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The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 META’S $7B AD FRAUD CASE

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court shut down Meta’s appeal in a $7 billion lawsuit claiming Facebook and Instagram inflated its ad reach metrics by up to 400%. Advertisers say Meta fraudulently counted multiple accounts belonging to the same users to pad its "potential reach" numbers, leaving budgets based on unreliable data. Now, Meta faces billions in damages. more

• The case covers ads purchased since August 15, 2014. So if you’ve bought ads since then, you might be eligible for compensation.

• With Meta raking in $116 billion in ad revenue in the first 9 months of 2024 alone, the stakes are high.

• If the case succeeds, it could mean payouts for millions of advertisers and stricter transparency standards across social platforms. It also raises questions about the accuracy of Meta’s metrics that marketers rely on to plan their ad spend.

🥈 GOOGLE’S SEARCH REIGN SLIPS

Google's search dominance may finally be slipping: For the first time since 2015, Google’s global share of the search market fell below 90% in the final three months of 2024, per Statcounter. more

• In the U.S., Google’s share also took a hit, falling from 90.37% in November to 87.39% in December.

• The company has maintained its search monopoly with a consistent 90-92% market share for almost a decade.

• Is this the start of a shift in the search landscape?

🥉 META PLANS MORE JOB CUTS

Another Musk-inspired move: Meta is preparing for another round of layoffs, this time focusing on “low performers,” according to an internal memo from Mark Zuckerberg that was obtained by media. He said that they’ll now act faster on performance-based cuts, instead of managing people out over a year. more

• The exact number of job cuts is unclear, but managers at Meta have been told that around 5% of employees will be let go starting February 10th.

• The plan is to backfill these roles in 2025.

• This follows Meta’s previous round of layoffs in October, after cutting 21,000 jobs between 2022 and 2023.

The Trumpification of Meta:
What Now for Advertisers?

with our Meta Ads columnist Andrew Foxwell¹

In this week’s deep-dive, we discuss the recent changes in Meta's content policies, particularly the removal of fact-checkers and the implications for advertisers. We explore how these changes may affect user sentiment, advertising strategies, and brand safety.

• Meta's recent policy changes signal a concerning shift in content moderation.

• Advertisers must adapt to a new landscape of permissible speech.

• The advertising community is largely dependent on Meta's scale.

• No win: Brands will face backlash for leaving, or staying on, Meta

• There is a lack of reliable alternatives to Meta for advertisers.

• The auction dynamics of Meta ads could change with advertiser exits.

• Instagram may become more expensive as content moderation tightens.

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Advertising 📣

• Temu is testing an Amazon-style ad program, letting merchants pay to boost product visibility through higher search rankings and display ads. With a cost-per-click model, the pilot targets U.S. sellers, though some international merchants are involved. more 

  • With the pilot still in early stages, broader rollout plans remain uncertain.

• Netflix’s ad pivot is paying off big-time: After a shaky start, the platform’s ad-supported tier has gained massive traction, with eMarketer predicting a 43% revenue boost, reaching $2.07 billion in 2025. more

  • While not yet a top 10 player in digital ads, Netflix is on track to become one of the top sub-OTT ad platforms by the end of the decade.

• Connected-TV ad overexposure, where viewers are shown the same ad repeatedly, is a growing issue for marketers, with 40% citing transparency as a challenge. To fix it, an eMarketer analyst says all parties—advertisers, streaming services, and vendors—must collaborate to target ads responsibly and reduce repetition. more

• Google Ads now lets advertisers offer promo codes via barcode or QR code in ads, in addition to traditional code entry, under the promotion details section of promotion assets. more

Social Media 📱

• “Fake news”: TikTok has denied a report that Chinese officials are considering selling its U.S. operations to Elon Musk ahead of a potential ban Sunday, calling the report “pure fiction.” more

• Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the app will prioritize original content in 2025, focusing on “creativity and connection.” The platform plans to enhance creative tools, use AI more (I know, shocker), and adjust rankings to reward creative content. more

• Substack, the platform known for podcasts and text, is now eyeing TikTok's audience. Live video was made available to all publishers on Substack today, providing a potential alternative for brands and creators to monetize their content. more

Commerce 🛒

• Google wants retailers to build their own branded robot overlord with Google Agentspace. Brands can now create custom AI agents for personalized product recommendations, answer questions in real-time, and automate tasks like inventory management, customer service and loss prevention. more 

• Pinterest is doubling down on shoppable ads — its CRO told AdExchanger they want to make it easier to buy through its platform, with plenty of "innovations" in visual search and discovery. Specifics, though, are still unclear. more

Legal 🧑🏻‍⚖️

• Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, says that ongoing lawsuits could eventually shut down the platform. He said that the only way to end the conflict was for WP Engine to drop their lawsuit, which would let him continue his campaign against the company. more

LOL 🤣

• "Goodbye to my Chinese spy" could be TikTok's final viral trend. As the ban looms, users are bidding adieu to their "personal spy," thanking them for serving up endless hours of perfectly curated FYP content. While others say that they’d rather share their data directly with the Chinese government than suffer the fate of switching to Reels or Shorts. more

@_unsc_

#tiktokban

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Cool stuff we found on the web (not a paid placement)

I’ll admit I spent way more time on this than I needed to.

Memenome makes free brain-rot short videos for posting on social media. (You know brainrot if you’ve spent any time on TikTok — an AI voice narrates something over kinetic imagery of, usually, a video game.

With Memenome, you upload a PDF and in about 15 seconds it’ll make you a video.

• Multiple Trends: Converts your PDFs into various trending video styles like Brainrot Quiz, Yap Dollar, and Bikini Bottom News.

• Elements: Adds funny sound effects and images to make the content more appealing.

• Voice Options: Provides different AI-generated voices to narrate the content. (You get three on the free plan; more when paid.)

I asked Perplexity to tell me as much detail about Today in Digital Marketing as it could, then copied it into a Word doc, saved that as a PDF, and uploaded it to Memenome. Here’s what it came up with:

Today’s Trivia Question 🧠

Tap your guess and you could win!

Spotted on Social 🔍

The social web’s best posts in the last 24 hours.

In partnership with