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TikTok is betting big on search ads

122 open roles tied to TikTok Search across sales, engineering, and product teams.

The safest marketing budgets are those tied to direct response conversion, which on the internet usually means search.

TikTok Shop muddied the commerce waters for The Clock App, maybe this will unlock some of those budgets for it to collect.

via Search Engine Land

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Memes, trends, virality seeking behavior. It all works a lot like making a Hollywood blockbuster: follow the formula.

We’re living through the reign of Template Chic: a global style consensus built on recycling the last thing that worked. Not because people don’t care, but because the industry stopped asking them to.

AI can both accelerate and steer this trend. So…

the best brands resist this erosion. They speak with clarity, even if softly. They don’t design for consensus. They design for conviction. They trust the audience to catch up, or not.

via The Sociology of Business

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Zuckerberg isn’t just saying the quiet part out loud, he’s saying it a lot.

we’re going to get to a point where you’re a business, you come to us, you tell us what your objective is, you connect to your bank account, you don’t need any creative, you don’t need any targeting demographic, you don’t need any measurement, except to be able to read the results that we spit out. I think that’s going to be huge, I think it is a redefinition of the category of advertising.

Probability is high that this approach becomes very successful. The value of the human hand will also increase.

via The Verge

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In the garden, dig a $100 hole for a $10 plant.

Gardening is a great metaphor for marketing.

from Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly 📚

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Yesterday I asked if Amazon leaving Google Shopping is “temporary or a sign that the channel wasn’t worth the money?”

Google’s dominance in product discovery is under pressure as consumer behavioral shifts and genAI tools reshape how people search, shop, and buy.

The Year of the Splinter is now on year 3 and the era of the mega platform is over.

Google could become this cycle’s Microsoft.

via EMARKETER