Google Merchant Center organic traffic drops in August 24 reporting change
Historical figures reopen back to July 1, restating numbers merchants already filed. Google Ads product metrics move the other way, rising across every network.
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Data
The latest news about data. Data is used in advertising in a variety of ways, including Audience targeting, Ad personalization, Ad optimization, Ad placement, and Measurement. Advertisers use data in advertising to reduce wasted ad spend.
SerpApi faces revived Google scraping claims built on Reddit licensing terms
Amended 15-page filing landed on day 21 of a 21-day window and names Reddit as the partner that asked Google to block scrapers. Does the narrowed theory hold?
FinCEN drops US ownership filings, cutting $9bn a year in compliance costs
Only foreign-formed entities still file, roughly 11,667 a year, and records already lodged by US persons are deleted. What now verifies who owns an advertiser?
Skai and Innovid gain Reddit ad buying through completed API integrations
Reddit posted $762 million in quarterly ad revenue on July 30, and its buying-tool partner list now runs from Sprinklr in 2024 to Pacvue. What is still missing?
Honey loses 7,000 merchants as judge lets creator lawsuit proceed
Merchant count fell from about 35,000 to 28,000 and coupons from 90,000 to 50,000, trackers say. PayPal now heads into full discovery on code it once defended.
US sends 53.5% of global bot traffic, Decodo analysis finds
Iran runs 81.4% bots at home while retail absorbs 13% of automated requests, a split that now decides which crawlers reach product pages and which get shut out.
Stanford study finds 5% of IP addresses send 55% of all web requests
Fewer than 0.2% of domains hold a unique IPv4 address, and 44% of client IPs carry two or more user agents. Frequency caps and fraud filters read that signal.
Indonesia's data law faces court test with DPA rules still two months away
Komdigi says the watchdog reports to the president, not the ministry, while AI products split across three risk tiers. Can a regulator this late still bite?
Chavez says enterprise data cannot be removed from an LLM once trained
Two decades after publishers handed inventory to Google, a super{set} co-founder says the same bargain now faces firms. Can a company audit what a model kept?
Shopify GA4 tracking gains 4 events August 17 - only purchase is server-side
Merchants get view_item_list, remove_from_cart, view_cart and add_shipping_info three years after GA4 migration. Do ad blockers still break the session thread?
Video
The latest news about video ads. Video ads are a type of online advertising that uses video to promote products or services. They can be displayed on a variety of platforms, including websites, apps, and social media.
Google Merchant Center organic traffic drops in August 24 reporting change
Historical figures reopen back to July 1, restating numbers merchants already filed. Google Ads product metrics move the other way, rising across every network.
Tubi and FOX One gain Gracenote metadata on 55 million titles
Gracenote IDs enter Tubi bid streams months after research found only 40% of CTV bid requests carry program-level signals. Does contextual buying scale now?
YouTube logs 1.6 billion hours of college move-in videos in one year
Google/Ipsos data behind the 62% research claim rests on 117 parents and 162 students. Brands briefing creators now face an August peak and September move-ins.
Google rewrites YouTube and Discover ad rules for a second time in 11 months
Change log entry of August 11 leaves masthead, election ad and clickbait rules as written. Enforcement stays untouched. So what actually moved on the page?
New York Times journalism costs $2bn a year. AI reads it for nothing
Kopit Levien set a $2bn annual production cost against AI compute budgets. A bot disclosure bill, curation's quiet death and token caps followed within days.
YouTube cuts Shorts pay for channels under 10M views from February 2027
Creator Pool earnings switch to a rolling 90-day test, and entry for new applicants doubles to 20 million views. Targeted Shorts ads pay a direct 45% share.
YouTube Premium Lite gains 57 markets, paying creators from a 60% pool
Ads keep running on Shorts, music and search for Lite viewers, and the tier jumps from 63 markets to 120. Creators face a Jan. 31, 2027 terms deadline to sign.
New YouTube creators face 8,000-hour bar for ad revenue from February 2027
Shorts applicants will need 20 million qualified views in 90 days, up from 10 million. Existing partners keep earning, but unsigned terms stop payouts in 2027.
VAB finds 52% search for brands in shows featuring creators they follow
Purchase intent reaches 43% and advocacy 41% among the 889 creator followers polled in June, while 71% of marketers still name ROI proof as their top hurdle.
RTL TV ad revenue drops 4% to €977m as digital advertising gains 10.9%
Streaming profit guidance rises to €100m from a €25m-€50m range, and Sky Deutschland adds €61m in one month. Will German ad softness persist into September?
Display
The latest news about display ads. Display ads are a type of online advertising that uses images, videos, or text to promote products or services. They are typically placed on websites and apps, and can be seen by users while they are browsing the web, watching videos, or using social media.
Measured says Google turns $10 CPA targets into instructions on August 17
Vendor analysis published August 11 warns a $5 actual CPA is not automatically a new target, and that placement mix can shift beneath a stable ROAS reading.
Google faces French complaint as AI summaries cut traffic up to 38%
Publishers invoke 2022 commitments that bind Google until July 2027, filed 20 days after AI Overviews reached France. Will the Autorité reopen negotiations?
Amazon DSP gains publisher-hosted creatives for GAM deals in 33 markets
Self-service buyers get the option inside third party display and video creatives, reaching publishers that host ad assets themselves. Which ones open first?
USA TODAY Sports charges $39.99 a year for fantasy football tools
Huddle subscribers migrate after the 2026-2027 season, with free access from October. A 38 million monthly sports audience now meets a paid tier and fewer ads.
Exact match loses 1 in 4 impressions to AI Max, smec finds
Smec measured 383 million EMEA ecommerce impressions, where expansion climbed from zero to nearly 29% since January 2025. Google's own uplift claim is 15%.
Four gaming publishers gain up to 14X APS revenue through InMobi SDK bridge
Beta publishers changed no mediation settings while native rendering opened 28 extra bidders and over 1,000 advertisers. Does one ceiling figure hold at scale?
Amazon DSP gets one global login. Is the agency the next thing it removes?
Amazon DSP now spans 34 countries from one account. Fees near 1%, default-on AI and a two-year consolidation squeeze the room that agencies hold in the middle.
Amazon DSP advertisers gain a single global account across 34 countries
Existing accounts upgrade automatically with no action required, and legacy CFIDs keep working. New Global Account IDs now open multi-country API campaigns.
Stack Overflow drops to 1,442 questions in July, down 99% from 2014 peak
Monthly peak hit 207,204 in March 2014. The whole of 2025 produced 108,981 questions, under one peak month. What now happens to the corpus that trained AI?
What did the first week of August change in digital advertising?
A $2.15 billion acquisition, a brutal earnings split, fresh lawsuits and forced automation reshaped digital advertising between August 3 and August 8, 2026.
AI
Stay informed with the latest AI industry news impacting digital advertising and marketing. PPC Land covers breaking developments from Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and emerging AI platforms. Get expert analysis on how artificial intelligence transforms programmatic advertising, search marketing, and ad tech. From AI-generated content and brand safety to AI Overview ads and traffic impacts, we deliver actionable insights for advertising professionals navigating the AI revolution.
Zuckerberg's 6,500-word AI letter never mentions advertising once
Balance of power appears 23 times across 6,542 words; advertising, zero. Advertisers fund the compute behind a philosophy that never once names their trade.
Yellow Pages faced 16 years of price caps. Whittaker says platforms are next
Directories held 75% share under a UK price cap that ran to 2013. Investors still modelling breakup risk may be pricing the wrong regulatory regime entirely.
Retailers on AI Max face 72% more invalid traffic, Lunio finds
Google Shopping invalid clicks reached 7.51% in Q2 2026, roughly one in thirteen. A retailer spending $10m a year wastes $500,000. What happens at the Q4 peak?
Google adds Granola to Gemini 12 days after it was sued over secret recording
Otter.ai, Wix, Ticketmaster and ten more arrive within weeks, joining a documented roster of 41 apps, most US-only. Which service captures the default slot?
Google faces French complaint as AI summaries cut traffic up to 38%
Publishers invoke 2022 commitments that bind Google until July 2027, filed 20 days after AI Overviews reached France. Will the Autorité reopen negotiations?
New York Times journalism costs $2bn a year. AI reads it for nothing
Kopit Levien set a $2bn annual production cost against AI compute budgets. A bot disclosure bill, curation's quiet death and token caps followed within days.
Claude text gains invisible watermarks across 5 Anthropic products
Marks travel with copied text and cover AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Foundry output. Detection tooling has not shipped, and older models remain unmarked.
AdRoll gains ChatGPT ad access for select SMB and B2B customers
Pilot covers only AdRoll and AdRoll ABM accounts, six months after OpenAI opened a channel that counted 7,378 advertisers in July. Where does the channel fit?
Fluency blocks AI from touching live ad spend across $3 billion in budgets
Deterministic agents alone hold execution rights over 250,000 monthly campaigns run for 150 agencies. Deloitte counts one in five firms ready to govern AI.
New York Times has sued three AI companies, CEO Kopit Levien says
Close to $2bn went into half a million works last year, a cost base publishers can now price against in licensing talks. What terms would make a deal work?
Search
The latest news about search ads. Search ads, also known as paid search advertising or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, are a type of online advertising that appears in search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user searches for a keyword or phrase, search ads are displayed at the top and bottom of the SERP.
Measured says Google turns $10 CPA targets into instructions on August 17
Vendor analysis published August 11 warns a $5 actual CPA is not automatically a new target, and that placement mix can shift beneath a stable ROAS reading.
SerpApi faces revived Google scraping claims built on Reddit licensing terms
Amended 15-page filing landed on day 21 of a 21-day window and names Reddit as the partner that asked Google to block scrapers. Does the narrowed theory hold?
Yellow Pages faced 16 years of price caps. Whittaker says platforms are next
Directories held 75% share under a UK price cap that ran to 2013. Investors still modelling breakup risk may be pricing the wrong regulatory regime entirely.
Google faces French complaint as AI summaries cut traffic up to 38%
Publishers invoke 2022 commitments that bind Google until July 2027, filed 20 days after AI Overviews reached France. Will the Autorité reopen negotiations?
AdRoll gains ChatGPT ad access for select SMB and B2B customers
Pilot covers only AdRoll and AdRoll ABM accounts, six months after OpenAI opened a channel that counted 7,378 advertisers in July. Where does the channel fit?
VAB finds 52% search for brands in shows featuring creators they follow
Purchase intent reaches 43% and advocacy 41% among the 889 creator followers polled in June, while 71% of marketers still name ROI proof as their top hurdle.
Exact match loses 1 in 4 impressions to AI Max, smec finds
Smec measured 383 million EMEA ecommerce impressions, where expansion climbed from zero to nearly 29% since January 2025. Google's own uplift claim is 15%.
Google adds Search Console guide for TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube data
Creators without a website gain query, country and device breakdowns for posts. The July 29 guide also flags what a YouTube playlist filter does not measure.
Google faces bipartisan brief urging tougher remedy over 21% AI model share
Filed August 4 in the D.C. Circuit, a 34-page brief says three firms hold 88% of AI model API revenue. At stake is whether Mehta's remedy survives the appeal.
Google Business Profile in Gemini now works for multi-location accounts
Workspace accounts remain unsupported, leaving agencies on personal Gmail logins. Every Gemini edit runs through official APIs and still needs owner sign-off.
Retail
The latest news about retail ads. Retail media ads are digital ads that are placed on retailer websites and apps. They are typically displayed on search results pages, product detail pages, and category pages. Retail media ads can be used to promote products and services from both the retailer itself and other brands.
Google Merchant Center organic traffic drops in August 24 reporting change
Historical figures reopen back to July 1, restating numbers merchants already filed. Google Ads product metrics move the other way, rising across every network.
Influencer reviews lose to peer posts by 2x in US buying, Reddit finds
UK gap runs closer to 2.5x, while 60% of US Reddit users trust the platform over family when checking AI picks. Does commissioned research settle the point?
Honey loses 7,000 merchants as judge lets creator lawsuit proceed
Merchant count fell from about 35,000 to 28,000 and coupons from 90,000 to 50,000, trackers say. PayPal now heads into full discovery on code it once defended.
Comcast sued over cream pie assaults on lowest-ranked sales staff
Store manager ranked sellers monthly and had the top performer strike the bottom one, the complaint says. Filed July 9 in Connecticut, return date August 18.
EU packaging law needs 27 registrations. Sellers are already leaving
Regulation (EU) 2025/40 applies August 12, forcing registration and a local representative in every destination state. One merchant has already cut EU orders.
EU packaging law forces sellers to register in up to 27 countries
One authorised representative per member state, one registration each, applies August 12. Small merchants are already cutting EU shipping. Who absorbs the cost?
TikTok Shop halts sales for sellers who change their business entity
Funds stay frozen until 24 hours after approval, and brand badges, category permits and bank links all reset. Eight conversion paths qualify, reversals do not.
Four gaming publishers gain up to 14X APS revenue through InMobi SDK bridge
Beta publishers changed no mediation settings while native rendering opened 28 extra bidders and over 1,000 advertisers. Does one ceiling figure hold at scale?
Hotel reviewer exits Mexico after Amanvari cancellation
Refund offered, no apology received, Ryan Walker told 150,000 subscribers on August 8, 2026. Which hotel brands stepped in, and what Aman's silence now risks.
Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment reaches TikTok Shop through nine apps
TikTok Shop lists nine apps, including Pipe17 and CedCommerce, that link Amazon FBA stock to Shop orders, easing setup as fulfillment rules keep tightening.
Social
The latest news about social ads. Social ads are paid advertisements that appear on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They can be used to promote a variety of products, services, and brands to a targeted audience.
Yellow Pages faced 16 years of price caps. Whittaker says platforms are next
Directories held 75% share under a UK price cap that ran to 2013. Investors still modelling breakup risk may be pricing the wrong regulatory regime entirely.
SEGA cuts CPM 44% using Bannerflow social dynamic ads
Production time fell from three weeks to one across seven markets and CPC dropped 14%. Self-reported gains land as just 22.5% of marketers automate creative.
Influencer reviews lose to peer posts by 2x in US buying, Reddit finds
UK gap runs closer to 2.5x, while 60% of US Reddit users trust the platform over family when checking AI picks. Does commissioned research settle the point?
Skai and Innovid gain Reddit ad buying through completed API integrations
Reddit posted $762 million in quarterly ad revenue on July 30, and its buying-tool partner list now runs from Sprinklr in 2024 to Pacvue. What is still missing?
Acast acquires Backyard Ventures for $20 million, gaining 200 US creators
Backyard Ventures booked $16.1 million of 2025 revenue at a 12% EBITDA margin, and creators reach 230 million monthly YouTube views. What changes for buyers?
VAB finds 52% search for brands in shows featuring creators they follow
Purchase intent reaches 43% and advocacy 41% among the 889 creator followers polled in June, while 71% of marketers still name ROI proof as their top hurdle.
Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment reaches TikTok Shop through nine apps
TikTok Shop lists nine apps, including Pipe17 and CedCommerce, that link Amazon FBA stock to Shop orders, easing setup as fulfillment rules keep tightening.
TikTok Shop's new sales tool skips Amazon, Walmart, and offline stores
Off-site GMV tracking covers only DTC and Shopify sites, TikTok Shop says. Sellers on other channels get no visibility into halo sales, until coverage expands.
TikTok Shop bans minors from selling in creator videos and livestreams
Child voiceovers are barred too, and adults must lead every full product demo. Penalties reach Creator Health Rating points, commissions and account access.
Gen Z loses money to job scams at 5 times the boomer rate, LinkedIn finds
Nine in ten reported scam messages push job seekers off LinkedIn, and over half land in the very first message. Does platform verification arrive early enough?
Audio
Stay updated on the latest audio advertising news and industry developments. PPC Land covers programmatic audio, podcast advertising, streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music, and emerging audio ad tech. Get expert analysis on audio measurement, brand safety, connected car streaming, and monetization strategies. From iHeartMedia to AI-powered audio features, we deliver actionable insights for advertisers navigating the digital audio landscape and programmatic buying.
Acast acquires Backyard Ventures for $20 million, gaining 200 US creators
Backyard Ventures booked $16.1 million of 2025 revenue at a 12% EBITDA margin, and creators reach 230 million monthly YouTube views. What changes for buyers?
Shakira's Dai Dai wins 9 of 15 YouTube markets at 117.8M weekly views
Indian playback singers sweep the top five artist slots at 1.54bn weekly views; local hits rule six markets. Post-Billboard, the files anchor media planning.
What did the first week of August change in digital advertising?
A $2.15 billion acquisition, a brutal earnings split, fresh lawsuits and forced automation reshaped digital advertising between August 3 and August 8, 2026.
BBC audio ads would raise £10m, 0.25% of licence fee income, study finds
Eighteen signatories including Global, Bauer, News UK and the Telegraph wrote to Lisa Nandy on 6 August. Two-thirds of the public oppose ads on BBC content.
Autio gains dashboard placement in five Ford and Lincoln models
Explorer, Expedition, Aviator and Navigator owners get 12,000 US stories via Google Play. Paid connectivity gates entry, and no ad inventory has been disclosed.
Spotify ad revenue gains 1% as automated channels near 40% of total
Active advertisers reached 33,000, up 60%, while ad-supported users hit 494 million. Emerging-market friction now caps the free-tier reach buyers can access.
Spotify opens paid remix tool to Merlin's 15% share of the music market
Merlin members across 70-plus countries get an opt-in route into a paid tool, with credit and compensation attached. Launch date and revenue split undisclosed.
WhatsApp brings calling to the browser, no download required
Waiting rooms, QuickHD and noise suppression arrive with the browser calls in Meta's July 28 update, widening WhatsApp reach just as Status ads scale globally.
Snap Map gains live Spotify listening data on 450M-user surface
Four visibility settings gate who sees a linked account, and Canada is excluded at launch. Whether listening signals reach Promoted Places buyers is unstated.
Suno loses GEMA case as Munich court sets 250,000 euro penalty per breach
Judges applied US fair use law themselves and rejected it, finding model weights reproduce works. Generative model providers in Europe now face a licence bill.