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Gabe the Bass Player with yet another great post. (Music is a great place to look for marketing inspiration and lessons.)

So hook us in with a great song or two

This is demand creation and capture—where most brands focus their energy.

and keep us hanging around by being consistent.

This is retention—less sexy, way more valuable in the long run.

Everything is customer service. Or you won’t have customers to service.

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First Microsoft Ads, now Google Ads: audiences based on interactions with your results and ads on Google and YouTube.

Meet: Google-engaged audiences

Google-engaged audiences help you to reach users who have previously interacted with your website on Google Search, YouTube, or other Google sites. It automatically generates lists of users who have visited your site from Google properties through clicks on either ads or search results.

Based on my tests, it doesn’t appear you can break out audience based on whether they clicked a paid vs. organic result.

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Meta is forecast to continue its shift to being an Instagram company in the near term:

Instagram Expected to Generate 50% of Meta’s US Ad Sales in 2025

And, of course, The Gram is a video platform now.

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Another Fed meeting, another fed rate cut

In support of its goals, the Committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point to 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 percent

1 dissenting vote &:

The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.

Means we might be in a holding pattern before more rate cuts.

But we’ll see what tariffs have to say:

The economic outlook is uncertain, and the Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.

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“I have no ego in this.”

-a client

The best way to approach planning and performance analysis.

Prior decisions are sunk costs. Analyze, learn, advance.

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Are you filtering through the fluff?

Or fluffing up the filter?

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I just concluded a prez to the Blue Ion crew by saying that smart/AR glasses are the next consumer computing wave.

This piece from The Verge makes me feel better about that prediction.

and the third is the idea that no one device is the future of XR. Headsets, for example, may just be “episodic” devices you use for entertainment. Glasses could supplement phones and smartwatches for discreet notifications and looking up information.

“The way I see it, these devices don’t replace one another. You’ll use these devices throughout your day,

Ambient computing!

There are plenty of hurdles left, but if Google has figured out on-lens optics, the big ones left are for the accountants.

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As for the promisor…it’s exciting to make the promise. You get to look cool and powerful and helpful. But then when no one is looking and there’s no excitement and maybe you don’t feel like it, you have to fulfill the promise. And it’s important to remember that while you don’t feel like fulfilling the promise, the promisee is somewhere excited that you are going to come through.

Marketing is a pyramid of promises.

Higher promise delivery rate = better reputation = more successful efforts

∞

The headline: Google To Have More Core Updates, More Often

Details are thin, but this slide from the Search Central Live event where this was announced is interesting:

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Will mobile game ads be wired in 2025?

So far AppLovin has the magic 8 ball saying Outlook Good 🎱

AppLovin’s ads are unskippable and pop up between game levels—a sweet spot for undivided attention. 


And for now, for players used to seeing ads for other apps, these retail ads feel like a welcome change, making them more memorable.

Competition is driving ad costs up and novelty will wear off, driving effectiveness down, but this space has had Next Big Thing status for years.