Brands are racing to win Gen Z consumers—a cohort of young shoppers expected to control $12 trillion in spending power by 2030, according to a joint report from research firms GfK, NielsenIQ, and World Data Lab.
Midway through 2025, it’s clear some brands have excelled at capturing Gen Z’s dollars, while others have a lot of catching up to do, according to new data from brand tracking platform Tracksuit.
Between January 1st and June 1st, purchase consideration for Coca-Cola among U.S. consumers aged 18-24 increased from 56% to 71%. Coke’s 15-point jump was larger than any other recorded for Gen Z adults in the same age range.
In March, Coca-Cola relaunched its famous “Share A Coke” campaign with a focus on connection and personalized experiences to better reach Gen Z.
The dating app Hinge, which recently rethought its marketing message to speak to dating app-weary youths, has also seen its purchase consideration score rise 14 percentage points during the same period.
“The key to growing consideration lies in building familiarity, which is achieved through consistency, distinctiveness, and building emotional connections,” said Matt Herbert, co-founder and CCO of Tracksuit. “Brands like Hinge, which leverages Gen Z’s craving for authenticity by being regarded as an app for more serious dating, and Olipop, which aligns with wellness trends through its healthier beverage offering, illustrate how this can be done effectively.”
Not all brands are having a strong 2025.
Instant ramen noodles brand Maruchan has seen purchase consideration levels among young shoppers drop 16 percentage points—from 70% to 54%—making it one of the year’s biggest decliners. The decrease comes at a time when newcomers positioned as healthier alternatives are trying to stir up the ramen market.
Even though Maruchan plummeted in purchase consideration over the first half of the year, Gen Z is still willing to buy the brand. Despite its decline, purchase consideration for Maruchan is still higher than many of the top brands.
While a change in seasons might influence which brands are rising and falling with Gen Z in 2025 so far, Tracksuit’s Herbert said most brands can only persuade about half of consumers to move down the marketing funnel from awareness to purchase consideration.
Doing so, however, is critical, given that the vast majority of product categories have fewer than three brands competing against each other at the purchase consideration level.
Although not an easy task, Herbert stressed brands that lean into the core strategies of establishing consistency, distinctiveness, and emotional connection with consumers can “break through the clutter and earn a place in Gen Z’s limited consideration sets.”
Although Aimur Takk and Andree Paat of Tüpokompanii design typefaces with digital tools, the source material that so often starts their projects is uniquely analogue. In amongst their studio shelves you’ll find “an ever-growing collection of Soviet-era and antique printed ephemera: books, magazines, stamps, plastic bags and more”, shares Aimur – an archive the designers maintain as an ongoing source of inspiration for their original retail fonts or custom typeface projects for clients.
Based in Tallinn where “our local typographic landscape is seemingly quite sparse”, they say, the design duo are also interested in “neglected local design heritage or hidden corners of the global canon”, Andree adds, things like hand-painted signs, amateur lettering, low-quality printing errors, forgotten typefaces, “translating their qualities into contemporary digital tools without erasing their imperfections”.
Rather than chasing overly polished or “universal” typographic solutions, the studio likes to explore what type design can learn from “mistakes, limitations, and misreadings.” That’s why Aimur and Andree are often playing with forms and ideas that aren’t always the most practical things to try and turn into full lettersets, but could become something special for a project later down the line. Their latest typeface Juunior is a great example of where this spirited approach comes into play.
The designers also like to get stuck into sets of experiments with physical ways of producing letterforms, making impressions with silkscreen, letterpress, phototype and CNC-printing in the hopes of landing on ideas that our “streamlined digital workflows” might just miss. The whole aim of their practice? To craft letterforms that deserve a second glance – “type that carries a sense of tension, vulnerability, or quiet oddness”, Andree ends.
Filing link disavows is generally a futile way to deal with spammy links, but they are useful for dealing with unnatural links an SEO or a publisher is responsible for creating, which can require urgent action. But how long does Google take to process them? Someone asked John Mueller that exact question, and his answer provides insight into how link disavows are handled internally at Google.
The link disavow tool is a way for publishers and SEOs to manage unwanted backlinks that they don’t want Google to count against them. It literally means that the publisher disavows the links.
The tool was created by Google in response to requests by SEOs for an easy way to disavow paid links they were responsible for obtaining and were unable to remove from the websites in which they were placed. The link disavow tool is accessible via the Google Search Console and enables users to upload a spreadsheet with a list of URLs or domains from which they want links to not count against them in Google’s index.
Google’s official guidance for the disavow tool has always been that it’s for use by SEOs and publishers who want to disavow paid or otherwise unnatural links that they are responsible for obtaining and are unable to have removed. Google expressly says that the vast majority of sites do not need to use the tool, especially for low quality links for which they have nothing to do with.
A person asked Mueller on Blue Sky for details about how Google processed the newly added links.
He posted:
“When we add domains to the disavow, i.e top up the list. Can I assume the new domains are treated separately as new additions.
You don’t reprocess the whole thing?”
John Mueller answered that the order of the domains and URLs on the list didn’t matter.
His response:
“The order in the disavow file doesn’t matter. We don’t process the file per-se (it’s not an immediate filter of “the index”), we take it into account when we recrawl other sites naturally.”
The answer is interesting because he says that Google doesn’t process the link disavow file “per-se” and what he likely means is that it’s not acted on in that moment. The “filtering” of that disavowed link happens at the time when a subsequent crawling happens.
So another way to look at it is that the link disavow file doesn’t trigger anything, but the data contained in the file is acted upon during the normal course of crawling.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Luis Molinero
The way marketers use data is shifting fast, mainly because of privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. Companies are under pressure to find new ways to analyze performance, target audiences and share data — without crossing legal or ethical lines. That’s where data clean rooms (DCR) come in. They’re not a cure-all, but they’re becoming a key part of the privacy-safe data collaboration and measurement toolkit.
A data clean room is a secure environment where two or more parties can bring their data together to run analysis without actually revealing any sensitive or raw data to each other. They use privacy tech like hashing, encryption and strict access controls.
Typically, both sides upload data using hashed identifiers (like email addresses or user IDs). Once inside, the data can be matched and analyzed, but no one can access the raw stuff. The outputs are usually aggregated, like showing overlap in audiences, but don’t reveal individual users. Privacy protections are baked in to avoid anything personally identifiable slipping through.
Clean rooms are becoming popular because they make it easier to comply with privacy laws while still gaining value from data. Anonymized data reduces legal risk and limits exposure in the event of a breach. It also gives companies more control over how their data is used when working with external partners.
Dig deeper: How data clean rooms might help keep the internet open
Clean rooms let companies run analytics and performance insights using aggregated and anonymized data.
Generally, the DCR fits between the organization’s data layer and activation layer. Here is a basic map that is by no means exhaustive:
At the bottom of the stack is the data infrastructure layer that might include a data warehouse, data lake or similar container. Data governance and identity tools also live in this layer.
Not all clean rooms are built the same. Clean rooms work differently depending on who’s offering the service and what the intended use is. That’s led to many different flavors on the market, and vendors often collaborate or overlap in what they offer.
These are clean rooms offered by big tech or media platforms—Google, Meta, Amazon, Disney, NBCU, etc. You bring your data into their environment to match it with theirs (for example, ad exposure data).
These are independent vendors like LiveRamp, AppsFlyer and Habu InfoSum whose entire business is clean rooms. They often support data matching and enrichment activation across multiple partners.
Dig deeper: Evaluating data clean rooms for your organization
Cloud providers like Snowflake, BigQuery, AWS and Databricks now offer clean room tools. You can avoid moving data around if your partners are on the same platform.
Some customer data platforms (like Adobe and Blueconic) now include clean room capabilities. The data usually stays inside the CDP.
Dig deeper: IAB Tech Lab launches first clean room standards
Some big companies build their own from scratch. This usually happens when the needs are very specific or sensitive.
These vendors (e.g., identity resolution providers) offer clean room tools focused on matching datasets and enriching them with third-party data.
Even though the clean room landscape is growing, they’re not a perfect solution. Some of the biggest pain points include:
Data clean rooms aren’t a magic bullet, but they’ve become a go-to option in a world where privacy matters more than ever. They let companies work together using data without compromising user privacy or breaking laws like GDPR or CCPA.
Choosing the right type depends on your goals, tech stack who you’re partnering with. While there are still barriers—cost, complexity, partner alignment—clean rooms are evolving fast. Expect easier-to-use, more scalable versions soon, especially ones that include built-in activation and cross-platform features.
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.
Prime Day 2025 PC deals are here. And while there some great Prime Day MacBook deals about, Amazon’s annual summer sale is also a great opportunity for anyone who wants to build their own PC for video editing or other creative work.
Building your own PC often allows you to get better specs for less money compared to what you would get in a laptop or a pre-built desktop machine. And that’s even more true during Prime Day.
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Round up of today’s best deals
It’s been suggested that agentic AI will change SEO from managing tools to managing intelligent systems that manage SEO tools, essentially turning an SEO into a worker who rides a lawn mower, with the machine doing all the work. However, that prediction overlooks a critical fact: user behavior remains Google’s most important ranking factor. Those who understand the human-centered approach to SEO will be able to transition to the next phase of search marketing.
Many people practice SEO by following a list of standard practices related to keywords, including following the advice of third party optimizer tools. That’s in contrast to some who proceed with the understanding that there’s a certain amount of art to SEO. The reason is because search engines are tuned to rank websites based on user behavior signals.
Standard SEO practices focus on the machine. But many ranking signals, including links. are based on human interactions. Artful SEOs understand that you need to go beyond the machines and influence the underlying human signals that are driving the rankings.
The reason there is an art to SEO is because nobody knows why the search engines rank virtually anything. If you look at the backlinks and see a bunch of links from major news sites, could that be the reason a competitor surged in the rankings? That is the obvious reason, but the obvious reason is not the same thing as the actual reason, it’s just what looks obvious. The real reason could be that the surging website fixed a technical issue that was causing 500 errors when Google crawled it at night.
Data is useful. But data can also be limiting because many SEO tools are largely based on the idea that you’re optimizing for a machine, not for people.
The most popular content strategies are based on copying what competitors are doing but doing it bigger, ten times better. The strategy is based on the misconception that what’s ranking is the perfect example of what Google wants to rank. But is it? Have you ever questioned that presumption? You should, because it’s wrong.
Before Zappos came along, people bought shoes on Amazon and at the store. Zappos did something different that had nothing to do with prices or the speed of their website or SEO. They invented the concept of liberal no-questions asked return policies.
Zappos didn’t become number one in a short period of time by copying what every one else was doing. They did something different that was human-centered.
The same lessons about human-centered innovations carry forward to content planning. There is no amount of keyword volume data that will tell you that people will respond to a better product return policy. There is no amount of “topic clustering” that will help you rank better for a return policy. A return policy is a human-centered concern and it’s the kind of thing that humans respond to and, if everything we know about Google’s use of human behavior signals holds true, then that will show up as well.
People think of Google’s ranking process as a vector-embedding, ranking factor weighting, link counting machine that’s totally separated from human behavior. It’s not.
The concept of users telling Google what is trustworthy and helpful have been at the center of Google’s ranking system since day one, it’s the innovation that distinguished its search results from its competitors.
PageRank, invented in 1998, is commonly understood as a link ranking algorithm but the underlying premise of PageRank is that it’s a model of human behavior based on the decisions made by humans in their linking choices.
Section 2.1.2 of the PageRank research paper expressly states that it’s a model of human behavior:
“PageRank can be thought of as a model of user behavior.”
The concept of quality comes from user behavior:
“People are likely to surf the web using its link graph, often starting with high quality human maintained indices such as Yahoo! or with search engines.”
The PageRank paper states that human behavior signals are valuable and is something they planned on exploring:
“Usage was important to us because we think some of the most interesting research will involve leveraging the vast amount of usage data that is available from modern web systems. For example, there are many tens of millions of searches performed every day.”
User feedback was an important signal from day one, as evidenced in section 4.5.2:
“4.5.2 Feedback
“Figuring out the right values for these parameters is something of a black art. In order to do this, we have a user feedback mechanism in the search engine. A trusted user may optionally evaluate all of the results that are returned. This feedback is saved. Then when we modify the ranking function, we can see the impact of this change on all previous searches which were ranked.”
User behavior and user feedback are the core essential ingredient of Google’s ranking algorithms from day one.
Google went on to use Navvoost which ranks pages based on user behavior signals, then they patented a user-behavior based trust rank algorithm, and filed another patent that describes using branded searches as an implied link.
Googlers have confirmed the importance of human-centered SEO:
Google’s SearchLiaison (Danny Sullivan) said in 2023:
“We look at signals across the web that are aligned with what people generally consider to be helpful content. If someone’s asking you a question, and you’re answering it — that’s people-first content and likely aligns with signals that it’s helpful.”
And he also discussed user-centered SEO at the 2025 Search Central Live New York event:
“So if you’re trying to be found in the sea of content and you have the 150,000th fried chicken recipe, it’s very difficult to understand which ones of those are necessarily better than anybody else’s out there.
But if you are recognized as a brand in your field, big, small, whatever, just a brand, then that’s important.
That correlates with a lot of signals of perhaps success with search. Not that you’re a brand but that people are recognizing you. People may be coming to you directly, people, may be referring to you in lots of different ways… You’re not just sort of this anonymous type of thing.”
The way to be identified as a “brand” is to differentiate your site, your business, from competitors. You don’t do that by copying your competitor but “doing it ten times better,” you don’t get there by focusing on links, and you don’t get there by targeting keyword phrases in silos. Those are the practices of creating made-for-search-engine content, the exact opposite of what Google is ranking.
These are all human-centered signals and if you use tools for your content it’s the kind of thing that only a human can intuit. An AI cannot go to a conference to hear what customers are saying. An AI can’t decide for itself to identify user sentiment that is indicative of pain points that could be addressed in the form of new policies or content that will make your brand a superior choice.
The old way of doing SEO is the data decides what keywords to optimize, the tool decides how to interlink, the tool decides how to write the article. No, that’s backwards.
A human in the loop is necessary to make those choices. Human makes the choice, the AI executes.
Jeff Coyle (LinkedIn profile), SVP, Strategy at Siteimprove and MarketMuse Co-founder agrees that a human in the loop is essential:
“AI is redefining how enterprises approach content creation and SEO, and at Siteimprove, now powered by MarketMuse’s Proprietary AI Content Strategy platform, we’re bridging innovation with human creativity. With our AI-powered solutions, like Content Blueprint AI, we keep humans in the loop to ensure every step of content creation, from planning to optimization, meets a standard of excellence.
Enterprise content today must resonate with two audiences simultaneously: humans and the AI that ranks and surfaces information. To succeed, focus on crafting narratives with real user value, filling competitive gaps, and using clear metrics that reflect your expertise and brand differentiation. The process has to be seamless, enabling you to create content that’s both authentic and impactful.”
It’s clear that focusing on user experience as a way of differentiating your brand from the competition and generating enthusiasm is key to ranking better. Technical SEO and conversion optimization remain important but largely replaceable by tools. But the artful application of human-centered SEO is a skill that no AI will ever replace.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Roman Samborskyi
This WTF guide, sponsored by Fluent, explores what exactly non-endemic commerce media is and what these ad placements look like; why non-endemic commerce media is beneficial for advertisers as well as retailers, merchants and publishers; the role of first-party data in non-endemic commerce media — and its impact on revenue; and what to look for in a commerce media partner (whether you’re an advertiser or a merchant).
In a performance-driven era where acquisition costs are climbing and the ROI from traditional channels like paid social and search is on the decline, brands are feeling the pressure to do more with less.
At the same time, e-commerce brands across retail, travel, ticketing and financial technology have what most advertisers want: an untapped goldmine of high-intent traffic and first-party data, waiting to be monetized.
Enter non-endemic commerce media: a way for brands to advertise on sites or apps that don’t sell their products, unlocking a new revenue stream for merchants while giving advertisers access to fresh audiences and smarter targeting.
In this WTF explainer, Digiday and Fluent break down the what, why and how of non-endemic commerce media — and why it’s fast becoming a go-to performance channel for advertisers and a growth lever for merchants.
01
What is non-endemic commerce media, and how does it differ from endemic placements?
Endemic ads show up where you expect them (e.g. a retailer promoting products it already sells). Non-endemic commerce media, on the other hand, places ads for complementary products or services in environments where they aren’t sold — but still make contextual sense to the shopper.
Consider these examples:
The takeaway: The value of commerce data extends well beyond traditional retail, unlocking new monetization opportunities across industries.
Non-endemic commerce media works best when it feels native to the customer experience — especially in places where customers aren’t accustomed to seeing ads, like in a banking app. And with today’s evolving customer journey, those unexpected but relevant moments are more valuable than ever.
“In a world where every touchpoint matters and every moment is a chance to shape preference, non-endemic media offers a great opportunity to reach audiences outside their normal echo chambers in ways that are contextually relevant,” CMO and Fluent advisory board member Jennifer Olsen said.
In other words, context is everything in non-endemic commerce media. The most effective placements are those that align with the shopper’s mindset — complementing their purchase and adding value in a way that feels additive rather than disruptive.
02
What kind of inventory is available in a non-endemic commerce media setting?
Non-endemic commerce media ads can appear on retailers’ and merchants’ sites, in their apps, across off-site channels (like CTV), in stores — in any part of the customer journey where shoppers are engaged.
Take Walmart, for example. Since early 2024, Walmart has offered non-endemic ad placements — both in-store and off-site — for brands in categories like automotive, entertainment, financial services, quick-service restaurants and travel.
One of the most common and effective placements? The order confirmation — or “thank you” — page. It captures strong engagement while the customer is still in a buying mindset.
“This is a high-intent user, someone that has typically already made a purchase. They have a credit card in hand,” said Brian Hogan, Fluent’s evp of commerce media. “So it’s a perfect environment to serve relevant brand offers.”
Other examples of non-endemic commerce media placements include:
These are spaces where customers are often open to personalized offers, and they all share one goal: reaching customers when attention is high and friction is low. Most importantly, these ads don’t interfere with a sale.
03
What do non-endemic commerce media ads look like?
Non-endemic commerce media ads aren’t traditional banner ads — they’re designed to feel like an extension of the customer experience.
“That’s what builds trust with the customer,” Hogan said.
Advertisers should take cues from the environments where their ads will run, including font types and color schemes. If an ad feels too disconnected or blatantly promotional, shoppers will tune it out.
“We want to make it feel purposeful and not promotional,” Hogan said. “That’s a key part in the creative — when the message is relevant and well-placed, shoppers are more likely to engage.”
Non-endemic commerce media ads typically include:
Retailers, merchants and publishers can experiment with different formats to surprise and delight consumers, reinforcing value while driving action.
04
Why is non-endemic commerce media attractive to advertisers?
At its core, non-endemic commerce media is a performance-driven growth channel — giving brands access to incremental audiences and measurable results.
Non-endemic commerce media delivers:
05
Why would retailers, merchants and publishers want non-endemic ads on their sites?
For merchants across verticals, non-endemic commerce media is a seamless monetization channel, offering a simple path to better performance and more profit.
Non-endemic commerce media delivers:
06
OK, that all makes sense. But where does non-endemic commerce media sit in the marketing funnel? Upper? Middle? Or is this a performance marketing tool?
Most non-endemic commerce media placements sit squarely in the lower funnel. This is a performance-driven channel, making it ideal for driving customer acquisition, app installs, subscription sign-ups or lead generation.
Success metrics are clear and measurable: click-through rates, conversions, CPA, ROAS and, for merchants, revenue per transaction.
With clean traffic and precise targeting, non-endemic commerce media offers a closed-loop environment allowing for accurate reads on ad performance. “The targeting is sharper, and the format drives action,” Hogan added. “It’s an easy channel to justify spend.”
07
How is first-party data from retailers, merchants and publishers used in the non-endemic commerce media setting?
Within commerce media, retailer and merchant data is typically used in three key ways:
Merchants retain full control over how much of their first-party data they contribute. “Everything is tokenized, consent-based and privacy-compliant,” Hogan said. “Retailers decide how much data is shared, and nothing is personally identifiable.”
With that said, the more insight a merchant provides, the more effectively the platform can personalize offers and optimize performance. It’s a win across the board — for consumers, advertisers and merchants alike.
“Retailers are focused on the business of retail. So we’re actually using this data all the time, we’re just using it in ways that are closer to the core of our businesses, like nurturing customer value and removing friction from the customer journey,” said Olsen. “The idea that we can leverage the data we already have to create a new, totally incremental source of revenue is still fairly novel for most retailers.”
08
How much revenue can a retailer, merchant or publisher expect to get from non-endemic commerce media ads?
For retailers and merchants who partner with a platform on non-endemic commerce media, there are no costs, and revenue is shared.
The payout model is typically based on performance — such as cost per click or cost per acquisition — and the revenue share is structured to reward inventory quality and engagement.
“Retailers can earn anywhere from 20 to 40 cents per transaction,” Hogan said. “There’s minimal lift — and it’s truly incremental.”
As tariffs loom and economic uncertainty builds, these ads give retailers, merchants and publishers the ability to generate more profit from existing assets.
“As a natural extension of the customer experience, this offers a seamless way to generate incremental profit with very little investment,” Hogan said. “We have retailers asking, ‘Why did we not do this before?’ This is pure profit to their bottom line.”
09
What should you look for in a non-endemic commerce media partner?
Whether you’re an advertiser or a retailer, the right partner should offer ease, transparency and results. Here’s what to prioritize:
Look for a partner that can deliver strong targeting and performance. Key qualities include:
The right partner should help you unlock revenue without added complexity. Look for:
Whether you’re looking to drive efficient growth or unlock untapped revenue, non-endemic commerce media is a win-win for advertisers and merchants alike.
To learn how Fluent can help your business monetize high-intent moments with performance-driven solutions, reach out to our team here.
The series started out with a fairly simple photographic exploration: “I wanted to capture the energy of Benin through its light, landscape, and people”, Victor shares. But during the photographers time there, wide open landscapes and streetside shots turned into intimate portraits of the people he met along the way. A sincere attempt at documenting somewhere, to simply have a visual record to bring back, instead became much more about ‘being’.
For the first time in a while, Victor allowed himself to explore what came into frame in a different way, capturing that which felt real and uncomposed. He did this by greeting people and pausing often. “Some of the most meaningful portraits came from chance encounters”, he shares, “what I learned is that the most powerful images sometimes come when you’re not trying too hard, when you’re simply open.”
An image that stands out to the photographer is from his encounter with a young woman carrying two of her children – one on her shoulder and the other tied to her back, “all while wearing the biggest, most radiant smile”, he says. “There’s something deeply human and quietly heroic about that moment. It captures the resilience and softness that runs through the whole series. It speaks to care, strength, and presence, the kind of everyday grace that often goes unseen but deserves to be honoured.”
A gentle invitation to feel the warmth of the people of Benin, the project’s title Here, In Light became an apt name for not only the thread of light as a focus of each study, but the feeling of being welcomed and embraced in a place away from home. The collection of images stands as an invitation to slow down to Benin’s pace and find a stillness somewhere in the viewing: “I want the work to evoke warmth, reverence, and recognition, even if you’ve never been,” Victor says.
The project has opened something up for the image maker creatively, and he’s since witnessed a change in the ways he wants to speak visually and how he looks at things: “There are a few ideas already growing quietly in the background, but I’m letting them breathe for now”, he ends. “What I can say is that Here, In Light has reminded me that slowness and presence are non-negotiable in my process.”
Google Search Console now includes a dedicated search appearance filter for discussion forum content, giving publishers new visibility into how user-generated discussions perform in search.
The update applies to pages that use either the DiscussionForumPosting or SocialMediaPostingstructured data types.
In a brief announcement, Google stated:
“Starting today, Search Console will show Discussion Forum rich results as a search appearance in the Performance reports.”
Until now, this type of content was lumped into broader appearance categories like “Rich results” or “Web,” making it difficult to isolate the impact of forum-style markup.
The new filter allows you to track impressions, clicks, and search position metrics specifically tied to discussion content.
This update isn’t about new search capabilities, it’s about measurement. Structured data for forums has been supported for some time, but publishers now have a way to monitor how well that content performs.
The eligible schema types, DiscussionForumPosting and SocialMediaPosting, are designed for pages where people share perspectives, typically in the form of original posts and replies.
Google considers these formats appropriate for traditional forums and community platforms where conversations evolve over time. Pages built around user-generated content with visible discussion threads are the intended use case.
Both schema types share the same structured data requirements, including:
Additional details such as like counts, view stats, or reply structures can also be included. For forums with threaded replies, Google recommends nesting comments under the original post to preserve conversational context.
To qualify for the new search appearance, forum content must follow Google’s structured data guidelines closely.
Google explicitly warns against using this markup for content written by the site owner or their agents. That includes blog posts, product reviews, and Q&A-style content.
If the site’s structure is centered around questions and answers, publishers are expected to use the QAPage schema instead.
Another nuance in the documentation is the recommendation to use Microdata or RDFa rather than JSON-LD. While JSON-LD is still supported, Microdata formats help reduce duplication when large blocks of text are involved.
This update provides a clearer understanding of how forums contribute to search visibility. With the new search appearance filter in place, it’s now possible to:
Google’s decision to break out discussion forum results in Search Console highlights the growing role of user conversations in search. It’s a signal that this type of content deserves focused attention and ongoing optimization.
For publishers running forums or discussion platforms, now’s the time to ensure structured data is implemented correctly and monitor how your community content performs.
Take 5 Oil Change has named Doug Zarkin as its first chief marketing officer (CMO).
The exec joins from wellness and fitness services company Modern Performance and Recovery Brands, where he was chief brand officer since 2023. Before that, he was CMO of Pearle Vision and held marketing leadership roles at fashion companies like Kellwood, Warnaco, and Limited Brands, as well as cosmetics brand Avon.
“I’m here to help lead a talented team into that next chapter—unlocking new relevance and growth, deepening emotional connection, and elevating the role this brand plays in people’s everyday lives,” Zarkin wrote in a LinkedIn post. “We’re not just marketing oil changes. We’re creating a moment of ease in an otherwise chaotic day.”
“Excited to ‘get under the hood,’” he concluded.
As CMO, Zarkin will lead all aspects of the brand’s marketing strategy and execution, with a focus on strengthening its story, deepening customer insights, and advancing its data-driven marketing approach. He will report to executive vice president and group president Mo Khalid.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Doug Zarkin to the Take 5 Oil Change leadership team. Doug’s proven ability to build emotionally resonant brands will be instrumental as we continue to grow and deepen our connection with customers nationwide,” Khalid shared in a statement.
Take 5 Oil Change is a part of Driven Brands’ portfolio of automotive brands, which also includes Maaco, Meineke, and Carstar.
In February, the stay-in-your-car oil change chain launched “Take 5 Clive,” a campaign introducing its enthusiastic new brand character. Created by creative agency Dagger, Clive debuted in a 30-second spot in which he is taken aback by Take 5 Oil Change’s quick services.
“With Take 5 Clive, we’re bringing our differentiated customer experience to life in a way that’s fun, relatable, and showcases the great value of our offering,” Mike DeTrana, vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “Clive is a representation of how we want customers to feel when they discover how simple and convenient their oil change experience can be. Through humor and real-life moments, this campaign highlights what makes our brand and service stand out—speed, friendliness, and simplicity.”
The spot ran nationwide across Take 5 Oil Change’s digital, social, TV, audio, and in-store channels.
The brand also weaved Clive into its recent partnership with F1 The Movie for a pit stop-themed spot. It joined forces with the film for a campaign with exclusive sweepstakes, in-store promotions and discounts, and digital content for both racing enthusiasts and moviegoers.
