💰 OpenAI turns on CPA ads inside ChatGPT.

🛍️ Reddit expands Shopify integration to all advertisers.

🎧 Spotify now lets you clip moments from your favorite podcast.

🏷️ YouTube introduces more prominent AI labels.

👟 How Crocs turned ugly into cultural cool.

😂 Data: Humor makes it easier to forgive AI mistakes.

📱 Can we take the doom out of scrolling?

Beehiiv’s analysis of top-performing newsletters suggests that excellent open rates are the result of consistently delivering value and building trust over time.

The average newsletter on beehiiv sees open rates around 38–41%. The best publishers (those that become part of users’ routines) regularly achieve 55% or higher.

A predictable schedule, highly relevant content, and a clear editorial focus are the common demoninators. They don’t appeal to everyone. They serve a specific audience very well.

Plus, engagement starts before the email is sent. These creators often validate ideas through social channels, segment audiences based on interests, and continuously test subject lines (short > long) and calls-to-action.

And community matters, too. Newsletters that encourage replies, referrals, and reader participation tend to see stronger retention and long-term growth.

These are the key drivers of 55%+ open rates:

• Consistent publishing schedule
• Highly relevant, niche content
• Strong audience trust and credibility
• Short, tested subject lines
• Audience segmentation
• Actionable content readers can use immediately
• Community engagement through replies and referrals
• Clear, repeatable newsletter structure

Head to Beehiiv for more.

Google Labs’ Pomelli, designed for small and medium-sized businesses, analyzes your site to build a “Business DNA” profile.

It identifies brand elements like tone of voice, colors, fonts, imagery, and messaging. Then, it uses that information to generate marketing campaign concepts, social assets, ad creatives, and other materials.

The assets are editable, so you’ll have control over the final output.

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.

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?”

🔥 🛒 Your ads earned the click. Then shoppers hit a PDP — where average conversion is just 0.25%. SmartCommerce lets shoppers add to cart directly from the ad, without leaving the feed. Book a walkthrough.

Book a Classified Ad on-demand for $99.

🎙️ 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.

The iPod Shuffle is back. Sorta.

Back Market’s OOH campaign to sell refurbished Shuffles is turning some heads.

It reimagines the lack of a screen as a liberating feature, not a limitation.

It’s a smart way to speak directly to the growing digital wellness movement. Most of us spend 6 to 7 hours a day on on screens, so we’re constantly seeking new ways to disconnect.

For Gen Z, the Shuffle might as well be one of these new fangled “dumb” phones. It’s a novel representation of digital minimalism, and that’s hot right now.

Harley-Davidson, 1954