In this week’s digital news, privacy concerns reshape digital marketing, contextual marketing is emerging as a key strategy. Meta is going to help advertisers create and target campaigns using artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year.
Newly released data shows that Perplexity, Bing, and Gemini all send over 90% of their traffic referrals from desktop users. New study of 25,000 searches shows that top Google rankings still matter for ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI search results.
Meta will begin incorporating AI to assess product risk. Social media platforms are taking the lead with PR with press releases falling short after Faye Iosotaluno, the CEO of Tinder, announced her departure from the company after eight years on LinkedIn.
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Contextual digital marketing delivers great results, without cookies
As privacy concerns reshape digital marketing, contextual marketing is emerging as a key strategy. Rather than tracking users, it delivers ads based on the content being consumed, respecting privacy while maintaining relevance. Advanced AI enables deeper content understanding and higher engagement achieving click through rates 2/3 times greater than traditional display ads. With 42.7% of users blocking ads and consumers prioritising privacy, contextual approaches foster authentic brand connections, especially among younger audiences. Success depends on creative relevance, real-time optimisation, and integration with broader marketing strategies. In a privacy-first world, contextual marketing offers an effective, future-ready path for meaningful engagement.
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Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year
Meta has now confirmed that they plan to roll out their fully AI managed advertising service by the end of next year. The new tools will enable brands to generate complete ads images, video, text and target audiences based on budget and geolocation. News of the rollout caused marketing firms’ shares to drop. Meta insists agencies will remain valuable for strategy and cross-platform execution, but AI will empower businesses, especially SMEs, to run effective ads without agency support, broadening Meta’s $160bn ad revenue base.
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Newly released data shows desktop AI search referrals dominate
New research by BrightEdge shows that the majority of referral traffic being to websites by AI search platforms is from desktop users. The statistics show that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Bing and Gemini all send more than 90% of search traffic from desktop usage and less than 10% from mobile. Google Search is the only AI tool to deliver the majority of it’s traffic via mobile devices (53%). This pattern suggests that AI search users may be performing more work-related or research-heavy tasks, as opposed to mobile users browsing more casually.
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Is SEO still relevant in the AI era? New research says yes
A new study finds that websites ranked in position 1 on Google appear in AI search results 25% of the time, across all major AI search platforms, to challenge the widespread belief that AI makes traditional SEO pointless. The findings of the study correlate with the higher you rank in top 10 Google positions, the more likely you are to appear in AI search results. Sources outside of the top 10 do appear in AI answers sometimes due to the query fan out technique, which Google details in its documentation, which is when the AI issues multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources to develop a more well-rounded response to suit different users’ more personalised ways of searching more broadly.
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Meta increases use of AI on platforms like Facebook
Meta will begin incorporating AI to assess product risk, according to NPR.
“In practice, this means things like critical updates to Meta’s algorithms, new safety features and changes to how content is allowed to be shared across the company’s platforms will be mostly approved by a system powered by artificial intelligence — no longer subject to scrutiny by staffers tasked with debating how a platform change could have unforeseen repercussions or be misused,” according to the outlet.
The change will allow product developers to release “app updates and features more quickly,” according to the news outlet. But some have criticised the ethical dilemma of allowing AI to make risk decisions, which can be somewhat murky.
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Is the press release dead? Maybe not, but it’s not the first choice
As social media platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram continue to connect us, brands are clearly adapting their communication strategies to fit the changing demands of consumers. In fact, industry experts PRovoke Media spoke to argued that social media platforms such as LinkedIn are no longer just amplifiers of corporate messaging, rather they are the message.
“When a CEO announces a departure on LinkedIn, it humanises the moment and controls the narrative before it’s filtered through media lenses. Traditional press releases tend to be formal and reactive while LinkedIn posts can be proactive, personal, and profoundly more engaging. In a world driven by transparency and connection, social media often wins on relevance and reach,”. Explained Sunny Johar, managing director SEA and group head, digital strategy, at KRDS.
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