Larger font sizes make numbers in ads seem more convincing and persuasive. In experiments, a lamp's price was judged 9.3% cheaper and a wine bottle 15% cheaper when the price appeared in a larger font. People also perceived product features as higher quality and were more willing to buy, such as being 25.9% more likely to buy a fitness tracker with a prominently sized “60m waterproof” feature. The effect does not hold for premium or well-known brands.
Many marketing teams struggle with one-way updates, unclear messaging, and missing context. To improve internal communication, create consistent messaging frameworks that provide clear, aligned language. Use a mix of formats like meetings, chats, emails, and check-ins to keep messages clear and top of mind. Train mid-level managers to deliver updates confidently. Use storytelling to explain the reasons behind changes and maintain transparency. Measure communication effectiveness with surveys and engagement data, then adjust tactics to keep your team aligned.
Google rolled out a Manage Subscriptions feature that lists active email senders and how often they reach a user's inbox. With just one click, users can unsubscribe without opening emails. This change puts frequency and engagement under direct scrutiny.
LinkedIn users have noticed older posts appearing at the top of their feeds, but the company says it's intentional. In mid-June, LinkedIn updated its algorithm to prioritize relevance alongside recency, aiming to ensure users don't miss meaningful updates like job changes or useful insights, even if they're not new. The algorithm considers factors like your activity history, relationships, and a post's potential to create opportunities. While power users saw the shift first, LinkedIn is still fine-tuning the balance.
With YouTube capturing nearly double Netflix's TV viewing time in the US, its creator-centric flywheel and free access model have made it a dominant force in entertainment. Netflix's reliance on expensive, hit-driven content limits its flexibility, while YouTube benefits from infinite scale and low risk. HBO Max is retrenching around the prestige HBO brand, prioritizing deep engagement over mass appeal.
Companies like Doist, Buffer, Intercom, Zapier, and Microsoft demonstrate that strong content cultures are built through deep product understanding, executive sponsorship, and cross-functional collaboration. At Doist, employees across departments contribute to content that reflects brand values like trust and transparency. Intercom's early blog posts came directly from its cofounder, while Buffer encourages engineers and support staff to spark ideas through low-friction systems. Lastly, Microsoft developed a formal program to train internal contributors and measure impact.
Hidden buyers are internal stakeholders who are not end users but still influence purchase decisions. They play a crucial and often overlooked role in B2B deals. These buyers are just as engaged as target buyers, with 64% spending over an hour a week on thought leadership and 55% using it to vet vendors. Yet 71% have little or no direct interaction with sales. High-quality, insight-driven content helps build trust and can turn skeptics into advocates. It also encourages hidden buyers to support lesser-known brands during final decisions.
New research finds that 37% of North American shoppers and 42% of European shoppers have avoided purchases due to plastic packaging. While some of this behavior ties to sustainability, many consumers are motivated by personal health concerns such as the threat of microplastics. Only 57% of North American respondents who think brands overuse packaging link it to climate change, suggesting plastic concerns may be shifting away from climate conversations.
SiriusXM is launching a cheaper, ad-supported subscription plan called SiriusXM Play, priced under $7 per month, to attract cost-conscious users and convert more free trial drivers into paying customers. The plan includes limited ads and access to over 130 channels, but premium content like Howard Stern and live sports remains exclusive to ad-free subscribers. SiriusXM ended Q1 with 33 million subscribers, a loss of 303,000, and reported a 4% year-over-year drop in revenue to $2.07 billion. The company is shifting focus to in-car services and ad revenue, which totaled $1.8 billion in 2024 despite a soft ad market.
To help legacy media companies grow paid digital subscribers, focus on turning their large, passive audiences into engaged email subscribers. Start by retargeting warm website and social traffic with Meta ads that promote locally relevant newsletter content, aiming for sub-$1 acquisition costs. Use tools like SparkLoop or Upscribe to earn back part of that cost through paid newsletter recommendations. Once someone signs up, offer a low-cost, time-limited subscription trial (e.g. $1/month for 3 months) to convert readers into paying customers.
AI coding tools are shifting from code editors to the terminal, as agentic AI grows more capable and developers seek deeper system-level interactions. Tools like Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and CLI Codex reflect this change. Leading companies are quietly prioritizing command-line interfaces. Unlike traditional code assistants focused on fixing code, terminal-based tools address broader tasks like system setup and debugging. With rising skepticism around code editors' actual productivity gains, terminal-first environments like Warp are emerging as a more versatile alternative.
Kellogg's $3 billion sale to Ferrero marks the decline of a brand that once led the cereal aisle but failed to adapt to changing consumer habits. While General Mills leaned into whole grains and wellness trends, Kellogg's remained focused on sugary cereals tied to outdated consumption patterns. The company found growth in snacks and spun those assets into Kellanova, which Mars acquired for $30 billion. Still, Kellogg's missed adjacent opportunities in health and breakfast by failing to revisit its core value proposition.
B2B go-to-market teams are overloaded with tools but lack clear strategy, leading to stalled pipeline growth and ineffective systems. Many teams rely on fragile tech stacks patched together without orchestration, mistaking automation for progress. Most teams fail to define meaningful buyer signals and instead chase engagement metrics or generic intent data. AI tools alone won't drive pipeline without a cohesive, signal-first system. Marketing leaders must shift from campaign execution to GTM system design that spans product, sales, and client success.
Areas of focus include auditing the website, ghostwriting for founders 3-5x/week, and community building via newsletter swaps, co-branded content, and LinkedIn partnerships.
Brands like HBO Max, Samsung, and Amazon had ads placed next to AI-generated content that included deepfakes, misinformation, and copyright-adjacent animations.
Delve ran 4 ads across 2 TLDR newsletters and brought in 66 leads, with a meaningful chunk from enterprise. The result: $1M in attributed pipeline and a 52x ROI.
Weekly subscriptions account for 46% of iOS app revenue and grew 9.5% this year. It outpaced one-time purchases at 6.3%. Average prices rose about 12% in the US and EU, reaching around $8. The US leads with 48.9% of revenue and generates 3-4 times more per install than other regions. Weekly plans dominate LATAM and MEA revenue but face sharp user drop-off after 30 days. Trials boost lifetime value by up to 64%.
AI Overviews on Google tend to cite AI-generated or AI-assisted content far more than purely human-written pages. A study of 1.9M URLs found that 87.8% of pages cited were a mix of human and AI content, with only 8.6% purely human and 3.6% purely AI. This contrasts with general web content, where 25.8% is purely human and 2.5% purely AI. Additionally, 86.5% of top-ranking pages contain some AI content.
To find and fix wasted spend, use 5 segment views available in the standard Google Ads interface. Check network performance to detect spikes in low-quality search partner traffic. Review conversion actions to focus on valuable goals. Evaluate ad assets to reveal true extension performance. Analyze keywords to improve ad relevance and message match. Examine device data to audit user experience and optimize landing pages.
Lovable uses a growth tactic that turns its loading screen into an opportunity to showcase key features while users build their site. Instead of a blank screen or progress bar, it highlights what users can do with the app. Lovable captures attention during a typically idle moment and effectively educates new users about its capabilities.
Instagram's Trial Reels let creators test Reels with non-followers before publishing them widely, helping assess content quality without follower bias. Only users with at least 1K followers and a public account can access the feature, which can be toggled on in the Reels composer. Trial Reels do not appear to followers or on the creator's profile unless published, but still generate engagement metrics within 24 hours. Creators are using the feature as a “growth hack” to repurpose older content and gain reach.
Connected TV (CTV) offers high-impact reach with nearly 50% greater exposure per impression than mobile. It enables precise audience targeting using behavioral and contextual data and supports testing of various creative formats to optimize performance. CTV campaigns can be optimized for cost per install and return on ad spend, with unified measurement across devices through third-party partners. Early tests show CTV can boost mobile conversions significantly, making it a full-funnel tool.
Brand purpose is often misunderstood as superficial CSR. However, when it's tied to brand positioning, it drives results. Patrón proves this by standing against additives in tequila and staying committed despite regulatory pushback. Elf Beauty shows purpose through its focus on making beauty accessible to everyone, which appears across products, campaigns, and events. Specsavers uses its tagline to reinforce brand positioning through humor. All three show that purpose, when done well, is simply effective long-term marketing.
If Meta is forced to sell Instagram, the split would benefit advertisers but likely harm users. Ad prices would drop as Facebook and Instagram compete, leading to more frequent and repetitive ads on both platforms. Facebook would retain a competitive edge due to its larger audience, pushing Instagram to serve even more ads at lower prices. While the divestiture may boost ad competition, it would not increase user benefits under the FTC's current market definition.
The classic marketing and sales funnel focuses on customer acquisition through awareness, education, and selection, but ends before recurring revenue begins. Its key limitations include being seller-centric, linear, and lacking feedback loops, which makes it ineffective for subscription-based models. The Bowtie model addresses these gaps by extending the funnel with stages like onboarding, adoption, and expansion, placing emphasis on delivering customer impact rather than just promised value.
In the US, video ad spending is projected to reach $108.15 billion, driving fierce competition for cost-effective content creation at scale. Ad agencies and e-commerce teams spend $500-$20,000+ per video on production, slowing campaigns and draining ROI.
Most AI ads fail because they all sound the same and focus too much on technical features instead of what buyers actually care about. Only 6% of ads deliver a clear point of difference, while just 11% of buyers remember a brand or feature. Buyers tend to stick with known vendors, considering only 2.4 brands on average, and 60% of purchases are from existing relationships.
7 in 10 luxury shoppers on TikTok have spent over $1,355 on a single fashion item, often after seeing peer content. About 38% discover luxury brands through UGC, while 32% find them through creator videos. Only 15% of shoppers buy luxury items immediately after seeing them on TikTok, with most saving the content and purchasing later.
Focus on clear, keyword-rich captions that reflect your content, not vague phrases. Write alt-text for every post. Use text overlays on Reels and images with titles, hooks, or searchable phrases. Refresh your bio with relevant keywords, avoiding filler or outdated info. Do light keyword research using tools like Google Trends to align with what people are actively searching.
Start by setting clear guardrails using reusable prompts, live reference docs, and layered quality control with both automation and human review. Use Retrieval-Augmented Generation to ground AI responses in accurate, approved information. Feed the model only high-quality examples that reflect your voice, tagged with metadata like audience and funnel stage, and leave out anything outdated or off-brand. Clean your training materials of boilerplate language, fine-tune using lightweight methods like LoRA, and test results through blind evaluations.
LottieFiles is used for adding lightweight, high-quality animations to websites, apps, and social media. Using the JSON-based Lottie format, users can access a vast library of animations, tailor them with simple tools, and integrate via plugins for After Effects and Figma. Common use cases include animated ads, social posts, and interactive website elements.
A great B2B offer solves a problem that is painful, urgent, recognized, and expensive for the buyer. Strong offers are proprietary rather than commoditized and should align with market demand rather than the creator's skill set. A successful offer includes 7 key elements, uses front-end options to reduce friction in the buying process, and fits into a broader portfolio aimed at increasing customer lifetime value. Pricing should be based on the value of the problem being solved, not the time it takes to solve it.
Companies are pulling advertising from news websites due to brand safety concerns, leading to revenue losses for journalism. This movement began with the goal of avoiding ads next to extremist content, but has expanded to block ads from serious news. 30-40% of news stories are being demonetized, often due to outdated or overly cautious keyword blocklists. A survey found that ads placed next to negative news perform just as well as those placed next to positive stories, undermining the widespread fear of negative associations.
Lowe's launched a Creator Network with over 17K influencers, including MrBeast, to reach Gen Z and Millennial audiences through DIY content. MrBeast's storefront features tools and materials from his projects, and Lowe's is the exclusive building partner for Beast Games Season Two. The network offers tiered support, including commissions, training, project funding, and marketing partnerships based on performance. By embedding shopping links and integrating with its Retail Media Network, Lowe's turns creator content into direct sales and strengthens its position as a top digital DIY destination.
OpenAI plans to launch an AI-powered web browser that integrates chat features and AI agents capable of completing user tasks like filling forms or booking reservations. The browser could give OpenAI access to key user data that fuels Google's advertising business, which accounts for nearly 75 percent of its revenue. Chrome holds more than two-thirds of the global browser market, while OpenAI's ChatGPT has 500 million weekly users and 3 million business subscribers. The browser is built on Google's Chromium code and is part of OpenAI's broader push to expand its services and compete more directly with Google.
Disney and ITV will begin cross-promoting each other's streaming content on July 16 through curated sections called “Taste of ITVX” and “Taste of Disney+.” Disney+ users will get access to ITV titles like Love Island and Spy Among Friends, while ITVX users will see shows like The Bear and Andor. The deal is based on complementary audiences, with Disney+ skewing under 34 and ITVX skewing over 45. Disney expects the partnership to boost sign-ups and engagement, and plans to pursue similar arrangements with other European broadcasters.