Search Engine Marketing

A three-year analysis of up to 6,000 advertisers shows that using Google’s seasonality bid adjustments during Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) consistently harms efficiency — even though the platforms keep recommending them. The big picture. Smart Bidding’s models are designed to anticipate predictable retail spikes. Optmyzr’s analysis of tens of billions of impressions across […]

Google is rolling out automatic linking between YouTube channels and Google Ads accounts when its systems detect a strong data relationship between the two — giving advertisers access to richer audience signals without manual setup. Driving the news. Google will begin automatically linking accounts when its signals show a “high-confidence connection.” Admins and channel owners

Google is quietly rolling out a new Performance Max feature that lets advertisers upload video files directly inside the “Edit assets” panel — no YouTube channel or Shared Library required. Driving the news. The feature, spotted in the Google Ads UI, adds a simple “Upload” tab during asset creation in PMax campaigns. A highlighted upload

OpenAI announced a visual upgrade to ChatGPT, adding more images from the web for answers about people, places, products, and other common topics. How it works. The update takes ChatGPT from simple answers to a more search-like experience: Images will appear when they add clarity. The web-sourced images will appear next to the most relevant

Gary Illyes, an analyst with the Google Search team, posted his reaction to a Microsoft Bing article written by Fabrice Canel and Krishna Madhavan of Microsoft, about how AI Search is changing how conversions are measured. Coevolve. Gary Illyes wrote on LinkedIn: “I know for sure however is that SEM and SEO will need to coevolve with

Marketers have debated SEO versus PPC for years, usually shaped by whatever has worked – or failed – for them in the past.  Organic search promises compounding visibility, while paid search delivers immediate control.  Most teams ultimately favor one over the other based on experience, budget constraints, or a survival instinct. But in 2026, this

Last month, I asked ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini the same question about three of my clients: “Who is [Brand Name] and what do they do?” Two out of three got it wrong. Wrong services. Outdated office locations. One even suggested a competitor as a better alternative. Here’s what makes that more than a curious mistake.