Daily Edition · Page 9

THE DAILY INDEX

Technology, AI, software, security, crypto and business

NEWS & TRENDS

TLDR Marketing

HERE'S WHAT AMAZON IS TELLING ADVERTISERS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Amazon is telling advertisers it will anchor 2026 plans on authenticated reach, programmatic simplicity, live sports, and applied AI. It claims its Authenticated Graph can connect advertisers to 90% of US households across the open internet using verified signals. The company is pushing Amazon DSP as a single buying tool that unlocks premium partners like Netflix and Disney programmatically. Live sports is a growth driver as Prime Video saw a 40% increase in Black Friday advertisers and nearly 50% growth from non-endemic brands year over year.

WHAT IS AN A/A TEST AND WHEN DO I HAVE TO RUN ONE?

A/A testing helps verify that A/B testing tools are functioning correctly by splitting traffic between identical pages to check for data accuracy and randomness. It builds confidence in test results by revealing baseline conversion rates and natural variance, critical for interpreting future experiments. While not designed to uncover new insights, A/A tests are valuable for validating tools, identifying setup errors, and estimating sample sizes.

8 INTERNAL COMMS IDEAS

People are leaning into nostalgia with advice columns, hotlines, and hyper-specific day-in-the-life profiles. Teams are asking for replies in emails and actually following up, while survey results are shared alongside immediate action items. Managers get their own channels for early updates, holidays come with real expectations like logging off, and customer stories make everyone feel proud. Some teams are even testing messaging with custom GPTs and doing year-in-review videos with team commentary.

ZAPIER'S CEO SHARES HIS PERSONAL AI STACK (42 MINUTE PODCAST)

Zapier's CEO, Wade Foster, embeds AI across key operations using tools like Granola, which records and transcribes meetings, allowing him to analyze cultural patterns and generate interview rubrics. Foster builds Zapier Agents that evaluate candidates based on transcripts, job descriptions, and cultural fit, then email structured hiring recommendations. He uses Copilot to tune these prompts, including adding feedback on interview quality and surfacing missing questions. For sourcing talent, he taps Grok to find niche creators or “chronically online” users discussing automation, targeting low-follower experts outside major tech hubs for roles like social media.

TANGLE SOCIAL APP AIMS TO HEAL SOCIAL MEDIA WOUNDS

Tangle is a new social app developed by Twitter and Pinterest co-founders through their venture, West Co. The platform encourages users to share daily intentions and focus on personal growth rather than algorithm-driven engagement. Designed as a response to the mental health impacts of traditional social media, Tangle focuses on intentionality. It is currently in invite-only beta and part of a broader movement toward healthier digital experiences.

HOW BIG ARE GOOGLE'S GROUNDING CHUNKS?

Google uses a fixed grounding budget of about 2,000 words per query, and page length does not increase that limit. It splits this budget by relevance rank, where the #1 source gets about 531 words or 28% and the #5 source gets about 266 words or 13%. Most pages receive about 377 words, and 77% of pages fall between 200 and 600 words selected. Coverage drops as pages get longer, since pages over 2,000 words average about 13% coverage and grounding plateaus near 540 words. Concise and dense content is more effective than long pages.

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