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Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

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The GRADIENT

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

81.8% Of My ‘AI Assistant’ Traffic Was Fake. The Googlebot Number Was Worse

I launched CitationIQ.com recently. Over the last two weeks, my logs claimed 33 AI assistants visited, a little better than two a day. That number is a lie. The real number? Six. Googlebot looked worse. Of 799 requests carrying its name, only 107 were real, though we all know scammers love to spoof Googlebot. And

Creating Campaigns That Become Cultural Moments

This post was created in partnership with Adobe Capitalizing on cultural moments is a tried-and-true marketing strategy, but is it possible for brands to create their own moments? During an […]

The Beautiful Game. A World Cup illustration series

The World Cup as I see it: not the matches, but everything surrounding them. The trumpet that blooms into flowers. The cleats that wait. The flag with a dove. The musical note made of two soccer balls. The trophy. The hand. The kick. A personal series of vector and 3D illustrations celebrating soccer as a

The First Question Every Integrated Campaign Should Answer

TL;DR Many organizations approach integrated campaigns by starting with tactics. They debate social media, influencers, media relations, paid advertising, and AI before they’ve answered a more fundamental question: what do they want to be known for? The strongest integrated campaigns begin with owned media, audience questions, and a clear understanding of the expertise a brand

Google Desktop CTR Climbs While Mobile Dips, Report Finds

Click-through rates for desktop and mobile are moving in opposite directions, according to the new data from Advanced Web Ranking. The direction here, especially on desktop, runs counter to the recent narrative in recent CTR reporting. Organic clicks have been eroding overall as AI Overviews expanded, a pattern we’ve covered here using AWR’s data as

When AI runs the workflows, what happens to MOps?

The way you’ve used martech tools for years is being replaced. For the past decade, MOps made software useful. CRMs stored data but couldn’t act on it. Marketing automation platforms sent emails, but couldn’t think. You were the intelligence layer, building the workflows, scoring models, routing rules, and lifecycle logic that made the whole system

How&How’s colourful and collaged Bristol Dockyards rebrand makes nautical cliches walk the plank

Bringing a cohesive visual identity together for the entire area for the first time, Bristol Dockyards new branding from How&How uses a dynamic system of photo collage to look at the locations history anew. “Less about painting pretty pictures,” Cat says, the approach instead “merges timelines, textures, typography and Dockyard trinkets together in an immersive,

Google’s Mueller Explains How AI Search Impressions Get Counted

John Mueller, a Google Search Advocate, explained in a reply on Bluesky that Google’s new Search Console generative AI report counts impressions in response to a question about what’s recorded when a site appears in AI Overviews and AI Mode. This question is relevant for anyone reviewing the new report and questioning why their impression

Cannes Briefing: Creators didn’t come to Cannes for parties this year. They came for briefs.

MediaLink has spent years owning the art of wining and dining CMOs at Cannes. This year, it turned that same playbook on creators. UTA, its owner, hosted an invite-only dinner for more than 70 creators spanning sports, fashion, food, lifestyle and news. Expected guests included Olandria Carthen, Brittany Broski, David Dobrik, Keith Lee, LaurDIY, Colin

Pokéfans, get up to 60% off Switch games and goodies this Prime Day

Check out the top Pokémon deals starting from $12.

Microsoft Clarity Now Flags Bots That Ignore Robots.txt

Microsoft Clarity now surfaces bot requests that go against a website’s URL rules in the tool’s Bot Analytics dashboard, the company announced in a blog post. Clarity will calculate and display these requests as a percentage of total bot activity over a given time frame and add to existing AI Visibility tools in the dashboard,

Beyond QR Codes: Matty Beckerman on the Future of Interactive Media

Computer vision AI is replacing traditional QR codes, requiring a new way to connect with consumers.

Why International SEO Needs A Global Knowledge Integrity Strategy

For more than two decades, international SEO teams focused on ensuring the right page appeared in the right market by creating and optimizing localized content, using hreflang to ensure it was routed correctly even when it was nearly an exact match to another market. But now AI search is exposing a different challenge. As platforms

How Publicis Sapient transformed its marketing organization

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. Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine

Secret 7” reveals sleeve designs for 2026’s auction, by Orlando Weeks, Joy Yamusangie, Murugiah and more

War Child UK’s famous Secret 7” record sale is back – and this year, it’s celebrating a whole decade of its renowned auction. Over 5,000 one-of-a-kind records, nearly a million pounds raised for charity, and hundreds of artists involved. It’s quite the feat and once again you are invited to be a part of it.

Anthropic’s @Claude Enters Workplace As A Slack Channel Coworker

Anthropic announced Claude Tag, a new feature that enables users to assign various levels of assignments to Claude from inside Slack channels. Anthropic says Claude can use memory, scheduled tasks, and tool access to work on tasks that continue long after a single prompt ends. @Claude Tagged Inside Slack Channels Users can now tag @Claude

Cannes Briefing: The AI search crisis everyone’s talking about at Cannes is actually about brand coherence

For two decades, Cannes Lions has been the advertising industry’s high church of the campaign — the ad, the stunt and the killer creative idea. This year, the conversations actually happening in the villas and the beach cabanas aren’t about creative execution at all. They’re about something closer to brand infrastructure: how brands get discovered,

Forget Prime Day, B&H Photo has $200 off the biggest portable SSD you could ever possibly need

The Amazon Prime Day members’ sale is in full swing, and we’ve highlighted some great savings, including several Prime Day laptop deals and iPad deals. But despite this being Amazon’s biggest annual sale, it isn’t beating other retailers on every deal. As a case in point, B&H Photo is running its own limited-time sale to

Google’s Limited Ad Serving Update Raises Questions About Advertiser Qualification

Google is expanding its Limited Ad Serving policy to cover additional scenarios on Google Search. According to an email sent to advertisers, implementation will begin gradually in June 2026 and continue through 2028. The update introduces new guidance around advertiser qualification, user reports, and advertiser identity. It also includes a recommendation for advertisers to pin

123 Smile?

These are some of the artworks that I created with JKR for KFC, as well as other recent works. They share common elements and style preferences, so I have grouped them together and shared them with you.

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