☕️ News sites are dying

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🔍 Facebook now answers your questions like Google

📈 Instagram views are surging in 2026

📉 News sites are dying

🚫 Chrome update is about to break your ad blocker

📌 AI search ads are about to explode

🎁 + 7 other news you might like

💡 + 5 strategies & tactics

🔍 Facebook now answers your questions like Google LINK

Meta has added a chatbot called AI Mode to Facebook that answers questions much like a search engine, using the example of someone asking for nearby summer vacation spots.

AI Mode pulls data from across Meta's apps, including Groups and Reels, and promises "real perspectives and experience rather than a generic list of search results," powered by the recently-announced Muse Spark technology.

The update also brings photo-editing tools, with collage cutout templates, new transition effects for video montages, and presets that change clothing, hair and accessories, such as virtually wearing a team jersey.

📈 Instagram views are surging in 2026 LINK

Instagram views jumped 27% in early 2026 compared to the same months a year earlier, while interactions rose 19% and accounts published 24% more content across all formats, according to research from analytics firm Metricool.

Metricool studied 24.36 million posts from 375,118 accounts worldwide during January and February of both 2025 and 2026, sorting accounts into five tiers by follower count, from Tiny under 2,000 to Huge over 1 million.

Reels drove the gains with 1,035.48 average interactions per post and the only engagement rate increase at 24.76%, while single-image posts fell sharply, dropping 21.96% in reach and 25.41% in interactions year over year.

📉 News sites are dying LINK

Social media and video networks have become the main way people get news in 30 of the 48 countries tracked by Oxford's Reuters Institute, overtaking news publishers' own websites and apps.

Between 2023 and 2026, news websites and apps lost 5 percentage points of users, the only category to decline, while Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok all gained ground over the same period.

The drop is steepest among younger people, with the 18-24 age group showing a 6-point fall in news websites as a main source since 2021, driven by the loss of younger former users rather than weak new sign-ups.

🚫 Chrome update is about to break your ad blocker LINK

Google will officially end support for Chrome extensions built on the older Manifest V2 system later this month, switching to Manifest V3 and effectively shutting down ad blockers like uBlock Origin on its browser.

Manifest V3 does not ban ad blockers outright, but it caps the number of filtering rules an extension can apply and removes the dynamic blocking that lets tools like uBlock Origin keep up with fast-changing ad-delivery systems.

Chrome users can switch to uBlock Origin Lite, but that version allows some tracking, carries a smaller blocklist, and cannot do dynamic filtering, while Firefox keeps full Manifest V2 support and uBlock Origin running on its Gecko engine.

📌 AI search ads are about to explode LINK

AI search advertising, driven by ChatGPT's ad rollout that began less than six months ago, is set to grab almost 40% of search ad revenue and bring in $100 billion by the end of the decade.

WPP Media forecasts the category will jump from 1.9% of search ad revenue this year, worth $301 million, to 39.2% by 2031, with the U.S. currently making up 60% of global AI ad spend.

Kate Scott-Dawkins said advertisers would shift both traditional search spending and e-commerce budgets into generative AI ad options, while Andy Arnett warned a scandal over unsafe AI answers could slow spending quickly.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> How Many Meta Ads Campaigns Should You Have at Once?: Start with one campaign focused on your primary goal, and add more only when budget flexibility or business requirements clearly justify it.

> Headline formats and Google Discover: What 3.4 million articles reveal: Headline format barely affects Google Discover visibility because measured gains from quotes or questions mostly reflect which publisher, audience, and feed surface used them rather than the wording itself.

> What new AI search data reveals about visibility and trust: AI visibility now depends on brand authority earned through original research and digital PR, not traditional SEO metrics like backlinks or ad spend.

> ChatGPT vs. Claude for Social Media Marketing: Use ChatGPT for fast, high-volume content and format adaptation and Claude for brand voice and long-form posts, then connect Metricool's MCP so either can read your real analytics.

> Google: HTML The Standard For SEO, Not Markdown Files: Publish standard HTML rather than parallel Markdown versions, since search engines and AI systems already crawl and index HTML reliably without extra benefit from Markdown.

Other news you might like

• Google says LLMS.txt files won’t harm or help your search rankingsLINK

• Meta's Threads app now has half a billion monthly usersLINK

• Pinterest adds AI updates for SMBsLINK

• Microsoft Advertising adds job seniority to LinkedIn profile targetingLINK

• TikTok bans AI-generated voices in shopping livestreamsLINK

• May Core Update Moves Reddit To Google’s Default Answer for Important QuestionsLINK

• AI referrals drive higher ecommerce traffic and conversionsLINK

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