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Spotify Debuts Gen AI Ads 🤖 Reddit Updates Ads Manager For SMBs 🥳 Microsoft Advertising Updates 📢

Also: OpenAI Launches OpenAI Academy

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🗞 Marketing News

Spotify Debuts Gen AI Ads, Programmatic Ad Buying [2 min read]

Spotify is launching a new programmatic advertising platform called Spotify Ad Exchange (SAX), which enables advertisers to reach logged-in users through real-time auctions with partners like Google and Magnite. The company is also integrating generative AI into its advertising offerings, allowing marketers to create scripts and voiceovers for audio ads at no additional cost through Spotify Ads Manager in the US and Canada. These new advertising features are being positioned as effective ways to reach Spotify's 251 million Gen Z users who engage with the service throughout the day.

Reddit Updates Ads Manager For SMBs [2 min read]

Reddit has released several new Ads Manager features designed to help small to medium-sized businesses create and run advertising campaigns on the platform, including simplified Reddit Pixel setup through Google Tag Manager integration. These updates, along with improved Event Manager Quality Assurance and a new Campaign Import feature that allows advertisers to import campaigns directly from Meta, represent significant upgrades to the platform's advertising infrastructure. The changes are part of Reddit's broader strategy to expand its advertising platform to smaller companies while leveraging its unique advantage of subreddit communities that provide targeted interest-based advertising without invasive tracking.

Feed Updates For Shopping Campaigns And Other Microsoft Product Updates [6 min read]

Microsoft Advertising's April update introduces Test Feed and Primary Feed features to simplify Shopping campaign management by allowing error testing without affecting live listings and streamlining the Local Inventory ads setup process. Several Audience Ads enhancements have been implemented, including regulatory disclaimers, support for vertical video creatives, longer 90-second videos, and expanded character limits for headlines. Performance Max campaigns now offer LinkedIn profile targeting as an audience signal, along with new insight reports, asset-level conversion metrics, and improved URL handling and aspect ratio support for better ad previews across the platform.

🤖 AI

First Therapy Chatbot Trial Yields Mental Health Benefits [6 min read]

The groundbreaking clinical trial of Dartmouth's Therabot demonstrated significant mental health benefits, with participants experiencing substantial reductions in depression (51%), anxiety (31%), and eating disorder symptoms (19%). Users developed meaningful therapeutic alliances with the AI chatbot, treating it almost like a friend they could trust and reach out to at any hour. While these promising results suggest AI could help address the shortage of mental health providers, researchers emphasize that generative AI therapy still requires rigorous safety protocols and clinical oversight to be used effectively in mental health settings.

Earth AI's Algorithms Found Critical Minerals In Places Everyone Else Ignored [3 min read]

Earth AI has discovered critical minerals including copper, cobalt, gold, silver, molybdenum, and tin in overlooked regions of Australia by leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze decades of untapped historical mining data. The company developed algorithms that can learn from "the failures and successes of millions of geologists in the past" to better predict promising mineral deposit locations. Initially starting as a software prediction company, Earth AI evolved to develop its own drilling equipment to validate its AI-powered mineral discoveries after facing skepticism from the traditionally conservative mining industry.

OpenAI Launches OpenAI Academy [2 min read]

People around the world are embracing generative AI to solve complex problems and enhance creativity, productivity, and learning. OpenAI Academy will help them harness AI’s transformative power through workshops, discussions, and digital content—ranging from foundational AI literacy to advanced integration for engineers. With a mix of online and in-person events, the Academy fosters a vibrant, collaborative community where participants of all backgrounds can gain actionable insights and drive innovation in their fields.

🧠 Hacks & Tactics

10 Growth Tactics And Strategies That Don't Work [5 min read]

Successful growth strategies require precise timing and positioning. Growth teams are most effective after achieving Product-Market Fit and establishing solid data practices rather than being deployed too early or used as a fix for declining businesses. When it comes to channels, the most sustainable growth comes from building owned and earned channels like word-of-mouth and user-generated content, rather than relying on rented platforms like Google or Meta. Rather than copying competitors or testing everything, businesses should focus on evolving their unique growth model every 18 months and be strategic about what to test, understanding that growth tactics must be tailored to their specific context and audience.

Keyword Cannibalization - What It Is And How To Fix It [10 min read]

Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on a website target the same keyword and search intent, creating confusion for search engines and leading to decreased rankings, wasted crawl budget, and diluted link equity. Website owners can identify these issues using tools like Moz's Pro keyword explorer, Google Search Console, or site search operators to discover pages competing for the same keywords. The problem can be resolved through several effective methods, including consolidating pages and setting up redirects, using canonical tags, targeting different search intents for duplicate pages, and strategically building links to preferred pages while avoiding harmful solutions like simply deleting pages or using noindex tags.

How To Analyze And Fix Traffic Drops: A 7 Step Framework [5 min read]

When analyzing website traffic drops, it's essential to first understand that most declines stem from common issues like changing search intent, user experience problems, algorithm updates, or backlink decay. Before making any changes, the important first step is determining whether the lost traffic was actually valuable by checking if conversion rates remained stable, as drops in non-converting traffic may not significantly impact the business. Recovery from traffic losses requires following a systematic seven-step framework that includes evaluating content from the user's perspective, analyzing backlinks, optimizing layouts, studying competitors, identifying successful pages, and leveraging AI for pattern recognition.

🔮 The Future

Amazon Makes Surprise Bid For TikTok [2 min read]

Administration officials aren't taking Amazon's offer seriously, viewing it as a last-ditch effort that could further complicate an already complex situation. Several other companies, including Oracle, Walmart, and Microsoft, as well as content creator Mr. Beast, have also expressed interest in acquiring the platform, which hosts approximately 170 million U.S. users and has evolved into a major e-commerce channel.

The Next Phase Of Digital Advertising [3 min read]

Tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft are pouring over $250 billion into generative AI infrastructure in 2025, signaling a massive shift in digital technology investment. Morningstar analysts believe this investment is justified, projecting the generative AI market to grow 75% annually over five years and dismissing concerns that it might be just a passing trend. These companies hold a distinct competitive advantage through their cloud platforms, which enable them to both directly monetize generative AI services and enhance their core business offerings in advertising, productivity, and retail.

An Approach to Technical AGI Safety and Security [145 page read]

Google DeepMind's approach to AGI safety categorizes risks into four areas—misuse, misalignment, mistakes, and structural risks—focusing primarily on the first two as most critical for preventing severe harm. For misuse risks, they propose a multi-layered defense strategy centered on blocking bad actors' access to dangerous capabilities through evaluations, safety training, monitoring, access restrictions, and robust security measures. For misalignment risks, they present a two-pronged approach combining efforts to train inherently aligned models through "amplified oversight" alongside system-level mitigations like monitoring and access controls that can prevent harm even if alignment fails.

Ad Tech Fragmentation: The Problem No One Actually Wants To Solve [3 min read]

Despite constant complaints about ad tech fragmentation, the industry maintains this inefficient system because multiple players benefit financially from its complexity, with each layer taking a cut of ad spend while agencies justify their role through this deliberate complexity. Publishers, retail media networks, and streaming services actively resist standardization that would enable direct performance comparisons, protecting their unique value propositions and pricing models. While the industry claims to want consolidation, there's immediate pushback when any single player grows too dominant, creating a push-pull dynamic that ensures fragmentation remains the default state with advertisers being the only ones with enough power to demand meaningful change.

👩‍🏫 Vocab

PPC (Pay-Per-Click): An online advertising model where advertisers pay only when someone clicks on their ad. It's a way to buy visits to your site rather than earning them organically. PPC allows for precise targeting and measurable results.

Example: A wedding photographer bids on terms like "wedding photographer Chicago" in Google Ads, only paying when potential clients click their ad.

Programmatic Advertising: The automated buying and selling of online advertising space using software and algorithms. It uses data to serve ads to the right users at the right time and place. Programmatic advertising makes digital ad buying more efficient and targeted.

Example: A car dealership's ads automatically appear on various websites visited by users who recently searched for "new cars" in their area.

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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
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