▶️ YouTube tests an AI search mode.

👻 Snap launches AI Sponsored Snaps for conversational ads.

💼 LinkedIn expands Event Ads beyond its own platform.

🔋 Meta announces a solar-power project to offset AI initiatives.

🎨 Adobe relies on Firefly to win over creators.

Rising cost-per-click can actually signal improving campaign quality rather than declining performance.

With smart bidding, we’re no longer paying for clicks indiscriminately, instead bidding on the likelihood of conversion. Algorithms evaluate signals like intent, behavior, and context, and then bid more aggressively for users who are more likely to convert.

As a result, higher CPCs often mean you’re winning auctions for the most valuable prospects, not wasting spend.

Cheap clicks are often cheap because they’re low intent, ignored by competitors, or tied to irrelevant queries.

Here’s what to know:

• High CPC can indicate high intent. You’re paying more to reach users closer to conversion.
• Smart bidding prioritizes value, not volume. Algorithms optimize for outcomes like conversions or revenue.
• Low CPC can signal poor traffic quality. “Leftover” clicks often don’t convert.
• Business economics matter more than click cost. Metrics like CPA and ROAS are more meaningful than CPC alone.
• Context is critical. High CPC is good only if conversion rates and profitability follow.
• And there are limits. High CPC becomes a problem when it exceeds the value of a customer or reflects inefficiencies.

Head to Search Engine Journal for more on the high CPC paradox.

Audiense is an audience intelligence tool that analyzes large volumes of social data to reveal interests, behaviors, cultural affinities, and even personality traits.

Its segmentation engine groups audiences based on shared characteristics and relationships instead of filters.

Then, these segments are enriched with insights like media consumption, influencer affinities, and online habits.

You translate all of this into personas, targeting strategies, and content decisions.

Don’t miss the latest episode of The Daily Carnage Show, “The Future of Google Search,” to learn more about Google’s plans to replace the search box with 24/7 AI-powered information agents and interactive “Generative UI” that builds mini-apps and custom widgets directly on your results page.

What does that mean for advertising, for SEO, for the Internet as we know it?

Plus, catch up on Season 2:

• GLP-1s are Disrupting Every Sector (9:56)
• Spirit Airlines 2.0: Will it Fly? (11:08)
• Major Platform Updates (8:17)
• Nike Runs into Controversy (12:19)
• Transgressive OOH (18:45)
• Your Brain on AI (12:33)
• Meta, McDonald’s Mukbang, and The OpenAI Mess (14:41)
• Ethics in the AI Era (18:33)

🎙️ Now streaming on Youtube, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music.

“The Daily Carnage was the newsletter that brought us the most meaningful demo clicks and new trials.” — Digital Summit

“Open rate was nearly 50% and CTR was relatively high, especially considering this newsletter’s audience was likely being exposed to our event for the first time.” — Adweek

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Weigh in on The Daily Carnage Subreddit:

• The Daily Carnage Show Ep 2.9 Discussion: “If AI agents become the primary interface to knowledge, what happens to the humans and businesses that knowledge originally came from? What does it mean for the internet to quietly transition from an open ecosystem of destinations into a closed ecosystem of gate-kept answers? Are we speeding toward a future where people stop visiting the web directly? If that behavior ends, we ever be able to rebuild it?”

Jelly Belly, 1993