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The Creator Economy In 3D 🌎 Google Ads Tests URL Inclusions And Exclusions For Search 🔍 Handing Marketing To A Gen Zer 😱

Also: The AI Browser Wars Have Begun

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🗞 Marketing News

The Creator Economy In 3D [10 min read]

Consumer preferences are shifting toward longer-form content and communities on social platforms, with 42% of Gen Z users preferring videos longer than 10 minutes compared to only 25% of Baby Boomers, and over one in four Gen Z users prioritizing platforms for communities of like-minded users, indicating social media is increasingly competing with traditional television and streaming services. Creator priorities vary by experience level, with new creators valuing networking opportunities and easy content management systems while experienced creators focus on performance analytics, predictable algorithms, and direct platform support, suggesting platforms need different approaches for creators at various stages. High-ROI brands investing in creator partnerships place 1.7x higher priority on brand safety than low-ROI peers, emphasize the importance of maintaining diverse creator availability (especially those with 250-500k followers), and seek platforms that facilitate safe environments for creators, brands, and consumers alike. 

Google Ads Tests URL Inclusions And Exclusions For Search [2 min read]

A new feature found under the Keywords section that allows advertisers to control which parts of their websites are used to generate dynamic ad content, with URL exclusions blocking specific sections and URL inclusions designed to prioritize certain pages (though the inclusion feature isn't fully functional yet). By excluding irrelevant or low-converting pages from ad generation, brands can safeguard campaign quality and improve ad relevance, while the inclusion feature (once working) could enable more strategic targeting based on high-value site content. The functionality is currently limited with URL exclusions only working at the campaign level (not ad group level), URL inclusions not functioning as expected, and the feature appearing to be in testing phase, but it could become an important tool for fine-tuning automated ad campaigns once fully operational.

Handing Marketing To A Gen Zer [3 min read]

Gen Z marketing operates by completely different rules than traditional marketing, replacing the classic "pain → solution → offer" formula with polished branded materials with fast, authentic, meme-driven content that focuses on cultural relevance and emotional recognition rather than explaining products or convincing audiences. TikTok and microtrends dominate Gen Z's attention patterns, with trends lasting only days rather than weeks like on Instagram, requiring constant adaptation where advertising must not look like advertising at all and authenticity is detected immediately. Companies need Gen Z marketers to effectively reach Gen Z audiences since older marketers can't authentically replicate Gen Z communication styles without appearing fake.

🤖 AI

The AI Browser Wars Have Begun [8 min read]

A new browser war is emerging between Google, which is awkwardly trying to integrate Gemini into Chrome but is constrained by antitrust concerns and user base size, and new players like Dia, Perplexity's "Comet," and likely OpenAI who are building browsers from the ground up for AI with significant advantages. Browser control is essential for deep AI integration since extensions aren't sufficient for the level of integration needed—companies need to own the entire browser experience to have full vision into user activity, enable seamless AI assistance across tabs, and build toward more "agentic" capabilities, though this raises important questions about user trust and data privacy.

Assessing The Real Impact Of Automation On Jobs [5 min read]

Automation doesn't automatically destroy jobs - instead, it depends on whether technology removes skilled tasks or routine tasks from a job. When automation makes jobs easier and less specialized (like ride-sharing apps for drivers), more people can do the work so wages drop but more jobs are created, while when automation removes simple tasks but adds complex ones (like modern proofreading), fewer people can do the job so wages rise but fewer positions exist. The key is that automation has been steadily removing routine, repetitive tasks while adding more creative and analytical work, but whether this helps or hurts workers depends on whether their specific job becomes more specialized or gets stripped down to basic functions anyone can perform.

Anthropic Now Lets You Make Apps Right From Its Claude AI Chatbot [2 min read]

A new beta feature that lets users build AI-powered apps directly inside Claude by simply describing what they want to create, with Claude writing the code and displaying results within the interface, essentially enabling "vibe coding" with immediate visual feedback. Early adopters have built various types of apps including games, learning tools, data analysis apps, writing assistants, and agent workflows that can orchestrate multiple Claude calls for complex tasks, with apps able to interact with Claude through an API. Anthropic encourages app sharing with favorable usage terms by making API usage count against the app user's subscription rather than the creator's, with the feature available across Free, Pro, and Max subscription tiers.

🧠 Hacks & Tactics

What Is Needs-Based Segmentation? [12 min read]

Needs-based segmentation is a marketing approach that divides audiences based on their specific needs and motivations rather than just surface-level characteristics like demographics or behavior, focusing on understanding the "why" behind customer choices. This segmentation method typically recognizes four core customer segments: productivity-focused individuals seeking efficiency, cost-conscious buyers prioritizing value, quality-oriented customers willing to pay premium prices, and innovation-seekers looking for cutting-edge solutions. The implementation of needs-based segmentation delivers concrete benefits including improved customer relationships and product development, while requiring a systematic approach of data collection, analysis, and strategic execution, as demonstrated by successful campaigns from brands like Target, BMW, and Fenty Beauty.

Customers Don't Care About Your AI Feature [8 min read]

Explicitly labeling products as "AI-powered" often backfires, lowering performance expectations without increasing trust or willingness to pay. Despite this evidence, companies continue to overuse AI branding due to external pressures like investor expectations, SEO goals, and fear of competition, rather than actual customer demand. Instead of relying on AI buzzwords, companies should focus on communicating tangible benefits, specific productivity gains, and clear use cases that demonstrate how their products solve real customer problems.

How Much Should An Influencer Marketing Campaign Cost? [8 min read]

Influencers are categorized from nano to mega based on their follower counts, each with distinct pricing across platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Campaign costs vary depending on the chosen social media channel and the type of collaboration, such as sponsored content, co-creation, or discount codes. Effective budget management involves using specialized tools to prioritize engagement metrics over just follower numbers, ensuring successful and cost-efficient marketing efforts.

🏗️ For Founders

Why Do Investors Care About LTV To CAC So Much? [8 min read]

Investors care about LTV to CAC because a company with a 3x ratio gets valued 3x higher than one with a 2x ratio, making this metric directly tied to how much the business is worth. The ratio measures how efficiently a company spends on sales and marketing compared to the lifetime value they get from customers, which determines how much profit they can reinvest back into growing the business. When adjusted for gross margins, this metric works as a fair comparison tool across different types of businesses, from fintech companies to software companies, helping investors evaluate which companies use their marketing dollars most effectively.

🔮 The Future

Federal Judge Sides With Meta In Lawsuit Over Training AI On Copyrighted Books [2 min read]

Meta legally used copyrighted books to train its AI models because it counted as "fair use" under copyright law, since the AI transformed the content rather than just copying it and didn't hurt book sales. However, the judge made clear this doesn't mean all AI training on copyrighted material is legal - he said the authors in this case just made weak arguments and didn't provide good evidence of harm. This follows a similar win for Anthropic, giving tech companies some wins in court, but many other copyright lawsuits are still ongoing, including cases involving news articles and movies where the outcomes might be different.

Vibe Coding For Marketers: How To Create With Code [16 min read]

"Vibe coding" allows non-technical marketers to create functional code through AI assistance by describing what they want in natural language to AI tools, enabling them to build interactive landing pages, website features, HTML email templates, custom automations, and data visualizations without needing to write or understand actual code. While this approach enables faster prototyping, costs less upfront, and removes barriers for non-developers, it can also create unmaintainable code, security vulnerabilities, scalability issues, and technical debt that may require complete rebuilds when professional standards are needed. Success requires choosing the right AI coding platforms based on skill level, using detailed prompts, asking AI to explain code with comments, providing visual feedback, and wireframing designs before coding to maintain better UX control.

The Next Great Distribution Shift [30 min read]

Every major distribution platform follows the same three-step cycle of opening their ecosystems to attract developers and content creators with generous terms, then once they achieve dominance and "escape velocity," they systematically close access, impose taxes, and compete with the very partners who helped them grow, as seen with Facebook, Google, Apple, and LinkedIn. While AI has transformed how products are built since 2022, it hasn't created new sustainable distribution channels and has actually destroyed existing ones like SEO, but history shows distribution shifts typically follow technology shifts by 4-6 years, putting us right on schedule for the next major platform emergence. ChatGPT/OpenAI is positioned to become the next dominant distribution platform with 700 million users, highest retention rates, and early moves toward platform integration, building a moat based on accumulating user context and memory that will create switching costs and likely follow the same open-to-closed pattern within the next 6-24 months. 

👩‍🏫 Vocab

Permission Marketing: The practice of marketing to people who have explicitly agreed to receive your communications. It focuses on building trust by getting consent before sending marketing messages. Permission marketing leads to higher engagement because audiences have chosen to hear from you.

Example: A newsletter that only sends content to people who have opted in through a signup form, with clear options to manage their preferences.

Zero-Party Data: Information that customers intentionally and proactively share with a brand about their preferences and interests. It's collected directly from customers through surveys, preferences, or profile data. Zero-party data is highly valuable because it's freely given and explicitly stated by customers.

Example: A beauty brand asks customers to complete a skin type quiz, collecting information about their concerns and preferences to provide personalized recommendations.

That's it for this week! See you next week. 😎

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🥞 Stack

Tools we use to keep our business running.

Discord - find community with text, voice, and video chat. Join us!
Beehiiv - engage newsletter audiences and grow subscribers
Clickup - project management and team collaboration
WordPress - build websites and blogs
Elementor - drag-and-drop builder for WordPress
Buffer - streamline social media scheduling and analytics
ElevenLabs - convert text into realistic voiceover
Riverside - record high-quality audio and video remotely
Transistor - all-in-one podcast hosting platform
Zapier - automate tasks by connecting web apps
Claude - AI language model focused on safe and ethical text processing
Midjourney - generate images from text prompts using AI

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