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Fistful of Google Ads Bits

Google is continuing its transformation to Meta Ads:

The agents are coming: Open Source Google Ads API MCP Server

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is the open standard that allows Large Language Models (LLMs), like Google Gemini, to connect with and act upon external data sources and applications. By releasing an MCP Server specifically for the Google Ads API, we are making it possible for any MCP-compatible AI application to understand and analyze advertising campaigns through natural language.

(If you don’t know what any of that means, you’re fine.)

Old news at this point, but Google is trying to toss some pennies at the publishers that took a traffic hit after its AI glow up with Offerwall:

Offerwall lets publishers give their sites’ readers a variety of ways to access their content, including through options like micropayments, taking surveys, watching ads, and more.

Getting a lot of spam from PMax?
Block app placements: tools > content suitability > excluded placements

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Sometimes the best change is the one you don’t make.

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Do that which doesn’t scale.

Not: what’s your edge.

But instead: what do you do that no reasonable person would choose to do?

via Matt Webb

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If you’re Coca-Cola, people aren’t looking for New Coke.
If you’re Jones Soda, people aren’t looking for a Coke clone.

Ohio State is a story when it doesn’t win, not when it lives up to all the advanced billing. The Buckeyes chug along, replacing bastions of NFL talent with a fresh cast, year after year.

Indiana is still a story because we couldn’t have seen this coming. Indiana is a surprise. Indiana is new.

It’s important to remember what your customers want from you.

Attention can be a trap. Especially if people want comfort and familiarity.

via ESPN

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Turn the bottleneck into a moment of delight.

If your product must do something then don’t be shy about it. Make a feature out of it. Make the constraint the point of it all.

Friction cannot be dropped to 0.
Instantaneous everything is impossible (for now?).

Instead of trying to hide, downplay, or ignore negatives in your product. How can you add a layer of fun or weird or reflection or absurdity to both acknowledge the friction moment and transform it into something the customer remembers for a positive reason?

via Matt Webb