I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s really been hot. I have loved it (seriously, stop complaining, it’s like being on holiday) but there is a sigh of relief I can hear floating over in the delightful breeze this morning. Anyway, one thing that hasn’t enjoyed the heat is my poor phone. And it turns out I’ve been doing something very wrong this whole time.
Smartphone overheating can take the form of battery swelling, screen glitches and sudden shutdowns. Most modern phones can take a reasonable amount of heat, but are mostly only tested up to 35 degrees celsius. And my car has certainly been hotter than that over the last few days.
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WordPress security company Patchstack published an advisory about a serious vulnerability in Gravity Forms caused by a supply chain attack. Gravity Forms responded immediately and released an update to fix the issue.
Patchstack has been monitoring an attack on a WordPress plugin in which the attackers uploaded an infected version of the plugin directly to the publisher’s repository and fetched other files from a domain name similar to the official domain. This, in turn, led to a serious compromise of websites that used that plugin.
A similar attack was observed in Gravity Forms and was immediately addressed by the publisher. Malicious code had been injected into Gravity Forms (specifically in gravityforms/common.php) by the attackers. The code caused the plugin, when installed, to make HTTP POST requests to the rogue domain gravityapi.org, which was registered just days before the attack and controlled by the attacker.
The compromised plugin sent detailed site and server information to the attacker’s server and enabled remote code execution on the infected sites. In the context of a WordPress plugin, a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability occurs when an attacker can run malicious code on a targeted website from a remote location.
Patchstack explained the extent of the vulnerability:
“…it can perform multiple processes:
That last one means that the attacker can view any file, regardless of permissions, which would include the wp-config.php file which contains database credentials.
RocketGenius, the publishers of Gravity Forms, took immediate action and uploaded a fixed version of the plugin right away, on the very same day. The domain name registrar, Namecheap, suspended the rogue typosquatted domain which effectively blocked any compromised websites from contacting the attackers.
Gravity Forms has released an update to the plugin, version 2.9.13. Users may want to consider updating to the very latest version.
Read more at Patchstack:
Malware Found in Official Gravity Forms Plugin Indicating Supply Chain Breach
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Warm_Tail
MarTechCharts regularly highlights data of interest to marketers and marketing operations professionals.
Source: “How to Align Sales Engagement Strategies With B2B Buyer Preferences,” Gartner.
Despite a growing preference among B2B buyers for self-service, with 61% saying they would rather avoid sales reps altogether, data from Gartner reveals a critical nuance: when buyers do engage with sellers, it’s at moments that can make or break a deal.
These aren’t random — they’re tied to specific, high-stakes tasks like identifying the right solution for their unique needs or navigating potential risks. At these points, sellers believe sales reps provide more than just information, they help make sense of complex decisions and give them the confidence to move forward.
Gartner’s report, “How to Align Sales Engagement Strategies With B2B Buyer Preferences,” said buyers complete an average of 2.3 key activities with supplier representatives. It also found sellers who seize these opportunities and bring insights tailored to the entire buying group are 3x more likely to land high-quality deals compared to those who focus on one-on-one conversations.
MarTech is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page’s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.
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About the author
Mike Pastore has spent nearly three decades in B2B marketing, as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet. Prior to joining Third Door Media as the Editorial Director of the MarTech website, he led demand generation at B2B media company TechnologyAdvice.
The result is a flexible, quietly expressive brand identity that lets the work take centre stage. It’s about feeling right, not just about looking good. “We designed the brand to be adaptable and open,” Jake explains. “There’s a strong underlying structure, but it invites creative expression from the team. We want people to feel a sense of clarity and curiosity when they encounter the brand.”
Clarity, curiosity and collaboration were also at the heart of the rebrand process itself. The studio worked with graphic designer Hugh Miller, who embedded himself in the day-to-day workings of the team, observing how they communicate and create. Map also partnered with writer Linsey Rendell to shape a new tone of voice, and collaborated with Cliff Studio on a new website – a clean, gallery-like space designed to showcase the studio’s wide-ranging output. Throughout the process, every Map team member was involved through a series of workshops and feedback sessions. “It was really important that everyone had a voice in shaping it,” says Chloe. “I think that sense of ownership comes through – it feels collectively ours.”
At the core of the new identity are five values: human, intuitive, honest, meaningful and joyful. For a studio navigating the complexities of designing future-facing technologies, these principles offer a kind of compass. “We stretch the boundaries of human–technology relationships,” says Jake. “But we do it in a way that’s grounded in people’s lives. We bring openness, curiosity and warmth to every brief and we wanted the brand to reflect that.”
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
WPP’s new CEO announcement sparked the usual frenzy – LinkedIn takes, analyst notes and a wave of industry speculation. Clients, meanwhile, are staying quiet.
That’s not to say Cindy Rose’s move from Microsoft to Madison Avenue is being ignored – it’s just not driving urgency. For many marketers, the real concern is still much closer to the ground: who’s leading their account and what results they’re seeing. The corporate narrative can wait.
“I don’t know what to think,” one WPP client told Digiday on condition of anonymity. “I’m not sure it matters or how important the move is just yet.”
It’s not indifference. It’s pragmatism. Marketers like this don’t want to buy into the idea that a leadership change signals sweeping transformation. After all, Rose doesn’t start until September. Until then, they’d rather stay focused on the present, not the promise.
Ryan Kangisser, a bellwether for client perspective thanks to his proximity to them as the chief strategy officer at MediaSense, expanded on the point: “I do think that often the industry cares more about these sorts of appointments than clients do. Especially if clients have got a really solid client lead, or business lead, then they’re the people who they feel are the ones driving their business.”
Clearly, CMOs care about who leads WPP, especially those managing major global accounts. But for most, the CEO is a step removed from the day-to-day. Which means Rose won’t be judged on the headlines. She’ll be judged on what filters down to the work.
“I may be wrong, but I think this may be over probably a period of months, rather than days, that clients are really curiously diving into what this means,” said Kangisser. “Notwithstanding there’s going to be a period of handover. So, who’s to say when Cindy is really going to get stuck into client business?”
When she does, she’ll be stepping into a delicate moment. WPP is already in the middle of a transformation plan years in the making. Moving too fast – or misjudging what’s already working – could stall momentum rather than accelerate it. (It helps she’s been on the WPP board for a few years – she should know to some degree where the company is at in that transformation.)
That’s especially true on the media side. WPP Media claimed the largest share of global new business last year, taking 14.2% of total billions, up 3.6% from 2023, according to COMvergence. But that lead is looking shaky in 2025 following two major losses: Mars and Coca-Cola (in North America), worth a combined $2.5 billion.
Which makes the decision to appoint Rose a high-stakes move. Insiders describe her as a skilled operator and a sharp strategist. And yet she’s stepping into one of the most difficult jobs in advertising just as the stakes are getting higher.
One ex-WPP executive who now works at an independent agency but who previously worked with Rose on a strategy level, expects Rose to bring discipline to WPP’s organizational management at a higher level.
“Cindy is disciplined, versatile, and excellent with enterprise clients,” said the exec, who sees the potential for closer connection between Microsoft and WPP, not dissimilar to the holdco’s acquisition of Infosum months after hiring its CEO Brian Lesser. “She will tell the story well to clients and investors about the confluence of technologies, experiences and communications. She’s also a strong operator and will guide the mix of centralized and decentralized functions.”
Does this mean Microsoft will buy WPP or vice versa? Not likely, but the exec speculated that “this may also be an option play for Microsoft to pull another Razorfish,” pointing to the Lesser/Infosum connection as a blueprint for Microsoft getting back into the agency business after selling Razorfish in 2009.
Ultimately, the job ahead is about building trust and coherence in an environment that still feels fragmented for many clients. That means Rose’s choices, from structure tweaks to tech investments, will need to help CMOs navigate a maze of rising costs, tighter budgets and the growing impact of generative AI on everything from search to creative to paid media at large.
“This is against a backdrop of a need to reduce waste in paid spend, including reducing duplicated reach and frequency,” said Jay B. Wilson, vp analyst at Gartner for Marketing Leaders. “The extent to which Rose can focus WPP on helping clients with these challenges will be a good indicator of value that will keep clients at the holdco.”
Whatever shape Rose’s strategy takes, one thing is clear: clients won’t wait for a narrative. They’ll wait for results.
Anush Prabhu, founder of consultancy Braindrops Strategy and former global head of strategy at WPP’s EssenceMediacom, sees Rose’s hire as key to bridging the gap between WPP’s aspirations and its current state.
“Cindy checks all the right boxes for an industry being heavily transformed by technology, at a holding company perceived to be behind the curve,” said Prabhu, who cited her board-member experience as an advantage. Rose is “an impressive tech leader from the outside, with enough knowledge of the inside …. It will be interesting to see how she shapes the company and industry’s vision around creativity.”
Less optimistic is another exec who’s worked at both WPP and Microsoft, who worries that someone coming from Microsoft’s culture may not fit well in a company that sells marketing services.
The exec, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wondered whether Rose will turn out more like David Kenny, who has successfully bridged tech and agency cultures over his career, or Marissa Mayer, whose tenure running Yahoo after Google was seen, fairly or unfairly, as less successful.
Forrester analyst Jay Pattisall added a similar note of caution regarding Rose’s outsider status.
“It’s important for WPP and Cindy Rose to remember that fundamentally, WPP is not a software company,” he said. “It is a services company that leverages software for value in combination with its services.”
Let’s get one thing straight: Most AI tools for real-world designers today exist outside the act of creation.
Built to impress – not to support. And today’s browsers are not fit-for-purpose for the design process.
They ask designers to pause their work, stop designing to start searching, or leave their flow state entirely just to interact with something that promises help.
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(Image credit: Guy Ailion)
(Image credit: Guy Ailion)
(Image credit: Guy Ailion)
Their design flow is built on pulling references, sampling finishes, cross-checking availability, nudging an idea into place – not by typing a prompt and hoping for the best.
(Image credit: Guy Ailion)
In this week’s Ask An SEO, a marketing manager asks which SEO skills are most valuable to look for in candidates today, especially with AI in the mix:
“I’m a marketing manager who’s been tasked with hiring our first in-house SEO specialist.
With AI tools becoming more prevalent, what skills should I prioritize when interviewing candidates in 2025? Are traditional SEO skills still as valuable, or should I focus more on candidates who can work alongside AI tools?”
This is a great question, and one I imagine a lot of hiring managers in the marketing industry are asking themselves.
For years, we’ve been looking for SEO professionals with skills that will help our websites thrive in Google, Bing, and Yandex. But, what skill set is needed for the emerging markets of ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and Claude?
And what about keyword research, content creation, and technical audits? Are they still useful activities for SEO professionals to carry out manually when there are so many AI tools purporting to be able to do this for you now?
We often think of skills within traditional SEO fitting roughly into three categories: technical, content, and authority-building. Are these still needed in the era of large language model (LLM) platforms and tools?
Ensuring that a website can be crawled, rendered, parsed, and indexed effectively by bots has been a staple of SEO for a long time.
If the bots can’t access the pages you want to have ranked, can’t read the content on them, or find the page to be unfriendly for users, you will struggle in the traditional search engine results pages (SERPs).
This isn’t all that different in the new world of generative engine optimization (GEO). Bots still need to be able to access content on your website, read it, and understand it.
Technical SEO skills will continue to be important to online visibility in the new era of organic discovery.
An excellent SEO will be someone who can utilize AI tooling to automate and speed up the checks they are already performing. The really valuable technical SEO skills will still be analyzing, prioritizing, and communicating the issues when they are discovered.
Good technical SEOs have been looking at ways to automate their processes using Python and Structured Query Language (SQL) for a while now.
AI is enabling them to do this quicker, and for those who are newer to those languages, to automate their processes more easily.
Hire SEO specialists who are excited to use AI tools to enhance their work, not replace it entirely.
You will still need SEO pros to be creative in problem-solving and working within the confines of your organization’s technology, resources, and capabilities.
Read more: 15+ Technical SEO Interview Questions For Your Next Hires
AI-written content has been a hot topic for a couple of years now. Can AI replace human writers? Should you hire with content creation and marketing skills in mind, or can you leave that purely to AI now?
I would suggest that any SEO hire you make needs to understand how to craft engaging copy that clearly defines the brand and meets the needs of users at each stage of the buying journey.
This hasn’t changed much from when SEO pros brief writers and graphic designers in content creation. We still need SEO specialists to understand how to request engaging content, whether that be through AI or human creators.
The ability to define what will be engaging content through research (whether keywords or prompts) and how users engage with it (whether on the brand site or within the LLM’s answer) is still critical.
Read more: Generative AI And Social Media: Redefining Content Creation
Previously, there was an evolution in SEO from regarding authority building as getting backlinks by whatever means necessary, to acquiring links through engaging and relevant content.
For optimization in LLMs, the desire is more to cement a brand’s positioning and sentiment through mentions on other authoritative websites.
The skill set needed to acquire authoritative links through digital PR will not be that different from what’s needed to acquire mentions.
In fact, good digital PRs have recognized for a while now that brand mentions are valuable in their own right.
There is a need to understand the publisher who is being targeted, what they write about, when best to contact them, and how. This could well be automated to a good degree by AI.
However, the really excellent PRs build up relationships with their contacts, so they are front-of-mind when a story is breaking. This is something AI will struggle to replace.
When hiring for the digital PR side of SEO, look at their relationship-building skills in particular.
Read more: 3 Types Of PR & SEO Funnels That Will Maximize Conversions
AI has (thankfully!) taken much of the pressure off SEO professionals to be efficient mathematicians, proficient in Excel formulae, or, at least, having a good percentage calculator tool bookmarked.
Summarizing increases and decreases in key performance indicators (KPIs) is something AI can handle. It can highlight correlations between metrics and identify likely causes. AI can also summarize this all into a compelling report.
But, it still needs a human to determine if its recommendations are valid and a viable course of action.
A good SEO will be someone who can utilize the AI tools to draw conclusions and highlight issues, while retaining strategic oversight.
That leads on to strategic skills. Good SEO pros will be able to utilize AI tooling for processes while drawing on their own deep contextual understanding and common-sense reasoning.
Hire SEO professionals who are adept at considering the moral and ethical implications of marketing and who can adapt to novel situations.
AI tooling will not be able to build trust with senior stakeholders. It will not be able to inspire and influence them. It definitely will not be able to manage egos and emotions like a good SEO has to.
Beyond the skills that we’ve long been looking to hire for in SEO, it’s important to find people who are able to thrive in a burgeoning environment.
Great SEO pros have been cultivating these skills throughout their careers. Bad SEO professionals have scraped by on second-hand knowledge and following templated procedures.
Make sure they have the ability to experiment and apply their learnings.
We’re entering a new phase of SEO where what worked before might not work again. There are no experts in GEO yet; we’re all having to learn as we go along.
Make sure your candidates are willing to learn from trial and error.
The days of following an audit template are both long-gone and a way off. We can’t just apply what we know from SEO directly to GEO.
We need to learn what works in those new platforms. That means good SEO pros are going to have to be comfortable with the uncertainty in their industry again.
Seasoned SEO professionals will remember back to this during their formative years in the industry, but newer SEO specialists will need to break free of the “this is what works for SEO” mentality and be OK with adapting on the fly more.
This means they will really need to be keen problem-solvers. SEO, at its root, has always been about problem-solving.
With the suite of AI tooling growing, the temptation to delegate critical thinking to a machine will be great.
However, SEO pros will still need to be able to take a step back, consider all the context and angles, and work toward a solution given the resources and constraints they face.
This means that they cannot rely solely on AI to help them.
Read more: LinkedIn Lists Top 15 In-Demand Skills, Makes Related Courses Free
The answer to your question is yes. To both.
You need someone who can work alongside AI tools as well as having traditional SEO skills.
The experience and qualities of a seasoned SEO professional will still be extremely useful in the emerging world of LLMs and AI tooling.
It would be a risk to your organic performance if you hire solely based on whether the candidate can utilize AI tools well.
However, you do want to make sure the SEO pro is using all of the advantages that AI can bring. They need to be able to adapt to new technology and processes.
The curiosity about new technology. The desire to experiment and adapt. Having an open mind to change. These are all attributes of good SEO professionals that are more important now than ever before.
When considering whether an SEO professional is a likely good fit for your role, find out their approach to new situations.
See how they have adapted in the past to changes in SEO that needed a change of tactics.
Ask them how they have diagnosed and responded to algorithm updates, or expanded their skill sets to include social media search engines.
In essence, the need for traditional SEO skills is not diminishing. However, great SEO professionals will be those who can adapt their skill set to work in GEO, as well as make the best use of new AI tooling available to them.
Alongside that, problem-solving, experimentation, and a keen strategic approach are what to look for in your next SEO hire.
More Resources:
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
Amazon’s decision to expand Prime Day from two days to four days this year looks like it will likely pay off despite a significant decrease in sales during the first two days. Sales during those first two days—the traditional length of the discounting event—were down 35% year-over-year, according to PMG-owned ecommerce consultancy Momentum Commerce.
Momentum Commerce’s data comes from 50 brands that account for more than $7 billion in sales on Amazon.
While Momentum Commerce’s findings do not include the final day of the sale on July 11, the data shows consumers held off on purchasing to see if there would be additional discounts later in the week. Momentum Commerce said that sales during the third day of the event were up 165% year-over-year. Consumers also added more products to their carts than they bought.
“Click-through rates are up—indicating high engagement—but conversion rates in the first half of the event are softer as shoppers wait for what they perceive to be the best deals,” said Mike Feldman, svp of commerce at Flywheel. “This isn’t fatigue—it’s a new kind of Prime Day marathon.”
Amazon did not dispute Momentum Commerce’s specific findings but noted the company’s low sample size.
“The response from customers has been very positive, and we look forward to the last day of this year’s Prime Day event,” said an Amazon spokesperson.
Momentum Commerce tracked the prices of 30 million products in the U.S. during Prime Day.
The data shows that 25.3% of products sold on Amazon had a Prime Day discount during the first three days of the event, representing a 7% year-over-year increase.
However, the deals weren’t as steep as previous years. The average Prime Day discount netted out to 21.6% during the first three days of the sale, a decrease from 24.4% last year. Collectively, discounts were 11% lower than last year during the first three days of the sale, according to Momentum Commerce.
Still, some brands did offer steeper discounts as the sale progressed. The average discount on the first day of Prime Day was 22.7%, growing to 26.7% on the third day, according to Momentum Commerce.
“The urgency that used to drive conversion on day one has softened,” said Kashif Zafar, CEO of Xnurta, an AI advertising platform. “We’re seeing higher carting rates without immediate checkout, especially in mid-ticket categories like kitchenware and household goods. Consumers are clearly browsing more, clicking more, and waiting to see how deals shake out. That creates a longer runway for brands, but also a risk of wasted spend if you’re not adapting in real time.”
Alan Rivera is a keen observer of American landscapes, maybe more so than the average person. Who else sees a Dollar Tree or a Mongolian restaurant and rushes to create a felt tip tribute to it? That’s the charm of Alan’s beautifully coloured illustrations that champion the architecture and roadside signage of Austin, Texas – where he is a resident artist at Sage Studio. Uninterested in shadows, shading or minuscule detailing, Alan celebrates geometric simplicity and our own emotional recall when seeing recognisable consumer brands. Whether it’s the Bucee’s logo set against a bright blue sky or a watercoloured rainbow above a shop literally called Rainbow, there’s a feeling of driving through Austin and gaining some kind of lived experience.
Creating an artistic travelogue of Austin, Alan renders strip malls, fast food joints and cityscapes with endearing clarity. These architectural drawings provoke nostalgia through colour and their bold linework, reminding us of looking through the car window as a child, inviting the viewer to think about the subtle visual poetry within familiar branding, architecture and city life. When it comes to what Alan has to say about this, he keeps it short and sweet. “I draw them because I like to go there.”
