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Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.
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In today's MarketingShot:
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📹 Meta may open Facebook and Instagram with Reels 📉 68% of US Google searches never send you a click 🤝 Top creators now turn away many brand deals you pitch 📊 X's Grok bots now track your brand mentions 🔄 Google's new program could refresh your UGC pages in Search Plus: 💡 5 strategies & tactics, 🎁 7 more stories you might like, and 🧰 7 trending marketing tools.
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Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads
Blu Dot used Roku Ads Manager to drive incredible results for its furniture sales event. Its strategy hinged on custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.
“Roku has been a top performer,” said Blu Dot’s Claire Folkestad. “We have seen…CPMs lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”
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📹 Meta may open Facebook and Instagram with Reels
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- Meta is testing versions of Facebook and Instagram that open directly with short-form video, placing some users in a full-screen Reels feed before any posts from the people they follow.
- On Facebook, some users in India and Indonesia land straight in a full-screen video feed, while an Instagram test lets people pick Reels as the first screen, with Stories still at the top and the traditional feed one swipe away.
- Meta says the Facebook test could reach the US around 2027, and for creators and brands the practical result is that the opening seconds of content matter even more when the app itself begins in a viewing mode.
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📉 68% of US Google searches never send you a click
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- Zero-click searches, where people get their answer on the results page and never visit a website, now make up 68% of U.S. Google queries, up from about 49% in 2019.
- The rise tracks Google's buildout of on-page answers, with AI Overviews appearing on 39.4% of U.S. desktop searches in June 2026, a jump of nearly 14 percentage points in a year, according to Comscore.
- A top ranking no longer guarantees a visit: a page can sit in the first organic spot and still get nothing from a query, so search visibility and search traffic have split into two metrics that need separate tracking.
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🤝 Top creators now turn away many brand deals you pitch
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- Top creators are turning away many of the brand deals marketers pitch, choosing a small number of partnerships that include equity, long-term involvement and products they actually use.
- Alix Earle said she would rather work with five or six brands a year than 100, and wants to be involved early with photographers, stylists and agencies to shape the creative work.
- Jordan Howlett became chief content officer at Blenders Eyewear, directing a commercial and influencing product design, a sign that the strongest creator deals may require brands to give up some control.
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📊 X's Grok bots now track your brand mentions
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- X has broadened Grok Bot's search so users can read and monitor posts to track brand mentions, review feedback, and keep up with developments in their industry.
- Through conversational prompts, people can ask Grok Bot to watch product feedback, follow breaking news, or send weekly summaries, and X says the feature is open to all users without setting up the X connector.
- The expansion could support automated social media monitoring, but X says its usefulness depends on how accurately the system picks out the relevant conversations for each query.
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🔄 Google's new program could refresh your UGC pages in Search
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- Google has opened a new "UGC Fresh Data Program" that lets approved platforms push user-generated content into Search features faster, aiming to show fresh, authentic first-hand posts more quickly.
- Approved sites feed content and interaction signals through a dedicated data ingestion pipeline separate from the Google Indexing API, sending posts within minutes and updating engagement counters within 72 hours of creation.
- Eligibility demands high UGC volume, public pages open to Googlebot with stable URLs, active moderation, and schema.org markup, though Google warns the program does not guarantee that content will appear in Search and replies to applicants in 6-8 weeks.
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Meetings and webinars, free for up to 100 people. Zoho Meeting is a secure video platform that does what Zoom charges extra for. Full webinars, screen sharing, and AI-generated meeting notes. • Free plan: HD video, screen sharing, and up to 100 participants per meeting or webinar • AI-generated transcripts and summaries that capture the meeting so you don't take notes • Real webinars. Registration forms, polls, Q&A, and YouTube live-streaming |
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Other
news & articles you might like
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YouTube expands Masthead ad eligibility to online gambling advertisers
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Google Ads lets advertisers preview AI Max-generated ad copy before opting in
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Threads recognizes top posts with Gems
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Google September 2026 spam update done rolling out
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US households plan to cut holiday budgets 5.5%, Simon-Kucher finds
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YouTube is testing creator analytics inside brand dashboards
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Google Ads introduces commerce audience sharing for retail media
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Trending Marketing Tools
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Pexo: an AI agent that turns your product details into a finished launch video, handling story, scenes, voiceover, music, captions, and edits from your feedback.
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iFixAi: audits AI agents with 250 inspections across 69 misalignment categories, flagging failures and giving engineers evidence to investigate and fix them
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Harden: a free local security tool for AI coding agents that checks tool calls before they run, keeping your repo and output on-device.
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Naise AI: an AI marketing teammate that handles social media, image generation, influencer outreach, PR, and research from a single brief across any market.
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Outcome: converts videos, articles, and frameworks into personalized action plans, scores, and audits for each viewer while building your email list.
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Tadata: an AI Slack assistant that connects your tools and delivers daily briefings on meetings, contacts, and relevant news before you start work.
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Our AI Academy has 330+ step-by-step tutorials on ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and every tool that matters. No fluff — just practical workflows you can use at work. Try it free for 7 days.
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