Blueprint | The Gradient

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

Featured Stories

The GRADIENT

Who Won, Who Cut and What Comes Next in Advertising

No One Builds The Page, No One Visits It

In January 2026, Google was granted patent US12536233B1. Six engineers worked on it, and it describes a system that scores a landing page on conversion rate, bounce rate, and design quality. If the landing page falls below a threshold, generate an AI replacement personalized to the searcher. The advertiser never sees it. Never approves it. Might

15 HubSpot updates from March 2026 managers and admins need to know

The March 2026 HubSpot updates are all about flexibility, especially in how your automation and data actually work. Across workflows, timing logic, and CRM management, many of the changes address limitations teams previously worked around. Whether it’s adding meetings into workflows, refining conditional logic, or gaining more control over how time-based automation behaves, the March

AVRIL 2026 :: Behance

div:not(.PrimaryNav-siteSearch-yuO) :focus-visible{outline:1px solid var(–be-one-off-custom-outline-color, var(–be-accessibility-outline-color));outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-hamburgerMenu-iBG :focus-visible{outline:1px solid var(–be-one-off-custom-outline-color, var(–be-accessibility-outline-color));outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-transparentStrip-u4D :focus-visible{outline:1px solid #fff;outline-offset:3px}.PrimaryNav-transparentStrip-u4D .PrimaryNav-skipContent-y_5,.PrimaryNav-transparentStri

AI Overview CTR Fell 61%, But Clicks Didn’t Collapse

Brand-cited AI Overview CTR fell 61% from Q3 to Q4, according to a new report from Seer Interactive, but the clicks on those pages barely moved. The drop looks alarming on a dashboard, though it isn’t quite what it seems. Seer’s analysis of 5.47 million queries across 53 brands clearly shows what’s happening What Happened

Move over metric, culture wants something else

Something strange is happening in culture and marketers are only just starting to notice it. For the better part of a decade, the game was scale – reach more people, feed the algorithm and serve more content. Then generative AI arrived and took that logic to its endpoint. Now anyone can produce anything for almost nothing.

Templo’s brand identity for climate non-profit Casi draws on the pragmatic mark-making of hieroglyphics

What the agency instead unearthed was a warm, handcrafted look that makes the subject of sustainability look a whole lot more approachable. A key reference for the visual language of which was “the subversive simplicity of hobo hieroglyphics – the chalk markings left by people travelling through America during the Great Depression,” shares Pali. “These

Google’s Updates Push Search Further Into Task Completion

Google announced three updates to Search and AI Mode this week, which Roger Montti reported for SEJ. Reading his article motivated me to examine these updates, the broader pattern, and their implications for search this year. Looking at this in detail, it appears the updates push more of what used to be a results-page experience into

Cable Networks Offer Live Coverage of the WHCD

Top of the Ticker: The White House Correspondents’ Dinner will take place this Saturday, and for the first time in his presidency, President Donald Trump will attend the gala. The president’s presence at the annual dinner will be heavily scrutinized due to his treatment of the press. The cable news nets will be offering live

This charity’s new logo uses negative space beautifully

Animal welfare charity SPANA has rebranded as Working Animals International, a change that more clearly reflects what the charity does. Working Animals International works with a series of locally based partners who protect the welfare of working animals such as horses, donkeys and camels. Such animals support an estimated 600 million people around the world

Google Pushes “Bounce Click” Explanation For AI Overview Traffic Loss

Google’s head of Search, Liz Reid, told Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast that AI Overviews are reducing “bounce clicks” from publisher pages, continuing an argument she has made in public appearances since last year. Reid appeared on the April 23 episode of Odd Lots. Hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway asked how AI Overviews affect publisher

Why relevance now beats reach in the AI-driven buyer journey

Today’s buyers are researching independently, comparing options, and forming opinions before ever engaging with sales. Additionally, Google AI Overviews now appear across a meaningful number of searches, covering queries with commercial and transactional intent in addition to informational ones. The first interaction a buyer has with your brand may not be through your website, ad,

Juicy Fruits — Mascot Design & Illustration :: Behance

Google Won’t Act On Spam Reports If They Contain Personal Information

Google updated their spam reporting documentation to make it clearer that spam reports are not wholly confidential and that it’s possible for personal identifiable information to be shared with the sites receiving a manual action. Change In Response To Feedback Google’s changelog noted that they were updating the spam reporting form based on feedback they’d

Nike’s marathon billboard backlash inspires competitor campaigns

Following Nike’s Boston Marathon backlash, competitors jumped on the opportunity to define “movement” on their own terms, beyond the marathon run. In the days leading up to Monday’s Boston Marathon, Nike installed a series of signs near its Newbury Street store, including one that read, “Runners welcome, walkers tolerated.” The message drew immediate criticism online,

Daniele Castellano’s vivid drawings are the stuff that dreams (and nightmares) are made of

Illustrator Daniele Castellano’s vivid drawings are many things: spooky, hyper detailed, fantastical and never boring. With imagery based on the mysteries of memory, psychology and “bodily sensations”, Daniele frequently engages with mythology, drawing from symbology from dream worlds and the ambiguous, unnerving narratives hidden inside. Sometimes, Daniele depicts classic imagery that we’ve all seen in

Why Microsoft’s AI Ad Strategy Deserves More Attention From PPC Managers

Microsoft announced a wave of AI updates this week, and most of the coverage will likely focus on the individual launches. New targeting options, diagnostics, commerce tools, Copilot enhancements, and campaign features will naturally get the headlines. What stood out to me was the broader vision behind them. Microsoft is not just talking about better

NBC and CBS Grow in Demo

ABC World News Tonight with David Muir remained America’s most-watched newscast in total viewers and the Adults 25-54 demo; however, it was the only newscast that was down in both categories for the week of April 13. During a week that saw less escalation in the Middle East than in prior weeks, none of the

Warframe’s latest short feels like a lost 2000s anime music video

The creative connective tissue between animation studio THE LINE (last seen impressing us with its Gorillaz animation) and Warframe game developer Digital Extremes is a shared desire to take risks, flex creativity, and remain authentic to art and voice. Jade Shadows: Constellations, the new animated short designed to introduce players to Warframe’s next big update,

Robots.txt Docs Expand, Deep Links Get Rules, EU Steps In

Welcome to the week’s Pulse: updates affect how deep links appear in your snippets, how your robots.txt gets parsed, how agentic features work in Search, and how the EU’s data-sharing rules apply to AI chatbots. Here’s what matters for you and your work. Google Lists Best Practices For Read More Deep Links Google updated its

How CRM became the backbone of customer engagement

The industry has long seen CRM platforms as little more than a campaign tool — a trusted digital notebook for storing customer details, purchase histories, engagement signals, and past interactions. With CRM, sales and marketing teams can recognize customers and reach out at the right moment in the funnel. Today, CRM guides how organizations understand

Join Our Newsletter

For more professional opportunities join our newsletter.