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YouTube And TikTok Push For Satisfaction 😌 Google Is Tracking Digital Fingerprints ☝️ Instagram Previews AI Video Elements 📹

Also: The Rise Of The AI Crawler

2025 Prediction: A Surge of Self-Serve CTV Buyers

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🗞 Marketing News

YouTube And TikTok Push For 'Satisfaction' [4 min read]

Social media platforms are pivoting towards prioritizing "satisfaction" metrics over pure engagement time, aiming to distance themselves from "brain rot" content that leaves users feeling empty. Marketing experts are advocating for brands to create more meaningful content that "stops the scroll" rather than blending in with vapid algorithmic content, emphasizing quality over viral potential. The platforms are also seeing potential in episodic short-form content, with TikTok users spending up to 40 minutes watching connected short videos, suggesting an opportunity for brands to create serialized content that maintains quality while keeping users engaged.

Google Is Tracking Your Digital Fingerprints Again [3 min read]

Google is reintroducing digital fingerprinting, a data collection process that tracks users' online behavior through various digital signals to identify unique users or devices. This represents a significant reversal of Google's previous privacy stance, which the company is justifying through the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that they claim offer sufficient user protection while allowing advertisers better data access. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office has labeled this decision "irresponsible," noting that digital fingerprinting is particularly problematic because it's difficult for users to detect, block, or erase, unlike cookies - pointing out that Google itself previously condemned fingerprinting in 2019 as something that "subverts user choice and is wrong."

Instagram Previews AI Video Elements [2 min read]

Meta is integrating its MovieGen AI engine into Instagram, enabling users to make extensive AI-powered edits to their videos, including changing backgrounds, outfits, and creating various visual representations of themselves. While these AI tools offer creative possibilities, there's concern that they may detract from social media's core purpose of genuine human connection and shared experiences, since AI-generated content doesn't represent real lived experiences. The success of these AI tools will ultimately depend on storytelling - while people will experiment with the novelty of AI generation, the lasting value will come from using these features to enhance human narratives and communication, rather than creating AI content merely for its own sake.

🤖 AI

Why Materials Science Is Key To Unlocking The Next Frontier Of AI Development [5 min read]

The semiconductor industry is approaching fundamental physical limits of traditional chip development at a time when AI's computational demands are growing exponentially, creating an urgent challenge for continued technological advancement. Materials science and materials intelligence have become critical enablers of semiconductor innovation, going far beyond silicon to enable new approaches like 3D chip stacking, heterogeneous integration, and photonic chips at virtually every stage of production. The future of computing will require entirely new paradigms such as quantum and neuromorphic computing, with materials science playing an important role in developing these novel approaches that could transcend current limitations while addressing concerns about energy efficiency, costs, and scalability.

The Rise Of The AI Crawler [5 min read]

AI crawlers have become a major force on the web, with OpenAI and Anthropic's crawlers generating over 900 million requests monthly across Vercel's network, representing about 20% of Googlebot's traffic volume. Unlike Googlebot and AppleBot, major AI crawlers cannot render JavaScript despite fetching JavaScript files, which significantly impacts how they understand and interact with modern web applications. The AI crawlers also show notable inefficiencies in their operations, with both ChatGPT and Claude spending around 34% of their fetches on 404 pages and ChatGPT using an additional 14.36% on redirects, indicating a need for improved URL selection and handling strategies compared to traditional search engines like Google.

🧠 Hacks & Tactics

How Many Keywords Should I Use For SEO? [6 min read]

To optimize SEO effectively, each webpage should focus on targeting a single primary keyword to ensure content remains relevant and avoids dilution of focus. Initially, it's best to limit the use of secondary keywords, allowing the primary keyword to establish strong rankings before integrating additional related terms. Also, when dealing with closely related keywords, separate pages should be created based on the distinct search intents to prevent keyword cannibalization and enhance overall SEO performance.

4 Great Google Ads Custom Columns [3 min read]

Custom columns in Google Ads provide marketers with deeper insights into campaign performance by tracking essential metrics like budget depletion, pacing, keyword opportunities, and ROAS. These tailored metrics enable efficient budget management, identify growth opportunities, and offer a comprehensive view of campaign effectiveness beyond standard reporting. As a result, marketers can make informed, timely decisions to optimize their strategies and enhance overall return on investment.

How To Reply To Google Reviews [9 min read]

Responding to Google reviews is important for building trust, enhancing your online reputation, and improving local search rankings by demonstrating that you value customer feedback. Effective strategies include replying directly through Google platforms or using tools like Semrush to manage and automate responses efficiently. By following best practices for handling both negative and positive reviews—such as addressing concerns personally, offering solutions, and showcasing your brand’s personality—you can maintain and grow your brand’s reputation while fostering strong customer relationships.

⚙️ Machine Shop

How To Test Broad Match Keywords Without Wasting Spend [9 min read]

Broad match keywords are a type of keyword match in Google Ads that allows ads to show on searches related to the meaning of the keyword, offering a broader reach compared to phrase and exact match keywords. While they can be beneficial for advertisers seeking to scale their campaigns or reach a wider audience, they may not be suitable for those prioritizing efficiency and budget control. To test broad match keywords effectively, it is recommended to use strategies like setting up new campaigns with selected keywords and monitoring search terms daily to ensure relevant traffic without wasting ad spend.

Building B2B Startup Marketing Orgs From 1 To 25+ [35 min read]

The strategy for building and scaling B2B startup marketing teams involves balancing three core sub-functions: Brand & Content, Product Marketing, and Growth Marketing. "Producers" play a crucial role as connectors within the team, ensuring alignment across these functions as the organization grows. Also, it's important to adapt the team structure as the business evolves, with different roles and responsibilities emphasized at various stages of team growth.

How To Find Your First ICP Guide [15 min read]

Defining an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) in B2B SaaS helps identify the most valuable customers who will benefit from your product and remain loyal. This process involves a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and market analysis to ensure your ICP aligns with business goals and market trends. As market dynamics evolve, refining and iterating your ICP is essential for reducing churn, increasing growth, and aligning your team’s efforts.

🔮 The Future

5 Social Media Trends That Will Define 2025 [6 min read]

Social media is undergoing a fundamental shift away from overwhelming "more is more" content consumption toward a more intentional "liveable web" that prioritizes meaningful engagement, with one in four users reporting feeling overwhelmed by digital spaces. This cultural change is marked by a move from polished, sanitized content toward raw authenticity and "messiness," with 59% of marketers already taking risks on unconventional or potentially divisive content to meet this new demand. Finally, the emphasis is increasingly on building genuine communities and shared experiences, as evidenced by 61% of marketers creating exclusive spaces like customer-only groups, reflecting users' growing desire for deeper online connections and collective experiences rather than superficial engagement.

China Unveils $300m Neutrino Detector To Unlock Universe's Secrets [2 min read]

China is completing JUNO (Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory), an underground detector designed to study neutrinos - mysterious subatomic "ghost particles" that could help explain fundamental questions about the universe. The facility features a massive 35.4-meter-diameter sphere filled with 20,000 tonnes of liquid scintillator and 43,200 photomultiplier tubes, located 2,297 feet underground to avoid interference, making it one of the most sophisticated neutrino detectors in the world. The project, one of three major neutrino detectors being built globally alongside facilities in the US and Japan, represents both scientific progress and international collaboration, with scientists from various countries working together despite political differences, and is scheduled to begin collecting data in August 2025 for at least 30 years of operation.

🔡 Vocab

Marketing Mix: The core elements that make up your marketing strategy, traditionally known as the 4 P's: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These key variables work together to create your overall marketing approach. Every successful marketing plan carefully balances these elements.

Example: A coffee shop's marketing mix includes their specialty drinks (Product), premium pricing (Price), downtown location (Place), and social media advertising (Promotion).

Integrated Marketing Communications: A strategic approach that coordinates all marketing messages and channels to deliver a consistent, unified brand experience. This ensures your audience receives the same core message whether they see your social media, website, emails, or ads. IMC creates a stronger, more cohesive brand presence.

Example: Nike maintains consistent messaging across TV commercials, Instagram posts, email campaigns, and in-store displays, all reinforcing their "Just Do It" message.

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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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