Mar 24 2025
Ad Platforms: Should You Or Shouldn’t You Take Their Recommendations? via @sejournal, @jonkagan

Recently, I did the math, and realized I’ve been in the biddable media business (search, social, programmatic, etc.) for over 20 years now.

(Shoutout to Didit.com for taking a chance on a Hofstra University senior with no experience and giving me a paid internship.)

In those 20 years, I have looked back at all of the changes within the industry, including but not limited to:

  • Being able to advertise on Meta.
  • Yahoo used to be the biggest search engine.
  • I spent ad dollars directly on AOL and AskJeeves.com (RIP Jeeves).
  • We didn’t call display ads “Programmatic.” It was just “banner ads.”
  • Google Analytics/GA4 was previously known as Urchin (Fun fact: UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module). Before that, we used Omniture (now Adobe) as the analytics “North Star.”

But, what really has changed in my mind is how we view support and insights from the platforms.

Google and Yahoo had true human support, and we took their recommendations as gospel.

There were few to no automated recommendations telling us to spend more, and when the platform reps made a suggestion, it was taken as a degree of good faith.

Before I go off on a rant, I should provide a disclaimer that I have numerous friends at all the major platforms in the U.S.

I’ve applied for jobs at all of them and have also been offered jobs from some of them. So, this article is not directed at a particular person or platform but the industry, in general, from the vendor side.

Backstory

While I can’t pinpoint a precise date, I’d say around 2012 is when we really saw consistent evidence of shifts in platforms moving from “We want what is best for you and your ads” to “We have recommendations to move your business forward if you can just spend more, or adopt these things that will cause you to spend more.”

I was with a large holding company agency, running a bit of pharma and a lot of financial services advertising with a small team.

In my not-so-humble and completely biased perspective, we had one of the best search marketing teams around. We knew the industry standard and best practices, and we knew what would help or hurt the business – and so did our reps at “big search and big social.”

Suddenly, their recommendations were not best practices and would clearly drive higher spend and lower efficiency.

Even more noticeably, when something went awry, the reps we turned to to help troubleshoot would say something to us that gave me a cold chill down my spine: “You’ll need to file a support ticket for that. These are now handled by a different department.”

This was the beginning of us really having to scrutinize what was recommended to us.

Human Vs. Machine

Yes, I am well aware that robots are on their way to take our jobs.

But, I keep getting reminded that if I let the machines have at it, several brands would lose a lot of money for absolutely no logical reason.

Google budget reco for a lot more money but not a lot more productionGoogle budget reco for a lot more money but not a lot more production (Image from author, March 2025)
Meta making a recommendation for a function we don't even haveMeta making a recommendation for a function we don’t even have (Image from author, March 2025)
Bing recommending a move with a questionable networkBing recommending a move with a questionable network (Image from author, March 2025)

These are samples of the same suggestions I get every day. The platforms want to drive our business forward, but ignore the following facts:

  • The first image shows a 261% increase in spend, for a 94% increase in clicks, 13% more conversions, and a 42% drop in conversion rate (CVR).
  • The second image wants to automatically optimize 10 ads (which by the way, given it is a government regulated vertical, that is prohibited) all to lower my cost per acquisition (CPA) by 10%, but fails to note that we don’t even have a conversion pixel, or even record conversions.
  • The third image wants to expand into the entire network, one known for notorious amounts of fraudulent activity or the fact that there are no incremental funds to drive that excess traffic.

Yes, I recognize that these recommendations are both automated and optional.

But does that mean scenarios like these should be given a discount and not held to the same industry standards as others? There is only one correct answer: No.

We observe that the automated recommendations are faster, more real-time, and more correlated to actual data. But, the human-based suggestions have a human objective and the little bird saying whether these are actually a good idea.

We also note – and this is more specific to advertisers with a dedicated rep (and I don’t mean those you get for a fiscal quarter and call you at inappropriate times of the day) – that recommendations coming from them (while still salesy), are taking a look at the bigger picture, and making more specific recommendations to enhance your business.

Google wanting to expand into a network known to have questionable placementsGoogle wanting to expand into a network known to have questionable placements (Image from author, March 2025)

This is a machine/AI recommendation to opt into a network I intentionally opted out of due to extreme amounts of invalid activity coming from it. (I have more trust in Jenn Shah of RHOSLC safely holding onto my SSN than this recommendation.)

This ratio of Google Search vs Partner Network does not make senseThis ratio of Google Search vs. Partner Network does not make sense (Image from author, March 2025)

Rule of thumb: If the click volume in your search partner network is grossly exceeding your Google search volume, then there is likely something wrong.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes...in credits, months laterPlay stupid games, win stupid prizes … in credits, months later (Image from author, March 2025)

Look at all those credits tied back to that April campaign (this outcome reminds me of Aaron Rodgers leading my NY Jets in 2024).

Meanwhile, my account rep gives me emails like this:

What a proper recommendation should look likeWhat a proper recommendation should look like (Image from author, March 2025)

Net-net: Quantity (machine/AI) is not better than quality (human), but I will admit, it is faster.

Don’t Disregard Automated Recommendations Completely

While I may sound like a spokesperson for the anti-AI/anti-machine lobbyists, these systems can help save your butt here and there.

But, review these recommendations with a grain of salt while using them for a gut check.

Showing when something was forgottenShowing when something was forgotten (Image from author, March 2025)
Catching conflicts I would've missedCatching conflicts I would’ve missed (Image from author, March 2025)

Not Controlling What Happens Is The Devil

Yes, rep support is helpful, and sometimes, machine/AI can be helpful, too.

But, if you are not reviewing what happens in terms of placements, creative, or optimization, you may find yourself up a creek. This is particularly important on the creative side, especially if there are multiple layers of creative approval.

If you do not disable auto-apply, or you let Advantage+ run without oversight, then creative may not meet legal department guidelines.

Nothing gives you a heart attack on a Saturday more than when your client calls to let you know that they saw their ad in a live video on a social platform about some nefarious activity, with part of the creative cut off inappropriately.

If you run Performance Max, you definitely want to keep a close eye on this.

What does this mean? If you have a degree of control over the machine rather than letting it run with it, take control. An extra hour of work now will save you 12 hours of fixing problems later.

Having Control Of What Happens And Not Handling Properly Makes You The Devil

Yes, you read that right. If you want to test out the machine functions and AI suggestions, and you have the control to decide how and when it executes the work, and you still don’t use it properly, well, then that is your fault.

This isn’t just isolated to creative, but it definitely is much more awkward with it:

I really don't know how Meta thinks this will sell Corned Beef HashI really don’t know how Meta thinks this will sell Corned Beef Hash (Image from author, March 2025)
Bing thinks that this is a Jamaican Beef Patty...it is notBing thinks that this is a Jamaican Beef Patty … it is not (Image from author, March 2025)

But, this is the tip of the iceberg; this is the easy stuff to prevent.

When you allow it to add in music, create videos, adjust text, etc., you have the ability to prevent that. You’re even notified if you want to use it, and if you don’t take action, it’ll implement it. That is on you.

What Is This Rant Really About?

To do a very long-winded cut to the chase, this is about separating support and recommendations made by the platforms and the reps from what are industry and standard best practices.

No, your Google Adwords (it’ll always be Adwords), Bing Ads (I refuse to call it Microsoft Advertising), and Meta reps are not out to ruin you financially, with the sole goal of getting you to spend more, by any means necessary.

But, they have quotas and adoption requirements they have to meet. Companies that are not charities are money-making machines.

So, sales-focused recommendations, auto-apply functions, and AI-generated suggestions are designed to ultimately get you to spend more money.

It is your job as the digital marketer to recognize which function, recommendation, and capability your brand should utilize.

Do not be bulldozed – push back. If the platform or the rep makes a recommendation, ask them to show the work and explain how it will help you meet your goal. After all, the platform’s goals may not be your goals.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Mar 24 2025
Google’s March Core Update: Early Observations From Initial Rollout via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google’s March 2025 Core Update, announced on March 13th and expected to complete its rollout this week, is creating turbulence in search results according to multiple industry tracking tools.

Data from Local SEO Guide and SISTRIX indicate this may be a highly impactful update.

“Most Volatile” SERPs in 12 Months

According to tracking data from Local SEO Guide, which monitors 100,000 home services keywords, the week of March 10th showed the highest SERP volatility observed in over a year. This aligns with Google’s official announcement of the March Core Update on March 13th.

SISTRIX data confirms these findings, with its Google Update Radar showing movement beginning March 16th across both the UK and US markets. The company monitors one million SERPs daily to track the update’s impact.

Winners & Losers

Local SEO Guide identified several clear winners and losers in their tracking data. Sites gaining the most visibility include:

  • ThisOldHouse.com
  • Reddit.com
  • Yelp.com
  • HomeDepot.com
  • Quora.com

Conversely, sites experiencing the most significant drops in visibility include:

  • DIYChatroom.com
  • GarageJournal.com
  • Bluettipower.com
  • Everfence.com
  • MrHandyMan.com

SISTRIX’s analysis revealed additional impacted domains in the UK market, with significant losses for quora.com (-15.76%), vocabulary.com (-10.93%), and expedia.co.uk (-20.60%). Government sites weren’t spared either, with hmrc.gov.uk showing a dramatic 52.60% visibility decrease.

Retail Sector Impact

The retail sector has seen interesting shifts. SISTRIX data shows that notonthehighstreet.com experienced a 56.28% visibility increase in UK searches, while uniqlo.com saw a 76.12% gain.

On the negative side, several retailers lost ground, with zara.com dropping 24.00%, amazon.com declining 13.84%, and diy.com falling 7.75% in visibility.

Key Trends Emerging

Andrew Shotland, CEO of Local SEO Guide, identified several potential patterns in this update:

1. Forum Content Devaluation

Two forums, DIYChatroom and GarageJournal, saw visibility drops despite having experienced a 1,000%+ increase over the past year.

Shotland notes this may not be a direct demotion, but Google is elevating sites like Reddit alongside features like Discussions and Forums widgets and Popular Products grids.

2. Fight Against AI-Generated Content

Sites like Bluettipower.com, which appears to have created thousands of data-driven pages likely using AI, have seen visibility declines. Other sites with “kitchen-sink, made-it-for-SEO” content are similarly affected.

3. Cross-Sector Impact

Unlike some updates targeting specific niches, this core update affects sites across various sectors, including retail, government, forums, and content publishers.

What’s Next

Google has provided little information about the improvements to its search algorithm in this core update. The full effects may not be clear until the rollout is complete.

Google’s March Core algorithm update is still rolling out. Search Engine Journal will monitor changes and offer updates as more information becomes available. Please continue sending in your reports.

Featured Image: eamesBot/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Mar 24 2025
10 New YouTube Marketing Strategies With Fresh Examples For 2025 via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

Right now, YouTube marketing has become even more important with all the changes happening in the current digital landscape.

What is also important is keeping up with trends and strategies to ensure your marketing stays fresh.

As I said in a previous article, “I learned a long time ago that the video sharing site changes about one-third of its major features every year.”

So, six out of 10 of your best practices for YouTube that worked 21 months ago need to be thoroughly revised.

For this year, here are 10 new YouTube marketing strategies – along with the latest tips, recent case studies, and fresh examples – that you should use while they’re at their peak in terms of effectiveness.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

YouTube still tells creators:

“Our algorithm doesn’t pay attention to videos, it pays attention to viewers. So, rather than trying to make videos that’ll make an algorithm happy, focus on making videos that make your viewers happy.”

This means that market segmentation, dividing an audience into smaller groups with similar characteristics, remains crucial for effective YouTube marketing.

What’s new about this strategy? Instead of only using demographics to segment audiences, brands should also focus on reaching, engaging, and retaining groups of people with specific interests and intents.

Tactical Advice

The Audience tab in YouTube Analytics provides detailed information about your viewers, including demographics, viewing frequency, and traffic sources.

Understanding this data can help you create content that better resonates with your audience and increases engagement.

Latest Tip

Read everything you can about audience research – its definition, importance, distinction from market research, current trends, different research methods, and strategies for long-term effectiveness.

Example

According to Tubular Intelligence, Red Bull uploaded 8,016 videos in 2024 to 49 YouTube channels with different target audiences in 16 different countries.

The brand’s videos got a total of 9.2 billion views on YouTube last year.

“Playing This On Loop,” which was uploaded on April 26, 2024, was Red Bull’s most-viewed video, with 467 million views.

Fresh Example

According to Tubular Intelligence, Hasbro uploaded 7,064 videos in January 2025 to 114 different YouTube channels, with different target audiences in 27 countries.

The brand’s videos got a total of 2.2 billion views on YouTube that month.

“Peppa Pig Tales,” uploaded Jan. 17, 2025, was Hasbro’s most-viewed video, with 6.1 million views.

2. Create High-Quality Video Content

YouTube still tells the press, “More than 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute.”

Viewers choose what they want to watch based on age-old desires: to feel informed, entertained, connected, or relaxed – but they also want to see high-quality video content.

So, a difference in “quality” is what makes viewers feel that their time was wasted or well spent.

This consumer insight calls for an updated content strategy. Why? High-quality video requires a fresh blend of technical skill and emotional connection.

For example, a Google and MTM survey of 12,000 video viewers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa found that viewers expect clear visuals, good audio, and proficient editing, but they also value content that evokes emotions, feels relevant, and holds personal meaning.

While 4 of 5 viewers judge quality based on whether they feel their time was well spent, 9 of 10 believe both technical and emotional aspects are crucial.

Tactical Advice

This means you should focus on creating high-quality video content that:

  • Has clear visuals and good audio: High-quality video production requires technical expertise, shown through excellent camera work, editing, and visual presentation, and should include unique features to stand out from typical content.
  • Captures viewer attention throughout: Maintaining viewer attention throughout a YouTube video is essential for maximizing watch time, which in turn boosts engagement, improves audience retention, and drives increased views and channel growth.
  • Is relevant to viewer interests: Audiences are varied and can be segmented by shared interests, purchase intentions, and demographics, including groups driven by passion, life events, or active purchasing.

Latest Tip

If you’re targeting users aged 18-34 years old, then high-quality video content must also:

  • Be original or creative: YouTube success hinges on creating unique and inventive video content that stands out, captures attention, encourages engagement, builds a loyal audience, and increases visibility and popularity.
  • Teach them something new or useful: YouTube’s popularity is driven by its educational value, making highly effective videos that teach viewers something valuable.

However, if you’re targeting users aged 35 years old and above, then high-quality video content should also:

  • Provide accurate or trustworthy information: Providing accurate and trustworthy information on YouTube is vital due to its role as a major information source, as inaccurate or misleading content can spread misinformation and promote harmful behaviors.
  • Tell a compelling story: A compelling narrative is crucial for YouTube videos. It increases viewer engagement, encourages full viewing, promotes sharing, and improves information retention.

Example

As I pointed out previously, Teleflora’s “The Power of Wishes” campaign, featuring a hospitalized boy and a magical snowman, was the most emotionally engaging holiday ad of 2024.

Created by The Wonderful Agency, the ad aimed to inspire donations for children with critical illnesses, and it elicited an intense positive reaction from 57.1% of viewers, placing it at the top of DAIVID’s Holiday Ads Chart.

Fresh Example

“Don’t Eat Lava” from Reeses was the most mouthwatering ad from Super Bowl LIX, according to data from DAIVID.

The 30-second Reese’s ad, depicting people comically attempting to eat lava due to their love for the new Chocolate Lava Big Cup, was found to be three times more effective at triggering viewers’ cravings compared to the average U.S. response.

3. Generate More YouTube Shorts

The social video platform also tells the press, “YouTube Shorts is now averaging over 70 billion daily views.”

In addition, YouTube’s short-form video experience is “clocking in billions of monthly logged-in users,” significantly more than Instagram or TikTok.

This means you need to master YouTube’s short-form video experience – even if you want to continue creating longer-form content or using other social video platforms.

Tactical Advice

To create effective YouTube Shorts, you should always tailor your content to your target audience, as well as ensure that your audio is clear and engaging.

But, if your marketing goal is to capture attention and build brand awareness, then:

  • Grab attention instantly: Use strong visuals, questions, or trending audio in the first few seconds.
  • Keep it short and engaging: Tell a concise story with visuals and text overlays.
  • Show, don’t just tell: Demonstrate your product or service.
  • Use trends and hashtags: Participate in challenges and use relevant hashtags.
  • Build brand personality: Infuse your brand’s voice and style.
  • Post consistently: Maintain a regular posting schedule.
  • Cross-promote: Share your shorts on other platforms.

But, if your business objective is to increase website traffic, leads, or sales, then:

  • Show product demos and tutorials: Highlight key features and benefits.
  • Offer value and incentives: Provide discounts or free resources.
  • Include a clear call to action (CTA): Tell viewers what to do next.
  • Drive traffic to landing pages: Create optimized landing pages.
  • Generate Leads: Use short-form content to drive users to provide more information.
  • Use shoppable features (if available): Enable direct purchases.
  • Analyze performance: Use YouTube Analytics to optimize your content.

Latest Tip

To create short-form content from existing long-form YouTube videos, go to the watch page of your video on the YouTube app, click “Remix,” then select “Edit into a Short” to choose a specific segment of your video.

Then, add any necessary text, filters, or other creative elements before uploading as a YouTube Short.

This allows you to extract the most impactful moments from your longer video to create a concise clip optimized for the short-form format.

Example

Corona aimed to increase awareness and ticket sales for its Cape Town Sunsets Festival by utilizing a digital video strategy focused on reaching music and beer lovers.

It achieved this by creating short-form videos, particularly on YouTube Shorts, which evoked the feeling of a sunset and featured popular South African musicians.

After testing various ad formats, it found this approach to be the most effective, resulting in 1.3 million views within a month and a 21.2% video completion rate.

Fresh Example

According to Tubular Insights, McDonald’s uploaded 172 videos to 38 YouTube channels in 37 countries around the world in the last 90 days, which got a total of 167 million views and 3.1 million engagements (e.g., likes, comments, shares).

And it’s worth noting that 160 of the fast-food brand’s videos uploaded during this period were Shorts, which got a total of 127 million views and 2.9 million engagements.

The most watched and engaged of this fresh batch of Shorts was “New McCrispy, the sound of joy,” which was uploaded to the McDonald’s UAE channel on Dec. 23, 2024.

Today, it has 19.3 million views and 447,000 engagements.

4. Produce More Content For TV

In February, Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube, announced:

“TV has surpassed mobile and is now the primary device for YouTube viewing in the U.S. (by watch time), and according to Nielsen, YouTube has been #1 in streaming watch time in the U.S. for two years.”

Mohan added, “The ‘new’ television doesn’t look like the ‘old’ television. It’s interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TVs), podcasts, and live streams, right alongside the sports, sitcoms and talk shows people already love.”

This means you should start producing more passive “lean back” content for relaxed viewing as well as continuing to create interactive “lean forward” content for engaged participation.

Tactical Advice

With viewers now watching, on average, over 1 billion hours of YouTube content on TVs daily, how do you produce more high-quality video content for the big screen?

Recognizing the growing trend of creators developing content specifically for television screens, YouTube is enhancing its TV platform with innovative features.

This includes a second-screen experience that enables viewers to interact with the content on their television using their smartphones, facilitating actions like leaving comments or making purchases.

YouTube is also experimenting with a feature called “Watch With,” which allows creators to provide live commentary and real-time reactions to events like sports games.

Initially tested with the NFL, this feature will expand to other sports and content types.

So, while YouTube is actively reshaping the television experience for a new generation of viewers, you should use the test-and-learn approach to evaluate innovative features and diverse content, as well as analyze the results.

Latest Tip

Doing this successfully requires a change in roles and responsibilities. You must now play the role of a “showrunner,” taking full creative leadership of this project.

This entails managing all creative elements, directing the team of writers, directors, and actors, and making critical narrative decisions to maintain a consistent vision throughout the entire production process.

Example

Sports content on YouTube experienced a significant surge in TV viewership in 2024, with watchtime increasing by over 30%.

For example, “Saquon Barkley wanted the young guys to play #shorts,” which was uploaded by the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 21, 2024, got 11.7 million views and 574,000 engagements.

Fresh Example

Kylie Kelce launched a video podcast, Not Gonna Lie with Kylie Kelce, on Nov. 25, 2024, where she addresses rumors and discusses women, sports, and motherhood.

Today, her YouTube channel has 6.6 million views, 267,000 engagements, and 291,000 subscribers.

5. Propose A Branded Podcast

On Feb. 26, 2025, YouTube announced that “there are more than 1 billion monthly active viewers of podcast content on YouTube.”

This milestone also makes YouTube the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S.

Branded podcasts are a terrific way for brands and organizations to market their products and services.

YouTube’s podcast platform simplifies discovery and consumption, making it a popular starting point for finding new podcasts.

So, if your brand doesn’t already have a podcast yet, then this is the right time to propose one – and YouTube is the right place to host it.

Tactical Advice

Before pitching your idea to executives, start by watching and listening to 10 of the best branded podcasts on YouTube. These include:

  • The A.B.C.Dior podcast series illustrated by Christian Dior, which examines and explains the codes that shape the house of Dior.
  • AI at Scale podcast by Schneider Electric, which invites all AI practitioners and AI experts to share their experiences, challenges, and AI success stories.
  • Behind The Tech with Kevin Scott by Microsoft, which goes behind-the-scenes with today’s most innovative tech leaders.
  • eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast by eBay for Business, which explores the challenges faced, the obstacles overcome, and the insights hard-won by some of their top sellers.
  • GreenFlags Podcast by PUMA, which explores sustainability and how everyday choices can reduce climate change.
  • The McKinsey Podcast by McKinsey & Company, which features conversations with experts on issues that matter most in business and management.
  • REAL TIME Podcast by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA_, which brings realtors inspiring insights on all things Canadian real estate.
  • Search Off the Record Podcast by Google Search Central, which takes you behind the scenes of Google Search and its inner workings.
  • Talent All-Stars by ZipRecruiter, which features interviews with talent leaders from influential businesses.
  • Wild Ideas Worth Living Podcast by REI, which features high-impact interviews for those who love adventure and the outdoors.

Latest Tip

Instead of directly pushing products, build a loyal niche community by offering valuable, related expertise and fostering authentic engagement on YouTube.

Example

Black Kitchen Series by Heinz collaborated with the LEE Initiative, Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice (SRRJ), and more than 60 Black-owned restaurants across the country to identify six Black-owned restaurants that have been instrumental in shaping the foods and flavors we enjoy today.

It won the 2024 Webby Award for Best Branded Podcast or Segment.

Fresh Example

Ninjas are Butterflies is a wildly funny podcast hosted by Josh Hooper and Andy DeNoon.

Produced by Sunday Cool, a small custom apparel company, it delivers a mix of bizarre stories, over-the-top conspiracy theories, and plenty of laughs, guaranteeing a rollercoaster of emotions each day.

In the last 90 days, Ninjas Are Butterflies has uploaded 46 episodes to YouTube, which have received a total of 2.6 million views and 118,000 engagements.

For a short sample of their video podcast, check out “Surviving Snake Wine”

6. Optimize Your Videos For Discovery

New research by Adilo on YouTube search optimization highlights the importance of engagement signals, the effectiveness of 8- to 9-minute video lengths, and the positive impact of channel authority on video visibility.

YouTube’s search and discovery system uses multiple algorithms. So, effective video SEO requires more than just optimizing for YouTube search.

You must also consider factors that influence how videos are presented on the Home feed, in suggested video lists, and within the Shorts feed, ensuring your content reaches the right audience across various platform features.

Tactical Advice

Adilo’s study of 1.6 million videos uncovered 19 key YouTube SEO tactics to maximize search visibility, encourage viewer participation, and increase video viewership:

  • Multiple Videos: Create multiple videos for target keywords, as YouTube doesn’t penalize “keyword cannibalization.”
  • Engagement: Prioritize channel and video engagement rates, which significantly impact ranking.
  • Views: Aim for high video views, as top-ranking videos have a median of 300,000 views.
  • Video Length: Keep videos between 8 and 9 minutes (around 536 seconds).
  • Descriptions: Write video descriptions that are around 200-250 words.
  • Links: Include external links in video descriptions.
  • Titles: Focus on matching search intent, not just exact keywords.
  • HD Quality: Produce videos in HD or 4K.
  • Transcripts: Use keyword-rich video transcripts.
  • Closed Captions: Add closed captions and subtitles.
  • Timestamps: Add timestamps for better navigation.
  • Custom Thumbnails: Use custom thumbnails.
  • Hashtags: Hashtags are optional but can help.
  • Patience: Older videos and channels tend to rank better.
  • Verification: Channel verification has a moderate impact.
  • Brand Channels: Brand channels rank better than personal channels.
  • Channel Links: Include website and social media links in channel descriptions.
  • Subscribers: Aim for more subscribers, but low subscriber counts don’t eliminate chances to rank.
  • Location: Setting your channel location to the U.S. can improve ranking.

Latest Tip

To increase YouTube video visibility, don’t rely solely on the platform.

Embedding videos on relevant websites and blogs adds context and directs traffic. Sharing on social media expands reach and audience engagement.

Using email marketing fosters immediate viewership. Adding videos to press releases increases open rates, views, engagement, and shares.

Example

On Sept. 17, 2024, Gillette India uploaded “Ab fikar kyu when you’ve got Gillette Guard that looks out for you?” This noteworthy video got 46.9 million views and 370,000 engagements.

According to Tubular Intelligence, that’s more than expected given the brand’s follower count, and it didn’t get views primarily from advertising.

Engagement signals played a significantly bigger role in this YouTube Short’s success than optimized metadata.

Fresh Example

On Jan. 14, 2025, Oreo India uploaded “New Oreo Pokémon. Twist, lick, and play with ’em all! #PlayWithOreoPokémon.”

Now, there are optimized keywords and a hashtag in the title and description of this noteworthy video.

But, this YouTube Short got 7.6 million views and 431,000 engagements because the high-quality video content also told parents with kids to grab the new Oreo Pokémon pack, collect all 16 Pokémon, and get a chance to win a trip to Japan.

7. Promote Your Shorts

In February 2025, YouTube announced that creators (and brands) can now promote their Shorts directly in YouTube Studio with a “Promote” button.

Plus, their “promoted videos will be automatically shown to viewers who are more likely to engage with the promoted channel.”

A decade ago, the “YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands” urged marketers to “leverage paid video advertising to put your content in front of the right audience.”

Back then, only a few brands adopted this cost-effective strategy. But, with YouTube Shorts now averaging over 70 billion daily views, both big brands and small businesses should give this option a second look.

Tactical Advice

YouTube’s new “Promote” button in YouTube Studio allows brands to easily launch ad campaigns for Shorts, automatically targeting likely engagers.

Brands should first define clear campaign objectives like brand awareness, product promotion, or audience growth.

Optimizing Shorts with strong hooks, high production quality, relevant keywords, and clear CTAs is crucial.

Trust YouTube’s automated targeting while monitoring performance and refining based on metrics.

Start with a small budget, set clear goals, and A/B test different Shorts to maximize effectiveness.

Integrate Shorts into the overall marketing strategy by cross-promoting and coordinating with other campaigns and actively engaging with the audience.

To use the button, access YouTube Studio, select the Short, click “Promote,” set the budget and duration, review, and launch, then consistently monitor performance.

Latest Tip

On top of regular channel growth and organic discovery, the “Promote” button can get your Shorts as well as your long-form videos in front of new audiences – helping you and your business reach your goals.

Example

Although it’s too soon for case studies, check out the Product Link in the Bio video below to find creative inspiration.

Mavigadget, a product discovery platform, uploaded this Short to YouTube on May 29, 2024. Today, its noteworthy video has 625 million views and 9.4 million engagements.

Fresh Example

Moody Gardens, a public, non-profit educational destination utilizing nature in the advancement of rehabilitation, conservation, recreation, and research, uploaded “Marley the Penguin Making Art with Janie” on Dec. 9, 2024.

This noteworthy video already has 51.3 million views and 2.3 million engagements. They could even afford to promote their Shorts.

8. Test Artificial Intelligence Tools

In February 2025, Google Rolled Out ‘Veo 2’ Video Generation For YouTube Shorts.

This upgrade integrated Veo 2, Google DeepMind’s newest video generation model, into Dream Screen, YouTube’s feature that lets you generate unique AI backgrounds for your Shorts with just a text prompt.

As Mohan said two days earlier, one of YouTube’s big bets for 2025 is investing in AI tools that will “make it easier to create and enhance the YouTube experience for everyone.”

While brands will be tempted to adopt AI tools that improve their efficiency, they should also analyze their results and evaluate if the high-quality video content that AI helps them create is effective.

Tactical Advice

While AI’s creative potential is acknowledged, you should focus on adopting practical AI tools that assist your brand’s high-quality content creators with routine tasks. This includes generating video ideas, titles, and thumbnails.

In addition, AI is already being used to expand audience reach through automatic dubbing, with ongoing improvements and language expansion expected soon.

Crucially, YouTube prioritizes safety by developing tools that allow creators to detect and control AI-generated depictions of themselves, with a pilot program involving influential figures to refine these safeguards.

All these developments provide yet another reason to use the test-and-learn approach to evaluate innovative features and diverse content.

Latest Tip

To increase the effectiveness of your high-quality video content, don’t rely solely on YouTube.

For example, AI software can instantly predict a video’s effectiveness by analyzing emotions, replacing costly audience panels, and providing optimization insights.

Example

As I explained about how Coca-Cola failed to engage viewers with their AI holiday campaign, none of the AI-generated holiday ads in 2024 were considered to be impactful holiday campaigns.

The AI ads also failed to recreate the warm connection of the 2020 ad, although Secret Level’s AI version performed better than the others.

Fresh Example

The 2025 Super Bowl was characterized by a strong presence of AI-related content and advertising, earning it the nickname “AI Super Bowl.”

Notably, “Dream Job,” featuring Gemini Live, achieved significant success with 44.6 million views and a 14th-place ranking on the USA Today Ad Meter.

In contrast, “Hey Meta, Who Eats Art?” garnered far fewer views and ranked 44th, while “ChatGPT | The Intelligence Age,” had moderate views but placed near the bottom of the Ad Meter rankings at 53rd.

9. Employ YouTube Influencers

According to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2025, 57.1% of brands use Instagram, and 51.6% use TikTok for influencer marketing.

Only 36.7% of brands use YouTube, even though it offers engaging short-form video content and significantly greater reach.

If most of your competitors are “leaving money on the table,” then your smartest move is “picking it up” by leveraging both YouTube Shorts and BrandConnect.

Tactical Advice

Focus on effectively using YouTube BrandConnect and Shorts through:

Strategic Creator Partnerships:

  • Prioritize niche creators with engaged audiences over sheer follower count.
  • Emphasize authentic brand integration, allowing creators creative freedom.
  • Build long-term relationships with creators for consistent messaging.

BrandConnect Campaign Optimization:

  • Set clear, measurable campaign objectives (SMART).
  • Ensure consistent brand identity across all branded content.
  • Negotiate fair deals and establish clear expectations with creators.
  • Utilize data analytics to track performance and optimize campaigns.
  • Track ROI to measure campaign effectiveness.

Latest Tip

YouTube BrandConnect requires creators to have a minimum of 25,000 subscribers.

While engaging mega-influencers with over a million followers might seem appealing, it can be expensive and lead to less targeted audiences.

So, prioritize working with micro, mid-tier, and macro-influencers who possess subscriber counts between 25,000 and 1 million.

Example

In 2024, Urban Decay successfully used YouTube Shorts with creators like Kelly Strack and Ashley LaMarca to promote their Naked eyeshadow palette.

This strategy resulted in a 278% increase in searches and a 3% rise in purchase intent, exceeding L’Oréal USA’s benchmarks.

The 15-second Shorts, like the one featuring Kelly Strack, directly engaged Urban Decay’s audience.

Fresh Example

In the last 90 days, Great Stuff, DuPont’s insulating foam sealant brand, partnered with two influencers to create three YouTube Shorts, which got 16.8 million views and 935,000 engagements.

One of the Shorts, “We Fix a Drafty Window”, garnered 10.8 million views and 681,000 engagements.

10. Measure Your Results

Google Analytics 4 enables brands to track engaged-view key events – users who watch at least 10 seconds of a YouTube video ad and then perform a key action on their site within three days.

But, this feature is limited to YouTube video ads and doesn’t extend to Organic Video or other default GA4 channels.

Over 90% of people around the world say they discover new brands or products on YouTube.

How do you track or measure this? While YouTube Analytics, Google Ads, and GA4 provide a solid foundation for understanding “what” viewers are doing, they often fall short in revealing the crucial “why.”

Tactical Advice

To bridge this gap and gain a holistic understanding of viewer behavior, you should:

  • Go beyond basic metrics with deeper YouTube Analytics exploration: Analyze audience retention for drop-off and re-watch points, scrutinize click-through rate (CTR) and thumbnail performance, and track card/end screen effectiveness. Dive into comment analysis for sentiment and feedback.
  • Leverage social listening tools: Supplement this with social listening to monitor brand mentions and industry trends.
  • Combine quantitative and qualitative data: Combine quantitative data with qualitative insights through surveys, focus groups, and competitor analysis.
  • Integrate data across platforms: Integrate YouTube data with GA4 and your CRM for a holistic view.
  • Focus on the “why” behind the “what”: Develop viewer personas to understand motivations, identify content themes, and continuously ask “so what?” to reveal deeper meanings. By focusing on intent and mapping the customer journey, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of your viewers, leading to more impactful content.

Latest Tip

Move beyond basic view counts and subscriber numbers.

Use GA4’s event-based tracking and predictive metrics to gain a deeper understanding of viewer behavior and optimize your YouTube strategy for maximum impact.

This focus on event-based tracking, and the predictive nature of GA4, is a very up-to-date way to measure results.

Example

Watch “How Hilton and iProspect maximized results with full-funnel campaigns” to understand the importance of matching the right creative to the right audience, which, in a time of shifting travel behaviors, led to notable increases in awareness, consideration, purchase intent, and booking conversions.

Fresh Example

Cainz Corporation, which has 240 home improvement stores in Japan, used Oriient’s privacy-first tech to track in-store shopper behavior. This data optimizes store layouts, product placement, and promotions.

Watch “JP Cainz Video” to see how this experiment showed a potential 6% sales growth by enhancing in-store experiences.

Keep Up Or Get Left Behind

I hope you take advantage of these 10 strategic insights, new strategies, tactical advice, latest tips, case studies, and fresh examples while they’re at their peak in terms of effectiveness.

In other words, their “Best if Used By” date is today.

To keep up with the latest trends and changes on YouTube and to ensure your strategies are effective, you should read YouTube’s official blog and adapt to algorithm updates, including evolving audience preferences.

If a new video format or feature becomes popular, experiment with it to see if it works for your channel.

Pay attention to emerging trends in video editing, content styles, and audience engagement techniques.

More Resources:

Featured Image: AlessandroBiascioli/Shutterstock

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Mar 24 2025
Ecommerce and the Secondhand Boom

The online market for secondhand apparel should grow 13% annually in the U.S. through 2029, reaching $40 billion, according to a study from ThredUp, the resale platform. Other sources, including Credence Research, have released similar growth estimates.

The surge is creating ecommerce opportunities.

Drivers

Culture, marketplaces, and economics contribute to consumer demand for used clothing.

Environmentalism and sustainability likely influence some buyers. Often female, younger, and engaged in popular culture, these shoppers are aware of the environmental impact of fast fashion, leading them to seek more sustainable alternatives.

Marketplaces such as ThredUp, Swap.com, eBay, and Facebook Marketplace have all made finding used, returned, or overstock clothing easier, as they surface items that would have otherwise sold from brick-and-mortar shops or yard sales. Buyers seek items that might be trendy, vintage, or just hard to get.

Economics is also influencing consumers. The ThredUp study noted that secondhand garment and shoe sales took off in 2021, perhaps owing to the dual economic impacts of Covid and the first set of U.S. trade tariffs against China in 2018-19.

Since 2021, tariffs on Chinese-made clothing have continued to increase. President Biden bumped them up in May 2024, and more recently, President Trump increased tariffs again, potentially making some new clothing items more expensive and driving shoppers toward the secondary apparel market.

Opportunity

With traditional retailing, large chains often have a competitive advantage from buying power and access to identical products at lower prices. The secondhand clothing and footwear market is different and, as such, offers an opportunity for small and mid-sized sellers.

Photo of clothes on hangers

Sources for used apparel include brick-and-mortar shops, estate sales, and closets.

First, the secondhand apparel market is inefficient. Many thrift stores and individual sellers are not web-savvy or familiar with local demand. The result is underpriced quality clothing. Knowledgeable resellers capitalize, sourcing those items and selling to a national or global community.

For example, a local thrift store may sell a vintage Levi’s denim jacket for $25, while the same item can fetch $75 or more on Depop or Etsy, thanks to an urban fashion trend 2,000 miles away. SMBs can acquire inventory at low prices and resell at good margins almost as easily as major enterprises.

Second, brand and trend awareness also creates an opportunity. Sellers who recognize undervalued luxury or vintage items can maximize profit by reselling on niche platforms aimed at buyers who understand their worth.

However, finding secondhand and vintage clothing to sell online is not easy. What creates the opportunity also makes sourcing inventory a challenge.

Here are a few approaches to finding used, returned, or overstock clothing and footwear.

  • Liquidation and overstock sales. Large retailers and brands sometimes sell returns and unsold inventory, often in bulk. Try companies such as BULQ, B-Stock, Via Trading, Direct Liquidation, and Liquidation.com.
  • Online marketplaces. eBay, Poshmark, Depop, Facebook Marketplace, and Craigslist are sources of valuable goods.
  • Estate and garage sales can be goldmines for vintage and designer pieces, but visiting the events is laborious, and quality varies.
  • Thrift and charity shops. Goodwill, Salvation Army, and local charity shops often have hidden gems at low prices. These items will have been washed and will likely be in good shape. But it also takes a lot of footwork.

For all of these sources, focus on quality. Buyers seek something cool, vintage, or sustainable.

Selling

Selling secondhand apparel is little different than any form of multichannel ecommerce. Merchants can set up a store on any popular ecommerce platform and advertise to drive traffic and conversions.

Social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X are proven channels for used products. Live streaming newly discovered items could be effective. Many prominent marketplaces — eBay, Mercari, Etsy — allow for secondhand and vintage clothing. Peer-to-peer portals such as Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and Craigslist are promising options, too.

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Mar 22 2025
Inside a new quest to save the “doomsday glacier”

The Thwaites glacier is a fortress larger than Florida, a wall of ice that reaches nearly 4,000 feet above the bedrock of West Antarctica, guarding the low-lying ice sheet behind it.

But a strong, warm ocean current is weakening its foundations and accelerating its slide into the Amundsen Sea. Scientists fear the waters could topple the walls in the coming decades, kick-starting a runaway process that would crack up the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

That would mark the start of a global climate disaster. The glacier itself holds enough ice to raise ocean levels by more than two feet, which could flood coastlines and force tens of millions of people living in low-lying areas to abandon their homes.

The loss of the entire ice sheet—which could still take centuries to unfold—would push up sea levels by 11 feet and redraw the contours of the continents.

This is why Thwaites is known as the doomsday glacier—and why scientists are eager to understand just how likely such a collapse is, when it could happen, and if we have the power to stop it. 

Scientists at MIT and Dartmouth College founded Arête Glacier Initiative last year in the hope of providing clearer answers to these questions. The nonprofit research organization will officially unveil itself, launch its website, and post requests for research proposals today, March 21, timed to coincide with the UN’s inaugural World Day for Glaciers, MIT Technology Review can report exclusively. 

Arête will also announce it is issuing its first grants, each for around $200,000 over two years, to a pair of glacier researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

One of the organization’s main goals is to study the possibility of preventing the loss of giant glaciers, Thwaites in particular, by refreezing them to the bedrock. It would represent a radical intervention into the natural world, requiring a massive, expensive engineering project in a remote, treacherous environment. 

But the hope is that such a mega-adaptation project could minimize the mass relocation of climate refugees, prevent much of the suffering and violence that would almost certainly accompany it, and help nations preserve trillions of dollars invested in high-rises, roads, homes, ports, and airports around the globe.

“About a million people are displaced per centimeter of sea-level rise,” says Brent Minchew, an associate professor of geophysics at MIT, who cofounded Arête Glacier Initiative and will serve as its chief scientist. “If we’re able to bring that down, even by a few centimeters, then we would safeguard the homes of millions.”

But some scientists believe the idea is an implausible, wildly expensive distraction, drawing money, expertise, time, and resources away from more essential polar research efforts. 

“Sometimes we can get a little over-optimistic about what engineering can do,” says Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Two possible futures”

Minchew, who earned his PhD in geophysics at Caltech, says he was drawn to studying glaciers because they are rapidly transforming as the world warms, increasing the dangers of sea-level rise. 

“But over the years, I became less content with simply telling a more dramatic story about how things were going and more open to asking the question of what can we do about it,” says Minchew, who will return to Caltech as a professor this summer.

Last March, he cofounded Arête Glacier Initiative with Colin Meyer, an assistant professor of engineering at Dartmouth, in the hope of funding and directing research to improve scientific understanding of two big questions: How big a risk does sea-level rise pose in the coming decades, and can we minimize that risk?

Brent Minchew, an MIT professor of geophysics, co-founded Arête Glacier Initiative and will serve as its chief scientist.
COURTESY: BRENT MINCHEW

“Philanthropic funding is needed to address both of these challenges, because there’s no private-sector funding for this kind of research and government funding is minuscule,” says Mike Schroepfer, the former Meta chief technology officer turned climate philanthropist, who provided funding to Arête through his new organization, Outlier Projects. 

The nonprofit has now raised about $5 million from Outlier and other donors, including the Navigation Fund, the Kissick Family Foundation, the Sky Foundation, the Wedner Family Foundation, and the Grantham Foundation. 

Minchew says they named the organization Arête, mainly because it’s the sharp mountain ridge between two valleys, generally left behind when a glacier carves out the cirques on either side. It directs the movement of the glacier and is shaped by it. 

It’s meant to symbolize “two possible futures,” he says. “One where we do something; one where we do nothing.”

Improving forecasts

The somewhat reassuring news is that, even with rising global temperatures, it may still take thousands of years for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to completely melt. 

In addition, sea-level rise forecasts for this century generally range from as little as 0.28 meters (11 inches) to 1.10 meters (about three and a half feet), according to the latest UN climate panel report. The latter only occurs under a scenario with very high greenhouse gas emissions (SSP5-8.5), which significantly exceeds the pathway the world is now on.

But there’s still a “low-likelihood” that ocean levels could surge nearly two meters (about six and a half feet) by 2100 that “cannot be excluded,” given “deep uncertainty linked to ice-sheet processes,” the report adds. 

Two meters of sea-level rise could force nearly 190 million people to migrate away from the coasts, unless regions build dikes or other shoreline protections, according to some models. Many more people, mainly in the tropics, would face heightened flooding dangers.

Much of the uncertainty over what will happen this century comes down to scientists’ limited understanding of how Antarctic ice sheets will respond to growing climate pressures.

The initial goal of Arête Glacier Initiative is to help narrow the forecast ranges by improving our grasp of how Thwaites and other glaciers move, melt, and break apart.

Gravity is the driving force nudging glaciers along the bedrock and reshaping them as they flow. But many of the variables that determine how fast they slide lie at the base. That includes the type of sediment the river of ice slides along; the size of the boulders and outcroppings it contorts around; and the warmth and strength of the ocean waters that lap at its face.

In addition, heat rising from deep in the earth warms the ice closest to the ground, creating a lubricating layer of water that hastens the glacier’s slide. That acceleration, in turn, generates more frictional heat that melts still more of the ice, creating a self-reinforcing feedback effect.

Minchew and Meyer are confident that the glaciology field is at a point where it could speed up progress in sea-level rise forecasting, thanks largely to improving observational tools that are producing more and better data.

That includes a new generation of satellites orbiting the planet that can track the shifting shape of ice at the poles at far higher resolutions than in the recent past. Computer simulations of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice are improving as well, thanks to growing computational resources and advancing machine learning techniques.

On March 21, Arête will issue a request for proposals from research teams to contribute to an effort to collect, organize, and openly publish existing observational glacier data. Much of that expensively gathered information is currently inaccessible to researchers around the world, Minchew says.

Colin Meyer, an assistant professor of engineering at Dartmouth, co-founded Arête Glacier Initiative.
ELI BURAK

By funding teams working across these areas, Arête’s founders hope to help produce more refined ice-sheet models and narrower projections of sea-level rise.

This improved understanding would help cities plan where to build new bridges, buildings, and homes, and to determine whether they’ll need to erect higher seawalls or raise their roads, Meyer says. It could also provide communities with more advance notice of the coming dangers, allowing them to relocate people and infrastructure to safer places through an organized process known as managed retreat.

A radical intervention

But the improved forecasts might also tell us that Thwaites is closer to tumbling into the ocean than we think, underscoring the importance of considering more drastic measures.

One idea is to build berms or artificial islands to prop up fragile parts of glaciers, and to block the warm waters that rise from the deep ocean and melt them from below. Some researchers have also considered erecting giant, flexible curtains anchored to the seabed to achieve the latter effect.

Others have looked at scattering highly reflective beads or other materials across ice sheets, or pumping ocean water onto them in the hopes it would freeze during the winter and reinforce the headwalls of the glaciers.

But the concept of refreezing glaciers in place, know as a basal intervention, is gaining traction in scientific circles, in part because there’s a natural analogue for it.

The glacier that stalled

About 200 years ago, the Kamb Ice Stream, another glacier in West Antarctica that had been sliding about 350 meters (1,150 feet) per year, suddenly stalled.

Glaciologists believe an adjacent ice stream intersected with the catchment area under the glacier, providing a path for the water running below it to flow out along the edge instead. That loss of fluid likely slowed down the Kamb Ice Stream, reduced the heat produced through friction, and allowed water at the surface to refreeze.

The deceleration of the glacier sparked the idea that humans might be able to bring about that same phenomenon deliberately, perhaps by drilling a series of boreholes down to the bedrock and pumping up water from the bottom.

Minchew himself has focused on a variation he believes could avoid much of the power use and heavy operating machinery hassles of that approach: slipping long tubular devices, known as thermosyphons, down nearly to the bottom of the boreholes. 

These passive heat exchangers, which are powered only by the temperature differential between two areas, are commonly used to keep permafrost cold around homes, buildings and pipelines in Arctic regions. The hope is that we could deploy extremely long ones, stretching up to two kilometers and encased in steel pipe, to draw warm temperatures away from the bottom of the glacier, allowing the water below to freeze.

Minchew says he’s in the process of producing refined calculations, but estimates that halting Thwaites could require drilling as many as 10,000 boreholes over a 100-square-kilometer area.

He readily acknowledges that would be a huge undertaking, but provides two points of comparison to put such a project into context: Melting the necessary ice to create those holes would require roughly the amount of energy all US domestic flights consume from jet fuel in about two and a half hours. Or, it would produce about the same level of greenhouse gas emissions as constructing 10 kilometers of seawalls, a small fraction of the length the world would need to build if it can’t slow down the collapse of the ice sheets, he says.

“Kick the system”

One of Arête’s initial grantees is Marianne Haseloff, an assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies the physical processes that govern the behavior of glaciers and is striving to more faithfully represent them in ice sheet models. 

Haseloff says she will use those funds to develop mathematical methods that could more accurately determine what’s known as basal shear stress, or the resistance of the bed to sliding glaciers, based on satellite observations. That could help refine forecasts of how rapidly glaciers will slide into the ocean, in varying settings and climate conditions.

Arête’s other initial grant will go to Lucas Zoet, an associate professor in the same department as Haseloff and the principal investigator with the Surface Processes group.

He intends to use the funds to build the lab’s second “ring shear” device, the technical term for a simulated glacier.

The existing device, which is the only one operating in the world, stands about eight feet tall and fills the better part of a walk-in freezer on campus. The core of the machine is a transparent drum filled with a ring of ice, sitting under pressure and atop a layer of sediment. It slowly spins for weeks at a time as sensors and cameras capture how the ice and earth move and deform.

Lucas Zoet, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, stands in front of his lab’s “ring shear” device, a simulated glacier.
ETHAN PARRISH

The research team can select the sediment, topography, water pressure, temperature, and other conditions to match the environment of a real-world glacier of interest, be it Thwaites today—or Thwaites in 2100, under a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario. 

Zoet says these experiments promise to improve our understanding of how glaciers move over different types of beds, and to refine an equation known as the slip law, which represents these glacier dynamics mathematically in computer models.

The second machine will enable them to run more experiments and to conduct a specific kind that the current device can’t: a scaled-down, controlled version of the basal intervention.

Zoet says the team will be able to drill tiny holes through the ice, then pump out water or transfer heat away from the bed. They can then observe whether the simulated glacier freezes to the base at those points and experiment with how many interventions, across how much space, are required to slow down its movement.

It offers a way to test out different varieties of the basal intervention that is far easier and cheaper than using water drills to bore to the bottom of an actual glacier in Antarctica, Zoet says. The funding will allow the lab to explore a wide range of experiments, enabling them to “kick the system in a way we wouldn’t have before,” he adds.

“Virtually impossible”

The concept of glacier interventions is in its infancy. There are still considerable unknowns and uncertainties, including how much it would cost, how arduous the undertaking would be, and which approach would be most likely to work, or if any of them are feasible.

“This is mostly a theoretical idea at this point,” says Katharine Ricke, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, who researches the international relations implications of geoengineering, among other topics.

Conducting extensive field trials or moving forward with full-scale interventions may also require surmounting complex legal questions, she says. Antarctica isn’t owned by any nation, but it’s the subject of competing territorial claims among a number of countries and governed under a decades-old treaty to which dozens are a party.

The basal intervention—refreezing the glacier to its bed—faces numerous technical hurdles that would make it “virtually impossible to execute,” Moon and dozens of other researchers argued in a recent preprint paper, “Safeguarding the polar regions from dangerous geoengineering.”

Among other critiques, they stress that subglacial water systems are complex, dynamic, and interconnected, making it highly difficult to precisely identify and drill down to all the points that would be necessary to draw away enough water or heat to substantially slow down a massive glacier.

Further, they argue that the interventions could harm polar ecosystems by adding contaminants, producing greenhouse gases, or altering the structure of the ice in ways that may even increase sea-level rise.

“Overwhelmingly, glacial and polar geoengineering ideas do not make sense to pursue, in terms of the finances, the governance challenges, the impacts,” and the possibility of making matters worse, Moon says.

“No easy path forward”

But Douglas MacAyeal, professor emeritus of glaciology at the University of Chicago, says the basal intervention would have the lightest environmental impact among the competing ideas. He adds that nature has already provided an example of it working, and that much of the needed drilling and pumping technology is already in use in the oil industry.

“I would say it’s the strongest approach at the starting gate,” he says, “but we don’t really know anything about it yet. The research still has to be done. It’s very cutting-edge.”

A Sunday morning sunrise was enjoyed by personnel on board the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer as it moved into the Bellingshausen Sea. The cruise had been in the Amundsen Sea region participating in the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration. 
The Nathaniel B. Palmer heads into the Bellinghausen sea.
CINDY DEAN/UNITED STATES ANTARCTIC PROGRAM

Minchew readily acknowledges that there are big challenges and significant unknowns—and that some of these ideas may not work.

But he says it’s well worth the effort to study the possibilities, in part because much of the research will also improve our understanding of glacier dynamics and the risks of sea-level rise—and in part because it’s only a question of when, not if, Thwaites will collapse.

Even if the world somehow halted all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, the forces melting that fortress of ice will continue to do so. 

So one way or another, the world will eventually need to make big, expensive, difficult interventions to protect people and infrastructure. The cost and effort of doing one project in Antarctica, he says, would be dwarfed by the global effort required to erect thousands of miles of seawalls, ratchet up homes, buildings, and roads, and relocate hundreds of millions of people.

“One thing is challenging—and the other is even more challenging,” Minchew says. “There’s no easy path forward.”

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Mar 22 2025
Autopsies can reveal intimate health details. Should they be kept private?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been following news of the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa. It was heartbreaking to hear how Arakawa appeared to have died from a rare infection days before her husband, who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and may have struggled to understand what had happened.

But as I watched the medical examiner reveal details of the couple’s health, I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable. Media reports claim that the couple liked their privacy and had been out of the spotlight for decades. But here I was, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, being told what pills Arakawa had in her medicine cabinet, and that Hackman had undergone multiple surgeries.

It made me wonder: Should autopsy reports be kept private? A person’s cause of death is public information. But what about other intimate health details that might be revealed in a postmortem examination?

The processes and regulations surrounding autopsies vary by country, so we’ll focus on the US, where Hackman and Arakawa died. Here, a “medico-legal” autopsy may be organized by law enforcement agencies and handled through courts, while a “clinical” autopsy may be carried out at the request of family members.

And there are different levels of autopsy—some might involve examining specific organs or tissues, while more thorough examinations would involve looking at every organ and studying tissues in the lab.

The goal of an autopsy is to discover the cause of a person’s death. Autopsy reports, especially those resulting from detailed investigations, often reveal health conditions—conditions that might have been kept private while the person was alive. There are multiple federal and state laws designed to protect individuals’ health information. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects “individually identifiable health information” up to 50 years after a person’s death. But some things change when a person dies.

For a start, the cause of death will end up on the death certificate. That is public information. The public nature of causes of death is taken for granted these days, says Lauren Solberg, a bioethicist at the University of Florida College of Medicine. It has become a public health statistic. She and her student Brooke Ortiz, who have been researching this topic, are more concerned about other aspects of autopsy results.

The thing is, autopsies can sometimes reveal more than what a person died from. They can also pick up what are known as incidental findings. An examiner might find that a person who died following a covid-19 infection also had another condition. Perhaps that condition was undiagnosed. Maybe it was asymptomatic. That finding wouldn’t appear on a death certificate. So who should have access to it?

The laws over who should have access to a person’s autopsy report vary by state, and even between counties within a state. Clinical autopsy results will always be made available to family members, but local laws dictate which family members have access, says Ortiz.

Genetic testing further complicates things. Sometimes the people performing autopsies will run genetic tests to help confirm the cause of death. These tests might reveal what the person died from. But they might also flag genetic factors unrelated to the cause of death that might increase the risk of other diseases.

In those cases, the person’s family members might stand to benefit from accessing that information. “My health information is my health information—until it comes to my genetic health information,” says Solberg. Genes are shared by relatives. Should they have the opportunity to learn about potential risks to their own health?

This is where things get really complicated. Ethically speaking, we should consider the wishes of the deceased. Would that person have wanted to share this information with relatives?

It’s also worth bearing in mind that a genetic risk factor is often just that; there’s often no way to know whether a person will develop a disease, or how severe the symptoms would be. And if the genetic risk is for a disease that has no treatment or cure, will telling the person’s relatives just cause them a lot of stress?

One 27-year-old experienced this when a 23&Me genetic test told her she had “a 28% chance of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease by age 75 and a 60% chance by age 85.”

“I’m suddenly overwhelmed by this information,” she posted on a dementia forum. “I can’t help feeling this overwhelming sense of dread and sadness that I’ll never be able to un-know this information.”

In their research, Solberg and Ortiz came across cases in which individuals who had died in motor vehicle accidents underwent autopsies that revealed other, asymptomatic conditions. One man in his 40s who died in such an accident was found to have a genetic kidney disease. A 23-year-old was found to have had kidney cancer.

Ideally, both medical teams and family members should know ahead of time what a person would have wanted—whether that’s an autopsy, genetic testing, or health privacy. Advance directives allow people to clarify their wishes for end-of-life care. But only around a third of people in the US have completed one. And they tend to focus on care before death, not after.

Solberg and Ortiz think they should be expanded. An advance directive could specify how people want to share their health information after they’ve died. “Talking about death is difficult,” says Solberg. “For physicians, for patients, for families—it can be uncomfortable.” But it is important.

On March 17, a New Mexico judge granted a request from a representative of Hackman’s estate to seal police photos and bodycam footage as well as the medical records of Hackman and Arakawa. The medical investigator is “temporarily restrained from disclosing … the Autopsy Reports and/or Death Investigation Reports for Mr. and Mrs. Hackman,” according to Deadline.

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

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Mar 22 2025
The Download: saving the “doomsday glacier,” and Europe’s hopes for its rockets

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Inside a new quest to save the “doomsday glacier”

The Thwaites glacier is a fortress larger than Florida, a wall of ice that reaches nearly 4,000 feet above the bedrock of West Antarctica, guarding the low-lying ice sheet behind it.

But a strong, warm ocean current is weakening its foundations and accelerating its slide into the sea. Scientists fear the waters could topple the walls in the coming decades, kick-starting a runaway process that would crack up the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, marking the start of a global climate disaster. As a result, they are eager to understand just how likely such a collapse is, when it could happen, and if we have the power to stop it. 

Scientists at MIT and Dartmouth College founded Arête Glacier Initiative last year in the hope of providing clearer answers to these questions. The nonprofit research organization will officially unveil itself, launch its website, and post requests for research proposals today, timed to coincide with the UN’s inaugural World Day for Glaciers, MIT Technology Review can report exclusively. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Europe is finally getting serious about commercial rockets

Europe is on the cusp of a new dawn in commercial space technology. As global political tensions intensify and relationships with the US become increasingly strained, several European companies are now planning to conduct their own launches in an attempt to reduce the continent’s reliance on American rockets.

In the coming days, Isar Aerospace, a company based in Munich, will try to launch its Spectrum rocket from a site in the frozen reaches of Andøya island in Norway. A spaceport has been built there to support small commercial rockets, and Spectrum is the first to make an attempt.


Regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, the launch attempt heralds an important moment as Europe tries to kick-start its own private rocket industry. It and other launches scheduled for later this year could give Europe multiple ways to reach space without having to rely on US rockets. Read the full story.

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

Autopsies can reveal intimate health details. Should they be kept private?

—Jessica Hamzelou

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been following news of the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa. It was heartbreaking to hear how Arakawa appeared to have died from a rare infection days before her husband, who had advanced Alzheimer’s disease and may have struggled to understand what had happened.

But as I watched the medical examiner reveal details of the couple’s health, I couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable. Media reports claim that the couple liked their privacy and had been out of the spotlight for decades. But here I was, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, being told what pills Arakawa had in her medicine cabinet, and that Hackman had undergone multiple surgeries.

Should autopsy reports be kept private? A person’s cause of death is public information. But what about other intimate health details that might be revealed in a postmortem examination? Read the full story.

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Elon Musk will be briefed on the US’s top-secret plans for war with China
Despite Tesla’s reliance on China, and SpaceX’s role as a US defense contractor. (WSJ $)
+ Other private companies could only dream of having access to sensitive military data. (NYT $)

2 Take a look inside the library of pirated books that Meta trains its AI on 
It considered paying for the books, but decided to use LibGen instead. (The Atlantic $)
+ “Copyright traps” could tell writers if an AI has scraped their work. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A judge has blocked DOGE from accessing social security systems
She accused DOGE of failing to explain why it needed to see the private data of millions of Americans. (TechCrunch)
+ Federal workers grilled a Trump appointee during an all-hands meeting. (Wired $)
+ Can AI help DOGE slash government budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The Trump administration is poised to shut down an anti-censorship fund
The project, which helps internet users living under oppressive regimes, is under threat. (WP $)
+ Tens of millions will lose access to secure and trusted VPNs. (Bloomberg $)
+ Activists are reckoning with a US retreat from promoting digital rights. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Tesla is recalling tens of thousands of Cybertrucks
After it used the wrong glue to attach its steel panels. (Fast Company $)
+It’s the largest Cybertruck recall to date. (BBC)

6 This crypto billionaire has his sights set on the stars
Jed McCaleb is the sole backer of an ambitious space station project. (Bloomberg $)
+ Is DOGE going to come for NASA? (New Yorker $)

7 The irresistible allure of Spotify
Maybe algorithms aren’t all bad, after all. (Vox)
+ By delivering what people seem to want, has Spotify killed the joy of music discovery? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Dating apps and AI? It’s complicated 💔
While some are buzzing at the prospect of romantic AI agents, others aren’t so sure. (Insider $)

9 Crypto bars are becoming a thing
And Washington is the first casualty. (The Verge)

10 The ways we use emojis is evolving 🤠
Are you up to date? (FT $)

Quote of the day

“It’s an assault, and a particularly cruel one to use my work to train the monster that threatens the ruination of original literature.”

—Author AJ West, whose books were included in the library of pirated material Meta used to train its AI model, calls for the company to compensate writers in a post on Bluesky.

The big story

Are we alone in the universe?

November 2023

The quest to determine if anyone or anything is out there has gained a greater scientific footing over the past 50 years. Back then, astronomers had yet to spot a single planet outside our solar system. Now we know the galaxy is teeming with a diversity of worlds.

We’re now getting closer than ever before to learning how common living worlds like ours actually are. New tools, including artificial intelligence, could help scientists look past their preconceived notions of what constitutes life.

Future instruments will sniff the atmospheres of distant planets and scan samples from our local solar system to see if they contain telltale chemicals in the right proportions for organisms to prosper. But determining whether these planets actually contain organisms is no easy task. Read the full story.

—Adam Mann

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Get your weekend off to a good start with these beautiful nebulas.
+ Justice for Mariah: a judge has ruled that she didn’t steal All I Want For Christmas Is You from other writers.
+ We’re no longer extremely online any more apparently—so what are we?
+ The fascinating tale of White Mana, one of America’s oldest burger joints. 🍔

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Mar 22 2025
OpenAI has released its first research into how using ChatGPT affects people’s emotional wellbeing

OpenAI says over 400 million people use ChatGPT every week. But how does interacting with it affect us? Does it make us more or less lonely? These are some of the questions OpenAI set out to investigate, in partnership with the MIT Media Lab, in a pair of new studies. 

They found that only a small subset of users engage emotionally with ChatGPT. This isn’t surprising given that ChatGPT isn’t marketed as an AI companion app like Replika or Character.AI, says Kate Devlin, a professor of AI and society at King’s College London, who did not work on the project. “ChatGPT has been set up as a productivity tool,” she says. “But we know that people are using it like a companion app anyway.” In fact, the people who do use it that way are likely to interact with it for extended periods of time, some of them averaging about half an hour a day. 

“The authors are very clear about what the limitations of these studies are, but it’s exciting to see they’ve done this,” Devlin says. “To have access to this level of data is incredible.” 

The researchers found some intriguing differences between how men and women respond to using ChatGPT. After using the chatbot for four weeks, female study participants were slightly less likely to socialize with people than their male counterparts who did the same. Meanwhile, participants who interacted with ChatGPT’s voice mode in a gender that was not their own for their interactions reported significantly higher levels of loneliness and more emotional dependency on the chatbot at the end of the experiment. OpenAI plans to submit both studies to peer-reviewed journals.

Chatbots powered by large language models are still a nascent technology, and it’s difficult to study how they affect us emotionally. A lot of existing research in the area—including some of the new work by OpenAI and MIT—relies upon self-reported data, which may not always be accurate or reliable. That said, this latest research does chime with what scientists so far have discovered about how emotionally compelling chatbot conversations can be. For example, in 2023 MIT Media Lab researchers found that chatbots tend to mirror the emotional sentiment of a user’s messages, suggesting a kind of feedback loop where the happier you act, the happier the AI seems, or on the flipside, if you act sadder, so does the AI.  

OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab used a two-pronged method. First they collected and analyzed real-world data from close to 40 million interactions with ChatGPT. Then they asked the 4,076 users who’d had those interactions how they made them feel. Next, the Media Lab recruited almost 1,000 people to take part in a four-week trial. This was more in-depth, examining how participants interacted with ChatGPT for a minimum of five minutes each day. At the end of the experiment, participants completed a questionnaire to measure their perceptions of the chatbot, their subjective feelings of loneliness, their levels of social engagement, their emotional dependence on the bot, and their sense of whether their use of the bot was problematic. They found that participants who trusted and “bonded” with ChatGPT more were likelier than others to be lonely, and to rely on it more. 

This work is an important first step toward greater insight into ChatGPT’s impact on us, which could help AI platforms enable safer and healthier interactions, says Jason Phang, an OpenAI safety researcher who worked on the project.

“A lot of what we’re doing here is preliminary, but we’re trying to start the conversation with the field about the kinds of things that we can start to measure, and to start thinking about what the long-term impact on users is,” he says.

Although the research is welcome, it’s still difficult to identify when a human is—and isn’t—engaging with technology on an emotional level, says Devlin. She says the study participants may have been experiencing emotions that weren’t recorded by the researchers.

“In terms of what the teams set out to measure, people might not necessarily have been using ChatGPT in an emotional way, but you can’t divorce being a human from your interactions [with technology],” she says. “We use these emotion classifiers that we have created to look for certain things—but what that actually means to someone’s life is really hard to extrapolate.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated that study participants set the gender of ChatGPT’s voice, and that OpenAI did not plan to publish either study. Study participants were assigned the voice mode gender, and OpenAI plans to submit both studies to peer-reviewed journals. The article has since been updated.

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Mar 22 2025
How BNPL Impacts Ecommerce Profits

Buy-now-pay-later options offer shoppers a convenient, flexible, and often low-cost way to finance purchases, but merchants may pay relatively steep transaction fees.

BNPL is popular, and customers likely spend more when it is available. The downside to merchants is the cost, typically a 2% to 8% fee for BNPL transactions versus roughly 3% for payment cards alone.

With fees as high as 8%, store owners must ask whether the additional sales from BNPL are worthwhile. The short answer is probably “yes,” although reminiscing and math will make it more clear.

Free Shipping

Fast and free shipping has become a staple of the ecommerce industry. For some online segments, such as fashion and toys, free shipping is a competitive requirement and an ante to participate. Yet years ago, merchants worried that shipping costs would break them.

The free shipping dilemma was simple: Customers loved it. A shopper was more likely to buy if shipping was free. The challenge for merchants was ensuring the additional revenue covered the expense.

Today, almost no seller worries about free shipping. Merchants adjusted prices. Distribution and warehousing models became decentralized, moving products close to customers. Ecommerce thrived.

BNPL presents a similar problem. It boosts gross revenue but at a cost.

BNPL Lift

One way to measure BNPL’s impact on profit is to compare the increase in sales to the relatively higher transaction fees.

Imagine an online store with sales of $100,000 per month before it adds a BNPL option.

  • Revenue: $100,000
  • Credit card fees (3%): $3,000
  • Net revenue after fees: $97,000

The shop nets 97% of the gross revenue without considering the cost of goods sold, overhead, advertising, et cetera.

Next, let’s assume that adding BNPL improves top-line revenue by 20% (to $120,000) and prompts some buyers to switch to BNPL so that only 70% of sales come from payment cards and 30% from BNPL.

We need to calculate the total blended fee. First, we know payment cards cost 3% of $84,000 (70% of $120,000), which is $2,520.

For a 6% BNPL fee, the shop would pay $2,160 on $36,000 (30% of $120,000) in sales. Thus, the total fees paid for the improved $120,000 would total $4,680, making the blended fee 3.9%.

  • Revenue: $120,000
  • Blended fees (3.9%): $4,680
  • Net revenue after fees: $115,320

In short, net revenue was $97,000 without BNPL and $115,320 with it — 97% and 96.1%, respectively, of gross revenue.

BNPL Impact

A slight decrease in net revenue percentage might be well worth it for a nominal increase of $18,320 ($115,320 – $97,000).

The real bottom line is that BNPL is here to stay. Merchants must understand how it impacts profit. The BNPL dilemma is similar to free shipping years ago. Merchants have a track record of adapting to succeed.

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Mar 22 2025
Branding Is More Than a Logo

This “Ecommerce Conversations” episode continues my masterclass series on entrepreneurship. Last week I addressed tactics to increase ecommerce profits amid a slump for many businesses.

This week I focus on branding. Most people think of branding as logos or design elements. But those items are components, not the essence. A brand is synonymous with a company’s mission and purpose.

My full audio narration is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.

Mission

A founder’s outlook drives the brand. What does she or he want to achieve? For me, it’s freedom — creating my own path. If unsure, reflect on why you exist and your purpose in life. Then shape your business around it.

A common struggle of entrepreneurs is feeling trapped in a business they don’t love. That happens when there’s no mission. My mission at Beardbrand is to help men live the life of their dreams through grooming. We want men to feel proud of the person in the mirror. When a man invests in himself, he gains the confidence to better his family and community  — making the world a more loving place.

Values

Core values are essential. Beardbrand’s are freedom, hunger, and trust. I prefer single-word values because they’re easier to remember. If you can’t recall your core values, they don’t exist. At Beardbrand, everyone knows our core values because they are clear and concise.

We boiled ours down to three concepts working in harmony. For instance, too much freedom might reduce trust, while too much hunger could limit freedom. These checks and balances are critical for us. However, a fast-growing startup might focus on hunger to survive and conquer a market. Core values should reflect personal beliefs extended into business.

Core values guide decisions amid uncertainty. For instance, we look for vendors that share our worldview. Our best relationships have been with companies that align with our values.

Communication

Communication should be consistent across an entire company — internal discussions, customer interactions, ads, emails, and websites. Many people default to formal, grammatically correct language, thinking it’s the right way. But, to me, it’s boring and lifeless.

Communication should have passion, character, and conviction. There’s often a tendency to play it safe, especially when advised by lawyers. However, playing it safe isn’t always the right approach. Sometimes, breaking the rules — such as using informal or edgy language — can make your brand stand out without alienating an audience.

Customer support should be human. Too often, support teams attempt to defuse situations by being robotic, which worsens the problem. Human interactions help resolve issues with greater ease.

At Beardbrand, we talk to our customers the way we talk to friends. We avoid formal language because authenticity is key to building trust, one of our core values.

Customer support must align with the type of product you offer. A premium product demands top-tier support, while a lower-priced item might not.

Many brands overlook typography, a form of communication. Fonts can tell a lot about a brand and how much it cares about design. Most smaller brands stick to safe fonts like Arial or Helvetica, which makes them blend in with everyone else.

Others will shape your brand if you aren’t intentional with fonts, logos, colors, and photography.

Fonts can create consistency. Without consistency, your brand’s identity can become unclear, leading to mixed messages.

Impact

A brand is an extension of its founders and staff and how they want to impact the world. Philip Jackson, the founder of Future Commerce, says commerce is culture. Companies that succeed know this.

Entrepreneurs make the world a better place through their businesses. Branding reflects that mission. It’s more than a logo.

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