Mar 10 2025
The Top 3 YouTube Trends To Pay Attention To Right Now via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

The search and marketing community should pay closer attention to YouTube.

According to the latest Global Digital Report, YouTube.com is the second most visited website in the world, behind Google.com but ahead of Facebook.com in third place.

Perhaps more importantly, YouTube is one of the top referrers of traffic to other websites – 18.73% of the traffic to the top 10,000 websites comes from Google.com, but 6.44% comes from YouTube.com.

This means we should also pay closer attention to the top three YouTube trends.

1. BrightEdge Data Reveals YouTube’s Growing Influence On AI Search Results

The first YouTube trend that we should focus on comes from new data that says AI Overviews are increasingly citing YouTube content, particularly instructional and how-to videos.

BrightEdge’s Generative Parser has uncovered a significant upward trend in YouTube citations within AI-generated search results, showing a 25.21% increase since January 1 and a 36.66% month-over-month growth from January to February.

Analysis of keywords used in AI Overviews that cite YouTube reveals a strong emphasis on:

  • Instructional content with 35.6%, including “how-to” queries with 22.4%.
  • Visual demonstrations with 32.5%, including physical techniques and style guides.
  • Verification/examples with 22.5%, including product comparisons and visual proof.
  • Current events with 9.4%, including breaking news and live coverage.

This highlights a clear shift towards AI Overviews leveraging video content for visual demonstrations, step-by-step tutorials, product comparisons, and real-world examples.

However, the use of YouTube citations varies across industries.

Healthcare leads with 41.97% of AI Overviews citing YouTube, followed by ecommerce at 30.87% and B2B tech at 18.68%.

Other industries like finance (9.52%), travel (8.65%), insurance (8.62%), and education (3.87%) also utilize YouTube in their AI Overviews, though at lower rates.

These patterns suggest that AI Overviews actively integrate video content to provide richer and more comprehensive answers, especially in areas requiring visual or practical demonstrations.

BrightEdge’s analysis suggests prioritizing product demos, step-by-step tutorials, and comparison content in video strategies to align with these citation patterns.

Since the full rollout of AI Overviews in May 2024, BrightEdge has tracked their impact across various industries.

While presence varies over time, healthcare and education continues to show notable trends.

Healthcare maintains a strong AIO presence, appearing in 63% of queries, which rises to 80% for question-based searches. In education, only 14% of queries trigger an AIO, but jumps to 75% when the keyword includes “skills.”

Significant increases in AIO presence have also been observed in B2B tech, ecommerce, and insurance.

Entertainment has seen a decrease in AIO presence, possibly due to the strong presence of knowledge graphs and universal results, which already fulfill user intent.

With the introduction of Gemini 2, further growth in AIO presence is expected.

Furthermore, BrightEdge’s research indicates a trend toward AI Overviews favoring authoritative brands.

In healthcare, where accuracy is crucial, 72% of AI Overview answers come from established medical research centers, up from 54% in January.

Similarly, in B2B technology, 15-22% of search queries are answered by content from leading companies like Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft.

This suggests that AI Overviews prioritize trustworthy sources to enhance the quality and reliability of their responses.

“This growth in YouTube is significant for two reasons,” Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, said in an email.

“First, as a user generated content platform, it provides businesses with an additional platform to either leverage their community’s voice or directly build content that could function as a citation. This means brands have additional resource that could function as an AI Citation,” he said.

“The second significant reason is that sourcing YouTube is a clear demonstration of Gemini’s (the AI powering AIO’s) multi-modal capabilities.

Videos have been part of a search result for years, but in these instances, text such as the descriptions or transcripts, if available, are used to rank the video.

Now, with Gemini, we’re seeing that actual content in the video can be cited to help generate an answer to a query. This means that details in the video product review that may not be available via text can be used to generate an answer,” he added.

2. YouTube Shorts Creators Get AI Boost With Veo 2-Powered Dream Screen

The second YouTube trend we should focus on is from a YouTube announcement that it enhanced its Dream Screen feature on Shorts by integrating its new Veo 2 video generation model.

This upgrade significantly improves the process of creating AI-powered backgrounds and even standalone video clips for Shorts.

Dream Screen, which allows users to generate AI-driven backgrounds using text prompts, now benefits from Veo 2’s faster generation speeds, higher-quality visuals, and expanded capabilities.

Veo 2 enables more detailed visual output and supports a wider range of subjects. Beyond backgrounds, users can now generate entire short video clips.

To create a video background, users select the Shorts camera, choose the Green Screen option, then Dream Screen, and input their desired background description.

Dream Screen then provides AI-generated options.

For standalone clips, users open the Shorts camera and media picker, tap “Create,” enter a prompt, select the format (image or video), edit the length, and add it to their Short.

Google will apply SynthID watermarks and clear labels to all AI-generated content.

Veo 2 is currently available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with a global rollout planned for the future. This should accelerate the growth of YouTube Shorts.

According to a Pixability report, the number of daily views has skyrocketed since 2021, reaching over 70 billion in 2024. This massive amount of viewing is equal to over 100,000 years of watch time every single day.

While YouTube Shorts are primarily designed for viewing on mobile devices, they are accessible on any device with a screen, including televisions.

Interestingly, TV viewership of Shorts is increasing at a fast pace, suggesting that it will soon account for a significant portion of all Shorts views.

The Pixability report also provided the following advice:

  • Boasting over 70 billion daily views, YouTube Shorts are a crucial platform that every brand needs to consider in their marketing strategy.
  • Brands should actively create organic Shorts content for their YouTube channels, alongside their longer videos, to boost audience engagement.
  • Even when not specifically targeting Shorts content, using vertical video ads can be surprisingly effective within standard horizontal ad placements.
  • However, if your main objective is video completion, then advertising on Shorts content may not be the most effective approach.
  • Maintaining brand suitability on Shorts requires careful use of placement targeting and exclusion.
  • YouTube offers a unique opportunity to combine long-form video ads on TV screens with short-form ads on mobile devices within a single campaign, allowing brands to maximize their reach across different viewing experiences.

According to data from Tubular Intelligence, 30.4 million accounts uploaded 1.1 billion videos to YouTube worldwide over the last 365 days. These videos got a total of 31.5 trillion views and 947 billion engagements (e.g., likes, comments, and shares).

Of this total, 20.2 million accounts uploaded 516 million Shorts during that period. And these Shorts got a total of 24.6 trillion views and 768 billion engagements.

So, close to half of the videos uploaded to YouTube in the last year were Shorts, and they got 78% of the views and 81% of the engagements on the social video platform.

3. US Viewers Now Favor TVs For Watching YouTube Content

This brings us to the third YouTube trend, where YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced a significant shift in viewing habits: TV screens have become the most popular way to watch YouTube in the United States, surpassing mobile devices.

This milestone was supported by data showing over 1 billion hours of daily YouTube consumption on TVs, and Nielsen data confirming YouTube’s dominance in streaming watch time for the past two years.

Mohan attributed this growth to YouTube’s seamless integration with smart TVs and streaming devices.

This change in audience behavior presents marketers with dramatically new advertising opportunities.

For example, this shift towards TV viewing opens doors for innovative ad formats.

QR codes displayed on TV screens can bridge the gap between big-screen viewing and mobile engagement, allowing viewers to instantly connect with content on their phones.

Pause ads can offer a non-intrusive way to deliver targeted messages when viewers pause a video.

In addition, YouTube is exploring “second screen experiences” that enable viewers to interact with TV content using their mobile devices, such as leaving comments, sharing videos, or making purchases.

These interactive tools can significantly enhance viewer engagement and provide measurable results, offering a more dynamic approach compared to traditional TV advertising.

However, this evolving landscape requires marketers to adapt their strategies.

For example, longer watch times on TV suggest opportunities for deeper engagement with ads and branded content.

The “big-screen mindset” necessitates high-quality, broadcast-like production for YouTube ads designed for a living room environment.

Accurate performance measurement will be crucial, requiring sophisticated cross-platform analytics and attribution models to track conversions across TV and mobile devices.

Beyond TV, YouTube has also become a leading platform for podcast consumption.

Mohan stated that YouTube is now the most frequently used service for listening to podcasts in the U.S.

This trend allows marketers to leverage the popularity of both TV and podcasts by creating video podcasts, which can effectively connect with audiences through engaging long-form content on larger screens.

This strategy aligns with the increasing preference for longer videos viewed in the living room setting.

In other words, YouTube’s transformation into a TV-centric platform demands that marketers adapt their strategies to capitalize on these new trends.

Key actions include leveraging new ad formats like QR codes and pause ads, creating high-quality content optimized for big screens, and exploring opportunities like video podcasts.

With longer watch times and increased TV engagement, brands have a unique opportunity to connect with audiences more effectively.

However, success will depend on implementing robust cross-platform analytics and thoughtfully integrating mobile and TV experiences to stay ahead of this evolving digital landscape.

According to Pixability, 56% of advertising agencies reported that their clients had increased their YouTube advertising spend in 2024.

Looking ahead to 2025, 44% of agencies anticipated further increases in YouTube investment, although 42% believed budgets would remain at the same level after the substantial growth seen in 2024.

Only 9% of agencies observed a decrease in YouTube spending in 2024, and just 3% predicted a decline in 2025.

One Of These Top 3 YouTube Trends May Change This Year

Later this year, YouTube will celebrate its 20th birthday. And I learned a long time ago that the video-sharing site changes about one-third of its major features every year.

So, the search and marketing community needs to stay on the lookout for the next new trend to keep pace with the creators who are focused on building their community, growing their channel, and making money on YouTube.

The very first YouTube video, “Me at the zoo“, was uploaded on April 23, 2005. So, we might anticipate another significant announcement around the end of April.

The IAB NewFronts will be held May 5-8, 2025, and YouTube might make significant announcements then, or the online video platform may wait until their annual YouTube Brandcast event during the TV Upfronts, which will be held May 12-14, 2025, to announce their biggest news.

And we will want to pay exceptionally close attention.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Mar 10 2025
3 Ways AI Is Changing PPC Reporting (With Examples To Streamline Your Reporting) via @sejournal, @siliconvallaeys

PPC reporting has always been both essential and frustrating. It’s essential to keep clients engaged by informing them of the results you’re driving.

But it’s also frustrating because of data discrepancies, cumbersome analysis, and the time required to share understandable, jargon-free reports with different stakeholders.

Fortunately, AI is turning these obstacles into opportunities by filling in gaps left by privacy-compliant tracking, surfacing insights hidden in overwhelming data sets, and automating reporting so it meets the needs of every stakeholder.

In this article, I’ll walk you through some of the technology used by modern marketers and share examples of how I’ve used AI to streamline my PPC reporting.

1. Collect Complete And High-Quality PPC Data

We need data to guide us before we can optimize accounts and share our wins, so let’s start there.

The Problems With Data Before AI

Inconsistent and missing data plague PPC efforts.

Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon operate in their own silos, each taking credit for all conversions that have any touchpoint with their platforms. This leads to double counting, making it difficult to decide where to allocate budgets for optimal results.

In other words, the data between the various ad platforms is inconsistent. Specifically, the conversion value advertisers see in their business data may be lower than the sum of all conversion values reported by the ad platforms.

Add to this the challenge of missing data. Privacy regulations like GDPR and Apple’s iOS changes limit tracking capabilities, which causes data loss, incomplete conversion paths, and gaps in attribution.

Marketers who rely heavily on pixel-based or third-party cookie tracking, both of which became unreliable due to browser restrictions and user opt-outs, see a continuous decline in the quality of the data they need to operate.

While AI can’t magically give us perfect data, it can fill in gaps and restore insights, so let’s take a look at some of the solutions in this space.

AI-Driven Solutions For Data Hygiene And Compliance

1. Data Clean Rooms And Privacy-First Measurement

Clean rooms like Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) and Google Ads Data Hub allow advertisers to securely analyze anonymized cross-channel performance data without violating privacy laws.

These platforms aggregate data from multiple sources, giving marketers a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

Example:

A retail brand can use AMC to evaluate how its Google and Facebook ads influence Amazon purchases. Based on what they find, they can re-allocate budgets between platforms to maximize overall return on investment (ROI).

Clean rooms themselves aren’t an AI innovation; however, they benefit significantly from several AI capabilities.

For example, Meta’s Advantage+ uses clean room insights to build lookalike audiences while staying privacy-compliant.

2. Modeled Conversions

While clean rooms are great for unifying cross-platform data, their usefulness is predicated on data completeness.

When privacy regulations make it impossible to get all the data, clean rooms like Google Ads Data Hub and Amazon Marketing Cloud use AI-powered modeled conversions to estimate user journeys that can’t be fully tracked.

Modeled data is also used by tools like Smart Bidding, which leverages machine learning to predict conversions for users who opted out of tracking.

For users who opt out of tracking, Consent Mode still allows the collection of anonymized signals, which machine learning models can then use to predict conversion likelihood.

Example:

Google’s Smart Bidding leverages machine learning to optimize bids for conversions or conversion value.

In cases where conversion data is incomplete due to user consent choices or other factors, Smart Bidding can use modeled conversions to fill in gaps and make good bidding decisions.

The models do this by identifying patterns and correlations between user attributes, actions, and conversion outcomes.

While modeled conversions offer significant benefits in their ease of use (they’re basically provided without any extra effort by the ad platforms), it’s important to remember that they are only estimates and may not be perfectly accurate in all cases.

Advertisers should consider using modeled conversions in conjunction with other ways to get a more complete picture of campaign performance.

For example, advertisers can use Media Mix Models (MMM), a Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER), or incrementality lift tests to validate that the data they are using is directionally correct.

3. Server-Side Tagging And First-Party Data Integration

Server-side tagging lets marketers control data collection on their servers, bypassing cookie restrictions.

Platforms like Google Tag Manager now support server-side implementations that improve tracking accuracy while maintaining privacy compliance.

Server-side tagging captures anonymous pings even when cookies are declined, feeding better signals into Google’s AI models for more accurate conversion modeling.

This gives AI more complete data when doing things like data-driven attribution (DDA) or automated bidding.

Illustration by author, February 2025

Example:

An ecommerce company transitions to server-side tagging to retain high-quality data even when technologies like Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) break JavaScript-based tracking.

As a result, the advertiser sees a complete picture of all the conversions driven by digital marketing and can now justify higher bids, which makes them more competitive in the ad auction and boosts total sales for their brand.

Actionable Tips:

  • Implement GA4 Consent Mode and server-side tagging to maintain accurate performance data.
  • Leverage data clean rooms to analyze cross-platform conversions securely.
  • Use modeled conversions to fill tracking gaps caused by privacy restrictions.

2. Extract Data Insights And Make Smarter Decisions

Now that we’ve covered technologies that can stem the decline in access to data, let’s examine how AI can help make sense of it all.

The Problem With Data Analysis Before AI

Marketers may struggle to extract actionable insights when looking at a mountain of PPC data.

Humans simply aren’t as good as machines at detecting patterns or spotting anomalies in large data sets.

While statistical methods have long been used to find these patterns, many marketing teams lack the expertise to do it themselves or have no access to a qualified analyst to help them.

As a result, teams miss opportunities or spend more time than they can afford looking for signals to guide optimization efforts.

AI Solutions For Data Analysis And Attribution

1. Data-Driven Attribution Models (DDA)

DDA isn’t the newest solution in attribution modeling, but it exists largely because AI has become cheaper and more accessible.

It solves the problem of assigning values to different parts of the consumer journey when users take a multitude of paths from discovery to purchase.

Static attribution models lack the sophistication to account for this and cause advertisers to bid incorrectly.

Google’s data-driven attribution (DDA) uses machine learning to analyze conversion paths and assign credit based on a more complete analysis of a user’s consumer journey.

Unlike static models, DDA dynamically adjusts credit allocation to reflect the many ways consumers behave.

Machine learning, a form of AI, is what enabled Google to make this more advanced attribution model available to all advertisers and what has driven the steady improvement in results from Smart Bidding.

2. Automating Auction Insights Visualization

Generative AI is not only enhancing attribution but also automating repetitive tasks.

Recently, I tested GPT Operator to streamline several PPC reporting workflows.

Operator is OpenAI’s tool that lets the AI use a web browser to achieve tasks. It goes beyond searching on the web; it allows you to follow links, fill in forms, and interact intelligently with websites.

In one task, I asked Operator to download auction insights, visualize the data using Optmyzr’s Auction Insights Visualizer, and email a report.

It handled the data transfer and visualization steps flawlessly, though it struggled with taking a clean screenshot instead of attempting to attach HTML.

Illustration by author, February 2025

This illustrates how AI agents can help when data lives in disparate places. There are no APIs available to move it, as is the case with auction insights data from Google.

While Operator still needs too much hand-holding to be helpful today, it seems likely that we’re less than a year away from when it can do many tedious tasks for us.

3. Advanced Statistical Analysis Available To Anyone

Before AI advancements, conducting a statistical analysis could be a labor-intensive process requiring specialized software or data science expertise.

But today, generative AI enables marketers to explore these areas that were previously firmly outside their realm of expertise.

For example, GPT can explain and execute a process like a seasonality decomposition. AI can quickly write Python code that breaks down campaign data into trend, seasonal, and residual components, helping marketers uncover patterns they can act on.

How AI Automates Seasonal Analysis

In one of my PPC Town Hall podcast episodes, Cory Lindholm demonstrated how GPT can handle complex seasonality analysis in minutes.

Inspired by this, I used GPT’s Advanced Data Analysis feature to upload weekly Google Ads data and run a full decomposition.

GPT efficiently cleaned the data, identified issues like formatting errors, and generated a breakdown of trends, seasonal variations, and residual fluctuations.

In the analysis, GPT flagged recurring trends, allowing me to pinpoint peak demand periods and optimize bid strategies ahead of time. Tasks that previously took hours now take just a few minutes.

On a side note, I have found large language models (LLMs) so helpful with coding that I am now using v0.dev almost weekly to create apps, browser extensions, and scripts on a weekly basis.

3. Communicate Results Effectively Across Teams

With solid data in place and AI-fueled ways to speed up analysis, we should have some great results to share with stakeholders.

But sharing results through reports has traditionally been one of the most time-consuming and least loved tasks that fall on the plate of the typical account manager. And there were other problems, too.

The Problem With Sharing Reports Before AI

Reports were often static, one-size-fits-all documents that failed to meet the needs of different stakeholders.

Executives required high-level summaries focused on ROI, marketing strategists needed cross-channel insights, and PPC specialists required detailed campaign data.

Customizing reports for each audience was time-consuming and prone to error.

AI Solutions For Tailored Reporting

1. LLM Report Summarization

LLMs such as Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT can quickly generate different explanations of reports from the same underlying data, enabling efficient customization for each audience.

For example, ChatGPT can produce a concise executive summary alongside a more detailed keyword-level report for PPC teams.

But that customization can and should be taken even further. In OpenAI, it’s possible to create custom GPTs, each with its own instructions. This can be used to create a different ChatGPT flavor for every client.

Whereas today, agencies depend on their people to remember how each client likes to get their reports, GPT can be trained to remember these preferences.

Things like how well they know PPC, what jargon they tend to use at their company, and even what the year’s strategic initiatives are.

Then, the LLM can word the summary in a way that resonates with the reader and even explain how the search marketing campaign’s results are key to the company’s strategic objectives for the year.

2. Interactive Dashboards For Real-Time Transparency

AI-driven dashboards provide live, customizable views of campaign performance. Stakeholders can explore data interactively, filtering by date ranges, platforms, or key performance indicators (KPIs), reducing the need for frequent manual report updates.

And while dashboards have been around for a long time, AI can be used to quickly highlight the most salient insights.

For example, AMC lets marketers use AI to generate SQL to explore the data by using natural language.

At my company, Optmyzr, we deployed Sidekick, which can instantly answer questions about data in any account, for example, the biggest optimization opportunities or wins in the last month.

Before AI, these insights might have remained hidden in the data.

Actionable Tips:

  • Set up custom GPTs for every client you work with.
  • Implement reporting tools that use natural language to explore the data.

Conclusion: From Reporting To Strategic Decision-Making With Generative AI

Generative AI has redefined PPC reporting, transforming a once fragmented and time-consuming process into a streamlined, insight-driven workflow.

It doesn’t just automate data collection and report generation; it also surfaces hidden trends, correlations, and anomalies that might otherwise go unnoticed.

This enables marketers to make smarter, faster, and more strategic decisions based on real-time insights.

With AI-driven tools, marketers can see beyond surface-level metrics, discovering patterns and opportunities that traditional reporting might take hours or days to uncover.

This improved understanding of performance empowers teams to refine budget allocation, creative strategy, and campaign targeting more effectively, leading to more substantial outcomes and greater profitability.

The conclusion is simple. With Generative AI, PPC managers have more complete data, leading to better insights and better decisions – all of which can be shared more meaningfully with all involved stakeholders.

More Resources:

Featured Image: Igor Link/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Mar 10 2025
The Pricing Strategy of Temu Sellers

Temu sellers show massive discounts to boost perceived savings and win customers. The strategy is working.

Launched in September of 2022, Temu has grown rapidly. By December 2023, Temu had captured 17% of the U.S. dollar store market — Five Below, Dollar General, more — according to Reuters.

Certainly Temu’s prices are low. A recent comparison from Omnisend showed shoppers can often save 40% on Temu versus similar products on Amazon (but not Amazon Haul).

However, seller success on Temu relies as much on discount psychology as the savings.

Home page of Temu on a web browser

Temu’s success relies in part on the psychology of discounts.

Cheap Headphones

Consider a hypothetical contract manufacturer that sells on Temu. Among the many products the company produces for various brands are noise-canceling, over-the-ear headphones that retail for $99.

This manufacturer-turned-Temu seller has the materials, models, and expertise to build a nearly identical set of headphones. Stopping short of using the original brand’s patented and expensive noise-canceling technology, the company tweaks the earpieces.

The “nearly identical” headphones cost $5 to manufacture. This company lists the headphones on Temu at a regular price of $99, with a 75% discount. That $24.75 price could produce more profit than it gets from building the client’s high-end version.

This made-up scenario is extreme but instructive.

Temu Prices

Remember that Temu is a marketplace with thousands of sellers. Temu does not buy and sell inventory. It connects manufacturers and brands to shoppers.

Thus the prices are not Temu’s but those of sellers. Yet Temu’s success relies on low-cost and, perhaps, low-quality alternatives to popular and brand-name products.

For example, the Omnisend comparison found that Temu listed an item that “matched” a product in Amazon’s camera and photo category about 96% of the time. But none — 0.0% — of those Temu items were the same brand or known quality as on Amazon. Instead, the items were unbranded and generic and “closely resemble well-known brands, often with blurred logos or modified packaging,” per Omnisend.

For identical items and brands, Temu’s prices are roughly the same as Amazon’s.

Temu Discounts

Sellers on Amazon and Temu differ significantly on the frequency and amount of discounts.

“While Amazon offers discounts on around 47% of its products, 65% of Temu’s listings are marked down. In addition, some items on Temu see discounts as high as 98%, compared to Amazon’s highest discount being 67%,” according to Omnisend.

Collectively, Temu’s deep discounts make products feel significantly cheaper. This is the psychology part.

For example, a February 2018 study in the academic journal “Fashion and Textiles” found that deep discounts can enhance shoppers’ perception of savings, making them feel like they are getting a better deal.

The study noted that discounts elicit an emotional response impacting shoppers’ perception of savings, quality, and value.

These findings are more or less common sense to seasoned marketers and precisely what is happening with Temu.

Product Perception

Yet deep and frequent discounting can be dangerous. Substantial markdowns may lead to doubts about product quality or authenticity, and rightly so.

Imagine a machine with three dials:

  • Quality,
  • Savings,
  • Value.

Ecommerce sellers can manipulate the dials. Changing one has the opposite effect on another. The proper mix leads to an ecommerce sale.

Many Temu sellers have learned that turning up the perceived savings dial overcomes the associated decline in perceived quality. Temu customers presumably realize they are buying what could be a subpar item, but the perceived savings make it worthwhile.

To be sure, Temu’s success does not rely solely on psychology. “Many of Temu’s products ship directly from manufacturers to consumers so that product prices can remain low by bypassing distributors and other third-party handling fees,” explained Greg Zakowicz, senior ecommerce expert at Omnisend, in an email to Practical Ecommerce. “They also use the least expensive shipping method to reduce prices further.”

Nonetheless, the quality-savings-value exercise is a lesson for all ecommerce sellers. Every merchant has access to the purchase intent machine with its various dials, knobs, and switches. Good marketing is tuning the mix for success.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Mar 8 2025
The short, strange history of gene de-extinction

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.

This week saw the release of some fascinating news about some very furry rodents—so-called “woolly mice”—created as part of an experiment to explore how we might one day resurrect the woolly mammoth.

The idea of bringing back extinct species has gained traction thanks to advances in sequencing of ancient DNA. In recent years, scientists have recovered genetic blueprints from the remains of dodo birds, more than 10,000 prehistoric humans, and frozen mammoths, a species that went extinct around 2000 BCE.

This ancient genetic data is deepening our understanding of the past—for instance, by shedding light on interactions among prehistoric humans. But researchers are becoming more ambitious. Rather than just reading ancient DNA, they want to use it—by inserting it into living organisms.

Colossal Biosciences, the biotech company behind the woolly mice, says that’s its plan. The eventual goal is to modify elephants with enough mammoth DNA to result in something resembling the extinct pachyderm.

To be sure, there is a long way to go. The mice Colossal created include several genetic changes previously known to make mice furry or long-haired. That is, the changes were mammoth-like, but not from a mammoth. In fact, only a single letter of uniquely mammoth DNA was added to the mice.

Because this idea is so new and attracting so much attention, I decided it would be useful to create a record of previous attempts to add extinct DNA to living organisms. And since the technology doesn’t have a name, let’s give it one: “chronogenics.”

“Examples are exceptionally few currently,” says Ben Novak, lead scientist at Revive & Restore, an organization that applies genetic technology to conservation efforts. Novak helped me track down examples, and I also got ideas from Harvard geneticist George Church—who originally envisioned the mammoth project—as well as Beth Shapiro, lead scientist at Colossal.

The starting point for chronogenics appears to be in 2004. That year, US scientists reported they’d partly re-created the deadly 1918 influenza virus and used it to infect mice. After a long search, they had retrieved examples of the virus from a frozen body in Alaska, which had preserved the germ like a time capsule. Eventually, they were able to reconstruct the entire virus—all eight of its genes—and found it had lethal effects on rodents.

This was an alarming start to the idea of gene de-extinction. As we know from movies like The Thing, digging up frozen creatures from the ice is a bad idea. Many scientists felt that recovering the 1918 flu—which had killed 30 million people—created an unnecessary risk that the virus could slip loose, setting off a new outbreak.

Viruses are not considered living things. But for the first example of chronogenics involving animals, we have to wait only until 2008, when Australian researchers Andrew Pask and Marilyn Renfree collected genetic data from a Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, that had been kept in a jar of ethanol (the last of these carnivorous marsupials died in a Hobart zoo in 1936).

The Australians then added a short fragment of the extinct animal’s DNA to mice and showed it could regulate the activity of another gene. This was, at one level, an entirely routine study of gene function. Scientists often make DNA changes to mice to see what happens. 

The difference here was that they were studying extinct genes, which they estimated accounts for 99% of the genetic diversity that has ever existed. The researchers used almost religious language to describe where the DNA had come from. 

“Genetic information from an extinct species can be resurrected,” they wrote. “And in doing so, we have restored to life the genetic potential of a fragment of this extinct mammalian genome.”

That brings us to what I think is the first commercial effort to employ extinct genes, which came to our attention in 2016. Gingko Bioworks, a synthetic-biology company, started hunting in herbariums for specimens of recently extinct flowers, like one that grew on Maui’s lava fields until the early 20th century. Then the company isolated some of the genes responsible for their scent molecules. 

“We did in fact insert the genes into yeast strains and measure the molecules,” says Christina Agapakis, Gingko’s former senior vice president for creative and marketing, who led the project. Ultimately, though, Ginkgo worked with a “smell artist” to imitate those odors using commercially available aroma chemicals. This means the resulting perfumes (which are for sale) use extinct genes as “inspiration,” not as actual ingredients.

That’s a little bit similar to the woolly mouse project. Some scientists complained this week that when, or if, Colossal starts to chrono-engineer elephants, it won’t really be able to make all the thousands of DNA changes needed to truly re-create the appearance and behavior of a mammoth. Instead, the result will be just “a crude approximation of an extinct creature,” one scientist said. 

Agapakis suggests not being too literal-minded about gene retrieval from the past. “As an artwork, I saw how the extinct flower made different people feel a deep connection with nature, a sadness and loss at something gone forever, and a hope for a different kind of relationship to nature in the future,” she says. “So I do think there is a very powerful and poetic ethical and social component here, a demand that we care for these woolly creatures and for our entanglements with nature more broadly.”

To wrap up our short list of known efforts at chronogenics, we found only a few more examples. In 2023, a Japanese team added a single mutation found in Neanderthals to mice, to study how it changed their anatomy. And in unpublished research, a research group at Carlsberg Laboratory, in Copenhagen, says it added a genetic mutation to barley plants after sifting through 2-million-year-old DNA recovered from a mound in Greenland. 

That change, to a light-receptor gene, could make the crop tolerant to the Arctic’s extremely long summer days and winter nights.

Now read the rest of The Checkup

Read more from MIT Technology Review’s archive

How many genetic edits can be made to a cell before it expires? The answer is going to be important if you want to turn an elephant into a mammoth. In 2019, scientists set a record with more than13,000 edits in one cell.

We covered a project in Denmark where ancient DNA was replicated in a barley plant. It’s part of a plan to adapt crops to grow in higher latitudes—a useful tool as the world heats up.

To learn more about prehistoric animals, some paleontologists are building robotic models that fly, swim, and slither around. For more, have a look at this MIT Technology Review story by Shi En Kim.

The researcher who discovered how to make a mouse with extra-long hair, back in 1994, is named Jean Hebert. Last year we profiled Hebert’s idea for staying young by “gradually” replacing your brain with substitute tissue.

Looking for an unintended consequence of genetic engineering? Last year, journalist Douglas Main reported how the use of GMO crops has caused the evolution of weeds resistant to herbicides.

From around the web

The United Kingdom now imports half the donor sperm used in IVF procedures. An alleged donor “shortage” is causing sperm to become more expensive than beluga caviar, on a per-gram basis. (Financial Times)

Jason Bannan, the agent who led the FBI’s scientific investigation into the origins of covid-19, is speaking out on why he thinks the pandemic was started by a lab accident in China. (Vanity Fair)

An Australian company, Cortical Labs, released what it’s calling “the first commercial biological computer.” The device combines silicon chips with thousands of human neurons. (Boing Boing)

The Trump administration is terminating medical research grants that focus on gender identity, arguing that such studies are “often unscientific” and ignore “biological realities.” Researchers vowed to press on. (Inside Medicine). 

The US Senate held confirmation hearings for Stanford University doctor Jay Bhattacharya to be director of the National Institutes of Health, which funds nearly $48 billion in research each year. Bhattacharya gained prominence during the covid-19 pandemic for opposing lockdowns. (NPR)

Francis Collins has retired from the National Institutes of Health. The widely admired geneticist spent 12 years as director of the agency, through 2021, and before that he played a key role in the Human Genome Project.  Early in his career he identified the gene that causes cystic fibrosis. (New York Times)

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Mar 8 2025
The Download: gene de-extinction, and Ukraine’s Starlink connection

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.

The short, strange history of gene de-extinction

This week saw the release of some fascinating news about some very furry rodents—so-called “woolly mice”—created as part of an experiment to explore how we might one day resurrect the woolly mammoth.

The idea of bringing back extinct species has gained traction thanks to advances in sequencing of ancient DNA. This ancient genetic data is deepening our understanding of the past—for instance, by shedding light on interactions among prehistoric humans. But researchers are becoming more ambitious. Rather than just reading ancient DNA, they want to use it—by inserting it into living organisms.

Because this idea is so new and attracting so much attention, I decided it would be useful to create a record of previous attempts to add extinct DNA to living organisms. And since the technology doesn’t have a name, let’s give it one: “chronogenics.” Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

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. 

If you’re interested in de-extinction, why not check out:

+ How much would you pay to see a woolly mammoth? We spoke to Sara Ord, director of species restoration at Colossal, the world’s first “de-extinction” company, about its big ambitions.

+ Colossal is also a de-extinction company, which is trying to resurrect the dodo. Read the full story.

+ DNA that was frozen for 2 million years has been sequenced. The ancient DNA fragments come from a Greenland ecosystem where mastodons roamed among flowering plants. It may hold clues to how to survive a warming climate.

The must-reads

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

1 Ukraine is worried the US could sever its vital Starlink connection
Its satellite internet is vital to Ukraine’s drone operations. (WP $)
+ Thankfully, there are alternative providers. (Wired $)
+ Ukraine is due to start a fresh round of war-ending negotiations next week. (FT $)
+ Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Israel’s military has trained a powerful AI model on intercepted Palestinian data
The ChatGPT-like tool can answer queries about the people it’s monitoring. (The Guardian)

3 Donald Trump has suspended tariffs on Canada and Mexico
Until April 2, at least. (Reuters)
+ It’s the second time Trump has rolled back import taxes in as many days. (BBC)
+ How Trump’s tariffs could drive up the cost of batteries, EVs, and more. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Can someone check on NASA’s Athena lunar lander?
While we know it reached the moon, it appears to have toppled over. (NYT $)
+ If it remains in an incorrect position, it may be unable to complete its mission. (CNN)
+ Its engineers aren’t sure exactly where it is on the moon, either. (NBC News)

5 Shutting down 2G is easier said than done
Millions of vulnerable people around the world still rely on it to communicate. (Rest of World)

6 The hunt for the world’s oldest functional computer code
Spoiler: it may no longer be on Earth. (New Scientist $)

7 Robots are set to compete with humans in a Beijing half marathon🦿
My money’s on the flesh and blood competitors. (Insider $)
+ Researchers taught robots to run. Now they’re teaching them to walk. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Where did it all go wrong for Skype?
It was the world leading video-calling app—until it wasn’t. (The Verge) 

9 Dating is out, matchmaking is in
Why swipe when a platform can do the hard work for you? (Wired $)
+ Forget dating apps: Here’s how the net’s newest matchmakers help you find love. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Apps are back, baby! 📱
It’s like the original smartphone app boom all over again. (Bloomberg $)

Quote of the day

“You can only get so much juice out of every lemon.”

—Carl-Benedikt Frey, a professor of AI and work at Oxford University’s Internet Institute, explains why pushing AI as a means of merely increasing productivity won’t always work, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

The cost of building the perfect wave

June 2024

For nearly as long as surfing has existed, surfers have been obsessed with the search for the perfect wave.

While this hunt has taken surfers from tropical coastlines to icebergs, these days that search may take place closer to home. That is, at least, the vision presented by developers and boosters in the growing industry of surf pools, spurred by advances in wave-­generating technology that have finally created artificial waves surfers actually want to ride.

But there’s a problem: some of these pools are in drought-ridden areas, and face fierce local opposition. At the core of these fights is a question that’s also at the heart of the sport: What is the cost of finding, or now creating, the perfect wave—and who will have to bear it? Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

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.)+ Planning a holiday? These handy accessories could make your journey a whole lot easier (beach powder optional)
+ How to avoid making common mistakes.
+ The latest food trend is dry-aged fish—tasty.
+ It’s Friday, so let’s enjoy a bit of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

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Mar 8 2025
Montana Knife Co Blends Craft with Scale

Montana Knife Company launched in 2020 in a two-car garage near Missoula. One co-founder is a certified “Master Bladesmith” who has produced handmade knives since he was 11. The other, Brandon Horoho, is a seasoned digital marketer and ecommerce pro.

Combined, the entrepreneurs prove the value of craftsmanship at scale marketed directly to consumers. Business is booming, and the company will soon move into a 50,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility.

Brandon and I recently spoke. He shared the company’s origins, culture, “drop” selling, and more. Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.

Eric Bandholz: Tell us who you are and what you do.

Brandon Horoho: I’m the co-founder, vice president, and chief marketing officer of Montana Knife Company. My background is in marketing, and I’ve been involved in ecommerce since 2010.

I’ve worked for big supplement and fitness brands and on many ecommerce platforms, including Magento and Shopify. One of my early accomplishments was adopting SMS marketing when it was unregulated, which helped me understand how to grow businesses in emerging markets.

We make our knives entirely in Montana, near Missoula. We started in 2020 and are entirely bootstrapped. We focus on creating quality knives for the most hardcore hunters, offering a product you could take on a two-week hunt in Alaska without needing backups. We aim to make tools that last for generations. We stand apart from the mass market, which has shifted toward cheaper, disposable products.

We manufacture our knives to last. That’s what sets us apart. We’re obsessive about quality and craftsmanship, even at scale. My business partner, Josh Smith, has been making knives since he was 11. At age 19, he became the youngest Master Bladesmith from the American Bladesmith Society. His specialty is Damascus steel and highly intricate, custom-made handles.

People would buy his knives to collect them, which bothered him because he wanted folks to use them. That’s why we started this company.

Bandholz: How do you stand out in a crowded industry?

Horoho: We’re different from traditional knife companies. We don’t do blade shows, and we don’t follow the typical market trends for knives. We focus on making specific tools for specific people. Our brand is like the anti-knife knife company.

We also differentiate through our dedication to customer service. Our warranty is unmatched — if you buy a knife from us, we’ll sharpen it as often as you need. If something goes wrong, we’ll fix it. This warranty applies to the original owner and anyone who inherits the knife.

Bandholz: Have you had any issues with knockoffs of your knives?

Horoho: We’ve seen a few knockoffs on platforms like Temu, but we don’t lose sleep over it. We’re 100% direct-to-consumer, so if you aren’t buying from our website, you’re buying a fake. Our knives are hand-finished and hand-sharpened; it’s tough for anyone to replicate that on a large scale.

Bandholz: Your knives are often out of stock. Is that a success or failure?

Horoho: It depends on how you look at it. When we started, we could afford to make only 200 knives — most went to friends and family. We sold out before we had the next batch ready. That’s how our drop model started — we had no product to sell for a month or two, so we decided to announce drops for specific dates.

Coming from the fitness and apparel world, I was familiar with the drop model, but it wasn’t supposed to be our primary business strategy. The first time we did it, the knives sold out in 14 minutes, and we hadn’t even finished making them. It was chaos. We didn’t have enough packaging, and Josh was sharpening knives as fast as he could while I worked on the shipping labels.

We continued with the drop model because it worked, but it was never the plan. We were also launching during Covid, so we faced challenges sourcing steel and finding contractors willing to work with a small company like ours.

Bandholz: Have you kept up with demand?

Horoho: No, we still haven’t caught up. When we started, we bought one CNC machine — Computer Numerical Control, a manufacturing process — and operated out of a two-car garage. We now have a 10,000-square-foot facility on Josh’s property, but we outgrew it in less than a year. We’re building a 50,000-square-foot plant, which will include 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space.

We’re still constrained even with our expanded production capabilities. We have only five available knife models, and our sell-through rate is about two weeks. We drop new products every Thursday, but we can’t make enough to keep up with the demand.

Bandholz: Tell us about your marketing efforts.

Horoho: I had many years of making marketing mistakes before Montana Knife. We focused on the basics first, setting up a proper data management system from day one, especially for Google and Facebook ads, which I’m familiar with from my time in the supplement space.

I knew we’d be competing with companies that have been around for decades, but when I looked at their digital footprints, I saw they were missing opportunities. I worked with a friend, Joel, from Fluxe Digital Marketing, to establish a strong organic search strategy, even before we had products on the site. That’s been huge.

Our focus is growing our email list, not just social media platforms. Having the ability to reach customers directly has been key. Consistent daily posting keeps us top of mind, and collaborations with like-minded brands are where I see the future. Artificial intelligence might soon dominate ads, but genuine brand partnerships will stand out.

Bandholz: Where can people follow you?

Horoho: MontanaKnifeCompany.com. We’re on X, YouTube, and Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.

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Mar 7 2025
Google’s Martin Splitt Warns Against Redirecting 404s To Homepage via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has released a new episode in its “SEO Office Hours Shorts” video series, in which Developer Advocate Martin Splitt addresses a question many website owners face: Should all 404 error pages be redirected to the homepage?

The Clear Answer: Don’t Do It

In the latest installment of the condensed Q&A format, Splitt responds to a question from a user named Chris about whether “redirecting all 404 pages to the homepage with 301 redirects can have a negative impact on rankings or overall website performance in search.”

Splitt’s response was unambiguous: “Yes, and also it annoys me as a user.”

Why 404s Serve A Purpose

404 error pages signal to users and search engine crawlers that a URL is broken or nonexistent. This transparency helps people understand what they’re dealing with rather than being unexpectedly redirected to an unrelated page.

Splitt explained:

“A 404 is a very clear signal this link is wrong and broken or this URL no longer exists because maybe the product doesn’t exist or something has changed.”

Impact on Search Crawlers

Splitt says blanket redirects to the homepage can disrupt search engine crawlers’ efficiency.

When crawlers encounter a legitimate 404, they recognize that the content no longer exists and can move on to other URLs. However, redirecting them to the homepage creates a confusing loop.

Splitt noted:

“For a crawler, they go like homepage and then click through or basically crawl through your website, finding content, and eventually they might run into a URL that doesn’t exist.

But if you redirect, they’re kind of like being redirected, and then it all starts over again.”

Best Practices for Handling Missing Content

Splitt offered clear guidance on proper redirects:

  1. If content has moved to a new location, use a redirect to that specific new URL
  2. If content is truly gone, maintain the 404 status code
  3. Don’t redirect to the homepage or what you think is the “closest” match

Splitt emphasized:

“If it moved somewhere else, use a redirect. If it’s gone, don’t redirect me to the homepage.”

This latest guidance aligns with Google’s longstanding recommendation to maintain accurate HTTP status codes to help users and search engines understand your site structure.

New Format

The SEO Office Hours Shorts format is a new approach from Google’s Search Relations team.

The original format was a live show where anyone could call in and get their questions answered in real time.

This format then transitioned to recorded sessions where Google personnel responded to a selection of pre-approved questions.

Now, SEO Office Hours is presented as short videos. If you prefer one of the previous formats, Splitt encourages feedback in the comments section of the video below:

Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, March 2025.

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Mar 7 2025
Google Discontinues Controversial “Page Annotations” On iOS via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has discontinued its Page Annotations feature in the iOS app, which automatically added search links to webpages.

The feature was introduced late last year and converted certain website text into Google Search links without publisher consent.

Recent updates confirm that it’s no longer supported.

Short-Lived & Controversial

The Page Annotations feature was first announced in November and attracted attention for its potential to divert traffic away from websites.

This feature automatically converted on-page text into tappable links that directed visitors to Google Search results.

Unlike similar features in Google’s ecosystem, Page Annotations used an opt-out model, meaning publishers didn’t need to opt in.

If you didn’t want Google to insert links into your content, you had to submit an opt-out form, and the changes would take effect within 30 days.

Silent Removal

Google has removed all mentions of the Page Annotations feature from its official documentation on “Control what you share with Google.”

The updated text outlines various methods for publishers to control their content’s appearance in search results but does not mention the now-discontinued feature.

Additionally, the annoucement thread on Google’s community forums has been removed.

An archived version of the announcement remains available. See it in the screenshot below:

Screenshot from: web.archive.org, March 2025.

Why the Reversal?

While Google hasn’t publicly stated reasons for discontinuing Page Annotations, the feature’s introduction came at a sensitive time for the company, which has been facing increased scrutiny over its search and advertising practices.

The feature raised concerns about Google’s relationship with publishers. By inserting its links into others’ content without explicit permission, Google influenced how people interacted with websites within its app.

Why This Matters

Google’s quick discontinuation of Page Annotations suggests it may be reevaluating its publisher relationships due to ongoing antitrust concerns.

Publishers no longer need to worry about Google adding links to their content in the iOS app.

Featured Image: Below The Sky/Shutterstock

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Mar 7 2025
14 Digital Content Types You’re Probably Not Using Enough via @sejournal, @xandervalencia

Feeling tapped out when it comes to creative content ideas?

If you feel like you’ve done it all, I challenge you to explore these 14 uncommon types of content. Many marketers overlook these unconventional digital content formats, but they can be highly effective.

Slot some of these content styles into your arsenal to mix up your campaigns and see better results from your content marketing.

1. User-Generated Content (UGC)

Every brand knows to talk about the benefits of their products or services. But having real customers sing your praises? That makes a real impact.

User-generated content is content created by consumers – not the brand – heralding the brand’s products or services.

Examples include product reviews, testimonial videos on social media, and the like. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook are hotspots for UGC.

Identifying UGC can take some hunting, such as browsing hashtags associated with your brand on Instagram or following industry influencers on TikTok. You could also use social listening tools to identify brand mentions.

UGC can also be inspired. For example, many brands host contests that reward users for creating great UGC, such as inspiring graphics or dynamic videos.

You might also create a custom hashtag encouraging users to share content; Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke campaign is one popular example.

UGC draws in new eyes through the user’s followers and you can also repurpose UGC on your brand’s social media accounts and in your campaigns.

UGC is a great form of brand advocacy and is particularly effective at driving user engagement.

In fact, according to a survey conducted by EnTribe, 84% of users are more likely to trust a brand that uses content from customers rather than paid influencers, and 77% would be more likely to purchase from a brand that shares content from real customers in its marketing.

2. Screencasts

“Talking head” videos are perhaps the most common type of video content. The speaker talks to the camera (i.e., the audience), and there might be product photos or slides thrown in.

But POV content is the next hot thing in content marketing. Instead of a talking head, the audience experiences the video from the speaker’s first-person point of view, whether through a camera lens or a screencast.

Screencasting involves recording your mobile or computer screen as you narrate.

Screencasts work well for tutorials or to demonstrate your work in action. They are an impactful format for social media and YouTube videos.

Your screencast can include a voiceover narration and/or music. You might use tools like Camtasia and Loom to make, edit, and repurpose professional screencasts for marketing campaigns.

Here’s one example of an effective screencast in a video titled “Design with me ✨ My full web design process using Figma & Squarespace.”

3. Templates

Templates are ready-made documents your audience can use to streamline tasks, organize their lives, and even get their finances in order.

Some of the most popular templates include invoice templates for business owners, social media design templates for brand managers, resume templates for job seekers, and checklists for travel or events.

People love templates because they are easy to use, helpful, and don’t require much investment (if any at all).

However, they are great tools for brands looking to build trust with potential customers and capture new email subscribers.

How does this work? Typically, you’d advertise the template on your website and social media and then deliver it to interested users via email. Users must submit their email address to get the template. Ta-da! You have a newly opted-in email subscriber.

When it comes to templates, the opportunities are truly endless, which make it easy for business owners to launch a new website in a matter of hours.

4. Worksheets

Worksheets pack tons of value because they empower people with the tools and steps they need to achieve their goals, like planning a business, creating a budget, or nurturing a more positive mindset.

So, how can brands use worksheets to inspire growth? Like templates, worksheets are a great opportunity to gain email subscribers, get re-shares on social media, and drive website traffic.

If you publish a great worksheet (like therapistaid did), people will happily share it.

Active learning tools, like worksheets, benefit users, students, business owners, and more. One study found that active learning methods like polls and chat can lead to 16 times higher rates of non-verbal engagement.

5. Illustrations

If you’re like me, you may be tired of the overly corporate, cookie-cutter graphics used in most marketing materials.

Many of these designs are sourced from the same stock image sites. Why not get a little more creative?

Custom illustrations – hand-drawn or digitally-drawn visuals – can be a great addition to your marketing materials. Designed by freelance illustrators, illustrations can add uniqueness, flair, and even quirkiness to your brand.

Illustrations are gaining in popularity as well. A study conducted by VENNGAGE reports that marketers found original graphics, like infographics and illustrations, to outperform other types of media, such as stock photos, charts, and even videos.

Illustrations add personality to your digital content, particularly when it comes to storytelling.

6. Text Messages

Short message service (SMS) campaigns – a.k.a. text message campaigns – reach consumers via their mobile devices. With so many people on the go, this is one of the most accessible ways to get users’ attention.

Compared to email campaigns, SMS marketing has a much higher average click-through rate (11.19% for texting vs. 1.47% for email). This makes texting great for lead follow-ups, special offers, time-sensitive deals, appointment reminders, and customer support.

Text messaging can be enabled in many of today’s client relationship management (CRM) tools, allowing you to send emails, automate text reminders, and templatize your campaigns. You can even track open rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates.

7. Web Apps

If you want to level up engagement and customer retention, a web app is a good way to do it.

Web apps are interactive online tools (such as games, calculators, login portals, etc.) that make it easier for users to interact with your brand, use your services, get customer support, and so much more.

From fitness apps to mortgage calculators, web apps are everywhere, and they are elevating the user experience in so many unique ways.

Want to utilize this digital content type? Here are some potential app ideas:

  • Travel itinerary planner.
  • Appointment booking.
  • Interactive quiz.
  • Budget calculator.
  • Fitness tracker.
  • Recipe generator.
  • Customer portal.
  • Virtual try-on experiences.
  • Event planning tools.
  • E-learning platform.
  • Gamified rewards.
  • Customer service chat.

8. Animations

Have you ventured into the world of motion graphics? If you haven’t, this might be a creative content type to try. And trust me, it’s not as labor-intensive or expensive as you might think.

You can find many reputable and affordable animators online, able to create everything from animated logos to social media ads and product demos.

Of course, if you are launching a major campaign with multiple elements, you might want to invest in a more premium service.

There are many ways to use animations, such as in explainer videos, infographics, GIFs, short clips for social, and more.

Transform static graphics into moving, grooving animations to catch viewers’ attention and get people talking about your brand.

9. Op-Eds

We’ve talked a lot about visual content thus far, but what about good ol’ written content? While most are familiar with the standard blog post or traditional press release, less common is the controversial op-ed.

Well, op-eds don’t have to be controversial, but they are opinion-based. Rather than purely instructive, they share the writer’s unique take on a particular subject. This can be interesting reading material to publish on your website.

If your brand usually publishes how-to content, perhaps mix it up with opinion pieces.

Get an industry leader’s POV on a trending topic or an editorial writer’s hot take on a common misconception in your industry. There are many ways to spin it.

Publishing different content types can drum up more engagement and shares.

10. Live Video

With all of today’s streaming technology, live video has become an effective medium for brands and thought leaders.

Not only does live video require less planning and editing than pre-recorded video, but it’s also a great way to engage with viewers in real time.

The most prominent live video options are Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live, and TikTok Live. All allow you to share a title or caption for your video topic, stream to an audience, and field messages from viewers.

Live video is particularly useful for Q&A sessions, interviews, brand takeovers, and company updates. Even Mark Zuckerberg himself went live to provide a recent update about Meta’s “fact-checking” policy.

If you have a bit of digital stage fright and need some convincing, just know that 51% of consumers are eager for more live content on streaming services. This is not a content medium to be sleeping on.

11. Slides

When it comes to this digital content type, I’m talking about expertly designed presentation slides (as you might make in Slides or PowerPoint) to accompany videos, emails, and other marketing materials.

Tools like SlideShare have risen in popularity as brands have started providing more readable assets to accompany their services, presentations, and products.

For example, many fitness brands now share workout plans and meal prep guides in slide format, making it easy for clients to access the materials, follow along, and share the content digitally.

You’ll also see slides used during live videos, webinars, and in pre-recorded YouTube videos. They are simple and instructional, keep viewers engaged, and show your brand to be a valuable resource in your space!

12. Timelines

As a legal marketing specialist, I often look for creative ways to showcase content for law firms while maintaining a level of professionalism. Timelines often strike that balance.

Say you run a law firm in the area of class action lawsuits. You might want to demonstrate the history of your case, key milestones or accomplishments in your case, how new policies have affected the trial, and so on. A simple timeline on a landing page is a smart way to capture all of these details.

Timelines don’t have to be so corporate, though. For instance, maybe you are a digital nomad documenting your travels across Southeast Asia. A timeline on your website or within a blog post is a great way for readers to keep up with your journey.

Overall, ​​timelines are engaging, visual displays or chronological events. They help your audience understand context, progressions, and stories, making your brand more transparent and relatable.

13. Gamified Content

“Gamification” might seem like a buzzword often thrown around in the world of marketing. But it’s gaining traction for good reason.

Users want content fast, and they want to be entertained. And gamification proves that marketing doesn’t have to be boring – it should be fun!

Gamified content engages users with game mechanics like virtual stories, points, rewards, or leaderboards. Duolingo is a great example of this. Their app boasts users’ language “streaks,” implementing a point system that unlocks special materials and chapters. It’s also just fun to use.

Fitbit is another brand that uses gamified content. The associated app hosts activity challenges, step competitions, and achievement badges, motivating users to keep moving. This encourages people to keep using the tool and to reach their fitness goals.

You can implement gamified content through a web app (if you have one), via email marketing campaigns, and through social media features like surveys and polls.

14. Immersive VR

We can’t talk about the evolution of digital content without mentioning virtual reality (VR). This technology has blown up in the last few years, making its way into games, social media platforms, and even in-person experiences.

To be clear, VR involves technology that virtually transports users into an interactive, 3D environment. This is ideal for video games, of course, but also virtual tours (e.g., virtual real estate walkthroughs) and product sales (e.g., virtual try-ons).

The VR market is projected to reach $18 billion by 2025. While it can take some effort and investment to pull off a VR app, it may be well worth it when it comes to growing your audience and sales.

Shake Up Your Marketing Campaigns With Uncommon Content Formats

There are so many creative ways to showcase your content. Break outside the traditional blog post or ebook once in a while and try out some of these methods.

From gamified content to live video and web apps to templates, try something new to grow your audience and drive sales.

More Resources:

Featured Image: TetianaKtv/Shutterstock

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Mar 7 2025
The Download: Denmark’s robot city, and Google’s AI-only search results

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.

Welcome to robot city

The city of Odense, in Denmark, is best known as the site where King Canute, Denmark’s last Viking king, was murdered during the 11th century. Today, Odense it’s also home to more than 150 robotics, automation, and drone companies. It’s particularly renowned for collaborative robots, or cobots—those designed to work alongside humans, often in an industrial setting.

Odense’s robotics success has its roots in the more traditional industry of shipbuilding. During the ‘90s, the Mærsk shipping company funded the creation of the Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute (MMMI), a center dedicated to autonomous systems that drew students keen to study robotics. But there are challenges to being based in a city that, though the third-largest in Denmark, is undeniably small on the global scale. Read the full story.

—Victoria Turk

This story is from our latest print issue, which is all about how technology is changing our relationships with each other—and ourselves. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

If you’re interested in robotics, why not check out: 

+ Will we ever trust robots? If most robots still need remote human operators to be safe and effective, why should we welcome them into our homes? Read the full story.

+ Why robots need to become lazier before they can be truly useful.

+ AI models let robots carry out tasks in unfamiliar environments. “Robot utility models” sidestep the need to tweak the data used to train robots every time they try to do something in unfamiliar settings. Read the full story.

+ What’s next for robots in 2025, from humanoid bots to new developments in military applications.

The must-reads

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

1 Google has started testing AI-only search results
What could possibly go wrong? (Ars Technica)
+ It’s also rolling out more AI Overview result summaries. (The Verge)
+ AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it. (MIT Technology Review)  

2 Elon Musk’s DOGE is coming for consultants
Deloitte, Accenture and others will be told to justify the billions of dollars they receive from the US government. (FT $)
+ One federal agency has forbidden DOGE workers from entering its office. (WP $)
+ Anti-Musk protestors set up camp inside a Portland Tesla store. (Reuters)

3 The US military will use AI tools to plan maneuvers
Thanks to a new deal with startup Scale AI. (WP $)
+ Meanwhile, Europe’s defense sector is on the ascendancy. (FT $)
+ We saw a demo of the new AI system powering Anduril’s vision for war. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Global sea ice levels have fallen to a record low
The north pole experienced a period of extreme heat last month. (The Guardian)
+ The ice cores that will let us look 1.5 million years into the past. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Where are all the EV chargers?
Lack of charging infrastructure is still a major roadblock to wider adoption. So why haven’t we solved it? (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Why EV charging needs more than Tesla. (MIT Technology Review)

6 We need new tests to measure AI progress
Training models on questions they’re later tested on is a poor metric. (The Atlantic $)
+ The way we measure progress in AI is terrible. (MIT Technology Review)

7 American cities have a plan to combat extreme heatwaves
Data mapping projects are shedding new light on how to save lives. (Knowable Magazine)
+ A successful air monitoring program has come to an abrupt halt. (Wired $)

8 Chatbots need love too
New research suggests models can tweak their behavior to appear more likeable. (Wired $)
+ The AI relationship revolution is already here. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 McDonald’s is being given an AI makeover 🍔
In a bid to reduce stress for customers and its workers alike. (WSJ $)

10 How to stop doom scrolling
Spoiler: those screen time reports aren’t helping. (Vox)
+ How to log off. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“What happens when you get to a point where every video, audio, everything you read and see online can be fake? Where’s our shared sense of reality?”

—Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, tells the Guardian why it’s essential to question the veracity of the media we come across online.

The big story

What Africa needs to do to become a major AI player


November 2024

Africa is still early in the process of adopting AI technologies. But researchers say the continent is uniquely hospitable to it for several reasons, including a relatively young and increasingly well-educated population, a rapidly growing ecosystem of AI startups, and lots of potential consumers. 

However, ambitious efforts to develop AI tools that answer the needs of Africans face numerous hurdles. The biggest are inadequate funding and poor infrastructure. Limited internet access and a scarcity of domestic data centers also mean that developers might not be able to deploy cutting-edge AI capabilities. Complicating this further is a lack of overarching policies or strategies for harnessing AI’s immense benefits—and regulating its downsides.

Taken together, researchers worry, these issues will hold Africa’s AI sector back and hamper its efforts to pave its own pathway in the global AI race. Read the full story.

—Abdullahi Tsanni

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.)+ Are you a summer or winter? Warm or cool? If you don’t know, it’s time to get your colors done.
+ Why more women are choosing to explore the world on women-only trips.
+ Whitetop the llama, who spends his days comforting ill kids, is a true hero 🦙
+ If you missed the great sourdough craze of 2020, fear not—here are some great tips to get you started.

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