With over 150 performances and a $10B economic impact, Taylor Swift's Eras Tour has become the highest-grossing tour of all time. Swift embraced a multi-faceted strategy, from releasing new music during the tour to fostering fan participation on platforms like TikTok, which saw 1.9M user videos averaging 380M daily views. By combining cultural nostalgia, modern engagement tactics, and an unparalleled live experience, she set a whole new standard for mega-concerts.
Ad fraud causes over $100 billion in losses annually, with more than 20% of programmatic ad spend affected and mobile ad fraud rates exceeding 30%. Fraudulent practices, including click farms, fake installs, and misleading impressions, inflate top-of-funnel metrics without real conversions. Marketers often unknowingly optimize campaigns based on false signals instead of scrutinizing the data to identify and address these issues.
A discussion with Seth Godin on how to build remarkable products.
A collection of email inspo from Bluey, BBC Earth, Doctor Who, and Liquid Death.
21 questions to inspire founder-led content creation.
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If you use the internet, you've probably seen short videos and screen recordings shared with Loom (it's currently used by 25 million users!).
Pinterest predicts that next year's trends will lean into bold forms of expression and maximalism. Individuals will look for ways to stand out and engage all their senses through their style choices. Nesting parties will replace baby showers while travel shifts to remote mountain destinations. Fashion trends will include coordinated outfits and a fisherman aesthetic with cable-knit sweaters and sardine-themed accessories. Food will highlight chaos cakes and pickle-inspired creations, and home décor will embrace solar punk sustainability.
2025 marks the death of the “influencer trip”. Brands will focus on genuine relationship-building through intimate events with influencers, press, and community members. Strategic casting and transparency will replace scripted messaging for credibility. With face product innovation slowing, growth will shift to fragrance, body care, and wellness. Age inclusivity will gain traction, with terms like “pro-aging” highlighting mature consumers' buying power. Fragrance will continue expanding, and the influencer market will evolve with older creators as CMOs allocate larger budgets to the maturing segment.
Marketers can learn from LEGO's turnaround by focusing on core strengths and eliminating distractions. LEGO identified its key assets - brand recognition, the LEGO System, and global distribution - while cutting unprofitable ventures like video games and theme parks. It leveraged its fan network for co-creation, streamlined its product portfolio by 30%, and re-emphasized compatibility between sets to reduce costs and boost customer loyalty. When a brand is struggling, marketers should start by analyzing their company's capabilities, assets, network, weaknesses, and strengths to uncover the right positioning and path forward.
Commoditized offers are easily compared with competitors, while proprietary offers create differentiation through rare methods, unique skills, or exclusive processes. Effective proprietary offers solve high-priority problems and deliver clear outcomes, driving better sales and customer loyalty. To create a proprietary offer, brands must align it with a “big idea” narrative and focus on showcasing its value instead of features or technical aspects.
After BFCM, repairing sender reputation requires targeted steps, including avoiding emails to unengaged recipients and pausing third-party marketing. Adopting a rewarming strategy based on subscriber engagement levels can help restore trust and improve deliverability over a three week period. To track the effectiveness of the repair process, closely monitor metrics like spam complaints, click rates, and unsubscribe rates.
This free set of templates streamlines product management, UX research, and marketing by aiding strategy, discovery, and delivery tasks. It includes templates for creating product visions, conducting interviews, refining backlogs, and prioritizing assumptions. Each one is editable to fit custom needs.
Gartner experts will discuss the three critical design areas that will change the marketing function of tomorrow and what leaders should do to prepare on December 12 at 10 am ET.
Podcast Guest Launch is a software tool that automates podcast booking for businesses, helping executives secure guest spots efficiently and scale their brand presence. Its target audience is B2B companies, which value podcasts as a means to build trust and position themselves as industry experts, even with audiences as small as 5,000-10,000 downloads. The platform's branding emphasizes simplicity and focus, using the tagline “Where do you want to be famous?” to inspire users to envision success. Marketers can leverage podcast appearances facilitated by Podcast Guest Launch to generate content, improve SEO, and run targeted ads using highlights from interviews. Opportunities for the brand include adding video proof of success on its site and exploring partnerships with podcasters.
Google's partnership with Reddit has elevated the social platform's visibility, with Reddit posts now dominating search results for product reviews and industry insights. This collaboration has reshaped search behavior, as users increasingly seek unfiltered community discussions rather than traditional marketing content. Brands must now consider Reddit a central part of their marketing strategies to engage with audiences where purchasing decisions are being influenced.
This year's Spotify Wrapped faced criticism for inaccurate data and prioritizing AI features over its usual creative and entertaining elements.
A look into this year's best campaigns from Calvin Klein, Liquid Death, Gap, and Lays.
Within 12 minutes, a user's MyFitnessPal experience went from delight to ultimate frustration, leading her to search for an alternative app.
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Tech budgets are being set, and strategies for Q1 are locking in. TLDR [4] reaches millions of developers, founders, and decision-makers who are already planning their next big moves. Why not make your brand part of their 2025? From trusted content to unmatched audience engagement, TLDR is where tech marketers make an impact. Schedule a call [4] now to get ahead of the game
The Browser Company's ad for its AI-powered browser ‘Dia' shows a growing trend in AI marketing: showcasing features that inadvertently reduce human connection. In the ad, the AI replaces the simple act of asking a spouse for gift advice with a cold, robotic email, emphasizing functionality over emotional authenticity. This example reflects broader concerns about AI's role in automating core aspects of humanity, with ads often revealing how technology distances people from their personal interactions and relationships.
This piece critiques social networks' reliance on algorithms, contrasting Twitter's manipulation under Elon Musk and Threads' lack of timeliness with Bluesky's user-first approach. Bluesky's reverse-chronological feed and features like Starter Packs prioritize user control and authenticity, echoing early Twitter's vibrancy. While Threads struggles to stay relevant and timely, Bluesky's minimalist design shows the value of sparing algorithm use.
Moving social proof higher on a webpage can significantly boost conversions, as demonstrated by a 19.5% increase in signups when customer logos were placed under the hero banner. Testimonials from customers proved more effective than company-provided data points - conversions dropped 10% when data replaced testimonials. This highlights that people trust individuals more than corporations. Visitor intent also plays a critical role, as social proof is most effective for new visitors but may be less relevant for returning customers. To maximize the results of your own tests, base changes on data insights rather than assumptions and test the modifications thoroughly. After implementing changes, compare pre- and post-test data to identify potential unintended consequences.
This guide explains how to create thought leadership content with minimal CEO time. Using basic remote setups, it recommends bi-weekly one-hour interviews with prompts like "What bothers you about competitors?" or "What are industry misconceptions?" and frameworks like "First, Last, Best, Worst." Insights can be extracted via tools like Descript, which turns them into videos, infographics, and text posts. Content should be distributed on LinkedIn and YouTube Shorts, with high-performing posts boosted through paid promotion.
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We've all been there: days get filled with meetings, and to-do lists just keep getting longer. In this guide, Atlassian suggests simple habits that will help you find more focus, and cross more off your to-do lists — including timeboxing, calendar audits, async working tools such as Loom [10], and effective async brainstorming. Read the
TikTok's 170 million US users helped redefine cultural and business trends globally. TikTok Shop livestream sessions tripled, with sellers like Stormi Steele achieving $2M in sales during a single session. The #BookTok community inspired over 1.2M posts, driving a 300% surge in #Romantasy posts. Latin music thrived, with tracks like "Gata Only" generating over 50M TikTok creations and 1.3B Spotify streams. TikTok's Olympics-related hashtags garnered 50B views, and #WomenInSports posts grew 2,400%.
Google dominates the search landscape, holding over 90% of the global market share for 15 years and sending more than 60% of referring traffic to other sites. Data shows that queries with informational intent make up more than half of all searches, while commercial and transactional queries make up just 14.5% and 0.69%, respectively. These findings emphasize the importance of targeting searchers with commercial or transactional intent for the highest ROI, which requires precision in keyword optimization.
As influencer marketing grows in popularity, brands continue to struggle to determine the value of sponsored content while influencers face challenges in pricing and maintaining authenticity. Brands often impose creative restrictions that compromise authenticity, while reliance on metrics incentivizes influencers to manipulate engagement data. These dynamics risk undermining trust, weakening relationships, and reducing the effectiveness of campaigns.
In 2023, $10.8 billion was saved by addressing ad fraud, yet the focus on cost efficiency continues to sustain low-quality media practices. Cost pressure drives agencies to prioritize cheap impressions over meaningful engagement, reinforcing a cycle of inflated metrics and bot-driven fraud. Agencies end up prioritizing programmatic channels and MFA sites which sacrifice long-term brand value for short-term savings.
Brands are embracing Gen Alpha by balancing direct engagement with ethical considerations. Companies like Evereden have shifted from targeting parents to reaching tweens directly through organic content on TikTok. Claire's combines digital strategies with in-store experiences, offering sections tailored to younger customers. Paid ads remain parent-focused since parents are the decision-makers, while brands exercise due diligence to ensure age-appropriate content and collaborations.
93.5 million US holiday shoppers used TikTok to look for holiday gifts.
A graph ranking content formats including video, image, and text.
A GTM framework for 2025 planning.
Fans are no longer just consuming content. They're actively shaping digital media by creating trends that propel moments into global phenomena. Examining end-of-year lists across 12 countries, this report identifies common themes, like an animated series turned franchise and a sports moment amplified online. These findings reflect a shift toward participatory, fan-led pop culture, with YouTube acting as a hub for collective cultural experiences.
Demographic data, like age and generation, is losing relevance. Psychographics - values, mindsets, and motivations - are becoming more important. AI tools now allow marketers to quickly access psychographic data. By focusing on mindsets, brands can predict future behavior. They can also communicate more effectively across age groups.
Research using fMRI scans reveals that emotional ads work best for pleasurable products, while informative ads are more effective for functional products. Ads for pleasurable products, such as vacations or chocolate, stimulate brain areas tied to reward and memory, increasing emotional engagement and interest. Ads for practical products, like cleaning supplies, activate brain regions linked to analytical thinking, encouraging practical decision-making. Brain scan data improved ad success prediction by 9.1% to 18.1% compared to self-reports. Limitations of the research include a small sample size, testing only headphone ads, and not exploring mixed messaging.
32% of brands actively use post-purchase surveys to shape marketing strategies, leaving a wealth of insights untapped. By asking targeted questions like “Did you buy this as a gift?” brands can personalize the customer experience, refine audience segmentation, and improve campaign relevance.
Host a cost-effective, pipeline-driving dinner by selecting a city where your ICPs are located. Build a guest list through LinkedIn, investors, and tools like Apollo, and send FOMO-inducing invites. Choose an impressive venue, plan seating near key stakeholders, and spark engaging conversations with introductions and marketing insights. Capture high-quality photos to share in follow-ups, encouraging social media posts for added visibility. Follow up thoughtfully by referencing discussions and offering tailored value.
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75% of companies are already using multiple AI features. CallRail's AI expert Ryan Johnson believes an even more profound transformation is due in 2025.
This guide provides a detailed roadmap for leveraging Apple Search Ads to boost app discoverability and growth in the competitive App Store ecosystem. It covers key topics such as the benefits of Apple Search Ads, the synergy between paid ads and App Store Optimization (ASO), and the differences between Basic and Advanced campaign options. It also shares more tactical insights, such as using discovery campaigns to refine targeting and aligning ASO with ad strategies for maximum impact.
Digital Marketing Institute is hosting a virtual panel discussing the key trends for digital marketing in 2025, including the transformative power of AI and the latest developments in Social Media and Search. The webinar will take place on December 9 at 10 am ET.
Brands responding to Spotify Wrapped memes should act fast and publish within 12 hours. Overly product-centric posts risk losing creative impact due to leadership interference. Delayed posts (5+ days) often indicate slow approval processes or limited resources, while no response may reflect resource constraints or strategic restraint. Parodying the trend or humorously acknowledging resource limitations can also work in a brand's favor.
Humorous ads increase engagement, with campaigns like Old Spice's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", GEICO's “Hump Day”, and Snickers' "You're Not You When You're Hungry" showing great results. Effective humor must align with brand identity and resonate with audience preferences, avoiding controversial topics. Successful campaigns often use relatable scenarios, exaggeration, and precise timing to create memorable and shareable content. It is also key to test humor pre-launch to avoid offending people.
An SEO agency was able to alter its brand's results in ChatGPT Search by adding content to the article it was referencing.
A screenshot of Bespoke Post's quirky binary subject line standing out in a crowded inbox.
Away drives wins through a bias to action and creating ownable content.
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Marketing teams need to deliver for many different stakeholders and initiatives across the business, while also managing and pursuing their own agenda. How do you walk this tightrope? Agile marketing practices might be the answer to boosting productivity, prioritization, and quality.
The Justice Department's effort to force Google to sell Chrome could disrupt digital advertising. Google Search accounts for over 14% of media spend, and its SEM delivers high ROI despite rising costs. Retail media networks like Amazon, Walmart, and Target may gain from displaced ad budgets. Rising costs and regulatory issues are also reshaping social media and programmatic advertising.
OpenAI is exploring the possibility of adding ads to products like ChatGPT. Although CFO Sarah Friar stated there are no active plans, factors like declining traffic and high AI infrastructure costs may drive the company to diversify revenue.