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Efficiency, innovation, and cross-functional alignment are key to marketing success in 2025 - and marketing ops need to lead the way. Join Darrell Alfonso (Indeed) and Thao Ngo (Uptempo) for an interactive panel discussion [4] on the top priorities for forward-thinking MOps teams, from AI to leadership.
Consumers are looking for pre-tariff deals. Brands are using looming tariffs as a sales trigger, launching “pre-tariff” deals and urgent promotions to drive purchases before potential price hikes. From cheeky discount codes to transparent pricing breakdowns, they're using humor and urgency to connect with anxious consumers. While some highlight American-made products, others rush to offload inventory or secure short-term revenue to prepare for supply chain disruptions.
While 72% of creators are optimistic about their platforms, 88% still treat content creation as a side hustle. Only 25% of top-tier creators do it full-time. Tension with brands often stems from mismatched expectations around creativity, deadlines, and revisions. Although 58% of creators prefer having brand guidelines, many want more collaboration and clarity. Brands should share broader marketing objectives, not just campaign-specific goals. Creators care whether a brand is not just looking for story clicks, brand uplifts, or saves.
Companies are using SEO to target people searching for competitor discounts by creating fake coupon pages or "how to pay less" pages. These pages rank for keywords like “[Competitor] discount” and redirect high-intent buyers to their own products. Brands like Speechify, BlueNotary, and Splashtop use this tactic to poach customers who are ready to buy. To defend against this, companies should create their own discount pages to rank higher than both competitors and coupon sites.
Ad strength in Google Ads is not a reliable performance metric and should not be blindly optimized for. While ads rated Excellent by Google can lead to a 12% increase in conversions, real-world data shows that both Poor and Excellent rated ads often perform worse than Average or Good ones. Completely unpinned headlines, which Google requires for Excellent ratings, tend to lower ad relevance and increase CPCs. Advertisers like Nike and Best Buy pin keyword-rich headlines to improve performance, even if it means settling for lower ad strength scores.
Optimizely is hosting a free online event, Test + Learn, where experts will discuss how they turn experimentation into a revenue-driving function with AI and unified analytics as their co-pilots. The event takes place on May 21 at 10 am ET.
Google is expanding Google Discover to desktop. It's offering businesses new ways to reach users with curated, interest-based content without requiring search queries. Discover currently drives 25.7% of referral traffic, up from 22.8%. Its users spend 8 seconds more on content compared to traditional search. News publishers dominate the platform with 99% of clicks, while ecommerce and B2C brands also see strong results through product pages and visual content. B2B brands have struggled so far, earning only 1% of traffic, but the desktop rollout could help.
Event ambushing allows brands to insert themselves into major cultural moments without paying for official sponsorship. Puma paid Pele $120K to tie his shoes on camera at the 1970 World Cup, Nike outfitted 400 athletes and launched a parallel campaign during the 2012 Olympics, and Rihanna promoted Fenty Beauty during her 2023 Super Bowl performance. These moments worked because they felt natural, aligned with the brand, and captured massive attention. While not for every brand, it's a bold way to gain visibility without the sponsorship price tag.
SEO performance is often restricted by organizational structure, especially when it reports through traditional marketing channels with no direct access to technical resources. Treating SEO as a product function gives it ownership over planning, engineering alignment, and long-term investment. By shifting the SEO manager role into product management, companies can integrate SEO into the core of the digital strategy roadmap.
A before-and-after showing 8 key improvements to Smyle's welcome email.
A look into how Loblaw Digital builds its campaigns for one person at a time in real time.
Today's marketer focuses less on manual tasks and more on building AI-driven systems and scalable workflows.