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The Top Three

🏆 THE INDUSTRY’S MOST IMPORTANT STORIES TODAY

🥇 GOOGLE OPENS PMAX BLACK BOX

After years of gaslighting, Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 1.57% ) is finally giving advertisers more visibility into where their Performance Max ads run. In response to mounting antitrust pressure, the platform will soon offer channel-level reporting across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, Display, and Discover — moving beyond impression counts to show which placements drive results and how each channel contributes to campaign goals. more

• Advertisers will be able to see metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and costs broken down by channel and ad format.

• Search term insights are also rolling out now, showing which queries triggered ads within the Search network.

• Channel reporting will be available in open beta in the coming weeks and can be accessed in the Insights and Reports section.

🥈 META’S ONE-CAMPAIGN WONDER

One ad to rule them all: Meta’s $META ( ▲ 4.23% ) new ad format, Omnichannel ad campaigns, are built to drive sales both online and in-store, all from a single campaign. Choose the 'Website and in-store' optimization at the ad set level, and Meta will automatically optimize delivery and populate nearby store info where relevant.

• Available for Advantage+ shopping and Manual sales campaigns.

• Supports all targeting options and ad formats under the sales objective.

🥉 SNAP: GLOBAL GAINS, LOCAL PAINS

Snap’s $SNAP ( ▼ 1.63% )  Q1 report shows steady growth in users and revenue, fueled by international markets, while U.S. numbers slipped with a loss of 1 million daily active users in North America. The company said global time spent watching content is also up, though didn’t share specifics. more

• Daily active users hit 460M, up 38M YoY.

• North America DAUs dropped to 99M from 100M in Q4 2024.

• Monthly active users reached 900M.

• Revenue increased 14% YoY to $1.36B.

• Snapchat+ nears 15M subscribers, up 60% YoY.

Today’s Other News

📰 EVERYTHING ELSE THAT MATTERS

Advertising 📣

• Universal Ads $CMCSA ( ▼ 1.11% )  announced today that new publishers have joined its platform, including Fuse Media, LG Ad Solutions, Spectrum Reach, and Vizio. The self-serve platform gives advertisers access to scaled audiences across publishers, aiming to make buying TV ads as easy as buying on social. According to the company, this setup lets advertisers buy directly from a publisher’s inventory, without any fees on either side. more

• Trump Tariffs hit global ad budgets: Today, WARC and the Advertising Association cut their U.K. ad spend forecast to 6.3% growth in 2025, reaching $60 billion, 0.6% below January predictions due to stagnant growth and tariff pressures. more

  • A recent survey found 1 in 4 British marketers have faced budget cuts, with European advertisers feeling the pinch too.

The Tariff Hellscape 🔥 

• Tariffs and economic uncertainty are forcing ad agencies into “monitor and prepare” mode. While most clients haven’t slashed budgets yet, Marketing Brew has a great piece up about how agencies are planning for potential downturns, adjusting strategies, rethinking media spend, and helping brands respond quickly to shifting costs, consumer sentiment, and even global reputation concerns.

• U.S. President Trump reportedly called Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 3.13% ) founder Jeff Bezos to complain after reports suggested the company planned to show tariff costs next to product prices. After Amazon responded, saying it was never going to happen, Trump told reporters that “Jeff Bezos is very nice. He did the right thing. Good guy." Crisis averted, billionaire bromance intact. 🙏 more

Search 🔍

• Google's John Mueller has clarified that having multiple identical links on a page, such as in navigation menus, is "fine & common" and shouldn't impact SEO. more

Social Media 📱

• After months of testing — and losing 1 million users in North America — Snapchat is abandoning its 'simple' redesign. Instead, the company is now testing a refined layout that keeps its five existing tabs, combining elements of the original and simplified designs. The new layout will bring more Stories into messaging and make Spotlight easier to access. more

• TikTok has officially surpassed Twitch to become the second most-watched livestreaming platform, according to new data. more

  • TikTok Live generated 8 billion watch hours, making up 27% of global livestreaming time.

  • YouTube claimed the #1 spot with 15 billion hours, or 50% of the total.

  • Twitch followed in third with 4.8 billion hours, accounting for 16.3%.

Influencer Marketing 🤳 

• 👀 Likes, views, and labor rights: SAG-AFTRA is expanding its reach to include digital content creators. The union’s board recently approved the creation of a new committee dedicated to influencers, that will focus on providing professional support tailored to the needs of creators. more

• Best Buy's $BBY ( ▲ 0.53% ) affiliate program is facing challenges due to "broader economic factors." The company recently launched its Best Buy Creator, which lets participants earn from virtual storefronts, but now the retailer has delayed payouts and cut payout rates. Affiliates were notified that payouts would be temporarily adjusted to a "0% baseline" through early May, with commission payments also delayed. more

  • Best Buy said that those payouts have now been made and expects the program to return to normal next month.

Who Greenlit This? 🚦 

• 🤖 I'm not even mad... I'm impressed: Google's AI Overview recently went viral for confidently generating plausible definitions for completely made-up idioms... like "you can't lick a badger twice." Users quickly discovered that typing any nonsense phrase followed by “meaning” into search triggers the AI to explain it, sometimes even citing fake sources. Ars Technica has a great breakdown on how Google's model tries, with surprising poetic flair, to make sense out of nonsense, and why that might be part of the problem.

The Ticker

📈 HOW DIGITAL MARKETING STOCKS ARE DOING

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