In this week’s digital news, Google have announced a number of new Google Ads Performance Max controls and reporting features. Snapchat’s India research reveals traditional view-through rates fail to predict brand outcomes as $4.13 billion in digital ads go unnoticed.
AI platforms are transforming discovery. Traffic is surging. Now strategies must evolve, according to the 2025 Previsible AI Traffic Report. Following a June 2025 core update and a June 2025 spam update, Google’s search rankings have experienced significant and sustained volatility.
OpenAI claims the new model family comes with reduced confabulations and improved coding capabilities. In response to growing concern over AI-driven SEO disruption, Google claims search clicks haven’t declined and users are getting better results.
Google has introduced new Performance Max controls and reporting tools in Google Ads. Updates include campaign level negative keyword lists, higher search theme limits (25 to 50), expanded demographic targeting with age and gender exclusions, and improved identification of new customers for better bidding. New diagnostics offer guidance on fixing goal and conversion setup issues. Reporting now covers Final URL expansion assets, with the ability to remove unwanted ones. Creative recommendations provide AI powered image improvement tips for channel performance. These features aim to simplify campaign management, enhance targeting accuracy, and boost customer acquisition effectiveness.
Snapchat has launched Attention Per Mille (APM), a new ad metric measuring genuine viewer engagement per 1,000 impressions, aiming to replace view through rates that fail to show actual attention. Research with Lumen and WPP shows 70% of India’s viewable digital ads get no attention, wasting $4.13bn annually. Gen Z gives 34% less attention than millennials, costing advertisers 16% more to match engagement. Snapchat’s AR lenses deliver up to 4.27x more attention than rivals and are most cost effective. The study offers creative best practices, industry insights, and tools to integrate attention metrics into campaigns, positioning Snapchat strongly in India’s Gen Z market.
AI-referred sessions have seen a dramatic increase over a five-month period, jumping by an impressive 527% between January and May 2025. For some SaaS websites, more than 1% of all traffic now originates from Large Language Models (LLMs). This trend is particularly strong in the Legal, Health, and Finance sectors, where traffic from platforms like ChatGPT and Claude is doubling or even tripling. This significant shift in user behaviour underscores the importance of optimising for these new search pathways. The data suggests that adopting robust Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) strategies is now essential for businesses to maintain visibility and remain competitive in an evolving digital landscape.
Following a June 2025 core update and a June 2025 spam update, Google’s search rankings have experienced significant and sustained volatility. Even after Google officially announced the completion of the core update on 17 July, the instability has continued, with SEO tracking tools and community chatter indicating a “heated” level of fluctuations throughout the weekend. This ongoing instability is a concern for many site owners, with some reporting reversals of previous gains and others experiencing drastic drops in traffic. This prolonged volatility is more pronounced than during the actual core update rollout itself, with some SEOs suggesting that Google may still be fine-tuning its algorithm or that the update has triggered a prolonged period of unpredictability. This underscores the need for businesses to remain vigilant and adaptable in monitoring their website performance.
OpenAI has announced GPT-5 in three variants: GPT-5 Pro, GPT-5 mini, and GPT-5 nano. Some of the models will be available across all ChatGPT, including for free users. OpenAI claims the new model family comes with reduced confabulations, improved coding capabilities, and a new approach to handling sensitive requests. Free users now have access to a simulated reasoning AI model. GPT-5 Pro is replacing o3-pro in ChatGPT for those subscriber tiers with access to it.
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In response to growing concern over AI-driven SEO disruption, Google claims search clicks haven’t declined and users are getting better results. The conclusion is that AI is not really shrinking traffic, but concentrating it in a few domains. One example of a winner in this scenario is Reddit, which is seeing a 21% DAU growth after its partnership with Google.
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