Be in The Know
🚀 Anthropic files for IPO as the AI race hits public markets.
📿 Meta is reportedly developing an AI pendant.
☕ Starbucks retired its internal AI system after a flop.
🛍️ Low prices drive Gen Z shoppers to resale.
💘 M&Ms gamifies the Love Island USA viewing experience.
Affiliate Marketing Has Evolved
Affiliate marketing has matured from a transactional channel into a trust-driven ecosystem.
Historically, it was associated with coupon sites, referral links, and publishers optimizing for clicks. Your success was largely measured by traffic volume and last-click attribution.
But now, that model is being replaced by creator-led commerce, where influence, credibility, and audience relationships drive performance.
Consumers increasingly discover products through creators, niche experts, newsletters, and communities rather than traditional ads. As a result, affiliate programs are a scalable way to reward real recommendations instead of just buying your reach.
Several factors are accelerating this shift:
- Creators are prioritizing long-term audience trust over one-off sponsorships.
- Brands prefer performance-based partnerships with measurable ROI.
- Social commerce platforms make purchases seamless within content experiences.
- Affiliate tools provide better attribution and tracking across channels.
- Consumers increasingly rely on recos from people they follow rather than brand messaging.
Check out Because of Marketing for more.
Smash or Pass
How are we feeling about the new Google icons, fam?
Presentify
Presentify is a Mac app that makes presentations, tutorials, and screen-sharing sessions easier to follow.
Draw directly on your screen, highlight your cursor, create digital whiteboards, and spotlight or zoom in on important areas during your live demos.
It works across any application, including presentation software, PDFs, videos, code editors, and video conferencing platforms.
Now Streaming
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.
r/TheDailyCarnage
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?”
Classifieds
🧠 Cart from places your competitors can’t. SmartCommerce lets shoppers add to cart directly from ads, email, social, and CTV — without leaving the experience. See it in action.
Pre-Roll Sponsorships Now Available ⭐
🎙️ The Daily Carnage Show is growing!
So, we’re excited to share a new sponsorship opportunity.
Book a Pre-Roll Ad at the top the episode with your preferred script, on-screen text, and link in description.
🎧 Podcast advertising is one of the highest-performing brand channels:
- 60%+ of listeners say they’ve searched for a product after hearing it on a podcast.
- Podcast ads consistently outperform display ads on engagement and recall.
- Pre-roll ads are among the most-heard placements, with the strongest completion rates.
🗣️ This is your opportunity to reach a highly engaged audience of marketers, creatives, and strategists when they’ve got their listening ears on.
Interested in sponsoring an upcoming episode? Reach out and let’s build something together.
That’s Pretty Cool
Coors Light is kicking summer off with a campaign by Rethink.
Creative features everyday summer scenes shot entirely with thermal imaging tech.
Among the sea of hot reds and oranges, Coors Light appears in its signature icy blue.
The effect reinforces the brand’s long-standing “Cold As The Rockies” positioning.
Ads from The Past
Toblerone, 1930
