Ahrefs checked Google’s U.S. results for the exact names of 100 global brands every week from July through September, and published the results Oct. 2. On July 1, five of 98 usable results had an AI Overview. By Sept. 30, 63 of the 100 brand-name queries did. For brand teams, this is the results page…
Author: vccserv
As a paid media marketer for regulated fields such as healthcare, financial, or legal industries, AI can raise flags for concern. Whether it’s the “black box” of automated bid strategies colliding with organizational concerns around targeting, or questions around AI usage to generate creative, I recommend knowing your company’s policies and industry guidelines is a…
For a generation of American anime fans, discovering a new series once meant staying up late to watch Toonami, Cartoon Network’s seminal anime programming block, or tracking down low-quality, fan-subtitled episodes online. (Or on VHS.) Today, your introduction to anime might be a 30-second TikTok edit, an Olympic figure skater referencing her favorite character on…
This post was sponsored by Leadzai. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Not long ago, most of our conversations with agencies opened with the same question: should we even be doing TikTok for our small business clients? That question has quietly disappeared. Agencies now come to us asking how quickly they…
Alexander Skarsgård’s wicker man is getting the full 4DX treatment. Make of that what you will. Black Bear announced that Wicker, the upcoming romantic comedy starring Olivia Colman and Skarsgård, will screen in 4DX for one night only on Oct. 28. The studio says the event follows mass fan requests prompted by the trailer. Even…
If you work in SEO long enough, you start to notice that things tend to move in cycles. First: SEOs (and now GEOs) find a way to influence the organic or AI results or exploit Google’s ranking systems to gain visibility. Their tactics become popularized, shared widely, and duplicated all over the world. Then the…
This post was sponsored by Silver Arbitration Law, PLLC. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. If you manage Google Search campaigns, you have explained rising CPCs many times: more competitors, broader match types, a lower Quality Score, an account that needed restructuring. Each explanation is plausible. I have worked in arbitration…
You don’t need to be a model to land a brand deal. You don’t need to step onstage to post a stand-up clip. And in the AI influencer business, the person attracting all that attention doesn’t even need to exist. If you haven’t encountered one yet, an AI influencer is a character whose images or…
OpenAI will introduce an invisible watermark to qualifying ChatGPT and Codex texts within the European Union over the coming weeks. Their testing indicates that replacing certain words with synonyms can weaken the watermark’s effectiveness. In one test, substituting 25% of the words in 400-token English passages with synonyms lowered detection rates from approximately 92% to 17%. From…
A week in a Los Angeles mansion, dating lessons, a wardrobe upgrade, and PowerPoint presentations about plastic surgery. Welcome to Camp Looksmax. Hosted by streamer Braden Peters, AKA Clavicular (who was charged with rape in Massachusetts on Sept. 8; Peters’ attorneys have denied the allegations in a related civil lawsuit), and fellow creator Hexumlite, the…









