transforming the internet, now making up an incredible 57% of all online material. At Pinterest, we’ve heard from our users: they want the creativity and inspiration they love, with the right balance of human and AI-generated content. That’s why we’re leading the way in giving users more control over their experience, launching new controls that allow users to decide exactly how much GenAI content appears in their feed.”

The jury’s still out on how effective Pinterest’s identification system is. Still, if it can successfully filter out AI-generated content, it could be a game-changer for marketers and content creators.

4. Google Announces Voice Search Update

This week, Google announced that a new AI model will change how voice search queries are processed and ranked.

The old system, Cascade ASR, converted a voice query into text and used a traditional ranking process to produce results.

The new system, Speech-to-Retrieval (S2R), is an AI-based learning model that processes voice searches without first converting them to text. Google says that this new model produces search results based on user intent, not keywords.

In the announcement, Google says that S2R “significantly outperforms the baseline cascade ASR model” and that “its performance approaches the upper bound established by the cascade ground truth model.”

Read the entire press release to learn more about this new AI model and how it’s changing voice search.

5. Multi-location Posting on Google Business Profile Just Got Easier

Marketing a multi-location business comes with unique challenges not present for single-location businesses. Google Business Profile wants to make that easier.

This week, it was revealed that Google Business Profile is testing a feature that will allow page managers to share the same update across multiple locations in one single step.

While this may seem like a small update to some, it could be a game-changer for those who manage multi-location and franchise Google Business Profiles.

6. Google Reveals What Gets Clicked On in AI Overviews

Wondering what parts of AI Overviews get clicked on? Liz Reid, Google’s VP of Search, recently revealed what users are loving.

Reid said: “what we see is people want content from that human perspective… That surface-level AI generated content, people don’t want that because if they click on that, they don’t actually learn that much more than they previously got. They don’t trust the result anymore.”

She also clarified that low-quality content and spam are considered different things, and said that Google has “tried to up-weight more and more content specifically from someone who really went in and brought their perspective or brought their expertise, put real time and craft into the work.”

Why This Matters: Whether it's on the SERP or in Google’s AIO, if you want to improve your clicks, you need to post richer, deeper content that is written from a human perspective. Adding originality and knowledge to your content will increase your visibility on Google and with consumers.

7. Yelp Announces AI Tools to Improve Customer Engagement

Local directory sites, like Yelp, can make a big impact on your local SEO. This week, Yelp unveiled its 2025 Fall Product Release, featuring tools that could make engaging with your customers on its site easier than ever.

The new AI-powered tools include:

• Yelp Assistant: a chatbot that answers customer questions
• Menu Vision: the ability to scan menus to see photos, reviews, and dish details
• Yelp Host and Yelp Receptionist: an AI-powered call bot that can take reservations, collect leads, and answer questions
• Popular Offerings: a tool that highlights your most-mentioned services, products, or experiences

The update also includes improved voice and language search.

Why We Care: These updates will make it easier for consumers and businesses to interact and connect through the popular search app, potentially leading to more conversions and connections.

8. Meta Shares Holiday Marketing Tips with Advertisers

If you haven’t prepared for the holiday season yet, Meta’s recently released Festive Season Guide might help.

The 10-page guide shares insider insights into how people use Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, and how these insights can help you reach your sales goals this holiday season.

It explains how to use various strategic and planning tools, including Conversions API, lead ads, and A/B testing tools. It also shares tips on how to improve marketing Reels and other video content, including:

• Filming vertically using a 9:16 aspect ratio
• Creating for sound on with voiceovers, music, and sound effects
• Partnering with creators
• Building in safe zones
• Putting a face to your business
• Nailing the hook

Download the entire guide for free for more tips on how to improve your holiday marketing.

9. Netflix’s Ad Sales Grow By 17.9%

If you’ve been considering stepping into the world of streaming ads, you aren’t alone! Netflix announced this week that Q3 produced its highest sales yet.

In a letter to shareholders, the streaming giant shared that its ad revenue for Q3 grew to $11,510 million, which is a 17.9% increase from last year. They also shared that watcher engagement grew, and the platform reached its highest quarterly view-share growth in both the US and the UK.

If you’ve been on the fence about jumping into streaming ads, now might be the time to consider it more seriously. Netflix also announced a lot of improvements for the platform in the coming year, including returning seasons of popular shows, exciting new series, a big slate of Netflix-only films, more live events, and increased kids and family programming.

10. Negative Reviews Can Positively Impact Consumer Purchases

A new study by eMarketer revealed that negative reviews might not always negatively impact your business.

According to the study, consumers want more authentic reviews, even if they’re negative. The same study also found that:

• 32% want better product discounts
• 28% want more exclusive discounts or offers
• 56% of social users who made a purchase after being influenced by a creator did so directly through the app
• 11% of those purchases were made during a livestreamed shopping experience

If you take anything from this study, it shows that consumers want more authentic, honest connections, even when they’re negative. If you do get hit with a negative review (which happens to all of us!), it’s best to respond to it immediately in a professional way.

Weekly Homework:

1. If you’re interested, download OpenAI’s new browser to see how it could change your SEO strategy in the future.
2. Review Google’s announcement on the elimination of Privacy Sandbox to stay up-to-date on the cookie battle.
3. Explore the different ways you can optimize your content to respond to Google’s new voice search model, S2R.
4. If you manage multiple Google Business Profiles, log in and see if you have access to the new multi-location posting tool.
5. Optimize your Yelp profile to use the new AI-powered tools to best capture more “near me” searches and opportunities.
6. Download Meta’s Festive Season Guide for tips on how to improve your holiday marketing.

Digital Marketing News 10/11/2025 to 10/17/2025

This week: ChatGPT searches like a power user, Google surfaces more community-driven and creator-based content, and Microsoft shares guidance to optimize for AI search visibility.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. ChatGPT Searches the Web in 31% of Prompts

According to a new study from marketing agency Nectiv, ChatGPT performs a search in 31% of prompts, averaging 2.17 searches per query, each roughly 5.5 words long, which is about 60% longer than a typical Google search.

ChatGPT isn’t just generating text, it searches like a power user, using longer, specific, commercial-style queries that give SEOs a chance to influence results.

Here are the key findings:

• 31% of prompts triggered at least one search.
• ChatGPT averaged 2.17 searches per prompt (with a max of four).
• 77% of all searches were five words or longer.
• It searched most for local intent (59%) and least for credit cards (18%) and fashion (19%).

Chris Long, co-founder of Nectiv said, “If we can figure out how often and what the LLM is searching, we’ll have an easier time optimizing for it.”

Key Takeaway: SEO pros should treat AI search optimization as the next frontier: rank for ChatGPT, not just Google.

2. Google Ads API v22 Introduces 5 Major AI Upgrades for Smarter Bidding and Faster Scaling

Google has taken its Ads API automation to the next level with API v22. The latest update packs powerful AI tools designed to help advertisers build, optimize, and scale campaigns faster than ever.

Here’s what’s new:

• Generative AI for assets: A new AssetGenerationService (beta) automatically creates text and image assets, cutting production time.
• Smarter bidding: Target ROAS strategies now include time-segmented diversity metrics to help advertisers understand bid performance.
• Demand Gen upgrades: More support for automated asset creation and additional bidding strategies.
• Performance Max improvements: Enhanced campaign-level API support now offers image extraction, enhancement, and improved reporting with new segments.
• App campaigns for installs: Fresh bidding goals allow optimization without fixed targets, ideal for rapid scaling.

To access these new tools, developers will need to upgrade their client libraries and code. Google has already released documentation and migration guides to make the switch easier.

3. Google Adds AI Summaries to Discover

If you’ve noticed fewer clicks from Google Discover lately, this update might explain why. Google just rolled out two new AI-powered features designed to keep users more informed, and possibly more contained within Google’s ecosystem.

Updates include:

• AI summaries in Discover: Users will now see short, AI-generated previews of trending topics they follow. These summaries pull from multiple publishers and include expandable sections with links for more details. The feature is now live in the U.S., South Korea, and India after initial summer testing.
• “What’s new” in Search: When users look up teams or players on mobile, a new What’s new button will open a feed of trending updates and articles. This will roll out across the U.S. in the coming weeks.

Why We Care: Discover has long driven traffic for publishers, but AI summaries may change that, giving users answers without clicks, much like AI Overviews did.

4. TikTok Releases Information on How to Use AI in Marketing

Whether you’re already using AI in your marketing or you’re considering it, TikTok wants to help! In a recently released report, the short-form video platform details ways to use AI without risking your business’s reputation.

In the report, TikTok outlines multiple ways to leverage AI to create ads, improve targeting, and maximize results.

In addition to the report, they also released The AI Advantage: Agency Playbook for Scalable Marketing, which details four core solutions to help you plan, create, activate, and grow your marketing campaigns using AI.

5. Google Search Rankings Adjusted Due to User Behavior

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Google’s VP of Search, Liz Reid, said SERP rankings have been adjusted based on user behavior and intent.

When discussing the shift, Reid said: “There’s a behavioral shift that is happening in conjunction with the move to AI, and that is a shift of who people are going to for a set of questions. And they are going to short-form video, they are going to forums, they are going to user-generated content a lot more than traditional sites… We do have to respond to who users want to hear from. We are in the business of both giving them high quality information but information that they seek out. And so we have over time adjusted our ranking to surface more of this content in response to what we’ve heard from users.”

These changes mean that SERPs are now focusing more on things users want, like:

• Video content
• Forums
• User-generated content (UGC)

If you’ve been struggling to boost your rankings, you might want to try incorporating more of that type of content to see if it helps you adjust to the shift.

6. Microsoft Shares Guidance to Optimize Content for AI Search Visibility

If you’ve been wondering how to optimize your content for AI search, Microsoft has you covered. This week, they released guidance on improving your GEO, AIO, or SEO.

While most of the advice is similar to established SEO and UX best practices, Microsoft did offer this important tidbit of advice: “In traditional search, visibility meant appearing in a ranked list of links. In AI search, ranking still happens, but it’s less about ordering entire pages and more about which pieces of content earn a place in the final answer.”

They also recommend avoiding:

• Writing long walls of text that blur ideas together.
• Hiding key content in tabs, accordions, or other elements that may not render.
• Relying on PDFs for core information.
• Putting important information only in images without alt text or HTML alternatives.
• Making vague claims without providing specific details.
• Overusing decorative symbols or long punctuation strings; keep punctuation simple.

You can read all of Microsoft’s advice here.

7. YouTube Launches New Reports to Measure Brand Impact

YouTube has another update! This week, the video platform rolled out its newest feature, the Brand Pulse Report.

Using AI, this new feature will help:

• Combine brand mentions into one streamlined location
• Compile new metrics to help brands better understand their audience
• Measure how well paid and organic videos are lifting brand searches

The new report is currently only available to select advertisers, but it should be accessible to more creators in the near future.

8. Request Your Second Chance with YouTube

Speaking of YouTube, the video platform is piloting a new program called “Second Chances.” This program will allow some terminated creators to come back to the app.

The process applies to terminated creators who have completed the one-year waiting period. At that point, if the creator feels they should be allowed back onto the platform, they can file a request.

YouTube will consider whether the violations were severe or persistent, as well as whether the activity harmed or could harm the YouTube community.

This does not apply to:

• Creators terminated for copyright infringement
• Creators who violated Creator Responsibility policies
• Creators who deleted their YouTube channel or Google account

For more information, watch the whole announcement here.

9. Google Redesigns Search Ad Labels

Google announced this week that it is redesigning how Search Ads appear in the SERP.

Instead of appearing with the small “Sponsored” label at the top of each ad, Google will now group all ads together under one “Sponsored Result” heading.

When results include AI Overviews, the position of the ads might change on the SERP, but they will remain in that same group and label format.

Grouping ads like this could affect ad ROI for marketers and the underlying KPIs, such as CTR. Grouping ads could also influence consumer behavior, as they now look like part of a group rather than competing pieces of information.

10. Posting 11+ Posts Week Increases TikTok Views by 34%

TikTok not getting the views it used to? Post more!

According to a new Buffer study, posting multiple times a week could increase your views per post. In an analysis of over 150,000 TikTok accounts, Buffer found that posting:
Report Suggests That Posting More Often Increases TikTok Performance | Social Media Today

• 2 to 5 times → get up to 17% more views per post
• 6 to 10 times → get up to 29% more views per post
• 11+ posts → get up to 34% more views per post

If 11 posts a week feels like a lot, start small. The biggest jump happened when posters went from 1 post to 2-5 posts per week.

11. New Report Says 8 in 10 Beauty Buyers Want Informative Content

Calling all beauty brands! Snapchat just released a new report that you should read.

This study reveals that, despite economic concerns, consumers are still looking to buy. Some notable data includes:

• 8 in 10 buyers want to see informative content on social media
• Learning how to use a product was the number one requested type of information
• 47% want to see immersive content, including shopping experiences and AR/VR

Daily Snapchatters are:

• 1.3% more likely to try new trends
• 1.5x more likely to shop premium brands
• 2x more likely to make impulsive purchases

If your consumers are on the fence, this report says that the top five ways to sway them include:

• Better quality ingredients - 45%
• Special offers and discounts - 41%
• Positive reviews or recommendations from other customers - 39%
• Recommended by people they know and trust - 38%
• Natural, plant-based, or organic ingredients - 34%

This report offers other valuable insights, so be sure to check it out as you map out your upcoming holiday campaigns.

12. Vertical Images Supported by PMax

Vertical 9:16 image ads, also referred to as “Story Image Ads” are now supported by Google’s Performance Max campaigns, This new enhancement offers the ability for PMaz campaigns to naturally integrate in mobile-first experiences.

With all eyes on Shorts, Reels and TikTok, vertical ads are key to running successful campaigns. Here’s the specs you’ll need to know:

• Minimum size: 600×1067 (recommended: 1080×1920)
• Maximum file size: 5MB
• Google hasn’t officially confirmed where these will serve, though in Demand Gen, they appear in YouTube Shorts Image placements.

Weekly Homework

• Review Microsoft’s recent advice on how to improve GEO/AIO/SEO. Make the necessary changes to ensure your content can still perform in an AI-driven world.
• Learn more about YouTube’s Brand Pulse Report to see how it can streamline your existing brand measurement process.
• Review Snapchat’s beauty buyer report to see how you can apply the information to your upcoming holiday campaigns.
• If you’re running sponsored ads on Google, keep an eye on your KPIs to see if the new group format affects your clicks.
• Consider adding more video content, as well as forum marketing and UGC content, to your marketing to boost your ranking on the SERP.

Digital Marketing News 10/4/2025 to 10/10/2025

This week: OpenAI considers introducing ads on ChatGPT, TikTok rolls out Smart+ AI tools to boost advertiser control and automation, and YouTube launches creator media kits to strengthen brand partnerships and monetization.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Ads Could be Coming to OpenAI

Speaking of AI, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman may be reconsidering his stance on ads on the platform.

In a recent interview, Altman said that Instagram can be thanked for this shift in thinking. He was quoted as saying: “I love Instagram ads, they’ve added value to me, I found stuff I never would’ve found, I bought a bunch of stuff, I actively like Instagram ads. I think there’s many things I respect about Meta, but getting that so right was a surprisingly cool thing for me. Other than that, I viewed ads on the Internet as sort of like a tax. … I believe there probably is some cool ad product we can do that is a net win to the user and a sort of positive to our relationship with the user. I don’t know what it is yet, I’m not like, ‘Here is our ad model’ already.”

While he still doesn’t like ads aesthetically, he sees their value from a financial and consumer standpoint.

Why We Care: The ability to actively advertise on chatbots like ChatGPT could be a game-changer for a lot of brands that are struggling to be heard in the overwhelmingly loud digital marketing ecosystem.

2. 45% of US Consumers Start Research on Search Engines

There’s been a lot of talk recently about AI and review tools taking over consumer search, but a new survey from Search Engine Land shows that discovery is still pretty fragmented.

The numbers revealed that:

• 45% of consumers start research on a traditional search engine
• 15% use AI tools
• 14% use review sites

That doesn’t mean you should ignore AI and review sites, though. Only 11% of surveyed consumers said that they trust the first response they get. The overwhelming majority double-check or expand their search elsewhere.

Don’t rule out social media either:

• 45% use it to find reviews
• 48% use it for local recommendations
• 47% use it for how-to guidance

In terms of AI:

• 54% use it for research
• 48% for creative ideas
• 43% for analysis

This fragmentation has led to Yext naming 6 different consumer discovery types:

• The Traditionalist (24%): Trusts established search engines for reliable, structured answers.
• The Price Shopper (21%): Prioritizes deals and efficiency.
• The Explorer (18%): Uses AI to dive deep into new ideas and connections.
• The Creator (15%): Relies on AI for brainstorming and creativity, especially Gen Z.
• The Social Proof Seeker (14%): Needs validation from reviews or influencers.
• The Accidental Searcher (8%): Discovers products by chance through social browsing.

Why We Care: In order to be found online, you need to position your brand where people can find you. This means paying attention to how they search and where they begin. If these responses reveal anything, it’s that marketers should continue to diversify their content so that it can be easily discovered via search engines, AI tools, social media, and review sites.

3. ChatGPT is Growing in Terms of Integrations and Apps

Ads aren’t the only thing growing when it comes to ChatGPT. The AI platform’s latest update now allows users to access third-party apps (including Spotify, Canva, Zillow, and Expedia) during conversations.

Users can either specifically request that ChatGPT use a certain app, or it may be automatically suggested based on the context of the questions being asked. OpenAI calls this a “step toward a conversational operating system.” The goal is to have one streamlined interface that can access software and services without users having to leave the app.

OpenAI notes that additional brand integrations are forthcoming, including those from prominent brands such as Target, Uber, Peloton, and Instacart. If you want your brand to be among the ones included, you should have your developers start preparing now.

This also applies to brands that want to engage in “agentic commerce” – the one-click purchasing power that ChatGPT is currently testing with Etsy shopping.

No matter where you stand on the idea of AI, it’s clear that AI is here to stay, and if you want to be successful in digital marketing, you might want to start exploring how your business can integrate into the process.

4. Desktops Convert 8% More Than Mobile Devices

If you aren’t optimizing your landing pages for mobile devices, you could be losing conversions. A new report from Unbounce reveals that mobile devices account for 83% of visits, yet landing pages lead to 8% more conversions.

The report notes that: “An 8% gap in conversion rates is significant, but it gets even worse when you look at the number of conversions lost. If all industries optimized their pages, we might have reported over 1.3 million more conversions.”

Based on over 57 million conversions and 41,000 pages, the report also found that:

• The median conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%
• Conversion rates can vary significantly between industries, typically ranging from 3.8% to 12.3%
• Pages written at a 5th to 7th grade level have the highest conversion rate at 11%
• Pages using complex words or professional-level writing produce a 24.3% decrease

To find out more intriguing statistics about conversion rates, download Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report.

5. Ad-Block Change Responsible for YouTube View Drops

If your brand’s YouTube channel views have been dropping, it could be due to an ad-block change.

According to YouTube Liaison on X, the change wasn’t due to anything YouTube did. Sharing a post from ThioJoe, the explanation is that Adblockers merged into UbO Lite, causing some views not to be counted.

It’s a good idea to pay attention to your views, especially amid the new YouTube Activation Partners program that highlights ways third-party providers can help increase YouTube ad ROI.

Why We Care: It’s a good reminder that platform changes aren’t the only thing that affects your performance. Third-party platforms can also affect your analytics.

6. TikTok Unveils New AI Tools

TikTok wants to give advertisers more control over their content. This week, they introduced several new updates to their platform to facilitate this.

New updates to Smart+ campaigns include:

• One Buying Experience: an advertising flow that can be fully automated, partially automated, or fully manual
• More Control: Advertisers can now customize their level of automation, as well as targeting, budget, and creative assets
• Customized Measurement: More ability to split analytics and get more granular
• Integration with Symphony Automation to create and optimize their performance, get recommendations for creative based on historical data, and the ability to enhance videos with updated resizing automatically, refreshed music, translation, dubbing, or overall image quality improvement

Early testing showed an average 54% increase in conversions and a 27% decrease in Cost per Action.

7. YouTube Launches Updates for Creatives and Brand Partners

YouTube is already one of the most lucrative social media platforms for creatives and brands, and its new update might make it even more so.

The new media kit option provides:

• Members-only livestreams
• The ability to create branded PDFs of channel performance stats to share with brand partners
• Clarifications on the Extend with AI tool, which allows you to generate alternative endings to Shorts

This update could make it easier for creators and brands to connect to form more profitable and successful partnerships.

8. Instagram Wants to Reward Creativity

Instagram rolled out a new award for creators – Rings.

The new program will award creators with golden rings designed by Grace Wales Bonner to honor “those who aren’t afraid to take creative chances and do it their way.” The winners will also be rewarded with a golden ring in place of the traditional Stories ring.

Judges include:

• Spike Lee
• Marc Jacobs
• Grace Wales Bonner
• Kaws
• Pat McGrath
• MKBHD
• Yara Shahidi
• Cédric Grolet
• Ilona Maher
• Tainy
• Murad Osmann
• Eva Chen
• Adam Mosseri

While this is incredibly exciting for creators, it also opens the door for brands to be rewarded for creativity, as well as make it easier to identify up-and-coming influencers that they might want to partner with in the future.

9. Sponsored Snaps are Paying Off

Snapchat recently integrated ads into its inbox, which some advertisers weren’t too sure of. Advertisers who have used this new advertising medium are saying it’s been successful.

In a press release, Snapchat said: “When Snapchatters fully engage with a Sponsored Snap by opening to the full-screen ad, we see 2.3x more lift in Unaided Brand Awareness, 1.4x more lift in Ad Awareness, and 1.8x more lift in Purchase Intent than other social platforms.”

In terms of user response, Snapchat said: “Our research shows that people are not only comfortable connecting with friends in chat, they’re also open to hearing from brands there. In fact, 86% of social media users in the U.S. are open to getting messages from brands on apps like Snapchat, Messenger, and others, which is a signal that chat has become a space for meaningful engagement.”

Historically, social media users don’t love their DMs being interrupted by ads, but Snapchat could have broken that curse and opened up a new way to advertise.

10. Advertising Week: Big Brands Share Their Commitment to Influencer Marketing

Big brands like Unilever, Gap, and Marriott signaled at Advertising Week that they are planning to invest more in creator-driven content.

This line of thinking isn’t too far off from recent forecasts from experts like eMarketer, who say that brands in the US will spend $13.7 billion on influencer marketing by 2027. The shift in demand has also led to the growth of agencies of record, or AORs, which have incorporated influencer marketing into their businesses.

While they still find success in influencer marketing, they have noted that their expectations have grown, with a significant emphasis on performance and standardization. This also extends to their expectations of AORs.

Why We Care: Influencer marketing is far from dead, and that’s crucial to understand from both an influencer and a brand perspective. As you work on your 2026 marketing strategy, consider ways that you can tap into the growing market and use influencer marketing to reach your target audience.

Weekly Homework

1. Download Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report to see where your conversion rates add up.
2. Review all of the updates to TikTok’s Smart+ campaigns to see how improved automation can boost your video performance.
3. Explore the updates to YouTube’s new media kit option to see if it could benefit your business.
4. If you want a new way to reach consumers, consider employing Snapchat Sponsored Snaps.
5. Consider incorporating influencer marketing into your content strategy if you haven’t already.

Digital Marketing News 9/27/2025 to 10/3/2025

This week: ChatGPT launches Instant Checkout for Etsy sellers, Gen Alpha wields $5.46T economic power, and YouTube dominates AI search visibility with a 200x citation advantage.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Consumers Can Now Buy Products Directly Through ChatGPT

ChatGPT has launched a new partnership that puts marketers one step closer to advertising their products to ChatGPT’s more than 700 million weekly users.

OpenAI announced this week that users of ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free can now purchase directly from U.S. Etsy sellers using the AI platform. This option will soon also extend to over a million Shopify merchants, including Glossier, Skims, and Spanx.

Currently, Instant Checkout only allows single-item purchases, but OpenAI plans to introduce a multi-item cart option soon.

According to Emarketer senior analyst Zak Stambor, “OpenAI is taking its first big step into commerce with Instant Checkout. The feature still has some wrinkles to iron out, but embedding checkout for hundreds of millions of users could turn ChatGPT into a true commerce destination. If OpenAI can streamline the experience, it could challenge Amazon and Google and carve out a lucrative new revenue stream.”

As more consumers turn to ChatGPT as a search engine option, being able to sell directly to them from the platform could be life-changing for many businesses.

2. Gen Alpha Has a $5.46 Trillion Economic Impact

Spending might be down with Gen Z, but Gen Alpha is picking up the pace right behind them. If you want to grow your business, kids born between 2010 and 2024 might be the key.

A new study from the Acceleration Community of Companies (ACC) and the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg reveals that children born between 2010 and 2024 will have an economic impact in the trillions – specifically, $5.46 trillion.

Gen Alpha kids are influencing the ways families spend money, the items they purchase, and the vacations they take. The study also showed that:

• 59% help choose meals
• 36% weigh in on tech purchases
• 54% decide on activities
• 11% voice their opinions on big-ticket items like cars
• 96% get their families to try new things they saw online or heard about from friends

If you want to stay in demand with this lucrative generation, you need to provide a reason for them to stay connected. The study showed that:

• 64% value discounts or prizes
• 49% enjoy unlocking special items
• 43% like earning badges or level progressions
• 41% value early access to new products
• 31% like to see their name on a leaderboard
• 46% like to be surprised by new things as they shop or play online

In an economy where other generations are tightening their purse strings, it might pay for businesses to turn their attention towards Gen Alpha.

3. Google AI Overviews Matches Organic Search 54% of the Time

Worried about Google AI Overviews taking away from your organic results? New research from BrightEdge shows that might not be true!

A recently released study found that 54% of AIO websites overlap with traditional search results, indicating that most AIO results are identical to those ranking in traditional SERPs. The data also showed that:

• Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) overlaps at a higher rate
• Healthcare has the strongest overlap at 75.3%
• Education’s overlap has increased significantly to 72.6%
• Insurance increased from 47.7% to 68.6%
• E-commerce has the lowest overlap at 22.9%

You can read the entire study here.

4. Meta Announces that It Will Use Your Conversations with AI to Improve Ad Targeting

Don’t be surprised if your Meta Ads start seeming super targeted all of a sudden. Meta announced this week that your conversations with Meta AI will be used to personalize your experiences, specifically Meta Ads.

In the announcement, Meta explained: “More than 1 billion people use Meta AI every month. We’re continuing to improve the way our AI products feel relevant to you, understand your goals, and help you accomplish tasks more efficiently. We’re also using Meta AI, and our other AI features, to improve your experience on all of our platforms. We will soon use your interactions with AI at Meta to personalize the content and ads you see, including things like posts and reels. We’ll start notifying people about this update next week via notifications and emails, several weeks before it goes into effect on December 16, 2025.”

One thing to note: any conversations about things like religion, sexual orientation, politics, health, racial or ethnic origin, or philosophical beliefs will not be used in your data profile.

While this is great news for marketers using Meta Ads, some users might have privacy concerns about Meta using their information this way.

5. British Users Can Now Opt Out of Meta Ads

Speaking of Meta Ads, the UK's data control laws have enabled British users to opt out of ads on Facebook and Instagram.

In the announcement, Meta explained “Over the coming weeks, in response to recent U.K. regulatory guidance and following extensive engagement with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), we will introduce Subscription for no ads in the U.K. This will give people based in the U.K. the choice between continuing to use Facebook and Instagram for free with personalized ads, or subscribing to stop seeing ads.”

The conversation about ad-free options began after a court case in which a user objected to her personal data being used for ad targeting.

Subscription for no ads will cost £2.99/month on the web or £3.99/month on iOS and Android, for the first Meta account.

If you are targeting consumers in the UK, this change could impact the performance of your Meta Ads.

6. Reddit Releases Guidance to Improve Your Holiday Ads

With over 110 million daily active users, it comes as no surprise that the popularity of Reddit Ads has been growing. The platform even released new holiday guidance to help improve your ad reach this holiday season.

The guide includes multiple ways to improve your promotions, including:

• Using a catalog rich in product metadata
• Driving signal with a robust product set
• Using multi-placement to maximize reach and performance
• Start with a wider audience and optimize accordingly

If you’re thinking about using Reddit Ads this holiday season, this guide and the information on Reddit’s Pro Trends tool will help you decide if this is the right platform for you.

Even if you decide that Reddit isn’t going to be your gold mine, the information in this guide can also be helpful for other platforms and advertising opportunities.

7. Meet Google’s New Small Business Resource Hub

Google’s recently launched Small Business Resource Hub is designed to help small businesses succeed.

The tech giant says that the page will pull together important tools for small businesses, including Business Profile, Merchant Center, Google Ads, YouTube Ads, and Google Analytics. The goal is to make using these tools more straightforward for new business owners and those without large teams.

Google says that it will update the hub with new partner offers, up-to-date news, and all of the latest product updates.

This addition makes it easier for marketers and small businesses to stay up-to-date with all the free tools and products that Google offers, making online marketing for their businesses easier than ever before.

8. Bookings Get Easier with Google AI Mode

Google is testing a new feature in its Search Labs that gives AI Mode “agent” powers. If you opt in (U.S. users, 18+, in English), you can ask Google to make real-world bookings.

Try “book a dinner for three this Friday after 6 pm near me, maybe ramen or bibimbap.”

The AI will scan multiple reservation services, filter by your preferences (cuisine, location, size), and show you available options. Then, it gives you direct links so you can finalize the booking.

This is just the beginning: Google wants to expand this so you can also schedule things like services (e.g. haircuts, repairs) or buy event tickets, all without leaving Search. It’s part of Google’s push to help users finish tasks within its own interface rather than navigating to external sites.

9. AI Mode Goes (Even More) Visual

Speaking of AI Mode, Google is making its AI Mode more visual, especially for shopping searches. Instead of just text, you’ll now see image-based responses and graphics that help spark ideas.

Behind the scenes, Google breaks your query into smaller parts, analyzes both your words and images, and then shows a visual grid of relevant results.

If something catches your eye, you can ask follow-ups (for example, “I want darker colors”) or click an image to dig deeper.

For shopping queries, Google uses its massive Shopping Graph (with billions of products, refreshed hourly) to surface items that match your style, color, size, etc.

Currently, these visual shopping results are non-paid (not ads). Google is testing whether it will include ads in AI Mode in the future. The new visual features are being introduced in the U.S. in English first.

10. Yoast: New AI Visibility Tool

Yoast is rolling out a new tool, Yoast AI Brand Insights, currently in beta. This tool is designed to help businesses understand how visible they are within AI-driven systems (like ChatGPT) and to track their brand reputation across the web.

Unlike their typical WordPress plugins that need to integrate into your site, this tool works independently (no CMS access needed). It offers a few important capabilities:
Brand mention & citation tracking: It looks for where and how often your brand is mentioned online.

• Sentiment analysis: It evaluates whether mentions are positive or negative and shows this over time.
• Competitor benchmarking: You can see how your brand performs compared to others in terms of AI visibility and reputation.
• AI Visibility Index: Yoast merges factors like sentiment, AI answer ranking, mention counts, and citations into one unified metric.

They also plan to add actionable insights soon to help brands improve visibility in AI systems. The pricing is relatively affordable, signaling that Yoast wants to support smaller businesses that want to step up their presence in AI-powered search environments.

11. Gemini 2.5 Flash Gets An Upgrade

Google revealed new updates to Gemini 2.5 Flash this week.

The update includes:

• Clearer explanations
• More scannable outputs
• Improvements to image understanding

The new model also achieves better results while using fewer tokens, making it much more cost-efficient. The announcement also included future plans, such as the incremental model tuning and app-level updates.

12. Pinterest Launches Ad Improvements

If you’ve been advertising on Pinterest, you might be interested in this recent upgrade.

The newest upgrade allows for Top of Search ads to be placed within the first ten results, as well as in Related Pins. This change aims to help advertisers increase clicks, as company data indicates that 45% of clicks occur on the first ten results. The same report claims that 96% of top searches are unbranded. That means Top of Search placements will help improve discovery through paid ads.

The update also helps marketing teams better understand their ROI by adding a SERP-like space to track their improvements visually. Media Network Connect also integrates retailer first-party audiences and conversion data into Pinterest Ads Manager to further improve measurement and testing.

Pinterest also expanded Local Inventory Ads with the ability to provide real-time prices for in-stock items.

13. Google Ads Unveils Asset & Channel Reporting for Performance Max

Google Ads is giving marketers a clearer look into Performance Max with new asset and channel reporting tools. The update introduces bulk downloads, ROI columns, and diagnostics, finally offering visibility into which creative assets and channels actually drive conversions across Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover.

For marketers, this is a major step toward demystifying Performance Max’s “black box” reputation. You’ll now be able to segment performance by device, time, conversion action, and even ad event type, helping you pinpoint where your campaigns deliver the strongest ROI.

This added transparency means smarter optimization, focusing budget on high-performing assets and channels while addressing any diagnostics that limit reach.

Action Item: Start exploring the new segmentation and ROI metrics within your account. More enhancements are on the way, so keep an eye out for Google’s next round of reporting upgrades.

14. YouTube Dominates AI Search with 200x Citation Advantage

New BrightEdge data reveals that YouTube dominates AI search visibility, earning 200 times more citations than competitors like TikTok, Vimeo, and Twitch across platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.

For marketers, this confirms what many suspected: YouTube isn’t just a video hub, it’s an AI search authority. With a 29.5% citation rate in Google’s AI Overviews and a presence across every major AI platform, YouTube has become a go-to source for tutorials, product demos, and how-to content. Meanwhile, rivals barely register, with Vimeo and TikTok each holding just 0.1% share.

This shift signals a new frontier for content visibility in generative search. Brands that aren’t producing educational, product-focused video content on YouTube risk being completely left out of AI-driven discovery.

Action Item: Double down on YouTube strategy. Prioritize high-quality tutorial and review videos to increase the odds of your brand being surfaced in AI-powered search results.

Weekly Homework

1. Download BrightEdge’s recent AIO study to see if your industry’s AIO results overlap with organic SERP results.
2. Explore the Google Small Business Hub to discover how it can help you achieve your marketing objectives.
3. Download Reddit’s Best Practices for Dynamic Product Ads guide to improve your ads this holiday season.
4. If you use Pinterest Ads, sign into your dashboard to see if the new improvements can help boost your visibility this holiday season.
5. Explore opportunities for consumers to purchase your goods directly from ChatGPT.

Digital Marketing News 9/20/2025 to 9/26/2025

This week: DOJ pushes Google Ads breakup, Instagram reaches 3B active users, and Gen Z holiday spending drops.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Confirms: August Spam Update is Complete

Google’s August Spam Update started its rollout on August 26th. As of September 22nd, the rollout is now complete.

Google said that this update improved automated spam-prevention systems, including SpamBrain. The tech giant hopes that the system will now do a better job of detecting and reducing spam, rather than simply re-ranking the entire index.

If you’ve noticed a big drop in your website’s performance, you should review the backend of your site to ensure that your policies align with Google’s newest update. If it isn’t, you risk not only being ranked lower, but potentially not being ranked at all.

2. Search Live, is Officially Live!

What started in Search Labs as an opt-in feature is now live in the Google app. Search Live, lets users speak directly with Google Search in real time. There’s even an option to share phone camera feed so Search can see what the user is looking at and give better results.

Tap the Live icon in the Google app:

• Ask questions.
• Optionally turn on the camera so Search can interpret what’s in front of you.
• Search responds with answers, context, and cites its sources at the bottom.

3. Reviews Are Gaining Influence in Top Google Local Rankings

A recent study from Search Atlas reveals that reviews and proximity are gaining influence in local rankings.

The data revealed that:

• For positions 1-21, proximity influenced 55% of decisions
• For those same positions, reviews count for 19% of decisions
• In the top 10, proximity influences 36% and review count increases to 26%

Reviews are especially important in categories such as beauty, food, and health.

Why We Care: If you are trying to build up your local SEO, don’t sleep on your review content. Encourage your customers to leave positive reviews and always remember to respond to them.

4. Google Ad Manager Has to Break Up, Says DOJ

This week, the DOJ released a statement in response to Google’s ongoing ad-tech antitrust case. Long story short: It wants the divestiture of Google Ad Manager.

According to a statement from Google, the DOJ has requested “a divestiture of Google Ad Manager, a tool that helps publishers and advertisers buy and sell web, app, connected TV, and video ads.”

The same statement said that Google has “said from the start that DOJ’s case misunderstands how digital advertising works and ignores how the landscape has dramatically evolved, with increasing competition and new entrants. Getting the remedies right in this new environment will be key to addressing concerns without breaking what’s working.”

Why This Matters: A breakup of Google Ads could be a huge shift in PPC. It’ll be interesting to see how this part of the case goes.

5. American Consumers Want AI Content Labeled

A new study from Pew Research Center shows that people want to know when they’re looking at AI-generated content.

Of those surveyed:

• 76% say it's extremely or very important for AI content to be labeled
• 12% say they feel confident in their ability to tell the difference themselves
• 50% say they’re worried about AI in daily life
• 10% are more excited about AI than worried
• 60% want more control over AI
• 53% say it reduces creative thinking
• 50% say it will negatively impact the ability to connect with other people

AI is an extremely helpful tool, but be sure to tell your consumers when you’re using it. If you don’t, you risk damaging your brand reputation and causing mistrust amongst your audience.

6. Google Updates Demand Gen Campaigns

Google’s Demand Gen Campaigns are getting an update, specifically for YouTube promotions.

This new update includes changes to:

• Conversion lift: Used with lower spend levels and conversion volume. Can also now test an entire account or specific campaigns.
• Platform comparable conversion columns: Measure campaigns in a way that matches the default attribution used on other platforms.
• Omni-channel bidding: Optimize for total online and offline sales.
• Local offers: Showcase in-store offers to nearby shoppers.
• Promotion assets: Highlight special occasions and promotional text.

7. TikTok Releases Tips for Luxury Brands

Are you a luxury brand? TikTok has some help for you!

According to a recent survey conducted by AYTM, TikTok reports that the reasons for making luxury purchases have evolved. The data suggests:

• 58% of users save luxury content after searching for it on TikTok
• 43% visit a brand’s website after watching luxury content
• 53% of TikTok users have purchased a luxury item in the past 4 months
• 1 in 3 TikTok users discover luxury products through a creator’s content
• 26% of TikTok users wait for creator reviews before making a purchase

Using this information, TikTok has suggested the 4 Ls of Luxury:

• Listen: listen to your consumers and understand how they interact with your content
• Lure: analyze how to spark questions and create better content
• Loop: understand how the platform fuels movement and how users can reimagine your posts
• Lift: how you can use TikTok clips to create conversations that make your audience feel understood and supported

You can read the entire report here.

8. Retail and Auto Digital Ad Spending Outlook Dims

According to eMarketer, the digital ad spending outlook isn’t looking great for the holiday season. The most affected categories include retail and auto.

The report claims that digital ad spending is down due to tariff impacts and suggests it could remain that way throughout the typically busy holiday season. eMarketer claims that:

• Full-year digital ad spend is down two percentage points to a 9.5% growth year over year
• The automotive sector is expected to grow just 2.2%, instead of the more than 11% initially forecasted
• Retail is expected to grow 7.4%, down from the initial forecast as well

One category experiencing higher growth is CPG spending. This category was predicted to grow 6.1%, but will likely reach 7.9%. Most of that growth comes from mobile ad spending.

9. Gen Z Expected to Spend 22.5% Less This Holiday Season

Speaking of the holiday rush, you might be in trouble if Gen Z is your target market. According to eMarketer, they are expected to spend an average of $1,357 this holiday season, down from last year’s $1,752.

Gen Z isn’t the only one tightening their purse strings. Millennial spending is also expected to be down 1.4% from last year. Gen X and Baby Boomers, however, are expected to spend more.

The study also found that:

• 24% of US holiday shoppers aged 18 to 29 will buy gifts earlier in the year
• 27% of younger consumers will spend less on gifts
• 27% say they will buy fewer gifts overall

Those who responded said that higher prices and tariff-related concerns are to blame for their lower spending this season.

10. Instagram Hits 3 Billion Monthly Active Users

3 billion monthly active users on Instagram!

Instagram is excited about hitting this milestone. In an announcement on Instagram, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said: “If you look at the last few years, almost all of our growth has been driven by DMs, Reels, and recommendations. Because of that, we’re going to continue to focus on those products and reorient the app more around DMs, Reels, and recommendations over the next couple of months.”

So, if you aren’t using Instagram for your brand right now, or you’ve fallen off of the app, you might want to consider revamping your Instagram strategy in the coming weeks.

11. YouTube to Reinstate Banned Channels

YouTube announced this week that it will reinstate channels previously banned under old COVID-19 and election integrity rules.

The video platform told the U.S. Congress that they will prioritize “free expression” and replace fact-checking mechanisms with context notes to allow users add clarifications to videos, similar to the tool X already uses.

For advertisers, this results in more options to serve ads on, but also presents potential brand-safety concerns. To avoid showing up on videos and channels you’d prefer to stay away from, be sure to closely monitor the placements of your ads.

Weekly Homework

1. Review how your site managed during the Google August Spam Update rollout. If your ranking has tanked, review the new policies and implement changes to ensure your site aligns with Google’s updates.
2. If local SEO is important to you, focus on building up review content to increase your visibility.
3. Review Google Ads’ newest Demand Gen Drops.
4. Read the TikTok luxury brands report to see how you can use the short-form video platform to better market your luxury brand.
5. If you need to reach Gen Z consumers this holiday season, be aware that they are expected to spend less this year. Tailor your messaging to emphasize affordability, sustainability, or resale options. You can also offer value bundles or highlight discounts, specifically on places like TikTok and Instagram, where Gen Z shoppers typically browse.
6. Consider ways to improve your Instagram strategy as the app continues to grow and invest in more features.
7. Double check the placement of your YouTube ads to ensure they are only appearing in places you feel comfortable with.

Digital Marketing News 9/13/2025 to 9/19/2025

This week: ChatGPT usage surges with 700M weekly users, holiday shoppers brace for fewer discounts and earlier buying, and YouTube dominates streaming with 13.4% of total watch time.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. 1 in 4 ChatGPT Searches is Information-Seeking

A new study from OpenAI and Harvard is shedding light on how consumers are using ChatGPT.

In analyzing 1.1 million conversations between May 2024 and June 2025, the data revealed that:

• 24% of ChatGPT conversations are information seeking, up from 14% last year
• ChatGPT reached more than 700 million weekly users
• The AI app sends approximately 2.5 billion messages a day, or 18 billion a week

The way ChatGPT is being used is changing, too:

• 77% of users' searches fall into one of three categories: Practical Guidance, Seeking Information, or Writing
• 29% of searches are for Practical Guidance
• 24% of searches are for Writing
• 24% of searches are Seeking Information
• Non-work usage now accounts for 73% of searches

It’s also interesting to note that the growth of ChatGPT usage in low-income countries is more than 4x that of the growth in high-income ones.

2. Holiday Marketing: 40% of Shoppers Expect Fewer Discounts

A new study by Gartner reveals that consumers are anticipating a distinct holiday season this year.

Citing a shaky economy, the data is predicting the slowest holiday sales increase since the pandemic. According to Brad Jashinsky, a director analyst at Gartner, “Consumers are expecting to pay more. They’re expecting to see fewer discounts. And so as a marketer… It's really about how consumers are feeling. How can you showcase value at every touch point and in every message?”

Interesting findings include:

• 40% of consumers prefer brand-specific websites
• 43% plan on using a mass retail app for purchases
• 12% say they’ll use the brand-specific app
• 7% say they’ll shop on social media
• 25% say they’ve purchased gifts during summer sales

Jashinsky says that, if you want to get ahead this holiday season, you’ll have “to do a lot more personalized promotions, whether it’s through loyalty programs, through targeted advertising or audiences. “So you’re not having to overly discount, but you’re strategically discounting.”

3. YouTube Dominates Streaming

Speaking of YouTube, the video platform is still coming up as number one when it comes to streaming watch time. According to July 2025 data from Nielsen, 13.4% of all streaming is done on YouTube – that’s almost as much as Disney+, Amazon Prime Channel, Roku Channel, and Tubi combined.

Additional data found that:

• Streaming makes up 45.3% of all ad-supported TV viewing
• 62% of US adults have moved to streaming-only services
• Netflix is the second most popular service, with 8.8% of all watch time

Why We Care: Streaming ads are becoming a really popular way to reach your audience. But if you want to reach them, you have to know which platform they’re watching. If these numbers show anything, it’s that YouTube is probably a good bet.

4. Google Adds AI Mode to Chrome

Google is bringing AI Mode directly into the Chrome browser, allowing users to ask questions from the address bar and even about the page they’re viewing. AI Mode provides conversational responses, follow-ups, and AI Overviews, similar to what’s already in Google Search.

The feature is rolling out in the U.S. (English) first, with more regions to follow. For SEOs, note that AI Mode queries won’t be separated in Search Console, making tracking more difficult.

Why We Care: Google is steadily weaving AI Mode into its core products. With Chrome adoption, expect this experience to reach a massive user base, and continue shaping the future of search.

5. Google Refines AI Max to Win Over Advertisers

Google is re-pitching AI Max, its AI-powered ad suite, with a revamped 26-page deck aimed at easing advertiser concerns. The tool promises smarter search ads by matching queries, customizing copy, and auto-directing users to landing pages.

Advertiser Concerns:

• Brand safety risks (AI pulling misleading or inaccurate claims)
• Misinterpretation of sector nuances (wrong text, links, imagery)
• Budget leakage from search into display

Google’s Response:

• Added safeguards like negative keyword lists, URL exclusions, and asset removals
• Copy now pulled from brand-approved sources
• Recommendation: avoid testing AI Max on campaigns under $50/day

Looking ahead, Google will test shopping and text ads under AI answers in the U.S., with ad placements inside AI responses rolling out in Q4 2025.

Why We Care: AI Max offers automation and smarter targeting, but questions remain around control, brand safety, and spend efficiency, issues that could shape how brands approach AI-powered campaigns.

6. TikTok Gets a Fourth Extension

The time was coming for TikTok to divest or sell to an American company. If they hadn’t made the necessary moves, the app would have been banned in the United States as of September 16th.

However, the White House announced that it needs a little more time to work out all the sale details. Instead of a September 16th deadline, a fourth Executive Order gives them until December 16th to figure it all out.

While things have been moving along, including reports that Oracle will be a key partner in the sale, nothing is permanent, as of today.

7. Snapchat Releases Report on Parenting’s Impact on Social Media Usage

Have you ever considered how becoming a parent impacted your social media usage? Snapchat was wondering, so they partnered with Havas Media Network to find out.

The recently published study notes that:

• 59% of parents say they use social platforms more frequently since becoming a parent
• 80% of parents use more features on the apps
• 74% post more frequently on social media
• 58% make more purchases on social media

While the study showed that parents are using social media for a variety of parenting-related reasons, they are also using it for themselves. Many respondents reported using social platforms as a way to connect with friends, discover new content, or feel comfortable expressing themselves.

The study also revealed that social media has a significant influence on both parents and children when it comes to purchasing decisions. Just check out the number of people who said social media influenced these types of purchases:

• Toys and Games: 90%
• Packaged Food and Beverage: 75%
• Online Entertainment: 75%
• Apparel: 72%
• Smaller Tech: 68%
• Larger Tech: 66%
• Auto: 58%
• Accessories: 54%
• Personal Care: 47%

This is excellent insight for brands that are trying to break into markets targeted toward parents and kids. You can read the entire study here.

8. Video Emerges as Key Source for AI-Powered Search

An interesting article explained how video is quickly becoming source material for AI-powered search engines, signaling once again how critical video should be in your marketing strategy. With Google’s AI Overviews pulling from platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and even Reddit, the line between search and social is blurring fast.

Key Takeaways:

• Video is now core to SEO: Google is treating video as credible, authoritative source material, not just text.
• Short-form drives discovery: TikToks and Reels influence what shows up in AI Overviews, especially for Gen Z audiences.
• Optimization matters: Titles, transcripts, schema markup, and captions are essential for video discoverability.
• Visibility > Virality: Videos don’t need millions of views—what matters is surfacing when users search.

Why We Care: Brands can no longer treat video as optional. Building a video library that solves customer problems directly will be key to earning placement in AI-driven results and staying visible in the new search landscape.

9. Every Major Content Management Platform Improves on Google’s Core Web Vitals

Content management platforms are improving when it comes to Google’s Core Web Vitals, according to a new report by the open source HTTPArchive community.

The report uses two public databases to combine their data, including Chrome UX Report (CrUX) and HTTP Archive. When analyzing the data between June and July of 2025, the numbers showed:

• Joomla had the highest level of growth – up 3.23%
• WordPress improved the least, with an improvement of only 0.9%
• Duda has the highest percentage of websites with a good CWV score at 84.96%
• WordPress has the lowest percentage of websites with a good CWV score of 44.34%

Even with the troubling numbers, WordPress websites are still generally high-ranking.

10. YouTube Releases Monetization Updates

Want to improve your YouTube monetization? Check out these new updates!

In a recent announcement, YouTube revealed it paid out over $100 billion to creators, media companies, and artists in the past four years – and it’s about to get even better.

A new suite of monetization tools includes:

• Dynamic Sponsorship: add brand segments to your content instead of permanently embedding them
• Short Links: the ability to link directly to a sponsor’s website from Shorts
• Shopping: automatic timestamps showing products in videos to make it easier to tag and link them
• Live Streaming: the ability to add live ads next to streams, instead of interrupting them

If you’re interested in learning more about these monetization opportunities, be sure to read YouTube’s latest creator blog.

11. Amazon and Netflix Create Ad Alliance

Speaking of streaming ads, Amazon and Netflix recently announced a new partnership that promises to “blur the lines between brand-building and performance marketing.”

As a part of this new partnership, advertisers can now purchase Netflix ad inventory through Amazon’s demand-side platform (DSP). This option is available in 11 countries, including the US, and aims to make advertising on Netflix easier for premium Amazon sellers.

This could also make premium advertising more accessible to smaller brands. According to Emarketer analyst Max Willens, “It’s more of an access issue. The spend and technical know-how needed to get a seat on Amazon and start buying inventory on Prime Video or Netflix is so much lower than the way things were once upon a time.”

It’ll be interesting to see how many small to mid-sized brands take advantage of this premium-level streaming option.

12. Amazon Rolls Out New AI Creative Partner

Amazon wants to help you make more sales – and it's tapping into AI to assist.

This week, the retail giant revealed its new AI tool: Seller Assistant. In the blog announcing its release, Amazon called it an “always-on, agentic AI-powered partner that helps sellers launch, manage, and grow their business.”

The tool can help with:

• Ad campaign planning
• Analyzing customer data
• Creating product pages
• Finalizing creative assets
• Inventory and fulfillment challenges
• Monitoring account health
• Developing a business growth strategy

The ads created with this new AI partner will be run across Amazon DSP, Sponsored Display, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Brand Video.

It is currently available across the United States and is expected to be introduced internationally in the next few months.

13. ChatGPT Search Update Targets Accuracy and Shopping

OpenAI has updated ChatGPT search with improvements designed to cut down on hallucinations, better detect shopping intent, and present answers in a cleaner format.

Key Updates:

• Factuality: Fewer hallucinations and more accurate answers.
• Shopping: Smarter at recognizing when users want product recommendations.
• Formatting: Cleaner, easier-to-read responses without losing detail.

Why We Care: As AI search tools like ChatGPT gain traction, they’re becoming viable alternatives to Google. Still, it’s worth remembering that AI search currently drives less than 1% of referrals, a small but growing slice of the traffic pie.

Weekly Homework:

• Start considering how you can improve personalization in your holiday sales marketing.
• If you post political or election-type content, be sure your content aligns with YMYL guidelines.
• Want to connect with more parents on social media? Download Snapchat’s newest study for some valuable insights.
• Consider tweaking your YouTube strategy to align with the new monetization tools.
• Take a look at your SEO and content strategies to find ways that you can increase your chances of ending up in ChatGPT searches.
• If you’re an Amazon seller in the United States, you might want to log in and check out the Seller Assistant to see how this new tool could improve your sales.

Digital Marketing News 9/6/2025 to 9/12/2025

This week: AI sends more broken links, Anthropic faces $1.5B settlement, and TikTok dominates Gen Z searches.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Study Shows AI Has Three Times Higher Hallucination Rate Than Google

A new study from Ahrefs shows that AI sends users to 404 pages three times more than Google does.

The study examined 16 million URLs and found the following 404 rates:

• ChatGPT: 1.01%
• Perplexity: 0.31%
• Copilot: 0.34%
• Gemini: 0.21%
• Claude: 0.58%
• Mistral: 0.12%
• Google: 0.15%

Overall, AI assistants are directing searchers to broken or fabricated links at a 2.87 times higher rate than a regular Google Search.

While this is a problem for people using AI to write their content, it can be a bit of a benefit for the companies still capturing that 404 traffic. Instead of chasing traffic, improve your 404 page to inspire those sent there accidentally to stay and search for what they need on your page.

2. Study Reveals E-E-A-T is the Answer to AI’s SEO Disruption

Search Engine Journal recently released its fifth annual State of SEO report. The findings are clear: original content is your key to SEO success.

The report focused on which SEO activities deliver the highest ROI, how teams are using AI, the biggest SEO challenges, and more.

The data shows that original content creation continues to have the greatest positive impact on SEO strategies, while cross-functional collaboration comes in last. Of those who responded, 58.5% said that their biggest future SEO investment is in human-authored content with AI support.

To read more of the interesting findings, download SEJ’s State of SEO report here.

3. Ranking on Google Doesn’t Guarantee Visibility in ChatGPT, Study Finds

A new study shows that dominating Google’s search results doesn’t automatically translate to being visible in AI-generated answers.

Research from Chatoptic, analyzing 15 brands across five categories, found just a 62% overlap between Google’s first-page rankings and mentions in ChatGPT responses. In other words, SEO success alone isn’t enough to secure a presence in generative AI results.

Key insights:

• Brands on Google’s first page were mentioned in ChatGPT only 62% of the time.
• Google rank had almost no predictive power for ChatGPT positioning (0.034 correlation).
• Enabling ChatGPT’s browsing feature increased overlap with Google rankings by just 1%.
• High alignment: Coursera (86–87%) and GoDaddy (83%).
• Low alignment: Hostinger (32–34%) and edX (47–48%).
• By category: Online courses showed the highest alignment (65%), while hotel booking lagged (58%).
• Query intent didn’t make a difference: exploratory, feature-based, and brand-focused searches all averaged 61–63% overlap.

Why We Care: Many marketers have assumed that traditional SEO strategies will naturally carry over to AI platforms like ChatGPT. This study challenges that assumption, highlighting the need for a separate generative engine optimization (GEO) strategy to capture visibility in AI-driven answers.

4. AI Company to Pay $1.5B Settlement for Stealing Book Content

Anthropic, the company behind AI assistant Claude, has proposed a settlement of $1.5 billion in Bartz v. Anthropic.

The case, filed in the United States District Court, Northern District of California, claims that Anthropic pirated books to help train the AI assistant. Previously, the judge had ruled that any books that were lawfully obtained could be used to train AI. However, the millions of pirated books were an example of copyright infringement.

With an estimated 500,000 pirated books, it means that each book would receive about $3,000 if the settlement is approved. This marks “the largest copyright recovery ever,” according to Justin Nelson, counsel for the plaintiff class.

Why We Care: Since AI launched, copyright infringement has been a topic of conversation. If this settlement is approved, it could create a wave of licensing deals, clearer disclosures, and more per-work payouts for publishers and writers.

5. Survey Finds That Most Marketers Aren’t Ready for GEO

Despite the growing importance of AI-powered search, most companies are not investing in generative engine optimization (GEO). New survey data from Centerfield, highlights a clear skills and resource gap among digital marketers.

According to Centerfield’s survey:

• 63% of marketers said their company isn’t dedicating time, budget, or staff to GEO.
• On average, only 9% of marketing resources go to GEO, compared with 24% for SEO and 36% for social campaigns.
• Just 33% of marketers report a good or expert understanding of GEO—compared with 72% for SEO.
• 41% expect their company to allocate more GEO resources in the next year.

Why We Care: As AI-generated search summaries become increasingly common, brands that don’t optimize for visibility in answer-driven formats risk falling behind. Traditional SEO success alone won’t guarantee presence in AI search results.

6. Google Gets Rid of 6 Structured Data Types

In an announcement this week, Google shared that it will be removing six structured data types from Search Console, Rich Results Tests, and the list of Search appearance filters.

This affects reporting and testing for:

• Course Info
• Claim Review
• Estimated Salary
• Learning Video
• Special Announcement
• Vehicle Listing

Google says that dropping these six types won’t affect rankings, but instead that they “believe this change contributes to a cleaner, more focused Search results page for everyone.” The data is expected to be gone by October 1, 2025.

Action Item: If these structured data types are important to you, you should update your queries or dashboards that rely on them to minimize the impact on your Search Console data downloads.

7. Nearly All ChatGPT Users Still Turn to Google, Data Shows

Even as AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT gain traction, Google remains the dominant starting point for most users. According to new data from Similarweb, nearly all ChatGPT users also rely on Google:

• 95.3% of ChatGPT users visited Google in August.
• Only 14.3% of Google users visited ChatGPT in the same period.

International SEO expert Aleyda Solis added context, noting that ChatGPT received 5.8 billion visits, compared with Google’s massive 83.8 billion visits in August.

Traffic trends to watch:

• Some reports suggest ChatGPT referral traffic is declining, while Bing has overtaken it for certain sites. Results vary, so analytics monitoring is essential.
• For example, Search Engine Land saw ChatGPT traffic surge 1,233.5% in August, surpassing Bing—but Google organic search still sent 37x more traffic than ChatGPT.

AI tools are expanding rapidly, but Google is far from losing its position as the main traffic driver. As Solis notes, “LLMs are expanding and evolving (not killing) search as a discovery/marketing channel.” Clark adds, “While ChatGPT continues to grow, users keep returning to Google despite AI alternatives.”

Why We Care: AI search is growing rapidly, but traditional search engines still drive the bulk of traffic. Studies from Datos and SparkToro show that search engine usage remains at 95%, and even heavy AI users often cross-check answers on Google, according to the Nielsen Norman Group.

8. Audio Files Can Now Be Uploaded to Google Gemini

A big change was announced this week concerning Google Gemini! After listening to user requests, Google has added the ability to upload audio files to the platform.

The free plan allows you to upload up to 10 minutes and 5 prompts per day, while the paid plans, AI Pro and AI Ultra, increase to 3 hours.

This is great news for individuals who want to utilize AI to generate transcripts for podcasts, webinars, customer calls, interviews, and other audio content. The AI tool will help convert these audio files into podcast show notes, action items, or conversation briefs.

9. 86% of Gen Z is Using TikTok Searches Weekly

A new study from WARC shows that Gen Z and Millennials are loving TikTok Search. The study shows that TikTok rivals other online marketplaces, AI search platforms, and even traditional Google searches.

Of the most widely searched Gen Z topics, TikTok was used over traditional search media at significantly rising rates, including:

• Beauty, fashion, and lifestyle Advice: +26%
• Trending topics and viral content: +24%
• Cooking and recipes: +23%
• Online communities and groups: +23%
• Entertainment: +22%
• DIY and home improvement: +15%
• Local businesses and services: +14%
• Parenting advice: +14%
• Travel planning and directions: +12%
• Health and fitness: +11%
• News and current events: +11%
• Shopping, product comparison, and reviews: +10%

The study also revealed that TikTok is more than just a dancing app.

• 70% of users say it's more engaging and entertaining than other apps
• 3 in 4 users say it's their go-to place to discover new brands
• 61% said it inspires them to take action more than other platforms
• 1 in 5 users have made a direct purchase after seeing something on TikTok

Why We Care: If you want to reach Gen Z and your brand isn’t on TikTok yet, it probably should be.

10. Reddit Ads is Bringing Value for Tech Marketers

In a new report with TransUnion, Reddit revealed just how powerful its new ads are – especially for tech marketers.

The report states that “TransUnion’s meta-analysis showed that Reddit consistently outperforms other social platforms on return on ad spend (ROAS). Even with a smaller share of market spend, Reddit delivers disproportionately more marketing-driven sales. In fact, it was more efficient than 4 out of 5 other paid social platforms.”

It also said that the indexed ROAS by ad format was:

• Text: 211
• Image: 201
• Carousel: 172
• Video: 149

Reddit attributes its success to the expansion of its ad products, as well as improved AI targeting options.

11. Pinterest Guide Shares Holiday Marketing Tips

It may only be September, but Pinterest is gearing up for the holiday season by releasing its Holiday Marketing Tips guide.

The guide reveals that “[a]lmost half of monthly users on Pinterest are likely to create festive wishlists they revisit later, setting the stage for thoughtful, considered gifting. Self-gifting wishlists build momentum from October and peak in November, followed by a surge in “gift ideas for others” in December.”

To capitalize on this flow of consumers, the platform suggests:

• Personalizing your pins
• Designing them to be saved
• Invest in Pin Ads
• Use Pinterest Trends to predict seasonal trends in your industry

You can read the entire guide here.

12. Google Wants Advertisers to Lean into AI This Holiday Season

The holiday season no longer starts on Black Friday. Now, shoppers are spreading out their holiday spending from October through January. Google offered some advice on how to play the long game and capture that attention.

The search engine suggests:

• Inspire your shoppers, don’t just sell to them
• Use AI-powered Search Overviews and AI Mode to place ads where your consumers are
• Use YouTube to expand your reach
• Invest in Demand Gen to send local offers to nearby shoppers
• Embrace Google’s Creator partnerships hub and YouTube Masthead tools to drive conversions
• Increase ad performance with AI tools such as Product Studio and Asset Studio
• Set your total campaign budget across Search, P-Max, Shopping, YouTube, and Demand Gen for 3-90 days, allowing Google AI to adjust spending at peak demand
• Use Google’s new loyalty offerings to grab re-purchasers

13. Google Ads Suggested Plans

Inside the Performance Planner Tool, Google Ads released Suggested Plans. This new feature gives advertisers pre-built forecasting frameworks to simplify ad set up.

How it works:

• Optimized for goals: Each plan highlights the best potential return based on your current setup.
• Organized by campaign type: Search, Performance Max, Shopping, and App campaigns each get tailored plan options.
• Smart forecasting: The tool groups eligible campaigns by type and simulates scenarios to predict which settings are most likely to drive returns.

Suggested plans won’t always appear. That happens if:

• Your campaigns aren’t eligible for forecasting.
• Your setup is already fully optimized.
• You’re using portfolio bid strategies across accounts.
• Your account structure prevents grouping (like with CSS restrictions in some regions).

14. Google Updated Reporting for Demand Gen Campaigns

Google is breaking down reporting for YouTube placements. Now, advertisers can see separate KPIs for YouTube In-Stream, In-Feed and Shorts.

Luckily, there’s no extra work to be done on your part. This breakdown is visible in the campaign view.

Having clear campaign performance KPIs will help you plan for 2026 and onward.

15. Google AI Mode Now Available in More Languages

Although it has been available in 180 countries and territories for a few weeks now, Google AI Mode is now expanding its reach by adding support for five languages in addition to English.

Just this week, Google announced that AI Mode will now be available in Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian. This means that more searchers will be able to use Google AI to find your brand in their native languages.

While you can track your traffic from AI Mode, it’s all still a bit convoluted since Google lumps it together with traditional search within the Search Console.

Why We Care: If you are a brand that wants to target users who speak any of those five languages, this is an incredible opportunity to expand your reach and generate new traffic to your site.

Weekly Homework:

• Improve your 404 page to encourage people sent there accidentally by AI assistants to stay and explore your content anyway.
• If you’re interested in transcribing audio files, head over to Google Gemini to test out its newest feature.
• Download SEJ’s State of SEO report to see how others are leveraging SEO to generate leads, increase traffic, and achieve success in digital marketing.
• Explore ways to add to or increase TikTok in your social media marketing strategy.
• Download and read through the Reddit Ads study from Reddit and TransUnion.
• Start your holiday marketing planning by reading Pinterest and Google’s holiday marketing tips guides.

Digital Marketing News 8/30/2025 to 9/5/2025

This week: Apple unveils AI search engine, Instagram outpaces Facebook in EU, and Google must disclose ad pricing.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Ads Lets You Select Location Assets Through Google Maps

Make it easier to manage existing and new location assets with your Google Ads. Select your businesses by searching Google Maps for location assets and extensions.

So, if Google Business Profile or Chain stores are working, select up to 10 locations right from Google Maps to link within your Ads account.

You can enter a physical address or a key phrase to help you search locations and link to your ad account. You can add up to 10 locations total.
This new update will help you manage location assets for all your campaigns in Google Ads.

2. U.S. Court Requests More Transparency After Google Raises Ad Prices Without Telling Advertisers

In that same opinion, Judge Mehta addressed the fact that Google’s internal “pricing knobs” increased ad prices by 5% to 15% at a time, without alerting advertisers.

In the opinion, the court wrote: “When it made pricing changes, Google took care to avoid blowback from advertisers,” and it “endeavored to raise prices incrementally, so that advertisers would view price increases as within the ordinary price fluctuations, or ‘noise,’ generated by the auctions.”

The court ordered Google to disclose better how ad auction pricing works and when it is adjusted. Once the reporting is determined, they must notify advertisers about any updates that will affect their costs.

Why We Care: Any changes to benefit advertisers are a win for digital marketers.

3. Instagram is Outpacing Facebook in the EU

If you want to target EU consumers, you might want to turn to Instagram instead of Facebook. In Meta’s newest EU performance updates, they shared that the original photo-sharing app is growing at ten times the pace of Facebook.

The findings showed that Facebook had 263.6 million monthly active users between January and June 2025. In that same period, Instagram reached 281.8 million active users.

Additionally, Facebook even lost users in the Netherlands, Greece, and Germany. While Facebook remains fairly popular among EU users, Instagram is gaining a bigger focus in the region.

Biggest Takeaway: If you want to grow your brand’s EU market, consider leaning more into Instagram than Facebook.

4. LinkedIn Engagement is Booming. Here’s the Secret

LinkedIn is seeing record high levels of engagement. How can you take advantage of it?

Posting frequency. Post more often on LinkedIn and you’re going to get more reach. More posts mean more opportunities for people to see your content. LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards activity, so the more you post, the better.

Here’s some conclusions and recommendations based on this data:

1. Post 2-5 times per week to increase your post impressions to 1k per update
2. Post 6-10 times per week to boost post impressions to 5k
3. Post 11+ times to get more than 16k impressions per post

5. The EU Is Loving TikTok

Instagram isn’t the only app experiencing massive growth in the EU. TikTok also shared booming numbers between January and June 2025.

The data released shows that TikTok has grown 25% since September 2023. The short-form video app currently has 170 million users in Europe and 30 million users in the UK.

Between the growth in the EU, the focus on the detection of IP infringement and Community Guideline violations, and its in-app shopping push, TikTok is clearly making moves to become an even more important player in the ecommerce/social media space.

6. AI Search is Coming to Siri

This week, Apple announced its own AI-powered search engine, known as World Knowledge Answers. The goal is to have this search engine power Siri and Safari by Spring 2026.

Apple claims that this will go beyond fact-checking. The AI-powered tool will also generate summaries that blend text, images, video, and local results, giving Apple a stronger foothold in everyday search.

If this works as Apple intends, it could change the way billions of searches are performed on iPhones. It will also open up more visibility options for brands and businesses, who will no longer have to rely solely on Google rankings to be noticed.

7. Google Business Links Get an Upgrade

Calling all Google Business Profile users: there are some new upgrades you need to know about.

This week, Google introduced several new additions to the Business Links policies and guidelines section. If you use Google Business Profile to boost your local SEO, you’ll be extremely interested in these sections:

• Dedicated Landing Pages - All multi-location businesses must have dedicated landing pages for each location. You can no longer use general landing pages for every location.
• Direct Action Completion - Links must trigger the designated action. This includes links to social media sites, messaging links, app store links, and link shorteners.
• Business Links Crawlability Policy - Google will crawl your links, and if it cannot verify them, they will be removed. This means you must give Google unrestricted access, removing bot blockers and CAPTCHA.

Action Item: Take time to review all of the upgrades to make sure you don’t inhibit your Google Business Profile’s performance.

8. 40.1% of AI Facts Come from Reddit

According to a new report from SEMRush, AI loves Reddit.

The study was based on 5,000 keywords and 150,000 LLM citations. SEMRush looked at AI responses in four popular chatbots: Google Search Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.

The data found that 40.1% of facts returned by AI bots came from Reddit. The next most popular source of information was Wikipedia at 26.3%, followed by YouTube and Google at 23.5% and 23.3% respectively.

Why We Care: This illustrates the need for a diversified approach to your digital marketing efforts. It’s no longer good enough to simply rank in the top spot on Google. Now, you need to find ways to promote your brand on other sites, such as Reddit, Wikipedia, Yelp, and more.

9. OpenAI to Offer Parental Controls

OpenAI announced this week that they are adding new guardrails to its platform. Within the next month, the AI company will now route sensitive conversations to reasoning models like GPT-5 and introduce parental controls.

These new features come after the death of a teenager who discussed self-harm with ChatGPT, which provided him with methods to complete his desires. His parents are now suing OpenAI for wrongful death.

Since then, OpenAI has acknowledged its shortcomings and said they “recently introduced a real-time router that can choose between efficient chat models and reasoning models based on the conversation context. We’ll soon begin to route some sensitive conversations—like when our system detects signs of acute distress—to a reasoning model, like GPT‑5-thinking, so it can provide more helpful and beneficial responses, regardless of which model a person first selected.”

They are also introducing parental controls that allow parents to link their accounts to their teens’ accounts to monitor the usage and responses. They also rolled out in-app reminders that encourage breaks during long sessions.

10. Disney Hit with $10 Million FTC Fine

Disney just lost $10 million to the FTC. The proposed settlement comes from allegations that Disney didn’t take children’s privacy seriously enough.

The allegations claim that Disney uploaded child-directed videos to YouTube without marking them as “Made for Kids.” Because of this error, the viewers of the videos were served with targeted ads.

According to a complaint filed by the FTC and the DOJ, "Disney makes very popular child-directed videos available through YouTube and fails to properly mark videos as child-directed in some cases, allowing targeted advertising through collection of personal information from children without parental notice or consent.”

Disney offered to pay the $10 million fine and agreed to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. They will also establish a program to review which videos should be labeled as 'Made for Kids'.

Why We Care: As more and more people become concerned with user privacy, it’s essential that your brand take it seriously. If not, you could be the next company hit with massive FTC fines.

11. New Loyalty Features Come to Google Ads and Merchant Center

Everyone loves their loyal customers! Now, Google Ads is making it easier for you to reward them for that loyalty.

A new update allows retailers to add member-only pricing and shipping benefits to free and paid listings on Google.

According to Google, these personalized annotations resulted in a 20% increase in click-through rates for Sephora US, which piloted the program. In addition to these special shopper discounts, Google Ads is also launching a retention goal in loyalty mode to help retailers optimize their budgets for their highest valued customers. The goal is to tailor their bids to drive higher lifetime value.

That isn’t all. Google says that more changes are coming to help retailers guide more customers through their journey using Google Ads. Stay tuned for more information to be announced at Google’s Think Retail event on September 10th.

Weekly Homework

1. If expanding your visibility in the EU is important to your brand, now is the time to explore adding or increasing your Instagram and TikTok budgets. Both social media platforms are seeing major boosts in their monthly active users, and with the right strategies, you could take advantage of their popularity.
2. Consider ways to promote your brand or build your authority through sites like Reddit or Wikipedia to help capture AI crawling.
3. Google Ads users should explore how to use the new loyalty features to increase their revenue and create stronger relationships with their most loyal customers.
4. Keep an eye on the federal Google cases to see what types of transparency changes come to Google Search and Google Ads.

Digital Marketing News 8/23/2025 to 8/29/2025

This week: Google Verified replaces multiple trust badges, AI tool usage surges nationwide, and YouTube dominates Gen Z media habits.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Rolls Out August Spam Update

Brace yourself for possible ranking and traffic swings! Google’s August Spam Update started rolling out on August 26th.

The update applies to internet users worldwide and is expected to take a few weeks to complete.

No additional details were provided, but multi-week rollouts are typically reserved for major search updates, so keep an eye on your Search Console trends, as well as your query and page-type patterns and peer movements.

2. Report Shows How Fragmented US Media Consumption Is

If you want to reach Gen Z, try YouTube! According to YouGov’s State of US Media Consumption report, YouTube is the fastest-growing social media platform among the valuable (and sometimes hard to reach) generation.

In addition to finding out that 56% of Gen Zers say they use YouTube more now than they did a year ago, the report also found that:

• 69% of Americans say they scroll social media while doing other things
• 26% of Americans consume 5+ hours of media per day
• 33% of Americans watch live TV for 3+ hours a day
• 63% of streamers use Netflix, while 55% watch Amazon Prime

When looking at Gen Z specifically, the report shows that:

• 48% of Gen Z and Millennials listen to podcasts while doing household chores
• 50% of Gen Z have purchased a product or service because of a social media ad

Dare Schenck, VP at YouGov America, said: “In 2025, the American media landscape is more dynamic and fragmented than ever before, with content flowing across countless platforms and formats. YouGov’s report finds that competition for audience share is fierce across television, audio, and social media. While well-known brands like Netflix, Spotify, and Facebook are used by most consumers, Americans are using a variety of platforms for their media consumption needs, often simultaneously.”

3. Changes Are Coming to Google Local Services Ads

Google announced a big change to its Local Services Ads. Starting in October 2025, multiple Local Service Ads trust signals will be replaced with one central indication: Google Verified.

This new badge replaces services such as Google Guaranteed, Googled Screened, License Verified by Google, and the Money Back Guarantee program. The goal is to make things more consistent and streamlined, so that consumers only have to look for one badge, instead of multiple.

If your business is active on Google (and it should be!), here’s what you can do before the October rollout:

• Make sure all licenses, insurance, and backup checks are up-to-date.
• Approach verification like an ongoing compliance process.
• Educate your team on the changes.
• Monitor performance to see if the new badge affects click-through or conversion rates.

Remember, this isn’t just a cosmetic upgrade. It’s a way to show consumers that your business is trustworthy and credible.

4. Study Shows Hosting Defenses Are Ineffective Against WordPress Threats

A recent case study published by Patchstack shows that Cloudflare and other firewall and malware solutions may not protect against threats and attack vectors as well as previously thought.

The study found that:

• Standard hosting defenses had an 87.8% failure rate against most WordPress plugin vulnerabilities.
• Virtual patching by providers like Monarx and Imunify did not stop WordPress-specific exploits.
• Generic firewalls and WAFs, like SQLi and XSS, caught some broad attacks, but not WordPress-specific ones.
• Patchstack consistently blocked vulnerabilities in real time.

You can read the entire case study here.

Speaking of WordPress threats, another vulnerability left over 70,000 sites at risk this week. It affects the Inspiro WordPress theme by WPZoom and makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to install plugins that can trick administrators into clicking unsecure links.

5. Snapchat Wants to Help You Connect with Consumers Using Gen AI

Snapchat recently partnered with PMG on a new study to help determine how to achieve greater success with marketing and AI.

The study polled over 14,800 respondents in 7 markets: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., and the U.S., and found that AI is having a major impact on how consumers connect with advertisers.

One of the biggest takeaways from this study was that consumers want to be informed when AI is used in advertising.

Once you increase the transparency, the results are well worth it. When using GenAI-powered video ads, brands saw:

• 38% increase in brand awareness
• 21% increase in brand favorability
• 21% increase in purchase intent
• 10% increase in first choice
• 11% increase in consumers wanting product information
• 11% increase in consumers wanting to visit the website
• 12% increase in consumers recommending the brand to others
• 12% increase in consumers talking about the brand

If you want to explore all of the findings, click here to download the report.

6. AI Tool Usage Jumps to 38% of Americans – Up from 8% in 2023

Speaking of AI, a new study by Datos and SparkToro reveals that more than one in five Americans are now heavily utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Perplexity, Deepseek, or Gemini.

The study revealed that:

• 21% of U.S. users are using AI tools more than 10 times per month
• Overall usage rate jumped from 8% in 2023 to 38% in 2025.
• 95% of Americans use search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo
• 87% of Americans are heavy Google users

While users are indeed turning to AI tools more, the study also found that when people use AI tools, they tend to conduct more Google searches.

7. Gemini and X AI’s Grok Are Catching Up to ChatGPT

ChatGPT has long been the King of AI, but it seems like other AI tools are catching up to it.

In a review of two and a half years of data, a report shows the evolving use of AI products. Fourteen different companies appeared on the list of top tools, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, and Character AI.

Also included in the top ten were Google’s Gemini, Deepseek, and xAI’s Grok. Notably, for the first time ever, Google took four spots on the list of top 50 products, with Gemini, AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Google Labs all claiming spaces.

Read more of the findings, including which mobile apps are making the top 50 list, but reading the whole report here.

8. Brands (and Local Municipalities) Jump On Celebrity Engagement

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement this week – and everyone from Panera Bread to the City of Cleveland posted about it.

Whether you care about the engagement or not, it demonstrated one thing: a trend doesn’t have to be directly related to your content to turn into a big engagement source for your brand.

According to Miruna Dragomir, CMO at Planable, “Successful reactive marketing isn’t about jumping on every trend; it’s about participating in the right moments. Brands that avoid these pitfalls and maintain methodical approaches are creating long-term competitive advantages.”

Check out how this pop star + tight end engagement rounded up tens of thousands of reactions for everyone from Crumbl to Walmart by checking out ADWEEK’s favorite brand reactions here.

9. LinkedIn Says Professionals Rely on Real People First

A new LinkedIn report reveals that professionals trust their network more than they trust AI.

According to LinkedIn Corporate Communications, the report revealed that:

• 77% of B2B marketing leaders vet brands through their network
• 51% of professionals said that learning AI feels like learning another job
• 43% of professionals say their network is their #1 source of work advice, over search engines and AI tools
• 41% said that the current pace of AI is taking a toll on their well-being

There has also been an 82% increase in users posting about feeling overwhelmed by upcoming career and economic changes. With all the unknown and upcoming changes, it’s essential to continue leaning into community – real community. That’s probably why 80% of those surveyed said they are increasing their investment in community-driven content to build trust and relationships.

Weekly Homework

• If you’re a WordPress user, you might want to look into updated site defense solutions to protect against malware and vulnerabilities.
• Prepare your Google Business Profile for the new Google Verified program.
• Monitor your Google Search Console for ranking and traffic shifts due to Google’s August Spam Update.
• Download the Snapchat Gen-AI report to learn more about improving your marketing with the help of AI.
• Download YouGov’s media report to find new ways to reach your target audience.
• Explore ways to diversify your marketing across television, audio, and social media to reach every aspect of your target audience.
• Consider ways you can lean into more community-building content creation that centers around real people and their insights, over AI-generated content.

Digital Marketing News 8/16/2025 to 8/22/2025

This week: Gemini remembers past chats, ChatGPT integrates with Google tools, and streaming ads gain traction over traditional TV.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google Gemini Gets Personal

New Gemini updates were released this week. The AI bot now personalizes its replies with information from past chats.

The goal is to develop more personalized chats that feel like conversing with a partner, rather than a robot. If you would rather Gemini not remember your chats, there’s also an option for Temporary Chats.

This option is perfect when you just need to have a quick conversation or ask a one-off question. Temporary chats aren’t used to train models and are only kept for 72 hours.

2. ChatGPT Can Now Connect to Google Apps

If you want to incorporate ChatGPT into more aspects of your life, you’re going to love this most recent update.

OpenAI recently announced that its AI-bot can now connect to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts for Pro and Plus subscribers. According to the announcement: “Once you enable them, ChatGPT will automatically reference them when relevant, making it faster and easier to bring information from these tools into your conversations without having to manually select them each time. This capability is part of GPT-5 and will begin rolling out to Pro users globally this week, followed by Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu plans in the coming weeks.”

Unlike ChatGPT’s other integrations with Box, Canva, and Dropbox, if you want to connect your Gmail to your ChatGPT account, you’ll have to do it yourself. Just go to Settings → Connectors → Connect on the application.

3. Personalized Advertising Fuels Growth

According to a new study from the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), 86% of small and medium-sized businesses across Europe attribute their rapid growth to personalized advertising.

The study found that:

• 76% agreed that personalized digital ads make it possible to compete with large businesses
• 73% said it would be impossible to compete without personalized digital advertising
• 46% of businesses said the ads helped them earn more revenue
• 33% said they helped them hire more people

If regulatory practices were enacted that limited personalized ads:

• 47% of businesses said they would anticipate price increases to make up for advertising spend increases
• 21% would have to reduce staff
• 56% said they would have to add a paywall or move to a subscription-based service model
• 74% said they would have to increase advertising spending

Why We Care: This data highlights the positive impact of digital advertising, demonstrating how it can foster stronger connections between consumers and brands, while also driving revenue growth and stimulating the economy.

4. New Marketing Opportunities Come to iOS

Google recently updated the iOS App Install campaigns to help improve marketing through the app.

Updates include:

• New creative formats, including co-branded YouTube ads, playable end cards, and creator-driven content for YouTube Shorts and in-feed ads
• Privacy measurements, such as on-device tracking
• Expanded AI-driven strategies for bidding and value-based optimization

Key Takeaway: It’s always been a bit of a struggle to advertise successfully on iOS. With this new update, advertisers should start testing their content and investing in measurement infrastructure. Remember, changes can take some time, so keep your focus on the bigger picture.

5. Streaming Advertising is Picking Up Steam

Advertisers are continuing to shift their advertising dollars from traditional TV ads to streaming services.

According to a new report from Media Dynamics:

• Linear TV’s prime-time ad sales are down 3.2% from $18.4 billion last year to $17.8 billion this year
• Streaming was up over 18% from last year to $13.2 billion
• CPM for broadcast and cable was $43.50 and $19.35, respectively – down 4.1% and 6.8%
• Streaming’s CPM was $27.25, down 7.6% from last year’s numbers

This could be due to several reasons, the primary one being that streaming platforms don’t require locking in early, while also offering more flexibility for viewers.

Biggest Takeaway: Streaming ads are slowly gaining momentum and becoming a more popular form of advertising as consumers continue to shift away from traditional media.

6. WordPress Vulnerability Affects 300k Sites

Another week, another WordPress vulnerability. This time, it affected the 300k sites that use the Redirection for Contact Form 7 plugin.

According to the Wordfence advisory, the vulnerability “makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to delete arbitrary files on the server, which can easily lead to remote code execution when the right file is deleted (such as wp-config.php).”

This WordPress vulnerability is affecting all versions of the plugin, up to version 3.2.4. To protect themselves, users of the plugin should update to the latest version.

7. ChatGPT Traffic Grew 5.3% in One Month

Google remains the king of organic traffic, but ChatGPT is gaining ground. According to Ahrefs, “ChatGPT is growing 3.8x faster than Google.”

Tim Soulo, CMO at Ahrefs, posted a screenshot on LinkedIn showing the percentage of their site’s traffic coming from Google and the percentage coming from ChatGPT. While Google is clearly still generating more traffic, ChatGPT is trying.

According to the dashboard, “ChatGPT now drives measurable referral traffic to websites, representing a new channel that didn’t exist 2 years ago.”

Key Takeaway: If you aren’t actively working on optimizing your site for AI, you may want to start, as you could miss valuable site traffic.

8. Meta is Combining More Ad Targeting Options

A few months ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the site is shifting more toward AI-driven automation for ads. This week, a new announcement showed that they are moving closer to that goal.

In addition to improving AI-targeting and bidding tools, as well as creative and reformatting tools, Meta is now removing or consolidating even more ad-targeting options. In the company’s Q2 earnings update, Zuckerberg explained that: “On advertising, the strong performance this quarter is largely thanks to AI unlocking greater efficiency and gains across our ads system. This quarter, we expanded our new AI-powered recommendation model for ads to new surfaces and improved its performance by using more signals and a longer context. It’s driven roughly 5% more ad conversions on Instagram and 3% on Facebook.”

Don’t worry if you’re running ads using the consolidated targeting options. The recent consolidations won’t take effect until January 15, 2026, so you have some time to adjust your Meta advertising strategy.

9. Meta’s Professional Dashboard Gets an Overhaul

Speaking of Meta, the social media giant just made updates to its Professional Dashboard to improve it for creators.

The updates to Meta’s Advertising Dashboard include:

• Graphs charting overall performance
• Content insights
• Monetization overview
• New audience insights and performance metrics
• New “Popular with Your Followers” module
• And more

The update also included a refreshed web version of the dashboard with an improved layout and simplified navigation. Meta’s Facebook for Creators website was also updated. According to Meta, “[w]hether you’re looking for guidance on content strategy, monetization, community engagement, or stories from other Facebook creators, the revamped website puts everything at your fingertips.”

10. Google Ads Updates & News

1. Local Service Ads (LSAs) are being consolidated into a single Google Verified badge to signify clear trust signals, grow visibility, and credibility.
2. Google Ads new tool will help advertisers identify issues with shopping cart data to help improve your reporting. This new tool will help you identify and confirm product details are complete, IDs match and more.
3. Google is removing manual language targeting for search campaigns, leaving AI to fill in the gaps, simplifying set up, but releasing control. Non-Search campaigns will get to keep their language targeting settings for now.
4. Get access to full site-level impression data in your Google Ads account. This report gives insight into data and delivers on Google’s attempt to become more safe.
5. Richer conversion imports give Google AI the opportunity to create better modeling, attribution and better campaign performance.

11. TikTok Address Misinformation

A new update to TikTok’s Community Guidelines is aiming to curb misinformation on the short-form video app.

In the updated guidelines, TikTok explains that: “[o]ur updated Community Guidelines reflect our deep commitment to trust and safety, with clearer, simpler language, more transparency, and new or enhanced policies. This update builds on our ongoing trust and safety work, including a suite of safety features for teens and families, creators, and the whole TikTok community.”

The most important updates include:

• Prohibition of automation tools or scripts designed to bypass their systems
• Prohibition of misleading AI-generated content regarding matters of public importance
• Updated language around “regulated goods and services,” including alcohol, tobacco, drugs, firearms, and dangerous weapons
• Clearer guidance for content regarding mental and behavioral health and sensitive and mature themes
• More safety measures on features like direct messaging, comments, LIVE, and TikTok Shop

Weekly Homework:

• If you want a more personalized ChatGPT experience, connect the AI-bot to your Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts.
• Explore whether the new marketing opportunities on the iOS App are right for you.
• If you’re a Redirection for Contact Form 7 plugin user, be sure to update your plugin to the latest version to avoid being vulnerable to attacks.
• Be sure your TikTok content is not violating any of the updated Community Guidelines.
• Explore the new updates to Meta’s dashboard and ad guidelines to see how you can use these new insights and tools to optimize your Meta Ads.
• Research how the new iOS marketing features could improve your brand’s advertising ROI.
• Brainstorm new ways to improve your personalized digital marketing.

Digital Marketing News 8/9/2025 to 8/15/2025

This week: Instagram posting boosts reach, Google lets users choose news sources, and Apple tests Siri voice-activated apps.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. New Study: Posting More on IG is Key

According to a new study by Buffer, the more you post on Instagram, the more you can maximize your reach.

By analyzing over 2 million posts from 100k Instagram accounts, there was a key correlation in posting and engagement and reach.

Here’s some key insights:

• Posting between 3 and 5 times a week can double your follower growth
• Posting refers to photos, Reels, and carousels, NOT stories
• Accounts posting between 3 and 5 times a week see a 12% average reach boost per post

Take these insights with a grain of salt. Posting more is not always better. Stick to sharing high-quality content to keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them.

2. False Advertising Costs Match Group $14 Million

Match Group, which owns dating apps like Match, Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, has agreed to settle a case with the FTC for $14 million.

In a case dating back to 2019, the FTC accused Match Group of using deceptive advertising practices to lure consumers back to their apps. According to the lawsuit, “consumers were at risk of being scammed after the company sent marketing emails regarding new messages from senders it had already identified as likely bots or scammers, subsequently deceiving them into purchasing subscriptions while knowingly profiting from it.”

When the consumers attempted to dispute the charges, they were locked out of their accounts. The suit also accused Match Group of making it incredibly difficult for users to cancel their subscriptions.

Match Group agreed to pay the FTC $14 million to settle the suit, saying that “[t]he FTC’s outdated claims are entirely moot, as the alleged practices at issue ended years ago or are based on mischaracterizations that do not reflect our business today.”

Let cases like these be a warning to avoid deceptive practices and false advertising. While these practices may lead to higher revenue at first, the end expense of deceptive practices isn’t worth it.

3. Google Users Can Now Set Preferred Sources

If you’ve been fighting for your life to get into Google’s Top Stories, this new feature will excite you!

Users can now set their Preferred Sources to make sure they get their Top Stories news from sources they trust. The feature is already live in the United States and India, and will roll out in other markets within the next few days.

To turn it on, simply search for a topic that is currently trending. Tap the little icon to the right of the Top stories header. This will open a screen where you can select the outlets you want to hear from the most.

While other sources will still come through when you search for news, the list will prioritize the sources you selected.

The best news about this feature is that publishers can promote Preferred Searches to their readers. By encouraging them to set you as a preferred source, you’re increasing the likelihood of getting more eyes on your content. The user hears more from a source they respect, and you get more clicks on your content. Sounds like a win-win to us!

4. Google Invalid Ad Traffic Down 40%

Google is working hard to help fight invalid traffic (IVT) on Google ads. Its use of AI to combat fake traffic has resulted in a significant 40% decrease in IVTs.

As Google explained, “We've long used AI to fight IVT, and new applications are further improving our results. Our Ad Traffic Quality team, with Google Research and Google DeepMind, recently introduced industry-leading defenses powered by large language models to more precisely identify ad placements generating invalid behaviors… Beyond this, we continue to run extensive automated and manual checks to ensure advertisers aren't charged for IVT, even if an ad serves.”

This is great news for advertisers who were previously paying for fake clicks.

5. Generic Keywords Could Be Stunting Your Visibility

Keyword research is always changing, but if you’ve been using generic keywords over branded ones, you might be stunting your ability to stand out.

According to Google’s John Mueller, many small business owners fall into the trap of generic keywords, thinking that it will help get them discovered. As it turns out, that could make it even harder for them to stand out.

For example, if you’re a photographer, relying on generic keywords increases your chances of getting lost in the sea of other similarly named photographers. Instead, Mueller suggests using branded keywords, having a unique business name, and relying on localized targeting with content, structured data, and Google Business Profile optimization, to help establish you as a more distinctive (and easy to find!) brand.

Action Item: Work on building up your brand awareness so that people can find you through branded hashtags and you don’t get lost in a sea of generic ones.

6. New PMax Exclusions Improve Targeting Efforts

Google has been working hard on improving PMax campaigns. This week, advertisers noticed a new beta feature that allows gender exclusions.

This new exclusion can be used to:

• tailor messaging
• promote men’s and women’s products independently
• help create more relevant ad copy
• focus product feeds on more relevant targets

If you don’t have this beta function on your Google Ads dashboard, ask your rep to be added to the beta testing to see if it could help improve the ROI on your ads.

7. Run Ads on YouTube Without Google Ads

YouTube Promote campaigns offer more granular button options available on desktop.

Promote allows creators to boost both Shots and videos directly in the platform, without using Google Ads.

New options include: Book Now, Get Quote, and Contact Us.

This update gives creators even more flexibility in promoting their local content. These new buttons bring fresh in-stream promotions for creators.

8. More Vulnerabilities Hit WordPress

Last week, we reported that WordPress plugins were vulnerable to security issues. As it turns out, this week wasn’t much better.

WordPress plugins, The Database for Contact Form 7, WP Forms, and Elementor Forms all became vulnerable to attacks by unauthenticated users. Together, these plugins have over 70,000 installations. The attack enables the hacker to delete arbitrary files, deny service, or execute code remotely.

Another 1.3 million sites were left vulnerable by three different file management plugins: File Manager WordPress Plugin, Advanced File Manager – Ultimate WP File Manager and Document Library Solution, and File Manager Pro - Filester. This vulnerability enables attackers to delete files.

Finally, users with the Tutor LMS Pro WordPress plugin should upgrade to the latest version, 3.7.1 or higher, to prevent an attack that could allow hackers to access sensitive information stored in the database.

9. Meta’s Threads is Closing in on X’s Monthly Active Numbers

Meta has been trying hard to close the gap between its Threads users and X’s high user count. This month, they’re getting closer.

Instagram chief, Adam Mosseri, announced this week that Threads has hit 400 million monthly users. Elon Musk says that X now has 600 million monthly active users, after losing 15% of its European user base when he took over the app. While Threads isn’t there yet, it’s definitely getting closer.

With this news and the recent addition of Threads Ads, it’s clear that Meta is still pushing to take over the text-based social media crown from X.

Speaking of the race to become the top text-based platform, Bluesky is still steadily growing, but not at the same rapid pace as before. The app is now up to 38 million users, a long way from X’s 600 million.

10. Bing Webmaster Tools Updates Data

Bing’s getting a facelift.

Now you have access to 24 months of data! Originally, this was limited to 16 months of data so the expansion should help you identify trends and seasonality patterns.

This upgrade comes with a new country and device filter as well and the ability to analyze keyword trends for search performance.

Spend some time looking into your site’s search performance on Bing this week.

11. Instagram Rolls Out New Feature – Instagram Map

You may have noticed a new feature on your Instagram this week. Instagram Map is officially live.

The feature allows US users to share their most recent location, which is great for helping people discover location-based content, such as restaurants and stores. If your brand is big into localized content, this new tool could be incredibly useful for you to boost foot traffic and create a buzz around your brand.

However, some people are already expressing concerns about the privacy implications of live location sharing. Instagram says that live location sharing is off by default, but some users found that not to be the case.

Action Item: If you’re concerned about your privacy and don’t want to share your location, be sure to head into your settings and toggle your location tag off. This is especially important if you’re running an Instagram account from your phone for a brand or business.

12. Apple’s New Siri Leans Into Voice Search

Reports came out this week that Apple is testing a version of Siri that will allow users to activate apps entirely through voice commands.

The Bloomberg report says that this version of Siri “will be able to take actions on your behalf across various apps by following voice commands. The company plans to release a new version of App Intents, its framework that gives developers the ability to allow users access to parts of their app via different systems, like search and Shortcuts.”

Current apps included in the beta testing include: Uber, AllTrails, Threads, Temu, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

Why We Care: We’ve long been telling our clients to optimize their content for voice search, but this is just one more sign of technologies moving toward voice-activation. This is especially important for Amazon sellers or those who run Meta Ads on Facebook or Threads. Now is the time to optimize your content – before your competitors do!

Weekly Homework:

• If you write time-sensitive content, share the news of Preferred Sources with your audience and encourage them to make your site one of their preferred sources.
• Check on your WordPress plugins to ensure you haven’t been left vulnerable to security risks.
• Update your keyword strategy to include more branded and unique keywords, instead of generic ones.
• Consider whether adding Threads to your social media strategy makes sense.
• Take steps to optimize your content for voice search.

Digital Marketing News 8/2/2025 to 8/8/2025

This week: AI discovery surges, Yelp boosts local branding, and Reddit search hits new highs.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. AI Discovery is Up 527%

We’ve been saying that AI will change search – and now we have proof!

According to the 2025 Previsible AI Traffic Report:

• From January to May 2025, AI-referred sessions increased from 17,076 to 107,100.
• 1% of all SaaS sites sessions come from AI
• 55% of LLM-driven sessions involve legal, finance, SMB, insurance, or health
• LLM sessions involving legal questions went from 0.37% to 0.86% in five months
• LLM sessions involving health questions went from 0.17% to 0.56% in those same months
• ChatGPT is the biggest player, with Perplexity, Copilot, and Gemini gaining traction

What This Means: Users are turning to LLMs for contextual questions that involve trust and consultation. If you are a high-context content creator, you need to optimize your strategy for generative AI.

2. Google Business Profile Just Got Easier to Manage

Google recently updated their post creation tool to place all posts in a centralized location. It’s now streamlined into a single hub where you can quickly create updates, events, or highlight offers all from a single screen.

Other highlights include:

• Centralized Posts Hub - Instead of the “Add Update” screen, you can now manage all your posts in one place
• New Management View - See key details for each post including creation date, status, post type and more

Along with some simple visual improvements to the user interface, Google is dedicated to making it easier for you to manage your business.

If you are a local business or want to build a local footprint, focus on Google Posts! Get local attention by sharing images, promotions, offers and events, all while boosting your local SEO efforts.

Have questions? Lucky for you we have a webinar coming up next week, August 14th covering Google Business Profiles. Sign up, you don’t want to miss it.

3. Yelp’s New Ads Help Your National Brand Grow Locally

Yelp’s here to save the day with a new ad format to help brands without locations build authentic local connections.

Big national brands can team up with local businesses to appear in new co-branded Showcase Ads that run on Yelp search results. Local businesses will benefit from the visibility and won’t be charged while big brands will grow brand loyalty by aligning with trusted local businesses.

Examples:

• Bilt Rewards saw an increase in 300,000 location visits and 5.5% increase in Yelp page views for participating restaurants
• Pepsi reported a 35% drop in cost per lead through its campaign

These new ads bring together national branding and local discovery. For example, brands can use photo or video ads to highlight local partners in relevant searches.

4. Nearly 700 Million People Use ChatGPT Each Week

Speaking of AI discovery, ChatGPT announced that it, too, had broken a record.

Nearly 700 million people visit the site each week. This is up from the 500 million who did in March.

What This Means for Marketers: When OpenAI released ChatGPT, traditional search reported a drop in traffic from 76% to 61%. As ChatGPT continues to grow, it will likely make moves that rival those of mainstream search engines. Be sure to position your brand in the best light possible by optimizing your content for Generative AI.

5. Reddit Hits 70 Million Weekly Queries

ChatGPT wasn’t the only one to have record usage last week. Reddit reported recently that over 70 million people use its internal search option weekly.

In addition to its millions of searches, it also reported that its AI-powered Reddit Answers feature is also finding success, reaching 6 million weekly users – up five times the amount from the previous quarter.

To capitalize on this increase, Reddit will now be focusing on three key areas:

• Improving the core product
• Growing its search presence
• Expanding internationally

What This Means for You: Reddit is making moves to become a heavy hitter in the search world. Whether it’s encouraging consumers to talk about you on the site or running Reddit ads, take a look at how you can utilize the website to push your content and build brand awareness.

6. 49% of Gen Z Consumers Value Humor and Music in Ads

If you want to capture the attention of Gen Z users, you have to be funny.

According to a new study from Edison Research and SiriusXM Media, 49% of Gen Zers are more likely to watch your ad if it’s funny or has good music.

Other popular elements included content that is:

• Inspirational
• Honest and Transparent
• Unique and Different

Celebrities and influencers were pretty high on the list, too, but not so high that you need to use your whole advertising budget on bringing them in. Turns out, all you need for scroll-stopping content is humor and good tunes.

7. Digital Ad Spend is Down for First Time Since 2009

If you’ve recently reined in your digital ad spend, you aren’t the only one.

According to a new study by eMarketer, US digital ad spending is down to less than 10% for the first time since 2019. This is likely due to several reasons, a significant one being high tariffs that make business harder. The use of AI is thought to be another one.

8. Multiple Sites Face Vulnerability Issues

Hundreds of thousands of websites were affected by multiple vulnerability issues this week.

The first affected popular plugin AI Engine. Installed on over 100,000 websites, a vulnerability was discovered that would allow authenticated hackers access to upload malicious files. This isn’t the first time AI Engine has been vulnerable to threats. This week’s problem was the fourth vulnerability discovered since July of this year.

The second involved a WooCommerce plugin for customer reviews. This vulnerability allowed unauthenticated attackers to launch a stored cross-site scripting attack. This attack was executed whenever a user visited an affected page.

A third vulnerability was uncovered in Wix’s vibe coding platform. This critical flaw enabled attackers to bypass authentication and gain access to private enterprise applications. Although it was noticed and fixed within 24 hours, the issue affected the popular Base44 vibe coding platform, which contains sensitive personal information used by HR, chatbots, and knowledge bases.

Key Takeaway: Let this serve as a reminder to stay up-to-date on your website’s privacy and security.

9. 80% of Consumers Want Personalization, Study Reports

A recent study by Meta and Deloitte found that personalization is the key to building strong and sustainable brands.

The study showed that:

• 80% of consumers say they are more likely to make a purchase when brands personalize their experiences
• When brands tailor their interactions to meet consumers' needs, they spend 50% more.
• In the EU, Meta’s personalized advertising was linked to €213 billion in economic growth.

As Derya Matras, VP for Global Business Group at Meta, said: “As people want content and services that are more relevant to them, they are increasingly drawn to brands that make them feel understood.”

Action Item: Review your marketing efforts to identify areas for increased personalization and enhanced consumer experience.

10. Instagram Restricts Live Streaming

If you’re a small creator on Instagram, listen up! You’ll need at least 1,000 followers if you want go Live.

This week, a ton of smaller creators saw this pop-up when they tried to go Live. This will affect nanoinfluencers and other smaller accounts that prefer to broadcast live within the app.

Instagram isn’t alone in this requirement. TikTok also requires users to have at least 1,000 followers to live-stream. While some smaller accounts may be upset about the change, it should improve the quality of live streams and prevent NSFW material from dominating users’ feeds.

11. Nielsen Offers New Tools to Streaming Partners

If you’ve been thinking about adding streaming ads to your marketing strategy, Nielsen has some updates for you.

Nielsen launched its new Outcomes Marketplace, a platform to “bring together a diverse set of key brand, sales, attention, and conversion metrics within the Nielsen ONE platform.” The company says it will go beyond surface-level metrics to provide a deeper understanding of how ads are generating attention and emotional responses across platforms. It also identifies specific elements of the campaign and creative assets that were most engaging.

12. Google P-Max Ad Strength Now Looks at Sitelinks

Google Ads is pushing advertisers to prioritize the inclusion of sitelinks in their P-max campaigns.

Sitelinks didn’t used to be part of the ad strength calculation for p-max ads, but they are now! Google announced this week that it will now appear in the asset group interface, alongside images, videos, products, headlines, and descriptions.

This is great for several reasons, primarily because sitelinks can boost engagement and provide more paths to conversion.

Action Item: If you’re running P-Max campaigns, be sure to add sitelinks, or else you could face penalties in ad strength.

Weekly Homework:

• Conduct a security audit of your website to ensure all plugins and connections are secure.
• Consider optimizing your content for Reddit and ChatGPT, especially if you’re creating content for high-context industries such as legal, healthcare, and SaaS.
• Audit your upcoming marketing campaigns to identify places where you could improve consumer personalization.
• If Gen Zers are your target audience, think about ways you can add humor and trending music to your ads.
• Audit your P-max campaigns to make sure they include the correct sitelinks.

Digital Marketing News 7/26/2025 to 8/1/2025

This week: Google’s AI Mode favors brands, Q2 stats show marketing strength, and new RSA testing boosts transparency.

Here's what happened this week in digital marketing:

1. Google’s AI Mode is Dominated by Brands

New data from BrightEdge shows that Google’s AI Mode is a hot spot for brand mentions.

According to their data:

• Brands appear in 90% of AI Mode responses
• AI Mode surfaces 3.8x more unique brands
• Brands are mentioned 43% of the time in AI Overviews
• AI Overviews’ week-to-week volatility is 30x higher than AI Mode
• AI Mode uses 5-7 source citations
• AI Overviews can use 20+ inline citations per result

Biggest Takeaway: This study demonstrates that AI Mode is a more stable source of discovery, characterized by lower entry barriers and more predictable patterns. AI Overviews are still a great place to be spotted, but it’s a more selective and fast-shifting curator.

2. Google Q2 Stats Show Optimism for Digital Marketing

While some experts are concerned that global economic fluctuations could negatively impact the effect of digital marketing, Google’s Q2 stats are giving people something to be optimistic about.

According to Marketing Dive, there are a few numbers that specifically spark excitement and show growth when some people expected a decline:

• $54.2 billion in ad revenue for Google’s key search
• 2 million advertisers used Google’s generative AI tools to run ads
• 40 billion hours of sports content were consumed on YouTube
• AI Overviews draw over 2 billion monthly active users
• Complex AI Mode searches generate over 100 million monthly active users

While the economy may change from day to day, one thing remains true: people continue to consume content on Google’s platforms, which means Google Ads still influences them.

3. Google Launches New Way to Organize Results Pages

A new experimental feature from Google could change the way group searches are formatted.

The new AI-generated search results organization tool, Web Guide, is now available in Search Labs.

It uses a version of Gemini to run multiple related queries at the same time. This “fan-out” technique is designed to give searchers a broader view of their topic. Google says it's most helpful for two specific kinds of searchers: exploratory searches and multi-part questions.

Although this is still in its early phases, it’ll be interesting to see how users within Search Labs respond to it and whether Google ultimately adapts it for all users.

4. Soft 404s Affect Your Crawl Budget, Says Google

If you’re looking for ways to maximize your crawl budget, take a hard look at your soft 404s.

Previously, experts thought that if soft 404s returned a 200 OK status, it didn’t affect the site’s crawl budget. Google’s Gary Illyes is saying that this is not true.

During Search Central Live Asia Pacific 2025, Gary explained that, unlike true 404s, these pages consume crawl budget without offering any actual value. With smaller sites, this might not be too big of a problem, but with larger sites, it could eat away at crawl budget, making search engines skip important pages. To prevent wasting your crawl budget, you should:

Return a 404 or 410 status for content that no longer exists
Use 301 redirects when necessary
Add structured data for out-of-stock notices instead of resorting to empty product pages
Make your 404 pages more helpful to users to that your crawl budget isn’t wasted on unhelpful or unnecessary content

5. Google’s AI Mode Gets an Update

Google Search has expanded its AI Mode by adding more user-friendly tools.

Now, AI Mode users can:

• Upload images directly into the search box
• Ask questions about uploaded files
• Receive AI-generated responses based on both the document’s content and web results
• Better organize updates and saves as questions evolve
• Incorporate videos into Search Live features

The update will help users build task checklists, travel itineraries, and study guides. While it’s a great update for general users, it’s also an opportunity for digital marketers to structure their content in a way that will get their content into these continually evolving summaries.

6. Research Shows Differences in Responses from Google Versus ChatGPT

Some people are shifting their search focus over to ChatGPT, but according to a recent BrightEdge study, the results could vary.

In an analysis of B2B technology, education, healthcare, and finance queries, BrightEdge found that there are differences in the way Google and ChatGPT respond to similar questions. The biggest differences are found:

• 62% in healthcare queries
• 47% in B2B queries
• 45% in education queries
• 39% in finance queries

The findings suggest that Google views searches from a research assistant's perspective, while ChatGPT is more akin to a decision-making coach.

These findings don’t necessarily mean that one platform is better than the other, but they do indicate that digital marketers need to be aware that they interpret intent differently. This difference could affect their content strategy decisions.

Why We Care: If you are producing content in one of the 4 categories listed above, you’ll need to take into consideration where your target audience is searching and how that tool interprets intent.

7. Reddit Introduces Automated Bidding to Ads

If you’ve been advertising on Reddit, or at least thinking about it, listen up to this recent announcement from the user-centric forum. Now, Reddit users will have the ability to automate their ad bidding options to include more ad objectives, such as Brand Awareness and Reach.

In the announcement, Reddit explained: “With this update, advertisers can now choose from two automated bidding strategies – lowest cost and cost cap – to optimize delivery, drive more impressions, and simplify how brand budgets are managed on Reddit. Spend less time adjusting bids and more time driving impact, no matter the scale of your brand campaign.”

The platform says that early adopters of its automated bidding have seen a 16% increase in CPM and a 17% increase in overall impressions.

8. AI-Powered Store Summaries Come to Google Chrome

Google has updated its Chrome web browser to help shoppers make more informed purchases.

Not only will this feature help to provide a better shopping experience for users, but it will also help Google better compete with retail giants like Amazon, which have been using AI to improve shoppers’ experiences.

It will also help them compete with AI-powered search engines that are attempting to chip away at Google’s stronghold on search.

9. Google Rolls Out New AI Max Ads

Have you noticed a change in Google’s AI Max ads? You’re not alone! Google revealed a new format this week.

The new format includes:

• Longer headlines
• Dynamically generated sitelinks
• Ad content pulled directly from blogs

According to Nikki Kuhlman of Jumpfly, this new format is increasing ROAS for blog articles, even more than landing pages. While this is great for brands with blogs, more automation can lead to less control and potential risks involving brand safety, performance consistency, and user experience.

10. TikTok Introduces New AI Tools, Parental Controls & Fact-Checking Systems

TikTok wants to become more user-friendly, especially for minors. This week, they announced a ton of new changes and upgrades, including new parental controls and Footnotes, a fact-checking system.

Some of the new features include:

• Parental controls that automatically update parents when their teenager uploads a public video, story, or photo
• The ability for parents to block specific accounts from their teen’s account
• The introduction of “Creator Care Mode” to filter comments identified as offensive, inappropriate, or profane
• An AI feature to help creators block more inappropriate comments, specifically from users with a history of being blocked or deleted
• A professional inbox where creators can set up customized responses to address frequently asked questions
• The introduction of Footnotes, a new fact-checking system

The Creator Care Mode and the Creator Inbox are probably the most interesting features for brands trying to engage with fans and consumers on the app. Now, brands can create AI-generated responses to quickly address their audience’s questions, encouraging engagement and fostering a relationship with those consumers.

Creator Chat Room is available to creators who have at least 5,000 followers and either a Subscription or Live Fan Club. Each user can have at least 20 different chats, which will be capped at 300 people.

11. TikTok Proves to Be Emerging Player in Search Advertising

TikTok announced a new role focused on search ads, proving it to be a pillar of the ad business.

TikTok is trying to position itself as a key player in the world of search advertising. As search behavior switches to social media forward and relies less on Google and other traditional search engines, performance driven channels will reap the benefits.

Those who adopted the ad platform early had the chance to test, learn, and optimize their ad campaigns before the space became too cluttered and overwhelmed.

However, advertisers haven’t fully bought in yet. They are still unsure because of mixed campaign results, economic uncertainty and the looming threat of banning the app.

12. A/B Test Your RSA Headlines Based On Scores

Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s time to start testing headlines in your Responsive Search Ads.

Google is finally showing real click and conversion data for each headline. Previously it would just show “Good” or “Bad” without providing any contextual information. Now, instead of guessing which headlines are working, advertisers have the freedom to make decisions based on data.

Here’s a few ways to take full advantage of the feature:

1. Cut or rewrite low-performing headlines
2. Test pinning vs non-pinning strategies
3. Build clear asset categories

Speaking of transparency, Google is testing a new feature to bring transparency to RSAs: “Search Term Categories.”

It groups user search queries into intent-based categories and subcategories to bring advertisers performance metrics insights:

• Conversions
• Click-through rates
• Impressions
• Search volume

These two features will bring clarity to Google RSAs and give advertisers more control over their budgets.

Weekly Homework

• If you are an ecommerce brand, check out how Google’s new AI-powered summaries are describing your shopping experience.
• Sign in to Google Search Labs to explore their new way of organizing search results.
• Audit your website for soft 404 errors and update them to prevent negative impact on your crawl budget.
• Perform industry-specific searches in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode to see how your brand is showing up in their results. If you aren’t satisfied with it, or if your brand isn’t appearing at all, work with your content team to brainstorm ways to change your appearance.
• Explore Reddit Ads’ new automated bidding opportunities.