The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 THE GOOGLE AI THAT STOLE TRAFFIC

🧑‍⚖️ Taking one for the team: Chegg, an ed-tech company, is suing Google over its AI Overviews, arguing the AIOs are stealing traffic that once went to their site, leading to lower acquisitions, revenue, and job cuts. more

The suit makes three main arguments:

1. Reciprocal dealing: Google forces companies like Chegg to supply proprietary content to be included in search results.

2. Monopoly Maintenance: Google unfairly exercises its search dominance and other anti-competitive conduct to push out rivals.

3. Unjust enrichment: Google is reaping the financial benefits of Chegg’s content without having to spend a dime.

🥈 TIKTOK’S DOOMSDAY CLOCK TICKS

🤷 Deadline who? TikTok has officially hit the half-way mark of its 75-day U.S. extension, with no clear resolution in sight. But as the deadline looms in just 37 days, it seems it's business as usual for the platform. more

• Advertisers are still going all in:

  • CPG ad spend is up 10% since its return to app stores.

  • TikTok Shop’s video ad revenue surged 298% from April 2024 to January 2025.

  • U.S. app downloads jumped 165%, though daily active users saw a slight dip.

• New initiatives are rolling out, like automotive ads, and there are still more than 2,000 open job vacancies in the U.S.

• However, the company is still losing top execs, including the global head of music business development and the global head of content strategy

🥉 SNAPCHAT’S NEW AD SAFETY CONTROLS

👻 Fine-tuning brand safety: Snapchat has launched new ad placement control tiers, letting advertisers choose the level of placement that best suits their needs. more

• The Brand Suitability Suite includes ‘Full’, ‘Standard’ and ‘Limited’ tier options with additional placement coverage, and third-party Brand Safety Integration for post campaign reporting with third-party measurement partners.

• Advertisers can select their suitability preferences in Ads Manager, with ad set outcome estimations (such ads reach, impressions, audience size) updating accordingly.

• The inventory filter will apply to all inventory sources within the ad set.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• Meta ads 🤝 Google Analytics: Meta is now luring advertisers with early access to updates if they connect to Google Analytics. By linking your Google Analytics property to your Meta Pixel, you'll select which traffic sources Meta can access, either all traffic or just Meta-driven traffic (Facebook/Instagram). more

  • This lets Meta use your conversion data, potentially improving performance and giving you access to new ad updates.

• Meta's new report for game marketers offers some insights that can extend beyond gaming. It highlights key trends in puzzle game marketing like influencer partnerships, using celebrities or native creators, and adding story elements and sound design to boost engagement. more

• Roku partnered with software company Incrmntal today to integrate advanced measurement tools into its Ads Manager. Incrmntal tracks connected-TV performance by analyzing spending and marketing activities over time, compared to aggregated funnel metrics from the advertiser. An AI model will then isolate the relationships between data sets without relying on user-level data. more

Performance Marketing 🚀 

• Marketers are shifting back to brand-building strategies again, but they're not leaving performance marketing behind. According to Digiday, one sign that's the case is the rise of alt-measurement firms like System1, iSpot, and EDO reflecting a need to optimize media spend and track creative impact. With tighter budgets and more investment in CTV, these tools can help prove ROI.

Search & GMC 🔍

• The Google Search Console API has been delayed for several days, causing data to be outdated compared to the web interface. This is affecting users who rely on Looker Studio, BigQuery, and other tools to access Search Console data through the API. Google has yet to address the issue. more

• A new "Physical Stores" section in the Google Merchant Center Next console has been added for some merchants. So far, it doesn’t seem too useful, as it currently displays very limited data pulled from the store's Google Business Profile listings. more

Social Media 📱

• 💸 Losing the U.S. market? That’s a $1.5B problem: TikTok's In-app purchase revenue in the U.S. surged by $1.5 billion from Q4 2023 to Q4 2024, outpacing the top five markets combined. Consumers spent $6 billion across TikTok and Douyin in 2024, more than doubling revenue from any other app. more

• ⚰️ Anti-social marketing may not be a brand death sentence: A few years ago Lush ditched Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat over concerns, focusing on building its own channels like its newsletter, shopping app, and affiliate marketing program. Three years in, it's proving brands can thrive without major platforms. more

  • That said, it's not entirely offline — Lush is still active on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

Product Updates 🆕 

• 👀 Excel, interrupted: Microsoft is quietly testing a free ad-supported version of its Office Suite. The free version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint has fewer features, like missing tools and restricted access. Ads appear in a banner on the right and will include video ads, which are muted. more

  • Microsoft confirmed this is a limited test and has no current plans to launch a free, ad-supported version of its desktop apps.

• Adobe released a new Photoshop app today that brings a lot of its desktop-level design, editing, and generative AI tools to your phone. It also syncs with Photoshop on the web, so you can work on projects across devices. It's available now on iPhone, with Android coming later this year. more

• 📱 QR Codes Take Over 2FA: Google is replacing SMS two-factor authentication with QR codes for Gmail. Starting in the coming months, users will scan a QR code with their phone's camera instead of receiving a six-digit code via SMS. more

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