Be in The Know
💡 Nope, you weren’t scrubbed from our email list! Carney HQ is back on the grid after historic storms left the Pittsburgh area in the dark last week.
🎉 Here’s how brands are celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
🤖 Google tests serving ads in third-party chatbots.
🧪 And Google AI Mode is now available to all Labs users in the U.S.
🥤 How Sprite became America’s third favorite soda brand.
🌳 Keebler finally lets us visit the Hollow Tree where the elves make the cookies.
👜 Already have the Panera Baguette Bag? Now you need the Croissant Clutch.
💛 … to go with your Kraft Mac & Cheese 14k gold necklace, obviously.
Man, it’s good to be back online.
Google Adds Reporting Tools to Performance Max
👀 Sponsor this spot to share your content with our community.
Google is rolling out a suite of new features to Performance Max that will make it easier to understand where your results are coming from and how to optimize across Google’s vast ad network.
Here’s what’s new in PMax reporting:
- Channel-level reporting (open beta). See how each Google channel (Search, YouTube, Discover, Display, Gmail, Maps, etc.) is performing, identify top-performing platforms, and optimize spend accordingly.
- Full search terms reporting. Now, you’ll get the same detailed query data available in Search campaigns. You can use this to create stronger text assets and apply negative keywords for better relevance and performance.
- Expanded asset-level metrics. Track clicks, cost, impressions, and more. This will give a clearer picture of what creative is working best and where to focus your content efforts.
- Channel distribution table. Get a detailed, downloadable report showing metrics by channel and ad format (e.g., Shopping, video).
- New diagnostic insights. This will automatically surface performance issues, like limited reach due to weak landing pages or missing store data, with suggestions to improve.
Check out the Google Ads & Commerce blog for more.
Q for You
Airpost
👀 Sponsor this spot to share your product or service with our community.
Everyone wants high-quality, high-volume video ads. But getting them made is a slow and expensive process.
Airpost is a new kind of video ad creation platform that uses AI to handle ideation, production, and editing for you.
It generates 30+ custom, voiceover-driven ads in a few hours. You just drop in your Amazon or product link, review a pre-filled creative brief, and let Airpost handle the rest.
It draws from your own footage, plus 400,000+ vertical UGC-style clips and AI-generated visuals to give you a gallery of ready-to-run ads.
Watch
Of The Age
Neutrogena and BBDO have built a clever campaign around a TikTok-comment meme: “If you remember XYZ, it’s time for a retinol cream,” etc.
With a series of spots directed by David Shafei and Lizzy Born, the brand is targeting aging millennials, namely fans of Beverly Hills, 90210.
The centerpiece spot opens with a faithfully recreated clip of David and Donna’s TV engagement before dermatologist Dr. Shauna Higgins interrupts to remind viewers that if they remember watching this moment live, they might also need retinol.
The ads use vintage filming techniques, a 4:3 aspect ratio, and an era-accurate soundtrack to match the original show’s look and feel. Tori Spelling and Brian Austin Green are set to promote the spot, timed perfectly to the 25th anniversary of their characters’ wedding.
