TLDR: In this week’s digital news to watch, “AI slop” content is rapidly rising, distorting media metrics and draining ad budgets, prompting calls for stricter quality controls in programmatic advertising. Meanwhile, Rakuten is enhancing affiliate marketing with new transparency and creator tools, and Meta is pushing into physical retail to showcase its smart glasses and VR hardware. Marketing budgets remain steady at 7.7% of revenue, but spending is increasingly concentrated on digital paid media. In SEO, Google’s AI Overviews are surfacing translated proxy pages over original content, raising visibility concerns. Despite traffic declines from AI search, Google insists clicks are now more qualified, though it offers no supporting data.
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What is AI slop and what is it doing to media metrics?
“AI slop” refers to low quality, AI generated content sites created rapidly to exploit ad revenue, mirroring older tactics like click farms and MFA (Made for Advertising) sites. Since the rise of generative AI, these sites have surged, Deepsee.io reports a 717% increase in a year. These sites skew media metrics and waste advertising budgets with fake engagement. Experts warn that programmatic advertising must prioritise quality over volume. While blocking helps, true prevention is unlikely. Switching to lists of legitimate websites rather than handing over complete freedom to all websites will help with this.
Rakuten Advertising launches tools for greater affiliate transparency & creator growth
At Rakuten Optimism 2025, Rakuten Advertising unveiled new tools to address key affiliate marketing challenges. These include a Transparency API for real time insight into conversion journeys, Detect for fraud and compliance monitoring, and Storefronts to connect advertisers with creators for shoppable experiences. A new AI tool, Prompt, enables real time, custom performance reports to support agile decision making. Together, these innovations aim to enhance data transparency, programme safety, and the integration of affiliate and creator marketing, helping both advertisers and publishers adapt to evolving industry demands.
Meta expands into retail with plans for own stores
Meta is planning to open its own physical retail stores to boost sales of its Ray-Ban smart glasses and Quest virtual reality headsets. Currently, these products are available online or through select retailers. By establishing dedicated stores, Meta aims to provide customers with hands-on experiences, allowing them to try out devices, customise options like prescription lenses, and assess features such as comfort and potential motion sickness. This move aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of smart glasses becoming a pivotal category in consumer electronics, positioning Meta alongside competitors like Apple and Google in the augmented and virtual reality market.
Marketing budgets hold at 7.7% in 2025
According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, marketing budgets have stabilised at 7.7% of company revenue for the second consecutive year. Despite this steadiness, half of CMOs report budgets of 6% or less, indicating ongoing fiscal constraints. CMOs are increasingly allocating funds to paid media, which now accounts for nearly one-third (30.6%) of marketing budgets, with a significant emphasis on digital channels – 69% of digital spend is directed toward paid media. To maximise value from these static budgets, marketers are focusing on productivity improvements through data, technology, and strategic initiatives.
Google Translate proxy pages are dominating AI Overviews in Europe
English content has been found to be being translated and ranked in international SERPs where AI Overviews are present and high quality, native language content is sparse. These are not linking to the original content from publishers, but Google’s own URLs loaded via translate.google.com/translate and rendered under translate.goog. If you’re working in international SEO, this is worth being aware of so you can audit how your English content is being surfaced via translate.google.com and rethink your multilingual strategies to avoid Google taking all of the visibility for your content.
Google claims AI search delivers ‘quality clicks’ despite traffic loss
As industry data reveals significant website traffic reductions linked to AI-powered search features, Google executives are trying to reframe the conversation, insisting that despite traffic being lower, it is more qualified. Discussing the 10% increase in queries Google have reported, one executive said “what we’re seeing is people asking more questions. So they’ll ask a first question, they’ll get information and then go and ask a different question. So they’re refining and getting more information and then they’re making a decision of what website to go to” meaning that “when they get to a decision to click out, it’s a more highly qualified click”. Google do not have data to share to verify these claims, however.
For more information on any of this week’s stories or for support with your digital marketing efforts, our friendly team would be more than happy to discuss your requirements. Drop us an email to team@modo25.com
