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The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 REVIEW GATING: A LOCAL SEO KILLER

Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky shared the cautionary tale of a company that lost all its Google $GOOGL ( ▼ 1.02% ) reviews because of one critical mistake: review gating. The company asked only happy customers for reviews and directed unhappy customers to a private feedback form. Google flagged the practice, wiped thousands of reviews across every location, and cut their rankings in half. A year later, they still hadn’t recovered.

• Before asking for reviews, Hawkins suggests making sure you're following Google’s guidelines.

• Reviews heavily influence local pack rankings, and recovery from penalties can take years.

🥈 GOOGLE SEARCHES DECLINE IN SAFARI

For the first time in 22 years, Google searches in Safari are declining... and Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 0.57% ) is pointing the finger at AI. Apple’s senior VP of services revealed the dip during Google’s antitrust trial yesterday, attributing the drop to growing use of AI-powered tools. As users turn to apps like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot for quick answers, traditional search engines like Google may be losing its grip as the default gateway to the web. more

• Big financial stakes: Google pays Apple around $20 billion annually to remain Safari’s default search engine. A decline in searches could put that revenue at risk.

• Meanwhile, Google maintains it’s still seeing growth overall, but it also acknowledged that traffic to traditional websites is declining — and there are “no guarantees” that will improve.

🥉 INSTAGRAM ADDS PASSWORD GATES TO CONTENT

🧙‍♂️ You shall not scroll: Instagram $META ( ▼ 0.7% ) has rolled out its lockable Reels feature, letting select creators share videos that can only be viewed by those with a special access code. Once broadly available, it could offer a way for brands to engage with niche audiences, like rewarding consumers with exclusive content, providing customer-only discounts, or sharing region-specific updates with targeted clients. more

• Instagram tested the feature last month, and now The Weeknd is the first to officially use it, launching a clip from his film locked behind a code.

• The feature is currently only being tested with select creators.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• Snapchat $SNAP ( ▲ 0.97% )  announced new ad options:

  • AI Smart Bidding: Advertisers will be able to set a target cost-per-action, and Snap's system will set out to achieve that goal.

  • Smart Budget: Advertisers will be able to activate automatic spending allocations to their highest-performing ad sets.

• Snapchat also announced several updates for Sponsored Snaps, which let advertisers deliver promotions directly into users inboxes:

  • First Snap: A single-day offering that lets brands send a follow-up CTA to users who’ve opened their Sponsored Snap.

  • Ads Auction: Sponsored Snaps will now be delivered via the ads auction, as opposed to running defined campaigns.

  • Creator Sponsored Snaps: Brands will be able to send Sponsored Snaps directly from creators' handles.

• Meta has been working to tidy up its ad creation interface with a much-needed update to URL parameters:

  • The link to create URL parameters has been moved to a dedicated “URL Parameters” section.

  • Users now have the option to automatically apply suggested UTM parameters with a single click.

  • These suggested UTM parameters are comprehensive and similar to what many advertisers manually set up.

Bugs & Glitches 🐛 

• Google Business Profiles is experiencing a bug with the toggle for showing or hiding business addresses. The “Show business address to customers” option is not working, which seems to be affecting all business categories, including service area businesses (SABs) and businesses with physical addresses. more

• If you're noticing discrepancies in your GA4 real-time data, you're not alone: Google Analytics real-time reporting is experiencing issues (again), with reports lagging or not working as expected. Complaints began surfacing this morning around 3am ET, with users reporting significant delays or drops in the real-time graph across multiple properties. more

Social Media 📱

• 💩 Shitposts are back on the menu: X is experimenting with a new UI update that replaces the traditional Like heart with a thumbs-up icon. Some users are also seeing both thumbs up and thumbs down icons below posts. The platform hasn’t shared any official info on the test, and it doesn’t have a PR department to ask either. 👎️ more

• LinkedIn has rolled out several updates to job listings and career development:

  • Job posts now display company verifications and typical response times.

  • A new feature shows how compatible a member is with a job, based on their profile info.

  • LinkedIn is also introducing more AI tools, including coaching in LinkedIn Learning, and a new “Career Journey” tool that lets users set goals and create personalized learning plans to achieve them.

• Instagram initially wanted to cram Twitter-style posts and replies into the app. Adam Mosseri, head of IG, testified today in Meta’s antitrust trial. In a bid to show that the social network isn’t a monopoly, he said that the Threads app could’ve just been a feature within Instagram. However, the team ultimately decided adding text posts to Instagram might confuse users. more

The Ticker

📈 HOW DIGITAL MARKETING STOCKS ARE DOING