Google may target ads using Gmail

Google's Gmail ad targeting, streaming ad squeeze, and more.

Google may target ads using Gmail

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

📧 Google may now target ads using your Gmail and Photos

📺 Political ad spending is bumping your brand off streaming

📉 Your organic traffic is falling, but AI isn't the main culprit

🏷️ Pennsylvania gives you until Dec. 21 to label AI ads

Plus: 💡 5 strategies & tactics, 🎁 6 more stories you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

Google may now target ads using your Gmail and Photos LINK

  • Google has changed its privacy policy so that content in Gmail, Drive, and Photos can now shape the ads it serves, but only for people who link those apps to its AI tools.
  • The opening comes through Personal Intelligence, a feature that lets AI Mode in Search and Gemini pull from connected apps; linking Gmail, for example, lets Search surface a hotel booking and suggest nearby restaurants, and that same data can now drive ads.
  • By default the content isn't used for targeting and advertisers never see inside accounts, and users can disconnect apps in their Google Account, though information already kept in Search Services History can stay even after an app is disconnected or the original email or picture is deleted.

Political ad spending is bumping your brand off streaming LINK

  • Spending on midterm political ads is driving up connected TV prices this fourth quarter, pushing regional brands onto streaming services that refuse political money and carrying the cost pressure with them, Digiday reported today.
  • AdImpact expects about $12 billion in political spending this cycle, with most of it going to broadcast, cable and connected TV in contested states such as Texas, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where premium connected TV CPMs climbed by roughly a quarter.
  • Local stations use pre-emption clauses to bump brands for higher-paying political buyers, offering weaker make-good inventory in return, and PMG's Natalee Geldert warned that going dark is a choice that is "really hard to come back from."

Your organic traffic is falling, but AI isn't the main culprit LINK

  • Falling organic search traffic is often blamed on AI, but new Similarweb data covering 10,000 domains each in the US and France over three years points to heavier ad loads and aggressive Google algorithm updates as bigger factors.
  • Organic visits fell 13.2% in the US and nearly twice as fast in France over the last two years, yet the losses concentrate in large sites and publishers, with publisher traffic down about 42% in both markets while the typical small site stayed roughly flat.
  • Paid search traffic rose 21% in the US as organic dropped, and AI referrals remain tiny at 0.5% of total visits, meaning most firms can recover some lost clicks rather than abandoning SEO.

Pennsylvania gives you until Dec. 21 to label AI ads LINK

  • Pennsylvania's Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act, signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday, gives companies until Dec. 21 to figure out how to label AI-generated or heavily AI-edited images, video or audio shown to shoppers in the state.
  • A disclosure is required only when synthetic content creates a false perception about a product's nature, origin or authenticity; the label must appear the first time the content runs, in the same medium, and be permanent or very hard to remove.
  • Text-only ads, parody, satire and clearly fictional content are exempt, there is no private right of action, and enforcement falls to the attorney general and 67 district attorneys, who can seek injunctions and civil fines of up to $3,000.

Strategies & Tactics

> When should ecommerce filters become indexable pages?: Make only the filter combinations with real search demand into clean indexable pages, blocking the rest so search engines aren't overwhelmed.

> How to create Claude skills: What your team actually needs: Save repeatable team workflows as plain-English Claude skills that load automatically when a task matches, so marketers skip retyping long prompts and coding.

> Which AI prompts should you track? A practical guide: Track a small, balanced mix of branded, unbranded, and competitor prompts weighted toward research-stage questions, because that is where buyers form shortlists.

> Rémi Kerhoas’ shares how a PPC mistake went unnoticed for three months: Set up automated alerts for sudden drops in ad spend or conversions, because manual processes let a paused campaign go unnoticed for three months.

> Why winning AI search isn’t enough to win B2B buyers: AI search gets buyers to your website, but only clear, evidence-backed content that lowers their mental effort converts that visibility into trust and sales.

Other news you might like

  • Etsy cracks down on AI slop listings. Everyone else needs to take note. LINK
  • Google Ads expands Smart Bidding Exploration to Performance Max and Shopping campaigns LINK
  • ChatGPT Ads With Learn More Arrow Link; Some Served Through Amazon DSP LINK
  • Shoppers Would Send AI Agents to Marketplaces Over Brand Sites LINK
  • Google Search Ranking Volatility Gets Heated October 24th LINK
  • Pinterest strengthens bid to media buyers with programmatic solution LINK

Trending tools

CREEM 2.0: a payments platform for AI builders that handles checkout, tax, payouts, affiliates, and usage billing, letting you charge customers globally without stitching together separate tools. LINK

Spira Maxima: autonomous AI influencers that create on-brand content, track trends, and publish across TikTok, Instagram, and X with optional chat-based control. LINK

Naoma AI Demo Agent V2: an AI sales agent that runs interactive product demos, answers prospect questions, qualifies leads, books meetings, and syncs sessions to your CRM. LINK

meta-mcp-server: provides 200+ tools for managing Meta's business platform, including Facebook Pages, Instagram, Threads, Ads Manager, Commerce, and audience insights. LINK

social-sdk: a typed TypeScript SDK for social platform integrations, offering capability checks, explicit outcomes, and deterministic testing for reliable development. LINK

awesome-submitlist: a curated list of 300+ directories, newsletters, communities, and marketplaces for submitting your startup, with domain rating, traffic, and pricing data. LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!

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