Microsoft is alerting users that the Microsoft Advertising mobile app will be shut down in January 2026, ending mobile-based campaign management for advertisers. Why we care. Advertisers who rely on the mobile app for quick monitoring or urgent adjustments will need to shift workflows to the Microsoft Advertising web interface, the only remaining place to […]

In June, Fractl and Search Engine Land surveyed 2,000 consumers and uncovered a startling statistic: 82% find AI-powered search more helpful than traditional search.  While the SEO industry panicked, thought leaders and snakeoil salesmen took to LinkedIn to lay claim to this new frontier of AI-driven brand visibility: “It’s called GEO!”  “No, it’s AEO!” “Oh, […]

Brands often invest in influencer and affiliate promotions but stop short of giving the content additional reach, assuming the creator’s audience is enough. Using paid marketing, adding it to your site, and sharing it across your channels isn’t doing their job for them.  It’s a way to grow your company by using their brand recognition […]

Google Ads expanded its “Political content” declaration, allowing advertisers to set a default political-ads preference at the account level — not just within individual campaigns. The feature quietly rolled out after Google introduced the campaign-level setting in August 2025. Why we care. The shift gives advertisers a simpler, more consistent way to comply with political-ad […]

For much of its history, marketing thrived on creativity, intuition and an almost magical ability to connect with audiences. Campaigns were conceived in brainstorming sessions, executed over weeks or months and celebrated (or dissected) once the results rolled in.  Theodore Levitt’s “The Marketing Imagination” stays on most marketers’ bookcases alongside their team’s awards. Much of […]

Google DeepMind launched Nano Banana Pro, the next-gen version of its earlier Nano Banana image model and the image system powering Gemini 3 Pro. The upgrade brings sharper text rendering, richer world knowledge, higher consistency across edits, and more precise creative controls — all aimed at producing studio-quality visuals from even the roughest ideas. Why […]

Search performance is shifting across industries as AI systems increasingly answer first and link later, changing how brands earn visibility and attribution.  You now have to think beyond rankings and focus on how your brand is interpreted and cited inside AI-generated results. Answer engine optimization (AEO) has moved from emerging concept to required practice.  Structure, […]

Google announced new branded queries filters are rolling out gradually within Google Search Console reporting. You can filter your performance reports by branded or non-branded queries and Google can show you the percentage of branded versus non-branded traffic driven to your site from Google Search. This was first introduced at the Google Search Central event […]

Today’s consumers get pulled in a thousand different directions online: Scrolling YouTube Shorts. Tracking TikTok influencer content. Browsing Gmail promotions. Deciding whether the latest viral Facebook video is real or AI. And that’s all before lunch.  Once, the path between intent and conversion was nearly a straight line.  Now, in our new attention economy, constant […]