Is your SEO strategy ready for Google’s new AI Mode?
Is your 2025 SERP strategy in danger?
What’s changed between traditional search mode and AI mode?
Watch our webinar on-demand as we explored early implications for click-through rates, organic visibility, and content performance so you can:
In this actionable session, Nick Gallagher, SEO Lead at Conductor, gave actionable SEO guidance in this new era of search engine results page (SERPs).
Get recommendations for optimizing content to stay competitive as AI-generated answers grow in prominence.
Don’t wait for the SERPs to leave you behind.
Watch on-demand to uncover if AI Mode will hurt your traffic, and what to do about it.
View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details
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As brands step up their podcast marketing spend, podcast companies are putting on more live events to meet the growing demand.
In 2024, SiriusXM dipped its toes into live podcast events for the first time, organizing 10 live podcast events over the course of the year. So far in 2025, the company has already held 18 live podcast recordings, with plans to double or triple its overall number of live podcast events by the end of the year.
SiriusXM’s live podcasts, whose audiences typically involve 40 or 50 fans, are not ticketed events. However, they represent a growing revenue stream for the company thanks to sponsorships by advertisers such as Hershey’s and Macy’s, with SiriusXM holding the events at both the company’s in-house recording studio in its New York City headquarters and at venues such as Avalon Hollywood. So far this year, SiriusXM Media has more than doubled the number of sponsors and corresponding ad revenue for its live podcast events, according to svp of strategic solutions Karina Montgomery, who declined to give exact figures but said that “ad revenue from these events is already up 160 percent as of June 2025, compared to all of 2024.”
SiriusXM frames its live podcast events as a premium sponsorship opportunity, giving brands a chance to connect with particularly engaged fans while still showing up as a sponsor in any audio and video content produced or streamed from the event. In addition to benefiting from the usual ad reads, podcast event sponsors are able to place their logos and branding around the recording studio and live audience, with opportunities for in-person activations such as branded coffee bars for attendees.
“You’re not necessarily going to garner scale from the experience in the room, but we often create additional bonus content that our podcasters put into the RSS feed, or on YouTube, that the sponsor is incorporated into,” said SiriusXM svp of podcast content Adam Sachs. “So they get the benefit of both of these worlds.”
SiriusXM is not the only podcast company that has stepped up its live event business in 2025. In 2023, Vox Media produced five sponsored live podcast tapings; last year, the company put on 19 sponsored podcast events. In the first six months of 2025 alone, Vox Media has produced 21 live podcast recordings. Some of these events were ticketed, and others were free, but they all prominently featured sponsors such as Smartsheet and Bulleit Whiskey, the latter of which was a first-time sponsor for Vox Media.
“Typically, experiential can be a heavy lift,” said Vox Media CRO Geoff Schiller. “As it relates to other live activations, live podcast tapings are a very light lift, so it’s also a sweet spot for brands.”
The surge in the number of live podcast events in 2025 reflects a broader shift: advertisers are betting bigger on podcasts — not just as an audio channel but as a full-fledged creator economy play. With the rise of video podcasting and hosts increasingly viewed as influencers, brands see podcasts as a high-impact way to reach loyal and engaged audiences and extend their podcast presence beyond the feed. John Newall, the svp of marketing of Smartsheet — which sponsored a Vox Media podcast event at South By Southwest in March — said that his company’s overall marketing spend on podcasts had increased year-over-year between 2024 and 2025, citing the live recordings as a significant selling point. (Schiller declined to specify the prices of Vox Media’s live event inventory, but said that the company’s live events typically command a higher rate than standard ad reads.)
“We had a coffee bar outside, so when people were lining up before or after they went, they could go grab a coffee on us — which enabled us to capture leads,” he said.
Hershey’s vp of media and marketing technology Vinny Renaldi said that live podcast events were “a rapidly growing part of our integrated marketing and content strategy,” rather than simply an extension of the company’s pre-existing podcast partnerships. He did not provide numbers.
“They allow us to build deeper, more tangible connections with both the podcasts we partner with and their communities,” he said.
Live podcast events are a growing trend for both podcast companies and individual podcast creators. Theo Gadd, a co-founder of the live podcast event platform and agency PodLife, said that the number of events that he had posted on his platform, which tracks live podcast events, had grown considerably year-over-year in the two years since he started his company, although he did not share specific figures. At the moment, Gadd said, just over 50 percent of the events featured by PodLife are sponsored.
“If the show has a pre-existing sponsor, we always tell them, ‘go talk to them; let them know what you’re doing,’” Gadd said. “Because events are such a nice touchpoint, and brands are really keen to get involved.”
If we think back to the most iconic board games from our childhoods, many of us look back fondly at the humble two-player masterpiece, Guess Who. Reviving a slice of nostalgia, Fédération Addiction have put a thoughtful spin on the classic to redefine addiction stereotypes and challenge societal prejudice.
From billboard ads to TikTok trends, nowadays, there are countless ways to captivate an audience, but touching on nostalgia is almost always a winner. Putting a thoughtful spin on a childhood classic, Fédération Addiction’s campaign is an emotionally resonant piece that shines in its juxtaposition.
(Image credit: Orès France/Fédération Addiction )
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(Image credit: Orès France/Fédération Addiction )
(Image credit: Orès France/Fédération Addiction )
Conversion tracking tends to be one of those things advertisers set up once and then forget about, until something fails – big time.
But in my 16 years of experience running Google Ads, I can confidently say it’s the single most important factor affecting PPC results. Way before campaign failure, when results first start lagging, faulty conversions are almost always to blame.
So, whether you want to improve performance, or save a campaign that’s heading towards collapse, the starting point should be the same. Check your conversion data.
Conversion data will only be useful for you if it’s accurate. Serious missteps can happen if you rely on Google Ads to optimize performance when it has misleading or incomplete conversion tracking.
If your numbers are wrong, you’ll end up scaling the wrong campaigns, pausing the ones generating a positive return, or having a wrong idea of return on ad spend (ROAS) altogether – and this happens more often than you think.
Here are seven of the most common causes of inaccurate or inconsistent conversion data in Google Ads, and what you can do to fix each one.
Conversion tracking is often missing, duplicated, or firing in the wrong place. This is still one of the most common issues, and it can be the most damaging.
For example, you may track a thank-you page where users refresh the screen three times. Your backend will have one sale, but in Google Ads, you’ll see three.
Using reports like Repeat Rate is a great way to catch that error and ensure you fix it sooner rather than later.
When tracking is unreliable, it’s impossible to optimize performance accurately. Campaign decisions are made on incomplete signals, and smart bidding models won’t have the data they need to learn effectively.
Start by ensuring your conversion actions in Google Ads are appropriately defined.
Use Google Tag Manager to centralize tracking across pages and platforms, and confirm accurate tag firing using Google’s Tag Assistant or built-in diagnostics.
Not all user actions are created equal – at least not when it comes to Google Ads optimization.
Metrics like scroll depth, time on site, or video engagement can be helpful, but they shouldn’t be treated as primary conversion events in your ad account.
These types of interactions are better as supporting metrics (secondary conversions). They can offer insights into how users engage with your landing page or website.
This type of information is valuable, but it does not belong to the core set of conversion actions used to drive bidding decisions in Google Ads.
When Google optimizes towards actions that don’t directly tie to revenue or qualified leads, you risk directing your budget towards activities that look great on a dashboard but don’t move the needle in your business.
Instead, focus on tracking high-intent actions in your Google Ads account, like purchases, form submissions, or phone calls, and use the supporting metrics to help improve the user experience.
Discrepancies between platforms are expected, but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored. It’s common to see Google Ads report one number and Google Analytics 4 report another for the same conversion event.
The root cause typically comes down to attribution model differences, reporting windows, or inconsistent event definitions.
To reduce confusion, first ensure your Google Ads and GA4 accounts are correctly linked. Then, audit the attribution models in both platforms and understand how each system defines and credits conversions.
GA4 uses data-driven attribution by default, whereas Google Ads may still be using last-click or another model (but now defaults to data-driven models for most accounts). Align conversion settings as much as possible to maintain consistency in your reporting.
Google Ads can’t attribute conversions to a specific click if the GCLID isn’t passed through correctly, which will cause in-platform results to be lower.
This issue tends to result from redirects, link shorteners, or forms that strip URL parameters.
Fixing it starts with enabling auto-tagging in your account. Then, confirm that the GCLID is retained throughout the user journey, especially when forms span multiple pages or involve third-party integrations.
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems and custom landing pages are often the culprits, so work with your developers to make sure GCLID values persist and aren’t overwritten.
Unfortunately, privacy compliance has introduced new gaps in attribution. If a user declines consent, Google’s tags may not fire, leaving conversions untracked.
This is particularly relevant in regions governed by GDPR, like the EU, and similar regulations.
Consent Mode helps to bridge the gap. It adjusts how tags behave based on user permissions, allowing for some modeled data even without full cookie acceptance, making it a great solution.
Pair that with first-party data strategies and server-side tagging where appropriate.
Note, modeled conversions may take time to appear and don’t fully restore lost data, especially for smaller datasets or stricter consent regimes. But, it will help fill in the blanks responsibly.
Offline conversions – like phone sales or in-store transactions – can be imported into Google Ads.
But if you’re inconsistent with your upload process or if it lacks the proper identifiers, those conversions won’t map to the original ad click.
Set up a schedule to upload offline conversions regularly, ideally on a daily or weekly basis. Include GCLID information and a timestamp with each entry to preserve click-level attribution.
Once the data is uploaded, monitor for errors inside the Google Ads interface. Minor mismatches in format or missing fields can stop conversions from registering entirely.
Even when tracking is conceptually correct, technical issues can block it from functioning.
Conflicting scripts, outdated plugins, or misplaced tags can all prevent conversion events from firing properly. These problems often go undetected until someone audits the data or sees a sudden drop in conversions.
Use Tag Assistant or Google Tag Manager’s Preview Mode to audit your implementation regularly.
Avoid conditional loading unless absolutely necessary, and coordinate with developers when other platforms – like Meta, HubSpot, or Salesforce – are active on the same pages.
Conversion tracking doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it’s your job to make sure it plays well with the rest of your stack.
Incomplete conversion data is a strategic liability. Feeding Google Ads AI the right signals can mean the difference between PPC growth and stagnation.
By consistently auditing your setup and addressing these common issues, you’ll build cleaner data, glean better insights, and track your way to better performance.
More Resources:
Featured Image: TetianaKtv/Shutetrstock
Amazon is making its biggest bet this year on its annual sales palooza, turning the two-day Prime Day event into four days, from July 8 to 11.
Brands are preparing for a Prime Day sales spike by increasing ad budgets to promote their deals, and Amazon sales reps are trying to juice ad spend by making tailored recommendations to specific brands around the event.
Yet, brands are also more cautious this year compared to previous years, because of looming tariffs and a likely pullback in consumer spending.
“The length of the event is two times longer than it was last year, but that doesn’t mean all of our clients are doubling up on the volume of sales they’re expecting,” said Joe O’Connor, senior innovation and growth director at ad agency Tinuiti, which anticipates 10% to 25% year-over-year increase in Prime Day ad spend. “The economic environment is weighing on both consumers and brands.”
In the weeks leading up to Prime Day, Amazon sales representatives briefed marketers on how much they should spend to promote their Prime Day sales to stick out from the clutter.
According to a pitch deck sent to an agency and viewed by ADWEEK, Amazon this year recommended that a brand increase their daily ad spend by 25% in the days leading up to Prime Day to build awareness and find new customers.
During Prime Day, Amazon recommended increasing daily ad spend by 100%. And in the days after Prime Day, Amazon recommended a 25% increase in daily budgets to retarget people who bought products, or people who looked but didn’t buy.
These recommendations amounted to a quarter of the brand’s monthly spend every day of Prime Day, the source who was presented the pitch deck said. Last year, this source spent 22% of their monthly budget on each of its two days, equivalent to 44% of their monthly spend.
Tinuiti’s O’Connor was not presented Amazon’s pitch deck but said that the budget breakdowns “are not terribly far off from what our team would recommend.” He added that budgets vary significantly for individual advertisers.
According to Amazon Ads, the recommendation in the pitch deck was tailored for a specific advertiser and does not apply to all advertisers.
A spokesperson for Amazon Ads said that Prime Day is “a proven opportunity to increase brand awareness, consideration, sales, and engender longstanding customer relationships,” adding that Amazon works with advertisers to develop Prime Day ad recommendations.
While some advertisers adhere to Amazon’s recommended levels of spending, others are buying ads away from Amazon, said Hillary Kupferberg, VP of performance media at Exverus Media. With retailers like Walmart and Target offering similar deals during Prime Day, competition for ad budgets is increasing, she said.
Some advertisers are also reluctant to splurge on Prime Day because the event is sandwiched between Fourth of July sales and back-to-school shopping, Kupferberg said. Consumers could be fatigued by the onslaught of deals.
“It reinforces how cluttered we are and how much competition there is,” Kupferberg said. “Everyone understands that it’s an uncertain economic time, but nobody is quite sure how that will play out.”
Mike Feldman, svp of commerce at Flywheel, suggested that the timing of Prime Day this year could help Amazon boost sales heading into the holidays, when some experts expect a pullback in consumer spending.
“Amazon is going to try to maximize their inflationary impact,” he said. “Shoppers have more time to make purchases—this is to make sure that they win Q3 and mitigate risk heading into the holidays.”
Brands also continue to heavily scrutinize their ad spend due to economic concerns.
“The ultimate thing that we’re hearing is that the ad budgets need to be more effective than ever before,” Feldman said.
He added that the payoff with Prime Day can be substantial for brands looking to get ahead of holiday sales.
“If you win Prime Day, you win ranking and could be competitive for the rest of the year,” he said.
Cloudflare’s new “pay per crawl” initiative has sparked a debate among SEO professionals and digital marketers.
The company has introduced a default AI crawler-blocking system alongside new monetization options for publishers.
This enables publishers to charge AI companies for access, which could impact how web content is consumed and valued in the age of generative search.
The system, now in private beta, blocks known AI crawlers by default for new Cloudflare domains.
Publishers can choose one of three access settings for each crawler:
Crawlers that attempt to access blocked content will receive a 402 Payment Required response. Publishers set a flat, sitewide price per request, and Cloudflare handles billing and revenue distribution.
Cloudflare wrote:
“Imagine asking your favorite deep research program to help you synthesize the latest cancer research or a legal brief, or just help you find the best restaurant in Soho — and then giving that agent a budget to spend to acquire the best and most relevant content.
The system integrates directly with Cloudflare’s bot management tools and works alongside existing WAF rules and robots.txt files. Authentication is handled using Ed25519 key pairs and HTTP message signatures to prevent spoofing.
Cloudflare says early adopters include major publishers like Condé Nast, Time, The Atlantic, AP, BuzzFeed, Reddit, Pinterest, Quora, and others.
While the current setup supports only flat pricing, the company plans to explore dynamic and granular pricing models in future iterations.
While Cloudflare’s new controls can be changed manually, several SEO experts are concerned about the impact of making the system opt-out rather than opt-in.
“This won’t end well,” wrote Duane Forrester, Vice President of Industry Insights at Yext, warning that businesses may struggle to appear in AI-powered answers without realizing crawler access is being blocked unless a fee is paid.
Lily Ray, Vice President of SEO Strategy and Research at Amsive Digital, noted the change is likely to spark urgent conversations with clients, especially those unaware that their sites might now be invisible to AI crawlers by default.
Ryan Jones, Senior Vice President of SEO at Razorfish, expressed that most of his client sites actually want AI crawlers to access their content for visibility reasons.
Some in the community welcome the move as a long-overdue rebalancing of content economics.
“A force is needed to tilt the balance back to where it once was,” said Pedro Dias, Technical SEO Consultant and former member of Google’s Search Quality team. He suggests that the current dynamic favors AI companies at the expense of publishers.
Ilya Grigorik, Distinguished Engineer and Technical Advisor at Shopify, praised the use of cryptographic authentication, saying it’s “much needed” given how difficult it is to distinguish between legitimate and malicious bots.
Under the new system, crawlers must authenticate using public key cryptography and declare payment intent via custom HTTP headers.
As Cloudflare’s new default settings take effect, there’s concern around losing visibility in AI search tools. But you have options to regain control.
AI traffic may decline sharply if your domain blocks AI bots without you realizing it.
Himanshu Sharma, digital analytics consultant and founder of OptimizeSmart, warned on X:
“Expect a sharp decline in AI traffic reported by GA4 as Cloudflare blocks almost all known AI crawlers/bots from scraping your website content by default.”
Sharma advised site owners to proactively review their Cloudflare settings:
This option allows you to decide whether you want to maintain visibility on AI-driven platforms or limit the use of content for training and responses.
Cloudflare’s pay-per-crawl system formalizes a new layer of negotiation over who gets to access web content, and at what cost.
For SEO pros, this adds complexity: visibility may now depend not just on ranking, but on crawler access settings, payment policies, and bot authentication.
While some see this as empowering publishers, others warn it could fragment the open web, where content access varies based on infrastructure and paywalls.
If generative AI becomes a core part of how people search, and the pipes feeding that AI are now toll roads, websites will need to manage visibility across a growing patchwork of systems, policies, and financial models.
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
When it comes to data, marketers have focused primarily on the quality of the structured data in their CRM and marketing automation platforms over the past 15 years.
In my March article, I discussed why current data governance and management processes must be revisited. This time, I will maintain my focus on unstructured data by diving into the challenges of customer satisfaction surveys.
We’re all familiar with customer satisfaction surveys. For our purposes here, there’s no need to differentiate between an NPS (Net Promoter Score), five-point rating or similar customer experience metrics. Instead, we’re going to focus on the free text box, which is often the last part of these surveys.
How we got here
Whether you are directly responsible for customer surveys or you’re partnering with a customer success team, extracting actionable insights from free-text comments is a common challenge.
There are several reasons for this.
The platform-related challenge: Today’s survey tools range from form-only solutions like Google Forms and Typeform, to full survey solutions like SurveyMonkey, and full enterprise customer experience platforms like Qualtrics and Medallia.
Process-related challenges: There is a range of different survey approaches, resulting in different data formats and different roles responsible for analyzing survey data.
People-related challenges: These include prioritizing voice of customer (VOC) programs relative to other initiatives, properly analyzing unstructured comments, and relying on quantitative metrics that are simply easier to measure, such as year-over-year trends.
In the automation era, we might also be guilty of over-surveying, which leads to even more data — a problem of volume and velocity.
Dig deeper: How to develop a customer marketing strategy from scratch with Google Gemini
Many survey tools and customer experience platforms have embedded algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to conduct some analysis. Think of NLP and corresponding algorithms as keyword matching on steroids. They use the surrounding context to help structure the unstructured free-text feedback into various sentiment categories, like positive, neutral or negative.
Some platforms also included human-in-the-loop feedback cycles that ask users to help categorize feedback, particularly if there was additional context in the free text box.
Because this functionality is often embedded in the survey tools, there are a few potential issues:
Thanks to generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, today we all have a black box at our fingertips and can use it to test and validate sentiment categorizations. We can go beyond the positive, negative or neutral rating by probing deeper to understand the specifics.
If your team finds the cost of a full-featured customer survey and analysis platform too steep for its budget, you could even build a DIY solution.
Let’s examine how I put this approach to the test.
First, I created a set of synthetic customer data using ChatGPT to avoid any data privacy concerns. I prompted it to provide a sample of customer data records that engaged with an online retailer, including the customers’ overall satisfaction and open-text box feedback.
A sample of synthetic customer data generated by ChatGPT.
I then uploaded the file into Google Sheets and clicked on the “Analyze this data” button, which puts Gemini’s AI model directly into Sheets.
Within seconds, Gemini generated a top-line summary of qualitative results with broad-based trends to characterize the data.
Without leaving Google Sheets, the embedded Gemini chat asked me if I’d like to delve deeper.
This inline capability demonstrates why the new DIY approach will be so impactful. It’s no longer about separate tools, as I literally chatted with my data to delve deeper with each prompt, like this:
I know what you’re thinking: Shouldn’t I verify this myself?
Yes, but this top-level summary gave me a starting point. It’s no different from what I’d receive from an entry-level analyst (which I’d also want to verify). The critical difference was my ability to do this directly inline, without leaving my data sheet and analysis flow.
I then simulated a similar test. I uploaded the data directly to Gemini and prompted it to do a more complete sentiment analysis.
If you’ve used some of the newer LLM models, you’ve seen how they show their thinking to users. In this case, that’s a critical dimension, as it provided me with its sentiment classification method.
Survey platforms with embedded analysis tools might link unstructured data feedback to the overall satisfaction score. I asked my LLM to determine the sentiment exclusively on the text without anchoring it to the overall rating.
The LLM identified four specific examples in which the anchored sentiment differed from the direct sentiment and why. This could spark other customer service or follow-up actions, all within minutes and within my control.
If you’re currently using a full-featured survey and analysis platform, this exercise might raise new questions about what embedded algorithms do and how they do it. Alternatively, if you run surveys outside of a platform, you’re more capable than ever of separating the collection and analysis of data.
For SMBs, this exercise demonstrates a cost-effective, DIY approach to survey collection and analysis. These teams can leverage basic forms solutions (e.g., Google Forms) instead of full survey platforms.
Data privacy and confidentiality.
It would be irresponsible to conclude this exercise without addressing one of the major reasons these approaches may be limited initially: the lack of clarity regarding data privacy and confidentiality guidelines.
Most experts recommend teams conduct this type of analysis only within the walled garden of their organization’s Team or Enterprise versions of ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot or Google Gemini Workspace, based on data retention and do-not-train-the-model settings.
Teams should consult their organization’s legal, compliance, and IT policies before placing sensitive data in an AI/LLM platform. Of course, many individuals may be experimenting already, which leads to the critical step of revisiting your organization’s data governance policies. The latest wave of “chat with CRM” connectors will accelerate these concerns and heighten the need to adjust compliance frameworks.
Although it’s still early, I am encouraged by these early tests of “chatting with data.” Like every other AI-infused trend, the technology has outpaced our ability to adjust processes and platform management. However, when analyzing free-text feedback becomes comparable to running quantitative summaries, my hope is that we can flip our feedback processes to focus more on what they said rather than only how they rated us.
Dig deeper: Why AI-powered customer engagement projects fail before they start
Contributing authors are invited to create content for MarTech and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. MarTech is owned by Semrush. Contributor was not asked to make any direct or indirect mentions of Semrush. The opinions they express are their own.
YouTube is updating its monetization policies to target mass-produced and repetitious content. Here’s you need to know.
In 2025, influencer marketing is nothing new. Nevertheless, some major big-box retailers just launched creator programs in response to the evolution of how people interact with social content and creators.
Best Buy in April launched the Best Buy Creator program, which gives creators the ability to create a storefront to highlight their content and earn a commission on sales of products in their tailored collections with no commission cap. Some of the first influencers to join the program have included Linus Sebastian of YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, Judner Aura of UrAvgConsumer, and tech and lifestyle creator Jenna Ezarik.
In June, Lowe’s announced the Lowe’s Creator Network, which also offers commissions and storefronts, as well as product samples, training resources like tutorials, and the potential for project funding, long-term sponsorships and access to events like Lowe’s Creator Summit. One of the first creators is popular online video creator MrBeast, or Jimmy Donaldson. On his storefront, shoppers can see his favorite materials and tools and DIY projects inspired by his videos.
CMOs at Best Buy and Lowe’s told Modern Retail they launched these new programs in response to the growing importance of influencers in recommending products to shoppers. The new programs exhibit an evolution beyond affiliate links and toward more personalized shoppable content, measurability and new ways to compensate creators.
Jennie Weber, chief marketing and design officer for Best Buy, told Modern Retail in an interview the focus of the program is on being “creator-first” by giving creators flexibility to tailor their storefronts around their passion areas, from cooking to photography.
“We really wanted to create something that enabled that authentic voice of the creator to come through and really met their needs as a business owner,” she said.
She said the company also plans to offer opportunities to be featured in Best Buy campaigns and for additional bonuses. So far, more than 600 creators have been accepted to partner with Best Buy, and close to 100 storefronts have already launched, according to Weber. Best Buy’s program does not have requirements on audience size, and the company does not dictate which products creators pick.
“We are always looking for ways to help customers discover new technology and thinking about how that technology really amplifies the things they love doing in their life,” Weber said. “We think about their passion points and how technology fits into that, and if you think about it, today, the way that consumers in general are tapping into their passion points — a lot of that is around influencers, and learning from influencers, and getting new product ideas and ways to use products.”
Weber said Best Buy had previously worked with influencers over the years, but as more of an advertising lever to reach customers while they’re scrolling social media — simply doing a campaign with a creator where they talk about Best Buy’s products or services. In this case, however, the creators are working with the retailer on content geared toward shoppers on Best Buy’s website.
“Creators are a critical component of a modern marketing plan, and so we will continue to have influencers that we partner with in that way,” Weber said. “We saw that the market was moving in this direction, where more and more consumers were actually leveraging social platforms for search — they were leveraging influencers for product ideas and almost DIY, or how to set it up, or how to use it. We wanted to be positioned alongside those creators to be able to be in front of consumers and provide that helpful content to them.”
Jen Wilson, CMO of Lowe’s, said in an email that creators and their communities are key to accelerating the company’s online and digital growth. She said the goal is for the brand to reach Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha who trust creators for advice, product picks and inspiration.
“As people consume content through their feeds, they’re inspired to shop more impulsively, especially online,” Wilson said. “Creators are often more trusted than brands, especially among younger generations — who are a key growth audience for Lowe’s.”
One of those creators is MrBeast; the company not only is working with him on storefronts but is also the exclusive building partner for season two of his “Beast Games” series on Amazon Prime Video. Lowe’s employees helped him create a complex to house contestants and serve as the show’s set.
“We want to build and foster those relationships now, before they even own homes,” Wilson said. “Gen Alpha’s influence on family purchases is powerful, and Gen Z is establishing brand loyalty at an early age. We’re also continuing to engage our core home improvement audience, but we’re reaching them in more modern, creative spaces where digital conversations are already happening.”
While Lowe’s has worked with creators before, Wilson said this is the company’s “first formal, network-based program with scale, structure and long-term strategy behind it.” So far, it has 17,000 members in its network from beta testing — which first launched in late 2023 — and aims to grow it to 50,000 creators over the next three years.
The Lowe’s program is unique in being a “hybrid model,” both giving creators incentives for being part of the program — such as the potential for project funding or event access — as well as giving them up to 20% commission, said Keith Bendes, chief strategy officer for influencer marketing agency Linqia.
“A lot of retailers or brands, in general, are saying, ‘What if we provide baseline incentives for being part of this program, whether that’s free product, free access potential or whatever it is, but also give them commission?” Bendes said. “It’s taken this long for leadership to realize they have no other option — this is the new world we live in. … If you want to be relevant, you better be social-first, you better be creator- and influencer-first.”
This more robust approach to working with creators comes as legacy retailers adjust to social shopping.
“Historically, if someone on TikTok said, ‘This is a really great podcasting microphone,’ I would go to Amazon or Walmart after they said that, and I’d buy it,” Bendes said. “Now, TikTok is making it so I don’t have to do that. … The retailers see that and say, ‘We need to have storefronts, we need to keep the recommendations on our site, and we need to have the conversions be on our site.’”
The storefront programs launched by Best Buy and Lowe’s also follow similar initiatives launched by Amazon and Walmart, in 2017 and 2022. They also offer commissions to influencers who create storefronts to showcase products sold on their websites.
Adam Tanielian, svp and head of global gaming client services for BENLabs, said brands have become more focused on ensuring they reach relevant audiences, rather than as many as possible.
“Brands are not as worried about how much scale [they’re] going to get. Obviously, you want to reach mass, but you also want to ensure you’re reaching audiences that care,” he said.
Tanielian said that while in his previous role as head of global community engagement for video game publisher Electronic Arts, the company started to take the approach of letting creators serve as the voice of the brand, giving them more autonomy over the content. Storefronts reflect this approach by using a shopping channel as a storytelling mechanism, Tanielian said, rather than the content solely living on YouTube or TikTok.
“They’re putting the power of creation in the hands of the creators, so that the brand comes to life through the eyes of their community,” Tanielian said. “I think brands are really starting to ask the right questions and to be much more progressive in how they create these programs.”
Paid media is often treated like a checklist item in a marketing plan: launch a few search ads, run a Meta campaign, maybe test YouTube if there’s budget left.
But not all paid media is created equal, and treating every channel the same is a fast way to burn through budget with little to show for it.
Whether you’re working in-house or managing campaigns for clients, understanding the different types of paid media (and what each one is actually good for) can help you prioritize the right tactics, set realistic expectations, and answer the dreaded question: “What are we getting out of this?”
This article breaks down the main types of paid media with real-world examples so you can make smarter decisions about where to spend your money.
Paid media is any type of marketing where you pay to get in front of your audience. That includes things like search ads, social ads, display banners, video pre-roll, and even influencer sponsorships.
While paid media is often used interchangeably with the term cost-per-click (CPC), it’s important to note the differentiation.
It’s the part of your marketing strategy that gives you scale and control. You’re not waiting for someone to discover your blog post or share your Instagram reel organically.
You’re putting money behind your message to drive attention right now.
Paid media works best when it’s tied to a clear goal, like driving leads, sales, or downloads. Without a strategy, it’s just noise with a price tag.
Think of paid, owned, and earned media as different ways to get your message out. You need a mix of all three, but each serves a different purpose.
Some examples of earned media include:
Owned media examples include:
The overlap matters, too. A paid campaign might drive traffic to a landing page (owned media), which then gets shared by a happy customer (earned media). When these channels work together, your efforts go further.
Now that we’ve identified the definition of paid media, let’s take a look at the different types of paid media channels and the purposes they serve.
Before we dive into the different paid media channels, it’s also important to note the difference between ad formats and ad channels.
Ad formats are the type of ads shown in a particular channel. An ad format example could be:
So, while ad formats are important and will depend on the channel, below we will focus on the channels themselves.
There are other types of paid media channels available that are not listed here, such as more traditional methods like direct mail or billboards. These paid media channels have a more physical presence.
Here, we will focus on digital channels.
Paid search puts your ads at the top of search results for specific keywords. It’s often the first paid channel marketers try because it targets people already looking for what you offer.
Platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads let you bid on search terms so your ad shows when someone types in something relevant.
Google is the leading search engine in market share, with its sites generating 60.4% of user searches in the United States.
It’s high-intent, measurable, and scalable. But, it’s also competitive, especially in industries like legal, finance, or ecommerce.
Success here depends on more than just bidding. Your landing page, ad copy, keyword match types, and conversion tracking all matter. You’re not just paying for clicks – you’re paying for the opportunity to convert interest into action.
Paid social platforms let you reach people based on who they are, not just what they search.
Many of the platforms offer detailed targeting based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and even job titles.
Some of the most common paid social platforms include:
The most common ad format in social channels is placed within a user’s newsfeed as they scroll. These ads will either consist of one (or more) static images or a video as the main visual.
It’s not just about brand awareness. Many brands use social to drive signups, sales, or downloads. You can run video ads, carousels, static images, or Stories, depending on what fits your brand and goal.
Some paid social platforms are more beneficial for B2B companies than for B2C brands.
For example, LinkedIn advertising consists mainly of B2B brands marketing their product or service to other professionals.
Other platforms like TikTok and Snapchat may be better suited for B2C or ecommerce brands.
The tricky part? Creative fatigue is real.
If you’re not refreshing your assets often or testing different hooks, performance will drop fast. Social ads require constant iteration, but the upside is speed: you can test ideas and get feedback quickly.
Display advertising is what most people think of as “banner ads.” These are the visual ads you see on news sites, blogs, or apps, usually managed through platforms like the Google Display Network or programmatic buying platforms.
The upside is scale. You can reach millions of people across the web without relying on social platforms. The downside? Banner blindness is real. If your creative isn’t compelling, people will scroll right past.
That’s why display works best for remarketing or supporting a broader campaign. Use it to stay top of mind, promote limited-time offers, or drive awareness ahead of a product launch. Just don’t expect cold traffic to convert on the first click.
Affiliate marketing is a way to scale your reach by letting others promote your product for you. You only pay when they drive a sale or lead, which makes it one of the lowest-risk paid media options available.
This model works especially well in industries like fashion, tech, travel, and finance, where bloggers, influencers, or content sites already have built-in audiences.
The key to making affiliate work? Vet your partners. A bunch of low-quality traffic from coupon sites won’t move the needle.
Look for affiliates who create content, have authority, or drive meaningful referral traffic.
And keep an eye on attribution. Affiliate-driven sales often overlap with other paid efforts, so tracking needs to be tight.
This is where the ad formats are married to the paid media channels.
Below are examples of paid media ads from the popular channels listed above. These examples can help provide context when deciding what types of paid media to run.
When searching for [top parental control apps] in Google, the first three positions are examples of search ads.
Screenshot from Google search for [top parental control apps], Google, May 2025While conducting the same search on Microsoft Bing, the ads look slightly different.
There’s even a section above the sponsored ads showcasing different brands and a brief description about what they do.
Screenshot from Bing search for [top parental control apps], Microsoft Bing, May 2025When searching for a product like [nike shoes for women], the ads below are a shopping ad format.
Screenshot from Google search for [nike shoes for women], Google, May 2025
Each social platform’s ad formats look different within their respective newsfeeds.
Here is a LinkedIn newsfeed example:
Screenshot from author’s LinkedIn newsfeed, desktop ad, May 2025
A Facebook ad newsfeed example:
Screenshot from author’s Facebook newsfeed, desktop ad, May 2025
Instagram also offers ads in its “Stories” placement. An example from Fountainhead is below:
Screenshot from author’s Instagram Stories feed, Stories ad, May 2025
Display ads can be in all shapes and sizes, depending on the website or app.
Below is an example of two different display ads shown on one webpage.
Screenshot from author, May 2025
Sometimes, affiliate ads can be difficult to spot.
For example, “Listicle” articles, where a publisher is paid by other brands to be included in a “Top” product article.
Screenshot from FamilyOnlineSafety.com, May 2025
However, if you take a closer look at this example’s “Advertising Disclosure,” you’ll notice that this publisher is paid by the brands for exclusive placement:
Screenshot from FamilyOnlineSafety.com, May 2025
Paid media doesn’t have to be a guessing game. When you understand the role each channel plays, you’re in a much better spot to build campaigns that actually drive results, not just impressions.
From keyword-targeted search ads to affiliate partnerships and social retargeting, each paid media type has its own strengths. Use them deliberately.
Think about where your audience is, how they like to interact, and what action you want them to take.
Remember: success isn’t just about being present on every channel. It’s about showing up with the right message, in the right place, at the right time.
More resources:
Featured Image: Lana Sham/Shutterstock
