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GOOGLE WILL BEGIN PUNISHING SITES FOR BACK BUTTON HIJACKING IN JUNE

The technique manipulates browser history to redirect users to additional content pages or pop-ups instead of letting them navigate back.

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REVEALED: ‘ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA' SHOWS TWICE AS MUCH CONTENT FROM STRANGERS AS POSTS FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY

Social media feeds now show far more content from strangers and ads than from real connections. A new study from IPPR finds that only 18% of top posts come from friends and family, while 35% come from influencers or recommended content, and 29% come from ads and brands. On TikTok and X, just 10% of posts come from people users know, and about 14% are ads. Algorithms favor content that keeps users engaged, which increases time spent but reduces social interaction and shared experiences.

META SET TO OVERTAKE GOOGLE IN GLOBAL DIGITAL AD REVENUE

Meta is forecast to overtake Google in global digital ad revenue for the first time by the end of 2026, generating a projected $243 billion compared to Google's $239.5 billion. The shift is driven by Meta's accelerating growth rate of 24.1% in 2026 versus Google's steadier 12%, with tools like Advantage+ and Reels improving advertiser performance across Facebook and Instagram. Google's market share has been declining since 2021, while Meta's has climbed to a projected 26.8%. Together with Amazon at $82 billion, the three platforms are expected to account for 62.3% of total worldwide digital ad spend in 2026.

POSITIONING 101: HOW TO LIVE RENT-FREE IN YOUR BEST CLIENTS' MINDS

Clear positioning keeps your brand top-of-mind and allows you to avoid competing on price. Positioning is both a process and a simple statement that defines what you do, who it is for, and why it's valuable. Strong positioning comes from your unique skills and real client insight gathered through customer feedback and research. It answers five key questions about alternatives, strengths, value, audience, and context so you can target clients who care and will pay more. The result is a clear and memorable statement that guides your marketing and builds authority over time. Your positioning should be reviewed and refined every 6 months.

TURN SMALL CONTENT INTO BIG CONTENT

Start with a LinkedIn post to test an idea and gather feedback from real engagement. Expand only the posts that resonate into full articles, using audience comments to shape what you add. Combine your strongest articles into a conference talk that synthesizes the best ideas. Turn that talk into a podcast discussion to explore the concepts in more depth. Finally, package multiple talks into a structured video course that builds layered, validated content over time.

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INTRODUCING THE MARKETING ENGINEER

A marketing engineer uses AI, automation, and light coding to build systems that run and scale marketing work like software instead of relying on manual execution. Profound's Marketing Engineering course is a three-module program that teaches you how to think in systems, build agents that run real marketing workflows, and operate as an engineer inside a marketing team. The 3 hour course covers everything from identifying what to automate to writing prompts that work without you to building full systems from discovery to deployment.

HUBSPOT AEO BETA

HubSpot's AEO helps businesses improve how they show up in AI-generated answers across tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. It tracks brand visibility and sentiment, showing how often a company appears in AI responses compared to competitors. It also identifies and suggests relevant prompts people are asking so teams know what to optimize for. The tool analyzes which pages, domains, and content AI systems are citing.

4 NEW ENGAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR YOUTUBE CREATORS

YouTube has announced 4 new livestreaming features: horizontal stream gifts, expanded gift access in 6 new markets, automatic ad-free windows after donations, and dual-format streaming.

GOOGLE ZERO: IS THE NEWS INDUSTRY'S DECLINE REALLY GOOGLE'S FAULT?

“Google Zero” is overstated since publisher traffic from Google has mostly flattened rather than collapsed, which makes SEO a zero sum competition instead of a growth channel. Many publishers misread flat traffic as decline and worsen the problem by cutting SEO investment, which can directly reduce their visibility. Data cited to support major declines is often flawed due to skewed comparisons like election year vs. non election year and mixed traffic categories. AI overviews do reduce some clicks, but they mainly impact low value content like product reviews and listicles rather than core news reporting. Publishers can still grow by focusing on original reporting or niche coverage, and by diversifying revenue through subscriptions and newsletters.

MID-LEVEL GENERALIST > SENIOR STRATEGIST

The most important hire in content is a mid-level generalist who can think strategically, write well, and use AI fluently. This role is disappearing as companies shift to senior leaders setting direction and junior or AI tools handling execution. That creates a gap in judgment and translation between strategy and execution. The generalist turns strategy into strong briefs, evaluates AI output, and connects business goals to audience needs. Without this layer, teams produce more content but lose quality, context, and coherence.

AI COMPANIES MAKE POWERFUL TECH – BUT THEY'RE ALSO SAVVY MARKETERS

Anthropic's release of Claude Mythos, a cybersecurity-focused AI model, has generated significant attention partly because the company withheld it from public access and called it a "reckoning" for the industry. Cybersecurity experts are already pushing back, with one noting that some of the claimed zero-day vulnerability discoveries are less significant to real-world security than the messaging suggests. The withholding strategy creates demand, a tactic previously used by OpenAI when it delayed the release of GPT-2 and its video generator Sora.

JOB APPLICATION TIP

Use X-ray searches like site:lever.co ("role" OR "title") ("remote" OR "US") ("industry keywords") to find hidden ATS job posts and improve visibility.

“MEME-LEVEL UNDERSTANDING” EXERCISE

Map audience pressures, emotions, and top pain points to create insider-level messaging.

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END OF THE PRICE GAME

Price is losing its role as the main driver of purchase decisions. Value perception now drives choice as consumers increasingly mix national brands with private label and evaluate quality beyond cost. 80% of shoppers are reporting higher bills in the past six months, and 25% of households are spending over $250 per week. Only 10% of consumers now buy brand-name products exclusively. 66% regularly combine brand and store label items. In some categories, 71% prioritize value over flavor compared to 54% who prioritize taste. Private label quality is also gaining ground, with 60% of consumers viewing it as equal or better than national brands.

PPC SALARIES ARE SPLITTING: WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

PPC salaries are diverging sharply at mid-career levels. The 10-15 year US experience band has flatlined between $133,500 and $136,000 for 3 consecutive years. Freelancers in the same range command a median of $202,895 and in-house strategists at 6-9 years earn up to $170,000. The split is not primarily about AI adoption, which now saves an average of 5.2 hours per week but has become an expectation rather than a differentiator. Mid-career agency practitioners are being squeezed from below by automation absorbing execution work and from above by senior roles that demand strategic business impact beyond campaign management.

SHORTER, FOCUSED CONTENT WINS IN CHATGPT

An analysis of 815,000 query-page pairs found that short, focused pages that directly answer a query get cited more often in ChatGPT than long “ultimate guides”. Covering every subtopic has little impact. Pages with headlines that closely match the query have a 41% citation rate versus 29% for weaker matches. Retrieval rank is the strongest factor, since position 1 pages get cited 58% of the time and position 10 pages drop to 14%. Content quality is more important than domain authority, as always-cited pages have lower DA than never-cited pages.

LINKEDIN PROSPECTING PLAYBOOK

A cold call can become a live conversation through a three step sequence over three days. Day one is a LinkedIn voice note referencing a specific trigger and signaling a future call. Day two is a short email that repeats the same insight. Day three is a phone call that references both prior touches and asks if the voice note landed. Familiarity builds through repeated exposure to the same topic across channels. This approach relies on specific research, as generic outreach breaks the sequence.

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THE FAN-OUT EFFECT: WHAT HAPPENS BETWEEN A QUERY AND A CITATION

This analysis examines how ChatGPT selects and cites web pages by mapping the full retrieval pipeline across thousands of queries and pages. Retrieval rank is the strongest signal, with position 1 reaching a 58% citation rate versus 14% at position 10. Heading alignment is the top on-page factor, with strong query matches cited 41% of the time versus 29% for weaker matches. Focused pages perform better than exhaustive ones, with 26-50% fanout coverage outperforming full coverage when relevance is held constant. Domain authority and backlinks show no positive impact and are slightly negative, with citations driven more by retrieval position and content structure than traditional SEO authority.

GTM STARTER KIT

This repository gives GTM teams a structured system for working with Claude Code by turning company knowledge into reusable context instead of ad hoc prompts. It includes templates for ICPs, positioning, competitors, personas, and signals, plus skills for account research, scoring, and campaign creation. It also provides workflows for building campaigns, along with playbooks for responding to competitor shifts. A full example company and automation scripts show how to connect data and keep the system updated for ongoing GTM execution.

AT COACHELLA, FESTIVAL FASHION AND BRAND ACTIVATIONS GET MODERN UPDATES

Coachella is driving a 465% spike in outfit searches, with Pinterest data also showing a 740% rise in nostalgic looks. Attendees are remixing past styles into a more individual “new boho” aesthetic rather than following one dominant trend. They plan content-driven wardrobes weeks in advance. 58% wear multiple outfits per day, mixing fast fashion with thrifted pieces to stand out. Brands are shifting toward customizable activations like Gap's on-site hoodie experience, while festivals like Stagecoach Festival and Glastonbury Festival reflect more localized and personal style expressions.

WHY CTV IS BECOMING THE FIRST REAL TEST OF AGENTIC ADVERTISING

CTV inventory is increasingly constrained not by demand but by the operational complexity of executing custom deals across disconnected systems. Each campaign involves negotiated pricing, creative requirements, delivery guarantees, and advertiser-specific measurement, creating friction that forces publishers to simplify offerings or prioritize only the largest deals. Agentic advertising addresses this by letting publishers encode pricing and prioritization rules into AI-driven seller agents that apply those rules continuously without constant manual intervention.

FORCE CHATGPT TO PERFORM A SEARCH

A prompt that forces ChatGPT to run a search and return concise bullet summaries of the exact sources it pulls from.

CHARM BARS

Brands are driving engagement with customizable “charm bar” experiences that turn events into tactile keepsakes.

AD AGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MARKETING CONCEPTS

Definitions of terms like AEO, zero-click search, and lift testing.

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WHY LOCAL MEDIA ADVERTISING GOT HARDER TO SELL

Local media advertising is harder to sell because the mix of local businesses has shifted. New advertisers favor targeted digital tactics over traditional media. The market added 1.7M net new businesses after the pandemic, and many of these buy search ads and targeted banners that sales reps often miss. There are now 3X more in-house marketers than ad sales reps, and these marketers focus on quick results and bottom-funnel tools rather than brand building. This makes advertisers more skeptical and more focused on proof over reach.

YOUR 2026 MARKETING BUDGET HAS A HOLE IN IT — AND IT'S CALLED TOKENS

AI token costs are a fast-growing gap in 2026 marketing budgets because usage scales quickly and is hard to predict. Traditional B2B budget splits of about 45% headcount, 45% programs, and 10% technology are shifting as tech spend rises by 2% to 3% due to AI tools and data needs. Headcount is flat at many SaaS companies, but expectations are higher. AI-native companies are hiring as revenue grows faster than staff. Program spend is steady but faces pressure to lower cost-per-outcome with the help of AI. The biggest challenge is forecasting token usage for both internal AI work and vendor pricing, since even providers lack clear benchmarks.

EMAIL ANIMATED GIFS: BEST PRACTICES FOR DRIVING ROI WHILE AVOIDING ANNOYING SUBSCRIBERS

Brands using purposeful animated GIFs in email see a 37:1 ROI, a 105% improvement over those relying on static images alone. Interactive elements like gamified reveals and video-GIFs drive 73% higher click-to-open rates by creating a curiosity gap that pulls subscribers into engagement. However, 31% of subscribers label animated emails as annoying when the motion feels random, so every animation needs to serve a clear function. Gmail clips emails over 102KB, and GIFs should stay under 500KB to render properly on mobile.

AUGUST PERIOD CARE'S VIRAL COMMUNITY-FIRST MARKETING STRATEGY

August built rapid growth by openly normalizing periods and using a community-first strategy that prioritizes relatability over traditional ads. It has grown to 400K TikTok followers and 187K Instagram followers by using founder-led content and high volume testing that attract and convert Gen Z audiences aged 16-29. It focuses on organic content first and uses paid ads only for retargeting. It scales reach through programs like campus advocates and partnerships with brands like DoorDash and USA Track and Field.

INSIDE 5 FOOD AND BEVERAGE INFLUENCER CAMPAIGNS THAT DELIVERED MEASURABLE ROI

Results improve when brands move beyond large creator rosters and toward more deliberate strategic choices. Habit Burger drove 10.5M impressions by deploying food trucks and creators on the ground during Big Game weekend instead of buying a traditional ad spot. Tapatío Ramen integrated direct purchase links into creator content and ran paid amplification on the best-performing assets, achieving 41% higher ROAS and surpassing its own Amazon sales through Shopify. Totino's took a different route, giving TikTok gaming creators minimal creative guardrails and landing a $0.61 CPM across 11.7M impressions.

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THE ART OF TELLING STORIES WITH DATA (WEBINAR)

Gulrez Khan will dive into the world of data storytelling in this free event that will take place on April 20 at 9 AM PT. Learn how to transform raw data into compelling narratives that captivate your audience in a world of AI slop. He will cover how to design visuals that guide attention and reduce cognitive load.

WHY AI SUCKS AT FRONT END

AI tools excel at scaffolding generic UI components, migrating design tokens, and outlining features. However, they fall apart when front-end work requires pixel precision or bespoke interactions. The core issue is that LLMs trained on common web patterns cannot see rendered output, struggle with math-heavy layout calculations, and have no control over the chaotic browser environment where HTML and CSS actually execute. Scroll-driven animations and complex component states are particularly weak spots. The more complex a component becomes, the slower and less reliable AI assistance gets.

COPYWRITING FRIDAY: ONE OF THE FEW THINGS ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE THAT DIDN'T HAVE A BACKUP SYSTEM

Nikon's ad proves reliability by placing its camera in a high-stakes context instead of making generic claims. Using NASA as an authority signal, it shows the camera was trusted on a Space Shuttle without a backup, signaling extreme dependability. Specific details like 1971 and the admission of modifications add credibility. The ad then connects this extreme use case to everyday users, implying the camera will handle normal situations with ease. It focuses on customer outcomes, making the message feel like a logical conclusion rather than a sales claim.

AEO IS NOT SEO 2.0

Treating AEO as an upgrade to SEO misunderstands how LLMs work. There are no keywords to rank for and no page one. Responses are personalized based on prompts, history, preferences, and platform. Visibility depends on brand authority and trust signals, not technical optimization alone, though crawlability and structured data still matter for ingestion. The takeaway is to measure brand recognition and third-party mentions, not prompt visibility like a ranking report.

AI SEO CAUTIONARY TALE: CLICKUP

ClickUp scaled thousands of AI-optimized listicles beyond its expertise, gaining AI visibility but losing millions in Google traffic.

WHY EVERY BRAND NEEDS A NEMESIS

Shared dislike unites people, and that unity turns casual buyers into vocal advocates.

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