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Apple Begins Selling Ads Direct 💸 LinkedIn Content Recommendations 👨‍🏫 Google Search CTR Data Reveals 🥸

Also: Has AI Scaling Hit A Limit?

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🗞 Marketing News

Apple Begins Selling News Ads Directly As Its Advertising Ambitions Grow [3 min read]

Apple is selling its own advertising inventory within Apple News, moving away from third-party vendors and introducing new ad formats such as banner placements, video ads, and premium sponsorships for major events like the Met Gala. This strategic shift includes a revenue-sharing model where publishers receive 70% of the ad revenue generated from ads sold directly by Apple, thereby incentivizing content creators and enhancing Apple's global advertising revenue, which is projected to reach nearly $11 billion this year. By diversifying its revenue streams through advertising and initiatives like Apple Intelligence, Apple aims to offset slower hardware sales and ensure sustainable growth.

LinkedIn Content Recommendations: What To Avoid [3 min read]

To maintain high-quality and professional content on LinkedIn, avoid promotional or off-topic posts that do not provide additional value and refrain from using engagement bait or sharing unoriginal content without personal insights. Ensure your contributions foster positive and meaningful discussions by steering clear of unconstructive or sensitive material that can disrupt conversations or make members uncomfortable. By adhering to these guidelines, you support a professional and engaging LinkedIn community, enhancing your visibility and fostering meaningful connections.

Google Search CTR Data Reveals Shifting Industry Trends [3 min read]

The latest Google search CTR data highlights significant shifts across various industries, with the Science and Shopping sectors experiencing notable growth in click-through rates, while Arts & Entertainment sees a decline in engagement. Also, there is a clear trend towards informational content on mobile devices, as users increasingly prefer educational material over commercial queries. Based on these trends, businesses are encouraged to optimize for mobile, prioritize educational content, and implement tailored strategies for their specific industries to enhance online engagement and traffic.

🤖 AI

Has AI Scaling Hit A Limit? [12 min read]

Recent advancements in AI scaling are encountering diminishing returns, as increasing model size, data, and computational power yield progressively smaller performance improvements. This plateau is driven by significant barriers, including the scarcity of high-quality data, escalating compute and energy demands, and inherent architectural limitations of current models. Consequently, the AI community must explore new paradigms and diversify research approaches to overcome these constraints and continue progressing toward more advanced forms of intelligence.

The Dark Side Of Using Algorithms To Sell Products And Brands Is Little Studied [2 min read]

The potential negative consequences of AI in marketing, such as perpetuating harmful stereotypes, infringing on artists' rights, and affecting mental health, are largely understudied and overlooked. It's important to address the ethical considerations and promote responsible AI use to ensure that its benefits are equitably shared and its risks mitigated.

IMAX Embraces AI To Expand Original Content Reach [3 min read]

IMAX is leveraging artificial intelligence to scale the localization of its original content, responding to the increasing global demand for non-English media. By partnering with Dubai-based startup Camb.ai, IMAX uses advanced AI speech models to translate and dub content into 140 languages, including many low-resource languages. This strategic approach aims to reduce translation costs, maintain high-quality translations, and enable scalable deployment, allowing IMAX to reach a broader international audience.

Is AI The End Of Marketing? [9 min read]

Marketing is shifting from a consumer-centric approach to an AI-centric one, requiring strategies that influence algorithms instead of directly targeting consumers. Advanced AI-driven personalization is making traditional market segmentation obsolete by enabling customized, real-time marketing tailored to individual preferences. Also, AI enhances the scalability of service businesses and reintegrates loyalty strategies into marketing, fundamentally transforming how brands engage and retain customers.

🧠 Hacks & Tactics

Improve Your Google Ads Quality Score [9 min read]

Google Ads Quality Score rates the relevance and effectiveness of ads, keywords, and landing pages, indirectly helping reduce costs per click and improve ad placement. This score depends on three factors: expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience, each crucial for aligning ads with user intent. Improving Quality Score involves selecting relevant keywords, refining ad copy, optimizing landing pages, and regularly testing ads, leading to more efficient campaigns and higher returns on investment.

How To Embrace Flaws In Marketing Using The Pratfall Effect [5 min read]

Embracing imperfections in marketing can make brands more relatable and appealing to audiences, as the "pratfall effect" shows that people often prefer those who reveal minor flaws. Psychological studies, including work by Elliot Aronson, support this approach by demonstrating that competent individuals or products with small imperfections are seen as more approachable. Experiments, such as using flaw-focused ads, further confirm that highlighting imperfections can significantly boost engagement, proving the effectiveness of this unconventional marketing strategy.

What Makes Content Viral? The Psychology Behind Shares [4 min read]

Viral online content typically succeeds by delivering meaningful messages that resonate with audiences, evoking strong emotions, and inducing a sense of nostalgia. When content addresses real-life concerns, triggers emotions like joy or awe, and reminds people of happier times, it taps into deep psychological triggers that encourage sharing. Brands such as Google, AARP, and Marriott Bonvoy have effectively used these elements to create shareable and memorable content.

⚙️ Machine Shop

How To Create An Effective Pricing Page [11 min read]

A well-designed pricing page plays a significant role in reinforcing a company's positioning, providing clarity on the value of the offering, and increasing conversion rates, while poorly designed pages can confuse prospects and lead them to competitors. Key elements of an effective pricing page include clear pricing, easy navigation, and strong communication of the product's value. Real-world examples illustrate how these principles can be applied and offer specific recommendations for improvement.

The Power Of Internal Linking For SEO [6 min read]

Internal linking is an often overlooked aspect of SEO that helps search engines understand a website's structure, distribute link equity, and improve user experience, leading to better search rankings and increased traffic. A recommended four-step strategy for effective internal linking includes performing a site audit, identifying best-performing pages, finding related content, and linking this content to those key pages. While AI tools can assist with content creation, it is important to rely on human-generated content for accuracy and relevance in SEO, rather than depending on AI for the actual writing process.

Influencer Marketing For Expensive Products: 5 Challenges & How To Solve Them [12 min read]

Unique challenges such as the infeasibility of providing free products to every influencer, which can be addressed by inviting influencers to events or coordinating product sharing. Building trust with consumers takes time, requiring long-form content, hands-on collaboration with influencers, and long-term partnerships. Targeting the right audience and calculating ROI for expensive products is more complex, requiring a focus on long-term metrics and strong influencer relationships to ensure success.

🔮 The Future

Google Ads Creative Studio To Sunset In Q1 2025 [1 min read]

Google will discontinue Ads Creative Studio by the end of March 2025 to focus on new growth areas and enhance partnerships with creative agencies for scalable, tailored campaigns. Advertisers using Ads Creative Studio for YouTube and Display ad customizations must transition their workflows to third-party partners or alternative tools. Until the sunset date, existing projects can still be edited and exported, and marketers are encouraged to begin shifting their creative strategies now by exporting assets, identifying alternative platforms, and seeking support from account managers to ensure continued creative efficiency and scalability.

What Actually Is The "Creator Economy"? [10 min read]

The creator economy is rapidly expanding, projected to grow from $150 billion to $500 billion by 2030, evolving beyond traditional influencer culture by emphasizing creative skills and diverse monetization strategies. This growth is driven by a shift in trust and authenticity, as creators prioritize genuine, high-quality content in response to declining trust in conventional influencers and stricter regulatory guidelines. Consequently, marketing strategies are transforming, with brands increasingly collaborating with creators to co-create resonant narratives that enhance consumer engagement and reshape how products and information are consumed.

Marketing Has A Marketing Problem And It's Hurting Long Term Business Health [4 min read]

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) play an increasingly vital role in driving business growth by leveraging their understanding of customer behavior and market dynamics. However, many CMOs face challenges in influence and strategic positioning due to being placed below the C-suite and having their roles fragmented across different departments. To maximize their impact, CMOs must build strong cross-functional partnerships and integrate marketing initiatives with overall business objectives, thereby securing a more influential position in shaping corporate strategy.

Bluesky Is On The Verge Of Overtaking Threads In All The Ways That Matter [2 min read]

Bluesky has rapidly increased its daily active users, narrowing the gap with Meta’s Threads from five times fewer to just 1.5 times fewer users. This surge is largely attributed to a post-election shift, with journalists, academics, and companies migrating from Elon Musk’s chaotic X to Bluesky in search of a more stable and engaging platform. However, despite its impressive growth and appeal for vibrant public discourse over Threads' subdued political content, Bluesky is encountering challenges such as outages, glitches, and scams as it continues to scale.

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