Snapchat is betting that AI-powered ad tech might finally help it shrink the distance between itself and the platforms that have long outpaced it.
Last month, the mobile messaging app launched its first major iteration of an AI-powered suite of tools called Smart Campaign Solution — akin to Google’s Performance Max or Meta’s Advantage+ — to support advertisers, but particularly SMBs.
While the tools are still in test mode with a select group of advertisers, chief business officer Ajit Mohan believes the combination of having more performance driven capabilities has the potential to put Snapchat into the tier one platform bracket.
“My theory has always been that if there is intent and finally we’re showing results, that’s when the money will move, and hopefully we’re starting to do that,” said Mohan.
That hope, he continued, rests on a specific kind of advertiser — one that’s already disillusioned with the returns they’re getting from Meta and Google and is actively looking for an alternative. Snap doesn’t think it has to beat the incumbents outright. It just has to give enough underwhelmed advertisers a reason to test and shift.
“In some ways, Meta and Google have become the equivalent of broadcast television; you can’t get fired for putting money there anymore,” Mohan said. “Yet the consistent message I hear from clients and agencies is, ‘We’re too reliant on them’.”
That reliance has less to do with love for the incumbents and more to do with the lack of credible alternatives. Snap knows this all too well. Its audience has never really been the problem; its ability to turn that audience into measurable, repeatable performance for advertisers has.
This latest push is an attempt to change that narrative not by beating Meta or Google at their own game but by giving advertisers a reason to try something else. Whether that’s enough to shift ad dollars meaningfully is still an open question. But Snap seems to think a window is opening.
“Is the last 15%, 20%, 30% of the investment going to Meta and Google getting you the same return as the first 5% or 10% or should you be using that [last bit of investment] and moving into a platform that can deliver better results?,” said Mohan. “I think that’s where we need to break through the inertia, because it’s [hard] work to deal with so many platforms.”
But the tide is starting to turn it seems.
Over the past year or so, Mohan said, smaller advertisers have been shifting more of their budgets to Snap from its larger rivals.
“They’re the most demanding advertisers because they won’t move [their ad budgets] unless there’s a [worthwhile] reason to move,” he said. “But I also think there’s still a huge opportunity for us to reintroduce ourselves to large clients, and nudge them to be more thoughtful about shifting spend in a way that they say they have been wanting to do for a while.”
Even so, the long game is still about pushing Snapchat to the larger advertisers — the ones who say they want to diversify but haven’t made the leap. Mohan thinks the company now has a better case to make. The question is whether the market is finally ready to listen.
https://digiday.com/?p=581353
Throughout human history, artists have found clever ways to create without going broke. Vincent van Gogh was known for painting over old canvases, and Jean-Michel Basquiat skipped the canvas altogether, choosing to paint on doors, windows, refrigerator parts, and discarded wood he found on the street. This resourcefulness later became a signature part of his aesthetic, inspiring a new era of DIY artists eager to express themselves with found material. Even Michelangelo wasn’t above using leftovers – he carved David from a massive block of marble that had been sitting around, rejected for 40 years by richer clients. Not bad for a piece of scrap.
This make-it-work attitude is still going strong, with plenty of young creatives today finding innovative ways to keep making their art on a budget. Take Gints Zilbalodis, the 31-year-old animation director behind Flow, which recently took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. He pulled it off with a small team, a tight budget, and a whole lot of ingenuity. Gints first taught himself 3D animation using Autodesk Maya, then switched to Blender in 2019 using early beta and alpha versions of the free software. While still in his early 20s, he made his first feature film, Away, entirely on his own, which gave him the confidence to take on Flow next. He put together a proof-of-concept teaser featuring the film’s animal characters, then started production when the funding came through and he found his first technical team.
After five-and-a-half years of learning, experimenting, and pushing through challenges, Flow finally made its big screen debut in March 2025 – and went on to earn around $36 million at the box office. Gints’ story proves it’s not about using the most expensive tools – it’s about vision, creativity, and having the guts to push through. “With a smaller budget there are limitations, but that can also lead to creative solutions,” he says. “I think that it’s very exciting that independent animation is being recognised which will allow more films like this to be made.”
Keeping up-to-date on industry Google Ads benchmarks is crucial to help answer questions you might get from clients or exec such as:
Questions like these come up all the time, especially when budgets are tight and performance dips even slightly.
But unless you’ve got fresh benchmark data on hand, these conversations are usually filled with guesswork, vague assurances, or worse, outdated reports that no longer reflect how competitive today’s ad landscape really is.
Wordstream by LocaliQ recently updated its Search Advertising benchmarks for 2025, compiling real data from thousands of Google and Microsoft Ads campaigns across 20 verticals.
The data consists of data points from thousands of campaigns in both Google and Microsoft Ads for some of the top industries. Some of the top industries include:
While these benchmarks are a starting point, it’s important to note that many factors go into setting benchmarks that are attainable for your business.
We hope this data is useful for you to help level-set expectations and goals for your business, and get a sense of how you stack up to the competition.
In this report, you’ll find benchmarks for Search campaigns in Google & Microsoft Ads for:
Let’s dig into the data.
Data from LocaliQ benchmark report, June 2025
The average click-through rate for Google & Microsoft Ads across all industries averaged out to 6.66% over the last 12 months.
Compared to when the company first started gathering data in 2015, the average CTR for search ads was minimal at 1.35%.
The business category that boasted the highest CTR was Arts & Entertainment, with an astounding 13.10% CTR.
At the other end of the spectrum was Dentists and Dental Services at a 5.44% CTR.
The CTR metric should be analyzed as only one indicator of performance, not the end-all-be-all when trying to determine if your ads are doing well.
The widespread in CTR performance is influenced by:
High CTR doesn’t always mean high performance, though. Sometimes it just means your ad is click-worthy, not necessarily that it’s converting. That’s why CTR should be viewed as one piece of the puzzle, not the whole picture.
If your CTR is low compared to your industry average, tools like Google’s Quality Score can help pinpoint the problem areas, from poor ad relevance to weak expected click-through rate.
Data from LocaliQ benchmark report, June 2025
The average cost-per-click for Google and Microsoft Ads across all industries over the past 12 months averaged $5.26.
While the Attorneys and Legal Services showcased one of the lowest CTR categories, it also boasted the highest average CPC. In 2025, the average CPC for this industry came in at $8.58.
This average is unsurprising, given the higher-than-average cost of acquiring a customer.
On the lower end of the spectrum, the Arts & Entertainment industry had the lowest average CPC at $1.60.
Similar to analyzing the CTR metric, average CPC is just one performance indicator.
For example, your ads may show a low average CPC and a low CTR. This could mean your bids aren’t high enough to be competitive in the market, and you may want to consider raising bids.
On the other hand, if you have a higher-than-average CPC, you’ll want to monitor these more closely to ensure you can prove your return on ad spend/investment.
Data from LocaliQ benchmark report, June 2025
The average conversion rate across all industries for Google and Microsoft Ads in the last twelve months was 7.52%.
The average conversion rate is calculated from the number of leads/sales you get divided by the number of clicks from your ad.
When looking at the data from 2025, the average conversion rate varied highly across industries.
On the high end of performance, Automotive had the highest conversion rate at 14.67%, followed by Animals and Pets at 13.07%.
The industries that had the lowest conversion rate included:
When looking at these industries and the products they sell, these conversion rates make sense.
Furniture is a high-ticket item for many customers. Users do a lot of research online before making a purchase. Not only that, but because of the price tag, many customers end up purchasing in stores instead of online.
While the conversion rate may be low in this particular industry, it’s more important than ever to be able to measure offline conversions, such as in-store visits or purchases.
In the apparel industry, new brands seem to pop up every day.
If you do a simple search for Nike sneakers, the number of sellers and resellers for these types of products has skyrocketed in recent years.
The amount of competition can directly contribute to a low (or high) conversion rate.
Data from LocaliQ benchmark report, June 2025
The average cost per lead across all industries for Google and Microsoft Ads in the last twelve months was $70.11.
The average cost per lead is a core KPI that advertisers should keep a pulse on when analyzing performance.
It remains one of the most scrutinized metrics by marketing and finance teams alike.
It’s no surprise that certain industries have a much higher CPL compared to other industries. Some of the factors that can influence CPL include:
On average, the CPL across all industries reported was $70.11.
The Attorneys and Legal Services industry had the highest CPL out of all industries at a whopping $131.63.
However, while the CPL may be high, many businesses in that industry find that well worth the investment, considering their return on each individual they represent.
Those industries with lower-priced products and services likely have a lower CPL goal.
The industries that showed the lowest CPL in 2025 were Automotive Repair, Services & Parts at $28.50, followed by Arts & Entertainment and Restaurants & Food at $30.27.
Compared to last year’s data, 13 out of the 23 industries reported an increase in CPL.
Data from LocaliQ benchmark report, June 2025
While the last few years have seen such a large fluctuation in CPL due to the record inflation and economic instability, the year-over-year changes in CPL have mellowed out a bit.
Benchmark reports are exactly that: benchmarks. They’re not scorecards, and they don’t account for your specific brand, audience, goals, or tech stack.
So, if your numbers don’t perfectly align with the averages, it doesn’t mean you’re underperforming.
If you’re looking to make progress in the second half of the year, try following the tips below:
Make sure to check out Wordstream by LocaliQ’s full report on benchmarks and tips to improve your campaigns.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
Ross McLeod has been named the evening anchor at WDAM in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
The station said McLeod is a graduate of Brandon High School in Brandon, Mississippi and Mississippi State University.
“I am a Brandon-raised boy, and I love Mississippi,” Ross said.
He joins the station from WTOK in Meridian where he’s worked since 2022. He also produces newscasts.
“So, I am excited to be able to do that here in the Pine Belt region of Mississippi, and here at WDAM,” he said. “I am just looking forward to that. And WTOK is going to hold a special place in my heart because that’s where I got to learn everything that I will incorporate here at WDAM.”
There’s a pretty great deal knocking about right now on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, with £300 cashback up for grabs on purchases made up until June 24th. Customers will need to claim this offer via Samsung’s offers site within 30 days of buying the tablet, and it’s that simple.
To sweeten the deal, Samsung is also throwing in a free Slim Book Cover Keyboard for the tablet (worth £199), and customers can also bag a guaranteed £150 off when trading in any device, in any condition (even non-working!).
(Image credit: Samsung)
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Samsung)
Today’s best deals on Samsung devices
36 months
Unlimited mins
Unlimitedtexts
5GBdata
36 months
Unlimited mins
Unlimitedtexts
5GBdata
36 months
Unlimited mins
Unlimitedtexts
5GBdata
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the platform’s short-form video format now generates 200 billion daily views during a keynote address at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The milestone comes as the Google-owned platform marks its 20th anniversary and faces increasing competition from TikTok and Instagram Reels in the short-form video space.
During his presentation, Mohan shared several performance metrics:
The television viewing data represents an evolution from YouTube’s mobile-first origins, with creators increasingly producing content formatted for larger screens.
YouTube will introduce Veo 3, Google DeepMind’s video generation model, to Shorts creators later this summer.
The tool enables users to create AI-generated backgrounds and video clips, building upon the existing Dream Screen feature.
The company also reported that its Auto Dubbing feature has processed over 20 million videos since launch six months ago. The tool currently translates content across nine languages, with 11 additional languages planned.
YouTube’s announcements come as the platform competes for creator attention and viewer time with TikTok, which popularized the short-form video format, and Meta’s Instagram Reels.
The emphasis on television viewing and longer-form content may represent an attempt to differentiate from mobile-first competitors.
While YouTube leads in platform breadth and viewing hours, TikTok still holds a cultural edge in mobile-native short video. YouTube’s push toward TV-based viewing and AI creation tools may help retain creator loyalty and expand monetization opportunities across formats.
The AI tools announcement follows similar features from competitors, including TikTok’s AI effects and Instagram’s creative tools.
The shift toward television viewing and serialized content marks a departure from YouTube’s roots as a platform for amateur video uploads.
As YouTube enters its third decade, the platform’s strategy appears focused on supporting professional content creation while expanding its technological capabilities through AI integration.
Featured Image: Screenshot from: blog.youtube/news-and-events/neal-mohan-cannes-2025/, June 2025.
Most people still think of AI as a tool for generating content or powering chatbots. But agentic AI is already driving deeper transformation—especially in customer experience.
Unlike traditional AI, AI agents don’t just respond—they act. These systems plan, reason, and execute tasks across departments, pulling from structured and unstructured data to deliver real results.
From reducing time-to-resolution in support, to enabling real-time personalization in marketing, AI agents are helping brands move faster, serve smarter, and scale customer impact—without scaling headcount.
In A Practical Guide to Agentic AI for Customer Experience from Snowflake, you’ll learn:
If you’re serious about putting AI to work—not just experimenting with it—this guide is a must-read. Get your copy here.
The post Beyond ChatGPT: What AI agents really do (and why it matters for customer experience) appeared first on MarTech.
Even for a series loaded with generational talents, it was mainly elements of the visual, narrative and writing design that defined the show and helped turn it into one of the most quietly genre-pushing animated series of the 90s. First of all was the invention of Squigglevision, a loop-based animation style masterminded by Tom Snyder. “In this method, the animator loosely traced the outline of each cartoon image several times and when these separate images ran together as a loop, the image would appear to be vibrating,” says Annette. Lacking the budget for traditional animation, this method allowed the image to possess the illusion of motion, much like the microscopic movements that happen in our eyes, without animating a metric ton of finicky animation frames. Similar to “Jittercam”, the antonym of Steadicam, the “boiled lines” effect also helps create a documentary-esque vibe, as if the characters are being filmed with a handheld camera.
Annette, Tom and their team found their animation style through Autodesk Animator, a clunky painting program developed in 1989 for the MS-DOS, which the team had previously been using for its original intention: creating educational math videos. In 1995, traditional 2D animation did not know its future was going take place on computers, but the team behind Katz stuck to what they knew best and set forth whilst smash hits like Toy Story illustrated the massive budgetary differences between the two studios.
Google is rolling out Search Live with voice features through its AI Mode Labs experiment.
You can now have natural, spoken conversations with Search while receiving web links in real-time.
The was previewed at Google I/O and is now available today for U.S. users.
You can access the feature by opening the Google app on Android or iOS.
Tap the new “Live” icon under the search bar, as shown below.
Once started, you can ask questions out loud and get AI-generated audio responses. Google says it uses a custom version of Gemini with advanced voice features.
The system remembers what you talked about before, which lets you ask follow-up questions naturally. For example, you could ask about preventing wrinkles in linen clothing while packing. Then you could ask what to do if wrinkles still happen.
Search Live keeps working even when you switch to other apps. Your conversations continue while you check email, browse social media, or do other things on your phone.
A “transcript” button shows you text versions of the audio responses. This means you can switch between talking and typing in the same conversation.
The feature also saves your conversation history. You can go back to previous Search Live sessions through your AI Mode history.
Web links show up on your screen alongside voice responses. This gives you quick access to source content if you want to dig deeper.
Google’s custom Gemini model for Search Live builds on the company’s existing search systems.
The setup uses what Google calls a “query fan-out technique” to find diverse web content. This aims to give you different sources and viewpoints during your search sessions.
Google plans to add more Search Live features in the coming months. This includes camera integration for real-time visual queries.
Visual search was also previewed at I/O. It would let you show Search what you’re seeing while talking about objects, locations, or situations around you.
Voice-driven conversational search could be a big shift in how people use search engines.
Google’s continued focus on natural language queries means optimization must go beyond traditional keyword targeting.
Web links still appear with AI voice responses. Marketers should test it out and consider how their content appears in conversational situations. This matters more as people ask follow-up questions and explore topics through natural dialogue.
This change may also affect how we understand search intent. Conversational queries often show more detailed needs than regular typed searches.
If you’re looking to learn more about AI Mode, check out this webinar: New Google AI Mode: Everything You Need To Know & What To Do Next
To use Search Live, you must join the AI Mode experiment through Google Labs.
Once signed up, the Live icon appears right away in the Google app.
Having decided that the value of live — be it live sports, live shopping, live-streaming, live events or live conversations — is of essential importance to its clients, Omnicom is partnering with several major platforms and publishers to harness live’s power.
DIgiday has learned that the holding company today is announcing partnerships with payment platform PayPal as well as with X, in hopes of getting clients closer to influencers and content that shows a higher propensity to spur consumers to purchase – and adding valuable purchase data to show where consumers are spending.
Starting with the X partnership, Omnicom is looking to take advantage of the fact that X is working to attract more creators and influencers, given its clout as a major second-screen hub. X has already solidified its status as a real-time reflector of trends too — both elements that Omnicom is looking to tap into, according to Megan Pagliuca, Omnicom Media Group North America’s chief product officer.
“What’s really different here is the role X plays as this cultural epicenter where we’re able to take this trends data, fuse it with audiences, fuse it with our elements of culture, use it for both brand creative execution on X and then also use it for influencer discovery and influencer activation,” said Pagliuca.
Here’s how the partnership, currently active in the U.S. only, works: X’s API data and Trends API are fed into Omni, Omnicom’s open operating system. Omni then matches the signals to find moments that work for an Omnicom client to attach itself to. The audience segments and corresponding trends by audience are both used to plan activations, which are pushed back into X for influencer discovery. Finally, all the insights gleaned are fed back into Omni’s Influencer Discovery Agent, an AI-powered agentic tool that identifies influencers and creators with the most impact on consumer engagement and performance, based on multiple criteria including audience match and cultural relevance.
Similar to Omnicom’s earlier Cannes announcements this week with Meta and Walmart before it, the Influencer Discovery Agent keeps amassing more knowledge with each deal the holdco makes, because it’s collecting input from all the major platforms where influencers and creators reach their audiences, and ostensibly getting smarter with each new input.
“What I’m most excited about here is looking at what moments of culture are being engaged with on X, and how we could use that to inform the content that those influencers are producing,” added Kevin Blazaitis, U.S. president of Creo, Omnicom Media Group’s influencer arm. “You have a very active base of niche communities — identifying the right voices of those. We’re excited to have our data play a larger role, to again expand voices and have that many to many communication.”
“This partnership is a prime example of how we help marketers take advantage of key moments, conversations and live moments taking place on our platform,” said Monique Pintarelli, X’s head of the Americas.
Zaryn Sidhu, OMG’s svp of social for North America, shot down any notion that the holdco might have lingering concerns over X’s recent history of eroding brand-safety efforts, citing Omnicom’s CASA efforts at ensuring brand safety protocols. “X is actually on par in terms of controls and partner verification,” said Sidhu. “We have adjacency and placement controls even down to the keyword level. We have third-party post-bid and pre-bid verification capabilities. We have content violation reporting.”
Omnicom today also unveiled a partnership with PayPal, which centers on attaching the finance app’s cross-merchant transactional data to OMG’s streaming TV inventory curation. OMG’s negotiated deals and curated supply paths are overlaid with PayPal’s transactional and purchase data via Magnite’s and PubMatic’s SSPs, enabling Omnicom clients to bid on both live and pre-recorded streaming inventory based on purchase data as a means of connecting with their audiences as effectively as possible.
Available in the U.S. in coming weeks before rolling out internationally, the arrangement lets OMG tap a vast transaction data set that also includes Venmo and Honey — two other payment platforms PayPal has that contribute to its transaction graph. It’s estimated some 430 million consumers use one of them, giving PayPal a 45% share of the global payments market, with $1.68 trillion in total payment volume in 2024.
“Live TV has long made it difficult for brands to reach the right audience in real time,” said Mark Grether, svp and general manager of PayPal Ads. “Bringing our technologies together and connecting transaction data with Live TV inventory improves the efficiency of awareness campaigns.”
“The ability to understand what users are shopping across merchants in this first party, deterministic data set, means we can pair the scale of PayPal and their transaction graph and their data with the Omnicom Media Group negotiated rates and inventory capabilities,” said Keagan McDonnell, senior director of product innovation and partnerships at OMG North America. “We believe that’s a very powerful use case in the market.”
Cox Automotive, an Omnicom client, is tapping into the data to more carefully target its streaming ad efforts. “This collaboration allows us to reach automotive audiences built on signals from PayPal’s extensive network of merchant partners, merging precision and scale,” said Jillian Davis, director of marketing technology at the client, which includes the Auto Trader and Kelly Blue Book brands. “By pairing PayPal transaction data with Omnicom’s media curation strategies, we can reach these hyper-relevant audiences without sacrificing inventory quality.”
