Marketing

Serves You Right The ad industry has found a new audience to bombard with ads: AI bots. Time recently began serving ads to bots in an attempt to monetize its growing bot traffic. The ads are formatted as FAQ-style brand content and labeled as sponsored. Influencing agents may eventually become even more important than influencing […]

This story was first published by Digiday sibling ModernRetail The retail industry is facing a significant surge in legal scrutiny as “phantom discount” practices come under fire. In recent weeks, major global brands — including Lululemon and Nike — have been the subject of lawsuits alleging deceptive pricing strategies, where products are marketed with dubious

Marketing effectiveness used to be just another front in the attritional conflict between CMO and CFO. Now, it’s something for CEOs to boast about. This week’s second-quarter earnings calls featured several big brand bosses pointing to their companies’ ability not just to spend advertising dollars, but spend them well. This is a member-exclusive article from

For years, Gabby George was creating fitness content in her at-home studio, pulling together her knowledge (a master’s in public health, a background in marketing) to try and see what would stick. Though she was steadily growing her following on TikTok (987,000) and YouTube (107,000), a viral video series skyrocketed her to internet fame, and

Compute is about to become the next big commodity in advertising. The economics demand it. AI has gotten expensive enough, fast enough, that holdco CEOs are now being asked outright how funding it won’t come at the expense of staying profitable. The IAB Europe’s chief economist Daniel Knapp put it plainly: “No one really knows

Amazon’s advertising businesses earned a total $19.8 billion in Q2, the company reported in its quarterly earnings on Thursday. That’s up from $15.7 billion in Q2 2025, and good for a 26% year over year growth rate. And while those revenue numbers would be reason to celebrate for any other advertising business, they barely registered

Guess there’s no pleasing investors. Despite Reddit delivering an objectively solid Q2, with overall revenue up 61% year-over-year to $805 million and advertising revenue up 64% YoY to $762 million, the company’s stock cratered on Thursday, sliding nearly 13% in after-hours trading. Why? Because AI. Specifically, Wall Street is fixated on how AI is reshaping