The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 BYE-BYE GOOGLE? MARKETERS RETHINK SEARCH

✍️ Google’s search dominance is slippin', and advertisers are taking notes: With consumers turning to TikTok, Amazon, and AI-powered search tools, brands are rethinking their SEO and paid search strategies. Digiday has a great piece up today about how marketers are adapting to this shift. more

• Agency execs say they are now prioritizing site optimization for AI-driven search results, ensuring content is structured for better visibility.

• Paid search budgets are also shifting:

  • Some brands are moving ad dollars to social search on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram.

  • Some are testing Google’s other products, such as PMax and Demand Gen.

  • YouTube is another winner, as some brands reduce spend on branded search ads in favour of video.

🥈 GOOGLE PMAX: NOW WITH MORE AI

💰️ Still looking to lock in those ad dollars: Google is rolling out new updates to its Performance Max campaigns, including improved image generation of humans, and new recommendations for optimal creative. more

• Google says its AI can now create more realistic human characters, expanding options across PMax, Demand Gen, Display, and App campaigns.

  • Fingers crossed—literally, let's hope they have all 5 fingers.

• New “asset-audience recommendations” suggest themes and elements that resonate best with your audience.

• The company is also launching a beta for retailers to test the impact of adding text, image, and video assets, including AI-generated ones, to campaigns.

🥉 INSTAGRAM ADDS SPONSORED COMMENTS

🗣️ Clapbacks for cash: Instagram is adding text-only testimonials to its Partnership Ads, letting brands feature a creator's endorsement in a sponsored comment on the Partnership post. more

• The new ad placement will show up as a "Sponsored" comment, with the partnership clearly marked in the creator's post header, just like other Partnership Ads.

• Testimonials will be limited to 125 characters.

• Brands can only include one testimonial comment per post for now.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• Google is testing a "Sponsored" label in the "People also consider" section in search results, as observed by users last week. It's not clear whether this is a new ad format or a glitch (Google often doesn't comment on these discoveries), but it suggests maybe a new incoming ad placement? It would be a weird one, if so, since that section just riffs on keyword variations of the user's search. more

• Amazon Ads is adding more transparency tools and reporting updates to its DSP after being called out for its role in monetizing CSAM content. Updates to its DSP include new page-level reporting through its Traffic Events API, aimed at boosting brand safety. more

Search 🔍

• Search data shows a surge in Google Search ranking volatility this week. SEO tracking tools, which had shown stability in previous weeks, are now registering some big fluctuations. People in SEO forums say they've seen big shifts in some website traffic and rankings (some drops, some gains). more

  • As usual, Google has not officially confirmed any updates.

    😞

Social Media 📱

• 👀 SAW THIS COMING: TikTok is "restructuring" its global trust and safety team, leading to layoffs across multiple regions, including Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. TikTok currently employs more than 40,000 trust and safety people worldwide. It has not disclosed the exact number of affected employees. more

  • (TikTok still faces a potential ban in the U.S. over national security concerns.)

• Bloomberg says YouTube will soon launch a cheaper ad-free subscription called "Premium Lite" in the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Thailand. It's aimed at people who primarily watch "non-music content." No word on pricing, but previous tests suggest a monthly cost of $8.99 AUD (about $5.70 USD), compared to $16.99 AUD for the full Premium service. more

• Instagram now lets users schedule messages up to 29 days in advance, and pin up to three important messages at the top of a chat for easy access. You can now also invite friends to group chats via QR codes. And there's a music-sharing feature as well. more

  • These updates started rolling out globally this week, and should be live everywhere now.

• LinkedIn has added two new newsletter metrics:

  • Email sends: Tracks how many subscribers received an email for the article.

  • Email Open Rate: Estimates the percentage of subscribers who opened the email. Keep in mind, it may not be 100% accurate. more

• ⏺️ Thinking about broadcasting live events?: LinkedIn has a new guide on Live Event Marketing, that offers framework for planning, success metrics for each element, and insights into what users want from live events. There’s also a guide for creating and marketing your event to boost engagement. more

Commerce 🛒 

• 💥 TIK TOK BOOM: TikTok is expanding its e-commerce operations to Italy, Germany, and France, with plans to launch in Japan and Brazil this year. In particular, it's going to focus on live-stream shopping. TikTok has tried live shopping in the U.S. (a couple of times now), leading to anemic results. more

  • Live shopping is now driving most of the revenue in TikTok's Chinese sister app.

• eMarketer forecasts steady growth for B2B ecommerce, driven by shifting buyer behavior, AI benefits, and third-party marketplaces. Amazon Business continues to lead, but Shopify and BigCommerce are gaining ground with B2B-focused solutions. more 

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

Steal Our Stack

🛠️ TOOLS WE USE TO PUT THE NEWSLETTER OUT

Google Ads courses: Inside Google Ads: Advanced
Meta ad courses: Foxwell Digital Courses
Media Buyers Slack: Foxwell Founders Community
Lifetime marketing tool deals: Appsumo 
Podcast recording: Riverside
Online forms: Tally (get 50% off first 3 months)
Email newsletter: Beehiiv

In partnership with