The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 TARIFFS HIT AD BUDGETS

U.S. President Donald Trump has now imposed 10% tariffs on nearly all countries, with higher rates for places like China and the EU. These tariffs are shaking up the U.S. ad market, forcing firms to cut budgets. Brands are already pulling back due to inflation fears, recession risks, and inventory problems. CMOs are being pushed to do more with less as uncertainty rises across the board. more

• Madison and Wall now expects just 3.6% ad spend growth this year

• The previous forecast was 4.5%

🥈 AI HANDLES THE CHECKOUT

Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 4.15% ) is testing a “Buy for Me” button that lets users buy items from third-party sites without leaving its app. Powered by its Nova AI system and Anthropic’s Claude, the tool autofills payment and shipping info to complete the order on your behalf. You still track purchases in Amazon, but customer service and returns go through the original seller. more

• The feature is only available to some U.S. users for now

• Amazon says it won’t take a sales cut

🥉 TIKTOK FOR ARTISTS

TikTok is testing a new “TikTok for Artists” platform to help musicians promote their work, track song performance, and connect with fans. It’s currently live in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia, with plans to expand. Artists can run campaigns for new releases, boost pre-saves on Spotify or Apple Music, and spotlight fan videos on their profiles. This move comes after TikTok shut down its music streaming app to focus on supporting artists through its main platform. more

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• WhatsApp adds business broadcasts: Meta $META ( ▼ 5.06% ) is rolling out paid “broadcast” messages on WhatsApp, letting brands send promotions to users who’ve interacted with them before—even outside usual messaging limits. Users can opt out or mark messages as “Not interested,” and Meta will monitor feedback to ensure quality. To prevent spam, daily message limits are in place. more

• Google now scans marketing emails: Google $GOOG ( ▼ 3.2% ) will start using content from your email campaigns—like promotions, new arrivals, and social links—to improve how your business appears in Search, Shopping, and Maps. Merchants were automatically opted in on April 3, 2025. To enable this, Google may subscribe to your marketing emails or ask you to add a Gmail address to your mailing list. You can opt out in Merchant Center settings. more

Social Media 📱

• TikTok Notes shutting down: TikTok is closing its photo-sharing app Notes on May 8th, ending its attempt to rival Instagram. The app, launched last year in Australia and Canada, let users post photos with captions and browse a “For You” feed. In a message to users, TikTok said the decision “was not made lightly” and encouraged people to switch to Lemon8, another ByteDance app focused on lifestyle content. Notes users won’t have access to features or posts after shutdown. more

• TikTok adds alt text: TikTok now lets users add alt text to still image posts, making content more accessible for people using screen readers. The new option appears in the photo post composer, allowing users to write short descriptions of each image. This adds to TikTok’s existing accessibility tools like auto-captions and text-to-speech for videos. more

  • While images aren’t the main focus of the app, this update could help boost engagement on photo posts.

• X to sell old usernames: X (formerly Twitter) is setting up a process to let Verified Organizations buy dormant usernames. Bids will start at $10,000, with some handles possibly selling for over $500,000. An FAQ in X’s web app outlines how businesses will use a bot to request a name, get a response in 3 days, and receive the handle within 1–2 days after purchase. more

YouTube 📺

• YouTube adds website goal: YouTube has updated its promotions tool to include a new “website visits” goal, helping creators drive traffic directly from their videos to their own sites. Creators can now choose from three goals—audience growth, video views, or site visits—when promoting content via YouTube Studio. Promoted videos appear as Shorts, in-feed, or skippable ads, labeled “Sponsored.” more

• YouTube Shorts gets new editor: YouTube is rolling out five new editing tools for Shorts this spring, including a timeline view for cutting, rearranging, zooming, and adding music or text—similar to TikTok and Reels. Music can now auto-sync with clips, and creators will soon be able to add image stickers from their gallery or generate AI stickers via text prompts. more

Security 🔓

• Business Gmail gets pseudo-E2EE: Google is adding client-side encryption (CSE) to Gmail for business users, but it’s not full end-to-end encryption by strict standards. Messages are encrypted in the sender’s browser and decrypted in the recipient’s browser, but the keys are managed by the sender's organization via a KACL (key access control list) server. That means admins can access the keys if needed. more

  • This update simplifies compliance for regulated industries, but it’s not meant for personal privacy.

Regulation 🧑🏻‍⚖️

• EU prepares $1B fine for X: The EU is reportedly planning to fine Elon Musk’s X up to $1 billion for violating the Digital Services Act, following an investigation into the platform’s handling of disinformation and illegal content—especially around events like the Hamas attacks on Israel. The fine may come with demands for product changes. X plans to fight it in court. more

Agencies 💼

• WPP $WPPGY ( ▲ 0.96% )  buys InfoSum for AI edge: WPP has acquired InfoSum, a data collaboration startup known for privacy-focused tools like data clean rooms, to strengthen its AI and data capabilities. InfoSum, once valued at $300M, will join WPP's GroupM. The deal helps clients use their first-party data more effectively and train AI models on larger, privacy-compliant datasets.

  • This follows Publicis’ recent purchase of Lotame, signaling more consolidation in the ad-tech space as agencies race to gain an AI advantage. more

The Ticker

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