California fines paid political posts

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In today's MarketingShot:

🗳️ California will fine you for hiding paid political posts

🌍 Google Ads can now dub your videos in 33 languages

⚠️ Report reveals how Converse's Karina campaign sparked backlash

🔗 Sharing links now beats likes for X reach

📊 We analyzed 628,969 Meta and TikTok ads for you

Plus: 💡 6 strategies & tactics, 🎁 6 other news you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

🗳️ California will fine you for hiding paid political posts LINK

California has passed Assembly Bill 1130, letting the state penalize people paid by campaign committees to post political content online when they leave out the required disclosure that a campaign funded the message.

Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, the law lets regulators impose fines of up to $5,000 per violation and refer cases for possible misdemeanors, replacing an earlier system that carried no fines or criminal penalties.

The change follows campaigns using creators to reach smaller, targeted audiences, including billionaire Tom Steyer, who paid dozens of influencers during his run for California governor, with many initially failing to disclose the payments.

🌍 Google Ads can now dub your videos in 33 languages LINK

Google Ads has started rolling out Video Ads Dubbing, an AI-powered feature inside Asset Studio that translates and dubs advertisers' existing video creative into 33 languages and locales, currently free for select users.

Google's promotional material for the feature points to results including an 86% increase in click-through rate and a 75% reduction in cost per click, though those figures are Google-provided examples rather than guaranteed performance.

The tool lets advertisers turn one piece of creative into dozens of localized versions without hiring voice actors, translating scripts or producing separate videos, which could help those running campaigns across countries with limited production budgets.

⚠️ Report reveals how Converse's Karina campaign sparked backlash LINK

A new report examines how Converse's campaign starring aespa member Karina drew backlash after viewers said the image resembled Ku Klux Klan and lynching imagery, prompting the company to apologize and pull the picture.

The disputed photo, part of the Chuck 70 X and Run Star Crush campaign, showed Karina in a star-shaped light and white skirt holding black high-tops, which critics read as a KKK hood and hanging feet.

The Associated Press said Converse declined to explain how the image passed its screening and approval process, while Louisiana Representative Troy A. Carter Sr. called on Nike and Converse to name who reviewed the work.

🔗 Sharing links now beats likes for X reach LINK

X has released the exact scoring numbers behind its For You timeline on GitHub, revealing that copying a post's link to share it carries the biggest single reward at 20.0, well above other actions.

In the same file, a like counts for just 0.5 while a report sits at -234.0, though X notes the weights multiply predicted probabilities rather than raw counts and can be changed at any time.

A comparison with X's 2023 weights shows large shifts affecting brands, publishers and creators: plain replies fell from 13.5 to 5.0, profile clicks dropped from 12.0 to zero, and no form of sharing appeared in the older figures.

📊 We analyzed 628,969 Meta and TikTok ads for you LINK

A new 2026 Social Ads Report examined 628,969 campaigns from 44,355 advertisers on Meta and TikTok, covering $471 million in spend, comparing the same six months of 2025 and 2026 side by side.

On TikTok a click costs $0.03, less than half the price on Meta, and the same campaign brings in almost eight times the clicks, yet 91% of advertisers run their paid social on Meta alone.

The average US brand earns back $2.42 for every dollar spent on sales ads, below the $4.57 study average, while 70% of the tracked budget goes to the bottom of the funnel chasing sales.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> AI citation outreach: a Semrush & Claude workflow: Get your brand added to the third-party pages AI tools cite so answers mention you accurately and boost your AI-search visibility.

> What is agentic SEO? 8 workflows run on a live site: Assign recurring SEO tasks to an AI agent that pulls its own live data and follows a written method so it returns consistent results every run.

> Your site migration needs a paid search playbook: Paid search fails as a migration safety net because moving domains resets ad campaigns and triggers unpredictable recalibration, yet Google offers no recovery timeline.

> How to find competitor backlinks: 4 methods + one-prompt AI workflow: Explains how to build a link-building list by finding sites that link to competitors but not you, then prioritizing the most winnable prospects for outreach.

> Building an AI governance framework for marketing: Assemble a cross-functional committee that vets every AI tool for privacy and copyright risks before approval, so marketing innovates without legal exposure.

> Test Your Products for AI Discovery: Test your product pages with realistic AI shopper prompts to confirm they list every spec and detail an AI needs to recommend you.

Other news you might like

• Google testing “Dive deeper” for Google Discover – it’s not good for publishersLINK

• LinkedIn ditches post enhancement, launches Post ProofreaderLINK

• Google Ads filters miss fake leads, so advertisers must add 3 form checksLINK

• YouTube Thumbnail Study of 100K+ Channels Finds ‘Shocked Faces’ on Just 1 in 10 CoversLINK

• OpenAI’s Quiet Cookie Ties ChatGPT to Your Shopping and Browsing HabitsLINK

• Podcast Ads Deliver 4.2x ROI, Outperforming Every Other Major Channel, Report FindsLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Astute: automates B2B brand promotion through media creators, helping companies build viral reach without managing outreach campaigns manually.LINK

Adomate: creates Meta ads at scale by pulling from your ad account, ad library, and customer reviews with traceable, transparent workflowsLINK

Naoma AI Demo Agent V2: delivers live, personalized in-browser product demos 24/7 in any language, answering questions, qualifying prospects, and routing them to your CRM or checkout.LINK

AI Search Console: tracks brand mentions, rankings, and share of voice across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, generating client-ready reports without manual spreadsheets.LINK

Cekura: automates QA testing for voice and chat AI agents through simulated conversations, response evaluation, production call monitoring, and CI/CD integrationLINK

Backlink Skills: Awesome skills for submitting url to free websites. Get more backlinks for your website to get more traffic.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!